Episode 10: I Bought A Nanny Agency When I Was 19: How Hard Work and Drive Paid Off Featuring Emma Wright Smith, Owner of Peas in a Pod Agency

Danny: It’s so great to have you here. Thanks

Emma: Danny, it’s a pleasure to be here. I’m excited.

Danny: Yeah, well you have a really remarkable story. You’re Incredibly young to have started an agency. Could you just tell me like how you got into the childcare space?

Emma: So I was 19 when, um, I was, I was studying at university at the age of 19 and I had to find part time work to get myself through college, as you call it in America, but in Australia, we call it part time work.

Emma: University, so similar. And one of my mates was nannying for Peas in a Pod. And I remember she told me about, it’s such great work. I’m working with the most incredible families. And I said, I want to work for them. So I joined the books and about three weeks into me joining the books, I, it. It sounds like a movie, because it really was.

Emma: She just rang me out of the blue and said, I want you to buy my business. I was like, me? You want me to buy your business? And the reason being was because she was going overseas. And lo and behold, here I am six and a half years later, which, uh, It’s just crazy to me that it’s been that long because it doesn’t feel, it does feel like that long, but it also doesn’t.

Emma: And so, yeah, I was, I, I didn’t start the business, um, uh, I’m more, I bought the business. So I took out a loan at the age of 19 and really responsibility became my middle name. Um, I think that I’ve always been, I’ve always taken on a lot of responsibility. Um, even from, um, I’m the oldest of three younger brothers, so I, you know, I was always that bothy, um, oldest daughter, but I think that when the, when it arose that, that this incredible opportunity to, to, um, buy peas in a pod, I obviously, like, I looked into the books and I made sure that it was, it was going to be a good business to buy, but it was, you know, Pretty obvious from get go that this industry and this business was going hopefully to thrive.

Emma: And I’ll never forget my, um, my dad has been a real, an incredible help to me. Um, and has been a mentor, um, in a lot of ways. And he said, Emma, you know, babysitting and nannying is never like robots are never going to take over. There are little nuggets of gold here. And I think you can, you can grow it into something really amazing.

Emma: And so, yeah, so for the first two years, I just did it. Whilst I was studying and it was honestly probably one of the most hectic times of my life, um, because I was working three nannying jobs. I just taken over a business, which at the time had 70 babysitters and I think about a hundred families, um, and something that, uh, was not the fault of the founder, but they, a lot of the clients came to the agency for her.

Emma: And so when I bought the business, I actually lost 70 percent of my clients and 70 percent of my cities. I didn’t realize that that was going to happen. It was, you know, at the end of the day, that is what I had bought that contact list. And it was a real learning experience for me from get go that. 

Emma: That was, you know, I had to be to start with. But here I am and people do not come to Peas in a Pod for Emirate Smith. They have no idea who I am most of the time. They only really ever deal with me if, you know, it’s a complaint or something goes horribly wrong is when I step in. Um, And that doesn’t happen a lot.

Emma: So, uh, yeah, I think that I learned a really valuable lesson. You, you, you buy businesses to work in them and grow them, but ultimately for me, I want to sell my business. That is why I bought it in the first place. And you can’t sell a business if you If it’s one person that is the driver for all, you know, they are the business and I am really proud of where my business is now, six and a half years later, because I am not the business.

Emma: There are so many more, so many other heartbeats to the business.

Danny: I have to rewind to say. How did you wow this woman owner in the first place that she was like, you were the person.

Emma: I remember having my sitter, like, you know, my onboarding call as a sitter and we spoke on the phone for an hour and a half.

Emma: And I remember thinking, gosh, incredible customer service. Like this is, did she talk to all her sitters for an hour and a half, but we just absolutely hit it off. We did kind of semi know each other, like through mutual friends. There was quite a few connections there already, which. Is the central point to like, I adore connecting people.

Emma: I always have. And I think that I get that from my mom. Like she’s, you know, she’ll meet someone and say, what’s your last name? Oh, where did you, you know, where did you grow up? She’s always wanting to connect people. And I, I love to make the world a really small place. And so Katie, the founder and I, the world was already small.

Emma: After my onboarding call three weeks later, she called me and asked me, and I, the first question I asked her was why me? And she said, I just, I just, I just know, I know you’re going to do really well. Um, and that was really the only reason, but I think she could see the power in my ability to pick up the phone and speak to anyone and my ability to connect to people.

