37. From Daycares to Dynasties with Victoria Sopik

Figure 8, Figure 8 Podcast, Victoria Sopik, Kids & Company

EPISODE 37

Victoria Sopik shares her journey from founding Kids & Company to growing it into a childcare empire with over 150 locations across North America while disrupting corporate childcare services and raising eight children of her own.

 

Catch the Conversation

  • Victoria Sopik is first and foremost the mother of eight children and grandmother of many. The CEO and Co-founder's experiences as a working mother and devoted parent have allowed her to disrupt corporate child care in Canada and the US. Victoria is a recognized expert in the field with over three decades of experience and a reputation for innovating through changing times. Her expertise provides strategic direction and leadership for the company. She has developed successful long-term partnerships with numerous private and public organizations, and is active with several charitable organizations.

  • 0:00

    Welcome to Figure Eight

    1:43

    Victoria Sopik: Mother of Eight, CEO

    5:20

    From Small Beginnings to Corporate Childcare

    11:10

    Expanding into the US Market

    14:50

    Building a Loyal Team

    19:27

    The Future of Kids & Company

    23:20

    Customer Care and Lasting Connections

  • Julie: 0:04

    Welcome to Figure 8, where we feature inspiring stories of women entrepreneurs who have grown their businesses to seven and eight figures revenue. If you're in the mix of growing a bigger business, these stories are for you. Join us as we explore where the tough spots are, how to overcome them and how to prepare yourself for the next portion of the climb. I'm your host, Julie Ellis. I'm an author, entrepreneur and a growth and leadership coach who co-founded, grew and exited an eight-figure business. This led me to exploring why some women achieve great things, and that led to my book Big Gorgeous Goals. Let's explore the systems, processes and people that help us grow our businesses to new heights. If you're interested in growing your business, this podcast will help. Now let's get going.

    Julie: 1:04

    Hello and welcome to this episode of Figure 8.

    Julie: 1:07

    Today I am in conversation with Victoria Sopik. Victoria is the founder and CEO, mother of eight children, grandmother of many children and kids, and company is her business, so she has over 150 daycares across North America. She has disrupted corporate childcare in the founding and growing of her business and she's a recognized expert in her field, with over three decades of experience and a reputation as an innovator. I'm excited to chat with her today. Welcome Victoria.

    Victoria: 1:39

    Thank you, Julie. Thank you for having me.

    Julie: 1:41

    Thanks so much for coming and chatting. I'm so interested because, of course, we started our businesses around the same time and met each other a long time ago now and have seen so many growth opportunities and growth things and changes in the marketplace, and I'm so curious for you about whether you imagined you'd be here today with over 150 centers across North America.

    Victoria: 2:07

    Oh, it's such a great question and it's something that I actually reflect on a lot, mostly because of where I live. So I live at the bottom of Markham Road and when I was actually in child care, my son's turning 40 this year and so when I was pregnant and expecting him 40 years ago, I was also, you know, a young mom, uh, wanting to be a working mom and trying to figure out how to do that. So I mostly wanted to have 10 babies. He was obviously number one. I did stop at eight because I did realize that there are a lot of work, um, but at the time is, and I I also say to people often that Um, but at the time is. And I I also say to people often that you know, having babies is a young person's uh, job kind of thing and that it's harder as you're older, just because you're tired or really. So you know, I wanted to be young, wanted to have. I had eight children in 11 years.

    Victoria: 2:56

    So in my early thirties I was done Um, but I was driving down Markham road and there really was not a lot of child care at all, especially for babies, and I had never been to one. I didn't have any experience with them at all. I had been in the summer camp business and I'd had a summer camp and the camp was something that was in, like you know, already built like school gymnasiums or churches or parks. It wasn't purpose built. And I remember seeing a purpose built child care that was, you know, like from the ground up, designed to, you know, care for children, with infinite classrooms and um toddler classrooms, preschool classrooms, a kitchen, proper gross motor rooms, proper playgrounds. And I remember being like just fascinated and mesmerized by the idea of a purpose-built childcare, even before I was in childcare, just because I'd never heard or seen it. And so the fact now that you know I've done that hundreds and hundreds well, not hundreds, we have, you know, I probably have built more than 200 because we've closed down a number in the years in the you know, 20, 40 years I guess I've been doing it.

