On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. We'll just say to the guy right now or gal who's listening and, maybe they thought about buying a business. Or they've already purchased a business. And maybe they've realized that what you realized 6 months in is, oh, bummer. I maybe overshot some things here. How do you recover? Because, obviously, you're still in business and you're doing very well for yourself. It's not the end of the road that you made this mistake.
What does that look like afterwards? What's up, everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe. Gathering the King's podcast. I'm your host. Today, I've got Gerald McHenry here on the King stage. My brother, Gerald. How are we doing? We're doing good today. Good good to be here. Thanks, man. I appreciate that. It's an honor to have you, and you're right. It is a good day, but we get to choose that. So I'm glad that you chose a good day today. Definitely shows a good day today.
Tell us what kind of business that you get, brother. I have what's called a middle and final mile truck operation and what that entails that middle mile is usually between no more than 300 mile radius of the cities that we service. The final mile, of course, the things that you see get delivered to your home. Yeah. That's right. That's where we that's our mix right now.
Okay. Yeah. Not just transportation, right, not just getting goods and services to the people, but a couple of sectors inside of that, which I love. And I'm sure we'll be able to get into this detail of that. The the cool part about my next question, it's my first question every single time, and it's heartfelt. It's emotional. It's it's the heartbeat, if you Wolfe, but you're in a really boring business, but not really. Right? Industry standard is transportation is not super sexy, which I love.
I love boring businesses. So I gotta know why. Not necessarily why transportation, but what's on the inside of you that burned so deep that you're doing transportation or that you're doing whatever that you're doing in life. What's inside of you, man? Here here, my journey in the transportation was one out, frustration. K. I was prior to buying this company. I bought it and then grew it, but prior to buying it, I was vice president of a major elevator company.
K. After 6 years in that position, they decided to change all of the structure, and they got rid of, like, 9 VPs. Wow. They gave it a nice parachute. So, you know, I'm not you know, too upset about it. But after all of the work that I had done, I was so frustrated with the fact that you know, I my goal was $5,000,000 to the bottom line, and I hit 7, but they still let me go. Yeah. So it didn't matter what my performance was. I was still not in control of my own destiny. That's right.
So transportation came about because when I was in, you know, I'm a private pilot. Rousing flight school, a flight instructor. We were sitting in Dallas at the Dallas airport, and he was looking at these routes for sale. And he was like, man, these things are cash flowing really nice. And I remembered that. And I went back to that. And I said, you know what? Let me see about buying some routes, and I think I can do this. So I had a learning curve.
I had to learn all the DOT information, all of those things. And then I decided, okay. Let's find the company that we wanna buy. Yeah. And that in itself was a little struggle too, but that's how I got here. Hello? Yes. Oh, man. I've always wanted to do transportation. It became a good business. Yeah. Yeah. Which is obviously giving you a foundation to be able to build on and and achieve all the things that you have. What's okay.
So you kinda gave us the, like, the crux moment there of someone else having control and you realizing it. So is the burning desire inside of Gerald to have control? Is it to have to be the writer of your own destiny, what what is your big why? Why are you doing this? To write my own destiny. Chaz that is exactly right. I'm the type of person where if I work hard, I'd like to be rewarded for it. If I go out and do something and I'm moving the needle the way you want me to.
I expect to be rewarded for it or maintain, at least maintain where I am, but and I get it. I've been in those meetings before also in my career where companies have to make decisions. They have to make decisions. But it sucks to be the person on the end of that financial situation. Even though it made sense for them, didn't make sense for me. Yeah. So Yeah. And they wanna be trapped again. So I'm like, the only way to do that is to be in control of your own destiny.
So the only person that can fire me now is me. So That's right. I I relate to that. I think every entrepreneur does, obviously, to a degree, there's there's a there's a sense of freedom that we feel through the fulfillment of being a business owner or the control of it there's an interesting dynamic between control and freedom for us as entrepreneurs. But what's what about, like, you know, beyond the beyond the writing of or maybe maybe what's the layer deeper than that?
Why do you feel that you have a Destiny worth writing? What is there, like, is there something that you're headed towards Is there a bigger picture? Like, what's the the grander scale for you? The grander scale is reaching a retirement and being able to, you know, live comfortably and not work your entire life. You know, I wanted to make sure that our children were all taken care of, which they're all out of college now, and they're doing their old thing.
My wife, she's a she's in the medical field, and she's doing her thing. So everybody is coming. You know, we're getting to that age where we've gotta look forward to the next our next life, you know Mhmm. After work. So my whole goal was to set something up that would, 1, generate income at the same level as the vice president position, 2, build assets so that once I do retire, I can get rid of some of those assets and add that to the nest egg.
And then I'd like to just kinda pick something that I would like to do. It didn't have to be a moneymaker. It could be consulting or anything like that, but I wanna be able to work. I don't wanna work, and I have to worry about those things because my income is set. So the big goal is to get to retirement. Awesome. Yeah. I think that there's vision in that for sure.
