On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. It's one of the toughest things that I had to understand the process of letting people do their thing and they probably wouldn't do it the same way I would. It's one of the toughest things to do as a leader, especially, like, this being your base. I always say there's two things that people don't really in is you protect your business and you protect your family.
Those are the 2 things that when you have this, that's what you're essentially It's the survival mode in you for sure. And so we can't control everything. You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolfe featuring fellow 78 and even 9 figure business owners who have real battle scars from business and life, but have prevailed as the king that they are designed to be. We welcome high performing entrepreneurs to the stage in order to reveal the real today.
We dissect the good and bad decisions they've made along the way Chaz give a true and accurate picture of the journey of success and how you too can get there. Through this dialogue, you will learn the value of growing your network and surrounding yourself with power players and keys like today's guest. Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to dive in. What's up, everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe gathering the king's podcast. I'm your host. Today, I've got Ben Lobra here on the King stage.
Ben, my brother. How are you? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me, Chaz. I appreciate it. Great to be here. Oh, well, we appreciate you being here. I know that I know that it's not the easiest thing to do. Peel away from a a wonderful organization, but Sometimes it's what we gotta do to serve others. So we appreciate that. Ben, tell us what kind of business that you got, brother?
Well, Jester is sort of the new gift giving application or the easiest way gift gives, and that's the best way to kind of put it is we basically just sort of condensed a bunch of different types of methods such as sending flowers, bottle of bubbly, want, I mean, some sweets into that whole process and just put it into the the form of an app, a mobile app.
And whenever something comes up, such as an anniversary, birthday, promotion, or just just because we've basically have given people the way to to just go to the app and press one button, put in either a phone number or an email address and click net and send, and and it's that simple. So we've basically just sort of overized the gifting process. The coolest part to that whole thing is that you don't need an address anymore. You don't need personal or private information.
You can just use someone's email or phone number. And if you don't have that, if you have them on DM, such as through LinkedIn or or any messaging platform we're dating at, you can actually just you can actually send a send a gift right through a DM as they say slide into the DMs if that that simple, that easy. That cool. Wow. Yeah. I mean, the simple and easy. I get it, but Chaz last part, that cool, like, Chaz totally sounds like a move that I would make if I was on a dating app.
Now I haven't been dating for a long time. I've been married to my wife almost 15 years. We we dated for 3 years before that. We got married when I was 12. Not really, but basically. So it's been a long time, but I think that that would be that would be a that'd be a move that I would think I would make. Yeah. It's just a pretty popular feature in the app currently.
I mean, it's just people don't like giving out their personal info, but yet, you know, someone still wants to make that sort of Yeah. Message like, hey. I wanna take you out. And, yeah, it's the easiest way to do it. Chester is sort of built for that. It's pretty cool. I I love I love the angle because, yeah, gift giving's huge. Obviously, off air, we talked about just my history with edible arrangements. Obviously, that's a big deal. Anniversaries birthdays, all the things. Right?
But the angle that you've taken, I think, is super creative. And it lines up with with Gen X. Right? I think it was in Gen X. Yeah. And Gen Z. Yeah. Well, that's what I mean. Sorry. Gen Z. Yeah. Gen X is is probably That's me. Uh-uh. Yeah. I was gonna say Chaz, no. That's they're, yeah, no. They're they're in Facebook. They're probably a good 20, 25% of our user base, actually. Really?
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say that's that's probably more of a of an edible arrangements target is, you know, the, you know, the gen x the gen x mom know, really. Let's just be honest. Like, they're the ones organizing all the gifts for the family. So okay. The the the technology play, right, taking an industry that's years old. We love to give gifts, and you're you're uberizing it.
I love that to that language this level, I wanna know, before we kinda get into the history of how you built this, why you built it, that type of thing, I wanna know a different why. I wanna know your Like, you're at this level. You've had a some some Uber success to play on your words. Why are you doing this? Why are you still doing it? What's the bigger picture for you?
