This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

It's Your Business with Michael Aikens is brought to you by WCTE PBS, and the Tennessee Tech Center for Rural Innovation, with funding provided by the Rural Reimagine Grand Challenge and the Tennessee Rural Development Fund.

Entrepreneurial journeys can look different for each brave souls setting out to make their dream of owning their own business a reality.

On our show, we like to bring you stories from a wide range of business ideas, as well as tips and advice from varying experiences.

As these entrepreneurs walk out their business venture.

But we hope to help anyone setting out to become a business owner find the valuable advice, tips and resources they need to make starting up their business a much more attainable goal.

♪♪ For car motorcycle enthusiasts, it's hard to beat the look of a fresh new paint job that just makes their vehicle shine.

But we all know that there are many threats to those beautiful paint jobs as time goes on.

But when Morgan and Ashley Jones learned of a product that could seal and protect those beautiful paint jobs from all types of hazards, they decided to bring this revolution product to the Upper Cumberland by starting their own business.

Applying these coatings on a wide variety of vehicles.

We're here in Cookeville, Tennessee, talking with Morgan and Ashley Jones, owners of Mojo's Pro Coatings.

Y'all, welcome to the show.

Thank you very much for having us.

Well, really glad to have you on the show.

So tell us about the basics.

Mojo's Pro coatings.

What are you all.

Yeah, so we're a small family business.

It's me and my wife.

You know, we've bootstrapped this together.

We're growing.

We're trying to bring this product, called icon clear to everybody in the area.

It's a product we really believe in.

We've put our lives and money into it, trying to bring it out to everybody else.

So.

Icon Rocklear, This is a coating for a vehicle.

Tell me more about it.

Yeah.

So, Icon Rocklear is, revolutionary technology.

They use interlocking coating enforcement.

Ice technology.

This coating, is different because it binds to the clear coat on the existing paint.

Not only that, but it gives it rock chip and scratch resistance like no other ceramic or paint protection film on the market.

And it's an alternative to paint protection while also giving you all the benefits of the ceramic coating.

So it's kind of a 2 in 1 product.

Well, that sounds really interesting.

So you know what kind of customers do you all have?

We've got a really nice Dodge Ram behind us.

Are these individuals, are they businesses who do you sell to?

We have a wide variety of clientele.

You know, everybody from the new car owners to people who want to protect their classics.

It really just it varies, widely.

So this products for any car, from your your Nissan Altima to your Ferraris.

Now, we've done, we've done all of those here.

Tell us a little bit about what each of you do with the business.

Yeah.

So, I'm, I guess I'm the face of the company.

I do primarily, the buffing and polishing of the vehicles, washing and coating.

Where as my wife, She plays a very pivotal role.

She wears all the hats in the company.

She does pretty much everything here.

I help him downstairs, so I help prep the vehicles to other times.

I'm, you know, calling people who are interested in getting a quote, keeping the books, doing social media.

So I'm kind of office and then back down here.

Back and forth.

Now you're also background.

Do you have a business background prior or is this a new venture for you?

This is brand new for the both of us.

Before this, I was an Hvac, technician.

She was also an elementary school teacher.

And then, you know, my brother was really the one who got us interested in this product.

He was doing detailing for about six years, and he came across Icon Rocklear.

And, you know, he's bugging me for many months.

And, I was in disbelief.

And then I finally went out and checked it out and, he started hitting the car door with a crowbar and was able to wipe it off, and I was blown away.

So here we are.

And so here you are.

So you've got this business now?

We were talking before the interview started.

You told me you've been in business for about a year now, so congratulations on that.

Thank you.

I gotta ask though, you know, you're working at Hvac, your elementary school teacher, and you decide, you know what?

We're going to do this.

Tell me about how you really actually got started.

How did you do this?

Yeah.

It was, we had a great support network from our family.

They're very supportive in what we did.

It was it was honestly very terrifying at first.

You know, we took a giant leap of faith.

We had, comfortable jobs.

You know, we had a safety net, essentially.

And, you know, we decided to put all of our life savings into this.

And, and get rid of all of that.

So we jumped into it.

Let's see.

Tennessee and San Antonio, my family here.

So that definitely helped.

Yeah, our family's here from Sparta and Cookville area.

So we moved here and we're able to, be closer with our, our family.

