Episode 36 Favorite Colorado Springs Small Business Stories

In this episode, Metaphorically Speaking hosts Joe Dudeck and Shannon Jirik reminisce on the podcast’s inception and evolution over nearly three years, including the show’s inaugural seasons on sharing your small business story and experiencing fear in life and work and the interim COS in COVID series.

Mostly, they wind down the year by sharing memories, notable moments, and laughs from a collection of their favorite interviews with local Colorado Springs small business owners or entrepreneurs.

Listen to the best of COS recap and visit the episode library to enjoy the whole collection of inspiring stories.

(music)

Joe: Hi there. I’m Joe Dudeck, president and founder of Keyhole Marketing.

Shannon: And I’m Shannon Jirik. I work for Keyhole as the assistant brand manager.

Joe: And this is Metaphorically Speaking, a podcast that explores the mysterious side of marketing.

Joe: Hello again, and welcome to metaphorically speaking. This is Joe Dudeck. Even you haven’t heard me on the intro in a long while Shannon’s here. It’s kind of weird. I definitely don’t belong here. I feel like we should do a recap of this entire thing.

Shannon: Right. And just start it over. It’s okay. You handle it really well. I’m impressed. And I know that hello line, that intro green line is just, it’s really taxing.

Joe: It’s brutal. It’s scary. It started to get this thing started. Yeah, for sure. I see why I always handed the mic to you for that.

Shannon: You’re always giving me the hard work.

Joe: I know. Definitely the hardest. Well, thanks for joining us. This is our last episode of 2021. And sadly Shannon’s last episode here at keyhole. She’s moving on to bigger and better things in her life. So

Shannon: You say it in such a poor way. It’s not bigger and better. It’s just different things. Okay.

Joe: Yeah. I guess they’re different things. Yeah. Those were always my words. You never have told me. You can’t get out of anything like that, but now she’s omics. I’m excited for where she’s going further for her future and what’s next for her, whatever that may be. But I’m certainly a little bit melancholy inside of her. This being the last one. This has certainly been a ton of fun for me to do with her. And I’m not saying that it’s going away completely, but it is going to be kind of put the pause on this for a little bit, just a good time to end the season and slide into 2022 and just kind of figure out what the next phase is. But now this has been so much fun with Shannon. She’s she’s clearly the better person for this gig than I am. She’s she’s been much better trained than I have in this.

Shannon: You you’ve really come into your own in this space again,

Joe: Here’s what’s funny. So when we first recorded this show, we did our first season that we were talking about the five pieces of telling your business story. And I think we recorded the three times because it was maybe more than that. We probably did a dry run before we hit record, and then we hit record and then we did it again the next day. Right? And then a week or two later, I was like, I am not happy with this. We need to cut this one again. I mean, it was a little bit weird or time back then. I mean, nowadays with COVID, nobody cares as much with the quality of the audio, but back then I was so intensive. Like if we’re going to do this thing, we’re going to do it right.

People are going to expect, I don’t want them to think we were in the greatest studio ever. We were in this, like we were in my wife’s old business, like met in this like farmhouse and just, you know, the sound was washing away and the echoes of the room. And it Was like, we didn’t even have like good equipment. So I couldn’t even hear it really. It was just drama in the back. And then I didn’t think nobody can hear that. And then you listen to it and it’s like, all you hear is behind our voices. So we’d have upgraded a little bit since then. And hopefully I’ve improved from year to tillage. I appreciate it.

Shannon: And the funny thing too, you always joke with me about, I have a background in performing arts, but I’m so like, scripted about everything. I mean, that was just like my theater background. You had to memorize the script, right? You didn’t really get to see you improv or anything. So this medium was honestly like pretty stressful. So I’m like, Joe, we have to script it out. And we spent hours and hours and hours writing these seasons out only to hate it and redo it. Like we’re not scripting this anymore.

