Integrity, Impact & Relationships: Megan Metzger’s Blueprint for Agency Success

Danny (00:00)
Megan, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. I really do appreciate you making the time to talk with all of us. It’s awesome.

Megan Metzger (00:07)
Absolutely, Danny you know you’re one of my favorite people. So I’m always excited to have the opportunity to chat with you and wish I’d had more time at the conference. We needed to have that hug last a little longer, but it was so good to see you.

Danny (00:20)
Yeah, it’s always great to see you. Just for everybody that is listening, I’ve known Megan for a while and I did reveal to Megan not that long ago that she got me fired from one of my first jobs, which is amazing and fun and like nice and sweet. Megan does this whole thing of like helping agencies. She’s helped over 400 agencies in multiple countries and all of that stuff. And one of the things she does is talk to nanny agency owners and she says, you know, like,

what is going on, what are employees doing, and she told the person that I was working with, like, hey, you either need to bring this person on longer or you probably should cut him loose. And collectively, we made the decision to cut me loose, which was fun. And it was a good business decision. That person is doing amazing.

Megan Metzger (01:02)
Yes,

they are. And I apologize. It was nothing personal. They had like five part-time people doing like 10 hours here, five hours there, and nobody was working as like an expert. They were all just picking up little pieces. And so it definitely was not giving her the support she needed. And it was definitely not personal. I don’t think I even put two and two together at that time. And then when I did meet you, I was just so impressed with you and everything that you have done over the years. And it’s just really fun to get to see you on a more regular basis. So thanks for having me.

Danny (01:05)
you

Well, thank you. And yeah, all of that brought me to here and now I get to interview you. So this is great for me.

Megan Metzger (01:35)
you’ll be kind, hope you’ll be kind.

Danny (01:37)
my gosh,

Megan, you are truly the best. Like you really have helped so many people. You’re a person that everybody at least knows of if they don’t already go to you. At conferences, people stop you all over the place to like just little bits and you, feel like even a couple just words here and there mean a lot to people when you talk to them. Like thank you for all of that.

Megan Metzger (01:58)
It is such a God story and a God plan. And it’s just, I’m so thankful to have the opportunity to meet these incredible individuals who are really changing the landscape of care and just kind of the impact that that makes, right? That’s just why I love the domestic staffing industry and I love coaching in general. It’s definitely my passion and my purpose in life. So I’m really lucky to have the opportunity to do it every single day and

We just got our seventh country yesterday. I know I’m pretty excited, pretty excited.

Danny (02:27)
Whoa!

That’s amazing. So

before you did all of the consulting and coaching, you have preferred childcare. And how did you even start? How did you decide to go into this area? You could do anything. You’re very capable. Why care? Why childcare?

Megan Metzger (02:39)
That’s right.

Thank

Well, to be honest with you, Danny, I was one of those children who knew what they wanted to do their entire life. Like from the age of nine, I could tell you exactly what I wanted to do with my life. And it wasn’t this, right? It’s like my plan was track one and God’s plan was track two. And I had started babysitting and nannying at 11 years old. I was the only child and was like, wait a minute, people are gonna pay me to play with their children? Like, are you kidding me? And so…

11 all the way through high school, I was working every free moment. I mean, by the time I was 16, I was babysitting 40 hours a week, doing overnight, doing all sorts of things. I remember at 15 years old, I had a brand new baby. I mean, brand new. And a 16 month old for a week overnight. My mom had to come over so that I could shower, right? Those two ages are so fragile. And it just…

I learned so much and I fell in love with caring for children and the families that I was helping. So when I got to college, I realized, uh-oh, there is no way I can work 40 hours a week and do this college thing. And so I would run up and down the halls of my dorm and literally yell, does anyone babysit? Does anyone like kids? know, Danny, this was like before Facebook.

Like not to age myself, but this was a long time ago, right? So that’s how you met people. And I would have conversations and I would say, hey, I have this great family looking for someone Friday night. Are you free? I would tell the sitter all about the family, tell the family all about the sitter, them directions, and then they would go babysit. And I would call the next day and say, what did you think of Danny? And the family would say, Danny’s the best. Thank you so much.

And I would say, well, next time you need someone, me and if I’m not free, I’ll send Danny. And I did that for four years just to help because I felt like these families needed really good care when I wasn’t free. And I didn’t want to lose the connection because I knew if they fell in love with Danny, they were gonna go straight to you and not through me anymore, right? So my senior year, again, God’s plan, I’m sitting there talking to a family that I work for on a regular basis and the dad was a special interest lawyer.

