Click here to listen to more episodes of Child Care Rockstar Radio™ with Kris Murray!

Below you can read the full episode:

• 0:00:08 Kris Murray: Welcome to Child Care Rockstar Radio. I am your host, Kris Murray. Child care leaders around the globe are breaking through challenges, leading the way in innovation, testing new best practices, and impacting children and families in a much more powerful and positive way than ever before. Each week, join me for interviews with early childhood leaders and experts that will leave you inspired to become the next Childcare Rockstar.

   

• 0:00:34 Kris Murray: Now, let’s go. This is Childcare Rockstar Radio, episode 202 featuring Adrianne Agulla. Hey, folks, it’s Kris. I’m back with you here on the podcast Childcare Rockstar Radio. I cannot believe that we’re in the 2002 now. This is super cool. And my guest today, Adrianne Agulla from Nebraska Omaha area, is such a powerhouse. I cannot wait for you to meet her. I was so impressed by all of her accomplishments. She is a true example of what scaling up expansion and growth looks like in early childhood. And she came from a corporate background, entered the field with no prior ECE experience in 2017.

   

• 0:01:25 Kris Murray: And she has taken her business to the most amazing heights, the most amazing leaps and bounds as a leader, as an entrepreneur, an educator. And her company is Hamilton Heights. And not only that, but she has a catering company called Milton’s Amazing Kitchens, which I absolutely love that branding. And you’re going to hear all about it in today’s episode. Before we get there, I want to share with you that this episode is sponsored in part by the Child Care Success Academy.

   

• 0:01:55 Kris Murray: If you’re a fan of this show, you know the powerful transformations that ECE business owners just like Adrianne right here in this episode and their leadership teams achieve inside the Child Care Success Academy. It’s the world’s first, best and largest coaching organization and mastermind group exclusively for child care business. The Academy is currently accepting new applications for a limited time and a child care business coach is standing by right now.

   

• 0:02:23 Kris Murray: So take that first baby step just to learn more. There’s no obligation, guys. Just pop on over to fixmyschool.com we’d love to have a chat with you, find out which level of membership is right for you and just learn more about your business and how we can immediately give you some strategies to walk away with on that call. So go to fixmyschool.com There’s a free training video there on how to add six figures or more of new revenue to your school in just 60 days.

   

• 0:02:52 Kris Murray: And a stronger business and a better life is waiting for you right there on the other side. So that’s fixmyschool.com Today’s podcast is releasing Real Time in early June. And guess what? You made it. You finally made it through graduation. Or if you’re doing graduation in August, you made it to summer camp season. And it’s an incredible time for you to take a breath, pat yourself on the back, give yourself a virtual hug or a real hug, celebrate your staff and shift into your summer vibe.

   

• 0:03:32 Kris Murray: And so I’m here to celebrate you today on the podcast and inspire you to what’s possible for you for the remainder of 2025. With my guest, Adrianne is going to talk about what sets her school apart in her market and how she has grown her school from four to six centers, doubling her capacity and having more control over her timeline for how things are implemented in her business. How to develop your leaders, how to bring your spouse on board full time to work with you if that’s a desire.

   

• 0:04:10 Kris Murray: How to create and get a scorecard populated. How to create a scorecard. How to get it populated by a VA. How to use VAs was a huge topic. She’s got three different VAs guys and has acquired them into her team in different models and methods, using bamboo HR for all things HR and hiring. So, so much that we dive into here with Adrianne of a 935 child capacity. So she’s almost impacting a thousand children a day, which is amazing, and 160 team members. So she’s a big player and is going to inspire you, I have no doubt.

   

• 0:04:55 Kris Murray: I want to celebrate you again for making it to June. No matter what time of year you’re listening to this particular episode, you’re going to get a lot from it. And without any further ado, let’s dive in. So enjoy it, take notes, do whatever you have to do to write down a few key ideas and a few ahas from every episode. If you just take action on what you learn in this podcast, you can change your life.

   

• 0:05:22 Kris Murray: So let’s get right to it. Thanks for tuning in and being a listener with me. And let’s go. Welcome everybody back to the podcast. I am very excited today to have my guest, Adrianne Agulla here with me. Adrianne, how are you?

   

• 0:05:42 Adrianne Agulla: I’m great, thanks.

   

• 0:05:44 Kris Murray: Happy to be here.

   

• 0:05:45 Adrianne Agulla: Thank you.

   

• 0:05:46 Kris Murray: Good. Where are you right now? Where are you located?

   

• 0:05:49 Adrianne Agulla: I am located in Omaha, Nebraska and I’m in my home office that I share with my dog and my husband. So yeah, the three of us, we’re hanging out.

