07: Stick To Your Values as a Small Business

Behind Their Success: Ep 7 Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello, I'm Paden Squires, and I'm the host of the podcast. This podcast is for those who are dissatisfied with where they are at in their life and career currently. I used to be one. When I got out of college with my master's degree, I started working in banking. I eventually moved to a Fortune 500 company.I quickly found out being an employee was not for me. I was bored out of my mind and did not like it whatsoever. Something eventually lit a fire under me. I started studying for the CPA exam, listening to podcasts, and reading books every day. By doing that, I had passed all four parts of the CPA exam in eight months and quit my job.

I opened up my own tax firm, having never been paid to do someone's taxes. That was in 2014. Since then, I've consistently grown my business. Had a lot of success in other business ventures, including real estate, property management, among other things. And now, I'm looking for a new venture. I want to help inspire you and other entrepreneurs to [00:01:00] achieve their potentials and dreams, as well as learn from the stories of these entrepreneurs, as to see what has gone well, and what hasn't gone well for them.


Let's go create a bunch of healthy, wealthy, and wise entrepreneurs.


paden: Hey, quick ask from you guys, if you ever got any value from these podcasts, I kindly ask you to rate and review it. It really is the best way to help us grow and reach more people. We want to get as many healthy, wealthy, and wise entrepreneurs out there as possible. Thanks. Now to the show. 


Paden Squires: So hello all welcome back to Behind Their Success. I want to welcome on the podcast, Monica Pitts and Stacy Brockmeier. we're gonna do two for one today, which is awesome. Their company is Maye Create Design, and they create websites and marketing, and they're really good at it. Interestingly enough, they are both graduates of the University of Missouri, M I Z, Z O U, [00:02:00] and they're both graduates of their top rated agricultural program, and now they run a tech company.

Paden Squires: Which is interesting. 

Paden Squires: So Monica founded the company in 2005, and something like, this is according to Monica, and something like 13 years ago, you would have to ask Stacy because she knows the numbers. Yeah. Monica lucked into finding her to be part of the team. They've grown the business through lots of challenges, including demergers, childbirths, and many other challenges.

Paden Squires: Some of their company's core values include trust, integrity, collaboration, and communication. They also have a podcast called Marketing with Purpose where Monica brings on a wide range of guests. they self describe this as, it's a podcast with specialized, straightforward advice to make sure your marketing doesn't suck.

Paden Squires: That's right. Guys, welcome to Behind Their Success. Thank you for having us. 

Paden Squires: Yeah, absolutely guys. So give us a little more detail about how the company started and where you're at today or a little [00:03:00] bit of that journey.

Monica Pitts: I started interning after college and I brought a portfolio with me. And so people thought I should have a marketing role and so that's what I got hired to do. And then after working for the family business for a while, and then I worked for an agency and it was terrible working for an agency every day.

Monica Pitts: I walked into work and I was like, why am I doing this? I even said that in my employee review, it was. Not the awesomest review. And then one day I was like, I'm just not going to do it anymore. My mom took me for a walk and she was like, honey, there's no time like the present to be hungry. Start your business now.

Monica Pitts: You can do it. And so I did. And then, it was years later. I have always had an account service person, like a project manager role because that's not my strong suit. And I was like, dad, I need a new project manager. Mine is, moving on. And he was like, I got the girl for you. this girl, Stacey Brockmeyer is the awesomest sloth that [00:04:00] you've ever met.

Monica Pitts: That was not the way my dad said it. 

Stacy Brockmeier: Because 

Monica Pitts: Stacey had actually been working for my dad and at the university, and she was like half running his life. And so Stacey, how did that interview go?

Stacy Brockmeier: So I love to tell this story just because it's so funny that I didn't apply for a job with Monica ever. And so at the time I had gotten married and I moved back and I was doing some substitute teaching and different things just to. Figure out what I was going to do with my life. And Monica calls me at eight 30 in the morning.

