On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. Is there any other tidbit that you can give to the listener right now who maybe is wearing too many hats and hasn't been able to delegate? Mostly because they don't know really what they're best at. Can you give anything else further there for for clarity? 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 they've made along the way, they 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 kings like today's guest. Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to dive in. What's up, everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe trying to come to you today. Trying to keep my voice I was losing it. I did three shows yesterday.
Here I am back. And I got my brother, Matthew, here on the King stage. How we doing? Come into the fold here. Come to the king table, Matthew. How are we doing? Doing well. Yeah. It's really, really blessed. Glad glad to be alive. It's a great day. I had an old football coach you say at in our 5 AM, 2 a days. It's a great day to be alive and living in the peach state. I love it. I love it. We just gotta talk about Georgia and the area that you service.
We were just there with our mastermind group and, absolutely beautiful area. I'm trying to buy a lake house nearby, like, just the Wolfe it just, like, encapsulated my attention. But, dude, I didn't even before our pre record, I didn't even even ask you how you say your last name. I'm looking to hear on the screen going. That's okay. Oh my goodness. Yeah. It's okay. It's it's Eford. Yeah. It's Eford. It's like bird, but e f. So Eford. There you go.
Matthew Eford. Matthew Eford here on the King stage y'all. And and I hope that for the listener, you guys realize that, like, I mean, okay. I've done, like, 325 of these. And look, right here, right in front of you, forgot to ask my buddy's last name and and how he says it, but but, hey. We just roll with it. That's what we do. It's Kings. We bring Levity. It's one of our core values. We bring Evity, which is the removal of stress and the insert of joy. Amen. What do you think about that?
Okay. So Love it. I wanna know. You got a couple businesses. Tell us what industry or businesses that you're in. So we started a mosquito Joe franchise in 2017. I was in a sales position that before I started had been through some pretty explosive growth with a great pharmacy company and really felt called to and led to something for my family. Wanna be able to hand something to my boys.
Didn't wanna pat on the back and a and a watch when they sold the a business that we took from 2,000,000 to 10,000,000. Yeah. I really want to be able to invest in my future and in my voice future. So we prayed a lot, found Excuse Joe as an opportunity, call it around almost a 100 owners at the time. I spoke to kinda tell me the good, the bad, the ugly about the brand. And fell in love with the brand, but the issue the brand had was what do you do in the off season?
And so simultaneously, we opened a Christmas lights business. We we did a little AV test between Christmas lights and chimney Suites Chaz a buddy of mine that was doing Chaz. So I just wanna kinda keep our options open. Fell in love with with lighting the opportunity to be able to really make Christmas magical and have since 2018 been running both businesses side by side, supporting the staff between the others. And we're actually really excited this year.
We're actually franchising our Christmas lights business called Mighty Pros. So we're we're opening up that franchise and opportunity to be able to connect other folks. So we do outdoor pest control through mosquito Joe. We do Christmas lights Chaz are local operations with lighting pros, and then we have franchising that business as well. Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, wow. Completely impressive, but the the first thing that I just keep this vein of impressiveness I like to be impressive.
I like to I like to I like to show up and out, and so I like to point it out when I hear it. You said you called a 100 franchisees before you signed the dotted line. And I just when you told me that just before the recording. I was that's a lot of phone calls, man. That's a lot of potentially hearing the same thing over and over. And a lot of a lot of, like, intentionality is what I heard from I just wanted to, like, give you, like, a kudos to that. I mean, I'm not sure. That a lot.
Like, your dad or anything, but, like, wow. No. I appreciate that. And then the the second piece is around the the franchise. Like, I wanna just point that out there because I can't tell you how many home service companies I've heard say man, we can't figure out what to do to keep my guys. And so that's you listening right now.
Matthew might be an incredible opportunity for you to connect with wherever you are in the country because unless you're in Florida or South Texas, everyone else basically has an issue with this exact same thing that you just described And and I'm pretty sure that they celebrate Christmas in all of those areas too. And I'm pretty sure there's businesses and homeowners everywhere that like home, like lights on their buildings and homes. And so maybe list them up just a little bit on this one.
This might be a great solution for you. Maybe Matthew has a franchise just for you. Be honored to help any way that we can. Awesome, man. Well, let's get into it here. I wanna know your story. You kinda gave us a little bit of what happened. I wanna know how it happened, but before, ask you to how. I gotta know the why. You mentioned your boys. You mentioned, you know, leveraging a future legacy. Chaz is the bigger picture for you? What's the burning desire of Matthew on the inside?
My businesses are an avenue for ministry relationally financially. So, that's that's what gets me out of bed every day. It it is being able to engage, I believe scripture teaches us Chaz we're all called to men ministry as believers. And so if you call yourself a believer, you're in the work of ministry. It's not just for pastors or or own people on staff at a church. It's the local businesses that can really make an impact.
And so we we operate our businesses in that way to invest in our staff, to invest in our community, and then to be able to invest in our family as well. Yeah. I love that. And I and I agree with you. I'm in I'm in a a similar value system. And and for me, you know, call it marketplace Christianity or, you know, evangelism through excellence.
