On today's episode of Gathering The. Did not having a personality conflict with one of the guys. In fact, What happened was I was, walking through the airport in Indianapolis in the summer of 2016 and my phone rings. And it's one of my partners, guy that sold to me. And he says, Hey, why did X Y Z PE Firm is our backer, which is my backer. Why did they just invest in our biggest competitor? What's up, everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe. Gathering the Kings podcast. I've got a king on the stage today.
Bob Hill. Thank you for being here. Good, sir. Welcome. Pleasure to be here. Yeah. Appreciate you. We were just talking, a little bit about the language of warrior Kings sage. And, you've got an incredible story of success and some trying times as well. We were Kings just touching base on that a little bit, but, I can't wait for listeners to be able to hear the story, but really just the energy that you've already brought here.
Just a few minutes we've been talking, Kings I know it's gonna be contagious. So Bob, tell us what kind of business that you have? Sure. My business right now, I'm the CEO of a company called Choice Financial Group, which is an insurance broker. We are probably, I don't know, 25 offices, New Hampshire to Florida. We do property casualty and employee benefits insurance. We do personal lines and commercial lines as well. And my main job is to grow it via merger and acquisition.
So I partner with other folks that wanna sell their company. Yeah. I love that. And your background obviously is, deeply seated in it. Assurance, and you've had The entrepreneurial journey, in and out of that. But, and we'll get to that story piece of it. But You've been in insurance long enough where you've been helping people, for for a long, long time in in that way.
I wanna know for you, though, at this as we Kings before the record button hit was hit, we we're talking about this mature king or maybe even sage status. What's the why for you? What's the burning desire at this moment, when you've already had so much success where you would still take a CEO Wolfe, you know, yeah. Yeah. And so I think, Chad, one of the things that's interesting that I was telling you just a second ago, I've been doing this role, at choice for about 13 months as the CEO.
I was initially, an investor and a board member with The with the original founder when he sold the business to a private equity firm, which is that's very prevalent in our industry. Sure. They asked me to join the company full time. And I said, no. And the reason I said, no was because I had arrived at a point in my life where I was really content. I was really comfortable. I was consulting with 4 customers. I had complete control of my life. So what is my why?
Yeah. As these guys at the PE firm started to become more and more, let's just say insistent Chaz, they really felt I was the right guy. And I went home and talked to my wife and prayed about it and You know, I just turned 60 about a month ago, so I was 58 at the time. And my wife's like, look, there's our kids are by and large grown We have one who's still in school. She's like, there's never been a better time for you to go out and to finish your career the way you wanted The.
And I'll come out. I'll come back and talk to that later. Yeah. You know, my career had an interruption in 2017, which led me to become this mature king sage, whatever you wanna call it, because I Kings dug into the mud. So my why is building finishing something that I started in 2009 in building my former company. And for me, that's pretty exciting.
And the other thing that's really, really cool is, the I wouldn't say the majority, but about 40% of the folks that have partnered with us at choice, who've, you know, taken their insurance agency sold it to us. They get cash and they get stock in our business, and that stock can grow pretty exponentially. About 40% of them are under the age of forty five. Wow. And so I really jam on mentoring those guys as Yeah. And girls as possible. And so that's part of my why.
Yeah. Yeah. I love the double prong there. I think that it makes a lot of sense. I love The finish strong as well because, you know, being a finisher is part of winning. I think that there's a lot of entrepreneurs out there that are great starters. Yep. And that whole finishing piece, slips slips away a lot, honestly. Totally. There's tenacity. There's real tenacity at And and there's just a lot of open loops that entrepreneurs have.
Sometimes really big ones, like you're talking about where, you know, you're gonna get to here in your journey, but where you you gotta You've got a really big loop to close here, but wow. What a at the end of of the whole deal, you're gonna be able to say, woah. Yeah. I I freaking did that. And and that's really important for entrepreneurs because I remember 15 years ago when I started the company I did before The one I'm in now. I did one of these, you know, online strength finder tests.
Sure. Yeah. And it said exactly what you just said, Chaz. It said, you are a great starter. You suck at finishing. And I'm I'm I'm paraphrasing. Chaz what I so I really focused my attention this time around. What do I want you know, the finishing to look like. And in my Wolfe view, that's probably 2 to 4 years from now. So I have a very, very clear picture of what I wanna do and the time frame I wanna achieve it.
I've been blessed because I've had some success financially And so I have some, a safety net, if you will. Sure. So that's that's a big piece of, you know, but I also spent a ton of sleepless nights before that safety net Right. Came into a, came into view. And I think that can be helpful to entrepreneurs as well.
Yeah. There's and and you say safety net, you know, and I don't want the listener to think all of a sudden Chaz, there's now privilege and then all this cool stuff that you have to do now is based on privilege because, obviously, you earned it. The the reality of it is that this is how it works. Like, if you didn't at your stage in the game, What were you doing?