Stacy Brockmeier: I'm still in bed. Because I didn't have a job and I didn't need to be out of bed at eight 30. I was like 22 years old. Why wouldn't I still be in bed? And so I roll out of bed and have a phone interview for a job that I didn't do. No, I applied for it because I didn't actually apply for it. so yeah, that was December of 2010 and we're still here 

Paden Squires: I think what I find interesting about you guys is you [00:05:00] definitely try to play by your own rules A little bit, right? Yeah, I do your own things So one thing I know you guys have done fairly recently with the company has moved to a four day work week. It sounds great on paper and in theory, but like what problems do you run into? How's that been going? 

Stacy Brockmeier: First of all, Monica and I made it a goal to create the life that we wanted. Yeah. And so that's where this dream of doing a four day workweek derived from is that we both have young kids.

Stacy Brockmeier: They're kind of at prime ages for us to really spend time with them and mold them and make them into the functioning members of society we think they should be, and so,that just means honestly, spending more time with them. And so last May, so May of 2023, we went on a trial four day work week and we gave it until I think September, we were in August or September, we were going to reevaluate.

Stacy Brockmeier: And basically when we reevaluated it from a cultural [00:06:00] standpoint and from a monetary standpoint, they were both rocking, like we were doing a great job. our revenue hadn't gone down any, our people were. coming to work those four days, like really ready to knock things out and get it done instead of feeling like it was a grind.

Stacy Brockmeier: And in Monica, you can totally add to this, but I think it's been a wild success for our company. 

Monica Pitts: I think it's a huge benefit, especially as a small company, that we don't have a 401k, but we don't have health insurance, right? You can have a health insurance stipend, but we don't have a company health insurance plan.

Monica Pitts: And we have all come together many times and we evaluated it and decided that was still what we wanted to do. So I feel like this is a huge benefit to our employees, coming to work. For may create and I don't want it to sound like we just were like, we're just going to do this and in may we just started it.

Monica Pitts: It took us years of ramping up really to get here. I worked four days a week, two summers ago, then last summer, Stacy worked four days [00:07:00] a week and I worked four days a week when it was possible. And then we saw the benefits of it. But throughout this whole time, these last two years, really three years of doing business, we've just been honing in our processes and just carving out the things that take us too much time that are not actually effective and literally have changed some of the core processes in our business that we've been using for 18 years, because we just looked at it and we said.

Monica Pitts: this takes too much time. It can't work in a four day work week. It has to be different. And we had to be like, we had so many conversations in my office where Stacy would walk in and we would be like, yeah, this sucks. Like it's always worked, but it doesn't work anymore.

Monica Pitts: And yeah, so it did take us that ramp up time. To do it. and we took baby steps along the way, like we decided not to work when our kids weren't in school during the school year. so the early release days and the holidays, we decided that was our first step. That was probably like three, four years ago, Stacy.

Monica Pitts: I still remember just sitting at the Island in my [00:08:00] kitchen being like, Oh my God, are we going to do this? Cause I was like freaking out and sad and not okay. And that's one of the most valuable things that Stacy gives me is she empowers me. She's like, we can do this. it's okay. Like we can be different. We don't have to be like this. And yeah, it took time. And at the time 

Stacy Brockmeier: It felt like a huge stretch to be like, no, we're not going to work on the days that our kids are out of school. It felt like a big decision at the time, but really it gave us some flexibility in our personal life because as working parents of children in school, the school doesn't run on the same calendar as business does.

Stacy Brockmeier: And so it did feel like a big stretch. And I think the other thing to note with the four day work week is that. We don't work four days a week every week, we work five days a week, a lot of weeks too. Every eight weeks we work two Fridays in a row and we do two days of Professional development and improving our processes.

Stacy Brockmeier: For example, we spent a Friday just like [00:09:00] . We did a whole day of goals and where we're going to go this year personally and professionally and just tried to pour into our employees. In that respect, we're not taking that time out of the normal workday. We're adding our Fridays back in. And then in our busy times of year, we commit to working.

Stacy Brockmeier: The five days a week, just because. it is also a business, like I said, we're creating this life for yourself, but it is a business that also has to thrive to have employees and to get the job done too. 

Paden Squires: Sure. Yeah.There's always time. Where you got to step in and serve your people.

Paden Squires: Because they pay the bills. Right.I think I would back up just like for the listener to talk about, everything they, Stacey and Monica said there was, they talked about the intentionality behind it. Going into it, they had the reasons why they wanted to do it.

