We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Rob Godley a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Rob, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
My wife, Ann, and I worked as international educators for 25 years in foreign locations. We met in Belgium where we ended up teaching for 4 years. We then got married and moved to Singapore where we spent 10 years at the American school. I ended up being selected as the Middle School principal and Ann experienced different levels of teacher leadership while we were there. We then moved to Mexico for 2 years and then on to Abu Dhabi for 8 years after that. One December morning, while having breakfast at the local golf club, we started chatting about moving ‘home’. I guess that somewhere deep down, we both had started to feel like it was time to move on and put a pause on our international lives because that morning, we decided that it was time to move. Six weeks later, without ever having visited Georgia, Ann and I resigned our positions, sold most of our things, packed the rest and moved. We had no jobs or plans, other than to help our family of 4 settle in and start the next phase of our lives.
This led to us making some big decisions regarding our futures. We had worked as education consultants in the Middle East for a few years in addition to our ‘day jobs’ and the more we thought about our experiences and passions, the more clear it became that we should start a school. Six months later, we had found a location, completed renovations and opened Mt. Elizabeth Academy in Kennesaw, Georgia. While there were a few scary moments, we had faith that what we were doing would offer something special to the families in the area. Our background in education paired with our faith gave birth to a Christian Early Learning Center that opened with 18 families who believed in our vision. Over the next 2 years we added over 120 families to the program. Things were moving along really well until March 2020. During that month we temporarily closed the school to try to determine how we could operate a safe center and support families who still needed a place for their children during the day. We stopped charging tuition and took a major blow, but we just felt like it was what was right. We re-opened 6 weeks later with 28 children and a full staff. Since that time, we have built back up to over 150 families and feel blessed to be a well-respected choice for families in the area.
Rob, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My wife, Ann, and I decided to open a business, but we were not sure what type of business we should focus on. We looked into all kinds of options including an automotive business, a house painting company, and a few others. At the end of the day we landed on the concept of going with what we knew best. We had both been working in education for our entire careers and we felt like we should stick with what we knew best. Since that time we have opened a few other businesses that are not related to the education sector, however, we are glad that we started with what we knew. It allowed us to have some expertise, while we learned the necessary aspects of business, marketing, etc.
While this may seem obvious now, at the time it really wasn’t. We were looking to do something different and we felt like the education sector was too similar. After 5 years, we now know that there is a huge difference between being involved in education and owning/operating a school. By focusing on what we knew and building a school that was one that we would have placed our own children in, we quickly developed a compass to use as we made key decisions.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
Initially, when we were getting started, it took some time for us to make some key decisions and decide on a number of things. While we had been married for over 20 years by that point, we still had some different visions on where our school was headed, What we found was, by making decisions that were based on what was important to us, and what would make us proud of our school, we were able to develop a shared plan on what we were creating. Staying true to that and putting kids and families first have helped us develop a strong and clear brand.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
When we first opened our doors we had 8 staff members and 18 children attending. Ann and I filled in a number of roles for the first few years including reception duties, driving the school van, lunches, covering classes, opening at 6:30 AM and closing at 6:30 PM. We were pretty worn out after a few years of 12 hour days and finally felt like we were able to hire extra staff to help. In retrospect, that was a mistake. It took a huge toll on us and was not great for our health. When we start our second location, I know that we will have learned from our mistakes and will do things a lot differently. Doing everything definitely saved us some valuable funds, however, I believe it also may have cost us some opportunities for growth as we were so busy and tired, we were not able to see opportunities as they passed by.
Contact Info:
- Website: mtelizabeth.com
- Instagram: mtelizabethacademy
- Facebook: @mtelizabethacademy
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mtelizabethacademy
- Twitter: @mtelizabethacad
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdZWRN5u31y-dttCXkVDtOA