Ep 54 Transcript: Bouncing Back After Google Wipes Your Business with Theresa Bouchard

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors in spelling or inaccuracies in the spoken words.

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. And today I'm really excited about the guest that we have on here. Not only is she one of my coaching clients, which always gives me so much glee to be able to feature one of my amazing clients, but she is an absolute powerhouse and she's got an incredible story to tell about. Well, there's a lot of things we're going to be talking about, but one of the big things we're to talk about is what would you do if your business

lost its Google listing. This is huge, right? We rely on this so significantly and this actually happened to her. So we're to talk about how she navigated this. But first, let me introduce you to who we're talking to. We are talking to Theresa Bouchard of TS Staging and Design and she is an absolutely dynamic entrepreneur. So she made a bold career shift after like 30 years in the corporate world. And she, so she did, you know, senior program management in the medical device industry.

but she always had this passion for interior design. And so she transitioned her business to a home staging or transitioned into her own business, should say, into a home staging and design business. And she has built an incredible business and had all these ratings on Google, got herself top of the page on Google, and then lost her Google listings. We're gonna dive into that in just a moment. first of all, welcome Theresa Bouchard.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Shauna Lynn, for having me. I'm so excited to have this chat with you. As am I, because it's kind of a funny story, too. When we first started working together, we had this whole plan of what we were going to be covering. we had the whole action plan. is what do with all my clients. We create this action plan of these are the areas that we're going to really dig deep into. And on one of our very first calls, you're like, OK, so this just happened.

and you lost your Google listing. So tell me how that came about in the first place. Like how did you discover it? Why did it happen? Like tell me a little bit and what was going on in your head when you're like, my gosh, I don't have Google anymore. Well, the why is still unknown, but I didn't receive an email notification from Google and said, your listing has been disabled. And I'm like, what? So I immediately went in and looked up my Google page and it was gone. I was able to ask

access it, but it literally said it was disabled. So of course, you know, I'm trying to call Google and you can't get in touch with Google. So I'm trying to figure this out. So they kept telling me to read the guidelines, read the guidelines. I read the guidelines. The only thing that I can come up with is I moved my personal home address moved from one location to another. So I finally found out that they looked at my business as no longer existing.

Yeah, so it literally said you no longer exist. And I'm like, hold on, I do exist. So it was really a trying situation. And I'm still dealing with the after effects too, because being taken down off of Google really impacted my SEO. I used to be at Yeah. Yeah. So this was what, about six or seven months ago now at the time that we're recording this, it happened in August. Okay.

at that point my phone stopped ringing. I mean, I literally used to get calls daily and I'd say, where'd you hear about us? And they'd say, Google, know, sometimes it was for our services but then it would be something a little bit different. But they still found me on Google. So I got the phone calls. Yeah. And so that required a major shift. And I remember one of our first conversations, you're like, what am I gonna do? Because you realize, I don't think we realize how much we rely on that.

So imagine, so Google being the biggest search engine is no longer showing your website. If people search for, so in your case, it was home station and design in your local area and you're not coming up. That's wild. Like it was, it was, it took me a long time to finally get a good night's sleep. I had to let it go, but I had to do things in the meantime to continue my business, you know, to strive and keep my business going.

So let's get into that. So what did we do in order to, like, yeah, you needed the phone to ring. needed people to know that you were still in business and still around. So what were some of the steps that you took? The first thing I did was I did a live video on our social media and just explained to people, hello, we are still a business. This is unfortunate, but Google took us down. We are now disabled and we really got it out there to our followers that this happened to us and that we still are an existing business.

So we shared that a couple times. And then the other things I had to do was really ramp up our sales. You know, the sales promotion piece of a business. And yeah, we still did that even before when we were top of the SEO or top of the Google page, but we had to take a different route. Our phone didn't ring anymore, only from existing clients.

So some of the things that we did, one, we joined the Women's Council of Realtors. So that kind of got our name out there and introduced us to some more clients, different clients. And of course, put that on our social media that we were now members of Women's Council of Realtors. Joined the Chamber of Commerce. So that was one thing that we were part of. So that's another piece. So another group of people that we were exposed to. We also did sales.

