On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. Yeah. There's 2 different points that you need from any opportunity, and that's either that you should be earning or you should be learning. Ideally, you should be both, but if you're not doing one or the other, go and explore other opportunities.
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 reel of the reel. On what it takes to build 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 keens 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 on your host, today, I've got Lee Feldman here on the king stage. My brother, how are you? I am doing quite well. As I told you earlier, I would kill for your beard. I would kill for your hair.
Very excited to speak to somebody that I wish I looked like and who has the voice that I wish I had. So this will be fun. Well, I I appreciate that those compliments, the voice I I'm getting over. We had a we had a, a mastermind event this past weekend. Gathering the Kings actually started as a mastermind before the podcast, believe it or not. And I had about 40 entrepreneurs here at my home, and then we went to a Chiefs game.
And so between the organization and talking to my team and talking at the event and then hooten and hollering with, other successful people at a Chiefs game, I'm I'm still recovering with my voice. But here we are. You've caught plenty of info. Thank you. I I will bring the face for radio. You continue to bring the voice. We'll be a good dynamic duo. Exactly, man. I appreciate that. Lee, tell us what kind of business that you got, brother. Yeah. Absolutely.
I work and run a franchise network called Bishop cuts color, we're a unisex air shop. And we use the word hair shop specifically because a lot of people say, what the hell is a hair shop? And it's our sort of elevator pitch to start the conversation about a hybrid barbershop salon. We operate in the middle. We are a step above all your value chain sort of chop shops and and blow your sort of high end potential salons. We've been in business since 2001, and we are all across North America.
I love it, dude. As we were talking earlier about the hair, I'd I I've said I've mentioned I've been particular, about my hair and specifically who cuts it I've only had a few people, take a take a blade to to my hair, but you're in an industry that you know, like, there's some people who really, really care, and then there's some people who just really don't, and then there's people kinda in the middle and and but but more than anything, hair grows.
Well, for some, present company excluded, but, yes, you know, that's right. For your clients, it grows over and over and over. It does. But it's funny you say that in being particular, because I was first introduced to Bishop. By being absolutely not particular. I used to get my haircut at a place. I kid you not called 7 bucks a whack. The place was absolutely ridiculous. It was run by this woman who 100% had skin cancer. She would just change smoke behind the chair. It was just clipper cuts.
There was no scissor involved. You'd go in. You'd come out and you'd look like, you know, I wish I still had that error, but you'd look not great. But I was introduced to bishops because a coworker of mine, a charity auction Chaz bid on a gift basket, and in the gift basket, there were free cut cards for bishops. And I had heard of bishops. You know, I always knew it as sort of this hipster cool kid place. He'd walk in. They'd give you a drink. Everyone had tattoos or crazy hair.
Chaz loud music and bright art. And, you know, it was a little more than what I was used to paying for 7 bucks, but it was an experience. Yeah. And he gave it to me and said, yeah. And I scheduled an appointment. I went in for the first time ever. I walked out and started getting compliments on my hair. People told me, oh, you look good. And my now wife at the time said, oh, you got your haircut. Where'd you go? It looks good.
And the thing that the stylist did so well is she said, based on how your hair is growing. Obviously, this was a long time ago because my hair is not growing anymore. She said, you're gonna wanna come back at this time, and she wrote a date on the card and circled it. And I kept it in my Wolfe. And as that date approached, I started, you know, running my fingers through my hair and realizing, oh, I should go back and get a cut. And I went back again, again and again, and that was the hook.
And that hook of the first one free, that sort of drug dealer mentality is something that we still promoted bishops is If you are as good as you believe you are as a stylist, just get people in your chair. Give the first cut away for free. And if they look as good as they feel, when they leave your chair, they're gonna back to you.
Yeah. And so you say being particular, it's that sort of how do you get people to come to you that really is the bishop's challenge, but we figured out some things on the marketing front. To sort of solve that problem. Yeah. That's incredible. You obviously in a in a in an industry that's been around forever. You've gotta be able to create space.
And, I think that not only with the colorful art and the loud music and the tattoos and the cool, you know, swanky, environment, there has to be because there's a lot of places even now today that have a cool swanky environment. There's gotta be another level, and usually Chaz comes with the experience, not just the environment, but when I walk away, in this case, how do I look? Which which how does it make me feel?
So I love how you pointed that out because I think that that's It's obviously super keen to physically how you make someone look, but every business owner that's listening today, including you and I, we have clients and we're taking them through an experience of sorts. Even you going through an experience of this podcast, and you had mentioned before, you know, we hit the record button of, like, Holy geez, dude.
