On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. I have definitely shared too much at times, and I've been burned for it. And I am me, I am Lance Lanier. And if someone doesn't like it in my opinion, then kick rocks because I'm growing my business. It's my name on that business. Everybody knows when they see me out and about. They know that I am honest and I am who I am, and it's how I do business. I don't like to show off. We have all of our vehicles are all white. We're professional.
We like the professional image, but it's mainly the legacy. I want to work as hard as possible so that I don't need an introduction. You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolfe featuring fellow 78 and even 9 figure business owners who have real battle scars. From business and life, but have prevailed as the king that they are designed to be.
We welcome high performing entrepreneurs to the stage in order to reveal the real of the real on what it takes to build a successful business today. We dissect the good and bad decision they've made along the way to give a true and accurate picture of the journey of success and how you too can get the 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's podcast. Today, I've got a special guest. They're all special guests, but today, super close friend at this point, but, mastermind clients, extraordinary business owner here in the Midwest. I'm so excited conversation, Lance Lanier. Thank you for joining us here on the King stage, my brother. Thanks for having me. You know, we got to know each other.
We were just kinda talking about it a year and a half, maybe 2 years ago on social media. Didn't know each other super well. We grew up in a kind of close proximity, but didn't didn't know each other.
And then the last year, really, we've, like, pressed hard in and done some really cool business stuff together and, of course, gathering the Kings, but all kinds of other things that we've gotten our our tentacles in and and ideas and, strategies intermingled, but I just can't wait to be able to tell some of your story because I actually share your story often. I don't even know if you know this, but I share your story often.
I usually say something like 3 years ago, the dude was a firefighter, and he's, you know, blah blah blah in business now, and people just go like, what? You know, kinda kinda, you know, wipe their eyes. So I am just jacked for this conversation and to be able to tell your story because I think it's gonna transfer just so much courage to the listeners and really anybody that you do business with. So Lance, I wanna know what kind of business that you got, brother, or in this case, businesses.
So I have I've got 5 companies total. Some of those are holding companies, but the main one is Lanier Landscaping. We now call it just Lanier, and we have 3 divisions within that one company. And that is Lanier Landscaping, Lanier Trucking, and Lanier Civil Construction. We do everything from patios and outdoor kitchens in the landscaping side and pools to the civil side. We do building pads, underground utilities, and a mass grading.
A trucking is pretty self explanatory, but we have 4 dump trucks now, 3 quads, 1 tandem, and we have 6 more quads that'll be showing up later this year. That's awesome. Yeah. You moved dirt, man. You moved things around. Heavy stuff. That's right. You got some big equipment. You got some you got some, got got a lot of great guys on your team, and you guys are moving and shaking fast. So I I definitely wanna get into some of that.
Before we do, though, this is always my first question, and it's a it's a it's a special one to ask you because I I've I've got to know your family a little bit. And, got to know your story a little bit. And so before we tell the listener, some of, like, where you come from in your background, I wanna know why you do this. Like, the deep down, like, you push, man. You push hard. You push harder than most guys I know why. Yeah. Said it's gonna be definitely my family and my legacy with my family.
I've got 2 little boys, Jack and Max, Jack's about to turn 3 and Max is almost 2. And then my wife, my wife, we've been together for about 7 years now. And it's really for them leaving something behind. My family, I grew up on a small farm, and, you know, it's just go get a job. You know, go get a job, get that salary, and, that's what I did, but I lost my job, my career, and I had to make a draft change.
Yeah. And so, you know, I I you and I see legacy similarly, and and there's there's legacy entrepreneurs. They're you know, industry disruptors. There's a couple of buckets that I kinda put put folks in of, like, really what their deep seated motivation is. And and you and I are similar in that legacy play. We wanna we wanna have something live on. And and you've done just an incredible job, even in the marketing side of just your name, like Lanier. It's everywhere.
I I even told you, almost wore my my Lanier t shirt today just so that we could, you know, hammer it home, but I thought it might be a little bit too much legacy. You know? But but here's the truth is that I know that that's deep seated, but why do you think that guys like you and me push or delay or take the brunt of the grind so that our family can have something better. Like, why? What do you what do you what's inside of us?
Why why are we like I think it's a big part of it is is just to make a change, you know, leave something behind and, I just enjoy something new every day. There's always a challenge. There's always a failure. There's always, you know, a win and it's just exciting to me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's the building. Right? That's it. Yeah. It's the juice of building. And I love I love what you said there, you know, just the the ability to to push hard for the right reasons, and we're made for it.
Guys, like, you kinda you kinda hinted at it that you that you get the juice from it, but we're made for it. We're made we're made to create something different. From from here down in the lineage, it's gonna be different. Do you agree with that? I agree. It's awesome, man. Let's talk about your story a little bit. I know, you know, the ins and outs here are pretty good, but the listener doesn't. So Give us give us where you were. What's Chaz? What's that career that you lost?
