Episode 7: Life in the Fast Lane: Surviving Hypergrowth

In this episode of Keepin It Clean, Mike and Hailey sit down with Patty, Meyer’s CFO, for a conversation on what it takes to navigate and sustain hypergrowth within a company. Patty shares her background, her journey into leadership, and the experiences that shaped her perspective along the way.

From building strong financial foundations to maintaining alignment during periods of rapid expansion, Patty breaks down key lessons and practical insights for surviving — and succeeding through — hypergrowth. The discussion explores the challenges that come with scaling quickly, the importance of people and process, and how staying focused on the right priorities can help a company continue to move forward without losing what made it successful in the first place.

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to share it with your team, and stay connected with us for more conversations around business, people, growth, and culture.

Stay connected with Meyer Lab:
Website: https://meyerlab.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/meyer-laboratory
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/meyerlab
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meyerlaboratory

To learn more about our solutions, culture, and team, visit our website or follow us on social media. We appreciate you being part of the Keepin’ It Clean community — and we’ll see you in the next episode.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:06

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Keeping It Clean podcast. I'm Haley Dunham alongside Mike Miller.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Good morning, Haley.

SPEAKER_04 0:13

Good morning. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Great as always.

SPEAKER_04 0:15

I'm so glad to hear that. What's been going on in your world lately?

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Uh so this past week I spent some time uh traveling again. I think one of the things we talked about in our most recent company call was a retail opportunity that we're pursuing, specifically private label. So we don't really ever aspire to have a Meyer branded product on a shelf, but we were approached by a national retail brand to help them uh formulate some chemicals for uh pressure washer sales. They do a lot of volume and pressure washer sales each year. And um so they wanted to capture the recurring revenue aspect of that with pressure washer chemicals. So I went out and I visited with them this week. Completely different environment than I'm accustomed to. You know, I'm used to walking into a plant and going to the back and seeing the dirty areas of facilities, and this was more like a company party to showcase a chemical line.

SPEAKER_04 1:17

So that's fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

It was a lot of fun. They had like a coffee cart out there, they had uh cutouts that people could put their face in with this with this uh product line, kind of branded it around pressure washing. Uh they had a donkey, a miniature donkey that served water.

SPEAKER_04 1:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Uh so it was a really interesting and fun experience that was kind of This is for the public to No, this is just their internal employees, like when they do a product launch. So we kind of essentially manned a booth, and then probably a hundred of their employees came by and asked us questions about the product and things of that nature. A lot of store managers, people in marketing, things of that nature. They're just trying to become more familiar with the product so that they can better sell it and better market it. So uh a unique experience, and it was fun to kind of operate in an environment outside of uh what would be, you know, kind of the traditional Meyer business.

SPEAKER_04 2:16

Did you get water from the donkey?

SPEAKER_01 2:19

I did not get any water from the donkey. Uh probably should have.

SPEAKER_04 2:23

Probably a fun fact that you could have shared if you would have done that, but maybe next time.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Yeah. So anyway, had a good week and uh excited to be back in the office and and uh back to work.

SPEAKER_04 2:34

Awesome. Well, we um have a very special guest with us today. Um today joining us is our newest member of our executive team and our chief financial officer, Patty Birkland.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Welcome, Patty.

SPEAKER_04 2:47

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Glad you're on the show.

SPEAKER_04 2:49

We are excited to have you with us. So before we really dive into topics and and the business stuff, um, Patty is such a fun person. Um, you guys have been able to see her on our company calls, um, interact in the office, and she's just got a very infectious personality. But Patty, uh, tell us a little bit about yourself so that uh we can get to know you a little bit better.

SPEAKER_03 3:10

Sure. I was born and raised in New York, which means I have no personality. We're just very upfront. Um just kidding. Um I have I'm married to my husband for 40 years, which is crazy because I'm only 29, so I don't know how that happened. I have two wonderful boys that are have been successfully off my payroll for quite some years now, but I have a son up in Wisconsin and my grandson Noah through him, and then I have a daughter-in-law and a son down in Louisville, Kentucky area, and a family is everything to me, and and I'm just so blessed to, you know, have everything that I have right now. Very grateful every single day.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

I hear you talk a lot about Noah. Uh tell us a little bit about Noah. What how old is he? What's he into? You know, what do you think? Well, great.

