On today's episode of gathering the Kings. You said a couple of minutes ago that, it's calculated risk and that you wanna go all in and pressurize yourself, but that it's calculated that is based on education now or maybe before it was rolling the dice, how does someone listening to you right now know the difference? On rolling the dice versus educating or taking a quote, unquote calculated risk. What's up, everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe. Gathering the king's podcast. I'm your host today.
I've got Ryan Kelly here on the king stage. My brother Ryan. How are we doing? Doing well, man. Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it. Excited for the conversation. Dude, loving your podcast set up over there. Got depth in your background there. Cool, blue light. Awesome mic. Yes. Another another Wolfe produced podcast. Other side, this will be fun. I want the audience to know that not not only am I talking to a king, but but I'm talking to a really fast moving king.
So Ryan's got a lot of stuff going on. And even since we talked, you've made some things happen. So I'm so curious for this conversation and to be able to give the value of your story, Ryan, tell us what kind of business that you have. So I own KHP Construction, which is a general remodeling business, mostly kitchens, baths, full home renovations is our our niche. And then we just acquired a flooring company and did a full rebrand with them. That company was around for 20 ish years.
In our market. And then, yeah, we branded them KSB flooring, and we're kind of vertically integrating our remodeling process right now. Love that. A lot of work in that. That's not just as easy as, you know It's it's easy to talk about. Yeah. Doing it's a whole different thing. That's right. Yeah. Copy paste isn't Chaz easy in the actual doing Chaz it is just, you know, moving the fingers Yeah. On a on a keyboard, but there's a lot of things that that you're doing inside of that.
I think they're super practical for this conversation. And I wanna get into that, but you're moving fast man, even when we talked the first time, you went from 0 to millions in a very short amount of time. Mhmm. And so before we get to the the detail of all that, what What's the burning desire? I am big on desire and that definiteness of purpose. What's beating on the inside of you that just won't stop?
Yeah. There's 2 main things when I reflect on why I why I am the way I am and how this company got to where it is. So first, I'll take it back to when I'll, you know, I think eight years old or so. And, you know, I grew up Not not poor, but we had we didn't go without, really. We had everything we needed, but definitely left some things to be desired. Right?
I grew up in a double wide trailer, holes in the floor on some acreage on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere, you know, in the in the foothills of California. And I'm really happy for that because it it instilled a lot of the the ethics and and character that allows me to succeed today. And but going through that, you know, I went through my parents getting divorced. I went through moving, you know, like, I think eight times throughout 3 years.
Really being living out of a suitcase type situation going home to home. And all I knew was I didn't want Chaz. Right? So I automatically start reverting to the opposite of what caused those things to happen. Yeah. And, you know, I I listen to another funny podcast, and they always talk about, you know, show me the father, and I'll tell you who the son, you know, and and kinda that father instills the ethics into his son.
And Yeah. You know, one thing I could say about my father, that man has the perseverance, like no other, and has the work ethic of no other. He's started and lost everything, I think, 2 or 3 times now. So that bootstrap type mentality, that hard work and ethic was really instilled in me. Yeah. And so that's probably the the foundation of who I am. And then moving through my early twenties and kinda not really having much direction. I didn't find my now Wolfe.
And, you know, we have an unexpected pregnancy outside of wedlock. And she's a very conservative Christian family. She has, you know, she's one of 7 siblings, and it was kind of a put up or shut up moment. Yeah. And all I do was I don't wanna have my kids go through the same situation that I went through. And the only way I could truly control that is through entrepreneurship. So there's a little bit of a there's a touch of I'm not good with authority.
There's also a touch of responsibility that I have to, like, my generation Yep. Into my kids. So I think what really drives me forward, and I think what a lot of people can resonate with is they wanna change their their generational sin. They wanna change their family tree. They wanna change that legacy. And the only way to do that is to create your own path. And that's what really inspired me to get into entrepreneurship. Yeah. I love that. Obviously, there's a lot of emotion attached to Chaz.
Some good and and some overcoming. Do you think that you've like, worked on that articulation of kinda like, you know, you kinda told a couple stories there that kinda blended together. Mhmm. Has that been something that you've developed? Has that just been a chip on your shoulder since the beginning? Like, give us a little insight on, like, how you develop this this kind of connection? I think it's always been somewhat of a chip on my shoulder and and reflecting even through college.
So I was always an athlete. Right? I was the the captain of my football team in high school, captain of the team in college. And then all of a sudden, I blow my knee out. I get my thirteenth concussion. I can't I can't transfer to another school because they won't medically clear me.
Yeah. And I go from, you know, being up here and really because I've always kinda had that boost traffic as something to prove mentality to now I'm just another person in society with no real skill set, no education. I dropped out of college. I had the most to prove, and a lot of it was to myself, That's right. And and majority of the things I had to prove were to myself. And then I go from that. I actually was an endurance athlete.
Okay. And I'm sure you've talked to other endurance athletes that have this kind of embraced the suck in there. Refined through fire, tight mentality. Sir, And I think that's where I really found myself was okay. It's an individual sport. I'm running, you know, sometimes 30, forty miles at a time, hundred mile weeks. And there is nothing you can be uncomfortable with in your own mind when you're alone for 10, 15, 20 hours. Yeah. And so that was really refining as Wolfe.
But I've always just kinda had this really competitive edge. I've always had this kinda you can't touch me mentality, chipping my shoulder. Yeah. And, you know, that now being an adult with 3 kids and a wife and a couple companies that are being successful. It's now a balancing act of, okay, what is prideful and arrogant and what is confident and motivating.
But, yeah, all those things blended together from my childhood to my athletic career, always having that I gotta prove something type of mentality. Yeah. I resonate with that. And as you said, probably most entrepreneurs do, but I think that there's a progression, even though that you've held onto it, like, you just it just changes over the course of time. We mature. We see things differently. Our perspective changes, especially if we're looking to grow. As You have to be performers.