Like, notifications and and things we mail out and, like, I'm making sure that you're here and on time and that you feel well taken care of. And so it's just this this experience, really. And so I wanna dive into that more here with you before we do, though, you're at a stage in the game where most would look at you as that you've made it. You're successful. You you're crushing it in your business. Of course, that story that you told, you kinda didn't bridge the gap yet.
I'll do that here in a little bit or allow you to do that here in a little bit, as far as, like, how you became, you know, the leader of that franchise, but you're crushing it. And my question is why? Why are you still pushing even though you have this level of success that you have currently? I think that's the question that all entrepreneurs ask themselves. And I think it's the question of what's next? When is enough enough? What's more mean or value to you?
For me, myself, I have 4 children, so I'm just trying to build generational wealth. It's a terrible thing to say, but I am 100% focused on money. I am simply trying to leverage the investments I made, the time I spend, the education I have, to produce the most capital so that I can give it to them, So they have opportunities to explore other things that maybe have interest to them. It's a horrible answer, but, that's what it is.
And I think on the social entrepreneurship side, the idea of, you know, doing good, well, doing well, you have a mission piece. And I certainly have Chaz. One of the things that separates bishops from a lot of our competition is that we are inclusive in the most possible way And we started that way in 2001. It was never about your gender identity.
It was never about whether you were a man or a woman coming in and getting a men's cut or a woman's cut or this kind of grooming application and that price changing based on who you are. It's always been about your hair. And the length of the hair, a shortcut, long cut. We've really focused on creating a safe space for all people. We really pride ourselves on our inclusion of the lgbtqia plus community.
And we have locations where clients have come to us and have driven 8 plus hours to go to a bishop's because they know it's a safe space. And they know they can get their first service while transitioning. And that piece of our mission statement of making sure that people know that they can come to us and it is a judgment free space 100% why we continue to do what we do, knowing that we can provide something for somebody where they can walk in and feel safe and walk out feeling themselves Yeah.
That's why we continue to operate every day. Yeah. 100%. I think that, again, not to not to say regardless of that community, but Chaz just is a is a is a point for you to be able to clarify the mission, right, but regardless of that it's the experience that you're taking all of the people through, especially that the small group of people, which is incredible because it goes back to what you just said of of the experience. And really what the experience is about is dialing in on the 1. Right?
It's the it's not necessarily about just masses and and letting the numbers fall where they may. It's about seeing the 1 or making sure that the level of of experience is the is quality for each person that walks through the door, not necessarily a certain type Chaz you've described. I wanna go back to your your original though, because I think every entrepreneur struggles with this where, like, where he said, my answer is money. Okay. Well, for you, you got kids.
You're talking about generational wealth. I had a guy on the podcast. I don't know, probably 3 or 4 weeks ago, and he talked about and it hasn't come out yet, but he talked about, literally, he's gotten attorneys and Chaz involved where he knows to the dollar, what it's gonna take to fund 4 generations and and and setting them up not just as in a theory, but as a as logistically complete and ready to go, and he knows what that money target is.
My question, though, behind that for you, because you were very honest about it being about money and maybe how that's not really the right answer. And then you gave the social business answer. How does the listener today? Cause that's why they started their business. Right? That's why they wanna grow to 7 figures is to make more money. They maybe they wanna provide for their family. What do they need to do like you have where it's like this unashamed, like, no, I'm trying to get money.
Now you're gonna do good things with it. You said you're gonna, you know, take care of your family. You're helping, you know, the community in a completely unique way. And that's cool, but, like, you first had to get comfortable with, like, I need more money. Mhmm. In order to be the impact, the influence, the person that I wanna be, I need to be able to have resources to be able to help me do Chaz. How did you come to that conclusion of, like, confidence around that? Yeah. Absolutely.
I look at it through the same framework that I look at every situation, and that's through the acronym of stop. Where literally the s is situation, t is target, o is opportunity, and p is proposal. And I use this in any framework of understanding if there's a miscommunication, there's a problem we're trying to solve and ask our team, and I literally say, let's stop. I want you to write down. What is your s? What is your t? What is your o? What is your p? And we'll discuss them one at a time.
Yeah. And often, it's that the situations don't even align. People are proposing different things because they're not agreeing on the situation. My situation was simply looking at what can I do to provide the best opportunities for my family? And as an entrepreneur, that's certainly the hard balance of 1, even having a family, but then 2, balancing your time as somebody that's trying to produce capital.
