I socialize every idea among my entrepreneurial community, along with family and friends. I soak in all of the dialogue and make decisions to forge ahead or to stew on it longer to make it more feasible.
Grace Keller’s experience in the financial arena spans over a decade with a background comprising in areas of financial modeling, profit and loss, pricing strategies, budgets, and ad hoc projects. Her expertise has benefited household-name corporations such as Daimler Chrysler, Kellogg, Bosch, and Sears, among others. In addition, she boasts an extensive background in business analysis, long-range strategic planning, and working cross-functionally to balance strategic and financial goals.
After years in the corporate work, Keller is taking her skills and knowledge to a new industry by launching a personal/business concierge service. Her company, SAVING Grace, stemmed from Keller’s own history and wisdom gained from being a caretaker to both of her parents, all while working fulltime. Keller is blending her first-hand experiences by creating a vision that supports everyone from working professionals, people on short-term disability, new moms, parents, the disabled and caregivers who need a little break. Hindsight learning as a caretaker combined with a successful career in finances makes for the perfect ingredients allowing Keller to aide others who are on their own journey.
Keller earned her Bachelor of Science in Finance from DePaul University, and her Master of Science, Business Information Technology degree through a dual program with Kellstadt Graduate School of Business and Information Technology at DePaul University.
Where did the idea for SAVING Grace come from?
The idea of having a company supporting individuals and their household was rooted from personal experience of having to balance multiple household roles (corporate, caregiver, wife and mom).
What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?
Everyday is different, but there is one thing that is common everyday: a task list. One day my task list can be administrative, to being at a client’s house doing home management tasks or assisting an expat settle in Chicago.
How do you bring ideas to life?
I socialize every idea among my entrepreneurial community, along with family and friends. I soak in all of the dialogue and make decisions to forge ahead or to stew on it longer to make it more feasible.
What’s one trend that really excites you?
Celebrations! It is never going away and everyone has at least one celebration they share with themselves or with a large group everyday.
I love to plan these type of events for clients but the most exciting part is to be able to bring a vision to life.
What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?
I am known to be a task master, therefore, I live off of spreadsheets to keep things orderly.
What was the worst job you ever had and what did you learn from it?
As I was on my corporate jaunt, there were times were I was in jobs where I felt limited and under utilized. I learned to speak up in a way that was productive and beneficial for both parties. This led to a path of closing the gap and opening up opportunities for leadership roles.
If you were to start again, what would you do differently?
I am where I am today due to trips and falls. I have no regrets and would not change a single thing.
As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?
I have learned to download all of my thoughts into a notepad. There is an element that comes to seeing your thoughts and ideas transpire into written words. With this list, I continue to define each of them and refine the ones that may require some time in the oven to cook longer.
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business? Please explain how.
I am an overly cautious person and try to analyze every angle before executing. I believe that this has been beneficial in the way that execution is always done in the leanest manner. Meaning, I may have two great ideas but will manage each of them individually. I always like to test and learn because executing multiple ideas at the same time can be difficult to get a good handle on what truly did or did not work.
What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?
One of my biggest challenges was when I tried to search my company on the web; it was buried in multiple pages. I had not invested in managing the presence of my business on the web. I began putting resources into it and in just a few months our website can now be found at the top of the first page listing.
What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?
Every dollar spent is the most humbling as an entrepreneur because I can associate the hard work behind it.
What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?
The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt is one I highly recommend. It helps readers put into perspective “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link;” and focuses on bottlenecks, the great hindrances to productivity.
What people have influenced your thinking and might be of interest to others?
At a young age, my mother was the one who told me that I would be a CEO one day. As a 10 year old, you don’t know what to make of it really or understand what that means. She saw the fire in me before I even did. She has become my fuel.
I also think Richard Branson has been highly influential. His thought of measuring success is through the metric of how happy you are and not the very things that money can buy.
Connect:
Grace Keller on Instagram: @gracekellerchi
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Mario Schulzke is the Founder of ideamensch, which he started a decade ago to learn from entrepreneurs and give them a platform for their ideas.