So offers, promotionals. So we offer 25 % to new sales agents or realtors. Right. Yeah. So we offered 25 % off to any new realtors. So, hey, here we are. You want 25 % off your staging costs? Give us a call. And we did get some calls on that. That's great.

The final one, this one was a big one and it had to do with our warehouse too, which I think we're gonna talk about in a little bit, but we did a promotional of 50 % off to our existing customers for the month of October. That's huge, yeah. And we did that for two reasons. One, to keep us going.

and also to clear out all of our inventory because we were getting ready to move into a warehouse. Right. And so, two birds, one stone, so to speak. And I know you were doing a fair bit of direct outreach as well with some of your most loyal clients, telling them what's going on and just asking them to help spread the word as well, which, you know, relying on, you know, or leaning onto those relationships, I think is really important in times like this, because ultimately we all want to support the businesses that

we've been working with that we've built these relationships with. So I know if I found out that one of the businesses that I supported no longer had that Google listing that everyone's searching for, I'm gonna start posting it on my social media or telling the next real estate agent that I'm talking to, hey, have you heard about so-and-so for home staging services? So that's really important that you have those existing relationships in the first place. So first of all, that they are already loyal, they're coming back anyway, which is great.

And now you're rewarding them for that. Like, hey, you're loyal agent. So we've got this cool promo for you. And at the same time, it's really kind of doing us a favor because by the way, we have a warehouse move. And so that was actually the original reason that we were starting to work together was you were doing not just a warehouse move. This sounds like a big deal already. Like, yeah, it's a warehouse move. But you actually decided instead of renting a warehouse, you were going to buy a warehouse.

And so I can say, you know, I came from the home stage and industry work for 15 years in the industry. We had a warehouse. I had actually looked at buying a warehouse at one point, never quite came together for me, but similar to you, I operated out of several storage units before moving into a warehouse, which can be very taxing and trying, of course. So there's absolutely value to moving into the warehouse, but you took it up a level. Like before you've been rented a warehouse, you're like, I'm just going to go buy a warehouse instead. Yeah.

So tell me about how you came about that decision of like, I'm gonna rent one. I'm just gonna buy one instead. So, you know, as all home stagers out there, you start off, you know, small, you're in your garage, you know, you're in your own homes. Then you go into storage units and we had contain big containers in my yard. We had the pods in my yard. And then finally we went to big storage units, like in one location.

But the storage units, we had 13 of them. Wow. And it was expensive. Sure. mean, it was like $2,000 a month. So I'm like, this is crazy. We're just pretty much opening a window and letting our revenue fly out. Right. And it's not efficient either. 13 different units having to go to different units for things. Oh, and they were everywhere. Before we moved into a warehouse, we were at 11 units. They were 10 by 20 shipping containers, and we had 11 of them.

And we had them and they were well organized in that like all of our sofas were in one, all of our artwork was another. Like, yeah, we had a system. Didn't mean that it was great. And I mean, I also deal with a lot of winter, so that was always challenging with storage units. anyways, so so yes, you've got these 13 units and you said you're basically throwing money out the window every single month with the rent for these things. Yep, absolutely. And.

It's funny because those storage units are directly across from the warehouse that we bought. perfect. That's a whole other thing. Like I would drive past this and I'm in my facility today. I would drive past it and I would say that's the building that I want. That's the building that I want. But anyway, before we got to this building, we did do some research and looked at various warehouses around our area and they were like five.

to $6,000 to rent a month. And I was just like, you know, that's crazy. I don't want to just, you know, throw that money out the window. I want to have an asset. So that was extremely important to me is owning something. So, you know, what if something happened? I didn't want to be stuck in a lease and stuck in a situation where, oh, you can't do this and this to the building and make it our own. I really wanted to have something that we could make our own.

put our name on it, not worry about having to have to ask if we need to do something. purchasing the warehouse was actually, it was very expensive, but at the same time, it was a lot less money on a monthly basis than it would be to actually rent. Right. And I mean, and to your point, like, yeah, you get to do whatever you want to it, but even aside from that, you know, I've heard so many horror stories of people who have these warehouses, ownership changes, now they're getting evicted or their rent is,

doubling, like all sorts of different crazy stories that I've heard. So you now get to control that, which is really great as well. So as you said, the monthly expenses are actually better than they would have been if you were renting. But I would imagine that the logistics to securing the sale in the first place, because now you have a mortgage essentially for a commercial property. Is that right? Right, yes.