Joe: And maybe we, you probably did it on your end. I don’t even know. But I wonder what those notes were in front of you the whole time now. Like we’re so different. I was literally like, let’s have five bullet points and then I’ll verbally process the entire podcast and I’ll see where it lands. And you’re like, that could be three hours of you figuring out what you want to say. And she was much more efficient with the words, but, but so then when I tried to do that, I’m much more like the next thing that I wanted to say was, so it was just, it was, we figured out a good pairing for her, but I totally forgot about the scripting of your,

Shannon: So we both really grown quite a bit in this medium,

Joe: For sure. That’s been a lot of fun. We started the whole thing too, just before we got into like the business stories, capturing business stories with business owners, we just did a couple of seasons and I was, those were fun. Like I said, we did the five parts of telling your business story and trying to unpack that. And then we came back with a pretty simple topic of fears of the business owner, you know?

Shannon: Yeah. Which is funny because remember we thought it was going to be simple. And then we were like, oh shoot, this is a huge topic.

Joe: Yeah. We are going to be researching this, the rest of our lives so that we try to consolidate to like five or six episodes and did it. But you know, you just felt like you didn’t even scratch the surface surface, but, and we, we did all that, which is kind of crazy, like pre COVID. It wasn’t like, it wasn’t even related to like the fears of, of life. It was more like related to just the challenges of running, running a business and the things you run up to. And I, but I still think like, just some, especially when some of the episodes like on the science of fears and that kind stuff, like it’s probably would be good to go back and listen to those on what we’ve just encountered the last year, year and a half, two years almost.

Shannon: Yeah. I felt like we were ahead of the time for sure. Realizing it.

Joe: Yeah. We were the Fowchee of podcasts we pandemics. So no, I definitely would encourage you as listeners to take a listen to those episodes. It’s been a while since we probably plugged those and we’ve been on more of a consistent theme of capturing stories of business owners, but I think like those were, those were intense, but also like super helpful for me on several levels on the fears of ownership, but also just, just fears in life and how our bodies hold those things and how we process those things. And yeah, pretty heavy. But

Shannon: I like that we didn’t just focus on the business side of it for that season two, you know, you’ve got fears coming in from everywhere in your life, like you said, so it wasn’t interesting season just to kind of discover the signs of your mind and your body and translating that into the business world.

Joe: Exactly. So this episode, what we’re trying to capture is just some of our favorite stories that come to our mind from the last year and a half to almost two years again. So we obviously couldn’t cover every business owner over the last, you know, 24 months, but it’s, we just kind of picked out a few that stood out in our mind. So don’t be offended if you didn’t make the cut intentional. Maybe it was intentional for a couple of years.

Shannon: I mean, we’re so grateful for everyone that participated for sure. And I think it’s so cool. Cause we’ve gotten a chance just to encounter and meet some incredible people in the Colorado Springs business community. And we’ve really kind of dipped our toe in a lot of different industries too, which is fine. You know, we not just talk to other marketers necessarily, you know, seeing just a variety of industries and finding new stories and, you know, end up discovering how they are connected to each other. You know, it’s fun just to learn like, oh, I know him, I know her and just really created a cool community in these episodes that we’re really grateful for, for sure.

Joe: Yeah. And we definitely get geeked out about it. I mean, I hope it’s fun for the guests, but I mean, it’s just so fun to be able to extract a story from a business owner, which is what we do in our, our work at keyhole. So it’s fun to find this medium and do the same thing and kind of put them under the light a little bit and, you know, get them to tell the stories that they already know who they are and what makes them who they are. And yeah, it’s, it’s been fun to, to walk that path with them and hopefully give them a little bit of plug and promotion in their own space. But

Shannon: Yeah, and just a chance for them to kind of get that out there. Cause there’s a lot of things that you don’t know about a business or a company that, you know, it’s not on their, about page your website, but there’s so much context to who they are and how their business got going. So this laptop has just been fun because we get to kind of dive into some of that stuff that you would maybe never know about the person who’s cutting your hair or serving your drink or something.