For your family, but also spending the most amount of time, which is maybe a non financial impact with your children. And I say that my family is my greatest joy, but also my greatest regret as an entrepreneur that's laser focused on business. It's really hard to say Alright. Pencil's down. Let's read a book to my children because this is important. This is valuable. And it's really hard to say Wolfe, how much money am I losing by not working right now by putting my kids to bed at night?
But it's one of those things that as a parent and an entrepreneur, you obviously have to find balance then. Yeah. Let's let let's press into that if you're okay with that. Of course. How have you found balance with that? You said 4 kids. I know they're all young. We've we've kind of aligned in that way. How have you been able to kinda remove yourself from the calculations of the money that you're either losing or not earning based on being with your family? Oh, I have not. It's a daily struggle.
Thankfully, my wife and partner will say, alright, phone down, or, you know, we're gonna need to go talk to a divorce attorneys. Getting to the point where I need you to be present. But, you know, obviously, I think as a lot of entrepreneurs start to think about mindfulness and the things that they're doing, the impacts of their behaviors and actions, you start to think of that work life balance.
And what are you really working for if ultimately the capital is to produce opportunities for my children to not work, I wanna take advantage of that if it's something that I have as well and spend time with my kids. So I I really find that the team that we have believes in that work life balance in the sense of get your work done, spend time with your family. So I try to do that as well.
The challenge is always there is more work to be done, especially when you're running a large franchise network that's trying to reach top line revenue at $30,000,000. So We have some lofty goals. There's some work that needs to be done, but I also do try to say, let's carve out some time for the kids in my life as well as my partner, my Wolfe. So that, you know, they don't leave me. And then all I have is money. Because the value of my family, once it's lost, that would cost more to me.
Financially, than it would to keep and maintain. Yeah. I mean, if your answer is I'm building for my kids, my grandkids, If you don't if you don't have them, then then you're building onto nothing, basically. I had a question for you around, you know, just this idea of building. I wanna share a revelation that I had recently. I don't do this very often here on the show, but I wanna share just a quick thing that I went through, and I wanna see what you think about it.
In the same way, very similar probably to most entrepreneurs listening where it's just like, okay. I could go and go and go and go and go and go and go in business and just love it. I do love it. I love to build. I could work 15, 18 hours a day every day. And be completely, like, set to go for the next day. And so somewhere in there now, obviously, I there's, you know, wife of 15 years, similar to you. For kids. And it's like, okay.
I don't get the same dopamine hit from coloring with my kids Chaz I do from maybe a podcast conversation with you Mhmm. Or potentially doing a deal with someone that I've met or a new a new contract or whatever. Right? And so I've I've switched here recently in the last probably, year or so where it's like, okay. I need to figure out how get the dopamine hit over here to be the same. Right?
And so like you, I'm focused on kids and grandkids because much further than that, it they're not gonna really know my name anyways what I've come to realize. So it's like, okay. I wanna focus on that. I wanna focus on my wife. I wanna focus on kids, grandkids. Obviously, there we need we need lots of money, lots of resources to be able to, you know, form generational wealth, like you said. So I start seeing my kids.
There are the time with my kids as building them just like I'm building the business or businesses. To get us to that place where I see them now as future business partners. And I'm like, I gotta get them ready. I gotta get, like, we're, like, so instead of coloring, now we're playing the cash flow game.
Or maybe we're coloring, but we're talking about something mindset that a six year old would understand because I see them as future business partners because even when they're old enough and we're doing business together, I wanted together with them, build their kids, my grandkids. And so it was like the same building thing that I'm obsessed with, I now get to do inside of this building of a human. What are your thoughts on that?
Well, I think as a macro level, the idea of sort of the term is, you know, thwarting hedonic adaptation. That's the actual term, which I love. It's the human treadmill of how do I get that dopamine hit? I mean, ultimately, you're happiness level is mapped out on a chart. Nature, nurture, brain chemistry experiences all these things. And the need for that dopamine hit comes from a number of things, for I, myself, thinking about it singularly, again, at the macro level, not with family.
For me, it's experience variety and surprise. Those are the things that I find that trigger that dopamine hit. And it might be different for you. Your brain might land differently on the chart for brand chemistry needs. It might be something that's novelty that makes you happy. It might be immediate response, you know, online shopping. So, you know, I think there's certain things related to how do you stop that human treadmill?
