On today's episode of gathering the Kings. The antidote to stepping out and doing something that takes courage is to just do it. Like, quit a full time job with a big fortune 500 company and started my first business. Suddenly, I'm in an office. My pay is 0. No health care. You know, it's terrifying. And but doing it somehow was the antidote also just just going on doing it and being scared. I don't think I've ever been not scared. I think I've been terrified the whole time.
Ever since that one day, but, you know, and and some That's open. Source of motivation too. We were failing. We we ran out cashed three times. We this 3 years, we I we barely got paid anything. Then we pivoted. The last pivot, we grew from 0 to a $24,000,000 run rate in 2 years.
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 that they are 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 assess 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 keys like today's guest. Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to dive in. What's up, everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe. Back to you here today. Another king on the stage.
My brother Sanjeet Singh, how we doing this morning. Doing good. It's it's very early here. Wolfe, you and I both are here. We're committed, obviously, to our businesses. We're committed to each other at this point, and we're committed to this audience. So, Sanjay, What kind of business do you have, my man? So I'm a fractional chief revenue officer, and I operate under the company named Bolt, b as in boy, o l t t. Love it.
You and I are gonna have an amazing conversation because we speak the common language of sales, revenue, growth, more. Right? More is better. I love it. Yeah. More is better. And and spoken like a true salesperson. Growth solves everything. There's a lot of other things that go into that equation, but I assume that that's probably a similar belief that you hold Chaz that growth solves everything. Do you agree with that?
Yeah. It solves a lot of problems and it creates some problems, but then It does. It was much easier to solve, I think. I I think that I would agree with that, but I think every salesperson would also agree with that. And so maybe we'll convince some of the non sales background people here today that that growth is their is their problem.
But, Sanjay, tell us just a smidge about, obviously, you said sales fractional leadership, but tell us just a little bit about what you do, what kind of clients do you serve, and then and then we'll get rolling into your story. Yeah. So fractional sales leadership is simply about serving multiple companies that may not need a full time chief revenue officer. May not be able to afford a full time chief revenue officer.
Yeah. And so the kind of clients I have are usually, you know, they're obviously, of course, B2B, which is what sales is. And they are typically 0 to 25,000,000. And I've had clients as big as 70,000,000, but usually my sweet spot is 0 to 25,000,000. Yeah. I love that. They are in growth mode, but need a little help with that growth. Chaz that's awesome.
You've got a you've got a background or or your story I know, it comes from the tech world, although maybe you may not be, like, the the traditional tech founder. Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah. You know, I actually, yeah, I wasn't in tech and then in 2013, I started my first tech company And it sounds so funny when I say it like people would ask me, how'd you get in a tech?
And I said, I got in a tech by starting a tech company, which is it says insane, but but that's exactly what happened. I threw a series of, you know, meeting people and and a and an intention and desire to get into the tech industry and Right. I went for it. Yeah. This desire that you're talking about, it leads me right into my first question, which is you know, it's always the why. Like, why are you doing this? The greater desire, the the deeper desire, rather.
Was that that desire to be in the tech industry, or is there something below that? Like, what what what makes you tick? Yeah. You know, I I got obsessed with this idea of of finding leverage. Anyway, I could. Cause I I didn't really fancy myself a high powered player, you know. And so The first thing I did was I got an MBA because I wanted the knowledge, but I also wanted the network. Network is leverage.
And, I really loved what I saw in the tech industry about the amount of leverage people were able to create in a in a fairly short period of time. Even though I don't have a technical background at all, it's all sales and some marketing and and some operations experience.
And I didn't really notice at the time, but sales and my kind of background is sorely needed in the tech industry because most most tech founders, even if there's more than 1, typically don't have any background other than purely knowing how to code. Some do, of course. But, vast majority that I run across, you know, don't end this is one of the major things that hurts them later.
Yeah. And I would I would transcend that into most industries because you know, tech was just the place that you got to see and and you've been able to pull the veil back and be able to see how true that is. The the vein of sales, is where we're gonna have it just an awesome conversation. The the vein of sales or the the, like, the beat of what it means to grow a a revenue line, is is really absent from a lot of companies.
