Business Wins Take Tenacity

Speaker 1: [Music] hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the she builted experience with Melanie you're here because you want to experience the life and business that you crave join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it a career and business that they love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from Having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech innovation magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive in Kelly Royer is the CFO of C dream finance and insurance she was raised in Palmdale California and has always loved playing sports and riding motorcycles and jet skis she's competitive in nature and in the business world she is driven to succeed and win thank you so much for joining us

Speaker 2: today Kelly thank you for having me we'd

Speaker 1: love to know more about who you are and about your career experiences leading to

Speaker 2: becoming the founder of SE dream Inc my background in college is business emphasis Finance so accounting classes Finance classes and then I started out actually just bookkeeping when I was younger for contractors so when we went for this I had that background it's interesting I started out as an accounting major and I ended up a marketing major because I was working for the Marriott hotels in college and they wanted to promote me and they said well we want you to understand the audit I did the night audit for two nights you see if the numbers are growing you can easily see if your business is growing and whether or not they make sense it teaches you the money in Money out but on a technical format so it's good for me to know I can just look at some financials and say okay we need our strengths here we have weaknesses here

Speaker 1: tell us about C dream Inc what is it and

Speaker 2: how did you come up with the idea well originally we decided to start just in insurance and we were working along a friend that was just doing the financing for a couple boat dealerships here in California he kind of fell to the Wayside he just really didn't have the knowledge to move forward we took that idea and just grew from there so we picked up more dealerships and then we thought okay we just acted as their financing company but we took it where okay we can become a direct lender so we just grew from this small all to okay let's expand from California to Nevada to Arizona we became more direct than it is using somebody else's Licensing in a

Speaker 1: sense and who are your typical clients

Speaker 2: they range from people that have great credit they range from people that don't have so great credit so we have different lenders to facilitate any type of buyer you have the recreational buyer for Motorsports and you have the buyer that's arving with their family and we're National now it's recreational financing anything fun pretty much I finance fun I love it from your

Speaker 1: background you took what you love to do and made the leap to make it into a business exactly and the collateral that we are financing I have high knowledge about boats RVs Motorsports so it's easy for our departments to learn the underwriting aspects of the company I grew up in Missouri and so we used to build jumps in the woods and jump our four-wheelers looking back I'm not sure if that was the most safe thing that we could could be doing we take our trucks into the woods and get lost and sometimes have to call for help to be have the truck towed out my first job ever was at a boat dock renting out jet skis and seedos and I remember one time I was dressed I was going on a date in high school and my friend said oh we'll just go out for a quick ride and I said well I'm dressed and I'm ready to go out don't dump me in the water of course she jumped me in the water so mad I had to go home and change my clothes but tell

Speaker 2: us about your experience growing up you played Sports you've always been competitive and how does that translate into the business world for you today

Speaker 1: well being competitive in the business World definitely makes it a positive thing because you pretty much want to win and you want to succeed it's winning that race or is the same thing as on the business side and what's winning is making money and producing a company that does well financially growing up racing motorcycles BMX playing soccer jet ski racing when I became into business I that side of it helps to just keep pushing and pushing and I was out to dinner the other night with a friend and I she's an artist and I asked her being an artist it's got to be tough to get into together calories and how do you get out there and she says Kelly I am tenacious and that word I was like it's that's what it is to be tenacious and persistence and and keep pushing even

Speaker 2: though times get hard tell us about the growth of your business you started out just in California and you've had this this amazing expansion and I know so many friends during Co and we even thought about buying one we didn't went out and bought a boat or an RV so can you tell us about your experience I

Speaker 1: think you might have a positive experience because of covid right when this all hit a couple years ago we were very uncertain on what direction we would go people are going to lose their jobs what you can't go outside what's going to happen and then we were very nervous at that point and a couple months later we just started seeing more and more and more people majority RVs wanting to at least take their families outside there's no more baseball game so they want to at least be outside and taking their fam somewhere you can't get on a plane my co-founder he does most of our branding and The Branding side he does through Google search It's and finding out your client which you did an article on it to see who your audience is two years prior to covid we focused on our RV business because we really hadn't been strong in the RV we were strong in boats and

Speaker 2: Motorsports okay let's just focus on RV

Speaker 1: and he he did a great branding with it two years prior so the brand was ready to come up during Co because people were at home Google searching so and so many people I know did I thought what kind of RVs are there out there I had never done an RV search before right we wrote an article on how steps on how to buy a used RV so that just that that search just put us on the map and that's what got us to this point but the last two years of growth that we've had more so in the last I would say 18 years was so quick we were not prepared but you just have to do it I hired more people I remodeled my office to accommodate the new employees the training was training during the busy time I never left my office to be honest with you I don't really remember covid the first year because I went to work every day and I never went anywhere because all I did was work right no one was going anywhere anyway but look at the benefit that you've been given it just seemed like everything aligned with everything that happened after that and you know what you were also helping people because we needed to get outside people were very emotional about their purchase we'd have people cry oh my gosh you have no idea how this great this feels for my family so it was a very emotional time too for all of us because even with all of our kids going through everything they went through now we're at a point where we have a good crew we have good employees and they

Speaker 2: love it here what is your approach to management for staying on task and for motivating your teams and the people

