The PodcastEPISODE #43 Lovin' IT: Amy & Elden Quesinberry of Layer 8 Consulting, Part 1 CoupleCo has talked to couples running what seem like romantic businesses: Wineries, breweries, food, photography, etc. Today, we’re looking at a couple running a tech business that might seem a little less romantic—but it’s the kind of business that is incredibly necessary and, in the digital age, pretty lucrative. It’s people like Elden and Amy who keep the world humming along at the speed of digital. Theirs is a story that answers an age-old question: What happens when you move into a new house with your wife and two toddlers, you have a couple of mortgages, and you suddenly lose your job? This is a story about having the courage to take the leap, including the courage that requires asking your wife to join you in a business that isn’t her dream. But then what happens when it becomes her baby? Or you decide to become a woman-owned business—only to find out that it just means a runaround without any actual benefit? And, we’re going to get some insanely simple advice for handling those occasional interpersonal, interspousal annoyances that pop up on the job. CLICK HERE FOR A COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF PLACES TO HEAR THIS SHOW FOR ITUNES, CLICK HERE FOR SOUNDLCOUD, CLICK HERE DOWNLOAD THE MP3 BY RIGHT-CLICKING HERE AND SELECTING "SAVE AS" |
THE SHOW NOTES
Elden and Amy Quisenberry run the IT business Layer8 Consulting. When Elden was laid off after the dot-com bust, he had just moved his family into a new house and had a couple of mortgages. In order to survive financially, Elden took on some consulting work which grew into Layer8. Later, Elden asked Amy, to join the company and it surprised them both when it became her baby.
In this episode they talk about how Layer 8 started, why Amy loves her work, and the issues they faced in an effort to be classified as a “woman owned business.”
Takeaways
- Learning when to make independent decisions, and when to consult the other
- Managing work in the evenings and on vacation
- How working from home allowed them to be there for their kids
Summary
- How Amy and Elden met on a blind date (03:41)
- Their respective careers before starting Layer 8 (07:48)
- What led Elden to Starting Layer 8 and why he felt he could run a business (08:43)
- The services Layer 8 provides (10:59)
- How Amy joined the business and the difficulty of making that decision (12:28)
- How Amy’s role in the business grew and the business became her baby (14:27)
- How the company has grown over their years together (15:23)
- Why the company is called Layer8 (15:49)
- What Amy loves about her work (17:44)
- How they work together and how they make decisions together (18:39)
- How work is 24/7 and how they handle work when on vacation (21:38)
- The affect the business has had on their kids (24:40)
- The craziest things they see in their work (26:36)
- Why Elden likes working in the commercial sector (27:45)
- The challenge of trying to become a “woman owned business” (28:48)
- The importance of having a solid foundation when starting a business as a couple (31:35)
Links
Layer 8 Consulting
https://l8c.com/
THE TRANSCRIPT
Honey: 00:00 Are you really ready for me?
Blaine: 00:03 That's a loaded question?
Honey: 00:04 Are you ever ready for me?
Blaine: 00:06 Never.
Honey: 00:07 But isn't it nice?
Blaine: 00:08 Isn't what nice? That I'm
never ready for you?
Honey: 00:10 Yeah.
Blaine: 00:11 I don't even understand what
that means.
Honey: 00:13 Neither do I, but isn't it nice?
Blaine: 00:14 Welcome to the secret of our relationship.
Welcome to CoupleCo,
working with your spouse for fun and profit.
Honey: 00:21 It's business and it's
personal.
Blaine: 00:23 I'm Blaine Parker.
Honey: 00:23 Which makes me Honey Parker.
Blaine: 00:25 And as a couple in business,
together, we are coming to you from the Couple Coach, our compact, transamerican land yacht.
Honey: 00:30 We're navigating the nation,
boy we really are, in search of standout couples in business together.
Blaine: 00:35 And we're bringing them to
you so you can hear their inspiring stories of crushing it in business without
crushing each other.
Honey: 00:41 This show is also brought to
you by a couple owned business.
Blaine: 00:45 Smokin' Mary, smoked
Bloody Mary mix.
Honey: 00:47 Made in small batches with no
reconstituted tomato juice, only fresh, whole, perky, happy, bouncy little
tomatoes.
Blaine: 00:56 I think guys like bouncy
tomatoes, don't they? Smokin' Mary's Smoked Bloody
Mary mix. Hey, nice tomatoes. Online, at smokinmary.com. Are there any topics,
issues or special interviews you think you need to hear on this show?
Honey: 01:10 If so, we wanna
hear from you. Just send an email to [email protected].
Blaine: 01:16 We are interested in any and
all input from the CoupleCos who listen to this show,
including you. So like the woman said, send an email to [email protected].
So,
CoupleCo has spent a lot of time talking to couples
running what might seem like romantic businesses.
Honey: 01:33 Wineries, breweries, food, photography.
Blaine: 01:36 Today, we are looking at a
couple who runs a tech business that might seem a little less romantic.
Honey: 01:40 But it's the kind of business
that's incredibly necessary and, in the digital age, pretty lucrative.
