Transcript

Michael Palumbos (00:58.266)

Well, welcome everybody to The Family Biz Show. I am your host, Michael Palumbos with Family Wealth and Legacy in Rochester, New York. And today we have Christi Redfearn with us. Welcome, Christi 

 

Christi Redfearn (01:11.768)

Thank you very much for having me. 

 

Michael Palumbos (01:13.482)

And as I told you three seconds ago, I went running from one office to another and the name of your company is. And Lee S I'm so sorry. I was just like, know, here, I just want people to see I'm a pretty authentic when I do these things. we had contractors at our house and, they said they were going to be really quiet and that was not the case. I called an audible. went to the office. 

 

Christi Redfearn (01:22.274)

Redley SCS. 

 

Michael Palumbos (01:42.114)

So Christi was really awesome and just gave me a couple extra minutes to set up here. So Christi, tell us about your journey in terms of, know, were you straight out of high school, straight into the family business? Did you have, you know, a different journey? What was your journey like to join the family business? 

 

Christi Redfearn (02:05.636)

gosh, really my journey with the family business began when the business began. I was two years old and so my grandfather had this brilliant idea to start a janitorial company and in his words it was I've got a better way to do it. Now he always had a better way of doing things. Sometimes it worked out, sometimes it didn't, but his first sale was convincing my dad that 

 

Christi Redfearn (02:34.274)

being a janitor was a good idea. My dad at the time as a middle school custodian, absolutely hated it, didn't want anything to do with the industry. So my grandfather spent about six months working on him saying, yes, this will be good. You'll be in charge of the operations, blah, blah, blah. Well, the fun part of that was my grandfather had a no compete agreement with his prior employer. So while the company was incorporated in Texas, 

 

Christi Redfearn (03:02.774)

my family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma to actually start operations. So that's where it started. You know, I always make the joke that family dinners were every Friday night, either in Tulsa or in the DFW area, we commute back and forth frequently. And it was always about the state of the company. So I grew up hearing about, okay, we're going to make payroll this week. 

 

Christi Redfearn (03:30.814)

cash is a little tight. we really need this customer to pay. Otherwise we're going to have to cut them off. And I didn't realize that some parents actually asked their kids how their day was when I was growing up until I started going to friends houses. But, you know, I was the kid that said, I'm never going to be a janitor. My dad was the guy who said, well, if you want to do this, then you can do this for the company. He was very set. I went to school to be an attorney, worked. 

 

Christi Redfearn (03:59.586)

For several attorneys, they all told me not to do it. So I bailed and ended up going into finance and unfortunately graduated with a finance degree in December of 2001. So really bad time for that industry. And so I found myself in need of a job and my dad said, why don't you come work for the accounting department? And I went, well, I don't really have any other options right now. Sounds good. 

 

Michael Palumbos (04:29.27)

But you had a little, you know, you had a jaunt here and jaunt there beforehand. some families, and I always ask because some families have a hard and fast rule of you've got to go and do three years or five years, you know, outside of the family business and you have to ask to come in and interview. And then other families, it's just this natural thing that it's like, you know, you know the business already. You've been around it your whole life. And there's no right or wrong. It just is. 

 

Michael Palumbos (04:58.702)

And, and, and, it isn't because sometimes it's like, that person should have, and you know, spent some time away to spread their wings and know that they were doing the right things. so I think it's just a matter of knowing your players. Right. 

 

Christi Redfearn (05:13.108)

And I'm actually one of the people who ran away a couple of times. I did my MBA when I was in my early 20s and got an offer I couldn't refuse for a Fortune 500 company with a great salary. That's where I learned that being extremely honest about what you think is going on is not always a good thing. And definitely not the best employee. 

 

Christi Redfearn (05:38.518)

really not good at playing politics. And then there was another opportunity that came up where I really enjoy teaching, coaching, that kind of thing. And somebody kind of offered me a great opportunity to do sales training and couldn't say no to that. So I went and did that for a little while and ended up. Go ahead. 

 

Michael Palumbos (06:01.518)

In between, like, did you come back and work for the company and then go back out and then come back and work for the company again? Got it. So you hit, it's almost like tours of duty, right? had, I had another guest a while ago. They're like, she goes, I did three tours of duty with the family business. I'm done now. 

 

Christi Redfearn (06:11.502)

Nice. 

 

Christi Redfearn (06:20.046)

I guess I'm on my third and so far it's been a longer one. 

 

Michael Palumbos (06:27.316)

Okay. Talk about some, you you mentioned that, you know, there was times when we struggled to make payroll, but here we are today. So let's start with what was your grandfather's big better way? he, know, can you describe that for us? 

 

Christi Redfearn (06:47.054)

Sure. So this is way back in 1984, 82, that's somewhere in there. At the time, our industry was very heavily driven by payroll and having direct payroll, labor, et cetera. If you used independent contractors, the reputation was that you kind of just turned over the keys and they ran wild with the building. was no controls. There was no safety, no background checks, that kind of thing. 

