On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. I think that's the hard part of especially when you get with entrepreneurs and they have employees. And you hear like a laundry list of problems or, like, excuses. Sure. And those of us on the other side of it are like, dude, no excuses, man. We all have our little compartment of these are my excuses that we stuff doesn't go the right way. Uh-huh. I love that, George. Let me box here. Yeah. I think that's maybe human nature to a certain extent.
And I think the difference is how you have that conversation with yourself Chaz if you're really gonna accept this as an excuse or if you're just using it to outwardly comfort yourself for other people. You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolfe featuring fellow 78 and even 9 figure business owner 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 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 6 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 kings like today's guest. Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to dive in.
Wolfe, what's up, everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe gathering the king's podcast. Today, I've got Robert word, like, word up. What's up, dude? How you doing? Good, man. How are you? I'm good. I appreciate that. So that ability to to throw in the word up Chaz you said off air, word to your mama. Yeah. Haven't heard that one in a minute, but thanks for giving me that permission. Robert, tell us what kind of business you got, brother. I have a I guess I expand it now on a call to sheet metal business.
Technically, you are a gutter installation company in Charleston, South Carolina. Love it. So it's, you know, we're actually a one trick pony for the most part. Yeah. That's great. A lot of guys, gals, businesses that are doing what they know they're good at and they know how to service those clients, call it a one trick pony, call it Ultra Focus. I I think they fit in the same category.
That's actually that's I've turned it into a selling point simply because, I can say it's out of most specialty contractors. This is the only thing we do. So if it's the only thing we do, we better be really good at it. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. You're they're dealing with you, they're dealing with the best by far.
Robert, I wanna know, before we kinda get into the story, how you got into business, all that kind of fun stuff, you're at this level of success, and this is my first question to all my guests. Why are you doing this, man? And maybe a secondary question already that I'm gonna ask you is, why still are you doing it? Knowing that you've had this level of success, you could just sale off into the sunset when you don't. I think success is maybe relative. When I started it, I just I wanted to eat.
I quit a job and just cranked it out of my garage and was just hoping, oh, man. Maybe I Chaz fill my calendar with it. Uh-huh. And then and then the target keeps moving. And every time what was the goal maybe last year is we've surpassed it, and then I I think the saying that I've always lived by is a man's reach should exceed his grasp. And so every time the business Chaz moved forward, and it evolves.
It's the moment you realize that you've grown up is the moment you realize, like, growing up doesn't actually feed. You know, there's no certain point. It's Yeah. Every time we've moved forward, I've pushed the we push the marker a little bit further forward. And to be perfectly frank with you, we hit a bunch of failure points and take a step back and correct the failure point. And when that correct, it's like, oh, I don't I I love the process. It's the challenge.
It gets me out of bed every day. The solving the problems. It's learning how to deal with people. It's it's making mistakes and getting better. I just I don't know. I love the whole thing. Yeah. All of the things that you just said, all the little nuggets, all the little moments of the process just oozes out of you because I can tell that you love it because that's what just rolled right off your tongue there.
But there's a lot of guys that say legacy, a lot of guys that say I'm driven, I want more. And you said all those things too, but you said it in a way of, like the mechanics. I like the toil, really. And the toil doesn't have to be the, like, physically doing the installation necessarily.
But I hear you saying that, like, that you're almost like when you said you you when you matured, what happened to my brain was it you matured to that point, but then it it you realized it was just the new beginning. It was just I just got to a point where it's like, ah, I'm now enlightened to the beginning of what's yet to come now. It's because you couldn't see that before. Oh, it's a hindsight vision. It's oh, so this is what being an adult is. Let's same thing in business.
Oh, so this is what it's like to run a business with employees. And and I I think even for us, We're still small, and this is still a relatively new venture. We're about five years old. Like, I got a laundry list of things I can tell you that we're still doing terribly wrong. What started as me solving these problems is now roped into, like, our management team solving these problems and teaching everybody to get on board with the process to, to figure out just how to make us better.
