On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. A lot of my workers on my social media. We have a website just because the world says we need a website. See, I spent a $100 on legal, Angela's. I could spend a $100 on Instagram and get 7 leads. But I'm not mad at Andrew's home advisor because that was the way in. They gave the way into the business. And it'll be moderated.
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 successful business today. We dissect the good and bad decisions they've made along the way that give a true and accurate picture of the journey of success and how you too can get there.
Through this dialogue, you will learn the value of growing your network and surrounding yourself with power players and keys like today's guest. Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to dive in. What's up, everybody? Wolfe gathering the king's podcast, today, I've got James McLean on the king stage. My brother, how you doing? I'm good. How about yourself? You know, I'm incredible. We were just talking off stage.
My my little my little kiddos are going to school for the 1st day back today. We were talking kids in life and all that stuff. So I'm excited to continue the conversation here. James, tell us what kind of business that you have, my brother. I have a construction business that we consist of doing construction work on home. Not really commercial style, but more residential, home remodeling this time of the year. We focus a lot on decks and patios, a lot of outdoor spaces.
So obviously in the wintertime, you may migrate a little bit into the basement factor, but kind of find out on the chairs being outdoors. So It's just lots of outdoor construction company. That's great, man. Yeah. There's a there's a growing love from a residential perspective of the outdoor space and the outdoor kitchens and the outdoor just family area. You know, a lot of people like to be outdoors when they can be. And so we've got we've got a lot to get into here.
Of of course, I wanna hear about the business and and your story. Before we do all that, I wanna know for you as business owner It's a man Chaz a dad. We've talked about that already off air, but why do you like, you've been doing this. You've been successful, and you're still doing it. Why? What drives you? Honestly, my drive is is my family. So that's always been my drive is to make sure that my family's is taken care of. Right? So Yeah. Yeah. It's already no way around that.
To me, that's the you gotta have to write that funny motivation, and that's my motivation there. So he's been going, and my time get hard, thinking about my family. When I started my business, you know, I always look at, like, like, these top business owners, right, of, like, maybe, the Amazons and, I mean, Walmart's and the top. So somebody had to start that business, right? Somebody had to bring it out, what I call it, kind of bring the business out of the mud. You had to start somewhere.
So I look at Chaz, though, I need to, when I start this business, when I hand it down to my kids, you know, I've done a lot of, the blood, sweat, and tears into it. So bring it out of the mud and bring it up to something, you know, trophy on top of a shelf, right? So, so when they get it, they, it's they take me to the next level, but they don't have to go through all the stuff that I had to go through learning the business and the construction side and stuff like that.
They can just take it to next level and skip over all that all that, you know, stuff down there. Yeah. Exactly. Wolfe, and and there's a lot of, I think a lot of owners like you and I, who think like that where it's like, I want I want their floor to be my ceiling. I want their just, you know, their baseline to be my shoulders, right, standing on on what it is that I've already we've been able to accomplish.
In fact, I've said it like there's a couple couple ways for those that, you know, know the know the story of David in the Bible. It's like, I see myself and what you just said, but it's very similar. The language that I use is I see myself as a David and gathering the things necessary so that my kids can, you know, build the temple, if you will. Yeah. And so I I love I love that motivation.
Yeah. Where did, like, has that all I mean, you haven't always had kids, but has that always been, like, the legacy play for you been been the motivator? Was it taken different early on? No. Because technically speaking, I was I didn't always own a business. Yeah. So but I I used to be I was in construction field for 14 years. So Got it.
You know, in a cable industry and and doing my side hustling on the side, but it really didn't really come in effect until I really want to start a business until, you know, start having kids, family, married, you know, start having kids and stuff like that and something that I was like, we always want something to pass on to our kids. So having up my own business coming up, graduating, not high school. No. I didn't really think about that. I was kinda having fun at that point. So, Right. Right.
