Episode 142 – Stacey Magovern

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Automated Transcription

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Stacey Magovern  0:00  

Well, in the for profit business, I have 200 police officers that work for us, that’s 200 families that rely on the off duty work that we provide, to make ends meet to supplement their incomes to pay for unexpected expenses. So that’s what gets me out of bed every morning. I know, there’s 200 officers that are going to need off duty work in the next 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. And so that keeps me motivated to keep going out there and finding those new contracts, finding those new security sides, all that stuff to keep these officers I want to make sure that they have exactly as much or as little off duty work as they need or want.

 

Richard Matthews  0:32  

Heroes are an inspiring group of people, every one of them from the larger than life comic book heroes you see on the big silver screen, the everyday heroes that let us live the privileged lives we do. Every hero has a story to tell, the doctor saving lives at your local hospital, the war veteran down the street, who risked his life for our freedom to the police officers, and the firefighters who risked their safety to ensure ours every hero is special and every story worth telling. But there was one class of heroes that I think is often ignored the entrepreneur, the creator, the producer, the ones who look at the problems in this world and think to themselves, you know what I can fix that I can help people I can make a difference. And they go out and do exactly that by creating a new product or introducing a new service. Some go on to change the world, others make a world of difference to their customers. Welcome to the Hero Show. Join us as we pull back the masks on the world’s finest hero preneurs and learn the secrets to their powers their success and their influence. So you can use those secrets to attract more sales, make more money and experience more freedom in your business. I’m your host, Richard Matthews, and we are on in 3…2…1…

 

Richard Matthews  1:27  

Hello and welcome back to The Hero Show. My name is Richard Matthews. And I’m live on the line today with Stacey Magovern. Stacey you there?

 

Stacey Magovern  1:34  

I’m here. Thanks for having me.

 

Richard Matthews  1:36  

Awesome, so glad to have you here. And we were chatting before we got on here. You’re from Texas. Is that right?.

 

Stacey Magovern  1:41  

Yes, originally from Abilene, Texas, but have spent the last 14 or so years right outside of Fort Worth Texas in a little town called Burleson.

 

Richard Matthews  1:51  

Burleson that’s funny. That is where we bought our first RV when we started our travels as we drove all the way across the country like 2200 miles and checked out three RVs and we stopped in Burleson, Texas, and bought our first RV and drove it home to California. So I’ve been there.

 

Stacey Magovern  2:07  

Yeah, it’s actually Kelly Clarkson’s hometown. But it’s growing like crazy. Nowhere near as small like it used to be.

 

Richard Matthews  2:15  

I managed to when we bought our RV and then 10 minutes after we signed the paperwork. I highly centered the RV over, you know how they have all the dips on the roads for water in Texas. Yeah, I high centered the RV in the driveway. The thing and they had to use a jack to lift us out. So now I’ve got good memories of Burleson Texas.

 

Stacey Magovern  2:39  

Yeah, wow.

 

Richard Matthews  2:40  

So anyways, for our audience who is just following along with my wife and I’s travels as we do this podcast. We’re still in Florida. We’re in Kissimmee right now. There’s a hurricane going around us. Hopefully, we’ll miss us. And I know you guys have gotten hit by a few this year, right?

 

Stacey Magovern  2:56  

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Of course, the worst was hard.

 

Richard Matthews  2:59  

You’re far enough North to not really.

 

Stacey Magovern  3:02  

Right, mostly Houston and down in that areas who gets the Hurricanes, but yeah.

 

Richard Matthews  3:10  

So what I want to do real quick, is to do a brief introduction for our audience who may not know who you are and what you do. And we’ll get into your story a little bit. So Stacey is the best selling author, keynote speaker, and founder of Point Blank Safety Services, which is a security company resourcing off duty police officers, and you are the co-founder of Blue Family Fund, a nonprofit benefiting families of first responders. So with that sort of brief introduction, why don’t you tell us a little bit about what you do, who you serve, and what you do for them?

 

Stacey Magovern  3:39  

We’re very passionate, my husband’s a police officer. So we’re very passionate about first responders. And years ago, as a police wife, I really saw a gap in the marketplace for off duty work for police officers. And so I solved the problem, I created a marketplace. So they can have as much or as little off duty work as they want. So every day we wake up, we’re helping police officers manage their bills and be able to make ends meet. And then with the success that we’ve had with Point Blank, we decided to form blue family Fund, which is a self funded nonprofit, where every single penny goes to help a family of a fallen or injured first responder either through a scholarship or through financial aid.

 

Richard Matthews  4:21  

That’s really cool. And just as a first note here, thank you and your family for your service. We always make it a point whenever we are driving around even when we get pulled over, which happens more often than not when you’re driving full time like we do. Always make it a point to thank the officers because I know it’s tough work that you do, and we appreciate it. And I can’t even imagine being the wife of a police officer and having to deal with that sort of stress that you guys have to go through. So we appreciate it.

 

Stacey Magovern  4:49  

Thank you. Thank you so much.

