Carson Wagner is the Founder and CEO of Lifetime of Love Nannies, a 24/7 nanny and babysitting agency that serves the Reno, Tahoe, Truckee, and Las Vegas areas. Since its inception in 2019, the agency has grown significantly, employing over 60 people and expanding its services to include special needs care, pet sitting, and housekeeping.
Carson has a notable background in behavioral therapy and a strong commitment to providing premium, inclusive care, which has driven the company’s mission to ensure every child experiences unparalleled love and care. Her entrepreneurial journey began at a young age with early ventures like selling seeds to neighbors. Shaped by personal experiences, including witnessing her mother’s struggles after her parents’ divorce, she’s driven to create a sustainable business.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- [2:07] Carson Wagner’s early entrepreneurship and how it shaped her business acumen
- [4:57] Carson’s journey from solopreneur to managing a team
- [6:55] Starting a nanny service business during the pandemic
- [9:30] Insights into adopting a membership model for a service-based business
- [11:10] Facing the fluctuations of business and sustaining growth post-crisis
- [15:26] Strategies for managing businesses remotely and maintaining personal wellbeing
- [17:55] Exploring diversification and the launch of new service lines for expansion
In this episode…
Many young entrepreneurs face the daunting challenge of turning a simple idea into a thriving business, especially in sectors like childcare, where demand is high, but trust and quality are paramount. Moreover, managing a team and scaling operations in response to rapid growth and unforeseen market changes, including global events like pandemics, can overwhelm even the most ambitious.
Carson Wagner tackled these hurdles by first identifying a gap in inclusive childcare services. Her approach involved creating a membership model that offers flexible, reliable care and leveraging technology through a partnership with Engine Hire to streamline operations and scale efficiently. Carson’s strategy for growth also included geographic expansion, initially tapping into the community’s needs in Reno before moving into Las Vegas and managing the complexities of remote business operations.
Tune in to this episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast as John Corcoran interviews Carson Wagner, Founder and CEO of Lifetime of Love Nannies, about building a successful childcare service across different cities. The insightful discussion also covers Carson’s innovative use of a membership model to differentiate her business, the challenges of managing a high growth phase during the pandemic, and the strategic use of technology to maintain quality service as the company expands.
Resources Mentioned In This Episode
- John Corcoran on LinkedIn
- Rise25
- Carson Wagner on LinkedIn
- Lifetime of Love Nannies: Website | Facebook | Instagram
Quotable Moments:
- “I realized that I can make money doing just about anything, as long as I have something in hand.”
- “I never want to have to be able to rely on someone else financially.”
- “We saw a need that was accepting all kids of all capabilities within our community because we lack resources for special needs families.”
- “Our service is 24/7. Our clients know they can contact us anytime they need us. That support is really important.”
Action Steps:
- Identify a gap in your community and act to fill it, just as Carson did with inclusive childcare services. Addressing community-specific needs ensures a solid customer base and a standout business proposition.
- Embrace the full business wheel, like handling calls and finding new clients, before delegating. Understanding all aspects of the business provides valuable insights and helps establish stronger systems before passing responsibilities to others.
- Create a membership model for recurring income, as seen with Lifetime of Love Nannies. Membership models ensure a steady cash flow and build customer loyalty through exclusive benefits.
- Scale your business by exploring diverse revenue paths, like branching into housekeeping and event childcare. Diversification minimizes risk and can unlock new opportunities to increase revenue streams.
- Prioritize company culture and customer experience during rapid growth phases. Fostering a strong company culture and excellent customer service secures a solid reputation and attracts dedicated employees.
Sponsor: Rise25
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We’ll distribute each episode across more than 11 unique channels, including iTunes, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. We’ll also create a copy for each episode and promote your show across social media.
Cofounders Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran credit podcasting as being the best thing they have ever done for their businesses. Podcasting connected them with the founders/CEOs of P90x, Atari, Einstein Bagels, Mattel, Rx Bars, YPO, EO, Lending Tree, Freshdesk, and many more.
The relationships you form through podcasting run deep. Jeremy and John became business partners through podcasting. They have even gone on family vacations and attended weddings of guests who have been on the podcast.