And so I think that most companies listening today go, yeah, I would love more sales. And they probably don't consider themselves knowledgeable when it comes to sales or sales process or how to build a sales team or how to lead a team, you know, whatever. So I think that you're spot on and you've chosen the tech industry and and what a great what a great spot for leverage. I I wanna press into that word, though. What is leverage to you? What does it mean?
To me, leverage is about I take a step and the results are 10 steps, really. I mean, it's it's just being able to get a lot more output for the same input, same amount of effort. But Yeah. What you do, obviously, is what creates the leverage, you know. Yeah. No. I how how Chaz, I mean, obviously, in tech, we're talking about, you know, you know, software and usage and that's their leverage?
For you as a fractional sales leader helping a company like this who is, you know, really good on the on the tech side, but needing, you know, sales help. What's the leverage in what you do? That's a great question. Yeah. The leverage and what I do is taking a close look at their business and finding the levers that really drive sales for that particular company in that particular industry.
Sometimes it's even taking a look at their process, their materials, even, you know, how they're getting leads, how they're screening or qualifying leads, And Yeah. Very quickly, usually, what I find is one major area of weakness or bot, you know, I like to think of it as a bottleneck.
So I'm finding bottlenecks and usually, I mean, if everything else is working and you find one bottleneck and you you open up that bottleneck, you've just created a tremendous amount of leverage because, yeah, because their whole sales output is being governed by that one bottleneck. Now in in in the real world, it's a little bit more complicated than that. So usually there's multiple bottlenecks, but usually there is one major bottleneck that is causing the most issues.
Yeah. And at the leverage to kind of, you know, further that down the road is that they don't see it. They can't see it. And hiring someone with your expertise, that's the leverage is that I get to bring in your experience, your history, because, you know, in the sales the world of their business, you can look at it and go within 5 seconds. It's that old story of, you know, you call in the plumber and he was only there for 5 minutes, but charges you $4 or whatever the number is.
It's like, well, wait a second. You're only here for 5 minutes. It's like, yeah. But you didn't know what lever to pull. I did. And that was 30 years of experience. Yeah. Yes. In my case, it is 30 years of experience. And, you know, I think that's a power of fractional in general. Because there's there's a this is a fast growing field. There's fractional HR leaders, fractional CFOs. And I think, it's exactly what you're saying is we can get so much more done.
Like, if I think of myself as a as an early sales rep, if you had hired me full time, you know, I'd be running in circles doing you know, not necessarily all the right things and getting basically low leverage, low output. And so that's the beauty of a fractional is, you know, typically they are highly experienced people that you're gonna get a lot out of the the the time that you buy from them. Yeah. Absolutely. The leverage here that we've talked about is huge.
I think we can agree on being able to look into something quickly. What for, you know, like, this 30 years of experience that you have, especially now in the tech space, But I bet you, this answer that you're gonna give me is is relatable to all businesses listening. But, you know, 9 out of 10 times or maybe at least 6 out of 10 times when you look at a business, What is that main bottleneck?
What's the what's the main category Chaz, of course, you go into depth and you help them release it, but oftentimes, what is that main bottleneck? The most common bottleneck is they're not thinking about sales like an assembly line. I don't know. Let me explain. So to me, a sale is like, you know, you you think about bottles going down this assembly line, you like a a 1000 of them. And so the key is what happens to each bottle?
And are and is it what what are we doing to move that bottle down the assembly line as fast as possible. And what's the experience of each bottle? And does each bottle come out funny looking, or is it does it come out uniform? You know what I mean? So, like The same. Yep. And when the leads come in, how do they come in? How fast do we get to them?
You know, the if you don't get to a lead in like an online lead, at least at least in our industry, if you don't get to it within 5 minutes, your chances of closing that lead go down dramatically. Oh, yeah. And so Yeah. Like 100 of percent. Yeah. Absolutely. And so, you know, things like that are really important. And Chaz is their experience on your on your website if they're coming in through your website? You know, what are the questions that they typically have? What's the buyer journey?
