On today's episode of Gathering The Kings. Me and my husband were trying for a family. I was working full time in a call center. And I was finally pregnant in my safe zone of pregnancy. I waited to let safe zone to tell my job. And in return, they told me I had 2 days to give birth and then I would have to go back to work. Which is absolutely insane. Right? And borderline illegal, I immediately quit and I started looking for ways to work from home because I was about to have this brand new baby.
And I wanna be there to take care of child for as long as it may mean me, especially Chaz a very high risk. You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolfe, featuring Fellow 7, 8, and even 9 figure business owners who have real battle scars from business and life, but have prevailed as the king the bear designed to be. We welcome high performing entrepreneurs to the stage in order to reveal the reel of the reel, on what it takes to build a successful business today.
We dissect the good and bad decisions they've made along the way Chaz give a true and accurate picture of the journey of success and how you too can get there. Through this dialogue, you will learn the value of growing your network and surrounding yourself with power players and Kings like today's guest. Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to dive in. What's up everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe Gathering the Kings podcast back here with you today with another queen on the stage.
My good friend at this point because we this is not the first time that we've met. Natalie Guzman, welcome to the stage queen Natalie. How are you? Damn. Good. Ready to the chest. Wonderful. You know, it was funny because we've had several interactions. In fact, you've actually been a part of one of our roundtable masterminds just a month or so ago, but I was just learning right before we hit the record button that you also have a podcast, which I love, and you are crushing it.
And so Maybe that'll come out here in the story a little bit, but tell us what kind of business or The case, businesses that you have. Yeah. So I have a virtual assistant agency. Chaz I started in 2015. And then I also have that's called ENGIE Virtual Assistant, and then I have Nindora, which is a software for entrepreneurs to create unlimited websites, funnels, automations, email marketing, and pretty much anything to create digital business.
Wow. Yeah. So a lot of opportunity with the listeners here today. Almost everybody listening needs some sort of software to help them with digital marketing Chaz well as a virtual assistant or 2 or 5. Yeah. Exactly. We were in fact, it was one of our our big topic last roundtable that you were a part of with Gathering the Kings.
And it was cool to have you there because one of the guys in the hot seat was talking about his kind of virtual assistant methodology, and he's, I think, got 4 or 5 in place now, but you Kings take a slightly different approach to virtual assisting, which actually was exactly what this member in in our group needed. Give us a second just on a little bit how you do it differently.
Yeah. So that number, one of, you know, his pain points was that he was feeling overwhelmed talking to all the different virtual assistants. And so What my company does is we assign you a project manager, and they will meet with you, however, often you'd like, so weekly, monthly, whatnot. And they're the ones that keep track of all the to dos, the timeline. They will update you using our project management tools. And then they will assign the task out and make sure that it's quality work.
It's doing exactly how our clients envision. And so that way it's really built in team for your business. Yeah. I love that. And and some people listening right now might not have any virtual assistance. Maybe they I'm sure that they've heard the term. It might feel a little bit, like, out there a little bit. Like, what is that? Does that does that mean I'm hiring somebody from another country?
All although possible, we have we have a virtual assistant from the Philippines as well, but it doesn't always have to be. Give us just a little bit of, like, what is a virtual assistant? Because then I wanna tie it together to what you just said, which is if you have this, then you probably need this at some point. What what is a virtual assistant? Yeah. So virtual assistant is just Kings what it sounds like. Right?
It's a personal assistant that's virtual, but they can help you with so many things in your honestly virtual assistant is such a broad term. Right? Yeah. This means that they work from home and their workspace. They're also business owners themselves because they're contractors. They're not w 2 employees. If you have the right VA, you have one that is really skilled in whatever you're hiring them for. Whereas in my team, we have all sorts of skills. We got operators, graphic designers.
Just think about anything you need in your business. A virtual assistant can pretty much assist with. So scheduling email management, calendar management, we've even created websites, funnels, automations, graphic design, flyers, marketing materials, basically anything and everything you can think of, we've helped in over a 100 industries so far. So we have people in the tree industry. We have house cleaners. We have business coaches and so much more. And so it's really a diverse term.