Emma: And I can persevere and I don’t really, you know, I get, I fall down, but I get. Get back up again pretty quickly. So yeah, I don’t know why she chose me, but I’m really glad she did.

Danny: You were like very new to like the business world.

Emma: Yes. So I do not have a business degree. I have a psychology degree. Um, and I would, I would like to hope that, uh, I’ve used my psychology degree with some challenging situations, but no, I have no business background and I still don’t, and.

Emma: I have learnt so much on the job.

Danny: Like you’re saying, you’re very charismatic. You’re very endearing. It’s actually amazing that your business doesn’t revolve around you because like that would, I think that that would be like so easy. When it’s not that way, when it is like the business skills, what was the hardest things that like you had to overcome?

Danny: What was like the challenge that you were like, I did not see this coming? Maybe you’ve blocked them all out.

Emma: Oh, yeah, I feel like you do a little bit like, you know, there’s, there’s, there are so many challenges as I’m sure other agency owners or business owners know, um, I think, honestly, it’s the most rewarding, but the hardest is, um, when you grow.

Emma: As a business, and you can have a team, it’s the most fulfilling. I have a team of four women back in Australia. So little backstory is I am actually not living in Australia at the moment. I am based in London in the United Kingdom and. Yeah, I have a business back in Australia that I still am involved in, but very much on in the macro environment.

Emma: So very external. And so I have a team of four and I think managing employees is really tricky because especially from the other side of the world, um, and I’m really lucky that. I have such powerful, strong women trying to like juggle and manage your employees. It can be quite tricky. And I think because I was so, I’m so young, um, I have no experience in managing.

Emma: I had to learn even to this day. Like I had, I have actually, no, I had one casual job before I had P’s where I had a manager. Yeah. And I was working in a makeup shop and my manager was really horrible. I remember, yeah, I didn’t actually have any examples of what managers should be like, like all my, all my employees up until a year ago, all my employees were the same age as me or younger.

Emma: Like there was like two or three and that’s not normal. You know, it’s not that normal to work with, um, girls. The same age as you, um, but those employees of mine now have become some of my bestest friends. And that is a challenging one as well, because, you know, you have to balance that friendship, but then also the working relationship.

Emma: So I would say that, yeah, managing people, managing your employees, even though they are like, they’re so easy, they like hardworking and they’re easy. I just think for me as a young, you know, being quite young, Um, learning to manage with no prior experience is has been something that I’ve probably found the hardest and making mistakes and then learning from them and then making that mistake again, that happens a lot.

Emma: You know, I think in business, you think you make the mistake and you learn, but sometimes. You have to make this mistake again. And that is, I think that’s quite challenging and you’ve just, you just learn a lot of patience and a lot of determination running a business like an agency. There’s definitely been more, but I think you do block them out a bit.

Danny: So you took out a loan

Emma: Yeah.

Danny: To buy the. How did you do your, like, due diligence? How did you convince yourself I should go this far, like, in debt? Yeah,

[00:10:49] Emma: yeah. I got access to, like, you know, the contact list and the booking list. Everything that was really appropriate to show the value of the business. Um, and I’m really lucky that I did.

Emma: I had a lot of mentors that could help me. They looked into the books for me also and helped guide me on what the price should be. Um, so I definitely didn’t do it alone. There is no way that I could ever have done it alone. Um, my dad being the biggest mentor. So my dad works is in the business world and at the time where I was Buying this business.

Emma: He actually was working in consultancy where he would put a price on a business. I came to him, I was like, I want to buy a business. And he’s like, okay, great. Let’s look at the book. So we went through that together. I had no idea what, where to even begin. And I remember getting the loan and I only could get the loan to a certain number.

Emma: And it was. Substantially lower than what she wanted it for. And I was so scared that she was going to say no, because I really, that’s when I knew I really, really wanted this. And when, when she asked me, there was no doubt in my mind that it was the right thing. Like I instantly was like, yeah, yeah, this is what I want to do.

Emma: It’s pretty amazing looking back on it, but I just, I just knew I was like, I. I think I’m, I’m going to give this a red hot go. And I think I’m going to be really good at it. Um, and maybe this is what, you know, the next, I was thinking the next few years would look like. We now know it’s been longer than that.