And there's a different stages we go through. Right? Yeah. So life start getting a little serious and stuff. And, you know, I decide to take it to the next level per se, and did things a little different, you know, It's been a fun road. I I call it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so, like, just, I mean, I'm I'm curious, you know, because I think a lot of people relate to you know, what we say of, like, legacy or leaving something for our kids.
But, obviously, things have grown over the course of time for you. I'd I'd love to know You know, may tell us how maybe how you got started in business. Obviously, you were in the industry beforehand. Tell us how you got started in business, and then maybe we'll circle back around to how that has changed the you know, the motivation over the course of time. So it's in my blood. Let me tell you why. So my dad, James McLean, the 3rd, 4th, Okay. Well, do we talk about legacy, bro?
Yeah. So That's legacy. Yeah. Yeah. So he has had businesses as long as I can remember. Long ago. He had a beeper business back in the day. A beeper business. I love it. He had a be able to shop back today. So currently, today, he has his own driving school, his own photography and videography, studio, and business. Yeah. So I feel as though it was kind of, kinda in my blood.
So it kinda came off kind of natural kind of low natural talent a little bit, but you only Chaz, only gonna have so much natural talent in the business. You still gotta really learn a business. So That's right. So when I started my business in 'twenty, actually my, LLC got formed in October 2020 in middle of COVID. And people kinda come crazy. It's hard in my business in middle of COVID. That's right.
But my mindset at that point in time, I wanna kinda ride that market up and my business arrive with the market. You know, COVID hit you know, it was, it was pretty bad. So, everything was pretty bad. So I wanted to, you know, I said, this, to me, was a perfect time. Kinda start when it's low and ride away going up, and we've been banging it out ever since we've been busy, swamp, That's right. Live living living in business like dreams.
So Yeah. Yeah. Wolfe, and so, obviously, you've done quite a bit of revenue in pretty short amount of time. So let's talk about, you know, from a from a systems perspective. What was something or I let me say it like this. What was the struggle What was the biggest struggle from when you started until now in growing what you've, you know, been able to grow? So one of the biggest struggles I'll probably have to say is getting my name out there. That's that's that's pretty obvious. Right?
Nobody knows you. Nobody knows your story. Nobody knows what you do. They just say, yay. You have construction in business. What what do you do? What do you specialize in? One of the things that we had to kind of figure out would, would it be specialized? I think when you say you're a general contractor, that's just, that's the general term. You know, stuff like Chaz, or would they say you are a carpenter, carpenter is a broad spectrum of different carpentry work. That's right.
We had already put out really you know, find out our niche and our niche right now is outdoor spaces. Yeah. And we've been we've been hitting it. Like I said, getting our getting our name out there, what else, you know, letting people know who we are and obviously funding your own business to your own money. It's a big thing to sell. Can we start on a business? Not right. Not a lot of companies really wanna give me business funding. Right.
And you know, what a lot of people don't realize is that when you go for the SBA loans, small business loans, well, you need to be in business for 2 years before they look at So that's a lot of stuff that people don't really know, the little details or stuff like that. So you in there, you funding your own business. Yeah. You're not even at the 2 year right now.
Yep. And then, yeah, and then so so I'm hearing you say marketing, getting your name out, exposure, give us some examples of ways that have just crushed for you because obviously you've it's been a struggle, but you've overcome that. Right? Like, you're getting you got a lot of work. So What's what's been the best way for you to be able to get yourself out there? So we started out on Angie Lee, Angies and HomeAdvisor. They're one company of it. Yeah. They're one company now.
So we're starting out on that. That was our way in k. Because we didn't have too much of a following at that point. Yeah. 100%. That that was our Just need lead flow. Yeah. Right. We need a lead flow. After that, it's just social media based. Like, I have a website. So but we don't really to I'm not I don't really push my website too much. Because a lot of my clients come from Instagram and Facebook and social media base, and a lot of my workers on my social media base.