Paden Squires: And then actually they had the courage to even start taking the steps. Because what Stacy's described there, now it probably doesn't seem like a big decision. It's just normal. That's how they do business. But before they did it, I guarantee you it was this big, [00:10:00] scary thing. And they're like, Oh my gosh, how are my clients going to react?

Paden Squires: How are the employees going to react? All these different things come rushing through their heads. But they set the intentionality and then actually started taking the steps to accomplish that. 

Monica Pitts: We called in a business consultant to look over it all to make sure that we weren't insane and that we hadn't forgotten a number in the spreadsheets. And we talked through all of the things that we would need to do to be able to like serving our clients. and that's where, my devil may care attitude would always come in.

Monica Pitts: Cause I'd be like. Do you know the number of times that we have built this karma? We are, so flexible and forgiving and understanding and to a fault a lot of the time. And we've built this karma. If they don't like it. They didn't like that we decided we were going to take care of our families.

Stacy Brockmeier: Maybe we don't have the same values as that person. 

Paden Squires: Yeah, that's so huge. And as any business or whatever, especially as a leader, start really expressing that culture, the people that don't agree or whatever your values are naturally going to fall [00:11:00] away.

Paden Squires: And they're just going to get refilled with the people that do appreciate your values, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then you don't have to like dread seeing that client on the calendar and having to meet with them, right? 

Monica Pitts: Amen. 

Paden Squires: Now, I'm sure, 99 percent of our clients are great, but I think all entrepreneurs can relate to that to some degree.

Monica Pitts: Especially at the beginning when you're just like taking on any project you can to eat. 

Stacy Brockmeier: That's a really good point, Monica. for a while now, we've focused on people who have the same values that we do and haven't taken on just anybody and everybody because we realize that we can't do a great job or live up to our standards 

Monica Pitts: Ten years ago, we started that journey of just pulling out clients that don't meet our core values and seeking industries and business types that meet them. We did it when Aveline was born because I realized that I was giving up a lot by going to work every day. Because I had these beautiful small people at home that I wanted to be with as well and I was like if I'm gonna give up this thing to go to work every [00:12:00] day, I should get to work with people that I like, that respect me, that we can give back and be in a synergistic relationship and we had a whole two day planning session where we were like, how do we figure this out?

Monica Pitts: We deserve to have people that respect us because we're good. it's not like we had just started. 

Stacy Brockmeier: almost a decade old. 

Monica Pitts: We're proven. 

Stacy Brockmeier: There's still times that it's scary though, to turn down work or to say, no, that's not for us.

Stacy Brockmeier: Or we don't think we can fulfill those needs for you. it's still scary and I think it's scary for any entrepreneur or anybody who's running a business, but like you said, Paden, those gaps, if you will get filled with people who really do make good clients and who are really synergistic.

Paden Squires: Yeah, I think, I don't know if we were talking here earlier or offline, but yeah, we talked about staying in your lane and that get really good at, what you do and if you stay in that lane, that's really where you can leverage and you get all these efficiencies to have these four day work weeks and still be able to serve your clients in a top, fantastic way.

Paden Squires: [00:13:00] What would you describe as your superpower, Monica, if you want to go first, 

Monica Pitts: I would say I refuse to take no for an answer most of the time. and it doesn't matter what it is. this is the box, I'm going to very, certainly live about over here.

Monica Pitts: Like I'm way outside the box most of the time. and I think that helps as a business owner though, and it helps us create something that people want to be a part of because we don't feel like we have to adhere to the norms and we believe that most problems are solvable.

Monica Pitts: Even if they hurt. You're solving 

Stacy Brockmeier: them. 

Paden Squires: What about you, Stacy? 

Stacy Brockmeier: That's a really good question. I think my team would say that I am a spreadsheet master. I like to say that I'm a yes and person. I love to say yes. I love to tell people yes, but I also want to have the and the plan to go with it so that I can back it up because I'm a perfectionist or an achiever that way. So I like to problem solve my way through. So I'm a yes person.