Like, I think you and I both know, even through our conversation already this morning, It's like, you know, sometimes the faith or maybe the word or the Bible or scripture or these, like, play on Christian words get used, but a lot of times they don't. And here's what actually happens is that you just operate in excellence.
And operating in excellence is a biblical foundation or, you know, success principles came from somewhere originally, and it wasn't Napoleon Hill, although I love thinking grow rates deeply. Me too. They were they were around much longer before him. And so it's like, okay. Well, where where? And so for you and I, that state of excellence comes from us wanting to be a mirror of the excellencies of Christ. Right? Yeah. Amen. Love that. Okay. So that's your why. Chaz that changed over the years?
I mean, you got a family now, that you're getting So, yeah, we this is it hasn't really changed. I mean, it's it's adapted. I have a personal board of advisors that I put together that I that they help grade me on 3 things, faith, family, and finances. And so that's that's kind of the intention around putting that board together. So those are the three areas that I really seek to evaluate in my life. I wanna be the I I'm not a big word person.
You know, I know some people throw that around for the new year. That's never been me, but the word that I've said the most over the last 18 months is stewardship. I wanna be a good steward of what I have. We we've been very, very blessed. Our our businesses have grown. We've seen tripled digit growth. We've seen high double digit growth in both businesses year over year, which is just a huge blessing.
And so instead of just turning inwardly, we wanna make sure we turn outwardly and be able to connect with our staff and serve them well, serve our our community well. You know, we tell our staff, I want you to be better for working here. You know, I mean Chaz. And so we try to invest in them. We do some pretty cool stuff with with them. That's cool.
One thing that you didn't just say in that sentence, but you said before we hit the record button, and I wanna highlight it because it's so important, and it's something that I've said for a long time as well. Which is you want your staff to be better because they work for you, but then, comma, that sentence continues. And if it's only for a short season.
Or if it's for a long season, whatever the rest of that sentence looks like, we can't be so naive to think that somebody's gonna work for us for the next 50 years. And it's our responsibility or our stewardship, right, to be able to steward that relationship well for even a period of time. So one thing that helped change my mentality, this was early last year. Just spend some time praying for our business and and meet with a mentor of mine.
And I said, I'm I'm really having a hard time when a staff member leaves. And I said, I I've really felt convicted this morning that that I that's a good thing. When they leave because we're now sending them out. And and it just really changed my perspective of the staff that we have. It's 1st season. And and I hope that we can elongate that as season because we have Christmas lights and we're able to offer year round employment. It's not just seasonal. Right.
There there's all the benefits of, you know, being able to hire higher caliber employees that do better customer service that leads to higher referrals that lead decrease cost of acquisition of new customers. All the good things you wanna see as a business.
But for us, what it's done is this allowed us to change the mentality of We're finding young men and young women that are coming into our business and time of transition, and we're able to invest in them in the season that they're with and either move them into another role within our organization as it grows that can support them in a longer term career or help equip them for their next career. Yeah. And that that mentality shift has has completely taken the burden of staff off of my shoulders.
I mean, obviously, we struggle with staff. That's nationwide people do Chaz. But it's it's given me a new perspective on that very fresh perspective that that I would just encourage others to to have as well. Yeah. It changes a a a closed fist to an open fist. Mhmm. And so if we're keeping this, you know, just biblical principle flow, you know, blessings can't flow in and out with a with something closed. It it has to be open. It has to be open. You have to be able to receive and give.
I mean, we can, I mean, just multiple scripture and principles that we're talking about? And then even in a book, success books, they they talk about just abundance and not lack.
Yeah. And so there's there's an abundance mentality that you're referring to that not only is there enough that someone else will fill that spot, but then the duty or the the the stewardship of this responsibility or this person or this helping them move on to the next, like, it's actually that now becomes a, like, like, a task. Like, I'm I'm I'm gonna be responsible for this. Yeah. And I and I wanna do it with excellence is what it all comes down to. Yeah. Go ahead, man.
Okay. So let's let's hear a little bit of the story. You said you worked for a pharmaceutical company before, and you wanted to do your own thing. Give us a little bit more of that story what kicked you out of the corporate world made you wanna do your own thing and and a little bit of the stuff. I met an owner of a pharmacy management company. He and I went to church together. I went to school UGA, go dogs, again, was in a church outside of Athens. He and I were church together.
They were starting a sales program. For their company. They were a couple of $1,000,000 looking to invest and grow their business and got into that learned an incredible amount about business, even though I've taken business classes through Terry with the management finance background, but It was the practical sense of managing people and expectations and then sales. That's my my love. It is sales and development, business development.
So was able to capitalize on Chaz, but I saw a lot of businesses I was competing with getting you balled up lots of some larger players in the market. And really felt compelled to look at what does it mean for me to leave be be a good steward, but but leave a legacy for my boys. We're trying to start a family at that time, and I didn't want just a pat on the back. Say, hey, you know, Matthew, appreciate your years of service. Driving all of the country like you did.
You grow our business to $10,000,000. I didn't grow it. The the the lord did. People ask the work that we are doing. They had incredible team, incredible product. I just helped facilitate the conversation. So That's right. All that say, I saw them starting to cut some costs. And and felt like that an exit was gloomy. And so it was reading some books. Rich AppPortad was one of them, and it really got a hold of my heart.