Like, they typically need to know this, then they need to know this, then they need to do this. And then, you know, then they need to see a testimonial, then they need to then they typically talk to their boss and then they buy or whatever the the journey is. And so do you is your is your process, whether it's on the phone or online or whatever your process is, does it does it understand that and walk through it. And and do you know what the different buyer personas are?
Do you know how to quickly get rid of leads that are not gonna buy? You know, what those look like, what they sound like, and how to get rid of them quickly, because you're trying to separate the wheat from the Chaz, as fast as you Chaz. Spend all your time on the week. Right? And then you can harvest wheat as quickly as possible. So what's what's your average sales cycle? Is it 30 days? Is it 90s? Is it a year and a half for enterprise software? You know what I mean?
So you need to know those things. You need to know how many people are on the buyer you know, team. In in in most cases, in a lot of industries, it's more than one person. Sometimes it's as many as 5, 6, 10 people. And are you are you talking to as many of those people as you can and, you know, answering their concerns and understanding what each of them wants? And addressing it, you know, and then who who's our competition. Right?
So thinking about it like an assembly line like Chaz, and what are all I think, you know, do I have a checklist? Am I going through the checklist and am I getting through Chaz quickly as possible? And then how do I automate some of these things? Right? Because Why do something manual? The second you can automate it. Automate it. That's leverage. Right? That's right. Yeah. I think that the assembly line phrase. I've never I've never used that language, but it's it's absolutely right. Process.
You hear sales process quite a bit, which is an assembly line Chaz a process. It's step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4. It's never step 1, step 4, step 7, step 2. But tell me if you have found this to be true in the tech space because a lot of companies that I've seen worked for in the past and then also now work with their sales process is. Well, first off, if they even have steps, it a lot of times they it's step 1, step 7, step 3, you know. What?
So there's this, like, fluidity that people feel like it's like, oh, it's sales. Like, I don't wanna be robot. I kinda wanna be an assembly line. I wanna help people. Yeah. How do we combat this? Like, no. No. Has to be streamlined. It has to be the same. It has to be repeatable in order to grow revenue. Yeah. But but, yeah, at the same time, inside of that, we're creating an actual, like, human journey for them. No. That's that's great. That's a great point.
I mean, it is Sales is a deeply human thing. It's it's a mark marketing is is sales at scale, and it's not it's not as human, you know, they they can't you're dealing with such enormous scale, you can't possibly, you know, deal with the human side as much as a salesperson, which is generally a one to one experience. But I think what you're saying is is true if it's that there is a balance between the 2. I mean, sometimes you you do have to go step 1 and then step 7.
But like you said, you know, to the if your goal is to is to grow, like, you know, like the podcast is about 6, 7, 8 figure, you know, business, You have to think about scalability and you have to shoot for Chaz. And obviously, we can't always get there perfectly and every business is different. But I think the goal is you know, can I make this business more scalable and how do I do that?
And like you said, to the extent you can streamline and put things in a certain general sequence Knowing that, okay, in 5% of the cases, it's 1, step 1, then 7, and then you go back to 234. Okay. At least you understand that. And things for me, scalability has to do with automation, provide scalability, obviously.
Then you have things like a very defined process makes it more scalable, training sales training materials, like a video library of actual sales calls, Chaz were unsuccessful and then ones that were successful. And so when you hire people, same thing. Bottle. It's like bottles going down in assembly line. Chaz you train an onboard every employee quickly?
And I'm of course typing out salespeople, but all employees, I've hired you know, people in customer success, and I've hired all sorts of departments. But, of course, most of my experience with salespeople, but I found that to the extent you understand what a what a new employee needs to be successful. You create those materials and you onboard, quickly. You don't wanna be having to spend as a CEO, let's say.
You don't wanna spend, you know, 17 hours of your time onboarding somebody if you don't have to. But, yeah, you're a 100% right on the on duplication, right, because you cannot scale. Scale is duplication. And you can't duplicate if, you have to be in everything. So all the examples that you gave, I hope that they were paying attention. You gave some really good examples there of scalability and and how to do that inside of the sales process.
I think that that was was a really good couple of minutes there. I wanna ask you kinda moving forward here, just a really good decision that you've made in your business. Of course, you've you've worked with a lot of other businesses, and so maybe you can maybe pull some experience there as well. But inside of bolt. What was just one good decision that you made that was just like, man, when I did that, a lot of other things came into place for me.