Paden Squires: I [00:14:00] love that. I And just from knowing you guys to the degree I do, like you guys the perfect kind of yin and yang is almost that visionary and integrator. and you guys come into, you're all skills, very married together, in kind of a special way.

Paden Squires: And I think that's one of your all's big keys to success. Definitely from my point of view. 

Monica Pitts: Yeah, it's true. Stacy is like boots on the ground and I'm supported, but I'm ideas and it works because she'll come to me and be like, we need to tell our clients this. We need to accomplish this.

Monica Pitts: And I'm like, okay, I got that. I'm going to go do these three things that are going to make that happen. And then I'll show it to her. And she'll be like. That's just right. And I'm like, all right. and so then back and forth too, I'll be like, Oh my gosh, we need to think about this in our conversations.

Monica Pitts: And she'll be like, okay. And then she does it. So it's a very back and forth thing. I love to feel like I'm supporting Stacey and I know Stacey's always supporting me. So

Paden Squires: yeah, absolutely. You guys have obviously made a lot of good decisions. You've stuck out what I, 2005 to now, I mean, that's almost 20 years, right? Of a company, [00:15:00] very few companies last 20 years. That's a heck of an accomplishment, all that being said, what do you think's the biggest mistake you've made in business since the company's been started?

Paden Squires: And I'm sure that you can go through a whole list of them, but name one for me. 

Stacy Brockmeier: I think one mistake we've made. Not just once, is deciding we should be more than what we actually want to be. or different, I think that sounds interesting in a world where we are supposed to strive to be more and strive to do more and strive to be bigger.

Stacy Brockmeier: That's the culture that we live in, right? And I think we've tried to reinvent ourselves or to add things to what we do on a number of different occasions. And I think that what we've come around to is we are just going to be really good at this thing that we do, which is building websites.

Monica Pitts: Yeah, like the biggest mistake that I made was being afraid to do it by myself at the very beginning I had a partner and [00:16:00] that Dissolving of partnership went a lot easier than the second time that I brought in partners And they were family and itIt didn't go well. There was lots of me crying under the desk at one point in time.

Monica Pitts: Stacy would be like, oh man, here she is again. Crap. At one time, she was literally screening my emails. And she would be like, don't read the one that's in your inbox. I already read it. I'm gonna summarize what it says so you don't have to read it the way they wrote it. And now we have to find a solution to this.

Monica Pitts: And I was like, oh my god. Also, here's chocolate and nachos. yeah, 

Monica Pitts: So whenever people are like, I have to have this other person to make this thing work, I'm like, I don't know, don't just don't, if you can be brave enough to do it on your own, because you can, you really can.

Monica Pitts: And since we have been on our own, which is since 2016. We've done nothing but grow and reach our [00:17:00] goals. And before, like when I had any set of business partners, it wasn't that way. Like we couldn't grow to reach our goals because they were not of the same values or mindset as us.

Monica Pitts: And they had this ceiling of where they felt things needed to be that they felt were normal and we are always reaching past that ceiling and that's who we are. And so it made it really difficult to be awesome. and it cost me a lot of money. Yeah. A lot of 

Stacy Brockmeier: money. 2016, the biggest thing is that we've had the autonomy to change.

Stacy Brockmeier: Yeah. So we didn't have to get our change approved by someone else. It was just Monica and I would sit down in a room and say, Is this the right decision? Here's this factor to think about. Okay, maybe that part's not a good decision, but this part's a good decision. Let's try it.

Stacy Brockmeier: And I think that's the difference between having to have three or more other [00:18:00] people weigh in on that decision who aren't in it every day. I think that's the thing is if people who aren't in the process and in the services and in the clients and in the business every day making those decisions, That's tough.

Stacy Brockmeier: It's tough because they don't see the necessity for it. 

Paden Squires: Yeah. It's hard for them to necessarily know what's going on. And yeah, it's different, partnerships, in my line of work, I've seen a lot of them go sour, just clients and different things. the expectation setting is huge, entering a partnership.

Paden Squires: You need to be very clear about whose roles, what is the end goal? What are we even trying to build? What are you trying to accomplish? Because like Monica said, you get into the partnerships. if you don't set clear enough expectations, they may have thought they knew what you said or wanted, and that may not be what you actually said or knew you wanted, and causes a lot of problems, especially 50-50 partnerships.

