On today's episode of Gathering The Kings. I walked out on my restaurant career. That's how you have to leave jobs after 13 years because your boss will just talk you into staying. Like, let let's be real. It's like, they'll throw money at you. The over work you less hours. No. I need to go somewhere else. Okay. It's not something that needs. Right? Get me out of here.
You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolfe Gathering fellow 78 and even 9 figure business owners who have real battle scars, from business and life, but have prevailed as the king that they are designed to be. We welcome high performing entrepreneurs to the stage in order to reveal the real of the real on what it takes to build a successful business today.
We dissect the good and bad decisions they've made along the way The The true and accurate picture of the journey growing your network and surrounding yourself with power players and Kings like today's guest. Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to dive in. Alright. What's up everybody? Chaz Wolfe Gathering the The podcast. We've got Nicholas Nick on the king's days today. What's up, my brother? How you doing? Doing really good. They're doing really good.
Having a having a bad I I woke up today. We did, like, over $25100 or 8:30 AM. And I was like, man, this is a good day. Oh, yeah. That's that's a that's a good one to wake up to. Yeah. You know, that goes into my morning routine a little bit. The first thing I check all bank accounts. I gotta know. Is today is today a fight or flight day? Wolfe, we help her way down. That's right. That's right. But in all seriousness, thank you for being here.
We appreciate you just taking the the moments away from those other deals that you got going, but tell us what kind of business The you got, brother. So what I offer is super unique and amazing. We really are when most people find us, one of the main things they say is, man, are are you the only thing like you.
And, you know, I really think that we are, and we are a all inclusive lead generation company that pulls list, skip trace The for phone numbers, cold calls them, text messages, we offer a CRM, You know, you name it in their lead gen, and we either provide it, or we know a lot about it. So, our our main niche is real estate investors. Yeah. But we've been open for 5 years. So our niche is now lead generation after that many years. You know?
You can't help it be into everything after that money years of success. So Yeah. Yeah. It's it's been great. And so if if someone's listening today, they're not in The real estate space, and they would find value in purchasing lists and a team to cold call those lists and set up appointments. That that's what you do? Yeah. Basically. And, you know, what we do is I do try to keep it simple. We aren't closers. You know? And and I think that's also too much responsibility to hire out.
Be completely honest, but that's a different conversation. You know, we are lead generation's information capturers when we take on a custom script, which we do all the time, I have a great process, and I'll go over with you. So if you're not in real estate and you would follow this process, you would either have a list or one of ours that we provide would work for your industry, then you would send over a rough draft script. You don't have to be good. I'm great.
So you just have to tell me your point and I'll make it better, period, extra cost for that. And then we create a group chat on Facebook with me you, my operations manager, and your cold caller, and we chisel this thing out. We give them the script. They can provide live feedback whether it's Hey. This line doesn't work. They keep hanging up on me. I keep getting wrong numbers. Are you sure this is the right list? You know, and you get live feedback. So it's not like 4 days late.
Like, you can your money is respected immediately. And to be honest with you, And most of our other industries, we knock it out of the park. You know, that type of live feedback allows us to figure this out extremely quickly. So week 1 might suck not gonna lie. That's the kinks But, you know, week 2, week 3, week 4 on custom campaigns generally take off Chaz long as we have a good list and a good script we can really make it happen. I love it.
Yeah. Obviously, I mean, being in real estate, multiple sectors of real estate, and having decades of cold calling experience. I'll I'm you're merging those 2 things together. I love it. Yeah. I love it. And, The, oh, go ahead. No. No. Go ahead. What were you gonna say? You know, a lot of people ask us, you know, after 5 years, like, how do we do it? How do we get so many leads? What's our secret sauce? And it's honestly a super simple answer, and we we would we do the same thing every time.
And I think when a lot of people take on stuff themselves, they start to get complacent or too good and they forget they leave. So, oh, I actually leave that part out of the script to make it harder on myself. You know, whatever the hell we tell ourselves, And and I think, like, our secret sauce is really just consistency. We don't do anything special. Our script is for free on the internet. So anyone could really duplicate our service. Right?
But it's our ability to do it every day in a really high quality way Chaz, I think, allows it to work so well. I I love businesses like that. I mean, some people, some, in today's world, kind of like the the the buzzword is boring businesses. And it's like you can repeat what you just said. You can repeat being a plumber. You can you can all these things can be repeated. It's just a matter of you going and doing it. Right. So I'm excited to hear some of that perspective.
Before before we do that though, I wanna before we jump into your history, why why at this level? The revenue marker, The money you've made, the team you've built, why are you still doing it? Dude, so I had a friend ask me the other day. He goes, when are you gonna fire yourself? From from from lead mining. And I was like, what? I was like, well, what would I fire myself from something that makes me money? I said, you know what? I fire myself from dishes, laundry, mopping, sweeping.
You know, I'm actually sitting right next to a towel on the floor. You know, I've retired from that too right there. And but it's like, for me, I'm naturally good at running business. And I think one thing you'll learn about my story is I ran restaurants for 13 years for 80 hours a week. Okay. If you ever know a restaurant manager, they'd literally work 70 to 80 hours a week, and I had a 10 hour commute my entire career. And I worked from 11 AM till 3 in the morning 5 days a week.