Yeah. So, I mean, I I think the common answer is to solve a problem is is sort of the the typical textbook entrepreneur sort of answer, but I think it stems all the way back, and Chaz I was probably thirteen or fourteen years old, you know, just sort of growing up in a single parent household and really seeing my mom you know, work 3 jobs. And, you know, I I think there's, you know, if I have to kinda narrow it down, I mean, I saw my mom work 3 jobs. To kinda keep a roof over our head.
And and it was, you know, then, you know, I wish I mean, I don't know what I didn't know then now, but, I mean, it's I it was kind of like I've never saw her sort of rewarded, you know, where people were able to sense flowers because then it was extremely expensive. You have to call a phone number, look through a catalog. And if if here were 3000 and and and keep a roof over her head and I was growing up.
It it taught me sort of the hustle mentality of of working hard, but at the same time, like, you know, it was just the reward factor of, like, I I wish there was just an easy way even at at at Chaz time to send her some sort of gesture of an appreciation. And so that's that's kinda where this started in terms of why. I mean, as, you know, the industry evolved and you know, you Chaz sort of, like, kind of fast forwarding throughout the years.
You you can get anything at the the tap of a button or click of a remote. You know, I was telling someone the other day, you know, I I remember when I was a kid watching just like basic cable, and I was like, well, there's a a way that you can order a movie just tapping a button and and any movie you wanted and it's it's here. You can do that now, but I was just like, those are things that I thought about back in in the past.
How how can we really streamline this process and make it extremely Yeah. And simplistic. So, yeah, I think there's there's a bunch, but I I would have to sort of say that it goes back to to that and sort of just a way of being able to reward people or, you know, show appreciation in just a much easier way. Mhmm. Yeah. 100%. I love it. Yeah. And the it's convenience. Right?
Like, that's that's that's where technology comes in is that we, as humans, we demand a higher and higher and higher level of convenience. And which forces a tech play like this to come in. I don't wanna make a phone call. I don't wanna have to look through a catalog. I wanna be able to jump on my app and and pick out something and send it without even knowing their address.
Speaking speaking of which kind of funny story, when I do get people that call, and they wanna send something, you wouldn't believe the number of people that call that do not know the address. Yeah. They say, oh, what's over at this so and so? And they go, okay. You'd you'd like us to deliver it there. Right? Do you do you have an address? Right. Or the amount of people that call to say, hey, Jeff, what's your address? And you're not working from, you know, office location anymore.
You're working from home. So, you know, he he might have done his he might have done a ton of business together, but sometime weird to give out your home address to someone that really don't know, but at the same time, they they they mean nothing, but good things and, you know, good intention, but it's weird to give out your home address to someone that you're just essentially in business with. Right? You're It's it's it's one of those things that, you know, we're privacy focused.
So, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Okay. So let's go a little bit more practical here. As you've been building this business, maybe especially early on, let me know of a good decision. Tell the tell the audience something that you did that you just do it over and over again. It was such a clean decision. Something that they can implement in their business.
Yeah. So I I think one of the things that comes to mind just really thinking through the process was during the pandemic, right, at the beginning of the pandemic. So I I re I I do some guest lecturing different schools and, you know, things like that. And one of the things Chaz always asked is, you know, when do you really know?
You know, a lot of founders sort of start a business and they sort of adopt this title of founder, CEO, CEO, call myself, CEO, but it's not until you really are faced with a CEO type of decision where, you know, I I always recommend the founders. I'm like, call yourself a CEO until you actually earn that title. That's only something that you can essentially promote yourself to, I guess.
And and what I mean by that is, you know, in these sort of businesses, reason why you're a CEO is you gotta make CEO types of decisions. And going into that, you know, at the beginning of the program, we have raised some capital, you know, things were starting to sort of move through the process. We were in, I think, the state of time. We had started in New York when Jesper first launched, and then know, we started to make our way through LA in Denver.
And then, you know, became came March, beginning of March of 2020, and, you know, everything was like, hey. Everyone's got the home, you know, shutting down and New York was one of those cities that was hit hard. But I I remember, you know, the 1st couple of weeks, I just I I jumped on so many podcasts and I attended so many online sort of just like these types of, like, guest exhibits where you're listening to BC cock.