Yeah. Yeah. Love the idea of of, you know, asking ourselves what does it mean to be a champion? Right? Cause at 20, being an athlete, what does it mean to be a champion? Or when you're thirty miles in, what does it mean to be a champion? Or when it's 3 AM and the baby has been up for the last 3 hours, and, you know, you got to be on a project at 6. What does it mean to be a champion? You know, how what does it mean to win? And so I think that you gave a great I don't know.
It's like a little like, a a pool of thought there. I mean, I have to give me all all the buzz over here. It's it's it's Monday. It's Memorial Day, but freaking. I'm ready to go because of your answer right there. So I gotta rub shoulders with a guy like you more often. This is is why we do this. So I wanna know, like, you you have a little bit of, like, personal ship on your shoulder. You're an athlete. You kinda fast forward it a little bit to the companies, and you just took over.
But, like, what's that middle piece? How did you even start the business to begin with? Yeah. So well, KHP Construction started in 2020, and it wasn't something, right, And not just, like, I'm not talking, like, January, February, 2020, like, pre COVID. I'm talking, like, August, like, in the thick of lockdown, in the thick of everything. Everybody else was not going into homes. And you said, hey. Let's start a company where we go into homes. Right.
Yeah. And, actually, it turned out well because 2021 was one of the biggest instruction booms, renovations, and killed it. Yeah. So I would rewind to about 2017, and that's when I started crafting a business model. And by business model, I really mean just ideas on my iPhone, on my notes. And to put some context to this, I just found out my girlfriend was pregnant. Right, in in 2016. I'm going through the internal battle of do I propose to stand behind this?
Do we, you know, separate, but parent the same? How do I move forward? And my conviction was I had I made an action that has a consequence. And if I'm any type of man in with integrity, need to stand behind this, do the right thing, and I married my wife, which is the best decision of my life. You know, the most refining, sanctifying, perfect decision I made in such an imperfect situation. Yeah. So I'm obviously rocking a hard place. Right? I have my pregnant fiance now.
I have, you know, my son on the way. I I at that time, I was still running. I was still an endurance athlete. So I was traveling from Colorado West And, really, I was on the road 2 weeks out of the month. I was working at a bar, you know, serving beers, the other 2 weeks out of the month and just kinda just living, you know, l I v I n living. Just doing my thing. And So we found out she's pregnant, and I decided, okay. Let's get married. We went through some premeural counseling.
Found out it's a good thing. As soon as we I made that decision. I quit racing, and I started working 3 jobs. So I started working construction, in the mornings, 5 AM to 2. I worked at the bar from 4 to 10, and then I was an Uber driver. And I took everyone home after I, you know, got him a good buzz. That's fine. That's fine. So I started working 3 jobs for months on end just saving money, saving money, saving money to try to provide for this this soon to be child.
Who is named Maverick now, and he's awesome. Great kid. Love that. So I'm working three jobs. And the whole time I I know I'm sprinting here in order to relax, you know, in the future. Yeah. Right now, the business model, I'm taking down ideas. I'm working at these construction companies. I'm thinking of how I could do things better than what the current environment is that they're making. The first job was commercial construction, total shit. It was all in there. There was no management, man.
There was no process. There was nothing repeatable about what they did. There was no customer experience involved. And I was like, okay. This this can't be it. I leave that company. With some good and bad notes. I go to another company, a well established company, great process, great customer experience, really successful at renovation company, have some good things, have some bad things that I didn't like about there. I was there for about 2 years, then I leave there.
I go to another contracting company. I'm doing public work this time. And so it's b to b. We have government contracts and a couple counties in California. I'm a carpenter by trade, multimillion dollar tenant improvements. Once again, completely unorganized. No customer experience. So I saw in a a budget of industries and how they do things in construction.
I also did construction and, you know, I was a ranch hand in college, and I've always been handy, but this is my first organized experience in construction. Yeah. And then, yeah, August of 2020, I quit. Probably about 3 years of notes and and modeling built out on what I wanna do with my company and my brand. Yeah. I started Kelly Home And Business before it was Kitchen Home And Bath, and I just started taking on side work and just kind of taking things in my own hands.
Yeah. And from there, the biggest issue was a lot of my work was under the table, so I didn't have any paper trail to get my license. Oh, so I'd I I approached my business partner now. His name is Bobby, and he's a generational contractor. I think he's the 4th generation to be in general contracting. Wow. And we signed on with a responsible managing officer. So we gave away 20 percent equity, for the license holder. And then started rocking a role and started implementing.
Yeah. And year 1, we count our 1st fiscal year is 2021. We went from 0 in revenue to just under 3,500,000. Wow. With that as a small impact. Yeah. Exactly. There's so many questions here because the listener, if they're paying attention, 0 to 3a half in a in a home services is in the 1st year is incredible. So the 3 years that you've been planning, the notes that you had on your phone, in August 2020, you leave your job and you say, okay. You know, I'm doing this thing. Was that planned?
Was that premeditated for that time? Was that a there was a situation where you're like, I've had it. That's enough. Give me that moment. Yeah. You know, I had a number in mind, like, my my exit number from the 9 to 5. Yep. Because I was making 6 figures as a carpenter. I was making just under $80 an hour as a carpenter. So I was living a pretty comfy life from style. It wasn't it wasn't bad. Now the jump happened.
I said I need 3 months of work lined out, and I need at least $30,000 in the bank account. So at this point, we worked enough and saved up enough to buy our first home, and we were in that home for probably 2 years this point. Refinance at home, leverage it as much as I could, took our savings and literally split all the chips in and said, okay. We're gonna do this thing. Here we go. Yeah. I love it. I love it.
Just obviously the the proverbial, you know, we gotta go all in kinda over and over and over again. We literally did. Yeah. You literally did. Yeah. Do you think that that specific piece of information is associated to 0 to 3.5 in year 1? A 100%. Yeah. Because we have like, my mindset, there was no plan b. There was no option. Like, our motto here is burn the boats, you know, the Cortez. There is nothing to go back to.