   

• 0:06:02 Kris Murray: Awesome. What kind of dog do you have?

   

• 0:06:04 Adrianne Agulla: She’s a Bichon poodle mix.

   

• 0:06:06 Kris Murray: Oh, nice.

   

• 0:06:07 Adrianne Agulla: So a Fluffy white lover, you know?

   

• 0:06:09 Kris Murray: Yeah, I love that. I love fluffy dogs.

   

• 0:06:12 Adrianne Agulla: Yeah.

   

• 0:06:14 Kris Murray: Tell us about your business, your early learning program. Just tell us more stats about how many locations or the size or anything that you want to share about your brand.

   

• 0:06:23 Adrianne Agulla: Yeah, absolutely. So I own and operate Hamilton Heights child development centers, and we have six centers across Nebraska. There are four in Omaha, one in a exurb of Omaha called Papillion, and then one in Lincoln, Nebraska. We were founded in 2003. And I think probably an interesting tidbit for your audience is I’m not the founder. That’s rare. That’s rare, I think in this industry. I purchased this as a package of three centers in 2017 and then have since added three and kind of grown from there.

   

• 0:07:00 Adrianne Agulla: I also own the catering company that serves my centers as well as some other early learning centers in the area. And that is called Milton’s Amazing Kitchen. So that’s the other hat I wear is the. The food person. Yeah. So that’s. We have a total, a combined capacity of 935 kiddos. Yeah, we’re getting close to that thousand mark.

   

• 0:07:24 Kris Murray: Yeah. And how many employees do you have?

   

• 0:07:27 Adrianne Agulla: 160.

   

• 0:07:28 Kris Murray: Wow. Awesome. So we’re going to definitely talk about scaling your leadership team because that’s something that you’ve done.

   

• 0:07:36 Adrianne Agulla: Yes, and I’m doing every day.

   

• 0:07:38 Kris Murray: Right.

   

• 0:07:39 Adrianne Agulla: That’s something that requires constant pressure.

   

• 0:07:42 Kris Murray: Right. Okay, cool. What are you proud about that sets your schools apart in your marketplace. What makes you different?

   

• 0:07:51 Adrianne Agulla: Yeah, there are a couple things. The first one is that we’re a play based program and we say that we’re very serious about play. So we believe that it’s our professional responsibility to protect childhood from all of the external threats in today’s world. You know, the technology, the it’s too hot to go outside. You know, just all of the things that. That are taking away from what childhood should be. So we take all that very seriously. Our responsibility there.

   

• 0:08:23 Adrianne Agulla: And then the second thing that makes our program different and it’s a harder thing to kind of put a finger on, but it’s my leadership team. And you mentioned this, but I purchased my business and inherited a leadership team. And most of those people are still with us today. And so there’s a long tenured team. You know, I have people on our team that have been with us 20 and 21 years. And combined with the new leadership that we’ve had to bring on as we grow and that combination of, you know, loyalty and commitment and tenure and then new energy and new ideas and you Know, Fresh, Fresh Faces has created a really, I think, unique and just sustainable culture.

   

• 0:09:16 Kris Murray: Love that. That’s very cool. I love that longevity with you purchasing it in 2017. So for the last eight years you’ve been in this business. Were you in early learning before this? And tell us more about the earlier journey.

   

• 0:09:31 Adrianne Agulla: No, I was not. I came from a business background and so prior to Hamilton Heights I had brand management experience. So I worked at Coca Cola and ConAgra Foods leading some of the consumer packaged good brands in those two companies and had my three children while I was in corporate life and the time pressures and lack of flexibility were too much for me and I didn’t have a good childcare arrangement. So this is a story I like to tell my team about. Had I discovered them, I probably would have had a different career in the corporate world.

   

• 0:10:13 Adrianne Agulla: But I always felt like I have one foot in my job and my brain is home and you’re never where you need to be at the time, you know, at the time. And so I stepped out of the workforce when my youngest was about one or so and did some part time things, some kind of gig work with some marketing programs near me and then had the opportunity to buy Hamilton Heights when my daughter was starting kindergarten.

   

• 0:10:45 Adrianne Agulla: And it had been founded by an expert in early learning with, you know, really sound curriculum and the staff that really knew everything about, about early learning and, and child development and all of that. I knew nothing about that. But what they didn’ have was the business foundation. And so I thought, well, maybe this, that’s something that I can offer and it’s something that our industry really needs as a whole and every, you know, every company inside of it. So that’s, that’s where the, the, the magic happened, I guess.

