Welcome to season 7 of the None of my Business podcast! To kick things off, I have a very special guest, my new friend Natalie Lemas Hernandez.
Natalie has a strong entrepreneurial spirit coupled with a constant thirst to always be learning. This is a potent cocktail for success. I asked her where her leadership qualities came from. She told me a story about when she was a teenager and was presented an opportunity to do the right thing. This was in the middle of when she was reading a book called 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. She made a tough decision in the moment and sought some help for a friend through her mom. This led to the two of them starting a leadership program for teens. Incredible right?
She went on to study marketing in college and after graduating Natalie found herself at the age of 23 in charge of 3 different departments and managing 60 people at a Macy’s. She tells the story of a woman more than twice her age approaching her, on her FIRST DAY, putting both hands on her cheeks and saying, “Aw, are you our new manager?”
Let’s just say, by the end of her tenure (6 months) at Macys all three of her departments were number one in her district. She climbed the top of the Macy’s mountain and went out on top. Natalie knew her future wasn’t in retail and she moved to Idaho to work in the property management business her parents had built.
She started working in the business after taking a pay cut after feeling a call to come home. At age 24 she was tasked with being part of the team taking over the business due to some health concerns with her mom.
She noticed pretty quickly that the business that her mom intended to build, was successful, but not fully optimized. They were managing houses of people that weren’t their ideal client. Because of that, employees weren’t happy, they weren’t as profitable as they could be, and they were putting out more fires than celebrating wins.
We talk about what changes were implemented to build the business that was intended to be built. They were able to be more choosy with their clients. The potential clients weren’t interviewing them to use as a property manager, it was the other way around.
Now they have taken on larger clients and they could really give their clients the attention they deserve. The business really grew from there. Soon after, Natalie and her husband Greg had a conversation about buying the business which they did in 2017.
We talk about what the conversations were like behind that decision and they were loaded with fear. But good fear. Natalie never doubted making the business work. Everything that she had achieved up to that point, gave her the confidence to be successful. She has continued to grow the business through her willingness to find mentors, her willingness to learn and her drive to be the best she can be.
My thanks to Natalie for coming on the show and sharing her story! Please find her in any of the links below.
Natalie’s website. Your business unlocked
None of my Business on ITunes.
None of my Business on Stitcher
None of my Business on Spotify
On Android use Podcast Addict and search for “None of my Business”
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