And I think that there's some takeaways that we can pull out as we kinda get to know your story a little bit better for the listeners. You gave us a little bit of the snapshot of, you know, you you were you had a great job, and, basically, they took it away. Right? Okay. So tell us what the 1st couple of years were like and you buying a business. You didn't start from scratch. So that's a whole different story. Like you said, even finding the business was a little bit of a story.
Give us a give us a couple minutes of finding and then for some of those early those early moves. So when I first when I first started looking at the business, I was trying to buy lines from a an 18 wheeler, a guy that that that was servicing long haul truck. We kept trying to do a deal with him He said he wanted to do the deal, and we kept trying to get it kept, and it kept dragging on and on and on. And at the same time, There was a guy who had a middle mile operation.
He was sent to me by a friend of mine Got it. Who he was selling his business and that I was looking at the trucking. So he kept coming to me and kept coming to me, and I'd be like, I'm focused on this because I think this is it. And I'm focused, but he this guy's delaying, and this guy won't be set. Right. Okay. Let's go to the door that's open. This store right here is, like, it's kinda peeking through the, you know Alright. Do it. A lot of competition in that last one.
And he wants he wants to sell. So he went out, did evaluations on the business, made some mistakes, and that valuation made him an offer, purchase the business and then the transition started. The mistakes I made, and sometimes I think it was done on purpose the Mars Like a self sabotage purpose or, like, or Like a From the seller side. Oh, okay. Got it. Got it. Even though his margins overall were correct.
One segment of the business he shaded the margin from another section and pushed it into that section of the business to make it seem like this was not very much of his march. Sure. Oh, for example, just just wrong numbers, and I can't remember the exact number to say that this accounted for 30% of this margin. Right? But in acts well, he showed it as 10%. Right. But he pushed another 30 down into another business.
And what I didn't know was that the company when I talked with the company, everything was in good standings or whatever, but but I did not know, and I don't know if he knew it or not, they were looking at pulling their work in house. So they did Chaz, and that 30% margin went, poop. Sure. I got the dose. And that was 6 months in. So I was like, uh-oh. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. The the value of that business dramatically changed. It it this is it. It it. That that's called buying high.
Yeah. Okay. So we're we're kinda getting right into the nitty gritty here. I love it. Listeners know I always ask for a good and bad decision. So let's kinda stay right here on this vein. The vein wasn't necessarily that this account left because, obviously, you didn't you didn't know that was gonna happen. But what what did you learn inside of this?
Obviously, there's some prudence on the front end or some diligence that maybe you could have you could have done to maybe figure some things out a little bit better. Articulate that for us of what that could have been, but then also through that 6 months of leading up to when they left, you know, hindsight going back, was there anything that you do now to be able to kinda maybe shade that to that move that they made. I was offered a opportunity to work with a company that does valuations.
It would have cost me about $12,000 to do the valuation, but I understood how to do business valuation. I've been trained how to do business evaluation when I was at thyssenkrupp elevator. I mean, I spent months at the European School of management through Thyssenkrupp, and one of the classes was valuating businesses. So I totally understood by evaluating the business, but I was still inexperienced at valuing businesses. I did not even it never crossed my mind.
Yeah. All that, you know, he's showing 16% margins and 30% of that 16% is coming from this line. It never crossed my mind because the bottom line numbers were correct. It still made sense to you, and you got excited about it. Right. The the evaluation was right. And the the and then he accepted my evaluation because I actually have to abide the business. Cut it at a discount. I took about 5% off of that valuation and pushed it to him and through negotiations and all of this.
He accepted it, but I I can't it you know, your education gives you the platform, but experience gives you the real Wolfe. Wow. That's so good. Haitian, but I didn't have the experience. So I had the the the nuts and bolts of how this works, but I had experience in the actual implementation. Yeah. Yeah. On my part in trying to nickel and dime myself. I should have paid 12,000. It would have saved me 200.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because in essence, so practically breaking this down for the listener is that most likely the evaluating or the evaluation company would have broken that margin down into the different line items of revenue streams. There would have been maybe, like, a risk analysis done on each revenue stream. What the relationship like? Is there a contract in place?
Like, all of those things that go into that sort of evaluation, which would have given you probably some more leverage of going, okay. Well, jeez. That's huge piece of this Right. You know, bottom line. Okay. We what's in place here? Oh, there's nothing in place. Oh, okay. Well, This changes the valuation. This changes the number that I'm willing to offer. Exact. Exact. If I put for No.
I was just gonna say that what you said there about education and and experience, education gives you the platform. Experience gives you, you know, the next level of awareness or enlightenment because you did it. You actually went through it. Right. Right. We'll just say to the guy right now or gal who's listening and maybe they thought about buying a business. Or they've already purchased a business. And and maybe they've realized that what you realized 6 months in is like, oh, bummer.