 

Richard Matthews  4:50  

And the other thing that’s always surprised me too, and I don’t know why, it shouldn’t surprise me but it does is, everywhere we go we meet police officers all time, they’re always, if you hit up the local restaurants and I always find the police officers are having lunch or whatever. They’re always super friendly and our kids always love to come up and say hi and thank them and whatnot. And they always have stickers or toys or other things that they’re handing out to kids. They’re super friendly. We even had one time where we had our coach overheated, while there was a traffic. There’s a traffic incident, we were stuck in traffic, and we pulled off to the side, let our coach cool down since it couldn’t just handle sitting there. And one of the lady police officers came over to check on us to see if we were part of the accident or something. And we’re like, no, no, our coach just overheated. We’re just waiting out the traffic, we don’t have to sit with the engine on. And she’s like, okay, that’s fine. She came back up, she had been going to some school event. And she had all of these police dolls, like little teddy bears that had police uniforms on and she gave all my kids teddy bears and stickers and other things. So it was super cool. That’s awesome. Yeah, yeah. So anyways, we have, we have a lot of respect for your work and what the police officers do. So anyways, just hearing that you guys are doing things to help that community is really cool. And I’m curious on on the Blue Family Fund, the second side of that the nonprofit, what made you want to get into starting that, that that second business?

 

Stacey Magovern  6:15  

Honestly, in 2017, my husband and I looked at each other. And we said, you know, we’ve been so blessed, we’ve had so much success with our for profit business, Point Blank Safety that we wanted to pay it forward or give back or however you want to say it. And we started researching different charities, and don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of good ones out there. But then there’s a lot that very little of your donation actually goes to the cause. It all goes to you know, huge overheads or huge salaries for CEOs. And you know, I work hard for my money, you work hard for your money, I just didn’t want to support that. So we said, we founded a company, let’s just go for it, and take the leap of faith and do the nonprofit thing and pay all the expenses ourselves. And so truly, every dollar you donate can go to help a family. And so we did, we started that in 2017. And just a couple of years we’ve been in existence, we’ve been able to help nine families, and we’ve given out three scholarships. We’re continuing to build awareness, that’s actually why I do podcasts is to build awareness for Blue Family Fund, and that there is a charity out there that doesn’t take your money for overhead or expenses, we really turn it right back around and give it to families in need, whether it be a scholarship or financial aid. We have a family right now that we’re trying to raise money. He’s an ex police officer, he had a stroke, he lives in a mobile home. And so he needs some renovations on his home, to be able to get the wheelchair around the small mobile home. So we’re trying to help him right now. And then prior to that, we raised some money for an officer that died from COVID in the line of duty. We’re constantly working to help these families that really need it.

 

Richard Matthews  8:01  

It’s really cool. So one of the things that I think would be really interesting for our audience to hear about because we’ve not had any guests on it have had experience with both a for profit and a nonprofit business. Can you talk a little bit about what is like running those two different types of businesses? How are you have to think about them or run them? When one is profit and one’s not profit?

 

Stacey Magovern  8:25  

It’s strange that it’s actually pretty similar. Except that, my husband and I take on all the expenses for the nonprofit, but you’re still constantly promoting, you’re still constantly trying to build awareness, you still have to do the quote-unquote, cold calls, if you will, we have a big fundraiser coming up in February. So I’m, constantly out there asking for donations for auction items, and sponsors, and all that stuff. So it’s still sales, if you will, it’s just you’re asking people for money to turn around and help someone. But it’s all the same activities, it’s still you got to put yourself out there, you’ve got to spread the word. You got to continually do those because the more people you talk to, the more chances you have of whether it be getting a new contract on the for profit side or getting a big donation on the nonprofit side. So I’m constantly wearing multiple hats. Luckily, both of our businesses support first responders, so they kind of go hand in hand. But every day I get up, whether I’m working on the blue family fund, or I’m working on point blank, I know I’m helping the families of those that put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe.

 

Richard Matthews  9:42  

Yeah, so the skills from the for profit business, were really transferable over to the nonprofit business.

 

Stacey Magovern  9:47  

Absolutely. Absolutely.

 

Richard Matthews  9:50  

Yeah, one of the things I’ve always thought and I’m not at this point yet with my business, being an entrepreneur has the best opportunity for you to be able to make a big impact. Where you can start-up nonprofits where you can help a lot of people in a lot of ways. Because you’re running a business that has profit, like in your case, you guys are spinning off enough profit from your for profit business to support the nonprofit to pay all the expenses, which is like that’s a really big gift that not a lot of people who are outside of the entrepreneur world can do. So, that’s really cool.

 

Stacey Magovern  10:28  

Well, in my opinion, every big company that is successful should do it. I mean, you should pay it forward, life is all about you get what you give, and if you’re able, I feel like, instead of getting the bigger house and the nicer car and all that material stuff, why not help some people? There’s no bigger reward than seeing that you helped change a life or maybe not change your life, but maybe just get someone over one of the hardest times in their lives.

 

Richard Matthews  11:01  

Yeah, absolutely. So I want to talk a little bit about your superpowers then, so we say on the show, every iconic hero has a superpower, whether that’s a fancy flying suit made by a genius intellect, or the ability to call down thunder from the sky. In the real world, hero’s have what I call a zone of genius, which is either a skill or set of skills that were born with or developed over time. That really energized all of your other skills. The thing that ties everything together the common thread, so to speak. And the superpower is what sets you apart and allows you to help your clients or your people slay their villains in their life and come out on top in their own journeys. So with that sort of framing, what do you think your superpower is?