 

Christi Redfearn (07:16.206)

So his idea was to not go cross those boundaries, obviously, but go as far up to the limit on controls as possible while still maintaining the contractor's independence ability to work for other companies. So we started doing things like charging them to run background checks, doing things like verifying their 941 tax returns and 

 

Christi Redfearn (07:45.344)

and stuff like that. So we control the supply ordering and they use the consumables that we provided instead of just saying, hey, now it is a very still tricky balance to maintain. We cannot train those people who do the cleaning directly. We have to work with the owners or the supervisors to set the expectation. And then they go and train and that sort of thing. But we. 

 

Christi Redfearn (08:10.882)

We kind of, do what we can to ensure that the service is up to our standards with our cross-line. Wonderful. 

 

Michael Palumbos (08:21.166)

I love it. And so back in the eighties, your father and your grandfather are running through this stuff. What were some of the stories that are memorable for you that it's like, boy, am I glad that we don't have to go through that again. 

 

Christi Redfearn (08:36.719)

gosh, so some of the early ones, especially there were times where the crews didn't show up. And so my dad was single-handedly cleaning 100,000 square foot building all by himself all night. 

 

Michael Palumbos (08:52.514)

Wow, okay. 

 

Christi Redfearn (08:54.936)

There 

 

Christi Redfearn (08:55.086)

were times where, again, controls not being what they are today or the expectations, not what they are, today, but pulling up to a gas station saying, hey, you want to work for a night? Then hopping in and just so that they had somebody other than him to do all the work and. 

 

Michael Palumbos (09:14.248)

That's awesome. those are the, you sometimes I have to say I miss those days. You know, there was some things that you just, you know, when you had a good family with a good name, you knew you were not out there doing any harm. It was just matter of I'm gonna figure out a way to get stuff. 

 

Christi Redfearn (09:35.79)

Yes. 

 

Christi Redfearn (09:38.233)

It was just what do have to do to make sure that the client is not upset with us for not delivering? 

 

Michael Palumbos (09:45.27)

Yeah. I love that. Through the years, what were some of the things where you look back at, again, just looking at the history of things, your father and your grandfather, that's, you know, just times when you know you were super proud and they were proud of what they accomplished, you know, through the years. 

 

Christi Redfearn (10:07.256)

For me, it was always when we would drive around first in Tulsa and then when we moved back to the Dallas area, every building that the company cleaned, my dad, anytime we drive by it, we clean that building. We clean that building. We used to clean that building, but this happened. And so now we're working to get it back. I knew the real estate market in the Dallas skyline based on what we clean versus what we didn't. 

 

Michael Palumbos (10:36.588)

love that. That's great. I mean, that is, you know, growing up. Did you have siblings? Do you have siblings? Okay, in the business, not in the business. 

 

Christi Redfearn (10:42.702)

I have a younger sister. 

 

Christi Redfearn (10:46.392)

She's kind of in the business. She has a special needs daughter who requires a lot of medical attention, appointments, therapies and such. So she is on the payroll, but her responsibilities kind of work around what she is able to do with her daughter's conditions. 

 

Michael Palumbos (11:04.366)

My point, guess, that I was looking at is to say, yeah, I'm sure that both of you grew up with a sense of pride because of your father and grandfather talking about the things that, you know, here's the buildings that we took care of and here's what we did for this, you know, this community. 

 

Christi Redfearn (11:22.37)

Yeah, I always grew up thinking that the janitorial world and cleaning staff were really cool. They were heroes that they did something that while at night where was not necessarily where you were able to see it, somebody would get to come in the next morning and see a fresh, clean building. And so this day, you know, even at home, I want things fresh, clean, sorted, organized. 

 

Christi Redfearn (11:50.636)

It just makes me feel good. Nice. 

 

Michael Palumbos (11:54.114)

What are some of the things that happened in terms of how the business grew or things that you took on to say, you know, these were big projects, but they gave you leaps and bounds, you know, steps and capabilities through. 

 

Christi Redfearn (12:10.57)

years. 

 

Christi Redfearn (12:12.051)

So some of them were clients that allowed that took a chance on us. Our big first break was with Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma. We got that contract and that really put us on the map as far as being able to hire and retain worth worthy crews that did an excellent job and you know work with contractors that really want to 

 

Christi Redfearn (12:40.238)

hold things to the same standards that we did. We had a couple of acquisitions over the years that brought us, excuse me, into new markets. In 1994, we bought a company called Spectrum Commercial Services and that made us go from, you know, the Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas market brought us into the East Coast. And yeah, and we've been there ever since. 

 

Christi Redfearn (13:08.97)

Another big one was getting the opportunity to follow a client into Miami. Now that was interesting. We're glad we're not there anymore, but it was a great learning curve. But you know, one of those situations where a client got a massive account and they trusted us and we'd had no presence working in Florida at the time and they just trusted us to set it up. Same thing with 

 

Christi Redfearn (13:38.658)

We worked with Eli Lilly for several years in Indianapolis, and that's what brought us into that market. So just, you know, we had the reputation, we had the trust, we had the strong relationships that were when somebody moved or somebody had an opportunity, they thought of us to get that chance. 