So when y'all decided to do this, it sounds to me like y'all just jumped right in.

You know, a lot of people that we talked to say, well, you know, I had a full time job and I was doing this at night, and then eventually I went halftime.

But, I mean, you all just went all in and did this, and it's a little freaky.

I mean, cause this it's definitely, we knew the he would definitely be here all day if you see the vehicle getting coated.

He couldn't be doing this at night time too.

Like you need to be able to get outside and watch the car and see everything.

We played with the idea of me going to teach, but then it was focus on this is all day.

There's no shortage of, hills and valleys.

You know, you just you just don't know what to expect the next day.

There's no sick days.

Your everybody's always on the ground when you're doing something like this.

And, it's been a roller coaster, cause financially speaking, it's been, all I can say, and it's been anxiety ridden, but that, I just talked about my faith, you know, I was baptized this past July.

And I found the Lord and, you know, in Matthew 6:33, it says, but seek first His kingdom, and, He will provide the rest.

That's paraphrasing, but, you know, but I followed followed up, it really helped with the anxiety of the financial aspect of it all, because when you're putting everything you have into a company, you don't know when those bills come up at the end of the month, you don't know, if you're gonna be able to pay them.

But, you know, unfortunately, by the grace of God, He provides everything you need and has given us, more than what we need and has been able to keep this business flourishing.

And, you know, we give it all to Him.

Well, that's great.

So, thinking about your backgrounds again, elementary school teacher, Hvac.

Now, while that's not necessarily a business background, I'm willing to bet there was some skill sets that you all learned while you were doing that and brought it into the business.

There's just there's so much behind the scenes, but that's where keeping track of, you know, up to 30 kids learning plans and report cards.

But that type of multitasking, I guess, is where it came to help with this.

It was instead of being focused on kids, it's focused on keeping track of clients and keeping track of things on the to do list.

And now it's just calling different people to make sure everything's going right with what we need to do to keep the shop running.

So that's definitely, definitely helped.

Well, in Hvac, it's highly technical.

This sounds to me pretty technical.

There's probably some parallels there too.

Absolutely.

So this product, is definitely something you have to be trained, certified to, you know, apply it.

Right.

Yeah.

There's a lot of criteria you have to meet and you have to follow the steps.

Just like in Hvac, you know, there's certain steps to diagnosing, you know, an AC system.

So, you just apply what, you know, and just it's a rinse and repeat, just do the same thing over and over again.

And then every single time you get a quality product that goes out.

So let's talk about that quality product.

What is the process to actually do this.

Yeah.

So there's a lot that goes into it I believe it's a nine step process.

We have to go through thoroughly decontaminate the vehicle.

We go in, we make sure we polish it.

Wants to give it that fresh coat.

The fresh, pristine, clear coat before we apply our product.

Once the product's on there, you know, it goes on as a liquid and then cures takes 30 days.

And once it's fully cured, this product will never come off your vehicle.

So it's a one and done permanent paint protection for your vehicle.

Now, you mentioned this is kind of a new category leader here.

So this protection how are you educating the public about it and how are you getting four wheels in the door.

We're kind of carving our own pathway.

We take the best of a ceramic coating.

The gloss and shine.

And marrying that with, paint protection film with real physical protection that you get just into one product.

So clients are real happy when they don't have to go get a paint protection film that may cost them an arm and a leg, and get the same results with the gloss and shine of a ceramic.

So they just, they they pay once and then get their final product.

She does a lot of the education on the phone, the phone and social media.

That's kind of been the big, big chunk is trying to get folks to work with me on the phone because I want them to understand what they're getting, and then putting it out on social media and just hoping that they're all the shares and word of mouth from, you know, previous customers that are pleased with their just sharing about what they've had and any testimonies they may have had.

I mean, we've had a couple that have had some type of small accident here and there, so they've gotten to see the strength of the coating on their own personal vehicle.

That just helps spread the word.

Walk me through a little bit about what that first year has been like, the ups, the downs and everything in between.

It was a big learning curve.

You know, we didn't like I said, we didn't have business backgrounds by any means.

So, you know, getting all the tax paperwork in order, getting, you know, all your licensing and Google set up, get your social media, get your website running, building a presence, getting known owner, the community, getting out there and doing events and, and just putting your name out there.