And I remember about 90% of it was stuff that I heard from VCs and even our own investors that, you know, just conserve cut, you know, just, you know, lay off and try and ride this out. I'm not sure where this is gonna go. Funds are gonna dry up. Chaz was for the the kind of advice that, you know, startups, especially startups were getting.
And the the decision that I have to make at that time was I have to essentially roll the dice and decide whether or not we were gonna cut, you know, I think at the time, gesture had about 60 if people that were working for the company at the time. And so every, I would say about 95% of those people were in out running to one of our offices in New York.
So we were just pretty massive, and I remember I had to make a decision on were to reallocate source resources to, and, or if we were just gonna cut back. And so I remember there were two things that I did. Instead of cutting staff. We've got we did we did sort of the complete opposite. I ended up taking my salary and reducing your down to almost nothing. And the same thing with one of my co founders, we both agreed to Chaz.
And then what we did is we took what we were able to get paid a ton of money. It was, like, 30,000 bucks a year or something like that. And so what we did is We took Chaz, and we ended up hiring, a ton of salespeople to come in and make phone calls. And then I invested into better technology, CRM technology at the time, I think, is HubSpot at the time. But, basically, like, what we did is is we essentially hired a bunch of sale.
I think we we doubled our staff size to, like, 20 or 25 salespeople. These were interns. These were, you know, students. These were college students, I mean, seasoned salespeople. But the whole purpose for that is when we got these salespeople in, instead of just sending an email, to to our customers that, hey, Joshua's here. You can't you can't be with your your loved one. You can't be with your specialty because everyone won't separate it.
I said, you know, I we really put out this message where we picked the phone and we called all of our customers. And these were probably at the time about 2 or 3000 customers. And We let them know gestures here. Send a gesture. And we essentially grew that summer and probably during the 2020 during the pandemic, we grew about 1500%. And, yeah, and we just we essentially just exploded.
And that was probably one of the the the hardest, but best decisions that I've had ever made, and and that's when I really, you know, took myself from just having founder on my business card to ask the CEO, the other CEO type of call, like. And and that was one of those things where I I kinda felt like, man, I actually had to, you know, roll the dice and and hope that this was gonna work.
Otherwise, I think at the time, I I knew about maybe 12 or 15 other startups that I had, essentially, that we had grown up together. They all are no longer in business. You know, they all failed that year. But, yeah, so, I mean, I just I remember Chaz was one of the best decisions that I ever made, and that was during the pandemic. And you know, and paid off acquired it actually. So here we are. Yeah. So I I hear 2 things.
Number 1, I heard you say I I I pressed into growth when most people were were running, you know, to conserve, which I think is a great mindset. I think growth mindset, it's it you if you're thinking growth mindset all the time, obviously, you can't be irresponsible, but if you're thinking growth mindset, you're you're never in conservation. When when people are are tightening things up, you're trying to take market share is generally what you just described that you did.
And and then the second piece is, which I think is applicable to every single business listening is if you've got leads, you got customers, get on the phone. Yeah. Because you Chaz, you can you can get on the phone. You can call you can cold call. The phone the phone didn't turn off in the pandemic. Your customers didn't didn't go away. They were still there.
And in fact, if anything, you were literally what they needed, very similar to edible arrangements in the time like, man, I can't go I can't go be with my buddies that we bowl with on Thursdays or I can't go be with grandma or I can't whoever it was. Need to send them a gesture.
So I just love not only that you were there for people during a very difficult time, but also that that you made that call because I think that that call right there, that can be located or it can be, you know, applied to to anybody listening right here today. They might be a little nervous about it, but I think they could hear it in your voice that maybe you were too.
And that, really, anytime that you invest in sales, really, the the push, the the the literal manual, let me go physically go get new customers. Is probably always, for the most part, gonna pay off. You can do it in the minutes later. And that was the thing. Yeah. It's exactly right. I mean, we were a consumer to consumer. We're not a B2B business, you know, not then we are now as Wolfe, but, you know, that B2B came out of that decision as Wolfe.