Blaine: 01:46 It's people like Elden and
Amy who keep the world humming along at the speed of digital with a network
consulting company.
Honey: 01:52 Theirs is a story that
answers the age old question.
Blaine: 01:55 What happens when you move
into a new house with your wife and two toddlers, you have a couple of
mortgages, and suddenly lose your job?
Honey: 02:04 This is the story about
having the courage to take the leap.
Blaine: 02:07 Including the courage that requires asking your
wife to join you in a business that is not her dream.
Honey: 02:12 But then, what happens when
the business becomes her baby?
Blaine: 02:15 Or, you decide to become a
woman-owned business?
Honey: 02:17 Only to find out that it just
means a run around without an actual benefit.
Blaine: 02:21 And, we're going to get some
insanely simple advice for handling those occasional interpersonal, inter
spousal annoyances that pop up on the job. Here now, part one of our
conversation with Elden and Amy Quesinberry of Layer8
Consulting in Westminster, Maryland.
Elden: 02:38 All right, cheers.
Blaine: 02:39 A toast.
Amy: 02:40 Yes, cheers.
Blaine: 02:41 We are busy, sitting down with
and about to talk to Amy and Elden Quesinberry of
Layer8 Consulting which sounds really, really official and dangerous.
Honey: 02:53 And we are in beautiful
Westminster, Maryland.
Blaine: 02:56 Westminster, Maryland. Yes, do we consider this
the Greater D.C. area?
Elden: 03:00 It could be.
Amy: 03:01 Greater Baltimore area.
Blaine: 03:02 Greater Baltimore area.
Elden: 03:04 Business-wise we call it mid-Atlantic.
Blaine: 03:06 Yes, mid-Atlantic.
Honey: 03:07 So is it Go Ravens?
Amy: 03:09 Go Ravens.
Honey: 03:10 Okay.
Blaine: 03:10 Yeah, all right, Go Ravens.
Amy: 03:12 Depends on the year.
Blaine: 03:14 We are drinking-
Honey: 03:14 Depends on the year.
Blaine: 03:17 ... a lovely ... I'm not
going to mention the brand name. A lovely pinot noir because it's late in the
afternoon but we still want something just a little bit light, because it is
still summer, technically-
Honey: 03:26 And slightly muggy.
Blaine: 03:27 ... and slightly muggy and
we've got business to conduct. We have what I consider to be the most important
question in these interviews. How do you feel about it?
Honey: 03:35 I love it.
Blaine: 03:36 Yeah?
Honey: 03:36 Yeah, I do.
Blaine: 03:37 Does that mean you want to
ask it?
Honey: 03:38 Sure. You usually ask it.
Blaine: 03:39 I do usually ask it.
Honey: 03:40 How did you guys meet?
Amy: 03:42 Blind date.
Blaine: 03:43 Blind date. Yay!
Honey: 03:46 My parents met on a blind
date. Who set you up?
Elden: 03:48 There goes half the
interview, by the way.
Amy: 03:51 Friends of ours. I worked with a lady named
Mary and he was friends with her husband, Ray. And ...
Elden: 04:00 I stalked her.
Amy: 04:01 He stalked me.
Blaine: 04:02 Oh, another stalking case.
We've had those before.
Honey: 04:05 Were you excited for the date
or not excited.
Amy: 04:07 No.
Blaine: 04:08 Nobody wanted to go on this date.
Amy: 04:08 He did.
Elden: 04:11 This was back in the day
before the internet and everything. So you had to get the introduction from the
friends and all and I worked and finally got the intro and it was like, for me,
another date. So all right, another opportunity, but she ended up trying to run
away from me.
Blaine: 04:24 They do that.
Elden: 04:25 On the first date.
Honey: 04:26 What does that mean?
Amy: 04:26 Well, I delayed the meeting
for several months.
Blaine: 04:30 Really.
Amy: 04:31 I wasn't really ready. I was
at a point in my life where I didn't really want to date anybody and-
Blaine: 04:35 Wow.
Amy: 04:36 Yep, and then we had a mutual
friend of the couple who fixed us up who was the messenger between us. And
she's like, "Hey, Mary has this guy that wants to meet you." And I'm
like, "Ugh" not ready for that.
Then
she kept coming back and asking all these questions and I said, "Okay,
where does he live?" She's like, "Carroll County." And I'm like
"Probably not going to work out." I was in Baltimore County-
Elden: 05:06 That's horrible.
Amy: 05:07 ... and then I'm like,
"What's his name?" And she said "Elden Quesinberry."
And I'm like "Ugh, what does he do?" And she's like, "He repairs
computer equipment." I'm like, "Probably not going to want to meet
this guy."
Elden: 05:17 There's a picture.
Blaine: 05:17 Give this man some more wine.
Honey: 05:21 Little side note, there was a
television show on HBO called The Wire, which was set in Maryland and one of
the last jokes was somebody got demoted and sent to Carroll County.
Amy: 05:32 See?
Elden: 05:32 See?
Blaine: 05:35 They said in unison.
