Tell us a little bit more about selling your company. Was that your vision when you started the company to build it to a point to exit or was it a surprise to enter into that and get an offer?

I really believe this, and this is the guidance that I give to other business owners, you should have an end in mind. You should have some kind of exit strategy. So, even if you want to be a solopreneur, your role may change or you may want to sell, or it may be a legacy business. But start with the end in mind.

My first goal was to build a million-dollar HR consulting firm, but a boutique firm. And I hit my goals.

Then I set goals around making an impact on nonprofits and small business centers from an HR standpoint. And I hit those goals. But I felt like there was something else.

Selling wasn't my initial intention. I thought I would own the company for more than 10 years. Instead, I owned it for seven years.

Through prayer and meditation and just really looking at where I was, where I wanted to be, and what impact I wanted to make, I decided to engage a broker. This broker helped me evaluate the best options. I knew I didn't want to sell to a private equity firm. I wanted it to remain a boutique HR firm, and I wanted my employees to be taken care of and my legacy to remain.

What's been the most rewarding part of the journey?

I was just talking to several other entrepreneurs about this. And it's the fact that you have so much freedom. You have the life that you're willing to design and sacrifice for. We have to make choices constantly about how to prioritize our time, 

what partners to take in, and what to focus on. But at the end of the day, we have responsibility over our decisions, our choices, and our lifestyle, and we get to influence that. So, there isn't a cap financially. There isn't a cap on the impact that I could have or on what I can create. Just having that mental and financial freedom is everything that an entrepreneurial type like me craves.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about being an entrepreneur or a founder of a business? And how would you debunk that?

I think what happens is that someone is really good at the trade that they're in, and they think they can just continue to show up doing that. So, whether you are a carpenter or a builder, or in my case, an HR professional who was really good in my field, you now have to approach it in a different way.

So, it’s an awesome thing to have autonomy, flexibility, and creativity. But you also have to create the structure, and then you have to learn how to handle the financials, marketing, and sales.

I think that most entrepreneurs, especially young ones, underestimate how hard it is and how many mistakes they're going to make. And, and how they're going to leverage those mistakes, because it is genuinely hard. But look at how many small business owners do make it and live the dream. It is feasible, but guess what? It's also learning and falling on your face a few times. Learning how to hire the right vendors, contractors, and employees. Learning to use an accountant versus a tax attorney.

It's really about finding your own tribe and your own way of making sure that you have the right partners in place. There is a groove that happens, but it doesn't happen at the onset of starting your business.

Tell us about your greatest aha moment ― a breakthrough moment or decision that had a significant impact on the growth of your business.

I’ve actually got a few of them. I'm going to narrow it down to two.

So, the first thing I would say is that I have a natural care for people, I just genuinely, as a human, care about people. So, I was naturally putting a lot of value on the client experience and client engagement. I also put a lot of value on building my referral partners and taking care of them, and then putting a lot of value on my employees.

I came to realize that I was creating a strategy of the people effect. And what that means is, whenever you make people, no matter what position they play in your life, feel valuable and personalize that experience, it creates trust and loyalty and magnifies the magic that happens in that relationship.

So, guess what happened? I had raving clients who would then refer multiple like-minded clients to me because I made them feel very supported, connected, and all those things. But it wasn’t just me, the team did that as well. So that became our client engagement strategy.

It also built a referral team. This is not a thing that people like to hear, but I've never belonged to a chamber of commerce. And I’ve had very limited interaction with even my local Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). I think there's some value in it, of course, and it's a great outlet. But people underestimate how your referral team is actually your unpaid sales team, and you need to value that.

So, I call it the people effect. My overall strategy of, take care of all the people in your life, and they are going to give that back tenfold. So that was an aha moment. I was doing it naturally, but then I realized we needed to be intentional with this.

The second one has to do with COVID. There were so many people and businesses impacted by COVID. It was very, very sad. But our business actually experienced tremendous growth.

In the beginning, some of my clients called me saying they were shutting the doors, and they needed me to help lay off all of their employees. On the surface, it looked like it was going to be really bad for Willis HR. But I leaned into it. I started asking more questions of my clients. I was on the phone in meetings 24/7 because I wanted to know what they were experiencing. What are they going through? What do they need? Then I started building webinars and trainings trying to solve the immediate HR problems that could potentially save their business.

In addition to that, while in quarantine, I wrote a book. I said, you know what? I'm going to come out of quarantine better than how I went into it. So, I may have gained a few extra pounds, but I wrote a book. So, in 2020, I published Pantsless Nation, HR Guidance for Mastering Remote Work. It's on Amazon and sold everywhere.

I don't get worried about things like the recession and other challenges. I like to lean in to solve problems. So that was an aha moment that, as an entrepreneur and business owner, you need to lean in to solve a problem.

What resources did you tap into to help you with personal growth, company growth, or professional development?

I believe that we are a reflection of the five or six people that we spend the most time with. So, my first two years in business, I was a part of a BNI business networking group. I really maximized that opportunity to meet like-minded professionals. I was intentional about expanding my network and meeting entrepreneurs, and business owners that have been in business for 20 years, and others who are just getting started.

That’s also where I started forming my referral network group. Similar business contacts and resources who service the same clients. So, for instance, I didn't provide benefits, so I connected with a benefit broker. And I didn't provide a human resources information system (HRIS), so I connected with Bamboo HR. That was the first season of the business. So, forming relationships was more of a business development tactic that fueled growth.

I quickly outgrew that, and then the most valuable thing for growing my business and development was Vistage. I know that not every business owner can afford Vistage, but it became my goal to be invited to Vistage. Two years later, I was invited to Vistage because I finally met the revenue threshold.

In addition to that, I am a seeker of knowledge. I'm constantly reading books and listening to podcasts. Professional and personal growth is like a hobby. It’s who I am as a person.

What's the best piece of advice you've received, and how did it influence your own decision-making?

I actually got this advice from Greg Hilton, co-owner of SoCo co-working spaces in Columbia. He was my mentor for quite some time. So, I gave him my handout booklet and showed him that I have all these services. I'm not just HR, but I'm also recruiting, resume writing, and all these other services. It was 

well created, displayed, and had professional language. But he said, ‘Did you just show up with a booklet of your services? How's anyone going to remember what you do?’ And I said, what do you mean? I do all these things. But he told me to pick one thing and do it really, really well. And then you can start adding on other things.

And that is one hundred percent correct. And I believe that. I love thinking about niching down as much as possible, but you have to know your thing and do it really well. It doesn't mean you can't add other verticals or lines of service at a later time, but when you can focus and hone in, it just creates so much clarity for you, and clarity for the clients that you serve. But that changed the trajectory of my business.

Are there resources that you wish you had when you were starting the business?

Well, that's actually what I'm doing today. I started the Grow Forward Community. It's a digitally based community with local pop-ups for ambitious, hardworking women to get the connections, resources, and growth opportunities that you can't get anywhere else. We have an app and currently, we have 24 members. It launched on December 1^st, 2023.

The reason I'm focused on this is that, for years, I watched other women business owners struggle with getting help with mindset and how to balance life and work. It really is a work-life integration. How to learn a new skill without feeling like you have to pay it back in some way to the organization. So, we’re providing growth opportunities such as how to focus on your personal finances as well as your professional finances as a business owner. We have a productivity coach who will be facilitating a session in the coming months. We have another coach that's facilitating a session on impostor syndrome. I have someone coming in to teach not just networking, but networking for real connection ― not just business cards. And the list goes on and on. I’m focused on changing women's lives, mainly those in South Carolina.