From Hospital Hallways to Helping Homeowners: Karie Lerch on Building a Family-Handyman Business

In Episode 72 of Spilling the Title Tea, Ashley sits down with Karie Lerch, co-owner of Building Maintenance Specialists of Kentucky, to talk about how she and her husband Mike made the leap from a stable hospital job into entrepreneurship during the COVID era. Karie shares how faith, family, and community connections helped their business take off, why working with their kids has become a generational blessing, and the wide range of “one call, all solutions” projects their team can tackle from flooring and drywall to plumbing, electrical repairs, and remodel work. They also discuss the real weight (and reward) of business ownership, future plans to grow the team, and encouragement for anyone thinking about starting a business later in life.

Highlights:

Karie explains how Mike left his hospital job after years of commuting and dealing with bureaucracy to start their own business.
How the COVID era pushed many families to rethink “normal life” and take bold steps toward entrepreneurship.
The biggest benefits of business ownership for their family: no commute and the freedom to control their schedule.
Why Building Maintenance Specialists has become a true family business, multiple kids have helped on jobs over time.
The vision of passing the business down as a generational legacy, potentially with their son stepping into ownership.
How homeschooling and hands-on work taught their kids practical skills, strong work ethic, and employability.
The range of services Mike can handle: masonry, flooring, drywall repair, painting, bathroom remodels, tile, plumbing, and electrical repairs.
Their “one call, all solutions” mindset if Mike doesn’t know how to do something, he’ll learn it and figure it out.
Mike’s favorite part of the work: serving senior citizens and widows who need help the most.
Karie’s advice to aspiring business owners: jump now, expect hard days, lean on community support (like BNI), and avoid future regret by trying.