Like, the seriously, my family would be in financial ruins if this company wasn't successful because we literally had nothing after I took everything and put it all in. So it was a big back against the wall. Prove yourself type moment. Yeah. Yeah. It's been a couple times you've said that now to prove it to myself. Prove it to others at Chip that that lies on our shoulder.
I am curious because I'm sure that that wasn't the last time that you've gone all in, even though you've been 6 well now for for multiple years, and the business has continued to grow and you've purchased, you know, other businesses and stuff now. What what does that look like as far as putting all the chips in or or creating that environment where you have to prove it to yourself or to your family to your children, to your wife, to your team members, your partner, like, right?
Like, we I I feel as if this is a repetitive thing Chaz guys like you and I do. It's almost like it's self sabotage, but it's not. It's like we're putting ourselves in a bad situation on purpose so that we level up again. And again, and again, it's not really a bad situation, but we go all in. Right? Mhmm. What would you say to that? Well, I think there's two parts to Chaz. Because in the beginning, it was outside looking in highly irresponsible, what I did.
Highly selfish, irresponsible, and that's what people will be saying if it didn't work out. Right. Now, you know, because there's only 2 rows you could take. You're either a successful or a failure. And if you're successful, they talk about all the good things. Wow. That's so brave. Take care of his family. He's providing. What a great provider? But if you don't do it right, it's not a good look. So I think that that type of risk is irresponsible.
The risk we're taking now acquiring these companies, you know, going multi market where you just open our 3rd location, hunting down our 4th for next year, those are all calculated risk. It's has a lot of education behind it. A still small sample size, only three three and a half years of of a sample size to really make those decisions, but I'm not rolling the dice anymore.
Now I would also say that having calculated risk is healthy and going all in over and over again is the only way you get to the end goal here. You can't just Like, I I could sit here and probably put KHB on on cruise control. Like, it probably takes 5 to 10% of my daily activity to to do my responsibilities here, but I make it a 100% because we're not done yet. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you said several things there that I wanna press into within side of gathering the king's mastermind group.
We talk about grateful but not done. And so you just said, I'm not done yet. Which I wanna get to here in a second. You said a couple of minutes ago that, you know, it's calculated risk and that you, you know, like, You wanna that you wanna, like, go all in and, like, pressurize yourself, but that it's that it's calculated that it's based on education now or maybe before it was rolling the dice.
Mhmm. How does someone listening to you right now know the difference on rolling the dice versus educating or taking a quote unquote calculated risk? So what I would determine a calculated risk is having some sort of baseline information and some sort of repeatable equation or process that garnishes a result. So for example, like, let's start when I first started KHP Construction with Bobby here, we didn't take any work December 2020. We pushed everything off to 2021.
And we took a month off, and we just worked on process. Right? Like, we sat there and we said, what is the ideal outcome? And we reverse engineer that into a daily action, an SOP, a repeatable process, whatever it means to be, to to get that result. That's kind of the baseline of setting up something to where you can't take calculated risk because when you're first starting out, you don't have information. Like, for me, I didn't I don't have any business experience.
I think it was kinda a blessing that I have the I had the forethought to start with the end in mind and reverse engineer that to a a daily action. Yeah. But a calculated risk is having all of the metrics and processes in place and tracking those things in order to leverage down the road and be able to take a different road and have some sort of forecast. So, like, for for us now, like, I know I have it right in front of me. My cost per lead is $545.
You know, my lead to estimate ratio, 40%, my success rate, 35%. So now I'd have a cost to acquire our customer Right. For each revenue stream we have, and I can go do this in another market and just I have baseline information and then I could Right. Really make decisions off of that. Yep. So it's calculated because there's literally calculations happening behind it. To say, hey. I put a $1000 into this market here. I'm gonna get $15,000 back. Great. Yeah. Understood.
K. Going back to the not done yet, you had also made another comment about, you know, the the end result or, you know, you're setting up something. What is that? What is the end result, or when would you say I'm done if you ever would? I will. I almost got you there. Almost got I mean, Everyone has a goal post. Right? But I think They moved. Don't don't they? Oh, gosh, man. Us and Ciarals just keeps moving and moving and moving. Yes, sir.
You know, at one point, my big hairy audacious goal was 50,000,000. Right? K. That's a lot more attainable than I thought it was. It wasn't thinking big enough. I think my Freedom number is 20,000,000, you know, invested with 5,000,000 liquid. I think that's my freedom number there. I could residually make, you know, let's say 400,000 a year on returns and still have some money to take some risk with, invest in businesses, start other businesses.
Yeah. I don't think I'm ever gonna be done, truthfully. Now I I view success as, like, time freedom So how much more time do I give with my kids? How many more experiences do I get to have with my wife? Those are what I kind of and right now, I I would say I'm highly successful. And if it could honestly stay like this, I I would be more fortunate Chaz most with the amount of time I could spend with my family and experiences I can I can have with them? You know?
Yeah. And underlying that you are a competitor. And so staying the same, even though right now it's great Mhmm. That in itself doesn't sound No. Like joy. No. It's not gonna happen. I can't do it. I can't just stay stagnant. It's like, we're already we just got a LOI accepted for another contracting business that we're trying to acquire. That's a little bit smaller than KHP. And that's just gonna solidify us in this market.
Yeah. And then from there, like I said, we just moved opened up another location in another market and kinda east bay of California. We have our eyes down in South Bay. We have our eyes in LA. We have our eyes in Sacramento and also Scottsdale. And we we already have the market research on a lot of those areas too. So it's really just hitting certain key KPIs and then going all in again and and you keep throwing it on the table. That's right. That's right. I wanna know practically.
We've talked a lot of just really big picture, you know, conceptual thought here, which I love. I'd live in that all day long if I could, but I like daily actions too. That's what actually, you know, gets us the success. Chaz was a good decision that you made in the last three and a half years that you would just repeat over and over and over again if you could? Investing and marketing. More so.