   

• 0:11:21 Kris Murray: Yeah. Yeah, that’s cool. I love that. I love, I think maybe I knew that you came from a corporate background, but I had forgotten and myself also coming from a corporate background, I think, you know, we have, we know what that feels like. Especially I had my first child when I was working in IT for what is now Oracle Corporation. So very high pressure, long hours and very difficult for new moms. So I definitely honor your journey and I love that you brought that brand expertise and that business expertise to Hamilton Heights. Very, very cool.

   

• 0:12:03 Kris Murray: Tell us more about your home life. You have three children. Tell us more about what goes on at the Agulla household.

   

• 0:12:10 Adrianne Agulla: Yeah, it’s different every day. Yeah, I have three children. The oldest is in college. He’s studying at University of Virginia and so he just got Home for the summer, last week, finished his first year there and the second is about to be a senior. Those are both boys. And then my daughter came along and she is going to be a freshman next year in high three. Busy teenagers. And you know, they, they, they’re pretty self sufficient though. They, they handle, handle their schedules and their lives. So I am finding that. I’m finding some more time for me as an individual in this stage of life, which is kind of cool.

   

• 0:12:48 Kris Murray: Yeah, that’s great. And what do you like to do in your spare time? What are your interests? Personal interests?

   

• 0:12:56 Adrianne Agulla: Yeah, that’s a good question.

   

• 0:12:59 Kris Murray: Or do you not have any time right now?

   

• 0:13:01 Adrianne Agulla: It’s a long standing debate in my house about whether beverages can count as a hobby or not.

   

• 0:13:07 Kris Murray: That’s funny.

   

• 0:13:07 Adrianne Agulla: And I don’t just mean alcoholic beverages. All the beverages.

   

• 0:13:10 Kris Murray: All the beverages. Yeah.

   

• 0:13:12 Adrianne Agulla: Because coffee is great. Yeah. So if that can’t count, I like to play pickleball. I play pickleball with some friends and with my husband and family a couple times a week. I love to be outside. I, you know, it’s like the simple things about just, you know, taking walks through the neighborhood, that sort of thing. We’ve lived in the same house for about 20 years and so we’ve, we’re pretty close with all of our neighbors. So just, you know, hanging out on the block, that kind of thing is nice. Yeah.

   

• 0:13:41 Kris Murray: Fun. What is a fun fact about you that not that many people know?

   

• 0:13:46 Adrianne Agulla: Ooh, this one is a tough one. Let’s see. I guess I can be kind of impulsive, I guess, and a lot of people might know that. But an example of this is I had a trip scheduled to Vietnam many years ago when I was in business school. And I, it sounded more fun to go out the night before than to get ready for the trip. And so I went on a two week trip to Vietnam with an empty suitcase and, and tried to purchase my outfits there because I had heard that it was a wonderful place to do that except that the people were half my size.

   

• 0:14:32 Kris Murray: And.

   

• 0:14:34 Adrianne Agulla: So I spent a lot of time that trip being told like, ma’ am, ma’ am, we have big sizes for you. And trying to come up with the wardrobe that would be appropriate for the meetings I had to have.

   

• 0:14:48 Kris Murray: And oh my goodness, that’s so funny because you’re not even that big of a human. So.

   

• 0:14:53 Adrianne Agulla: No, but comparatively. Comparatively, that’s awesome.

   

• 0:14:58 Kris Murray: Wow. I love that. I love knowing about your impulsive side and your adventurous side. That’s, that speaks to quite the adventurous one. So I love that. Very, very cool. So a lady after my own heart. Talk about how your business has changed and, you know, being in the childcare Success Academy and you’ve been with us for, I don’t know, five years. Four or five years?

   

• 0:15:21 Adrianne Agulla: Yeah. Yeah, I think five. Yep.

   

• 0:15:23 Kris Murray: And you’re in the highest level in the Empire membership. And so how has your business changed, you know, over the past five years since COVID But more importantly, things that you’ve implemented that have been game changers for you. Just talk a little bit about those big shifts.

   

• 0:15:43 Adrianne Agulla: Yeah, absolutely. So I think starting at the foundational level, because we started in, at the growth level and worked our way up, I, coming from outside of the industry, did not know what I didn’t know. You know, I just, I, I knew from my background that it was very important to have KPIs and I knew that I needed to be, you know, understand the data and make data driven decisions. What I didn’t know is where to find that data, what, what metrics were important, you know, like how I should be measuring this business.

   

• 0:16:19 Adrianne Agulla: None of that. And it took me a lot of time to figure that out and I, the Academy helped with that a lot. Just the fundamentals of, you know, here’s, here’s what it takes to be successful in this industry. These are some of the benchmarks. This is the focus you should, you know, you should be having that, that kind of thing. And so that was game changing. That was like level one game changing. Then the second thing was I knew that when I started this that I wanted to grow.