Every once in a while, we get a married couple that are running a business together.

People want to know what's that dynamic like, right?

Because y'all are married, you're running a business, you're going home with each other.

All of that, you know?

How is, you know, have y'all really bonded together over doing this?

You're together all day.

I mean, it's there's times where you just you forget that you're together all day and you're like, oh, hey, did you get this errand done?

And you're like, I've been with you since we left the house.

What do you mean?

It was different at first, just being with each other.

And the other thing is, like, we've never work really works together.

We always have different jobs.

So being together in that aspect is a little different to see between church and just regular things, to kind of decompress at home and review the day.

I think it's been a big help.

It's overall it's been fun.

Yeah.

And you also got this shared vision that you all can both go towards and, you know, really be able to apply your unique skill sets and it just sounds great to me.

Yeah.

I mean, we're definitely a great, team here.

We're her skill set in mind.

We're able to accomplish all of this.

It does make answering the question, 'how is your day?'

really easy.

Yeah, because, you know.

Yeah.

So talking to the people that are watching the show, maybe some of them are thinking about starting a business, but they just haven't done it for whatever reason.

What advice would you provide to them?

Yeah.

I would say just make sure, you know, you have a product that you love and you're passionate about.

And then just take that leap of faith.

If you have a good product and a good business idea, it's going to work out.

And it's just that it's that leap of faith is is very scary.

But, you know, when you get a year into it, you can look back and you'll see everything you accomplished, and you'd be like, why was I so afraid?

But the big leap of faith, and that's really what it is.

So just be passionate about what you do.

Well, guys, thank you so much for being on the show.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you very much for having us.

Thank you so much.

♪♪ When you think of lawyers, great courtroom dramas from your favorite movies or TV shows probably come to mind.

But there is so much more to being a lawyer than you see in Hollywood productions from the first grade, Macey Gurley knew that she wanted to be a lawyer, and as she began her education after high school, it didn't take long for her to decide what form of law she wanted to practice.

She instantly saw a need and felt a passion to help advocate for children and parents to help make an impact and a difference with families right here in the Upper Cumberland.

We're here in Sparta, Tennessee, talking with Macey Gurley, attorney at law.

Macey, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

So attorney at law, you're a business owner.

Let's start out with the basics.

What do you do here?

Daily, you know, obviously as a as a lawyer a big part of that is advocating for my client, meeting with them, representing them in court.

That's, you know, the end goal, of course, always.

And sometimes there's a lot in between in terms of meeting with client witnesses, you know, temporary motions in court and things like that.

And that's obviously what I do.

But, running a business.

So I run my practice, and then I also, I'm a landlord, so I rent out spaces and manage all that.

Well, we've got a lot to talk about today, a lot to unpack.

Let's start out with the law aspect.

There's so many things in the legal profession.

What do you focus on?

I primarily focus on domestic relations.

So, you know, the quintessential divorce lawyer.

So divorce, custody, adoption.

But with that, particularly in a small town, comes with, real estate transactions as well as estate planning, trust, things like that.

And why did you decide to focus on that versus something like criminal cases or whatever it might be?

I originally wanted to be a lawyer.

I knew that since first grade, and as I grew up, I was trying to figure out what type, of law I wanted to be.

And I did a child advocacy practicum when I was in law school that that I really enjoyed working with the parents, working with the families.

And I had the opportunity to intern with our local judge here, Judge Bedingfield.

He since retired, but, I came back and really liked the aspect of what a lawyer could do with the family dynamic.

The impact and resolution it can have.

So I just, I started practicing and have loved the whole domestic relations area.

So you just said that you can make an impact.

What does that really make you feel like?

And how are you even doing this?

Getting whatever type of resolution, whether it is divorcing a spouse or, you know, advocating for children in an adverse situation or even, you know, getting a judgment amount for someone who didn't like complete services, it's it's really neat to see that resolution.

And it's not always, you know, gold and glimmer.

But, it's it's wonderful to assist people in that way.

You're not only practicing law, you own the law firm.

You don't work for a law firm.

So a couple questions here.

Why did you decide to go the route of owning your own place versus working for a farm and then walk us through, how did that actually happen?

So, it was shortly after, I had my daughter, so she was very, very young and, someone presented me with an opportunity, so I took it.

