Women Who’ve Sold Their Business Series: Gail O'Rourke
Jul 01, 2024
In the past 20 years, there has been a wave of women-owned businesses, and women selling those businesses. However, no one is really talking about it. In this mini series, host Kris Plachy is bringing women business owners on to talk about their experiences of selling their businesses.
In this episode of Leadership is Feminine, Kris talks with Gail O’Rourke. Gail shares her story of owning multiple businesses, and growing them from the ground up, and then selling. She takes us behind the scenes of that big sale – and everything she learned along the way. What it felt like keeping it under wraps, dealing with the legal hiccups along the way, and the bittersweet emotions that came with it. As Gail aptly puts it, "The sale of a business isn't just a transaction, it's a transformation."
Gail talks about what actually sold her business wasn’t the customers or profits she made, it was the process she created that made sales easy, from start to finish. She's big on process management and she attests that a well-oiled process is the secret sauce to business success, whether you're managing teams, training, or onboarding new employees.
Kris talks about how inspiring it is to see what women do after they sell their business. How divine it is when women have freedom to either create something again or invest time in making a difference. And that’s exactly what is next for Gail, who also talks about what she’s been creating with her latest endeavor, Benefact 4.
There’s a wealth of wisdom and inspiration packed into this episode. Tune in to learn more about Gail's remarkable journey on Leadership is Feminine.
Key Takeaways From This Episode
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Gail O'Rourke's experience of selling a business: Setbacks and solutions during the sale process
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Importance of structured processes in business management: Processes keep things simple when addressing training opportunities, onboarding new employees, and supporting staff
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The need for business owners to take a step back as the business grows: Identifying what you want to do, and hiring staff for the rest
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Influence of market conditions, pandemic impact, and industry changes on the sale of her business
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Emotional implications of business selling: Concerns for employees after the close of the sale
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Gail's life post-business sale: Shift in focus to philanthropy and volunteering and launching Benefact 4
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Transcript
Kris Plachy:
Okay, so let's. Let's just start with you telling us who you are. Who are you?
Gail O'Rourke:
Who am I? Okay. I'm Gail O'Rourke. I live in Plymouth, Massachusetts. I'm 54 years old.
Kris Plachy:
Yay. 54!
Gail O'Rourke:
I know. It's a great age. It's a good age. And I've lived a really, really full life already, and I'm excited that I'm only 54 and I get to reinvent myself again. I consider myself a professional apprentice. That's what I do. I learn new things.
Gail O'Rourke:
That's what I do. And then I find a business to match something I want to learn.
Kris Plachy:
Yeah. Which I want to hear. I want you to be able to share all of the things about what you're doing now, because I know when we met, you had just sold, and now you're well into the launch of your next adventure, which I can't wait for you to talk all about. So tell us about the business that you had.
Gail O'Rourke:
So, I'm going to tell you about the business I had before that business, because what I like to do in life is pick the hardest thing I can possibly find and then do that, that I know nothing about.
Kris Plachy:
As an apprentice. Even still.
Gail O'Rourke:
As an apprentice. Yes. Yes. So, when I was 30, I decided I was going to become a cabinet maker. I just had the vision and all that, and I pieced together a training program through a cabinet maker and then opened, you know, lo and behold, two years later, I opened my own company called Hometown Woodworking, and that was custom cabinets, home offices, wine cellars, and I did everything, and I pulled. I found a tribe of awesome, amazing people on bulletin boards. That's what you used back then 25 years ago.
Kris Plachy:
Yeah.
Gail O'Rourke:
So it's actually an interesting thing to think about as I moved forward in my career, and that's why I started way back there. I choose professions that have a beginning, a middle, and an end. I'm very process oriented, so I like to see results. I'm very results oriented. So cabinet making totally gives you that because you have a piece of wood, a couple days later, you have a piece of furniture. It's so rewarding. And I. And I loved every minute of that company.
Gail O'Rourke:
Hometown woodworking, I absolutely loved. And the bigger thing that I found was I loved construction like that. I knew, like, once I found, like, my wheelhouse, then I was. I can do anything in this big world of construction, I'll be happy. So I did Hometown Woodworking while my kids were little. I made it all work. And then 2008, 2009, when the housing market crashed, people weren't spending much money on their houses anymore was when I went back out into the real world and working for other firms. What I found out was I was doing it right.
Gail O'Rourke:
Whatever I was doing, I was doing right. So that gave me a lot of confidence. And then I.
Kris Plachy:
Yeah, it doesn't take long when you start watching how other people run their company, once you've run a company, to realize most people don't know what the heck they're doing. Yeah.