Amy: 05:36 So anyways, then he called me
and I'm like, "How did you get my number?" And he said, "Well,
Mary let your last name slip so I looked your phone number up." I'm like,
"Okay, whatever." Then he proceeded to tell me what road I lived on
and what kind of car I drove. And I'm like, "Um, Mary didn't know that information."
And I guess I really don't want to say how you-
Elden: 05:57 I just found that through
other sources.
Amy: 05:59 Right.
Elden: 06:00 IT wise.
Blaine: 06:00 I was just going to say
through Information Technology sources, didn't you?
Amy: 06:00 Right, right. See, that creeped
me out a little bit. I was like no.
Honey: 06:00 Right.
Amy: 06:07 He's like, "So do you
want to meet?" I'm like, "No, I really don't." And then he said,
"Well, how about if we get together with a bunch of people like Ray and
Mary and all these people?" So I said okay. So that's how we met and we
picked a date and we met.
Blaine: 06:21 I'm impressed because you did
everything in your power to prevent this from happening.
Amy: 06:25 Yeah, and on the date, I
actually left him and went somewhere else.
Blaine: 06:28 You didn't even know what she
looked like or anything and you just ...
Amy: 06:32 He may have by the source.
I'm not sure if [crosstalk 00:06:35].
Honey: 06:35 Aerial photography.
Elden: 06:37 Ray had seen her. No my
friend Ray ...
Amy: 06:37 That would be an off the
record [inaudible 00:06:41]
Elden: 06:41 That was the day before
drones. But no, my friend Ray had seen her a while back.
Honey: 06:45 So on the date, you just
left.
Amy: 06:47 Yeah.
Blaine: 06:49 Good for you.
Elden: 06:50 After 45 minutes, she goes,
"We're out of here." So I'm like, "That didn't go well."
Amy: 06:55 Just not my type. And I
really wasn't wanting to meet anyone. But then we went, my friend and I went
somewhere else and then the next thing I know Elden is walking in-
Elden: 07:09 With Ray.
Amy: 07:09 ... to the next spot with Ray
and Mary. And I'm like, "Oh my goodness." So several melon ball
shooters later and-
Elden: 07:17 She couldn't get rid of me
then.
Amy: 07:17 I couldn't get rid of him
then.
Honey: 07:20 That's all it takes for
romance is some melon ball shooters.
Elden: 07:23 She didn't want to get rid of
me then.
Amy: 07:23 Right.
Honey: 07:24 Is that part of Cinderella,
happily ever after, melon ball shooters.
Elden: 07:29 [inaudible 00:07:29] left that part out.
Blaine: 07:30 Just for the record, I need
to point out that it's not like this is something that just happened. We're
talking about how many kids and how many years in business later? Right now?
Amy: 07:38 So we met in 1992 so two kids
later and we've been in business together-
Elden: 07:44 For 26 years.
Blaine: 07:46 I guess this takes us ... We
should do the fast forward now to Layer8.
Amy: 07:50 Yes.
Blaine: 07:51 How did this happen? How do Elden
and Amy decide that they need to go into business together.
Honey: 07:56 Because you didn't want to date him. Then you
like, "Okay, I'll date him."
Blaine: 08:00 Melon shooters will take care
of that.
Amy: 08:02 The more I dated him, he's my
opposite. So there were a lot of things that he opened me up to and we balanced
each other out and we complemented each other and got along really well.
Blaine: 08:13 So Ying and Yang.
Amy: 08:14 Absolutely. And it just works.
Honey: 08:17 So you get married.
Amy: 08:19 Right. I was in the mortgage
business and then when we had our children, I stayed at home with them and
raised them. Then he was in the business for different companies, working for
different companies and-
Elden: 08:31 Yeah, I bounced around through
a number of boutique consulting companies and all consultant network security
guide, became a manager and then got laid off in the dot com bust in '02. And
then just thought, "Now what am I going to do?" We just moved here to
where we are in our home, two toddlers, and I thought this is the worst day of
my life.
Blaine: 08:53 Oh man.
Honey: 08:53 That's a great time to be out
of work.
Elden: 08:53 Yeah, exactly. Dot com bust
in the industry, double, triple home mortgage and two toddlers to feed. This is
lovely. But we had a project still going at a client, big project so I just
said, I'll contract back as a contractor and land this project and then that's
what I did. And I thought, "Well, I can do this." So I just grabbed
two guys that worked for me, one guy that I had worked for, and we started a
company and it was actually called RPM Consulting Partners and then that's how
we took off and we went three years that way. Built it up a little bit and then
little by little, one fellow, he went to work for a large organization in the
area and the other two guys, they just wanted to be consultants and techies.
Amy: 09:41 Not business owners.
Elden: 09:42 So I wanted to buy them out.
The company and everything. So actually when the first fellow left we had to
change the name of the company because he owned the domain and everything.
Amy: 09:52 Yeah.
Honey: 09:52 So before all this happened
and it doesn't sound like you had been on a path to owning your own business
before the dot com bust, did you ever feel like you were that person, that you
were a business owner, or did you always feel like you were happy to work for
somebody else?