And that was an eye opener where, you know, when I work for the firm, I put the hours in, and then I went home.

Although, you know, the legal practice in and of itself is very time consuming and busy, but, you know, when you're having to order supplies or make sure you know the money is there to pay this, that, or the other because it doesn't matter.

At the end of the day, you know, the bills still come in and you know, you still need that to generate income and things like that.

But the flexibility in owning my business is really what attracted me because of my family.

So you decided, you know what?

I'm going to do this on my own.

I'm going to do it here in Sparta, Tennessee.

Yes.

Walk me through.

What was it like the first couple of years?

How did you actually build the business?

How are you doing marketing?

How are you being a business person on top of being a lawyer?

Yeah.

So, you know, I definitely say it's God driven.

Early on, I didn't really advertise.

And so every time someone, scheduled a consult or something, I wanted to ask them, like, how did you find me?

You know, that type of thing?

But it was definitely God driven.

But, you know, taking the risk and having people in your corner that believe in you more than you believe in yourself.

Because I really gave opening my own business, like six months, I was like, I'm going to try it.

You know, I had I had an infant daughter at home.

I was like, we'll see.

I'll kind of scale down my practice.

And it has just grown, from there.

You know, originally I just found an ad to rent an office space here in this building with someone who had sold insurance.

And so I kind of outgrew.

And he was like, well, I'm going to go home.

So I rented the entirety of the office.

And then the opportunity eventually presented itself for me to purchase the building.

And so lawyering is the bulk of what I do in a day, but it's also making sure that the bills are paid, things are ordered, contacts are made for repairs and various things.

So it's a whole job in and of itself.

Indeed it is.

And that's, you know, one of the reasons that we do this television show is for people to understand what it really takes to be a business owner.

And so going back to your education, your education taught you to think like a lawyer.

Did it teach you how to think like a business person?

They teach you how to be a lawyer, but not how to run a law firm.

And same, you know, with my undergraduate degree, I didn't take, business classes or things like that.

And so I knew I had the lawyering right.

But but talking about kind of like, how I got here, you know, I realized the good that I can do in the community, you know, I had never worked with an attorney.

I had never been in an attorney's office.

And so what I try to do, and I think it kind of goes into the success in my business, but also advertising is I want to make, lawyering accessible for for kids who want to know about it and do it.

So I host work based learning students from the high school.

I sponsor, you know, the football team, the basketball team, soccer teams, anything I can do that kind of normalizes lawyers because I always felt that there was a degree of separation, between, like, the legal community and, you know, the actual community because I'm from here, and not that our bar isn't wonderful.

All the local attorneys are wonderful.

It just kind of seems like this very closed off process.

So I really want to normalize the legal practice and things like that, you know, and talking to you, it's very clear to me that, you know, this is your hometown.

You're very proud about that.

You're able to provide services here, you're able to help people.

But at the same time, too, you could go off to Nashville, Knoxville, an urban market with a whole lot more people and probably make even more money.

But you're doing it right here.

Tell me a little bit more about why do you want to stay here?

I you know, I love Sparta, I love the growth that it has experienced.

And and to see that and obviously I think it's a wonderful place to raise children.

But when I had the opportunity to intern with Judge Benefield, I really saw.

Because, you know, of course I was in law school in Virginia, Virginia Beach.

So it was a bigger city.

You know, very, very cutthroat, very, you know, high expectations.

It was just a completely different atmosphere, like you would see in a big city.

And I love being, you know, a country lawyer, a small town lawyer, because you kind of become, you know, that family's attorney.

Yeah.

I might have done somebody's divorce or completed their adoption.

Well, then they have to update their will and then their uncle, you know, needs a real estate transaction.

So you kind of become that family's attorney, much like a, like a family doctor kind of on call and do this and that.

And so every day is different.

You know, if I worked for a big personal injury firm in Nashville, although the cases would be different, my day would look very similar.

And, my days are not, you know, it's nothing for me to work on, you know, an emergency removal and then do, a will at the end of the day.

So I like the I like the closeness.

I like the community, and I like assisting people and seeing that, you know, because I live here, I work here, you know, my my family is here.

You know, it's nothing for me to see.

You know, my daughter plays basketball right now.

So there was a family that I had assisted in their adoption and that little boy was playing.

So it's just wonderful to see that outcome.