Gail O'Rourke:
So I, that launched that confidence of that testing the waters there, built my confidence, and I opened Whitewood Kitchens, which was my company I opened in 2013. Now you're going to say, well, why did you open it? Did you love cabinets? Did you love kitchen design? I'm like, no. Had three kids in high school, and I needed to pay for college, period. I said, this is what I'm really, really, really good at. I'm really good at this, and I really need to make some money. And so I-
Gail O'Rourke:
My husband had just come off a deployment, and we spent a lot of their college funds paying the bills while he was deployed. That's not what you plan on, right?
Kris Plachy:
No. Of course not.
Gail O'Rourke:
And I was determined. I loved what I did. The kitchen design and the construction field, and I loved owning my own business prior, and I hated working for other people, and so I took all that mix, and I just went for it. I did a business plan, which I recommend everyone does. And I talked to a coach, and she read it, and she said, okay, what's. What's the risk? Like, there isn't any. You can go back to work for somebody else again. Right, Gail? And I said, yes. So I started Whitewood kitchens with $6,000 and three credit cards.
Gail O'Rourke:
Didn't pay myself for a year, and. But I knew when I started it that I was going to be selling it someday. Which, so, really-
Kris Plachy:
I want to park there just for a second, because there's different, you know, certainly different kinds of women that I've met and I know that exist in the planet that, um, about this piece. Like, some people start a business because they know they're going to sell it, which is a very different path to follow, which, in some ways, I think those of us who didn't start a business to sell, have some envy. A little sales envy only because you were thinking about things that would make it sellable differently than someone who might have just started a passion project out of their garage and then, you know, started getting people who are interested in buying it.
Kris Plachy:
It's such a different experience it doesn't make one right or better or anything. It's just so knowing that you were building it to sell it, I would be curious what you knew you had to do, even early on. One, you said, have a business plan.
Gail O'Rourke:
Yes. The business plan was critical.
Kris Plachy:
I think it's great. But what else? What else did you know you had to do?
Gail O'Rourke:
Yeah. What I did then was at least have a plan going into the, the first year I had a plan. That's what the business plan helped with because, okay, how am I going to pay myself? So I always had a plan with my staff. At the beginning of every year. We had a plan for the year, we had goals for the year. I communicated clearly, like, what I wanted, all those things.
Gail O'Rourke:
And what I started year three or year four, which is what enabled me to start my business, was I roadmapped everything process from the second someone calls, to the the close out of the project early, and we, we worked on it. Every single year was a company project. What sold my company was the process that I gave him. That was it. Yep, that was it. All the staff could leave that. He could change cabinet companies, but as long as he followed that process, that was it.
Gail O'Rourke:
They buy from Gail because they know what they're going to get every single time. She does it exactly the same way every single time.
Kris Plachy:
That's so good.
Kris Plachy:
It's such an interesting thing. You know, so many people who run companies spend so much time on client acquisition, how to sell, how to market. Right? Especially right now, it doesn't even matter what your business is. Should you be, have a digital presence? Should you be on social media? All these things. All these things. All these things. And I think buyers know whatever buyer they are, they know that sales can be volatile.
Kris Plachy:
Right? But what. What doesn't need to be volatile is the process that a client or a customer goes through, or even that a new employee goes through. Right. That you've built the systems of the business. That is always the asset. And I, I love that you said that just spontaneously. It's like the thing.
Kris Plachy:
I wish I could yell all the time. It's like, spend the time and make those commitments to the business because that becomes the asset that you can sell so good.
Gail O'Rourke:
And I've listened to a lot of what you've talked about over the years, and, and a lot of it rings true for what I did. But you know when it's so much easier to manage? When you have a process.
Kris Plachy:
Yeah.
Gail O'Rourke:
Because you come into my office and you're like, "I blew it on this deal, Gail, I'm losing money on it". And I'm like, what's- I literally would say, "What step did you skip?" And they would say, "Well, I didn't measure twice". Okay. I've identified a training opportunity. You know, we'll find a solution. I always supported my staff. We'll find a solution, but we're going to work through it, and.
Gail O'Rourke:
But we're not going to do that again. And, you know, it's, it's just an easier way to manage than saying, well, why did you. I don't care about how you feel, about how you blew it. You know, I don't care where in the step.
Kris Plachy:
Where in the process did you miss?
Gail O'Rourke:
Yeah.
Kris Plachy:
Yeah.
Gail O'Rourke:
And. And I'm sure that feels stinky, and I'm not happy about it, but I don't have to yell or scream or, you know, why did you do that? Or whatever. So, uh, the. So the process, really. I've talked to many people about that, and I can't, you could take that process and literally sell bananas if you wanted. It's just a good sales process. Yeah.
Gail O'Rourke:
And then when we brought on new people, they just followed the same process, too. So it wasn't a disruption to bring in a new person if they didn't know who to ask or where to go. You just went back to the process map. The process map that we did also had responsibilities attached to it, and then whose responsibility it was. So it's more than just, these are the steps. It was, these are the steps. This is the results, and this is who's responsible for that step.
