On today's episode of gathering the Kings. People are people. You know, and people I think that they just expect her. The guy needs to be on time. He needs his records. He needs to, everybody, unfortunately, has flaws. That's just human nature, and I think that some people literally expect people to have no falls. And then that's why they can never find good employees. It's because they don't see them for the things that are good. They only see the negative.
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 a successful business 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 assess 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? Chaz Wolfe Gathering the King podcast today. I've got Dean Brady here on the King stage.
My brother, Dean. How are you? How's it going, man? How you doing? You know, it's it's it's well. It's Monday. I got a little bit of a little sniffle going on, but, you know, we're here. Fresh. Around. 8 AM, baby. Here we go. That's time to start. Exactly. I love that. You're already dropping bombs. Dean, tell us what kind of business you got, brother? Yep. So I own a granite countertop fabrication company.
So what we do is we offer our clients a one stop shop for granite, quartz, marble, basically any type of natural stone. We're the ones that manufacture it in house. With the state of the art facility, and we basically come in your home, rip out the carrot tops, put in the new, hook up the plumbing, and transform your kitchen in a day. That's what I do. Yeah. I I love you. That little sentence there at the end. I mean, we do and transform your kitchen in a day.
Yeah. That I got me I got me excited a little bit. Like, wow. You've thought about that. I I love the little tag lines. You know, they always get me fired up, but I wanna know before we jump into your story, I wanna know that you're obviously operating at a super high level. What has you moving? What's what's got you pushing? Why are you still doing it? Why haven't you cashed in and sailed away type of a thing? What what's your why? You know, I think it's there's a lot to it.
I mean, I think a lot of times, business owners, it's just who they are. It's part of the identity. You know, you just like to achieve and you never felt like you did enough. You always wanna push to the next level. There's just this hunger. And I think there's just always new things you could bring to the table. So for our company, it's bringing back American Manufacturing.
Then what we mean by that is, you know, obviously, building, you know, manufacturing in America, But for, like, our employees, for example, full benefits, well paying jobs, and a community. Like, our guys really have a very strong community. Awesome to see, and we love harboring that. And it's it's something that keeps me going. Every time I come in the morning, I see the guys like this fist bump and having a great time and, like, genuinely enjoying time with each other, Yeah.
That's something that definitely keeps pushing me. It reminds me why we need to keep going. Where does that stem from? Because Not everybody is pushed by Chaz, and there's, like, you didn't necessarily say the camaraderie with you, although I'm sure that you're part of it. You it was like this this masterful architect sitting back and going, wow. Look at what we've built. Know, and not even I didn't even hear you say what I've built. I heard you just say, look at what we've done.
And and that's the the fist bumping and the the cool benefits that you get to provide. Like, how did you get to that place, or was that always in you? Give us a little bit of backdrop on that. So I've always kinda had, like, a rebellious phase in sense. You just get in trouble a lot in high school. Didn't do really well. And I think it's just really just always it might be a partly just trying to fight the wave all the time.
I mean, like, I don't like how the world has become now in the sense of every everybody and everything is disposable. Yeah. And I feel, especially, you know, I remember a really good story. My grandparents, so my grandfather wasn't doing very well. I can't remember exactly what was wrong thought he was gonna pass away. Wow. And the bread company he was a bread truck delivery driver. Okay. The company gave my grandmother a blank check. Instead if you need this, use it.
That would never happen in this day and age, a, because the people wouldn't trust the person and vice versa. It just Chaz wouldn't happen. So, I mean, that I thought was an extremely powerful story. And, you know, I just feel like the world's lacking that everybody's like, yeah, I'll just get another job. I'll just go to the next place. And the owners are like, yeah. Well, we'll just fire them. You know what I mean? There's just not saying all owners, but I do feel like it's a lost principle.
And I think that if we're gonna bring back America as a whole, I think that it starts grassroots, and it needs to start with small businesses taking care of their employees and building that type of culture. You know? Man, I, you know, I always I've said this several times at the beginning of these shows after people answer this question, and some are legacy driven. Some are industry disruptors.
Some are, you know, I don't I don't even know what, like, what bucket that is, but you're just like a you're a world changer. You're a I wanna see this huge problem, come to a better solution. And and I love your your approach because your approach isn't just sitting and dreaming about how the world changes. It's well, what I can do right here and right now in my little space of the world is this. And and and you're doing it.
And it does it it I mean, we'll see in time, but I feel like in in my mind, it it does change things because Yeah. In desperate people, for example, find themselves in desperate situations. They make moves that they Wolfe make. So I think if once you change one person, then that changes their children's lives. And then that A 100%. This, it's really a butterfly effect in the sense.