Joe: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And it all started with Casey Ross from acts in the Oak, did that in January of 2020, which seems like three and a half decades ago.

Shannon: Yeah.

Joe: It’s definitely a different era. We did that in a, in a legit podcast studio downtown and sat less than six feet from each other. I mean, we want to ride on top of each other, but there wasn’t the social distancing that we’re all accustomed to now. And that was

Shannon: So it’s one of your favorites. Cause you, you got to drink during that.

Joe: There was a high bar, like all the podcasts that after, you know, I don’t think anybody, nobody brought me drinks after that. It was kind of sad, but I’m sure I had a few drinks at other times. I recorded it. So I wasn’t completely parched, but yeah, it was a fun, he brought a bottle of his whiskey and we shared a glass or two agenda interview, which was fun. I think you and I did the same thing we did. We recorded the intro

Shannon: In the spirit of meeting Casey and learning about him. We needed to get connected to who he was.

Joe: Exactly. So, no, that was fun. I remember though, like again, kind of an indication that we were a little ahead of our time, we talked about like how crazy it was that we entered 2020, like it seemed like we should have a Y2K or a apocalyptic kind of experience. And then, you know, come three months later, we kind of had that. But

Shannon: I think, I think we’re profits. I don’t think we’re the good kind of profits.

Joe: That’s maybe that’s the shift of the podcast we should do is just like, what’s next for your business. We already see it.

Shannon: Exactly. We can really capitalize on that.

Joe: Yeah. So did you have any like things that stood out when you reflected on that particular podcast?

Shannon: I think what was so fun about Casey is we got to hear, you know, quite a bit about his work history before he kind of founded acts in the Oak. And you know, we talked to a lot of people that didn’t necessarily have a path in mind when they graduated college or starting a career. But with Casey, he was just all over the map. I mean his work experience leading up to starting asking me Oak was, it just felt limitless. I mean, he did so many things. He traveled around the world and he had a fun background in, you know, automotive work and then also like theater and stage design and stage management and all that. I didn’t even totally follow everything that he did cause he kind of just seemed like well-rounded man.

But a couple things that I remembered from his episode was that he got to work as a stage manager for, and he was also a part of like a Bob, the builder tour as well. So yeah, he just had a lot of fun stories from like, oh, I did this show in the show and he was so nonchalant about it, but we’re like, these are a big deal.

Joe: Yeah. And I remember he said like his, his mom was, you know, just worked on cars a lot. So we got some cars, he was a high school. I thought that was kind of unique. And you said the Batman thing, he also just slid in there quickly. Like Sam Heughan was a part of, one of the shows or something like that, which at the time I didn’t really know who he was now. I’m fully aware because my wife’s made me fully aware of who Sam Hugh and

Shannon: Casey said in episode sexiest man in Scotland,

Joe: He was definitely more intrigued by Sam than maybe my wife. I don’t know which I can understand that it’s a good looking dude, but so yeah, so that in there, and then I just loved, and I’ve experienced this too, if you’ve been to his, the distillery, you know, I just love how they were intentional about creating a space to CA like to share stories with other people. And that was kind of the original idea of vacs in the Oak and you know, how they came up with the name and how they come up with a product, just some guys getting together and dreaming up this business and then being intentional about creating that kind of space. And, you know, it’s even with, during COVID it still had that feeling and that vibe that, you know, you, you just have stories to tell and you would just want to drink to be able to kind of open up some of those avenues of discomfort or whatever.

Joe: You’re trying to show that, share those stories. And it’s just like, yeah, the combination of that, the setting, the vibe, the whole experiences, they’ve done a really good job of that. And of course that’s what we hope to do on the podcast. So I’m just, just so loved so much that he’s done the same thing with his business.

Shannon: Yeah. I think what we kind of said about him was, I mean, he is his brand. Like he just matches this culture that he’s created. And I think that’s, what’s so impressive sometimes about these small business owners is, you know, their businesses are just an extension of who they are and that’s when it feels so real. You know, it isn’t our pretending or no, it looks like X, Y or Z. It’s like, no, I’m, I’m Casey. This is who I am. This is who my community is. Like, I want to create a space that represents that. And I think he does that really well. So yeah. It’s a special, special community there for sure.