 

Michael Palumbos (13:58.54)

Got it. How do you manage something like that? you know, when you look at the number of employees that range throughout the company today versus, you know, the early days, what would you say, you know, when your dad and grandfather were running it, what was like the high watermark employee wise? And I know some of them are, you know, they're not all employees. get your contractors, right. 

 

Christi Redfearn (14:25.228)

Now there's so, when I kind of look at it, I look at whose families are we responsible for their livelihood? And so that kind of encompasses both our contractors and our employees. And in the early nineties, I'd say we had maybe 500 people that relied on us for their salaries. Now we're anywhere from 2,500 to 3,000. 

 

Michael Palumbos (14:53.494)

Wow, that's phenomenal. 

 

Christi Redfearn (14:55.598)

That's very. It's a big jump. 

 

Michael Palumbos (14:59.022)

What allowed you to have the capabilities and the confidence when the companies, DFW and Oklahoma, and you're saying, hey, let's go to the East Coast with a snap of a finger. What were some of the things that you knew, the company knew we'd be able to handle that? 

 

Christi Redfearn (15:21.46)

gosh, is there ever any situation where you know 100 %? 

 

Michael Palumbos (15:25.486)

Never 100%, but you had enough confidence to say, we've got this. And so what would you say are some of the things that provided that level of confidence? 

 

Christi Redfearn (15:36.558)

Ultimately, I think it's that we stay have and have always stayed true to. We're not right for everybody, so we spend the time to really get to know a client. We really spend the time to evaluate what their set of circumstances are, the scope of work, and we bid our work so that we can meet or exceed our clients expectations. 

 

Christi Redfearn (16:04.994)

And if they're looking for something cheaper than that, okay, maybe we can do something with the scope and reduce some of the frequencies or not do as much detail. And with the understanding that you know that's what it's gonna look like. And if you're okay with that, then we can work within your budget. If not, no hard feelings. We're just gonna politely decline and say, 

 

Christi Redfearn (16:33.516)

I'm sorry, it's not a good fit for us. And we're that way about the companies that we've acquired over the years. We're that way with the contractors that we work with. We have very long standing relationships with the contractors that we've got. And we're that way with our employees. It's really about, do you fit and do you understand what is expected and do you buy into it? 

 

Michael Palumbos (17:00.588)

Yeah, I think that what you just shared, I want to make sure that people get that. It is so incredibly important, especially when you're bidding jobs. And I work with lot of people in the construction industry that have to bid the work. it's always about, oftentimes it's the low bidder is going to win. 

 

Michael Palumbos (17:27.374)

I don't think that's always necessary the case if they spend the time talking about scope, talking about what are the expectations and really getting in there and really making a difference in those situations. Because to your point before, you said we have all of these families that we're responsible for. And so you would only want to work with people that want to help. 

 

Christi Redfearn (17:50.531)

Yeah. 

 

Michael Palumbos (17:56.078)

with that mission of making sure that those people are taken care of. I love that, I love that. And that, you know, it's probably a testament to why, you know, here we started in the early eighties and we are still here in 2023. And we've actually, you know, you know, more than six times the employees from the early nineties till today because you stuck to your guns on how you do things. 

 

Christi Redfearn (17:59.95)

Absolutely. 

 

Christi Redfearn (18:23.416)

Yep. Yeah, it's funny. My grandfather passed away last year, but and inherited his office at work. But, you know, it's one of those I changed a lot because his taste and decoration are very different from mine. But I kept one wall that had all of his stuff on it. And it's my reminder. 

 

Michael Palumbos (18:45.806)

keep you grounded, right? That's awesome. That's great. What are some of the things that you're doing today that help you to, I think a lot of people would be really hard pressed to say 3000 people I'm responsible for. That's a big ask. What are some of the things that you do as the CEO today to be able to keep your fingers on the pulse, to be able to 

 

Michael Palumbos (19:14.494)

not fall under the wall of stress with 3,000 lines at hand. What do you do for that? How do you manage that? 

 

Christi Redfearn (19:24.186)

gosh. Let's see work wise, I am somebody who likes to visit the markets. And I like to participate in some of our startups. I went to Little Rock back in I guess it was April, where we just got a new contract that was very high profile. And I worked with the team for opening day where they had 1000s of people coming through and, know, it was 

 

Christi Redfearn (19:52.202)

sweeping, mopping, doing everything else and just having a good time with everybody. And I try to do that whenever I can. If there isn't a startup, I still like to get out to the markets, meet with our managers, meet with our porters, just really get a sense of what they're going through. Try and make myself available for them to feel comfortable to talk to me about what they see, what could be better, what are we doing well. And 

 

Christi Redfearn (20:20.93)

you know, outside of work, I race cars and do Brazilian jujitsu so that I have great stress relief. 

 

Michael Palumbos (20:29.102)

Nice nice nice well if you ever race in upstate New York let us know we've got Watkins Watkins Glen racetrack is right here so. 

 

Christi Redfearn (20:39.384)

Yes, 

 

Christi Redfearn (20:39.896)

I love the Glenn. That's a bucket list item. 