Basically what that means is he worked with mergers and acquisitions. And so he says to me, Megan, how many people are you like farming out? And I was like, I don’t know, like 35, 40. And he said, why don’t you incorporate this and make it a business? And I remember like it was yesterday, I looked at him and said, someone would pay me to find them a babysitter?

So in May of 2005, before I even crossed the stage of graduation, I incorporated Preferred Child Care and the rest is history. I mean, it has been so incredible. But that’s how it started, which just seeing this need, falling in love with these families, wanting to ensure they had really good care and making those connections. It was all about relationships, Danny. And the funny part is here we are 20 years later and guess what? It’s all about relationships, Danny.

That’s business at its core, right?

Danny (05:44)
Yeah, I mean, as things have progressed, just is there something that has massively changed with the way that childcare works? Or is it kind of like what you’re saying where it’s just really relationships at the end of the day? Or is there some other secret to it than that?

Megan Metzger (05:59)
Well, I think two things. Of course it’s changed with technology. It’s easier than ever before to be connected, to get a care provider that can help a family with unique needs. But I think at the end of the day, every parent just wants to feel confident that the care provider is going to do a good job. How do they feel confident? They feel like they know that person or someone that.

they know knows that person. So it does. It all comes down to relationships, honestly. And so while tech is just continuing to grow and will continue to grow, I think there will always be a place in care in particular where the relationship first approach is always going to be essential for many families and for caregivers. They don’t want to just show up and randomly care for someone they know nothing about. It’s a safety issue at that point, right?

Danny (06:50)
Is there any of the tech or like modern things that have changed? Is that anything holding people back or like when I went to college, I went to college for film and video and I learned how to make movies with actual film, which means knowing about S stops and T stops and lighting and all of this stuff. And then the class right after me, they started doing everything digital.

And you don’t actually really need to do that. You can hit autofocus and all of these things. And so I had this advantage of knowing all of this stuff. Do you think there’s like an advantage to that? are people missing any pieces to that? Or the things that just make it easier? it just actually, it’s just easier.

Megan Metzger (07:26)
That’s a really good question, Danny. So I find that a lot of times agencies will come to me because they know that they’re doing all this work and there has to be an easier way to do it. And they’re so focused on the automation, they have skipped the very first step. To your point, I’m really big on workflows and systems and processes. And back in the early 2000s, we didn’t have the technology we have now. Like I had a paper desk calendar.

and I would write down the family name, the times they needed someone, I would use a highlighter when it was confirmed, right? We were mailing registration documents with self-addressed envelopes and waiting for them to come back, right? However, as tedious and manual as that all is, it puts you in this frame of mind of what are the steps that the family has to go through, where the candidate has to go through to be ready for placement? Because oftentimes agencies will skip

this part in the process and they’ll go straight to how can I make this as easy as possible, as automated as possible, right? And to your point, without that knowledge, without that having gone through it themselves of the manual side, it’s hard for them to envision. And we’ve created a bunch of new tools over the years. I still think the most popular one is just a visual Canva workflow. And they finally get it. And they’re like,

make so much sense. And as simple as that is, right, as simple as loading the actual film into the camera was, right, and then taking it up to the CVS and waiting for them to print it all. I remember those days, right, as simple as that was. I think something is missed often because technology does make it simple, right? And they just don’t take the time to really build a workflow or think through the process.

and that is where all the just difference comes in.

Danny (09:18)
think with you, one of the things that stands out in the way that you coach and consult and work with families is you have kind of like a frame of building businesses with integrity and impact. you know, what does that look like in a care agency day to day when somebody builds their business around integrity?

Megan Metzger (09:38)
So I think it’s literally in everything that they do. So for example, really big on transparent pricing, you’re able to go to the websites and see what something costs, what’s included. We have fees and policy schedules that come up with every situation that you can imagine because we want to set expectations upfront for both the families and the caregivers. Here’s what to expect. There are no surprise fees, right? Pricing is something that people can get kind of

about if there are surprise fees. But it also comes into play with I’m really big on understanding your core values and the core values you want represented by your business. And they can be very different business to business. So one business can say community is a core value of ours. And what they mean by that is they want to build community and they want to have a place where nannies can come together and families can come together.