That's really cool.

Yeah.

All right, so you're a lawyer.

You're a small business owner.

You're also a landlord.

Yes.

How are you balancing all these three things?

There's only 24 hours in a day.

How in the world do you have time to manage all three things?

A big part of it is delegating.

Another big part of it is, is recruiting the right people.

I could not do what I do in a day without Sonia.

Half the time I come in from court, she's already resolved things.

So, I'm thankful to have those people in those contacts that, you know, it wasn't right before Christmas, the back unit went down.

They didn't have heat.

And so making those calls and thankfully, again, it kind of goes back to that small town practice I helped this person with with their legal transaction.

So, you know, it's kind of a, a tit for tat type thing.

For maybe somebody that's looking to be a lawyer.

But moreover, anybody that's looking to start a small business, whether it's a law firm or something completely different, what advice would you give to them?

Definitely lean into your support system.

Like I said, I had no real plan to open.

I had I had just gotten back from maternity leave.

And so, any young parent knows that you're kind of in the throes of, of parenthood, that opening in a business was was not on my horizon.

Maybe eventually down the road.

But I did not have a very clear plan.

I really, honestly opened up my office with my personal computer, my personal printer, and my grandmother volunteering time to answer the phone.

So it definitely takes that support system, obviously.

Talk to others.

You know, like, I said, the local bar here is wonderful.

So, asked various mentors and things like that, like, hey, I'm open up.

What does that look like?

You know, and things like that.

So I definitely think reaching out to people, getting that information, being humble enough to take that advice, because I definitely knew that this was, a foreign concept for me.

So, I've learned a lot.

And sometimes, you know, I've had to learn by the experience.

And unfortunately, you know, the negative outcome.

But I've been very fortunate.

Yeah.

Well, last question for you.

Looking forward, what does the future hold for MDG law?

Obviously to keep doing what I'm doing.

I'm fortunate to continue practicing, you know, possibly expanding.

I would love to bring more attorneys.

I focus on the domestic relations, but expanding to different types of law and maybe assisting other people in other communities.

Well Macey, this has been a great conversation.

Thanks for being on the show.

Thank you.

I'm Mindy Tramel, loan officer and economic development at the Upper Cumberland Development District.

Finding funding for your business can be complicated and confusing.

The upper Cumberland Development District partners with the Tennessee Small Business Development Center to help guide you through the loan process.

We also work with regional partners such as USDA and local banks to help you find the right financing for your business when traditional funding sources don't fit your needs, the Upper Cumberland Development District is here to step in and assist in financing your project.

We operate a revolving loan fund in-house to provide gap financing to small businesses in the Upper Cumberland, with a focus on job creation and growth in the region.

We can lend to almost any type of business.

Our business development loan program consists of our more traditional small business loans.

The loan amounts typically averaged between 250,000 and $500,000, with a maximum loan amount of $1 million and terms ranging from 5 to 20 years.

Our Micro loan program was created for new startups or businesses open less than a year.

Microloan amounts can go up to $30,000 with a maximum term of five years.

These are a great option for new business owners who need a little capital to get their ideas off the ground.

Microloan applicants must also be working with one of the small business experts at the Biz Foundry or Tennessee Small Business Development Center to apply.

In addition to our small business loans, we also have a farm loan program created to provide low cost financing for a portion of the cost of machinery and equipment purchases for farm and agribusiness.

In the Upper Cumberland, loan amounts go up to $25,000 with terms up to seven years, and applicants must be engaged in general agricultural production, agritourism, or generate area farm income, whatever your needs are.

As a business owner, the Upper Cumberland Development District is here to connect you to any of our resources to help ensure your success.

The Upper Cumberland is a great place to live and work, and it's people like you that help make it even better.

Thank you so much for joining us, and we hope that you've learned that entrepreneurship doesn't have to be a scary venture when you have the necessary resources for success at your fingertips.

If you'd like more information on today's topics, please visit the WCTE website.

To learn more about free small business resources and expert assistance, visit the Business Resource Collective website.

Until next time, I'm Michael Aikens.

It's Your Business with Michael Aikens is brought to you by WCTE, PBS, and the Tennessee Tech Center for Rural Innovation, with funding provided by the Rural Reimagine Grand Challenge and the Tennessee Rural Development Fund.

This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.