Better Business for Small Business Leaders

Dianne Widowski on From Fortune 500 to Affordable Housing Entrepreneur

• Chrissy Myers • Season 1 • Episode 8

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Ever wondered how to transition from a high-powered corporate job to making a real difference in your community? In this episode, we sit down with Dianne Widowski of 4Bees, a former Nestle executive turned environmental advocate and affordable housing champion. Dianne takes us through her incredible journey, revealing how her passion for sustainability led her to become a beekeeper and transform local gardens. She also shares her groundbreaking work in affordable housing, where she's providing safe, energy-efficient homes and improving lives. This episode promises to inspire you with Dianne's story of how one person can drive monumental change.

Learn how Dianne seamlessly transitioned her skills from corporate America to the real estate industry, focusing on affordable manufactured housing. With insights into creativity, networking, and project management, Dianne explains how she created a raving fan culture with municipalities—proving that building relationships is key to success. Her values and passion for community improvement shine through as she discusses the importance of homeownership in fostering community involvement and building wealth. This conversation is packed with valuable lessons for anyone looking to make a significant impact in their field.

But the journey doesn't stop there. We explore the practical side of managing a small business in an often misunderstood sector. Dianne opens up about overcoming opposition, making housing affordable for young adults, and the financial adjustments necessary when moving from a large corporate budget to small business finances. She shares creative networking strategies that have led to unexpected opportunities and significant business growth. Tune in to discover how genuine relationships can be the backbone of business success and how one woman's dedication is reshaping her community for the better.

🎙️ Connect with Chrissy Myers and discover how resilience, expertise, and community can transform your world:

🔗 Follow Chrissy on LinkedIn for behind-the-scenes insights, leadership tips, and updates on her journey as the CEO of two thriving businesses.

📘 Grab your copy of 'Reluctantly Resilient' to learn how Chrissy turned challenges into opportunities and how you can do the same in your life and business.

🤝 Explore Clarity HR and discover how Chrissy’s team simplifies HR for small businesses, giving you peace of mind to focus on what matters most.

💼 Visit AUI to see how Chrissy's employee benefits expertise can help you build a healthier, happier workforce.

Speaker 1:

I have this belief that I can single-handedly change the world. Me too, whether it's the environment or change people's lives, and really one person at a time. I'm doing that. So I'm working on the environment because I'm a beekeeper and I'm changing my little neighborhood and improving everybody's gardens around there and when it comes to affordable housing is I'm changing thousands of people's lives.

Speaker 2:

Today on the podcast, we are talking to Diane Wadowski of 4Bees and we are talking about her transition from corporate America to Main Street. So welcome, diane, to the podcast. Thank you for having me, chrissy. I'm looking forward to this. I am super excited to have a conversation with you today, so I would like you to tell me about your entrepreneurial journey from corporate Wall Street to small town Main Street.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so I worked at Nestle, world's largest food company, for my entire career Wow and I knew that I was going to be having an early retirement. I was a fortunate beneficiary of an old school pension plan and I knew that I needed to do something. I was going to be too young to retire. So as part of that, I started learning about real estate and I always had this passion for real estate and I started. I received my, I earned a real estate license, I flipped homes, I worked with buyers and sellers and during the pandemic I had an opportunity to be downsized. So I took my pension my 401, and my downsized package and said let's go full into real estate. During that journey, I discovered commercial real estate. During that journey, I discovered commercial real estate and I transferred the skills that I had from creativity, networking, problem solving, project management over to commercial real estate and I've been doing that the past four years, wow.

Speaker 2:

So can you tell me a little more about your key learnings or experience from your role at Nestle, working for the world's largest food company, doing something completely different that prepared you for entrepreneurship in real estate?

Speaker 1:

A lot of what I did was managing creative sessions, so teaching people and my customers how to be creative and bring creative products to market, and I really use that. And affordable housing, working and using my networking skills that I learned at Nestle, so I used to, you know, work with Panera and Walmart and Costco and present to these heads of corporations and talk to them about why they needed to buy macaroni and cheese, for example. And so using those same skills with small town America and going and talking to municipalities and the fire department and county commissioners and state representatives. It's really all about that networking and I use this term I learned from Tony Robbins and that is create a raving fan culture. And you say how does that possibly work in real estate?