And now when customers call, I'm the only person that does any phone support anyone watching, try me even during this meeting if you want, but try me. And if my phone rings, I answered it if I can't. And I do that because It's still much easier than what I used to do as a career. You know? I had a guy call me at 10 o'clock the other night. Oh, Nick, and a lot of coo I can't believe you answer your own phone because I'm all over my website and stuff.
And Yeah. And I'm like, I don't know why I wouldn't answer my own phone. Like, I'm making almost a $1,000,000 a year. I still consider myself retired. I can still be on the jet ski and answer the phone, and I will. I'll answer the phone. I'll be like, I'll be like, I'm jet right now, but if you can hear me, we can keep talking. You know what I mean? And it's that's like a big authenticity play. But, anyways, The work I used to put in Gathering at 10 o'clock at night and pausing my Netflix?
No big deal. No big deal, brother. And I actually I hired a marketing company, and I was like, make my phone ring more. And then they're like, no. You'll bottle neck. You'll you'll bottleneck and you'll be the weakest part of your business. Well, I actually look at how long each call takes me when I hang up. And my average call because I am of the phone myself is 3 to 7 minutes. Right? So it's like, if they go on it because I want them to, first of all, Yeah.
But if I wanna be concise, we can wrap this up in 3 to 7 minutes if we have to. And I can handle There any of those at night? Yeah. Yeah. Well, and especially if you it it's not like you're it's not like you're doing everything in the business. Chaz just seems to be the best usage of your talents at the current moment. I'm sure at some point, if you're getting hundreds of calls a minute, you you wouldn't be the solution. And you know what? If that is the case, I'm making money hand over fist.
I'm stupid to hire a not to. At this point Exactly. You know, I told people now, I said, look, if I hired an employee to answer this phone, they would piss you off, and then they'd hand me the phone with you all pissed off. So it's like, I'm I'm just saving us a whole headache here. Yeah. And, you know, I'm also respecting my 13 years of customer service experience. You know, it it is my secret sauce. Like, if you wanna know what's so great about us, like, not to sound like a ego, but it's me.
You know, it's The fact that I won't give up on you. We have satisfaction guarantees and, you know, so many things to make sure my customers feel safe. And it's because not The salary, but I don't need their $200. I need their loyalty. I need one to love me. I don't need them. You gave me 200 bucks and you got 0 leads. I won. Like, man. But, you know, so one thing I offer is I have a 0 lead guarantee.
Anyone who uses my system will get 0 leads, I give them half of whatever they paid completely for free. So if you pay a thousand bucks and you get 0, honestly, even if you get 1, I still honor it. Right? If you pay a thousand bucks, and I give you $500 worth for free. I only ask one Kings, and that is that we learn from the first campaign. Let's have a meeting, talk about the numbers, troubleshoot it, and make new steps in a different direction, whatever Chaz is.
Because at that point, you're try to you're you're actually trying to deliver. The the the cool thing I wanna apply here for the listener is it's not so much of look at me, look what I can do. I'm the on the best at it because at this stage, for this specific role, you The, and there's a lot of owners right now who are doing that, and that's completely okay. It's when you get stuck in those other things. Also, what I heard you say was a distinctive I have a team.
I'm I match you with my operations person. I match you with a cold caller. Like, I I grouped the whole thing together. And, yes, this is my one little task. Well, it's not not just little, but it's not just The, but you built this system to where I don't want the listener hearing today thinking they're on the job site and they're also answering the phone and also following up and also sending invoices, or they're a marketing person like you.
And they're they're building the campaign, they're cold calling, then they're doing the customer's like, no. That's that's not that's that's not what Nicholas is saying. Okay? No. You're right. And, you know, to to go back, I was there. So, you know, to deconstruct a life that might be like that. If a lot of you and the example you just made, if you're like, well, Chaz doing that right now. Wolfe, here's here's what I did. So lead mining literally went viral 5 years ago.
I couldn't contain it if I wanted to. And I'm a customer service guy. So I'm gonna tell it, which means I'm a people pleaser, which means I'm saying yes, which I'm not saying I'm too busy. I'm saying I'll get to it, and I'm working 70 hours a week at the time. So I was I was our only employee and I was in the weeds. We literally on week 3, I went from 0 to $10,000 weeks on week 3. We started as only American coal collars. And by the way, back then, I was the open. You were it. Well, that was it.
Well and that was double the reason took off. It wasn't you weren't getting someone. It's you were getting me to cold call for you, and it blew up. Well, by week 6, I swear I'm crying at my desk. I'm The invoices. I'm doing I mean, these are good tears. These are tears of cash. Don't get me wrong. But you know what? I am done. Like, I'm gonna I'm gonna check into a mental institution if I don't get support. And I was sitting there, and I'm doing invoices, marketing, follow-up, cold calls.
And back then, I had no automation I'm getting a lead. It's being emailed to me on finding the email, looking up the client, sending it to The, and now I've got $10,000 in automation built around it. But so at that time, when I started doing And this is my go to advice with your consulting client or whatever is hire the thing you hate. Start there. Write down the thing you hate doing The most. And it's probably the most mundane time waster you do anyways. So give it to a VA. You know, invoicing.