 

Michael Palumbos (20:42.6)

And I have clients that live in Elmira, so they're just outside of there and they are there for as many events every summer as they can as they can. 

 

Christi Redfearn (20:51.382)

The 

 

Christi Redfearn (20:51.634)

closest I've been is limerock. 

 

Michael Palumbos (20:53.39)

Okay. Tell me about your leadership team. what is that? How does, the interaction between you and your leadership team, how many people on the leadership team, what kind of spaces do they fill and how do you guys interact to make, again, you know, I know with 3000 lives at stake, you're not doing this only on your own. You know, you have to, so talk about that, share with us. 

 

Christi Redfearn (21:19.48)

So I have a leadership team of five people. I have our president of national operations, John Gendro, who is also my cousin. He has forgotten more about operating a building than most people have ever learned. He's been with the company for 30 years. My grandfather trained him on operations himself. He is 

 

Christi Redfearn (21:48.738)

bar none, one of the best operators in the business. And then our chief operating officer, Jeffrey Shea, he was actually a client for several years before we convinced him that real estate wasn't as much fun and being a janitor is really where it's at. And he is responsible for our growth strategies and what markets we look at, what business segments we look at, what do we say no to, that kind of stuff. 

 

Christi Redfearn (22:18.746)

And he's really good at managing those client relationships and making sure that we have multiple layers within each company. So he's got a relationship with somebody, the person who operates the building for us has a relationship, that kind of thing. Then we have my Chief Human Resources Officer Vicente Leon. And I mean, this is a true compliment. He is not your typical HR. 

 

Christi Redfearn (22:48.182)

our person. He is so good at let's figure out the root of the problem and the best way to solve it. He is great at leading with heart. He is great at protecting our culture. He is great at making sure that anybody who comes into our culture doesn't disrupt it. And then finally, I have Stephen Maxwell, who is our controller, and he 

 

Christi Redfearn (23:18.35)

I've tasked him with updating all of our accounting software and everything this past couple of years. So that actually just past year, he's the newest one on the team. But I kind of put the directive of like our accounting software has to be one that can grow with the business. It has to be scalable. And we just went through a massive software conversion under his leadership. And we're still working through some of the things that 

 

Christi Redfearn (23:47.192)

You know, obviously software conversions take time, nothing ever goes according to plan, but you know, he's really helping to set the company up for long-term success because I have a very active growth strategy. You know, I've got that, let's lob a ball out and just see where it lands and how crazy can we get. And he's helping set the stage so that we can actually achieve it. 

 

Michael Palumbos (24:12.354)

That's fabulous. How often do you and the leadership team meet? 

 

Christi Redfearn (24:17.682)

so we have a board meeting once a month and that's where, my father and my uncle, the CFO who's kind of semi retired, but my father's fully retired. we all meet and discuss the issues of the business and whatnot. I actually get together with my team the day before so that we're all on the same page and bring anything up beforehand. And then I have a monthly one-on-one session with each of them. 

 

Christi Redfearn (24:47.47)

separately. So trying to do at least now, and there's also a text message thread that's going 24 seven so. 

 

Michael Palumbos (24:56.576)

Understandable, understandable. What does, and feel free to if you, this isn't on the agenda. Is there a succession plan from your CEO now? did that succession work, the transition I would say from your father to you? 

 

Christi Redfearn (25:15.522)

That one was about a two year process. He made the announcement, well, I joke again, he used to come into my office when I was there every five years. Okay, I think I'm ready to retire in five years. I'm definitely out of here by then. Those five years would go by and okay, nothing's really happened. He's still really enjoying it. And so the last time that he said, okay, I'm really ready to retire in two years. I went, yeah, okay, sure, whatever. 

 

Christi Redfearn (25:45.41)

But he actually meant it this time. And the first step for him was to make the announcement and start handing off some of the responsibilities to me. And he came in, stopped coming in five days a week, started coming in four, and then six months later, it was three days a week. And then six months later, it was two days a week. And that's kind of when he officially just checked out and said, good luck. 

 

Christi Redfearn (26:14.7)

run with it. And so from there, I just kind of took over and then six months later, it was official official. But if it at that point, if I had questions or anything like that, it was I better call him because he's he's enjoying this. 

 

Michael Palumbos (26:31.138)

Good, that's good. How old was your dad when he said, you know, made the announcement? 

 

Christi Redfearn (26:35.79)

He was 65, so he retired in 1997. 

 

Michael Palumbos (26:39.406)

It's funny, there is, again, there is no right or wrong when it comes to family business, but it was neat that you didn't get frustrated with, when's it my turn? You guys, you were watching, hit your fingers on the pulse and we're like, yeah, right, sure, dad. And I went through exactly the same thing with my father. He had, it was the five-year plan at least two times. 

 

Michael Palumbos (27:07.372)

And then, know, said, okay, this time for real. And I almost didn't believe them, but yeah, everything went off. we, we did a lot of different things, client relationships and things that, know, you could just tell, okay, this time's for real. Yeah. And he's been out 2018. I wrote him his last check in 2022, I think. And, that was, he was pretty darn happy ever since then. So that's nice. 