Emma: So, and something that was really stood out to me and why I. Went in with a much lower bid was there was no returning, like the returning customers wasn’t, there wasn’t a lot of, um, retained revenue because of that, the loan I could only get out was a certain amount. And I said, I can only buy it for these for X, Y, Z reasons.

Emma: And then I remember my dad, uh, instructed me that to get the deal over the line, I needed to give her a time limit. So at the age of 19, I was saying to. The founder, I want to buy your business, but it’s for much less than you want. And you’ve got 24 hours to get back to me at the age of 19. I had the guts to say that when it was something I really, really wanted.

Emma: And I’ve never felt adrenaline like it in my life. I will never forget that feeling. And I remember she called me back 12 hours later and said, so yours. Yep. Um, I’ll sell it to you for that price. I worked my butt off to pay that, um, to pay that loan back. Um, and it should have taken me about a year and a half based on like, The, how much it was and I paid it off in six months and yeah, yeah, yeah, it was, yeah.

Emma: And I think, yeah, six months is it all it took to break even. Yeah. I wouldn’t say it was probably healthy. The amount of the amount of work that I was doing, but I never. I think because I was so determined to break even so quickly, I never really saw it as work and still to this day, when I sit down, I don’t think I’m working.

Emma: I’m just like, I’m just, I’m working, you know, yes, I’m working on my business, but I don’t think I’m going to work. Um, it’s really bizarre. Cause the hours fly by cause there’s always so much to do. One of the best stories I love to tell is I bought the business three weeks later. I was in Asia on a girl’s trip with four girlfriends and I would get up three hours before them and I would take calls.

Emma: with parents and I didn’t tell them that I was overseas because I was petrified that they’d be like, Oh, this girl has taken over the business and she’s now in Asia. And I’ll never forget this client rang me. We were at, um, we were at lunch and I said to my friend, sorry, I’ve got to grab this. Um, and I’m standing in like Thailand, which is not a quiet place.

Emma: Like there’s, you know, horns beeping on the side of the road, people yelling. And I pick up the phone of which I could still keep my Australian number. So they, they didn’t really know. And, um, This client was, you know, talking to me and then she says to me, Where are you? Like, it sounds very, it sounds really noisy where you are.

Emma: And that’s when I had to say, I’m really sorry. I’m actually in Asia right now. She’s like, that’s great. I think that’s brilliant that you can travel and work and you can just do it all, can’t you? And I, I did, I did it all. I don’t know how I did it. I think I had a lot of energy. Um, and that’s, what’s so amazing about being young and buying a business, but I made it work and yeah, then I paid off that loan in no time.

Danny: This loan should have taken like a year to pay off, but you paid it off in six months. How did you do that? Especially when you said you lost 75 percent of your clients and your candidates. What, how did this, how did you do this?

Emma: I’ve worked smartly. Like, yes, I was probably putting in a lot of hours, but I was still going to uni.

Emma: Barely. I was just passing. You know, uni was not a priority, but I was still going to uni. I was living on campus. I was still working three jobs. I was still working three nanny jobs. And then on top of that, I was running this business, but I think that there’s a lot of power in, um, the, the power of connection and being able to find good nannies for good families and then them spreading the word.

Emma: And I was never afraid to say to families. Can you please tell your friends about my agency? Please tell them like I need more clients. I was never afraid to like show as I think people would find that like maybe a bit of a week, not a weakness, but you’re showing that vulnerability of like, I need clients, please tell your friends, like, please recommend, like, I, I want you to recommend me.

Emma: Cause I think it’s so often that you’ll get this good feedback, but you’ll forget to say, can you tell your friends, like, I really need, like, that’s the power of word of mouth. And you just expect that they might do that. But I was really for forthright and said, like, please tell your friends. And then by me saying that they did.

Emma: Yeah. I remember there was this one day, like six, maybe, maybe it was like five months in where I spoke to 40 parents in one day, the phone did not stop ringing because all it took was me. Making one mom happy. I found her a nanny. She was like, where have you been my whole life? I wish I’d found you Mary Poppins.

Emma: You know, I wish I’d found you six years ago when I had my first child, but And I said to her, like, I’m so glad you’ve loved my service. I’ve loved helping you, you know, and I will continue to help you. Can you please tell your friends about me? Like, and she was like, sure. Sent or sent a message into her group chat and my phone didn’t stop ringing all day.

