On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. If there's one thing that that I could say to focus on Wolfe be build your culture, build your culture of taking care of people around you and being more selfless than selfish. You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolfe. Featuring 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 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. Gathering the king's nation. This is Chaz Wolfe. I'm back with you this week. And my guest, Zack Neville. I'm telling you guys, I just meet great guest after great guest after great guest, but this one specifically is a family guy. He's about his marriage. He's about his kids. He's about his team members. And a lot of these guys have been, but I'm telling you what, there's something special about Zach.
He's got a heart for people He's got a heart for his clients. The quality work that they're putting out in his construction company is literally second to none. I just have so enjoy the time that I just had with him. And, I can't wait to share it with you right now. Grab that pen and paper. It's coming down. Alright, everybody. Chaz Wolfe, I'm your host, gathering the Kings. We got Zack Neville on the stage today. Welcome, dude. How are you? Good, man. Thanks for having me here. Yeah, man, dude.
I was just so appreciating, our time that we were just spending together. I'm like, dude, we gotta hit the record button. We're we're getting into the good stuff. Wait. Wait. Wait. Zach, what kind of business do you have, man? Tell the audience. So I have a, construction company. We do building and remodeling. Interior and exterior foundation to roof inside and out, whole nine yards.
And you're in you're in, in the northeast, and I know that you're specializing in craftsmanship is that's the word that you used. And so I'm gonna I wanna get into that a little bit, you know, because I'm curious to hear your stage, but us a description on what that means to you. Like, at this level, because you do everything. What does maybe the higher end or craftsmanship really look like inside of this GC business? So, the contracting industry is wild. It's all all types in here. You know?
And I kind of compare it to the Wolfe West in in some ways because you hire a contractor and you might get a, a quality job, but a terrible experience. Or you make it someone that runs from with your money, or you make it someone that, does a crappy job and still wants to get paid whatever. You know? So what we do, when I started was, 7 years ago in 2015, and I was just starting to create opportunity for myself. I was working for other people.
I had spent, 6 years in the military and had learned a bunch of leadership stuff and was also going to school full time and testing to be a a cop or a firefighter. And Okay. Just looking to kind of make a way for myself and started this business, maybe not with the intention of growing it at the time, but just really to create a place for myself to be able to grow.
And over time, I quickly found that without hiring employees, without, having a team in place Chaz I would be working myself to the bone for, forever. And, yeah, started learning more about the business side of business and about scaling and about all those things. You know, you kinda are thrown into selling and marketing and that court that sort of thing, but you gotta own all those skills. Right? Right.
So craftsmanship, what makes us stand out is that we deliver an excellent experience to our clients. So from when they first call to when we send them an estimate to when we go out and complete the job, they are well taken care of. And that's something that is left behind a lot of times with contractors.
You know, they they're focused on doing a quality job for the client, but not so much about giving them the the extras, like, as simple as calling them back when that when somebody calls or Right. Leaving their house cleaner than you found it or doing what you say you're gonna do. You know, all these things are very simple in terms of giving a good service and good experience, but in the contractor space, sometimes simple is not so simple.
So it's been a way where we've been able to make a niche for ourselves. I love how you've broken that down, and we're gonna dive into this a little bit more here in the show. But in essence, it's not the service or the actual work. That's a part of it. It's not just not that.
It's just that the entire experience is what you consider craftsmanship, which I just absolutely agree with and love And I think that if more people understood that, then they would have a better perspective on what it looks like to build a business. So I wanna get into that. At this level, before we do that though, at this level, you're obviously very successful.
You you've you've developed a certain team and and revenue in your business to where, you know, most people, the stats say 91% of entrepreneurs, look at you as the 9 who's made it to the 7 figure plus mark. Right? Wow. You've made it to the promised land. But I know Chaz, Chuckle. We'll get into that. Don't worry. But my question is this, why do you keep pushing, man? Why at this level, you've done it. Why do you keep pushing? Well, There's levels to everything. Right? And Of course.