You know, what went for me being trying to be the master and the expert and everything is now trying to be the expert in how to parlay that knowledge and really to bring everybody else into the jet stream, if you will. Yeah. I love that. We're gonna definitely gonna get into that because I think that you're not only are you sharing what's important to the listener but you're living it. You're going through it right now and have been. So I think that the super applicable for the listener.
Tell me how you got started. Were you raised in a entrepreneurial home? Like, how like, why did you start a business, bro? So I started my I'd like to say my first left was baseball I played baseball at University of Virginia and, spent a couple of years in minor league ball, and I basically single and really focused my life towards that. And the moment that ended, I was like, uh-oh. What am I gonna do now?
And I think part of the characteristic of getting to a certain level of success and that is, like, you really start to embrace the risk Chaz well as, like, totally embrace the failure side of it. Baseball is a sport where you fail regularly. So when baseball ended, I spent 10 years searching for like my adult job. And I did everything from I was running fitness facilities.
I I helped start a baseball school in Virginia and then I start I was a financial advisor for a short period of time thinking. I think we all were. Truth. Yeah. We all did that. But then I really, my entrepreneurial journey, probably the cornerstone of it is I got out of baseball, and I really liked playing music. I always wanted to be a musician and So I had all this time on my hands and I went back to college.
So I got drafted early and went back for my senior year of college to graduate and then did grad school and it started playing music then and went from just being, you know, I like to call it strummy mixed strummerson, like the the Camp Fire guy knowing a couple cords to put this band together that was so far above my skill level. Wow. And I was like, just with anything, how do you make yourself indispensable? So I decided I'd manage Yeah. I was playing in it because I was like, you know what?
If I'm doing all the work on that side of it, they can't kick me out. They need me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're making myself valuable. I mean, I'm pushing the gig and and I locked myself in my room and woodshed it so they wouldn't know that I was bad. And then spent a lot of that time promoting a band from scratch and starting and building a promotion and then going to club owners and trying to book gigs. Like, that was a heck of a way to cut my teeth.
And I didn't really look at it that way at the time that, you know, oh, this is my entrepreneurial journey. But looking back on it now, like, you know, it's very similar in business. There is these very strict kind of rules that you have survive by an order for the business to exist, but then there's this huge creative side of it that, you know, Chaz the business can ruin if you let it.
I've learned that skill of keeping the business and the creative side marginally separate, but that was my first foray into it. And I've had a corporate job that I just wasn't really thrilled about, and I actually quit one day full of risk. My wife was 9 months pregnant. I had all the insurance on our corporate insurance. My wife is, like, We're like yin and yang. She's zero risk. I'm like a 100% risk. Uh-huh. And I just quit my job, and she was like, what are you gonna do?
And I was like, I don't know. I'm a cattle. Land on my feet. Yeah. And Chaz a gutter machine and gutter trailer from part of the job that I was working before was an investment that I thought I was going to be able to capitalize on in a different way. Yeah. Turn around and hooked it to my truck and just Started. Started hustling. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So I think it but that story first off is just so relatable to a lot of entrepreneurs where it just you just stumbled into it.
But if you look back, like you said, the DNA of an entrepreneur has always been there, and it sounds like a lot of those maybe disciplines were formed in baseball and then just the idea of mindset of working through failure. I think that I never played baseball, but, like, I want I think I want my kids to play baseball for that reason, specifically that reason. The fact that you literally have to experience failure every single day You're an all star if you hit 3 out of ten times.
Yeah. That is gruesome on the mindset. If you can figure that out. Goodness. I think the cornerstone of any entrepreneur is the ability to I think there are 2 types of risk takers. There are the risk takers that, like, don't cut, like, the true downfall and the true negative side. And then there are there are people that can embrace the risk and are certainly content with a decent amount of failure, but are capable of of adjusting their gauge Chaz they move.
And I, I think one of the things that has kept this ball rolling is, sure. I have a massive appetite for risk, but it it's a constantly adjusting risk offset. It's looking at what the true cost of the failure side of it is. And as long as, you know, as long as you're not all in, like, the game keeps going. You can always recover Chaz long as, you know, bet the farm on something. Them. Right. Yeah. 100%.
