Celebrating 20 Years of Being Half a Bubble Out [Podcast]

Michael:             Hello everyone, and welcome back to the HaBO Village podcast. I'm Michael Redman.

Kathryn:             And I'm Kathryn Redman.

Michael:             And this is a podcast that helps develop the whole leader for the whole business. What is our goal? Our goal is to help encourage you, inspire you and maybe even console you in the midst of developing and building your leadership, your company into the dream you had. So let's get started today. And what are we going to talk about, Kathryn?

Kathryn:             So it is 2022, and this is our first podcast of 2022. Took a bit of a holiday. It was really good, but welcome to 2022.

Michael:             Yeah, welcome. It's amazing. We all survived just 19, 20 and we're still surviving the COVID.

Kathryn:             We survived 21.

Michael:             But now it's amazing.

Kathryn:             I know. It just keeps going. But we're really wanting to talk today a little bit about just new beginnings. So we are in this interesting fun transition for us. We are 20 years in to our company and at the 20 years-

Michael:             It's pretty amazing that we have been in business 20 years.

Kathryn:             20 years.

Michael:             And then have started companies or tried to start companies and some have been successful and some have not in the midst of it. It was pretty amazing. It's like, "Wow, we made." And I remember when we had our 10th anniversary, I knew getting past 10 years statistically was a huge deal. We had a big party and we celebrated and now we're at 20 years and-

Kathryn:             And we might have a big party if this virus will let itself-

Michael:             If it'll let us.

Kathryn:             Run out. Or run itself out.

Michael:             A big barbecue in May.

Kathryn:             Maybe it'll be outdoors.

Michael:             If you want to come to our barbecue in May, if COVID lets us have it and you would like to come, just say, "Yes, on January 1st podcast of the year, you invited me," and we'll get you an invitation. Send an email in.

Kathryn:             Exactly. [crosstalk 00:01:46] More about that May barbecue.

Michael:             So we're going to talk about a little bit today about just kind of reflecting over the history. Talk about some things that are changing, how we're shifting or evolving our company and our brand. And it's pretty exciting. So refresh for people who may have not heard this story, what was the first time we knew we were going to start a company that you can remember?

Kathryn:             I think it was while you were maybe in what would've been in your older years, but your junior year of college.

Michael:             Well, because I went back to college at 30.

Kathryn:             Right. So your junior year of college, which just sounds really funny. But I think, we had been thinking when you graduated up to that point that we would potentially go back into vocational ministry, which is what we had stepped out of when you went back to college. And in your junior year-

Michael:             Which was probably around 2000, 2001. Because I graduated in '02.

Kathryn:             Yep. You sort of said, "Hey, I think we're supposed to start a business." And I'm like, "Hey, great."

Michael:             Yeah, not real exciting. But then we worked through a bunch of stuff. We've talked about that on other podcast. What was the thing you were most excited about in that first year?

Kathryn:             I think it was, we've talked about this and again, lots of times, but you are an entrepreneur. We laughed a lot early on about the fact that you kept making business cards. And I finally hit the place where I was like, "You cannot make another business card until it's a business you've been in and been doing and actually made money at. I'm going to shoot you."

Michael:             So, which for those of you who are entrepreneurs, you're saying, "But wait a minute, you got to keep trying. And how do you supposed to be successful if you're not allowed to try anymore?" It was tension between the two of us.

Kathryn:             I came from the super stable. I started a job when I was 16 and I had that job till I was 22. So I mean, I just, I had a very different background. And so I think what was most exciting for me to answer the question was I knew in the core of who I was, that you were not built to work for somebody else. That there was too many things in the way that you thought and the way that you evaluated the world and the way that you led that just basically meant you really need to do your own thing. So regardless of what that was, I think I just knew that you're an entrepreneur. So what I was excited about is, you know what, you were doing your own thing. And because of the fact that we chose it together, we named it together, we kind of walked through those steps together, it didn't feel like just another idea. It felt like, okay, this is actually real. So I think that's what I was most excited about. How about you?

Michael:             I was excited that we were on the journey. I mean, we talked about it a lot and so that first year I was excited, we were on the journey and I got to do the work I wanted to because I'd had jobs that I loved before. I actually thought we were going to stay in full-time vocational ministry. I loved doing it, I loved of being a pastor. When we left that it was really hard for me, hard for you longer probably than me.

Kathryn:             Well, and that was only because my training and my education and everything I thought was leading up to that. So it was just a little bit harder to let go of.