It's just another level. And, you can, of course, you can, You can create a team that does a lot of things for you and allows you to step away from the business. But if you don't grow and nurture that team, you're reputation starts to crumble. Your everything starts to erode, and it takes a lot of effort and a lot of time to pour into the people that you have working for you on your team to be able to try to cultivate the same level of care and commitment that you would as an owner. Totally.
All of that is kinda to the side. I mean, why do I still do it? Because, I wanna build an empire, man. I want to, I wanna hit a 100,000,000. And hitting a 100,000,000 is is a long way off from where we are. Last year, we did over 2. But, it's it's within reach. It's America. You know, you wanna build the American dream. I love it, man. I love it. Okay. So more is what I heard you say there. That's how you're designed. You're always gonna push for the next level no matter what the next level is.
We gotta just we gotta go. And so I just so resonate with that. And and even the word empire, like, you know, obviously gathering the kings, we call it a kingdom. Like, you you can't not. Like, that's what a this is what a king does. This is what we're designed to do. We we we we rule and and we expand. Chaz is what a kingdom does. So I just so appreciate that perspective. Okay. So take me back. 2015, you said you started.
And and it was a lot of out of just creating opportunities for yourselves. You said there wasn't like this master plan that you had. You were just kind of going from one thing to the next and seeing what was out there. And so in the process of entrepreneurship, why did you consider that? Because that's very different than military or public servant Chaz, like, a firefighter or a police officer? Like, how did you land here?
So throughout later high school years and and into early twenties, I always worked at low paying jobs. And I was into cars back then. I was into hobbies and partying and all the spending money where you shouldn't have been. Oh, yeah. Funds money that should have been. I think we all could relate to that. And, I was actually I I was working construction while I was in the military. I was in the National Guard. And, got deployed to Afghanistan for a year.
And when you're deployed, you have everything, paid for, basically. And you're still being paid. It's not a lot, but, I put all that money away. And when I came home was 2013, used it to buy a multifamily house. And I was looking for ways to make my money work for me. You know what I mean? Even though I didn't really have a I just had an inkling. I didn't really have a good background in Chaz.
You know, came from a very, modest family, you know, one of 6 kids, Parents didn't make much electricity always stayed on, but there wasn't a lot of wasn't a lot of excess, if you know what I mean, however. And, wanted to change that. And I was trying to test for police departments and fire departments and these kind of things. And none of the doors opened, but I was really good at carpentry.
And I wanted to make an like, a new opportunity for myself there and some do something that where I was able to make the same kind of money that my friends were getting these state jobs were making, And I also didn't really wanna I didn't really like the whole government, oversight and you're you're like a pawn in these jobs. So I was going to school full time at night at the same time. I was taking entrepreneurship and finance classes and stuff.
Okay. Started subcontracting for a friend of mine. And there wasn't a lot of work. So I started telling everyone I did carpentry to keep my job with my friend. And he's he got these jobs that I got a few jobs Chaz, were pretty decent Chaz, a couple $100,000 worth of work. And, after we finished the the this large edition we were working on, I had lined up work for myself. And I was like, I'm gonna go out on my own. I'm gonna see what I can do. Yeah. And did Chaz. That was 2015, like I said.
And the rest is history. You know, the you go through many, many, many problems and you find solutions for those problems as you go. And I remember one time in 2018. I had a team of 3 guys at the time. And I remember thinking to myself on the weekend, 1 weekend, there's gotta be an easier way to do this. How why am I struggling so hard? You know?
Yeah. Yeah. And that's really where I started doing a lot of personal growth and development, listening to a lot of podcasts, reading a lot of books, watching a lot of YouTube videos about team building, about business building, about marketing, sales. There's not a lot of books about operations and and construction. You know? Right. Everyone loves to talk about the marketing and the sales because it's easy to scale. It's easy to get leads.
It's hard to make sure that you produce those leads and do the same thing over and over and over and over again. Yeah. And then, It's also not very sexy. You know, like, there's no money to associated to that. Like, that's just mundane root root, you know, repeatable SOPs. You know? So that's so that's that's true. That that is what people think is that blue collar is not very sexy. It's not very desirable to get into this this industry.