And if you find the right fit, you can definitely find someone that's gonna really help further your business, which is the point of hiring a virtual assistant is either Right. To create more money or to save you time. So you can create that money. And so that's I love that. So the examples that you just gave, the tree cleaning The coach, those are all examples clients of yours using virtual assistance.
Yep. Yeah. I love I love the diversity there that you're basically saying because I think a lot of maybe more traditional business owners, either brick and mortar or home service or even commercial service are newer to the idea of virtual assistant. It's the online folks that are like, oh, yeah. I get a virtual assistant because that makes sense.
But, really, when you say virtual assistant, what you're saying is hire a skilled person in this particular lane, which kinda just means you're hiring a person for your team. They just happen to be remote. That's really all it is. Right? Yeah. And then you don't have to provide in most cases. A computer or anything like that. Some clients like to do that if they wanna keep all their stuff in one place, but you don't have to.
They have their own equipment and they have lot of times they'll even have their own software, which is pretty cool too. Yeah. Exactly. You're getting a team member that's in a box ready to roll. Yeah. Exactly. Pop up in the box, grow your business. Maybe that should be a slogan or a tagline. I don't know. Like, I might use it. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. So let's let's transition here to you.
We'll get more to the virtual assistant here stuff in a in a little bit as we talk about decisions, but I wanna know for you for Natalie because you've got you know, multiple businesses. You have kiddos. You have a very busy husband that I've learned about who's also a rock star and leading in his industry. So why? Why are you doing this? Why are you pushing so hard? You know, like, in essence, you really don't have to probably. And so but you choose to. Why?
Yeah. So my story is actually pretty crazy. So in 2015, you know, me and my husband were trying for a family, and we were struggling. We went through Well, miscarriages, unfortunately, and it was it was just a really hard time in our life. I was working full time in a call center. And I was finally pregnant in my safe zone of pregnancy. We were so excited, so I waited till that safe zone to tell my job.
And The return, they told me I had 2 days give birth, and then I would have to go back to work. Yeah. Wow. Which is absolutely insane. Right? And borderline illegal. But, yeah, so that was really hard. I just felt a loss of control in that moment. And I no longer wanted to give a business that much control over my family that was building.
And so I immediately quit And I started looking for ways to work from home because I was about to have this brand new baby, and I wanted to be able to be I made me realize I wanted to be there to take care of that child for as long as it may mean me, especially Chaz a very high risk. So I went in that knowing that this child might have medical issues. So I discovered being a virtual assistant, and I landed my first client in labor, and we also signed paperwork for our brand new house.
Well, I was in labor, and we were at 32 weeks. So she was only Wolfe pounds. And she's now seven years old today. So I love it. Okay. So in that story, there's a couple Kings here that are a little, you know, new to the show. So first off, thanks for sharing. Super vulnerable. Julie and I have gone through some of those same Kings. Heart wrenching in those moments, honestly, especially if you've had multiple.
So here you are and being told you know, that actually here here's the conundrum in my mind because you just said you landed your 1st client signing papers. In labor. So it wasn't actually that you weren't willing to work through pregnancy or afterwards. It was that someone told you that you had to. Yeah. And which is totally how entrepreneurs think. We're like, I'll do it for myself, but I'm not gonna do it for you.
So I love that part of just who you are and how you think because I think that relates to everybody listening. But I also wanna just point out this little thing here, and I'm curious on your opinion. Is that as the the listener, here today who have employees. Some of them might be women who are pregnant or soon to be pregnant. And Chaz moment is really special. And maybe you don't understand that as a guy or a guy who doesn't have a family yet.
And so there's more than 2 days that are needed but really what I heard you say was that flexibility is what you needed. It wasn't that you weren't willing to, like, work or still be a contributing member, it just needed to be different during that time or flexible.
What would you say to the entrepreneur listening right now who has a team and maybe is gonna deal with this or in the member in the process of dealing this, how could they have done it differently and you wouldn't be an entrepreneur today, you'd still be working there. Yeah. So the biggest thing was that that was a job I had to go to. Right? It wasn't a work from home or anything like that. So that was the biggest Gathering.
But the second is I hire a lot of moms and women that I've had experiences just like myself. And what we have done is create an environment where they have tasks, they have to dos, they have due dates, And but they can work around their schedule, around their family schedule. So we yeah. So when we have actually employee that Chaz their family has been, like, on sick. And she's just like, I'm so sorry. I there's, like, she can't control that. So as a boss, I'm like, okay.