And another could say community is our core value, but they can mean they want to give financially to an organization in the community, right? So really understanding what is the purpose of the business. Yes, we’re providing care, but it’s deeper than that. Why are we doing this? Why are we getting out of the bed every morning? It’s 42 degrees today and it’s rainy, right? I would love to have stayed in bed, but no, alas, we get up and we go without question.

For me, that has changed over the years and for most entrepreneurs, it changes over the years, but I want to build stronger families, right? I want to build stronger families, including my own, but that goes to the core of community and helping children who don’t have food, whether that’s through our time or financial resources and looking at the business as a vehicle to make a change and a difference in the lives of all around us.

even those families who may never be able to access our service, we still want to impact in some way. And I think that is profoundly more encouraging and can get you further than I want to make a bunch of money. Right. And so integrity to me is doing what you say you’re going to do and setting the expectations, being clear in your communication. I am the first to say.

I don’t know the answer to this. I will help you research it or I know someone who knows the answer. I’m not an expert on all things. I’m an expert on many things, but not all things. And I think that it’s important. I don’t believe in the fake it till you make it. I absolutely do not believe it. And I will share with you all my blunders because I made a lot. Learn from my mistakes, Danny. Learn from them. Don’t make them yourself.

Danny (12:11)
I think that that’s one of those things that for me, I remember thinking that I think it was in one of your workshops that I was in and I had told myself, you know, all of these people, they have so many like, I wish I had done this moment differently when this happened. And those moments come up for like everybody. Like there’s the same moments appear time and time again. And I really had to tell myself like, okay,

these five amazing people said that this happened to them all. And when it comes up for me, my instinct is going to be to do something else like the way that they did it. But I just need to do it the way that they said that they wish they had done it in the first place. And it was really hard to like actually do that. But it was so beneficial to when those like weird things came up to like, just be like, just own that as if that was your mistake and you don’t have to make it again and like skip over that really, really hard awkward moment.

That’s been really helpful for me.

Megan Metzger (13:05)
I think that’s the purpose of studying business. When I got my master’s, we did a whole lot of case studies and we learned about organizations and what went well, what didn’t go well. We dissected it and talked about it and what influenced it and all those sorts of things, really learning from the companies out there because there is so much information. I read all the time and there’s always something new to learn.

And just digesting all of that and applying it to your business when you can will just help you soar versus trying to figure it all out on your own. Trust me, that’s not the way. You can get there for sure, but it’s painful. It’s painful for sure.

Danny (13:42)
Yeah,

I always tell people like if everybody could create Amazon, they would like why would you not, you know, but it’s like it’s not attainable. One of the things that I think that actually really truly makes you stand out as a coach and a mentor and consultant, business owner is you don’t just have the business and help people with it. You actually like teach business and have gone to master’s programs for business.

Like when somebody is trying to find a coach or even thinking about like getting a coach, like is it worth it? Is there something that they should look for? Like how do you feel like good matches made when someone’s looking for like help?

Megan Metzger (14:20)
That’s a good question. So I think first being open to talking to someone who has experience, I think sometimes agencies aren’t sure that they either could learn from someone else or they’re not ready to have someone else give their opinion, right? And so they’re just not in the place yet to ask for help. And I have had business coaches since 18 years ago, 18 years ago.

When I found out was pregnant with my oldest, my business was a cell phone that slept by my bed. I would answer at two in the morning. I would answer at five in the morning. I had no boundaries. And I knew I was in trouble when I found out I was pregnant. I was married, thankfully, but my ex-husband would say, you were married to the business and he was right. And so that initial business coach, Dan Kavaric from Action Coach came in

and taught me all about systems and processes. And he was so wise, just so wise. And he really trained my brain, because I’d gone to school and had a bachelor’s in business, but it’s very different, right? Going to school and implementing it. And so he had trained my brain to think differently, which was just so impactful.

And then I’ve had three other coaches over those 18 years that specialize in different things. And I think when you’re looking for a coach, you have to A, be open to someone else’s perspective, B, find someone that you feel comfortable communicating with, C, really either talk to references or talk to other people that have worked with them. I think that that is powerful in everything that we do.

I don’t even go to a new restaurant if I don’t read the Google reviews or someone hasn’t referred me, right? And then kind of ask them transparently, well, what does this process look like? Because every coach does things differently. So my business coach now, who’s a mindset expert who I love, love, love, anytime I have a session with her, I know that she’s not gonna actually give me answers. She’s gonna ask me the questions to form the answers myself.