Speaker 1:

I don't get it. Well, my customer is actually the person who buys the home or rents or excuse me, my consumer but my customer is the municipality. They're the ones that, if I can create a raving fan culture with municipality, they want me to come back. They want to donate land to me from the land bank because they see how I'm improving communities. And what I've learned about politicians is anytime you can make them look good, just like I made the head of Walmart. Look good, they want to bring you back.

Speaker 2:

Wow. So who knew that there were so many ties between mac and cheese and manufactured housing? There you go. So what are some of your personal values? We talked a little bit about you know learning how to network, building relationships. What are some of the personal values that push you in your entrepreneurial journey?

Speaker 1:

So I have this belief that I can single-handedly change the world.

Speaker 2:

Me too.

Speaker 1:

Whether it's the environment or change people's lives, and really one person at a time. I'm doing that. So I'm working on the environment because I'm a beekeeper and I'm changing, you know, my little neighborhood and improving everybody's gardens around there and when it comes to affordable housing is I'm changing thousands of people's lives and giving them the opportunity to have safe, affordable and energy efficient housing.

Speaker 2:

So what personal experiences, observations do you have that puts you into that niche of affordable housing? You could have done in commercial real estate anything. I mean there's there's retail, there's all sorts of different types of office space, there's multifamily housing. What made you go into manufactured housing?

Speaker 1:

It really wanted to make an impact. You know I can revitalize a shopping center and, yeah, that makes an impact in an environment or in a community. But being able to give the folks that work at that retail center a place to live really just resonated with me and, at the end of the day, the fact that you can provide great housing for people and make a profit. They're not mutually exclusive and I just love the fact that I'm helping all these people.

Speaker 2:

So tell me what is manufactured housing and who are the customers that live in those types of places.

Speaker 1:

So most people want to think of a trailer park. Okay, right, so we all know the old school trailer park, we all know the jokes, but we'd like to call it manufactured housing communities. So these are homes that are built in a factory to HUD specifications. They're delivered to the community set on a foundation of sorts and skirted, and we are able to deliver housing for a fraction of what any other single family unsubsidized housing has to offer. And that's really the difference. Oftentimes, people think of affordable housing and think of Section 8. And they think really the difference. Oftentimes, who will think of affordable housing and think of Section 8, and they think of rentals. Our model is all around home ownership, because homeowners add more value to a community. They become involved in their houses of worship, in their yoga studio, in the kids' soccer games in PTA and they really become a fabric of the community.

Speaker 2:

So how are you working to overcome some of those challenges and misconceptions or perceptions that people have about the trailer park?

Speaker 1:

It's huge. Everybody says not in my backyard nimbyism and what we try to explain. And particularly I've been very involved here locally with the Medina County Economic Development Corp. I've met with local and state representatives and really it's having them out to our community and showing them the two-by-six construction, the energy efficiency drywall and the high-quality homes that we're building and really trying to change that mindset that this isn't the trailer park that you remember.

Speaker 2:

It's hard, yeah, and when you're thinking about the type of individual that's living there, you're talking about individuals that are maybe looking at living in multifamily housing so apartments, potentially renting a home but you're giving them an opportunity for homeownership, which also gives them the capacity to potentially build wealth. And maybe this isn't their only home, maybe this is the first home and they can transition and move into another direction. So what do you look for when you're looking for a manufactured housing community to acquire, especially as you're building community and looking at building?

Speaker 1:

community. So I think you bring up a great point, and that is homeownership is the path to wealth building, and if we keep people in apartments, they never have that opportunity. So when we buy a new community and we want to go and rebuild, number one we look for is a strong school system, because no one ever grows up and says I want to live in a manufactured home community. However, as parents, we all want our kids in great school systems. However, as parents, we all want our kids in great school systems and so, from an investment standpoint, we look for good quality school systems and we look for an affluent area where the price of their lot rent and, if they have to finance their home, that those two combined are significantly less than rent. So, for example, where we are in Medina County, if you had to purchase your home with a loan and your lot rent, you'd be at about $1,100 a month. A two-bedroom apartment building, no equity, would be about $1,500 a month.