Michael:             Yeah, you'd invested a lot more in that direction. That was what I was excited about. It was like, "Here we are, we're on this thing." And I had visions of dreams even 20 years ago of where we are now. I just thought they would come a lot faster.

Kathryn:             We are on our journey.

Michael:             I thought they would come a lot faster. And I didn't expect a lot of different things that had happened. You have these external challenges in business that you're told that the world around you impacts you and you don't have full control over it and you go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah." But as I look back over the 20 years when we started the company, we were still living in the shadow of the dot-com bust out of 2000 and everything just went haywire in that whole thing. But there was such an enthusiasm in California in technology that like, "Well, it's going to be fine. We're going to come out of it." And then the housing boom happened, and that all was fine until 2007, 2008. And then everything fell apart and we had The Great Recession. It took probably four years for the economy to get back fully up on its feet again. And we've been doing this for quite some time. And then we hit COVID. So in 20 years you see things that are happening-

Kathryn:             Well, and around here we had like the Camp Fire.

Michael:             We hit the natural disasters of [crosstalk 00:06:15] Northern California.

Kathryn:             So some natural disasters that meant that some of the stuff we were trying to achieve and launch got completely back burner because we were just trying to survive. And we launched a membership course and half of our members were local and lost-

Michael:             Became homeless.

Kathryn:             Yeah. They became homeless. And suddenly as it turned out, they didn't care about our course and nor should they have.

Michael:             So you look at those things and I was excited about everything, but I didn't realize how hard it was going to be. I knew it was going to be hard, I didn't realize how hard it was going to be. Which seems to be a theme for all of us. It's like, I know it's going to be hard, but man, it was a lot harder than when we experienced the hardness because we hadn't imagined the different things that would be challenging. So I was excited about that. I was excited about the possibilities and exploring them. And then the more you and I got to work together, I really liked that.

Kathryn:             It was a couple years before I could fully break away and we could afford for me to fully break away and join the company full time. And those were fun days.

Michael:             They were good.

Kathryn:             Working out of our garage.

Michael:             I remember some of our first graphic design clients. And the funny thing was, I mean, I value those early days a lot. I would never want to go back to them.

Kathryn:             No.

Michael:             And one of the things is it was really, we have a small house. We still live in the same house at the moment after 22 years. Small little three bedroom, one bath in California. And I remember just being so busy trying to work on the business that not even being able to do a great job with the lawn or anything like that and take care of the house and stuff. And yet we had converted the garage so customers were coming to our house. And I remember having-

Kathryn:             Down the alley, past the dog. Good time.

Michael:             I remember having this meeting with this graphic designer out on our patio and I think, oh my gosh, I can't even believe they trusted us and gave us money because it was just kind of things were a little junky. And I remember people who were really successful coming over and loved us and believed in us. And they were like, "Once I'm in the garage, I feel like I'm in a normal office and everything's fine and it all. But then well, walking to and from the garage to my car was sketchy." And we had a meeting one time in the... a couple of meetings in the living room of the house and these people who really took us seriously. And then they're sitting there and now they're friends of ours still to this day. Rick and Dick, both were in our... Older guys who are now both retired really, were like... I mean to this day, they're still friends and they reflect back, and they're going, "What in the world?"

Kathryn:             "Why did I trust you?"

Michael:             And I remember Dick saying to us at one point, "You guys are Christians," and he's a Jew. And he looks at us, goes, "You guys really need to work this Christian thing, this Jesus thing, it could really work for you. You need to lean into it and use as an angle."

Kathryn:             Oh my gosh. I will never forget that. That was hilarious. So we were like, "Dude, we are not putting a fish on the website. It's not happening."

Michael:             "Come hire us, we're Christians. Golly gee, you can trust us."

Kathryn:             Oh gosh.

Michael:             So those were some of those early stories of going, oh my goodness. And just in and out of going, "We've got a great account. We've got oh, this is great... Holy creaky, how are we going to do this?"

Kathryn:             How do we create something sustainable? How do we not just jump from project to project? How do we survive? I look back and those were really interesting times. I mean, we created the documentary that was completely not what we've become, but it did use all of our skills, the script writing and the video. [crosstalk 00:09:48].

Michael:             International award winning documentary.

Kathryn:             Made good telly for that. And it was on TV. And I mean, it was a really, really cool thing. And then we had to figure out how to unravel that people thought we were documentary filmmakers.

Michael:             Some people for several years.