But, like, Yeah. I mean, we we were a consumer business. I mean, it's not off. I mean, how many times have you gotten a call from Uber or less? And that's the same type of, you know, that those are already that's our user base. You know, it said, how many types of DoorDash called you and said, hey. Do you wanna order food? It was one of those dusty things that, you know, is sort of unorthodox. It's not Yeah. It's it's not standard. It's not typical, but we did it.
And we made it we did it in a way to where, like, customers were were pretty happy to hear from us and that there was an option out there. You know, we're on demand. So it wasn't like it was like a 2 or 3 day wage or later that day or you gotta by 2. I mean, we we controlled the logistics side as well. So we were we were out there delivering within 30 minutes to an hour. That's how fast we were able to get them, you know, those flowers, wine, champagne, whatever it is.
And we deliver we we sort of pivoted a little bit and you started to deliver some health care packages, you know, with, you know, and what I whatever, courthouse lights were left in stores. And I we we did it all, man. I mean, it was it was pretty wild. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that that's a that's a great move to make in that moment, but your core business remains the same is that whether it's clorox wipes or whether it's flowers, it's it's a gesture. So I love that. Let's flip the coin.
Ben, tell me about a bad decision, one that didn't go so well that we can learn from. Yeah. So I I think it's, you know, I I there's quite a few that come to mind. But if I had to, you know, I I think it was you know, maybe I think it was just one of those things that I I feel like Chaz, I guess, would be considered a bad decision is Yeah. I'm I'm a big people person. I like to take care of people and make sure people are taken care of.
And, you know, I think one of the things that I did is we We probably were maybe a little too, and we weren't conservative enough around, like, how we took care of our employees and knowing that we were still a startup. And, you know, we we provided too much even with benefits in terms of, like, before the pandemic, I I noticed and just give you an example. So we we had quite a few employees of time, and we were essentially paying for lunch and those sort of things.
And you know, I I just didn't, you know, it's part of the war on talent that you want to, like, get good people and you wanna retain them and those sort of things, but Yeah. I I just think that we sort of were maybe just a little too excessive with that at the time and and thought that that's what people wanted, and that's what they needed. But we didn't really get down to the core value of, like, why people were doing what they're doing.
And, you know, maybe that wasn't really the most important thing. And we thought it was when you were just sort of, like, burning unnecessary cash to try and keep people happy, and that's really not what they wanted, you know, when when it came down to it, you know, and when everyone had to go home and work from home, we weren't doing lunch and and those things anymore. And they were probably just as happy, if not happy. Right? So, yeah, I think that's one.
And you know, the other the other second thing that I've asked about is just, I think it was just a matter of, like, not talking to people as often as we should as leaders and its managers and and really not uncovering some of those those things that the people aren't happy about or are happy with. You know, they always say don't don't take eye off the people that are extremely happy just because they're happy, you should probably invest more time with that.
So I think it was those are sort of some of the mistakes that I can kind of, like, point out right from the very beginning that I would definitely we we've we've improved on, but definitely need to if if they're caught early enough, so you can save yourself a lot of time and and money. So Yeah. Yeah. No. You're a 100%. Right? I can remember, a pretty large organization that I worked for many years ago.
And, you know, it just it seemed like every little thing that you would do then it became an expectation. Right? So whether it's lunch or this or Chaz, or then now it just becomes normal. And then you had to level it up again. And again and again, which It's not necessarily that you don't wanna do that, but are we just leveling up with a bunch of stuff that people don't didn't really need or want anyway when there's probably a greater people probably wanted to work from home.
Some people probably wanted a a flexible sched or, you know, the other things that matter in life more than, you know, lunch people. It's like the intrinsic versus extrinsic value of what people really see. You know, some people are driven extrinsically, and some people are driven extrinsically. And, you know, when you really understand that as a manager or a leader, and you can take your people much further. Mhmm. Yeah. 100%.