Speaker 1: around you we call it the C dream team we are a team my business partner Tom and I we don't individualize ourselves it is a team effort every single deal is a team effort and it is true every deal touches everybody's hands so it's it is a team effort so when we do a good job it is a team win I think that's why we succeed we always wanted to be more than just the Finance Management and insurance so we went out and got our licenses lenders license our insurance licenses and California dealers license and we went and approached lenders with our idea we're very unique in a sense we can facilitate a private party sale but we're just the financing company and we built a National Database of tax title and Licensing to make sure that this unit is properly registered and leaned in each state and we built it from scratch there's nobody really out there it was a unique test we just did it it was just one thing after another one bank after another we became a lender for and then we thought of new branding let's Finance off-road vehicles and and we started with boats so that's how SE dream Inc came about and then Motorsports like oh let's go Finance motorcycles and off Highway Vehicles they're so popular and we started Motorsport loan six years ago we've always been able to do RVs but we've never really branded it the way we did three years ago so ups and downs course through 08 and 09 you have to restructure and start from the beginning almost and you just get through it and keep your head high and look at the next challenge I still love how you took a passion and went that direction in business because the challenging days and the obstacles the Joy seems to

Speaker 2: probably outweigh that oh absolutely I have an off highway vehicle I have a street bike and I have an

Speaker 1: RV where is your favorite place that

Speaker 2: you've been recently in your RV I recently went to havu and I bought a standup jet ski I don't know what I was thinking but I did and I love it and actually have not been on the water on a jet ski in 25 years and I'm really enjoying it and I love being out there on the water and camping especially when

Speaker 1: you work as hard as you do and you're an entrepreneur you've got to have that down time and time

Speaker 2: away oh yeah and some of our Motorsport shows and so forth we do I love doing it I'm more the groundsman on The Branding for local events because I love going to the races I love doing all that and I'm working I'm that part of the company as

Speaker 1: the physical branding what gave you the courage to launch an open SE dream ink what made you say I'm going to make this

Speaker 2: leap and launch this business my dad is very successful businessman and I think I get a lot from him I don't see failure so I I just don't see failure I don't want to fail so I push and push so I I just knew I didn't wasn't going to fail so I'm just going to do it we just took the risk I just had a brand new baby just bought a house and let's just do

Speaker 1: it thing I love that with your background and Sports and all that you enjoy doing you have to take a certain amount of risks so I'm sure that that

Speaker 2: plays into your business world yeah especially racing you have to push to a point where it's almost it almost scares you it scares you sometimes and business is the same thing it scares me sometimes but it's a good feeling too you just you

Speaker 1: have to do it so interesting because I can see that in you as we're talking you

Speaker 2: feel that fear but you do it anyway yeah

Speaker 1: how has your business shifted over the last year we talked about it a little bit but how have you handled the growth you grew quickly very quickly doubled it

Speaker 2: in one the first year and we'll

Speaker 1: quadruple it this year wow that's

Speaker 2: incredible it was tough because we were not ready Manpower wise we were not ready we knew that we had to hire more processors we knew that we had to hire another underwriter a lot of it was people we knew we like to keep it as a family business in a sense referral right and it worked out well three of our new hires are great the training part was a little difficult but we got through it and we have intelligent new employees so it worked out well in a sense them learning fast they had to they didn't have a choice because every day was more and more and more and there is some parts where mistakes and you know you just go through them and we're human right there's going to be mistakes made especially because the knowledge wasn't there on the new employees so we miss we

Speaker 1: persistent good for you tripling your business it's some it's incredible thank you magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy what is one tip that you can leave with us today about how you

Speaker 2: find and live your joy my day is very filled I really don't have a moment during the day to pause and they're tough days the joys are receiving a great review from a customer and him saying I just have to say you've done such a wonderful job that is great to hear because that means the company's doing well that is the wonderful part of business the joy that it brings making people happy personally going home and relaxing after a day is my joy because then I know I it the next day is going to bring the same kind of day I had before it's very fastpaced you know as long as you know I've been trying to I didn't even remember I had an appointment last right I was glad you were a week ahead you know with two dogs two cats two turtles two kids and a house and a business a

Speaker 1: lot I hear you and everyone listening hears you too yeah one of my employees lives at a little bit of a distance and I sit down with her I always tell her I want you to be happy if it isn't with me I always wish you the best I want you to stay your great employee but she drives a couple hours I always say that what's first about your life should always be yourself if you're not happy of what you're doing change what you're doing because then it's not you're not happy in life in a sense and that makes you great employer because you care about the people working for you absolutely and when you do that people are going to work so much harder for you and so it's so great that you say that to her and I completely understand unwinding after a long day yes so important and and really finding those things that fill you with joy because the next day is going to be so difficult right you know so finding those moments of joy is so important to keep us fueled and and moving

Speaker 2: forward and what makes me happy is our employees happy it's important thank you

Speaker 1: so much for joining us today Kelly tell us how and where we can find you and

Speaker 2: your business it's all online our business is pretty much 100% online it's a seedream inc.com which handles all our boat business Motorsport loan.com handles all of our Motorsports off Highway street bikes and then great RV loan loan is our Flagship for RVs financing if you are new to Sheil it we'd love for you to join us we offer Community memberships masterminds Innovative virtual events and meaningful connections to entrepreneurs and corporate leaders please also check out our Sheil it shop curated products from women-owned businesses who put their heart and soul into their beautiful and Innovative products we offer Sheil it business Consulting and the Shep blog

Speaker 1: thank you to everyone around the world who joined today thank you to my editor Rich stalino please download And subscribe wherever you get your podcast and until next time together let's let nothing stop us from experiencing the life that We crave

Speaker 2: [Music]