Paden Squires: Those get really ugly because it's just a stalemate. 

Monica Pitts: I second that. Payton, get those expectations out front, man. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.[00:19:00] 

Paden Squires: following up on a big mistake. It's 2005, Monica, if you could go back there and talk to 2005 Monica, what would you tell her?

Monica Pitts: just keep working hard, cause, I don't know, I wasn't afraid that I couldn't do it. I was just afraid to do all the parts of it, if that makes sense. Yeah, you'll get there. You got this. Yeah. And I think I would have told her that you don't need a business partner to get you there either, like you could do it on your own and maybe all those business partnerships were there to teach us how to be like really good, clear communicators.

Monica Pitts: Because Stacey and I go through ups and downs too, because while we're not. Co owners of the business, if I die, it's basically her business. not basically like it is. And that makes us much clearer communicators because we went through the second rodeo together, right? So I'm sure that happened for a reason, but I would like to tell Monica that [00:20:00] she can do it on her own.

Stacy Brockmeier: 

Paden Squires: Do you think younger Monica would listen to you? 

Monica Pitts: I mean, she was pretty strong headed, but I also really thrive with other people. And so that's what made it feel like so much fun. And it's tricky cause you go through college and I didn't know what entrepreneurship was.

Monica Pitts: I didn't know what running a small business looked like. I'd never seen it before. And I feel like I didn't understand all of the things that it could be and how fulfilling it could be. I just. I saw all these people getting their big jobs at these big companies and that was like a version of success, right?

Monica Pitts: You get a job with a big company and then you're successful because you had this and you think it's going to be all these synergies and everything. And one of the things that we know from working with all of our clients is that a lot of the time, the bigger the company, the more red tape and the harder it is to get stuff done, which to Stacey and I is extremely demotivating because we just want to get crap done.

Monica Pitts: And so I feel like that version of success [00:21:00] was like, I didn't have enough of a broader awareness of what could be. I just knew that I was unhappy where I was. And my mom was like, you're probably never going to be happy working for someone else. You should probably just go, you strong handed monster.

Monica Pitts: You go do your own 

Paden Squires: thing. I bet you're not a very good employee, right? 

Monica Pitts: It's tricky. I do have a job where I'm an employee, like I teach aerial lessons and I'm an employee and I understand the rules and I'm not going to step over my boundaries.

Monica Pitts: I'm good at that when you set clear boundaries. And then I also, I'm not afraid to come to you and be like, Hey, this doesn't work very well in a very diplomatic way. Because we are employees of every company that we do work for. Are we not Stacy? Yeah. And I can somehow manage those relationships.

Monica Pitts: It's just when something's really wrong and people are unhappy. not having the ability to be flexible sucks 

Stacy Brockmeier: don't think Monica or I would be a very good employee to anyone in a corporate manner I think we would be a good employee we wouldn't be [00:22:00] happy because we wouldn't have the autonomy we I can do a job like Monica said, as long as we have the expectations, like we're going to do things to the best of our ability, but that doesn't equal us being happy in that role either.

Stacy Brockmeier: So 

Paden Squires: I have such a similar story and it can relate and with my last real job I can't sit in that box either. And it's not that I can't be a good employee. Like anybody that ever worked for, and I'm sure you guys too would say, Oh, they were fantastic employees, that's the point Stacy was making.

Paden Squires: It was like, probably we're very unhappy, right? Cause you just the personality and the entrepreneur type personality in you ladies is that. You need that autonomy to even slightly be happy, 

Monica Pitts: right? and I can remember in my agency job, I was a developer and designer there and I was like, Hey, so here's the deal.

Monica Pitts: I can do it this way. That's the way you said I should do it, but there's a ceiling on that. it's not going to work beyond this point. And so I could spend the next eight hours doing this task this way that you've assigned it, but it's [00:23:00] not going to work beyond this point.

Monica Pitts: And they were like, that's the way that it was decided. So that's the way that you have to do it. I'm like, and you do know it's not going to work beyond this point. And they're like, yeah. And then when we hit that point, it was like, all right, it doesn't work. So what do we do now? Oh, we're going to charge the client thousands of dollars.

