This is Under Pressure, a podcast where we dive into the untold stories of entrepreneurs and business owners who have conquered adversity to achieve greatness. And now, here's your host, Nick Staton.

Welcome to another episode of the Under Pressure Show. I'm your host, Nick Staton. Today, we have Miranda Wood. She's here locally. She does a few different things. As far as I know, she's helped grow her husband's business, and I think she's been venturing into a couple other things, but she'll explain that to us. Miranda, if you don't mind, explain to everybody a little bit about your background.

Nic Staton

Absolutely. The last couple of years I have partnered with my husband to help build what is known as the Mold Team. It previously was the Mold Man. When we went through this branding shift, we had some really cool conversations that led us to make the decision for me to go out and chase my own dreams again. What I'm doing now is consulting and business brokerage. And so I help businesses, um, with various different things, but ultimately so that they can sell for top dollar.

Maranda Wood

Nice. That's what's up. I know that he's been killing it in, in the, uh, in the mold business. And then I know that y'all had a little bit of confusion or whatever with the name and stuff like that. And they tried to come and penalize y'all for using the name.

Yeah, we got hit with a cease and desist last fall that said, essentially, change your name or we will sue you for $2 million. It was a real easy decision that we were going to change our name after that one. Funny enough, though, the company who sent us that, they were starting a franchise in North Atlanta, and I heard that they've already closed it down. So it's just a wild ride, and we're just happy to still be here, you know?

That's what's up. Yeah, I know that they came by did some work here at the house this week. And yeah, I think they've got a little bit to finish up on Monday or something like that. But they got that whole pump put it in down there and everything. And I don't hear no more noises.

That's awesome. We appreciate you for sure. There's a funny story that happened recently. The cease and desist, because I stepped out of the company, I wasn't doing a whole lot of marketing. A couple of months ago, I showed up to a B&I group for what I'm doing now, whatever it takes, and the business brokerage and all of that. I met my number one competitor, face to face for the first time ever, right? Like usually we get tagged on Facebook and we'll get tagged like five or six times. And he's always one of the other competitors who will get tagged in those threads, you know, on chatty or wherever on Facebook. And I said, Hey, I have a feeling I don't need to introduce myself, but I'm Miranda Wood. Pleasure to meet you, sir. Your customers think you're closed. It's like, what do you mean my customers think I'm closed? And so we sat down and had an hour-long conversation. And a lot of people see competition as a threat, but I tell you, that hour of his time was definitely valuable for me and my husband's business.

That's what's up. That's what it's all about. Not everybody is closed-minded. A lot of people sit there and talk to some others, but some people are closed-minded and think that they're the best and they don't want to explain nothing else or even talk to nobody else about business.

Yeah. And so we made some tweaks, did what we needed to do. And ever since, man, my husband hasn't been home. He has been running, running, running, working until his hands bleed kind of work, man. I tell you what.

That's what's up. I saw that he's got some help too. It's not just him out there in the field.

So that's good. Absolutely. So you met Paul?

I think that's who it was, because he said my air duct was kind of messed up and he was like, man is blowing air on my butt back here. It's not supposed to be down here in the bottom.

Wow.

So they actually pointed out something that I actually had going wrong with one of my air ducts, but I didn't know because it's such a small house. The whole house stays ice cold anyways. So that one little air duct being messed up, I wasn't really noticing, but it's blowing downstairs in that encapsulated area.

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. So how did everything go last week? Everything's nice and smooth and everything all the community.

Yeah. Good. I mean that I'm the type of person that, you know, once I meet you and I feel comfortable with you and everything, you kind of already know where you're going. Just go ahead and handle your business. I don't need to look over your talk to you about too much. But I showed up and showed up the first day, I guess, and kind of got it here when while they were in the middle of doing some stuff. And that actually worked out good because I got to see them and talked about a few things. And other than that, they've just been here by themselves doing their thing. And I haven't seen them. I know I left them some cash. And you said that made them uncomfortable riding home with the cash.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. So as he got home, he was like, here, Nick, put me in this uncomfortable position. Take this from me. And so, um, yeah, I appreciate it though.

No problem. Um, so how did you start your, uh, your new business?