So I say that we kinda have a website just because the world says we need a website. Right. But, yeah, yeah, a lot of stuff is on social media bait. I mean, I Chaz we can get into numbers about how how much I may spend on a lead on AngelList. First, I may how much I may spend on the same amount of money. Say I spend a $100 on Lead on AngelList. I just spend a hundred dollars on Instagram and get 7 leads. Right. Right. But I'm not mad at Angie's home advisor because that was the way in, right?
They gave way into the business. And then we migrated, migrated on. So Marketing. It it's an interesting piece that you're talking about here. I wanna I wanna point it out for the listener is that whether you're in a the trades business like you are or whether you're in you know, franchise retail like I am or real estate like I am, whatever the different industries. Right? You need leads. Period. Like, you If you need 2 projects, you need new new clients, you need new jobs.
Like, that's by far one of the most important things, obviously. But to your point is that just because one lead source might be quote, unquote better or maybe cheaper or however we're quantifying this this KPI. Right? Just because one might be better. It doesn't necessarily mean that you go back to the other one and get rid of it. You still just you just run the numbers. Right. You know, to your point, if the one is a hundred bucks and the other one's fifty bucks, but both leads make you money.
Exactly. You don't go back and get rid of the quote unquote, twice as expensive lead. Oh, we'd, and I would never, I would never get rid of it. It's just it because it's still a source, you know, in a start cutting your sources off, you know, you build, you have multiple sources. I had multiple sources of income. You have multiple sources of, of client leads and things in that nature. You know, you know, I'm not I'm not getting rid of it. Have we migrated? Oh, yeah. We definitely might.
We we stepped it up. You know, we got 36100 files on Instagram. So Right. Right. We we stepped it up, but you don't cut you don't cut, you know, I mean, I love the the perspective. Yeah. You don't cut body parts. I mean, why would you? Just because your right hand might be stronger and you're right with it. Doesn't mean you cut off the left hand. You're right. So it's that's that's the business. Construction business itself is is this. Fancy with business.
I mean, you gotta stay on it, and you can really get behind the ball. If you don't stay on it, I mean, every day. So Right. Yeah. It's just, you know On Instagram, just I think we've got a lot of folks that have, you know, whether they've tried social media, whether they just thought about lead generation, you know, lead generation in general is a big topic, but specifically for the listener who hasn't hit that 7 figure revenue mark yet, they're thinking, like, how do I get new clients?
Usually. And so on Instagram, you said, you know, I could spend a hundred bucks over there, for example, and get, you know, more leads. Is that is that on page shout out? Is that on just Instagram ads? Like, give us just a quick download. Instagram ads, Instagram ads, Facebook ads, It's And you have an agency doing this for you, or you fit you spent some time and figured Chaz yourself. You took a course. Like, what's the what's the story? It's simple. It's really simple.
You post a picture of your work, right, you go on Instagram and you say, I wanna run this ad campaign for, say, I normally give a small budget of $10 a day for 10 days, $100, right? Yeah. I got 10 days. It gives give you region or the area you wanna run the ad. And, and then you just run the ad and then delete stuff. I mean, you got, but you have to we have to do good work. That's just a new thing. You can't put lipstick on a pig, right, in a big spectrum. That's right. That's right.
It Chaz to be you know, a a pretty cow all the way through. So yeah. So it's it's it sells itself in social media where, I mean, it sells itself. I mean, it's pretty much that simple. I mean, but we put out good work of products. So they they tend to moderate to us when we put that out there. Yeah. Love that. Love that. Okay. I wanna know we're gonna try and transition to decision making. I wanna know of, just a good decision.
You've kind of already talked about maybe a good decision in in getting leads, but Give me, like, a clear, distinctive moment of, like, boom. I made this decision, and it was like, yes. Great move that we made in business. I do have employees. Right? Of course. Yeah. Well, one of my main decision that I really stuck to is leaving my field workers as subcontractors. K. Tell you why. It takes a lot of liability off of the company. So they have the own insurance.
