Bio:
CEO and founder of Point Blank Safety Services and Blue Family Fund. Inc. Stacey Magovern went from outside salesperson to running a multi-million-dollar company overnight. The wife of a police officer Stacey’s passion for helping families of law enforcement became her business.
She launched her company Point Blank Safety Services in 2012 with no way of knowing today her company would be one of the most successful traffic safety and security companies in Texas. She then used that success to pay it forward by founding a nonprofit, Blue Family Fund that provides scholarships for First Responder dependents and financial aid to families of injured or fallen law enforcement officers.
Stacey is not just the CEO and founder of these businesses but is also a published author and motivational speaker.
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Episode Transcript:
Katie (00:01):
Hi everyone. Thank you for tuning into the Hustlenomics podcast. I’m your host, Katie. And today I am so excited to be talking with Stacy McGovern. Stacy went from outside salesperson to running a multi-million dollar company overnight, the wife of a police officer Stacy’s passion for helping families of law enforcement that came her business. She launched her company point Blake safety services in 2012 with no way of knowing today, her company would be one of the most successful traffic safety and security companies in Texas. So the Stacy, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
Stacy (00:31):
Absolutely. Thanks for having me. I’m really excited to be here.
Katie (00:35):
So I would love to kind of learn more about you, your background and really how you kind of got to where you are today.
Stacy (00:41):
Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I’ve always been a little bit of an entrepreneur. I grew up in an entrepreneurial household. My parents ran a retail clothing stores out in a little town in West Texas called Abilene, and they were very successful. put three, three girls through college and just had a lot of success with that. So I sort of always thought that was what I was quote unquote meant to do if you will. So right out of college, I bought a little retail store. I bought a little lingerie store in Abilene, Texas, which is kind of crazy cause that’s like the Bible belt of, of Texas. But anyway, I did it and right about that time, Victoria secret decided to launch in every shopping mall across America. So there I was with my little lingerie store and Victoria secret could buy the stuff or what I could sell the stuff or what I could buy it for.
Stacy (01:30):
So there was no competing with a massive chain like that. So my first business was a total failure if you will. And it was really devastating to me that my family had had so much success and then I, I didn’t make it. So I learned a lot though, I will say. And I think every failure in life happens when it’s supposed to and, and you learn things from it, but it took me a long time to kind of come back from that and figure out what, what it was I was supposed to do. So yeah, well, no, no, you’re good
Katie (01:58):
Jumping right into a retail store at that young age. That’s so brave, but also terrifying.
Stacy (02:04):
Exactly. And I had no idea what I was doing I just you have a pretty big ego or most people do at 23. You think more than you actually know. So and of course I was too proud to, to ask for help from anyone of course so, so I went from that to outside sales, which was more my passion actually, I was able to go get sales and, and create my own amount of income instead of sitting back in a store, waiting for people to come to me. So I found it very quickly that that was more my cup of tea. And I was very successful in outside sales. I worked for a company called Nextel for, for many, many years that the old cell phones with the walkie-talkie built in and I set a lot of records with, with Nextel and I was on a call one time with one of the CEOs of Nextel and he was giving me an award for, for sales. And he said CAC it’s funny how sometimes that one thing in life someone says to you just kind of sticks with you forever. But he said if you’re this successful and outside cells and below Abilene, Texas, y’all wonder what you could do if you were in a bigger market. And that was the thing that just kind of stuck with me forever and kind of launched me into figuring out what my next big thing was.
Katie (03:16):
Yeah, absolutely. So obviously your next big thing was your company point blank, sir safety services. So what kind of sparked the idea for this company in the first place wellbeing
Stacy (03:26):
Police wife married into law enforcement had no idea about that, that world at all, but realized really quickly that a lot of police officers, especially in the smaller towns, smaller departments, at least in Texas make very little money. I mean, they really do it because it’s their passion and they really rely on off duty work to make ends meet. But the problem with that was, it was so random. Like my husband wouldn’t get an off duty job, but we never knew when it was going to come. Sometimes he’d just get off from a 12 hour shift and then get a call for off duty work. So there was no real planning or family time or any of that. And I just always thought I think I could do this better. I think I could actually create a marketplace for off duty work for police officers where they would actually be able to know when they’re going to work off duty, not get that last minute call just when they get off a shift.
Stacy (04:18):
Know when they’re going to get paid, get paid via direct deposit, be able to work exactly as much off duty work as they need to put braces on their kids’ teeth or go on vacation or whatever the case may be, or just plan and have a, have a real budget in life. And so that was, that was my next big idea. And my husband, I think he believed in me and he, he believed in the idea, but he didn’t really dream quite as big as I did. he, he sort of thought we were going to get like one little security job here or there a little extra income, but I was like, no, I think I’m really going to take this to the next level. And I spent the next two years while working a full-time job, understand while raising two kids while being a police wife, I’ve never seen my husband trying to make this idea come to fruition.