You know, if you just, like, saw our guys, for example, we teach them basic principles, even things that have nothing to do with our business. So, like, whether it's your credit, you know what I mean? A lot of the guys didn't know about, like, just basic principles of credit. Taking responsibility for your actions. Like, last one to touch it is the one that owns it. You know, don't give me excuses. I just wanna hear You're right.
I should have done this, you know, and that that's what we're looking for. You know? So ownership, you know, ownership. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even just just those two things that you just threw it out was an example of you pouring into your team, and then the other one was expecting something of your team. Yeah. And I think it's just a a very a very good understanding for the listener to have. It's not just how do I, as the owner, provide this in credible opportunity. Yes. That's half of it.
But the other half of it is that we have this unbelievable expectation because that's where winners thrive is that there's expectation. There's growth. We're heading somewhere. We're going after something. That's why we're fist bumping because we're probably achieving something. But on the inside, it's there's this there's this metric that we're after that Chaz a as a unit as a team and and and, oh, by the way, we get have a good time doing it.
And so I think that there's, like, this this back and forth, this give and take that you've really outlined for us. Did you wanna add anything to that? I did wanna add one thing. There is a return on that too. So our company, we have over 205 star reviews. We have a 5.0 rating. It's really hard to do an industry like ours because it it's just that people are spending a lot of money. It's a very sensitive thing. When people are spending a lot of money, they're very emotional. You know?
Yeah. So it's hard to get top ratings. So when we create this culture, 1, it works as a filter. So when we hire new people, we immediately know whether they're gonna make the cut or not. So it's very, very low turnover. Yeah. And 2, obviously, we can charge, you know, higher more premium prices to our clients because the people that are working there, they don't wanna leave. You know, they're they're driven to stay.
They have every benefit under the sun, and it's just a it's it's part of their life. You know what I mean? It's their it's their connection. So there is a financial return on that as well. Yeah. I love I love what you said there. Yeah. Of course, there's, I mean, the return from a business owner perspective is, I mean, We always have to think like that for sure. But you creating something that basically is just bigger than yourself is bigger than them. It's it's the way that they do life.
That that was that sentence that you said that is really struck out to me. When I created the Gathering of King's mastermind group, I've said it to every single one of our members is that, you know, when it comes time to renew, it to me, it shouldn't even like, if I had done my job correctly, it shouldn't even be a question. You should think, well, this is just how I do business. This is the these are the people that I run with. This is the network that's given me so much value renew? What?
Like, I didn't even know that was an option. I'm I'm just gonna do it again. Are you gonna go home? Of course, you're gonna go home. Exact yeah. So, yeah, I think that that mindset right there of just this is just how we do things. But in order to get people to think like that, there has to be immense value, which you said the the benefits, the the the camaraderie, all of that. So I think we can stop the podcast right now.
I think the listener could have, you know, a couple pages of notes to walk away with. Wanna know your story, though. Let's talk about how you guys started. Was it this business? Did entrepreneurialism start before this? Give us your backdrop. Yeah. So long story short kinda. So based my business partner and I, we actually knew each other in high school, and his father owned, like, a small little granite shop. He kinda just did it all himself. He told us how to do it.
That he was originally from Romania. So he ended up his father ended up moving back to Romania, and my business partner, Ron, with him. He told me one time he's like, hey, man. You should really come over here. It's awesome. I didn't even know where Romania was on the map, but I was young. I was like, alright. Yeah. Sure thing. I'll come. I was gonna go for a month, and I ended up living there for years, like, on and off. I'd go there for a year. I'd come back, and we did granite over there.
So we Okay. That's that's what we did. Yeah. And then, you know, I I I kinda floated around for quite a long time, and I always tell people this is actually the best thing that ever happened to me. One of my other friends, we were all drinking, and he punched me in the face for no reason. He was just a violent drunk. It gave me an orbital eye fracture. I had to get a metal plate under my eye. Oh my goodness. And they work.
Yeah. So it was actually the best thing that ever happened to me because I kinda just reanalyzed my entire life. I was like, man, what am I doing? I'm wasting my life away. Right. After that, you know, I healed up. I went back to Romania. I told my business partner, I was like, listen, man. I already have some contacts. Why don't you come back? We'll just start from the ground up. And then that was the being a grand pro. He flew back, and then we just my brother gave us a small investment.
We bought, like, just, like, the bare necessities. We were cutting everything by hand. Yeah. And we took off from there. Wow. I mean, so first off, I have to just acknowledge the fact that I I have been building contact in Romania. This is that's so crazy. Yeah. That's cool. You know, I've got a couple of long time clients. I just went to Romania a couple months ago, Okay. For the first time. What part? In Kluge. Oh, okay. No. I've been there. That's nice. Yeah. Yeah. So this is just funny.