You know, I it does not take a genius to The 100 send. Right? So I gave that away. I gave email follow-up away. I gave this away. Now every job in my business is taken, but the one I have now which is marketer and customer service. Yeah. The ones that you want. The the ones that I want. And that's why when you say Why do you still do this? Because I fired myself from every job that I hate. Yeah. And I only have what's left, the one that I love.
Yeah. So why would you fire yourself if you love it? Exactly. Such great perspective. I wanna dig into a little bit of that before we do, I'd love to know how you got started. How how did you stumble across cold calling, lead minor, like, real estate? Like, give us a little bit of The background here. Sure. So this, you know, I I've always been, somewhat of a storyteller, but I have a joke, and I do have my own Bible stories.
You know, my story when I when I was in it, I was very blind to all the details. So, you know, anyone else watching right now, you're at the hero of your own story right now. You just don't realize how strong you're Gathering. You know? And I was a restaurant manager for 13 years. To 31. Okay. And I was married for some of that time. I worked a lot And I was also a fiend for business books. 7 day 7 habits of highly effective people, good to great, I mean, you name the business book.
I'm listening to it in my hour commute that we talked about earlier. And then when I get to work, I'm like, practice. Practice. Practice. You know, I know. Literally. I'm like, okay. That doesn't work for me. That doesn't work for me. This really works for me. And you start to really learn your style. Yeah. So I I was a restaurant manager. That's what really taught me in the time after 13 years Wolfe I was quitting, I felt like I'd wasted 13 years.
I felt like this I couldn't believe I stayed for so long. I'm so stupid. Like, all The guilt and shape Sure. Keeping. And you know what? To this day, I give it every piece of credit. You know, if you think about it, people used to yell at me about their $5 hamburgers. And and I cared. And I didn't even cut the hamburger, or my name was on the door. None of that. Now I sell packages as low as $60. And when they're not happy with it, even if it's not my fault, like, I care about it.
I'm like, yo, so it's really easy for me to also have this huge concern for my clients because I cared when it was a $3 order of fry. Like Right. You think I don't care now? And now I get all of the revenue. You know? So Right. So it's even more important. So History, restaurant manager forever. That taught me people, systems, hiring, and training. Yeah. K. If I could really hire an employee, like, it's in training, I'm like, it's no one's business.
I probably hired over a 1000 employees in my 13 year career. And That's what told me that then. You may have heard of it. I used to be an executive at an education company called clever investor. With East River. K. Yep. Okay. I loved working for Cody. So I started working for Cody via one of his vice presidents. K? And I worked for him for a while about 8 months. He after I walked out on my restaurant career, that's how you have to leave jobs. After 13 years.
Because your your boss will just talk you when to stay. Like, let let's be real. It's like they'll throw money at you. The will work you less hours. No. I need to go somewhere else. Okay. It's not Come out. To me. Right? Get me out of here. And so I did. I walked out of that career. And so I'm out and I'm unemployed for 9 weeks. The 1st 5 weeks, they were not Chaz. I kept taking restaurant jobs, interviews, but turning them down. Right?
So I take the interview, help my ego Wolfe I'm unemployed, turn out turn down the offer because I'm not doing Chaz. The I get a interview with Clever in their Lakeland, Florida division, where I'm from, The little redneck town in this place called Polk County, and I couldn't believe it. I apply. Great interview. I don't hear anything back. For the first time in my life. I followed out with an interview. I've never done a Oh, okay. And I was like, hey, guys.
You know, I don't know why I do this, but, damn, we had such a good talk and, you know, and they literally said, and I'm gonna play for 9 weeks. At this point, depression sat in. I'm no longer turning down. Right. Restaurant jobs that I'm manipulating into giving me job offers even though I know I'm not taking now. So those aren't even coming anymore. And I'm starting to get more depressed, and I send this follow-up email. And they said, Nick, we totally forgot about you. Can you start tomorrow?
Woah. Wolfe. I I meet I met them somewhere. I asked for $17 an hour. They gave me 18. And we started. And they were so behind that I started working 70 hours a week right off the bat. My pay was literally the same as it was at the end of my 13 year restaurant career, as it was at the beginning of my $18 an hour overtime opportunity. Okay? And because The those stranger overtime, I'm really working the same, making the name. Right. Anyways, 9 months later, 3 promotions, I'm this guy's manager.
He ends up moving on to another opportunity, and The, luckily, they flew me out to Phoenix for 30 days to test me as the new executive in this role. And I guess he liked what I had to offer. I'm sure we'd be in the attitude. Right? Sure. Yeah. And I was like, this guy, I get him on my team. So then he gives me the job. And then for 3 years, I am the director of student services at clever investor. The means every client that goes through them Yeah. You know, I I was under my influence.
Chaz a way to say it. Well, I came from the restaurant industry. So we went from signing up clients and Maybe not touching them as much as we should to signing up clients. I'm calling me. I'm calling the same day. The concierge is calling you tomorrow. The other person's I created this system where we just beat you up with support So anyways, I worked at clever for some time, and they they threw an event that focused on direct mail. And, again, I am dealing with the student body.
And, like, I'm like, this isn't working. You know, people are not happy with the result that they're getting at this event because we're leaning too much on direct mail. So I, back then, knew nothing. Again, I'm a burger flipper, running restaurants for 13 years, 1 year into this position, And I said, guys, like, what's free? Chaz cold calling. Right. You know, I Chaz I can dial anyone for free? Yeah. Yeah. You know?
