Epic Entrepreneurs
Welcome to Epic Entrepreneurs! What does it take to build a real and thriving business in today’s world? As entrepreneurs and business owners, we went into business to have more freedom of time and money. Yet, the path of growing a business isn’t always filled with sunshine and rainbows. In this chart-topping show, host Bill Gilliland; author of the best-selling book “The Coach Approach” leverages his decades of experience coaching proven entrepreneurs to make more money, grow the right teams, and find the freedom of EPIC Entrepreneurship.
Epic Entrepreneurs
Faith Over Fear: How Nancy Martin Built The Garage Authority From The Ground Up
Ever wondered what it truly takes to build a resilient business that survives economic downturns, pandemics, and natural disasters? Nancy Martin's journey with The Garage Authority provides a masterclass in faith-based entrepreneurship and values-driven leadership.
Starting from scratch in 2011 during a construction industry slump, Nancy and her son transformed a simple storage solution business into a comprehensive home organization company. What began as a dealership for the monkey bar storage system has evolved into a thriving enterprise offering custom solutions for garages, pantries, offices, laundry rooms, closets, and mudrooms. Their tagline—"transforming spaces into exceptional places"—perfectly captures both their service offering and business philosophy.
Nancy's approach to business stands apart in today's marketplace. She attributes her company's 14 years of consistent growth primarily to faith. With remarkable employee retention—some team members staying over eight years—Nancy has cultivated a culture where both clients and staff feel genuinely valued. Her servant leadership style involves regular vulnerability, asking long-term employees, "What could I do better to help you succeed?"
The misconceptions about entrepreneurship—that it's easy or primarily about personal freedom—fall away as Nancy describes the "strong stomach" required to weather the inevitable ups and downs of business ownership. Her advice to aspiring entrepreneurs combines ambition ("set big, hairy, audacious goals") with humility ("you don't arrive until you die"). Through economic challenges and Hurricane Helene, Nancy's mantra "this too shall pass" has kept her grounded, while her commitment to continuous growth ensures The Garage Authority remains innovative and client-focused.
Ready to transform your own space or business? Connect with Nancy through their website at www.thegarageauthority.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/theGarageAuthority to experience their exceptional service firsthand.
Website: http://www.thegarageauthority.com/
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Bill
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Bill
Hi there and welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. I'm Bill Gilliland, your host. I'm the principal at the Action Business, co Gross Partners and the Asheville Business Summit. And just a reminder before we have a chat here with our guests to make sure that you get your tickets to the Asheville Business Summit this year on September 23rd, we need to get it, you're going to need to get them now. Just go to wncsummitcom and all the information will be there. Now. I am super pumped today to have Nancy Martin from the Garage Authority, to have Nancy Martin from the Garage Authority. Tell us a little bit about you and the Garage.
Speaker 2:Authority, nancy. Well, we've been blessed to be in business for 14 years. We started the company back in 2011 from the ground up and my son and I actually started it at the time. He's not been in the business with me for the last 11 years, but we started it together.
Speaker 2:At the time I had already been in construction doing design work and he was graduating from college, so he was trying to find something to do and construction at the time was actually kind of down.
Speaker 2:You know, most of my builders were barely surviving, the architects were having trouble surviving and it was not a great time in 2011 to get into construction.
Speaker 2:So my son didn't have an opportunity to go work for somebody with a building science degree, so he decided to start his own business so he could earn a living and get going. So we did that and we initially started as just a dealer for the monkey bar storage system and we've been, you know, the first year out we were profitable and every single year we just kept growing and grew and built it and moved over to where we are in Buckshulls Road now in the industrial park. We've been in this location for 10 years and we've expanded and doubled our space and we've just been blessed through the pandemic, through all of it. You know my background is sales and marketing. I actually had a computer software background but have been in construction for the last 20 years designing cabinets. So it's been an interesting ride, especially starting in 2022 and 2023 and even 2024 with Hurricane Helene. Those have been some of the biggest challenges of my entire career.