Give us a little bit of the the story of of, how you met business. Yeah. So right out of high school, I grew up in the New London Hannibal area. I mean, when I was seventeen, I went through EMT school, and I walked straight onto the the ambulance at eighteen years old and, worked for roughly 5 different ambulance districts and, Maine one was at in Adams County in Quincy, Illinois. I love that ambulance district. Some really good friends over there still.
And but my dream is always to be a firefighter. I applied at Chicago Fire Department in Columbia. Columbia called a lot faster than Chicago and moved to Columbia and, bought a house and I was a firefighter. I was on the rescue specialist team. I was on the hazmat team. I loved everything about being a firefighter. I still do. And, but in 2017, I was injured at a structured fire, and it ended up ripping out my shoulder and my labrum, and I've had 5 shoulder surgery since.
So from 2017 to 2019, I was just having surgeries. And, truthfully, the city Chaz, for light duty, put me in a room, and I shredded paper every single day for 2 years. Yeah. I mean, knowing knowing who you are and the mover and shaker, I mean, what torture? Yeah. Yeah. It was it was a lot today. You know, my shoulder still hurt. Can't hardly sleep, but I'm trying to get through it still. So push through that.
Yeah. So so you you you have this lifelong dream of, you know, saving people and doing the extreme stuff. I mean, you've told me some pretty crazy stories, and most firefighters that I know have crazy stories, but you've, like, jumped out of, like, well working planes. You've kinda just, like, done all the extreme things. And then and then you find yourself in business almost because you have to. Is that right?
Yeah. So 2016, I created my company because as a firefighter, you work 24 hours on, 24 hours off, and you have a rotating schedule. She always have you always have a second job. And mine was landscaping. I just knew it from growing up on the farm and, learned it on YouTube to tell you the truth. And but when I was in the room shredding paper, I actually bought 4 Verizon wireless cameras. And I had just 4 employees, and they would go out to the job site.
They would set these cameras on the job and carry it around. So I was running my employees from a little office shredding paper. Virtually over a phone in the camera. That's it. Yeah. And so that was a big part of, you know, whenever I started it, and I was working as a firefighter. And then all of a sudden on January 4 2019, the city sent an email and said I wasn't fit for duty anymore, and I had to turn in my stuff. So Chaz that point, my wife and I made a decision and take it full time.
So Yeah. And off to the races you've been, you know, I I I just get so much inspiration from, you know, hearing that you were sitting in a room and figuring things out. Right? Like, that's really what it was. You could have been moping. You could have been, you know, singing the sad song about how this all the stuff that happened to you and and now you're shredding paper, but you were using your circumstances to move something forward that you didn't even know would be what it is today.
It was just the inklings of what you thought you had to do at that moment. It was just a move something forward. Right? Correct. Yeah. It was never expected. My my Wolfe. I started doing a 1st couple jobs. She's like, you need to create this as a company in protect yourself in 2016. And, you know, we were thinking you should create my first business card, and I had no idea how to do any of that. And, really, I've created some amazing relationships along the way.
Yeah. Okay. So I wanna get into some decisions good and bad. It's kind of the the MS of the show here, as you know, but you you've had this just incredible growth, and you've experienced, like you said, some losses and some wins. As we all have. And a lot of the conversations that you and I have aren't necessarily practical, like, x's and o's and and, you know, how to the innards of the business, although we do have some conversations around that.
A lot of our conversations are mindset and decision making because at your stage in the game now, it's all about levers. Right? But early on, you, you know, we're kinda, like you said, didn't know what you were doing, floundering around a little bit, just kinda making stuff happen. A little bit of a bull in a China case approach. Just go make a big mess. See what happens.
So I wanna know along the way, when you can look back, What was a good decision that you made that you can clearly see and go, because I did that one thing, man, all these other dominoes have been set up and then are now and to follow it for me.
Yeah. I'd say the number one best decision that led into my second, you know, my main decision is I joined gathering the Kings, talked to Chaz back and forth, social media, and I joined, and I started doing these on one growth calls with Chaz, and that led into Chaz recommending doing a culture index on my wife. My wife was a financial advisor for 5 years, and then she was a loan officer for 7 years. Yeah. And Chaz highly recommended that I need to hire my wife. So, you know, 4 months go by.
And then I was like, should I do this? And I ended up recruiting my Wolfe. It'd be June of last year, and that was the best decision I ever made. And, we're now going to work together. We're at the same goal. We're on the same page and plus you know, whenever it comes to finances and budgeting and dealing with banks, that's my wife. My wife knows the ins and outs of loans.
Finances, investing, and, now when we go home, we have a rule that when we go in the bedroom, there's no more talking about business. Yeah. I mean, we talk about business at the dinner table and in the kitchen and so on, but we just have these rules And so now we're both on the same same track or same goal. Yeah. Yeah. I remember just to give a little bit to backstory here. I remember having some of those conversations with you. And your your wife is a high performer, high achiever.