They're required to obviously have workers' comp. Cause if I have workers' comp, they need that works on. So they have the own assurances, but it takes the liability off of the company because if something happens, it falls on, obviously, they're insurance. So here in the state of Maryland, subcontractors are not required to have licensed, they fall under my license.
Yeah. So long as it's my job, I have my subcontract they gave me my license, but I required them to have their own insurance because if something happened, it's, I don't want them to sound really bad or anything like that, but it takes a liability off of my company Right. In those events. So I think that having good subcontractors was one of the best decisions that I told myself to have, at least as far as in the field. Yeah. They work just, like, employees for us.
They, you know, we give them a task. It's a task for them to to take care of. It's under their company. But they build it for me. You know, they have the own liability. I have my own liability. We can part ways if if need be. So, Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that, you know, the the strategy that you're describing, because you could go either way. Right? You could have them on your team, and they'd be part of your business, and you'd have cover the insurance and all that fun stuff.
But but at the same time, you would have probably a little bit different that doesn't mean that you don't have control now. It just means that they have their own business. They can technically, you know, do their own thing, but the value that you're providing to them, covering with the license being able to go out and get jobs. It's really what you've become as you become this marketing machine where you've got the jobs. If they won't work, then they do business with you.
Yep. Which there's nothing wrong with that at all. It's it's it's a business model that allows you to be best at what you do, which sounds like of sick you know, you you got the license and you're securing the jobs, And then you're you're matching those things with with high quality subs because otherwise, your name would be like you said, it would be lipstick on a pig. But, but, but we, I haven't, so I haven't started out that way.
Oh, so how I started out with my business, I was building myself. I've been my own client, you know, I had, you know, Employees then Chaz trained up. I built I was building myself. I'm updating all tools, hammers, everything.
But one guy that a good friend of mine with mentor that I have, he said, always told me, once you get to the opportunity to work on the business instead of end of is always the best route to go, right, because you always can guide your company when you're working on it instead of in it. When you're working in it, a something's gonna fall off. You're you're juggling too much. Something's gonna suffer somewhere.
So while you're working on the business, you can definitely lead your company to the direction that you want to take it. So but starting starting off, I mean, I said, well, I was joking. He was out there, you know, out there in the heat. Swinging. Yes. And the camera, you know, runs all sorts of stuff. So I'm I'm down. I'm, like I said, I'm down the earth with a guy. I understand. What are the the challenges that they have? Because I I've done it myself. So Yeah. Exactly.
And so tell me, let's flip the coin here. Tell me about a bad decision that you made along the way that that looking back was almost detrimental. I will say this. I had to learn how to say no. Okay. Because saying, yes, it's really expensive. Really really expensive. Okay. There's a there's a story under there. And so Not to get in too much detail with a client, but so in the residential side, you have to kinda set authority with your clients.
And let them know what you wanna be and what you're not gonna do. Because if so, they would get away with anything that can possibly get away with. So we Chaz one project where we had to follow HOA rules and enable him to the deck, but he wanted it a certain different way. And then I said, you know what? I build it. That's the way you wanna have to do it that way. Right? I'm I'm sorry, I backtracked.
I've built it the HOA, and then he wanted something else to end up costing me, like, 3, $4000 more. Right. That I fronted. Yeah. Yeah. I ate that. And I was like, okay. So for now, I wanna be setting authority. This is this is we've follow policies. This is just what it is. So that was one of the times where it was like, goddamn. And so so the the root there, what I'm hearing you say is that you're actually trying to do what was right for him. Kind of used the customer.
Yeah. You were trying to give him the experience that he had hoped for. Mhmm. It just didn't line out the way that it was supposed to, and it cost you some money. Yeah. It cost me some money. And, and that's what I say. I gotta start, you know, saying no, you know, every y'all wants to please our clients and make they got claims, the happiest people in the Wolfe, because it's under your company and stuff like that.
But when you said authority, side of the company, you gotta kinda just learn the word no, because yes, it's really expensive and really expensive. Money and money, not even just money of time as well. Once you say yes, you've been committed yourself to that time. The weather is you money or not, you committed your time to Chaz, and time is money. So Yeah. Yeah. I think that I think that the person listening right now, you've already given, you know, so many locking points in in a business.