To say I had a mowing business when I was in high school, and I I really need to look back into that. So, I did some evaluations. I looked at a a donut shop. I mean, I love donuts myself and coffee and looked at doing something like that. I I'd looked at landscaping. I looked at Trucking. I've kind of put my feelers out to anybody that that I would consider someone that I admire and nothing really struck my fancy. To just to be frank. And nothing felt I didn't feel confident in anything.
The lord wouldn't give me clarity on that. So I started looking at franchise models. And mosquito Joe was one that was winning a lot of rewards and has continued to do, thankfully, as a growth opportunity Chaz it was kind of a low barrier entry in terms of growing an area that had a large opportunity to for long term growth. And then take a lot of capital to start. It's a territory with, you know, vans and and staff and and equipment.
So it's not building a $2,000,000 building and and hoping that that area that continues to develop. So as a first business outside of college, that was that was a nice thing to get into. We we tell our staff all the time. We're in the customer service business. We just happen to do outdoor pest control and Christmas lights Chaz that we're definitely customer service focused. And so has just been scaling since then. Yeah. I love that. Okay. Well, I wanna know, maybe even early on, specifically.
Sure. Have a good decision that you made. Where you can look back. And because of this one decision, a lot of the other dominoes have fallen for you. What what is that? So I I I knew you were gonna ask this question. I've I've got 2 One of them is really easy and and one of them is more difficult. The the real easy one is we started paying weekly. We we do payroll. We run payroll once a week. That's been really helpful for our guys. All of our team, a lot of it, especially our entry level jobs.
They're leaving paycheck to paycheck. And so paying once a month or on 1st 15th or or biweekly was really stretching some of them thin. And that's really helped us a lot over the last 2 years post COVID with inflation now, different incentive programs that we do different competitions that we do, they feel that impact on their paycheck much sooner than waiting 2 or 3 weeks to to give it. So That's a that's a real easy practical one.
The second one's around delegation, which which actually is part of one of the biggest mistakes I've made. And and I'm I I know that question's probably coming to you. So I I can kind of dive into that in a second if you want me to, but Yeah. Learning how to delegate has been something that I I've grown in a lot. And and and Chaz takes a lot of self examination of learning what you're actually good at, not what you think you're good at.
So one of the things that you actually excel in, what are the skill sets that you have, and what things needed to hand off. And for me, that was asking the people closest to me, mentors, pastor, my wife, some dear friends of ours just to kind of evaluate me and went through a process with them. And and it was pretty revealing. Of what I thought was was good and what I did Wolfe, and I didn't do well. I'm more of a visionary person.
I catch the the client development, business development piece, and run with that quickly. And I can get lost the details and get lost with me a lot. Oh, yeah. So it's been delegating to good people. So what do you think? Yeah. I mean, that we're just talking about such some something so powerful. I appreciate your vulnerability there. Especially even just the way that you went about, like, strategically putting multiple people around you, I think that that is the idea.
Whoever that you know, quote unquote mastermind group is, whether it's a mixture of your wife and a couple of friends, or you already said you put an advisory board together, or you're a part of a group like gathering the Chaz is literally one of the foundational things that that you have to have an agitation of someone else's thought about you or what you're doing. My question is this.
You said that, oh, oftentimes, it's the difficulty of the self reflection piece to know, like, what you're good at, what you're not, and what that what that presumes is that we're not good at everything. It's like, Wolfe, yeah, but we inherently, maybe not inherently think that we're good at everything, but at least at the beginning, we kinda have to be.
So other than maybe just asking others to be honest with you, is there any other tidbit that you can give to the listener right now who maybe is wearing too many hats and hasn't been able to delegate mostly because they don't know really what they're best at. Can you give anything else further there for for clarity? Yeah. So for me, I read a book, who not how, Dan Sullivan, Yeah. Chaz was that was one that that hit me square in the face.
I mean, just being honest, I ask myself the question, how can I fix this for too much instead of asking myself who can help me fix this?
And that is something that is that has helped you a little bit shift my mind in that, but I I went through I have some pretty basic questions around to my spouse and and to mentors and to dear friends, and and even to a couple of our leadership team that that I had a very good relationship with or have a very good relationship with I was saying, like, what do you think what do you think I'm best at? What do you think I'm worst at? What what what's the most frustrating thing about me?
And it took a lot of me to say, please know that there's trust here that I truly want good honest feedback. Because I have some champions in my life who are just champions, and they're just encouragers. And I love them dearly, but I did not go to them with this question. Yeah. It's good. That's a discernment piece. Because that they're just gonna encourage me, and I love that. And sometimes I need that.
But but in this this process, this exercise, I needed somebody that was gonna be willing to shoot straight with me. And I've created the the culture there with these individuals to say, especially for the employees that I have on our leadership team, this is a safe place for you to share hard answers because I want to grow. One of our core values is shared growth Chaz were better today than we were yesterday. We always want to be growing and becoming better.
Peter Drucker says the bottlenecks are always at the top. The rate limiting step of growth of my organization and then any division underneath me that that I'm responsible for, that Yeah. People that they manage, they're the rate limiting step of growth. Yep. So true. Who not how is an incredible resource. So if you're listening right now and you haven't read that or listened to it, I'd highly suggest that. Lots more value than than even just the thing that Matthew gave to you.