Uh, so, you know, you and I met each other through apex and last year apex, um, MDM. like the big Apex MDM event, I was sitting in there listening to these guys talk and I just felt like it was time for me to pivot. Like, just in my spirit, I just felt it, right? Like, okay, God's about to open up some new doors, you better be ready. And three months later, it's when we got hit with the cease and desist. Right. And so we were already talking about it, like, OK, yeah, this is what it's going to look like. This is, you know, all the things. And then when the season, the cyst hit, you know, we had to kind of put our heads together and figure out, OK, what are we doing? What do we want to do? How do we want to make some changes? You know, and so all of it kind of came about. And. Even though I know ultimately I want to be a speaker, right, like I want to get on stage, I couldn't figure out my lane, like, where am I going? What is this going to look like? So I spent some time in, um, self-reflection, figuring out who am I, what do I want, and what does it matter. If I want to get on stage and I want to talk to business owners, then I need to help business owners. How do I do that? I've really done a lot of deep digging. I went to our friend Lisa Marie's event and just got so much clarity. To go to that event, I actually went on a cross-country trip. With my nine-year-old, we left Georgia, drove all the way to Arizona, and then all the way back to Georgia. So we were gone for about two weeks and just, you know, spent a lot of time driving and a lot of time thinking about how I want my world to look like. And then in March, literally I was like walking through the kitchen and I was like, huh, I want to go be a business broker. Got it. It was just like the light bulb turned on, everything clicked into place. It was just perfect timing. And then I started the journey of climbing up this mountain, man. I don't know if you've seen my post since March. It has just been one obstacle after another, after another. I didn't really know what it meant to be a business broker when the idea was like, yeah, this is what I'm going to go do. According to Google, I knew I had to have my real estate license.

Right.

Other than that, I didn't really know anything. So I started calling people who help real estate agents, their brokers, and no residential-based broker can help me. No one that's helped me in anything I've done in the past can help me. Other people just had no idea what I was talking about, didn't know where to send me, like nothing. It was like just lost in the wilderness. Right. and just slowly started kind of chipping away at it, right? Like, all right, so I understood that I had to move my license from the residential to the commercial side. Hey, got it. Then I had to figure out, well, which broker am I going to go to? And so I just stayed with my current broker, moved it to the commercial side. And, you know, I had a mentor, but when I got a client, she went ghost for a week and a half. And I'm like, I can't help people if someone's not going to help me figure out what I'm doing, you know? Then I made the change to Caldwell Commercial, Caldwell Banker Commercial. It's called CBC. I have the most brilliant man training me, guiding me, coaching me. I got a lead on Friday. I called him after business hours, told him what was going on. Within 30 minutes, he was calling me back going, hey, Marina, this is awesome. This is how I can help you. I finally feel like I've got the right place, the right training, the right support. And man, I'm definitely ready to hit the ground running.

That's what's up. So what's been the hardest part of getting all of this going?

So business brokerage is the industry that most people don't seem to know exist. So as entrepreneurs, I know we know, hey, yeah, you can use a broker and you can sell your company. But there's so few people in that industry that it's been hard to get the information, right? The successful people are kind of hoarding the information and not sharing it with the newbies is one of the pieces. And so in my journey, I found one guy who said, yeah, OK, you want to come and learn how to be a business broker? That's awesome. Send me three leads that I will give you 25% of. Maybe it was 10%. and then give me three more leads that I give you 50% of and then I will consider talking to my broker about having you come to my team. I was like you want me to send you what now? You know and it was just The craziest what's in the, like, it definitely felt like extortion because I didn't know what I was doing. And I'm like, I wonder how many people he has just sending him free leads because they want to get into this industry, you know? And so he never does it.

It said that he never does it.

Yeah, you know, um, and there's no contract. It's just Oh, yeah, here's our form, fill out this form. And once I see your name enough times, then I'll consider if I want you on my team, or, you know, want to help you basically, you know, and so I'm where I'm at, though. I really, really, really like my broker. Like he and I had some conversations Friday and I tend to rock the boat and I'm like, okay, look, I know you want me on the phones, but this is what I want to do. Right. you know and as a newbie coming in some especially with the corporate culture of this uh brokerage sometimes it's not really appreciated and i was like so i just talked to you about it make sure you're on board with me and he was like yeah go for it um i think your plan is going to be fantastic you've got what it takes to do this go do it go do it anything i do to help you just let me know i was like Really? Are you sure? Yes, this is awesome. And so just having that support from him has been so, so incredible so far.

That's what's up. I'm glad that you found somebody that's actually wanting to give that little extra oomph to get you started on that and not wanting to hoard it all from you and shut you down and make you go another direction.

Yeah. And he talks a lot about cold calling. And I'm like, you know, Quote calling has never been my thing. That's not really what I'm about. Let me go network. Let me go meet people and see what I can do that way.

