Ep: 206 Trina's Journey: From Barista to Business Boss

This is going to be a great episode today with Trina Julien.

This one is for the business owners and you know that I love the business owners and we like to give some non traditional financial advice to the business owners, but advice that can help them to improve their financial decision.

So Trina Julian has a great story of how she built a business and then ended up selling it and how she scaled her business.

And I hope that you'll benefit from hearing her story.

Alright, here we go.

Welcome to the weekly wealth podcast.

I am certified financial planner David Chudick.

This podcast and my wealth management practice are both designed to help the mass affluent to live better lives by how they handle their money.

We talk about financial strategies, prosperous mindsets and simply how to build true wealth.

So come on and let's enjoy this journey together.

Okay, welcome everybody to this week's episode of the weekly wealth podcast.

I say it every week, I love the business owners because I am a business owner.

And today we're going to talk about an indirect financial planning topic which is going to be how to make your business more profitable and also how to put your business on autopilot to the extent that it can be.

So we have Trina Julian with us today.

Trina believes everyone can have a life of health, wealth and happiness by starting a business and setting it up to run hands free.

So who possibly could not want profitable business that runs hands free?

So I'm excited to learn things today for myself and my own business.

Hey Trina, how are you doing?

Really well, thank you.

Thanks for having me on.

I'm excited to be here.

I'm excited.

One of the things that I love about podcasting honestly is I get like free coaching from people because I'm going to ask you questions that'll benefit.

The answers will benefit me.

So I'm excited to learn and steal some knowledge.

So you started a home services business.

Business and it grew pretty big.

Tell us a little bit about that background.

Yeah, I started a landscaping company actually, which is a completely male dominated industry for the most part and I didn't have any landscaping experience.

So there was, there was that.

But yeah, I started a landscaping business while I was a barista.

So I graduated in 2009 when there were jobs were scarce and I didn't want to move to a city like a lot of people I graduated with.

So I went back to doing what I did during college, which was serve coffee, one of those little kiosk stands.

And from that I started getting really interested in homesteading and growing my own food and Knowing where my food sources are.

And so I started growing like a vegetable garden.

And then from there I was interested in flowers as like an addition to the vegetable garden because it was a lot prettier.

And through the coffee stand and just talking about my passion hobby and what I was doing on my free time, I had a lot of interest from my coffee customers in that.

So my first customers for my landscaping business came out of my coffee stand because.

Wow.

Yep.

I was just talking about it and people were like, I'll pay you to come plant flowers.

I'll.

When that turned into I'll pay you to plant a landscape.

And then that turned into how about a hardscape?

And I just learned as I went.

And I started with, I say a hundred dollars because I don't really know exactly, but it was about a hundred dollars to buy some tools, a shovel, a rake, a trowel.

I borrowed my husband's truck, which he never got back.

So it became my truck.

And that was what I started with.

And just myself and out there hustling.

That's amazing.

So what did you major in college?

Because I'm sure it wasn't gardening or coffee, was it?

It was business.

So I do have a business degree from the University of Idaho and my specific degree was in human resource management and marketing.

But let's imagine a different scenario, right?

Let's imagine that the job market was better and you got a job in a cubicle in base level hr and where would you be today?

So it's almost like when something bad happens, like the job market is not good.

That actually sounds like that was a huge blessing in your life because I don't know that you, from you and I speaking, are a corporate type person.

And that may not have been the best life for you.

Am I looking at this in the right way?

Yeah, for sure.

I always had an interest in entrepreneurship from a really young age.

So I did things like as a child, paint pictures and try to sell them on the street corner.

And then as I got into high school, I made soaps and other stuff.

And then I.

So I always wanted my own business, but I think the pressure of go to college, get a good job, that really hit me in my late teens, early 20s.

And I just got into the flow of that and I went and did some interviews in Seattle and was trying to get a corporate job and I didn't get hired at any of them, which was the blessing because if I had of, I probably would be living a different life that maybe I wouldn't be so happy with because, yeah, it worked out perfectly for me because I knew I wanted a business.

Wow.

No, that's an amazing story.

And I think sometimes I would imagine that maybe you were bummed out that you couldn't get a job and things didn't work out and you went to school and nobody would hire you.

But sometimes there's a bigger plan and things work out.

But I also think our passions, like you were talking to people as they were buying coffee about flowers and plants and things that you care about and then people, I think what we're passionate about, like, it shows.