Gail O'Rourke:
So it was really. It's a text. It was a textbook, you know, of what you do.
Kris Plachy:
I love what you're saying, because I do think, to your point, like, people say, well, "Gail's the secret sauce we need". Gail and a lot of women who have their own businesses believe they're the secret sauce, and so they keep themselves too close to the process so that that. Or they don't make one, so that then they really are trapped in the business. They can't get out of the business, and they can't hire people to do the work of the business, and they certainly don't make an asset that is a viable asset. So it's such a great reminder, and I love the clarity that you have on it.
Gail O'Rourke:
Like, it's almost like. Yeah, and I know, I know it seems simple, right? So because I developed that early on in the process, like, when I only had a few employees, three, four employees, I was able to take the steps take the steps I wanted to do. Right. I can't do them all. I'm getting too big. You know, I'm millions of dollars in at this point, millions of dollars in revenue. Okay, Gail, we gotta. We gotta hire.
Gail O'Rourke:
Okay, sit down with my team. This is the steps that I want to do. These are the steps that I bring the most value.
Kris Plachy:
Yep.
Gail O'Rourke:
So these are the steps we need to hire for.
Kris Plachy:
Yep.
Gail O'Rourke:
So I was able to stay in my lane.
Kris Plachy:
Yep.
Gail O'Rourke:
And they knew if they had a problem with this part of it, they weren't coming to me. So I didn't need- they didn't come to me for everything. I was working my, I was working as an employee in my company, but we were all working the process.
Kris Plachy:
But your own.
Gail O'Rourke:
You can't complain to me about HR. That's not my job. Like, you could, but you know what I mean? But, like, I'm in here.
Kris Plachy:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Gail O'Rourke:
Like, we have, we have people for that.
Kris Plachy:
Okay, so you built the process. You got this thing going. You started at what year? 2009?
Gail O'Rourke:
2013. 13.
Kris Plachy:
Okay. What happened that made you think it's time to sell it?
Gail O'Rourke:
So there was a bunch of things happening in the field. So we had Covid in the middle of all this the last few years, and the, the construction market was bananas, and we couldn't cash checks fast enough. And then I saw a few things happen in the industry. And two lumber yards on the, where we are, sold. And then a builder sold, and a builder had never, never sold. And you just don't see that.
Gail O'Rourke:
That often, they close their doors or their legacy companies. It's not a company kind of thing, that the talent actually sells. And I've always had a hankering for timing, so it wasn't my intention maybe to sell that early, but it was. I saw that. I saw the writing on the wall, and I said, if we're going to sell, this is going to be the timeline. Numbers look great. You know, everything looks great.
Gail O'Rourke:
Our operations are fine, are working. We've had an incredible last three years with. With COVID And my husband said, well, let's. Let's get it. Let's get valued. So it takes about, it takes about- well, let's say that was November of 21.
Gail O'Rourke:
We got an evaluation done, and by a private party. And they give you the number. And that's super interesting because you, like, literally don't know.
Kris Plachy:
No, you don't know.
Gail O'Rourke:
It's this very complicated thing, and it's a big, giant report, but it's really fascinating to see where you are in the industry. So I recommend anyone. I think it costs us $3,000 or something. I think if you're even considering selling, you get the valuation done now, because what it will tell you is if you have to keep working on your business to get your valuation better, it gives you a roadmap for the process. So we were. We were good with the valuation, and then we hired a broker. We hired a transitional.
Kris Plachy:
How did you find your broker?
Gail O'Rourke:
My husband found him. I don't remember.
Kris Plachy:
Okay.
Gail O'Rourke:
I think it was a referral from our attorney or something like that.
Kris Plachy:
Okay. Yeah.
Gail O'Rourke:
And Buy Biz Sell is actually the place you go to buy companies. Did you know there's a website called Buy Biz Sell?
Kris Plachy:
I do, only because I follow Cody Sanchez, and she talks about buying businesses all the time.
Gail O'Rourke:
So it's a fascinating. I'm in that smaller market of the $5 million sale. Yes. So it's a fascinating site. So he just lists it on there, and then you use the broker because they have contacts. We did evaluation November. We launched for sale in January. He really pushed it in February, and we had three offers by March, which I had no idea it would be that quick.
Gail O'Rourke:
We're in that sweet spot. So, like I said, $5 million is, that's a guy or a small company buying another small company. This one was a person wanted to work the business, buy the business, and that felt good to me. He lived in the area, but he had been looking for two years to buy a business. He was looking at car washes and all different things, and, like, he would have done anything. He was, it was a combination of price and interest for him.
Kris Plachy:
Yeah.
