 Hi. Hi y'all Liz here and you are at Smart Business Move. I have two guests today y'all. How exciting is that? Tom can't be here because he's off doing his event in Washington DC but we have Martha Woodward who y'all know and also Dom Williams. So I'm going to let them give a quick intro about who they are before we get started on today's topic of the value of work retreats. So Martha you want to go first and let everybody know a little bit about who y'all are and what you do? Sure. Sure. Martha Woodward I owned a cleaning business in another state for 13 years. I started quality driven software with Maria Dorian. She's on to figuring better things and that's all I'm going to say about me. Yeah. All right. So Martha why don't you put in the chat your for me the private chat any email addresses. I'm not email web addresses that you want me to share. I think people are going to want to know for sure more about quality driven and probably going to want to hear about the event coming up etc. Sure. And then I'll share those and then Dom. Hey Dene. Yeah. So my name is Dom Williams. Founder CEO of C&C Cleaning Services. We're a residential and commercial cleaning company in Central Indiana. We cover all of Indiana for commercial and we also have most recently expanded into the state of Michigan. We just acquired a cleaning company there within the past two months. So yeah that's what I do. I'm in the home service industry. That's fun. I didn't know you were I mean how would I know but I didn't know you moved into Michigan. Yeah. Whereabouts. So we have two offices there. We have one in Millington which is about 20 30 minutes near Flint and then we have another one that's way up north. It's called Grayling Michigan. I've actually never been to that office but we cover the whole state of Michigan though. It's all it's only commercial. I have a lot of relatives in Michigan. I grew up there for a short time. Yeah. I know it this much because I was still a little kid when I moved out. All right. So y'all I, Martha your event that's coming up is the thing that made me think this would be such a great topic. Huge in our industry I think that people way overwork and we have a lot of stressed out people and a lot of people who think it's completely normal to work 70 hour weeks. We see that a lot. I'm looking at hours. I think there's such a time and a place too. Like you're growing your business, right? You're in that you're putting all the time effort you're doing that but then when you're just you know it's a 60 70 80 hour weeks for years on end and you're not taking any time off that's that can that can wear on you in a in a big way. So and I know you have always put value and the idea of doing more than just work. So I mean you always have so I thought maybe you could talk to us just a little bit about the value that you see and how you do it and why and all that good stuff. I was waiting for you to be saying I know you have always goofed off and not done your work. Which is a little bit true but anyway yeah I mean I feel like I'm pretty nostalgic right now because this will be our last retreat and Dom told me something that I didn't know until we were in North Carolina together. Can I share that? I don't know what you're about to share. Gosh. Well whisper Martha it'll be fine. Oh did I give you credit for my success Marty? You did. I was shocked. Hear that. That's good stuff. But so I think that way back when I was lucky enough to find you know people to follow and people that I really respected and connected with more than just for business and that's been a big part of my career is those connections and everything and super super important and I think that's why I kind of went into the conference slash retreat space is just creating like there were the educational sessions but there weren't like the experiences tied in with it at least to my liking and so anyway that's one reason that we started doing conferences way back when and really focusing on not only the educational part because I always hate when people say oh yeah it's a good party well we put a lot of work into the educational part but yes we have a really good time and so you are correct Liz I've always liked to balance and but what Dom told me which really shocked me but he came to the conference in Tulsa which was our first official one and and he told me that that changed the trajectory of his business and I I think it's just getting in a room well you explained it Dom yeah so so when if I can recall before I was before I ever met Marty I call Martha Marty by the way I can't switch it up on this call so before I met Marty and before like I really understood what quality-driven software was anything like that before I ever knew about a Liz Trotter or Tom or any of you guys it was it was this quality-driven event and I remember my business was probably at like $200,000 a year it was me and my mom our office was the size of my lobby probably and you know we were doing $200,000 a sale that was working another job and you know just just getting by and I saw this event and we said mom we're going to Tulsa, Oklahoma so we rented a car I can remember it we had like this really really nice fast challenger that we drove down and about I think a four or five six hour drive so it wasn't bad and I get there and I start meeting all these people in the cleaning industry and like at that moment it really clicked like oh my gosh there's a community of people that are doing the same thing that I'm doing and they're really successful at it right so that was I think I might have met Kyle there at that one or I met him the next one either or Marlowe I mean just everybody that we know like that's in our community in our space that's where I started meeting those people I was introduced to service autopilot