And people are like, hey, you don't have a business doing this, but I'll pay you because you sure look like you would enjoy doing it and do a good job.

And I think pursuing passions is a great thing.

All right, so a lot of business owners that I talk to, they're like, there's this badge of honor that I work a hundred hours a week, I can't find anybody to work.

Nobody will do, nobody will do the things as well as I can do them.

And I never get to go home, see my family and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And some of it is true or maybe perceptively true, but like, how does somebody get to where you're not the only person cutting grass, you're not the only person who is planting flowers and doing landscape.

Because if you're the only one, like, number one, income is tapped because you're one human being.

And number two, you do want to have a life.

So how do you get out of that rat race of a business owner?

Yeah, I did have years where I was working 60 hours a week plus pretty much every waking hour every day.

And that was in the early years.

And that was because I, I had a vision for my company and I knew that I didn't want to work that lifestyle for 20, 30 to 40 years.

I wanted to have a hands off business.

And, and so from the get go, I focused on putting systems in place.

Like, I instantly just, how can I make this as easy as possible for myself?

How can I save myself as much time?

And so devil's advocate though, like, you're cutting grass.

What kind of a system could you have in cutting grass?

Like you push the lawnmower or you drive it.

From an outside point of view, it seems like that's the system.

But was there something maybe more than that, like your standard of how to cut the grass?

Or just for business owners, that thinking, okay, we all hear about systems, but what does that really mean, there's a.

Lot of ways to waste a lot of time.

And so for me, it was.

I would show up on a property, and my system was as soon as I pulled up, I'd take the first five minutes, I'd knock on the door, I'd let the client know I was there.

I'd ask them if there was anything specific they'd like me to do or if I should just do what I see should be done.

Usually they defaulted to, you're the professional, go ahead and do it.

And that built relationships with clients and made me more personable to them.

And then I'd walk the property and just look around and find out what needs done.

And I would focus on the most important things first.

And then I had a system for, at the end, take the last 10 minutes, wrap it up, make sure you don't leave tools behind, put it all in the truck with a tarp down so that I don't have to shovel all this stuff out.

I could just pull the tarp out.

Basic systems like that was what I figured out when I was still doing the work.

But within six months, I had hired a crew, and I wasn't doing so much of the work.

But I taught them the system that I had put together, and that was how they operated.

And I just built from the ground up doing that.

And what's interesting is part of your system was almost just being likable, like knocking on the door, developing that relationship, which is that applies to every business out there.

So I think that building relationships.

And then if your company's a normal company, probably once in a while something gets screwed up, but clients are much less likely to cancel you.

They like you.

If something happens, that is just unavoidable.

Did you have several different crews on several different sites at a time?

And how do you.

Or can the owner know that?

Even though I didn't see that house the end product.

How do you know that the standards that you put in place and the processes are being and were followed and that the work was done at the standard that you expect?

Yeah, training.

And that's what I go through with clients a lot of times, is how to train your employees correctly.

So delegating is something everybody talks about, wants to do.

There's a skill to delegating.

And I would start by making sure that I trained my employees correctly.

And usually about two weeks.

This isn't rocket science.

So, you know, two weeks.

And then I would check on jobs periodically.

So as I was out meeting clients for or meeting prospects for estimate meetings, if I drove by a client's property, I just pop in and make sure it looked good.

And how often did you have to go back to your team and say, hey, I stopped by Mr.

Smith's yard and everything looked good except for there's this or this that that could have been done.

And also maybe what are some word tracks that you can use for your team members that they're not blatantly lying and stealing, they just didn't do it quite up to what the ideal standard is.

So how do you correct that without making somebody feel bad, but also making sure that the standard will be upheld moving forward as much as humanly possible?

Because I struggle with that.

I don't like that.

Yeah, I, I struggled with it too.

And I think that's normal and I struggle with it.

I think you, there might be something there for why you don't, because it is a, it's a hard conversation, but I would say it was more often than I would like.

It was pretty much constant.

It was.

But I also had to know that they were never going to meet my standards.

And this is, I think, true for a lot of entrepreneurs is we're high achievers and we're overdoers.

And so I always went way above and beyond.

And I would work my tail off to the point that I was exhausted.

I can't expect my employees are going to do that.

So I had to simplify things for them to be able to meet those expectations.