Emma: And that also goes to show the need for like the market that I’m in. There’s, well, back then, this is, you know, it’s a bit different now, but quality care was just so hard to find and they were having to do all the organizing themselves. And these busy parents don’t have the time or energy to do that.

Emma: That was just before I paid off the loan. Remember thinking. Wow. There’s such market here, but like, I can’t do this by myself. And I always knew that I wanted to grow a team. And so when I got my first employer, employee, sorry, um, that was a really, really special moment. And my, yeah, my girls have been with me.

Emma: They’re all, all of them up until a year ago were all students. And then recently I brought on a mom, um, and. I have a employee retention rate of two and a half years, so my, like, most students don’t stay in a job for longer than six, and I, my employees have stayed with me on average for two and a half. I think I’ve had seven, eight, I think I’ve had eight employees in my six and a half years.

Emma: Um, and yeah, they stick around because, um, yeah. I, they, I, I treat them with a lot of, um, a lot of respect and I really, really value what they do. And that’s really evidenced in the feedback I give them, the pay that they’ve paid, the bonuses. I, yeah, I’m very, you know, when I was living in Australia, they never, ever got coffee.

Emma: They never, ever got lunch. I think that. I was always the one to obviously shout them because I think, you know, it’s through, it’s such a small act, you know, in the long run, it, it just, it pays off.

I have to mention this because I’m sensing a through line from episode to episode now that the people that are really transparent and are willing to like, say the things like, Hey, could you just, Tell your friends.

Those people are like making it happen. It seems like you should pretend like you were so successful and everything is going so easily and you don’t need anybody to do anything for you, but leaning into like saying like, hey, could you tell some people? Could you tell your friends? Like that’s That’s, that’s made a huge difference for you.

Who was the first person, like, what was the first person that you hired? What, what role were they filling?

Emma: So she came on, we just job shared pretty much. So like my load was so extreme and I just needed, I needed like a right hand woman. And so, you know, we shared the, the family calls, we shared the sitter calls, we shared the babysitting, um, cause we have on call and placement.

Emma: Um, and so it was just. It was just to really job share, but now, um, my team has grown to, we have like a head of marketing, um, we then have a head of, have like a client liaison, you know, who talks to all the families, um, we then have a nanny, HR manager, a babysitting manager, and then there’s me, who I like to call myself operations manager because I do all the engineer, um, administration and maintenance.

Emma: It’s constantly. Evolving like their roles as we, you know, new opportunities come up. Yeah. I think to start with, it was just to help with the load. And now they’ve really like grown into roles, which is just amazing. It was, I remember getting my first employee who was, she was older than me as well, that I remember I was, I was 20 at the time and she was 21 and I remember thinking, this is so crazy.

Emma: Like I’m paying you, but there’s just something so fun about that. Yeah.

Danny: How did you know how much you should pay them or offer them?

Emma: Well, I knew what nannies were getting paid and I knew I needed to pay them more than what my nannies are getting paid because then why would they work for me if they, I could just find them a nannying job.

Emma: So I just made sure it was competitive. I paid them super from get go as well. So it was like a super annuation, which is like your pension. I’m pretty sure. Um, super annuation is the same thing in America.

Danny: You know, that’s a totally new word for me. You talk all about pensions and like retirement stuff.

Danny: Are you talking about like retirement?

Now we’re like zooming ahead a bunch of years and you moved to London and you have your team back home in Australia. Did you detach yourself from like the day to day or like, what is like the most like remove, where did you like most remove yourself from like running the agency?

Emma: I think it’s. One of the hardest things to do as an agency owner is to detach yourself from the day to day like micro environment. Um, especially because we’re talking about, you know, clients, your clients are families and your nannies are, you know, students, young girls, or they, they, you know, mature age nannies, but if there’s, they’re really, they’re true groups of really special people in which you form connections with.

Emma: And I think once you’re in it, It’s so hard to get out and not get out, like never speak to these people again, but I knew that this next chapter, me moving overseas and still having this business that I needed to let go and delegate and, and just, um, give over power. And I, I do believe me moving overseas.