And that was kind of jumping through hoops to get that mortgage, but it was something to truly fight for. It's what we needed. It's what we wanted. And this was the future of the company is to really grow into a warehouse so that we didn't have to go through all of the unit 199 and unit seven and unit. What was the place where it wasn't efficient? Right, for sure. Getting the warehouse was great. But I do want to mention

You know, it scary to purchase the warehouse because it is, you know, a huge amount of money. However, the warehouse that we purchased has a lot of land with it. And with that land, we're able to rent out various spaces on our property and gain revenue in that respect. So, you know, not just, you know, we have to pay the mortgage and it's just being paid with our revenue. We actually have another revenue stream that's bringing in money to help us pay our mortgage.

And that's one of the things that I really, really respect about how you went about this, because I remember that from one of our first conversations and you were saying how basically your mortgage payments would be subsidized to an extent based on this additional revenue that was pretty much a guaranteed revenue. Like there were already people that were looking to rent, I know it was parking spaces as well as units within the warehouse. Is that correct? Not units, because we took over the units and made it our showroom.

So we thought that that was more important to us than actually renting that space out because it really is connected to the warehouse. So we kind of wanted this unit that I'm in right now to be our office and showroom. it's worked out great for us. But just alone, I mean, we have probably, you know, space outside for like 10 boats, RVs. I mean, we live in an area that's near lake. So there's a lot of that in the area.

Um, it's been really, it's really helpful right now. don't have the spaces rented out because it is winter. live in Maine, but you know, that, that prospect is definitely something that we're going to be looking into and it will definitely be filled for the spring and summer season. Well, that's, that's such a great opportunity there, especially because you know, a parking spot to rent out is fairly low maintenance from your, from your perspective.

other than if you are renting it out in the winter time, of course, you said, there's like, no, I don't want to go through all that. Trust me, I hear you. I'm in Canada and we have a whole lot of snow where I am right now. And so, yeah, so you definitely don't want to be digging that out. But so you you were transitioning into the warehouse and you did it sort of like you took over the warehouse and then moved out of the storage units, right? Like it wasn't like it all happened in one day. Of course, there was some transition time to that.

So part of your plan for this though was clear out as much inventory as possible out of the storage units so that you're moving very little. And if I recall, you had very little to move over when you did it. Like you actually were able to mostly clear out your storage units by renting it out. Is that correct? Yes. Yep. So just having that sale in October really helped us because a lot of our existing clients were like, oh my gosh, this is crazy. Okay. We're going to get our things listed, our homes listed as soon as possible so we can take this offer.

and they jumped on it. you know, the clients that we work with exclusively, or they work with us exclusively, they were the ones that were like so excited and boy, did they get the deal, but it really helped us. We got the deal too, even though it was only 50 % of revenue coming in, it helped us tremendously. It was a win-win for both sides. Yeah, you're saving on the moving costs. You're getting the items actually out of the way, essentially, while you're doing the rest of the move.

And then on top of that, continuing to build that goodwill with your loyal partner type clients that you need it because you still didn't have Google. And so let's circle back to that a little bit because I know that you eventually did get Google back. Lisa, you do have it back now, but how many months was it that you were without a Google listing? December, January. So six months. Six months.

And I just, can't emphasize this enough, but we often talk about, you know, people who have built their businesses on particular platforms, whether it's TikTok or social, some other social media platform like Facebook or Instagram. And then when those platforms change their algorithm or, I mean, with everything that's going on with TikTok, is it going to get shut down? Is it not going to get shut down? Like there, causes a lot of uncertainty and a lot of unsettling times, but we assume that Google's not going to go away.