at that conference which changed the business forever because although we don't use service autopilot today I understood the power of what a software could actually do for your business so there were probably at least three to four if not more connections and concepts that I was able to implement in my business by being at your event Marty that made my cleaning business what it is today so I will say for for this particular business Marty you had a huge impact on where we're at that's nice and you know what I bet a lot of people could say that Martha I mean I bet if we had you know 10 people on here they would all be saying oh my gosh so true me too um like just a huge impact I've heard so many people say not not that exact thing but very similar things about your events which is surprising when I heard that this was going to be your last one that is what tell us about that man they're that you know this Liz uh they're stressful they're stressful to put on and they're I I love parts of putting on an event um I don't love having my I feel like my business up for collateral you know every time you're put it's scary um it is scary that you have to put your signature on a lot of money and then hit those numbers and drive your friends and family on Facebook crazy with all your sales post oh I don't know anything about that I know I know um but um you know and when I went into it in my head I will tell you that I thought it was my 10th year and so before I went live and I was already in the stream yard ready to go live and I had written them all down and I'm like wait that's that's just nine and I recounted and there was a second there I was like well crap I'm gonna have to do another one yeah but then I'm like no no no no it's just nine we're just doing nine but uh yeah and I feel like we're going out with a bang in that it's gonna be way different than the others it will be more similar to when we went to Cancun but hardly anybody was there because it was COVID it was January 21 and uh but that was fun wasn't it Don it was very fun and like Megan said she really liked that because it was workshop style like this one where you actually went back and instead of like a list of things to do you had a lot of it done like she implemented the um well wait was it hire who or who hire was when Dom was there in the HR settings and stuff um but anyway so yeah we can talk more about that but uh Dom is Dom and Megan are in charge of all the education this year yeah I I heard from them when they were asking hey do you want to be a speaker I was like I didn't even talk to you about any of it I was booked through them and yeah never had anything so I would think they made it easier for you easy enough that you can do it one more time so funny you know the funny thing is let's talk about some of those those speakers that we did pick out because actually there's a couple that we could highlight and kind of talk about like what they're going to be touching on because what we want to talk about the other stuff too because that's that's kind of the big thing is that and and Dom I'm I'm guessing that this would be true for you that you saw when you went to that very first event of Martha's that yeah you met all these people you you didn't even mention like the education you're like you know you made all these connections and you get all this other stuff so I'm guessing that a large piece of it was this ability to you know do other things I wasn't at the first event Martha was it along your typical style of we're definitely going to be working and we're also going to be doing some retreat stuff was it the same yeah yeah I mean not as much as but yes definitely it was it was in all I know I was in a cabin so all I know if I was in a cabin I've came a long way Marty you came a long way I don't think I can get Tom in those cabins these days I love cabins why what was wrong with it are they like stark or something I don't know that is true okay cool can cool and and Victoria where we're where we're going top top yeah top and I saw you're like there are gold rooms that you can get to or something right so for the people who really love the bougie thing that hey listen the gold rooms I'm even doing a gold room just because you get your breakfast you get all this included so by the time it offsets each other and the gold room you don't have a gold room you really want a gold room yeah the gold room has this gold floor that you have access to okay this I'm telling you this hotel this day when the coffee machine the coffee machine is like is if you worked at Starbucks and had access to all that behind there yeah in your room no no in the common area okay because I'm like you might have just sold me on that gold room right there think of it think of it this way Liz like you know when you're going into the airport and you know how you can go into the to the to the lounge yeah that's what it is okay but just even a even another level another notch up another level of that yeah that's what it is when you get access to the gold right do you have any more rooms Martha um oh look Meg likes money is here we're bringing her on I'm late I text Martha I was like I don't want to be disruptive but I'm stuck on the phone oh yeah I'm busy yeah you were busy it's text time you were busy I I hate that part of my life look look there's people I'm allergic to paper this is just terrible somebody take it away that's a lot but it's like is it end on the 15th or the I that is my goals here I pull my clients that if they did not have any information by March 10th because I have one put up the door of like been on the brink of death so you're almost there you're so close so close are you color-coded Liz yes I love it was no you know I know everybody loves it but I'm like you know it's so