I kinda maybe over sought some things here. How do you recover? Because, obviously, you're still in business and you're doing very well for yourself. It's not the end of the road that you made this this mistake. What does that look like, you know, afterwards? So after you've made that type of mistake, and you've got to focus on recovering. You can't give up. Don't throw up. And, you know, I've got this saying, and it says, as long as I'm swimming, I'm not drowning. So I just swimming.
And keep swimming, keep swimming, trying to fight through it, look for other avenues, look for things, try to cut costs, for example. Prior to the pandemic, we got rid of the office building. And we sent everybody home, and we were working from home. So we we were saving quite a bit there, you know, in in rent because we were over office building.
And, you know, and we Chaz we had four people working in the office, but We just sit them all home, and we work from home because what we actually do is not done in the office as much. It's out there at the customer's warehouses. It's out there on the road. And we're always on the phone with these people anyway. They're not coming to our office. Why are we carrying this overhead? Look for things that you don't have to have and get rid of. It was it was all nice.
Everything was cashmore and great until that stuff walked out the door. Yeah. Then it went sideways. Yeah. There's a huge piece of value that you're dropping here, and I and I I don't wanna skip over it too much because the keep swimming or if you're swimming, you're not drowning. First off, that's a complete that's a mindset. So we we gotta break that down for half a second here. Yeah. In the process of swimming, immediately someone could think I'm drowning. I'm drowning. Help help.
Right. And I don't know if you would agree with this, but in my experience, as soon as that switch goes from like, I'm attempting to swim to, I'm drowning. Like, it's over. The story's over. The ending is clear. Like, you're you're drowning. You're gonna drown. Like, and it goes it goes back to, you know, thoughts or things and what we what we envision in detail with emotion on a daily basis is what we get out of life. Period. And so in that moment, it's not just the persistence of keep going.
Number 1 is the mindset of, like, it's not over yet. I'm still swimming. So, therefore, I am not drowning. Right. It might be really, really tough. I might be in the middle of the ocean, and I'm swimming for my life. But I am not drowning. I am swimming. And so I think that is is is 1. Number 2 is when you get in that place, you have got to evaluate everything. Nothing is off the table, and that's what I heard you say. It was at a nice office.
I'm sure you had some nice coffee and some nice maybe it was a ping pong who knows, right, whatever those luxuries were in that moment when you've, quote, unquote, made a mistake or made a bad decision, and how you recover from those things is survival. We we eliminate what's not necessary and we press into what works for a period of time. It doesn't mean that you get rid of luxuries forever.
It just means that for a period of time, you have to press into what's working, what's making money because that's the only way that the business is actually gonna survive. Now whether you go back to the office or not, that's your choice. You maybe maybe you never go back to the office because you don't need and you develop a new culture. But for you in that moment, it wasn't like, do we want to? Do we not want to? It's like, no, we have to. Right. It's exactly right. That's so speak to this.
Speak to, like, mindset of swimming versus drowning versus, like, persistence. It's like, okay. No. I gotta get nitty gritty, and I got I'm not, like, trying to retract and and nickel and dime. Like you said earlier, because you told earlier, I should have nickel and dime myself. But in the next sentence, it's like, well, I gotta I gotta get rid of things that don't work. There's a difference. And the second piece isn't nickel and dimey. What are your thoughts there?
So when when we are when you're when you're in that type of situation, 1, expected to be tough. It's not gonna be easy. It's not easy at all. Expect to lose sleep. Expect to to stress through that. But know that the only way that you are guaranteed to fail is to quit. Then you're guaranteed to fail. But if you continue to fight and and it's and it's not easy and and I don't want anybody to think that that what I went through, that was what that was some of the longest 6 months of my life.
Yeah. Because we were in trouble, and we had to have a plan to get out of the trouble. So One thing that really helps is that you write that plan down. That'll keep you focused on the pieces and not so much on just the big picture of I'm drowning. Yes. It's so good. Focus on this piece, this piece, this piece, and then you're able to break that down into small bites. Yep. There was no way, you know, there was no magic bullet that was gonna come and all of a sudden give me Yep. Chaz margin back.
Yeah. Exactly. So I had to fit and piece it, you know, cutbacks, look at other avenues, revenue, look at things where we can save money on this side. Can we find a better, you know, maintenance operation Chaz cost less everything was on the table, but I broke it out into pieces. And your team has to have a clear understanding of that plan. Yeah. I developed that plan. We developed it as a team. We did an off-site meeting, and we sat in there for A day and a half.
Intense going through every single number, pulling up numbers, running reports, looking at them. So here's our best options to get out of this. Boom boom boom boom boom. 15 to 20 options, but that's all we were focused on. Yeah. It's good. It's kinda hard. It is a mindset, but it's kinda hard, in in my opinion, and I'm not a psychiatrist. But but I think that when you have a problem, that problem tends to elevate itself. Oh, yeah. Wolfe than the solution.