Speaker 1:So you do more than just garages, though right. So you do more than just garages, though right.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. About a year and eight months ago, because of my background doing whole houses, where I had done entire homes of cabinetry, we expanded to and we added in another line where we actually do. We also do pantries and offices and laundry rooms and closets and you know everything mudrooms basically anything except the kitchen. We can pretty much do, depending on what somebody wants. So we get creative. We have other lines. We even have a custom guy in Charlotte that will do some of the unique things that we can design and we provide the solution.
Speaker 2:Basically, we live our tagline. Our tagline is transforming spaces into exceptional places. So that's what we work to do. We want to keep that. We want to be extraordinary, we want to stand out from the crowd and we don't like to be just any old contractor. You know we don't vision ourselves as selling a product. What we do is we provide a service. We provide a service to serve our client.
Speaker 2:Even though we do floors, we do beautiful metallic floors, metallic epoxy chip floors. We think we're the best because we know that the products we do, the process that we provide and the people that work on our team are committed, that we provide and the people that work on our team are committed. We've had team members that have been with us eight years, actually over eight years, some of them over six years. So it's the culture that we hire and we hire for character. We want everybody that works for us for people to feel comfortable that if your wife was home alone or you had your teenager there to let them in, you'd feel okay.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's the kind of people that we have on our staff and they are committed. We want people that are excited. We want people that want to serve and provide a great end result, so that when we walk out, even from the estimate we do this complimentary design consultation find out what people are looking to accomplish. People get excited before the product's even installed just because of the fact that they're finally getting a solution to something that's been gnawing at them you know, the mess in their office or the mess in their closet or the mess in their garage. They finally have a place for everything to go and not only be functional but have an incredible design that extends the design of the home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. I love that. Let me flip gears a little bit. I want to talk about some of your business experience. So let me ask you something. You've been in this 14 years and you've got extensive sales and marketing career. If you had to start over again in business, what would you do differently?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm also. Yeah, what would I do differently? That's a great question. I think I would establish some of the things that I have established now right up front, because in the beginning I didn't have our core values established. I mean, I knew the way I run business, I knew what my values were, but in even hiring for character, we didn't do that up front.
Speaker 2:But also the standard operating procedures that we've been putting in place. They're so important so that people, our people understand, you know what they are. So over the years, you know you learn so much from your mistakes and the issues that come up so that you have more policies, more procedures, more ways to handle things Oops, sorry about that so you have more ways to handle things as they come up. But I think that's the main thing is just, you know, establishing those values so people know. I mean, we have made it very clear that we are a faith-based business continually and that's important because we're bold about that. You know we really give the credit and the glory to God for the blessings that we have, and I don't think I did that in the beginning. I didn't do that earlier in my career, you know I was a consultant as well, and I have been for 27 years.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I think you change your values, and what's important and knowing what's important I think that's one of the things that I love to do is to make sure that everybody feels cared for, even my clients, to know that we're going to make them happy.
Speaker 2:You know we don't leave somebody not satisfied and we go back. So I think that, and also just the other part that I've learned from my mentor, john C Maxwell, who I've studied under particularly for the last five, six years, is that if somebody, if I, can delegate more and if somebody could do something 80% as well as I can, you know to try and delegate more. And just how I deal with my own people as well, I mean I do disc assessments, personality assessments of my team and what is their genius, and try and make sure that people as well as myself are working in their strengths more. And I haven't mastered that yet, I'm not great at it yet. Just even the delegation part, because when you're the owner, you kind of have your pot and everything, but I don't like to micromanage, but I want to make sure I get the right people on the bus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know Maxwell's awesome when it comes to leadership, what I think you may have covered this, but I mean any other learnings that you've had as an owner and an employer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh gosh. Well, you know, there's a lot. I mean, even like during the pandemic, I mean everybody was scared. And so I had my team go home for a day and then I realized that we had an incredible opportunity because we were an essential business. We could qualify as an essential business because we were in construction. We're an essential business, we could qualify as an essential business because we were in construction. So then I, you know, and everybody was scared, and so I said you know, it's a matter of choosing faith over fear, and we've done that a lot and we've had to do that over and over and over again so many times, you know. And then just realizing that when something comes up, and then just realizing that when something comes up, a truck breaks down, anything happens, you take it in stride because there's a reason for that. You have to be open to that and open to where you can find opportunities. And it's all about how you approach things. It's just again.