Right. And so so I think that the that's a really actually important part for the listener to pay attention to is that as you're building, whether you're in your twenties, thirties, forties, doesn't really matter. You're building towards something, it's optimization of sorts and fulfillment whether that's your family or in in a growing business or a blessing your community or a church, whatever, all of those things have a have a cost, like an actual dollar amount associated to it.
And so, okay, you're after you're after, you know, like you said, financial success to a degree, but knowing how those in The those things impact others. But Let's not be let's not be let's not be twisted here. It's like at some point, you should tip the scale and go, Wolfe. I've got plenty. That's the whole point. So you could The is all those things interesting. Going back to your question a second ago about what was my why.
One of the biggest challenges that I had in taking this current role was I kept hearing, you know, I truly believe, you know, the lord telling me, you have plenty. And so and that was really important to me. And don't misunderstand me. It's not like I'm some jillian there. Sure. But, you know, and it Chaz number, you know, you re remember 10 or 12 years ago there was an ING commercial on TV where everyone was carrying their number around. Oh, sure. Like, the big orange numbers.
And the whole idea is how much do you need to retire. Right? Exactly. Yeah. So that Kings motivated me back in those days to like, alright. 3 kids, great Wolfe. What do I wanna do with my life? And, you know, I had a picture in my mind of what retirement looked like. The it was basically free from anxiety. And to me, that's the greatest thing that any of us as entrepreneurs can give our family, our spouse, and our community is Yeah.
If we're free from anxiety, we can help other people, and it's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. And that that gift, of, you know, stress free or or just really a a an exceptional life. Is probably a great way to say it as well, but that can be given, you know, and I'm encouraging the listener by saying this. That that can be given early on.
Yes. You as the entrepreneur, even in the midst of the stress can can have it, but what I'm really saying is as the entrepreneur you're building, like, there there is a period of time where you've kinda gotta just you know, head down and go. And maybe there is some anxious moments and where you're you're you're really stressed. But but you're doing that. It's almost like I picture, like, myself, and I'm like, protecting all of the things from wife and children.
They get to live this blissful life. Yeah. And I'm over here with this big old shield. You know? Yeah. 100%. And ideally, like what you're saying is that I don't always have to be, the one taking the the shots. But That's okay too for a period of time. That's part of the journey. I wanna know, I wanna know a little bit about your journey. So you you've started multiple companies. You've been in the insurance game forever.
Tell us a little bit from, you know, before and how you got to where you are. Sure. So, it's funny. I literally just did The. With a potential seller like an hour a half ago. So it's fresh in my mind. I've my journey starts in Chicago, Illinois outside of the city. My dad was an insurance guy. I was the 4th of 4 kids. The only only son And by the time I graduated from college, I went to Drake in Des Moines, Iowa.
When I graduated, my dad had had fulfilled his dream, and bought his own insurance agency. And I didn't wanna go to work for him. I, you know, I loved my dad. He was a great guy, a huge mentor to me, and which, you know, Kings drips through a lot of entrepreneurism. Sure. But I wanted to go do something else. So I got a job with a very large company selling fax machines, which back in those days, that was cool. That was. Yeah. And then my mom and dad came out to graduation.
And my dad said, look, I'm so proud of you. You've done this. He said, but if you have any interest whatsoever in my industry, I've been able to arrange an internship for you in London at Lloyds of London, which was the birthplace of insurance. I was like, wow, London Insurance, Iowa fax machines. I don't want it. What I learned in those 6 months, this is late 1985 early 1986 is my business is a relationship business. Yeah. And I'm pretty good at that.
I'm I learned really quickly that in so back in those days at Lloyds in London, you The was no internet. There was no email. If you wanted something done, you had to go into this huge room, which which was called the underwriting room. You had to find the particular guy or girl that did your line of business, and you had to stand in line. You had to queue up to see that person. And if you b s Chaz person, if they ask you a question and you b s them, you couldn't come back and see him.
You were banned. So I learned really quickly about a lot of things. So then the fast forward is came back to Chicago for a couple years. Moved down here to Richmond, Virginia where I'm based where my father had moved and done a leveraged buyout of a company. Okay. And I went to work for my dad. Company was publicly held on the Nasdaq exchange. Couldn't do it today. It was they went public at 30,000,000 in revenue. And we had a great business. I built a book of business. I really enjoyed it.
But I always had this nagging feeling that I'm only my dad was Bob Hill. And so I always had this feeling that, you know, I was getting things because I was his son. And if I did something well, it was because I was his son. I did something poorly. Now a lot of that was in my own head. Yep. But that was powerful to me. Yeah. It's a story. Dad retires 97. I left the company in 2000 for a whole variety of reasons. Great people. Just I just needed to do something else.