She always has been in the other things that she's done. But like you said, you guys were kinda just not living 2 lives, but kind of, you know, like, she was she had goals. You had goals. And and those things are okay, not every, couple needs to to do business together. That's not the point here. I said, I don't want the listener to go, okay. Funny, you know, like because we we've got we've got other members in the group who who are, like, screw it. That is not gonna work.
And and Julie and I are are intertwined, but but for the most part, she's not involved. So it's the opposite scenario in my house than it is yours, but you can still be in alignment. And for you guys, being the personalities that you are, and then also the growth trajectory that you were on, and her skill sets. It's been incredible to watch you guys come together and and make that happen. Yeah. It's it's amazing.
You know, we we actually get to go and pick up our boys from daycare that's right down the street together and get to make the next investment decision together, and we know everything about it. And usually whenever you're doing a deal, you know, in business, you go home and you're only talking about it at home. Now we get to talk through out the day when we get home, we we get to relax. So yeah. One other thing I wanna say about your bride, oh, Kimberly, is that she has this unique ability.
And I and I and I don't know if I'm talking to the listener. I don't know if I'm talking to the listener if they're a wife or if I'm talking to the listeners, why I don't know exactly who I'm saying this to, except for that I'm trying to honor your wife more than anything. She has this unique ability to be able to be so sharp. Like, we both know she's on it. You've already identified, you know, finance numbers. Organizing your mess. It's just she's on it.
Yet she allows you to be that bull in a China case. Like, she just this just this unique ability for her to be able to need control, because that's what she does. She just she controls the environment. She knows exactly what's what the schedule is, what's this, what's Chaz. Like, she's on it, but yet somewhere in the middle or in the midst of all of it, She lets you run wild and which makes the dynamic that much more powerful.
So I I I also think that Julie, my Wolfe, has that ability because I I run wild Chaz. As I'm sure some people that know me pretty well know, but I'm, like, I don't again, I don't know who I'm giving this encouragement to, but it work really well when you have a really big personality, male, or female. But when the other person also has a big personality, and Kim just hasn't had just incredible outlook on This is my lane. This is your lane, and she knows how to organize and and support you.
But, yeah, at the same time, let you just take charge so I don't know. It's just this interdendemic. Do you wanna do you wanna comment on that at all? Yeah. You know, Showways makes the these comments, you know, whenever we're whenever we you know, it was $800,000 in dump truck that we we ended up getting just about a month and a half ago. And she just says, are you sure? I said, yes. I'm sure we gotta be able to move material. And she's like, okay. Sounds good.
And when she presents it to people, she, you know, I have made a lot of mistakes in business, which Wolfe get to here soon. Sure. But I learn from him every single time. You know, it's it's okay to make mistakes. I love failures because I learn much more than just succeeding. Yeah. So she sees it the same way. And, you know, we've made her mistakes.
We both know what not to do, but we'd like to put the risk out there a little bit because we've you know, navigated around those, and we we know how to do it. So Yeah. You're right. Give and then that's that's the space, you know, that she's given you to not only make the mistake, but that she trust you. Yeah. She trusts you, not so that you'll be perfect.
She trusts you that where you're most likely right, But if you aren't right and it is a failure, she still trusts you that you're gonna figure it out. That's correct. There's a there's a there's a special thing there, and so I hope that the listener has that, or they can find it because it really is, like, a secret sauce to business, I believe.
If Julie didn't allow space for me in that same way or that same I support you or, like, CAGO Gitnam Tiger, knowing that whatever happens, whether I win or whether I lose in this specific type of a deal, I'm gonna figure it out anyway. And I've built now a history of winning like you have, even though we have this history of, like, some failures, you go, okay. Well, fine. But I've learned from those.
And then at this this long list of winning is is just more dominant than than the, you know, the list of failures. Yeah. You know, didn't go so well that we can learn from. That you would never ever wanna do again. Yeah. So, you know, there's many decisions, but the one that stands out is, you know, 2018, I started realizing that I wouldn't go back to the fire department or, you know, I I started, you know, feeling that in my body.
So I wanted to expand and make this, you know, decision of going full time, and I ended up finding an online Hey. You need cash now, and there was a big project. It was like a $350,000 project. It was a good project, but it went wrong. And I ended up finding a lender online, and they were out in New York. They loved our cash flow and they wired a $140,000 that next morning into my account. Ding ding ding. You know, a private lender is 10% interest.
You you you almost can't find a private lender unless it's 10%. But when you're making money, it's it's worth it. Well, we agreed at 10% interest, but, you know, whenever you're at the bank doing a deal and you just sign, sign, sign away, you don't read every single little detail. Well, Chaz was my mistake. On page 27, paragraph 4, the interest jumped to 32% after 1 month. And, they were doing daily draws out of our account.
