The CEO of Marital Bliss: Building a Business Slowly with Meredith Monday Schwartz
Download MP3Meredith Monday Schwartz began her career at the women-powered wedding venue company Here Comes the Guide in 1997 as their first employee; now she’s the CEO. Before onboarding with the company, she was working in a highly stressful environment at a Top 10 legal firm as a paralegal. Seeking more life/work balance, she joined the fledgling team where she put her problem solving skills to work. In the early days, she played every role and learned how to do all the jobs she would eventually hire people to do. Those years of experience helped her develop the empathy and business savvy required to be the strong leader she is today.
Here Comes the Guide helps couples all across the country find the perfect wedding venue for them. Its business structure is an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, which provides employees with a certain percentage of shareholdings after they’ve worked with the company for one year. This structure creates a sense of buy-in for employees to help the company grow and increase in value. During the global shut down in 2020, possibly one of the greatest challenges for the wedding industry to date, Here Comes the Guide actually flourished. They focused on helping clients navigate the crisis, moved to a four-day work week, and adapted to meet the ever-changing needs of their clientele. Meredith attributes much of the company’s success to their slow growth, grassroots approach that values the culture of the company over any quick profit plan.
Main Topics
- How Meredith came to be a CEO (01:48)
- From paralegal work to a wedding venue start-up (04:15)
- The evolution of her role at Here Comes the Guide (08:35)
- Benefits of knowing how to do every job at the company (12:40)
- Systems and processing as a superpower (14:35)
- Employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) (17:00)
- How the company grew through the pandemic (19:50)
- Transitioning from print to virtual (24:20)
- The value of slow growth (28:40)
- Adopting a four-day work week (30:00)
Episode Links
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