And investing in well, in for some context here, my my role in our company is I direct the sales team, marketing, and design. And the best decision we made a few years ago is taking me out of the day to day marketing activities and structuring it and handing it off to someone else. It was So you now have, like, a marketing co pilot or someone who's leading that that you check-in with? Yep. Yep. I get a weekly check-in, monthly reports, and that was the biggest time saver.
And probably the best decision we made in the, probably, the past. 6 to 12 months. The second best decision was really hammering out our internal franchise model, like having some sort of road map to success with multi market expansion because now, really, like I said, I'm probably 5, 10% of my week is really dedicated to to KHP. That's all it's really required. It's gonna be my business partner. We have 3 levels of management between the guys working on a project and us.
Things handled themselves now because of the process we put in place. That's right. So really having structured, and something John Willow said, he talks about the TBR bottle, teachable, valuable, repeatable, building our processes around something that's teachable, valuable, and highly repeatable. So you can install someone in your company to take time burden off you so you can get freed up to do other stuff. That was the past year. We really hammered that out.
Yeah. I mean, those are all super practical things, obviously, even just at the beginning, like you said, you took a month off and worked on process. I'm sure you weren't hammering out every last detail like you just did in the last year even. Mhmm. But that it's a progressional play. Like, we we put SOPs together, and then you look back and you're like, okay. Well, that was a good start. Yeah. Yeah. And you upgrade and you get better and you make them more repeatable or more valuable.
Yep. And what type of revenue could you shove through this overhead model? Right? Like, We we originally said, okay. We're gonna build out processes that can handle, you know, 10,000,000 of revenue. Well, they handled 3.5 to 4 before they broke. You know? So now it's like, how do you make process and repeatable models for 50,000,000? Well, it turns out the same thing as a 10,000,000 process.
Just a little bit more expanded, a little bit more, you know, delegation in between, you know, the floor to the middle. But yeah. But, yeah, yeah, it's all about just testing and repeating, and they always get refined, but just having the structure and having something repeatable was the key there Yeah. To where anyone knows what they're responsible for. They know their deliverables.
They know that it's a consistent repeatable process, and you Chaz train someone in that and then walk away and manage it. Yeah. My follow-up question to that is it might seem a little bit off off topic here, but inside of, you know, process or SOPs are people. Mhmm. And you've not only grown a business, which, okay, there's a lot of people that can go sell. I can go sell a million bucks or a couple million bucks within the 1st couple years. And that's not necessarily the, like, wow. Factor.
The execution of it in addition to that. Mhmm. And then keeping people around and, like, you said you have 3 layers in between the entry level versus where you guys are. Like, that is there's a lot of work that goes into that. But the thoughts that were coming into my mind were you know, the negative thoughts that I hear contractors constantly talking about. Number 1, Wolfe, when it was COVID, we couldn't find people who wanted to work.
Now that it COVID's over, we can't find people who wanna work. Like, it's always the same excuse when it comes to labor or even top talent when it comes to management. Like, Mhmm. You've done and you've not only just, like, said, I don't even care about that and built it. You've done it during such a procure time. Yeah. Give us some insight there because you've got somebody listening right now. Guarantee it who's like, oh, I would never wanna be that big. I couldn't handle it.
There are too many people. I could find it all, you know, right? Yeah. Yeah. Brand, man. Investing in our brand. Huge for recruiting. You know, people want to work for us. We have some long tenured guys. We have some guys that were some of our first hires, you know, been been around since the company which I think our core group of management has been here almost since the beginning since q 1 or q 2 of 2021, which is huge. Management, and I would say consistency would be the second thing.
Integrity as Wolfe. You know, doing what you said you were gonna do when you were said you're gonna do it. It's huge, especially, like, for me, when I started KHP, I was 26. Right? I'm working with men that are 5055 sixty years old that have a lot more experience than I do. I you need to have the consistency and and really the character to to instill confidence in your employees. Now as far as the our current market in, like, during COVID, it was an issue. But we just pay more than anyone else.
You know? We're like, hey. Come work for this awesome company. We're gonna pay you more. One of the first things we did was we got health care. That was a big differentiator between our company and someone else's. No other company in our space locally here offers health care for their employees. And I don't I mean, I Chaz see why it's over a six figure burden for us as a company, but just having health care was huge, taking care of our employees first.
And that truthfully was a big cornerstone in the premise of KHP was we worked for a lot of really crappy contractors, and we worked for people that we did not wanna be like. And so we just did the opposite of them. You know, we treat our guys well. We treat them with respect. We pay them what they should be paid to live in California, human health care, have 401 k plan, starting off a profit sharing plan. So we just wanted to make everyone successful and it really kept the good ones here.
And I I think it's a winning model, you know, to have good retaining. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's obviously it Chaz by itself doesn't solve all the problems because you still have to have the right people. I love what you said there. It keeps the right people. It does. The bad people are gonna find a reason or they kinda bubble out anyway as long as the situation or the environment's being managed properly. Would you agree with a 100% would agree. The right people in the right seat.
So one of the first books we read was EOS systems. Right? So we're going through get a grip, implementing traction, having all of that right person right seat through our org chart. Yeah. And, yeah, the good ones stay. Because they like deliverables. They like having a clear goalpost. They like being managed in a way to success because we're helping them. Yeah. The wrong people in the wrong seats, just the the complete misfits that don't belong here, they weed themselves out.
Yeah. Oh, it's good, man. 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 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 so 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. What about a bad decision?
Something that you've done that, well, that wasn't your best hour. Well, This one is tough. And it also has to do, like, within KHP that actually bled into my personal life or something that affected my wife a lot. That I have a lot of regret behind. So we're design build. Right? So we're going out there and we're bringing in outside designers, in house designers, to to bring these projects to life before we execute them in production. Right. And we had one designer that came in.
I recruited her in 21, I think. I think she started beginning 22 or so. And she was having some really tough personal life things go on with her with her husband and and a lot of other things. And her and I, 1, I work hand in hand with them every single day. So her and I got really close. And on the outside looking in, there was a a total emotional affair going on where I was investing more time into her at work than I was. With my Wolfe. And just my nature, like, nothing physical happened.