But for your ability to make that transition, and then also then include those people, into your decision making and also feedback facilitation is humbling. I'm sure you've had many humbling moments. Yep. Yeah. But but then but then what do we do with it? Right? Like, okay. So you got some hard feedback. You gave a you facilitated a space that was safe. And you got the answer, and it hurt a little bit. And and then you walked away. What do I do with it there?
Sure. For me, it was it was trying to delegate the things that I was not good at. And so it was trying to find people that were, for me, specifically good in the details, that that they were good at at processes. From an EOS standpoint, traction, it was an implementer. That I needed to equip my implement or better.
And that took time Chaz that took intentionality around spending time with this individual and giving them the information they needed to be successful and then not micromanaging them, which is not an issue for me. Because, again, I get the details get lost, so I don't micromanage. So that that was a big piece for me. It is trying to understand. I mean, we went into job descriptions. We went into core values.
We went into our overall company structure or chart and really just kind of restructure all of those pieces to say, how do we better support the organization as a whole? I cannot do everything. Yep. Yep. Love that. You you whispered something real quickly there that I wanna point out for the listener. You said that you had to equip him or her, I guess, but you had to equip the integrator with the information that they needed so that they could go execute and then you didn't micromanage.
And you said later that micromanaging isn't like a thing for you anyway because that's not usually what visionaries do. But here's what visionaries typically do is they just say, here. Go figure it out. But if we go back to your 3 step process there, it was first equip them with what they needed so that they could go execute and then don't micromanage. You can't just say, well, I'm not a micromanager, so go figure it out. That's not how it works.
It takes a collaboration of equipping them and giving them the pieces that they do need, which does require you to be into the weeds a little bit, more than a visionary likes to be. Let's just be honest. Yeah. And and so that they can own that space so that the visionary can rise above the weeds again. Does that make sense? Yeah. One minute manager is another good book Chaz that kinda gets into some of that.
It is being able to create a cadence that you meet with your staff, especially early on in in delegating, it's a lot more. Chaz than it is as you go throughout the delegation process. Yeah. And so as we're onboarding a new team member or as we're assigning a new task, somebody I spend a lot more time with them than I typically would.
We're regularly daily, sometimes multiple times during the day, go in over the process, tweaking the process, making sure they understand the process, making sure that they actually tell me back the process. That's been the key for us is to say, this is what I'm saying. You tell me what I'm saying. Tell me what this process is. Tell me what you're gonna do. I wanna hear it from you. I want to hear you saved us so that way I'll make sure I understand what it is. Yeah. It's funny.
This this process or this repeating back of competence is so good. And I'll give you just a quick example here because you've mentioned Chaz part of your, you know, your inner circle obviously is your Wolfe. And then, you know, before the recording hit, we were talking just about just the importance of of that and our faith and just a few other things that play into the business. But my my wife and I, Julie, and I were on a marriage retreat, I don't know, 5, 6, just maybe 7 years ago.
I can't remember exactly how long, but we we were doing this this communication style back and forth where, you know, the one listens and then repeats back. Like, this is a very normal communication piece. It it it shows not only active listening, but it shows competence of what, like, I understand what you said, and then the ability to repeat it back to you is a whole another skill set. Yep. It's it's the ability for me to know that you actually heard me. I feel I now feel heard.
I feel Chaz you understand. So you heard me, but then you understood. And then now I understand that you understand. Like, those are multiple steps. And so here's what we learned. It's just as hilarious. This is, you know, applicable for for employees as well. Is that when when my wife would repeat back to me, she would summarize because she's a summarizederer, and I'm a, like, bullet point k. I'm I value accuracy. Okay. And so she would repeat back. Here's what you said.
And I was like, well, that's part of it, and then I would have to repeat. Yeah. And so then she go, yeah. Okay. I got it. And then so she'd say it back to me. And I'm And I'd say, no. You don't you don't fully have it yet. And, and so the the takeaway there is that it's not that she doesn't value accuracy. She's She's very act like, she's excellent, and she likes value and accuracy. But for me to feel heard or for me to feel that you understand fully Yeah.
I needed you to give it back to me exactly how I gave it to you because that, to me, displays that you understand. Now for her, summarize it. We're good to go. Move on. It's just kinda funny how those things work, but that's just a personality preference. So even inside of the communication, visionary integrator, detailed person, not detailed person, you know, like, we all these different moving variables.
Really, what we're talking about is you gotta know the person And you gotta be able to deliver communication in their style so that they can be able to operate, whether it's equipping them with information so that they can go do it, or training them, whatever the the process that we're trying to, you know, do is. Would you agree with that?
No. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that I that's on my daily affirmations I read over myself Chaz I listen with the intent to understand before I listen with the intent to respond. And that that's really been something that's been helpful for me for our team is that they know that when they come to me, I'm gonna listen I'm gonna put down my phone. I'm gonna put down my computer. I'm gonna truly engage with them. Right. You know, people's the biggest thing that that limits any business.