Number 1, you talked about working on a versus in And what that means a lot of times, even though you're a skilled tradesman or you're good at, you know, in this case, when I've owned my 1st franchise, I was in the store, cutting fruit, making deliveries, you know, and that just you can't you can't grow to seven locations in 3 state, 60 employees. By being, you know, the one cutting fruit. Yeah. You know, you kinda limit yourself there. So you don't get working in it.
You definitely limit yourself working in it for sure. Right. Exactly. So we're talking about mentality of growth. And then even just more recently here, we're talking about being able to say, no. It seems counterproductive because 10 minutes ago, you were talking about, well, you need leads. You need jobs. Mhmm. But but really what we're saying is that, man, if you can really get specific, and work on a set of in and not get caught up in day to day or job to job.
Mhmm. And what you can be focused on is what you're best at or what makes the most sense or what makes the most money. And then and then fill the pipeline with those, whether that's Instagram, Angelines, or whatever, you know. Hire your weaknesses, hire your weaknesses, and you we can't come. An example of that. I mean, as, obviously, when we we heard that, what does that mean for you? So what that means for me is so I'm really I'm not that I'm not the best at paperwork.
A lot of entrepreneurs, I think, can relate to that. So you hire somebody, hire somebody to do paperwork permits, a lot of that, a lot of that paperwork stuff went running for permit, I'm sorry, for plan for permits Right. Filing. There's a lot of different paperwork things. So I'm not the best at paperwork. I'm not saying I'm not great. I'm not saying terrible. It's just paperwork is one of the things that I don't really like that. Oh, I do that. Oh, I got I got it. So I can read and assign it.
That's right. That's right. Right. Yeah. I think that the reality there is we like you said, we if we can put together a team that that, you know, skill sets that can actually complement each other, then then a lot of things can get done. Because you're right. In order to sign off on the permit, you don't necessarily need to read to the detail or be the one to call. Right. Okay. Or be the one to fill out the application or fill in the blank.
And I think too, when when you hire the right people, like you're saying, and they understand their Wolfe, not so much of like, hey, get in your place, but more of a, hey, you're good at this. And when you own this, it allows me to own this, and they work really well together. So, like, when you're on, I can be on. And when I'm on, you can be on. And together, it's like, boom. You know? Yeah. Teamwork, make the dream work, man. That's a that's a mentality you gotta have, man.
You gotta have a good team to make the dream dump true. I mean, you can you just can't do it by yourself. It's it's not really in my opinion, humanly possible to do everything by yourself. If you try to, something's gonna fail some aspect of the business is gonna fail because, you know, you can't own your, you can only just spread yourself, but so far, to be successful in my opinion. So Yeah. I appreciate that perspective, for sure.
I think we've all heard it a lot to know what it's been like for you, specifically, and your side of your story is great. Hey, Chaz Wolfe here. As many of you know, I have been on an up loop mission to help entrepreneurs from all across the country in many different industries, level up their game and grow their business, and intentionally connect with other entrepreneurs.
We do Chaz, obviously, through the podcast, but we also have a peer to peer mastermind group specifically for 7 to 9 figure business owners. We are bringing some of the best and most successful entrepreneurs and minds together in a regular and a super intentional way to not only grow our network, but to be able to leverage.
And at a certain point in business, success becomes about leverage, leveraging time, leveraging resources, leveraging key relationships, This is exactly what we're doing inside of the peer to peer mastermind group called Gathering the Kings, specifically for 7 to 9 figure business owners, So if that's you, if you're ready to level up your 7 to 9 figure business even to the next level and get around other big hitters just like you, want you to go
to gathering the kings dot com, fill out a short application, and, it'll come to an application, call with me. And I wanna chat with you to see if it might be a good fit. Talk soon. What would you say is like a discipline or maybe a process that you follow now when it comes to decision making? Don't make decision out of desperation. It's good.