I think that that what you just described is what every elite entrepreneur was toggling back every single day. I I've had two conversations already this morning. One inside of one of my own businesses and then other with another client of mine of we're pushing everything to the limits Like, where chips are all in. Let's go. Yeah. And but it takes those moments. And so I'm gonna use that actually as a segue here because you obviously being a big risk taker, you've done those.
And so I wanna know about one of those moments where, like, you chips all in is a good decision. And looking back on it, it was, like, pivotal moment for you. I would say really the big chips all in moment for me was when I quit my job, my big pushy comfortable corporate job at 9 months because I was unhappy. Yeah. And it that's really solely. Was it? Like, I got a good paycheck. I everything was stable. And I just I didn't like the corporate culture.
There was a lot about it that personally just the sad thing is for me as a person, I'm either a 150% all in or I'm 0. And I was I've been bumping along at 0. And I was like, you know what? I'm really zero now. Napped off the lead. Yeah. And I think the a lot of baseball players I know they lose their identity with baseball, this happens for a lot of people when they lose their identity and something is they've become a lost soul.
Yep. And for me, I was searching for risk in many unhealthy ways looking. I would even say music was slightly a part of that because Yeah. Constantly putting on my marriage and family life in this strange place and Yeah. Probably drinking more than I should. And then I started this business and it was like, suddenly, all of these things I'd been searching for landed in my lap. It was like Yeah. I'm home. Yeah. And I didn't have to go look risk anymore. It was at my doorstep on a daily basis.
I was gonna say plenty plenty of it. It it depends on how big your appetite is every day. Yeah. I mean, it was obviously healthier all of it was much healthier risk than I was searching for before. Yeah. I wanna dive into that a little bit. I was just having a conversation 2 days ago with a guy who been business. I don't know. 10, 11 years ago originally and was super obsessed, success, and this, and that turned into alcohol addiction and turned ugly in a lot of different ways.
And he's since been long sober, but he recently, in the last year or so, had been in that place of knowing that he had that obsession or that desire for risk and that, like, hunger, but that through the process of being becoming sober, he had let that go. Like, that obsessive nature. And so we're having this conversation around, no, obsession isn't the wrong thing. It's just the usage of that talent on the wrong things.
I would love to hear your perspective because that's the vein that we're in right now. Yeah. And I think that's I think that's true because like, when I was all in on baseball, like, I was obsessed with it. And it I think, another piece of being a successful on burnure is really being able to accept delayed gratification and also being able to make sacrifices. Not only Chaz, sometimes those sacrifices can be bigger than most people are willing to make.
And, I think for me, when I lost baseball, suddenly, you kinda lose your bearing point. You lose your lighthouse, and it's out. I used to say it, like, I spent 10 years of my life trying to figure out what I was gonna do next. Never thinking that Chaz me able to plug the gap from what baseball took for me. I don't wanna say it took something from me. I I think Chaz period of 10 years, he asked me.
I had a bunch of salty open wounds at that point, but looking back on it now, it's just Chaz was gonna happen at some point no matter went. It was just a matter of time, but I think I'm obsessed with what I do now, but I also I think maybe the perspective is I've found anchor points in my life that keep me tucked in the stratosphere so that I'm not either 195% and just cleaving off the rest of my life in order to run this business. Or I think you I think everybody talks about healthy balance.
And for me, I think the healthy balance as a business owner is sure. I'm what spent an exorbitant amount of time working on my business, but I also have the control to do it on my time. I take my kids a camp. There's sometimes I don't get to work until 9:30 or 10 o'clock in the morning, shuttling my 3 kids around between their different activities and really just getting my time and with them in the morning.
Yeah. But I'm also guilty of turning around and staying here till 1 or 2 in the morning myself. Yep. When when I've got an objective, I wanna meet, and it's because being obsessed. I'm gonna work on it until I'm satisfied with the stopping point. So I I think my wife is is comfortable with my level of crazy My kids understand that, and they're probably gonna be just as crazy as I am. It's also understanding that there are some dark edges to anything especially if you're driven.