Well, you can take first off, I gave her a date of rest. So I was like, you're gonna take this day off. You're gonna take care of yourself, and then we're gonna come back, see how you feel, and then we're gonna make a plan to make it easier for you. And so we were able to do that by, you know, letting her have that day of rest. She came back more motivated and working better than ever just from The day. Yeah. Yeah. One day of taking that, you know, stress off of her. And it was amazing.
The things that she accomplished afterwards and that she was able to do it not during the daytime. She could work. My employees can work anytime a day. So That's one of the things that stands us apart as employers. And, you know, we understand I want them to have a family. I want because that that brings some happiness. It gets them motivated. Like, they're working because they're trying to support their family. So I need to be supportive of their families. Yeah. Absolutely.
I think that you've you've painted a really great picture here to Kings piggyback on that for the listener's sake here is that it's 2023. You know, we're gonna be 2024 here in a few months, and it's time to get with it. Now you made a really distinct point that some positions don't allow for remote work. But I wanna challenge each listener right now with the way that you manage your team or your business.
And rather than managing a physical location or managing a certain number of hours being worked, manage results or delivery. Right? And that's in essence what Natalie is saying is like, look, in this position, whether it's on a job site or in marketing or remote, not remote, whatever it is, if possible, I understand that it's not possible all the time. I have retail franchises. Unfortunately, that work can't be done remote.
They gotta go to the The, and we gotta make beautiful fruit baskets for people to send love and joy. But the reality is is that I can still be flexible with certain things. And so what I'm challenging and and also commissioning is to be flexible. Not because you're soft, and you're like, gotta deal with the next generation, The gen the the millennials and gen xers. I just mean that, like, get with the times. It family is important.
It's it's no longer just work 16 hours a day, even though maybe as an entrepreneur, we're more than willing to do that. For me, even while I'm working 12, 16 hours a day, family's still important to me. So I gotta work that in somehow too. I gotta be flexible with myself even. So Anything else that you would say on this, especially as a mom and a business owner? Yeah. It's just The have patience. You know, we all go through seasons of life.
So there's sometimes that you're staff isn't going to be performing a 100%. And you're gonna notice it because when they're a 100% you're like, man, this is awesome. This is great. But it also shows us really easily gives us that comparison of when they're not working at a 100%. So I think just understanding what's going on in your employee's life is really important. And so that way you can give them the grace.
And maybe the support and tools, maybe they need to be trained on something, or maybe they need an assistant. We're doing that with one of our one of my place been with me a Wolfe, and she's just grown so much as a person and her skill set The now she needs a personal assistant. So just kinda understanding what they need and The last time your data with their time, like, we record how long it takes to do a task.
Sometimes that data tells me because if it usually takes some 5 minutes and now it's taking them 10, there's something going on and that's something I just might need to have a casual conversation about. Yeah. I love how you snuck in that, you know, they might need support, which might equal calling you and getting a VA, but but it's real.
I I remember even working for a large company when I was building sales teams many years ago, and I was talking to a sales manager that just wasn't as organized as I was. We were doing the same job, both high performers, but he was just a complete mess. And and I literally gave him this example. I'm like, look, dude, I know that you don't own this business. But, like, if you were running it like a business, wouldn't you just hire an assistant to, like, do some of this admin stuff for you?
He's like, I never thought about it like that. It's like, dude, you have an option. You can either stay until midnight at here at the office, doing all the stuff that you hate to do that you're terrible at. Or you can just find somebody to help you. I know that you work for this company and it they would be a little bit weird for you to have an associate of your own. But who says you can't? It just was a conundrum or or like a like a mind blowing moment for him.
And for anybody else I was listening, it was just like, woah. It's because you're thinking like an entrepreneur at that point of like, how can I how can I offload things and only do the things that are important to me? So let's let's transition a little bit to your story. You gave a little bit of background with The with the job and into the business, but why why eventually did you go from being a virtual assistant to running a firm of virtual assistance? I got too good at what I did.
I got 7 clients in 1 week, and I was like, man, I have to hire help. But I always knew that I could turn it into an agency, and that was always Kings in the back of my mind, but I my my Kings, like, I had I had 2 kids 12 months apart. So we talked about my daughter when my son came 12 months later, was a premia as well. And so we have a lot of medical expenses.