So when you find yourself under pressure, how are you dealing with that type of stuff?

I think it varies. I feel like you know this. We have three special needs children and together me and my husband have two companies. And so I tend to thrive under the pressure. When most people would crumble, I just kind of put my head down and dig deep and keep going.

That's what's up. That's always good. Never allowing it to stop you and always having that willpower to continue to push your mind and tell yourself that you can do something.

Absolutely. I worked four part-time jobs to work my way through college. On my hard days, my daddy would show up at my job to bring me food because I didn't have time to eat. He would tell me if it were easy, everybody would do it. And so when I have those hard days, that's exactly what I tell myself. I'm doing it this way because this is what I want. But if it were easy, everybody would be doing exactly what I'm doing right now.

I can't tell you how many times I've said that here lately at work and stuff like that. I just look at the guys and I was like, if it was fucking easy, everybody would do it. Because, I mean, this shit's not easy at all. It takes it takes a lot of a lot of A lot of willpower, a lot of brain thinking, and a lot of pushing your own self and building up that confidence to continue doing those things.

But you're on fire right now. Every time I see you on Facebook, I'm like, yeah, look at him. He's doing so good.

I mean, I've came a long way since joining Apex. I'll tell you that. Before being in Apex, I wasn't doing hardly any of the stuff that I was with business and stuff like that. It's just changed my whole motive. And then I just kind of found my own lane and really don't focus on too much outside of what's in front of me. Because if I start focusing on all the other stuff that's outside on the rear view mirrors and stuff like that, then that's just distractions that are going to take me away from what I've actually got going on. And it's the same conversations I have with my mom and stuff like that. I'm just at that point in life where I've got to build this. And if I don't build this, it's not going to happen. And this is my chance to build something that will actually last me for the rest of my life.

Absolutely. That's awesome. And even though we don't talk all the time, just know every time I see you on Facebook, I'm definitely rooting for you, man. It's awesome watching your journey.

I appreciate it. It's awesome to hear you coming on here and actually seeing that you've actually found your little niche of spot because I know that there for a minute, you were kind of not really sure what was going on and what you were going to do. But at the same time, you knew that you just didn't want to stay with building your husband's company anymore because he just didn't want it to go too much bigger than what it already was. And your mindset is going past where he was wanting to stop. To see you actually finding something, I think you're going to actually do very well at what you're doing once you get the hang of it.

Thank you. Yeah, I think so too. And, you know, one of the things I told Lisa Marie is I have to love my husband right where he is. And if that means it's time for me to go do something else and that's time for me to go do something else. And, you know, my husband has an amazing company. He runs it really well, you know, but he and I both realized that if I were to stay in his company, that I would not reach my fullest potential. And that was the biggest reason why it was just time for me to kind of go do something else, because that you would drive him crazy.

You drive him crazy, making it too big. And then he'd be like, man, damn it.

I mean, we grew the half a million dollars a year and he was like, turn off the water. Like, no, I'm drowning. I don't like this. You know, so we had to like, okay, well, what are you comfortable with? And, you know, look at how to do that and give him the life that he wants, which is so important. You know, I'm, I'm a huge advocate on creating the lifestyle that you want. right, having the life that you want, having the balance that you want. And, you know, my husband's definitely not scared of hard work, but he also wants to be there for the kids. You know, he wants to be there for all the big moments and to see all the things because he's missed, you know, Christmas and Halloween and all the things. And he's like, I don't want to do that anymore. I want to be home, I want to be with them. These are the years, high school are the years that my kids need me most and I want to make charm there. We had to look at that when it came to the business and what he wanted versus what I wanted and how to do that separately, but yet still be married. It was definitely a learning curve for us and lots of communication and, you know, he and I've never been scared of having those tough conversations and saying the things that the other person may not like to hear, but need to hear to be able to do that. And a lot of that was him, right? Like, a lot of that was him telling me the things I didn't want to hear because I didn't want to. Walk away from that company necessarily, but it was the right thing for me, if that makes sense. Like, well, no, I want to do this with you. And he was like, but you don't, you want to go do these other things. So go do those other things, you know?

Yeah. You've got them to a point where he's fine and he can continue taking it over and run it from there. And he just knows that your mindset's a lot farther. And if he turns around and just allowed you to stay right there, he would be holding you back from something. I feel like.