Danny (16:00)
Yeah.

Megan Metzger (16:22)
And that’s a very, very different process than sweet old Dan who would tell me this is exactly what you need to do Meg and how to do it, right? And so I think different ways to approach things fit different personalities. But I’m really fortunate. I’ll do quick 20 minute connection calls with potential clients and see if we’re a good fit. And sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t and that’s okay. Sometimes they need a couple of years to come back.

Coaching is definitely an investment, but it’s one that pays for itself if you have the right mindset and you put the time and energy into working on the business. So many owners are drowning, right, working in the business all day long, and they think, my gosh, if I go into coaching, I’m going to be drowning even more. But the truth is, really, it’s only going to take about an hour to three hours a week of strategically working on the business to see huge improvements.

So when I tell them that, they feel a little better about it.

Danny (17:12)
Yeah.

I mean, and this is kind of like two questions that I just have to ask at the same time. When someone is working on their agency, you’ve worked with so many, what are some of the things that just reoccur being like, that is what is being not helpful for them? And at the same time, I also have to ask similarly with coaching, what are some of those same pitfalls that people will come?

to a coach and a consultant to help them and they do X, Y, and Z that just is like not helping them with the coaching.

Megan Metzger (17:47)
Okay, so things that are not helpful, you’re making my brain transition. So, I think, okay, so I think what’s the hardest part sometimes of being a coach is I want my clients to succeed. Ultimately, I want every single one of them to succeed. I think about them all the time and I really truly care. And so when they succeed, I feel like I’ve done my job well. Yet, my job, unfortunately,

is not one where I’m going to come over there, Danny, and get you out of your chair and drive you to the marketing event or drive you to the networking event or force you to have the conversations that you need to have. Right? I can encourage you. I can give you tips and tricks and exactly what to say and what to do. But I can’t make you do anything. All right. Isn’t that the case in life? So I think it’s been

Danny (18:26)
Thank much.

Megan Metzger (18:39)
less successful for agency owners who know they want a change but aren’t willing to do the work. And so I joke, but it’s not a joke. I joke with my agency owners all the time. like, you got to get out of your chair. Like stop sitting there expecting families to come to you. You need to network, network, network. Here we go. From the very beginning, we said, it’s all about relationships, Danny. It’s still all about relationships. And so I think that

That makes coaching unsuccessful for agencies similarly, right? They think, I’m just going to post in this Facebook group or make this Instagram post and all these families will find me. That’s often not the case. Of the hundreds of agencies that I’ve helped, maybe 5 % of them, that is a maybe 5%. Find success on social media.

And a lot of agencies are just spinning their wheels, spending so much time perfecting their social media game when it’s a great way to find candidates, but not families, right? And that leads me to kind of, if they don’t know their target market, that is kind of the big differentiator between those that are successful and those that aren’t, right? If they think, my target market is all families that have children in this,

area. That’s not a target market. So that’s one thing we work through together and really try to personify that person and understand what they need. But if they don’t know, they’re just marketing to everyone and it’s hitting no one because hyper local marketing, specific marketing is what’s moving the needle these days and will be for a while.

Danny (20:12)
How often do you feel like somebody comes to you without a very defined target market? Is that one of those things that come up often?

Megan Metzger (20:20)
Yeah, 90 % of the time. Or they think, or they have an idea, right? Like, okay, I have an idea of who they are, where they live. Can you hear the train?

Danny (20:29)
Yeah, I mean, but who doesn’t know that?

Yeah, what do you expect? I want some good coffee.

Megan Metzger (20:35)
to Jamestown. It’s just so cute. Can we talk about the fact that for some reason these cards all the way from Paris got returned to me? I’m very upset.

Danny (20:44)
Bummer.

Megan Metzger (20:45)
The are correct. It’s so bizarre. But I was reading recently, you can’t send packages out of Paris to the US anymore. So I surprised they came. Yeah. There’s a whole lot going on.

Danny (20:52)
Let’s.

I try to stay out of all the whole lot going on.

Megan Metzger (20:57)
Well, the only reason I’m

in it is because I’m in it because of my clients, right? Okay. Bye. Bye train. What are we talking about? Target market. right They’ll have an idea of who their target market is but they can always learn more and Then I’m constantly saying to them. Well, what does your target market want? What is your target market need or how does this solve your target markets problem? Just helping them with that mindset shift

Danny (21:01)
⁓ Yeah.