 

Stacey Magovern  11:39  

I figured it out a long time ago, actually, I was an outside sales for years before I started my own business. And I realized really quickly. You call it a superpower, I call it a gift, I say every person in this world is born with a gift. And when you actually figure out what your gift is, your life changes, everything sort of opens up for you because you kind of figure out what your path is and where you’re supposed to be. And I figured out years ago that I have the ability to build trust very quickly, because of that I was able to build a huge outside sales career and be very successful. And be able to start both of these businesses and grow them to what they are today. People get inspired by me, I believe they get motivated by me because I think very big. Sometimes though that supervisor can also be a little bit of a flaw because I have to kind of rein myself in, because in my mind, I’m already retired on a yacht, and we haven’t even filed the paperwork yet. So sometimes I have to take a step back and go, okay, we can do this, but it’s gonna take some baby steps. But yeah, definitely it doesn’t matter what your gift is, I mean, maybe you bake the best apple pie in the country, whatever it is. When you figure that out, life completely changes and the rewards are limitless.

 

Richard Matthews  13:06  

Yeah, I have a friend of mine, she sat down with a whole group of us and was talking, she worked with fortune 500 company CEOs for a number of years. And one of the things that came up over and over again, with people who were wildly successful with their businesses, was that they only focused on the one thing. That thing was, whatever their superpower was, they built their life around it. And they ignored everything else. Because when you focus on your gift or your superpower, you can really push that to this sky is the limit kind of thing. And that’s where learning how to build a team, filling in places where you may have weaknesses and other things with other people. So you can just focus on the one thing that I’m really good at.

 

Stacey Magovern  14:04  

Yeah, I say that all the time. When I speak at events and so forth, I’m always talking about that, don’t try to do it all do the thing that you’re good at. And that’s what makes your business scalable. If you’re trying to be all hats, like you don’t want me in there doing Excel spreadsheets and numbers, that’s not my thing. My thing is being the face of the company and talking to people, building trust and, building a reputation. There are other people that are better at the book work and so forth. I preach that to people. If you’re not doing what builds your business and generates revenue if you’re spending your time on the busy work or the social media or whatever time consuming things there are. You’re creating a job for yourself, not a scalable business.

 

Richard Matthews  14:52  

Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing that you’re doing is you’re making it hard to eventually sell your business because all the systems are built into your work. And you’re limiting the amount of good you can do for other people.

 

Stacey Magovern  15:09  

Yeah, for sure. Cool.

 

Richard Matthews  15:11  

So the flip side then of your superpower is your fatal flaw. So just like every Superman has their kryptonite, or Wonder Woman has her bracelets of victory that she can’t remove without going mad, you probably have a flaw that held you back in your business, something that you struggled with. For me, it was things like perfectionism that kept me from shipping products or services, or lack of self care, which led to me letting my clients walk all over me because I didn’t have good boundaries, set up things like that. But I think more important than the flaw is how have you worked to rectify it and overcome it, so you could continue to grow. And hopefully sharing your experience will let our audience learn a little bit from you.

 

Stacey Magovern  15:46  

Yeah, I have a real problem with control. I want to manage every single process and every single step. And that’s just not possible in a scalable business. So I have a problem trusting that other people will do it the way I want it done or as good as I think I could do it. So when you realize that you have that issue, it comes back on you because if they aren’t doing it up to your standards, and maybe you didn’t explain it properly, I’ve had to call myself out several times and go, you know what, that wasn’t their fault. It was my fault because I wasn’t clear in my direction. So I had to take a step back and realize, I can trust other people. But I’ve got to be clear in my direction and clear specifically what I want as the outcome to be from them. And the more you communicate, and the clearer you are, the easier it is to outsource many different things I’ve learned over the years I can’t do it all. Even though sometimes I want to or try to, I’ve learned to step back. It’s taken time, and it’s hard, especially when it’s your baby, your business, you started it from nothing, it’s really hard to let loose of that control of all of it. But you’ll like I said, you’ll never have a scalable business if you don’t learn how to do that. And it’s okay, for people to make a mistake. It’s okay for something not to work out. Then we all learn together, we grow together, and we move forward, and hopefully make a better stronger company. But it’s definitely a learning experience. And it takes time. And still today I catch my self. Still, catch myself going, Oh, don’t do it for them, let them do it, and then, you know, go back with the coaching and the training. But it’s definitely a struggle.

 

Richard Matthews  17:39  

I regularly tell my staff that mistakes are stepping stones to greatness. And as long as as long as we communicate about them, and it’s just when we try to hide them or put them under somewhere that they turn into problems. But the other thing that you mentioned is like learning how to how to properly train your staff and put your systems together if they’re not doing it correctly. Most of the time, it’s not them. It’s on your systems or on your training. And I’ve learned that a lot. And what I found is the better I get at putting together solid systems or putting together solid training, or them on what I want done or clear expectations of the outcomes, the better the work output gets. And then I find out that not only can they do it just as well as I can, a lot of times they can do it better and faster than I can.