You're gonna kick yourself if you're gonna kick yourself later on down and running because you're going, you're gonna look, when you look back on it, you're gonna realize that you made a decision. I'm just being desperate for whatever reason, whatever situation that you were in at the time, you made a decision out of desperation. And then you didn't realize that wasn't the best decision to make, because that didn't cost me, I don't know, time or money here.
And I'm, like, now I'm looking back on it. So try to not make, you know, because running the business is not for everybody. I can tell you that now. It's been times where I was in the corner of my house, just with my head down, stressing out. Because you got the you said Chaz we still have bills to pay. At home. So You get the business bills, and then it's gotta trickle home. Right. You still gotta come home. You still gotta pay yourself. Right. The whole night, y'all, you still gotta live.
So it was like when that's why I say don't make a decision out of desperation because Chaz was one of times, one of my hard times was when I made a decision on desperation that hurt me in the, in the long run, looking back on it. So just don't make decision out of desperation. Stay away from that. It's gonna be tough. It's definitely gonna be tough. It's always hard business. It's hard by itself. And then don't don't add on to what's already complicated. It's business already complicated.
Don't add on to the complications. You know? Gotcha. And so I just wanna clarify here for the listener because you're what you're saying is so true, and this decision making out of desperation can can be you know, it could be put into almost any scenario in business and or even life. And so it could be you're you're on the estimate and you lower your price because you're desperate to get a job.
It could be that you choose to do a type of work that you don't normally do because you're desperate to get a job. You maybe keep an employee longer than you're supposed to because you're desperate, you know, because you can't hire anybody else. About them, please. About the world we live in now is having no employees to work. It's the employee side of things now.
It's a little bit difficult, but it's a touchy situation because if I'm looking at it from an employee aspect, they say, well, you guys not panicing else. Well, looking at the business aspect, well, I paid for your skill set. Right? So you can't expect to get top corporate to pay if you're coming in in a in a entry level. Just because I have to train. If I have to train you, I can't pay for a master carpenter. Right.
But that's always the the battle between the business owner aspect of an employee. I I get out of his employee. I understand a 100%. I mean, running the but running the business I can only charge her so much. So I can't pay you more money if I'm not making no more money, right? Especially for what price is going up, that's costing me a lot more money. So we it's always a balance that we gotta have. Yeah. But keep a good work environment like guys wanna do work. Yeah. Stuff like that.
So Yeah. It it you're you're talking about all the back end things that keep you away from being desperate in that moment where you know you need to let somebody go, or you don't need you probably shouldn't hire this guy, but you do anyway because you're desperate. I think it goes back to your original you know, thought of not making decisions out of desperation. Oh, yeah. Neil, you wanna add there? We definitely underbited on a job before I will ask you.
I I underbid on the job before out of desperation because I just wanted to fill my schedule up so bad. Right. And, oh, okay, that was a stressful time for me. So what would you say to that person who's listening right now who's like, well, I don't I mean, how else am I supposed to get the job? They're they're a little bit stuck in their way of thinking out of that desperation. What would you say to you back then now? Oh, I would say that a lot of a lot of people are always struggling.
How much do I charge? We do we I get that question a lot in the debt building business. Well, how much do I charge? How do I know I'm charging enough? Well, you have to take it. It's a lot of aspects to getting your your number. I always like to take 30%. The business needs to take 30% off of each contract. Right? So We we overhead materials, permits, everything that's gonna cost me money, and it take 30% of that is what the best need to need to see. And that's after everything. Right?
So once you once you realize that, you get your number. Stick to your number. Right. That's that's and then when you start lowering your number and you're eating all that cause Yep. Why? Because you're desperate. For, for a job. Understand. It'd be a hard time. I, I've, I've been there. I've been desperate to get a job or to fill my schedule up. I've been there, and I tell you now, but it's not a good feeling. When it comes around, you gotta pay, you gotta pay these guys to work.