horrible every time because I actually read my books I actually like my books I use them for reference so every time I want to find a book I have to go look it up on Amazon to see what it looks like so that I could find it so at my old house I organized by color two and the worst part is the spine color does not match the cover color sometimes and so frustrated too or like this one whole shelf of like they're all different colors like every spine is like purple and yellow angle where where do those go where do those go anyway yes or and what are we talking about or did I just hijack a leg you're very much digressing okay I'm sorry hi hi Dom now we're really um Megan why don't you go ahead and give everybody on here just a quick how do you do what you do also give me your give me your in your private chat give me your website and I'll be posting those for everybody okay hi ready my name is Megan likes and I am an accountant based out of northern California and good friends with Dom and Martha I have a couple of businesses my primary one is likes accounting company where I help business owners kind of take the fear out of their finances by seeing the things that they can't see in their profit and loss statements and their balance sheets let's see I also own a window cleaning company so I'd like to say I'm in the cleaning industry even though I'm not as cool as the the people on this beautiful screen I have learned so much from them about how to bring recurring services into my home service company and from Martha how to hold people accountable and from Liz how to train people and from Dom how to like charge what I'm worth and hold people accountable so uh I love hanging out at conferences and so Martha I so two years ago quick aside we had an international conference for QDS and Dom gave a presentation on his software company back then called hire who and I set up my entire applicant tracking system during that two-hour workshop and I I've been running it ever since the company has since sold and rebranded and gotten cooler but everything I built during that workshop still exists and I love that Martha had quality driven software and she showed us how to use the HR module and I have been tracking all of my HR issues within quality driven software because of that one workshop two years ago and then Liz and I met four years ago at the quality driven sub conference when we did the day before thing that you did on training so like how to build a training program and hold your team accountable so I remember that was our first time ever is like who are those people they're not cleaning people and that was Jeff and me and uh yeah that was a really fun event I don't remember ever thinking who are those people they're not clean people I don't remember ever thinking that any any y'all ever think that everybody thought Jeff was a long care guy because he's in a flannel I did I thought he was a long care guy I was like oh all right windows oh that makes sense too though okay so all we were talking about today is well not all I mean I think it's super my cat is walking on did she lock me up yeah are you all still there we can hear you for I wish I could hear you all right well I don't know what happened she did something I can't see you but good I'm glad y'all can see me all right oh okay it's better all right so um we're talking about how um you know this industry a lot of a lot of small business industries but this industry also um has a tendency to overwork and not take time and how work retreats is a way around that was it a cat no I'm megan I'm pointing at megan on my screen made a face about my overworking I want to say I don't work enough I think I just don't work smart I don't know but yes as a whole we need to take time and these retreats are so helpful with that and people need to take more time and then Martha just told us she's not doing this again and so we're like listen we're talking about the value of work retreats you do them better than anybody else so what do you mean you're not doing doing them anymore I'm like oh oh all right I'm grateful because the way Martha sets these every other year ones up is you get it done you don't go home with like a to-do list it's like done you build it I do love that too play and then it's done yeah and you have time to play also which is the the piece right that we're liking so attention because we were like uh Martha you're cutting into our learning time and she's like no we're gonna play so I feel like this is your first time Martha where we were in conflict like Dom and I had an agenda and Martha had an agenda and we had to like negotiate about our joint agendas and just because I could I feel like Martha won there right we have well the agenda is changing with you being fair to be fair typically um you weren't there last year Liz when I got called out by Ashley Matuska I was just gonna say like if Ashley had it her way what would it be Martha if it was Ashley's way well at least not starting before 10 a.m but uh you know so usually when I'm planning these events and this one is labeled retreat guys so but usually when I'm planning these events I start with like a nine to four nine to five kind of agenda and then I don't know you meet a speaker and you're like oh I have to I have to have you speak and so then by the time it's all over they're going eight to six may or may not get lunch breaks you know and uh that kind of thing but this one well and till six I mean Ashley's comment is like Dom and I closed down bars with Ashley how many times last year Dom like we were out till two a.m oh Dom doesn't drink publicly but you know we were out till two a.m or three a.m so that's why she needs to start at 10 because yeah she's asking for the 10 a.m start I was like well I know what you were doing at two