Megan Metzger (21:19)
This morning I was helping a client with a new website copy. She’s rebranding, which I’m just so excited about. It’s going to be amazing for her. helping her with the mindset of, it’s not about your agency. This whole website is not about your agency. It is about your target market meeting their needs. So the way that we’re going to set up the copy is speaking directly to them. Nobody cares how long you’ve done this for. Nobody cares how many awards you’ve won.

They care how is their life gonna be better if they choose to work with you. And so I would say 90 % of the time we do a lot of work on the target market. It makes things easier when you know who you’re talking to and you know what their problems are. It makes it so much easier.

Danny (22:01)
How hard is it when somebody, and you’ve made me realize this, and I probably repeat it a lot to people, that you probably aren’t your target market. And so there’s so much for you to learn about how these people talk, what they’re into, all of that. How, I guess, how difficult can that be to really understand your target market?

Megan Metzger (22:23)
Well, I think it is easier for owners who are involved still in care themselves or are comfortable having the conversations, right? So I tell them, think of three to five families that you wish you could work with every day. Pick up the phone, send them an email, ask if you could have a virtual coffee, right? Just 15, 20 minutes of their time, send them a Starbucks e-gift card.

If you can’t, think of caregivers that work for those families. Can you ask them the questions? Because often, caregivers know these answers. And if they’re nannying still, they’re living and breathing it. So it becomes very easy for them. And if they have relationship first approach with their families that they’re placing, they often can have those conversations. So I don’t think it’s really that difficult, only if

they are kind of far removed or uncomfortable having those conversations, then it does get difficult. And I have one client from a long time ago, I love her. She struggled with this for probably a year. And it was because she was from Africa originally, and she just had a really hard time forming relationships with families. She would place them, but she never really felt super comfortable. And she finally figured out one day, Danny, it just was like a light bulb went off.

and she finally figured it out and her business just exploded. And she had hired like three people to run it, went back to law school, had three locations. It was just really cool to see. know, she unfortunately struggled for a long time, but once she figured this out, everything changed for her. And so if I can help an agency figure this out in the beginning, right, they can just grow so much faster and with so much less stress.

And so that’s really one of the first places we start.

Danny (24:09)
That was so amazing. I’ve now lost my place in all of the I want to ask you. You’re so great at this. I love it. Okay, ⁓ let me keep thinking about what is it that I want to ask you. I feel like there’s stuff all over the place. How are we doing on your side? What do you think? How do you think this is going so far?

Megan Metzger (24:11)
These are so funny.

So fun.

You’re the best. You know I love you. By the way, still to this day when I’m talking about lead magnets, I talk about yours. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve sent it out to people and been like, this is the coolest lead magnet I’ve ever seen. Like, if you could create something like this, it can make a big difference. And they’re just always like, it’s amazing. I was like, I know. Nobody has yet to do their version. I wish they would. I think you all

Danny (24:42)
Yeah, that’s so nice.

I wish I would

too.

Megan Metzger (24:55)
Yeah, I think it intimidates them because it’s that good.

Danny (24:58)
Well, all of your stuff is that good. You give out so many resources to people. It’s really amazing. Like that you have all of the time to do that, all of the expertise to do that. And like that there are things that people are thinking about all the time. guess like, how do you hit on those like things all the time of like, what is it that people need next? Is it because like you’re in it or your people are in it or like, where does those things come from?

Megan Metzger (25:02)
Thank you.

You got it.

Well, two ways. One, I’m in it. So when I am having my weekly calls with clients or my bi-weekly calls with clients and the same problems start emerging, I’m like, aha, we need to discuss this. We need to give a guide out. We need to do something to solve this, right? And then two, the community. So we have the Arise community, which is literally my favorite thing in the world. They vote every month on what topic that they want to discuss.

in the Arise community call. And so they can put forth ideas. We just run a little poll and it’s just really neat to kind of see where their head’s at. And I’ll be honest with you, Danny, we have seen yet again, I’m really excited about this, a rise in interest in corporate care backup care. So.

I’m doing an open webinar in November and we’re opening it up to the entire community, not just MMC’s community, but anyone is free to join us where I’m going to once again teach corporate care, backup care. Because really 2025 has been a huge transition for a lot of agencies as the need for full-time care has really shifted, right? The families are looking at childcare differently since 75 % of new jobs are remote.