So I went out and I bought, in 2001, a, I bought 2 industrial supply businesses. So totally out of my comfort zone. Totally, you know, I didn't know a damn thing about it, but I was betting on myself. And one of them turned out pretty good. One of them Chaz was an absolute disaster. And basically what I learned in that period of time was I learned how to actually run a business. I learned how to manage cash flow. I learned how to you know, project.
And I learned how to manage people because I really hadn't done that. And so if we hadn't had the downturn of 0 809, which some of your listeners may remember, Chaz was devastating. In my industry, which was mostly manufacturing. So I I had to shut one of my businesses down which was a heartbreaker. I took on over a $1,000,000 in debt, that I was personally guaranteed on, and I didn't have a $1,000,000. But and then I sold the other business.
And so then during all of that period of time, I decided, okay. I'm gonna get back into what I know, which is the insurance business. And that's when I launched this company called The Help Group, which today is oh, $550,000,000 of annual revenue. And I took it from 0 to a 150,000,000, and I'll tell you that story later. And I had a great experience, learned a ton.
I was shocked in those early days when people were actually entrusting their future with me because I felt like a fraud in those early days. Yeah. Chaz was a really big thing for me. Company started really clicking on all cylinders. I had a separation from that company in 2017, which I'll give you more details on in a minute. And then I was sort of 2017, I was 54. And I was like, okay. What am I gonna do? I had a non compete. Couldn't do anything for a year.
And then that old company sold in 2019, and I made the decision to to liquidate. And So then I Kings of was like, okay. I'm done. I'm great. You know? Thank you, Laurie. And then this opportunity came along about 2 months after the company sold, I was doing some consulting. And the fellow that started choice called me and said, hey. I've heard your name. I'm trying to do some acquisitions. Can you help me? And here we are today.
So a really interesting for me, story, because it's got, like, here, all of us, it's got highs and lows. Yeah. There's several things I wanna dig into. I wanna get into your the the the growth piece here in a second, but I wanna go back to what you said as far as, like, your why now is the finishing piece. Because some people might have heard your story just now and been like, okay.
Well, you built a $150,000,000 company after you know, having some menial success, some failures and then boom, you hit the the the jackpot and and Chaz company sold out and, you know, you had your payout. Right. What was there in your mind left to finish that you're doing now? Right. It's a good question. So what happened to me in that company? And as I said to you before we went live, I named that company after my father.
Yeah. You know, so my dad was a big guy in the insurance business, and He was Bob Hillball. So so most of my dad died 3 years ago at 93. He had a great run. But, yeah, really, my mom's 95 still alive. I'm going to see her tonight, in fact. So I wanted to my dad was always I guess, frustrated when that company, his original company sold, the people that bought it changed the name. And that really bummed him out. So in in initially, in 2009, I wanted to get his brand back into the industry.
And candidly, it was it was a lot of ego as well. Oh, sure. Yeah. It's your name too. So what I saw was left to finish was the way my experience at that company ended. Yeah. So what happened to me is I realized pretty early on that I did. I was 46 when I started the Hill group. I didn't have enough runway in my opinion. To build a company bootstrapped it and create the opportunity that I wanted to create for my family and for myself.
Right. So I took on private equity, and private equity is terrific until it's not. And so So we had one partner from 2011 to 2015, and that was phenomenal. Absolutely terrific. Still good friends with the guys in that firm. The second partner turned out to be just fine, but I ended up having a personality conflict with one of the guys In fact, what happened was I was, walking through the airport in Indianapolis in the summer of 2016, and my phone rings.
It's one of my partners, a guy that sold to me. And he says, hey. Why did X Y Z PE firm which is our backer, which is my backer. Why did they just invest in our biggest competitor? Now when you're buying insurance agencies and you're owned by private equity, today, there's about 30 of us out there. Back in 2016, there were maybe 15 of us. So that was kind of a big deal. Yeah. And my response to my guy was, well, there's no way that happened because they would have called me and told me.
So I called my guy at the firm. And he said, Oh, yeah. My boss was supposed to call you. And so as boss gets on the phone and Chaz, I expressed my dismay by using a word that starts with mother. It's I and I said, look, man, I don't give a darn that you invested. I care that you didn't tell me. And 8 months later, that guy fired me. And, you know, company was doing well. It was doing fine. I was the 2nd largest shareholder.
And, you know, he just, you know, couldn't get his head around sort of some of the stuff that had happened. And at the time, This is all goes back to why I wanna finish. At the time, that was probably the worst thing that had ever happened to me. Yeah. And and I say that a little bit tongue in cheek today because now I realize that's no big deal. Right? That could happen to me today right now, be like, okay, great. See you. But back then, I had so much of my personal net worth, not financial.
