With a background that spans education, entrepreneurship, and personal training, Stephanie brings a unique, people-centered approach to business leadership in the trades.
A two-time She Shines Award winner and founder of the She Means Business Conference, Stephanie is a passionate advocate for women in male-dominated industries and a sought-after speaker on topics like business growth, branding, and leadership.
Stephanie emphasizes that by investing in top-tier tools, benefits, and support for her team, she's eliminated excuses and reduced anxiety, allowing her staff to show up confidently for customers in crisis.
She also highlights the importance of surrounding herself with people who push her to grow, leading with authenticity, and staying grounded in service to both her employees and her community.
Anchor Heating & Air’s website: https://anchorheatingandair.com
LinkedIn: Stephanie Postell
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Transcription:
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Stephanie Postell Teaser 00:00
So, we are a residential heating and air company. From the beginning, we have just been committed to this really high level of service.
When they walk into someone's home, that person is happy to see them, even though they're in a crisis situation. They provide the solution, and they know how to communicate it.
Intro 00:20
Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?
If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.
Gresham Harkless 00:46
Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast, and I have an awesome guest on the show today. I have Stephanie Postell. Stephanie, excited to have you on the show.
Stephanie Postell 00:54
Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here today.
Gresham Harkless 00:57
Yes, I'm super excited to have you on as well, too. Stephanie's doing so many phenomenal things that, of course, before we jump in and have a phenomenal conversation, I want to read a little bit more about Stephanie so you can hear about some of those awesome things.
And Stephanie is the co-owner and CEO of Anchor Heating and Air, one of Charleston's fastest-growing and most respected home service companies.
Known for her leadership in the trades, Stephanie regularly speaks on marketing, business growth, and building people-first companies.
She's a founder of the She Means Business Conference, and at two times, she Shines Award winner, recognized both for her mentorship and her impact on the home service industry.
At Anchor, she leads the company's growth, branding, and community involvement, helping position themselves as a standout in a competitive market.
And I absolutely love everything about what Stephanie's been able to do. We were talking a little bit before then.
My family's all from South Carolina. She's been in Charleston all of her life, from what I was reading. And she's a rock star.
She's been a business owner, personal trainer, kindergarten and first grade teacher, and an overall disruptor in her industry.
So, I love everything she's doing, not just because she's creating opportunities, but I think she's kind of creating a voice for people that sometimes don't always get the opportunity to spread that voice, especially with women in the industry.
And one of the things I absolutely love when I was listening to how they came up with their name for their business, she said her sister gave her quote that says “As long as you redeemer, then it doesn't matter how the wind blows or how high the tide turns, you’ll always be in great shapes”.
So, Stephanie, excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
Stephanie Postell 02:25
I’m ready. Let's do this.
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Gresham Harkless 02:27
Let’s get it started. So, to kinda kick everything off, and let's rewind the clock a little bit, and touch on a little bit more on how you started your CEO story.
Stephanie Postell 02:41
For sure. Well, I wouldn't have thought back in the day that I would be running an HVAC company. I started as a kindergarten first-grade teacher, which, funny enough, has prepared me more than any other career to be where I am right now.
So that's fun. And then, I stayed home with my kids for just a little while. And then I was just really ready to do something else.
I started my own business doing monogramming and embroidery selling jewelry and grew that from my trunk to a retail store and met lots of, of course, people in my community and was able to make an impact that way, as a PTA mom and a business owner, really learned then the value of giving back to the community.
And I was lucky enough to sell that company and went into personal training for a little while because I was kind of in between, of what am I going to do next. And that was a great career, too, right?
It fit right into my coaching and pushing people to do bigger things. And I really thought I was going to go back and get my MBA. And I was training an HVAC owner and his wife. And I said, I'm going to go back to school.
And he said, what if I offered you a job? And I literally said, what is HVAC? What do you do? And so, I said, I think I'm good.
That doesn't sound like me. I'm not sure about that industry. And he called me back on Monday, and he was like, no, I'm taking you out to lunch. I think that you would be great at this position.
I need to be implementing the rules across this company in order for us to be able to grow. And I ended up taking the job and was in that position for about two years, and then became the operations manager.