So it was suffocating suffocating Chaz to the point where drained all the money in our account. Somehow, I had really good relationships with friends around me, that I still never missed a payroll, but they they suffocated us, taking all the money out to where I couldn't even buy diapers for our our firstborn son Wow. At that point.
But So the lesson inside of that obviously is not don't take risks and and raise capital, but it's read the detail, read the paragraph, or read it twice, give it to your Wolfe, Like, what are you doing now that you didn't do that? I hired a lawyer. There you go. A really good one. No. He I've got a lawyer. My Wolfe, you know, my wife's in the office now. She she reviews loan agreements all the time. So my wife, she reviews it.
If it's something that's a very big deal or my attorney reviews it, and then I review it as well, but you know, I have my faults, and I've I hire people around me that are really good, and I delegate everything. So but Chaz that's my suggestion. Yeah. I mean, you think that everything you've said, it it makes sense. Like, it's not like rocket science. However, lot of times in business, we're just going.
And we get busy going, and the going turns into hurry up quick because I gotta go to the next thing. And that turns into a scam of the agreement, and and then we find out later. So if if the listener hasn't made the this mistake, I don't wanna, like, project cloudy day, but they're probably going to make this mistake, unfortunately. Unless they, like, really heed your warning here and, like, really pay attention. It's funny too.
Even when when someone joins gathering the Kings, like, it's it's a, you know, two page agreement, like, hey. I'm gonna use your pictures when you're when we take pictures of the group and you know, don't use my likeness. Like, just really, really basic stuff. And, obviously, the the membership informations in there and stuff, but I always always always always say, hey. Take your time. Read every line if you want to because I do.
I wanna read every single line because of this exact same mistake that I've made you've already described. So I give, even on a two page, no big deal, a mastermind membership, I'm like, hey. Take the next 15 minutes. I don't really care. 2 minutes. It doesn't just make sure that you understand if you have any questions, just let me know. So I think that that's a great great decision there. What about a decision making says.
Like, you've got some pretty heavy decisions coming across your desk nowadays. Your company has grown. I don't even know what the percentages are, but I'm gonna guess above 50% year over year for, like, the last every single year you've been in business, probably over a 100% some of those years. Yeah. Yes. We we have doubled our revenue almost almost every year, and we're looking to double again this year. And it's mainly when it comes to decision making, I I I invest in high quality people.
That is my best decision of myself. And when I hire and I have better people around me. My employees, I bring them to our conference table. We just built a brand new building, and we just moved in a few months ago. But I now have a conference table. I never never had before. And so now I bring him in the conference room. I'm I'm I tell him this is our know, this is what we have on the table, and it's more of a team decision.
So the hard decision still come to me, but it's nice to have everybody's input and we're growing something. Yeah. It's it's what would you say to the guy or gal listening who maybe they have some people on their team, but they haven't done this team dynamic or, you know, this, this, I don't know, being a little bit more open, being being willing to share maybe a little bit more of what's on the table and then obviously being open and and willing to receive feedback.
But, like, what if they're just like, I don't know if I wanna share all that and it's just my decision, and they're kinda like tightened up with it. What would you say to that person? What what what would be the benefit of them loosening up and sharing a little bit Yeah. The benefit is is, you know, I have recruited people that have been at their recruiting as my specialty now, in my opinion, I'm honest with people.
When you're honest with someone, you gain their trust, you know, Mike Halliburton that just joined my team as a commercial estimator, Mike was a loan officer for 12 years. And, I mean, he was making a a good money, and a really good job and a massive company. But, you know, whenever I lay everything out there as, you know, You trust me. I'm putting every I'm being honest with you. I see our growth. And, I mean, I get to recruit some amazing people just by throwing everything out on the table.
So Yeah. The the same person that's probably tightened up and and hasn't been able to enjoy the the freedom and or just the re the results that you have because of this is thinking, yeah, but if I share, then I get burned. Right? If I share too much, or if I give too much honesty, then people take advantage of me or whatever. And I would say that that's true. And I know that you've probably experienced that as well as I have, but but you still do it, though. You still keep opening up.
Okay. So my question to Chaz, though, Lance, is this. If the person that's that's was holding on tight, they haven't opened up. They don't they're not getting the results that you are getting the collaboration. They might be thinking, well, if I'm honest, if I'm too open, I share too much, then I get taken advantage of. Or, you know, they they They get in there. They they know too much. And I know that you've probably been burnt a little bit. I've been burnt.
I know doing the same thing, but yet we still do it. Why? You know, I I have definitely shared too much at times, and it's I've I've been burned for it. And, you know, I am me. I am Lance Lanier. And if someone doesn't like it in my opinion, then Kick rocks because I'm growing my business. It's my name on that business, and You know, everybody knows when they see me out and about, they they know that I am honest, and I am I am who I am, and it's how I do business When I get burned, yes.