Gail O'Rourke:
And then we sold the process. You know, that was it. Like, once they saw that, you know, and then negotiating, we can talk about the ups and downs of that and then close the following October. So within 10, 11 months. Yeah, that was it. And it closed. And he only had a three month hold for me, so I only had to stay for three months, but that was his.
Kris Plachy:
You're the second person now that I've interviewed with that kind of agreement, and everybody else I know is making, like, year long commitments or more.
Gail O'Rourke:
And you don't have to. That you can negotiate that.
Kris Plachy:
Yeah, of course. And I just haven't seen it work out so well because there's, the part of the buyout is based on long term performance, too, in some of these cases, and it just depends, I guess, on your industry.Quick question. When you went to the broker and you then knew you were going to go forward with a sale. I'm curious, when, through this process, process, you told your team.
Gail O'Rourke:
You can't. You have to, you sign paperwork that says you cannot tell your team.
Kris Plachy:
Okay.
Gail O'Rourke:
As soon as you have a letter of commitment. As soon as you have the letter of commitment, you, you sign a paperwork that says you will not talk to your team about it because they're afraid that those people will quit. So it's basically when you sell a house and you have, you know, a built-in in the house, and you're like, "but I want to take that built-in." Sorry. They already looked at it. It's in the house.
Gail O'Rourke:
You can't.
Kris Plachy:
Yeah.
Gail O'Rourke:
You can't mess with it. Yep, yep. So that was. That was a big deal. I did tell my two kids, worked for me at the time, those they knew, and that was, for me personally, emotionally, the absolute hardest part. So I was fortunate. My husband took on the brux of the meetings as far as the calendar, and I said, I'm gonna- One, you have to keep your sales up.
Gail O'Rourke:
Right. You get. So you got to do all the things you're already doing, but better.
Kris Plachy:
Yeah.
Gail O'Rourke:
And. And then you have to just keep working. And they go, "oh, we're gonna close in three months". Takes, you know, seven, eight, nine months. So, And the deal fell apart in August all the way down to that minute. So I get. We get an.
Gail O'Rourke:
And it was kind of a mistake by the lawyer. The lawyer sends an email. We were not be able to, we were not able to get this milestone met by today, so therefore, the agreement is null and void. And Mike and I looked at each other and were like, what just happened?
Kris Plachy:
Right.
Gail O'Rourke:
And it must have been like 09:00 at night, because we didn't call the broker. The next, so we had this opportunity at that point to say, "Okay, how do we feel about this?" It was really a great opportunity. So. And so we renego- we called them the next day, and we're like, "We still all want to do this." And they're like, oh, yeah, yeah. This was, we just have to discuss the milestones because we didn't hit that milestone.
Gail O'Rourke:
There's a lot of work on the buyer side that they have to do as far as financial milestones, and they have to hit them. This is really interesting because the bank was hemming and hawing because this is right when interest rates started to go up. Now we're creeping up to six, now we're creeping up to seven. And the bank's starting to get nervous. A couple banks had crashed, and, you know, from the time we listed it, the climate. This is when everything kind of went bananas a year or so ago, and the bank was getting edgy about the money, and I called my brother, and I'm like, "I think it might fall through". And I explained the financial situation, and he said, "Well, why don't you seller finance?" And I'm like, "What? What's seller financing?" I didn't even know.
Gail O'Rourke:
My broker didn't bring it up. My transition coach didn't bring it up, and so we seller financed 1.5 million. I'm making 8%.
Kris Plachy:
Yeah.
Gail O'Rourke:
I mean, can't go wrong. No. Making an extra $300,000 on that. Look, that note.
Kris Plachy:
Yes.
Gail O'Rourke:
And the bank was happy that, you know, we did that. So it made the bank happy, and then the deal closed. Like, just like that. So you have to be creative, and you have to also know that just because you're hired experts, they're not, they not always thinking about creative ways. You're a business person because you're creative, and you think of a new way to do things.
Kris Plachy:
So good.
Gail O'Rourke:
So rely on your instincts. I think. Um.
Kris Plachy:
And your support team. Right? Like, you.
Gail O'Rourke:
Yeah.
Kris Plachy:
Not the people that you're paying to be your advisors, but literally your support team. There's a lot, a lot of wisdom in there, right? Yeah. So good. And your willingness to be vulnerable and talk about it and share, like. Right with you said, I think it was your brother in law. Like, this is my brother.
Gail O'Rourke:
Yeah.
Kris Plachy:
Your brother. Yeah. Like, oh, my goodness. Right. Like, a lot of times, people don't want to talk about stuff.
Gail O'Rourke:
People don't never want to talk about money. And I think that that's a, that's a problem, because I always was very transparent with my staff about where we were in the books, how much money we were making. And when we made money, they made money, and they felt so much part of the team. And, you know, our goals were around, you know, financial goals for the company, and, and, and I would. I would do, like, gorilla pie charts on back of pizza boxes and go, go.