But also I had to provide better, like a better client experience so that I could retain customers even though they were technically getting less work but paying me more money.

As my team grew, getting the little perks that I would do when I was showing up personally, whether it be sure I'll hang some string some lights above your patio while I'm here for you.

My, my employees weren't really given the freedom to make those decisions to do those add ons because it would really just cut into our profit.

So I had to just make sure that reliability was a huge thing.

Having a business where I had employees do the work let me be more reliable because it wasn't just me.

So if I was sick, my employees were still showing up.

And if one of my employees was sick, I'd put somebody else in to do it.

There's always, we were always there, we were always on time, we were always friendly and so we made up for maybe the lower, and I don't want to say less quality because it's not less quality, but it's Just not an overachiever standard that's being met.

It's just a basic standard.

And I think that's a really interesting concept.

I think think that most business owners feel like they can do everything best in the business.

But I also think that's not true.

I think that there are a lot of things in my business that let's say it just has something to do with paperwork and uploading a document somewhere.

I'll be honest, I may forget and that stupid document may never get uploaded.

Then the account doesn't get open.

Then you call me and yell at me and it's the proposal.

And the entire plan was perfect, but the detail of just finishing out the processing.

But what do they say?

If somebody else can do something 80% as well as you think you can, you should just delegate it and put some standards in place.

And I literally just did that.

Before this call, I had a client call and ask a question and one of my great team members shot me a teams message about this person has a question and then I told her, look, I think this is a question.

Call her, confirm that this is the question she had, Tell her this answer and if not, tell her you'll find the answer.

But you also maybe have to train your customers that they don't get to talk to you for every question.

Right.

Because there's only if and we have a lot of transactions going on in our office.

So if I'm, if my hand is in every one of them, number one, I go home stressed and I kick the dog.

And number two, I just don't ever get to do revenue generating activities.

Right.

And I think that's important.

So what were you doing most of your day?

What were your tasks as opposed to doing the actual labor?

So you started off doing labor and sales and marketing and everything.

And then you get away from, get a, get away from labor.

And so what were you doing for most of your day?

I spent quite a few years in sales.

I loved the transformation process of the landscape.

So I spent quite a few years in sales.

But I also had a sales team.

So it was me and a couple others selling.

And I really did as much as I could to act as an employee.

I hired an operations manager who felt like my boss sometimes would hold me accountable to this that I had put in place.

And I liked that.

I liked seeing that my business was being held together by others.

And so I.

So getting to that accountability thing though, as the owner, we all get into business because we want freedom.

But sometimes that freedom is a double Edged sword because you, nobody can fire you other than a customer can fire you, but you still have more customers.

So the lack of accountability sometimes is what you need your team to hold you to because ultimately you are the boss.

And if you say, hey, we're not following that rule this time, then the boss said that.

But if you say that all the time, quality goes down.

So that's interesting that you almost had, like you said, you felt like you had a boss helding you to the standards that you had already put in place.

So I think that's a great culture move that, that you had in place there though.

Yeah.

And being a business owner, you don't have freedom out the gate.

You not and going when you start a business.

Like I said, I spent a couple years where I was working 60, 80, 100 hours a week beat.

And the key to getting out of that cycle is putting those systems in place, hiring the team in the areas that you need them.

I knew my strengths and weaknesses and I hired in the areas that I was weak and I stayed doing the things that I was strong in until I didn't want to do those anymore either.

And really as an entrepreneur, for me, it became like I wanted to chase new opportunities, new businesses, I wanted new experiences.

And that was why I went to a fully hands off business, because I was wanting to pursue some other things.

But you've got to give up a little bit of freedom in the early stages to have the freedom later on.

Sure.

It doesn't have to be.

People think I built and sold in under eight years.

So it was.

It doesn't take very long and it took me longer than it should have because I had never done it before.

But now that I've learned the process and know how to do it, it's not really difficult once you know what to do.

And so people can get there a lot quicker than they probably think they can.

And that frees you up.

A lot of people are like, I'm not ready to retire or what would I do?

Pursue other opportunities.

If you own one business that runs hands off, you could own two businesses that run hands off or three.

That's how you really accumulate true wealth.

Delegating and getting things set up and having them operate without you.

So let me ask you another question.

What are your thoughts on compensation?

So let's say you have a labor force in a landscaping company.