 

Christi Redfearn (27:21.634)

Yeah. 

 

Christi Redfearn (27:35.872)

good. 

 

Michael Palumbos (27:37.012)

When you look at the business. In terms of the family, how many family members have been involved in the business? 

 

Christi Redfearn (27:47.638)

Yes. So we were discussing earlier that this time it's kind of going from the family run business to the family owned business. And to me, that's a really big distinction. In the past, obviously my grandfather came in right up until he was physically unable to, he never retired. This was his baby. And my grandmother still comes in once a week. 

 

Christi Redfearn (28:17.58)

My great aunt is somebody who puts together all of our proposals for us. My cousin, as I mentioned, is our president of operations. My sister kind of heads up our philanthropy piece. And besides that, we've had cousins and other relatives that have come through. Some of them have been great where they learned some skills and were able to further their career and get promoted in other companies. 

 

Christi Redfearn (28:46.582)

And then some that, you maybe they shouldn't have been working for us in the first place. So we've run the gambit. 

 

Michael Palumbos (28:54.414)

As you move forward, do you have children yourself? 

 

Christi Redfearn (29:00.204)

I do, I have a 12 year old daughter and a 10 year old son. 

 

Michael Palumbos (29:05.592)

And you have a sister. Does she have other kids that? 

 

Christi Redfearn (29:10.392)

She has a gosh he just turned. Her son is six and her daughter is. 

 

Michael Palumbos (29:15.534)

Got it. And then is there other family members that might poke their head around and say, hey, just you okay. I'm just curious if anybody else, you know, the other side, you know, like your father's siblings or whatever if they had kids, if there was kids that from that side that might say. 

 

Christi Redfearn (29:33.634)

Nope, we're the 

 

Christi Redfearn (29:34.358)

last ones. 

 

Michael Palumbos (29:36.386)

So your journey on the family owned side will be much easier because you don't have that. If you did, I'd be saying it's time to get employment policy in place, put those things together, but you'll be fine. 

 

Christi Redfearn (29:51.55)

no, I'm already working on an operating agreement and then a buy sell for my sister and I when we're the owners because I just I don't I want to avoid any fighting. I want to set things up in place beforehand so that everybody's had a chance to review. They know what they're going into and the terms are set so that later on it's, well, this isn't fair. I want to change my mind about this. It's no, we already agreed to it. 

 

Michael Palumbos (30:17.262)

exactly. 

 

Christi Redfearn (30:18.638)

I 

 

Christi Redfearn (30:19.258)

want to protect those 3,000 families that. 

 

Michael Palumbos (30:21.742)

Yeah, protect the families and protect the relationships. It's like, you know, the most important thing for most families that I've ever dealt with is, can we still sit down at the Thanksgiving dinner table or whatever your favorite family holiday is that everybody gets together? You want to be able to gather without any animosity or issues. I've it too many times when you didn't go into it and say, 

 

Christi Redfearn (30:45.998)

Absolutely. 

 

Michael Palumbos (30:51.768)

How does this end? If you don't ask that question and talk about those things and then what if this or what if that, because you can do them when everybody's happy, but when you're in the middle of it and the thick of things and you haven't done it properly, it gets ugly. And it can get ugly. It can get ugly. 

 

Christi Redfearn (31:00.258)

Yep. 

 

Christi Redfearn (31:10.328)

Doesn't always doesn't always know. Yeah. 

 

Michael Palumbos (31:13.486)

When you look at the business today, you said we have a big growth strategy. So do mind sharing what your vision for the future looks like? 

 

Christi Redfearn (31:20.088)

Yes. 

 

Christi Redfearn (31:26.65)

so my grand plan is I have about eight years left to double the size of the company. 

 

Michael Palumbos (31:34.178)

Got it. That's big. Eight years to double. So I'm going to throw an idea to you and feel free to say you're an idiot. It's free advice. So you get to take it for what it's worth. I would throw out a, what would that look like in 20 years when you're not there anymore? And the reason I throw this out to people is how old, do you mind if I ask how old you are? 

 

Christi Redfearn (31:36.11)

Yeah. 

 

Christi Redfearn (31:54.051)

Right. 

 

Christi Redfearn (32:01.998)

I am 43 years young. 

 

Michael Palumbos (32:04.226)

Yeah, so eight years from now, it's like, okay, so there's my, I'd like to be doing something different in eight years from now. And for me and several people, I've seen this before, where when the goals are when I'm supposed to be done, sometimes it's hard and you put the foot on the gas and the brake at the same time things are happening. So by resetting the goal and saying, you know what, what is this company gonna look like 20 years from now when I'm not even here? 

 

Michael Palumbos (32:32.918)

it helps you to get on that path towards that one that you're looking at. That's an idea that I throw out there. Jim Collins calls it the big hairy audacious goal. And I never really understood what it was for. It wasn't necessarily to do anything else than to say, let's get that north star and along that line is that eight year thing, but let's really put the capacities in here to do all these things for 20 years from now. 

 

Christi Redfearn (32:36.611)

Right? 