I learn a lesson from it. I'll I maybe adjust accordingly, but, really, I think that being honest and trust that is the most important piece. Yeah. I wanna make a point here for the listener because what you're giving, it it comes so naturally to you because this is just who you are, like you just said. But some people are maybe a little bit more cynical. That's probably the angle that I come from. I'm always I'm always like, you know, like, what what's the angle here?
What are you what are you doing? What's the what's the advantage? Which is is okay. That's that's advantageous sometimes to be able to slow down and maybe calculate Chaz, but what you don't want it to come from is a place of someone's always trying to get, like, over on me or then then and that's just like a downward negative spiral. So the cool part about what Lance just gave to you as a listener here is that it's real. It's honest. There's freedom in, hey. I'm just gonna be me.
And sometimes that means I overshare, okay. It's gonna bite me sometimes, but I would rather be honest and share and collaborate is what he's saying versus hold all of it to myself and carry it all the weight, all the time. And so when you think about a king mindset, you of course, the decision, the weight of the crown is held by you. However, he's got advisors. There's, like, the the agricultural part of the kingdom. There's the the all these sections.
And and and so you can't do it all by yourself. You know that. You've already mentioned delegation, but I wanna make the the point here to the listener is that it has to start from a frame of being willing to be open. Even with some of those key people, could be your wife, could be your key couple of folks on your team, it might even be the whole organization saying, hey. Here's where we're going. Here's the struggle that we're having, and I need us all on board.
And I know you've had similar conversations with your team as well. And, usually, the result is collaboration, unity, we get to move forward. Would you agree with that? That's correct. You know, if I have a problem in front of me, I speak with everyone. I open up with people You know, I I have private lended because I came into a situation. I'm short on cash and, you know, opening up to someone and telling them that, hey. I messed up on this.
If you're not open to anything in business, to be able to be upfront about your mistakes, I you you have to do that to grow. I mean, you you have to be honest with yourself and honest with people around you. Love that. Okay. So, Lance, let's go to the speed round here. I wanted to ask you a numbers question. I know you're a big numbers guy. But the reality here is I know that you track lots of different things in the business. We all do. What's the most important to you.
What do you what do you got your thumb on the closest in the business? If you can only pick one thing to track forever and ever, what would it be? Yeah. So, of course, you know, the best thing to track in business is your net profit. You know, you can't you don't you don't have anything in business unless you're tracking in profits. Not making money. You're not in business. You won't be in business. But a big thing for me is tracking my capital. You have to have a lot of capital on my business.
You know, on the civil construction side, we won't get paid for 45, 90, 120 days. And then you have bonds that you have to get, and it takes a lot. I mean, we're, just in the last 3 weeks, we bid on we have over about $9,000,000 in bids that are going out. And I'm tracking my mind. Okay. If all three of those hit, right, I gotta come up with a lot of money. To fund those projects, but also looking at the money that we have, there's 10% retention on every single project that we do.
Well, that 10% retention, I won't get for a year, year and a half from now. Right. So whenever you're calculating all of your project altogether, you may have 600,000 or a $1,000,000 that you won't get for a year and a half, depending on what your workflow is. Yeah. So tracking my capital is probably the one of the most important things next to our net profit.
Yeah. And the way that you describe that, that makes sense, obviously, for your business, you know, a guy lives in right now, and he's maybe on the residential side or a in a different industry, and he's thinking, jeez. If I got 2,000,000 with a client. I just gotta I just gotta build their websites and do their advertising. It doesn't it doesn't cost me anything, right, other than maybe my team and my labor, which You know, obviously, that's a big deal for you.
You've got these huge pieces of equipment. You've got these, you know, guys that are fully trained and experts in their field and and aren't cheap. And so and you've front all of that. And so I just think that there is a a mindset to that that I wanna just maybe encourage the in Chaz they're continuing to listen to you is that, yeah, you gotta track your money. Number 1, that's what Lance just said.
You gotta the the net, the capital, the the what how it's moving together, especially the the bigger the numbers get. The more in tune you gotta get with that because, you know, a $2,000,000 sideways day could, like, you know, maybe potentially destroy you, or maybe 2,000,000 is no big deal depending upon, you know, the size of projects coming through. But either way, the tracking of it makes a lot of sense because you've got to you've gotta fuel the next thing. Right?
And I know that's for a pusher and a mover shaker like you, you're always not necessarily trying to calculate how much money you can take home to buy the Ferrari, but you're more so thinking about Chaz we do the next project? How can we go bigger? How can we go, you know, to the next level?
Chaz a side note here, just I wanna ask you about that because you and I have talked about this a couple different times throughout the time that we've known each other, and it's kind of a little bit of a commonality between other members and and Gavin and the Kings, but why do you think that that sentence that I just said is true? Why do you think that you're, you know, calculating some really big numbers?