So you're thinking more about the problem than you are the solution. That's right. That dynamic That's right. Solution than the problem stress those down a little bit. Yeah. And you see a path forward. You see that you're swimming in the middle of the ocean is getting you somewhere. Yep. But that I guess Chaz that would pretty much sum up that it's not gonna be easy, but Help plan, focus on the solution, reduce your focus of the problem Yep. Solution.
Yeah. Yeah. I I think if the listener is paying attention, first off, if they've if they've had any sort of major financial or just business crisis, they're in alignment with what you're talking about.
Right. And if they haven't, I I really hope if you're listening right now and you haven't experienced a drowning situation, Chaz you just back it up a little bit, back up the podcast and and just write down these few steps because it is literally the whatever it was, four or five steps there, of how to survive a business crisis. And so I I was just talking with a close friend of mine just a couple of days ago, but he's in the midst of a business crisis at the current moment.
And a month or so ago, it was him trying to swallow the whole elephant. Right? Right. And oftentimes in business, it's a financial thing. And so in in his mind, it was this huge number. And it started off as he was ambitious, and he was going after it, but you quickly realized through it just being tough. Number 1, that if you're not ready for it to be tough, like, really, really, like, you can hear it on a podcast.
And then when you get into it, you're like, oh, no. This is what it means to be tough. Okay. Got it. And then I have to delineate down exactly what Gerald will say in there. Because if you don't delineate down, if you don't take bite size pieces, there's zero chance the elephant goes away. You're still trying to like, Chaz the whole thing Chaz the saying goes, it just doesn't work. It won't work. You will drowned. Yep. Yeah. You you have to talk us. You'll drowned yourself in your all process.
This. Yeah. You're single drowning, so you don't have clear thoughts. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I don't know if you focus on the problem so much. You'll be so overwhelmed, but You can't even think clearly. Yeah. Because yeah. Problem is just this problem, this problem, but you're not thinking, Wolfe, if I take a, b, c, d, and a d and f. And then if these 2 come together, right, okay, we're here. Now let's look at this. If you look at it that way, Yeah. You you you process us a better.
Yeah. It's so simple, but it is literally the roadmap. So and that's really to solve any problem. The equation to solve any problem, but it's heightened, as you mentioned, in that moment, the bigger the problem, the bigger it likes to rear its head, you know, which requires a stronger mindset to your point. Stronger thought process. What about a good decision?
So you you've been in the midst of crisis and you've had some some glorious days whether it was a good decision to get out of the crisis or something that you've done to help, you know, some of the hey days. What's been something that you would do over and over and over again? I think the biggest driver for this industry is your management team. Okay. Management team and your drivers. It's such a hands on deal. It's such a hands on business.
Yeah. Think that one of the one of the best moves ever made was I went and hired somebody that had a higher level of education than what I actually needed. He had a better understanding of total business, had a better understanding of managing managing people, had a better understanding actually had a good understanding of the trucking instrument, but I had to pay for that. But by paying for that, it generated ten times off the salary.
If I looked at it from just a dollar, it didn't make any sense. Yeah. I was I understand. He's gonna be Vincent. He's gonna be this, but in hiring that guy, 1, it takes a load off of me. That's right. So now I put my ultimate plan in the place. You know, a structure for my organization. You know, I've always said there's gonna be one person working in the business, one person working on the business and one person counting the money.
I Good. And I'm the one that's working on the business This is the one that's working in the business, and my CFO is the one counting the money. That's right. So out of those 3, and then collaboration between all of us, we were able to make things happen, but that would not have happened if I had not gone ahead and hired the person I needed. I'm gonna be able to do it all, which I thought I could. Superman. No. Yeah. That's real. It comes overwhelming.
Yeah. And you need a good support structure. And then you step back and start working on the business. Go out and get better insurance deals. Go out and get Go focus on that kind of stuff and you add value from that end. You don't have to be in the day to day writing up employees, making sure the managers are at work, because he's handling that. Right. And then I own the business. So I would do that over and over and over again.
As a matter of fact, today, in our temperate strategy, we won't take on any new business that doesn't generate enough income for me to hire another guy just like I am. Wow. So I've got one in Nashville. I've got one in Memphis. I let some business go in Little Rock Arkansas because it did not it did not generate a Enough. To have that guy. Yeah. Yeah. Hey. That's alright. Yeah. They're both talented.
It actually makes me think of real estate investing and there's a a difference in leverage of doors. And, you know, that's why a lot of multifamily guys kinda shy away or poo poo on single family homes. Because it's, you know, one door versus 20 or one door versus 200. And the 200 produces enough to have an on-site manager. And then therefore, it can be totally not in my realm. The the single family is gonna be, like, to your point, that guy who buys it is gonna be like, well, I can manage it.
It's just one home. It's not a big deal. And it keeps you stuck unless that's part of the strategy for having longer vision and you're gonna package them together. Like, there's always a strategy, but the the point I'm trying to make here in collaboration with yours is that if it doesn't make enough money to take it off my plate, then I'm adding something to my plate. I have to be honest about Right? Yes. You do. And you were, and you said this isn't worth it.