 

Stacey Magovern  18:33  

Right or they have some amazing ideas too. So it always helps just to listen, sit back and just listen to what the people that are doing it everyday have to say about it because I’ve learned a lot that maybe my way wasn’t the best way over the years.

 

Richard Matthews  18:50  

Yeah, that’s one of the things, we have weekly meetings with our staff, once a week. And one of the sections we have at the end of the meeting is Do you have any ideas for how we could improve our systems? Because like, I just built them, but you guys actually use them every day. So where are the struggle points? Where are the things that we could make it better change it or improve it or something like that. And that’s where we start to get a lot of the feedback that uses the collective genius of all the people that we bring in.

 

Stacey Magovern  19:21  

Absolutely, totally agree. Yeah.

 

Richard Matthews  19:25  

Cool. So I want to talk a little bit about your common enemy. So this is more in line with the people that we work to help. So every superhero has an arch nemesis, which is a thing they constantly have to fight against in their world. In the world of business. It takes many forms, but generally speaking, we’re talking about your clients. And it’s a mindset or it’s a flaw that you’re constantly having to fight to overcome. Something that you know, if you had your magic wand and you could pop them on the head as soon as they became a client. You could help them get better, cheaper, or faster results. And for you, I know you sort of have like two sides to your business, where you have the police officers that you’re helping, and then you have the people that you’re hiring them out to. So so maybe you could talk a little bit about the archnemesis on both sides of that.

 

Stacey Magovern  20:15  

Yeah, for me, police officers have a totally different mindset, totally different outlook, they’re very black and white, they’re very. I mean, black and white as in literal, as far as rules and expectations, and so luckily, I have my husband, who is a police officer, so he’s able to really get on the same page with these officers. And I’m more the sales, the big picture, it’s all grand, and it’s all going to be wonderful kind of outlook. So luckily, I do have him to help me speak to the officers and set up expectations and those things, and then as far as clients, we deal with really huge companies. So, I mean, I guess, obviously, clients that don’t pay, or clients that slow pay would be my nemesis, for sure. I mean, they’re used to really longer terms and things when you get into these really big clients. So, I have to kind of remind them that, I gotta pay all these officers, and our margins are pretty small. So we need to really get a check quickly.

 

Richard Matthews  21:34  

Do you guys, do you guys do things like, net 30? And net 90 terms and stuff like that?

 

Stacey Magovern  21:40  

Net 30. But the thing is, some of these companies are so huge that we work for because they’re doing highway construction, there are used to net 90 or somewhere along those lines, net 120 even, and we just can’t operate that way.

 

Richard Matthews  21:54  

That would be really rough on cash flow, if you had to do that 120 you have to float the business for four months?

 

Stacey Magovern  21:59  

Yes, it is. So you have to really go in, get in your negotiating hat and get in there and, and make them realize. I’m not building highways, I’m not the same size as them, we do a great business, but definitely not on their level. So I have to get paid a lot faster.

 

Richard Matthews  22:17  

Yeah, I remember, I worked for a solar company for a number of years. Because they were doing big construction for like working for energy companies and building the giant solar farms or whatnot. Or municipalities and whatnot, helping them build whatever they were building for powering the cities. And they used to always want to work on that 90, and that 120 terms. And they really had to plan the finances, because they’re like, we have to hire the people, and we have to buy all the materials, and we have rent the equipment and build all of this stuff. And then four months later, we get paid. And it’s profitable. But you have to float that money, which is it’s difficult to plan and do that, especially when they’re talking like they were doing like $8 million deals and stuff like that. So I mean, it’s rough.

 

Stacey Magovern  23:06  

Right, especially when your margins are small, if you’re running on an 18% 22% profit margin. That’s a lot of money that you’re floating for sure.

 

Richard Matthews  23:19  

Yeah, absolutely. So, with that, how do you handle some of those negotiations, and really make sure that you are getting those net 30 terms that you can work with? And sort of making sure that your business is fiscally viable?

 

Stacey Magovern  23:36  

Yeah, I’ve gotten better over the years, originally, when we got our first $1.5 million contract, we’re just so happy to get it that you take whatever terms they put out there, because you’re just like, Oh, my gosh, our business is finally legit. My business is finally legit. I mean, that’s a true story, by the way, I was in the bathroom, putting on my makeup getting ready for work. And FedEx rang the doorbell. And it was a $1.5 million contract for my company to provide police officers on a project in Dallas. And, so originally, you just take the terms, but then as you learn in business, that’s not going to work because you’re having to either factor your invoices or you’re having to take out loans or whatever, which eats into all the profit. Now I’m very strategic about contracts and terms and make sure that everybody understands exactly what it has to be, but it’s a learning experience. You live and learn and you figure things out as you go. And, I’ve made a lot of mistakes over the years, but I’ve done a lot of things right. And I just think you have to just learn and grow and if you do make a mistake, accepting a term that doesn’t work well just learn from it and next time do it differently.

 

Richard Matthews  24:51  

Yeah.

 

Stacey Magovern  24:52  

It’s all part of doing business.