We're gonna have to continue the conversation about Romania, but So what I'm hearing is there was a period of time. I I like to call well, it it's not my language per se, but inside the group, we I've developed this language around cowboy warrior and and and king. And so it's like, I hear you saying that was, like, your cowboy stage of, like, Hey.
A little bit of all over the place running and gunning doing a little bit of business, doing a little bit of that, doing a little bit of traveling, not really committed to really anything. Yeah. And, and and so that that moment in time for you, it it kinda gave you a perspective switch of like, hey. I gotta get busy. Or is it, like, like you said, wasting away my time? Like, describe a little bit more of that moment, you know, where you're just like, okay. Enough is enough.
I just knew that, like, I always kinda knew eventually I was gonna have to be my own boss because I didn't handle employment well. I hate being told what to do. I I at one point, I just think this is how it should be done, and that's kinda what I stick to. So I can be quite stubborn. So at that point, it was really just kinda the nail on the cough. I was like, alright. Let's get rolling. You know what I mean? Let let's just let's just get started. And I really went totally gung ho.
I mean, we went a 110%. I went from you know, because I was working in Romania. I'd come back here. I'd work for another granite shop, and I'm just kind of just floating around. No ambition within that company. Right. I mean, I started doing, I guess, looking back, I start I did start doing sales in the the granite countertop company I was working for. I forgot to mention it's kinda the bigger deal. He actually wanted me to buy in to his coke. But I was like, you know, I'm doing all the sales.
And so what happened was I used to fabricate install. I was like, I was a labor guy. Yeah. Yeah. And after hours, he said, well, listen. If you want, you can go out and get your own contacts in my own time and do sales, and I'll give you a cut. But I need you to stay in fabrication. So I build up I may own business cards because the guy was like, he wasn't like a business kind of type of guy. He didn't have true marketing or anything. I made a logo for the company. I made, like, some brochure.
I made all that stuff, and I got a lot of good contacts. So when I went over to Ron and Romania, almost like, listen, man, I have my own contacts. You know, we we have, like, a little mini business. So we really were able to hit the rip ground running in that sense.
Yeah. Yeah. I think that, like, when you said you look back at those circumstances, the best thing that happened to you, even that little moment of someone who unprepared, not really running a business very well, you know, basically pushed you into, hey. Figure it out. And Yeah. Which which was your launching pad. Right?
And so I think that's just a lot of our stories is that, you know, in the moment, it feels a little frustrating, but whatever that moment is is actually seed or the the foundation of, you know, we look back and we're like, dang. That that this is why all this has happened. You know? Yeah. I just couldn't see myself staying in the position I was in for my life. Because a lot of people do do that. They they find, you know, they set a scene.
They just sit there in this little comfort zone, and they never leave. You know, I think I'm lucky. I have serious ADD. I don't like overthink things too much, so I just kinda pull the trigger and go. It's like a lot of people are frozen by analyzing right now, and they question all the reasons. I was fortunate too at that point in time. I just got married, but I didn't have any kids. So I didn't really have any financial obligation.
I can see how it can be more difficult for somebody that obviously has a whole family riding on them. Taking that type of risk. You know, we went all in. I quit my job and everything. I went straight up all in. Yeah. So Yeah. And you can you can do that. With You can do that. Yeah. We can do that. Yeah. You can. And, I mean, I you know, I'm just Greater or lesser desire. Right? Yeah. Yeah. One or the other.
I I just appreciate the the acknowledgement there of of what it took, you know, to go all in. Also, the acknowledgement of that time where you just got fed up, I think that all of us listening, it I mean, if they're an entrepreneur, they've already made that choice. They already got fed up. Yeah. But the reality of it is this. Now you probably agree with this, but let me know, is, even in business, like, we make the jump. We got fed up. Right? So we start or to business.
And then we get the same thing. We get complacent again. Right? Whether it's difficult or whether we find that little bit of success 3, 400, 500,000, 800,000. We had a little bit of good business. And, but it keeps, like, you know, like, there's not not enough going on in a small business like that to where, like, there's not enough people. There's not enough systems. And so things eventually just keep falling apart in essence is at least my experience.
It has to grow in order to get bigger, better people, more systems, stuff like that. And so the listener right now is stuck in that place. But really, in my opinion, it's the mindset that you just described. They haven't been fed up enough to go, you know what? That's right. I'm tired of this this place that I'm in. So let me go all in again. What would you say to that?
For the person, not necessarily looking to leave their career like you did, but probably the same time frame that you and I did before that $1,000,000 mark, generally speaking, and we kinda got fed up again and said, you know what? I'm making some more changes. What would you say to that? Yeah. I mean, I always kinda look at things like, how would I feel about myself on my deathbed? You know, and just looking back, am I gonna be happy with what I did?