At the end of the day, that's the biggest thing that's gonna get you to scale is your people. It's not your marketing. It's not your business. It's the people that you have executing the business. I think for most businesses, for any home service business, but it it's your people.
And and one thing that we have found is investing in our people getting engaged with them on a very personal level, knowing them better, them equipping our leadership team to know their staff better, their their team better, trying to cultivate that kind of culture has been really important. Yeah. Makes makes a big difference. Hey, Kings and Queens. Chaz Wolf. I wanna talk to you about something that's super important to me. We put a lot of time and effort.
We, meaning myself and my team, into this podcast, into the content that goes out every single day. And if you have been getting any sort of value or insight from this, we want it to be able to reach other business owners too. So we would love if you would like, comment, share, leave a review, post, share again, all of the things. On social media, on all the different platforms, or even on the podcast mediums of Apple and Spotify.
We would love to be able to get our content into more hands, more entrepreneurs, they can grow their business as quick as possible. Together, we are building a community of like minded entrepreneurs who are committed to growing their businesses to new heights. So let's do this. Let's help each other. Let's help each other grow. Okay. Let's flip the coin, Matthew. I wanna know about bad choice that you've made that we can all learn from. What is it? So it it's twofold.
No one to to fire somebody that I needed to fire somebody Chaz it just dragged that process out. I had I mean, in in the circumstances are are are difficult. Our our son, our second son, Noah Chaz trusted me 13, found out about it in fall, 2019 that he passed away in March of 2020, right before the pandemic. Yeah. And so, you know, I that was obviously a a difficult time for my Wolfe and my family, and and still is.
You know, we live on the other side of of grief, and we're we're living in the the midst of his absence. We know where he is. We know that we'll be with him one day, and we and we celebrate that, but it doesn't make today any less hard. But in that season, I I had a manager that was working with us. That I had not done a good job delegating to her. I'd done what you had said earlier about, hey. I'm the visionary. This is what I need you to do. Go run with it.
And in my personality, I would go figure it out as I went. And this individual, I didn't equip them well enough to to handle Chaz. That then I had to take a season out of our business and it suffered, you know, and and we lost some good staff around Chaz, you know, a players like a results and they like to be around other a players and Right.
Being able to move on from somebody who's not that and and even help them, you know, from a fake perspective, it gets really challenging because it's, you know, it's another soul that that I'm saying, hey. You know, you're you're not a good fit for us. And so we take that more as a this is not the best opportunity for you or the business. I'm gonna help you find something else, but this is not gonna work. That this is not working for you for everybody involved.
Again, it gets back to stewardship. I've gotta be a good steward because all of our other team stuffering because that individual is staying too long. Yeah. Yeah. It it it's a real thing. It's come up a couple times here on the show, but If you're listening right now and haven't gone through this, then then you will. But and and and, hopefully, the the information here that you just acquired is you recognize it, like, It's it's a frustration. It's a stick.
You know, when it should be flowing, it sticks. And and it starts as an irritation, and it doesn't have to be that you don't work on it. Like, obviously, every every frustration needs every issue needs a a solution, but sometimes a solution is right there in front of you, and it's like that they're just not a good fit. And that's okay.
Even to your point there, it's like, that doesn't mean that you can't help them move on and transition to even what should be better for them because here's what I learned a long time ago. If he's not performing, if she's not liking this, like, if I'm not liking her performance, she's probably not liking it either. He is drudging coming to work every day. And so it I'm just doing us both a favor of Yeah. You know, helping helping both people move on in a in a better way.
Yeah. I gotta know, is there is there a decision making process that you have? You're very poised. You've been through a lot. You're referencing, you know, people. Like, you have a very poised perspective. Do you have a, like, a decision making process when something comes across your desk? Can I make a big decision? It's a great question. I mean, I I have a I have a morning routine that I've had for a couple of years now that that, start my day at 5, you know, exercise.
I spent time in the word. I spent time praying for my family and my business. And then based off of that quarterly rock, divide up my 7 day week and and have different tasks I do every morning. And that gives me a couple of hours few hours before our boys get up and get going for the day. They're so young. Our oldest is 5, and so they're they're still 3 kindergarten age, but that gives me time to be really focused in the mornings to engage with our business.
We had a couple of books around that and then share in a minute, but that really helped. So a lot of times Chaz at least preps me for the day to be engaged with those discussions during the day, so those decisions. But I have 2 master runs. I'm a part of one that saw specific one that I take a lot of stuff to you, and then one's a fake baseline Chaz that is equipping me to be a better dad, a better husband, a better business owner, that I'm involved with those 2.
And then I have my personal board of advisors that I've put together that are just, man, that I admire. Then I say, hey. You you've gone places I wanna go. And, you know, Bible teaches he wants of the wise becomes wise, but the companion of full suffers harm. And so I've really tried to surround myself with wise people, Chaz rubs off on me, and then I get to say, like, hey. This is the decision. This is my process. This is the issue that's come up. Here's the evaluation Chaz I've done on it.
Here's where I'm thinking about going. What would you advise? That's helped me mitigate a lot of issues. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I I if I could just bottle up that answer and just sell that, I think that a lot of people would actually be changed Wolfe grow. It's a lot of the message of of what we say on the show. So thank you for for echoing that into the the chambers of of business and and eternity on the Internet. And so those are great decision making abilities. Appreciate that.