You know, I I haven't wouldn't ever do that. Yeah. But I wasn't aware of the line of where do I leave work at work? And when do I stop investing myself into people? And Chaz was really hard. Chaz was really tough because that was the first time I ever been in that situation where I have, you know, this this person that is really needs help.
You know, Christian woman, nice family, nice person, really hard worker, has a lot of great attributes, and then was kinda like that damsel in distress type moment where I, like, I'm just trying to assist and help, and it just grew into a strong friendship that wasn't appropriate being a man that's married. And that was really tough with my wife.
And if I could go back having clear boundaries, knowing what my position is, as a business owner and as a husband, as a Christian, where I need to set those lines and just put my wife first. Yeah. Chaz that was really tough. Chaz was that's something I would not do again. Believe me. Yeah. No. I I can hear you on that. I I'm just thankful that you would say that out loud because It's not only true, but there's there's somebody listening or probably multiple.
Probably a lot of people who have experienced that or have at least you know, gone down that road and and thought, you know, what if, you know, right, the the actualize of scenarios. Yeah. Think what you said there at the end there was probably the most important because, you know, my first seven businesses, I had 65 plus employees, and probably 63 of them were women. Mhmm. I I've I've had to have this, like, same, like, level of understanding, maybe, that you just expressed.
On top of that was raised by all women. It was it was just me and a bunch of, I mean, my mom, my sister, my grandma. So the there's a professionalism, and there's obviously then a desire to help. Like, just who we are, you and me, and then there's others like us, or the damsel in distress or the single mom. Right? Not only did I grow up single mom, but there's been dozens of them that have worked for me. And there there is a play where it's professionalism, you're a business owner.
I'm very married. Like, period. Right? Very. And that, like, that has to be part of the conversation. It's gotta be part of you know, how you operate. And I think that that's what you're saying. The result that you have now Chaz maybe it wasn't it didn't sound like you didn't have it before. It just wasn't as clear. Now it's like, these are the things that do or don't do or that how I operate because this over here isn't just back here. It's like, no. No. It's right here.
Really, really important to me. Wolfe you agree with kinda what I'm saying here? I would agree. And I think, I mean, it has to be something you're conscientious of at all times. Because, like, for me, like, butt touches are pure. Like, I I was not, you know, running out there saying, I'm gonna go find a chick. Right? I don't I'm gonna cheat on my wife. Like, that's not something that runs through my mind, but just understanding the boundaries and the context of your marriage.
Too. You know, if I was married for 20 years and maybe we dated for 10 years prior to that and we had our first kid and we had this established relationship and this established marriage, What happened might not have been as big of a deal? Because like I said, nothing physical happened. There was nothing there was no, like Yeah. There was no eloping going on there. Yeah. But My wife and I got pregnant out of wedlock.
We went through a very, very tough first 2, 3, 4 years of marriage, and we were Like, we're and we're still in the thick of, you know, learning how each other works, learning how one person receives love and how we We're on 15 years in and still learning that. Ah, gosh. That's what I'm saying. It So it it was just a, yeah, real real bad spot, real bad situation that if I could go back and change things, 1, I would probably have someone in between me and that. Right?
I would have a middle level there. Good practical. Right? And then 2, I would always be above approach. I would always have someone in on those conversations. I would always have that third party there. And and I would really try to segregate, you know, that type of emotion from, yeah, this is business. This is moving forward. I care about you. I want your life to be well and all that. But here's that line, and my marriage supersedes all of this.
Yeah. Yeah. I I think all of that is just so straight on and good. Perception is reality. And, this goes beyond just the situation of working with a female employee and you're a male boss or vice versa Right? Female, owner, and and male worker, whatever the situation is. Perception is reality, even in money. Perception's reality in the church. Perception. I mean, let's just be honest Chaz people make judgments. Based on what they see here and think, not necessarily what they know.
And because of that, we have to, especially as business owners, especially as kings. We have so much. Wait. So much at stake. Why? Why would I ever even think about risking that? Right? That's not a calculated risk. No. That is not. That's immature risk. Yeah. It would make no sense. Yeah. It's the it's the warrior king transition. The warriors out to out to battle. Right? And sometimes crazy things happen in the battle. Right? Doesn't mean that we don't go to battle anymore.
It just means that we have a different perspective on the battle Mhmm. As kings. Alright. Well, what about your decision making process now? I mean, dude, you're moving way fast. K? And so if something comes across your desk today, yeah, you got EOS and you got a management team and you got a partner like, what's really going on in your brain when you're thinking about, I need to make a good decision here. What are the steps that you take?
There's a few filters I run through before making decisions. One thing I will say that I really enjoy about our size is that we're we're not some 9 figure, you know, publicly traded company that has to go through 10 different boards to get, you know, one final, you know, iteration process. We're pretty quick. Right? So I I change things on a dime if I need to. Yeah. But one, I'm always thinking about the the end result of every decision I'm gonna make.
So we have actually one great just one great examples last week. We've been having a a fork in the road sales process where we have a if then kind of situation with clients. And depending on what road they take, that kind of forecast and what their success rate's gonna be and also the duration of that life of from lead coming in to actually getting this into production and getting some billable, you know, getting work in progress built. And I was like, you know what?
I'm tired of having a fork in the road. Like, no. Let's just sell straight to design every single time. Let's not compete with all these other, you know, low barrel contractors that are just, you know, racing to the bottom and then change ordering their way back up because that's one of our guarantees. We're a no change order contractor. We're a no markup contractor, which is also an interesting value proposition to homeowners. Yeah. It is.
But and up and 2 guarantees no other contractor in the nation is is giving. But when I make a decision, I'm thinking of the 3 outcomes that I could have. And then the people involved in that outcome. And if I could live with all three outcomes, full trigger. Do it. Let's get it done. Let's get a team together. Let's get a plan in place. Let's execute it.