Gail O'Rourke:
"Okay, gang. You know, are we making money?" And I'd try to explain it in a way that they could understand the P & L and all that information, because they needed to understand that. That when they lost money, it's all of us losing money. Like, and it's like, literally, me, let me pull my money out of my pocket and just hand it to you, you know, kind of a thing. But they, they don't appreciate that it's actually real money. It's all. It seems like it's more just paper money.
Gail O'Rourke:
Yeah, but in the end, really, I was in business to make money. And I was very clear with my employees about that. We excelled at what we did and I sold it to make money. And they, you know, I was very clear when I. We sold it and I said I sold it to make money. It's not because I hate you. There was no big, there was no big disaster. People like, "Oh, why did you sell? Like, what happened?" It wasn't a divorce.
Gail O'Rourke:
No, I just sold it.
Kris Plachy:
Well, and like you said, which actually several of my clients have said to me, and even the woman I interviewed this morning, you got to sell when it's the right time to sell. And sometimes, like you said, it might have been a little sooner than I would have thought, but that's when it was the right time. So. Okay, so let me ask you a couple more, like logistics. So you worked, you, you were available for three months after you sold, and then you're done with the exception of he's obviously got a loan with you.
Gail O'Rourke:
Right. I see his financials every month. That's it. Yeah, that's it. Nothing. So you think irreplaceable, irreplaceable, but you're not. So, like, literally I fell off.
Gail O'Rourke:
I was at my desk until my party was at 1:30, my party. And I'm still writing orders and finishing kitchen designs. Like, I had my head down for those three months. I wanted to take care of the clients. I had started, you know, a kitchen design process of three to six months. So I was in the middle of a lot. So I'm like, literally my desk. I stand up, I leave my phone on my desk, my keys on my desk.
Gail O'Rourke:
I walked downstairs for a little champagne and cake. Did it something. You walk out the door, you have no idea what's going to happen to you. So you're kind of like, the next day, you're like, what?
Kris Plachy:
So let's talk about this. This is the best part, I think. And the woman I was talking to said, she said, nobody prepares you for the existential crisis that comes after you sell your business.
Gail O'Rourke:
Really?
Kris Plachy:
Like, do I, right. Who am I? What am I going to do? I have all this energy because that never goes away. Right, so. So now, yes, with that, with that intro. You woke up on Monday morning.
Gail O'Rourke:
Yeah, I woke up on my, I think I scrolled dog videos on Instagram for about three straight hours. 3 hours. And I looked up and I'm like, oh, okay. And then I would, I go up, I go to the gym, and then I get home. And I'm like, okay, it's noon. Like, what am I going to do? So we went on vacation. And then one of, one night of vacation, in the middle of the night, I woke up terrified.
Gail O'Rourke:
Sweat, panic, anxiety attack. Is anyone calling my clients back? Is anyone calling them back? Are they... What happened? And I pinged my kids because they still work there.
Kris Plachy:
Yeah.
Gail O'Rourke:
I'm like, "Is everything okay? Is people calling, you know, Suzy, Sally? They. Did someone call her back?" Oh, yeah. Everything's good. You're good. So I just needed that reassurance, like, yep, the place didn't burn down. Like, literally. And then I, and then I was fine.
Gail O'Rourke:
It took. It took a hot minute to, to calm down. And then I think I had my first, I had some of my first visions with you. And then those kind of developed a little bit over that on on a different trip. We traveled a bunch when we were done. We caught up with friends and family that we had just not visited in the ten years that we had owned our business. So we.
Gail O'Rourke:
We felt, like, grateful to be able to catch up on some of that. And then really kind of towards the end of spring last year, I was like, okay, I'm ready to, you know, kind of dive into something new, but I do want to back up to the, how it felt the, when we were coming up to the sale, the company sale, and it was, it was a lot of sleepless nights. And, like, I had so much anxiety, and, like, people are going to hate me. I'm a horrible person. Like, awful, awful, awful. Because literally, you go in on the day of the sale and you fire everybody.
Gail O'Rourke:
You have to give them termination letters.
Kris Plachy:
Get rehired by the new company.
Gail O'Rourke:
Right? Yes. And that is if it's very insulting, I think, to employees, but that's the way you have to do it legally. So you're like, hi, good morning. We have a meeting. I just sold the company. Literally. You hand them a termination letter and their last paycheck, like, in that moment, they're like, just hearing about it. But this is how it works.
Gail O'Rourke:
This is how it has to happen. And then he hands him a packet with a job offer, which, thank God, he kept all the benefits, everything. He. He just duplicated what I was doing. But they don't have to do that.