Netful. Yeah. Your value. Right. Tied up And I'll never forget my wife. I've been married to my wife, Kelly, for almost 33 years. She's magnificent. And I came in the door And I knew it was gonna happen. So I had figured out it was gonna happen, and it was 4:30 on whatever, Tuesday. And I came in the door at 1 o'clock. I'm like, I'm getting I'm getting fired. And she goes, oh my gosh, that's fantastic. We're happy. And I was like, I was like, wait a minute. Wait a second.
I don't think you get this. You and So the point of the whole story was I got fired. I've like I told you before we jumped on, I Kings of fell into this really deep depression. I mean, I was really just couldn't figure it out, and I had people from the company calling me and saying, you know, I can't believe this happened, you know, and they brought in a really, really The PE guys brought in a brilliant financial guy.
And he did a great job taking the company forward, and he's still running the business today. So I don't know the guy, but he's clearly brilliant. Yeah. And but I I was that relationship guy. So I kept my phone kept ringing nonstop for probably 5 or 6 days. People in the firm calling me saying, I sold to you. And so I made the the process of building that company very personal.
And so what I wanted to finish was The reason I jumped back in was that opportunity to Even though I don't I don't need it any longer, there's something exciting about the ability to say, yeah. I was pretty good at this, and I wanna be able to prove to myself, my kids, Yeah. Now that I could do it. So Yeah. That's very long winded, but I hope it makes sense. Yeah. It's it's a great story. I appreciate you sharing all the details. I I think that the listener can pull so much from that.
Not only if they're early on in their stage of building a business or, building a legacy even, because that's really what we're talking about here. We're talking about you finishing your legacy in the insurance world or possibly even finishing your dad's legacy and, like, you guys together. Yeah. The is really powerful stuff that moves people. And when I say people, I mean, entrepreneurs because We do crazy stuff. We do. We do crazy stuff. And most people look at us as, like, it's unrelatable.
You're intense. Why would you do that? Because we're motivated by things like this. And, if if if not us, who? Someone that's not motivated the way entrepreneurs are, would have just said, okay. That's fine. Go ahead and go ahead and invest in my competitor. I'm not gonna complain. And there's nothing wrong with that. There really isn't. But the thing that drives us as as entrepreneurs is the belief in ourself, the belief that we can create something different.
Yeah. And hopefully that's something different improves people's lives. And I just felt very passionately about that. In the scaling process of 0 to a 150,000,000, I mean, holy geez, what was one good decision? Then you would look back on and go, I would do this one thing over and over and over again. Sure. Sure. I think the number one good decision I made was I really tried to understand I spent a lot of time trying to get in the head of the person or people selling.
So numbers, financials can tell you one Gathering, but this is, again, pre COVID. Right? So back in those days, we did all of our meetings face to face when there's so there's a whole world of investment bankers that just do the insurance brokerage industry. Right. So as I was scaling up the company, I was blessed because they knew the name. They knew my dad's name. And so I would get people calling me saying, hey. I hear you got PE.
So the thing that I would do over and over and over again, and this was frustrating to private equity. But I really focused my attention on is this person going to be a good fit? Is he or she going to really buy into our culture. I'll give you one really interesting example. Speaking. So you know, one of the things that we did that I would do over and over again, and I'm doing it right now at my business, is everyone that sells sold to us at that company and at choice.
We all become a we all become shareholders and the holding company. Right. And so that shares the wealth. Right? Really, really vitally important that the wealth is not concentrated just among my leadership team. So I want everyone to hit not everyone, but all the sellers to have a a a piece of the pie Yeah. And when I would run into a struggle with one of my folks who, for example, I one guy was growing exponentially. And he overhired. He probably brought in six people too many.
And all of a sudden his earnings, his EBITDA Kings of went like this and then it started to go down. And and he was very, very resistant. To shedding these people. So I called him and I'm like, Hey, I gotta come see you. So I flew up to where he was. I sat down with him, and I had this whole little spreadsheet worked out.
Where I showed him how many shares of stock he owned, how many shares of stock we had in the company, and how the fact that he had over he had over hired by $350,000 and was reducing his EBITDA. What that impacted the stock price? And I broke it down to him personally. And he was like, oh, this makes perfect sense. And he went out and got rid of the people. He didn't like it, but he had to do it.
Yeah. Yeah. So Chaz personal touch and making everyone shareholders, that's one thing I would do over and over and over again. Hey, Kings and Queens. Chaz Wolf. I wanna talk to you about something that's super important to me. We put a lot of time and effort. We, meaning myself and my team, into this podcast, into the content that goes out every single day. And if you have been getting any sort of value or insight from this, we want it to be able to reach other business owners too.
So we would love if you would like, comment, share, leave a review, post, share again, all of the Kings. 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. Yeah. And Chaz that piece right there that you just mentioned, it the touch, but then also what you were able to do through that personal touch is communicate on a completely different level Right.