And that's honestly one of the reasons why I wanted to start my own company because I wanted to make a place where it was fun to do to work and fun to do the thing that we all love doing, which is building stuff and being good at it. Totally. But you also a place where you can make good money doing that. So that's a lot of where my company is structured around is giving back And I say I wanna build an empire.
Of course, I wanna build an empire, but I wanna build an empire where I'm bringing my team up with me. You know what I mean? Where I'm bringing my people up, I I have a family core group of people that are in this business that are they bleed for it. You know? And you wanna be able to give back to those people and coach them and build them up personally and professionally Chaz well as you do yourself. I love that, man.
I I think that comes from a from a core belief of of wanting to disciple or wanting to just shepherd others, help others, and you can you can totally tell that about you. So I think that, you know, time in the military. First off, thank you for your time in the military, then you're in your, your deployment. Thank you for that. But even just your, like, natural pull towards leadership and wanting to pour into others, like, that's obviously come through in how you're running your business.
And so I think that those things are important because at the 6 figure stage, right, like, that's who's listening right now.
If they haven't gotten to the point where they have enough resources to just go higher whoever they want at whatever rate they Chaz, And so some of those leadership pieces that maybe you learned in the military or maybe you've watched on a YouTube video, what are some of those things like that just off the top of your head as you were building that allowed you to think like this Chaz that you wanted to give back, that you wanted to bring people with you Chaz,
like, why why were you thinking like that as opposed to, like, I just gotta get mine. It's pretty lonely having years not having any friends. That's right. I think it was really because I remember very vividly, working very hard in construction and making next to nothing and hating Chaz. You know? Like, Chaz why am I doing this? I need to go do something else. Like, this is not worth it to to do this, to to what make 15 bucks an hour I think I was getting paid 13 bucks an hour back in 2010.
Yeah. And, I should tell you our our mission statement. You know, our mission statement for our company not every company has one, you know, especially when you're first starting out. I didn't know all I had the the pieces of what I wanted to do somewhat up here, but not a solid plan. And even if you make a plan back then, it's going to change. You know, like, as your years go by, you things change. You learn more stuff. You you go different directions.
Yeah. Our mission statement is to change the contracting industry for the better. And to positively impact the lives of everyone we come in contact with. So how can I make that mission statement a thing if I don't actively live that out from my people? And plus, an another part of it is is that what I've learned over building a team and cultivating people and discipling discipling people is that everyone loves to use the phrase, you know, keep your business and personal life separate. You know?
They use their personal life at home. You're at work now. Wolfe, guess what? Does that really work? If if your wife's pissed at you when you walk out the door in the morning, are you gonna just forget that when you go to work?
No. Nope. So that's part of our our culture and our core as well is building people up personally and professionally because the better that I can make 1, whether someone stays with me or not, if I can make a positive impact on their life, that is something that makes me happy.
Yeah. But, 2, the better that I can build up the people that are around me, the better that I can help them, be a therapist to them, coach them, talk to them, about different aspects of their life, the better they're gonna be and the more focused that they're gonna be when they're at work and the more that they're gonna help the overall business, which intern allows us to help them and the cycle continues. Cycle continues.
Yeah. It's so unique to hear you say this because not every entrepreneur thinks like this, And even even good entrepreneurs who think I gotta have a good culture. I wanna take good care of my people, but to specifically try to build someone up personally. Because of that's just the right thing to do because it's part of your mission statement.
It's the same thing why you do the experience piece for your customers, not just good craftsmanship of the product, but it's the the whole experience of the process with your company from, you know, beginning to end. And I think that being true to who you are, that's extended over into your family, which makes perfect sense. That's logical.
Like, if that's who you are, if that's your mission statement of your company, that would that would extend over to your your family, your work family, but not a lot of people, like you said, they keep it separate. And so I've had that same thought many times. And I don't share a whole bunch usually on these shows, but I had several employees along the way who, for all intents and purposes, outgrew the opportunities that I had available.