Joe: Definitely. So then the next one, I wish again, we were not trying to go one at a time, but the only other one that stood out was Jason Crampton from Lincoln street. Barbers. Maybe part of that is because I just got a haircut with him today. So connected. Yeah. And we kind of had that connection from the very beginning of this episode, we had like this, I don’t know, five or six minute conversation about beards cutting aid and the regrets of cutting it. How can we get it?

Shannon: It was an entertaining conversation for sure. I felt like I was invading on this like intimate moment. Like as I was listening to the interview, it was just like, as a beardless female, I just don’t belong here. And yeah, I think most of your interview was about beards and you barely scratched the surface.

Joe: Yeah. I don’t know anything about the business. Actually. I went into the dude thing and then yeah, he still has a great beer today. I think we both learned from our mistakes of the past of like, let’s shave this off and get a new fresh start and then you regret it. You lift your head. Yeah. And then our wives are like trying to find ways to, you know, be disconnected from us for four months.

Shannon: So on a three week vacation, you’ve got the kids, let me know when the hair is back.

Joe: Yeah. Don’t take any photos. Don’t Instagram, anything I don’t want to say. So that was, that was definitely a symbiotic connection from the get go. But he’s, you know, I mean, I’ve, I’ve got a good friend who started a salon back in Indianapolis, I think in 2019 and different business. I mean, this is not a, it’s not a barbershop, but you know, I’ve talked to this friend a lot about starting his own business and the challenges of that. And so I was, it was good to connect with Jason on kind of his experiences with that. And the challenges of in this, in this particular space, whether it’s staff turnover or, you know, challenges of people you’re working with or trying to serve and, and just his story to get there was also pretty unique.

You know, it wasn’t like this traditional let’s go to this training thing. I mean, she did all that stuff as well, but it just, wasn’t a clear cut, no pun intended navigation to navigation to, you know, his role in his business. But yeah, I love his, his approach to business too. It’s kind of messy and dirty intentionally. Like it’s trying to serve the marginalized, the people on the outside of the fringe, I guess, you know, a little bit versus, you know, the business guy in a three-piece suit type of type of person,

Shannon: I think that comes through and what they kind of call their crew, which is the civilized misfits. They just love that. I mean, you never hear that kind of terminology. I feel like in general, but especially at a salon, he was so just like respectful of the people that work for him, you know, and, and again, it was just so clear that the people are what makes the business. And I just love that, you know, he spoke so well of his team and his clients. And I just have a lot of respect for those kinds of business owners. So, and I love to, he, he talks about kind of his journey and right now they’re even, he only has male clients, but he didn’t necessarily start there.

So he had this line where he said, I was terrified to cut hair. I’d never brushed a woman’s hair. Now I’m trying to cut it. And I just thought that was entertaining. Like I have this funny visual, just like awkwardly trying to brush this woman’s yeah.

Joe: Picture I’m standing. Like I dunno too far away from that person are outstretched, running his brush to somebody tear. I’m sure he’s gotten more comfortable with that, but it’s kind of like when you’re doing a podcast, you just it’s the same metaphor. It’s all right.

Shannon: What was neat about him and Casey, as well as your first two interviews were locals to Colorado Springs, which you said you hadn’t seen a lot of at this point. I mean, I know you hadn’t been in the Springs for maybe more than six months at that point, but you encounter pretty much everyone that had moved into the Springs. So he called himself like a local Sasquatch, which I thought was cool. He’s like, it’s just more rare to find, you know, people who have been born and raised.

Joe: That’s the funny thing is the first two people I talked to were both from the Springs and I was like, I have not met any of you up. And I think I’ve had actually a pretty good run of people. There’s I think kids on bikes was also somebody who from local. I want to say the dream accounting solutions. I think she was also local. So there’s been a few that come to mind that I was like, I didn’t even know you existed.