How do you find yourself at a different point of happiness sort of at a macro level? On a micro level, I I love it. I've told my kids, hey. Take the rest of your Halloween candy. Take it to school and start hustling that. Start selling it for a nickel. Start selling it for a quarter. That's how we're gonna get you into sales.
That's how we're gonna get you to be an entrepreneur because I find having most conversations with entrepreneurs where I say, do you remember your earliest earliest memories selling something, buying something, trading something, and say, oh, yeah. It's a kid. I hustled candy. I hustled snacks. I hustle bags of chips. I hustle baseball cards. If you can introduce your children to that interest, I think they'll be very excited those conversations with you as their life continues.
Yeah. Exactly. And the kids Chaz cash flow game, one of the cards that you can earn is a, a gifted by uncle Troy or something, gifted cotton candy machine. You didn't have to pay anything for it, but you earn a hun a little $100 cash flow chip And, and so it's funny because even as that as my kids, obviously, all kids love cotton candies. So they're like, oh, cotton candy. I'm like, yeah. We could We could buy a cotton candy machine. We could sell it at school. We could sell it.
Dada. Dada. And she's like, like, you start thinking, you know, six and an eight year old little or six and nine now. Little girl, like, okay. I could I could I could grow my money. We go to Costco the other day, and she goes, my oldest. Or we're on our way to buy some liabilities. I love it. Yes. Yes. We are. Lee, I wanna know a little bit of the story. Like, okay. So you kinda gave us the, the back drop of getting your haircut and getting into the brand.
Tell us how you ascended to this position here. You're the leader of the tribe. Yeah. Absolutely. Before, though, I wanna I'm curious to know, do your kids have different personalities where they respond to sort of the coaching that you're trying to instill upon them? Oh, yeah. 100%. It's funny too because I I love personality, you know, not only assessments. I use the culture index. You know, with with my team and and clients and such.
And and, they're too young to take the assessment, but I'm I'm like, I'm calculating Right? And so I can see strengths, weaknesses, just the way that they naturally flow in how they think or their freeness, you know, like my oldest like most oldest or, you know, she's a performer. She's, you know, straight and narrow, rule follower. She's a second mom to the house, very orderly. And my second is like, let me just free float around. I'm a hot air balloon. Like, don't don't don't rush me.
You know, I but by the same time, I'm gonna wanna beat my older sister because, you know, like, I I love a good challenge as well. It's just she's challenged differently. So I'm sure you could probably say the same about yours, but, yes, I'm calculating that and and trying to inspire or maybe deliver information uniquely just like I would as a leader in my business. Of course. Right? You're figuring out who's the future CMO, future CFO. A 100%.
Yeah. Well, so going back even farther to your question, I always think of the parable of, you know, the businessman who's on vacation, and he stumbles upon the guy who's, you know, sitting there on the beach, fishing, Yeah. And he says, what are you doing? You're taking a nap while fishing. And the guy says, yeah. Of course. I'm just relaxing. And he says, yeah. But if you worked harder, you could catch more fish. And the guy says, and then what?
And he says, well, then you could have more fish to sell at the market. You did make more money. And he says, but then in what? And he says, well, then you'd have more people. You could hire more workers. They'd catch for fish for you. You could buy a boat. You could go farther on the ocean. You have all this money, and the story goes on and on with the person laying on the beach saying, why would I do that?
And he says, because then you'd have so much money you could just sit back and relax and sit on the beach and just fish all day. And I always think about that story related to that cycle of how hard am I working for what But the thing that I always think about is is that the person on the beach with a lot of money has the opportunity to not lay on the beach. He has an opportunity to go to a different beach to do different things.
So I always think about that related to my kids when I think about their motivation factors, what they're interested in, what they're doing, and why I'm doing it for them, because ultimately at the end of the day, want them to be able to lay on the beach and fish if they'd like, but I also want them to have enough money to say, well, you know, the beach is nice, but I'm interested in going to ski. Let's go to Switzerland. You know, why not? Let's go on a trip.
And, you know, it may be not be an altruistic answer, but it's at least the real one. As far as the journey I was introduced to bishops, you know, obviously through a free cut card. I had a friend that had applied for a position at bishops. I was able to help him get the role through the CMO at the time. The CMO was moving on. I was coming from the agency Wolfe, and my friend that had been working for the CMO said, hey. There's an opening. This was 2018. I just had another child.