And I think that's the biggest thing of like, just goes to show that we need to sometimes get back to old school marketing style. I can tell you, I started my business back in 2008. And so at that time, yes, I had a website. Yes, we had email. It wasn't quite the dark ages, but I would say we leaned more towards traditional marketing. Social media was brand new at that time and no one was using social media for business. That was just kind of an unheard of thing. And so,

It was more like taking out ads in the newspaper, for example, just dropping off flyers at different places. But the biggest part of it was just getting out there and networking and getting to know people the good old fashioned way. And it kind of highlights, you've built your business on relationships despite, yes, you had Google, yes, you've had social media, yes, you've had all these other obviously modern technology type.

of supports along the way, but you've essentially built your business on relationships. I know it's something that you believe so strongly in and not for the purposes of like, what can you do for me, of course, but what does it take to build those relationships and how has that come into play with all of us? So for us, and I want to mention that this is, know, Tia's stage in design is made up of three women, myself,

Stephanie Eklund, who is a co-founder and designer, and then Amber Bouchard, who is also a designer. We're like a trio and we pride ourselves on being authentic. We're very real, we're very approachable, we're very friendly. We can adapt to these very luxurious properties and that clientele. And we can also adapt to

the elderly community, or people on selling homes at a mediocre level. I mean, we can really gain trust and build a relationship with a vast amount of different people. And I think that a lot of our clients, our realtors and the homeowners have told us that. And I think that's so important is just to be authentic. That is my key to success.

is just being who we are. And I think that has really helped us in the long run. And I'm just really proud of where we become, where we are today. And I'm proud to call us a trio because we are awesome together. We have a blast together. We laugh, we dance, and we just have fun, more authentic, we're real. And I think people love that. I think that people recognize that, people gravitate to that. No one wants to feel like a relationship is transactional.

They wanna feel like the relationship can exist without the exchange of money. And sure, at the end of the day, you still need money. Don't get me wrong. But it's just, if that's your main motivation for meeting someone, you're missing out on so many opportunities. And I know there's probably some people listening to this who are like, absolutely despise networking. Maybe you're an introvert and it's absolutely terrifying to you. So what's been your experience with it? know, now that you've joined

Cause know you were already building these relationships and you already had these partners and you did a fair bit of networking, but you've just joined a couple of new organizations. What kind of tips do you have for someone who's just getting out there with a new networking type of experience to, you know, get out there? Yeah, exactly. So I am involved in a few networking groups. One is, what is it called? It's called TBD connections. It's a free networking group.

And I go there every Friday. It's the same people, but you know what? Those same people talk to so many other people. And you know, it's like a domino effect. And the one thing that I did do, and I do this constantly in any new groups that I attend, I tell them my story about Google. These are maids. They're like, really? Yes. It's unfortunate, but this is what happened. And we're still feeling the effects of it.

because again, like I said at the beginning of the podcast, we are not at the top anymore. are our SEO, we're still working our chugging our way back up to get to the top because we were at the top. And right now I'm trying to work with my web designer and trying to get those SEO keywords in there to reach where we were before and it's taking time. It does take time. Yeah, it's not a overnight kind of thing. Yeah. So just going into these different networking groups and

really putting ourselves out there to these various groups, it really is helpful. And if I can give any word of advice to people that do any entrepreneurs out there that, you know, any type of social event that is a networking event, go to it. Even if you're walking in blind, you don't know anybody there, you know what, you have your business cards, you walk in, hey,

I'm Theresa Bouchard Bouchard from TS Staging and Design. You know, anybody that needs a home stager or wants to redo their home, you know, here we are. And it just makes such a difference in the connections that I've made just by doing that. absolutely. And I will also further to that, I will also say attending one time at these things isn't going to be an instant recipe for I'm going to get a flood of calls. They want to see you there consistently. They want to know again that you didn't just go there just to make a bunch of sales.

At end the day, everyone's there for the same reason. They want to grow their businesses. But it doesn't mean that it has to feel like that's all that we're about. We're building real relationships, which in turn, of course, grows the business. So if you go one time, it's kind of like going back to old school days of if I were to put an ad in the newspaper, usually they'd say you need to run it for six months before you see any sort of traction. Whereas nowadays, you can run a Facebook ad for a week and have some really good results. Sometimes it takes a couple of months, mind you.