 

Christi Redfearn (32:57.196)

Yeah, well, and there's one there's more to it than just the eight year plan. It's ultimately the goal is to grow the company to grow the people. And I wish that's a great line. I wish I could say I came up with it. Someone in my visit group did. He's an absolute genius. But I stole it so I can claim it as. 

 

Michael Palumbos (33:19.234)

Give them credit three times and then it's yours. That's my rule. 

 

Christi Redfearn (33:22.254)

But I look at that and I think about, you know, years and years ago, mom and pop janitorial companies were what ruled this industry. Now we have venture capitalists seeing how segmented it is, and they are coming in with a strategy to buy up these mom and pops, consolidate them, sell them to Fortune 500s and make a killing. It's a solid strategy because it's 

 

Christi Redfearn (33:51.198)

easy to do. And so for us to stay competitive, for us to stay relevant, we have to make sure that we grow with though as fast, if not faster than those companies that are being consolidated. And so the way to do that is some acquisitions on our own organic growth. But at the end of the day, the real driving force is do we have real career paths 

 

Christi Redfearn (34:20.919)

for somebody to start as a night cleaner or a day porter and eventually become a manager, a team leader, someone who's over an entire division, is that opportunity available? Because if it is, and we are finding people that are good enough to promote through those ranks, the numbers will take care of themselves. 

 

Michael Palumbos (34:43.476)

Yeah, I'm going to assume that you've read this book already. The Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly. 

 

Christi Redfearn (34:51.373)

I have not. 

 

Christi Redfearn (34:53.293)

I'm gonna have to write this down. 

 

Michael Palumbos (34:54.893)

This is a grab the audible tomorrow or tonight. If you're a hard copy reader, the book's great. Matthew wrote an incredible book. It's a half real book based on a real company. That would be a janitorial company and you are going to eat it up. After our conversation, you are going to love. 

 

Michael Palumbos (35:24.459)

listening to this. 

 

Christi Redfearn (35:25.688)

I'm going to have to get on Amazon Prime tonight and have it delivered tomorrow because I get on a plane tomorrow afternoon and I'm plane reader. 

 

Michael Palumbos (35:32.366)

You'll tear it up. You'll tear it up. And he does it as a, you know, the parable. It's a story. So it's not a, you know, very nice, easy read. did really good. 

 

Christi Redfearn (35:44.504)

Well, I mean, and I enjoy books by Simon Sinek, Jaco Willink. I've read all of their stuff and one of those. At the end of the day, it is my responsibility. If something goes wrong, it is my fault. And if something goes well, it's because I let the team do their jobs and they did them well. 

 

Michael Palumbos (36:04.908)

Love it. Love it. I'm trying to, my intern knows Jaco, so we're trying to get him on the show. I would, I'll let you know how it goes. put it out in the ether now. So, we want you on the show. 

 

Christi Redfearn (36:19.342)

Ask him about Brazilian jujitsu. 

 

Michael Palumbos (36:22.062)

There you go. There you go. 

 

Michael Palumbos (36:24.542)

Love it. Thank you. What are some of the challenges? I think you mentioned one, just the consolidation and the M &A that's happening out there. What are some of the other challenges for you today as we sit here right now? What keeps you up at night? What are the things that frustrate you? 

 

Christi Redfearn (36:44.302)

Right now, part of it is coming out of COVID. We were incredibly fortunate that we were early adopters of some electrostatic disinfection services and technology. So we were able to pivot and we didn't have to lay anybody off or anything when shelter in place happened or anything like that. But now that the kind of new expectation is that 

 

Christi Redfearn (37:12.108)

You don't have everybody in the office all the time. Companies are reducing their real estate footprints. So, and then there's an issue where, okay, if you have 200 people in an office where there used to be a thousand, they still spread out. And so we're still responsible for cleaning a hundred percent of it. But then they come in and say, Hey, wait a minute, we don't have nearly as many people here. How do we reduce the cost? And it's like, well, 

 

Christi Redfearn (37:41.014)

shut down a floor so that nobody can go on it and then we can stop cleaning it. But until that happens, right, wrong or indifferent, COVID for all intents and purposes opened a lot of people's eyes for the true value of proper cleaning. And we don't want to lose that. We've always believed that's important, but now the rest of the world kind of gets it as well. And so it's just that. 

 

Christi Redfearn (38:09.388)

all right, we got to navigate these waters. They're trying to reduce, they're trying to, because everybody spent so much money during the pandemic to keep things afloat, to keep people employed. And so now it's that time where, okay, now we got to figure out how do we can recover some of those costs or reduce some of those costs, because this is painful. 

 

Michael Palumbos (38:35.5)

Yeah. What else? 

 

Christi Redfearn (38:38.95)

supplies, know, every getting everything getting more expensive. We've seen we used to be able to work with some of our national providers where we would have one year guarantees on pricing those days long gone. So it's just kind of that managing the process of, okay, we've got yet another price increase and then going through to our customers and saying, Hey, 

 

Christi Redfearn (39:06.006)

sorry, we have to start passing some of this along to you as well. Otherwise, we can't stay afloat. then, you know, equipment is much more expensive than it used to be. It's just the whole capital investment just to do the same thing that we've been doing for 40 years. It's it's crazy. 