Did you feel like you needed to pay a little bit more than market rate?

Did you have some incentives?

Did you have bonuses?

What were your thoughts on compensation for Those labor type positions.

I would start by researching what the other companies in our area were paying.

And I would always offer a little bit more because that gave me more of a pool to choose from.

Always offering a little bit more than what everybody else was.

And then as they must be doing the same things because everybody started raising their prices, and so I had to do a little bit more.

And then I was offering a simple IRA where I put in 2%.

I was offering benefits as I was able to offer my employees more, I did.

And all businesses are.

They all have their things.

And that's probably one of the reasons I ultimately decided to get out of the landscape industry was because of the employee situation, the pay expectations and how much that cut into profits, that my returns were diminishing.

And I just decided that wasn't the game I wanted to play.

It's a great game, highly profitable, but as you grow, the challenges get greater.

I.

I did always offer more than what everybody else did.

Okay, no, that's a good thing.

And when you sold, did you proactively attempt to sell, or was there somebody that just came and offered to buy?

So was this kind of a plan thing or was it almost like when you were selling coffee and somehow that turned into building a landscaping business?

From the get go, I knew I was either going to what I would call build my way out or buy my way out.

So building my way out was building a business that I didn't have to operate, which I did.

But as an owner, you're always, you still have to monitor certain things to make sure that it's operating the way it should.

Or buy my way out meant I'm going to just sell the business, and that will give me the enough income and freedom to do what I want to do next.

After building my way out, I was like, I still want more.

I want to be completely free of all the problems that come along with the landscape company.

And so that was the buy my way out option, where, yeah, I knew that was something I wanted to do.

I wasn't sure when I wanted to do it.

So I had started talking with a broker.

I had a number in mind that I wanted to sell for.

And so I had talked with a broker, had him value my company, and I was like, okay, it's good, but let's try to get to that number I had in my head.

And I was going to work it a couple of years and get it there.

But I had a horse accident that put me in emergency surgery.

I was in the hospital for three Days.

And I was homebound, couchbound for six weeks.

So that was, yeah, that was the accident that was really like eye opening because I was like, I could have easily.

It could have been more severe.

I could have been paralyzed or died or other things.

And I was like, I'm just gonna sell it now.

Because I'm like, life is precious and you never know when it's gonna change.

So let's just list it.

It's close enough to my number.

I don't want to do two more years of it.

And even though at that point I was only working an hour a week, like I wasn't doing a lot.

But when you have 30 employees and every one of your employees, problems become your problem as the owner.

It's still a lot, even though I'm not working it.

And there's different types of hard.

Like if you work in McDonald's, you have the hard of.

It's hard to go home and maybe not know that you have enough money to pay your bills.

And somebody might say, oh, poor business owner, maybe they're making good money.

But it's so hard.

Boohoo hoo.

But it's hard in a different way because there's a lot of stress.

Ultimately, you're the one who would be sued if somebody caused major damage to the property or if there's an injury.

So it is a.

It's a hard.

It's a different type of hard.

I wouldn't trade the hard, but it definitely is the hard.

One of the things that I offer in my business is exit planning, help and helping businesses to become more sellable.

It sounds like you were building an asset and the asset was your business.

Now you said you had a simple ira, so you had probably some other investments.

You probably owned some Apple stock and Nvidia and mutual funds and things like that.

But those investments you don't have direct control over.

So if you own Apple stock and if Apple goes down, nobody called you and said, hey, should we release this new iPhone?

And then you didn't have direct control over that, but you did have direct control over your own business.

And you built that value to where presumably that was your biggest asset.

So that is very.

That, that's commendable.

And I think that most business owners should think about their business as an asset.

Doesn't mean you have to sell it, but it means you can sell it when you want if you want.

So now that you're not in landscaping business anymore, tell me a little bit about what you do and how you help clients nowadays.

In your new life?

Yeah.

So I am super passionate about business.

Like, I just love.

I'm one of those startup entrepreneurs where I just love the startup process.

I love the putting the systems in place and making it run like a machine.

Like I a business should be.

Your business is an asset and if it's not, you're doing it wrong.

In my opinion, it should be your biggest asset.

And running it that way and getting it set up and then seeing it operate is just super exciting to me.

So I help business owners get their time back and go from working 60, 65 plus hours a week to 15 hours a week to begin with and then they can decide from there do they want to step out and pursue other things or some people really like certain roles in their business.

