It’s hard for me to imagine anything slowing Beth Scanlon down. As president of Scanlon Excavating and Concrete, the Illinois-based heavy construction company she co-founded with her husband, Chris, in 2010, she charges full speed ahead in a field where just 11% of the workforce are women. Before this, she ran her own concrete company while working full-time for a homebuilder. And now, she and Chris raise beef cattle and grow soybeans and corn on their farms (yes, plural!), while also expanding a group of rental properties into a residential subdivision, and not in the least, raising three kids. At our 2021 Birthing of Giants Fellowship Program, she was a straight shooter with an infectious sense of humor.
“People will say to me something like, ‘Oh my gosh, how do you do it all?’ she says with a laugh. “And it’s like, ‘That’s a joke. I don’t do it all.’ I have regrets about business. I have regrets about my family. Nothing is what it seems on the surface.”
And 2023 is turning out to be a doozie. In January, she was on her way out the door to an industry conference when her 6-year-old daughter Adeline suffered a seizure and was diagnosed with epilepsy. (Adeline is now doing well with treatment.) The next month, Beth shattered her ankle and required surgery to insert 24 screws and three plates.
When I interviewed Beth for our latest How I Did It case study, she shared with me a few ways she handles crises both large and small:
1. Turn it around. Sometimes, you just have to buckle up and get things done, which Beth recognizes as an opportunity. After she closed her original concrete business due to the financial crisis in 2008, she found herself with a ton of bills to pay and no money coming in. “So I had to negotiate payment plans with suppliers, unions, banks, and learn to file mechanic’s liens, etc. for the first time—which is where I learned some of the most difficult lessons of my life thus far!” When she joined an underground pipe crew at 17, she recalls, the rest of the crew was, to say the least, unwelcoming. Her response? Start her own company. “My motivation came from seeing how old-school this business is and the unwillingness to teach new people anything,” she says.
2. Set priorities. Beth and Chris typically put business first until their daughter’s illness and Beth’s injury forced them to reassess. While work remains key to their sense of purpose, they now take the time to step back and enjoy life outside of work. Entrepreneurs may feel as though they have to dedicate 100% of their energy to their business, but it’s important to realize that this energy has to be replenished with family, free time, and healthy activity.
3. Carve out time for yourself. While Beth chuckles at the idea of any boundary between work and home life, she does set some time aside in her day to reset. “Routine saves me from a lot of issues,” she explains. “I like to control my ‘bookends,’ the beginning of my day and the end of my day.” She gets up early enough to take some time before getting the kids out of bed, “so that when I get to work, I’m not worried. I’ve already set things in motion at the house to make the night go easier. But it’s taken me years to even get to that point.”
4. Accept help. Delegating can be tough for an entrepreneur, and relying on people after an injury like Scanlon’s is often even tougher. But if you’ve built a relationship of trust with your employees, they will reward you by taking on responsibilities as needed. Ditto, by the way, for loved ones.
5. Keep finding purpose as an entrepreneur. “I turned 40 last year, and I don’t know if that triggers something in your head that says, ‘OK, I’m actually looking forward to doing more stuff that I personally want to do with the same sense of purpose I had when I started the business,’” she says. “There was so much purpose in building this excavating company as a woman owner and bringing other women up. Now it’s about finding that new purpose to keep me energized.”
Curious to know how Beth built a leading construction company from the ground up? Watch my video interview and hear her tell her story by signing up for How I Did It, a new program from Birthing of Giants that provides free step-by-step explainer videos from fast-growth entrepreneurs.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lewis Schiff is the Chairman of the Board of Experts for Birthing of Giants and the Executive Director for Moonshots & Moneymakers. He is the author of several books on success and a columnist for Forbes and Worth Magazines.
