In December, LinkedIn sent an email listing work anniversaries. Among those was an invitation to congratulate Mary Kay Minnis of Suamico on 12 years as owner of Caring Transitions, a senior relocation and downsizing franchise (caringtransitionsgreenbay.com).

It was exciting to see. I was her Green Bay SCORE mentor in 2012 when she was purchasing the franchise. At the time, Minnis, who had never owned a business, was seeking a job in project management when she changed direction.

“I wanted to make a career change,” Minnis said. “During that same time, I was in the midst of cleaning out my father’s home after he passed away. It was a difficult project, but so satisfying to complete it. I began to think how wonderful is would be to perform this service for other families and manage that project for them after the loss or relocation of a loved one.”

While searching for information on businesses that offer those services, she came across Caring Transitions, headquartered in Cincinnati. The franchise specialized in the type of services Minnis wanted to provide.

“Although there were a few franchisee locations in Wisconsin, there weren’t any in the northeast Wisconsin region. I liked the idea of a framework to follow, and the support of a franchise family,” she said.

She wrote a business plan, and after being accepted by the franchise, took out a home equity loan to finance the startup. Training was held at the headquarters, and with help from a few friends, Minnis launched the business. Her exclusive territory includes all of Brown and Door counties and parts of Oconto, Shawano, Outagamie, and Kewaunee counties.

It wasn’t long before she got her first job.

She said, “My first project was liquidating a home in Cecil for a gentleman in Milwaukee whose mother had passed away. Over the next few months, I got so busy with jobs that my husband, Paul, would help me on the weekends.”

With that growing workload, Minnis turned to her husband for help. In addition to his full-time job, he spent weekends helping with the business. When it became too much for him, the couple made the decision to have Paul quit his job and join her.

“It was a scary move, but one we’ve never regretted,” she added.

They divide responsibilities with Minnis handling the client contacts, accounting, scheduling, reports, other paperwork, and the research and writing of descriptions for the online auctions. Paul does the hard labor like cleaning out basements and garages, hauling refuse and recycling. He also does the shipping of items sold in the online auctions and fills in wherever needed.

They have four regular employees and one temporary. Unlike many businesses, they haven’t had difficulty finding workers.

“It can be social for our employees; they just love what they do," Minnis said. "Two are turning 72 this year and they are like Energizer bunnies. It is just that they love it. Before we start any job, I give an update of what kind of person is in the home to make it personal. It isn’t a random house.”

Employees are hired based on having a good work ethic, honesty, and a true desire to help families who are going through a difficult time. The process is challenging.

“It is almost always emotional for our clients. We might be dealing with someone who just lost her husband and is downsizing to a condo or assisted living, and has to let go of a lifetime of memories. Or we might be dealing with the adult children after a parent’s death, needing to liquidate the contents of the home they grew up in. We do our best to ease that burden and encourage them to take things that are the most meaningful to them and we handle the rest,” Minnis said.

She says that one of her strengths is her compassion. She is also very organized and efficiently handles all of the scheduling and tasks associated with a job. But her weakness is one that she and Paul share.

“I am not very good at setting boundaries between work and personal time and I often let work bleed into seven days a week,” she said. “It is hard. I will think that I’m going to take off on Sunday, but then I’ll get an email and the business has a way of trickling in to every part of our life.”

She laughs as she says that in the beginning, she thought that it would be a benefit to own a business because they’d be able to set their own schedule. If they worked on a Saturday, they could just take off on a Tuesday. It didn’t turn out that way. Last summer was the first time they weren’t even able to take out their boat.

They are making an effort to change that and are adding “no work” days into their schedule; even if that means turning down jobs. And, even though they could add employees and expand, they say they are happy with the current business.

She said, “We’ve been blessed to have steady business year after year. What surprises me is the steadiness. I still get nervous if we don’t have three jobs on the horizon. And then the phone rights and it rings again and pretty soon our calendar is fulling up.”

Her initial business plan is in a drawer somewhere as the couple now operates on set procedures, instinct, and experience. The franchise is a big help in marketing and other franchisees and her franchise representative are always there if they have questions. But, as time goes on, other franchisees might be more inclined to reach out to them; especially if help is needed on writing copy for the online auctions.

“After researching and writing descriptions for approximately 50,000 items from every imaginable category for our online estate auctions (the items are on GreenBay.CTBIDS.com), I feel like I’ve gained tremendous knowledge on a large variety of things. In my next career, I plan to write a book,” Minnis said.

In that book, she might also reflect on what she has learned over the years. Originally, she was nervous to go ahead, but now says there is nothing she would rather be doing. She is helping families by easing difficult transitions and says the best part of it is getting to know the families and work with them.

As a SCORE mentor, I feel fortunate to have been at the start of that journey.

In reflecting back to her meetings with SCORE, she noted, “Going to SCORE and having someone look over my business plan and listen to my ideas gave me the courage to move forward. But no matter how much research you do, the real learning happens once you actually start the work.”

Tina Dettman-Bielefeldt is co-owner of DB Commercial Real Estate in Green Bay and past district director for SCORE, Wisconsin.

This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Caring Transitions owner Mary Kay Minnis reflects on business growth