Podcast production has a lot of moving parts and is a big commitment on our end; we only want to work with people who are committed to their business and to cultivating amazing relationships.
Are you considering launching a podcast to acquire partnerships, clients, and referrals? Would you like to work with a podcast agency that wants you to win?
Contact us now at [email protected] or book a call at rise25.com/bookcall.
Rise25 Cofounders, Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran, have been podcasting and advising about podcasting since 2008.
Episode Transcript
John Corcoran 0:00
All right, today we’re talking about how to take a business from zero to 60 employees in just a few years. My guest today is Carson Wagner. I’ll tell you more about her in a second. So stay tuned.
Intro 0:12
Welcome to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast where we feature top entrepreneurs, business leaders and thought leaders and ask them how they built the relationships to get where they are today. Now, let’s get started with the show.
John Corcoran 0:28
All right, welcome, everyone. John Corcoran here. I’m the host of this show. And you know, if you listen every week, which I hope that you do, we have smart CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs every week. We’ve had Netflix go YPO EO Activision Blizzard Lending Tree. We had Gusto A few weeks ago, redfin, you name it, check out the archives, and you can learn all about them. And of course, this episode brought to you by our company Rise25 and our Platform podcast co-pilot, where we help b2b businesses get clients referrals and strategic partnerships with done for you podcast, and content marketing, and you can learn more by going to rise25.com or you can email our team at support at Rise25.com. All right.
So excited to have you here today. Carson, I met Carson recently at a training in Kansas City, and she’s based on the West Coast like me out of Reno. She is the Founder and CEO of Lifetime of Love Nannies, which she founded at age 19. And she founded it to help with this gap and inclusive childcare services found that there was a need in the local market and her Reno area has since expanded to other types of services and to other locations, including one in Las Vegas, and now employ over 60 people and help people from help provide care to people ages zero to 100. And so we’re going to talk a bit about that. But, Carson, great to have you here. And I love to ask people about any entrepreneurial ventures they had as a kid and you had one that was maybe not quite as profitable as a lifetime of love nannies is, but you had this idea of like, selling seeds. And I guess you’re like Johnny Appleseed going around and planting seeds in people’s yards and then hoping they’re going to pay you to explain to me how that worked.
Carson Wagner 2:07
Yeah, thanks for having me, John. Yeah, back when I was probably nine or 10, I had got one of those little seed packets that are like 99 cents, and it’s just assorted flowers, or whatever the case may be. And I thought it was a brilliant idea to just bag them and act like I created the seeds myself, and then go up to neighbors knocking on their door. If they didn’t answer, plant the seeds, and then ask them for $5 later. So not very profitable. I don’t think I ever got $5. But that’s definitely when I realized that I can make money doing just about anything as long as I have something in hand.
John Corcoran 2:45
And so you provide childcare now do you then later when you were I don’t know 1213 years old get into doing childcare babysitting, like many people do. I know I did that around that age.
Carson Wagner 2:58
Yeah, no, definitely I would babysit for just neighbors, family, friends, whoever needed it on a Friday date night. And then shortly after I started making a career out of it and you know, nannying, and being you know, long term with certain families and individuals.
John Corcoran 3:14
And one of the things that kind of shaped you as a kid is, your parents actually got divorced. And your mother, I guess, didn’t have any source of income your father did. And so you saw your mom go from relying on your father getting divorced, and then really struggling and that kind of inspired your motivation to work for yourself or to be able to to to support yourself talk a little bit about that impact.
Carson Wagner 3:42
Yeah, definitely just seeing my parents together and then split when I was the I think I was like 15, or 16 is when it happened and was long overdue. And my mom just seeing her go to college at the same time that I did to get her paralegal degree and just when I’m building my life, seeing her have to rebuild when she’s in her 50s was definitely something I was just like, I never want that I never have want to have to be able to rely on someone else financially and that’s when that really comes things into gear to me for me and drove me to you know, find something that I was passionate about and could also be sustainable for my financial needs and you know, not have to rely on anyone.
John Corcoran 4:31
Now it can be a big shift for people to go from, you know, providing a service which you were childcare, to then having someone come to you for that service and say well actually let me know this other person provides that service. So how did you make that shift? Did you have more families coming to you than you could fulfill and start you know, taking others or finding others recruiting others for them? How did that work?