Kathryn:             How do we unravel that? So, it was really interesting in the early years just trying to find that sustainability. And we had built and grown and we were making a living, but then the reality of even just heading into the recession and we had this really weird opposite thing going on, where heading into the recession, we landed a client that ultimately became [crosstalk 00:10:24] a niche. And then everybody else is falling apart and we grew.

Michael:             If you're listening for the first time, you're like, "Wait a minute. He said toe nail fungus." We were really a good at marketing a laser treatment that really was successful and effective at treating toe nail fungus.

Kathryn:             Yeah. So while everybody else was struggling in the recession, we grew 400% in like 18 months.

Michael:             That was crazy.

Kathryn:             And that was a crazy time. It was a crazy time. And I have great-

Michael:             Super exciting. Like, "Ah, yeah."

Kathryn:             I have great memories of the early days of that growth. I mean, I can remember being in the office, and literally having the person who was answering our phones would put them on hold and hold up the phone and be like, "It's Indianapolis." And then they'd get the next phone go, "It's Seattle." And they were announcing what city a particular doctor was calling from to get a [crosstalk 00:11:13] on our services. It was a weird time.

Michael:             And at the time it was like, "Oh, this so awesome. Things are happening. It's moving. And people from all over the country are calling us and hiring us."

Kathryn:             And we're like, "We're systematizing. We have a system." And we were hiring like crazy. And it was just a really interesting time.

Michael:             And we did, we look back from where we are and go, "Look at how much we didn't know and didn't do and didn't have," but we really were growing and adding. And in that messy non-straight line of growing, we were systematizing. We were doing better than we had before, we were... I don't think we give ourselves enough credit sometimes for what we actually, I mean, literally we accomplished.

Kathryn:             We talk about that time as the way that we learned... In some ways we talk about how we learned our deficits during that time. Which we did absolutely. By the time we were done with that season-

Michael:             We talk about it a lot as our deficits.

Kathryn:             ... we hated our company. We had done some things badly. One of the realities of it is that in that place, we've laughed about the fact that we grew 400%. And then over the course of time, as we lost business, we lost half of that business. But the reality was that meant over several years, we literally grew 200% because we never dipped back. We never lost everything. We didn't dip back down because we had learned so many new tools during that season that gave us a different level of confidence, a different level of exposure, the ability to talk about things differently. So that helped us because even in other clients we were chasing outside of that industry we had so much more at our fingertips.

Michael:             Well, I think a lot of times we talk about the idea that we lost half of that business, but there were two really good reasons. One, it was a niche marketing for a while and the technology, the competitors in the industry came in so the niche was a bubble and it burst and it found its equilibrium. But the other part was we were smack dab in the middle of the great recession and extra money for people was disappearing. And they just didn't have it. People who were in their 50s and 60s who were getting ready to retire were now saying, "I've got another five to 10 years before I can retire again," because their investments just shrunk by 50%. So I think we forget a lot of times or we forget to remember [crosstalk 00:13:33].

Kathryn:             Well, and we talk about the external forces. There's times when external forces wipe out something that you're doing. And that was the case for us with that. It was the recession, but it was also the FDA shutting down a technology that wasn't quite approved.

Michael:             Well, shutting down a company, right?

Kathryn:             Right. And stuff that was completely outside of our control. So those things happen, and the cool part was, we talk about this, we're in the middle of doing webinars right now for the company. And we talk about the fact that we had a choice and it was, do we rebuild or do we close the doors and start something else? Because we were just worn out.

Michael:             Yeah. So I look at that and I go, "Okay, it's important as we reflect back, I think we've done a good job of thinking about how much we screwed up, which is sometimes easier as entrepreneurs and people who want to do it right." But we did so many things that I'm so proud of. And even going into that season, when we look at the numbers, the statistics, 4% of companies of those who survive, 90% fail, right?

Kathryn:             Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael:             We talk about that. So out of that, 4% survive, which means basically out of a [crosstalk 00:14:47].

Kathryn:             10% survive and of that 4% [crosstalk 00:14:51].

Michael:             Make it over a million dollars. Thank you for clarifying that.

Kathryn:             You bet.

Michael:             That means that out of a thousand businesses that try and start, how many make it over a million?

Kathryn:             Four.

Michael:             No.

Kathryn:             40?

Michael:             40.

Kathryn:             Oh no, bad math. What? We always do a 100, 96, four. That's where my four came from. So 40, out of a thousand was 40. I can do this, it's just tens.