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Joe: So then like after not right after Jason, we actually did a one more episode with a true north chiropractic. It was really like the last day before everything shut down for COVID. I remember it was kind of more and more was being heard about it, but things were still open. We were able to get one more recording in the studio before that shut down and then transitioned into what we call the cause and COVID series, which was pretty fun. I say that maybe find isn’t the right word, but pretty like insightful experience to be able to get insight from businesses who are trying to keep their doors open through COVID, you know, you’re just, nobody’s experienced a pandemic before.

And so you’re, you’re trying to figure out how do I not lose a ton of business? How do I keep supplies going, how to keep staff coming in, how to keep people safe. So we talked to a wide collection of businesses, which was fun just as some quick interviews, which again was applicable to that time. But it’s still, still helpful even today. Not, not just now, but probably at anytime, because it just talks about their ability to be flexible and transition quickly on the fly, or even as much as you can create some systems and processes to get out ahead of unexpected experiences.

And also maybe just being honest about like, you can’t shut everything down. So things like your marketing, for example, put that plug in there a little bit, but like, you know, how do you just transition from what you, your traditional way of doing things, but not, but not throw everything out the window. You still have to have those conversations and still have to be in front of, in front of your customers. So that was interesting to hear some of the stories.

Shannon: Yeah, super cool. To see how well people were able to adapt and pivot. And I think you’re right. It was kind of based on right when COVID started, but I still think the stories are applicable. I mean, it, I think if COVID has done anything, it’s shown us that like, wow, big challenges can hurdle at us really quickly, you know, and how to be adapt to those. And maybe people are better suited to do that in the future when other things come up, you know, and I think it was cool in this series because we did get to kind of talk with a lot of different industries. You know, I mentioned that a little bit earlier, but you know, we spoke in kind of the health and wellness or lifestyle arena, you know, athletics, food, and drink you church government.

Joe: There was just kind of a lot of different conversations. And I just liked that we were able to kind of hear a lot of different voices in a lot of different spaces. And I also appreciated, I don’t know what the percentage is necessarily, but some of them honestly admitted, like they did better than others. You know, some of them adapted better and kind of pivoted better. And others just said like, no, we, we had a hard time. Like we were just trying to survive. And so I really appreciated kind of just the realness and the vulnerability that COVID kind of forced, you know, like, Hey, we’re, we’re not doing well, but we still have to fight. Like we still want to stay open. We still care about our clients, you know?

And we’re here trying to figure out how to best serve the people that we care about. You know? So I just thought that was really neat.

Shannon: Yeah. And that was like, the intention is to find businesses that, you know, we’re not trying to find all the positive stories, like gas stations, somebody who is doing really well, grocery stores, how are you doing? Like, I’m sure there was some hurt, but there’s businesses like that. Of course, that had to continue to provide services, but it was more like we, weren’t trying to find all the polished stories. We’re trying to find a variety from different industries and you may be really hurting and you’re, you’re struggling and that’s okay. Like maybe to tell your story can help you process some things and maybe some people can help you in that journey as well. So definitely unexpected series that we weren’t planning to do, but we were grateful for, to, for that opportunity for them to take time out of their day.

And that kind of transitioned into this, this online only recording world when people care a little less about the quality of the recording, that is a little less stressful for me. So that was nice. So that’s been good. The next one, we kind of just listed again, there’s many, many good stories between the causing COVID and this next episode, but gala Boosto and Brittany went from the property mommies. They were, I mean, they were fun from the get go. I, I remember they were just like, like more than excited. I definitely more excited than I was to even make the pass. Not because not because I wasn’t interested in them that I just probably just at a general ask and they were like, yes.

I mean, within seconds it was like, I was like, do you want to think about it at all? Or who’s who’s handling it. I could think of did it through like Instagram messenger is I didn’t have any like email or something like that. And I, the immediate, the response was immediate and I was thinking, is this, are you authorized to say, yes, I don’t know,

Shannon: Are you like a high school or intern?