K. What process do you have now as, you know, obviously, CEO, as you said, but around making good decisions. What what do you what do you what how do you make decisions now a process do you follow? Well, I think, you know, everything is essentially calculated to a certain extent, calculated decision making, you know, making. But, I mean, I think part of being the visionary is you gotta take risks.
You gotta be a big risk taker and decide how much you wanna push the envelope and not being afraid of taking risk if they say scared money doesn't make money, you know, and and at the same time, like, you know, you've almost have to have a contingency plan in place to and and and not just sort of really rely on, you know, luck to a certain extent or but In terms of the decisions itself, I mean, you know, there's I sometimes get caught up with the bright shiny
lights of things and, you know, and and and all we all do is Yeah. Well, you gotta be careful as the founder owner because you have the power to change any.
And being a product owner is is they say if you really compare this to agile, sort of the methodology of agile when it comes to, like, project management, everything you do in an organization, essentially Chaz a sense of product management to whether you're rolling out, you know, an ad campaign or you're rolling out paid ads or you're doing, you know, anything in general, technology you're building. You're the product owner, and the product owner can technically come in and change anything.
If you ever worked for, let's just say, a dev shop, which basically, you know, they they're building mobile application for a company that hire them, they always tell the product owner that, you know, you can come in and change this, but this is gonna add time and it's gonna add money. But sometimes when you're the internal product owner, you can come in and make those changes, and those changes will throw everyone off, especially if there's a a huge team.
So in terms of making those changes, it's always involving the right people asking for input. You know, sometimes we just gotta do it, but I I think it's important that it's depending on how large your team is or that you're including, you know, some of those changes on the team, along with the team, and then the people that have those sort of key decision making skills or factors, but Right. You know, I think it's just a matter of taking risks as well. So, I mean, I take a lot of risks.
I I push the envelope. You know, I think, yeah, I think one of the other things is you know, I'd I'd I'd if there is a specific change that I really need to see done, that might mean that I might have to put in an extra 8 hours, you know, the night to do it. And I'm the one who actually does it so that the example is set from the from the beginning. So just kind of a a whirlwind of an answer, but it It was good. It was really, really good, actually.
And so I wanna I wanna just I wanna give the listener a couple of takeaways from that because you're right. Especially about being the product owner. And then even, like, what you said there at the end is sometimes you have to commit and you do it yourself, which isn't always necessarily the the the best option, but it's a half 2 option sometimes, especially to keep the team focused.
And so the listener being a, you know, a pretty small shop, less than a 1,000,000 in revenue, generally speaking, you know, they probably shouldn't change a whole bunch, really. And and I've in some of my startups, I I've I had the same issue where you're idea this and idea Chaz. And you and you're testing, there's a difference between testing and then changing dramatic things. And, but once you get something that's working, you need to stay in that lane.
You need to, like, see it through, when that could mean, you know, like, for a simple, you know, electrician, you stay with the same 3 service calls and you don't you don't go outside of that for the 1st 1,000,000 of for the 1st year. And I think that that even me, personally, I'm learning the value of that more and more. Because like you said, you can come in, and you can change anything at any time.
And you don't realize it that it's it's causing confusion in your team, and it's delaying, which is costing you more money. And then the the last thing that she far as, like, sometimes just doing it yourself. Okay. So I understand that I wanna change something. Fine. Fair enough. But I can't give it to somebody right now because I'll it'll confuse the team. Causes more time, I just need to get it done myself. There's a layer of that that is just ownership. So thank you for sharing that.
I wanna go over the speed round. The speed round questions, it'll it'll be a little bit different angle coming at you, but my my first one is in your business, obviously, being a tech play and and this product that you're servicing across the country, What's the what's the most important KPI? What do you what would you track if you could only pick one thing? Man, in this case, we are a for profit business. So I I would I would I mean, if I have to start somewhere, it would be residential.
Definitely. I mean, this with revenue, you can sort of kind of tell it a different story based on, you know, user growth you know, user acquisition on these daily users that you're adding to the, you know, customer's transaction side. If I had to choose 1, it'd probably be revenue. I mean, But that's probably gonna be from you. Yeah. Yeah. And you gave us several examples there of what flows after that for you. So I think that's super applicable.