Elden: 10:08 I always knew that I could
run a business or be an executive in a business if it was something that I
believed in or something that I could do and not just working at some company
that maybe I was just marginally interested in.
Blaine: 10:23 Any idea what the basis was
for this feeling? Did your parents have a business?
Elden: 10:26 No.
Blaine: 10:27 You just knew, in your bones.
Elden: 10:29 Yeah. And I'm not a sales
person, I'm a techie by trade, but yeah, after ... and I guess it was just
through years of customer service and believe it or not I was kind of a shy
kid, but years of customer service under the most stressful situations, big
companies, payroll's down, they're losing thousands or millions of dollars per
hours because your machine or something network is down. So learned to deal
with that and make the best of it.
Honey: 10:59 Wow.
Blaine: 11:00 I think we should probably
ask you, Elden, to explain what it is you actually do. IT consulting for some
people, we get it.
Honey: 11:09 You could actually, and it
could mean a lot of different things.
Blaine: 11:11 Especially when you're your own IT manager,
like some small business people are, like us. But what is ... what does an IT
consultant's job consist of?
Honey: 11:22 In your company?
Elden: 11:23 For us, as Layer8, it's
network engineering and security, IT security, so that could mean, transport,
routing, switching, wireless, infrastructure type things and then security
being protection from the internet, secure remote access, written policies and
procedures. I'm probably ...
Amy: 11:50 Data center design.
Elden: 11:51 Building data centers, server rooms, helping
MNA, merger and acquisitions type work where companies come together in
dissimilar networks, we blend them in and make them talk. But we do not do, for
the most part, the end computer/PC type work.
Amy: 12:09 Right.
Blaine: 12:10 So you don't deal with things
at the terminal. You just deal with everything that goes into the terminal?
Elden: 12:14 You could think of the
highways, highways and roads and traffic cops along those roads and inspection
points.
Blaine: 12:21 You don't deal with the cars.
Elden: 12:23 We don't deal with the cars.
Honey: 12:25 Cars [inaudible 00:12:26]
getting into trouble.
Elden: 12:26 Yeah.
Blaine: 12:28 Okay, so you've been doing
this for a while.
Honey: 12:31 Then at some point-
Blaine: 12:33 Amy's brought into the business.
Elden: 12:35 It was when I went to buy out
my remaining two partners, the techies, I needed money, right? Capital, so-
Blaine: 12:42 Amy's piggy bank.
Amy: 12:42 Which you could have done but
he came to me and said, "I'd like to buy out the other partners, and I
need help with the books. Do you think you could help me with the books?"
That's how it started.
Elden: 12:54 Yeah the other two partners,
I was buying them out from a technical standpoint, taking the domain-
Amy: 12:59 They remained on as
employees.
Elden: 13:01 Parts of the company but then
also I had two individuals that were part-time helping me with accounting and
they wanted to go back to their regular jobs. One was Rob's wife, one of my
original partners and she was into other things, and then Sharon had her fourth
or fifth child and wanted to go back to that, so I needed accounting help, so-
Amy: 13:26 Which I had never done
before.
Honey: 13:27 So was it harder to pursue
you for the business than I was to go on a date?
Elden: 13:32 Oh, no.
Amy: 13:33 Well it was scary though.
When he approached me, my immediate thought was, "Wow, I don't know. I
don't know if this is a good move for us as a couple. I don't know. We have
such a good marriage. We live together. Now we're going to be working together?
I don't know how that's going to work."
Honey: 13:49 Did you know other couples
that worked together?
Amy: 13:50 No.
Blaine: 13:51 And you didn't have any
family who was modeling this for you, mom and dad weren't-
Honey: 13:55 So there was nobody to tap on
the shoulder and say "How do you make this work?"
Amy: 13:55 No.
Blaine: 13:59 No?
Amy: 13:59 It was very scary.
Elden: 14:01 It was very scary. That's
known in the industry as winging it.
Amy: 14:05 It was very scary. We decided
to wing it and it ended up being-
Elden: 14:10 Well, it was easy for me,
right? You come in and say it didn't work out for you for whatever reason, we
didn't work well, whatever, I would have just had to hire a bookkeeper
accounting person. To me it was a simple as that.
Blaine: 14:24 And think of all the joy you
would have missed out on.
Amy: 14:26 Right.
Honey: 14:28 So you come in. You start
doing the work. Obviously, something works because you stayed and took on more.
Amy: 14:35 Right. Yeah, definitely grown
in the company, taken a lot of responsibility, I handle all HR, accounts
payable, accounts receivable, quoting-
Blaine: 14:46 Is it getting scarier as all
this snowballs?
Amy: 14:48 No, it isn't. I'm getting
more confident and I really enjoy it. I like it. There's been some talks in the
past about maybe the possibility of pursuing someone to purchase our company
and retiring and whatnot and I'm like, "No" because like I told you
before, this wasn't my dream.
Layer8
was not my dream. But now it's my baby. It our baby.
Elden: 15:14 Yeah.
Amy: 15:14 I kinda
adopted it and our guys, we're a family. Our employees are family members and I
just love it.