a.m. eight o'clock in the morning is a is an early start she told me to know my audience yes and plan accordingly I got called out on that post this year by Sarah Mitchell said Liz you could learn something here I haven't seen to start early as well so so Liz I was supposed to technically be the mc last year thank you for thank you for sharing this story Dom I'm very proud of you and what what had happened was we went and did some partying that I mean New Orleans is like no other place we went we went and uh that next morning um I didn't have a voice actually I didn't have a voice and by the next morning he means the first day of his first the man had no voice he could not and he wasn't joking he wasn't saying like his voice was gone Dom did it come back I don't think it came back no I got to do better you're on retreat this time when he tried to be mc this time Martha and I were like no I'm not trusting you yeah you're not trusted to be mc and keep your voice together oh my gosh okay so talking about like the retreat okay what a great show Denny yeah so much thanks Denny thanks Denny she loves to come on here too we're just having fun Denny and she really loves that about our business moves when we have guests that are fun on all right so I want to hear from y'all um because you were also part of the group of people that was working too much not taking enough time off etc so where where did you find value in the idea of wait two things I've asked two questions and I haven't gotten the answer so I want to get those answers first first one was Martha um do you have any rooms left because Megan came right on as I I can probably I can probably beg for some okay so there's rooms left there's just the room block is closing out like ASAP okay so anybody that might want to do it needs to do it like right now if they want to be part of the main group that everybody else yeah and the reminder the room block is a discounted room so it's slightly cheaper than online and then if you're looking online those are Canadian prices not American prices so don't have to be shocked although the hotel is gorgeous uh Dom, Martha and I all went and stayed there uh last June it's a beautiful hotel so it's it's it's an experience it's really the best hotel in all of Victoria I will say that and lots of them yeah yeah lots of them so we did hear that it has gold floor it has a gold floor right yeah don't tell you that yeah it sounds like a dom thing to notice I don't have more than I noticed that but Dom definitely noticed yeah definitely yes what he said I was like a gold floor interesting okay and we toured that section we were like oh yeah it's we know who's staying here but I can't say anything I'm even staying there so am I so and there's a coffee area I already told her about the coffee so I went I went again in February and the bar area is so nice like the bar is just beautiful lounge like one of the prettiest bars and um they had like a chocolate fountain going in the bar I mean and live music it is just a whole experience it is I love Victoria Dom did you hear we got the bingo room no there's like a very special room Martha is like going all out we have the library and we got this really really like Cary Grant style beautiful room I mean you're gonna feel smarter just being in the room like that's how so I'm not bringing any kind of fancy clothes do I need to have fancy clothes this well I will tell you don't put your vans up on the table they'll scold you for that so if that gives you some context I don't know about that Megan I'm not sure I maybe got scolded like an eight-year-old uh what else I I did go to high tea there in February and we were dressed very casually like very good so okay I was thinking I need to at least have a hat for high tea definitely bring something I might even get some gloves just because fun Martha can we tell people to pack their tea house yeah you betcha I love that yeah so like I got some fancy t-shoes or something or a tea watch or something yeah I bet you've got some come on you gotta have something you got a fedora or something no I think he's got it now Marvin Marvin on the other hand Marvin will have it Marvin has a hat for every day so he'll be dressed so he's already ready with his hat yeah instead of taking your hat off you put it on for the restaurant that's why it's fun all right well she told you about I know Liz you don't drink but did she tell you about the purple gin no so there's a special kind of gin made from this hotel the Empress Hotel and it's called Empress Gin and it's made from pea flour and it's purple and it's beautiful from one kind of flower a pea like a English pea like a I heard of it yeah it's it's it's very cool so I shall drink even I can buy it all over I mean like it's not just local okay so everywhere all right what's it called Empress the name of the hotel Empress Gin Empress Gin all right y'all so I know I have a lot of friends that like to drink so like the way to go and purple purple really you that's so weird we don't have any friends like that lavender it's like like a one okay so I said I had two questions that I asked and I didn't get answered right because we went off on it a little yeah the hotel one so we got that one and then the other one was for you Dom and it just went out of my head do you remember what it was Martha does it about the speakers the content oh I can't remember now oh it'll pop in you know how oh I'm not gonna be able to talk because it keeps wanting to take is it about we were talking about how how much I changed the trajectory of Dom's life it wasn't that but I do love that I want to know how how did that happen we can't go backwards Megan because you were late you're right now I'll do about it later but we can add on to it because I think that is like a little