Okay. So speed round here, Matthew. You ready? Ready. Top KPI. The only one that you could track. If you can only pick 1, what would it be? Sales. And why? I just wanna see our business is growing. I mean, we track We, obviously, we track other ones, but but as a salesperson, I'm hungry for returning sales and new sales because it that that's what gauges my Chaz that's the metric that I evaluate.
Returning sales, renewing sales, recurring sales is more of how well the business is doing if that number's not going up, then our business is not doing a good job keeping our business. Right. I'm right. And the new cut new business coming in, our marketing machine has to be working. Are because we're both in the referral business, the Christmas lights business, and the Mosquito Joe business, both of those are are heavily in the referral business.
Marketing, but but it's it's you want somebody to say, hey, mosquitoes are best. And and they they treat my yard, and and they do a great job. Right. That's obviously an easier sell. So the top line sales number tells me a lot about the health for organization in a very, very easy to understand metrics. Yeah. I love I I that's what I was looking for, which I appreciate you giving, because a lot of people are driven by top line sales, and it's for it's for the wrong reasons. For vanity.
It's for that I did a million bucks or I did 10,000,000 bucks or a 100,000,000 bucks. But if if it doesn't give you the health of your organization in a very specific way like you just gave, then it's the wrong metric to be tracking. Right? The point of the question is that there's gotta be something that you just Like, this one piece helps you understand the entire organization, and it's a tough question. I know that. And for every entrepreneur, it's a slightly bit different.
Because businesses are are organized a little slightly different, but I love the depiction there. Thank you. You said you got a couple more books that you'd love to recommend, or maybe other you said you're a big podcast guy. What are some resources that you can share? So this is one that I bought our team. It's by Jimmy Collins, create a followership. Yeah. This is the book that I've referred out more over the last 12 months than any other book.
It is he is the only non Kathy to run Chick Fil A. He's the only non Kathy CEO of Chick Fil A. It's an organization that I love and it is it's his process about how to be the best employee you can possibly be. It it felt weird the first time I encourage our employees to read it. It felt like, hey. You're doing a bad job, and I want you to do a better job. Right. But the feedback I've received from them has been more in line with Hey. Thank you so much for giving me that.
It's a great resource because it it helps me to understand. He takes it from a perspective of CEO of the organization, here's what every CEO wishes, his employees would do. His or her employees. Yeah. And and it is it's up. He's it's really do well done, so I wouldn't mean, I'm I'm an avid reader. I read 20 or so books a year. And so, this he who also, the wise becomes wise, so just try to surround myself wise people.
The 5 people you spend the most time with or the direction you're gonna go, you're the center of the 5 people you spend the most time with. So of that group, I try to add in kind of my 5th person being well established people in their industry. That that I can shave years off of my learning curve by listening to or reading, I do audible, but I, enjoy reading. Yeah. Love that, man. You've already mentioned that you're in a couple of mastermind groups.
I love that you gave one from a industry specific, one from a faith perspective, gathering the Kings is a little different where we're all different industries, but we're all 7 to 9 figures. And so there's, like, there's a niche there, even a certain conversation that's happening. What would you say to the person listening right now that's been, like, the thing for you just joining a group of people that are like minded? I mean, I my I've been very blessed. My wife is unbelievable.
The greatest thing else on our relationship with Jesus Christ that's ever happened to me. And but there's a piece of of our relationship that the stress of business weighs on her much differently than it weighs on me. And being able to have like minded business owners that understand the stress in a different way has helped take a burden off of me. Yeah. Just just somebody to to be alongside me to help shoulder my burden.
And then again, you know, when we started our Mosquito Joe, one of the reasons why we called so many people is I wanted to know what are issues you had in your 1st couple of years because I didn't wanna go through them. And it's the same thing that that I'm I'm in there with with businesses that are three times my size. How did you get there? Tell me your secret sauce. Like, what did you do? What did you do with your people? This this is the structure I'm putting in place.
Did you put anything like this in place? That's what's helped us a lot. I was involved in in being offered a long time. It's a great organization to to start out. It's very different It is very sales driven. It's a sales person who liked it. It's networking. It's force networking. It's got a lot of structure around it. It will help teach you a lot about networking. I encourage any kind of specifically home service business. So great thing is you're starting out to get connected with.
Yep. But but there's a season for that. That's right. And for us, that season's closed. We're we're just we we're in different things now, which is the masterminds. Yeah. Yeah. You you said that very beautifully. But the difference between a mastermind and a networking group is Chaz is sales forced, like you're saying, like, the reason I go to a BNI group is to get referrals and to give them. And, yes, I get to meet some cool people.
But eventually, the the capacity of this individual, you know, the transition from warrior to king. And maybe I send the salesperson to that group. Sure. To to continue on the sales action that's happening inside of Chaz, but for the owner that's transitioned, it has to be another level, which is perspective, maybe advice, maybe just experiential, like, hey. What would you do with this, or just watching you? This is what I love most.