Honey: 15:22 And how big is the company?
Amy: 15:24 It's small. We have ... well
now we have seven full-time employees, including Elden and I. One is a sales
person who we just hired that started. Our very first ever salesperson.
Elden: 15:36 That is scary for me, but ...
And then we have what, three, four contractors some full-time, some part-time,
say 10, 11.
Amy: 15:44 Then we have some contractors
that we use. We're small. We fluctuated. We've been bigger, we've been smaller.
Blaine: 15:49 What does Layer8 actually
mean?
Elden: 15:55 It's a techie thing and
especially to network engineering techs. There's and industry standard model
called the OSI model. We won't get into what all that stands for, but basically
layer one is the wire, the copper wire, the transport and then it goes all the
way up through the different layers to layer seven, which is the application or
software level if you will. So we just thought, well, after picking some ... I
should go back a step.
So
my two remaining partners and I, we had to change the name, new domain,
everything of the company. So we were trying to pick names and we were out one
night, at a brewery, and we just had some God awful names-
Blaine: 15:55 At a brewery that's where the
best names happen, always.
Honey: 15:55 Can you remember some of the
good bad names?
Elden: 16:41 Something was maybe entropy or something.
Blaine: 16:45 Oh, any company that uses the
word entropy in their name is going to win big.
Elden: 16:48 Someone suggested that and I looked it up and
said, "What were you thinking?" I actually still have the piece of
craft paper that covered the table and us scribbling all over it. I have that
in the files in there.
Honey: 16:59 Who had a bad name? We spoke
to a couple recently-
Blaine: 17:01 It was for a boat. This guy
is a-
Honey: 17:04 Oh it was for a boat, that's
right.
Blaine: 17:04 ... a PhD in oncology. He's a
consulting oncologist to pharmaceutical companies and in the bar they were
trying to name the boat and someone came up with the name Metasta
Seas. S-E-A-S.
Amy: 17:17 Oh no.
Blaine: 17:17 And they were all like,
"Yeah, this is the name!"
Honey: 17:18 We're brilliant.
Blaine: 17:19 And of course they were woke
up-
Honey: 17:21 And they woke up the next
morning and-
Blaine: 17:21 ... Like, no.
Amy: 17:24 Yeah, no, that wouldn't be
good.
Blaine: 17:24 Anyway, Layer8 ...
Elden: 17:26 We came up with that so we
thought we'd be the layer eight behind the top of layer one through seven OSI
model.
Blaine: 17:33 So Layer8 is about the
people.
Elden: 17:35 People, users, and then in our minds, support.
Blaine: 17:38 There are professionals who
could not come up with a better name than that. So the reason I think this is
germane is because, Amy, you're getting deep into this and the more you do it,
the more you're loving it and the more you're loving it because you're working with
people?
Amy: 17:50 I just love that I can work
from home. My schedule's flexible. I can't say I love the human resources part
of it as far as the benefits and all that, but there's some clients that I
interact with that I really enjoy working with. I love all of our employees.
They're great.
I
really like the whole putting together ... Some of our consultants will create
a bill of materials for our new equipment for a customer and I really like
going out and pricing that and then quoting, just take care of all that.
Outside of the company. I work more with distributors and brokers for
insurances-
Elden: 18:25 Vendors.
Amy: 18:26 Vendors.
Elden: 18:26 And the employees, internal
employees.
Amy: 18:28 And the employees and the
clients I don't have too much interaction with clients other than "here's
your invoice."
Honey: 18:36 That's a good interaction.
Amy: 18:37 Yeah.
Blaine: 18:38 How do you two work together.
Honey: 18:39 We should point out that a
lot of people work out of the house and work in different offices.
Blaine: 18:45 Oh yeah.
Honey: 18:45 Their desks are right next to
each other in the same room.
Blaine: 18:48 Yeah, you go look at our
Facebook page. There's going to be a photograph of those two desks sitting at
90 degree angle and they could back into each other.
Honey: 18:55 I mean, it's a big room, but
it's one room.
Amy: 18:57 It's hard. Elden used to be
out in the field a little more than he is now. He works from home a lot more
now, though he's on the phone a lot. And my job, I have to print or scan and
the printer makes noises and then if he's on the phone, I have to wait until he
gets off the phone to print or whatever, so I'm like just sitting there tapping
my-
Elden: 19:17 So here's how it works. She's
... after two or three days, she goes, "Don't you have some meetings or
somewhere to go on site soon?"
Amy: 19:24 Don't you need to go visit so
and so?
Honey: 19:27 When we shared, because we
did share an office space for a little bit in Los Angeles, and I'm a sound
person, sounds make me crazy. And this sound of how Blaine types makes me
insane. He hits the keys too hard and he hits them in a flurry and stops. And
flurry and stops. And flurry and stops.
When
we spoke to Rebecca and Matt Titus who were in Maryland. They run Blackburg Crossfit. When they
started working together in the same space, the sound of him eating.
Blaine: 20:03 I've got a question. Why is
he eating in the office?
Honey: 20:06 Everyone has to eat.