   

• 0:16:50 Adrianne Agulla: And I find the growth, the, the motivate, like a very motivating part of the job. Operating is less fun for me. And so I right away knew, like, I want, I want to build this business. I want to grow, I want to grow. And that is a nice idea. But if you don’t have that foundation set, you’re in for a wild ride. And in some cases that was our story. We definitely had bumps along the way because of that just not having.

   

• 0:17:24 Adrianne Agulla: I think it’s really difficult to have the foundation perfectly built, but there were things that looking backwards would have been helpful. But so the second part of our journey in the Academy has been all about that, all about growing. Last year, in early 2024, we went from four to six centers in two months. So I had a new build, a new construction that I had been working on for four years. And it just so happened to finish at the exact same time, basically that a remodeled building that we were working on was finishing. And so it’s like, well, we have no choice but to open these two buildings literally on top of each other back to back. And so over the course of, you know, three months, we went from having 535 spots in our program to 935. You know, it was literally almost, almost doubling.

   

• 0:18:12 Adrianne Agulla: And that taught us all the places that we had weak spots. You know, like, there’s. There’s no better way to kind of pressure test than that. And so we’ve been having this really, I think it’s in a lot of ways, really fun exercise of working backwards again, you know, going back to, okay, we had all of these things figured out for the size of company we were, but those don’t work anymore. And now we need.

   

• 0:18:40 Adrianne Agulla: Because all of those things depended on me sitting in that seat or, you know, somebody else sitting. And. And now I need to operate at a higher level, and so everybody else needs to operate at a higher level, and we need to have more people that, that can help with some of these support things and that and that sort of thing. So that’s been a really good exercise. And the people in the Empire room, like in my pod and all of that have been invaluable in that way. You know, just anytime someone tells me they, you know, it’s like they have a business that’s slightly bigger than mine, I’m like, okay, I’m all ears. Right, Right.

   

• 0:19:17 Adrianne Agulla: Tell me how you’re set up, because I need to figure that, you know, I need to. I need to emulate that. I need to take what you’ve done or where you were three years ago and copy it for myself right now.

   

• 0:19:27 Kris Murray: Yes. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. And that’s the value of being in the academy and being in the room, in the right sized room, but also being in a room with bigger players than you, if you want to grow, is that you get those, that secret sauce, those best practices which will hopefully help you avoid some pain in your growth, in your growth journey. But speaking of pain, when you went from, you know, when you doubled your capacity and you added those two schools on top of each other, is there anything that comes. Rises to the surface with what you would have done differently?

   

• 0:20:00 Kris Murray: When you look back and you could go back in a magic time machine, what comes to mind in terms of things, one or two things you might have definitely done differently?

   

• 0:20:09 Adrianne Agulla: Yeah, that’s an excellent question. I think that having more control over the timeline would have helped a lot, and I don’t know if that’s even possible right but if I get to sketch this out according to my dreams and wishes, then yeah, I would have known an opening day six months ahead of time so that I could have implemented some of the practices of, you know, the pre opening enrollment type, enrollment building and that kind of thing.

   

• 0:20:40 Adrianne Agulla: We had the opposite situation where we kept thinking we were going to open and then we were delaying and delaying and delaying and so we got pretty scared to make commitments to families. And so we started essentially from zero when we did open the door. Not totally, but mostly. And so that would be one is, you know, figuring out how to take advantage of that lead up time to do the enrollment building because obviously it’s way easier to open your doors with, you know, 40% full than 10% full.

   

• 0:21:14 Kris Murray: Right.

   

• 0:21:16 Adrianne Agulla: And then the other thing is, I think just. And I don’t think we can do this enough at any stage of the organization. But just leadership development and spending more time on that, when I had more time to focus on it would have been a good idea. You know, I. It’s almost like, you know, when you have, you have two kids and you have a third or something where it’s like all of a sudden your time is so limited and you wish you would have spent more one on one time with the other two while you had it. And I do feel like that. And it’s not so much that there were consequences to not. It’s just I really enjoy the people on my team and I wish that I had more time to spend working with them on their professional development and their goals and all of that. So that’s one, one kind of thing I didn’t realize was going to happen is that I was going to get pulled out to the extent that, that I have of the day to day.

   

• 0:22:11 Kris Murray: Talk a little bit more about the structure of your leadership team. How many people are on your leadership team and are you. I’m assuming you’re the CEO role and, or the visionary role. I mean, so just talk a little bit more about the team itself, how it works together. How often do you guys meet? How have you kind of evolved that structure?