Did not have 4 at the time, but I had a number of children. And my wife was saying, hey. You're traveling all the time for work, working in the agency Wolfe. You know, are you gonna be around? Are you gonna be a parent? And my friend called me and said, hey. Our CMO is moving on. Would you be interested in speaking with our CEO and talking about the position? I left my job as a group account director at that time. I started working for the CEO.
I worked for him, who was the CEO and founder from 2018 to most recently, end of March of this year, a private equity firm came in and bought the company. They bought the corporate arm out, and then a different group came in and bought the franchising arm out. Through interviews, they decided I was the best person to take over the leadership role. So I've been in place as a CEO and board president, since April 1 of 2022 when it was announced. I actually thought it was an April fool's joke.
But here I am, and, it's been quite a ride. It's been a lot of fun. Wow. What a what a decision to think one way and and it'd be, you know, actually true. Give us just a quick moment on that. Like, did you got an announcement? You got an email. Like, where were you? What was the feeling? You know, type of I was still doing the work as a CMO. I knew I would stay on. I was curious to see if there'd be a new leader brought in. I was totally open to working for someone.
I loved my role as a CMO at Deships. It was really fun and exciting, but the opportunity to sort of lead all the departments and all the teams and sort of craft a strategic vision about where I felt the brand could go, especially as a franchise network, has been fantastic. It's been so much fun. You know, we still have caps almost everyone on the team. We've brought in additional people, especially on the operation side, something that I felt was lack a little bit when I was operating as a CMO.
And we have grown top line revenue dramatically. We've seen a rebound of plus 16%. For most of our locations, obviously, coming out of COVID was very tough. We had some difficult conversations with some franchise owner groups, but we are positioned in a great spot. And heading into 2023 when we re begin development, really excited to see what we do. I mean, we are a nationally recognized brand. We are a strong brand in in our FDD filing.
I think people will be very excited to see what we're doing in this vertical. It's very different than what a lot of other partners might do. That's exciting. I think that, anybody who's, you know, been through an FCD process or re or a franchise who's maybe listening knows that, you know, like, you're you're, I guess, you're kinda always looking for the the the it thing.
At least that's what I was looking for, you know, when I was considering franchises or or other businesses to purchase when I first started, you know, 11 years ago. And it's like, the it factor of cutting hair. Well, no. No. That's not it. It's all the other things that you've that you've mentioned. Love that. K. Let's go practical for a few minutes here.
In the last, you know, 6 to 8 months, and you can obviously give it to, you know, the last couple of years as Wolfe, but I'd love to know as the CEO, What's something super practical? Like, it's just a really good decision that you can look back and go, okay. That growth that we've seen or the moves that we've made have come from this one decision. What can you share with us? Yeah. 100%. And this is my advice for any small to medium sized business owner.
It's doubling down on your Google presence. And I don't mean that just by ad spending.
I mean by really focusing on your Google business suite, uploading photos, uploading reviews, testimonials, things that you can do, adding a additional services, adding in key categories, looking at your direct versus discovery traffic, what is actually bringing people to your sort of digital brick and mortar or your digital storefront, whether you're an ecom or an actual brick and mortar where you need people to come to you and create content related to that that you then upload to the page.
Google's return based on, you know, authority proximity, relativity, few other things, really will drive traffic. We've seen an increase since I was CMO from 32 to 71% of our booking traffic coming from Google to now 76% for our lowest store to 94%. For our highest store.
It just shows the dominance of Google as a search engine and obviously how they can direct people to you, not just through the map's functionality, but through voice search, keyword string search, and then the content that you create, and then upload. That direct versus discovery insight is obviously huge. I absolutely recommend any business owner that is in the service offerings really focus on Google. You know, as you said, you're very particular about your hair.
We want people to be particular about their hair. If I were to ask you, hey. Do you have any restaurant recommendations? I'm coming to your area. Where would you go eat? You might say, oh, what do you like? Chinese, Mexican, Italian, French cuisine, you want barbecue? Ah, here's a list of places. But if I asked you, do you have an electrician? You have a plumber or do you have a contractor you'd like? Chances are good. You'd say only go to this person. This is who I recommend.
This is the 1. Anyone else is gonna rip you off, gonna give you a bad service. You're gonna walk away being frustrated. You're gonna feel like you wasted your money, and we want to be that for hair. We want when people say, hey. Your hair looks great. Where should I go? Or, hey. I'm new to town. Where should I go get the service? We want people to say, only go to bishops. Anywhere else is gonna rip you off. They're gonna ruin what you have. Yeah. Yeah. I love that.