I say this exact thing to new members coming in, which is, like, yeah, you're gonna get some cool advice. You're gonna have specific people you can ask questions from, and it's real tangible you know, stuff. But what I personally love the most is watching you figure out your problem. Because the way that you think comes out in that and if I can ask a couple of questions that, like, get you to, like, just mold that a little bit, It's not even, like, my benefit of you asking the questions.
It's my benefit to see you work it. Like, work use your mind because I get the benefit of watching your mind work. Chaz makes sense? Yeah. I totally agree. A little bit behind the scenes there, but I appreciate that. I got a question for you about about family. Sure. And my my my book that I'm gonna write eventually is gonna be a work life obsession. K. Grow balance out of the window. I don't even believe that balance is even biblical. And and so here's what I mean.
Is that the thing that has made me successful in business is obsession. We, as business owners, all know Chaz, And so what I'm trying to do is go all in on being a dad and being a husband and being a family and leading my community, all the things. Like, I'm gonna go all in on all of it all the time across the board. So my question to you is, what are some practicals that you go all in or you're obsessed with your marriage, with your kids at the same time as the businesses? Yeah. I love that.
So we have 4 boys. Walker's 5. No Wolfe have been 3. Abel's 2 and Warren's 8 weeks old at this point. Maybe 10 weeks old. Gosh. He's in there. A little. He's a little little man. We went from we we say we went from man to man defense, his own defense, and that's been quite the change. So for me, the the thing that's helped me so much is is scheduling my day. I I'm a really, really big component of of scheduling, and and I I like change.
I like innovation but what I've adapted to is I've put structure in place for me that then on a 90 day window, I can still do creative and and change because I love the change part. But so I build out a morning schedule for me. I mentioned it earlier. Started 5, have a short time to work out, I have my quiet time, and then I get 2 solid hours to work on my business. And You know, we we like to say that we're busy and we are busy.
And and I've worked a 120 hours in a week, and I've done that sustained, and and that's obviously not sustainable. But What I've found is I don't work as productive doing that. And so for me, working a few hours in the morning, I can be hyper productive I can go to the office for 4 to 5 hours, sometimes 6 hours, and be very productive with my staff there. And then I come home in the afternoons, and I spend a chunk of time with my boys. I asked my wife. I said, when would it be most helpful?
If you could organize my schedule. Wanna be most helpful for me to be home. And she said, you know, what it's really chaotic is the afternoons. She said from from about 3 o'clock until bedtime. And I said, you know what? My phone's gonna be off. And so you cannot reach me at that time. You just can't. My staff knows Chaz. And and if the building's burning down, let it burn, yeah, because we can fix it later. And and and genuinely, I mean, we we can fix it later.
You you have been equipped at this point specifically with our staff. You've been equipped to handle any issue that's come up that cannot wait till tomorrow. Or after my wife's in bed, you know, and and and we've had some time to spend together, I'll be happy to check stuff, but, typically, nothing can't wait until the next morning. So so I book in my day. I start early, and then I'm I'm really wrapping up 2 to 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
And and I'm taking intentional time to be with my boys Chaz they're home from school when they're going to daycare or or preschool down the road Chaz we're spending time off product's family. We we we've read some research about just the impact of phones in the room with your children. And it's it's humbling. My wife and I both have a place in our house beside our refrigerator Chaz we set our phones. And so the our boys know Our phones are up. They they have our undivided attention.
They will play whatever they want to. We'll play inside or play outside. I don't care what we go. I just wanna be with you. Yeah. And I've learned so much from, you know, my parents, and they say more is called than talked. And so you know, this all our parents do Chaz. And they didn't have that kind of structure. It was different, but they spent intentional time. So for me, because we have so much going on, That's been the thing that's helped me.
It is building out that intentional structure and putting time in place. We also do we started about a year ago, we do a on Saturday evening through Sunday evening. And, man, you you won't you won't something to to dramatically improve your life try to take a stab at it. Yeah. And and it has been the biggest blessing to our family.
That truly has to our business, to our our family, to to my marriage, my relationship with the lord, it has been a sweet, sweet reprieve because what it allows me to do is it allows me to run harder during the week. That's right. Truly. It it allows me to run harder during the week because I know that I have a break coming. Yeah. And that's really important. There you've just downloaded some really, really, really, really good stuff.
I wanna just highlight for the listener that probably 4 to 6 months ago. I did the exact same thing that you did as far as I sat down with my Wolfe, and I said, okay. I'm gonna stir this pot. How do we wanna do it? What you know, let's let's paint our life, you know, and re re which really means how do we put me in certain categories or boxes so that we can all do the thing together. Right? Sure. Because we're the Mavericks. Right? Yeah. And and it was the same thing.
It was like, you know, from 3 to 7 would be really, really because I was already doing, like, a, you know, a 5 to 7. I was like, my daddy time, and then put him down. We gotta reach him in the whole deal. Yeah. Like, a couple of hours before that would be awesome additional time. So I was like, okay. Well, what in order for me to do that, I gotta start earlier, which means that, like, I'm gonna get I'm gonna get out of bed earlier. I might, like, wake you as I'm getting up.