And so I think what most entrepreneurs do is they try to hold people down. Right? Well, I want, like, they're talented. I want them in this position. And so they they either manipulate the situation or whatever the case may be, but I've just always held everything with an open hand because like you said, while they're with me, it's my absolute duty and responsibility to be like, I'm gonna pour into you. I'm gonna make you the best possible.
So that way, when you're with me, my customers and our company gets the best of you and you get the best of us. But then that way, when the next opportunity comes, even if it's not with me, you're ready. And I've been a part of your overall big journey because how audacious is it of me to think you're gonna work for me for 50 years? Right. That doesn't happen anymore. As much as you'd want them to.
As much as I I wouldn't want him to shoot out the door, I'm not gonna ask him to leave, but But if they came to me and said, hey. Which this happened many times a year? Hey, Chaz, I have this opportunity to go do x. Right? And if it's if it's just the opportunity is different, the finances are different. The it's a fit into what they do better. Like, it fits their profile better. Whatever the scenario is. And I go, you know what? That's exciting. And they're like, You're not mad?
Like, of course not. Well, first off, they wouldn't ask that typically just because I'm I'm talking about this anyway. I'm like, hey. Come on, like, how do we get you to the next level? Whether the next level's with me or with somebody else. You know? So I just so appreciate that about what you're doing in your business. Tell me about you. Like, okay. I've kinda correlated this into some good decisions. I like to talk good and bad decisions on the show.
And kind of everything you've said so far is a lot of your good decisions have been in taking good care of people, both your clients and your team. Can you give me one specific example of how you've done this in the practical so that the listener can take a quick note here and see, like, how do you actually implement this taking care of people thing that you've done. I can give you a couple of examples. I don't know how quick they're gonna be. That's okay. Well, give us give us a good one.
One thing we like to do for clients is we like to be as clear and detailed as we can about the scope of work that that we're doing. Clients inevitably will ask for additional work to be done. And we kind of draw a line if if it's too big, but smaller stuff, we will just take care of for them. So if it's something small, we'll just toss it in on our day to day throughout the job.
But a big part of taking care of clients, in our industry is just doing a good job, you know, giving that excellent experience and giving them something that say they want, their their bathroom renovated. Renovating that bathroom at the quickest possible time with the same level of quality with a couple excellent individuals in your house is a great service for them. You know? So it's taking care of that person.
People will ask us for for help on smaller things, even if even after we've left or whatever and just going and taking care of taking care of it for them. The larger one is the guys on the team, you know, in terms of of building them up and caring for them I've wanted to figure out ways to be able to financially incentivize them as much as possible.
So giving back out of profit that the company makes, you know, paying high wages comparatively across the board, being super flexible when they wanna take a day off, of not working weekends. We work Monday through Friday. So huge priority on family. You know? My wife actually started that back when I first started. We had just giving birth to my oldest, and she had just given birth to my oldest. And, she's like, you can't work weekends anymore. No more Saturdays. Like, I need you home. The kids.
So you can work Monday through Friday. Yeah. Exactly. It is a great decision on her part and, help shape the company to to what Yeah. The way that we do things now. Because that because otherwise, you'd still be working Saturdays, maybe Sundays, because that's what we do. We just we just go and we go and we go and we go and we go. Right? In terms of taking care of the guys, I mean, every situation is different and every person is gonna be different.
So some you have to take care of more than others, but if you show me a good character and you show me that you're you want to grow, you want to better yourself, you want to make something something of yourself, when you come on board with us, I'm gonna turn around and do everything I can to make your life better. Even to the point of of giving you money to buy a truck when you crash your car or Right.
Giving loans that may or may not just be for free or things like Chaz, you know, helping helping them out. Yeah. Doing the right thing. And I like us to thank you for for the several examples there. I think that a lot of those make sense for the character that you described. And then out of that comes the the overflow, right, of who that you say that you are, your mission statement, and then then the action then is just a a mirror or a a representation of who that you say that you are.
So I think that that e even in itself is a core thing. Like, what you're saying when you're saying I'm taking care of people, what I heard was do a good job. Like, actually do what you said that you were gonna for your for your guys and for your clients. What I heard you say is, like, be honorable. Like, pay attention to what they have going on in their life. If it's a client and there's just a small thing, like, just do the right thing. Take care of it. Right?