And so that's why I was trying to get as many clients as I could that week was because trying to afford all of the medical expenses my son was having surgery. And so I did it. I did it really well. And I kept up that momentum. I think it just kinda put me in a spot where I'm like, me and my family were were Kings not not safe zone again. I really need to create a plan to, you know, support them. And my husband, you know, he's amazing. He was working so many hours trying to work on his career.
And push it forward. And he was exhausted. He was even doing lawn care at night. So I know we mentioned my husband in the beginning. He works for the prison. And at that time, he was in the classification department and trying to make his way up the scale. And so he would work 8 to 10 hours a day at the prison come home and mow yards for her, you know, until The it got dark out and then do it all again on the weekends. And Yeah. It was exhausting. We were tired. We were stressed.
And so that's when I was like, you know what? I had The make this a agency, make it bigger than myself. And that way we can support my family, maybe even support other people's families as well. Yeah. Well, and that's obviously what has turned into. You have think you said over 20 or maybe even over 30. Yeah. And which now that that you put that in perspective of 30 families, you know, from a from a little situation of yours.
And I only say I say that to congratulate you, but for the listeners, like, look, people people are really counting on us as entrepreneurs. Like, we really make an impact. Like, our businesses feed families. This is this is like a really, really big thing if you just stop and think about it for a half second. Natalie, I wanna know, you've already talked about a little bit of, you know, I guess your story and you talked about some decisions that you've made in there, especially one to grow.
But when you decide, okay, I'm gonna do an agency. I'm gonna take on some more clients. Obviously, the the focus there was maybe more marketing than the actual execution and getting new deals, new clients. So it was like a little bit different. What was a good decision that you made in that moment? You said I'm gonna go The an agency. I'm gonna build a business as opposed to just this little thing. Was something that you just did that you know that if everybody did this, it would help them also.
Oh, yeah. CRE SOP standard operating procedures, which We talked at the Gathering of the Kings, which is pretty cool, but SOPs are it's a document that says everything that you do in your business, how you do it. I have one from the most simplest Kings, like creating an email signature or So that way my whole team can be have cohesive signatures or social media management.
There's just so much that goes into it, how we talk to our clients, how we talk to leads, or sales process, and just taking maybe an hour or sometimes it's a little bit more. But say about an hour on average, create an SOP, I am saving myself so much time, money mistakes, And us as entrepreneurs, I feel like we don't take the time to create our SOPs because we see as it as, like, you know, maybe, like, that work that's maybe beneath us because we're we're like, oh, we're dreamers.
We're planners, you know, and we're always go go go. But we need to take that moment just to sit down and really think through our process. It's kind of goes to me, I align it with goal planning. So we sit down, we think about our goals, right, and we create our our set goals. I feel like SOBs are just as important because it's what you want out of your business specifically.
So if you're able to hand that over to a virtual assistant, You don't have to worry about taking tons of time to train them. They literally have what they need to do in this document or if you even you don't have to write it out. You could do a Vimeo where it's like your screen recording and just, you know, go over your process, and it saves so much time. And I just seen a huge increase in productivity with our piece. I agree.
I was watching a video just maybe yesterday before, and the guy was like, look, I got an SOP for how to go to the bathroom. Okay? I don't know if that was actually true. He the way he said it, I believed him. However, I think the point that he was trying to make was, look, don't don't don't overlook even the smallest little thing. Give instruction to everything because, like, we use Culture Index and typically entrepreneurs are gonna be what we say right of the line a. They desire autonomy.
And team members are gonna be left of the line a. Their support, their team players. The don't wanna necessarily charge the hill and and come up with the plan. They need they want they need and want us to give them the plan. The so actually what what you're suggesting is that, but if we don't do that, we're actually not even equipping our people with what's necessary. A lot of times we come back and we're like, man, they're not doing it. Right? They're, you know, they're not implementing it.
I would do it. That's because we're not giving them an SOP. Yeah. You didn't set them up for success. What what do you find as entrepreneurs right now? Cause you give a couple of pain points there of like, I don't have time for this or it's beneath me, whatever. Like, why aren't people doing this? If it's so easy, it's so simple, and and it helps so much, which I agree with you, why why do people not do it? We're not putting it in our schedule.