But if the answer is no, then I need to get rolling. Yeah. Yeah. It's time, baby. We're we're behind time. Gotta gotta go. Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. Okay. So I wanna know something a little bit more tactical. We're gonna go into your maybe early years, you and your partner, you just come back from Romania. You got a little investment here. You got a little com you know, a couple contacts and you're rolling. Give us a good decision that you made that's super, you know, tangible.
You can look back and go, okay. When I did that, it was able to propel me forward. Yeah. Immediately higher. As fast as possible. That was the first thing. There's a good book, the E Myth. And I feel like I read that super early on. And it really pushed my whole entire career because I it just gave me an understanding I wouldn't have known about before. So my goal immediately became as soon as we started I think we hired our first employee in the fur. I wanna say the 1st 6 months to a year.
It was pretty early on. You know? Yeah. And I remember thinking because I, you know, I was specific about how I install it. Well, you know, you always everybody thinks they're the best. You know, I'm like, on the back, no one's gonna be able to do that like me. Learning to accept that, you know, yeah, the, I mean, you have to trade them.
You wanna make them the closest version to you possible and just accept the fact that gonna be some things that aren't gonna be the way you do them, but you know what? There there's gonna be things that come out even better than the way you did them.
So Yeah. And and I guess I would add one thing of just friction, you know, like, you you create a system that you think is best and you put somebody even if they're inferior to you, meaning not as good as you yet, they're still gonna have this you're they're going through your system. And if they have any sort of a an idea or any sort of a thought or just, hey. What about this?
Then that that natural friction is likely going to make the system better, even if it's something that you've already thought of, even if it's something that you've already, you know, worked out and it's a no, that that back and forth putting somebody through that can still make it better. What what about hiring for you made sense? Because there's a lot of guys right now.
Then maybe they have one two folks or maybe 3 or 4 even, but it's the scarcity place of, like, when I hire, it doesn't work out or you know, if I if it's just more responsibility, more people to deal with, it's difficult. Like, I don't want that. It's it's headache. Wolfe you say to that person listening right now? So I think I hear a lot of people say Chaz, and I think this refers back to what I was talking about self accountability.
If you had a bad experience in employee, it was definitely your to a certain extent. And whether it's your lack of experience in hiring, I feel like that's probably the core function. Probably. Or be unrealistic unrealistic expectations and see maybe you didn't train properly. So, you know, I think the biggest one, you know, making sure that you're analyzing the person properly and actually taking the time to learn how to hire. I'm still in learning phase for sure, but I'm definitely now.
I can identify template or an installer sales guy much quicker. And then as far as the actual training aspect, you know, make sure you set clear expectations. I actually have, like, a great story about Chaz. So I hired this girl for the front desk, and I noticed that our leads were dropping off. And I was like, man, what is going on? So I listened in on one of the phone calls, And I realized she was trying to do a really good job.
She was trying to answer every question they answered, but the problem is she was unable to. 1, I didn't train her on all it would have taken a very long time. And, 2, I didn't really tell her what's your goal when you answered the phone. What is the point of this call? What's the point of this? So I told her, I was like, let's hone it. Listen. Any single question they they ask you, go, yes, we can cert no problem. We'll certainly be able to answer that for you.
If you don't mind, if I can get your contact of our sales guy reach out to you and go over that with you. So, basically, your goal is to get their contact information and schedule a meeting And when I did that, man, first of all, she's a rock star. She's one of my best employees. It was night and day. And that was my fault. I never showed her first of all, how to control the conversation on the phone and 2, what her goal was. So that was totally my fault.
And I feel like a lot of employers would have just like, oh, she sucks. And they would have fired a gem. She is an absolute awesome rock star. So Yeah. So just to recap, the 3 things. Number 1, hiring capability or just your ability to identify somebody through the hiring process. And so you have to have a hiring process. And so to identify that salesperson or that installer, like you said, I probably said this multiple times on the show, but I use culture index.
We also do this on behalf of all of our members as well, but it's like that can identify you as an individual strengths, weaknesses, care traits, and then we can put you in the right seat on the right bus Exactly. Or not. Right. Then you talked about two things that I would classify both as leadership you talked about setting expectations, which is what you just said as far as, you know, like, hey. What's the purpose here? What's the goal? And then the training behind it.
And both of those are gonna be associated to the leadership of the person listening. And so you have to grow in your understanding of people and then you have to grow as a leader so that you can, number 1, hire Wolfe. Number 2, set good expectations. Number 3, train properly. So if you didn't write those down, Stop, rewind. We're giving you the juice here. K? Dean's Dean's telling you exactly how to to hire a good team.
Dean, you wanna add anything to that set to that that little recipe that we created? Yeah. Yeah. The one thing I would say is, you know, I I told this one guy, and I don't know if this is a true ratio, but is as long as, obviously, the goods better than the bad. I I see, like, at 8020. Just realize that every single person is gonna have something that you're not gonna like. And then the question is, does that work for your business, your culture, and everything else? The answer is yes. Right.