Yeah. I mean, for for me, I think because because I already knew how to do the work, you know, I already, you know, I couldn't go to a client I could do the work with, you know, with my eyes closed sort of, you know. And so I think for me, the the trickiest part of growing a business like this is it's actually It's been a fun challenge because it's one of it's a hard business to build because you can't use some of the normal techniques you normally could.
It's a very high trust sale And so for me, the best decision I made was to get to know, for example, to start mentoring in incubators you know, getting to know other fractionals because that that's that's my lead source. Right? That's my source of growth. So I think the decision to do that, which actually didn't stem from wanting grow my business. It stemmed from, you know, wanting to help entrepreneurs.
And that's one of the things that really drives me in my work and the mentoring that I do is just seeing, you know, these new entrepreneurs who are super smart and but they don't believe they can know, some of them really struggle with their belief that they can do this. And then they talk to me and they're like, oh, well, you know, if this guy could do it, anybody could do it. Especially as you go Yeah. Between this programming language and this programming language, you know. Right.
Yeah. And so, you know, a lot of times it's me just telling them, you know, some real simple things that they probably already know, but it just, you know, gives them confidence that they can step out and and do the next thing. Yeah. What you're talking about actually here is such an important principle, and it's not just you having it for yourself and believing that you could go do it for yourself, but you're now you get to transfer that courage to others. We're even doing it right now.
And so What do you feel like, you know, like, okay. We said a lot of new entrepreneurs. Look, every entrepreneur listening right now has felt that that place where it's like, oh, I don't know if I can do this. Yeah. And and maybe that was a small little piece. Maybe that was a sales process. Maybe that was building a team. Maybe that was the next level of revenue that they were trying to get to. I don't know. But we've all felt that.
What do you think mean, you kinda answered the question there as far as, like, you know, you giving them maybe pieces of knowledge or or even showing them that, you know, even though you don't know certain things, But what's the, like, what's the what's the the antidote? Like, what's the what's the what's the medicine to, I don't know if I can do this, especially with the people that you're working with. Wolfe, I think, you know, as simple as it sounds.
I mean, I think podcasts like this are are a great start because you're listening to, you know, a 100 entrepreneurs. I don't even know how many 100 you have you've had on, but who, you know, we've all, you know, run into brick walls and, you know, shot ourselves in this foot and kicked ourselves on the side and, you know, walked off. I mean, you know, we've we've all done such a tremendous number of idiotic things. I mean, we'll get into it. I'm sure with me.
But that, you know, you realize, hey, these are just human beings just like me. And they're, you know, they're really not any smarter than I am. I, you know, being in sales, I've learned to sound, you know, 10% smarter than that I am. But I'm just as dumb or just as smart as anybody out there. And and I think I would think that the rest of your guests would probably say the same thing. Yeah. It is really true.
So I I wanna hit that home for the listener because you don't it's funny because you have this feeling that, like, they're better than me, to your point, right, or they they must have something. They must know something. They must, you know, have be a special talent.
And we all have, you know, unique talents, but when you listen to enough people, to your point, whether it's here on the show or other podcasts or a conference or you you have a mastermind group that you go to locally or something like Gathering the Kings. It's like all Chaz that recognition Chaz, like, oh, he puts on his pants like I do. And he struggled last week with the idea of burnout, or he's frustrated because he can't find a sales leader, or Whatever the problem is. It's like, oh, okay.
Got it. I I can do this for whatever reason. I don't know what that translation is. It's like, your problem equals I'm now okay. You know? It's belief. Yeah. And I think, you know, I think the other antidote that I that comes to mind is it's even more it's even more of a it's almost a non insight, but it's kinda like the antidote to stepping out and doing something that takes courage is to just do it.
I mean, you know, I think people feel like, well, I have to, you know, I have to do it with with gusto and no fear in my heart. And I think that's that's the furthest thing from reality. I mean, I was scared when I quit a full time job, with a big fortune 500 company and started my first business. Suddenly, I'm in an office. My pay is 0. No health care. You know, all this stuff. I mean, you're it's it's terrible. Flying.