They’re saying, okay, I’ll watch the kids these days, you watch them these afternoons, we’ll use part-time care, we’ll use grandma, right? Especially as the economy tightens. The typical Monday through Friday, eight to five nanny just isn’t in as much demand. So as agencies are learning to pivot, what is the need today? Not what is the need last year or the year before? And what I firmly believe is the future of care is going to be through companies

and government organizations. And if I can get more agency owners to feel more confident in approaching these organizations, it is gonna change everything. Because we have the fab four, care.com, Corporate Care Solutions, Vivi and Bright Horizons. They’re dominating this multi-billion dollar market, billion with a B, and they’re doing it by…

partnering with agencies. So if the agencies go directly to the companies, they’re not only saving the company money, transforming what they’re able to pay, but they can control the care more. And so, not that there’s not a place for the fab four, whatever you want to call them, the big four, and they’ve even started coming to my UK agencies and starting to really build traction there.

Danny (27:52)
I love that.

Megan Metzger (27:59)
I’m not familiar with them in Australia, New Zealand yet, but they’re making their way across Europe. And so the agency owners that are embracing this are really finally getting some relief from the roller coaster that is cashflow when you’re just doing perm placements.

So we’re just in it, to your point, sorry, I digress, we’re just in it all the time. We see what the problems are and we want to give people solutions. That’s what we’re here for. And it’s just really neat. It’s really neat for me working in seven different countries to kind of see where the problems are and how the solutions fit each area, what needs to be adapted for each area. It is the funnest job in the world. I have the funnest job in the world.

Danny (28:44)
You make it seem like the funnest job in the world. You’re a fun person to talk to. You give a lot of incredibly, incredible helpful advice. And like I just said, I don’t know, maybe I already just said this, but like you’re just like a fun person to be around. you’re very peppy and like encouraging. I feel like, guess like maybe like coaches should be. I don’t know if they all are, but like, it’s like, it’s a really good rapport that I think you just like naturally have with a lot of people. And I think that’s, you you have.

Megan Metzger (28:48)
your sister.

Danny (29:12)
your, your arise community, which you mentioned. like, if people are on those calls, I don’t know if they would be surprised or not, but there’s so many agency owners all in like very similar places, all work on their businesses together. It’s a very, cool thing. I really can’t think of another organization or coaching or community thing. That’s like that. guess, how did you.

I have to ask them, like, how did you build that up?

Megan Metzger (29:39)
Oh, that’s a great question. So full transparency, I went to an APNA conference 15 years ago. Yeah, 15 years ago, because Hunter was two. And they were awful to me. They were so mean. They were so rude. They all kind of stuck their nose up at me. They’re like, who is this person from North Carolina that thinks they know what they’re doing? And we had hit over a million dollars in sales at that point.

knew what I was doing. ⁓ They made me cry three times. I went back to my hotel room just upset because they were just so rude. And one of the last nights they had done a Mexican dinner in downtown Scottsdale and they had like a little bus to take us all to this Mexican dinner and I happened to sit beside this woman and her daughter Audrey and Shana.

Danny (30:06)
Yes.

Megan Metzger (30:29)
and they are with Diamond Personnel in Toronto, Canada. And they were so sweet and they kind of took me under their wing and Audrey was like, what you’re doing is great, don’t let anyone get to you. And it just changed the whole experience for me, right? So then I found the INA and I love the INA and I went deep into the INA as you know, joined the board, was on the executive board, was the president, right?

and felt very differently about the industry after that. Because after APNA, I thought, what am I doing? Like, these people are evil. And so I took that feeling that Shana and her mom had given me of feeling seen and appreciated. And I said, you know what? We’re going to ensure everyone who walks through the doors of the INA feels seen and appreciated. And so I used to go around the conferences with these little first time attendee ribbons.