    Victoria: 3:58

    But I just remember thinking like, kind of, like you know people would think about cell phones back in the day, like what is a cell phone? How does it work? For me it was childcare, so at the time I never thought that I could be in that kind of business. That would be like developing, building, creating. I more thought I would be in service delivery, and so, you know, I knew I was delivering a service with camp and I thought I could maybe do it with childcare. But there was this whole sort of purpose-built creation. That was, again, really interesting to me. So what did I think was going to happen? I thought I would, you know, have one or two or three child cares and run them and it would be a great thing to do. And meanwhile it seemed like there was a huge need for childcare, and you know more and more across Canada, across the US, and so it just shows you that it's hard to know how your story will unfold.

    Julie: 4:48

    It's true, and I think you know, I think you always had big thoughts. So you know, at first three seemed like big ideas, right, Like you needed one to have your own kids go to and then from there you think. Oh well, you know the north part of Toronto. There's a lot of families with kids having babies, moms who want to work Like. It seems like it makes sense to think you could have a handful of them within a confined space 100% yeah.

    Julie: 5:17

    But at what point did you have the idea that you could help corporations with the daycare for the parents who worked for them?

    Victoria: 5:26

    So it's a great question. So, yeah, so for many years, like almost 20 years, from sort of being 20 to almost 40, I was offering childcare for families, again not in purpose built buildings, but mostly in places like churches or schools, and so I learned how to operate a business, I learned how to operate childcare. And then I started to read and I would say, like the 1999, 2000 era, so still 25 years ago, I started to read about US. Us is very different from Canada, right, because they don't typically have a mat leave. Back then it was kind of two weeks and you know.

    Victoria: 6:00

    But companies wanted, you know, at this time, 25 years ago, companies were really thinking about women in the workforce. You know, prior to that, lots of moms had stayed home, but the economy was changing. Diversity was a big key issue Having women successful in their careers. They needed child care. Families started to look at sort of both moms and dads being, you know, co-parenting and being interested in child care, both. So companies in the US were looking at how can we have child care for our families? And they were building child cares on campuses. So they'd have these big campuses with, you know, hundreds thousands of employees and they would put a child care run by a US company. You know that was doing it well in the US and so I started reading about and looking at and thinking, well, this could be a Canadian solution. We could do something like this in Canada.

    Julie: 6:50

    And so so really, what you're saying is, from the time you founded the business, you had this idea that that could be a way that you served corporations.

    Victoria: 6:58

    Yeah, I didn't. I mean, I honestly like I didn't know that companies would ever care or think about it. From the time I founded Kids and Company. It was founded on the basis of corporate child care. I went into companies to say, would you be interested in corporate child care? They said to me we don't tell our employees where to go to the dentist, where to go to the doctor. We wouldn't tell them where to go for child care. I said, yes, but they can get into the dentist, they can get into the doctor. We wouldn't tell them where to go for child care. And I said, yes, but they can get into the dentist, they can get into the doctor, and right now there isn't a lot of child care available. So if we, if you, partnered with us, we would build child cares and they would be available to you. And that was sort of the compelling message and that made them go. Okay, yes, we will consider doing that.

    Victoria: 7:40

    And our very first location opened up at Commerce Court downtown and we had one at the Concilium in Scarborough and you know sort of off. We went another one in the TD Center downtown and we were mostly servicing like law firms, accounting firms, other businesses downtown. That you know was very important to them that you know their employees could have child care right there and they would, you know, be close by. And that's when we met, I think right around then, because you guys were launching or had launched and we were trying to think what else could we do for our families that were coming to childcare. And, of course, labels was a great thing, you know, labels for childcare Perfect. And so we would include them with the registration fee, and it was a great thing.

    Julie: 8:19

    Well, I think one of the things that Kids and Company and you have done really well is this idea of what are all the services you can bring around that help support the families that are bringing their kids into your centers.

    Victoria: 8:33

    Yes, 100% and you know what, as we discovered and you know, in Canada, I think that you know, there are a lot of people obviously with young children, but there are a lot of people that have aging parents, obviously with young children, but there are a lot of people that have aging parents, and one of the things we offer is elder care, which is like in-home personal support workers or, you know, nurses coming into the home, and that has been, for our corporate clients, something that's been very well received because, again, they have employees that need both of those things.

    Julie: 8:58

    Right, yeah, they've got. I mean, so many people now are in that sandwich, right? So many people now are in that sandwich right, Caring on both sides, and so I'd love to ask you a little bit more about the elder care piece and how that came into. You know, when did you decide to start adding offerings on that sort of side?