Kris Plachy:
Yeah, exactly right.
Gail O'Rourke:
That's entirely up to him. And. And everybody signed on. Everybody came back. But they could have taken unemployment at that point. They could have, you know, said, "Oh, good, I'm moving on." And. But that was literally probably one of the worst feelings of my entire life, having to go through that now, looking back a year or so later and seeing that everybody stayed and everyone still has a job, a great job and benefits and all that, I wouldn't.
Gail O'Rourke:
I wish. Now I want to sell another company so I don't have to worry so much.
Kris Plachy:
Like, oh, it's gonna be fine. Trust me. It's gonna be fine. Yeah.
Gail O'Rourke:
Yeah.
Kris Plachy:
But it is. It is sort of an inhumane, any kind of layoff. It's just, you know, even though we all know we sign up to work in a company, we're working for a company. We're not a family. You're an employee. And on any given moment, everything could change. And you didn't know it four minutes ago.
Gail O'Rourke:
Yes. And I feel like, as a. As a leader, as a layoff, you, I feel like that's a failure on my part. I had it. I had a year where I had to lay some people off, and I think I took that personally because I felt like I did something wrong and I had to lay them off. And whether that's right or wrong, I felt that way this time. I didn't have that.
Gail O'Rourke:
I did something wrong, so I'm selling it. I said I did everything right, so I'm sad selling it. So I didn't have that, that negative feeling about me, about Gail.
Kris Plachy:
Yeah.
Gail O'Rourke:
You know, it's just uncomfortable for them.
Kris Plachy:
Yeah. But now everybody's still there. So how's the business doing?
Gail O'Rourke:
Great.
Kris Plachy:
Of course it is.
Gail O'Rourke:
I still get my loan every month, and so it's great.
Kris Plachy:
Great.
Gail O'Rourke:
I. Who know? I mean, you don't know, right?
Kris Plachy:
But. No, no, but I think it's kind of fun that you say, now I want to do it again. I love that. So now what? Crazy, crazy visionary brain.
Gail O'Rourke:
Yeah. So when I was, when I was there and people kept, "What are you going to do next? What are you going to do next?" I said I wanted to open academy for kitchen designers. I thought it was the next logical step for me. And I, soon, literally, the day I stopped working, I'm like, I'm not doing that. I have no interest in doing that. It's super hard.
Gail O'Rourke:
Super hard. And I didn't know. I was going to start a golf socks line.
Kris Plachy:
That was what you were on to when we were together in Rhode island.
Gail O'Rourke:
But while I was thinking of all these things, I was really enthusiastic about volunteering. Like, it's one of my favorite things to do my whole life. So I started with a couple organizations volunteering. And if people always said, my whole life, "Well, if you could do anything and money wasn't an object, what would it be?" And I said, volunteer, because they're always happy to see you. You can't do anything wrong. No one's ever going to yell at you. And it just feels great, and it makes me happy, so. And we did so much philanthropy with Whitewood Kitchens and through my companies.
Gail O'Rourke:
But the biggest disappointment I had when the last week of work, I said to my husband, get- lay it- I want to see all the numbers, like, total. How many millions of cabinets did I sell? Total, like, and he pulled it all. He said, "okay, how much do we give away?" And he said, "Oh, I don't have that data." I said, what do you mean? Well, just. You put it on your expense line. It's not it the way that do you.
Gail O'Rourke:
Quickbook. Quickbooks doesn't care if it's charity or an expense. You just put it as an expense. I'm like, seriously? So I have no tally of all that time, treasure, and talent we did as a company. Like, that was my kind of, like, take away from there. Like, I own this company. I put my kids through college, and look at all the people I helped while I did it. That was my story I was waiting to tell.
Gail O'Rourke:
And we didn't have the data. So really, that's where I ended up, in this place. I decided to learn a whole new field, technology, and how to make an app. Right?
Kris Plachy:
Yep.
Gail O'Rourke:
And I launched Benefact 4 that launched in February. And it's selfishly an app that tracks all your time, treasure, and talent. So if I only ever made it just for me to track my own the rest of my life, I'm happy. But the goal is that other people want to track their, what they do for volunteering, donating, mentoring, coaching, so that they can inspire other people to be passionate about what they're passionate about. Because a lot of people just don't. They, they want a nudge. They want a little bit of a referral.
Kris Plachy:
Yeah. For.
Gail O'Rourke:
For instance.
Kris Plachy:
Yeah.
Gail O'Rourke:
So if I'm going to donate to a food pantry. Where's the food pantry you went? Are they doing a good job? Okay, I'll go to that one. So people want a referral once they start to get started. Otherwise, intention just lays there as intention, and they don't do anything. Yeah, it's like, oh, no, a restaurant. So the feed, it has a public feed that people record their journeys while they're tracking the data with a picture and a little story, and then you're able to say, "Oh, Gail volunteers 2 hours a week at a horse farm feeding horses. I'd like to do that."