Even though it's good business, it's not enough to make it worth it for the way that we like to do things. And so we gotta let gotta be willing to walk away. This is also none of the negotiation tactic. That'll be willing to walk away. Gotta be willing to walk away. How do you think that you and your team put together such clarity to where not only are you guys on the same page and can operate in that way where, like, he's here. She's there. I'm here.
Counting the money, doing whatever the scenario is for the listener and and for you. But you got immense clarity. So the question is there, but then in addition, so much so to where you release business for it. Mhmm. Hey, Chaz Wolfe here. As many of you know, I have been on an absolute 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 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, I want you to go to gathering the kings dot com, flood 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. So we have these strategy sessions. We have a monthly strategy session where we review what we plan to do for that quarter. You know, hey.
What's this quarter gonna look like? This quarter's gonna be flat? Okay. Fine. Quarter's gonna be flat. Here's why. Is there any way we can increase that? Well, if we could reduce this or reduce that, we might be able to see a little bit of push, okay, but it's gonna be flat. We all know that. So we're not out trying to do anything extravagant if it's gonna be flat. If we're looking at you know, a situation where I'm I'm too thin.
Like, we were saying earlier, and the reason I let go of the Arkansas is was because, 1, I had to keep going to Arkansas, which is affecting my ability to work on the business. That's right. Or the one of the other managers was running down there. So it's pulling away from having them really hone in on their part, but the whole thing for me is that it's a written out plan. It's in writing. It's written out. Everybody knows it.
We developed it at the same time, and it's a written document that you can always refer to. And you agreed to? And we agreed to. Right. Because we built it as a team. It wasn't just me saying, you just want the only thing I said was I wanna plan. And I want that plan to get us to here, and then I said, yeah. I need to be there. Okay. Let's go. Yep. That's That's basically how we keep it. And and and then you have to keep reviewing it, of course. Keep reviewing the plan. Are we off?
Is the plan off? Are we off, or is the plan off? Yeah. Did that generate what we thought it was gonna generate? No. It didn't because our insurance rates went up because we went to the larger truck and then, okay, you could get more on it and, you know, one driver versus 2 trucks and a 2 drivers, get a bigger truck with the insurance rate overcame the those things like Chaz. Yeah. Those kind of discussions.
Yeah. Once you really get to the point where everybody is in alignment, it's a lot easier. Yeah. It's a lot. I think it's simple. Don't don't get hurt. I don't want anybody to think any of this is easy. I said eat your Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, it it brings alignment. Alignment is what you're talking about, and alignment allows for leverage. If if we're not in alignment, then we're battling. If we are in alignment, then we skip the battle, and now we can just take leaps and bounds forward.
And so it doesn't become easier. It's the same work. To your point, but Chaz leverage, leverage of time, leverage of of collaboration, because you can't have collaboration and, like, a fighting, like, a negative spirit at the same time. Right. It's one or the other. So I think that you're you're spot on here with with your assessment.
Also, it's it's interesting too because what you've talked about, I mean, you've given several transportation specific examples, but I've already correlated it to real estate. And then even, like, you know, home services, I'm thinking, we've we've got a lot of contractors that listen or a part of our mastermind group Chaz well as, you know, marketing and tech and all kinds of other stuff too.
But all of these tactics of coming into alignment building a team of people that that is more expensive on the front end that that maybe you're, you know, excited about or confident with but being able to put them in a room and be able to create a plan that's written down that you've agreed to then keeps you in alignment.
So that way, when things come up, whether it's the insurance overcoming the what we thought was gonna be a great perspective on a a bigger truck and less drivers, but it actually wasn't. The other way was better, or this worked out great. And this is why insurance is high, but that's okay. This one other went went down, and so we're gonna keep it. All those things can be assessed. If being tracked and you're on the same page and you have alignment.
So I think that there's major value in what you're talking about. Would you, like, dwindle this all the way down? Some of our listeners are huge. A couple 100,000,000 all the way down to the guy that probably just got started. Maybe he he hasn't even started yet. What does he or she do that's just getting started? To keep an alignment when it's probably just them, maybe one other person. Can they do these same things?
Yes. No. I think it all starts with a good business plan, a well thought out business plan. If you challenge yourself and don't do a business plan that just all gory and lollipops and rainbow. Do a real real assessment of what you're trying to do, and it will open your eyes. It will save you some stuff in the front end. You may miss something. It doesn't matter. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to be well thought out and well researched. Stand it, understand your business.
Nobody can understand your business more than you. And if you write, that down. You know, feel, oh, I got a business plan. Here's what I want to do with a gun in mind. No. Write it down. Do the fake my financials. You know, here's what I'm projecting for this. What would that do to this cost? Play the scenarios. Right. What happens if you lose 30% of your business? What happens if you gain 20%? What's your best case scenario? What's your worst case scenario?