I think that it's something that we're not putting down in our task management software or our schedule, and it's just We're go go go. So a lot of times as entrepreneurs, we're putting out fires. We don't really take the time to sit down and plan our day out and then assign it out to implement it. Right? And that's when the biggest processes in business is that that's exactly the the steps that you need to do.
And I think we're always like to say we're we're we need to work on our business, not in our business Chaz entrepreneurs. Yeah. And so I think a lot of you know, entrepreneurs, especially even in gathering the The, I have met a few that we're always working in the business and they need to work more on where they're not in so many different fields and they're not in their hands are in every single pot. They need to, you know, create staff that they can trust to handle those departments for The.
So that way, they can focus on the planning of the business. Hey, Kings and Queens. Jazz 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 things on social media, on all the different platforms, or even on the podcast mediums of Apple and Spotify, we would love to be able to get our content into more hands, more entrepreneurs so they can grow their business as quick as 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. I I'm glad that you mentioned that because I think it's actually really encouraging because there might be we have business owners of all sizes that listen. But for the for the new or smaller business owners listening, they maybe haven't hit the, you know, the 1,000,000 mark. They're to Natalie's point, there are multiple 7 figure business owners who I know personally as well as I'm sure there's 100 others. Who still tried to do too much.
And so it's it's this ever evolving thing of going, okay. Here's this here's this department. I need to create a process, an SOP to go along with the process, and I need to give it to somebody. And in essence, that's really where a company like Natalie's comes in because, you know, a lot of times you can find somebody that has this expertise. You've got your SOP. You marry those 2 things together Chaz helps you move on from having your fingerprint and every single thing as the entrepreneur.
That's scary. It costs money. Some, you know, like, All these things are in our minds as entrepreneurs. That's why even at a larger scale where they have done it to a degree, but there's still other areas that they still gotta get rid of. It's just difficult. It doesn't have to be difficult, but that's that's why people struggle, with it is because, there's a lot of moving pieces to it. I think you do a great job of giving us the most pain points.
The working on the business versus in the business, what would you say, for you? You know, the the working on the SOPs, like, that's that's big. And tactically, it's it once you once you've done it, then then you don't have to do it again, really, is what you're saying. Is there anything else in the business that pops up to your mind of, like, an action that's working on the business as opposed to in the business? Oh, great question. I think goal setting.
So I know I mentioned that Kings along with the SOPs, but not only goal setting. So I take it further. We share our goals with the team because they need to know what the goals are. I think we keep a lot of our goals to ourselves in our That's right. Oh, so, actually, I had a really good conversation with The of my team members last night. She's like, did you see our dashboard? Did you see our dashboard? I was like, yeah. I saw it. She's like, you hit your goal.
And that was such a cool thing too. Because as entrepreneurs, we don't celebrate. We have no one to really celebrate our Kings. If we're not sharing her goals. So I that she's congratulated me was, like, the best feeling because I don't really get that that much as a boss and as a CEO. So, yeah, I absolutely love it. Keeps us all on the same page. Yeah. You're so right. You can do that with your team. Obviously, you know, places like Chaz The the Kings, you can do that with other owners.
But it is special either way because we don't get it a bunch. And and here's actually what I found. Tell me if if this is like you as well. I say. Like, it's like my birthday. It's like it's not that big of a deal. We hit the goal. It's like we we don't really celebrate it. But when someone does notice, even just the acknowledgement of happy birthday or I say, oh, you hit your goal. And that's it. Like, we don't have to have a party.
But just the fact that you noticed and then said something, it actually means more Chaz I'm willing to give a credit for. Yeah. Would you agree with that? Yeah. A 100%. And it's just, like, it it turns your whole day around. I had a really stressful day, and she told me this at, like, 7 o'clock at night, which we don't usually work 7, but she's also a friend. And so we were talking about it. I was like, oh, man. That just, like, it just lit my whole soul up.
I would, but and Chaz the best night sleep like they've had all week, and it just it just really makes you feel good. And so imagine how we can make our teams feel like that. Too. So we share their goal, and they and we tell them, hey. You helped us get to this goal. They're gonna feel that too. So why not share and spread the joy? That's right. Love that.