Gail O'Rourke:
It doesn't have to be a charity. It's just something I do, you know, and, and that's really what it's becoming is this network of people. The only people on it are people who want to volunteer or donate or give back or show kindness. So it's a very safe community. Like, you're not going to get shamed because you only gave dollar ten or.
Kris Plachy:
Who you gave your $10 to.
Gail O'Rourke:
Exactly. Exactly. It's just a nice place. So when I get up in the morning, I pick up my coffee, I open Benefact 4, and I say, let's see, let's see what people did yesterday. That's it. That's what I do in the morning. But it's just such a nice place to go. And then the real goal of the app is to, what happens to the app when I'm gone, when my kids, when I die and it's ten years later, I want them to look at my feed and say, mom really loved Habitat for Humanity.
Gail O'Rourke:
I'm really loved Wildlands Trust. She loved those horses. Let's go visit the horses and give them some carrots. And it tells a little bit more of the story of who I am as, as me, just my person.
Kris Plachy:
I love that.
Gail O'Rourke:
Because volunteering, I think, is very personal. You do it for your own reasons, because you know someone's sick or you think this is important or you believe in climate change, and all those things are very personal to people. And so you choose, because volunteering is a choice and it's a gift. It's a gift.
Kris Plachy:
It's a gift of your time. Yeah. And your energy, mind, or whatever you're doing. Yeah.
Gail O'Rourke:
Yeah.
Kris Plachy:
Okay, wait, I have another quick question about Benefact, Benefact four. Yeah.
Gail O'Rourke:
Which. Yeah, the four stands for money, minutes, movement and mentoring.
Kris Plachy:
There we go. I knew that. I knew that they. Because you were saying a time, talent and treasure. But you also get your own report, right? Of your own data. Yes.
Gail O'Rourke:
You have all your data. Yep. You can get, you can search and filter it and do your taxes and it's. I designed it like a business person, not like a volunteer. Basically, the app is, could be, you could be tracking anything.
Kris Plachy:
And what I remember when you were talking about this, right. And what, what I thought was so, also so, so fabulous is that to translate all of that investment that you're making of your time into part of that whole tax deduction. Right. Which I know that's not technically how it works yet, but that was like that big part of the vision that I thought was super fascinating that. Am I saying that right? Am I saying that? Yeah.
Gail O'Rourke:
Well, I would, I mean, my, my original, my goal, the beginning. And then my coach told me not to. I shouldn't be talking about it because, Gail, you're never going to change tax law. And I'm like, but haven't you met me yet? I can do some big things. So ultimately, we have to collect the data on volunteering in a, in a platform that is objective and is not a nonprofit and be able to ultimately, I think, lobby the government for making minutes tax deductible.
Kris Plachy:
Yeah.
Gail O'Rourke:
Because you can get solar panels or tax deductible. You can get all sorts of things and get tax deductions that I drop off. Yeah.
Kris Plachy:
Yeah.
Gail O'Rourke:
So when I have the data, then I can start having the conversation. I like it too, those people and say, "Why don't we do that? Why don't you get credit for volunteering for Habitat every weekend? Why don't you get credit for that? Why don't companies get credit for giving their employees two days off a year?" Because it's important to remember a company gets, pays for the employee. They also lose revenue for those days that the employees aren't working. And we get no benefit from any of that as a corporation either by offering that incentive, which I think there should be some tax credit. Wouldn't more companies offer their employees two days off a year to do volunteering if you got a slight tax advantage?
Kris Plachy:
Yes.
Gail O'Rourke:
Maybe not a credit, just an advantage.
Kris Plachy:
Yeah, I think so. So I think, I think it's super cool that the thing that's so fun about women who sell business and then have this capacity, there's so much inside each of us and, and it doesn't have to be a business either, because I know there's a lot of women who sell their business and they don't ever want another one, but they do something else that's just divine and delicious and fun and giving back or making a difference or whatever. And so the freedom, you know, it's such a, we've witnessed this sort of wave, right? There have been a series of waves. There was the women's movement of the seventies, late sixties and seventies, where women really, really fought for parity just in some basic things. Like my mom couldn't get a credit card when my parents got divorced. Right. Like, she had to have somebody else help her, like, literally get a loan just so she could put a deposit on a apartment. Anyway, there's lots of things that people had to do.
Kris Plachy:
And then women got into the. So we watched all that. Now, we've been on this wave of women owned businesses for the past 20 years, like, huge growth, massive growth. Right. And now we're seeing women sell. There's a lot more women selling and benefiting from their labor, whatever it was that they created. But to your. To exactly what you said at the very beginning of this podcast, nobody's talking about it.