Speaker 1:

So we give them home ownership at less money. So that big of a difference, that big of a difference, and we really look for that type of multiple to make it worthwhile. It's our unique selling proposition, is a term we used to use in industry.

Speaker 2:

Wow. So, as you're starting to continue to build relationships within the community, within building government, relationships with the land bank, as you're looking at bringing in homes that are, I mean, hud certified, hud approved, so they're built to the specifications by the federal government, you're following all of these guidelines, you're dealing with all of these things. Is there some potential to work with or collaborate with employers? I mean, I could think that you know, having individuals that are in a manufactured home community that can be closer to their work environment than maybe having to travel, what does that look like and how do you build that?

Speaker 1:

collaboration. That's a great question. Just last month we have another community we purchased recently in Hope Township or, excuse me, plain Township, and we met with the local officials there and they said, diane, we need, you know, we're bringing in all this business right, and we don't have people to work in these businesses. And you know, regardless of where the next election cycle goes, we know that both presidential candidates want to bring more manufacturing back to the US. So now we have these $18 to $25 an hour jobs and nowhere for these people to live, and a recent Harvard study shows there are 7.1 million unavailable housing units today for people that have the least amount of income right. So that's $18 to $25. So there's a long way to go to fill that gap. We really feel like affordable housing or manufactured housing can meet those needs and, as I met with Plain Township, they recommended that I reach out to the local manufacturing community and talk to them, and we're even looking at partnering for a first-time homebuyer, down payment assistance and having those employers participate with us.

Speaker 2:

So you're pulling together a lot of different resources. Is that similar to some of the things that you did when you were in your corporate job?

Speaker 1:

Absolutely it's. You know, I didn't do anything in my corporate job except bring people together. Okay, and it's kind of the same thing is bringing you know buyers and communities and financial institutions all together for the success of the community.

Speaker 2:

So you talked about nimbyism, talked about trying to collaborate and get people on the same page. How do you enter a room or enter a conversation where you automatically know I think there's probably been times in your career where you know someone just doesn't necessarily agree with you or they've got an opinion how do you work on shaping the path to get them to a yes or an okay?

Speaker 1:

I can see your point so I used to introduce myself as a mobile home park owner and immediately nobody wants to talk to you. So instead I say Hi, I'm Diane Wadowski. I bring quality, energy efficient housing to communities at an affordable price and all of a sudden they go Wait what? I want to talk to you. Yeah. So I just did this recently and I had a county commissioner and two state representatives say well, let's talk. Help me understand, because, again, their job is to bring business. Well, they can bring all this business to their community, but there's nobody to work there. The other piece that I've been talking to people about is so you have your kid that's graduated from high school. Yeah, maybe they're not going to go to college. They're manual labor jobs, something again that go that 18 to 25, 18 to $35 an hour. You want to get them out of your basement.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

Where are they going to live? That's a good question. They can't stay in the community. When you have $400,000 houses in your community, oh wow. And so when you phrase it like that and you make it a little bit more personal, like, where are your kids and grandkids going to live? You don't want them in your backyard and we'd rather not see them in an apartment, because, again, there's no wealth building living in an apartment.

Speaker 2:

Yes, Okay, so let's shift for a minute. We're talking about you know. We talk about wealth building. We talk about running a business. You came from a large business environment so you managed budgets, but you know cash flow is a little bit different in a large corporation that's publicly traded. How was that transition for you financially, going from person who's managing corporate budgets to now managing small businesses? What does that finance look for you? How did you anticipate? Were there surprises along the way, as you've had to learn, kind of moving through that?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you know, I mean I managed a $100 million business. Wow, you know now I'm managing maybe a $5 million business, but it's all funded by the bank of Scott and Diane. Ah, so I was fortunate again. I had a pension, I had a sizable 401. And I received a nice bonus to early retire. So that really helped me. You know kind of get through the hump. You had your good seed money, I had my good seed money bonus to early retire. So that really helped me. You know kind of get through the hump. You had your good seed money, I had my good seed money. And then we something we haven't talked about is I have a couple of other buildings where I have retail, which provides me some additional income.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so learning all the finances, it just kind of had to change. Be more creative. You have to be very creative. Okay, what do you think? Over the last couple of years since COVID, when you transitioned, what is the most important thing that you learned as a business owner in manufactured housing? If you could share that one thing with the audience.