Stacy (05:04):
So two years and the big picture of life is, is not that much, but when you’re living it day in and day out and trying to work a full-time job and keep a household going and start a side hustle, it’s a lot. So there was a lot of times that I thought I thought about giving up and I thought about this, maybe isn’t going to work and maybe I need to spend more time with my kids and stop trying to make this happen. But I didn’t give up and I kept going and it, it all led to where we are today.
Katie (05:32):
That’s amazing. Yeah. That’s amazing. And so, like you mentioned doing all of that at once. It’s so tough. I, I kind of did something similar with working full-time and having a side hustle. I didn’t have a husband or kids it’s, it’s a lot to deal with. And so how did you kind of balance all that? Were you working and then coming home and working on the, your side hustle in the evenings? Or how did you balance all that? Well,
Stacy (05:52):
Well, the good thing was I was outside sales. So when I was on a call for my full-time job, I could pop into only back up a little bit. I knew that in Texas highway construction companies and TxDOT, Texas department of transportation required police officers to be onsite for highway construction work. They required them to help with lane closures and help with keeping the construction workers safe, as well as the citizens safe. So I knew the need was there. And in Texas, if you don’t know, there’s two seasons, there’s winter and highway construction. I mean, that’s it. So I knew the need was there. I knew there was a demand. I just had to figure out how to get to the people that made the decisions. So I would stop in on my lunch break and try to get with these project managers, I would call email, but, but understand at this point I was just an idea and a business card.
Stacy (06:41):
I did form a little LLC and I started paying on a website. I didn’t even have one yet, but it was really just me an idea and a business card going out, trying to convince these people about this idea of a marketplace for off duty work for police officers. And it was tough. It was a tough two years. I’m not going to lie. A lot of people that see my success now say she must have inherited it, or it must’ve come easy. Or all that. No, not at all. It was true. Day in, day out, tenacity and hard work and figuring out a way to make it happen.
Katie (07:13):
Yeah, absolutely. That’s what you got to do. And so a lot of people might have like a big idea like you did, and they’re really passionate about it and they want to go for it, but they just have no idea where to start. So where did you start what it came to kind of actually making this a real thing, like you mentioned your website and all that kind of stuff. I’d love to hear what that journey was.
Stacy (07:31):
Yeah, well, like I said, I figured out the need was with highway construction companies. So going through my contact list, I mean, a great place to start is LinkedIn. If you go through and really see who you’re connected with and who they’re connected with, people are open to making introductions for you and, and, and helping you just have to ask and you have to know how to ask. And when I would tell people my story and what I was trying to do they really got behind it and were very supportive. And so I also went back being, being a sales person. I went back through all my old sales who have I sold to and who do they know? And it’s so important in life. Every single connection you make is important. I can’t stress that enough.
Stacy (08:10):
There’s so many times where I’ve had a little tiny interaction with someone and then three years down the road, they made a big difference in my life, or we’re able to make a huge connection for me and, and case in Point Blake safety by company. I had sold a light bar, which has just a little light that goes on top of a truck for a highway construction company, just a little $800 sale at one point. And it turns out that that guy remembered me and remembered how great the interaction was. And, and he took five minutes to listen to my idea. And he ended up being the person that wrote me a $1.5 million contract to use my officers on a highway construction project from Dallas to Denton. So my point is, you just never know, you really have to take every single interaction. And then every single it’s just a small world. Yeah,
Katie (09:02):
Yeah. You’re so right. Every interaction, like you mentioned, it could turn into something. So treating it like that, it’s a great way to approach things. And so you were working in sales while kind of building up the side hustle. When did you decide it was the right time to lead your sales job and go full-time into your business?
Stacy (09:17):
Well, the day that the doorbell rang, I was actually in the bathroom getting ready for work, just like any other day. And yes, I had met with the company that gave us the contract multiple times, but they had never indicated that they were definitely going to use me. And my officer’s definitely going to use my company. It just been meetings to that point. So I really didn’t know anything. And the doorbell rang I went to the door, this was September of 2014, went to the door. It was FedEx with a package for point link safety services. Well, a package point like safety didn’t get packages. I was like, what opened it up? And it, like I said, it was a $1.5 million contract to use our officers over the next three years for traffic safety for the [inaudible] project where they were adding a lane from Dallas today.