SPEAKER_03 3:54

This podcast is going to be 40 minutes long now. Um, Noah is going to turn uh four years old on May 25th. And his birthday, he was born on Mario Day, uh was what how he refers to Memorial Day. It's like a party. This was a New York holiday. So it's very cute, you know, in the in the eyes of a four-year-old. And his uh I'm a little worried about him, to be honest with you, while he is the apple of grandma's eyes. Uh I am worried because he wants his birthday party to be Twas the Night Before, like the number four Christmas. He's very into uh skeletons and Halloween, and favorite movie is Halloween Town. So he's got a little bit of an evil stint to him. I'm gonna dip him in holy water and think.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

I'm not sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:39

What kind of things do you guys like to do uh when you get time with him?

SPEAKER_03 4:42

So Grammy loves to build tents with him. So we have an unfinished basement up in Wisconsin, and I was, of course, looking at I'm gonna buy cardboard tents and I'm gonna build this with them. And no, just put two ladders in there and a couple of blankets, and you get to reconfigure it all the time. It's so fun. And I'm I'm learning how to bend appropriately so my old age in the back doesn't go out. But yes, building forts is our newest thing. I love that.

SPEAKER_04 5:04

That's so much fun.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Yeah, as you know, I've got uh a five and three year old, and and they will make a fort out of anything, and also uh everything is referred to as a secret bunker. So I I'm uh living a similar life.

SPEAKER_03 5:20

I might have to steal that, call it a bunker.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Well, Patty, thanks so much for being uh on the podcast today. I thought it would be a good idea to have you on one because you're newer with the organization. I think you've done an excellent job of reaching out uh to people throughout the organization and getting ingrained in our culture. But uh really the topic that I wanted to talk about today is hyper growth. And uh I think you know, a lot of your background has been in companies that are rapidly growing and rapidly scaling. And that's what we're aspiring to do here. And it's hard, right? And so you've uh not only survived, but you've thrived in environments like that. And so um you know, I really just kind of wanted to open it up and talk to you about anything that comes to mind when you think about hypergrowth. Like what do we need to do to be successful as a company? What are the key things people need to be thinking about uh as an employee in the company? It feels intense, right? Uh everything is at uh hyper growth means hyper pace as well. Everybody's stretched thin, etc. So um maybe just talk to us a little bit about maybe start with some of your background and then maybe we can lead up to the things that you think are really important when driving hypergrowth and doing it in a healthy way.

SPEAKER_03 6:45

Yeah, healthy. Yes, healthy is defined as we'll have to define that. Yes. Um, so you know, thanks for having me on. I'm really, really excited to be here. Um, hypergrowth is exactly the words I would have used, and it is a fun time, but it is also a challenging time. So, my background, I have been um, you know, in business more than I care to say, because again, with 40 years of marriage, you're gonna be able to put together and figure out I'm not a young chicken. But um, I've had the opportunity to work for some really great companies, and the you know, many of them have been on this hyper growth, you know, or or in different industries and different markets. The one that I came over most recently from, we were able to grow very, very quickly over a five-year period, and we did it, we did a lot of acquisitions. We did over like 19 acquisitions, but honestly, uh, that was a smaller part of our growth. It was once we acquired the companies, what we were able to do to leverage them. So uh more of our growth came from organic, as they say, you know, how we were able to grow the businesses that we had versus just acquiring the growth. I would tell you a couple of things that I would reach back and say, things that everybody should know about hypergrowth. I loved the podcast when Diamond came in and talked about how you had the baby in the car. Yeah. And this is it's a great connection to kind of the message that I want to share with people. You had a plan, right? She had nine months you could work on this plan. You knew what you were gonna do, it was gonna be in a birthing center. We're gonna drop the dog at grandpa and grandma's house. I mean, you had the whole plan worked out. And didn't happen that way, did it?

SPEAKER_00 8:18

No, it did not.