And how if you set your business around that. Okay. Yep. You know, I've always said when I write a business plan, I write 1 in such detail Chaz I can take it to a bank and they write me a check Yeah. Against that business plan. I've done that twice, but three times, actually, where I've written it teed it in, and they signed up and said, yep. Let's go. Let's try it and pull it. That's a business plan.
Right. Now your perspective, But think of it as if you're trying to get somebody to invest in your business. Yeah. What are you gonna share? What questions would you ask yourself? Right. You know, is it this? I mean, it's just, you know, what what are the risks? Assist those risks. What are your strengths? Lay that out. I mean, If you have a, you know, hey. Identify your weakness, but also identify how you're gonna overcome that. What are you gonna do?
Yep. Like, for example, I gave earlier, this guy knew more about trucking than I did. So what was one of my weaknesses and the arrogance I had thinking at all? You know, I am. I'm smart enough. This can't be that. All the little things add up. All the little nuances. They all add up. Yep. It just you I don't know. I don't know. I don't even know. I don't have any other words, but make sure you have all the bins playing.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The business plan is gonna gonna correlate with the money also. You know, the there's just so I had a guy on my podcast, I don't know, 4 or 5 months ago, and he said the the thing that's helped him the most was that he he executes on the cliche. And everything that you're talking about is what we've all heard. Whether we went to business school or not, I didn't. And so I can remember writing my first business plan, and it was to get money.
I was, you know, applying for an SBA loan. Mhmm. And and they had all kinds of questions. I was twenty four years old. Never run a business in my life. You know, they how are you gonna make rent and this and that and all kinds of questions? And, but everything you're talking about as far as not only building it, in detail, but the way Chaz to be realistic, let yourself dream, but but also be realistic about what's the worst and best case scenarios. And then have a plan for both.
Have a plan to win. But, also, what if what if you don't and what if that risk of being 24 does hinder you in this way way this way, what do you do in that moment to overcome? Maybe I go hire the guy that's got 10 years of experience like you did. That could easily overcome a twenty four year old whatever scenario. But whatever the problem and whatever the solutions are, you're saying I have to put them in paper, which is the cliche piece that we all hear. It's like, okay. Well, yeah.
You gotta create a business plan. It's like, no. No. No. Really? Gerald's telling you something super proper here. You have to have it written down and you have to have a plan for both the good and the bad. And that's just the way that it works. It's not you being negative. It's not you being over the optimistic, you gotta just be able to shake it down. And then ideally do it with other people, because for me, like, I'm a true optimist.
You know, we just had a strategy meeting with my leadership team for gathering the Kings a couple of weeks ago, and we gave ourselves a score. We have a survey that we take, and I always score higher than everybody else in the team. And and we know this. Like, We all we all joked. Like, you gave your score. You gave your okay. Chaz, yours was probably and it's always a point or 2 higher because I always see better things.
Mhmm. But, ideally, I'm not in the nitty gritty looking at the negative detail of every single day, so I I should be more They should be bringing me back down to earth a little bit. That's okay. We understand that relationship, but all of that's needed in a format that you've just given up to us. So I just so appreciate that. Anything else you wanna add there before I move No. No. That that's it. That's that's the crux of it. It is. It's good stuff.
I wanna know in your business, we've talked a lot about just the Chaz and o's. What's the number one KPI for you? Like, if you could only pick 1 to track forever and ever, what would that be? Safety. Safety. Okay. Tell us what that means to you. Well, see, in in the trucking industry, there are always people suing you for safety. Your truck hit somebody. Your truck. Morgan and Morgan, the commercial, they make a living off of suing trucking companies.
I've been in You know, we've added camera systems, proximity indicators. We've added all of these things to our truck, all because Not only are we trying to protect the driver and make him safer? Yeah. We're still trying to protect ourselves from the people who are out there. Yeah. Just waiting. I guess. We've got insurance, but your insurance rates will go way up. You start having a lot of claims. Yeah. But we've had people at a truck that was backing up in a parking lot.
And there was four people sitting in the car, and he's going about 5 miles an hour. He backs up. He taps their bumper. Right? Not even enough to to to damage the, you know, it it, you know, it ended it. He Yeah. But They all fall out and they've all got Chaz they got, like, some $300,000 lawsuit on a 5 mile an hour accident. Wow. Would it happen The driver gets out. It takes a statement. He takes pictures, which is part of our process, and then everybody was fine.
Until 2 days later when they get the call from Morgan and Morgan to say, no. You're not fine. We need to go ahead and do all of this. We're gonna run this number up. It's gotten so bad in some areas. I say the Memphis area is really bad. I'm giving specifics. I don't know if you wanna go that deep in the Yeah. That's fine. That's good. So in the Memphis area, you've got people who are actually going out there trying to have rigs.