There's easy ways to escape, and it's it's understanding they get in the way. They always get in the way. Yeah. Yeah. But you're right. And we were just talking about this off air, right, before we got started. It's that self sabotage conversation, right, where whether it's a substance in this example that I was giving you with a buddy, or it's just not getting up when you said you were going to or not going to the gym.
I'm guilty of that sometimes, or staying up too late working, knowing that I've got a 5:30 AM appointment with myself in the gym, and it's gonna be really difficult to get there if I go to bed at 1. Even though I was being productive. It doesn't always have to be this. I'm making terrible choices. It they can just maybe not be I could be getting in my own way sometimes what we're talking about. I think that's it.
I think there's a certain extent of that built into like just human nature in general where I think that's the hard part of especially when you get with entrepreneurs and they have employees and you hear like a laundry list of problems or like excuses. Sure. Those of us on the other side of it are like, dude, no excuses, man. We all have our little compartment of, these are my excuses that we stuff doesn't go the right way. Uh-huh. I love that drawer. I mean, clogs here.
Yeah. I think that's maybe human nature to a certain extent. And I think the difference is how you how you have that conversation with yourself. Chaz you're really gonna accept this as an excuse or if you're just using it to to outwardly comfort yourself for other people. Yeah. It Wolfe could probably do a whole show just on this.
Ruth. And I think for the listener here, let me just bring all this to to, some a summary point is that we're not perfect, that we're not called to be perfect as entrepreneurs. But I will tell you that when yourself sabotage, typically. And in that moment, what you need is whether that's a swift kick in the bud or the person that's next to you that says, hey, dude. No excuses.
Or just muster up the strength to say, no more, whatever it is, but there's just gotta be that acknowledgement point and then action. Yeah. So if that's the takeaway for the listener here, because you're listening to 2 guys right now that have very healthy businesses who are saying, not only have I done this and struggle with this, but even still this week, I'm sure that there were times where both of us were like, I don't really and then that voice, you go, nope. Uh-uh.
Nope. Nope. Yep. Get to it, champ. Yeah. I think that's maybe the difference between an internal and external motivation is I've built status checks where it's not. I can't do that. That that's against what I'm and I think for me, that's always been the key is mentally drawing the line where it's if you're committed, you do it. Yeah. 100%.
And 2, listening to guys like this, you and me right now talking about it, I don't know of a better way, especially when you're, like, in relationship with other high performers and you know that I'm waking up today crushing it and holding to what I said.
And I know that you're waking up today doing the things that you said you were gonna do, Chaz that'll push you the whole another level because then now you've got now you've got a a mutual respect for somebody who you're like, I can't let them down. You'll let yourself down. But but you won't let them down. So fine. Put them in the equation. And it's also the other side of that too is I'm, like, ridiculously probably on the verge of unhelpfully competitive.
Yeah. It's knowing it well, Chaz pool's up at 5:30 in the morning getting his workout on. So he's at work by 6:30 or 7 o'clock. You better believe. Why can't I? I'm a be on that. Yeah. That's right. That's right. I love the energy there around the competitive spirit. I think I think we all have it to a degree. Okay. I wanna know I wanna flip the coin We've talked about a good decision when Chaz went into all kinds of good stuff, but tell me about a bad decision. Tell me something that happened.
You're just like, oh, you give me that story. How long do I have Chaz what you want? We'll give you literally the rest of the show. It's the juiciest stuff that the listeners love, man, because we all do it. And I was gonna say, I I think I would here, I'll parlay this directly to the business. We had a really good first two and a half, almost 3 years. I put a bunch of money away and bought a building. Like, right around when COVID hit.
And I'm sure you're thinking with COVID, oh, that that was rough on a lot of businesses, and I'll be perfectly frank. We had the absolute opposite problem because we're a home services business. Everybody went home and started working from home. So their honey do list went off the chain our phone rang off now. And so the problem was is we didn't have processes or really standardizations in place in order to capitalize on it.