 

Michael Palumbos (39:23.958)

Understandable. When we were talking about earlier, you had talked about culture. When, and you're talking about acquisition as a growth strategy. How do you and your team mesh cultures, you know, and bring them on board? What are some of the things that you do? 

 

Christi Redfearn (39:34.402)

Mm-hmm. 

 

Michael Palumbos (39:51.704)

to help make sure that your internal culture doesn't get shocked with the new cultures that you're taking on. 

 

Christi Redfearn (40:03.064)

Part of it is I am incredibly transparent about that being part of our growth strategy. We have quarterly town hall meetings where everybody who's employed by us is allowed to join, ask questions. We go through kind of a presentation process on how the company is doing, pressing matters that are coming up. So I'm always letting everybody know, hey, this is on the horizon. I've got my plans in place. I've got my locations of where I'm looking. 2024. 

 

Christi Redfearn (40:32.536)

this was going to be pretty gung-ho and pretty solid focus for me. And so that helps everybody realize that, yes, this is coming. So it's not as crazy when something does happen. The other part would be making sure that we sit down with the owners of whatever company that we're looking at and we just talk zero about business. Are you the kind of people that 

 

Christi Redfearn (41:01.354)

I wanna work with, are you the kind of people? Cause it's gonna be a two year process, molding everything in, you're hoping that the owner will stay on board to kind of help with that transition. Relationships are so important in our industry, transitioning with the relationships that they have over to something that we can work with. And hey, maybe even better, they wanna stay on board and continue focusing. 

 

Christi Redfearn (41:30.766)

because a lot of it is they want out because they're tired of the administrative burden. They're tired. They want to get back to what they enjoyed. We can take that off of their plate, let them continue to focus on what they enjoy while we handle all the backend stuff. So there's other opportunities, but it really has to come down to, again, like our clients, we're not for everybody. So while I want to grow through acquisitions, it has to be the right ones. 

 

Michael Palumbos (42:01.12)

Smart. You guys, there's a definite company culture. You've alluded to that. How do you define your company culture? 

 

Christi Redfearn (42:10.696)

gosh, so I would say it kind of our company last year went through this massive process to come up with a tagline that we are in the final stages of getting a trademark for it. And if you will, and it's remember your roots. So that can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, but for us it's we started off small. We're the little guy. We're here to take on the world. 

 

Christi Redfearn (42:40.238)

remembering that it's a service that really matters. It makes a difference in people's life. I like to make the joke that we're the people that make sure that movie WALL-E doesn't actually happen. you know, and making sure that people feel appreciated, that they realize that no matter what they do in the company, it makes a difference in the world. 

 

Michael Palumbos (43:06.444)

Yes, it does. It's a great time to say this story. I don't think I've said it on the show before, but I talk about it with clients all the time. There was a story about JFK getting a tour at NASA back in the day and going around and asking people, you know, what do you do? I'm a mathematician, I'm an engineer. And when he asked the person that was the janitor, he said, what do you do? do you do here? 

 

Michael Palumbos (43:36.046)

helping to put a man on the moon. And that matters. It matters. It matters. When we're working with companies, we talk about defining a core purpose beyond profit. when you can do that, and so remembering your roots is really a key theme for you guys to be able to do that. I bet you that when you're having conversations with 

 

Christi Redfearn (44:00.099)

Yeah. 

 

Michael Palumbos (44:04.17)

acquisitions, you're having conversations with new employees, those are the kinds of things. It's like, how do we get there to remember our roots? 

 

Christi Redfearn (44:10.626)

Yeah, it was funny. We just hired somebody who I happen to know outside of work, which I try not to mix a lot, but she was actually she was a really good fit for the position that we're hiring for. And it all came about because we we volunteer together and never talk about work or anything like that. But it came up one night and it was, so what do you do? And I said, I clean toilets. And they just went, wait, what? 

 

Michael Palumbos (44:37.71)

That's it. But at the end of day, that's it. 

 

Christi Redfearn (44:42.958)

We're here to do the thankless jobs that need doing. 

 

Michael Palumbos (44:46.833)

Yeah. And you keeping your grandfather's wall, you know, is remembering the roots. And it always goes back to that. I think that is so cool that you've done that. You are going, I just can't wait. Please send me an email after you read the dream manager. Let me know what you thought. Because I think you're going to be like, oh my gosh. And you're not going to, you do not feel compelled to dwell on the things that he talks about in there. 

 

Michael Palumbos (45:14.69)

But even if there's one good idea that I, you know, that'd be great. Yeah. 

 

Michael Palumbos (45:23.662)

We talked about frustrations. talked about your growth strategy. We talked about family in and out of the business. are some of your favorite family traditions? 

 

Christi Redfearn (45:38.7)

gosh, so we are a little bit silly. So family time at Christmas, it's not as prominent as it used to be, but we always find a way to bring it back. If you get a gift from Santa while you're with the family, that's a bad thing. It's a gag gift. And so it's kind of that, it's always in somebody's fake writing. You can never know who it's from. 