Katie (10:01):
Awesome. Yeah. That’s so exciting. I can only imagine what was going through your head at that moment. So did you just say like, all right, well, that’s a sign it’s time to make the leap, or did you have to give notice and work at your job a little bit more? Well,
Stacy (10:15):
Yeah, I mean, I had to give notice, but here’s the thing. Here’s what people don’t understand. Yeah. I got this huge contract. First of all, the contract was 300 pages. So first off you have to sit down and start reading through these 300 pages and I get to the insurance part and it States that I must have, my company must have $5 million in insurance to even set foot on a tech stock project, start doing my research. Well, $5 million in insurance is about $20,000. I didn’t have $20,000. I didn’t have $2,000. So that’s the point when a lot of people would just go, Oh, well, I tried, I don’t have $20,000. I can’t do it not going to happen. And then there’s those people who go, Oh, well you have this big contract. Banks are just going to give you money. No, it doesn’t work like that.
Stacy (10:59):
So yeah, we could have given up, we could have just said, Oh, well it didn’t work. We tried. But now I was like, no, there was no way $20,000 is going to stop me from changing my life, changing my kids’ lives, changing all the officer’s families lives. It’s just not going to do it. So my husband and I literally sold everything. We had a garage sale, I think every day for about two weeks, we borrowed from all the credit cards sold anything. We had a value and we came up with the down payment for the insurance and then we went to work, trying to find the officers, which luckily though the word spread pretty quickly about this new project and all the work that was available. And so we were able to start, they wanted us to start in two weeks, but we ended up starting work in about six weeks. So yeah, it’s, it’s been amazing.
Katie (11:47):
Yeah. That’s wonderful. And so obviously you’re, you’re working with a lot of moving parts from the officers to the corporate. How do you stay organized? And with all of these kind of moving parts going on,
Stacy (11:58):
It is so important to have great processes in place. My husband is the XL guru. So he does all the scheduling for the officers. He actually sends them an availability calendar, 30 days in advance. So they send that back with however many days of off duty work they would like. And then he plugged them into all the scheduled working days for all the different contracts that are available. At this point, we have about 12 contracts all over the state of Texas and we employ about 200 police officers. So my other tip, I guess, for anyone that’s starting out is know what you’re good at. Like I, I’m not an Excel guru. I’m not the paperwork type person. I’m the, I’m the think big sales person facing the business. I want to get out there and speak. I want to be on podcasts. I want to go get new contracts.
Stacy (12:45):
So you have to have those people in place just know what you’re not good at. And find people that are good at that have a great accountant, have a great scheduling system outsource the things that free you up to do what you are good at. That’s one of the piece, so many companies and so many business owners get tied down to the things that don’t make them any money and don’t move their business forward. And you got to, you got to look at what you’re doing every single day. Look at all the tasks, write them down to whatever you have to do and figure out which ones are the right ones for you to be doing as a business owner. Otherwise you’ve just created a job for yourself, not a business.
Katie (13:23):
Yeah, you’re so right. I, it took me a long time to learn that lesson that find your zone of genius and then outsource the rest. And so like in that team, it’s a process obviously. And so do you work in like an office environment? Are you working from home? How do you communicate with your team? I’d love to hear all about that.
Stacy (13:41):
We, we do office from home just to keep the overhead low. We obviously could go get an office, but we already have this great house. And so why, why spend that extra money? So we office from home, I communicate with my team via email and, and zoom calls. We do a lot of face-to-face Google hangout and zoom calls and, and the other really key thing and I learned this one, the hard way is don’t assume people, people know what you want. You have to really be specific. I would bring people on and go, okay, I want you to handle this and not give near enough direction. And so I kind of set it was my fault. I kind of set them up for failure. So when you do bring someone onto your team, you really have to take the time, be specific and set them up to be successful. So they know exactly what their responsibilities are to help you in your business. That’s a key, that’s a key lesson as well.
Katie (14:35):
Yeah. I couldn’t agree. More being so clear about your expectations. That’s a great piece of advice. And as well as running this company, you also do some speaking, correct? Yeah.
Stacy (14:44):
I really love telling my story. It’s kind of the true American dream story, if you will. And people get really when I speak and have a lot of questions and, and want to do what I’ve done, and there’s definitely some steps and some things, strategies that I can share that kind of help people take those right, right. Steps. And the one thing that I really stress so many people give up right before it’s about to break loose and you just got to keep going. If you really truly believe in your idea and you really have a great process and you become an expert at what you’re going to do, it’s all about timing. A lot. Life is all about timing. Everything happens kind of when it’s supposed to. And I always say gosh, if I’d had this kind of success back when I bought that, that lingerie store, it probably wasn’t the right time, 23 years old, I, I probably wouldn’t have appreciated it like I do now and taking care of it like I do now. And so I think everything happens when it’s, when it’s supposed to. And that’s just kind of how life is.