What book would you recommend Ben or maybe a resource for an entrepreneur who's trying to grow their business? Let's see here. I would Probably, there's so many. 0 to 1 is is a great book, you know, a late start up just to sort of depending on the type of business that you're starting, but Sure. I think the late start up gives the very basics of, like, you know, what what you need is not it taught me a lot mean, really understanding MVP and, you know, what that means.
And Yeah. Or, you know, I would say probably one more. I'm sorry, but scaling will probably be another one by read just because mean, that's that's what you wanna do in the business early on. You know, it gives you the great examples of PayPal and everything else in terms of what they did and Yeah. So, yeah, I'm sorry. That was more than 1, but That's it's all. Yeah. You're over delivering. Yeah. Over delivering. We'll put them all in the show notes that people can easily get those.
Those are all great recommendations. What do you think about intentionally networking or master mining with other entrepreneurs? Oh, yeah. It's crucial. Just to give you sort of an example, I have someone who's close to me, family member of my team. Started a business, started a company, tech company. He said he was driven based on, like, watching me do things.
He's 10 years younger than I am, but you know, one of the things that when him and I just had sort of reconciled in a relationship not too long ago, a couple weeks ago, actually, it just because he learned our tough life and by by one being, I think, prideful, you know, and number 2, not taking advantage of the resources that he had in front of him you know, whether it was learning more about raising capital or, you know, making the same mistakes and especially Chaz that he was a tech startup.
And so, you know, he he came to he he came to the table and said, hey. It's one of the things that I noticed that I I need more help with, you know, relying on those that have actually done it. Or or that are doing it, and it's important to put yourself out there because you never know where it's gonna come from. Right? And and, you know, I'll be honest. I I get invited to dinners and events all the time. And as busy as I am, there are times where I'm like, I don't wanna do this.
I don't wanna go tonight, but I do, and there's just you know, it's because it's a great group of people and, you know, other people can I guess the thing that I'll end with is other people can see what you can when that when they're looking at it from the outside looking again? If you think about it, like, I'm in this right now. I can't see down the hall other than what I see right in front of me, but even my peripheral view, I can't.
But when someone is standing in the hallway looking in and say, hey, Ben, come outside. There's something at the end of the hall that's great. They Chaz see a bunch more stuff than I can. And so that sometimes outside perspective is is what's what's needed, and you can apply that to anything, especially networking, and and really just reaching out to resources. Yeah. Yeah. That's huge.
One thing that you just said that it it likened in my brain to something that I've said recently about just fitness and working out is just about, like, I'm all I'm I'm never disappointed that I do it. Right? Like, always beforehand. It's always 5:30 when the alarm says get up and work out where I'm know, that version of myself is like, nah. Not today. You're tired. You don't feel good. You were up late last night working. Whatever the excuse is.
We had, you know, baby crying, you know, whatever. But the the 7 AM version of me is like, man, I'm so glad I did that. And so it's the same thing that you just said with networking, creating relationships, really. It's it's never the dinner that you wanna go and put the effort into, but it's the relationships later that came from that. You're like, man, I'm so glad I did that.
Yeah. Because you just but you also gotta make you gotta you also have to essentially apply a sense of control of what you're looking for. From, you know, the because, I mean, there are times where, you know, I may travel to go see my parents in Colorado. They live in Denver, and I might go see them and I work from one of the reworks that are out there because that's that's where we work out from from here.
And I'll I'll I'll I'll what I'll do is basically make an event of something there where I might go talk to the front desk and at least there and say, hey. Do you mind if sponsor happy hour tomorrow. Nothing planned. Just wanna buy a couple bottles of wine, throw some gesture signs up, give away some t shirts. Nothing crazy. They're like, yeah. Right? And then, basically, people walk up, grab some chips, and dip them some wine.
And, you know, I grew up and give a shirt away here, but we might end up popping away with 50 downloads. It costs us 75 bucks. Right? And so Right. This is about making the opportunity out of every opportunity that's there. You're you're making something out of you know, you're combining away on how to apply your business towards that yet. Yeah. 100%. I love it. K. I got one last question here for you, Ben. If you could whisper, in the younger Ben's ear, what would you say?