Wow. They're not even And and and it doesn't even have to be we had one gentleman, and this happened to me at 2 or 3 times, but I'll bring this one up because it's recent. He calls me up. He says, hey. I was on 2:40, and your truck pulled over and hit me. I said, okay. What time were you there? He had the time. He had a picture of the side of my truck. I tried to stop the driver, but he just kept going. He had a picture of the side of the truck.
And then thecluded gave it away, which he said, I wanna settle this outside of insurance. Oh, yeah. Yep. Bing, bing, bing, bing. I said, do you have insurance? Oh, yes. I have insurance. I said, well, so do I? I said, well, let's do it this way because I have no evidence on my truck. I have nothing in the videos. I have nothing that shows that you were hit. So you file it on your insurance, and I'll file it online, and we'll let the insurance companies. Never heard from them again.
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. That's the unfortunate part about just a lot of where, you know, people head negatively, but What I love inside of your quickness around the question of of KPI was like, boom, safety. And it's because it's clearly top of mind for you, and it also moves the needle in your business, which I think is what KPI should do as it moves the needle for you. It is interesting.
That makes me think of those crazy, you know, Instagram or tiktok videos, you know, in Asia where you know, they all have to have dash cams because they'll just like, they come to a stop, and then, like, you see the person lay on the car. Chaz if they had gotten hit. It's like, no. That didn't. Wait a second.
Well, I'm sorry that you have to deal with that, but that should give encouragement, actually, to the listener that every industry, no matter how successful the king, he's had to deal with things along the way. And for transportation, that just happens to be one of them. It's not even probably not even the main one, but it's probably a a large one.
I wanna know of a business resource, a book, a podcast, something that you've gone to or listened to or gotten value from could share with us that we could also in in Belgium. Yeah. I don't know if you read the book, and I can't remember the author, but it's the why. K. There's a book called the y, and it just goes over explain. You know, you gotta come up with y. Yeah. Why? That was a good one. In some of my master's programs, the study of process.
Yeah. Ichi Takuchi came up with an experimental design called, you know, it's called the design of experiments type of mathematical thing where you basically, what you're doing is you take a problem, you turn it into a math problem, solve the math, and then turn the solution into a practical Yeah. That's the gist of it. That helped a lot. Yeah. And, of course, you know, your basic business books.
I mean, you can pick up accounting or something like that just so you understand your numbers, how to read. Man, I wish I could recall all these authors, but how to read a financial statement? Yeah. It's simple. Even though you might understand it, that's fine. You know, but if you've never had it, go find out how to read a financial statement, and it ain't gonna have to be a book. You got a CPA for him.
You pull up a, you know, pull up somebody's financial statements and say, hey, how do you read this? How do I? You know, how do I under my numbers? You know, and all those things are super important, especially the numbers piece because it it is an actual pretty easy thing, but most people shy away from it because it appears to be difficult. They don't realize the simplicity of actually once you understand how you can apply it to decision making.
So other ones, I listen to a lot of the master class series, Okay. And Mark Voss, I believe his name. He's the negotiator. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Chris Voss. Yep. Chris Voss. That's it. Yes. That's right. I I listed a lot of this negotiation tactic and have used it. I'm actually using Warren right now. That's awesome. Awesome. New business, a new sector of business, and I'm actually using it right now. And it just worked. It is. It does.
Yeah. I've I've used a bit, like, direct lines from that book to negotiate for an apartment complex. I actually just use it just the other day. I sent a text message that says, have you given up on project. Oh, man. Good stuff. Good stuff. Gotta give a shout out to Chris Foss. Okay. So I got a question for you about family. Yes. And I wanna know for you because I I just don't believe in balance, just quite frankly, what I do believe in is obsession.
And you've been successful in your business because of your obsession. The struggle of swimming and not drowning is obsession. Right. And then that same stuff happens in our family. And all the other things that we love about life also, but specifically family. I wanna know some practicals that you've done to obsess over them like you have your business. So Part of it is making the time. One of the things I find myself doing is there's always something to do. Alright.
There's always something to do. So in order for me to control time so that I do have time for my family is I'm gonna accomplish these things today. That's it. When I finish that, shut it down, go downstairs, go do something in the house, They'll do something else. Don't do any more than this square. This is what you're gonna get done today. And, of course, it emergency sometimes the champions. Sure. But I have a plan, again, I'm back to planning. Have a plan.
This is the 5 things I'm gonna get done today. Once I finish these 5, we push the next ones to tomorrow. Yep. And the 5 things I'm gonna get done tomorrow. Yeah. These are things I'm gonna get done today because so for today, I've got the podcast. I've got a conference call with FedEx. I have a meeting with the guy that I'm negotiating with to purchase his business. Yeah. Yeah. Just to give some encouragement to the listener from what those examples, like, literally using your day to day.
Mhmm. The podcast, which is getting recognition and Also, it's just a way for you to give back. Like, yes, it's building your authority, and this is gonna be a major value for you. But as a king, it's an amazing opportunity to be able to give back And so there's a whole fulfillment tab to that as well. Mhmm. The FedEx opportunity, I'm sure there's a lot of connection between your business and and FedEx. That's a pretty high level task.