And but doing it somehow was the antidote also, just just going on and doing it and being scared. You know, I don't think I've ever been not scared. I think I've been terrified the whole time, you know, ever since that one day, but, you know, and and some That's open. Source of motivation too? Absolutely. I appreciate you saying that because I think that there's a wrap up in a lot of people's mind of they've got it all together. Right? And here we are.
We're talking about strategy and sales and, you know, belief and but the real is is that this morning, when we both woke up, there was a voice that said go back to sleep. Don't do it. You know, you can't or you're not good enough, like, whatever those things are. And really for this for listeners that, you know, Son and I have just over the course of time, quieted that voice. That's all. It doesn't mean that it's not there. It just means that we've gotten better at whooping them in the face.
Right? Yeah. Yeah. I I mean, people meet me and they're like, oh, you're in sales. You're this extrovert and I think it's a continuum of extrovert to introvert. I'm I'm significantly more introverted than people think. And, you know, I'm even being on this podcast is scary for me, but I do it and hope for the best. Hey, Kings and Queens. Chaz Wolfe. 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 in site 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. Yeah. When you said, a couple minutes ago, you said walking off ledges. And I thought, well, yeah, sometimes I've done that willingly. Sometimes I did know. Right.
And, you know, some okay. If we're putting that into, like, this belief factor and I'm gonna go cliff jumping, like, I'm gonna purposely jump off this thing because I know that it's awesome, and it's gonna be great when I get there, but, like, man, I'm terrified right now. To your point, the the the the the medicine is just jump.
And that doesn't mean when you jump, you're not, like, shaking and wondering and your heart, you know, stays up on the top of the cliff and you jump, your body jumped and you feel the the difference between your heart staying up here and your body jumping. Yeah. But but eventually, it's like the the the feeling of falling and the feeling of like, wow, this is amazing. And then you hit the water, and then it's like, oh, this is the I wanna do it again.
Or whatever extreme example that we wanna give, but it's action. It's going, you know what? I don't know if I can do this, but I'm gonna do it anyway, and we'll see what happens. Right? Yeah. And that doesn't, yeah, and that doesn't mean going in, you know, without any plan. I mean, I had That's right. I had a serious plan when I and, you know, of course, we made a lot of changes to that plan. The plan was made.
But I had a very, you know, I had a lot of reasons to believe that I would be successful. And so, you know, it's not just about jumping off a cliff, but but even but, you know, some people will study and make to make a plan in forever and never jump. So it's a combination of the 2. It really is. Yeah. I believe in that. Let's let's flip the coin for you here. Let's talk about one of those bad decisions. The not great hours. You've already been pretty open with us.
Tell us tell us what that hour looked like. A bad decision, man. It's like, which one? I, you know, I have I have a lot of respect for my former business partner that we did our first I did my first start with and we are still friendly and we have an amicable relationship. However, I don't think it was a good fit from the from day 1, and I just wish I'd listened to my intuition. And as we, you know, we we were failing, we we ran out of cash three times.
We this 3 years, we we barely got paid anything. You know, then we then we pivoted. The last pivot, we grew from 0 to 24,000,000 to a $24,000,000 run rate in 2 years. So it was absolute chaos that 2 years. And so when you're going in the trenches at that kind of pace and during that same time, during the during the time that we did the 3 pivots and and then we grew, We raised, close to $20,000,000 in venture cap mostly venture capital money and, of course, angel mom before that.
But, you know, so, you know, to do to raise all that money, we went on the road together to do that, to build that, that kind of business, to to fail like that. I mean, you're going through so much you're you're literally building a house and living in a house with this one person. Of course, you know, by the end of the 2 year period, we had 65 employees, but you're still you know, living in a house with that person and, you know, it better be a good relationship and it wasn't.
And, you know, the the the what ended up happening was I got pushed out of the business and but the good news is I I was able to sell out and and made a good exit, but but it was it was painful. It was very painful to get pushed out of your own company. And I've seen a lot of people and it sucks. You know? Yeah. Yeah. We we've got a famous story of of jobs having that happen. Right?