bit of a piece hey Drew Drew's gonna be there right did Drew to be talk about how Drew's beautiful wife is amazing and she's we haven't talked about we haven't talked about like concrete things yet we've just been playing yeah we've just been like chatting you you've been on the mediest part of the call Megan you're welcome you're welcome I brought the meat there you go okay so um Dom I do remember what my question was finally my question was um you've been to like this you said that before you didn't even know about the community you didn't know about all the same metal the people etc and so I thought maybe you could speak to how you said already that it just changed the trajectory of everything for you and give you this whole brand new perspective opened up the way of thinking um can you or your way of thinking can you talk a little bit about how you know like what was it why should people look for events like this where they can have some downtime just spend time meeting people and not only work work work work work yeah so um have you ever heard people say like you know the power and you know going to the conferences is really when you're socializing and you are at the bar or you're you're eating dinner together and you're just hanging out that's really what it's about so I think Martha does a really good job at her conferences by making it more of that rather than just a whole bunch of class sitting type setting type of things so um I would say like every time I go to a to a conference now that's what it's more about I'm more anxious to get to an area where we can have conversations about each other's business and have a real dialogue rather than you know just sitting there and listening to a presentation the whole time so that's where I think the value is at and um that's why I think there's a huge value in the QDS conferences because I think over time like like in Tulsa Oklahoma I think it was a lot more of classroom setting right and then year after year there were a lot more activities and there were a lot more things because she started to figure out like this is really this is where the value lies yeah and and nobody really has ever done it even close to as well as Martha's done it not even the people who have um done some stuff where they're like okay we're going to make it fun and stuff it's more fake fun it's more hoopla and it's true though but your your events and the things that you do it's funny because you actually provide true downtime value like well she forced it on us actually in like the most sweet way like eight party luau uh uh second line we had a brass band come into the hotel and escorted us all out on a surprise adventure that ended in a hurricane cocktail at like the oldest hurricane established bar in new orleans like she did that she she kidnapped that she like forced it on us but in the most warm and fuzzy way where you get to have conversations like and those tables she i don't know dominant got to we we get to see martha in different way when she goes to a hotel she's not looking at the things everybody else is looking at she's looking at like well where are they going to gather well where are they going to like where are they going to hang out well how big is that room how big is like the you know the table size like where are they going to meet up for coffee in the morning and drinks after the sessions like it's just so interesting martha's much more worried about the outside of the classroom time yeah i think that that's what you do so well but i know you're not going to be doing that anymore but tell us about tell us about that a little bit martha can you explain how did you recognize the value in that to such a larger degree than everybody else and how you you know decided you're going to bring this to life um so i went to my first what was arcsy then i went to my first arcsy conference and i'm sure it was part of issa but you know i really just knew of arcsy arcsy um and i went to that and i'd been in business two weeks and i remember i remember going and actually i don't know if i've ever said this to you but i went it changed the trajectory of my life too and i do talk about that but so i didn't know anyone i didn't even know i knew nothing about cleaning cleaning products nothing i all i knew was that um i was ordering products from the clean team and it was gary gorgensen at the end and i called and i was ordering products and i'm like is there any education anywhere i you know i was like i don't know what i'm doing and she goes well there's a conference next week you know i know that you'd want to go to that and i'm like where is it you know and so i went and i wouldn't know enough to ask one single question but what i did was i went to classes i remember alonso i remember like i was able to pick out who i wanted to listen to like i you were in the hall and as as they still are you know you're talking and everybody was listening and i thought okay i'm gonna pay attention to her debbie sardone was one and that was before debbie was doing any consulting or anything um alonso those were the i think you guys were the main ones but that's what it did for me is right off the bat i knew i i knew people that were good connections and were people that i wanted to hear more of and then as i went to more and more arty conferences then i start telling ernie i'm like ernie we need to do this we need to do this you know and one thing that i noticed is that and it was really from that first one what i noticed is that it was easy to not be part of it the part of the group it was really easy to come and just do your thing and then if you weren't seeking connections you would not make connections and so when i really couldn't get that part out of the arc c slash issa conference then i just thought i'm going