But as all good things happen for a reason, I got fired because the owner wanted to take the company back over, because I was pretty much running the company, and we had grown to 75 employees.
And so, I was heartbroken, and I went home and I cried. And because I put my heart and soul into creating a company that he was the visionary for, but I was the integrator for. And so, it took some time in order to be able to find what the next thing was.
And we actually were connected with an investor who wanted to go into home services. And we were like, we can start a company. We just need a little bit of help. We know all the people, we know all the ways to do it, all of that stuff.
And so, we literally got married, went on our honeymoon, and came back and opened our first company the third week of COVID, March of 2020.
And so, again, we had done a lot of vetting, a lot of homework, and research. And we ran that company very well. We did a couple acquisitions, very small acquisitions, and we grew that company from zero to five million in less than 20 months tooling right along, 25 employees, we were doing amazing.
And he came in and fired us. And for reasons that I know and I won't share, that was not the best thing that I wanted to happen.
But in hindsight, again, it was God's provision in our life to say, this is not where you need to be.
You've learned again this lesson, and so now you got to do it on your own. And so, two weeks later, we opened Anchor because of the very quote that you quoted at the beginning.
And that was in December of 2021. My husband has been in HVAC for 20 years, so he was our licensed holder. I actually got another job. I was also working a job as well as starting this company.
And here we are, we're in year four, and we are on track to do nine million this year. So, we put in our time, we paid our dues, and we are blessed with an amazing team of people who are high performers, overachievers, and are lucky as we all are to come to a place where we love to work every day.
Gresham Harkless 07:18
Yeah, absolutely. So, I wanted to drill down a little bit more. I know we touched a little bit upon like how you're working with and you're serving a class.
I would love to hear a little bit more on what exactly you're doing, how you're making that impact, and how you're doing what I like to call your secret sauce and doing it in your own unique way.
Stephanie Postell 07:32
So, we are a residential heating and air company. One of our secret sauces is that we have one lane, and we're staying in the lane that we know very well. The biggest thing for us is we've become really good at being a great citizen of our community.
And so, we've embedded ourselves in those places and events where our customers are. And the other thing is, from the beginning, we have just been committed to this really high level of service.
Culture is being able to show up at your job every day and know what to expect. I got the best benefits package in town. I am providing the best insurance.
I'm giving you a boot allowance every year. You got the nicest trucks, the best iPads, all of that stuff, because I am taking away any excuse that my people might have to not be able to do the best job for our customers. And what we found over time is that it reduces their anxiety. It reduces their anxiety of everyday day.
And so, in that, it makes them have less anxiety. It makes them happier. It makes them more successful.
When they walk into someone's home, that person is happy to see them, even though they're in a crisis situation.
They provide the solution, and they know how to communicate it. The person is able to decide which option they want not feeling pressured. They made the decision.
It's a transactional thing, but becomes relational because we want that customer for long term. And then everybody leaves happy. even if it was a bad situation, right? Even if they didn't have air. Might be a maintenance, right?
So, we're not always dealing with the bad. But honestly, that attention to culture has allowed us to bring in the best people, right? And now those people are recruiting for us.
And listen, their bar, my bar's high, their bar's higher because they've already got great people and great teammates, and so they don't want to bring in anybody that can't hold the bar.
And so sometimes I have to tell them, well, wait a minute, let me decide. which is a great place to be. And as well, then we have people that are looking to come work here because they've heard that the environment is great, that we care about them.
And I just talked with some community people last week about our company. And I said, no offense, I want y'all's business, but I'm taking care of my people first. And when I take care of my people, they'll take care of you. And that's been our experience over the last almost four years.
Gresham Harkless 10:26
Yeah, I absolutely love that. And so, I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I might have already touched on this, but I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack.
So, this could be like an app, a book, or even a habit that you have with something you lean on that makes you more effective and efficient.
Stephanie Postell 10:40
Surrounding myself with people who are way better than me, whether it's in what I'm doing or it's in what they're doing.
I think it's so important to keep people around you that push you. And I think it's very easy when you're successful. And I feel like we have been very successful in what we're doing.