And, of course, me thinking just leading by example and pushing my desire and Wolfe, and everybody was, like, gonna put us in the right spot. We started throwing bodies. At these problems. Like, we're we're hiring left and right, and I think I inflated us up to, we Chaz, like, 25 employees at one point, but the problem was the expenses climbed really high, but our production output didn't really adjust that much.
And in the process with that, like, all entrepreneurs probably taking on more than I should. I threw health insurance programs at it. So, like, I suddenly turned the dial up on ours. Expenses, like, ridiculously without having the appropriate framework in place and financial fallback from that was enough that it was like that was the moment where you go from but you talk about having your chips all in, and making a gambling risk decision on what could either win or lose.
This was one of those things where, you know, the what I didn't know side of entrepreneurialism and understanding the moving costs and the soft cost of everything that goes in. Suddenly, we're halfway through the year and, like, it's Like, my balance sheets look like they're, like, bleeding red. Somebody is just it's a slasher flick of red. Yeah. And I was like, Chaz have I done? What have I done?
We've spent the last year completely revamping all that from the hiring process all the way through to we're on the tail end of finishing our some of our training programs. Simply that's a problem that I never ever wanna have again. Yeah. Yeah. Just understanding, like, the whole systemization side of it is it's a massive undertaking.
And if you start a business like I did, you know, shooting from the hip and it gets far enough along without those systems made, and you gotta go back and start putting them together. It's a monumental undertaking to do it, like, while the business is moving. Yeah. It's funny that you say almost those exact words of getting so far down the road and then having to go back. That's the story that I typically see.
The story with me is a story with other guests that I've had where it was the risk and the action and the energy that you brought to the table that got it to where it was. Which is the other side of that coin is I don't know how to necessarily systemize this.
Yeah. So it's a fairly natural progression where someone listening today even if they're doing 2 or 300,000, but the guys, especially doing 6, 7, 8, 900,000, they're feeling what you're feeling because you get to that 6, 7, 800, 900 right before that $1,000,000 mark and you don't have the system. Yeah. You're the keystone of that business. It means you are not taking any time off. Literally. They're dying, like, slowly on the inside. Nobody knows that everybody thinks they're doing great.
And even the $1,500,000, Chaz guy still is, like, dying slowly is what you're what you basically just described is like this, oh, no. What did I do? And it's and if we're being honest, that feeling, necessarily of, oh my gosh, what did I do? Doesn't that's not that extreme, but the feeling of I took this risk. Let's see what happens. That doesn't go away. But with the systems, I think that's a motive That's part of me is Chaz, but it's devoid on the other side of that.
If I stop doing this, what am I gonna do? I don't know. Yeah. I go to work then. Exactly. You gotta get to it. A 100%. I'm in alignment with that. What okay. So you've just talked about systems and process. I wanna know, do you have a process or maybe even a discipline around making decisions now. Yeah. And this is probably not. I would love to say that I've got it down to a science.
I am a hyper researcher think that's one of the hard parts for me is, like, every piece of this business, when it's become the forefront of the problem, let's say marketing, for instance, and we're in the process of transitioning our marketing now to update it and really supercharge it.
So I spent the last 2, 3 months literally reading everything I can understand about SEO and how to manage Google Ads and how to Facebook advertising and the metric side of it and kind of understanding not so much how to gain the algorithms, and it's because I'm still gonna I'm gonna outsource that. Our business is small enough, and and we don't have, like, a primary marketing person. And, obviously, it's a very important part of any business. But I I have made that mistake of sitting down.
I think part of being an entrepreneur with a lot of energy is like, I could be sell. I can be sold pretty easily. Somebody comes in and they're exciting and I'm like, so I have had to offset my own ability to wanna like people and form relationships with people to make sure that I'm not getting sold on something because I don't understand it. Sure. Sure. So the natural. So I'm hearing you say personality wise, the researcher piece is something that you've had to learn how to do.
