For a moment last week, I overlooked a glaring reality in my LinkedIn feed. “Congratulate Amy Griswold on 4 years at Lucro Management“. With it not being a traditionally celebrated milestone, I sort of just blinked and kept scrolling.
Two weeks later the gravity of that simple statement refreshed in my mind. Holy crap. We surpassed the 10% failure rate of first-year startups.
Not to mention, Lucro Management was founded in the fall of 2019 with its first contract underway January 1, 2020. While I still have some very real PTSD and would prefer not call on the memories of March 2020, it’s important to note that Amy had just left behind her reliable salary to walk the tightrope of business ownership- in a business model that is 100% reliant on travel dollars. This may not mean so much to those outside of our industry, but for those who have an intimate understanding of the financial impact that the pandemic had on hotels, well, those people would question how Lucro Management still exists today!
As we enter our 5th year together, we’re on the precipice of being able to celebrate the triumph of avoiding the 45% business closure rate that FORBES and others state to be true.
It hasn’t been easy but we’ve had more wins than losses. Or maybe that’s just my infinite optimism speaking? I recognize my optimism may be too much for people but it’s how I keep an abundance mindset and a vision that outlasts those days of defeat that impact every single one of us human beings at one point or another.
With each loss though, comes a mountain of learning. The gratitude, acceptance and understanding that is gained through each challenging moment overflows into our personal lives and I think we’re better people for it.
We continue to learn from those we work alongside, from one another, and from those we work for. We’ve not only kept Lucro Management alive, we’ve created jobs, we’ve repositioned team members from hourly employees to Owners and leaders of our other endeavors.
In the deepest moments of stress, I call upon the fact that in just 4 short years, we onboarded a client and fired them when our morals were compromised, we located our first office space AND renovated it ourselves- staying up late and through the weekends to make sure we didn’t impact the needs of our clients during the regular workday. We purchased our first investment property together and then relocated our offices into that new space, and AGAIN renovated it (if anyone needs a good mudder, call Amy!).
We purchased a 90+ year old Flower Shop at the same time, which saved a legacy from closing its doors. We partnered with a construction company to lead their books and business liabilities. We’ve continued to volunteer with the organizations that align with our vision, and encourage our teams to do the same.
We’ve supported our clients through a pandemic, through unprecedented floods and power outages, through significant staffing woes and unfortunately through our State’s worst mass shooting in history, taking place in our very own community that we live and work in. It’s been a trying 4 years, but I’m grateful to have had them.
Those who know this work would agree that there’s a difference between Service and Hospitality. Lucro Management is a service-based business, but you’ll never be able to take the hospitality out of us! Cheers to the next 3.5 years (figured I might as well choose another ambiguous milestone to celebrate)…and thank you Amy, for being an incredible business partner in this wonderfully scary business world we’ve created together. Congratulations on your 4 years at Lucro Management.
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