With someone who was resistant, probably a little ego driven, probably just didn't understand, which, I mean, how I'm just thinking of myself and the listeners right now, how many times have you had an employee, a partner, a strategic partner, you know, somebody who just is just doing their thing and that there's just a gap in communication. And because you haven't made it personal, because you haven't, like, been genuine, You can't cross this huge chasm, but it's actually not.
It's actually really not that big. You just haven't done the work to cross it. Would you agree with this? 100%. And I think that is, in my opinion, that's one of the biggest keys of success. Is being able, you know, before when I was doing my old company, this is one of the really cool things that the struggle I went through, When I was doing my old company, I was terrified, terrified of having a difficult conversation with one of my people. Because I'm one of them all to like me.
That was my most and that's still important. Right? We all wanna be liked. Right? But now I really care a whole lot less about Chaz. Right. Because what I'm here to do, and I tell people in this current business this all the time, I will always do what is right for the shareholders. And we're all shareholders. And so if we all row in the same direction, we'll have success. And you can break that down. You don't have to have, like I do, a 100 and something shareholders.
You can break that down in a business where you have 2 shareholders. Where you can break that down when you are struggling with a client or a vendor or one of your employees. It's just the ability to wade into that uncomfortable space and sit down and be able to say to someone Hey. This isn't working. Here's why it's not working. From my point of view, what's your opinion? Yeah. And I I I have found it's really vital to, as my wife says, talk less. You know, what is it from Hamilton?
Talk less, smile more. Yeah. And so That's one of the things I've been really, really blessed with in the last couple of years. Talk a lot less. Listen a lot more. Yeah. It this is a a fairly you know, regular thing for somebody who is blessed with the gift of tongue and, the ability to persuade and communicate Yeah. But it's it's the opposite for the guy who isn't blessed with that. He he typically has a better, maybe maybe natural inclination to listen.
The thing I heard that you just said that I wanna dig into is that you care less now about what other people think. And we all say this. It's like super cliche. Don't care what other people think. But we all do, but but we all try not The. And, you know, over the course of time, our perspective changes. And so for you, what changed specifically, or was there a circumstance, or some something that you can point to where you're like, yeah.
At this point, I realized it really didn't matter that much, and it was like a light bulb. I think for me, one of the things that was really fascinating after I got fired in 2017 was the the way I had and this is probably why I care a lot less today. I had made the guys and the girls on my leadership team, my friends. And when that when I was, obviously, they were told, don't talk to this guy anymore. That was a huge pain in me. That was like, oh my gosh. What have I done?
You know, for somebody that back in those days put so much emphasis on people liking me. That was a really hard thing. The blessing of that, Chad, is all of a sudden. I always have been blessed just like The and my wife's. Everyone loves my wife. And so we've got a lot of couple friends. But one of the things I really focused my attention on in the last 6 years is cultivate cultivating my personal friendships. And that, you know, people not from the business world. Right.
And that was really the key for me. Was recognizing that number 1, I had people who had been good friends for 25 years, The were so used to hill being on the road all the time. And all of a sudden, I'm home. And I was really just completely blessed by about 4 or 5 guys that just went out of their way and, you know, mentored me and helped me through. And so today, That's my number one thing. Are my kids, my wife, my friend.
Well, it's I tell everyone when they try to come, when they're looking at choice, as a partner. I said, we are I'm really simple. It's faith, family, business, and I include friendships in in the family. Yeah. And so if I get into a situation today where it goes against a lot of my faith beliefs and values, I won't do it. And that causes enormous challenges sometimes with some of my other leadership team members and some of my private equity guys.
But I was very upfront with these guys before I ever took this job. I'm like, look, this is what's important to me. Now I'm a capitalist. I wanna make a profit. I wanna do those things. But at the end of the day, there's a right way and a wrong way to treat people. Pretty simple. Yeah. That's right.
It's interesting because what you're saying is is it's so right, but I I wanna correlate it to not only, why I started gathering the Kings, but the position I I was in before I started it was I I was seeking people that I could be friendship in friendship with And it's it's funny as guys, we don't necessarily, like, we say friendship, and it's like, it's kind of like a soft word. You know? I need encouragement or I need friends. And as a, like, an intense business guy, it's like, see.
Nah. Yeah. The reality of it is is that we need community. That's really what it is. That's re I need another person to sometimes lock arms with, to challenge me, to encourage me, what whatever the the day might consist of. And so what I found is that The are important, like what you're saying. The next level that for me of enlightenment was, okay. Well, if I could have that type of relationship, with someone who's like me at the The that runs at the same pace, maybe Kings not in my business.