 

Richard Matthews  24:54  

Yeah, have you had to learn how to do the whole negotiating thing where you come in with one spot and you know that you’re gonna have to give ground and things like that?

 

Stacey Magovern  25:01  

Oh, yeah, that’s sales, no matter what you’re selling, there’s always that negotiation all the way down to the signing of the contract. The great news is with what we do is that Txdot reimburses these contractors for a lot of the services, including police officers. So, it’s pretty much a guarantee that they’re going to be paid, and then we’re going to be paid. So there’s not a lot of risk in it.

 

Richard Matthews  25:27  

That’s cool. It’s an interesting discussion, for sure. Especially when you’re talking about big contracts and net terms and whatnot. It’s not a common discussion we get to have on this podcast. So anyway, it’s really fascinating. So my next question for you is more about your driving force. So your common enemy is something that you have to fight against your driving force is the thing that you fight for. So just like Spider Man fights to save New York or Batman fights to save Gotham, or Google fights to index and categorize all the world’s information. What is it that you guys fight for in your business?

 

Stacey Magovern  26:01  

Well, in the for profit business, I have 200 police officers that work for us, that’s 200 families that rely on the off duty work that we provide, to make ends meet to supplement their incomes to pay for unexpected expenses. So that’s what gets me out of bed every morning. I know, there are 200 officers that are going to need off duty work in the next 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. And so that keeps me motivated to keep going out there and finding those new contracts, finding those new security sides, all that stuff to keep these officers I want to make sure that they have exactly as much or as little off duty work as they need or want. And then on the nonprofit side, we continually have requests coming in, I think I talked a little bit earlier about the most recent requests of an officer that needs some revisions on his home, because he’s had a stroke, and it’s in a wheelchair. So you know, we want to be able to help every one of the requests that come in obviously, we’re probably not ever going to be able to do that. But when a request comes in for help of any kind, I really take it seriously. And I really try to figure out any way I could help the family because they’re reaching out because they really need it. So that’s a lot to help you get out of bed in the morning. And it’s a lot of weight on your shoulders to know, oh my gosh, I gotta raise money for this family. I’ve got to find off duty work for this family. So totally, that’s the driving force.

 

Richard Matthews  27:26  

I remember one of the lessons that really stuck with me when I was working in the corporate world as i was mentoring right under the president of the company. I was on the C level team doing the marketing. And I reported to the president of the company every week, and I got to sit in and work with him a lot. And one of the things he said to me that really stuck was that they had 115 employees. He’s like, every morning when he got up. He’s like, the thing that he was most interested with the company is how do I make sure that we have payroll? Ready every two weeks for all of these employees, like everything else that they do, right, the services they provide the contracts that they’re signing, everything that they’re doing, and making sure legal is working right, making sure everything, all of the stuff in the business is coming down to I have 110 families and their children that if we don’t make payroll, they don’t eat.

 

Stacey Magovern  28:20  

Right. That’s so true. 100% true.

 

Richard Matthews  28:23  

Yeah, I feel the same way. And it really stuck with me. And I remember at the beginning of the COVID crisis when everything was sort of up in the air, and I had a couple of clients that were like, Hey, we’re gonna have to pause working, my first thought was, like, I have a small staff, we’ve only got three people plus myself I was like, I’ve got three other families that are relying on the work that we do. And I was like, we got to get to work and find new contracts and get stuff going. Because it’s not an option to just roll over and die. Because it’s not just me, It’s it’s me and my family, my employee’s families. So and I know you guys are probably the same way. And I guess speaking of that, how were you guys affected by the major pandemic and like your work in contracts and that kind of stuff?

 

Stacey Magovern  29:08  

Well Txdot, the construction in Texas is always gonna be there. We did slow down for a few months. But, we joke that in Texas, there’s two seasons, winter and highway construction. So it’s always the case and it is true. So we’re a little bit different. Ours is a real niche business. So we weren’t horribly, I mean, we were affected a little. We definitely had a drop in revenue. And we’re recovering now from that but, I feel bad for the businesses out there that were just totally devastated and have now gone under it. It breaks my heart that, you work your whole life to create something, and then even I mean, the ones by the pandemic, and then the ones destroyed by looters and just all of it it’s just so sad to me.

 

Richard Matthews  29:57  

Yeah, yeah, it definitely is. So speaking of like working with Txdot, and working in Dallas and those areas, Do you have plans to expand outside of Texas or like, beyond the Dallas metro area or anything like that?

 

Stacey Magovern  30:12  

We would like to I mean, right now, Texas is huge. So we haven’t even broken into Houston yet. So we’re still working on expanding to all the Texas, which is a huge process. But, we’re absolutely interested, Nevada has sort of the same jurisdictions for their officers that Texas does. So we’d love to expand in Nevada and some other states. Obviously, I love to gamble. So you know, that’s a perfect fit.

 

Richard Matthews  30:39  

That would help.

 

Stacey Magovern  30:39  

Yeah, so dang, I gotta go back to Las Vegas. Darn it. But anyway, so sure, yeah, we’re always open to growing the business and helping as many families as we possibly can.

