We were lucky to catch up with Jenn McElhaney recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jenn, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We love asking folks what they would do differently if they were starting today – how they would speed up the process, etc. We’d love to hear how you would set everything up if you were to start from step 1 today

I started my first business at the age of 22. I worked a corporate job during the week and built an event planning business on evenings and weekends. It was truly something I wanted to do full time. I also wanted a family and found myself put in a position of giving up time with my first child or giving up my business. I think like most women would, I picked my child over my business. It was incredibly hard to give up a business that I loved and I believed in after 3 years of building it but I felt like I had no choice. What I know now, 17 years later with the clarity the hindsight brings, is that I did have a choice, I just couldn’t see it at the time. Building a business is not for the faint of heart, and it isn’t cut out for every marriage. I didn’t realize at the time that my reality was that I just wasn’t in the right relationship to have the support that I needed at home to develop a thriving business and actually find a work/life balance. I should’ve been more vocal about my goals and visions at the time, but they weren’t like my friends’ goals, and I was uncomfortable in how they would be perceived. I also should’ve delegated more. I had some friends who helped me at events that I should’ve invested more time into developing so they were empowered to run events themselves. I think so many times as owners, we are very leery to turn the reigns over to anyone because we worry that they won’t do the job the way we would. Invest in the right people early on, be verbal with the people in your personal life regarding your goals and trust your gut. Those are things I have fixed in my personal and professional world now and I wonder what the statues of that company would look like now had I done them 17 years ago.

Jenn, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I spent 17 years in the corporate world working in sales and leadership, which is where I met my now husband. He had a passion (and a Master’s Degree) for entrepreneurship that lit a fire in the passion for it that I had but suppressed for so long. He left the company we met at to launch his own business in 2018. From 2018-2020 we developed his first business together, launched a second and then developed By The Grace, which is a high-end furniture boutique. The problem we saw in the market was that people our age typically wanted nicer, good quality furniture from stores around town but couldn’t afford it. Small businesses so often just can’t touch prices of larger stores, especially in the furniture industry. We were in a unique position because By The Grace would not be our only source of revenue, and we were able to start it debt free. So we essentially just found an unserved market and played the role of the disruptor, which is probably my favorite role. We only market on social media and really don’t have a large marketing budget. We run incredibly lean. Most of our business is by referral, which we prefer because people are already coming in with a positive outlook on the experience they are going to have and we are easily able to make sure we fulfill that. We take time really getting to know our customers, their family needs, and how they live in their house. Then we build recommendations around that. You just can’t find that at most typical furniture stores. Our repeat business numbers are through the roof, which to me speaks the most about the client experience. We truly love our customers, and they feel that. Our goal is to make sure that as we continue in developing and launching our new businesses, that our employees and customers always feel that.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

I think about meeting Kyle, my husband, and I still get butterflies. I don’t think many people get the pleasure of having their spouse be their business partner and it be an amazing experience. Kyle and I met at a corporate sales job and were immediately a great team in that aspect. The best team, really. A couple of years later, the landscape of our personal lives changed, and we both knew that we wanted to be more than a work team, so we pursued a personal relationship that led to marriage. From the beginning though, business and entrepreneurship were tightly woven into our lives together and we knew that is exactly what we wanted. What we have learned in the last 5 years together is that he the dreamer. He is the one who convinces me to put my guard down when we start throwing around new business ideas. He trusts me inexplicably in our endeavors together, which has helped me develop so much confidence. I am the one who reminds him when he is “out over his skies.” I have the gut feeling that we tend to rely on because I have learned it is foolish to not listen to it and he trusts that too. We focus heavily on our family and how to encompass our kids in learning about and participating in our businesses. We have 6 children between the ages of 1-13 and we manage our schedules rigidly so that very rarely do we have to miss any of their events. I really can’t imagine any of it working without the specific combination of Kyle and myself. Having that knowledge and experience now, all of these years after that first business launch at 22 has given me so much perspective on the power of the right partner, no matter if it is professionally or personally.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

One of the most valuable things that I have learned in business so far, at least for us, is that you better live in a state of being ready to pivot. I sucked at it years ago, even in my personal world. Now, I pride myself on not being caught off guard often. At the height of my husband’s first business, which was an Amazon Delivery Service Provider, he employed over 100 people and ran 362 days out of the year. Then Covid hit, the needs for drivers went through the roof, and the labor pool plummeted. We realized then that if we lived by one company, we would die by one company. That is when we made the decision to branch out into a diverse portfolio of businesses. We first launched Piper Louise Designer Solutions, which handles white glove receiving and delivery of projects for local designers. We pivoted monthly in that business, whether it be sales, staffing, locations, storage strategy, etc. 3 years later, we have the most amazing manager in place who really runs it, allowing us to focus on other things. You will find this has become a theme for us and what we know to be the most impactful area of our businesses. By The Grace came next and we had to pivot with locations, branding, procurement, and Lord knows marketing! That business has taught us lessons in marketing for sure. We are still pivoting in that and crunching data constantly to make sure our advertising dollars are best used. After that, we purchased our first franchise, called Fleet Clean. It was a mobile commercial cleaning truck that cleaned and reclaimed the water. We loved the idea but I had a weird feeling about it at the beginning that I should’ve listened to (this became a massive lesson). It wound up becoming clear that the company was really not ready to franchise and we have to figure out a lot of operations on our own. This is where delegation really came into play. We had an amazing HR Manager, Caleb, at our Amazon business and asked him to pivot into Fleet Clean and he made it look effortless, which is pretty much how he is 100% of the time. We sold that business off two years after buying it, and were relieved to get it off of our books. In the midst of all this, Kyle was awarded “Veteran of the Year” from PJ’s coffee of New Orleans, and that became the second franchise we purchased. Starbucks has had the market long enough and we are excited about disrupting the coffee market in the south. We are still working through a few LOI’s on our first two locations and are really excited to sprinkle those throughout the southeast. In October of 2022, we stopped contracting with Amazon, which forced a huge pivot because that had been our largest source of personal income. It is funny how fast you can pivot in situations that force you to, and that is where we found ourselves. So we immediately looked for a high cash flow business to invest in and turn around quickly, and that’s how we found FunBox. FunBox is a 25,000 square foot bounce house that sets up as an event for 12 weeks outdoors in different cities. Sounds crazy, I know, but the family entertainment market is lucrative and very underserved in our area. After selling Fleet Clean, we asked our manager, Caleb, to step over and help us launch FunBox, and Caleb proved himself to be driven, loyal, and priceless yet again. I think that has been our main success in pivoting. We were able to find, empower, and trust the right people in the right moments so that we could stay the course in other areas when we need to. I think the moral for us with pivoting was, just be ready to do it daily. Always be on your toes, always trust your gut, and trust your people to help you get it done.

Contact Info:

• Website: funbox.com
• Instagram: theefficiencyenthusiast
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ByTheGraceMemphis901