But, like, I don't ever hear you say, like, man, I can't wait to you know, drive the Ferrari up and down, you know, the the, you know, stadium Boulevard there in Columbia, Missouri, you know, but what I what I do hear you talking about is how can we go get a half $1,000,000 piece of equipment so we can serve the University of Missouri to be able to do a huge project that, you know, the name Lanier and all of our guys are gonna be able to do for the next 6 months. Like, that gets you juiced. Why?
Yeah. Man, I I didn't. My first 2 3 years in business, I and I we didn't pay ourselves. And, you know, we're fueling our future. In my opinion. You know? Yeah. I mean, we're looking right now. I mean, there's a $480,000 D6 Doser.
We're looking at getting you know, I am looking at getting that if the, you know, once the project projects hit where our equipment's all spread out, but we have 1,000,000 in equipment And, yeah, I guess I don't really you know, I've got a nice truck, but I don't like to show off You know, we have all of our vehicles are all white. We're professional. We like the professional image, but it's mainly the legacy. You know, I want to work as hard as possible so that I don't need an introduction.
You just dropped a hammer on us. We get in the podcast right there. I think if anybody is actually, like, really getting it. Like, you and I Chaz just hit home and you're like, okay. Alright. Stop the podcast. Gotta go back to work. Trying to create something, man. Alright. So next question on the on the speed round here is what book or maybe resource? You mentioned YouTube earlier that you were a YouTube university student.
Tell us about what what a good resource would be for a business owner in today's world. Yeah. So I whenever I was starting my my company. I, Keith Calfus. So Keith is kind of a goofy guy, but man, he is super knowledgeable. It tells you how to price things. It tells you how to do everything in landscaping, but he also started a window cleaning company at the same time. So I I didn't mention this at all, but I had a window cleaning company.
I started at the same time in 2016 as my landscaping company. It was because of Keith Alpha and I started going around. I had some of the biggest contracts in the area with the university, the hospitals in Columbia, doing residential and commercial. And but all of a sudden, my landscaping side took off. Yeah. But I learn almost everything from YouTube. It's so much information out there. Reading books, I'm just kinda all over the place, so I don't read a lot of books.
I wish I, you know, I do more. That's kinda one of my goals that I want to, but I'm a visual and listener more than anything, and that's where I connect with YouTube quite a bit. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, yeah, I mean, obviously, audible YouTube. I mean, there's still a podcast Right? Like, there's just so many resources today that people can can chime into. The the cool part about what I heard you say It's not so much necessarily the the resource, but is that that you were a student?
You were listening to a guy? He did what he said. And, and, and I'm not suggesting that you blindly follow people, but you've been successful because you got around people, like you said earlier, even a guy like Keith who's who gave you the formula, and you just went and did it. Yeah. You just went and did it. You he he did landscaping and windows. So, okay, fine. I'll do landscaping in windows. Like yeah. What'd you say to that? It you know, It's the same thing with my employees.
I've hired some employees. 1 is You know, Austin Castle. Austin's one of my employees in Jake Day, Jeff Cook. Jeff Cook Chaz worked for in the industry for over 30 years in the civil construction. Well, Jake and Austin, you know, they're probably closer to 10 years each, 7 to 10 years, but I've surrounded myself with amazing people and by learning from them and I truthfully, I've been learning how to manage people now as much as possible and growth and mindset.
But as long as I manage people and take care of my employees, my employees will take care of me. So that's kinda where I've transitioned from, not only do I learn, but also my employees I I learned from them now, not only just YouTube. So Yeah. Yeah. There's Chaz, we had a we had a an in person event that you were at back in November here in Kansas City and There's another member in the group got a pretty big, a general contracting firm. And he said his one secret was to be a learn at all.
Not a no at all. But a learn at all. And that's what I heard you just say. Learning from your own employees, learning from other people on YouTube, and not having an ego so much or you say, I'm gonna do it my own way. Doesn't mean that we can't be creative. I mean, you're you're one of the most creative. Let me go just forge the linear trail guys that I know. But I just love how you have a learn it all spirit, and you and you can come to the table and go, hey. What do you think?
And you genuinely mean it. That I think that's the big difference in the ego. And I think if you guys like you and I who can have that can also pass that down even to those guys that are around us. Right? Like, if Jake and all those guys on your team can go, But if I see Lance being like this, then then I can be like this too, which then gives the guys behind them the same energy that you give your guys. Yeah. And I learn stuff from my employees every day.
You know, my my Caliburton comes in and he goes to There's a local story here, Binghams, and he dresses up almost every day. So it makes me want to level up and dress like and dress like Mike. But, You know, my employees are there, and they've got great families. And, you know, it makes me wanna be more of a family family dad more. And be a part of that, you know, do what they're doing as well. So it's not just a one way street. I'm learning from them every day too. Yeah. It's good stuff.