If it's a guy and they and he needs to take a a day off or if it's the weekend because he just had a baby or something's happening with his family. Like, there's there's just a a human element of taking care of people. That doesn't mean that you bend over backwards and you become a a a foot stool, right, like, where people just walk all over you. And there's a balance there. The smirk I'm getting here is is that you've probably had that. You know?
That's something I was gonna follow-up with is, it's definitely part of my core belief to to take care of everyone that comes into our team and and build them up personally and professionally and all that. It's hard to do that if they're not if they don't have that character or if they don't have that willingness to give back or to give that give and take. You know? Some people come in, and it's Maybe not a parent at first, but they're they're taking. Exactly.
They're they're taking whatever they can get. And, I just had a guy leave who was, a lead painter for us. And, I wouldn't say it was the smoothest transition out that, that we've ever had. But I know that he learned a lot while he was here. I know that we did what we could to better his life, but you're not always gonna have that, smooth. Let me get you to the next level type mentality as much as you would want to. You know, it's gonna be situated.
At least my experience, it's gonna be situational because some of the guys on my team that I have built relationships with and have put put pour their blood out and sweat for this company and stuff. Yeah. Of course. If they have a better opportunity and they wanna move on somewhere else, I'm gonna do everything I can to help them out, but it just depends, like, where the relationship is when when they make that jump. You know? Yeah. Totally. No. I understand. 100%.
Okay. So let's flip the coin and go to the, like, a bad decision. So along the journey here, especially on the journey, 27 figures, What was a just a mistake that you made that you just would caution everybody from from falling into? I actually have have something, that I wanted to bring up there. I have another thing too. And that and it ties into what you were saying about, people who are in the 6 figure mark not being able to hire Right.
One of the things if I had done it sooner Chaz would have put me to a much better place is taking that jump and hiring somebody good immediately. Yeah. I remember in 2017, 20, 2016, 2017, we were at, like, 300 k a year, 330 k a year, something like that. And, I was looking at hiring and hiring a guy who was skilled who could do what I needed him to do was gonna cost, like, 50 to 70 k a year. I didn't even make 50 to 70 k a year. You know what I mean? So I was like, very scared.
Yes. When I hired that guy, it freed my time up so much to be able to build a business that it propelled us to where we are now. If I had done that on day 1, if I could have even found someone who would have trusted to come on with this brand new company. You know what I mean? But Right. If I had been thinking that way on day ones, we would have grown way faster. That being said, bad decisions.
It for me, I was trying to think about this earlier since you sent me the list of, the list of questions here, but for me, some of the bad decisions that that come to mind all kinda come from points where I was feeling cocky. And I was feeling like Okay. I could, like, I'm I'm doing alright. Like, I got this. And, one of them. Green year old press clipping.
Yeah. Exactly. And you really I mean, you heard a little bit about my personality, you know, like, cockiness and being having a big ego is not something that I want for myself or for anyone else on my team because I believe that we all have something to learn from everyone. And we can learn from our mistakes, or we can learn from other people talking about their mistakes. You know? So true.
One time, I, we were we were really, really busy as a company, and it was all hands on deck in the middle of summer. Everyone on the team is working in the field, trying to complete projects, and somebody sends me a check for $10. Out of the blue. Like, somebody that I had talked to back way back when about a bathroom remodel. I get this get this check-in the mail. And I'm like, what is this for?
And they had signed the contract and sent $10, even though I didn't have a payment structure or anything, any kind of deposit, whatever. And I was like, wow. Like, Chaz sounds great. I'm like, I can do this job. I can do it by myself. I'll pull a guy when I whenever I need help. You know? So I go to try to do this job when we're in the middle of 5 other ones, and it's too much going on. Terrible experience for the client. I'm always in and out. I'm getting pulled left and right.