Katie (15:41):
Yeah, I absolutely agree. Absolutely. And so there’s a lot of people that I’ve spoken to recently who are listening to, as her interested in maybe getting into speaking, like they feel like they want to share their story and they can inspire people. So how did you kind of get started with finding those speaking engagements?
Stacy (15:57):
The best place to start is your just your local rotary clubs. They have, they have a guest speaker every single week at their meetings. And so you can get a lot of experience just reaching out and telling them what you’re going to speak about and they’ll invite you out. And it’s a great experience. And it I’ve been, I think every rotary in D w and it gets get some experience under your belt and then you can reach out to other, other venues from there. But I have I’ve had a lot of rotaries refer me. I spoke at a, a college or university last week and that was a referral from one of my rotary talks. So you’d just, you never know where that’s going to come from.
Katie (16:32):
Yeah. That’s great advice. And I mean, a lot of people are kind of confused of where to start. So I think that that’s a great place and you can get that experience. And so how do you prepare for your speaking engagements? Do you have some set out talks that usually kind of go for,
Stacy (16:45):
Yeah. And I think you have to, you have to really dial down into what your, maybe your key four topics or three topics. And then I have a speaker sheet, which is not, you don’t have to have one, but it’s good. You can send it out. It kind of tells people that the three or four topics that you’re qualified to speak about, and then they can kind of choose what, what they feel is, is the right thing for their event. And then also it gives a little bio about you and, and they can send it out to their members and people can kind of look you up and research you a little bit before, before you show up and speak. So I would recommend taking a little time and creating a speaker sheet if that’s really what you want to do.
Katie (17:21):
Fantastic. Yeah. I love that. So kind of looking at your whole journey from buying that retail store when you were in your twenties and then where you are today, what has surprised you the most about yourself or about being a business owner throughout this journey of creating this successful business? I think
Stacy (17:37):
The thing I’ve figured out the most is that I actually am more successful or, or more productive, the more things I have going on. So a lot of people say, gosh, you’re doing so much or podcasting, you’re speaking, running a multimillion dollar business. And we haven’t even talked about the nonprofit that we started yet, but, and then I have the nonprofit and, but you know what, for me, and this is definitely not for everybody, but for me, I work better. That way, the more downtime I have, it seems like the less I get done and the less productive I am. So I really enjoy, and I enjoy the, the versatility to be able to drill down into payroll and, and profit and loss statements one day. And then the next day be up on a stage, motivating somebody to do what I’ve done. So that’s really a fun thing.
Katie (18:21):
Fantastic. And so do you have any recommendations, whether it be podcasts, books, courses, anything out there that’s been helpful to you that you could recommend to listeners? Sure.
Stacy (18:29):
One of my, my dear friend, Donnie bovine runs a Facebook group called success champions. And it’s really key, or I found that it’s really key to surround yourself with like-minded people, your positivity and success breeds, positivity and success. So within that group, there’s, I think there’s about a thousand members and they’re all business owners trying to grow and, and promote their business. I’ve learned a lot, I’ve got a lot of tips and tricks that I didn’t know. And I met a lot of great people and he also, Donnie Wesleyan has a podcast called success champions. And he just recently wrote a book that’s on Amazon, how to be a success champion and all of those things. I mean just fine, there’s a ton of Facebook groups, but you need to find the one that maybe the one that you connect with and where you can really get those suggestions. Or if you’re struggling, you can put a question out there. Hey guys I don’t know what I need a recommendation for this or that or whatever service. And it’s really helpful. It’s helpful to have like-minded people to rely on for information and suggestions and help motivate yourself to move forward.
Katie (19:40):
Yeah. Fantastic. And I’ll link to all of that in the show notes so everybody can find it. And would you mind telling everybody how they can find you online?
Stacy (19:48):
Sure. I’m, I’m pretty much aware. Of course we have the point like safety services, Facebook page, Instagram pages. And then we have our nonprofit, which is blue family fund on all the social media. We also have blue family fund.org, which is our website where you can donate. If you want to help police families. We provide scholarships as well as financial aid for families of injured or fallen law enforcement officers. And we’re 100% self-funded. So every single penny that you donate goes to help a family point Lake safety.com. And then I also am launching my new website launches Friday, Stacy mcgovern.com. If you want to book me to speak, or you just like to reach out and learn more or join our email list, you can go to Stacy mcgovern.com.
Katie (20:31):
Fantastic. Well, Stacy, thank you so much for coming on the show today. It’s been such a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you.
Stacy (20:37):
Thanks. I really appreciate it. I love your podcast and I love how you’re motivating people to get out there and hustle. No, thank you.