 

Richard Matthews  30:54  

Yeah, so one of the things that just sort of popped into my head, while you’re talking about that, is Uber’s example of how they have the, what you call it the taxis and whatnot, where we’re staffers, are you doing the same kind of thing where you’ve developed an app where, or developed a system where your officers can be like, Hey, here’s the hours I have available. And a company can be like, hey, I need officers, and they just sort of connecting them together. Is that how you work?

 

Stacey Magovern  31:16  

Yes, pretty much. I mean, it’s not an app. But yeah, my husband actually is the Excel genius. So he put together the whole scheduling system. So 30 days in advance, you send us your availability schedule, and then we know what we have as far as clients, and then we plug you in, to where there’s a need for officers. And then that goes out. The great thing about us is that you know, up to 30 days in advance, when you’re working, where you’re working, when you’re going to be paid, which is a lot different from any other off duty work, my husband did some off duty work before we started this company, and it was so random. We never knew when he was going to get to work, we never knew when we were going to get paid. And so that’s kind of how I came up with the idea for the company. I said, there’s got to be a better way, there’s got to be a way to fill this gap in the marketplace where officers know, my husband would work a 12-hour shift, come home, pop a beer, and then they call on him for off duty work. Well, if you’d only known, that he was going to have to work or that he could work, you know, he wouldn’t have done that. So we decided there’s got to be a better way. And so we took his scheduling and all those capabilities and my sales capabilities and put them together and made this company work.

 

Richard Matthews  32:36  

Yeah, so one of the things I’m curious about, which I know might be a little bit on the political side, but it sounds like police officers may not be getting paid enough to do their regular work, which is why the off duty work is attractive. Is that a problem that is common in the industry?

 

Stacey Magovern  32:52  

It’s very well, at least in Texas, I don’t know about everywhere. But in Texas, there’s a lot of rural departments, there’s a lot of small town departments. And those guys make almost nothing. It’s really sad. And those guys are our police officers because they truly want to serve. That’s their calling. Now, you get into some of the bigger cities, the Dallas PD and Fort Worth and Houston, those guys make a pretty good living and some of them still work off duty, but the need isn’t as great. But in the smaller towns and communities, they can’t make it on their salaries.

 

Richard Matthews  33:32  

That is an unfortunate thing, especially when our country is having its discussions about defunding the police, which I think is ridiculous, personally, but, it’s that same, that same mentality we have with teachers too. Teachers are educating the next generation, and then our police officers are protecting our current one. We should be able to figure out as a society, how to pay them well,

 

Stacey Magovern  33:56  

It’s a different world today, for sure. My son had a wreck the other day, on his way to work, and we called the police and they said we just don’t have the staff. Unless someone’s hurt we just can’t come. And I’ve never lived in a world like that before where we’re police didn’t come every time they were called. But now they’re so short staffed and some of them defunded so they really can’t.

 

Richard Matthews  34:22  

Yeah, it’s crazy. And I’ve heard there’s places because we travel all the time so we hear from a lot of the other traveling families were in groups and stuff that there are places in the country now where they have billboards up before the cities that say, Hey enter at your own risk. We’ve defunded our police here, that’s insanity that’s happening in America.

 

Stacey Magovern  34:43  

Absolutely crazy.

 

Richard Matthews  34:45  

Sounds like Mad Max to me.

 

Stacey Magovern  34:47  

Yeah, I never thought I’d see the day but

 

Richard Matthews  34:52  

But here we are. So I want to talk a little bit about some practical things. I call this your heroes tool belt and just like every superhero has awesome gadgets like batarangs, or web slingers, or laser eyes. I wanna talk about the top one or two tools that you couldn’t live without in your business could be anything from your notepads, your calendar, to the tools you use for marketing or something you use for your actual service delivery. Anything you think is essential to getting the job done on a daily basis.

 

Stacey Magovern  35:20  

Yeah, the first thing that comes to mind is I have a great marketing team. I use Love Media Group, they’re based in Fort Worth, they do all my websites. Te blue family, fund.org, point blank safety.com. Stacey magovern.com, they do everything for me, they also do a lot of my social media, and all my video creations and content, we have a new video out for Casino Night, which will be our big fundraiser for next year. Without those guys, I don’t know where I’d be as far as marketing. They’re really awesome. And then probably the other one that comes to mind as we use fresh books, I know most people love QuickBooks, but we use Freshbooks. It’s a company out of Canada. And it enables us to really track hours for every single officer and Bill our clients via email and you can also log all expenses from your phone. And I just love it. It also integrates with our direct deposit. And I can at any moment at any given time, you know, just pull it up on my phone and know exactly how much I’m owed, and who’s paid and who hasn’t. And all that kind of stuff. So probably those are the two main things that I don’t know what I do without them.

 

Richard Matthews  36:34  

Yeah, it’s funny too like when you get to a certain size, how important the accounting stuff becomes, where you’re like, we got to make sure all the invoices and numbers and hours and everything is getting paid. I’m just at a point where we’re using a software called Hubstaff, which tracks all of our employee’s hours, which is super cool. But like, there’s so much to it that I’m like, I’m just barely scratching the surface on like learning how to use it. I haven’t even figured out how to get it to send me reports yet on things. I can just go in and check. But they’re like, we can send you reports and do all these things. But I do have it now like I’ve almost got it to a point where we can like we can track like work that’s being done to a specific project, and almost find out how much it costs for that project, which is sort of what I wanted. I wanted to find out like, Hey, you know, because we run a podcasting agency, how much does it cost us in labor to accomplish a single episode? Because that’ll help us really nail our pricing for the industry. And like there’s like all the tools are there. And we’re tracking it all. I just haven’t figured out how to put it all into reports yet. 