And I would see somebody new and be like, I don’t know you, hi, I’m Meg. And I’d give them a ribbon and talk to them and find out where they’re from and introduce them to people. And then it was actually my business coach’s idea about three years ago to actually start the community. But that’s where the idea came from was this feeling of being seen, of belonging, of the opposite, right? Of having your nose, you know, looked down upon and.

not feeling like you’re part of the boys league. And I’ll be honest with you, Danny, it did a full 180. When we went to APNA this year, we had over 42 community members and it was warm and it was welcoming and it was fun. And it was the best conference I’ve ever been to because those women and men and individuals are just so open and honest and receptive and they don’t judge others.

based on silly things that you don’t even know. And I’ll tell you one other story that few people know. When INA was in Cancun, this was a long time ago, I was speaking for the first time in the industry. They had not heard me speak before. And APNA’s board of directors came and they had a mastermind session where you had to literally send in your P &L to the Wendy Saks who owns NannyAgency.com.

She is the OG and you had to send in your P &L and you had to do at least, I think it was $500,000 a year in business. And I’m thinking this room’s gonna be packed, right? There were six agencies in there. All of INA and the APNA board, only six agencies? And Wendy looked at me when I walked in the room and she says, is your P &L correct?

And yes, right? And after the meeting, Jamie Dennis and Ginger Swift from ABC goes, why aren’t you a member of APNA? Because now they’ve heard me speak and now they know I have good numbers and now suddenly they want to include me. And I said to them, because you were mean to me. And I believe in being kind to people. And I have a great relationship with them now. But my point is this, you know,

this coldness, this exclusion of folks is not something that should be present in the care community. Life is too short. You don’t ever know what the person beside you has been through, what they’re going through, who they are, what they do. I have met some of the most brilliant people through my coaching. Just brilliant. I mean, I have clients with doctorates. I have clients with more letters behind their names that I even know what they stand for. Right? So it’s just, it is

a welcoming environment where you’re not judged, where you’re totally accepted and we grow together. And I love it. And it’s been, once again, all God. God just brings the people to me. It’s just so cool. And it gets these agency owners just this momentum to know like they’re not experiencing this alone. This isn’t unusual. Or I had a call yesterday and the agency owners

opening a second location. And she said, you know, this has been an incredible information. Do you have another agency I could talk to you about this? I said, I have dozens. Post and amplify, they will respond. And sure enough, they’re like, I’m happy to talk to you. I’m happy to talk to you. I’m happy to talk to you. And so now she has more than just me, right? She now has a community of other people who have been there, who have walked that. And then they get to share their journey with someone else. And that’s where the magic happens. Because now it’s come full circle.

And I’m getting goosebumps telling you, but it’s just so neat to watch the student become the teacher become, and they just motivate each other. So that’s where it came from.

Danny (34:56)
Well, before we leave and before I ask you where people can learn more about you and MMC, I just have to then say this, that I really thank you personally because I’ve worked with you and I’m a man in an extremely female dominated industry, which I love. I love that it’s one of those places that this is an industry where women succeed and are at the top and all of those things.

and being a white male is not necessarily the best thing to be in, you know, like that’s the, you know, everybody thinks of that as like, you know, success in America is there’s white male. And you were really kind when people said, are we sure we should like let this guy in more? And, you know, you’ve told people that at least in the way that I would think of it.

You said I’m chill. I’m pretty cool. Like whatever. However you said it, it was really, really nice and people viewed me really, really well. And I think a lot of that comes from you and I really, really appreciate it. So thank you.

Megan Metzger (35:53)
That comes

from you. If anybody asks about you, I say that you’re an amazing person that works with integrity and you’re a great asset to anyone. And that’s all you. And I’m sorry I got you fired all those years ago, but hopefully it pushed you to doing what you needed to do next to get where you’re gonna be, right? Good, good.

Danny (36:03)
So you lie straight in their face. Thank you, thank you.

I love where I am. I thank you. Thank you so much. Maybe

more can people go to learn more about you, Megan Metzger and Megan Metzger Consulting.

Megan Metzger (36:24)
Yeah, so we’re just, online, megamutskerconsulting.com. We’re on Instagram, we’re on Facebook, YouTube. We’re a little bit of everywhere, but we have a lot of free resources, free bonuses online, and that open webinar is coming up in November. I’m excited to share that. We’ll even do a big, we do that big Black Friday deal for the communities. The only time we do discounts, because you know I don’t love discounts, but Black Friday is always a.

a huge sell. been talking to a couple of new potentials and I’m like, don’t buy anything until Black Friday. So yes, but thank you, Danny. It’s always such a pleasure and would love to come back and chat with you anytime.

Danny (36:53)
amazing.

We would love that. This is amazing. Megan, thank you so much for joining us.

Megan Metzger (37:06)
Thanks, Danny.