Elden: 20:07 Oh that happens.
Honey: 20:09 Absolutely. So that's how you share the space.
You're clearly doing different things in the office at work. How do you make
decisions together?
Amy: 20:17 We discuss it and bounce it
off each other. Neither one of us make a decision without the other one's
input.
Honey: 20:24 Yeah.
Elden: 20:25 After working together for so
long, we each have our own domain. Obviously I'm the technical side, she's back
office.
Honey: 20:31 Obviously your desk is on the left and hers is
on the right. Clearly you have two completely different sides of the business.
Elden: 20:37 Exactly. But after working together I know that
she can read NDAs and all that and I'm comfortable with her reviewing and
without even me signing it and sending it back.
But
then you learn not to play in each other's space or if you do, consult each
other. So if she's not in the office and I prepare a contract to be sent out to
a client, I'm like, "Yeah, you need to review this" or something like
that.
Amy: 21:04 Right. And the books, he
keeps his hand out of the books.
Honey: 21:07 So you never felt like he was
looking over your shoulder even though you came into the business he had
started.
Faces,
we're seeing all sorts of faces. Elden is laughing.
Amy: 21:17 So yes, because this was
Elden's baby. There was some looking over my shoulder in the beginning but I
think now and for quite a few years, we've been pretty independent thinkers.
I
mean we work together and we make decisions together, but I do my thing and he
does ... and he trusts me, I trust him. So it's good.
Blaine: 21:39 This is an odd question to be
asking people whose office is in the house, but I'm gonna.
I think the answer to the question tells you where the boundaries are. Do you
bring work home with you at night?
Amy: 21:48 It's always 24/7. A lot of
times our conversations are about work. There's other things to talk about but
it always comes back to that. That just seems to be a normal for us, is to talk
about work. Like, "Oh, hey, by the way," It could be 10:00 at night.
"By the way, did you hear from so and so about this?" Which is
double-edged because it's good that we have access to each other 24/7 and can
talk about stuff like that, but it's also okay work ended, supposed to end at
5:00, which it really never does.
Elden: 22:20 It's minimal though.
Amy: 22:20 It's minimal but ...
Elden: 22:23 And we've learned. If we go
out to dinner, there might be some portion, usually in the beginning of just
making sure everything is done for the day or the coming next day, and then
that's it. There's no more of that.
Honey: 22:34 Yeah, but when you take a
vacation can you not talk about work or does it still pop up?
Elden: 22:40 It's getting easier and
easier every year. Obviously, when I first went away, it was myself and another
guy so I had to still actually work when I was on vacation.
Amy: 22:51 Which we still do on
vacation. In the mornings it's-
Elden: 22:52 But now, as they say, we have
people.
Amy: 22:55 Well we have people but in
the mornings, you get up, check your emails, if there's issues you've gotta take care of it and all of that.
Elden: 23:01 I think that's a personal
preference. I just don't want to come back from vacation with 5,000 emails and
all that. I'd rather spend 45 minutes every day, get it out of the way. And
then I'm at the beach or wherever I'm at.
Honey: 23:13 We do the same thing. If you
follow us on Facebook or Instagram, you see us in a lot of different places,
and it's very easy for somebody to say, "Oh my gosh, your life is just
travel and wonderfulness." No, you decide if you have this long day of
fill in the blank that you get up earlier, you get all those things done. You
put out fires before they start so you can have a clear enough head so you know
your clients are taken care of and then you go do that really fun thing. That's
the only thing you post about.
I
always tell people well nobody wants to see me post about and then Blaine wrote
some more. Then I made a logo smaller. That's not exciting posting.
Blaine: 23:53 Yeah, we actually ran the
business for a month from Nicaragua and the only thing that people saw was the
fun stuff. What good is it showing people here we are sitting in our VRBO condo
writing more copy.
Honey: 24:07 And we were at Jazz Fest. We
went to Jazz Fest every single day but we got up well before Jazz Fest and took
care of stuff. And I was on my way to the fairgrounds and we got a message from
a client that something was incorrect and Blaine kept going to the fairgrounds,
to Jazz Fest and I went back and went back to work.
Blaine: 24:26 There was certainly nothing
that I was going to do about it.
Honey: 24:26 Had to happen. But anyway, so
...
Blaine: 24:30 Is there any place you do not
talk about work?
Honey: 24:33 Don't want to know. That's
enough. That's enough.
Blaine: 24:36 Okay. That look on Amy's face
says enough. How old are your kids?
Amy: 24:41 21 and 22.
Blaine: 24:42 21 and 22. How did having mom
and dad in business together in the house affect the kids?
Amy: 24:49 I think it was a positive
effect. I think we were here. We were flexible so when they were in high school
and had high school sports, we were able to attend all of that. We didn't have
to miss anything. Or if one of us did, the other one was there and just being
able to be here was very important through all of that. They also worked for us
[crosstalk 00:25:11]
Elden: 25:12 When they got older. We just
had to train them when they were younger not to come bursting in the door.
Amy: 25:15 That was probably the hardest
part.
Elden: 25:17 I'm home. I'm on a conference
call.