Joe: We’ll do it exactly.

Shannon: I thought there’s probably a ball of them was just the most like vibrant if you will. And I think if you go back and listen to it, you know, gala’s voice just shines through quite loud and proudly first. And I think, honestly, what was funny too, is just the difference in their personalities without even knowing that you can kind of figure out some things about both of them and how they run a business and who they are as people. So you just kind of have two pretty different personalities. You know, one may be a little bit more trying to kind of keep their writings on the professionalism of the episode and the other just let’s have a good time.

Joe: Yeah. And there were, there were a few stories that we could even share on the podcast because, because I think Brittany shut it down. She was like, no, let’s stay, let’s be professional. And then when I stopped recording, I was like, you gotta tell me these stories. They’re in the vault. I can’t share them now, but it was, it was kind of fun that you just knew. There was some, there was some wild stories with it, with the property models that didn’t even make the cut

Shannon: Well, and they’re kind of exceptional too, I guess. And the people that we talked to because they also have a pretty big take talk presence, I think, not too long ago, but for them, they were like, Hey, let’s, let’s run after this kind of blog concept back when it started becoming popular to do videos over photos. And they really just like landed on that and just decided, Hey, this is going to be our platform and why can’t we make real estate sign and why can’t we showcase our true personalities? Like we’re going to, and they ended up just getting like a pretty big following on Tik TOK. And you just don’t hear that a lot, especially for real estate age,

Joe: For sure. They found a different medium, for sure. I think about all this stuff that I, they get in the mail, you know, the typical postcards and the smiling happy people in there. Yeah, exactly. And you’re like, is that even you, who is this person? And it’s, you know, they cut through the clutter by finding a new medium. They’re certainly weeding out people who aren’t interested in what they offer and that’s okay. They’re okay with that. And they do a lot of this. They work well with the military community, having military backgrounds. I think both their husbands were in the military. And so that’s a good niche for them that probably bridges the gap. If you, even if you’re not a tic-tac fan, you, you know, they can speak your language in that, in that space.

So yeah, I think they’re doing a good job in finding a good, a good path.

Shannon: Yeah. I thought they, they spoke to the military community really well. Cause we, you hear that in a lot of our episodes when people understand that the Springs is heavily populated, but with, with gala Brittany, it was very personal. So that was a cool perspective just because it was more just real life for them.

Joe: Yep. Exactly. So then body and Brooke Makilah is, I should probably have checked the pronunciation, but from a kinship landing, I haven’t met Brooke. Actually. We haven’t been able to wasn’t she was able to redo the recording, like we had hoped. And then there’s another time I was in there and I wasn’t able to connect with her, but I know she does exist. I got a chance to see them. And they’re husband, wife team. They started this boutique kind of hotel downtown. And it’s a really unique, I mean, I haven’t stayed there yet, but first of all, their, their approach is really trying to get locals to act like a tourist. You know, they’d love for you to stay somewhere in your backyard and not feel like you have to go out of town, which I think is a lot of fun, just so much.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You miss so much of just your regular things that are available to you, especially if you grew up out here, it’s more, I don’t know that I’m quite the target audience because I’m still fairly new out here. Everything’s new and exciting. So I want to do all the, all the new stuff, but if you’ve lived out here a long time, like they do a good job of making sure you’re not missing some, some events or venues around you to be able to participate. And there their room designed is super unique and cool. Huh.

Shannon: So cool. Yeah. I don’t even remember all the options. I just like, can’t get past the one that looks like you’re like camping outside. Yeah,

Joe: Exactly. Yeah. You’ve got a nice view of Pike’s peak and then there’s a couple of like another one with like shared like bunk beds, which again, I’m sure that was a challenge in COVID, but I think had not shared in the sense of you have to share with somebody else, but I think it’s a shared room bunk beds in the, in the room, but yeah, it’s, it’s finding and again, I’m sure they had to really struggle with some of that during COVID of what’s available and how do we manage this? And I’m not sure how much they’ve been able to keep those things up and running, but I love the creativity and you know, they’re pretty intentional about again, creating spaces to, to get people, to connect and to bring different crowds together in their space, the, the business person you might want to come over for a coffee or the person who’s out of town mixing with the guy who lives three houses down the street, you know, so I love them.