Carson Wagner 4:57
Yeah, when I very first started I was in college, I dropped out, I just saw a need that was accepting to all kids of all capabilities within our community because we lack resources for Special Needs families in particular. And so I just dropped out, got my business license, called my family and was like, Hey, I got a business license or like, for what, and I’m like, Nanny service. And I had started it. And I was just going on Facebook, I seriously have flyers, I walked out my door, took a right and just started going door to door, and just trying to find people that needed reliable child care that they could count on, you know, with quality childcare providers.
And I just really loved it. Like, it was a huge passion. I enjoyed doing it. I enjoyed finding the clients. And I remember I had my first client who was like, Okay, where do we sign? And I’m like, sign like, fine. So I should have brought something. Yeah, I should have brought up pen paper. So Rocket Lawyer was my best friend and yeah, just like having my first employee and being like, how do I get paid? And I’m like, Ah, great question, you know, just kind of trial and error throughout it all.
John Corcoran 6:13
Yeah. Now, one of the challenges is, let’s say that you are providing a service for whatever amount, let’s say it’s $20, hour, $25, an hour, whatever, right? A family hires you, a client hires you then in order to make that shift to bring in others, you let’s say you get 10%, or whatever it is 20%, or whatever it is, you got to get that number of clients in order to match your income that you were making before. So how long did it take you to get to that point where you weren’t the one fulfilling on the service anymore? And you were actually, you know, the matchmaker and making a margin off of the other people that were working for you?
Carson Wagner 6:55
Yeah, most definitely, I would say it took me about three months to get to the point where I was actually actively hiring and had work for the people I was hiring. When I first started, my nannies knew that, hey, this is a brand new startup, I may have 40 hours for you one week and 10 the next and it just wasn’t consistent. So that turnover rate was really high when I first started.
And so I would find myself taking all the calls, I was the only, you know, admin staff on site. And so I wouldn’t be getting up at 5am to go to chefs until 10am. And then going into the office and finding new clients and hiring and kind of just doing the full wheel until we got to the point when COVID started, all of the childcare facilities had shut down. So we went overnight from having maybe five employees to skyrocketing gosh, probably like 30, within a year.
John Corcoran 7:51
So it’s all of these parents that their kids were in child care facilities, and then the childcare facilities shut down. And they still needed to work. And they needed someone to watch their kids. And then they called you. Exactly,
Carson Wagner 8:03
We were able to stay providing care to essential workers and the right place at the right time when I started my business, because that took us from, you know, being here to just skyrocketing. Really, within a matter of a few months. It was pretty incredible.
John Corcoran 8:19
And what were some of the challenges during that period of time when you’re like, was it the challenge finding the right staff? Was it just managing the inflow? What were the challenges for you?
Carson Wagner 8:30
Yeah, I think safety was a really big one. Everyone had this concern, especially when COVID was so new. And we didn’t really understand what it was and what was going to happen with the world. That was such a scary, scary time for us. I think just finding workers that felt comfortable leaving their home and then also finding families that felt comfortable with an individual in their home was a big challenge.
And when we were very first when COVID very first made its presence in our world, we had families canceling left and right and just keeping their memberships active for us to keep the lights on which I’m grateful for those people that did to this day. But it was definitely a scary time just having to navigate what that was going to look like for us and not knowing if we’re going to be able to stay standing. But shortly after, when you know, firefighters, doctors, people who were still essentially working within the community that couldn’t take that time away and the community needed them more than ever. We were able to provide that care to them, which was a great feeling.
John Corcoran 9:30
And talk about that membership model because a lot of placement domestic staff placement agencies don’t have a membership model. So how did you arrive at that? How did you figure out that model?
Carson Wagner 9:42
Yeah, so we don’t do placements so we don’t charge a large fee up front and take it if we can but we prefer not to employ all of our staff. They’re all two employees with us. And then what the families do is they pay a membership to have access to our online portal. Will that they pay on a monthly recurring basis, and that basically waives their booking fees and gives them access to a lower hourly rate per hour and then 24/7 around the clock care.
John Corcoran 10:12
Hmm. And she, did you build your own online portal? Because that sounds like a large undertaking, what was that like?