Amy: 25:21 Or you hear things slamming
or they start bickering and it's just hard.
Elden: 25:24 Loud burping in the
background.
Honey: 25:27 Yeah, we've dealt with people
in the background. You hear ...
Amy: 25:33 Right.
Blaine: 25:34 Has it given them any
entrepreneurial sensibilities do you think? Or had it made them say no way in
heck I'm ever going to-
Elden: 25:41 If nothing else, they realize
that working remote is pretty easy and pretty desirable. Like Taylor in the
accounting industry sees it's like if she can remote connect somewhere and do
work, well both of them, actually see that.
Honey: 25:55 For people who have only ever
worked in somebody else's space, I don't think you get what it means to be able
to say, you know, I'm going to get up, I'm going to work earlier but then I'm
going to take a break and go to the kids' game or I'm going to fill in the
blank. But you get to choose. Yeah, I'm going to do this a 9:00 at night so I
can do this other thing that I really want to do that matters during the day.
Elden: 26:20 I think they learned a
discipline from that, too. Like getting up early or doing something so that you
can do those other things and not having barking dogs and burping kids in the
background.
Honey: 26:33 Your kids are bubbly.
Blaine: 26:36 So what's the craziest thing
that's ever happened on the job for you two?
Elden: 26:43 You know, IT and network
engineering and all that stuff, people say that's boring but yeah, you run into
some things. Because a lot of our work ... We do a lot of planning and prep and
some things we can do during the day, but there are other times that most of
the major changes have to happen off hours so we don't disrupt business and
users and all that. So there's all kinds of working with clients and maybe some
of the staff just had a few beers at dinner before the change that evening and
if it's a long weekend building a data center thing there was some parties and
liberties taken and things like that. And things in server rooms that you
wouldn't think would go on, go on. So I'll leave my part at that.
Amy: 27:32 Not that we've done anything
like that-
Honey: 27:32 No, no. Abs not.
Amy: 27:32 ... in the server room or
anything.
Honey: 27:32 We could tell.
Blaine: 27:36 So things here at the house
remain on an even keel for the most part.
Amy: 27:42 Very even, I think.
Elden: 27:42 Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's pretty
boring.
Amy: 27:42 It is pretty boring.
Honey: 27:45 I was just curious because
you're talking about having to work at night and security and all of that. The
proximity to Washington, are you dealing with those kind of companies?
Government companies?
Elden: 27:59 Not so much. We only have one
larger federal client. A few state contracts we support, but it's mostly the
commercial world. That was by choice. I like that. Because I worked for another
company for 17 years when I first started large company, defense contractor and
I saw the inside of the federal workplace. Nothing against it but it was just a
long sales cycle, very political. Let's have a meeting to have a meeting to see
when we can have the next meeting kind of thing and I'm not like that. I like
direct interaction with CIO/CTO/Director somebody, you guys sound good. I have
this need. You can do that. Call me next week. Let's get started.
Blaine: 28:44 You want to work with people
who get stuff done.
Elden: 28:46 I thrive on that. I like
that, yes.
Amy: 28:47 Absolutely.
Honey: 28:48 Can get stuff done. Amy when
we talked to you on the phone, we were talking about being a woman owned
business.
Amy: 28:54 Yes.
Honey: 28:54 Which has not all the pluses
that it should have for you guys.
Amy: 28:59 And only because I'm not
technical.
Honey: 29:01 Right.
Amy: 29:01 If I were technical, we could
enter that government zone and [inaudible 00:29:08]
Honey: 29:08 I thought it was an
interesting rule that I wasn't aware of-
Amy: 29:11 In the state of Maryland.
Honey: 29:11 Because we're a woman owned business but I
didn't realize that there were restrictions.
Amy: 29:17 It's really tough in the
state of Maryland. We went through it. I applied shortly after I bought into
the company probably like a year or two, though.
Elden: 29:24 We didn't start out that way
because as you bought in, people knew us anyhow as the owners of the company
whether it was-
Amy: 29:31 It wasn't our intent to be
well known, to go after government business. It happened by accident with the
buy-in. It just happened that I ended up buying more shares.
Elden: 29:41 Right to financially,
mathematically, to buy out the partners, but as soon as someone found out you
were like that, they were like, "Why don't you do this? Why don't you
become this?"
Amy: 29:51 Right. And if you could this
[crosstalk 00:29:53]
Elden: 29:52 If you can do that, I can buy
from you immediately.
Amy: 29:55 So I tried. So I applied and
it was a very long, lengthy application, interview process. And then I was
called down to Department of Transportation down by the airport. Sat before a
board of probably, I want to say there were probably 12 or 13 people there.
They asked me one question which was, "Can you go out and do the job? Can
you go out and configure a network?" And I said, no, but I've got people
who can.
Shortly
after that, I mean the meeting was over and shortly after that we received a 15
page rejection letter.
Blaine: 30:34 Wow.
Amy: 30:34 Yeah and one of the main
problems was, number one, I'm not technical and number two, my spouse who's my
business partner is technical. So to get the woman owned minority status, they
felt that Elden was really the key person, not me.