You gotta pay all this money for rising lumber prices. You gotta you have all this stuff to pay, and then then you're numbled and dwindled down to almost 0. Yeah. Sometimes I've had projects where I've lost money. On that project, and I have to fill up my schedule to make up for that. Why? Because I was desperate at the time trying to get the job and just I've been there. I'm telling you to stay away from it. It's not a good feeling.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, I there's something I hear in the trades a lot is, well, I gotta keep my guys busy. And I understand that perspective because, obviously, if you keep you guys busy, they stay with you. They're not gonna bounce around to other companies. So there is a a baseline in that thought of, like, okay. Why? The the least that I've gotta do is at least find enough work to get these guys busy. I'll sacrifice. But if if I can keep them busy, they're at least gonna stick around.
But what I'm hearing you say is don't discount yourself. I know that you wanna keep the guys busy, but just that that thought of keeping, quote, unquote, keeping the guys busy. It's like, no. No. No. Go out and project real jobs. Go out and project a real pipeline. It goes all the way back to what you were saying at the very beginning. If you have multiple lead sources Mhmm.
And and, obviously, if you got a good sales process and you're not, you know, cutting into the number, then gonna keep the guys busy. Plus make money. Oh, yeah. You you if the trust the process. If you have a process, trust your process. Don't dig in from your process because If your process, you've gotten us, like, the 1st year, it's 3, $400,000 in sales. I mean, this year, we're gonna do over $1,000,000 in sales, right? Why? Because I'm trusting my process more and more and more.
Sounds weird to say I'm trusting more and more and more because when you play it all out, it's kinda scary, like, in my, dude, it's just the right thing. Trust your process, through and through. Yeah. So I put god first, right? So going back to what I said, I started my business in 2020, right, in middle of COVID. People call me Chaz as hell. Right? They come in crazy.
So but my thing at that time was god gives me this vision and nobody's gonna see that vision, but me, it's not meant for who are over there to see that it's not meant for them. It's only meant for me to see, so I'm the only person who see my vision. I mean, to say, trust your process. Keep your faith and trust your processes meant to be you know, it's gonna be tough. Everything's tough. Everything that's that's meant to have is is not I'm never gonna be smooth sailing.
But you have to trust your process and all of it, Theresa. Yeah. And just and I love I love that perspective that the vision was meant for you, because we all have this thought of what it's supposed to be, what our life's supposed to be, what the business's supposed to be. And and, obviously, that vision should, like you said, lead us to faith that it helps us make actions and decisions, which is what we've talked about here today Mhmm. Towards towards that vision coming to fulfillment.
And so just appreciate that. Let me go to into the speed round here. I wanna kinda come at you in a different angle here. I want you to take your entire business, James. I want you to dwindle it down into one trackable metric. Could only pick one thing to track forever and ever, what would it be? Marketing. That comes back to your initial thing here. K?
And and we bought we've talked a lot about marketing, fill in the pipeline, give us just one sentence on why would you choose that out of all the things in the business? Good about marketing, you don't have sales. It's just it's that simple. You can't sell nothing. People don't know you have. Right. For people to know you have in your marketing. You can have the the greatest, shiniest widget. Mhmm. But if nobody knows about it, you can't We might even have it, then nobody's gonna buy.
That's right. K. What book would you recommend, James, for a 6 figure business owner to read? No. That's a tough that's a tough answer, man. I actually have a book right here. I'm a step off camera for a second. Did I read? That's fine. Yeah. Yeah. Here. Okay. Complete guide to money. Dave Ramsey? Yes. I've read that book. I'm gonna say this. If you haven't read the book, need it to be Chaz You the way that you said I've read that book, it didn't seem like you scammed it.
It sounded like you studied it. Yeah. Because, I mean, you know, everybody knows Dave Ramsey. Right? So you have to find people that's actually in your pain that's kinda successful. And kinda lead their story. Simply be like myself. I'm a open book, and I I'm I figured Dave Ramsey opened book because he wrote his own book. Right? So yeah. Yeah. I kinda we have other people's story as well. It helps you along the road.