   

• 0:22:35 Adrianne Agulla: Yeah, yeah. So yes, I sit in the visionary role. I also currently sit in the integrator role, which I know is an EOS kind of. No, no, but it’s by design for right now. My husband just joined our business in January, so he also has had a separate corporate career up until January and left that job and it was between retirement or work full time with me and I won, so that was good. So I have some help in that role. But so we basically split most of the executive functions.

   

• 0:23:17 Adrianne Agulla: So he’s responsible for facilities, technology, marketing, and enrollment. And I’m responsible for operations, HR and finance. And then within operations, we have two regional directors and each of them is responsible for three schools. We have divided those regions based on their business needs. So the three original that I purchased are in one region because those would be our stabilized centers, essentially.

   

• 0:23:48 Adrianne Agulla: And then the three, the two that we added in 2024 are in a region along with one that we added in 2020, not because it’s full, but we added 30 school age spots in that building at the same time that the other two opened. So basically those were enrollment building schools. And so those are in one region so that the regional directors have different priorities and different focus areas based on the needs of those schools.

   

• 0:24:16 Adrianne Agulla: And then each center has a director and an assistant director and. Yeah, and then essentially we, we rely externally for all of the support that we need outside of that. So you know, I have, you know, three VAs and some marketing agency. You know, we, we. Right, we outsource the rest.

   

• 0:24:38 Kris Murray: Right, right. The hr, the marketing and financial stuff.

   

• 0:24:45 Adrianne Agulla: Yeah, I’m doing most of the financial stuff, but with the help of a va.

   

• 0:24:48 Kris Murray: Uh huh. Okay, cool. So you mentioned being Data driven and KPIs. So talk to me more about your evolution of having a leadership scorecard or KPIs. And what are some challenges that you faced in trying to become data driven or do you feel like you’re still on the journey to get there? Is it. You know, I mean, it’s always evolving. Right, but just talk a little bit about how you collect data or how you review it. Like how often are you looking at your numbers or your scorecard? That kind of a thing.

   

• 0:25:28 Adrianne Agulla: Yeah, yeah, that’s. So we have a weekly scorecard that gets populated every Monday by one of our virtual assistants. And then we review it as an executive team on Tuesday in our, what we would call executive L10. That scorecard has essentially total company metrics and then similar metrics, if not the same ones, by center, first by region and then by center so that you can kind of see how it builds to the total.

   

• 0:26:02 Adrianne Agulla: We then review it with directors and a director L10 on Thursday. So that’s the kind of the scorecard that has the really what we would consider to be the most important metric. So what’s our utilization? You know, our fte, basically. What’s our payroll hours per fte? What’s our accounts receivable? You know, just the Key drivers of the business. And then where we’re still working, where I think that we can still take this, we just this year implemented a.

   

• 0:26:38 Adrianne Agulla: A center health dashboard. So we can evaluate basically across centers, where are we healthy and where are we still needing work? And that’s been an area of growth because what we have tried to do is build the mindset with our core values and all of this, that we’re never there. Right. Like, we are never going to look at this and think we’re done. Like, we did this. It’s perfect. No more necessary.

   

• 0:27:09 Adrianne Agulla: And so having that attitude of continuous improvement requires you to be critical with yourself from time to time. And so we’re trying to build the culture of. Just because your center health dashboard might say that you are red in this area doesn’t mean that your performance, you as an individual director, that your performance is bad. What it means is that you need our help and company resources to put on that. Because we also share the common goal of having healthy centers. Right, Right.

   

• 0:27:42 Adrianne Agulla: And so that’s been an adjustment because in. In cultures where there’s not enough data, the data that’s provided becomes judgment. Right. It becomes people use it as a way to measure their performance. And it can be a way to measure your performance, but it doesn’t have to be. It can be just a fact.

   

• 0:28:05 Kris Murray: Right.

   

• 0:28:05 Adrianne Agulla: It can be like, this is just the way it is and we need to work on it. Right. And so that’s, I think part of the underlying journey with all of it is how to get to the point where we’re willing to honestly and accurately assess ourselves where we are and then commit to improving.

   

• 0:28:24 Kris Murray: Awesome. I’m curious about your VAs, because I love that you have your scorecard published, populated every Monday by a VA. You said you have three VAs, so what come. What company are you using? The same company for all three? Okay.

   

• 0:28:38 Adrianne Agulla: No, no. Yeah.

   

• 0:28:40 Kris Murray: Because I don’t know anybody using that many. And so you’re using them in areas of. It sounds like pretty cool focus. So just talk more about how you’re using them.