Get out of people's leg. Yeah. Get out get out of people's leg. I think there's a there's a time and a place for that as you go through your entrepreneurial journey. Yes. At the very beginning, you're doing everything yourself.
But I think one of the things that you know, at least for me is that even now we're at a point where I have, for instance, a chief sales officer, I have, you know, if he's marketing officer, I I have people that are in these roles of decision making that are hired because they have a skill set. Sometimes I find myself getting in their way at times, and there's one guy in particular that he, you know, when I hired him, and it was a sales role. And I and I said, hey.
You know, how many phone calls are people making? And he said, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's he, say how he said it, but he said, why are you asking me how many phone calls these people were essentially making go out and do what you need to do? Let me take care of that and let me do what I what you brought me in here to do. Stop asking, you know, first tier level questions and and go out and be, be a different CEO, and I was just, like, holy cow.
So I think it's just, getting out of the way and letting people do what they need to do. And Yeah. You'll never taking your eye off of it completely, but, yeah, it's it's crucial. So at that point, like, Yeah. Get out of your own way to see. So, you know, that kind of thing. Super powerful. And you gave such a great example there.
I think that even in organizations that I've worked with, with some pretty big names, those are the type of questions, you know, that were being asked, low level tier 1, as you said, and it's difficult because that person that you're It's hard to let oh, man. It is. But to your point to your point now, man, the guy that that guy that challenged you on Chaz, because I was in that situation.
And if you can't hit because if you bring in that guy, you know, the younger version of me, who was that guy? He's capable. And, why'd you bring him in if you wanna if you wanna over look over his shoulder for a $400 decision? No, man. And it's it's one of the toughest things that I my guy, I had to understand the process of letting people do their thing, and they probably wouldn't do it the same way I would because I've always been a sales guy.
I know what sales is all about I I still sell for the day. Right? But, I mean, it's it's one of the toughest things to to do as a leader especially like this being your baby. Like, you know, no one carried it. There's I always say there's two things that people don't really understand. You you protect your business and you protect your family.
You know, those are the 2 things that, you know, when you have this, like, that's that's what you're essentially kind of It's the survival mode in you, for sure. It's all I can't control everything. So but, yeah, that's it. Mhmm. Good stuff, man. Well, how can the listener find you? I'm I'm sure we can download the gesture app, but give us all the details on how to find the app, how to find you as an entrepreneur, maybe they wanna reach out, that type of thing. Definitely.
So, of course, we can download the app in the Apple Store Chaz well as on Google Play. We're on both and check out the website, chester. VIP. We named it VIP because everyone's a VIP. My lady's located affect the VIP. But, ultimately, I'm I'm on about every single social platform you can really think about, but, just message me on LinkedIn, you know, my my email and been at gesture.vip. Feel free to email me there or, you know, hit me up on LinkedIn. But, yeah, just I'm I'm a sociable person.
I love people. So always always willing to to take some time and help and, you know, set aside the time. Typically, I actually take time on Saturdays as sort of a way for me to get back. And sit down with some newer entrepreneurs, people that are thinking about an idea, you know, and sometimes I poke holes in those ideas. I be on the investor on the investor side. I used to do investing, and, you know, I had a fund at one point before the pandemic.
So I know all about just whether what the VC is left for and you know, I think, like, would be a good sort of a good resource for that. So, yeah, I always wanted to help. Mhmm. That's awesome. Well, Ben, you've been been incredible. Thank you for just your time, and Of course, the knowledge, I'm just a just the opportunity to hear your story and and, of course, just in an awesome business.
I think that's you're you're only seeing the beginning of of what you guys are gonna be able to accomplish with your business. So that's super exciting. Thank you for being here. We wish you nothing but blessing on you, your family, your business, your team, the whole deal. Thank you, man. I appreciate it. Thanks for listening to Gathering the Kings. We hope you got a ton of value today and learned a thing or 2 about taking your business to 7 figures and beyond.
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