Blaine: 30:53 I was going to say, you could
have been a single woman who had an idea, bankrolled the whole thing, started
the company, hired this great looking guy next to you who was not your spouse-
Amy: 30:53 Absolutely.
Elden: 30:53 Thank you.
Blaine: 31:04 ... and been rejected.
Amy: 31:06 If I couldn't go out and do
that job, no.
Elden: 31:09 Well, yes, he's correct.
Amy: 31:10 Right, right.
Blaine: 31:11 That's crazy.
Amy: 31:12 Yeah.
Elden: 31:13 They're very stringent. As it should be because
there is a lot of companies, male owned, oh here's my wife and put her out
front and try to score the MBE entitlement, which is wrong.
Amy: 31:26 It's pretty strict in the
state of Maryland. I don't know if it's like that elsewhere, but definitely in
the state of Maryland.
Honey: 31:31 I just thought that was
interesting because I had not heard that.
Blaine: 31:35 So what do you think as a
couple working together, what is a pitfall to avoid as a couple working
together?
Elden: 31:44 For other couples thinking
about working together?
Blaine: 31:47 Sure, why not?
Honey: 31:48 Or other couples in it going
let's see if they can figure out what we're doing wrong?
Elden: 31:53 I wold
say, first off you'd better be solid as a couple and for us it worked out. I
don't know, I hate to say the word natural, but we were best friends, I'm
making sure she's nodding.
Blaine: 32:10 She's smiling and her eyes
are alight.
Honey: 32:12 Confirmation nodding yes.
Elden: 32:13 Yeah, so we were best
friends. So it was easy. But yeah, I can see other couples that were, I hate to
say regular couple status or maybe aren't as tight or whatever as a couple couple starting into business and man that's like building
a house and the foundation's so so, you know?
Blaine: 32:32 Yeah.
Amy: 32:32 Right.
Elden: 32:33 You can maybe make it but
with the stronger foundation you're much likely more to succeed.
Blaine: 32:39 Concrete instead of sand, please.
Elden: 32:42 Yeah.
Amy: 32:43 And I think, too, just to add
to that. I think for me, you have to let things go. We've all worked with
people that maybe one day made us angry or got on our nerves or annoyed us in
some way, or whatever. But you can leave that, go home and recoup, come back
and everything's okay. But when you're married to someone that you own a
company with and they annoy you or make you angry-
Honey: 33:14 Right.
Blaine: 33:14 We'd know nothing about that.
Amy: 33:14 And then you have to sit at
the dinner table across from that person and have dinner and then you go to bed
with that person and you're turning out the lights and you have to let it go.
Elden: 33:23 Or call them out right away
and say-
Amy: 33:26 Or call them out and get it
out right away.
Elden: 33:27 Look butt head you said this
and didn't make me happy and talk about it and get it over with.
Amy: 33:31 Right. And I think that's
pretty important.
Blaine: 33:35 It's also surprising how well
that works. Because a lot of people-
Elden: 33:35 Communication?
Blaine: 33:41 Yeah. They want to sit there
and they want to hold on to that thing and let it fester and ...
Amy: 33:45 And neither one of us are
like that.
Honey: 33:47 The second you deal with it.
Amy: 33:48 Yeah.
Honey: 33:48 And that's absolutely what
we've found and I'm definitely the kind of person who ... I'll clam up and walk
out of the room.
Amy: 33:57 That's me.
Honey: 33:58 But I'm much better off if I
can breathe and we just deal with it. And also, I mean, there are things that
... there's this familiarity that almost makes it okay to say things that you
wouldn't say to someone-
Amy: 33:58 Right. Absolutely.
Elden: 33:58 Oh yeah.
Amy: 33:58 And I have.
Elden: 34:19 As clearly and quickly as you
would to someone else.
Honey: 34:19 We absolutely done that.
Blaine: 34:19 You're a butt head.
Honey: 34:23 Partnered in advertising for year with other
people, then we partnered together and-
Blaine: 34:30 She hated me immediately.
Honey: 34:30 ... my vocabulary changed.
Blaine: 34:37 This has been part one of our
conversation with Elden and Amy Quesinberry of Layer8
Consulting in Westminster, Maryland.
Honey: 34:43 If you've enjoyed this
podcast and you think it would be useful or fun or other couple entrepreneurs,
please go to iTunes and leave a star rating and a review to help them find it.
Blaine: 34:52 And join us next time when we
return to Westminster to finish our conversation with Amy and Elden.
Honey: 34:57 We learn about a business philosophy
that treats employees like family.
Blaine: 35:01 But why on Earth, would you
interview a job candidate's spouse?
Honey: 35:05 And what happens when you
think your spouse is capable of doing something in the business-
Blaine: 35:10 But they adamantly do not
want to do it? Next time, here on CoupleCo Working
With Your Spouse for Fun and Profit.
Honey: 35:17 Copyright 2018, All rights reserved.
Blaine: 35:19 Love you, baby.
Honey: 35:20 Love you, too.
Blaine: 35:21 CoupleCo out.