Michael:             Well, no it is four because here's... So I just did that math wrong. Out of a thousand people, 90% of the businesses fail. So 900. [crosstalk 00:15:20] 100 left and 4% of them, so four out of a thousand, make it over a million. And everybody that I've ever talked to, almost everybody I've talked to who has a company worth over a million dollars has had moments of just opportunity they were ready for and they were able to take advantage of, but rarely was it a fully planned every step, we knew every customer that was going to come along, we predicted that customer five years ahead of time. It was, "Oh my gosh, we're hoping we can land a big customer. Wow, we're trying to find a big cut customer." We landed them and that was our great opportunity. But two or three years before that, it's like, "I don't know what that break is going to be. I don't know who that customer is." And for us it was a whole lot of customers in an industry.

Kathryn:             Well, and I think, we're definitely, as you have surmised, if you're listening, we are not talking about a company that you start that you have big investors from the beginning, that kind of thing. This is the-

Michael:             We bootstrapped everything.

Kathryn:             Bootstrapped everything. Everything. One of the other things I remember that just, I will never forget it and it always makes me smile thinking about it is sitting across the desk from the banker at about the two, three year mark, something like that.

Michael:             Where we thought we could go get a bank loan.

Kathryn:             We could go get a bank loan, naivete. I thought, "No problem. They'll trust and believe in us." And sat across from the banker who basically looked at me knowing our history and said, "I think you should go back and get a real job." And I was like, "What?" So I laugh about that because at the time it was just a gut punch.

Michael:             It was super painful.

Kathryn:             Oh my gosh, are you freaking kidding me? You don't believe that we're going to make it? You actually think we're not going to survive and one of us should have an income. Okay.

Michael:             Which goes to being a banker and an employee, a banker playing it safe. I mean, their job is to reduce the risk. Radically reduce the risk. [crosstalk 00:17:15]

Kathryn:             And we were definitely too big of a risk.

Michael:             They don't understand entrepreneurialism, but they certainly weren't going to give us any money. We were too much risk.

Kathryn:             But looking back and smiling and going, "You know what? Yeah, but we made it."

Michael:             We made it.

Kathryn:             And we saw that banker on and off over the course of the next few years.

Michael:             Because she lived right around the corner from your dad.

Kathryn:             And she was so happy we made it. She didn't wish us ill. She was just telling it the way she saw it.

Michael:             Talk about living in a smaller town, like the Chico.

Kathryn:             So I just remember that vividly. I mean, there's just moments in the history of 20 years. I mean-

Michael:             What was your favorite moment of... If I say this, first thing that comes to mind when I say the biggest moment of grace or just surprise opportunity over the years, what pops to your mind?

Kathryn:             So the first thing that pops to my mind is sitting in a conference room with a group of folks that we met with on a weekly basis who were supporting and encouraging each other in business. And the company that had that was a really great friend of ours named Doug. And Doug walked in after this one sharing time, and we were young in our business and we were struggling. It was 2005, six maybe. And he and his COO at the time handed as a check and it was like for a thousand dollars. And I remember him saying, "We're not exactly sure what you do. We're still not clear." Which was a pretty big, oh no. And that was by the way, during the season that we were trying to undo the fact that we're not just documentary filmmakers. So it wasn't that-

Michael:             We were about three and a half years, four years into the company.

Kathryn:             So we had just launched this documentary. They had invested in the documentary. So it wasn't that they didn't know anything, but in terms of what we were going to do moving forward after that documentary, that was all still a little muddy. So I just remember him saying, "I don't know what you're going to do for this, but we want to hire you." And he handed us a check and I was like, "Okay." So that is one of my favorite moments because that was somebody who just said, I believe in you and I trust you to do good work even if I'm not quite sure what that work is, so I'm going to take a risk.

Kathryn:             And the cool part about that story is that was probably late 2005 maybe early 2006, and they're a client to this day. They are our longest term clients. So I love that. That thousand dollars check turned into a great relationship, a great kind of co growth. They've helped us grow, we've helped them grow. It's just been a really fun partnership along the way. So that's the first story of grace that comes to mind for me.

Michael:             The first one that popped into my mind was Jim Desmo.

Kathryn:             Oh yeah. That was a good one too.

Michael:             So for those of you who would not know who Jim Desmo is, unless you've paid attention on a couple of episodes, Jim, first of all is an amazing guy who's probably in his early 90s now, definitely late 80s, early 90s. And Jim was one of the first 10 employees at Walmart. He actually worked for Sam Walden and his brother when they were partners. Before they had Walmart, they actually had three Ben Franklin stores. And if some of you are going to know what a Ben Franklin store is, it's an all of department store, craft store company, kind of like a Michael's back in the '50s, '60s and '70s, even into the '80s, because I worked at one in the '80s in high school.