Emma: Maybe do that. I think that if I was still in Australia, I, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I really, I really think it would have been really hard to do because, um, you know, you’re in the same time zone. You kind of, you get curious. You’re like, Oh, what’s happening with that match? Or have you thought about this or whatnot?

Emma: So. And what I do now, just so I can make it clear to, to the listeners, um, I, uh, like what is happening in the matching world or the babies, you know, the, um, who were connecting on a Friday night for this client. I have no idea. I am not involved in the slightest. Um, unless my girls, which they often do say, Hey, what are your thoughts on this?

Emma: This, you know, we had this one, um, anyway, I’m not going to bore you with the story, but they were, it was, it was a rare case that we’d never come across before. And they just wanted my opinion. And I love that they come to me for my opinion, because I still want to be involved. I, I was trying really hard to detach from the day to day, like matching that those really like small details, which are really important, you know, in the day to day.

Emma: And I did try and do that about six months before I left, but it really, it’s really, really hard. I it’s really hard to do. So yeah, I just had, I had no choice. I moved over to the other side of the world. I did a. Lots of travel in which I, you know, when you’re traveling, sometimes you’re not in service and it was the healthiest and the best thing I’ve ever done because it’s meant that one, my employees, I think they they’ve given me this feedback that they feel.

Emma: Like giving them that autonomy and that power has actually made them like, they’re, they’re doing a better job now because they’ve got more control because I was really afraid that if I stepped away, they wouldn’t, their passion for the business wouldn’t like, that would kind of go away because you know, I wasn’t there anymore keeping an eye on them, but it’s actually done the opposite, which is quite amazing.

Emma: Yeah. So I think for my employees, the autonomy, the autonomy that they can get from me. Just letting go of, you know, not really being involved in the day to day is amazing. And then it has meant for me that I can really step back. And I never could step back and have that breathing space to look on the outside inward and go, what’s not working and what’s working and how are you going to fix it?

Emma: And I found that like, really, really, I found it really, uh, fun to be able to do that because I am, I think for so many years, I’ve been a problem solver and a fixer in this business, in the, You know, day to day, but now I get to work on like more project based stuff, mainly to do with like the operations of, of our, of our systems.

Emma: I would hope that it has made me a better boss, um, because I have time to like, look at things that are making my employees days more difficult. I’m hopefully trying to. You know, make it, make it easier for them so that they feel more efficient and therefore more productive. Letting go, even though it is so unbelievably hard has been the best thing for me.

Emma: And as I was saying at the start of this chat, you know, when I bought the agency, And then I lost all those clients because they were there for the founder. I, by detaching myself and, and really working like over, I’m working like surrounding the business, I’m not in it anymore. I’m surrounding it. It’s probably the best way to describe it.

Emma: I think also has a lot of power to when you do want to let it go completely. If that’s something you want to do, if you want to sell your business, which is what I am wanting to do. You know, I am, I’m not paid in a pod anymore. I was for the first few years and that’s why it, you know, grew and I could pay off that loan so quickly because I was the face, but I’m no longer the face.

Emma: Like people come to the agency, like every so often I’ll send an email and they’ll be like, who are you? Like, and I’ll be like, I actually. Own the business. And they’re like, Oh, so nice to hear from you. Like they don’t even know. Yeah. They don’t I’m very much in the background and I’m just here when, when they, they want feedback or, um, a problem arises.

Danny: Thank you so much for joining us. Where should people go to learn more about you and peas in a pod?

Emma: Um, well, obviously there’s a website. Um, we have a great, um, social media presence if I don’t say so myself. And that has, that is none of me. I don’t do any of the marketing. My, um, great employee cat is amazing.

Emma: She’s. You know, we’ve, we’ve had a few viral moments on Tik Tok recently, which has been fun. Um, so we have got, uh, two Instagram accounts. One is P E A S nannies, and that’s for our nannies. And then we have Peas in a pod agency for our parents because yes, we have two Instagram accounts because we share kind of different content on both.

Emma: So yeah, that’s, that’s where you’ll find us.

Danny: I love that. I love that. Will you come back sometime and we can discuss more about your, uh, possible new business method, and All the other amazing, wonderful things you do. Yes, of course. Thank you, Emma. Thanks for joining me.

Emma: Thanks, Danny.

Danny: If you liked today’s episode, shout us out with a review so we can reach more listeners just like you.

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