SPEAKER_03 8:19

That is a big you have to have a plan, but it's really important to be agile in this. Uh, and the reason why, because it's not gonna go exactly as we planned. Look, if we were that good at planning, we'd all be investing in the stock market and probably not, you know, selling, selling what we're selling and trying to. So it's really is important to have the plan, but to be agile around the development. Keep your eyes and ears open for changes that are going on, whether they're internal to our company, whether it's external in the market, whether it's in the macro environment. Look, we're in the conflict right now with Iran. It's going to have an impact. We all see it when we go to the gas station, right? It's going to be the same thing in our journey for hypergrowth. Uh, so that's a first message. You got to kind of always be have a plan, but be open and agile because that plan is always going to need to be changed and adjusted.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Yeah, I think we've uh you know, I Meyer's always been a company that was growth-oriented, but now we're really trying to ratchet that up. And uh I think, you know, over the past three years of my life in business, I've really had to learn to be agile, right? And and quite honestly, I mean you've probably seen this. I I don't know that I struggle with it, but when we have a plan, if we say we're gonna do something and we say, hey, we're gonna grow by 20%, and we grow by 18%, it's hard for me to be okay with that, right? But uh that doesn't mean that we can't make up for it in the following months and that we can't make adjustments to dial it in. Uh but uh agility I think is is uh something that, as you said, is important and and something that we can all lean into.

SPEAKER_03 10:00

Great. The other point I want to make that I think is really important is there's two more points that are really big on hypergrowth. The next one is uh a saying what's gotten you here isn't going to get you, may not get you there. And I say may not because it isn't always true, but this is the continuous growth, continuous learning. Um, I was having a conversation with somebody the other day, and I was sharing the story about how when you start out and you think you're gonna do things one way and you have a plan and then you have to change it. Think about like I've moved a lot in my life, just different homes, different places. And we have a plan and we unpack the kitchen and we're putting the pots over here and we're putting the dishes over there. And after you've been in the house for a while, you realize, well, that doesn't quite work anymore. I want to move the pots over here, it'll be more efficient, and you know, the glasses over there. So the ability to continuously improve and adjust and move things around, that is something we need to get comfortable with. Um, and a lot of times when you're in hypergrowth mode, you have opportunities that you go after and you get, and then you have other opportunities that are gonna fall in your lap and you're gonna have to react quickly quickly and be very opportunistic on how you do it. And the thing here is the ability to kind of maneuver. We may set up a process to temporarily handle a situation, right? To be able to get us in the door to first execute. I put my dishes in my pots over here. Over time, that is not going to be where they're going to be. So I think we have to be okay with the idea that perfection is another form of procrastination. We can't wait to have the perfect plan. We've got to act now and seize that opportunity. But we also have to be super careful of the temporary plans that we put in place. They have a way of sometimes becoming permanent and we never go back and fix them. So that that mode of act fast, let's get it in, let's get it done, but let's not give up on the optimization and the ability to um improve that as we go along. We've got to balance both sides of that. That's a really kind of important theme when we're in hypergrowth mode.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Yeah. You said something there pretty interesting, and that is perfection is another form of procrastination. Did I get that right?

SPEAKER_03 12:18

It goes with our P's and our five values, right? We like P words. Patty, for example.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

That's right. Can you maybe talk a little bit more about that point? Because I don't want to gloss over that. Um, because I think it's something that's important as a growing organization. There's a lot of imperfection in our business each day, and being able to operate in that environment uh is important. So can you just talk a little bit more about that?