And so I we shifted, and we started teaching them how to pull this, skip trace, and cold call. And it was awesome. So we took this live event he threw. We shifted it to cold calling. It did wildly successful. The they introduced me to Dean Grasiosi, true story. I met Dean. I helped Dean throw 2 of these of that I taught him myself because I ended up coining this event Kings of thing. Yeah. The I was like, dude, I'm a year and a half out of my restaurant career, and I'm like, Dean Kings with you.
You're you're on a high. Yeah. I'm on a high. And I I couldn't believe it. And I I was not successful yet. I'm still making 65. I'm making my executive position was still under 70 gs a year. So you know, I I'm still in the same position I was, but I'm in a new position. Right? Right. The I saw cold calling was the way. Well, when things started when me and Cody started to drift apart, I had requested to work from home. They agreed. It was great. And I was like, well, I'm a start cold call.
You know, I need to get I need to get a deal. Okay. Now now I made all these people successful. I can be successful. You know? And so I start cold calling every day, and I'm super determined. And I I average 300 to 600 dials a day, for over 3 months. Okay? I had a business partner. He was supposed to be the closer, and I was the lead guy. Wait. It was it was great. You know, I ended up bringing in some leads. We didn't close anything, but I realized one thing and that I am a lead generator.
That's right. And as time went on, three people found out that I was cold calling. They said, Nick, could I pay you? Yeah. Sure. Sure. Yeah. And then this is where the story start ends or starts. Depends how you wanna look at it. Uh-huh. The day, I am very competitive, and I see a Filipino advertising The cold calling services inside of a group 5 years ago. And I'm like, she Kings let her get away with this. Uh-huh. So for the first time ever, I write a post advertising myself.
Yeah. And I said, hey, as I never do this, but I'm creating something unique. American only cold calling. I think back The, I charged 200 a $150 for 500 dials. Now it's 200, but a $150, 500 dials, Let me know if you're interested. Blah blah blah blah. I do all the work myself. Bam bam. I hit enter 287 people commented. I stayed up until 1 in the morning emailing everyone. The next day, I signed up 20 people And then I literally called Cody and was like, I quit.
And it wasn't anything because of him, but is like, you know and Yeah. You found your opportunity. The conversation actually was I don't wanna keep a commitment to you that I'm a rate, I'm not gonna be able to fulfill because I knew exciting thing coming at me. And, they actually asked for a 1 month notice, and, of course, was like, yeah. Like, I'm working from home. Hell, y'all work. I work an extra month. You know, and I probably needed that. Yeah. Just get your stuff together.
Get your mind right. And then You got 20 new clients. Yeah. And that was the birth of of lead mining. That was that was 5 years ago. I love it. I love the story, the energy, the passion that you speak it, or with, Hey, Charles Wolf 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, The is exactly what we're doing inside of the peer to peer mastermind group called Gathering The the Kings, specifically
for 7 to 9 figure business owners, So if that's you, if you're ready to level up your 7 to 9 figure business, even to the next level and get around other big hitters just like you, want you to go to Gathering the Kings dot com, 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. Okay. So so let's fast forward a little bit. So you start, you you know, twenty people the first day.
I wanna know somewhere in here, you know, maybe after your first 100,000, but before, you know, you said you're, around the $1,000,000 mark now, but somewhere in between there, we wanna know. What was a good decision that you made that you can look back? And it's just like, that one thing. Well, I'll be honest with you. That one decision never stops. That's right. That's so good perspective. Yeah. Like, I did it today. I did it yesterday.
My one decisions keep Gathering, and I can tell you that the minute I take my foot off the gas the minute the car stops running. You know? And I think that that's the that's the big lesson is you know, if it's actually Kings, you know, now that's a different conversation. Now if if if the question is, What is The decision that I think really allowed this to work? Sure. Yep. You know, I think was my 3 months of the 300 to 600 dials a day.
The wasn't an experiment after that 3 months, if that makes sense. And one of the biggest pieces of advice I give to most entrepreneurs is if you wanna if you think you'll have a dream, but you've never done it, You need to try it because it could not be your dream. I after I threw after I created this business, I threw a live event in my house. And I charge $2000 per person. 10 people Chaz make $20,000 in 2 days. I will never fucking do that again.
And it's like, some people will be like, well, dude, you bet. What do you do? Like, let's say it's not stupid. No. It's not really stupid. I thought that I wanted to have 10 entrepreneurs in my house listening to every word I was saying and blah blah blah. But you know what? I'd rather wake up and go jet skiing. You know, I really would I'd rather wake up and be like, you know, I don't I just don't feel like doing anything today.
I'd rather be that inflow and not that that's like a dis spec, but the point I'm making is I thought it was a dream of mine to throw an event in my house. Right? When I did it, and I loved it. And the people loved it. And it was great, but I wouldn't do it again. And if I did, it would be $5000 a ticket. You know? And so it's like so when I when we say, what is The decision is? I had that 3 month runway that taught me a, how much potential there was, and, b, that I can do it.
Yeah. Yeah. I think that the The decision that you not just the specific one that you're talking about, but the decision that you say you're making every day, That's Chaz. As general as that is. I want the listener to Kings really pay attention to the mindset there because everything that just happened, what you just said was I keep making good decisions, which then gives me confidence.