Speaker 2:John Maxwell wrote that book about failing forward and I could tell my team experience is not the best teacher, but evaluated experience is. And what did we learn from what happened? What can we do different next time? And that's the key. It's like okay, we talk about the mistake or we talk about an issue, but what can we change? What can we? How can we approach it differently so we can get better? I mean, that's one of our values, it's not to get bitter, but to get better, to get world-class. How can we do something better?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that. So what are some of the misconceptions about running a business and how do you address them?
Speaker 2:Well, I think people think that being in business is like so easy and it's all about oh, you make great money.
Speaker 2:And oh yeah, I'm going to be my own boss, and this is great. Well, being in business by yourself, I mean, you're not by yourself, but you know, being a business owner, you've got to have a real strong stomach. You've got to be. You just have to be, have an incredible work ethic. You have to have a great attitude or you're going to let everything, just you know, fall. You'll be, you'll fall apart. You know. You got to be strong, you have to be, strong.
Speaker 2:You have to have a strong stomach. There's so many ups and downs. You know you got personnel issues. That's I think the hardest challenge is. Dealing with people is your biggest challenge. It's so much easier if I could just you know, if I just was off consulting and speaking and doing my speaking. That's easy without employees and you're not dealing with clients the way that we deal with clients.
Speaker 2:So any business, you want to have your experts and you know there's always. It's always great to have coaches and mentors, because you don't necessarily have all the answers. And it's great to have that sounding board and people that you know, that you can have that great inner circle around you to be sounding boards, because it's kind of you know you're up there and you don't want to be up there. You're up there and you don't want to be up there. So I work with my team too and I give them permission, the ones that have been with me a long time, to tell me you know, the hardest thing, I think, is to be vulnerable as a leader and say what can I do differently, what could I do better to help you succeed better?
Speaker 2:Because I'm a servant leader, I'm serving my team and so, but to be vulnerable, to go. What's it like to work for me? That's really a tough one for most. Most leaders won't do that and I won't do it with all of my team, but I kind of do. I've asked them. You know Patrick Lencioni. I love his working genius and Jeff Henderson's book about what do we stand for. You know, what are we known for, and does that align with who we are, who we want to be, and what do people see us as? Does that align?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that, I like that. So what do you attribute your growth to?
Speaker 2:Well, number one to God. We commit our works to Him. We commit our works to Him. We commit our work to the Lord every day, and so I say it's His business. But that's number one is our faith, because I just really strongly believe that success in life, that's the big thing. The other part of it is consistency, work ethic. When you're consistent, that provides more growth and then it can help build that momentum. But it's also never feeling, never letting the tough times really totally get you down. It's just like wait, let's be grateful. Looking at the attitude of gratitude, what do we have that's good and that's going well? And, you know, constantly evaluating Well, trying to compliment my team too and recognize them and value them.
Speaker 2:I think it's by valuing people and having all people, whether they're our clients or whether they're our team members, to support each other and value each other. And there's certain things we just don't stand. I try not to stand for. There's boundaries. I think that's part of it. It's just having that faith and that trust that we're going to be okay and we're going to keep growing and we'll, whatever the tough times, we'll get through it. And the great times we celebrate the good stuff. You got to celebrate the, the, the, the wins. You want to celebrate your wins as well, and celebrate your people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like the statement. This too shall pass people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like the statement. This too shall pass.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. Yeah, good, you know great, even when the times are great, this too shall pass. There will be tough times again.