to make my own and and i will say another one that was really um really influenced what i did was the service autopilot conference because i attended that conference and it's all lawn care for the most part i mean i would say less than five percent of the attendees were from cleaning or anything else and so but what i realized is i would sit in the room and listen and it was like on the same topic as what i'd heard before but a whole different take yeah on approaching that part yeah and so quickly i'm like i love this you know because by that time i had heard i had heard like this is kind of the same stuff yeah and i was just like oh my gosh i love being around other industries and hearing from other people because they do like routing really well and we do culture really well you know and so i think that there's just a lot to mixing up the group and i wanted to make it that whole experience where it would be pretty hard to come to a qts conference and not be involved and not be part of the yeah you know so yeah that was it and not it would be also really hard to go to a qts concert um conference and concert although they are always have some kind of music somewhere right um and not make like connections right um also people don't talk about this piece of it i think very much but um there's a lot of work there's also downtime that's also work it's like yeah downtime work which is the part of the retreat that's the part that that i think that you do really well is you you keep it going it it is all work it's just it's less pressure it's less like being for sped it's more you know we're sharing and we're and so everybody's minds are more open everybody's more more ready to absorb and to share and you know it's a much bigger much bigger impact than when it's just in a classroom me absorbing this one little thing and okay okay okay okay take as many notes as i can and then close that folder and stick it up on a shelf somewhere stick it up on a shelf somewhere and then yeah right so i i think that people i don't think i know people have said many many times over the years that the quality driven conferences are the best place to meet people and work hard but also play you get have a lot of fun time play time and downtime yeah the amazing race was like one of my favorite oh Liz do you remember Liz and i ended up in a like yeah the that calendar i mean it was so fun and the teams it was so fun martha that was so much work but it was it was one of the most incredible things i've never seen any conference come close to that amazing race not even that was probably that's probably my highlight of the thing um i mean i think i almost cried after it's over that i put you know i could pull it off because it just was way more complicated than i thought it would be and um but and i'm in fact when my husband left for work this morning i said don't worry sweetie it's it's a special night tonight and he looked at me i go it's amazing race okay i can't believe that you didn't think it was going to be that complicated i know not believe that that went off the way it did how did you make that happen that was i i was completely expecting it to just i was ready i was super afraid but um yeah and there were some near fights on uh i remember oh yeah like at the at the w-torn board that wasn't pretty and then um in one of the rooms i had my a local friend who volunteered um she's a dear friend of mine and it was her husband's first time to come to one of the events and i had him planting mingos all over the place and all and uh he was like at like 6 30 in the morning on his vacation but my dear friend was manning the room and and she had the matching game and she had someone in that room that didn't quite like the rules and finally my friend goes you know i'm on vacation volunteering do what you want i mean if that was the worst thing that happened really that's kind of crazy how everybody got through that whole thing that was yeah i don't know yeah so fun and i think that's the same year that you had the luau it was yeah and the 80s party oh my gosh the 80s party too oh and all in dom did the cult of brands right yeah that was a good one they came in and that was so good so good i talked about that talk for a long time dom yeah that was probably the highlight dom you were probably the favorite yeah i i can't imagine that was amazing that was good oh good really good that was a good conference for sure that was a good one but uh sounds like this one that we're going to is going to be amazing talk to us a little bit about for the people that haven't heard about the one that's coming out here i know you don't have a lot of room but talk to us a little bit about like your planning how how you came up with what you wanted to do give us all the all the inside juicy stuff um so i will say the weird thing about me is when i travel i really am looking at you know it's always in the back of my mind that whether or not it would be a good retreat a good conference location and um so you know my kids live in Seattle i wanted to go to vancouver uh anyway my oldest was like okay mom we'll go to vancouver but i think you'd really like victoria and i i was kind of dead set on i wanted to go to vancouver but she convinced me thankfully she convinced me to just spend one night there and the rest of time in victoria and i remember when we pulled up to victoria and like just pulling up in the ferry and i remember thinking oh my gosh i just had that uh this is amazing and right then i knew i have got to have a conference there and i was already thinking about winding it down and then you know it was like oh i can't quit until i have you know a conference here so that's how that came about um but yeah it's quickly become really one of my favorite places so i don't know about the rest of