 

Stacey Magovern  37:38  

That’s the thing about some of these. Some of the software is so complicated.

 

Richard Matthews  37:45  

As you grow, you have to learn how to use them.

 

Stacey Magovern  37:47  

Yeah, that’s why I love fresh books. It’s so simple and straightforward. I’m all about ease. Let’s get the easiest one out there for sure.

 

Richard Matthews  37:58  

Speaking of Heroic Tools, I want to take a few minutes to tell you about a tool we built that powers the Hero Show and is now this show’s primary sponsor. Hey, there fellow podcaster. Having a weekly audio and video show on all the major online networks that builds your brand creates fame and drive sales for your business doesn’t have to be hard. I know it feels that way. Because you’ve tried managing your show internally and realize how resource intensive it can be. You felt the pain of pouring eight to 10 hours of work into just getting one hour of content published and promoted all over the place. You see the drain on your resources, but you do it anyways. Because you know how powerful it is hack you’ve probably even tried some of those automated solutions and ended up with stuff that makes your brand look cheesy and cheap. That’s not helping grow your business. Don’t give up though, the struggle ends now introducing push button podcasts a done for you service that will help you get your show out every single week without you lifting a finger. After you’ve pushed that stop record button. We handle everything else uploading, editing, transcribing, writing, research graphics, publication and promotion, all done by real humans who know understand and care about your brand, almost as much as you do. Empowered by our own proprietary technology, our team will let you get back to doing what you love. While we handle the rest. Check us out at push button podcast.com forward slash hero for 10% off the lifetime of your service with us and see the power of having an audio and video podcast growing and driving micro celebrity status and business in your niche without you having to lift more than a finger to push that stop record button. Again, that’s push button podcast.com forward slash hero. See you there. And now back to the Hero Show. 

 

Richard Matthews  39:34  

So I want to talk a little bit about your own personal heroes, every hero has their mentors like Frodo had Gandalf or Spider Man has his Uncle Ben or Robert Kiyosaki had his rich dad, who were some of your heroes? Were they real life mentors, speakers, or authors, maybe peers who were a couple of years ahead of you, and how important were they what you’ve accomplished so far in your business?

 

Stacey Magovern  39:53  

I think my mom was my biggest mentor. I call her the original badass, she started a retail store out of Abilene, Texas when I was five months old. She grew that store into five locations. And she ran it everyday for 44 years. She left every day for work before 7am. And she came home every night after six. And I don’t ever remember eating takeout. We had a home cooked meal on the table every night. So, to me, that’s the sign of a true badass. And she only had, Sundays off, she was closed on Sundays. So she really showed me more than told me, your actions speak louder than words is what I’m trying to say. And so she really showed me how to start a business, run a business grow business. I remember spending lots of childhood years after school and on weekends in the back of her store playing with Barbies and then eventually she had me wrapping gifts for customers at Christmas and entering stuff into the computer system and tagging and hanging the merchandise. So I really learned from her that work ethic and that tenacity and that never give up mentality. If you don’t know anything about Abilene, Texas, it’s a small little West Texas town with about 100,000 people. And if it wasn’t for two colleges and an Air Force Base, there would be no Abilene there’s no industry or anything like that. And she grew this into five locations in that one town, and really just became an icon dressing, the women of the big country. Still don’t even realize and understand how she did it, but enormously successful. And obviously, the person that I’ve always wanted to impress and make proud my whole life.

 

Richard Matthews  41:52  

That’s awesome. Does she still run those, those stores?

 

Stacey Magovern  41:55  

No, she was tragically murdered in August 2018. So everything I do now is for both of us trying to live. After she was murdered, I was in a state of robot mode, I call it kind of shock or whatever or disbelief and just kind of went through the motions. I was getting up every day and doing what I’m supposed to do. But I wasn’t really there. And then one day, about six months after the murder, I kind of I just woke up. I mean, like really woke up and said, Wait a minute, this is not what she would want, she would want me to go bigger go louder. she’d want me to do more things to help more families, she would want me to live for both of us. And so that’s what I’m doing. I just wrote a book and it really talks about a lot of it’s about her and her inspiration. How I became who I am because of her and, and all that. So it’s on Amazon.

 

Richard Matthews  42:53  

Yeah, that’s a that’s really rough in a difficult story. I’m sorry, I had to go through that. So my sort of, like follow up question to that is, do you know what happened to the stores? like are they still there? Or did they get over to someone else?

 

Stacey Magovern  43:10  

She had just, my stepdad still owns the buildings, but they had just she had just retired just a year before she was murdered. So she had retired from running the stores, and now they lease them out to different businesses, they still own the property and still own the locations. Prior to the murder, about a year before that she had gone ahead and retired and just started renting them out.