Yeah. And I'm and that's really in in those in, like, the outcome if it's gonna change someone's quality of life, if it's gonna change a relationship inside the office, or if it's gonna affect our customer, those are typically the 3 decision making filters that I go through. Love it. Super practical too. I love I'm gonna have to hit the record button for the stop and then and then pick your brain a little bit more. You want the secrets to remain a secret.
I I love your decision making filters, but, really, it's it's that I just mindset recognizes mindset. And so this is for the listener. I'm just I'm gonna just come over here for a second and talk with a listener. Is that, you know, the three and a half years of success that Ryan and his team have have enjoyed wasn't by luck. Right? And and we know this.
Like, we like, the cliche, it's like, you saw his success, but all the other things that he was preparing for beforehand is just the tip of the iceberg. Like, we we get all the cliche stuff. But what what we really haven't, like, buried, like, dialed right in on, and I just wanna, like, give you a big secret here is that Ryan has a mindset that is just impenetrable. And maybe it comes from his dad, which is this is persistence.
You know, it's one of the one of the principles of success in in thinking garage. But but it can't just be just that. It has to be well thought out, well filtered decision making, which is really why I do this show to begin with. So Ryan, you're you're fulfilling everything that I thought of 300 and, you know, 40 episodes ago when I first launched this thing of how do I help other business owners make great decisions? And it was like, I can interview other great decision makers like Ryan.
So thank you for that. I'm gonna go to our speed round here. I've got a question for you about KPIs. Obviously, there's a bunch. You kind of already rattled off a few marketing KPIs, but if you could only pick 1 to track forever and ever, which one would it be? Success rate. K. What do you mean by that? Give us the give the listener a little thought. How much revenue you can get in the door? So I would say that sales fixes everything until it breaks it. So I don't think there's Right.
I don't think there's one king KPI that you could just be sitting on an island in Hawaii and track your business from afar. Has to be a multitude because they all speak to each other. They all they all tell a different story in either efficiency or That's right.
But, I mean, I would say that success rate if knowing everything else I know, right, if I could just see how many jobs are getting sold as a percentage of leads coming in, And I know our, like, our I know our average job size and our revenue sources. If we keep this success rate, we're gonna be fine. Yeah. Because you know that the implementation on the back end is happening. Exactly. But that also means I need the efficiency metric of lead to estimate ratio.
So I need to know how many leads are coming in how many get spit out through prequal and job walks we're actually going on. Because, you know, right now, you know, we have a 40% lead to estimate. So out of ten people, we're going to four people's homes. They pass call location. Now if that was 20% that I need to see our success rate skyrocket or or in trouble, right, So there there's a few different things. Yeah. Yeah. Close second would be net gain and loss on our baseline schedules.
Because tracking everything on a gross profit per day type of type of equation, if we go, you know, 2 days over our baseline, you know, that's 3, 4 grand per project. You know, we're losing and Chaz a a ripple effect throughout production. That's right. But I'm a sales guy. So I would say success. Right? Yeah. Keep closing. I yeah. Keep closing, baby. Actually, I think you you said it probably better than I've I've said it before, but you said it was so simple.
Because I've said I've said many times myself, grow solves everything. Sales, solve everything. Until it breaks it, which is that last little piece that you threw in that I've never really said, but as soon as you said, I'm like, yeah. That's absolutely what happens is because I'll just go out sell the problem, right, because really any problem that we have can be solved with a certain amount of resource. Okay. Great. A lot of that resource can be just money. Fantastic. Let me go sell.
Get more money. Solve the problem. Until the selling of all of this created a whole another set of problems. Mhmm. Pick your set of problems, I guess. Right? Oh, gosh. Like like I said, sales does fix 90% of whatever's wrong in your business. Sell more, sell at a higher GP, but there's so many things that have to happen after that job's sold, especially in our environment being in customer innovations. Now our average ticket's a $180,000. Right?
And there's a lot that goes into a $180,000 renovation. And so being able to sell, but not only that being able to communicate to multiple people in different departments throughout quality control, the pre construction process, what is happening. And so luckily, it's 2023. We have a huge tech stack to help communicate visually audibly, and then also what's to come in the future through VR renderings, a bunch of different applications we could use.
But Sales fixes everything until there's a a chink in the chain down the line and something that doesn't get delivered on. And It's over. There there goes everything. That's right. Okay. What about a business resource that you've used or, you know, podcast, a book? Something that you've taken in that that you can share with us so we can go part taken. Gosh. Well, one of my one of my favorite books right now is never split the difference. Art and negotiating. It is very good.
The second one that I probably listen to, like, six times in a day, and the art of war Oh, yeah. Great, bud. And there's just so many ways you can interpret it and break it down and really apply it into your own business. So those those 2 were foundational. EOS system, also foundational, how to influence people, you know, foundational type book just on how to operate as a company and as a person.
I would say those book wise Chaz far as, like, peer group, coaching, mentors, something we, you know, we had and that's one of the biggest frustrations I had with these groups was it's a pay to play type group, which is fine. You know, everything costs something. But the groups I was in were people that were my size. You know? And I'm like, love you guys. Love the community. I don't really care. Wanna go talk to the $50,000,000 guy.
I wanna go talk to their $100,000,000 guy, you know, the national franchise guy. Like, I wanna go get exposure to those people and Yeah. That costed a little bit more money and resource That's right. To get that type of access. But getting around the people who have done what you want to do, even in different industries, because business, I mean, it's it's the same game. It's just depending on what mode you're playing in. Contracting companies, restaurants, hotels, we're playing on a hard mode.
You know, ecom, SAS, subscription based businesses, a little it's easy mode once it's built in a lot of ways. But getting around the people in different industries that are 8, 9 figure entrepreneurs. That has been more fruitful than most of any books I've read because I can just sit here like this and just be like, hey, man. Got a question. And Yeah. Just talk. That's the best type of education. You know? Yeah. I agree. I also think that you made a really cool distinction here.
And, really, it's, you know, the the steps or maybe, you know, different levels that we go through as an entrepreneur. And and I would even say, like, before that peer to peer, that was, like, just, you know, like you and your peers, even at a multiple $1,000,000 level, before that, it was probably a coach or maybe more of, like, transactional money for information, right, where the next level up that middle of the road community. I need other people around me to kinda push me forward.