Because once you hit a fork in the road or or you run over a nice big fat pothole That's right. It helps you navigate those challenges that you, that you may run into, putting a lot of the thoughts and opinions in your head, kinda helps your brain to go back to some of those and put your own little spin on it and and make it make it something that you can do or things in that nature. So Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I've I've read a book, and I love it. So that that's helped me. For sure.
You know, I think it's it's amazing what you just said because in essence, you described this podcast. Not like the podcast itself, but you telling your story today. Someone listening today is hearing you because you're where they wanna be. Right? You guys are are are gonna hit this the $1,000,000 mark over the $1,000,000 mark, and they're thinking, man, it that wouldn't that be the dream? Right? And so they're they're hearing your story today, like you're reading Dave's.
And and I think it's you you're absolutely right. It we've got to continually put things in front of us. Chaz not only inspired us, of course. We wanna be inspired, but but it gives us, like, okay. How did he do it? And and you've been an incredible example of that today. Next question for you is, do you intentionally network or mastermind with other entrepreneurs? Oh, yeah. K. And why? It could be bounce ideas off each other. That's just what it is.
So I have Probably a circle of roughly five people. I mean, this is my core circle. Of course, you network, time, but we're talking, like, really close frames. Yeah. That in all aspects of that, we worked at the same company together, and we all out entrepreneur on our own selves. Nice. Very cool. Or not together, but, you know, they Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Collaborating. Yeah. We bounced our days off each other. If I had this this hump in the road that I've overcome.
I bounced off him and vice versa. He tells me what they've been telling me some things that they've done that helped me you know, when I ever get to that point, you know, it's to be bounced off days off each other. It's just the way to go. I mean, network, for sure. It's fine. Yeah. Love that. K. If you only had 1 hour, James, to work on your business each week, what would you do in that 1 hour each week? To successfully run it like you do now. Mhmm. Good question. What now?
Chaz was not a bad time. I'll hide this thing, Michelle, and some good marketing 1 hour. This is a marketing 1 hour. Fill the pipeline. Hello, pipeline marketing. Yeah. That's funny. Okay. James, last question, if you lost it all, What would you do? If I lost it all, I'm so far into my entrepreneurship. It Wolfe be too hard for me to go backwards into workforce myself. I'm too far ahead to to go backwards. I lost it all. I got a whole van for the tools.
I can go back and hit the field myself and start working myself. I can find a way to make some money now. Yeah. Yeah. You know how to market. I love how to market. Yeah. I go on a market. You just call call up your lead sources tomorrow instead of a new account. Right? Yeah. There we go. So That's good stuff, man. Well, how can how can the listener connect with you, James? They they like you. They wanna get to know you better. They they they wanna learn contracting.
They wanna they're in Maryland listening right now. They wanna do subcontracting work for you. So I'm at Facebook, Instagram, social media, at McLean Contracting LLC. 1cmcleancontracting LLC Emailinfo@mcleancontracting.net. Different way as the way to contact you. You're gonna contact with me. So Yeah. We appreciate that, man. Yeah. And you said you're an open book. Said that a couple times.
Obviously, we said this off air, but, like, you're you're just a real dude, just a real guy out there making it work. Haven't been in business that long. But, man, some incredible success. And and we just appreciate sharing your story. James, we wish you nothing but continued success and, blessing in your family you know, I I don't think we heard the kids very, very much there, but, man, I'm almost hoping that we did, you know, because, man, it it's the legacy piece. Right?
I've heard my 2 year Hey. That that's alright. You know, I think I think every entrepreneur, at least at least in today's Wolfe, I can guarantee probably 90% of the entrepreneurs listening to this story today. They're thinking, yep, I've been in that moment with the kids in the background. So, dude, thank you again for making it happen. We appreciate your time. Nothing but blessing to you and your family. Thank you. Thank you.
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.