Kris Plachy:
Right. And if we do, we don't really talk about it. It's like this. Like, oh, yeah, yeah. It's not the stuff which, you know. You know, when you came to that Sage event, like, we like to talk about money. Let's talk about the money. How much money did you make? This is super cool, right? Like, it's fun to talk about it.
Kris Plachy:
You worked hard for it. But the resources, the advisors, the, the networking, the wisdom. Right. That just that experience that you had, like, creating environments where we can hear you talk about it, because otherwise, it's so limited and respectfully, it's run mostly still by men. And so there's not a lot of women's wisdom in this space yet either. We're getting there. I know we will, but we're not there yet.
Kris Plachy:
So I just wanted to tell as many stories, you know, we'll probably end up with five or six, but I don't know, maybe I'll just keep doing this because I just think every. And everybody's story is different. Everybody's reason, everybody's company, the process they went through, the agreement that they made. Like, there's such variety, and. And it's good to know that there's not a formula here, because that gives you a lot more room to play with if you want. If you do want to sell.
Gail O'Rourke:
I think that people think they have to be bigger to sell.
Kris Plachy:
Yes.
Gail O'Rourke:
So, like, $5 million sale leaves you pretty comfortable the rest of your life.
Kris Plachy:
Yes.
Gail O'Rourke:
You don't need to grow your company to a billion dollars. Like, so think of the woman that owned Spanx. I don't know her name off the top of my head. But you think, yes. Sarah Blakely, if you want to sell your company, you have to be like, have something that's ginormous. No. You can sell a small business. You can sell a doctor's practice.
Gail O'Rourke:
You can sell a dentist practice. You can sell a wellness studio. And-
Kris Plachy:
I talked to a woman the other day who just bought two yoga studios. She just bought them. So she bought them from someone.
Gail O'Rourke:
Yeah. And then you can, you can do it again. But the place that you actually make the money is in the sale. Do you know that line on your balance sheet that's called owner's equity?
Kris Plachy:
Yes.
Gail O'Rourke:
You never get that. It's not a real number. Right? It's not. You. You didn't make that much money last year. You made your same hundred thousand dollars you always made every year. Yeah, that's it. It's a fictitious number.
Gail O'Rourke:
When you sell your company, that's the number you get, plus. But the, that's where you get that number back. You cannot get it any other way other than selling your company. That's it. It's all tied up in the whole spreadsheet cash flow and all those things. Right? That's the money that's running your company. Yes, but that's when you get that back.
Gail O'Rourke:
So you're like, well, I've been working all these years and I made all this money, but I don't have access to stuck in the company. You have to sell it to get it.
Kris Plachy:
You have to sell it to get it so good. And there's a lot of ways to sell it. And there's lots of people who want to buy businesses. Yeah. And I do think that broker relationship is critical. And you don't have to keep the first one you meet. I had a client talk to someone and it just sounded fishy, like, "Do we love this? Do we love what this person's telling you?" She's like, "Well, I don't know". Like, how about we, how about we talk to a couple more? Like, we don't have to.
Kris Plachy:
We don't have to pick the first one. Let's get some opinions. Yeah.
Gail O'Rourke:
Yeah.
Kris Plachy:
Well, I'm so delighted that we got to talk today, so thank you. And tell everybody where to go to get Benefact 4.
Gail O'Rourke:
Benefact 4. So you can head to the website www.benefact4.com. and it's also available in the app store and Google Play.
Kris Plachy:
Perfect. Look at you everywhere. Yeah. And it's the thing, like, families could do. Like, we could get everybody involved, right?
Gail O'Rourke:
You can. Well, you can form a group and you can set challenges and say, you know, go mow the neighbor's lawn and they can record it and then you can achieve the goal. We have a great mascot. He's a blue footed booby, and he jumps up and celebrates and throws, throws confetti at the end of it. So I've had a lot of fun with it and I've learned so much and met an amazing group of people that I would have never had contact with if, you know, if I wasn't in technology. So it's been really fun.
Kris Plachy:
Do you have a goal for how many people you want on it?
Gail O'Rourke:
So I have a goal to tell it. Okay, yeah, this year. This year my goal was 50,000 for a couple of months and we're about 300, so. Okay, that might have been a stretch goal, but you never know.
Kris Plachy:
There's no stopping you. Well, thank you for being here. It's so great that you're here. Go check out. Go check out benefact4.
Gail O'Rourke:
I bought all the websites, so if you spell it wrong any possible way, it still goes to my website. Still going to show up. I spent dollar $750 on Godaddy.
Kris Plachy:
Well, you and I both know we like to buy domain names, don't we? Yes. Yes. How we roll. Thank you for being here.
Gail O'Rourke:
Thanks for having me.