Michael:             And because of some relationships we had, we were introduced to him because he was no longer working at Walmart. He had left Walmart after Walmart had 800 stores, something like that. And he, by some strange reason, fell in love with us and decided to take us on and mentor us and pour into us as one of our mentors. He came out and sat in that little garage.

Kathryn:             He did. And our little conference table.

Michael:             And brainstorm with us. And then he even invested money in us in paying for some of his leadership coaching staff, that one gentleman, I can't remember his name, who came out a couple of times and even stayed with us.

Kathryn:             And then he hired us to do some work for his company. And then he hired us to do work for that [crosstalk 00:21:24] Vegas company with one of his clients.

Michael:             His consulting clients. And took us to Vegas with him and working on that a couple of different times. And the Colorado or Fort Collins once. And there were just these moments of he just encouraged us. We still communicate periodically, but he believed in us and believed in that we had something great. And I guess one of the things that's amazing to me, because I was thinking about this with our friend, Don Rogers, who just passed away. We were at Don's funeral recently, Kathyrn and I are sitting there and we're listening and all that and walking through things. And one of the things that I was just reflecting on was how often Don and Jim and so many others, they believed we were more than we saw ourselves to be.

Kathryn:             Yeah they did. They believed we were legit. Sometimes I was living on their faith, let's face it. I was like-

Michael:             I mean, they would talk about you are this and they believed it. They weren't even blowing smoke, but they believed we were intelligent and smart and had something to offer. Many times when we were... we weren't lacking in confidence, but when they said it, I felt uncomfortable because I didn't feel like I was... I'm like, "I'm not really that. I mean, I'm okay, that's great."

Kathryn:             I'm on the way, but not quite yet.

Michael:             And then moments you're just like, "This is amazing. So cool to be able to hear that." So that encouragement over the years. I mean, as we talk about the process of becoming successful entrepreneurs, successful business people and success in our mind being A, your company actually is operating profitably and running fairly smoothly and everything else. But you are actually enjoying the process, the work, you're owing as a leader and everything else is we need those mentors and those people along in our lives.

Kathryn:             Yeah. Well I think sometimes we live in a world and especially in the self-help industry where it's tell yourself the truth all the time. Just make sure you're telling yourself in the mirror that you're amazing, you're good enough. And you're smart enough and talk on it, people like me. And so we say that and we push that and it does matter that we speak truth to ourselves. But the reality is there are so many times as a leader where you need someone else to speak into your life or to see something in you and be willing to say it so that they almost draw it out of you.

Kathryn:             And that's what mentors and coaches do for us. It's also what good friends do because they can see things that we're not able to see. They can encourage us when we're just slugging uphill in the mud. So we say that because we have those people in our lives, we want to be that in the lives of others. But if you have someone who you see something in, call it out, say something to them because it means so much when people actually identify what it is that you're doing in a tangible way that encourages them or gives them hope for what it is you have to offer the world.

Michael:             Well, and it's important for us as leaders to remember that sometimes we get so focused on our own visions and what we're doing on trying to build. And as leaders, we're good at this. I want to grow it, I want to be better at it. If not to make it bigger, to just know that we can and not be bored and know we can do better quality and we want.

Michael:             But what we're doing in the midst of this world is we're often just... I remember hearing somebody say we are by nature, pushing beyond our boundaries to the point where we get ourselves into places where we're like, "I don't know if I can do this fully." Or the demands on us are I think I have what it takes to figure this out but at the moment I don't know how to figure it out. We might be confident we'll figure it out. But there are moments when we are like, "I don't know how I'm going to figure it out." And we can get so buried in thinking about all that stuff about ourself, we quite frankly forget to look around and go, "Hey, good job. Well done." Especially to other leaders outside our company, inside our company too, but outside, go, "Man, look at what you're doing. You're doing a great job." Especially if they're doing well and we're not jealous.

Kathryn:             Well, and I think if we're just going to be honest, there is not a single leader out there who doesn't have some level of insecurity, no matter how much confidence they're projecting. So part of encouraging us, others is really helping them kind of process their insecurity and [crosstalk 00:25:53].

Michael:             Self doubt.

Kathryn:             Self doubt, all the fears, the moments when you feel stuck, when you can't see the way through or that thing that you're trying to build is taking forever. And you're not sure anyone's ever going to actually think it's valuable. All of those times we need people from outside to look at it and go, "No, seriously, this is valuable. No, that thing you said, that impacted my life. No, this thing that you do, that actually matters."