But the reality is still the same is that for some reason, along the way, there wasn't alignment what do you think, you know, looking back on that? Cause there's probably a lot of people listening right now that either are in a partnership, they're considering a partnership, We've had guests on the show swear by partnerships. Others be like never ever ever ever ever.
Obviously, there's two sides of the story to to every story, but for you, if going back and if you had to do it again and you were gonna do the same exact partnership, would it just be would it be clear communication? Would it be better expectation? What what would have been the the the solution to that? You know, I just think it was a bad fit, but if but, of course, there's there is a lot of things I could have done better. There's no question.
I think I could have been much better at, you know, like you said, communication. You know, I, I think there's something to underlies a lot of this stuff, which I don't know if it gets talked about a lot, which is, you know, emotional regulation. I mean, when you come into this business, you know, can only speak for myself, but I met a lot of entrepreneurs, fellow entrepreneurs that, you know, we a lot of us have ADD. A lot of us are very poorly regulated emotionally.
And that's something I've, you know, that's something I've had to learn is, you know, I can't I can't run around and build a successful business being completely emotionally dysregulated and not, you know, not being in touch with what I'm feeling, how to process those feelings, and instead I'm just I'm running around on total fear and operating on fear.
And and that doesn't always lead to the best decisions or the best communication or even if I said the right thing, like, I think a lot of times, there's a lot of times I said the wrong thing, but even when I said the right thing, I don't know if I always said it with how I how I wanted it to come across because, you know, I was stressed and and dysregulated.
And, you know, it is a very stressful thing, but you gotta find ways to ground yourself and and sometimes it's therapy, sometimes it's, you know, other things. Yeah. Yeah. You've I gotta take this opportunity to just take 30 seconds and hit on this because this is it's actually two parts.
Why people, entrepreneurs join gathering the kings on the peer to peer mastermind side, even though they might be a big business owner, 7, 8, 9 figure business owner, the reality of it is is what you're saying is that he's alone or she's alone. And what does that mean? It means that I'm I I'm over here by myself. Unregulated with how I think, how I feel. I'm by myself in a silo.
And because I don't have other people around me that are also high quality and can help agitate my thought on how solve problems, then that leads me to bad decisions, basically. Right? And so what Son's saying is, like, you need emotional regulation, you need thought regulation, you need just some encouragement sometimes. You need some swift kick in the butt sometimes, and you cannot have that if you do not have a group of people around you, period.
That's why they, you know, the the, you know, the the cliche your network is your net worth. Right? And so even inside of that, once you solve the isolation problem, and you have people around you, what you're talking about is like, now we gotta get precise on how do you regulate yourself. First off, how do you control your thoughts? Are you feeding your subconscious mind in a proper way? What do you do as far as, like, understanding your ability to connect emotionally? Like, there are people.
We use a culture index. There are people who are high, high logic. And it is very difficult for them to feel anything. And then there are people who are very low logic or high, high empathy And it is very difficult for them to think first, and they feel everything first, which Okay.
You got two sides of the story here, and and both can be, like you said, unregulated, and they need to understand how to operate in situations Whether it be with their employees, whether it be with themselves and their wife and their family or whatever so that, you know, these situations don't happen. Better communication, partnership, employee relationships.
Like, all of these things matter based on this individual that you're talking about, the entrepreneur, a, getting around people, and then, b, starting to work on thyself. Would you agree? Yeah. 100%. I think No. I think mastermind groups are terrific. I've been a part of them in the past. I'm still part of them. Different different forms of them. And I think, like, I I think I'm a huge proponent of Chaz. Yeah. For all the reasons that you said.
Yeah. Good. Okay. So let's talk about let's talk about outside of the business. I'm a big fan of obsession, the word obsession. I I completely disagree with the word balance. And so from your perspective and your 30 years of experience, like you said, how have you gone about obsessing in those other areas of life? You know, there's other dimensions. There's family, you know, of course, you're you're you're health, you know, the physical, emotional, there's lifestyle.