y'all but did y'all hear what i heard if you come up with the most amazing place and you show it to martha this might not be the last one that's what i heard is that what y'all heard i told me what i heard because martha she did this with new orleans too i'd never been to new orleans and martha talked me into going hotel shopping and then i went to new orleans three times in one year and the exact same thing happened to the courier this will be my third time to victoria in less than a year because when she when she tells you you're gonna love it she's not joking she means you don't love it she's gonna love it i do have a bit of a beef though because it will be my third time to victoria and i still have not seen the cute little water taxi ballet oh i know that's on sundays i know on sundays but um yeah so i don't know should we talk about the conference the retreat yeah yeah okay all right so it's it's long it's may fifth you come in on a sunday to seattle unless you already live there and um sunday we arrive in seattle i'm telling people to get there early enough so that if you especially if you've never been to seattle will fit in some quick sightseeing um try to get there by noon or one which is doable since a lot of people are coming from east coast etc and we're gonna go to the space seattle uh chihuly gardens did i say that right yeah chihuly oh my gosh so amazing yeah and then um kind of walk in that downtown pike's place area because where we're eating dinner as a group that night is called kells irish pub and restaurant or whatever um but it's right there in that pike's place area um and then that next morning we have to start heading over some of us will walk with our suitcases some of us won't and um we will go to the ferry terminal and we're gonna catch the ferry at eight a.m and then it takes about three and a half hours to get to victoria you have to go through customs it's pretty light you know and uh and you do have to have a passport or enhanced driver's license but that's just for washington residents isn't it yeah i know that's what we have yeah and um so then we basically go across the street and our hotel is there and it's the fairmont it's a fairmont brand which is a really nice five star brand and it's called the impris and we'll check in we're going to immediately have lunch uh check in um official check in time isn't till i think four so you may get in your room you may not and you may actually be sightseeing before you ever get in your room because around two we're going to go on one of those double decker buses and i put that on that first day so everybody can kind of get the lay of the land and see where china town is see where fishermen's wharf is see all the different areas so then you know what you want to go back to um and then that night you've seen in the facebook group i've been crazy about um getting people to make reservations for this restaurant the three of us went to this restaurant i couldn't i waited too long to get my family to go there but then the three of us went and it was so good and it's crazy i mean it's already looking pretty booked um and you know it's one of those you set on your calendar a month from now and wake it's like checking in for your southwest flight if you didn't purchase early bird yeah that's not all right so um i don't think you've gone crazy posting that because i haven't booked a reservation so i you obviously go crazy i everybody that saw it i said um to to try to get as many seats as you can you know so that and don't take some walk-ins too it's just that but anyway um so that's monday night tuesday we have y'all wait y'all i just gotta say real quick did y'all hear all of that stuff um yeah that's monday also yeah we're the fact that you've been away from home for 36 hours and there's been no class yet but the ferry is really good social time like dom and i had a great ferry ride on our way over to the island the beautiful well all the way there it was great when i went back it was great too it was fine but we're not gonna go there but they weren't talking to each other maybe the walking i'm not sure um but the ferry time is great time we're gonna be all sitting near each other we're gonna be socializing there's a bar there's a restaurant there's like lots of things that you can do on the ferry um and then yeah the hop on and hop off bus like you're sitting next to somebody right you don't know who you're gonna sit next to on the bus it's really it's gonna be very you're gonna have friends before the conference even starts i love that's very casual yeah yeah so before we move on so i'm driving up there so should i be bringing my car on the ferry or should i park in seattle you're gonna need to park you can't on this ferry you can't bring your vehicle it's a passenger ferry only so um i'll give you you go to victoria clipper dot com or something and it'll tell you where to park okay cool and um and you're not going to need a car once you get there uh unless you don't like walking from like a little bit but i think you will be fine uh there's it's really it's a really safe and wonderful place and the money's they're the the walking bring your jackets okay don't assume that it's going to be warm there and that is true i i would say that's the only possible downside of victoria is we went early june and it was still cool now now by the best point say cold it was all you know the southerners are gonna say ice cold frigid make sure you have a scarf and your heavy jacket not a light like maybe beanie and maybe some mittens yeah yeah for weather and but then it was like it was like one day it was extremely warm and sunny like we went to the gardens yeah it was a beautiful day yeah yeah so it's just it's like like here in indiana our weather can change every day yeah so do be