And so that's where you and I are like. It's like, okay. Yes. The this mastermind member, he's not in my business. We're not talking functionality day to day stuff like we would if we were partners or if he was an employee, something like Chaz, but we still can talk the same language as high performing achievers. And it was just like, okay. When I put those 2 together, it was like, oh, okay. I get this because I got a fulfillment The. That I didn't with my church buddies or my whatever.
It's like, it was good, but they just didn't operate at the same level, mentally, physically, intense wise. I just was, like, always, like, challenges just that crazy guy. You know? But you start getting around other crazy guys who also then can encourage you challenge you. You know, be a friend, you know, at times. It's like, woah, that that'll take you to a whole another stratosphere of thought.
100% And I would also advocate that as entrepreneurs, we never know the other entrepreneurs that need our support. And so one of the things Chaz my separation in 2017 created margin and time for, was to mentor other younger entrepreneurs. And I've got a group of 2 or 3 guys and girls that I have been really, really blessed to spend time as they grow their businesses. Exactly what you're just saying. Not in my business at all. Yeah. But you know, I've got a little bit of gray hair.
And so I have the I have some war wounds, and I'm able to Kings of say, hey, this is really important. This is what worked for me. And, that's gosh. That's just a huge, huge blessing. Yeah. That'll keep you fired up. We've got, a member of Gathering The Kings who all also has a very large business, 3 or 400000000, and, his his perspective, it was interesting because you know, we don't we don't, it's very much like a like a, hey, if we're like minded here, cool. If not, like, super, no big deal.
Because I'm just, like, all about rich and raw, like, moments. And that can't happen if we're, like, forced into a situation. And so, anyway, his his his response was, look, man, whether it's the guy that just crossed over a 1,000,000 or a guy that's doing 30,000,000, The guys are, like, in the heat of battle, and I need to be reminded sometimes of the things that I've even taught other people.
Mhmm. But hearing them go through it, is really encouraging to me because even at this level, there's just, you know, battles or or strategic moves being made. And, again, it's a rising tide raises all ships. And so I think what you're saying, very similar to what what, this guy is saying.
It's like, look, it doesn't really matter The revenue marker, actually, does a little bit because there's certain conversations happening at certain breakpoints, but the reality of it is is that we need each other. Yeah. And and, you know, one of the other, just sort of a tangential comment about this, one of the greatest blessings for me has been my ability to I'll never forget this. Gosh, 30 something years ago. I was going through some personal stuff, and I was working for my dad.
And my dad made the comment. And back in those days, when you went into the office building where we were, you parked your car, you went in the backdoor, you walked up the stairs, to the office. I remember my dad saying, you gotta leave your crap at the door. And you when you walk in, so what's the flip side of that? You come home, you walk out the door, you pick up your Chaz, and you bring it home with you. And that's bad. That's just Chaz we all struggle with it. Right?
Yeah. And so one of the greatest things that I have been blessed with in the last 5 or 6 years, especially the last 2 years doing this is I don't bring this stuff home anymore. I'm I try really, really hard to be present to listen. And I think that's so hard for us as entrepreneurs because we want success. And it's, you know, one of the things that's interesting And again, I give my wife all the credit to this. My wife got very passionate around especially when our 2 our kids are 28, 26, 21.
So you dial it back 7 years. I'm still running the old company, and I would constantly have my phone with me all the time. And because I felt like, oh my gosh, I have to be right there. And my wife was like, look, man, you have got to park your phone when you come in the door. And so we've been doing that for 5 or 6 years. And we've been pretty pretty adamant with our kids that, hey, you know, look, I get it.
You're that generation, but, like, we're we're all at the beach, for 2 weeks, couple weeks ago. And we got this this thing called an arrow. It's like a box And you it has like the little you you and you Chaz stick your phones in there and you don't hear them. You don't even if they're on, you know, vibrate. We make every day a couple of hours for arrow and everyone's off The screen. You're talking and you're playing games and So that stuff is important as well.
I know that's not where you were going, but I just wanted to add that. Yeah. Super rich. Let's just transition right into that because I think family makes a big difference, to the success of an entrepreneur. But if we if we bring our crap home or don't know how to deal with it, that's really better, perspective is how to deal with it so that you you don't have to bring it anywhere. Right. My my question is The. We we obsess clearly. Like, that's what you have done.
You have done it so, so well in the business world. But I wanna know some practicals that you can share with listeners of ways that you've obsessed over the family. You kinda give us one now that you're doing, like, with the phones and stuff, but maybe through those those coming up years where it was harder, maybe when you weren't that good at it. Yeah. What'd you do then that still made an impact on the kids and even in your marriage? Yeah. Yeah. So, couple Kings.