The point is that there is, it's a different kind of turnaround time, but building a relationship with someone builds a more sustainable business relationship. Like it's something that you can call on for years. I don't have a home staging business anymore, but I have so many contacts from the, that time that I still, I'm working with these people or I'm finding other opportunities. Maybe it's in more of a volunteer aspect where someone needs some support at an event and I'm introducing them to someone that I know. Like you never know.

how these relationships can help you and how you can help others. And that's the key is you have to be willing to give as much as you're getting as well in these things. And the other thing too is you never know who's sitting next to you, whether it be at a restaurant or wherever you are out and about. You don't know who you're standing to in a grocery store. I'm always ready. If I hear somebody talking about they're selling a house or anything, I have my card ready to go.

Here you go. If you ever be looking for somebody to come in and give you some advice and help prep your home before you put list it, give me a call. And so true. Yeah. It's great to be prepared because you really don't know who's next to you. And further to that note, you always want to make sure that you are representing your brand as well. I had Anastacia Haye was on the podcast a couple of months ago and she's a

I'm going to get the title wrong, but a fashion empowerment coach, I want to say. she did an amazing job. But she was talking about how even your casual dress days doesn't mean you have to look. I'm going to paraphrase here, but basically like a slob, like, know, like it's when you're leaving the house to your point, Theresa Bouchard, you never know who you're going to run into. And so looking presentable, having your business cards on you. I've I've heard people say, oh, you know what, actually, I was out of it.

I was out at the store and I saw like one of the biggest agents came in or this this person that I know that I've always wanted to build a relationship with. They came in, but I like I was just I was kind of running in and out. I didn't look that great. I didn't want to stop them. You know how unfortunate that you're missing an opportunity potentially to just have a genuine conversation with someone simply because you don't feel like you don't feel and look at your best. And so always ensuring that you know you are prepared for whatever whatever might come. And one of the biggest things is have your business cards on you.

Right. It amazes me how often people are like, I don't have any business cards. Really? wear. Can you see this? Yeah, your logo, your branded. Yeah. I that too. Knowing you owning a staging company in the past, a lot of times we don't look our best. But you know what? We always have our hat on that says TS or our vest or. Right.

And we just got out of the warehouse. We just got done picking all of the inventory and putting it on our truck. So we may not look our best, but we're branded. Right. And I will also say, though, that not looking your best still doesn't mean you're looking like you don't have a stained shirt. You don't have ripped clothing. You're still presentable, to be clear. And I know for me, my vehicle has always had my company name on it. And I drive a super cute Mini Cooper, which also doesn't hurt that it's

It's white with pink stripes and pink checkered mirrors. So it's kind of a statement car already. Yeah. You add on top of that my company. So I get stopped all the time. And then, of course, people like, oh, so you do home staging. Oh, actually, I'm a real estate agent or my mom selling her house or you never know. So I mean, that's where if you don't have Google, there was a time I'm going to let everybody in on a little secret here. There was a time that Google didn't exist. I know it's wild. Right. I know.

Right. And we just become so reliant on it. the fact of the matter is we don't have any control over it. And to your point, you can't just pick up the phone and call Google. You actually had to work with a Google partner. And even they couldn't pick up the phone and call Google. It's a huge process. And it's an expensive process. I had to pay $500 to work with a Google partner. And that Google partner would have to put in a ticket with Google and wait your turn.

And it's frustrating not just for me, but it's frustrating for the partners too, because it's not just an easy process. And I think the reason why this is all happening, because I'm not the only business that this has happened to. I've heard it's happened across the board, across the world. And it really has to do with the algorithms and AI is now.

They just look at something and it systematically shuts you down. It's not a person actually going in and doing it. It's right. And it almost has to be though, because again, going back to like when I listed my company back in 2008, there were a handful of other websites out there doing the same thing as me. Now there is like exponentially more. I don't even know exactly how many more, but we're talking.

trillions. Like this is not a small number of websites that are out there. It's too much for humans to be able to handle. And I will also say, I did also reach out to, I happen to have a very close family member who works for Google. And I even reached out to him just to see, and I knew it was a logshot. like, any chance you know anyone in this department? He's like, nope, I got nothing. Even if you get a hold of someone who actually, I mean,

Everyone knows, of course, Google's a pretty massive company. But even if you happen to know someone at Google, still doesn't mean that it does an ounce of good for you, unfortunately. I know that one was a long shot as well. But yeah, we tried. People tried. But it just yeah, it just didn't. I mean, I'm still working. I had 25 five star reviews gone.