    Victoria: 9:17

    You know we did is because as we went in to talk to our corporate clients, especially at the start, they were kind of reluctant to give a benefit that cost money that was only going to serve like a small part of their population, so only a certain number of people having kids. And then some of the people that were having kids didn't need child care or want child care, or their kids were older. But everybody has some elderly person in their life that they care about, whether it's their great aunt or their husband's mother or whomever. There is no one that didn't need support and so it became something that was more universal and then it was a bigger selling point, to be honest with you.

    Julie: 9:56

    Interesting. That is interesting and, I would think, something that is very rarely offered through corporations.

    Victoria: 10:03

    You know what I mean it's rarely offered as a benefit. Lots of companies, as you know, right now, I think, we partner with Bayshore Health, but we just so what we would do is partner with a health care company that delivered, you know that great high quality customer service and also, you know, personal support workers, or you know nurses that could go in, and then the companies that were paying us to offer the you know nurses that could go in, and then the companies that were paying us to offer the you know, guaranteed childcare, emergency or backup childcare could also offer the elder care. So that was a great thing.

    Julie: 10:32

    Yeah, and I do think that that emergency backup childcare is so, you know, as a corporation. It's so important because you know suddenly you can have I mean, we saw it in the pandemic right All the parents that were suddenly educating, you know, very young children from home or their kids couldn't go to daycare and you know, no matter how hard you try, working is pretty difficult in those circumstances, for sure, for sure. So having that emergency availability is so critical.

    Victoria: 10:59

    For sure, yeah, for sure, absolutely yeah. How did you decide that you wanted to enter the US?

    Julie: 11:04

    For sure, absolutely. How did you decide that you wanted to enter the US market?

    Victoria: 11:07

    You know what? It's kind of an interesting story. You know, at the beginning, when we started, I was traveling all the time Jennifer, my co-founder and business partner, as our CFO and she had smaller, younger children. She did stay in the office, did not travel so so much, but I was traveling a lot, looking at new locations, meeting with corporate clients, looking at the quality of the childcare centers, and so we were, you know, heavily in Ontario, obviously, in Alberta, BC and then Nova Scotia.

    Victoria: 11:37

    But we were looking for new locations. And I remember being in the airport in Kelowna Kelowna was so beautiful and looking for a location there and then looking, it was going to be six hours for me to fly home Six hours is such a long time and realizing that Toronto was one hour flight from Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Washington there are six cities that are an hour away and I was like why wouldn't we go there? It's more of a competitive market, I would say, and that's been challenging for us. But Harvard Business School did a case study of us as one of the more successful Canadian companies entering the US market, which we're very proud of, because a lot of times Canadian companies are afraid to enter the US market or they don't do well.

    Victoria: 12:22

    So, you know, it was a big challenge for us and we started in Chicago and we had about 10 locations in Chicago, maybe up to 13 at one time, and it was, you know, in our way it was sort of very similar to operating in Canada, other than the fact that, you know, all the advice that we received from our PR people and our consultants was you know, don't tell anyone, you're Canadian. You know people in the US will not care, be interested in dealing with a Canadian company. You know you're incorporated in the US, you're in a US company. We were wholly owned by a Canadian company, but still be a US company, and so we tried. But, you know, and I would say, and now we have over 70 locations in the US, so we have grown quite quickly in the last few years. So it's been interesting, a lot of good learning, that's for sure.

    Julie: 13:11

    Yeah, no, it is interesting because I think often we think that Americans are just like us and there are some differences in business that you need to be aware of. I would imagine you're also getting much younger children, more infant, more infant.

    Victoria: 13:27

    Yeah, you're 100 percent right, and so, like, the level of care and training is important. I mean, you know the tiny, tiny babies that are two or three weeks old. You know you're so worried about things like SIDS that are just other you know tiny baby things. Typically in Canada the children are close to 18 months, at least over a year. So it's much different right now.

    Julie: 13:47

    Yep, what have been your biggest? Like amazing things that have happened to you out of this journey.

    Victoria: 13:55

    So many things. You know what I'm really all about people, and I'm an extreme extrovert. I love to be around people and I've just met so many interesting like entrepreneurs like yourself, and you know, extreme extrovert, love to be around people and I've just met so many interesting like entrepreneurs like yourself, and you know many others as well, as you know interesting clients that we've learned so much from. But I think that the biggest reward for me is we have such a great, strong, loyal team leadership team in our head office and you know we're approaching like so this year we're 23 years old we did had our 20th anniversary and approaching 25.