Like the negotiations of buying another business Chaz moves revenue needle Chaz moves, and if you guys have an acquisition target, that moves that needle. So these are all, like, extremely high level practical things that that Gerald's doing today. So I just appreciate you actually sharing that. It gives an idea of what it looks like to work on the business, like you said earlier. Right. Right. Right. It takes your time. I mean, that but it'll it'll consume all of your time.
Yeah. Yeah. Anything else to do? That's right. That's right. I got a question for you here. We'll wrap up with this one. Gerald, I wanna know if you had an opportunity to whisper in the younger Gerald's ear. Mhmm. What would you say? Start your own business earlier. You know, I started my career working for others and you get trapped into that rut of working for others, and that's who you are. Yeah. I would have started my business a lot earlier.
And I would be instead of being 5 years in, I'd be 15 years in. Right. Wolfe, held you back. Do you think? What would you whisper to yourself to overcome that you hadn't overcame at that point. Fear fear of the loss of income, fear of surviving, you know, a lot of people have failed. You know? And you you hear about those things. I mean, even some desperate people you see didn't fail. I mean, in my lifetime, I've seen major corporations go under Chaz I never thought would go away.
Yeah. It's leaving brothers. Enron. All these big massive corporations went away. Yeah. It failed. And then here I am, little gerald, with So my little red wagon with a little bit of money in it, you know, should I take Should I not take this risk now? Granted when I was single is when I should have. Ever of wife and kids, that's whole of the dynamic. Raises the stakes a little bit, doesn't it? Yes. That's the whole level of dynamic that you're gonna have to consider.
You don't have to consider risk. That increased my aversion to risk. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe because of them. Yeah. Which is real. I think that that's actually right answer, but you didn't stop there. You you stopped for a while, but you didn't you didn't stay there forever. Yeah. In that. Internet a plan. I Chaz, you know, I even had a plan for failure. If this had failed, I had a plan for that. Yeah. I knew what I was gonna do. If this failed, I knew what I was gonna do.
I wasn't planning to fail, but I had planned 4 failure. Yeah. So how do I get out of this? This is it this business is gonna go under. So, basically, if I were using my same analogy, if I'm drowning, Here's your lifeline. You might not be swimming, but you're floating. Right. You're not you're floating. You're not moving anywhere. You're just floating. Yeah. That was my lifeline. So I had a plan for that too. Yeah. It's good.
Gerald, you've been incredible with, I just not only giving practicals, but also showing us what it looks like to to be a CEO and to work on the business, give vision to your team, and strategically put a team together. I mean, we've gone through a lot, actually. And and you've just given freely. Like, it just flows out of you. You can tell that that you love what you do. Thank you for being here, but I wanna give the opportunity for the listener to connect with you.
Number 1, if there's a reason or tell us who in the audience would need your business until give us a plug there on how we can find you and do business with you. And then number 2, if we just wanna connect via entrepreneur, how would we do that? So The the business that we deal with, we're usually the the guys that are in the 3pl business. 3rd party logistics, 3pl, I use I assume everybody knows what we're saying. It's good. Yep. That's good.
3rd party logistics, your primary sources, of logistic business like direct with FedEx or UPS or Amazon, and we we have contracts with all of those. And, you know, there are people like Nike that I'm trying to get in there because I think they've got a middle mile section that I could handle. And it it's generally in the Nashville Memphis Little Rock Area. 2, 300 mile radius of those cities. We can set it up and write. There you go. And how can we find you? We have a website. It's horrible.
Appreciate the honesty. Was it LinkedIn? Is Chaz you wanna give us a phone number? How how how can we find it? Then probably be the best way to do it. Linkedin, send a message via LinkedIn. I'll see it. I'll answer it. I'm not getting my profile right there. If you go to our website, which is jexpressllc.com, You can kinda get an idea of what we do. There's a little commercial out there. You can see what we do. Yeah. But, you know, I'm at the trade shows.
I'm at the customized logistics trade shows. We have a boot there, so you'll see me there. Business. Yeah. Yeah. Trapping it up. Well, you've been incredible. We'll put all that in the show notes. Thanks for being here. I wish you nothing but blessing, your team and your family. Thank you. All of the other people. I love I love I mean, we all impact other people, but logistics is just one of those industries where if it stopped today, There's a lot of people affected.
So I just really appreciate the hard work that you and your team put in. Thank you for going the extra mile. And or or the last 300 and plus 1. And and we just are thankful that you're here. Thanks for being here with us, and I thanks for pouring out to the audience. Alright. Well, I sure appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to Gathering the Kings today. I hope that you were able to pull out a few nuggets to go apply into your business right away.
More importantly, though, I hope that you're realizing that it takes more 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 industries and now interviewing 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 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. Once you 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.