I keep making good things happen, which then looking back at it, you don't really realize it, but It's a history or a track record of good decision little good decision today, tomorrow, next day. And and, of course, I think you're right. The the runway that you gave yourself is huge. I think even just the mindset and underneath going, okay.
Starting something from scratch and I have no pipeline, I need to basically outwork The process, everything, everyone, you know, and and and and so there may not be a guy listening right now that thinks, well, I I I have a pipeline. I have I'm turning away projects. Or clients or whatever. But it's still the same mindset, I guess, that goes into going, okay. Well, in this moment, what is it that I need?
And I need to go after that specific thing with right intention, good decision making abilities, and and which is a big part of the show. Like, I'm I'm I look back on my history. I'm like, bro, I am where I am today. Of course, we make mistakes, and, of course, we learn, but it is a long history of small decision, good decision, small decision, good decision, over and over and over again. So let's look.
Well, I was gonna say, and one thing I'd love to talk about is the people that turn away work think they're doing a great job. You know? An old offense to that person, but, you know, if you're turning away work for more than 2 months, like, your system stuff. And it's like, you know, it's your job to make sure you're not a ottleman. The of my friends posted the other day. Oh, I'm having to turn away work. And I was like, bro, you should create a system. He was actually trying to brag.
And I was like, well, you should create a system where, you know, you Chaz duplicate it. He's like he's like, Mike Tyson can't duplicate himself. And I was like, Mike Tyson can actually be in a movie and a commercial and all at the same time and not actually be at those places. And so it's like, Andy can have boxing gyms that he's actually doesn't even visit. That he can continue to teach.
And so one big thing to the person who's turning away work is find out what that is, and it's probably quality. And that's okay. What overcomes quality? That's called training. Yeah. You know, and so it's like, what's it gonna take? Do you need to get an apprentice right next to you? Right. You need to do something. What can you do so you can focus on, you know, steering the ship? My only job now is, like, fishing for customers. You know? And and, dude, that's a shitload of fun. It is. You know?
It is. That's a shitload of fun. Well, I I love the perspective. You you're you're giving it to him raw, which is great, because you're right. Whatever the hinge point is. And it's like these break points that we experience in business, every level that we go.
And then and then as the entrepreneur, it's our job to to solve Chaz, and the hinge point And so I think that you're spot on, whether it's someone, a key role, you know, building the team, giving all Kings away, all those things we talk about here. I can even think back to when I bought my 1st and second edible arrangements franchise, you know, Valentine's Day is a big deal. Big big game. And, first, store that I purchased the year before he had done, I think, 300 orders on Valentine's Day.
And and I had per I wanted to do at least double. And and we did. We did, like, 750, and and I felt like my teeth kicked in. You know, I literally, like, stayed up for 3 day straight, and I and I'd never wanted to experience it again. So I looked at our systems. What was broken? How did we how we we We did more, but, man, I understand now why he only wanted he, why he kept it. He said no more.
Okay. So now I need to press into the system that allows for The same type of quality, the same type of feel, the smoothness, the execution at this level, and that, like you said, often comes down to systems. Man, you know, customers You know, I'm under a firm believer of this too, and this isn't scarcity. I feel like this is reality. We have a heartbeat and service our business. You know, this heartbeat is not gonna beat forever. So do you have customers pounding down your fucking door?
You better serve them because they might not be there in 5 years. They might not be there when you come back. You know, maybe you serving them today in some capacity is gonna tee you up for their repeat business in 5 years, whatever that looks like, but, like, I feel like I can't turn away a customer. And, you know, I feel that my capacity is up to me. I that's not my customer's problem ever. Exactly. You know, like, oh, I'm sorry. We didn't have a cold caller for you this week.
That was not something anyone's ever heard from me. And so it's like, I make sure that not only is my pipeline full, but my pipeline is greased. So that way when that bitch does feel, I can I can really shove a bunch of stuff through it? Yep. You know? Yeah. I I I think that you are spending more value than you than you even realize, or especially then the listener realizes. I wanna flip the coin. I want you to tell me about a bad decision that you made.
We've we've given the all the credit to the good ones. What about a bad one? Wolfe, you know, this is gonna be, like, one of those Michael Scott answers. I remember one time The say Michael Scott, what is your bad? What's the worst things about you? It's like, I work too hard. I care too much, you know, but, you know, my worst decision, was hiring a marketing company. Hired this guy named Ben Oberg. I don't mind putting his ass on blast. Gave The, like, $33,000. And man, they came in hot.
You know? And I'll I'll admit. I like being sold too. You know? So I can be romanced. By excitement, and I'm working on that myself. And, man, oh, yeah. So, you know, we're gonna come in, man, and we're gonna quadruble, man. We're gonna stoupled sales. That's what we're gonna do. And then after we do that, we're gonna have to be 10% partners because you're gonna be so strong that we're gonna want equity.
And then when you're at $10,000,000, and I didn't I wasn't buying all into that, but that is what happened. Yeah. And then, you know, and then the lawnmower showed up. But, you know, Downhole. That's him getting chopped up right now in the in the rewacker, but, you know, a lot of time went by and It was my best my worst decision that became my best because I spent a lot of money with The, and I will say one Kings.