    Victoria: 14:26

    We have so many people that have worked for us for more than 20 years and you know what, in the sort of old days per se, as you know, people would start at their job and finish 20, 30 years later. But you know, as even in the last 20 years, things have changed and there's so much more movement. And you know, with younger people today, I think you know they'll have a number of different iterations or chapters of their careers they go through. So just the fact that we have such strong relationships with our team and you know they're so loyal to all of us and they've really helped us build this great Canadian business. It's been a huge, huge win.

    Julie: 15:03

    I would say I think that is a huge win because I think it's not the norm. So I think it's been a huge, huge win. I would say I think that is a huge win because I think it's not not the norm. So I think it's really great that people feel loyal and I would think, also because you've been able to build a relatively big company. You've been able to give people paths for progression.

    Victoria: 15:20

    It's a good point and you know what that that has been, would I say the challenge, I think. I think we've been pretty successful at it. But what happens with a lot of entrepreneurial organizations is that you know, the people that are there at the beginning are not the right people to be there if you grow right and I'm sure over along the way, we have lost some people that you know. We, you know, wish things could have worked out, but they weren't necessarily the right fit. But no one, not not too many like, not no, you know we've managed, I think, to accommodate and people have been understanding. And you know someone who might have been like our head of marketing in the early days now might be, you know, our VP marketing. We had to bring in a new head of marketing just because they weren't, as sort of you know, educated and trained on digital and different things, but they were cool with it. They were like you know what, like this is not my space. I don't want to be responsible.

    Julie: 16:13

    I'm happy to stay in my role and, yeah, and there's some people that will be happy to do that and others that go for sure um, I think that's a normal, normal piece of the journey, and people who liked it when you had five locations or three locations might not like a hundred locations and that yeah, a hundred percent.

    Victoria: 16:27

    Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent.

    Julie: 16:30

    So what's next for? What's next for you, what's next for Kids and Company?

    Victoria: 16:35

    You know what we? It's interesting because, as you may know, you know, our government has this great Canadian. It's called let's see well, canadian wide early learning and then basically it's providing funding for families to have sort of low-cost childcare. For us, you know, it's so important for us to maintain our brand and our high quality and so and we're full because people love the fact that it's low cost, and so we're trying to do everything we can to maintain the high quality of customer care, customer service, the educational components, the enrichment. The challenge with this program is because it provides so much funding for families, it's hard to grow. They don't have endless dollars to government, so it's hard to open up new locations. So we're opening in the US. I mean, we have, as I say, tons and tons. We'd like to open more in Canada.

    Victoria: 17:21

    I don't know what will happen, whether things will change with the government, like with the election, but you know it's been, as I say, interesting. You know, just from, like, intellectual perspective or learning perspective, it's so interesting to see all these iterations of you know how you can offer the same business under different you know. So, like at one point, you know, during COVID, it was different because parents were working at home and then they weren't really going back to work, so they didn't necessarily need childcare and then they would call back to work. We were doing more part-time childcare and even during COVID we were fully open because you know people, some people are emergency workers, lots of people needed to go to work and some people couldn't work with their babies, and so you know, there's been so many iterations of how we've offered our business that you know things are never dull.

    Victoria: 18:10

    Let's put it that way If we have a dull minute, then the next thing there's another.

    Julie: 18:15

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    Julie: 19:12

    Certainly at 70 locations in the US. You have lots of opportunity there.

    Victoria: 19:18

    Yeah, it's huge. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we could have hundreds. Yeah, 100%.

    Julie: 19:21

    What has the sort of you've obviously built purpose built, you've acquired as well? Your growth path has been both sort of your own organic growth as well as that sort of acquisition path. How did you decide, you know, to not only build your own daycares but also to look at, you know, acquiring some independence?

    Victoria: 19:44

    Yeah, you know what the problem with building is just takes so long right. And so at one point we were like we wanted to grow and and part of the cost and people that are in the retail business would understand this when you have an infrastructure, you know, like in calgary, if we had like a, you know a regional manager and two centers, there really wasn't anything for it to do. So we needed to either buy or build more centers. It takes years to build them, but if we buy them, we can buy them quickly. So it was more about sort of filling up the footprint in Canada. And the other thing was when we were going to corporate clients and saying we want to be your child care provider, we want to give guaranteed child care to your employees, we needed to have availability, we needed to have childcare centers. So then we had to buy them. And that integration piece, I mean that's a huge you know hour story, hours and hours of learning. So I mean the one that we bought, you know, in Burlington.