Yeah. Because naturally, you're more of gut feeling. I like this person. Let me just do it. And there's you'll sell me, like, in the things to 95% of the time, the salesperson, the salesperson, who's not the person doing the work for you. No. I've had to learn to offset, like, my I love to meet people. I love, like, I'm also to a certain extent. I've also had to learn how to manage being a people pleaser because, like, I want things to go well.
I want things to be awesome and if I get into a situation and and I guard myself until I'm ready to get into making the decision. Sure. By the time I get to the table with somebody to sit down and talk to I have my weapons at the ready because I understand it at least enough not to shoot myself in the foot because I just like you. Yeah. What you just described to me, and tell me if I'm hearing you, is that you went from just a buyer to an educated buyer.
And I think a lot of people aka, just the formation of the last 20 years of the Internet, have also done that. I think that our buyers today are more educated for this exact reason. Truth. Which is why I think authenticity and just being genuine and not the old, like, sales tact to Keith's things are what actually works because like you said, you come in like a storm, even though it's a fun, energetic fun little circus show, y'all wanna be educated on what is gonna do for my business.
So I think that those things, are super helpful for the person listening. Did you have did you was there a bad experience that got you there. What was the moment? That's another key to entrepreneurialism is you shoot yourself in the foot. You better not make that mistake ever again. We got 2 feet. For me, like, I carry those things. Those are my battle scars.
You know, I put our entire company through the hiring for attitude platform because I hired somebody that I knew that actually had a decent track record And there were red flags all along the way that I I totally just didn't pay attention to because I had a a little bit of a history with this guy and basically just They called me because they were, like, tanking at their other job. Not once did the light bulb go off my head. Hey. Why are you taking any other job?
And so I wound up bringing in somebody and putting them in a pretty significant position and just torching money on them thinking, like, I put the right person in the right spot, and I I didn't do any due diligence to get them in there. And I've done the same thing with, you know, software.
I'm a huge computer nerd and construction is like anti computer, anti software, the metrics drive every business and understanding how they all connect and how they work, but I have been sold by some snake oil Sure. Softwares because at the time, I knew that I wanted that piece of it. I couldn't figure out why or the under interconnected pieces without me understanding enough about it to put all the pieces together. I'm like, That's all my problem right now.
And then again, I'm like, that's darn it. Yeah. Yeah. So I've made that mistake more often than I'd like to admit, but I think that's a part of the gig is every entrepreneur is gonna make a 1000 mistakes I think everybody's journey is a little bit different in that regard, but I carry those scars with me, and I refuse to make those mistakes again. Yeah. 100%. I think that the buying process can be gruesome, but I think you gave us an easy solution there. Just become educated.
Not so you didn't I didn't hear you say over educate or analysis paralysis, or I heard you say inform yourself so you can make a good decision. Yeah. And maybe there may be at one point when I was starting that journey that I would get paralysis by analysis, but typically by the time I get into it, I know I need it.
You know, what whatever it is, whether it's if I'm bringing a Facebook, Instagram marketing team to the table or a guy that's doing my website, I didn't need to necessarily know, like, the actual, you know, how they're gonna code the website. Sure. I just need to understand that when he started spitting out technical jargon to me Chaz I didn't glaze over or, I mean, that I could have a realistic conversation and not only Chaz.
I think the key to that too is understanding on my end what I want the result to be and understanding what that looks like at the tail end and when they talk about how they get there, it's me making sure that I'm hearing what I wanna hear in order for them to get there. And so then you can make sure that it happens. Correct. Yeah. I think that's the flip side of it too. Is sure. I know this cert sort of thing solves a problem.
If I don't understand how to get from point a to point b at least from the 10 thousand foot level and maybe slightly lower if it's a little technical, then I can't necessarily assure that they're gonna get there. Because I can't help manage it along the way or ask them questions as to why something is looking Chaz looks the way it does along the way. Yeah. You're blindly giving money, hoping that they solve your problem.