Kathryn:             I mean, yesterday we met with somebody, brand new client and when we finished, this girl who's been in town like 11 years looked at me and she said, "You guys are like a hidden gem. You're this resource. I didn't even know you existed."

Michael:             That was so cool.

Kathryn:             I thought to myself, "What is it about that, that so lifts my spirit." I mean obviously, wow, we're great. But it's deeper than that. There's that validation and that sense of we have something valuable to contribute and I think all leaders need that. They need to be reminded that what you're doing actually matters.

Michael:             Well, and there's a balance between that do people care about me and the saying we use all the time, it's not help unless it's perceived as help. Because we really do want to be helpful. And quite frankly, if you're yacking at somebody and giving them advice and it's not help, they don't perceive it as help. I don't care how helpful it is, if they don't see it as help then it's not helpful, because they can't see it. And a lot of times it's on our communication.

Michael:             So we've gone through so many different things and there's so many things we're grateful. I think we could talk for hours, but we do oftentimes about our gratefulness and places like that. As we change and look future into the company, into the future about the company, things like that. I mean, obviously some of the things that have happened over the years is we started the pet food company, Rabbit Hole Hay. For those of you who don't know, not only do we own a marketing and consulting firm and business to development firm, which is Half a Bubble Out, which is where HaBO Village comes from. If you don't know, HaBO's our nickname.

Kathryn:             We'll talk about that more in a minute.

Michael:             And we started a pet food company that almost went bankrupt a couple of times, the startup and the building of a manufacturing firm. And the reason it did quite frankly, is because not that it wasn't successful enough, it was too successful.

Kathryn:             Hard for the cash flow to keep up with the demand.

Michael:             And we were boot strapping that. [crosstalk 00:28:10] And we didn't have a lot of cash when we went in to handle and absorb that. Those are some lessons I've learned. It'd be nice to have some money in the bank, not to make up for not being successful, but to be able to survive the moments where you really are successful. Nobody ever taught us that.

Kathryn:             Cashflow is such an interesting thing in an e-commerce company, in a product based company.

Michael:             And I always thought it was cashflow was the issue of cash flow is I just need enough to survive. I just need enough oxygen to survive. And yet I didn't realize that that idea of it's one thing to have enough oxygen to live, it's another thing that when you get a chance to start running, you need more oxygen. And it's like, "Oh, I need more money because now we're running and really getting somewhere." And then we're hindered by our lack of resources. But Half a Bubble Out has grown to be a now multiple seven figured company. And that's really exciting. And it's still growing at a nice clip.

Kathryn:             And Rabbit Hole Hay too.

Michael:             Yeah. And Rabbit Hole Hay, an international company now. And those are really cool. And so thinking through that is really neat. But as we move forward, I mean, let's talk about how we changed our logo.

Kathryn:             We did. We changed our logo. It was such a big decision and we spent like six months doing it. We do this for clients all the time, but it was such a big deal. It gives me fresh insight into what it feels like for our clients as we walk them through this process, because it's a big deal to change your logo.

Michael:             Do you remember the first time we started thinking about changing our logo-

Kathryn:             It was a long time ago.

Michael:             ... for a season. It's been over 10 years.

Kathryn:             I've hated our logo for a long time, which is kind of funny. But you're like the plumber, you're like, "You know what, I'll deal with my pipes later. I'm too busy dealing... And nobody's paying me to fix my logo."

Michael:             None of our clients, I mean, everybody's always liked it.

Kathryn:             Yeah. But I got over it probably about two years into using it.

Michael:             And I've been trying to make it that better thing for a very, very long time. And I keep swinging around and probably gave up. The last time we tried was probably four or five years ago.

Kathryn:             So we decided to change the logo. We finally did. We found a designer we really like, we did it. It's up on our website. We did a big, huge announcement. [crosstalk 00:30:17]

Michael:             The ideas came at the right time.

Kathryn:             Yeah. And you know what we chose to make the main image, the acronym HaBO, H-a-B-O. So big H, small A, because otherwise HBO might, I don't know. Anyway, it was funny. So it's a HaBO. And part of the reason we did that is because even how we got to HaBO Village is nobody, nobody who works with us ever consistently calls us Half a Bubble Out. As soon as they get that name and they get who we are and they laugh about it, they shorten it to HaBO because it's just a mouthful.

Michael:             Well it becomes our nickname, right?