    Victoria: 20:38

    I think that you're aware of the woman who was lovely, that owned it. She would have all of her. She'd owned it for 30 years. She would have all of her employees on their birthday for lunch at her house, and so because she lived close by and people looked forward to that and they enjoyed that, all of her teachers. Well, I lived in East Scarborough. I wasn't, you know. No one wanted to come to East Scarborough to have lunch at my house, not really even a cook. So you know how do we, and how do we do that with all the brother centers. So then we're not offering that, we're changing things. It's hard for people. It's hard for people when they're used to something, they have expectations to see things change, and so that was a challenge for sure.

    Julie: 21:15

    Yeah, for sure. I think there's different, you know obviously different challenges. But I can see that you know, if you think about a market like you, go into Calgary, having one center in Calgary is a bit more difficult to find any kind of efficiencies and, you know, find the suppliers you need for food and all of the different parts that go along with right. If you have five locations it's going to be easier, right.

    Victoria: 21:39

    Yeah, those economies of scale are important, those economies of scale are important. Yeah.

    Julie: 21:45

    Yeah, uh. What other ideas do you have for what are you going to do? What are you going to do when you grow up? Victoria?

    Victoria: 21:54

    Yeah.

    Julie: 21:54

    Yeah, so it was so great. You know what?

    Victoria: 21:56

    I, I'm, you know, still learning, still growing. I, I do thrive on chaos. I always say Um, and so for me, um, you know, I have enough of a challenge I'm not really involved in. I was involved in the US for quite a bit and now they have, you know, we've gotten so big, we have a whole leadership team in the US, so I don't have to worry about them, which is great Because you know it was as they became sort of you know more, I was also having more grandchildren and so now I have almost 17 grandchildren the last number, 17 to arrive soon, and then I think I'm going to have six or seven more, like it's going to be, it's going to be a lot, maybe maybe even nine or 10.

    Victoria: 22:35

    So for me, you know, they're all sort of like a positive work. Worry, you know that you like, you know you just they're there and you think about them and need to be with them and see them. So that takes up a lot of my sort of time and energy. And it's nice to have a business that's mature, because you can really work on making it the best it could be. We're also doing growth, we're opening new locations, we have acquisitions, and so I'm curious about you know, many people, many of my friends, are sort of in their mid to late sixties and retiring. I don't feel at all that I want to retire. I think it's probably, you know, five to 10 years away. But you know things change all the time, as you say. So it's just we'll see what happens.

    Julie: 23:13

    Well, and I think it's interesting now for you to see have fresh eyes on what your own kids go through as they want their kids to go to daycare, and what that looks like and what insights that might bring to you about daycare?

    Victoria: 23:26

    and what that looks like and what insights that might bring to you about A hundred percent yeah, yeah A hundred percent.

    Julie: 23:29

    Yeah, a lot, that's for sure. Yeah, definitely, and I think it's true. Like um, I see more and more people. You know they don't retire, you know it's not the big production of like there's a date and that sort of thing. Some people certainly do, but there's also a lot of people who want to, you know, plant themselves and give back and use that expertise.

    Victoria: 23:50

    Right, a hundred percent, yeah, but you're doing that with entrepreneurs yourself and you know, maybe that's what I'll do, like I certainly could be, you know, a mentor and support other entrepreneurs. I have to learn so much. I've been through every possible sort of situation, shall we say. So I think there's lots of opportunities for me to use my brain power.

    Julie: 24:08

    Yeah, and I think it's been, you know, interesting too, because a lot of women shy away from kind of capital intensive businesses and, and you have, you have very successfully navigated that. You know building centers is not an expensive and and it's all money, upfront money, whether you buy it or whether you build it.

    Victoria: 24:26

    You're putting it all no 100%. You have to be able to operate successfully Like you have to prove you can, and that was a good thing that we learned to do.

    Julie: 24:36

    Yeah, Well, and it's that tension between yeah, the quality of the programming and running a profitable business. And being kind of I think. I think a lot of times as women we get sort of apologetic about running profitable businesses sort of apologetic about running profitable businesses.

    Victoria: 24:56

    Yeah, no, it's true, and I think that people will respect and appreciate you running a profitable business as long as you're delivering. You know what they need high quality. And for us, one of the biggest differences was we have a really high level of customer care and we never charge late fees. We let parents be flexible with their child care and, you know, I think the biggest message we've always had is you know, we're grateful that you're sending your children to our child care, whereas many of our competitors would say, oh, you're on the waiting list, we'll let you know when you have a spot, you'll be lucky, you have a spot. And so people were like, oh, I'm so lucky to get a child care spot at this location, whereas our message we wanted it to be was you know really that, like we're so thrilled you've chosen us, we want your family to be part of our kids, to come into family, and so and you know, one of the things that really um, such a great positive reflection of that is we started an alum program.