Okay. Let's flip over to the bad decision that you've made, something that you've done that has caused chaos, havoc, loss of money, something juicy, give it to us. Oh, man. We just yep. We're just recovering. We just got back in the green from go so, you know, virtual assistance were usually retainers or hourly. We I actually had a third company. It was a marketing agency, and we went into one time projects.
Worst decision I ever made, we lost 1000 of dollars doing this lots of time, stress on my team. We are building summits and courses and things like Chaz, and the people that wanted those things were necessarily making the money they needed to pay. And it just became this very big mess. And financially, and it It really hurt us for a Wolfe. It was a big setback.
And so we went back to retainers at monthly recurring income, which is my favorite And I Kings dissolve the marketing agent agency and to kinda Nadera. So we still do, you know, all those things, but now we do it more on a retainer rate. And We are finally recovering and doing great, but it was it was scary there for a while. Yeah. What do you think the lesson in that is is like, I mean, Did you could you have known that that was a bad choice or inside of doing that business?
What was the specific, like, I mean, I heard you say one time money versus reoccurring money. It is is that the takeaway here? I think you should always have monthly recurring in in some way or another in your business because you get the client once, and then they pay you every month. That's, like, the gold mine for me. And then if you turn that into passive, like, we've done with Nadoren or saw software system.
So they get access to our software, and we get paid a monthly fee every month without doing anything. Yes. We're building things to help support them and be there for them and teach them the platform, but not as much money as we would be working on a project. We're not trading time for money. So The are for wealth. I feel like are my big gold Kings, but my I think what we could have done better is that we didn't have because I had multiple businesses.
We did, the time or energy to really put maybe SOPs and boundaries in place with our clients. We've just talked about SPs with our virtual assistants and our help, our team, but then with our clients, we need a system and a process that really aligns them and that they know it as well, which kinda goes into your contracts and such. And that was not in place. And So it allowed me, you know, we spent more time than we charged, and that's where I lost the money.
Yeah. Yeah. I think that there are some business owners listening to you right now going, oh, I can't do monthly Gathering, but my challenge to them is that just sit down and think about it because there's a lot of different businesses that do one time garage door installations that can create a repair service contract, or or something of the like. Like, just sit down, think about what the what the monthly reoccurring service or quarterly whatever the whatever the time frame is.
Because you're right. As long as the value is there, people The. Because why would they wanna change if Chaz long as the value is still there, you know, you can also build, right, your your baseline grows. Like, okay. We're at, you know, 2000 a month, 5000 a month, 20000 a month, 800 a month. It's like, okay. Well, we can grow on this because we know that based on churn rates.
Like, as again, if you have a good product, then, you know, typically people aren't gonna leave or at least the masses are gonna stay. So you have an ability to grow, exponentially. What would you say about I'm gonna take it back to family real quick. A little bit of a left curve, but not really since we've already mentioned it. And you've already it's a big part of your story.
I I use the word obsession, and I think that not every entrepreneur relates with the word session, but the ones that are like me definitely do. And we've talked about going all in. Like, you've gone all in on multiple things in your business. I know Europe's past. But the reality of it is is that most entrepreneurs at least good people that I've met want to also be obsessed with their marriage, with their family, their kids, their you know, other things in life.
How have you practically been able to obsess in those areas at the same time as obsessing and building, you know, these businesses? Yeah. So that's a great question because it kinda goes back into a little deeper into my background. So I'm actually a former foster kid. So I wanted family. That was, like, I wanted, you know, that family that sits down at table and eats dinner, and I wanted movie nights to I wanted to go and do fun things and go to fairs and carnivals.
And and I built that in my and I also really wanted to see I never really saw a healthy working relationship, and I wanted it. I wanted a marriage that Yeah. They were best friends and partners and you know, could laugh at and no one understand why they're laughing. Like, I saw a couple of months, and I always remember them in my head. I can't remember their names remember them laughing and no one knew what they were laughing about. And I am very, very blessed to have a marriage like Chaz.
Of course, it wasn't easy. We Kings talked about, you know, some of the hurdles we've Chaz. We've had our children go through through surgery. We've had 2 preemies. And so much more, and my husband is now an assistant warning for the Florida's Department of Corrections. And so he does not have an easy job in me having a business, but also being the main main caretaker for her kids because he does work at the prison so many hours. It's hard.