So that's big for me. I'm still fighting to get them back. mean, in the meantime, I'm asking people, know, can you please leave us a review? And a lot of times people just don't and they just don't, they don't have the time. But I've got 14 five-star reviews right now that were just recently built in the past, you know, That's incredible. I really want those other 25 back. for sure. Yeah.

Yeah. And can you see those 25 reviews from your old listing at all? OK, because I know one time you were saying you could see the listing. But yeah, so you don't even have it's not like you can even just say to someone, this is what you said previously. If you could just like copy and paste, that again. But yeah, so so frustrating. But you have and also like let's just talk about this for a moment. Like talk about stressful. I just bought a warehouse and then my Google listing goes down like there's nothing like. Yeah.

It was very stressful and I really had to do a lot of meditation to calm myself down and get some sleep at night because it was really, it's out of my control. There's nothing I can do other than what I was doing to generate business, you know, back in the old way of generating business. I couldn't rely on Google. I couldn't rely on social media, which was very helpful, but it's...

just not the same. I mean, when somebody's going in, they're not going to the Facebook to look you up. They're going to Google to look you up. And, but I appreciate you mentioning the stress management techniques that you are practicing because I think that is so important as well. One, it's one of the things that, you know, it's so important to me that I've built my coaching business around maintaining, you know, a healthy mental health, despite what you're dealing with in entrepreneurship, which is always a lot of chaos on a good day, nevermind.

when something like this happens. But when it comes to managing stress, you kind of hit the nail on the head there where you said you knew what you could control and what you couldn't control. You couldn't control what Google was doing. You couldn't control how long that process was going to take. What you could control was how you continue to operate and get your name out there. And I think that there's probably a lot of people that would have been like, oh, well, I guess there's nothing I can do and just let the company fold or just sit back and

essentially whine about it and just, you know, do nothing, but you refuse to sit down and just take it. were like, nope, I'm going to combat this as much as I can. Right. But you see focused on what you could control. And that's a huge part of stress management. You have to identify what can you control and what can't you control and only focus on the things that you can do. Create an action plan, take steps forward. But the rest of it, you have to let it go. But

it's not as easy as just letting it go. That's where things like meditation, for example, come in, which I know you've always been a huge advocate for meditation, but you had gotten a bit out of your routine. And I know you got back into it during this time, which I think was so important for you. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And being grateful. mean, I think, and you and I talked about the gratitude journal before bed at night. And I do it in the morning and just really

focusing on what I'm truly grateful for, I think really helped me and just kind of allowed me to let go what I could not control. was just, it was hard, but I did it. And it allowed me to just continue with promoting my business and doing it in a way that was very different than how our world works today. So. Right. And I think that is really important though, is focusing on the good. And it's something that

we often struggle to do, especially at the end of the day, you're focusing on what went wrong, what could I have done better? And it's not to say that there isn't value in revisiting some things and planning for change in the future. But I think that it's so important to really focus on what went well, what were my wins today, what are the things that I'm grateful for? So I do mine at the end of the day, you mentioned you do yours at the beginning of the day.

I think to each their own, personally prefer the end of the day because it does help my mind to rest a little bit more. So even on my craziest days where it feels like everything went wrong, when you sit down for a moment, can you think of three things that went really well? You probably can. And some of those things can be as simple as I took 10 minutes and I sat down, I did nothing but sip on a cup of tea. Good for me. Like that is a win as far as I'm concerned. Absolutely. Or I stumbled with my cats or whatever, or maybe I got out for a walk or maybe it's just a matter of like

I sent a text message to a friend I haven't talked to in a little while and heard back from them. And that was great. It doesn't always have to be, think sometimes we focus on like, have to accomplish all these big major things every day. And not every day can be massive like that, but it doesn't make it less impactful. We need to celebrate all of those wins. So good for you for being able to recognize that. Yeah. Yeah. And you a big help with that too. It kind of got me back on track. Cause when we did me and

you started coaching me. mean, this all kind of blew up. I'll admit it was it threw me for a little bit of a loop when we first started working together. Again, we had this sort of plan, which we still managed to accomplish what we had set out to do. But we had to kind of hit pause on starting all of that to just, how do we deal with Google? Like this is first and foremost, we need that action plan because we couldn't have you lose the business, especially as you were about to close.