    Victoria: 25:47

    So, remember, we, you know, had babies now for 23 years, so we could conceivably have 23 year old adults walking around. That came to us when they were babies. And then, everything in between, we started an alum program. We started emailing people that had registered with us you know up till probably 10, maybe years ago say do you want to be in our alum program? And we had like a huge number of people were responding yes, yes, yes. Parents, obviously, but still, it was really really such a great, you know, feeling to know that people felt still connected to it.

    Julie: 26:19

    well, and you'll be close to getting a big wave of the next generation really you know, in the next, that's the next decade will be another way yeah um, it is interesting because I do feel, like you know, in that in that daycare is commoditized environment, people also don't feel like they can really give you feedback and tell you what they think about it, because they're so worried about being turfed out or losing that. So, you seem to have created an environment also where you're going to be able to get feedback to be better.

    Victoria: 26:49

    Yeah, and you know what I tell this story often about. Many years ago probably, I don't know 15, maybe the CEO of American Express, denise Pickens, I think was her name sent me a letter to say, as an American Express cardholder, to say you know, if I had any questions or concerns about Amex my account here was her cell phone number, here was her email. Please reach out to her. 15,000 children in childcare. Victoria cares about these children and she wants to know if there's something going on with them, and so we need to just make sure we handle the details. We need to make sure we know what's happening.

    Julie: 27:56

    And so I would imagine that something like that is a lot of people have your cell number and not very many people use it. Is that true?

    Victoria: 28:04

    No, you know what, like honestly, like literally, like one or two a year that call me and obviously or email me if they do, I always look at it as well Is this, you know, the one in a hundred that has a legitimate concern?

    Victoria: 28:15

    Usually not, usually, it's something very personal, I think. To be honest, unfortunately, people lose. They lose it Like they lose the email, they forget they have it, they don't remember, and then you know they may be like unhappy for a moment or two and then they're like well, you know they don't even realize that it came to them when they registered, but on the other hand, I think it's more of a culture message that is like we actually really do care and therefore and the directors and the area directors and the teachers know that, and so you know, if a parent is unhappy with something, you know, so another child bit their child in the room or they didn't feel that they were getting the right attention, then they can go to their director and their director is not going to be like oh sorry, like you know, we don't care, like messaging that the director will be hopefully very authentically caring, because that's what we want to be.

    Julie: 29:04

    Yeah, well, and I think that you know, opening communication is always helpful and I'm sure that it helps you with the position you have in the marketplace and the reputation you have. 100%, yeah, very good, very good. Well, I'm so excited and I'm so also was noticing as I researched for this you and Jennifer are still together. You're still both there, which I also think is amazing because you know that's, that's a relationship that's not unlike a marriage after this long yes, you know what?

    Victoria: 29:34

    We're still friends, but she's just retired. So she is retired, but we're still friends. Yeah, yeah, but she was with us for most of the duration. She is a little bit different from me in that she loves to do stuff. Like you know, she had a lot of hobbies and I, luckily, don't, so my hobbies are my kids, which I'm obsessed with, and my grandchildren, and then working. I'm a big working woman and so I think that makes a difference. And she was, you know, she was. She worked very hard obviously for you know, 30 plus years, and then she really wants to have time now to do stuff she's passionate about. But we're still good friends and we see each other all the time.

    Julie: 30:09

    I love it. I love it. Well, what a journey you've had.

    Victoria: 30:12

    Thank you.

    Julie: 30:13

    Thanks so much for chatting with me today. I can't wait to see Kid and Company continue to grow.

    Victoria: 30:19

    We'll have your grandbabies with us.

    Julie: 30:20

    Thank, you, thank you, take care.

    Victoria: 30:24

    Bye.

    Julie: 30:26

    I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Please remember to hit subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you won't miss any episodes. Figure 8 isn't just a podcast. It's a way of seeing the big, gorgeous goals of women entrepreneurs coming to life. If you're interested in learning more, you can find my book Big Gorgeous Goals on Amazon. Anywhere you might live. For more about my growth and leadership training programs, visit www.julieellis.ca to see how we might work together. Read my blog or sign up to get your free diagnostic. Are you ready for growth? Once again, that's www.julieellis.ca. When we work together, we all win. See you again soon for another episode of Figure 8.

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36. The Art of Business Delegation with Marla Coffin