Scaling a Specialty Trailer Business with Erin Stahla

Erin Stahla, Co-owner of Stahla Services, a nationwide provider of restroom, shower, and ADA trailer rentals joins Enterprise Radio. Erin will discuss some important factors to implement in scaling a specialty trailer business.

Listen to host Eric Dye & guest Erin Stahla discuss the following:

(Host Eric Dye):  What has been the biggest hurdle you faced when scaling your trailer operations, and how did you overcome it?

(Guest Erin Stahla):  Yeah, yeah, great question. It’s always difficult to kind of identify the different hurdles that you’re going to face before you really face them, but I think for me, the biggest hurdle with Stahla Services was coming into a business that was already established, but then being the owner. So was my husband, and I met, he had established the business, founded it out of college and so then I was coming into a business that he had owned and ran, let’s see; it was about eight or nine years, so it’s very established. And then I wasn’t coming in, just as you know, as a director or an employee, but initially as the owner right away. So I think that was a huge challenge just learning how to lead people from the beginning and not really start in an employee role and then work my way up as I was accustomed to. So I think that was definitely a challenge, but it was something that I really grew. And I would have a lot of things that I would do differently going back, but I think that was just such a big hurdle that became an opportunity and something that I’ve gained so many lessons from. Now just looking back over that experience. So that was my biggest hurdle anyway.

(Host Eric Dye):  What operating system or process made the biggest impact as you grew beyond just a few trailers?

(Guest Erin Stahla):  Yeah. I think for us it was implementing. I don’t know if anyone’s heard of entrepreneurial operating system or EOS. It’s a pretty widely known operating system and it really did help us continue to grow internally. So I think a lot of times we can get very interested or very caught up in how to expand the business externally. You know what our customers saying? What do we need to do to improve on that front? Very important, but I think it really starts from the inside out. So that was such a big thing for us, is making sure that we had an operating system that our team could follow that great night could implement and really work off of. And that operating system provided us things and still does today, things like an accountability chart. How do you make sure that everyone has a seat and a job description that they understand? Do you know clearly who you report to? Who’s your team members? What they do for the company, so even something as simple as that where you think, OK, yeah, all companies have that. Well, not necessarily. So that’s something that really helps with meeting rhythms. When do you need to meet as a leadership team? When do you need to meet as a whole team? What’s your operations team? You know, meeting cadence and helps you think through is the communication flowing well throughout our company. It also helps really establish, you know, what are some of the issues that we face in our company and how do we really smoke those out each day. To make sure that we bring those to a solution, make sure that we don’t get hung up in those areas ever again. So it really helps move the business forward in a way that wouldn’t happen unless you really identified a structured process that was going on internally,