Some of these guys are just like they their their expectations are too high of people. And in fact, they would probably fire themselves if they were to really look themselves in the mirror. You know what I mean? That's right. Yeah. So true. And and so in that, it's not necessarily lowering your standard. Right? It's no. Here's the standard. Here's them. And maybe there's this cork or this thing, but cultural wise, attitude wise, hunger wise they fit.
And and maybe it's just a leadership training. Being being realistic. People are people. You know, and I think that they just expect it. The guy needs to be on time. He needs his records. He needs to, everybody, unfortunately, has flaws. That's just human nature, and I think that some people literally expect people to have no falls. And then that's why they can never find good employees is because they don't see them for the things that are good. They only see the negative.
Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. Because you're right. The people who don't have an issue with that aren't really saying I have troubles finding people. No. There's always people out there. I I literally, the guys are like, man, where do you get your guys? And I tell them, like, listen, I've had problems with many of my employees at at one point in time. We just we're very clear with them. We'd let them know what our issue is.
We have open communication and then they fix it, you know, and then again, it goes back to that culture of, like, when you're surrounded by a bunch of a players and you're a b player, they're gonna pull you up, you know, or you're just gonna get kicked out. 1 or 2. So that's where I'd like the return comes back. So it's all interconnected. You know? Yeah. 100%. 100 which which even to take it even back a step further, It's all controllable by the person listening. All of them. 100%. 100%.
It's so you just every single thing, and we do this on a personal level, but also on our business. Before you make a decision, stay calm, self reflect, and go, am I right here, or am I wrong? You know, what could I have done different If you always do Chaz, even in the most extreme sense, you'll always find yourself in a better boat. Yeah. Because if we're honest, there's usually something each time that Almost always. Yeah. Exactly. Good stuff. Well, let's flip the coin.
Let's talk about a bad decision that you made or maybe something that just didn't turn out maybe the way that you thought it was going to. What was an example of that? I think being too trusting early on and not educating myself on some aspects. So, for example, one that comes to mind is accounting. It's tough because there's so much, but you really do have to educate yourself to a reasonable level on all aspects so that you can be on an equal plane when you're at least speaking up to them.
And makes you understand what they're telling you. Yeah. You can't blindly and I I find this actually a lot in marketing where, you know, they'll hire an agency. They hire someone who is saying all of the right things. Yeah. And and then, you know, 2 months later, nothing's happened, or they've gotten, you know, unfortunately, taken advantage of or whatever, but you're right. The principle here is educate yourself to a degree. And it's not that you don't trust them.
It's just that you need to be able to communicate professionally with them. Then also hold them accountable because they're an extension of your team. And you already said some of what you've just done is hire Wolfe, set good expectations, and provide training. Maybe you don't need to provide training to an outside agency or, you know, a a a CPA, but you do need to hire well and you do need to set proper expectations and hold them accountable. You wanna add anything to that?
What was the actual, like, what was the problem? What was the problem? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I've gone through it with the I've been through so many accountants, but I had one specifically that it ended up costing us like $50,000 personally because we had to basically go back and fix some things, but it wasn't worth, like, trying to send a return. It's not worth the risk of audit. But had I known when I was talking about more, I might have been able to foreseen that.
So Yeah. It's not I mean, it wasn't something knock on wood. I haven't had anything, like, totally devastating happened to me. And I've, you know, but that's probably, like, from a numbers standpoint, something I could say, like, this cost me this much. You know? And yeah. Yeah. I think what you just described, though, is whether you realize it or not's mindset, think there's people listening right now that went, oh my gosh, $50,000.
And then but then, you know, 3 seconds later, you're like, you know, we haven't really had that big of an issue. Like, right? Why does $2000 not matter that much to you? Because you had the perspective of going, well, jeez, it could have been 500. Yeah. I'm glad it wasn't 500. You know? Yeah, man. I know. And that's that's what I think.
I I I always tell people, like, I think the best part of entrepreneurship You go through so much stress, but it raises your level of capacity to such an extreme level that you just realize how much stuff doesn't matter. Like, when you talk to somebody, that doesn't own a business. Sometimes it's even hard for me to, like, sympathize because I'm just, like, just to me, it doesn't seem like I'm like, dude, I'm doing way bigger stuff than Chaz.
And I actually if I could I don't wanna branch off too much, but I actually had a really good lesson. Somebody had told me that. So there's this one contract to rework with. Every time I talk to him, I need to check if that man has a pulse. He's like the calmest dude ever. And I remember, like, we we were on a job and there was a scratch on the wood floor. And I was like, oh, man, it was a big deal because most guys, that would have been a huge deal.