There's all these other areas of life. How do you go all in on those things? The same time of obsessing with your business? Man, that's a great question. I've done a terrible job, you know. With a lot of those things. And I've been way out of balance. And I guess I'm still learning, but I think, you know, I think whatever you want to call it, obsession for each of those things or balance, however you want to call it. I think everyone has to find their their way of approaching it.
I I think it's different for everybody, but, you know, I think that you can't ignore any of them. And you just have to yeah. Like, like, when I was building my business and when I was I've been talking about, you know, no matter what happened, I was home for dinner. And no devices, my spouse and I ate dinner together, and then we we walked the dogs together, and we talked. And and that was a that, you know, that Chaz wasn't there was no compromising on that.
Yeah. I'm gonna sometimes I was out of town, of course, you know, where I had Sure. But, you know, but absent anything really that I couldn't get out of. That was sort of a, you know, something I did every every time. Yeah. I love that example. It's so it's simple, but profound. I love the one word that you said. I guess it's a compound word. It's a a no compromise or a noncompromisable thing that you guys agreed on.
You came into an agreement with your spouse, and you weren't gonna let that agreement go. You weren't you took it very seriously. And I think Chaz, what you just described, is what equates to obsession. If I'm gonna obsess my business, well, we know what that means. We know I'm gonna I'm I'm up early. I'm up late. I'm working on my sales. I'm building my process. I'm hiring a guy like Son to help me with Chaz, or maybe I'm working on marketing. I'm in operations. I'm building teams.
Whatever it is I'm doing. But then what about the rest? It's like, how do I go at it with the same intensity? Or in your case, the same no. No. No. I'm not compromising here. It's discipline. It's like, no. I made a choice. I've come into an agreement with spouse. I'm gonna do this thing. Yeah. And I think you gave a great example. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think the results of that have been for you guys?
Because, I mean, obviously, the multiple companies now and, you know, what's been the result of, like, no. No. No. This is important to us. I think that was the I think that was a a successful formula for me at the time. Unfortunately, you know, my marriage didn't last. I don't think the business, I mean, the business certainly didn't cause it, but it didn't help. I think I think it's very hard on people. I think businesses can be very hard on people.
That's why I think what you're saying is so important. Yeah. Certainly, you know, we didn't split up during the business. I and I and I think there was things like this that that were important for us. Absolutely. You know, and I think there's other ways to find balance. Like, you know, there was a lot of times where it's like we have to go, you know, we have to sit down and talk about thing at with me and my partner.
And instead of doing it in our office, we would walk around the block or walk in the park and talk about it. Yeah. So you're always finding ways to get exercise. There was a time when, I read this book by the sky who was at Facebook and he burned out and he Chaz, I think he had a nervous breakdown is what he said.
And so he took some time off and did some reflection and And he found then he started doing things like playing firstby in the park with friends, and he found that there was something about play introducing play into his daily routine that was incredibly rejuvenating for him. It fed him in some way. And so I read this book and I was inspired. So I came to the office and somebody said, hey, I wanna talk about something. And we were in an incubator.
And so I said, hey, there's a ping pong table over there. Let's let's hit up. Let's hit the ping pong tech, you know, back and forth and have this meeting. And so that turned into a ritual every day where all of us at 3 o'clock would go and play pingpong and you know, we just round robin style and and it turned into like a really fun thing that we all look forward to the whole day we're waiting for ping pong. You know, we're working but we're waiting for ping pong.
So it was, you know, it built a lot of team spirit and, you know, I it was a it was a wonderful thing in it and and introducing play into my daily routines. Always been a great thing. Yeah. Those are those are great examples of max and multiple things. The team building is just a piece of it, but the allowing allowing obsession to be outside of just the task at hand, right, going going at at things hard in all way.
They like to say work hard, play hard, And sometimes we're playing and working at the same time. That's integration, really. Rather than balance, it's like it's work life obsession or work life integration. Yeah. So I got one last question here for you, Son. You've got, like you said, decades of experience. If you had the chance to whisper in the younger sons here, What would you tell that guy?
I think I would tell him about this idea of leverage, you know, not that he not that my younger self wouldn't know Chaz. But, you know, give examples and really talk about how to find how to how to be able to do things faster, how to get there faster, how to how to spend less time, you know, wasted doing other things that don't matter. You know? Yeah. Yeah. He didn't understand the depth of what leverage could actually mean for it. Right? Yeah. Or how to or how to use it.