   

• 0:28:49 Adrianne Agulla: Yeah. So one of them backs up our enrollment specialist. So she’s the person that would answer the phone if the enrollment specialist is in a meeting. She does a lot of our IntelliKids data entry, the communication between directors and IntelliKids and leads about tour. You know, just all of that. She’s. She’s enrollment focused. The other. So then the second one is essentially what I would consider to be like my finance and HR administrator.

   

• 0:29:20 Adrianne Agulla: So she processes payroll, she does our New employee setup. She does our credit card reconciliations, our bank statement reconciliations, our. Basically gets to the point of preparing our financial statements for us. And both of those two I hired directly through online jobs. Ph. And then just this year, earlier this year, I felt the need for an executive assistant. So somebody that really isn’t that focused on the work necessarily, but just helps me create more time in my day and prioritize and things like that.

   

• 0:30:02 Adrianne Agulla: And that was, I think, at some. Coming from the advice of some Empire friends. And the problem with it is I had no idea how to do it. And so I felt like if I went to onlinejobs, ph, I was gonna end up with someone that I would have to teach how to do this. And I didn’t know. And so I went to an agency for that because the agents. So I went to Athena, and their promise, essentially, is that they train people to be EAs, and so the EA comes to you knowing how to be an EA, and then they walk you through how to work with them, which has been helpful because on my own, I would have really struggled to delegate things like my email and my calendar.

   

• 0:30:48 Kris Murray: Yes. Cool.

   

• 0:30:50 Adrianne Agulla: And that’s game changing. Not being the first person in your email. Highly recommend. Yeah.

   

• 0:30:57 Kris Murray: Yes. Yeah. It’s so freeing, right?

   

• 0:30:59 Adrianne Agulla: Yeah, absolutely.

   

• 0:31:01 Kris Murray: That’s great. That’s great. I’m really psyched for you. This is awesome. Let’s talk a little bit about your staff and just what you see in the culture of hiring early educators, teachers, and support people, and maybe for your catering company too, hiring people to actually do all of the work that needs to be done and then keeping them in a culture that you want to foster with core values and have it be a positive, engaging culture.

   

• 0:31:39 Kris Murray: How hard has that been? Over the last five years? Have you seen shifts in, like, super hard post Covid. And now it seems to be easier to hire and retain employees, or is it still really hard? Just talk about what you’re experiencing in Omaha.

   

• 0:31:54 Adrianne Agulla: Yeah. So definitely super hard post Covid. I think that was a universal experience. And even until I would say 18 months ago, we would have still said super hard. I think on our scorecard, one of the metrics we track is open positions. And at one point in early 2024, I think we had 14 open positions across what was maybe a hundred position. You know, we were 160 at that point. And so we had 15% of our, you know, our teaching positions open, open.

   

• 0:32:27 Adrianne Agulla: And that has improved. I think on our scorecard this week, we have six and a half and that’s out of 160. So, but it’s still, it’s still an issue. And I think that this isn’t going away, right? We, and we are, we need to be thinking about this constantly is how as an industry do we make ourselves attractive to people that haven’t, haven’t considered it, right? Like that, that could go do something else, that maybe be thinking about going and doing something else.

   

• 0:33:03 Adrianne Agulla: But they just don’t know, they don’t know how much fun they could have and they don’t know what a rewarding career it could be. And they, you know, they don’t know that every single day they get to pick what, what they, how they spend their time because they’re in charge of that classroom, you know, and you know, some of the, some of the benefits that, that come along with, with working in this industry and I don’t, I think that, you know, there’s a lot of great advocacy efforts in our industry, but I think one of the things that’s not doing us a lot of service is the constant negative talk about staff in this industry, you know, and how they aren’t well paid and you know, it’s a struggle to make a living wage and it just, just all of the, just negative talk really. And that’s a perception that’s not necessarily reality everywhere.

   

• 0:33:54 Adrianne Agulla: And we’re, we’re, we’ve made it become the story. And so I think that’s part of what we fight too, right? Is that this isn’t, it’s becoming a career that people won’t consider because of some of those preconceptions, right? So in our company, in our company, we’re trying to stay very focused on what we have, a leadership vision that is, we are working to create an early learning company that inspires because of the opportunity it creates for staff, families and children.

   

• 0:34:29 Adrianne Agulla: And so we are just trying to be single mindedly focused on what it means, what that means, what does it mean to create abundant opportunities for our staff from a professional development standpoint, from a wage standpoint, from a benefit standpoint. And if we can’t do it now, what’s the path, right? Like what’s the path to where we can offer those things? And in my opinion, it’s possible. It just requires running this business like it’s a business and making some hard choices when it’s time to make hard choices and finding efficiencies and you know, standardizing things where there’s benefits to standardizing, you know, just do it, doing all of those things.