prepared for that and and it is pacific northwest so could be misting could be anything but that's just part of it part of the adventure yeah um okay are we ready for tuesday yeah okay tuesday tuesday we have um we have like a presentation an hour presentation and then we have four hour workshops and so we have a workshop a four hour workshop each day i should say and um meghan's trying to slip in a little extra stuff here in the air and five things i'd like to add and she's telling me no so i think i really wish you'd won but but the content's gonna be great i mean you guys are coming for the content it's there and then the socialization and then we've really worked with our speakers to be available so they're gonna be at the bar they're gonna bust they're gonna be at the dinner they're gonna be at the lunch like it's not like this speaker comes in for an hour and then zooms out they're there with you for most right i think that's what's gonna be really different about this year is because we are kind of vacationing together and have the retreat sessions during the day everybody's together including the speakers and stuff so um but anyway so tuesday night we have a group dinner um in chinatown wednesday and thursday we have our retreat sessions um wednesday um breakthrough academy is sponsoring a happy hour at this one of our favorite places it's called barton banker and it's a bank that's like it's an old bank over the building's over a hundred years old you walk inside and it's just gorgeous and um anyway they're they're providing happy hour snacks and drinks um and then best best poutine on the island i think oh we went there at least twice in the three days we were there is good it's good thursday the retreat sessions so thursday night we were doing the water taxis and we were doing what they call the pickle crawl which like megan will tell you has no pickles and um but this is a thing for pickles we could make we could bring pickles liz i don't know i feel like you thought there's something with liz and pickles we could yeah we can sort that out we're gonna sub in so i have to plan these events uh a year in advance like i typically amid i'm announcing next year's event at this year's and so in order to do the pricing and do everything i need to do i've got to know what the agenda is and so anyway a year ahead of time there was such a thing as the pickle crawl with the water taxis and it would take you to different areas of the town and um now there's still the water taxis but you can't get a group on the pickle crawl so you can take the water taxis at night we're gonna sub the next day we're going to bouchard gardens which is about 30 minutes away uh you've got a bus that will take you there um you guys describe the gardens like when i told you you were gonna go see gardens were you like me and thought okay i'm gonna go see some flowers i'll let Dom answer and then i'll answer uh i mean yeah i mean that's what that's what i thought but then you go and it looks like that yeah yeah yeah that's when the minute you arrive i was like martha i'm in heaven martha this is amazing i like we were just like in awe it was beautiful one time to really experience it yeah yeah and really one thing that's amazing about the butchard gardens is it does not matter what time of year you go yeah experiences always amazing it's like so it's hedonistic almost and the smell i mean uh it's just gorgeous there i don't really haven't at least for me i've never seen depth in flowers like you see there i took so many pictures and i am not a flower person and i was just like i don't know how they get that you know that depth was what really amazed me yeah but anyway so we're already at the gardens that was planned but since the pickle crawl got axed we're going to sub which is a great sub uh we're gonna sub high tea at bouchard gardens and uh because we're there anyway and megan megan went to the one at the empress and the one at bouchard gardens and she said she liked that the gardens better oh nice okay we had i mean we the three of us had a great tea like even dom grumpy pants over that he like had it was a really fun tea like we had a great climb i i think it's fun i every time i go on a cruise i hit high tea every day when you did that i thought i didn't even know that was an option yeah yeah well uh i i um go on princess and so add on every on all of them but it is on princess all right uh well i'm super excited that y'all were able to come on here today and you know work retreats yeah it was fun right we didn't even talk about the education well there's some education y'all yeah this is too that it's great content lisa's doing a great workshop uh we've got some really cool speakers uh one thing's like about martha's we find people that that maybe you haven't seen before maybe you haven't heard about and uh they're gonna talk about like we're bringing a therapist yeah there's one day you're gonna cry don't say that at both sessions mark dom i'm gonna be your partner and i'm gonna make you cry oh my gosh i don't know i i kind of feel like we probably could sell more tickets knowing that you're gonna make them cry that's right that's right take one for the team yeah okay so we do have to go but uh you did hear martha say that everything's actually sold out but if you're interested it sounds like something that would be amazing it's the last one y'all then you know get her up asap because she can probably make her magic happen but you're gonna have to i will give it my best shot all right come out with us it's how we all became friends really i mean it's really how that happened so come hang out with us we'd love to see you yeah have fun and take a break take a break and work at the same time you know work retreats all right y'all thanks everybody talk soon