It is not easy, but I feel like because we went through those times of with our kids being little, we became really good partners. And so we learned how to, you know, it's a it's a give and take. Right? And so when he's really stressed out, I step in and when I'm stressed out. He steps in. And so you may ask yourself, what happens when you're both stressed out? And that's when we get a little lazy, maybe with our parenting. Like, one day we said, you know what?
No homework or just going to have fun as a family. It just, you know, screw responsibility. So that was Kings what, you know, sometimes we do when we were just burnt out and because it's best for our family in the long run. I mean, The missed homework isn't gonna make or break our family. So but last night it was actually we Kings had that again. I was really I told you I was really stressed out. And so my husband took over homework and bedtime routine.
He actually got home early, which is crazy never happens. And I was able to have that best night's sleep and relax, and it's just knowing what your partner needs. And then Yeah. Because I think it's it's 2 things. We don't always act on it in right away. Sometimes we'll say, oh, we'll do that later. No. Act now. Yeah. Yeah. I I think what you've given is actually a a really great formula.
Julie and I use you know, in essence, the same thing, but I wanna encourage the listener because you gave you gave that formula in the situation of, like, and then he he comes in, which is beautiful. You you have to already have it set in place for that to happen because in that moment, if you don't if you don't know his needs and he doesn't know your needs and you don't know how to recognize them in the place of stress or chaos, how can they jump in?
And and then what happens, unfortunately, is that you're wanting them to jump in. They're not paying attention. They don't understand. And then so now there's resentment and a downward spiral of all kinds of other emotions.
But that same formula that you gave, even on a daily basis when there is no chaos, which is something that Julie and I have really been trying to press into because we like you have had a lot of stressful moments, Kings, and and businesses, and stuff that happened and and, you know, you can't do anything about it, but you keep moving. But when things are really great and I'm still paying attention to her needs, like, even trying to, like, go towards, like, what does Julie need today?
And, like, again, like you said, don't just think about it. Take action. And that doesn't mean flowers. Although that could be something, but it might just mean a word of affirmation. It might just be, you know, cleaning up an area of the house that I norm woman normally don't, but see Chaz it needs to be done and I just do it because I know it's gonna help, oh, whatever whatever the scenario is. I think we're saying the same thing.
I just wanna encourage people to be able to do that even on a regular basis because Chaz builds the moment in the chaos. Would you agree? Yeah. And it doesn't have to be this huge Kings. Like you said, it could be, like, 5 minutes. Maybe putting dish dish dishes into the dishwasher. You know, that actually helps a lot when we when we I know especially when we see a empty sink, we're like, oh, this is amazing.
So just the smallest things, you know, you might be really tired and you see your spouse struggling as well, just take a couple minutes. And I bet you that your spouse is gonna see that and then do something nice for you when you're struggling. Because we we see that. We know each other. Right? I know my husband's 8 years now. And so we know, you know, each other's I can just see his face. Right? He'll walk in and I was like, I don't even have to ask. I just know.
So that's, you know, just being really aware of your partner because it is it's a partnership. We need to, you know, we're the base of our family and to be strong for our kids or maybe even if we have relatives that are sick, and or older, you know, we're the base, so we need to take care of ourselves and our marriage first. Yeah. Yeah. The marriage first piece. I think a lot of people talk about it or maybe think Chaz, like, oh, yeah, that my marriage, that's important.
Blades easy to get swept away with kids, businesses, tasks, even other people. And, yeah, I just I just give one last encouragement there that what Natalie is saying is just so real. And it doesn't have to be a big lift. It's just intentionality is really what the word is. Just slow down enough to see the other individual help out. And it really does fill the love tank depending upon, you know, what that task is for sure. What would you say is, you know, something for you?
I mean, you've kinda already mentioned, you know, around, you know, the virtual assistance and software. What is another resource? Maybe even like a book or a podcast or something that you've been able to get quality information or growth from as an entrepreneur. Oh, there's so many. I am a reader at heart. I read actually over 300 books a year. And so my Wow. Yeah. My Amazon Kindle insights are off the chain. I have read a a, at least, some sort of book every day for 2 years now straight.