I promised so long story when I was much younger, and my kids were much younger. I would travel all the time. And when my daughter who was about to turn 26 was 2, I remember vividly, you know, packing my this is before roller bags. So I'm packing my hanging bag, and my little daughter walks in and goes, oh, daddy never home. And that just cut me. And that was part of the reason I exited the insurance business the first time.
Sure. So when I So when I to answer your question, when I got back into it, in 2009, my kids were 14, 12, and 7. And I made a commitment to my wife that I would never be gone on the road for more than 2 nights. And By and large, I stuck to that. So that was number 1. The second thing I did was my kids were involved in sport. Kings know, Lacrosse field hockey, stuff like that. And I put those games on my calendar, and that was pretty much a vile, you know, in violent.
So I was going to be in the stands supporting my kids. Now did I make everyone know? But I was able to be there to, you know, support my kids and build that community. We talk about how important it is to have communities. So those are the those are the couple of things that I did, you know, 15 years ago. That I think is why I have a pretty decent relationship with, you know, my kids and certainly why the marriage is still is still here.
If, you know, my wife was candidly frustrated with me traveling all the time and bringing so much work home. So, being able to divorce from that a little bit was was important. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, we well, every entrepreneur on the male side Right. If we're being honest, we've had that same conversation. And probably for the female side too if if you're if they're running a a ship, but it it always feels maybe a little bit different.
The one thing that you just said in there, Chaz was really powerful is just that your ability to, I guess let something impactful actually cause change. You know? And so there's just a lot of times where entrepreneurs, we we learn something. Maybe they're even listening to this podcast and like, oh, that was really good Chaz Bob said blah blah blah. And then We never implemented. It just it just it was it was good in the moment. It sounded great. It made us feel good and then nothing.
Right. But what I heard you say is that there were certain circumstances you know, your daughter, the conversations with your wife, those things along the way. Sometimes it takes more than one time, but, you know, we we get it eventually. And what you did is you're like, no. No. No. Like, this is actually now to me. I'm gonna start putting parameters in place to safeguard what what I'm saying is important to me.
I noticed the same thing as, like, I was saying my family was work, but it wasn't on my calendar. And so what was on my calendar was work. You know? And it's like, well, how okay. Wait a second. Let's at least make them equal. You know? Perfect. At least put them both on the calendar. Right. And, obviously, there's a lot of growth to go from there.
The is, but I think if we are especially and I could only speak to my journey as a dude, right, So, you know, in the in my relationship in life, right? You know, the lord has blessed me with a great life and 3 great kids. My number one job has been to raise my children with my wife at my side, and we are partners in that. Into functional adults. Right? And that's Right. And so but part of that is them knowing and feeling and seeing that mom and dad love them, and they are here to support you.
So that was important to me. And candidly, no disrespect to my late father, my dad came from a generation that that wasn't important. Chaz was not a thing for him. Yeah. And, you know, he played golf Saturday Sunday, but one of my fondest memories which my siblings don't have is by the time I was 7 or 8, he would come home Sunday afternoon. He'd grab me. We'd go back out for 9 more holes. And so so much of my young life was formed by asking him questions during those 2 hours every Sunday.
So I tried to be pretty intentional when my boys were younger. My daughter's never really taken to the game. She'll say she is, but she's not but so the boys and I played a lot of golf and spent a lot of time. And whether it's golf or fly fishing or Whatever your thing is, you gotta be intentional about making time for your Kings. And that is a hard thing because at least from my perspective, I would be so exhausted, you know, the grind of growing and running a business.
And I'd be just like, oh, just leave me alone. And, yeah, it caused some challenges with my wife and I in the early days, you know, where our kids were little. And, I'm really glad I did. I'm really glad I did that. Because now it's it, you know, it's not that everything's perfect because no one life ever is.
But, I think if we as entrepreneurs can disconnect a little bit, the other thing I've started doing, even with this new job is making time for my wife and I to travel, to be together, to go and do say where it's just the 2 of us for 10 days. And, much to the chagrin of my current PE partners who are great guys. You know, when I do that, I disconnect and I tell them I'm gonna be out of the office.
Now, they don't like that, but that's, you know, that's I was very and I'm obviously in a different position, right? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Over Chaz, not everyone can do that. But I saw from my own experience in I can't tell you the number of calls I made from the beach in 2012, 13, 14, 15, 16. Because the PE guys don't, you know, their job is to create return for their investors. And I get that. And so I'm just trying to find that balance and So it's pretty cool.
I I appreciate all that you've shared. I think there's really helpful practicals in there. What about a business resource? That you can share. Business book, an event that you've been to a podcast, something like that. Yeah. So a couple Kings. Number 1, my dad gave me a book called The E Myth. So E Myth work on the work on the business, not in the business. Yeah. Chaz was really helpful. And then the other thing I have found is, you know, there are so I try and this is just local grassroots.