And the reality of it is that you need to solve it, but just through their expertise, still gotta be the one that owns the business. And I think I think that's a battle with the the entrepreneurial journey is I'll readily admit. To a certain extent, I'm probably a control freak. Part of that is because I know if I do it, I'm gonna do it the way I want it done. I like it.
And I think the next round of that is is learning and honing the skill of being able to transfer what you want done appropriately. One of the books that I lean on a lot for that is the extreme ownership, the Chaz Willink I love that book because there's a section in there that talks about understanding and it's making sure sure you you can lay out all these directives and all these systems Number 1, if your team doesn't understand the why, then they're not gonna buy in.
And if you can't get your team to buy in, never gonna get the result that you want without doing it yourself. Yeah. Got it. And then they get caught if you're doing it, like, either realize that they because they're not communicating I'll just do it myself. And then now they're stuck doing it themselves again and the cycle perpetuates. Alright. You've given us some incredible information. I wanna get some more detail from you from the speed round here. Little different angled questions here.
I want you to dwindle your entire business down to one trackable metric. What is it, Robert? Cash in. Money coming in. How much are really I guess Chaz a lie. How much we sold? Yeah. K. Sales. Yeah. You gotta have sales. Every business is is driven by sales. That's right. You just gave a book recommendation of extreme ownership. I love that book. Anything else specific for a 6 business owner. I think that's a great recommendation, but give you another opportunity here to recommend another one.
I got a laundry list of ones that I love. Really, a lot of the Jaka willing stuff really leaned into. For me, it's been more. I love the hiring for attitude Chaz that management IQ Chaz that whole platform that he's gotta really like because it's systemized enough that that it's a little bit it's easier to implement. Yeah. I think a lot of these books are great except for sometimes it's hard to go from theory to practice. Yes. Yeah. Because it's because it's fun to read theory.
Yeah. And I Makes you good. I like practice practical being able to implement it becomes a whole lot more useful, and there are thousands of self help books with theory. It's the ones that practice are the ones that I wind up being like, yeah. Like the E Myth. I felt that was another one that I was like, yep. Yep. And it's short and easy. Understanding systems, key to key to this. That's right. That's right.
I your your personality is shining through with just the practical piece of it, which I think is relatable to entrepreneurs because we're problem solvers. That's what we look at it. We go, okay. How do we fix it? Now we might have different ways of fixing it, but from a estimate entrepreneur is. Right? Like, Chaz at the core of who we are, we're professionals.
Yeah. True. What or or I guess the question is what value do you have, or do you find, but do you intentionally network or mastermind with other entrepreneurs and then what value do you find in doing that? Oh, always. My business is like a little core vein inside of a large construction industry. I've got several contacts that are either running successful general contracting businesses or, like, one of my closest confidantes running.
It took over his dad's commercial contracting business, and they've been successful for a while. And he's driven it into a a new era. They're always they're my first call because either he's my friend that owns the commercial contracted business has either revamped the system that he's took over from his father or he's he's dealt with these things before I have. And I ask him first, and then I run it down the line 2 or 3 times. If I get 2 or 3 of similar answers, it's great.
And I'm making the right decision, or I'm heading down the wrong path. Yeah. No. It's good. What you're describing, like, an advisory board to have that pinging of ideas or just making sure, hey. I'm on the right track here.
Yeah. But you Chaz always gotta have people that you can that that that you can without risk of giving away like, major core pieces of your business, whether they're outside of your market and in the same business or they're in your market, not a direct competitor, like, being able to have confidantes that, you know, not only that that you can I can throw, like, my concerns and my worries off the wall too and be like, I don't really know how to track this
certain metric in my business, or I don't understand what it means? I don't know why it's moving like this. Do you deal with something like this and more times than not? They've either got a direction for me to go or somebody else to ask, which is nice. Yeah. 100%. Yeah, that connection piece that you just mentioned there Chaz been huge for me as well. Okay. Last question. You ready? If you lost it all, What would you do? Probably start over and do the same thing.