So it's okay, do what you like to do and then hire people to do the rest.

How do you get past that guilt though?

Because I think some people, I can't just work 15 hours a week.

I'm supposed to be hard work.

What's the mindset thing behind that?

Because I think a lot of business owners and I've gotten past it, but I think I still have a little bit of it itself.

Like how do you get past that?

I need to work more or else I somehow I'm not earning my money.

I think it's a culture thing and massive guilt.

I had tons of guilt because I was like, I have all these employees that work for me and I'm not working nearly as much hours wise as they are.

But then I think it's important to sit back and put it into perspective of we stick our neck on the line to start a business.

We're providing income and feeding families by having employees.

I mean, we're doing our work.

It's just a different kind of work and it does buy us more freedom.

And I think business owners deserve that.

I think it's just having a pep talk with yourself of like, you are doing things, you are making an impact in people's lives, providing jobs.

Look at the things our country does to get more people to provide more jobs.

The world go round.

I like it.

And I think most of anybody's problems start between the ears.

So I think for business owners to literally tell themselves, I'm not paid by the hour, I'm paid for results, I am supporting people, I'm helping the economy build and I have a lot of risk and therefore I deserve some rewards.

I think we all probably need to remind ourselves of those things as well.

Fascinating stuff.

I love talking business.

I Think business is like a puzzle that you never quite finish and when you think you finish, then there's another piece to it.

But it's really a passion of mine.

Really awesome.

I could imagine we have some listeners and they're thinking, you know what, like, I'm working 80 hours a week and I'm running a business and I just, I don't know how to get my employees and my team to hold up to standards.

And I don't even, like everybody talks about systems.

I don't even know where to start making systems and processes.

But sounds like Trina started from zero and got to a pretty good level in not that long of time.

Maybe I'd like to talk with her.

How do you help people and where can they find you if they're interested in making a connection with you?

Yeah, I would say you can email me@trinajulian.com or find me on Instagram and there's links there that you can get resources.

I see you have a pretty cool newsletter.

How often does your newsletter come out?

Twice a month.

I love newsletters.

It's a crazy time in human history where newsletters and content and podcasts, you can literally get expert level information for free.

And if you're not anybody out there who's not taking advantage of newsletters of the people that you like and listening to podcasts and audiobooks, you're really shooting yourself in the foot.

And then of course, if you want to take a deeper dive, I think coaching is always incredibly important.

If we rely on ourselves to be able to figure out all the answers, it's not going to work.

We don't have all the answers.

And as when your name's on the sign there, there is a lot of pressure there.

I really enjoy speaking with you.

Maybe we can have you on again and we can talk about some, maybe some more specific ways to build systems and processes.

But we are the weekly wealth podcast and we talk about the mindsets, the tactics and the strategies to help you to build and maintain wealth.

Trina Julian, we did not talk about this question, but what does wealth mean to you?

What, when we talk about wealth, what is it?

What is it about wealth?

Or what is your definition of wealth for you and all the people in your life that you love?

I think wealth is just having the freedom to choose how you want to spend your time would be the big thing.

I've asked that question to probably a hundred people.

Nobody's ever given me a dollar amount.

When I get to a million or 10 million or 5 million or 100,000.

Nobody's ever.

Everybody's given some version of freedom.

And when I'm speaking with my wealth management clients, really, what is money?

Money's not really anything other than it.

It gives you options.

So if you have money and you want to go to Hawaii, you can go to Hawaii.

If you want to go to Hawaii and you don't have money, you can't go to Hawaii.

So the choice is gone.

Horses, that's not a free hobby.

It requires some financial resources.

And without the resources, the horses are not an option.

Or maybe they may be an option to a lesser extent.

Really exciting there.

All right, everybody.

So check out Trina Julian.

That's T R I n a underscore Julian J U L I a n on Instagram.

Or also go to trinajulian.com and you can click on the newsletter.

Sign up for the newsletter and if you're ever looking to book a call and to learn a little bit about if you can do the same thing in your business that Trina did and hers take a deeper dive in.

I think it's so important for us all to have support in our financial journeys, and I think that's what takes us all to the next level.

Athletes have coaches, CEOs have coaches, and I think we all need a coach.

Until next episode, we wish everybody a blessed week.

Thanks, Trina.

Thank you.

That was fun.

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