Like, they kept trying to market my business, but no one no one can market my business like me. And so the reason why it was my work was my worst decision financially in the moment, but it was probably my best decision because it allows me to step into my place and my role in my business which is the chief marketing officer, and I need to own that position. And outsourcing that is bullshit. Okay? For me, For me, it it's my natural scale. I need to hone it. I could resist that scale.
Like, I think there's, like, a full There's like a folk story somewhere where a guy has amazing skill, but he doesn't wanna be at night. He wants to drink tea all day. So, dude, you can swing a sword like crazy, bro. Right? You know, when it's like, for me, I can swing the sword, but I was wanting to drink tea and hang out with my friends. And The truth is I have to be the world's greatest marketer for my own business. Giving this guy $30,000. The reason why I was like, here, take it.
And I'm like, I hope this goes good. And, you know, that taught me that this doesn't work now. I'm like, alright. You know, what's going on. So Yep. My worst decision was paying that guy. And my question was learning. You know, I mean, the reality is this. We've all we've all especially with marketing, it seems like. We've had that conversation where things are gonna come in. I was just on a call earlier today Kings about TikTok, advertising. And how it's gonna be this and that and this and The.
And and so I think we can all fall victim because we wanna win. We wanna we wanna we want the advantages. Right? We wanna We wanna find the Tim grovers. Like, Jordan did to to get, you know, the extra £15 that makes me, you know, like, we've we're always looking for the advantages. Yeah. Right. But I love how you gave the the visual there of don't go don't go look in for the advantage when you particularly are the advantage in that spot. You gotta own it. I think that that's great.
And that could be that could be the the fulfillment side. It could be the The side. It could be the marketing side. Of course, eventually, you're you're gonna have so much good stuff that you're gonna have to build a team around the The. That's just inevitable as as a business grows, but then you can be the head. Then you can be, you know, the head of the head. And there can still be some some touch points there, but I think that the reality is is that You know you. That's what I'm hearing.
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, and I could I could, like, sense myself resisting And, you know, I don't wanna sit here and write emails. And but why not? If I can throw on Netflix, you know, pack the bowl. And I'm like, you know what? Someone send me a mean that will inspire me. And then, you know, and it's like it's about being able to get yourself in The You know, it's like going to the gym when you don't wanna go to the gym. And I think, like, this is this is a very similar activity.
I know it's good for me, like, eating vegetables. But how often do I choose to do that? Yeah. And then when I eat a vegetable, it's different in business. If you eat a vegetable, you poop out cash. Yeah. Oh, I mean, Chaz opposed to, in real life, when you have the vegetables for 9 months, and maybe You poop out cows. Right?
You know, it's like in in business, you get such immediate feedback and such immediate not try that's probably what makes it work for me is I can put something out there, get immediate feedback, feel good, and, you know, keep keep going. I love it. Wanna I wanna go to our speed round here. My first question is in the business, if you dwindled everything down to The trackable metric, What would it be? What am I tracking? Cause I track everything.
So what is with profit, performance, What do you think? Yeah. You you can only pick 1. Okay. You tell me. Well, you know, there's actually the I think the real reality is is my company's broken down to, like, 7 departments. K. And I think it's safe to say that there's one KPI in each department. Chaz is going to make or break it. You know?
One thing I've always been great at, and I think restaurant management taught me The, was being involved at the one point in the process that matters the most. And that point is generally what affects the KPIs the most. You know, or maybe even seeing the KPI daily. So when there's a change, you can see that something else went wrong. Right. And so you know, for cold calling, it's leads generated per hour because I know how fast they're dialing per hour already.
So the only other number that can vary is leads generated per hour. So I think that is the best indicator probably of return customers. Because if we're getting more leads per hour, more customers like that word, let's let's let's do it again. Not, you know, for the business overall, I feel like it's profit, you know, I or cost, actually, best word for it. They can track my cost to make sure my costs are low as possible.
But, you know, I know you said 1, but I feel like if I were to pick 2 or you give examples for the business, it's it's gonna be my cost line. To ensure that because I ran restaurants. Yep. I track everything. I track my labor, separate from my marketing, separate from my overhead. Right? So I track those things individually. And then those 3 things equal my cost. And and I make sure The best thing about my business is we've always been very profitable.
But after 5 years, we're even more profitable. Yeah. You know, I mean, I my my weakest my week last week was 71% profit. You know? That's insane. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a little different than a restaurant. The restaurants are 5%. 7 You've managed them, and I've owned them holy moly. Yeah. The the next question on the list here I wanna know is what book would you recommend you thrown out a couple of them? What book would you recommend to a 6 figure business owner specifically?
You know, my favorite But if 7 habits of highly effective people, I love Stephen Covey. I could go to sleep listening to that man's voice. Absolutely amazing. Something new that I'm hooked on. I feel like that's habitually based. Yep. Yep. Or marketing I've really been enjoying. Brendan Kane has 2 books out. 0 to a 1,000,000 followers in 30 days Chaz 1. And the other one is Hook points. K. I've I've learned that right now. I think the only books I need to listen to are like marketing books.