It's huge. But at some point, you've mastered self mastery in all of these areas of business and and marriage and family. All these things, not that you've become perfect, but you you master enough to where the community is great, and it's still good to be part of a community. A lot of times you then pour into the community rather than extrapolating which is kind of King mindset. Anyway, but you're right. There's been another level where you're like, okay.
I gotta get out of the little pond and into the next one where I'm I'm a nobody again. Mhmm. That principle in itself, I think, is just you recognizing, and the listeners should do this as Wolfe. No matter where they are in journey. It's just like, okay. I need information. I need a coach or someone individual. Then I need a community of like minded people that are like me.
Then I need to stretch myself again to get to the bigger player that maybe it really isn't, like, transactional like a coach, but it's more of, like, I get one opportunity to ask one question or I get to go to one lunch later this week. I'm I'm gonna be flying, having dinner in New York City with a guy that was on the podcast. He's in the hundreds of millions. And him and his right hand are gonna be there.
Me and my right hand are gonna be there, and I don't know how to clue what's gonna happen in the meeting. But I guarantee you there's gonna be some some great rubbing of shoulder happening over some awesome stakes. Right? And it's that type of environment where you're like, okay. And I don't really care if there was 30 or 300 or 2000 people at this conference, I would much rather be at that dinner. And it cost me however much. I don't really care.
Because that's the type of relationships or the types of knowledge, the one little, any beauty pieces that I need to walk away from and go, boom. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. 100%. Every, like, we're into Loom in January at a conference. And some big fish there, you know, It's probably about 2, 300 people total, and I'm going through the itinerary. I'm googling all these people. I'm looking up, like, k. Who's what table am I gonna sit at?
Who's who's who's Yep. And the first night, man, I'm walking around. I see a face that I saw, and I'm like, okay. I know he has, you know, a $80,000,000 construction company, whatever it may be. We're gonna go talk to him. Know, we're gonna go sit down. Like, this is that's why I'm here. You know, I paid the B at this conference. Yeah. I'm gonna get some value out of this thing and get around those people.
Yeah. Yeah. I think I mean, bro, we are we are just so like minded in that way where the things that I've paid for, I don't necessarily count the cost. Most people do because they don't do the work. Right? The work of what you just said of doing the back end, every event that I've ever gone to. Well, I can't say that every, but every event where I've been a participant, like a mastermind group or a small event or a, like, a little shindig, I always ask for the list.
And I'm always gonna do research ahead of time because I do wanna shake some hands intentionally just like Ryan just said. So I think that intentionality probably the right word, but when you know what you're after, I don't necessarily know that the $80,000,000 guy's gonna give it to me. I don't know. But I'm gonna find out. Yeah. Right? Or or figure out, like, how can I give them value? Right?
Like, how can I give give give And then eventually, the one thing you get to take is gonna be worth everything to you, you know, because it's it's the value piece that you're missing or the maybe just that framework that they that they work under that really opens up your mind to, like, oh, wow? There's a whole other way to get to that goal. Totally. Totally. Yeah. There's a guy inside of our our mastermind group guy in the Kings, and he's 300, maybe even over 400,000,000.
It's right around there. It's just ridiculous jobs of money. And you never know. You would never know. Except for the way that he talks, the way that he handles himself, if if we never talked to money or business, you would know immediately that he was different and that he is the different one. Right? And everybody else in the group knows it too. And I knew from the beginning, even, you know, when I first met him. And so I'm I flew down. I made sure I to dinner.
Like, I stay in contact with him. I personally tried to figure out how I could add value to that guy, which Yeah. I think he would say publicly that I have, but It's like, how can I add value? Because if he comes to a meeting with other little eight figure guys or heaven forbid the guy that just crossed over a million, I know that they and his presence are gonna get value. You know what I mean? So it's an equal exchange.
It's like, man, if that guy and he loves coming around the guy that just crossed a 1,000,000 because he gets energy from that guy. He's like, that dude Chaz got smoke on him from the real battle. You know? So it's like this mutual exchange of energy, but it's facilitated with what you're saying. Give, give, give, pay attention, be intentional, like, put pieces in place. Like, you can be doing this inside of your business right now, listener. Right? A 100%.
And if you're in that let's say, low 7 figure trying to get into that eight eight figure space, go find the dude that's there and figure out how to solve one of their problems. Yeah. Just just go and talk. I mean, obviously, don't be a pester to annoy them, but give them value. Give them a a solution to a problem that they might have or make life a little bit easier for them, have some sort of value add to what they do.
And you're you're gonna be successful because those people like to get back from what I've seen. Those people that hit 8 figure, 9 figure. The right ones, you know, that, yeah, just aren't total arrogant pricks. You know, those guys like to give back. They like that hungry, you know, $2,000,000 a year guy that wants to make it a 20, you know, they they love that. They wanna help you. That's right.
Yeah. I just I I happen to be in your city next Thursday, and I thought maybe if potentially you'd be available, I'd take you out for a steak dinner over at so and so. I heard you say it one time on a podcast And they're like, that sounds great. Yep. That easy. Right? Me up. And and I went I went to that city with nothing else on the calendar. Now I put other things on the calendar once he said yes. Yeah. But it was I'm going there to meet with him. I'll figure out the rest later.
Yeah. Because that's worth it in itself. Yeah. Just having that relationship. Yep. Exactly. Okay. I gotta ask you a question about family, and then we're gonna wrap up here. You're you're in the midst of it. You you've got some young kids, you know, the marriage that you've already described to us where you guys are, like, you know, really fighting for each other. I really love that.
The obsession of business and the leveling that you've done over and over again in your business is because of the obsession. And so I've correlated this to, you know, like, not balanced, but life obsession also. So how have you or how are you obsessing over wifey and kids at the same time as growing these crazy businesses? Well, in a few different ways. I mean, the the business has given us the opportunity to buy a farm. You know? So we just bought 18 acres of land.