You know, how to what what are some ways you I could I could do Chaz. You know? Yeah. There's probably a lot of listeners that have heard the word leverage. They've, you know, okay, greater output for less input. But then but then they're like, what you're saying? How do I do that? And an easy way would be to get with Son and look at your sales process. Right? But in all seriousness, there's there's pieces of your business. There's pieces of your life, really.
What we're talking about is optimizing. We're talking about peering into a dimension of your life. I mentioned several of them here and go ahead. Okay. What's a what's a bottleneck that I can remove that just instantly gives me leverage? Would you agree with that? Yeah. And and I think leverage okay.
So so to give a little bit more, texture to that, if you're and I and I don't know that I certainly didn't do this, and I don't know how many of your listeners do it, is as you're trying things, and I'm I'm one of the things I I am glad that I have become is a kind of a wild experimenter. And if I see an opportunity I will try it.
You know, if I see an opportunity to gain leverage or or get better results, I'll try some pretty crazy things and and But I think as you're doing things to to to stop every few weeks and just sit down with yourself or a partner or accountability team, you know, like your, like your circles, the king circles is like to say, is this working or not?
And if it's not, like, if I'm trying 3 things and 2 aren't working, Get rid of them, double down on the thing that's working, and put a put, you know, put a couple more experiments in the hopper. And if, you know, don't be afraid to experiment and And if you if something isn't working, you you know, I think I wasted a lot of time feeling bad about it, you know, what sort of feel bad about just get rid of it and try something else. I mean, what is what's the big deal? It it's not a failure.
It's just it didn't work. Let's move on. If a business fails, try another business. You know, it's you know, why sit around and beat yourself up? It it, you know, there's no point in that. Yeah. That's so powerful. Basically, you're you've got this list of all the things that be successful, and you're just crossing them off. That one wasn't. That one wasn't. That one wasn't. No big deal. Now you don't have to go back to it. That's the good part. You've eliminated it from the list.
Yeah. Yeah. That's right. And guys like you and I just have made it further down that list. Yeah. We've just crossed more things off. Right? Yeah. And because if you don't know what caused what creates leverage, you gotta try things. And like for me, might hurt my whole life. It's not what you know. It's who you know. I'm like, great. That's wonderful for people who grew up with their neighbors are all fortune 500 CEOs good for them. What am I gonna do?
And going to business school was one way, one of many ways Chaz I was able to tap into a network that was more powerful. You know, maybe you maybe you save your pennies and join a club or something or, you know, a golf club. I whatever. But, you know, finding ways to get around people who are gonna be are gonna be able to help you genuinely help you get to where you wanna get to. Any way you can do that is is one one possible way of leverage. Yeah. I love that. Great great descriptions there.
Super practical insight. Saad, how can the listener find you? Number 1, if they're in the tech space, and they are looking to grow their business. And they need a sales leader to help them do that. How can they find you? Also, if they're just an entrepreneur and they wanna connect with you, where can they find you? They can go to my website, Bolt. Chaz, and contact me there? Perfect. Yeah. Actually, it's a great website. I was there earlier this morning.
I'm giving giving a refresh to myself, but you've you've done things well. You've given us really practical stuff here. I don't I don't want the listener to think that that just because like you said, maybe your experience comes from you know, a a fractional place that, man, there's a lot of, like, really key pieces of information that that they could go apply today. Actually. So I thank you for that.
We appreciate you being here on the show, giving of that, 30 year experience, and I wish nothing but this success and the best for you and bolt and all the things that you touch 2023. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. It was, really enjoy the conversation, Jess. 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 that It's tough to do it alone. And so gathering the Kings exists to bring together successful entrepreneurs.
In fact, we are putting together 1 1000 kings, specifically who are grateful, but not done. We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family, and communities, and here's what we believe Chaz in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy.
So if that relates and and resonates with you, and you know that you need people around you, sharp, qualified other very successful business owners. I want you to go to gatheringthekings.com. 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.