Love the, the depth of the conviction that you're going after. I think that the practical point there of of, focusing on the Google suite and all those things, I think, is huge. Appreciate the takeaway as simple as it is, but And I think it's an ever even for someone like yourself who has a a knowledge in this area being a CMO and then now CEO, it sounds like it's still what you're pressing into. So how much more, do we Chaz listeners to you today, have a chance to probably grow in that area?
So I think it's super practical. Yeah. And there's so many pieces related to that. I mean, it's not just loading content. It's about increasing the strength of your own page ranking by leaving reviews for other businesses in your area. So your area is seen as a hot area to recommend people to go to. The value of a hair salon leaving a 5 star review for a coffee shop or restaurant next to them or any business near them is only gonna bring more traffic to your area.
A lot of businesses don't think about leveraging partnerships. We really push that talking about Valentine's Day giveaways, spring break giveaways, how can you work with the wine shop across the street and leverage each other's reach how do you create more page awareness for both of you? Migrating people from your email list to one another, to your social channels, all of those things are incredibly valuable. And it can all go back to your Google business suite.
If I had to have a second, I I really think it's, following up with lapsed clients, I feel like a lot of business owners, especially the ones that are trying to reach that $1,000,000 top line revenue mark, are fragrating about the people that have already had an experience with them. You start thinking about leveraging partnerships and relationships. A lot of people will think about their, you know, hot warm cold. These are the people I know. These are people I could be introduced too.
These are my cold calls, try to get customers to come in, but you're hotter than hotter. The people that have already been in your door, and a lot of people forget to follow-up with them, just to simply be top of mind and are sort of rehashing conversations with clients that we haven't seen in 10 plus weeks brings in almost 12% return of clientele.
So it's worth that time to invest in reaching out to the people that have been to you that might not have come back within the last two and a half to three months. Yeah. 100%. Super practical. Sales background in me just wants to just go off on a tangent here with with you and round follow-up. Yep. Call it the FU money. Right? So it's in the follow-up. It goes back to the experience, though. The follow-up is part of the experience. The follow-up is, hey. We care about you. Where have you been?
Your hair must be really, really long by now. We should you should come in and see us. We miss your face. We miss your head. Come and see us. Yeah. Exactly. We've got your favorite drink ready to go. Let's flip the coin. Let's talk about a bad decision that you've made that, again, practical, but we can learn from. Well, it would go back to having family I think people like ourselves Chaz are, laser focused on a specific goal or outcome, any distraction might unfortunately seem as a regret.
Something that's in the way creates missed opportunity. A lot of my friends that are having kids will say, hey. You're hot. You have 4 kids. You know, what should I prepare for? I'm about to have my first And I tell them not jokingly, write down the 10 things you and your partner love to do together, cross out 7 of them. That's what it's like having a child. And, unfortunately, as an entrepreneur, You have to cross the other 3. Yeah. Exactly. So that's the challenge.
I don't wanna say that my family is a regret, especially since it's being recorded. But under my breath, I certainly do. Yeah. I think that the the reality there is that it it creates a double mindedness is really what we're talking about, but it's okay. I've said this all the time as it goes back to what you've said, just, I don't know, maybe 5, 6 minutes ago, but, you know, would Wolfe I be worth more today with my with my net worth have more millions attached to it.
Today, if I wasn't married without kids, well, yes. Naturally, of course, I would've I would've been able to run and not been distracted harder than what I had been Chaz your point, you've already made. But on to what? Well, I can come up with a list of things. Yeah. Sure. But but, for me, and and probably, a good majority of people listening. I'm sure you as well, but, you know, there's that is why we are created. Is to to to procreate, you know, it's it's a pretty basic biological function.
So the the wholeness of that, you're right. It robs it, but it completes it also. Absolutely. And I see that as something entrepreneurs I know struggle with. The idea of Yeah. Finding purpose. And the ones that are the most successful are the ones that eliminate that internal conversation of. I don't need a purpose except to go after this one goal. Anything else is peripheral. I am a horse with blenders on. My purpose is to be focused on this. There is no greater need, greater service.
Making other people do better, I want to just focus on myself. Those are the ones that have the additional millions that I know. Right? You can debate whether they're empty or not. They seem pretty happy to me, but you know, that's fine. But, you know, I I think that's the piece that a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with is. Oh, yeah. How much focus should I have? What is my balance Is it 9010? Is it 8020? Is it 99 and 1?