And not because it, quote, unquote, matters, but it gets my juices flowing as it does. You know, even if I, like, zoned out, listening to something else. And I'm like, oh, fuck. Okay. Marketing idea, you know, because I'm at such a point where all I am is my own marketing manager. It's like, if I can kinda keep that juice going and keep my fingers flowing.
So for me, I think, like, listening to a marketing audio book right now is probably my best use of time, but I what got me here was the 7 habits of highly effective people. The. The disciplines, habits, systems, doing things on repeat. How to how to how to treat people, you know, how to You know, I think one of the big things with me, one of the habits is begin with the end in mind. And I think one of my superpowers is my deconstruction. A billet where I'm, like, I'm insane at math.
So it's like, I know how much sales need to do. I know, like, I could show you my P and L. And I literally have it tracked every week for the last 5 years. And so it's like and I mean, like, every metric dials per hour, leads per hour, leads per dial per hour Chaz a percentage, you know, and it's like all of this granular stuff. And I feel like, you know, that other than the restaurant career, because they're very P and L based, but he's the one that really taught me how to, like, lay that out.
And one thing he teaches is, like, taking care of the productive capability of your employees. Right? We all want them to produce but you can't hold a knife to someone's neck and ask them to do's. So that's gonna hurt their productive capability So I think one of the things was, you know, always nurturing your team into a place where they perform at their highest rather than You think they perform at their highest, and they all fucking hate you. Right. Yeah. 100%.
I mean, it it it can be the literal end of your business and you don't even know it Right. Until it happens. Okay. Phenomenal feedback on on the current book or books and then even the Wolfe for for a 6 figure. Do you intentionally network and or mastermind with other entrepreneurs? Dude, I like the worst of this shit, bro. You know, I've learned a couple things.
Number 1, my business offers so many different services that most people Chaz decide not to work with me because I might overlap with them. Right? The I get out or, you know, whatever. So I've been a little bit of a loner Actually, just today, true fucking story, I just paid for a ticket to go to the family reunion for The state influencers in Canada. Nice. And they've been Chaz. Like, I was like, I I and I think because I used to throw events for clever that I hate events, Right?
I think it's like, you know, when you when you're responsible for everything, like, they're not fun. Yeah. You know? Yeah. It's a lot. I wasn't even the older. Like, it placed Cody. I'm this millionaire responsible for everything. I'm like this 70 g a year employee responsible for me. No. We're there. But but so I think I carry that in to my networking attitude a little bit.
Sure. So to be a 100% transparent, to follow-up with one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made was I let my competitors out affiliate market me. And one of the big differentiators between me and batch The trace was I feel like we both came out around the same time.
And even though we're Matt, The software, we are work being done, but I think one of the big things is they went to all of the owners of the groups and offered them huge commission bonuses And what happened was I made all my money in groups. So when I went back to these groups, the owners who are friends of mine are messaging saying they banned me because they can't let me advertise my stuff because they're getting such a big kickback from Bab Skip Tracing.
So that was something I barely clearly immediately saw. I thought that's not even blaming bad scripture. I crushed it. I should've them do it. Right? Yeah. Yeah. That was my that was the one thing I've always been an innovator making things better all the time. But that was one thing that I and I I caught late. Yeah. Didn't see it. Yeah. Okay. So I I what I'm hearing you say The takeaway there is that You still find value in connection. You still find value in people.
Obviously, you're clearly a people person. Right. Yeah. A relationship person. Yeah. But but you've had to Kings maybe go about it in unique ways. I still I'm still hearing underneath of all the The from events and even just The, like, they beat me to it. You the value you understanding the The, obviously, is is there. The the next question I've got for you is is a little bit off the cuff. I'm super curious to hear your perspective, and that is if you only had 1 hour.
Each week, to work in your business. Okay. How would you use that 1 hour to successfully run your business like you do now? I would probably write Copy. Emails. It's probably yeah. It Wolfe what it would do if it was The hour, it would be general copy, but then it would be dispersed to my marketing team for them to you know, duplicate throughout the week. You know, something about the way that I write my copy, my clients are never confused. You know?
And I think with lead gen, especially, like, I think lead gen is the hardest thing to sell. Or let's say the easiest thing to sell, the hardest thing to keep someone happy. 100%. I would agree with that. Yes. No. Because everyone wants the hope, but then with the hope comes the fall, which is The expectation. Right. And I'm really badass. At the expectation part. But and I think it's my record. I'm very like, you do The. We do that. I remember one of my first clients called me long ago.
And he didn't get a great result. And he said, Nick, I didn't get what I was looking for when I hired you, but you did everything. You told me you were going to do. And I was like, I think 5 weeks in the business at that point, and I just love that compliment. You know? And so it's like, I that I've really tried to be clear, and I think that I think that that all comes from copywriting. You know? And I feel like in a business that's copywriting.
Yeah. You know, I feel like if I wrote something that was powerful, and I told my team to study it and learn it and duplicate it Chaz that would serve them more of me asking them to get on a Zoom call for an hour, or I just tried to preach the points that I would accomplish in the copy. That makes sense. 100%. No. First time I've heard that answer on on the show, but I think it's incredible answer. I think you know yourself extremely well. Last question here for you, Nicholas.
If you lost it all, what would you do? You know, what I am working on right now is creating a safety net that if at least I lost lead mining, I would be okay. And I feel like as a successful person, it is our job to do 2 things. Number 1, create that safety and acting number 2, get ready to be really humbled financially.