On the family note, I wanna ask you because you you and Kimberly and your boys are are joining us for the family mastermind cruise here in a few months. Chaz, gathering the Kings is putting on, but my question is around obsession. Right? Like, as entrepreneurs, we know that we're obsessed with the business. Like, that's why it grows. And, my question for you is is how are you Chaz Lance also obsessed with your wife?
How are you also obsessed with your kids all at the same time because it's like this crazy dynamic that entrepreneurs have that nobody else, I feel like, has the same type of pull like, tug, pull situation that we do. And so the answer that I found is that we just go in all in on all of it all at the same time, but that's difficult. How do you do? Well, it's really nice. Well, my wife and I work together. I absolutely love it. She loves it.
And our boys are, I I think, football field away at daycare and from our building. So we built a building right next to our daycare almost. But That's awesome. It my boys, you know, they love seeing they call them tractors, but they, you know, over the weekend, last weekend, they got an excavator. And, I mean, it's a £120,000 excavator. And, they're just having the time of their lives. But, you know, with all of this, I get to grow something for my my boys. I know that's that's my drive.
Is that, you know, they wanna be in the company, you know, be a part of it. And the same thing with my wife, you know, she gave up her dreams of being a loan officer And she is now she's majority owner. And we did that to be strategic, a 52% woman owned business. Yeah. But she's a huge part of our success today. And, makes me want to be a better dad at home and be home more, but you know, sometimes I gotta sacrifice, and they understand. So I gotta work hard. It's both end. Right?
It's a but it allows us to take, you know, the gathering of the Kings crews here soon trip to that's kind of our getaway. We we block it out. We go take a trip to Florida. We take a trip to, on a cruise with gathering the kings, and, you know, we work hard, and then we also you know, get to take a break. Yeah. Yeah. It's important, and I think a lot of people have the idea of, you know, like, one day, right, one day, I'll do that.
And I think that even entrepreneurs who are super optimistic like you, and I think we hit we get caught sometimes in one day, you know, like, one day we'll take the vacation. One day we'll you know, take a Saturday and spend it doing nothing, but just playing games with the boys or one day. Right? Yeah. And and there's this dynamic that we play back and forth of, yeah, you're right. Sometimes it's it's not today because it it needs to be one day in the future. That's and that's accurate.
But then there's other times where it's like, no. You know what? Maybe we haven't reached all of our goals yet, but today's that day, and we're going on the cruise, or we're gonna just take Saturday go to the football game and just go get ice cream afterwards. And, like, I'm not I'm in fact, I'm gonna turn my phone off today. In fact, I'm gonna leave my phone at the house today.
Or whatever, and that and it's those super intentional moments along the way that I think make the difference, the ones that you were just talking wanna add anything to that? Yeah. And in addition, you know, we we like to take our time because if you don't take a break, you don't clear your head. My mind is going 247, but it's also for my employees. You know, Ryan Dean Chaz sits in the same office as me as my operations manager.
Ryan is handling so much in the company too, logistics and planning, and his phone is going off, you know, a lot. And, you know, Ryan's in Cancun right now. And he's he's been there for the last week, and I'm like, hey, man. You deserve it. You know, you need to go take a break, clear your head, have a good time, shut your phone off. Don't worry about it. We got this. Yeah. And, you know, if I treat my employees the same way that I wanna be treated, it will all take care of each other.
Yeah. So good, man. It's so simple, so profound. I appreciate you sharing that. I got one question for you here about Master Mining. I'm gonna I'm gonna tee you up here in obvious, you know, gathering the king's promotion, but I I do it with no shame because I'm jacked about what we're doing. I'm excited about who's in the circle.
You being one of those But from your perspective, you were one of my initial members a year, a little over a year ago, and you're still around, but you you've you've signed up again, that type of a thing, but you've gotten several key things from the group, from the people you mentioned even, you know, the the times that we've been able to spend together and you hire and your Wolfe. But what would you say about Master Mining in general? Cause I know you're you you're part of other groups.
And then specifically, what would you say about Gathering the Kings? Yeah. So whenever it comes to Master Money in general, it's usually in your local local area, you know, other business owners, which is great. Here's some really amazing business owners in the Columbia, Missouri area, businesses that are a 100,000,000 plus, and I get to sit down in the same room with them. Yeah. And learn.
But you kinda get on the same track, you know, and whenever I met Chaz, you, and in regards of gathering the Kings and I joined, then you get connected and create relationships from all over the the US. And different states, different problems, different regions. I mean, it's it's everything. And getting to Kings Chaz opened my eyes a lot, not only to specific to the area, but different situations that people are dealing with, that I haven't dealt with yet.