So this is the other, you had not closed on the warehouse yet. You were like a month away from closing on the warehouse. So you need revenue to be able to do this. So it was a big immediate shift of things. But again, from what we're talking, you already had the relationships. You had already built those relationships. And how long have you been in business, Theresa Bouchard? We're just going into our fifth year. So I think that's something that I really want to note there of that.

She has not been in business a long time. You're not brand spanking new by any means, but you are not what I would consider a veteran either. And you still, you had built all those relationships that kept you going. That is huge. It goes to show that you've always had those relationships. You didn't just turn to them when Google disappeared and be like, where do I have relationships? They were already existing. They were already being nurtured. They were already being valued.

and that is key to any business's success. So good for you for doing that, truly. I'm so proud of all the things that you accomplished. Again, all while navigating Google being down, but I will tell you guys that as I'm speaking to her, each time that we met, I would ask, how are things going with Google? She would give me a brief update. She's like, but that's that, and let's move on. It wasn't something that she allowed to consume her.

which I think was so healthy as well, that had you let it, like you did have to let go, as you said, of, can't control this, I've done my part. It was disruptive, of course, but you did what you could and you didn't let it consume you. So we didn't spend every single session going on and on and on about what we were going to do. You put wheels in motion after that first call that we had, started contacting your partners, put together the promotion that you put together in October.

had other feelers out there. did a warehouse customer meet and greet. What was it? A No, was an open house. Open house, yes. So the Chamber of Commerce came. We invited everybody. We were in the paper. And we had a photographer come and a videographer. And it was just like this big event. And it was really fantastic, all the support that we received. And it really got us recognized by the community, because we are a new business in the community.

And that's huge. That's just putting goodwill out there and having it pay for itself, essentially. So good for you. listen, if there is one thing that after people are listening to this episode, if there is one thing that they take away from this, that one tip that you want to give to your fellow female entrepreneurs out there, what would that be?

Don't let fear hold you back. I like that. Fear can take over and don't let it. You have to believe in yourself and know that if you put your mind to something, you can do it. And it's all about choice too. I actually went to a great meeting yesterday. It was a training session. It's called BOLD. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. Yeah, I'm familiar with BOLD. Yeah. Yeah, it was really amazing.

Happiness is a choice. Everything in our lives are a choice. And don't let fear be that choice. Overcome that fear and create the path that you want and just go for it. Don't let fear stop you. I seriously couldn't have said it any better myself. That was so perfect. I love it. Thank you. if someone wants to find you, what's the best way for them to find you? So they can get, contact us at www.tsstaginganddesign.com.

that'll take you to our website and you can start there. Our telephone number, email address, everything is on there. And yeah, that's how you can reach out to us. And I mean, I haven't even begun to discuss how Theresa Bouchard aside from the incredible entrepreneur that she is, but she's also an incredibly talented home stage and interior designer. We barely even scratched the surface on that. But I think that goes without saying, given the business that she's managed to build, people would not be coming back and giving you

rave five-star reviews. You probably see you didn't have that part nailed down as well. But it's not just about the work that you do in terms of staging interior design. It's the customer service, it's the quality, it's everything that goes with that. You've built such an incredible business and I'm so proud of everything that you've done. Thank you. I so appreciate it. I do want to add that to toot our own horn, we are an eight-time award-winning home staging company from

the home staging resources where we were certified and we submit all of our beautiful work to them and we've been recognized eight times by the company. So, beautiful. honor. And that is a huge honor to know that you're being recognized within your industry as well. So, very good. Good for you. Wonderful. Well, thank you. Theresa Bouchard, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been such a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you so much.

If you're listening to this episode and what we're talking about here is resonating with you, don't forget to subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform, leave us a review. And as always, if you know someone who can benefit from this, maybe they've just recently lost their Google listing or they're struggling to get going on Google and they want to build up their business, please share this episode with them. It's the best way that we can support our fellow female entrepreneurs. Until next time, everyone keep thriving. Thank you.