But it doesn't mean that we can't get better. And so, not, not being afraid to reach out to other people that are doing bigger things than you and losing that ego in order to be able to ask, how can I do that better? I like that you're doing.
So, I don't know if it's a hack. I don't have an app. I'm not good at like, Trello or Monday or something that's keeping me organized. I've become more ADD as I've been a CEO. I never was before.
But I think it, when I am putting myself out there and forgive me, I always say I, but this is not a standalone thing. My husband and I are 50-50 or 100-100, is what I like to say. I couldn't be doing this without him, and he the same.
But I do think that when I'm out there feeling confident, talking about what we're doing in our company, then it keeps me accountable to keep doing that, right?
Authenticity is so important to us. And so, I want to know what other people are doing and surround myself with those people. But I also put myself out there because it keeps me accountable to continue to do those good things.
Gresham Harkless 12:15
Yeah, and so you might have already touched on this as well too, but I want to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. So, this is like a word of wisdom or a piece of advice.
I usually say it's something that if you were to hop into a time machine, you want to tell your younger business, but I almost wonder if you're sitting down at one of these bars at one of these conferences and you see somebody that's younger, that's in the trades, that is looking and craving some type of advice and direction, what type of advice or nugget might you give him or her?
Stephanie Postell 12:39
One, like I said, that my dad said, if you changed anything about anything that's happened, you wouldn't be right where you are right now, right?
So, everything is a lesson. Everything there is a plan in it all. I think if I had to say back to myself, it would have been just like I did, keep going. It's going to be hard.
Some days it's going to be bad, but just keep going because there is a plan. And you just don't know the plan yet, but that there is a plan for you.
We didn't let the things that had happened that we knew were wrong, that were done to us, that all of that, we did not let that take our eyes off of what was ahead. And in all of that, it could have been very distracting, and we didn't allow it to be.
And here we are. So, I think sometimes we do get really caught up in being angry at someone or holding a grudge, or it should have been this way. No, no, no, no, it should have been, it should be this way.
This is the way that it should be. But you're faster to accept that, you'll move forward even faster. And I think that that is definitely been something that has served us very well.
Gresham Harkless 13:53
Yeah, that's such a powerful thing. And I wanted to ask you now one of my absolute favorite questions, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO.
Our goal is to have different quote-unquote unquote CEOs and CEOs on the show. So, Stephanie, what does being a CEO mean to you?
Stephanie Postell 14:04
To build a company of integrity while building relationships and people who can then be the measure of my success.
I want to have an amazing company. I want to have amazing people around me. But David and I are very clear that our success is only going to be measured in what the people that are on our team are able to accomplish. So, if it's all about me and us and how we can have more, this is going to be a very hollow life.
But the fact that we are able to pour into them, pour into our community, and see where we can exponentially increase our reach, that's where we're going to be able to look back and say, okay, maybe we had an impact.
And that's the leadership, that's the light that we need to be for our community. Again, it goes back to that gratitude and humility. And I don't share what we do and all of that to say, look at me, look at what we are doing.
I do it because I feel like I need to be an example so somebody else can say, well, I'm going to do that.
And I can tell you there's a lot of companies in town that are giving back a lot to the community that weren't before. And I want to feel like that's because they're trying to keep up with us. And if that is the case, perfect.
I'm happy. I'm happy to have that because then that means that we're all getting to experience more.
Gresham Harkless 15:39
Truly appreciate that, Stephanie. And of course, I appreciate your time even more.
So, what I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know.
And of course, how best people can get out of you, find out about all the awesome things that you and the team are doing.
Stephanie Postel 15:51
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I'd love for you to follow us. We are on TikTok. We're on Facebook, but absolutely happy to give my email. It's spostell@anchorheatingandair.com.
Please reach out to me. I'd love to chat, to help any way that I can.
Gresham Harkless 16:11
Absolutely. Thank you so much, Stephanie. Of course, they make that even easier.
We're going to have the links and information in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
Stephanie Postell 16:20
Thank you so much. I really enjoyed being here.
Outro 16:22
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase; it's a community.
Want to level up your business even more? Read blogs, listen to podcasts, and watch videos at CBNation.co. Also, check out our I AM CEO Facebook group. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.
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