 

Christi Redfearn (46:06.72)

It just says your name and from Santa it's usually wrapped in something completely different than any other president and you just get it and go no what am I about to open. there's been everything from coconut for purses where faces painted on them there's been how slippers that are really out of control and like complete with painted toenails so in and all kinds of stuff. 

 

Christi Redfearn (46:35.374)

The big one was a dress that was passed around and it was like a rite of passage. If you got the dress, you were finally, you know, considered the adult, but it was made out of a burlap sack. And it was presented in a Neiman Marcus box. 

 

Michael Palumbos (46:53.698)

But that's all. 

 

Christi Redfearn (46:55.158)

When you first get it, you're like, my gosh, something from Neiman's. And then you open, you're going, what just happened? 

 

Christi Redfearn (47:04.782)

I appreciate that. 

 

Michael Palumbos (47:07.63)

And it's not, know, here we are, a CEO of a company with 3000 lives that you're responsible for. And at the end of the day, we remember our roots and it's, it's just life. Yeah. That's awesome. 

 

Christi Redfearn (47:22.08)

can take yourself too seriously. 

 

Michael Palumbos (47:28.684)

You're sitting on stage with five other family businesses. Now you know that all you're being interviewed and they come around to you and they say, Christi, what are your parting words? What are your three pieces of advice that you would offer other family businesses? 

 

Christi Redfearn (47:44.264)

gosh. Let's see. Never try to lead like your predecessor. Do it your way. Never try to be like your predecessor because it won't work. then what else? Make sure you take the time to listen. 

 

Christi Redfearn (48:06.988)

No matter who it is, if they want to talk to you, listen, they definitely are taking a chance trying to talk to the CEO in a lot of cases. And then remember at the end of the day, if you were colleagues before and you're the CEO now, you kind of have to understand how the dynamic changes. You are now the person who can fire them for whatever reason. And you have to take that in consideration. 

 

Christi Redfearn (48:36.086)

when they react or when they come talk to you or if they're not as close to you as they once were. it's tough, but it's part of the job. And also there comes some respect with that. So, and then by respect, I mean, you respecting them, not the other way. 

 

Michael Palumbos (48:58.958)

love that. I call that head of company is head of company. It's really hard for a lot of people that when they make that shift to the CEO, they still want to keep their hands in 30 different things that they used to do that they enjoy doing. But it's like to your point, you've got a responsibility for all these people. And I would say, your job is to make sure that the culture stays the culture and that the strategy is... 

 

Christi Redfearn (49:02.634)

Yeah. 

 

Michael Palumbos (49:28.51)

running the way that you want it to run. that's, those are the two pieces that if you can stay focused on them, you're going to succeed. I am so excited about having this conversation. We just, we covered an awful lot. And I think that there are so many nuggets that, you know, are valuable for other people to listen to as they're going through this. You said 

 

Christi Redfearn (49:51.886)

Christi Redfearn (49:52.389)

I made it up as I was going along. 

 

Michael Palumbos (49:55.47)

Last thing, any favorite books that or things that you favorite places that you've learned from through the years, whether they books, organizations, anything else, anything like that. 

 

Christi Redfearn (50:10.626)

Gosh, like I said before, I'm a huge fan of Simon Sinek. will go for anything that he puts out. But I'm going to probably say a couple of very odd things. I have learned a lot that applies to business and responding and reacting through Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. It takes a very specific kind of person to voluntarily 

 

Christi Redfearn (50:39.778)

go get your butt whooped over and over and over until you start figuring it out. So check your ego at the door, never quit, always get back up, know, consistency in training and the results will come, those kinds of things. And so I started it six years ago and it was because I got tired of going to the gym and lifting weights and I was looking for a different way to stay in shape, but it's now it's really something that just 

 

Christi Redfearn (51:09.678)

helps keep me centered and frankly sane. It's a great release and it's a great reminder of how I can live my life. 

 

Michael Palumbos (51:19.266)

That's awesome. I love that. wouldn't, that is no other guest has ever pulled that one out. And based on what you just said, I think there are some CEOs that I know that would really benefit from maybe going and getting their butt kicked a few times and remembering, I'm not all that all the time. 

 

Christi Redfearn (51:39.084)

Yep, yep, there's always somebody just a little bit better and sometimes they're a lower rank than you. And you have to remember, yep, I got caught. Now I have to do the work to make sure that doesn't happen again. 

 

Michael Palumbos (51:51.032)

That's great. Christi Redfearn, this has been a great show. I really appreciate your time and your willingness to share with everybody. 

 

Christi Redfearn (52:01.038)

Again, 

 

Christi Redfearn (52:01.399)

thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. 

 

Michael Palumbos (52:03.682)

Yeah, this has been the Family Biz Show. I'm Michael Palumbos with Family Wealth and Legacy in Rochester, New York. And if when you find that golden nugget in this episode for yourself and you think of somebody else that could benefit from it, be sure to forward it on to them so that other people can be exposed to such great knowledge like Christi shared today. Thank you, everybody. And we look forward to you on the next episode. Have a great day.