Every day. So I love books. I think it depends on what area. Right? So for financial, I love profit first. Yeah. It's The amazing book. If you're just starting a business, I, like, start ugly by Chris. I can never pronounce his last name, but I think it's Camisto And he's the founder of podcast, actually, so which is a really cool place if you're in a podcasting. And then for business, I actually, when I first started out, I purchased Chalene Johnson from Beach Body.
She actually has a business course called Gathering Impact Academy. I investing in that was probably one of the smartest things because it taught me business basics, but also, you know, getting, like, your email marketing in place doing, you know, your freebie, your paint products, your, you know, all your different structures of your business. And that's what set me apart with the virtual assistant. Because most of them didn't know about business.
So, yeah, those are just some of the resources that really helped me along the way. That's awesome. That last little tag line that you said as far as the others didn't know about business. There's so many entrepreneurs listening right now that they're in industries like, virtual assistant, like, contractors, like, you know, marketing, you know, folks that just put themselves up on fiber, nobody knows about business. Everybody knows the trade. Nobody knows about business.
And so if you're listening to Natalie clearly here, what she's saying is learn the business skill sets to grow your business, not necessarily just the trade. That's the biggest differentiator. Natalie, I have one last question for you. You ready for it? I'm ready. You Have the opportunity, let's say, to go back in time and talk to the younger Natalie. Tap her on the shoulder and you whisper in the ear. What do you tell her? So, yeah, everything she dreamed of, I think.
I just remember myself as a little kid just wanting that that family and, you know, wanting consistent income and, you know, you know, the I always pictured a car because that was, like, freedom to me because I couldn't choose where I could go. And so that and then the dog and the fence in yard, and I have that now.
I have an amazing little lab named Luna, who is my best friend, and We it's just I've I'm just so proud of, you know, of myself of where I've come along the ways and I got every single hurdle. I feel like thrown out at me and able to just, like, disappear. So That's really cool. I think that's a really great message. I loved how you even said I'm proud of myself. That that seems or that tickles the ears a little different.
You haven't ever really sat down and thought about whether you're proud of yourself or not. But I hope that you heard Natalie because the emotion behind knowing where you've come from seeing where you're at. Also with the ability to see that you're still got plenty to go, it's not anxiousness. It's gratefulness. Right? Yeah. Good stuff, Natalie. How can we find you? Number 1, everybody listening needs a VA, everybody.
We already know Chaz, but you, like you said, given opportunity not only for VA, but to have a project manager that can manage maybe even multiple sets of our businesses Chaz really help us out. How can we find you for that? Or if we just wanna network with you as an entrepreneur, how can we find you? Sure. So for virtual assistance, you can head on over to n g virtual assistant dot com. Connect us with us there.
Schedule a discovery call, and we'll be happy to help you and figure out what your needs are and if Wolfe fit. And then on social media, I'm it's Natalie Guzman. So you can find me on Instagram, and I'm always doing crazy things on TikTok. So always happy to, you know, talk with you guys and hopefully I'll give you guys some good tips on the social media platforms. I love posting about things that you can do better in your business or software as you can use. Love it. Love it. Love it.
Well, I'll take you take Natalie up on those opportunities to connect. We'll put all that show notes as well. Natalie, I don't I don't just say I'm looking forward to connecting with you again because I know we're gonna connect again. Already started an incredible relationship. I'm sure we're gonna use your services. In fact, I think even some of my clients have already started to use your services.
So I know there's going to be long term connection here, and so we appreciate you not only for coming, but sharing. I think that your story is pretty powerful. So, again, thank you for that. And wish you nothing but success and all that you have your hands to and then your family. Thank you so much, Chaz. I had a blast. Thank you for listening to Gathering the Kings today. 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 Kings it all on your own, carrying the weight all by yourself. What I have realized not only in my own journey from multiple businesses and multiple different industries and now interviewing 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 1000 Kings specifically who are grateful, but not done. We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family, communities, and here's what we believe Chaz in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy.
So if that relates and and resonates with you and you know that you need people around you, sharp qualified other very successful business owners. I want you to go to Gathering. I want you to take a look at what we're doing and see if it makes sense for you to be part of our pursuit to 1000 kings. Talk soon.