Yep. What that allows for me to do is do the early morning stuff. And really get things cranking, and then I can be done by 3. And then I I'm with the kids until 7. Generally speaking, and that for me, it's like a little bit of a wiggle, but but then at 7, we either then choose to do something together or if she's got stuff and I've got stuff, then I have an evening flow, which I just Yep. I love the evening flow. I come up here. I don't have any in my, like, all my show lights.
No. No. That's on. It's just, like, one little lamp, and I have some quiet time, which is kinda like the morning. Like, a good way to start in it, but that that 3 to 7 time frame that you tips about the but the family is just so important and so awesome. Not everybody can do it exactly like that, but the encouragement really is just find the section of time that you can say, I'm here. I'm obsessed here.
Yeah. And and then to get excited about it, like, I like, for me, don't know about you, but I just get a different dopamine hit about building something in business Chaz I do, you know, playing Uno. Yeah. But I've changed that to I get to build my children. And then I'm like, oh, I like that. Like, building them as a person. Oh, and they're just right now, he's happened to be playing Uno. Now I'm all in. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. So it was something we we I went through an exercise.
This may have been last year. Just really trying to define what does success look like. So what is I mean, because that looks like different things from everybody. Yeah. And and I've I've bulled it down into 3 categories. Fate, family, and finances. And so I I really try to that's what my board of advisors helps Regulate Neil, hold me accountable to is the things that I've defined out as success in those, and it it starts 1st from my faith.
And then it's my family, and then it's my business, my finances. And so that has helped me reorient my schedule. You know, our you you used to be show me your your wallet and I'll show you what you worship, and now it's showing me your time, showing your calendar, showing me your schedule, and I'll show you what you worship. And so Chaz that's just that's for me. That that's how I run my business. That's how I run an organization.
And then we set up fun things, you know, Hannah and I do a date night. We have a rhythm of of overnight trips that we do and and and getaway trips that we do annually. We we do a a monthly donuts with Chaz. Again, I told you I like donuts. There's a donut shop here in Jefferson, Georgia, where we live, and, take the boys. It's either they're WAFWiles. And it's just it's chaos and it's fun, but we go. And and it's Right. It's memories.
And it's just really trying to connect to you you know, quantity time leads to quality time. It's very hard to have quality time with for staff. With with your spouse or with your children without quantity time. And so it's how to arrange my time, you know, a mentor of mine told me years ago before our our First son was born Walker. He said in the time that you have young children, he said your golf score should not go down, and your bench press should not go up.
He said, you know, have time for yourself, have time for your help, but he said, do not focus on those things so much that it takes time away from your family. He said, because this time, you cannot get back. Yeah. Just try to live by that. Super powerful. And I think that anybody that's passed those years would would immediately go back if they could, which leads me to my next question. That's my last question for you, Matthew.
I wanna know if you could reach into the past and whisper to the younger, Matthew. Oji. Hoji with Bernizier. Oh, mercy. There's so many things. I really take my life as I just believe that god doesn't make mistakes. And I I believe, you know, that he's in the business of the redeeming our story and and that he, you know, turns our our mess in the miracles. So I that's something that I I don't just say. It's something I believe.
But I think if I could tell myself something is that I would in the early years of starting our business, I would slow down if I if I could say anything, I Wolfe even as early as our boys were at that time, it just let's slow down. And I would try to structure the structure that I have now. If I could go back and we start, and I wish I would have that structure we started. Yeah. There's value in that for sure. Okay. Matthew, you've been absolutely sensational today.
We went we went long, but man, was it good? And I actually hope that they go back and listen to it again. So how can the listener find you? Number 1, if they are in home service and they are looking for a solution for the off season, and they wanna inquire about your franchise and or they're just a business owner. They wanna get to know you a little bit. How can they find out? So our our business stress is delightingpros.com.
You can go on there and find out information about our local operations business or any of our franchises. My cell phone, I we can put in the notes at 678-807-9410. That's my business cell phone. Happy to talk. Not 3 to 7, but Not 3 to 7, but all the other times. No. I'm happy to talk. You know, you won't be able to get me between them, but I'm happy for you to try. But but I really would love to be able to connect.
And, you know, if it's not right for somebody that's looking for a franchise, we we totally understand. But I feel like it's a good solution to be able to keep staff and and and bring in some good revenue in the Wolfe season. And then I'm on Facebook. I'm on LinkedIn, Matthew Eber. Happy to connect with anybody we can. Mister Efordville, you've been, again, just incredible. I'm so glad that I know you now. I can't wait to see where our friendship goes from here.
Feel like I've known you for years at this point. And so it's been a blessing. Blessings upon your family, your business, your teams. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Of course. It's my my truly my honor. My one was blessing to be here. Appreciate your time.
And, you know, that's My my hope and prayer is for for all the those that are listening, you know, genuinely is that their businesses will will be successful and will thrive because That's the way I I believe the kingdom is built here. It is is so much through business, and and we have an incredible opportunity to connect with local communities around the country and to better equip those businesses to be more successful.
Chaz then in turn that they can get back to their community and and be a light in the dark place. It's the ultimate king mindset. Thank you for listening to gathering the kings today. 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 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 gatheringthekings.com.
I want you to take a look at what we're doing and see if it makes sense for you to be part of our pursuit to 1000 kings, talks in.