And, I I absolutely love gathering the Kings. I think it's one of the best decisions I've ever made. It's a small investment, you know, but it has paid me back tenfold because gathering the Kings has connected me to get my heavy equipment. Get me funding for my projects and has truthfully, in my opinion, doubled my revenue this last year and my business. Wow. Yeah. What would you say on the relationship side? Your big relationship guy.
In fact, that that that's how you've always the honesty piece that we talked about that comes so naturally to you. You're big on connection and just, you know, even if it's you move fast, I don't want the listener to take me wrong here. You move really fast, but in in relationships, you know how to just pay. Let me just put a let me let me build this nugget by nugget over the course of time. I think you do that very, very well.
What would you say about the relationships that you've been able to gain or that you've been able to even pour into from Gathering and Kings. Yeah. My relationships are probably the most important thing to me. If I was to recommend anyone get out there, make those relationships because that's what's gonna grow your business.
It's, in addition to your your great employees, but the relationships are gonna make you those connections And so that your problems get solved faster, you know, your mistake that you made, you're preventing it, or you're solving it. And you can't do that alone. There's no way. Yeah. And I have a group of my amazing business friends that I lean on quite a bit. And they have helped me through my bad times, and they've helped me get to my good times. Yeah. So that that is very to me.
And I think that honesty being upfront, you know, accepting your failures is is very important with those relationships. Yeah. It's good, man. Good honest feedback. I got one last question here for you, Lance. Yeah. If you could whisper in the younger Lance's ear, What would you say? I would change nothing, in my opinion. I have learned a lot, I've got an amazing family. I failed a lot, but every single failure has brought me to where we are today.
I don't I don't wanna say, you know, going through EMT school, seeing, you know, medic school. I went to a paramedicine school and fire department. Everyone's like, well, you should have started when you're younger. No. I I absolutely love what I did, what I experienced, the brotherhood of the fire department, Yeah. I love it all. So I wouldn't change a thing in my opinion. It's awesome, man. What would you say to the guy who's getting started in business today, who's maybe listening.
Of course, there's guys listening that are probably, you know, been in business 20, 30 years and got businesses four times the size of you and I, but for the guy that's listening like you 3, 4, 5 years ago, What would you say to him? What would you wish that you would have known then that you'd that you know now? I would say In today's generation, I'm finding more and more that people don't work as hard.
You know, a twenty year old, twenty two year old kid, eighteen, in fact, you need to work as hard as possible. You only have so much time. And gain those relationships. So when you gain those relationships, do whatever it takes to hang on, take care of them, because it will come back around. That's what I've done. I, truthfully, whenever I was working on the ambulance in the fire department, I would work 7 to 10 24 hours shift straight. I just worked as hard as possible.
And I don't see people doing that anymore. You know, they don't they don't work. And I think if you work hard, gain some amazing relationships and network, You know, join mastermind groups like Gathering the Kings is a huge, huge piece of success. In my opinion. Yeah. You're right. Because at Chaz as a young as a young fellow or or or lady, what you have is time. And but at the same time, it time's gonna go by fast.
And so I love the point that you made there is work hard because I think both you and I at a very young age realized Chaz, well, we could we didn't come from anything. So the only thing I've got is my work ethic or my name. And so when you realize that, like, that's the baseline of, okay, so, like, in order to build trust, in order to build relationships, like, that 10 years from now, I could call on and they go, Oh, yeah. It's Chaz or, oh, it's Lance. Oh, yeah.
Done. It's because of the last 10, 20 years from all the way back to us in high school, and working hard, doing things I said I was gonna do, being accurate, you know, returning capital when you borrow, like, all those things that we do in business, that build the history that you're talking about. And so I just love the, angle that you gave to us there. Lance, how can the listener connect with you? Number 1, if they're in the Midwest, but probably even bigger than that.
And they're connected to site work and civil engineering, and and they need to hire you to come in and do dirt work. How can they find you there? But then number 2, where can they find you just to pick your brain as a business owner? Yeah. So I'm huge on Instagram. I I I communicate with a lot of different business owners on there, and I am So my Instagram for our company is atlanier.co. That's linear.co and then my personal on Instagram is at Lanier32. So you can reach out me there.
Check me out on our website, which is linearco.com, and I would love to talk with some of you. Perfect, man. You've been incredible. I'm honored not only to have you on the show, but to know you, man. We've gotten to know each other well. I would say that at this point, we're not just business, colleagues, but friends, And, I'm excited to continue to press into that because when I, as well as you and other people like us press into each other like we have.
Even on the on on the show, like, today, it makes us better, man. It raises us to the potential that we both know that we have. And I'm just excited I get to do that with you, man. So thank you for being here. Thank you for giving up your time. Blessings on your family, kiddos, your wifey, and your team. And, of course, I'll see you soon. Thank you. Appreciate you having me. 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 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 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 thekings.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.