Kathryn:             Yeah, they just completely nickname us. So we have been laughing about the fact that we're Half a Bubble Out, but our friends call us HaBO. So now we're just inviting everyone to be our friend. So our main logo now says HaBO and it says Half a Bubble Out underneath it because we don't want to lose the Half a Bubble Out because it's an origin story for us and it matters a lot. So we're not dropping that or losing it. We're not changing the name of the company.

Michael:             The name of our company is still Half a Bubble Out but our friends call us HaBO.

Kathryn:             Yep. And obviously we've been living into that because we called this the HaBO Village podcast, not the Half a Bubble Out podcast, because again, it's a fricking mouth ball. So yeah, we've changed the logo. And the other thing that we've done is we've changed our tagline. So for years it's been telling your story, and it's really been marketing focused and we've had three words, marketing, advertising, consulting, with consulting being just kind of that tag on at the end. But what we've realized, and I was sharing this even with this guy yesterday who was new to our conference room is that we've been doing this business consulting, leadership development stuff with our clients for years.

Michael:             We're seniors.

Kathryn:             So they come to us for marketing. Typically, there's usually a marketing door that they come through, I need a website, I need this, I need that. But ultimately we end up doing business consulting and leadership development because of the different varying situations that the clients find themselves in, where we realize you have more than to a marketing need. Whether you don't know how to actually talk about yourselves, because you could never defined your values or whatever it is. We're backing them up into things that are... Before we can develop a website, we need to actually understand who you are. You need to understand who you are, you need to know how to talk about yourself.

Kathryn:             All of those things so that you're hiring better, so that you're training your people better, so that you're able to keep the promises we're going to make in marketing. Because it's amazing how many people want you to build a website to make promises they actually aren't equipped at their company to keep because of the culture or whatever else. So we've been doing all of this for a really long time. So we decided to change the tagline to this, developing the whole leader for the whole business. So that from the get go, the folks that are investigating us understand we're not just doing marketing, we're doing leadership and business development and we're looking at holistic business.

Michael:             But [crosstalk 00:33:16] we still are marketing and services because so many of our clients are like, "We need help. What do we do it?" Well, we do this well, we have a team that does this well. [crosstalk 00:33:25]

Kathryn:             Yeah. So we're not dropping the marketing agency. It's not that.

Michael:             Let our team help you, but we continue... You and I are really diving deeper into working with the leadership development, developing the curriculum for our workshops that we've already started this last year in 2021 and had some great workshops and some great times with some of our new clients and students. And just amazing people coming out and saying, "This is fantastic." From, "I'm new at business. Even though I've been doing stuff, I'm starting, I'm a new entrepreneur," to 17 million a year company saying things like, "We've been doing this for seven... for not longer than 17-"

Kathryn:             30 years.

Michael:             "30 years. And how did I never hear this? And this is fantastic." So gold nuggets that were... Because the goal is to really go, "I want to help you continue to finish well. I want you to grow the dream you want and finish well." Finishing well means the company's thriving, you have the exit or whatever that looks like for you successfully.

Kathryn:             And leaving the legacy that you want to leave. Right?

Michael:             Absolutely. The reputation, the legacy, the contribution. We talk about labor and toil, but at the end of the day we want our clients and we want all entrepreneurs, many as possible to be able to say, "Instead of toil, where I worked really hard and I'm just exhausted and I don't know if I ever got anywhere. It felt like a bunch of wasted time." To labor being at the end of the day, you're hot, you're sweaty maybe, but you look back and you go, "Look at what we did. We did a good day's work. It feels good because we worked hard and we accomplished a lot and we're moving forward and can take pride in this."

Michael:             We want them to have that sense of, we worked hard labor and we're seeing people do it and we want to see more people do it. We want to see way more people because there's not enough right now that are being able to survive, have a successful thriving company and figure out how to have enough bandwidth in the rest of their life to say my life wasn't just suck dry. But I was filled up, allowed to fill up by the other things in life, also family, faith-

Kathryn:             Community, all that kind of stuff.

Michael:             Yeah. I'm excited about where we're going, I'm excited about 2022. I'm excited that we get to celebrate all year long, our anniversary.

Kathryn:             If you're not on our email list, you should be. Because for our 20th anniversary, one of our core values is fun and we thought it would be really fun to give away something really cool every month of our 20th anniversary.

Michael:             Okay. So can I tell a story about that?

Kathryn:             Or gift giving.