 

Richard Matthews  43:38  

That’s interesting. It’s sad to hear about a business icon having an ends like that. That’s not the way we want our stories to end. But hopefully, you can continue and carry on her story and carry on that legacy. And sounds like you’re doing a great job of that, with the businesses that you’re running.

 

Stacey Magovern  43:55  

I’m trying for sure. Always want to make her proud.

 

Richard Matthews  43:58  

As we come to the end of this interview, I’m gonna talk a little bit about your guiding principles. One of the things that make heroes heroic, is that they live by a code. For instance, Batman never kills his enemies, he only ever brings them to Arkham Asylum. So as we wrap up this interview, I want to talk about the top one or two principles that you use regularly in your life and to run your businesses. Maybe if something you wish you’d known when you first started out all those years ago?

 

Stacey Magovern  44:27  

I have a couple but the one that comes to mind the most is the one that shocks people the most, and I don’t understand why but I always say, be willing to work with your competition. When I go into a meeting, and they tell me, Stacey, we just signed a contract with Dallas PD or Fort Worth PD or whoever. I just say, great. That’s awesome. My competitor, I’m trying to do exactly what you just hired them to do. But that’s awesome. Just let me be the backup vendor. Just let me be the vendor. They can’t feel the need of however many officers or when they screw up or heaven forbid, there’s a tragedy in their city and they all get pulled off your job. Let me be the backup vendor. And then what happens, Richard is, they call me I’m the backup vendor, I have the perfect process. I’ve been doing this a really long time, we know exactly what we’re doing all our officers have been doing it for over five years. They’re all National Highway Institute trained. So when that happens, I end up gaining the customer for life. So just don’t ever be scared of your competition. If you’re not really willing to go toe to toe, no matter how big that competition is, then you need to go back and look at your business and look at your processes and really perfect what you do.

 

Richard Matthews  45:49  

Yeah, there’s a term in the restaurant industry called coopetition. Which is the idea that restaurants do better when they’re with their competitors. Everyone wants to go to the same place and pick a spot to eat. You don’t want to be the loan restaurant often nowhere else, because then you have to be a destination. You have to have something that creates the draw. And so I’ve always sort of figured that probably applies to a lot of businesses, you just don’t have the visual of like all the restaurants in the same place. That more competition in your space is not necessarily a bad thing. It just means that there’s a demand and a spot, there’s demand there. When you live in that abundance mentality of we’re actually creating value, we’re not cutting out slices of the pie, then competition isn’t a scary thing.

 

Stacey Magovern  46:37  

Right? Well, and I always say, you know, there’s enough business for everybody, let’s all just get along. There’s enough business for us all, I’m not trying to get all the business, I’m just trying to get my piece of business. And everybody else should, should do the same.

 

Richard Matthews  46:55  

I think that’s a good place to wrap our interview. But I do finish every interview with a simple challenge, which is how you got here from Donnie’s episode called the Hero’s Challenge. And I do this basically, to help me get access to stories I would never find out on my own. So it’s pretty much it’s a selfish question. But do you have someone in your life or in your network that you think has a cool entrepreneurial story? Who are they, first names are fine? And why do you think they should come to share their story with our show, and with our audience here on the show, first person that comes to mind for you.

 

Stacey Magovern  47:24  

First person that comes to mind is Angela Lamb. She runs a Farmers Insurance Agency. And she has a really cool story, she was working, I think she was working for someone else, and then something happened, I’ll let her tell the story, but really made her decide she wanted to work for herself. So I would definitely call out Angela, I think she would really be a great story to be on your show.

 

Richard Matthews  47:50  

Awesome. Well, we’ll reach out to Angela after or reach out to you and see if I can get an introduction to Angela after the show. But what that leaves us with is our send-off in comic books. There’s always the crowd of people who are standing around cheering and clapping for the acts of heroism. So as we close are analogous to that is I want to find out where people can find you. If they want your help in the future, where can they light up the bat signal so to speak, and say, Hey, you know what I have, a police officer that needs some off duty work, or if they want to if they’ve got something that needs help with the nonprofit, where they can go to get that help. And I think, more importantly, is who are the right types of people to reach out for either of those situations. So you know, they know where to go?

 

Stacey Magovern  48:28  

Yeah, well, Blue Family Fund is bluefamilyfund.org. And we’re also on all the social media. There’s a forum on our website where they can apply for a scholarship or apply for financial aid. And then Point Blank Safety Services is point blank safety.com. And there’s officer signup pages on there for officers that want off duty work. Or if you just want to learn more about us, and you want to hire someone that’s not just a guy with a flashlight, you want to hire an actual trained police officer, you can go to our site and submit a request for services. And then Stacey mcgovern.com, and it’s the site where you can find me to be on a podcast or to speak at your next event, or your conference. I have a really motivational kind of story about that $1.5 million contracts that really seems to resonate with a lot of people as kind of the true American dream. So yeah, just look us up online or any social media. We’re out there.

 

Richard Matthews  49:26  

Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story with us today. Stacey, it’s been a pleasure having you on Do you have any final words of wisdom for our audience before I hit this stop record button?

 

Stacey Magovern  49:35  

And I think I think we’ve gone over a lot. Thanks. Thanks again for having me. It was really fun.