Before I met Austin Marlow, I knew nothing about the hard work and business strategy that goes into operating a deck and fence staining business. To be completely honest, I didn’t even know that it could be a business. But Marlow, a sophomore psychology major from Mount Juliet, Tennessee, has been successfully running Eagle Staining for a few years now.
Working long hours in the beating sun, hauling heavy cans of stain and endlessly sanding decks is the last place that many people might imagine a psychology student would be, but Marlow feels as though his classes here at Union are equipping him to run his staining business effectively. He may get his hands sticky and dirty while working outdoors, but really, he’s in the people business.
“I like being able to relate to people,” Marlow said. “I think a lot of business is just having relationships with people. That’s what most of my business is.”
Learning about people through Union University’s psychology program has helped him to be able to put himself in others’ shoes and build connections with his clients.
“The best part is being able to see the expression on people’s faces when they had this nasty old deck or fence, and then all of a sudden it looks brand new and they’re just blown away,” Marlow said. “That’s one of the things that kinda keeps me going when I’m working on these projects.”
To Marlow, there is something truly beautiful about restoring old things to their former glory so people can enjoy them once again.
When I asked him what initially inspired him to build this (rather niche) business, his story began like most other earnest small business stories: a supportive dad. Marlow’s father was the one who encouraged him to try staining fences for the first time and instilled in him the values of hard work and delayed gratification. These values have become ingrained in everything that Marlow says and does.
“I think I’ve just always been an entrepreneur at heart,” Marlow said. “I don’t have the freedom anymore to just sit down after classes and play video games or to go out and hang out with friends. I need to prioritize my business.”
Truly a difficult sacrifice for any college student.
“It’s worth it, though,” Marlow added.
Time management is not the only challenge that Marlow faces as a student entrepreneur, however. He is also in charge of managing a team of high school and college-aged employees who help him on the worksite. I asked him all about the unique dynamic of being the boss of employees who are around the same age as he is. He gave me an honest answer:
“At the beginning, I kinda got pushed around a bit. You have to have some hard conversations sometimes,” Marlow said. “You can go out and be friends afterwards, but make sure that they know you’re the boss on the work site.”
For Marlow, being in the people business extends past just connecting with clients — it also means building relationships with the people who work for him.
“Treat them how you would want to be treated. It’s pretty much as simple as that.”
Whenever he spoke about his employees, it was obvious how much care and respect he has for them. Passing on the lesson of work ethic and delayed gratification to those young men is just as important to Marlow as picking out the right color of stain.
While Marlow is teaching his employees skills and life lessons, he is also learning them throughout his small business journey. According to him, the biggest lesson is to “just jump in and do it.”
“Jump in the deep end, even if you don’t know how to swim,” Marlow said. “You just have to fail forward.”
Running a small business and managing employees can be difficult enough, but with the additional stress of a full-time academic schedule and the hardship of manual labor, it can become overwhelming. Business ownership requires sacrifice. It is a give-and-take relationship, but Marlow would not have it any other way.
“Hard work pays off. It really does,” Marlow said. “It’s rewarding work just to have a business and then provide something that somebody else needs.”
This is the true mission of Eagle Staining, and by extension, Austin Marlow himself.
To all of the aspiring small business owners out there, just follow Marlow’s advice: jump in and work hard.
Be the first to comment