They’ve been doing that, I think out of their house for years. And I think they said they first had the idea on some of their travels and some of their XP excursions internationally that this idea could work. And I love it. They came up with,

Shannon: I have a really cool background for how they kind of got to where they are, you know, hospitality just ingrained in both of them from birth, basically. Yeah. So when they kind of connected and you know, we’re dating and got married, just travel and staying in hostels and just learning the locals. And every place that they visited was just so important to them. And this year long trip that they took around the rural kind of inspired the idea for kinship landing. And I just thought it was really neat. You know, they, they kind of structured their trip in like three sections. It was like that’s rest and let’s dream. And then let’s plan.

And they just committed to this idea and, you know, we got to visit the space and it’s just, it’s really beautiful. And I think their mission to kind of inspire friendship and courage and intimacy is also really unique. I especially loved the one. I think that you don’t hear as much in this kind of setting, you know, friendship, maybe intimacy, maybe, you know, you’re in a cafe or a bar and you’re having conversation, but I think courage just has a whole new element to it. That is really special in what they do.

Joe: Yeah, there’s definitely, you know, as far as I know, nothing like it definitely nothing like around here and to be able to make that leap and not just do the traditional offering of lodging our hotel, like that was definitely brave of them. And a little quick, quick shout out to echo architecture who designed that space there, we interviewed them as well. And it was just fun to see their handiwork. We just, you know, just saw, they’ve got so many corporations around the city, but that was as we sat there and worked in a coffee shop, like you’re just taking in all the design elements and stuff like that. So that was prompts to them for, for making the dream of Bobby and Brooke a reality and doing it so well.

Shannon: Absolutely, absolutely.

Joe: So the last one we were going to talk about was gathered mountain balloons, three sisters at this farm down on the south side of Colorado Springs

Shannon: And to actually visit this one, which was cool.

Joe: Yeah. I actually met him in person. That was again, kind of weird to look at somebody and ask them them staring at them on the screen. We tried it, we tried to do it earlier, had some technical difficulties and then just said, Hey, let’s just, let’s just do this in person. So that was fun. And I know you gave me a hard time about like asking a tough question out of the gate.

Shannon: Yes. So Joe asked him this question to start off the episode, and then there’s just this long, long pause and you just kind of like, can hear the emotion, they start crying. And I mean, it was a great moment. It was honestly a beautiful moment. There was clearly just like intimacy and context here, you know, that they brought us into and we’re so grateful for that, but I couldn’t help, but laugh to myself because I’m like, how many women has Joe made cry? I mean, let’s just, let’s add these women to the list because I’m sure,

Joe: Unfortunately, probably more than I know. Yeah. This one wasn’t necessarily my fault. That was a good thing. It was, it was definitely surreal. Cause I was a little nervous. Like what did I, what did I pull it? Like pull the covers back on something that I had no idea that there was some drama. What happened here? You get a little bit of research, you know, on, on people’s websites and what’s available. But, and I can tell what their story particularly, like there was definitely some health challenges with, with Nikki who founded the business and then brought the other sisters into the, into the business. But, you know, so I knew a little bit of that, but I didn’t really know the life histories of like Leah and Abby and some of their decisions to join the business and some of the challenges prior to that.

Joe: So it was definitely like, okay, should we start with another question? Like, what do you like about the weather? I dunno, like where should we go from here? But they navigated it well and you know, you could just tell like sweet this. They re they trusted me with the question and they trusted me with the answer and yeah, I was grateful for, for being able to navigate with them.