   

• 0:35:12 Adrianne Agulla: So that you can put your resources in places where it does make a difference, which is for your staff.

   

• 0:35:17 Kris Murray: Yes, 100%. I think that that’s a strategy that a lot of childcare centers that are owned by private individuals who have scaled from 1 to 3 to 5 to 10. Wherever you are in that journey, it’s been a real struggle because looking for those efficiencies and then not having the economies of scale, if you’re sitting at two centers versus if you have six and almost a thousand children that you’re serving, you have that economy of scale.

   

• 0:35:50 Kris Murray: And like the VAs is a perfect example, you figured out how to plug in three. Inexpensive. Well, two are definitely inexpensive. Filipino, eight VAs. And get that efficiency and that cost effectiveness so that you can put your money where it’s really going to be a driving engine for the high quality company that you are and for staff retention and for doing things that are going to keep your team with you long term and running it like a business running it by the KPIs being data driven.

   

• 0:36:27 Kris Murray: But a lot of that does not come naturally to a lot of early learning owners, which is why we exist, right? That’s why the podcast really exists and why the academy exists. But I just think, yeah, I think it’s cool just to bring it back to that because there’s a lot of people, owners that are struggling right now. And so some of the things you’re sharing as best practices are amazing and should be implemented.

   

• 0:36:54 Adrianne Agulla: You know, the other thing on this, on this topic that I would encourage any owner to think about is that the metrics you use to measure this. So we, for a long time, you know, we use bamboohr and so there’s a lot of metrics out there for, you know, your staff, staffing and retention and all of that. And the turnover metric is, is one that everybody likes to talk, to, talk about. But turnover in this industry is so high.

   

• 0:37:19 Adrianne Agulla: And what we were noticing, and I’m sure this isn’t going to surprise anybody, is we were just turning over the same five positions 20 times in the year, giving us 100% turnover, when in fact what we should be looking at is retention. And so now we, we start the year with a list of our employees and we’re trying to make sure that 85% or 80% of those employees are on that list at the end of the year.

   

• 0:37:46 Adrianne Agulla: And that’s a much more, I feel like, action oriented way to look at this, right? Like when you’re a director and you’re looking at your list of team, you think, okay, what can I do to try to make that person stay this year? Right. Instead of just. Just looking at this 111 turnover and you’re, you know, we. You’re never going to get the person that’s there 15 minutes and decides it’s not for them. That’s a. That’s a much harder thing to change.

   

• 0:38:14 Kris Murray: Right. Yeah. No, that’s a great perspective. I love that. Because really, retention is the opposite side of the coin of turnover. But when you frame it like that, it actually is looking at the business completely differently. So I love that. That’s like a different lens.

   

• 0:38:31 Adrianne Agulla: Right, right. So that lets you think, like, it lets it. It doesn’t make you feel like a victim, you know, you feel like, I can do something about this.

   

• 0:38:37 Kris Murray: Yes, for sure. For sure. No, I love that. That’s a. That’s a huge writer downer. So with all of that, where are you headed for the remainder of 2025 and into 2026? What’s on your goal sheet or what’s. What’s exciting you? Maybe something personal that you’re going to do or just anything. And I also want to give a shout out to your hubby, because coming into a business where it’s driven by a powerhouse wife and then leaving his corporate job and he’s going, should I retire or should I go work with Adrian? So I have to give him some props.

   

• 0:39:14 Kris Murray: And that’s been. It’s only been five months in, so we’ll talk another time when we have more time about how that’s going for you.

   

• 0:39:21 Adrianne Agulla: But when he’s out of his probationary period.

   

• 0:39:23 Kris Murray: Yes, exactly.

   

• 0:39:27 Adrianne Agulla: Yeah. No, he does deserve a lot of credit. It’s a big change to make, for sure. And I am so appreciative. Like, honestly, like, everybody asked me, like, how’s it going? And I’m like, I honestly, I am just so grateful. Like, I am so grateful to have his help. So. Yeah, that’s awesome. It’s good. Yeah. So looking forward, our 2025 for us is all about simplification. You know, we kind of bolted on a bunch of things in 2024. And like I mentioned, in 2025, we’re kind of relooking at all of it and thinking, how do we streamline this? How do we make it simpler? How do we just make it make sense?

