Carmen Sample’s rise to running an enterprise of companies and properties worth USD48 million was not exactly conventional. Nor was it exactly planned. Sample Supports was born out of necessity and from a lifelong desire and interest to support those who need it most.
Sample’s calling to help people stems from the example her parents set.
“From Vietnam vets to single moms to convicted criminals who recently got out of prison, my parents would open our doors and home to people my mom met and sponsored in Alcoholics Anonymous. I watched them provide stability and comfort to people in need,” she explains. “I think because of that I was more sensitive to struggles people were going through.”
And that desire to help deepened with age. In middle school, Sample received a humanitarian award for starting a social circle for students with disabilities. In college, Sample worked in group homes for teens in foster care and people with serious cognitive disabilities. After she married, she and her husband became a host home for a woman with fetal alcohol syndrome.
But Sample knew she could do more.
So, the licensed therapist went back to school and earned a master’s degree in social work, becoming a licensed clinical social worker. In 2010, she started Sample Supports around a philosophy of supporting the whole person, not just the disability. What began with 24/7 residential care grew into an integrated organization offering behavioral and mental health services, day programs, employment support and more. Today, the Colorado-based organization employs more than 400 people and provides constant services to more than 600 individuals.
Serving is her priority
Even though Sample Supports has grown exponentially over the past 16 years, Sample’s driving mission has remained the same: “We’re going to do whatever it takes to support people with disabilities in our community.”
This was evident from Day 1 when Sample Supports was only in the business of residential care. Within weeks of accepting one of her first clients, Sample received a call saying the young man’s day program, where he spent his days learning skills and socializing with others, was dropping him.
“He’s too hard, we can’t do it,” program administrators told her. The decision left the young man, who had a history of behavioral challenges, with nowhere to go during the day, putting his residential placement at risk. Instead of searching for a new day provider, Sample got approval from the state to add a day program to Sample Supports and hired a team, all within a matter of days.
— Carmen Sample, Founder of Sample Supports share
Word spread. Families who had been turned away elsewhere began coming, and the company experienced many years of rapid growth.
Sample admits it’s challenging to accommodate clients with extreme needs. “That is what we do,” she says. “Whether it is aggression, mental health needs or concerning behaviors, we find a way to make it work.”
Shifting from social worker to CEO
As Sample, a YPO member since 2017, scaled her business, she had to make the transition from full-time social worker to full-time CEO, redirecting her focus so her company could grow and serve more people in her community.
“My mindset really had to shift into being, ‘I’m no longer working with the individuals. All I do is find good social workers, support that talent and train them to be business leaders,” Sample says.
CEO Sample uses her social work training to build a culture based on systems, supports and relationships. That has helped Sample Supports buck the industry’s 60% average turnover rate.
She has also embraced female leaders, but not intentionally. “I just hired the most capable people for the job, and often they were women,” she explains.
All in the family
Both of Samples’ parents were entrepreneurs.
“I watched them work together to build businesses from the ground up and make hard decisions,” Sample says. “They never complained about a boss because they never had one. I’m glad my kids will have that memory of me, too.”
Sample Supports is her flagship business, but she owns others: a collection of jewelry stores, Crystal Joys; Bross Street Assisted Living; Happy Vacation Homes; Sample Therapy Services; and Riversong Inn Retreat, a bed and breakfast in Estes Park, Colorado, USA. The businesses offer employment opportunities to her Sample Supports clients, as well as incentives for staff.
Sample gives credit to her husband, Mark, for help making the enterprise a success.
“I’m lucky to have a wonderful spouse who steps up with our four kids when I need to go into a work blackhole,” she says. “And the fact that he’s quite brilliant with investing money has been instrumental in our success.”
Sample considers the financial success of the businesses a happy accident. “It has always been a fun side effect of work I deeply enjoy. I’m grateful my husband has been so steadfast in investing in properties in the background because my focus has always been on the operational detail and business growth.”
Part of that focus is keeping 100% control of the business, not bringing in outside investors.
“It’s been meaningful for me to build it on my own, with the team I choose to work with,” she says.
That decision has allowed Sample to scale and create on her own terms, without the pressure of investors or a board of directors.
“I ultimately call the directional shots, and I own it from start to finish,” Sample explains. “There is no way I would have been motivated to build what I did if I had to run every decision by someone else or gain outside approval.”
The YPO impact
Sample’s involvement in YPO has helped her navigate the practical challenges of being at the helm of multiple companies, from structuring loans and acquiring new businesses, to navigating uncertain economic conditions. Most importantly, she says, YPO has changed how she thinks about her role as an owner and CEO.
She strives to “work on the business, not in the business,” she explains. “YPO taught me that I have to build systems, develop teams and step out of it to gain the perspective to lead. That’s given me clarity.”
Her YPO community also pushes Sample to consider a question that can easily get lost in the demands of entrepreneurship: What kind of life is she building alongside the business?
“I can become obsessive,” Sample acknowledges. “YPO has reminded me to take a break to have fun, too.”
Her family and new hobbies help her, or as she puts it, “force her,” to keep perspective and enjoy life. For self-care, she has taken up painting murals and crocheting.
“If I’m not typing, I’m crocheting,” she jokes. “My hands are not idle.”
Inclusion as competitive advantage
Over the past 16 years, Sample has followed her heart and her head, and built something uncommon: a profitable, independently owned portfolio of businesses and properties that create meaningful employment and support for people with disabilities while demonstrating that inclusion can be a competitive advantage.
Every industry struggles to find people able to perform certain niche jobs with consistency, explains Sample, but the answer may be employing someone with disabilities.
“Most business owners don’t realize what a consistent asset our workers with disabilities are,” she says. “Every industry has turnover, but the individuals we work with are some of the most loyal and consistent people you will ever find. They each have unique talents that when harnessed, can be an incredible partnership.”
— Carmen Sample, Founder of Sample Supports share
Sample shares the story of a young man with severe autism who has worked on their accounting team for more than a decade. “He is an integral part of what we do, and his consistency and attention to detail is something we have yet to find with anyone else.”
What’s next?
Sample is now turning to creating a foster care program and earlier intervention for young people who might otherwise fall through the cracks, including those in the underserved special needs LGBTQ+ community.
“We’re getting young adults at 18, when they’ve been through years of hardship, and we see behaviors in full force,” Sample says. Her hope is to get those individuals services sooner and faster, to address those needs throughout adolescence, before they turn 18.
Once again, Sample is determined to help. By identifying unmet needs and finding sustainable ways to address them, she continues to grow Sample Supports in unconventional ways, demonstrating that purpose and profitability do not have to be at odds.