Speaker 1:

I would say to continue to build that network. I attend a lot of trade shows for manufactured housing. No-transcript months of rent. I collected 320 months of rent, wow. And the reason for that is my local networking with the business community there, with the Bedford Downtown Alliance so another business group and letting people know who you are, what you have to offer, making those relationships. I was the first one they thought of when someone said, hey, I want to bring my new business, I need an apartment, wow. So it's just that constant networking, letting people know what you do.

Speaker 2:

So when you walk into a room and you walk into places where you don't know people and you're you're having to network. What do you tell yourself? How do you build yourself up to be able to have those conversations? Is there a question that you always ask? Is there something that you always present yourself with? How? How do you manage through some of those things? Because for some of us, networking can be a challenge. Sometimes we don't always. We want to be introverted.

Speaker 1:

We don't want to be extroverted. What's your tip around some of those things? I'd like to catch them off guard and I say, what do you like to do for fun? Oh, because that way you know, you want to find some common ground. You're both at this business networking, you common ground. You're both at this business networking. You clearly, you know, are interested in building relationships and maybe it's around a particular industry or event or whatever. But when you say to somebody, what do you like to do for fun, you find out that you know, maybe they like horseback riding and you like horseback riding. Or recently, I like to can. And so I was talking to somebody who I suspected had a similar interest and as we were looking through pictures, I made sure she saw my picture of canning and I was canning pickles, and so we got to talk about canning pickles and we developed this whole new level of relationship and respect for one another, because it's kind of a quirky thing. Not too many people can anymore. Wow.

Speaker 2:

So you come in disarming. It's not that whole. What do you do? Tell me what your business is.

Speaker 1:

You're doing, you're taking a different angle and you kind of joke, you know, you kind of like look around the room and say, well, what do you do for fun? Nice, and people seem to enjoy that because they would like to talk about things we enjoy.

Speaker 2:

I appreciate that. Diane, as we start to wrap up, where do you see your future as far as what you're doing in affordable housing? What would you like to see within that industry? What changes?

Speaker 1:

Well, it's really interesting. I just came back from a conference this past week. It was downtown Cleveland and I gave a presentation and talked about affordable housing and I've had three very I'll call them senior investors come to me and want to understand more about my model and what we're doing, and I met with one this afternoon and we're actually talking about a project in Texas that we may do together that will be around modular housing and I see that as a huge change in the affordable housing. So it gets rid of the NIMBYism, because now a modular home is built in the same fashion and the same location as a HUD home, but now it's going to go on a traditional foundation. That being said, I think we eliminate a lot of the NIMBYism and we can increase density, which is a key to making housing affordable, and we can increase density, which is a key to making housing affordable. So I'm looking to partner with more people and share this idea out and do it outside of Northeast Ohio.

Speaker 2:

Nice. So, as we wrap up, one of the things that we like to do on this podcast is to give a takeaway to small business owners so that they can get 1% better in their business every day. So what is that one thing you'd like to tell them as a takeaway?

Speaker 1:

I think I kind of said it earlier and it really just goes to networking outside of your kind of immediate sphere, going to again the community leaders, the business owners and introducing yourself and, just you know, befriending them genuinely. You know, if you have a local restaurant, every time you go to visit, you know your property or your business, go and network with those people and get to know them. And that is just the biggest change in our business is the results that I've gotten from networking with those people, people I never expected have come through and, you know, given me leads and taken me in new directions.

Speaker 2:

So never stop building connections.

Speaker 1:

Never stop building connections, without a doubt.

Speaker 2:

Well, thank you for your time, Diane. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Yes🎵.