I called him and I was like, hey, listen, man. I was like, listen. They're scratching the floor. We we haven't even put our toolboxes down, a customer saying we did it. He was like, well, man, you know, it was probably one of the painters. It's alright. So I was like, man, he really took that well. That was crazy. Fast forward 2 years later, I'm on a really big job site with him.
And it's like a multimillion dollar home, and he already put, like, 6 sub pumps in the basement and the basement still gathering water. That was the first time I ever saw the guy freaking out. Like, he he was he's still relatively calm, and he's like, you know, shit. And he's like, I don't know what to do, man. And I realized it's all relative. The scratch on the floor was nothing to him because he's so used to, like, he's importing full wooden beams. He's doing big projects.
So everything's relative. So For you because the extension of that story now, now that you understand that being relative, Chaz do you do or what have you done to put yourself in constantly different scenarios so that the scratch on the floor in this example isn't a big deal. So I think I just try to honestly think back to that story a little bit and just think back to all the issues I've dealt with over years because they're gonna be inevitable and how I can't even remember them anymore.
So I try to just go, you know, I take it for more of a professional business standpoint than a personal emotional standpoint. I try to look at it and go, okay. What's the right thing to do here? Should we perform it to, you know, stick to our culture and values? And I kinda try it's not like it's easy, but I try to leave it at that regardless of the scenario. Look at it from a more analytical standpoint rather than emotional. The best you Yeah. What's the solution here? Right. Exactly.
Exactly. I'll I'll add one thing in there from my from my history. The the more, like you said, the bigger projects I've been a part of or the more money I've personally invested, you know, or, you know, if I can get around, again, just just bigger numbers. It's the same thing, but just bigger numbers. It just it makes you go, oh, okay. Well, that's not that big of a deal. Right. Even if it's not yours.
And I think a good example of that even here recently is I've been I follow a guy on social media, and he doesn't do any coaching. And I'm like, how do I get a call with this guy, or how do I get a a day of coaching, or how do I, like, you know, And so I, in my mind, I've been, like, preparing myself for, like, maybe a $10,000 phone call or a $100,000 lunch. Or I don't know. That it's gonna take. Right. Right.
But that to me would be like, holy moly, a $10,000 phone call or a $100,000 lunch or a $100,000 a day you know, I've I've never paid somebody a $100,000 Right. To to to ask them a couple questions for 4 hours. But, man, like, would it I and so I've been asking my question, my myself, like, would that be worth it? Would would you what questions would you ask? And so it makes it you take yourself to that level of that big number, and you're just like, okay. How can I make sense of that?
And then so then later in the day, when I get a a $1000 oops or, even a $50,000 oops. You're like, just let's just figure it out. The solution is X Y Z. It's no big deal. Hey. Hey. Hey. And you move on. Yeah. No. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. It yeah. I you know, I hear people talk about, like, master minds on. They spend, like, $25 stuff, but, I mean, It typically does make sense. You know what I mean?
And if you're the right person, like you said, asking the right questions, making the most of it, you know, Yeah. You get one thing. Right? One thing that's changed everything. That's all it takes. Yeah. Okay. Let's, let's talk about process for half a second. We've been talking about decisions. I wanna know what process do you follow today when making decisions? Well, can you give us as far as maybe a framework or maybe steps did you take, mindset, anything like that?
Yeah. So I can't say I really have, like, a structured process. You know, I consult with my business partner a lot. So I'm a big fan of partners. I know some people are, you know, they've had bad experience with them and stuff like that. Yeah. But, you know, I I can't say I honestly have, like, a very thorough process. Like, this is how I do things before I make a move. I just do the basics of, you know, I think about it. I think doesn't match with our company culture.
Does it match with our principles and our vision because sometimes it is easy to go astray. Like, you're like, you see this opportunity and you wanna go after it, but it's gonna totally throw you off. You know, and just to give it, like, for us, that would be we don't do commercial. We'll do, like, restaurants, but we don't do big commercial. Yeah. Sometimes one will float around. They're like, listen, man.
I just need these tops and I'm tempted to do it, but I just have to really focus in on go, who are we? What do our margins need to be? Is this really gonna work? Because it's really probably gonna steal from true opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. The not what do I miss Right. If I if if I because you're thinking if I don't do this, I miss out on this specific opportunity.
But if you stay true to the lane that you've already committed to, which is, I think, something that every listener, you and me, every entrepreneur, everywhere, has to just continually every single day Chaz And for me, even as a serial entrepreneur, I've had to, like, I went wide. Lots of businesses, lots of different industries even. And so now I'm like, okay. Well, what do I really like do. How do I wanna spend the next 10 years Yeah.