So one thing I've recently done is I've got my living down to a $1000 a week, my home, my mortgage, my electric, that's actually just my home mortgage electricity, stuff like that. And now I'm getting my dinners and personal expenses. My goal is to be under a $1000 a week, but right now my current goal is $1300 a week. And so what I'm doing is I'm I don't wanna be in culture shock if something were to happen. I actually think it would be very cool to survive off of only 2 $1000 a week.
I think you can agree The. At our level, it's very easy to generate that in a passive income leg that Like, I just launched a CRM, even though that's still in the lead mining world, it's its own thing. And I'm like, once that hits 8 gs a month, I'm I'm retired, quote unquote. Right? Right. But that didn't answer your question. That's the cheat code to answering your question. But I think that's every entrepreneur's greatest fear.
And what I would do is I would The the same same way I founded this company Chaz I would reach out to my 5 most successful friends and offer to be a virtual executive for them for x amount of dollars a week. And just ride that wave until something hit. You know? My goal would be to find four people that Wolfe pay me $500 a week and just be an executive in their business for 5 hours a week for that time or whatever it might be. And then leverage what I've already known to to to bring it back.
That would be my work my ass off emergency plan. Yeah. Well, I love it. I love I love the fact that you you said it was, you know, it's every entrepreneur's worst worst nightmare. And I think that for the ones because as it should be, I I think if that's not, then you're living in a different world. Right. You know, I I we're making moves right now where I wouldn't have dreamed to make moves like this, but I'm always calculating here and here, and that's this.
And and and we keep things pretty tight over here, and And if that goes if that doesn't work, then I've got Chaz. And I would much rather everything just to work. And it'd be like, wow. Okay. That's fantastic. I made some great moves. But if that doesn't work and that doesn't work and that doesn't work, great. I've got this, this, and this. Right. So I think that perspective is phenomenal. Nick, how can how can someone find you? They want they wanna hire you.
They want to find out all your services. Where can they find Wolfe, so the best place is lead miningpros.com. My cell phone number's on the website. So, you know, even if you just want to meet and greet, or shoot the shit or tell me about your business or snag some free mentorship because I got a bad habit of that on every call that I make. You know, I think that's really what keeps us successful. I think people call me. No one's rushed. You know, I'm like, I talked to them.
I sent everyone else away. And I'm like, like, let's just chat. Like, the way I see my interaction with my clients is even if you don't hire me, but my advice can close a deal for you. I'm still taking credit for that deal. Oh, yeah. 100%. In your heart and in your mind. You're gonna like, dude, Nick, is dope, dude. I didn't even I talked to him for 2 hours. Didn't give him a dime. He didn't rush me off the phone, and he still left me with ninja advice.
And so, you know, if any of you guys wanna test me to see I'm saying is true right now. Please feel free to call the number on the site. All my services are on there. I have this cool new exciting thing called create your own call center. Which I will duplicate my lead mining business in any industry for you. If you think cold calling would kick ass, I just had a I got a guy a meeting with tomorrow for a political cold calling. Oh, totally. Yeah. Wants to make.
And The those tolls can't even be blocked. Take that. You d n c. But but, you know, so any industry and those start at, like, $12,000, but I get you the employees. I give you everything I know. It's not a mentorship. As in I speak and you have to do it, it is kind of more like a consultant where I'm like We'll set it up. You go buy it and we'll set it up together. Damn it. Love it. Really cool stuff.
Dude, you're you're I mean, I I can I can only imagine there are several people here listening today who who need exactly what you do? So I hope that they take advantage of, taking you up on your free mentorship and potentially even becoming a client You've been incredible. We are at a time. We wish you nothing but success in all that you're doing. Any any last final thoughts? I can I can hear? So I can see some of the The over there.
You know, I mean, You know, I you know, no matter where you are, I think, you know, it comes down to that one thing, that one good decision we make in our business every day. You know, come up with The system that you know feeds your lifeline, whatever your lifeline is. If you're good at networking, me get it not Kings. If you're good at Facebook posting or social like I am, continue that. Don't stop doing the thing that's making it work. And, you know, then innovate.
You know, that's actually innovation is in our core values at Lead Mining. It's really a requirement to work for me. You know, if they're just gonna duplicate the system I created, that's awesome. But if you're gonna innovate it, you know, we can go to The route. So that would that would definitely be, you know, my my departing advice. And, yeah, reach out if you guys need anything. I'm totally here for you. Dude, you've been you've been valuable, incredible. Your time is is noted, my friend.
Thank you so much. We appreciate all that you're doing. Yeah. Thank you, Jess. I'll see you, man. 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 your own, carrying the weight all by yourself.
What I have realized, not only in my own journey from multiple business and multiple different industries and now interviewing over 2 or 300 other very successful 7, 8, and 9 figure business owners is Chaz It's tough to do it alone. And so gathering the Kings exists to bring together successful entrepreneurs. In fact, we are putting together 1000 Kings, specifically who are grateful, but not done.
We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family, and communities, and here's what we believe Chaz in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy. So if that relates and and resonates with you, and you know that you need people around you, sharp, qualified The very successful business owners. I want you to go to Gathering.
The 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.