Absolutely. And he recognized that. And that's why he was like, no, pick me out the next baby girl. You gotta go fly. You can soar farther than I can ever imagine right now. And I don't want to be the thing that stops you. I don't want you to look back and be like, man, I should have, could have, would have anything. Go chase your dreams now. Yeah, and he's always been that like he was the person who pushed me to go get my master's. I said, I think I'm ready to go back to work. He said, I think you should go get your master's first. Do it now or you never will. And so that conversations but led me to get my master's. And then we actually consulted a mentor of mine about, OK, what should we do? How do we work through with what to do with the business next? And he said, where I'm standing, only one of you need to stay and one of you need to go. And the next day when we got home and we slept on it, my husband said, you know what, I got that from that conversation. It's time for you to fly. No, go fly. I said, but what it said, no, no, what is no, what about this? Everything else will work itself out. It's time for you to go fly. And I'm like, well, but. What do I do? Rip the bandaid off real quick, honey. You know, I did. Oh my goodness. There's been a lot of, you know, two, um, big things we've talked a lot about is one feeling lost in the wilderness. You know, what is, what is mine to do? You know, cause I've spent, even years before we started this company, planning on having a company with my husband. And, you know, so like, what do I do? And then also, this idea of being a butterfly trapped in a cocoon, just waiting to burst out, you know, and show the world how beautiful she is, basically. And, you know, this pull and tug between those two images of where I am in my world right now.

That's what's up. What's been the best part of all of this so far?

I've had some really incredible journeys with my kiddos because I've had the ability to kind of step back, you know, the last, uh, you know, all of this really came about in October. Um, and so from October to March, so what, five, six months of me just kind of figuring out who am I, what do I want and why does it matter? Right. And so at the time my kids were home, we were homeschooling two of them, did a medical stuff and, you know, just got to spend a lot of time with them before I really hit the ground running. And, you know, I'm super excited about the potential of what I'm getting into and where I could be in five years from now. And, you know, it's, it's been really good.

That's what's up. So what are you, uh, what are you most excited about for 2024 for the rest of 2024, since we're already like halfway through.

Um, I just picked up another speaking gig, another speaking gig. Yeah. Um, yeah. Um, and Sandy Springs at their rotary club.

Okay.

And so the big thing is in 10 years, I will be an empty nester. And then by that point, I want to be a keynote, like a national recognized keynote speaker and business brokerage goes really well with that.

Right.

And so, you know, I joined Toastmasters a year ago and talking to my mentor and using all of the things that I learned on how to build a speaking career and using that as my marketing platform for my business brokerage. Right. And how the two of them are just going to merge in this beautiful, beautiful thing for where I want to go. And so yeah, I found out on Friday that I have a new speaking gig. We're confirming details, but I think it's going to happen in September. And so I'm pretty excited at the opportunity to speak to more people.

Nice. That's what's up. So that's like a couple of them that you've done or that you have done by the time you do this one, right?

Absolutely. And you know, I've been in Toastmasters for a year. And there is literally one person that will beat me out for the ribbon. So if you're not familiar with Toastmasters, you have three speakers and three evaluators every session, right? At the end of the session, whoever was the best speaker gets the best speaker ribbon. And whoever was the best evaluator gets the best evaluator ribbon. There's only one person in our entire club that if I'm in his speaking segment, like if we're going head to head for that ribbon, He will always beat me. He's the only one in our entire club and he has a paid PR person who finds him speaking gigs all over the country.

So he has a little bit more experience.

Absolutely. He's been in radio for like 20 years. He's getting paid right now to speak on stages. You know, every time I talk to him, he's off to somewhere else to give another speech. And Just Masters is just to fine tune his speaking. And I'm like, OK, soon, soon, you watch. I'm going to have a PR and I'm going to come and I'm going to win that ribbon. That's a good mindset to have right there. Absolutely. And everybody else in Toastmasters, even the guys that have been around for 20 years, there's been times that I've earned ribbons against them. And I'm like, what? How did I get that ribbon? You've been speaking for 20 years. What? And so it's been really cool going through the Toastmaster journey. And my very first time speaking on stage, the man who is now my mentor through Toastmasters told me that I had what it takes to be one of the greats. I'm like, oh my goodness, this is amazing.

Nice. That's what's up. I love to hear that. That's always good news. Yeah. So how can everybody find you on social medias and stuff like that?

The biggest one that I use is Facebook. And it is Miranda Wood with an A, M-A-R-A-N-D-A. But I am across most platforms, just Facebook's the one that I spend the most time on. So they'll probably get the best personal response from me on Facebook.

All right. Well, there it is, guys. That's another episode of the Under Pressure Show. If you would just go subscribe on all the platforms. We're going to end it right here. Peace.

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