And really what do I wanna dial in on and and and trying to not cut away the things that I'd I'd I don't want any longer, but just the things that fit with where I'm headed. And I do actually, I guess, see, I like I told you, I'm kinda like a I'm I have people that organize things for me in a I'm I'm definitely very chaotic. Let's go. But you know what I do is I do consult with my team a lot too. So not only my business partner, but my employees, Yeah.
And they really are great because sometimes the, like, they know that we have open conversations. And there's been times, for example, because like I was telling you with the commercial side, you have a $100,000 job. Right? But then I consulted my gosh. I'm like, listen, what do you guys think about that? And they're like, well, we could be spitting out x amount, you know, in the meantime, at these margins, Yeah.
$100,000 looks nice, but what margin you're really gonna make and how much time are you gonna waste on that? So having a strong team around you Chaz, you know, some people are more Some people are more analytical. I have a numbers guy on my team. I have an organizational person on my team. I have all Chaz. You know? Find people that are gonna fit, like, fulfill. They're gonna I've everybody has gaps. You know? Everybody has weaknesses.
Yep. Surround yourself with people that are gonna fill those gaps. You know, then that that's how you succeed. Yeah. And I think the, I I just love your perspective because that is we hear this over and over and over. Put people around me, you know, film a week. Like, we've heard all of this. Yeah. There's not one listener who's probably going Wow. I've never heard that before. Right. Right. But it's so true and the reality of it is that they just haven't done it yet.
No. Yeah. And also the cool thing is is that you, me, listener, we get to fill the gap for them. Yes. Yeah. It's not just true. Selfishly, I'm gonna put people around me to serve me. No. It's we get to serve each other. People have a knack for things. You know, I have one guy. He loves he genuinely loves crunching the numbers. You know? Yeah. And he finds very useful data, and we make decisions off that data. I hate doing that. I love getting the data and then making decisions off of it.
Right. But I hate gathering it. I don't like putting stuff, and he really does enjoy it. You know? So finding the right person for the right position, you know, you're saying put the right person on the bus, it's extremely important. You're never I'm never gonna outperform somebody that loves what they do because they're gonna spend more time on it, more energy, more passion, more thought process. That's right. That's right. Alright. We're gonna go to the speed round here.
My first question for you, since we're talking about numbers, I figured this would be a great parlay, but I wanna know if you could only track one thing in your business forever and ever, what would that one thing be? Yeah. I would say lead quantity over a 30 day time frame. Or a 30 day. So how many leads do we get over a 30 day time frame? I feel like we we know our close rate. We know our numbers. We know all that. So it always tells me the health of the business.
I could tell you a lot just from that number. Top of the funnel. We're either growing. We're dying. Something's not Right? Yeah. We're floating along. Where are we at right now? Yeah. Yeah. I love that. That's good perspective. What book would you recommend for a 6 figure business owner, Dean? The the E myth. Chaz that's my favorite by far. Yeah. Have you is it is it one that you've studied out, read multiple times, that type of a book? Or Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I could kinda tell.
I always forget it because it's been a couple years since I read, but just the basic principle of just you wanna build your company as if it's a franchise, even if you never plan on franchising it simply because it's gonna force you to build processes, and you'll just find yourself in a better boat. Yeah. That makes me think of, just a quick time. We had, I don't know, maybe 2 months or so ago, had a guy come in and speak to the to the mastermind group.
And he talked about basically building things on the inside that are valuable to other people who later might buy your company. So in order for you to exit, obviously, you have to, you know, build teams, build process, same idea. Right? Like, I'm building a franchise. Chaz there's gonna be other people who buy into this eventually, whether they do or not. It forces you to create the system or someone's gonna buy my company for 10,000,000 or a 100,000,000, what are they buying?
And so it forces you to build it today, hire systems, go get sales, like, all of the things that make a business run at a higher level so that you can exit or as a franchise, even if you never actually plan on that. That's right. Yeah. And you never, like, kinda just continue on your point. You never know. Maybe you had no plans to do it. You get injured or just life happens. You know? So yeah. And why not have it already in place? It just puts you in such a bit.
I mean, having strong process has put you in such a better boat. You know, you just it's required. It's required to grow a successful business. No larger entity doesn't have processes. Like, I mean, Chick Fil A, my opinion is, like, the ultimate. You know what I mean? I don't know how they do it. Yeah. You know? I every time I walk in, I'm I I'm baffled. Me too. I'm like, how do you make everybody the same? Like, I mean, to such an extreme extent across the nation.
And and there's a reason There's lines wrapped around the building at every single Chick fil A. In my opinion, the food's not even that great. It's an excellent customer experience. Right? So, you know, you know exactly what you're gonna get. It's always their pleasure. So Yeah. Right. The, there there's something to be said there.
As far as what what expectations that we can that we can take away from from that experience and then also what we can to put into our team and and our client experience as well. Yeah. Next question. We've we've talked about Master Mining a little bit, but what's your thought on in tensionally networking and or Master Mining? I think it's huge. My business partner and I were actually just in a position you were talking about. We're we we got a little burnt out.