SPEAKER_03 12:44

Yeah, sure. I the best way I could do this is I'm gonna share a story of a great CEO that I worked under. He was a fabulous mentor. And he always told our company the story because this was a fast growth environment, and he told our company the story about we're gonna go to grandma's house on Thanksgiving, and the turkey's gonna be on the table at two o'clock in the afternoon. And we're sitting on the porch and we're all a bunch of very high, you know, we gotta have the detail, what's the right speed, what's the wind gonna be, how fast do we need to walk? And so we we spend hours on the front porch making this plan to get to grandma's, and grandma lives across the farm for us, and there's a tree in the middle of the lot. And we're planning, and what at what time are we gonna leave? What are we gonna? We make all these plans, we spend two hours on the front porch planning our route to grandma's house to get turkey at two o'clock. So we get, we set off, and oh my God, we get along the way and there's a tree down. We didn't plan for a tree down, we didn't even bring a chainsaw. Now we spend all this time planning, and we get there, and there's an obstacle in the way, and it destroys our plan, and we don't get to grandma's house, and nobody likes cold turkey on Thanksgiving. So that story was meant to, you know, you can plan and you need to have a plan, but sometimes you just need to set out and start going. And experience tells us there's gonna be obstacles along the way. If you waited to set out to grandma's our our walk to grandma's house should have taken exactly an hour. We're gonna give ourselves 15 minutes, we're gonna leave the house, we're gonna, we're gonna leave at a certain time so we know we're gonna get there and we've got that buffer. But we don't know what we're gonna encounter along the way. And if we spend all our time planning around what time to leave and we didn't we uncovered an obstacle, we're gonna fail because we're not gonna get to grandma's house at the same time. It's better to have an idea of what we're gonna encounter, think through it, not travel off blindly, right? Make sure you got the bug spray and everything you're gonna need to have. But you gotta get off the porch. You gotta get off the porch and you gotta start going. And that was a message that he was drilling down in our head all the time. And I feel sometimes in an organization we want to work out every detail, we want to have everything figured out. And you know what? At the end of the day, we're not gonna be able to anticipate every single thing. And that creates almost paralysis by analysis. We've all heard that. We need to get going, we need to move, and we need to be agile along the way to be now. We're not gonna be wild, we're not gonna be crazy, we're not gonna go off half-cocked, but I do think we need to balance that and we need to move in the direction so that we get that momentum and we'll learn things along the way and adjust.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Yeah, I couldn't uh I could not agree more. I would call that a bias for action, but I think you know, the company's probably heard me talk a lot about momentum and the importance of that in business. So uh everything you said there, I'm I'm fully aligned with, I think, uh very well said. So you had three things for hypergrowth. Uh, what's the third?

SPEAKER_03 15:34

I think the third one is enjoy the journey. So the the other, and again, I'm full of all these sayings because I read 7,000 books a year, right? So you'll always say, I read a book about this, but there is a saying in there that says, you know, um uh that this is a this is a marathon and it is not a sprint. So as we increase the cadence, as we're going through different things, this is a marathon, right? So I do think we have to stop and celebrate the successes. We have to triage when it doesn't go right. Like, what do we learn? What are we gonna do? But this is not like, oh, we got to the end of the week, and oh, thank God it's Friday. Um, this is great. Now everything's gonna be back to normal. Normal is always evolving. So think of a marathon, think of the training people go through. There is a pacing that you do, but it is a long journey. This isn't a sprint, and we need to hang in there and we need to get to that end of mile marker 26. There's not many people that run marathons that get all the way to the end. Some people only run like a half marathon, like my son just did, but he's working toward the marathon. It is about that longer journey, and this is going to be a journey, and people need to get comfortable with that idea and excited about it because you we've said in other town halls and company meetings, nothing feels great like winning. We're gonna win the day, but we not may not win every single day. Think about we're on a 26-mile marathon here, and it's not a sprint, and be comfortable with that, but it's gonna be so worth it in the end.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Yeah. Well, I think all of that's very well said, and um you know it's interesting when you came to work for Meyer, uh a lot of the things that you just shared with me, you shared in the interview process, and I was very drawn to it. And I think you know, as an organization and and my team and myself, we're fortunate to have you because well, for a lot of reasons. Uh number one being your stunning personality. But beyond that, uh you just have uh some experience doing what we're trying to do as an organization, and I think that experience brings a sense of calmness. Like this is normal. What the organization is experiencing is normal. It helps us understand where we're at today in the overall process and also brings clarity to where we're going. So thanks for what you bring to the table each day. Um I know it's been impactful to me, it's been impactful to our team and and the company overall.

SPEAKER_03 18:06

Well, it's been at my absolute joy. I love it here. I love the team, I love the business, and I love where we're going.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

So we'll do great things.

unknown 18:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 18:15

Absolutely. Um for those that may not know, um, Patty has lots of talents, but one of her talents is she does a great job of coming up with really random, off-the-wall, but meaningful questions. Like if you're just sitting there and like waiting for the airplane or something like that. She has all these questions that I'm like, where do these come from? And she's just really good at it. So um, I have some questions for Patty today as we kind of wrap up here. So um, first question what is one thing you would ban from corporate culture forever?