We're currently all of us 3 kids under 6. My wife and I are living in a 5th wheel right now while we renovate it. I'm working with my sons, you know, I'm teaching them skills, talking with them, It's honestly been a very, very rewarding time right now. And also the whole point of having this successful business and businesses like I said, was to give me the time freedom to spend with my family? That's the whole why. If I didn't have kids right now, I'm not sure if I'd be in business.
I'd probably be content working for someone else doing my own thing, but they give me that purpose, that why that really drives me to to be more. And now business is kind of my drug and addicted to it, and I'm not gonna stop. But I would say that really just trying to have as much time as I can for them and at no cost to myself. So I sacrifice, you know, my mornings. When I have to get stuff done, I get stuff done. There was about 6 months there.
I'm in the office 3:30 AM just so I could be home by 5 to see my kids. There's only been a handful of days in the past 3 years where I was home past 5 o'clock. When I know, you know, most business owners, the 1st few years, it's they're working all night, working on all day, but I would rather, you know, sacrifice my time in that morning, and I'd rather lose sleep and, you know, wake up at 3, 2:33 AM to get the work rather than stay till 6 or 7 and miss out on those times with my children.
So, yeah, I'm just investing them every way I can. I'm really excited because like I said, I grew up in a double wide on some land. I had goats. We had chickens. We had a steer at a horse. I'm real excited to share that with my children and and spend time with them. Chaz way. Yeah. It's gonna be I'm I'm really excited about that. Well, actually, after this, I'm gonna go build a fence. You know? So, yeah, gonna go build a fence for the goats. There you go.
Some of those things, you know, are happening at the Wolfe farm as well. And, you know, I really personally, I'm not a big a big fan of the fence building, but I'd do it with the wife especially around the chickens. But like you, I've learned that it's not really the task because it feels like I should just hire this out it's the task Chaz, you know, I get to I get to show my sons, in your case, or in this case, my daughters and my sons younger, still learning.
But it's like, you know, like, these are the moments that allow us time and a situation to be able to pass along that knowledge or or thought assessed mindset. You know? Mhmm. Yeah. It's the best way to get back to your children. Work with them. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I I have in my my morning visualization that I read out loud.
It said that I'm building my family plus 3 generations, and I really believe that that is that is what biblically I'm supposed to do, but, like, for me, personally, that's, like, part of my calling. Like, the next three generations are gonna be not set up financially. Yeah. That's, like, of course, but how and why and what as far as the thinking goes. So that way it's not just squandered. You know? Yeah. Yeah. It's the same, like, show me the father, and I'll tell you about the sons. You know?
Like, you're instilling that generational success in them. Yeah. That's great. Shoot. Last question here for you, Ryan. If you could whisper In the younger Ryan's ear, what would you say? Oh, gosh. That's a good one. There's a few things that come to mind. I would say find one thing and do it. And that's that's one of the biggest flaws I have. Is I am very good at starting fires. I'm very good at making things big, but I lose attention. I lose attention span.
I have to be constantly diligent on following up on tasks. So I would tell myself, find one thing and follow through with it. Because I don't think there whether it's construction or when I was an athlete, when I was playing football as a husband, I don't think there's I think I could be very success full in anything that I just applied myself to consistently over an amount of, you know, 10, 20, 30 years. But my biggest issue growing up was I'm just a scatter.
Like, I'll start this here and then now I'm an ultra runner. Well, now now I'm a hunter. Now I'm gonna go fishing every day. Now I own a farm. You know, that it's it's doing a core basis of one thing consistently instead of being a scatter So now do one thing, do it consistently. That's what I tell myself. I love that. Thanks for the vulnerability.
Yet, again, it's so real, and we kinda chuckle you know, both you and I were kinda just chuckling there, but it's it's because it's real for both of us. We're just like, you know, we you gotta master this portion, even just this weekend, I was doing some study on this very topic and just the momentum and and power that you get from focus and, like, really, really dialing in and, like, really, really fighting off the external things. And it's so cliche It's so true.
And so I just appreciate another king saying saying what it is. How can the listener find Right? Of course, number 1, you you might be able so first, I'll tell us where you're currently located so that that way, if they need flooring or home remodeling or a kitchen or bath, they can find you, but Yeah. In addition to that, they might be a remodeler looking for maybe a system to plug into. Maybe it makes sense for you to talk to them, maybe even talk business beyond just a little bit of advice.
Yeah. How can they find you? So we're in Central California. So Turlock Modesto area. We also have a location in Dublin. So we Wolfe service East Bay, all the way to pretty much Tahoe and then all the way south to Fresno and north to Sacramento. So pretty good span if you're in the central California.
You can find us on YouTube at KHB Construction Inc. We also have our podcast on there, the above industry standard podcast, Instagram, Twitter, all at KHP Construction, our our website, which I'm very proud of. We have we have revamped that not too long ago too. Kitchenhomeandbath.com. And, yeah, we're here to help whoever whoever wants to talk. Perfect. You've been incredible, man.
I know that we've only known each other for a short time, but I feel blessed to know you and then to see where, you know, where we'll run together is also encouraging and inspiring. So thank you for being here. We wish you nothing but blessings family that you talked about. Yep. Thank you. All the new businesses that you're gonna conquer this year. Thanks for being here, brother. Alright, man. Appreciate you. Thank you for listening to Gathering the Kings today.
I hope that you were able to pull out a few nuggets to go apply into your business right away. More importantly, though, I hope that you're realizing that it takes more to be successful than just being by yourself doing it all on and multiple different industries and now interviewing literally over 2 or 300. Other very successful 7, 8, and 9 figure business owners is Chaz It's tough to do it alone. And so gathering the Kings literally exists to bring together successful entrepreneurs.
In fact, we are putting together 1 1000 kings, specifically who are grateful, but not done. We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family, and communities, and here's what we believe Chaz in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy.
So if that relates and and resonates with you and you know that you need people around you sharp, qualified other very successful business owners. I want you to go to 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. Talk soon.