Michael:             So when I was a little boy, I went to this birthday party of this little girl down the street. And [crosstalk 00:36:15] I mean, folks, I was three or four years old. And I still remember this birthday party. My mom and I went and we shopped for this cool thing. And I bought her these cool little shovel and rake kit that was for playing in the sand. We didn't live near the beach, but anyway, we lived near the park and a creek and all that kind of stuff. I don't know why we did that, but I thought it was pretty cool. And all the kids came to this party, we all brought gifts. And at the end, because of, I don't even know, I can guess that maybe some reasons, but I have no idea really what the reason was, we all got to take our gifts home. It was like playing with Monty Hall and whatever [crosstalk 00:36:57].

Kathryn:             It would've been a bummer if you'd got her beading kit.

Michael:             What was that show that Monty Hall was on? Let's Make a Deal. And you bring it present and you got to take the present home. Plus you got extra treats and things like that, that they had at the party. And we did a pinata and-

Kathryn:             Party favors.

Michael:             And her dad was one of those guys that actually he had a hobby of making ships and putting him in bottles. And I was just like, I'm four, "How did that get in that bottle?"

Kathryn:             I'm just still so glad you didn't get her beads or something that was girly.

Michael:             So girly, I got to take the shovel home and that was so cool. Well, that theme almost is, you know what? We have been so blessed, so prosperous, so many opportunities and we wanted to celebrate. So as Kathryn said, every month, we're going to do giveaways. We're going to give you presents for our anniversary.

Kathryn:             I know we're super excited about it. So if you don't know about that, definitely get on our email list or put something in the comments and we'll make sure you get connected, because there's a place you go sign up so that you can be on the list of people who are in the drawings.

Michael:             I have asked our staff not to put any ads out saying you want to enter a drawing. So our goal is anybody who's interested in what we do, listening to our community, opening our emails, you are the ones that are going to know. And we just are super excited to just have fun. And you never know what you're going to get. We don't know exactly what the prizes are, but there's going to be some good ones. And ooh, I know one and I have it and it's really cool. And it was given to me as a birthday president several years ago.

Kathryn:             Oh yeah. I know what that is. It is cool and it's fun.

Michael:             And it's fun and it's not cheap. You're not going to get like a $10 thing. We're going to spend a little bit of money on you.

Kathryn:             Because that's fun.

Michael:             Because that's fun. So get signed up, help us celebrate. And if you need any help with growing your business or growing your leadership and you think that Half a Bubble Out, Kathryn and I and our organization might be a good fit, or you're even wondering if it might be a good fit, we would invite you to email us at info@halfabubbleout.com, that's info@halfabubbleout.com. And just say, "Hey, I'm interested. I want to grow my company. I want to grow my leadership. I want to grow my legacy." And one of our staff would love to have a conversation with you about what it is you're trying to do. And if we're a good fit for you and you're a good fit for our training and our program, our coaching program and our workshops. Because this is a year we're pushing in even more. And Kathryn and I committed when we launched the book two years ago, year and a half ago.

Kathryn:             Not even a year ago.

Michael:             No. It's going to be two years in May.

Kathryn:             Oh golly. Yeah. 2020, huh? That went fast. Okay. Year and a half ago, he wins, I'm wrong.

Michael:             And we published that book to say, we're committed to building these companies that we call Passion and Provision companies to helping you build a company that's thriving financially and something that you own, but doesn't own you. The stress level is low. It gives you life and allows you enough space in your life to have life outside of the company. That's the way we've lived our life. We've continued to figure out how to do it. And we know that there are some really fundamental truths in the world while every company's different and all of these leaders are different. There are fundamental truths that we can all follow that are actually going to give us the margins we want in our life and the margins-

Kathryn:             That chance of success.

Michael:             The margins we want in our life relationally and the margins we want in our life financially. See how I did that?

Kathryn:             Ah, look at that.

Michael:             The margins and the margins.

Kathryn:             The margins and the margins. That was super smart. He's so proud of himself. You should see his face. He's like, "Look what I did."

Michael:             Look what I did. I just thought of that right on the spot. So I want to say thank you for joining us today. Thanks for listening to our stories about the past, what brought us here. And please continue to join us on our podcast and maybe think about joining us in our workshops as we move forward to continuing to build our own Passion and Provision companies and the life that we believe we're called to and helping others like you, other business leaders like you grow and do the same. So if we have the privilege of crossing paths with you in the future, or just having you as a guest, we're honored and we just say thank you for joining us. I'm Michael Redman and I'm Kathryn Redman. And this is the HaBO...

Kathryn:             Half a Bubble Out, HaBO...

Both:                  Village Podcast.

Michael:             Take care. Bye bye.

Kathryn:             Bye bye.