   

• 0:40:01 Adrianne Agulla: So that’s. That’s what we’re doing. We’re taking a look at all of our processes. Is there anything we want to change with this? Is there anything we could take out. Is there any technology that could help us that, that sort of thing? And I think that that’s what’s. What’s going to the. The focus of 2025 is going to be in 2026. We might start to look at, you know, we have one center in Lincoln and it would maybe make sense for us to, to build a region there. We, we have. Our other five are kind of benefit from proximity and that’s an hour away. And so that, that might be a 2026 priority is to, to create, to develop that out a little bit.

   

• 0:40:40 Adrianne Agulla: But one thing at a time. That’s. That is one thing that I feel like I have some perspective on now that I didn’t before is that while growth might be fun, it is not easy and shouldn’t be, shouldn’t be the end game.

   

• 0:40:53 Kris Murray: So yeah, one question about your catering company. When did you start that? Was that like a let’s bolt this on for efficiency and also to try to make the whole enterprise more profitable or what was the strategy? Or do you just love food? Just talk more about that.

   

• 0:41:08 Adrianne Agulla: Yeah, it’s a good question. So the, I bought our, the catering company that was serving our centers. I approached them in 2022 because I have a passion for childhood nutrition. First of all, I think that it’s really important and I think that it’s becoming a more important part of what our parents are looking for in our program. And frankly, I thought we had an opportunity. I thought that it was an area where we needed to make some improvements.

   

• 0:41:39 Adrianne Agulla: But at that time, coming out of 2021 and into 2022, the cost environment was such that it was really impossible to say I want to offer better nutrition because the food costs were, you know, at the same time escalating so quickly that we had to come up with a creative way to do it. And so that was when I approached them. I thought, well, maybe if I can control the value chain, you know, from start to finish here, I can accomplish this objective without adding a ton of cost to it.

   

• 0:42:09 Kris Murray: Right.

   

• 0:42:10 Adrianne Agulla: So that was what prompted that. I also think that, and I still think that there’s just so much opportunity there and that gets. Gets my, you know, entrepreneurial spirit a little jazzed up. But like for example, we just started in one of our locations testing the idea of take home meals to, for parents to pick up at the end of the day. So, you know, come pick up your kid and you can also add on some a tray of beef enchiladas to bring home with you. That kind of thing.

   

• 0:42:37 Kris Murray: Right.

   

• 0:42:39 Adrianne Agulla: So, yeah, it’s been good. The other thing that the kitchen is doing that I really didn’t anticipate it to play such a big role in, but they’re leading a lot of our community engagement efforts. So things like, you know, when you talk about enrollment boot camp, like muffin runs, you know, my kitchen is making these elaborate gift boxes for some of our partner businesses that we want to build relationships with.

   

• 0:43:03 Adrianne Agulla: And, you know, they just, like for May 4th, for Star wars day, they just put these boxes together that had wookie cookies and lightsaber pretzels and, you know, just all these amazing things. And then my directors can go out and give those out to their, you know, their neighbors and try to try to build those relationships. Relationships in a creative and fun way. And, yeah, it’s been. It’s been good.

   

• 0:43:23 Kris Murray: That’s great marketing. I love that. That’s fantastic. Very, very cool. Well, Adrianne, you are the true definition of an education entrepreneur, and I’m really happy to have you here on the podcast.

   

• 0:43:38 Adrianne Agulla: Thank you. And thank you for everything that your team has done for us over the years. We really have benefited from our. From our relationship, so you’re welcome.

   

• 0:43:48 Kris Murray: Yeah, it’s very inspiring, everything that you’re doing and your growth and looking forward to seeing more as you continue your journey. So very, very cool. Thank you so much for being here. And any other final thoughts to share? I guess give your website and so people can go and check you out and any social handles or anything else you want to give or how people can find you.

   

• 0:44:11 Adrianne Agulla: Absolutely. We are at www.hamiltonheightscdc as in child development center.com and on Facebook just as Hamilton Heights Child Development Center. So, yeah, we would love to connect with. With anybody. Cool.

   

• 0:44:26 Kris Murray: Well, thank you so much, Adrianne Agulla. Yeah, this has been awesome. And thanks everybody for tuning in to another amazing episode. Take care, everybody, and God bless, and we’ll see you next time. Bye. Bye. I hope you liked this episode of child Care Rockstar Radio. If you did, please leave a review and share it with someone you know to help spread the word to friends in our industry and on social media.

   

• 0:44:54 Kris Murray: Child care business success is my passion, and I’m honored to be on this journey with you. As a thank you for listening, I’ve got a new video training that shows you how to add six figures or more of new revenue to your program in the next 60 days by improving your hiring and your enrollment systems. To watch my new video, just go to www.fixmyschool.com. that’s fixmyschool.com thanks. Take care and God bless.