You know, we went really hard core for years years and we had this little thing. We're we're still growing, but we kinda got burnt. And, you know, we just recently spent another, like, $3 to join this group. It's called the Rockheads. K. And it really just reinvigorated us. Just surrounding us from around people that, you know, could go further. It just gave us a very clear picture. Like, man, you're not done yet. You're just getting started.
This is how you do it, and we're like, we could actually really easily do that. Like, you know, So they gave us for us, I think you can get a lot of things out of it. For us on this occasion, it was a second wind. So Yeah. 2nd to win. 3rd win. 5th win. Yeah. You need to. You need it keeps you inspired. Keep you inspired. Even if you're really all ready to go, I mean, we joined this one group when we first started.
It it was only like 350 bucks, but that time, that was a lot when we first started. Yeah. And it saved me $15,000 because Yeah. I joined a group. It was like a web form, and I needed to know how to build a a trail for the water to drain. I was about a pay guy, $15 or, like, $18. And then the guy the guy called me, like, like, I I posted on the form, The guy posted back, hey, give me a call, or what's your number?
He called me 11:30 at night and talked to me for an hour and told me how to do everything. So it only cost us, like, $3 in material. It it saved me a fortune then. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so Yeah. Time money fast forward. Right? Yeah. I love that. I love that. The 2nd, 3rd, 5th win. I was talking to a guy just last night, actually, about how sometimes the realization of being around other people who are at your level or above, it's not just the tactical. Right?
Like, you've given things here today. Super tactical. You can go that listener can go implement these things that you've done. But what you've also given here today, which happens when you get around high performers is you go, well, I can do that. Dean's no different than me. Yeah. Like, Chaz is no different than me. He's single mom families. Have you seen the stats on on a single mom's son in the state of Missouri? Mhmm. Mhmm. There's no I'm I'm no different. Mhmm. Right?
So it it it builds belief, which is which is that that second and that third and that 5th wind, it's it's I'll buy that all day long because that's That's right. I just need to keep putting it in the fuel tank. Yeah. You just need to see it's possible sometimes. You know? Yep. So true. So true. Okay. I've got one last question here for you, Dean. I wanna know if you had the opportunity to whisper in the younger Dean's ear. What would you say? I would say be pay be thoughtful. Be patient.
Don't be emotional. You know, before you make any move, take the time to take a breath, think about it, and then react. Yeah. I think I'm I'm definitely used to just kinda go off the, you know, belt buckle of my pants and just kinda, like, you know, I I didn't really analyze things enough. And in fact, you know, I'm still learning that because I've obviously, like, recently made a pretty large mistake. That's probably gonna cost me a pretty good amount of money.
And, you know, it's one of those things where you really just have to make sure that you're you tried never be emotional in these things to as much as humanly possible because It'll cost you money. It'll cost you friendships. You know? Yeah. It's just an important skill to learn to be in control of your emotions. And thoughtful of what you're doing. Yeah. I love the word intentional. And in in order to be intentional, you have had to do exactly what you just said.
You have to just take a second Look. Me and you both like to go fast. Way fast. Right. You can still go fast and be intentional. You just have to take that second and go That's right. What am I doing here? Why am I doing this? What are the effects? What are the immediate effects? What are the long term effects? You can do all of that in 45 seconds. Oh, yeah. For sure. Exactly. That's all it takes. You know? You're about to make a phone call. Take a little breather real quick. Just analyze.
Like, what am I really gonna what's really my goal here? Know, why why do I even wanna make this phone call? Why do I wanna do that? Yeah. So big. Dean, how can the listener find you? They wanna connect with you. Maybe they're in area. They need to hire you after they find you. Yes. My Instagram handles go business buzz. That's where I just kinda post just informative information, just kinda logging my journey. Would say that'd be the best point of contact. That's great.
Dean, you've been not only here's your story inspirational, but you're you're you're doing it, man. Like, Thanks. You're you're like, the practicals. You're doing the leadership stuff. It's probably the number one takeaway I got from you today. It's just that people matter. And that, culture matters and that that all comes down to you. You can control it. And I think that you're gonna continue to crush your business because of those reasons.
And so I just appreciate our the beginning of our friendship Chaz well as just inspiring me with a with another wind here today. So thank you. Wish you nothing, but a blessing in your business, your business partner. And maybe one day, we'll go to Romania together. Yeah, man. That'd be awesome. That'd be cool. Dean, thank you for being here, brother. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me on the show. I'll see. 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 business and multiple different industries and now interviewing literally over 2 or 300 other very successful 7, 8, and 9 figure business owners is that 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 1 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 gathering the king's dot 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.