I try to find other entrepreneurs that I can have coffee with, go to lunch with play golf with, I had a group of guys. It's funny. I had these 3 guys who are dear dear friends. In fact, we We leave to go to Scotland for 10 days to play golf next Tuesday. Nice. And 15 years ago, we all owned our own business. And we played golf every single Thursday afternoon. And number 1, it was The ability to blow some steam off.
But number 2, we'd sit around afterwards having a drink Kings about the challenges we Chaz. And you you realize real so that peer group Yeah. Finding a peer group. So those are the two things I would say. You know, you The E myth is a brilliant book and there's a gazillion Yeah. Business books. That one resonated to me And then finding that peer group, you know, it's funny. One of my good friends who is a, who is a competitor of mine? He's, you know, in the Midwest, I'm here.
We talk probably once a month, and he calls me his his conciliiary, right? Cause he's like, he's like, you're the 1. He's a he's a majority shareholder. Right? He doesn't have outside capital. And he can call me and say, Hey, I'm thinking about doing this. So peer groups are really important. So those are the 2 takeaways. Would say. Yeah. Those are very, very important. Obviously, a big part of that second piece is why The the Kings exist.
That moment for entrepreneurs, even our own clients, where they've gotten into a room, and they hear what goes around the table. And they're like, oh, You're dealing with the same? Got it. Okay. This like oh, and I was in, I was in a peer, a CEO forum Yeah. From probably 4 to 12. And it was so it was the same group of guys and girls. You know, great fellow that led it. And, you know, I go back to what I said a few minutes ago. I back in those days, I I always wanted everyone to love me. Right?
And so I had this one particular employee This is when I owned my industrial supply companies who was a brilliant, great productive guy. But he was a real pain in the ass when it comes to financial things. And so I'd come in and it got to the point where after the 3rd year, I'd bring this guy up again and they all all these peers will be like, help. We've already talked about this. You just, this, this, and this. Yeah. And, you know, it was really helpful.
Yeah. The The, what you just described is is is community. It's like they they loved you even though you were being stubborn and you weren't doing what you needed to do. Right. But yet challenged you enough to say, hey. Well, okay. Enough is enough. Yeah. We've heard you complain about this long enough. Either change it or or shut up. And and that's really what it comes down to in business is change it or or move on. Like, because I don't wanna hear it any longer.
There's gotta be space initially. Space is created by relationship, like you said, originally. So Right. All these things are are super powerful. I got one last question for you here. I wanna know if you had the opportunity to reach back in time and whisper to the younger bop. What would you tell? Yeah. It's a really great question. I tell this story all the time. And the answer is I would listen to my gut. More frequently. Okay. And I'll give you a very specific example.
The in 2017. We were doing, we were selling the company to his the firm that he was involved with in 2015. And at the time I was a classic entrepreneur, Chaz, I had been working my tail off But I had a $100,000 in credit card debt. I was barely scraping by. And I had this deal Chaz was gonna give me some money. I was gonna reinvest most of it. And I was gonna but I was gonna be able to take enough off the table to pay off my debt and have a little bit left over. Swear to god.
My wife tells the story. It's so funny. I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm absolutely screaming. Because I'm having this dream where a snake is chasing me. And the head of the snake was the dude that ended up firing me two and a half years later. Wow. I believe her passionately. That was my subconscious trying to tell me. You're making the wrong decision, Bob. Don't do the deal. Yeah. And I should have listened.
In retrospect, it is what it is, but so many of us don't pay attention to that voice in our head. Whether that's my subconscious, whether that's the lord, whatever it was. Yeah. I paid a lot more attention to that now. The I did Chaz. Yeah. That's good. I loved the the the opportunity or space that you gave to that because sometimes it is The subconscious. Sometimes it is The lord. And I think both of those have operated in me, so I can I can attest to both of those?
Bob, how can the listener find you? Number 1, if they're an insurance agent, right now, and they wanna become a partner or, they need insurance. And they just wanna call you up or The of your brokers somewhere. How can they reach you that way, or if they just wanna connect with you as an entrepreneur, where can they find you? Sure. So, there's a couple of ways. The go to choice dot partners. And you'll have a form there where you can reach out and connect with me. And that'll get in to me.
You know, from the from that perspective as I'm on LinkedIn. And, so those are probably the 2 best ways in my opinion. Yeah. That's great. We'll put all that in the show notes as well. Easy click for them to be able to find you. Bob, Kings or sage, whatever it is, you've been incredible. Thank you for sharing the story. Thank you. Appreciate that. Blessings to your friends, your family, your business partners. You, thank you for being here, sir. Chaz, thank you. It's been a real pleasure.
I've loved every minute of it. And, I'm really excited by being being a part of it. So thank 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 The multiple different industries and now interviewing over 2 or 300 The 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 The very successful business owners. I want you to go to Gathering.
Kings 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.