Shannon: Yeah. And again, I think that’s what we’ve appreciated so much about. Some of our conversations is this podcast is a space that we wanted to create for people to be real with us, you know, and that’s exactly what came through in their episode. And it’s just, I mean, it’s something that we’re grateful for. And this one was, I think, especially fun for me just because I’m one of, I’m one of six kids, but I have two sisters as well. So there is something about the dynamic of three sisters that I kind of understand there. And I know, you know, we’re different ages and obviously different people, but there’s just kind of like, I felt that connection, you know, I understood some of the contexts that maybe they didn’t even have to say, but I just kind of knew, you know, having two sisters of my own, I probably would never go into business with my sisters.

I’m more of a, let’s go into business with my brothers kind of person, but still,

Joe: Well, that’s so fun about this is like, yeah, the, the couples who go into business together or the sisters and seeing I’m always like, what are you doing? And I could never imagine. And I’m always like asking them the question or either on or off the recording, like, what are you thinking? Like, what are you,

Shannon: You do? You’ve asked it like every time, like, so what you work with your wife and business, how does that

Joe: Yeah. It’s like, what is like, are you still married? Are you so I just know in my world, I think we’ve gotten better at it, Lindsay and me, but I still think like we’re just vastly different people and we, for us, we need separation of work and life and stuff. So it’s good for us, but, and maybe it’s not even a challenge, like you’re doing it right or wrong, but more of a sense of like, how do you even do that? How do you, you know, cause I think even us Lindsay and me, we work out at the same house across the hall from each other and that’s kind of a challenge, you know, how do you take your work hat off? And like now go have dinner together, five feet away from where you just worked the entire day. So I can’t really imagine. I would, I’ll probably always be talking work. And I think like, it’s, it’s good on them.

I think they do. They all do. And especially these sisters, I think they all showed like how well they love working with each other. We went to the, went back and visited a few weeks later and actually cut some flowers at their farm. And again, they could’ve been putting on a show, but they seem like the real deal. You know, they really enjoyed spending time with each other and just her passionate about learning this thing. I mean, that’s a beautiful thing too. They’re not like super, super trained, but they’re there. And they’re honest about the, all the things they don’t know and they’re excited about the next thing they can learn. So I think that was fun to, to hear from them as they just, they weren’t so like, you know, proud of like, we’re there we’re, this is our business and we’re so highly trained and you need to come to us because it was just very honest to be like, Hey, we love it.

And this is a super rewarding fulfilling for us and we hope we can offer that to somebody. So it was fun to see.

Shannon: Well, because they all clearly have different skillsets too. You know, they’re coming from very different backgrounds and different careers, you know, before opening the flower farm. And that’s obvious to, you know, they’re not all doing the same thing. They all very much have like their kind of arenas that they Excel in. So

Joe: Yeah, exactly. So that’s it, that’s what we, some of the stories that came to our mind over the last several months, and again, there’s so many more, we could have unpacked and had so much fun hearing all of the stories of entrepreneurs and we hopefully get a chance to kind of continue this and unpack some more. But yeah,

Shannon: Last to just kind of reminisce on everything feels like it’s been so long. I had to refresh my memory on some things

Joe: I know COVID like everything’s forever ago, but it’s been super, super fun to do this with you. And, you know, thanks for trusting me with this opportunity and, and honestly making me better at this graft. And

Shannon: I know I am, I’m sad to say goodbye, what I’m so grateful for all the fun we’ve had.

Joe: Definitely, definitely. Well, we’ll see, we’ll wrap up the season and we’ll see what’s next. So thanks for joining us. Take care.

Shannon: You’ve been listening to the Metaphorically Speaking podcast. At Keyhole Marketing, we tell big stories for small businesses. If you’re in the Colorado Springs area and ready to tell your business story, we’d love to come alongside you and help you with your content, branding, SEO, social media, or photography needs. For an instant glimpse at your current marketing strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities, take our free marketing evaluation, or send us an email at hi@keyholemarketing.us and let us know how we can help tell your story.