Give me a hammer and nail, and I'll You figure it out. Yeah. I'm I think that that has been the joy of this whole journey is, you know, I think that's a risk as an entrepreneur that occasionally you could wind up in that situation where it like, oh, want to or not, you lose it all. I do feel comfortable enough that if I had to start from scratch, I probably would stick with home services. I think that's something you can do and do really well even if you're by yourself.
Yeah. And just remain by yourself. That's how your business goes, which is great, but I also think there's a whole lot of people in this industry that are doing it wrong. Yeah. You'd probably say that in every industry, but at least I know Yep. Like, very deeply Chaz most people don't run it as a business. They show up and manage the whole thing simply by what their bank account says.
And they get a job and they don't market until they get to the end of the job and get to the next one, or don't communicate with customers. There are a lot of opportunities everywhere you look and simply a matter of, at the end of the day, it's putting those to grind stuff and getting it done. Yeah. I love the the added just to add just to advise there because you're a 100% right. The eightytwenty rule and probably in home services. It's probably, like, 95.5.
I mean, 1st year in business, I heard this a million times on the phone. You guys are the only ones that answer your phone. I'm like, that's all we gotta do for this thing to run. Yeah. They can figure it out. You're a 100% I had a job in my twenties and is an we're selling advertising and a lot of our contractor or a lot of our customers were contractor. And I thought the same thing. As a twenty one year old, I would hang up the phone and be like, if that guy because, hello?
Or no answer at all. Chaz a twenty one year old, I'm like, if that guy right there can do even the little bit that I know that he's doing, I'm gonna crush this thing. Just answer the phone. Be professional. Say your company name. Ask me for, an an appointment.
Yeah. And that puts you like, in the top 20% of, especially outside of, like, general contracting, go into specialty contracting of some sort, whether it's framing or like drywall painting, cleaning, pressure washing, like just answering the phone, wearing uniform, being polite and following up with emails or sending an estimate via paper and not like handwritten and at the end of the day showing up in your sweaty clothes and your slides.
You know, I think that initially is what set us apart was just that, like, we could adult. Yeah. Exact yeah. Exactly. Which is funny because that it ties it all back to how you originally started which was that that I when I had that that maturing realization Chaz this is what it was, it doesn't take much, actually, but it takes the few key things It even goes back to the disciplines we talked about.
Everybody knows what to do, quote, unquote, but just nobody does it because it's just easy enough. It's difficult. It's where it's difficult. The way you're supposed to do it. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. This is this interview has been just incredible. You've given just an amazing amount of value. Can the listener get connected to you, Robert? Holy Citygutterworks.com is our website. Find me on LinkedIn. You can find me through. I have all of our contact everywhere set up.
If somebody contacts us through the website, it goes to me and everyone else. My email is robert@holycitygotoworks.com. Call the business, and we've got one of those dial by number of things. You can reach out to me Chaz way. I'm I love I think you and I are similar in regards to, I think another key to being an entrepreneur is I like to help. Yeah. Without anything in return, I think I've had people on the way grab me and pull me up.
So if somebody has questions and they wanna ask more, please reach out. Email me. That's probably the best way to get a hold of me as most entrepreneurs. Like, I can pile it on, but, email robert@holycitygotoworks.com. You can go through the website info at holy citygotoworks.com. You can email everybody in the company. You you're if you want, I don't know. Go get lunch. That out, so I'm not getting spam from everybody. But Yeah. No. In all seriousness, you've been incredible.
The ones that that resonate, the ones that want the help, the ones that wanna pick your brain or whatever. They'll reach out. The ones that that don't never do. So you've been incredible. We wish you absolutely nothing, but all this in the world and blessing on your business, your family, all of that. So thank you for being here. Yeah. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you for listening to Gathering the Kings today.
I hope that you were able to pull out a few nuggets to go apply into your business right away.
More importantly, though, I hope that you're realizing that it takes more to be successful than just being by yourself doing it all on your own, carrying the weight all by yourself What I have realized, not only in my own journey from multiple businesses 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 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. That 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 kings 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.