Speaker 2:And then tough times. This too shall pass. My first mentor said that tough times don't last, but tough people do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, I love that, and.
Speaker 2:Vince Lombardi. I love him too. Second Effort he's like him, oh yeah. It's not about getting knocked down we all do but it's about getting back up again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I love that stuff. Speaking of team members, what do you look for, what kind of qualities are you looking for in employees and how do you foster that positive and productive work environment?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think number one. I look, and I'm old school and I kind of scratch my head sometimes with the. I shouldn't call out any generation, so I guess I won't. Yeah, so I'm seeing generational differences in employees.
Speaker 2:And I find that there are certain generations. They're always looking for the next shiny object and so I've kind of gotten burned, thinking, well, maybe I won't hire that generation. But then, like all things, you know, there are those people that stand out and aren't like the rest of their generation. But I look at their, their track record. I'm saying but I look at their track record. I'm saying that because I look at their resume and I struggle if they jump from job to job to job, because it's an investment for any business owner to train and invest in bringing someone on and so you don't want them to hop jobs in less than a year or a year later Ideally great. I mean, I want to help them, I want to find out what their goals are, but I really don't want to bring someone on that punches a clock and jumps jobs and are here just to get a paycheck and you try to pick that up in an interview.
Speaker 2:I also ask them in an interview what do they value, what are their values in life? Because I want to know someone, that I want to hire someone with good values. And I look at their Facebook pages. I try to see if they have one and see what goes on in their life. We do background checks on everybody because I want someone of good character, and so you can train a lot. I don't want them to not know, and so you can train a lot. I don't want them to not know anything, but you can train a lot of things, but it's harder to train character.
Speaker 1:Yeah, usually they've already got that stuff established well before they're going to be looking for any kind of a job. So it can be, as you know, it can change and you can train it, but it's, you can teach it, you can teach it.
Speaker 2:But it's six people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you got a job to do so yeah, I got a job to do, so I'm not going to be the therapist and I'm not going to be the one to fix them. They can go to coaching and mentoring for that or go to a therapist, but I've got to hire somebody that's got some stability and some stability in their life and make sure that they're not going to be crazy on the job. And ideally, you know they're not using drugs and they're not. Ideally, we prefer non-smokers, but we don't allow smoking anywhere near our jobs or our vehicles or our business. But so if they smoke, on their own, that's fine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great policy. So what words of advice would you offer to other business owners who are looking to grow?
Speaker 2:I think one is set your vision. You know, I always try to set big, hairy, audacious goals and to think big, I mean, you know. It's just like James Allen says, you know, as a man thinketh, you know. Or Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow Rich. You have to. It's just like any sports team you have to believe that you can win, otherwise don't go out and play.
Speaker 1:So you have to believe you can win number one.
Speaker 2:You know, and then you know get people around you. I mean, you know, I was just listening to a podcast, I think it was this morning. You have to get people. You have to continue to want to grow as a leader too. I mean, I'm still growing and it's just like John Maxwell's 78. He's still growing. But you have to realize that you don't arrive until you die. You know, if you're willing to grow, then your business will grow too. We can't stay stuck, and if our business isn't growing, then you're dying. If your business isn't growing continually, you can't stand still. It's just like what happened with Sears Walmart grew up in their backyard and boom gone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it. So, lastly, what is the best way for someone to find you and get in touch with you?
Speaker 2:They can go to our website number one. That's one way. It's wwwthegarageauthoritycom. We have a great website and a contact form on there, no-transcript, and we also have a Facebook page, facebookcom the Garage Authority, and so we get a lot of leads through Facebook and check your mail. Sometimes we send out cards and, you know, do different things, so we would love to serve you.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, reach out. You got a project. Reach out. You need some of your life organized. Reach out. They do great work here. Hey look, this is so good. We really appreciate you being part of our community and for all you're doing, and we certainly know that you're going to continue to grow and have continued success. So thanks for being on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I appreciate it. Have a blessed day.
Speaker 1:Yep, hey, and until next time, all the best.