That's something each person needs to decide, especially if they're trying to get their business to the next level. Oh, yeah. 100%. And and it could be in seasons. Right? Like, there's that that percentage changes, maybe based on the season of the business or season of the marriage or season of the kids. You know, there's just certain times. You know, I 2 years ago, I don't know if I would have told you that I took a 45 minute midday nap, ever.
Like, I don't know if I've ever done that, but that's what I did earlier today. My little my little boy is 3. He's got a little he's a little sickness. A little fever, probably the second time ever in his life. And I went downstairs. I snuggled with him, and I took a little nap with him. It was good for both of Oh, absolutely. That physical health is so important. I mean, you can't make right decisions if you're not in the right mindset and not feeling well.
Related to that piece, though, I mean, the phrase that I always say two friends and 2 my coworkers when they ask me about opportunities is, you know, be with somebody you wanna be and work for somebody you wanna become. It's good. And if you're not doing those things, you know, look somewhere else. I I also always say that there's 2 different points that you need from any opportunity, and that's either that you should be earning or you should be learning.
Ideally, you should be both, but if you're not doing one of the other, go and explore other opportunities. Yeah. It's good. What do you think about process around decision making? We talked about good and bad, but, something comes across your desk today. Is there certain steps or mindset that you followed and try to make good decisions? Yeah. I mean, I go back to the framework of stop I look at the situation. I look at the target. I look at the opportunity. I figure out what is our proposal.
I try to bring in team members. I mean, I do not make decisions 100% by myself. I think whether it's friends, a board, your teammates, people that you feel like you can bounce ideas off of, Chaz sort of R and D is really necessary, when making any strategic decisions, especially related to your business. You might be the final vote, and that's fine. But it's absolutely worth it to bounce ideas off of other people.
Whether that's your partner, whether that's a therapist, whether that's teammates, Whether it's even talking to your kid and saying, hey. In simple terms, if I had 3 apples, but I could spend those 3 and maybe I could Ted Apples back, but I might lose all three apples. What would you do?
It's important valuable to at least speak it out loud So you hear what you're thinking about because it might even change the decision that you make because after you're explaining it to someone, you might say, oh, I'm thinking of this differently myself. Yep. That's such good, just honest feedback because you're right. Doesn't really matter. I mean, it matters who you're talking to, but to your point, just saying it out loud more often than not helps helps the process.
I wanna come at you in, you know, different angle here with some speed round questions. My first one is about KPIs. And, really, the question is what's your most important KPI, but if you could only pick one to track forever and ever is my question, what would it be? Related to business right now, it's top line revenue. 100%. We are a franchise network. We only do well if our businesses are doing Wolfe, and that is a 100% based on top line revenue. For them, the answers might be different.
They're looking at margins and percentages, but for me, it is top line revenue. K. What does that give you? I, obviously, in the in the franchise world, I understand that, you know, obviously, like, your your revenue as a percentage of the overall revenue. What does that give to you as far as the ability to manage the rest of the business? If that's the only thing that you knew in this example, How does that in your mind flow down to the rest of running the rest of the company? Absolutely.
It would have us look at what services are being offered at a sales per hour point that makes sense. And what partners are we bringing on from a retail percentage that have allowed us to increase sales. So we look at that balance first, what makes sense. And then obviously market by market, we get more into, you know, P and L statements and figuring out what makes sense for that business, but, ultimately, it ladders up to top line revenue.
What is producing for your location that allows you to hit all your fixed costs to continue to operate as a business. If there's other things that are fluctuating costs that we need to look at month to month, we can figure out how to tackle those issues, again, using the stop framework, but ultimately at the end of the day, it is top line revenue. Another phrase that I think about often having worked with Google is Is it measured because it's important or important because it's measured?
There's a lot of KPIs that I think people, especially from the agency world, will throw at you, And I think you do need to have a laser focus on what are we really tracking at this quarter and ultimately end of year to think about whether this business has been successful. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. We did a we did a little, exercises past weekend where kinda graded some different areas of life and the ones that were lower grades in our life were the ones that we didn't pay as much attention to.
We weren't tracking. We weren't prioritizing. Right? And all the ones where we're like, man, I'm killing in this area. We're the ones we think about, obsess, about, spend time and attention. And so it just it just, backs up exactly what you were just saying. Lee, what book or resource would you recommend for a business owner looking to grow? Well, number 1, I think podcasts like this are fantastic.