Monica Pitts: To redo it and I'm like, but we could have just done it the right way the first time and it would have taken me like two more hours and that was the stuff that would just make me so nuts or we would sit in a meeting and we would plan out this like elaborate amazing thing for a client and have the best plan to help them reach their goals and then the owner of the company would be like, here's what I think we should do.

Monica Pitts: Here's what I decided. And I'm like, but that was Jeremy's idea. like he came up with that, sir. And he would never funnel it back to the team. And it was those types of things that I was just like, this is not the way I want it to be. 

Paden Squires: you find situations like that, especially as the business grows, it gets more bureaucracy and layers and you get middle managers with egos and, you get all of that [00:24:00] comes in and you speak about that in your background. I'm sure that was a big motivator for you guys to get really intentional about designing yours and creating that culture. You guys speak about culture a lot and you can tell when you guys talk about it, a lot of companies have they have their six or seven words and they're just posted on the website of these are the things we stand for. But if you're not truly living it or talking about it with your teams, it's a waste of time. They're just random words. but you can really tell when you guys speak is that it really means something to you.

Monica Pitts: I agree. And the time that Stacy gets the most angry is when people question her integrity. She will be like on fire I'm like, stay out of the office. You're going to get burned. And she'll be like, can you even believe that? And I'm like, they are questioning one of your core values.

Monica Pitts: I can believe that you are very angry because of this makes. Perfect sentence. I think you are angry. 

Paden Squires: Stacy, I can 100 percent relate because that is my number one touch point. I'm not perfect. I [00:25:00] never will be. I try my best. My integrity is everything to me. 

Stacy Brockmeier: I approach everything from like my heart's in it for the right reason.

Stacy Brockmeier: And so when they question that, it's man, that's like really questioning, my literal core, 

Paden Squires: That's probably the number one thing that hurts me, as an officer as well as somebody trying to question my integrity of trying to do the right thing.

Stacy Brockmeier: Absolutely. 

Paden Squires: guys. Tell us the best way people can get a hold of you, connect with you guys. I, you guys, do fantastic work in the website marketing space. What's the best way people can either get a hold of you or interact with you or maybe even look into doing some business with you guys?

 So we, for the last few years, have focused on construction companies. So we have developed a number of different processes to be able to help people at different price points.

Stacy Brockmeier: So we can do things that are as simple as like a brochure website where you need three or five pages that tell what you do all the way up to, we've literally [00:26:00] built learning management systems that integrate with other softwares and all kinds of things. So really big projects that are really intense and a lot of programming.

Stacy Brockmeier: So we're able to help anybody in those realms, as long as you're a good human. We like it. You got some values, right? Yeah. 

Monica Pitts: Yeah. Yeah. You gotta want something that doesn't suck, basically. Cause we're not gonna let you do that. 

Stacy Brockmeier: We always say good design costs the same as bad design. Yeah. 

Paden Squires: Yeah. And just different resources, right?

Monica Pitts: Yeah. Yeah. Actually, that's a good point, Peyton. Yeah. And if you want to get ahold of us, you can call us. because we actually answered the phone. There's a phone number. It's 573 447 1836. Yes, you can call us. but then also you can check out our website, which is www.maycreate.com

Monica Pitts: com. That's M A Y E C R E A T E dot com. And if you want a good laugh, just go read a couple of the pages because they're kind of snarky and fun. 

Paden Squires: [00:27:00] Check out these awesome ladies. It's really cool. If you go, go to the website, you can really see their culture and their personalities come through.

Paden Squires: They're really authentic in that kind of way, which is amazing. It helps inspire other people to live their lives and try to develop their own values and culture in their own businesses. So that's really all we got for you today on the show. Appreciate it. Look forward to seeing you in the next episode. 


Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. If you found it valuable, please rate, review, and share it. That is the best way to help us build this and reach more people, as we're trying to accomplish our goal of help create more healthy, wealthy, and wise entrepreneurs. You can follow us on social media by searching for me @padensquires or going to padensquires.com. On the website and social media, we're always sharing tips of personal growth, and there we can actually interact. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks guys. 

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