SPEAKER_01 18:50

Uh what a great question.

SPEAKER_03 18:53

Uh, pretentiousness. The idea that one person is better than another person, I absolutely can't stand that. Everybody matters in an organization and everybody has a voice. I can't stand it. Well, I am this role, therefore you have to listen to me. It makes me crazy. Love that.

SPEAKER_04 19:09

Um, next question. Um, I know that you're a secret, or maybe not so secret, reality TV junkie. I am. Um, what is a reality TV show that you think you would dominate?

SPEAKER_03 19:20

Um, ooh, that is a great question. I want to say my Love Island. I would be queen of Love Island. Don't tell my husband.

SPEAKER_04 19:30

Never seen ever. I um I was actually gonna think some kind of like a baking show or something, because you're a really, really great baker as well.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

I do like to bake, but I think Love Island is is at your core. I love love. I do love love, so I would say Love Island. I love that. Sorry, Joe. I love you.

SPEAKER_04 19:45

Yes, absolutely. Um, what is more painful, month end close or assembling IKEA furniture?

SPEAKER_03 19:52

Assembling IKEA furniture.

SPEAKER_04 19:55

Um what's something small that instantly makes your day better?

SPEAKER_03 19:59

Noah.

SPEAKER_04 20:00

I knew you were gonna say that. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

I thought you were gonna say coffee.

SPEAKER_03 20:03

Oh, yeah, I like coffee too. Um coffee. So the new case. Coffee. That's right.

SPEAKER_04 20:08

Uh okay, a couple of lightning round questions to wrap up here. Um early bird or night owl?

SPEAKER_03 20:12

Early bird.

SPEAKER_04 20:13

Coffee shop or cocktail bar.

SPEAKER_03 20:17

The the responsible knew me on a health journey says coffee bar, but I love me a good cocktail.

SPEAKER_04 20:24

Uh spreadsheet or whiteboard?

SPEAKER_03 20:26

Spreadsheet.

SPEAKER_04 20:27

Beach vacation or city vacation?

SPEAKER_03 20:30

Beach vacation.

SPEAKER_04 20:31

PowerPoint or Excel? Excel. And last question: fancy dinner or dive bar.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Dive bar.

SPEAKER_04 20:39

Love it. Yes, for sure. Thank you so much for joining us and tolerating my questions. Those are great questions. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 20:45

Awesome, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:46

Thank you so much. So um, as Mike said, we just we absolutely adore you and so glad that you're here and part of our Meyer family.

SPEAKER_03 20:52

Thank you. Thanks for having me on. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 20:54

So, Mike, before we uh wrap up today, uh anything that you are looking forward to that's coming up?

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Uh let's see. Things that are coming up. So, traveling again next week. We've got a large national opportunity. I think, you know, on about every podcast now, I'm talking about whales, which is the term and the methodology that we're using to pursue uh national multi-site customers. And we've got a really big meeting with one next week. We've got a handful of pilot locations to uh today at this point, and those pilot locations are going really well. And the opportunity, the upside opportunity is for over 500 locations across the US and Canada, and we're meeting with one a handful of the key decision makers on that program. So uh traveling next week to do that, really excited about that. Um I feel like we're in a spot to win. And a lot of business just comes down to relationships and building those relationships. And I think next week is an opportunity to do just that. So excited about that trip, and then I think last time we had a podcast I was getting ready to take the boys and my wife uh to a Royals game. Unfortunately my wife and my well my youngest son Rhett uh ended up sick directly before the game so on Mother's Day weekend uh she did not go so my dad my oldest son McCoy and I went to the Royals game uh and it was so much fun I could not believe how into it he was to the point where he was yelling and cheering so much that I had to apologize to the people in front of us and ask him to calm down a little bit. And you wouldn't so much fun. You wouldn't think that that would be the case at a Royals game. You know it's not like a wild party it's a Kansas City Royals like they've lost for a hundred years right uh he was into it and so that was fun and and it's just exciting to see uh my kids grow and evolve.

SPEAKER_04 22:53

So that's awesome. Well thank you so much again for joining us and we will catch you guys on the next episode.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

Great. Thanks Haley thanks for being here Patty