I think there are always takeaway pieces of information from any guest, any expert any interview that you can glean more easily than you can for maybe dedicating the hours to a book or listening to an audio book. Ultimately, the book that I turned back to is Dale Carnegie, how to win friends and influence people. I think there is no better book for business than that one. Yeah. Such a good book. Classic. I don't know if it'll ever go away.
One of those deals where if the listener, it's not the first time it's been mentioned here today or or on the show, I mean, So if the listener listening today hasn't yet still read it, what are you waiting for? It's definitely one of those classics. What do you think about intentionally networking or master mining with other entrepreneurs? Well, I think you need to look at every opportunity you can. I think, again, there's times in your life where you should be earning.
You should be learning ideally both. I look at a lot of the opportunities that have come my way, and a lot of that has come from networking.
So I think a dedication, when you talk about what can I do to grow my business, a balance of that, a good percentage of balance of that should be networking, not just with other business owners, but experts that you can talk to to think about your problems creatively approach situations differently, things that you can test and try, track figure out what is actually driving your ultimate KPI?
Again, for us, it's top line revenue, but I think networking is gonna be one of the most valuable things that any business owner can do to get to the next level. Yeah. I love that. Last question for you, Lee. You ready? I am ready. If you could whisper in the younger Leigh's ear. What would you say? Take a breath. I feel like that's the white male way of tattooing breathe on my wrist. You know?
But, I think a lot of times, especially with children, you know, as I've mentioned, I'm so focused on the end of the ride. I'm not actually enjoying the ride. Pre kids, I would say my life was a merry go round. There were certain ups. There were certain downs. I was happy. I was sad, but really minor levels. I sort of just floated through life. Having kids, you have the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. It really becomes a roller coaster in the truest sense.
So I think rather than thinking about when is this over, long is the ride? I would say just take a breath and actually enjoy being on it. Yeah. It's good. Being present, as you said earlier. Right? Mhmm. It's good. Lee, you've been incredible, and honest. Love love how straightforward, yet, witty, you are. How can the listener find you? Whether they wanna connect with maybe one of your locations and they need to get a a shortcut or a long cut.
Mhmm. Or or maybe they just wanna reach out to you and pick your brain as an entrepreneur. Absolutely. Hopefully, they go and visit bishops. They can find us at www.bishops dotco. That's bishops like the chess piece, but with an s. We were actually named after the owner's dog, bishops, So, again, www.bishops.co. They can find me online at Twitter.com/lesias that's l e I g h z u s, and that's a playoff of my first name spelling l e I g h, and then my last feldman, like Corey Feldman.
They can find me on LinkedIn looking for Lee Feldman, or, again, they can find my LinkedIn through my Twitter at twitter.com/lesus. L e I g h z u s. Love it. Love it. Yeah. We'll put all that in the show notes as well, of course. And, you host a podcast and there's lots of other things that you're doing out there for entrepreneurs. And so, if you wanna mention that, great. Otherwise, you know, we we've we'll put all that in the show notes as well. Oh, fantastic.
Well, I feel fortunate enough to have conversations with people like you that I feel like we're like minded in the approach to business life trying to answer these greater questions that might be larger than ourselves. And I'm fortunate enough that I get to interview some hosts and people. For entrepreneur magazine. So I host a podcast called Action Ambition with a number of other hosts, that you can find on entrepreneur.com. That's incredible.
Well, Lee, nothing but blessing to your family and your business, your network. We just so appreciate you coming here today and spending the time with us. Thank you for being here. Chaz, thank you so much for having me. This has been a blast. Thank you for listening to gathering the Kings today. I hope that you were able to pull out a few nuggets to go apply into your business right away.
More importantly, though, I hope that you're realizing that it takes more to be successful than just being by yourself doing it all on your own, carrying the weight all by yourself. What I have realized, not only in my own journey from multiple businesses in multiple different industries and now interviewing literally over 2 or 300 other very successful 7, 8, and 9 figure business owners is Chaz It's tough to do it alone.
And so gathering the Kings literally exists to bring together successful entrepreneurs. In fact, we are putting together 1000 kings, specifically who are grateful, but not done. We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family, and communities, and here's what we believe Chaz in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy. So if that relates and and resonates with you.
And you know that you need people around you, sharp, qualified other very successful business owners. I want you to go to gatheringthekings.com. I want you to take a look at what we're doing and see if it makes sense for you to be part of our pursuit to 1000 kings. Talk soon.