Not able to actually, like, focus on giving them a skilled quality tradesman for their bathroom. You know? Yeah. End up having disputes and the whole nine yards and end up losing 5 k on the job overall because they're like, this work quality is not good. The experience wasn't good, x, y, and z. But it comes down to me being cocky and thinking that I could do another huge thing on top of all the things that I was already doing Yeah. And just taking the money.
Another instance was actually last year we had a massive roof project come in. And I took it and estimated it and didn't fully measure the roof. I looked at it, and I was like, I've done plenty of these before. Get into the project. And it is literally double the size of roof that I had voted for. Already had a signed contract. Ended up paying money out of the company to finish this guy's refram.
Yep. But it's, like I said, it comes down to being to getting cocky and feeling comfortable least that's where I Chaz I've gathered on it, like, after processing a little a little bit. And it sounds like that place for you being cocky or comfortable led to not being thorough or or taking on too much without even knowing it which happens to all entrepreneurs.
Like, we've got plates spinning even if we only have the 1 business, let alone if you're a serial entrepreneur, and a PS if you're listening right now and you're not at 7 figures and you have multiple businesses. Stop. Focus on 1. Focus on 1. It's like it's 7 figures. And then then then go be a TikTok star and and and have multiple businesses. But the reality of it is is that ego, there's no place. Now it doesn't mean that you can't be confident.
That doesn't mean that you can't be confident when you walk in. You have to be. Right? Like, you gotta be confident into what you're doing, how you operate, with the experience with your clients, how you operate with your guys or or your team. You have to have a level of confidence. And, and I would even say cockiness to a degree, but, like, the ego piece that you're talking about when when you feel like that you've arrived or that you're starting to slow down because I I got this.
Yeah. And it's recipe for disaster. It's a recipe for disaster. That's why I love you know, honestly, that's why I think I'm addicted to not just, like, the grind. Like, I'm not, like, the there's a grind culture, right, and then there's the, like, hey. We take weekends and we do the family. Like, thank goodness for my wife too, because I would just grind. But I think a part of that comes from the understanding of what it actually takes. Right?
Like, if we're gonna go to whatever the target is, it's just gonna take so much more than what we realized. And so I'm just not afraid of Chaz. So I'm gonna press into it, but, you know, then we get stuck in in the grind.
And so A lot of that has to do with understanding that it's gonna take more than what we realize and not to have an ego, but but to build up those that are around us so that it doesn't turn into just this grind yourself into the, you know, to the dirt and your family loses you type of a thing. Yeah. It's it's a really tough balancing act, you know. You see opportunity and you want to capitalize on it. But sometimes it blinds you to the fact that, hey.
Maybe I should take a step back and and slow the Wolfe a little bit. Make sure things are more smooth. And or just let it happen naturally. You know? Like, let just just leave the growth alone for a little while. Let's get these systems running. Get this thing in place and then go for more. Or because if you know, I mean, honestly, it's, the world has a way of, forcing you to reset when you when you try too much too quick. You know? Uh-huh. Absolutely.
And of course, guys, like you and I, we want it fast. We want it all right now, all the way to the top. But I think over time, especially what you're saying, is that you realize that there's a process to that. And and when you when you go through the process in the right fashion or the right cadence, then you build something that's sustainable and not gone with the first little oops or the first bad decision because they're gonna come. They're gonna come.
The bad people, the bad decision, the bad client, the whatever. You we can go down the list of of, bad things in business, but let's switch over here to speed round. I'm I'm I'm so curious if some of your answers here. My first question is always the same. And and it it draws out a lot of interesting answers, and so I'm I'm super curious. If you could only pick one metric, Zach, in your business to track forever and ever, what would it be?
It would have to be the impact that I make in people's lives. Because that's so tied to my characteristics and and my philosophy on this whole thing. People think construction is a is a business with hammers and nails and wood, but it's really a people business. It's a people business from the people that you have working for you to the people that you work for, like anything else. You know? And, really the impacts that I can make on other people's lives and what difference am I making?
Because I wanna change the world, man. I wanna make the world a better place, leave it better than I found it. And, this just happens to be my niche, but, yeah, how am I changing individuals' lives to make them have a greater impact you down the line from meeting me? Yeah. And I think that there's a lot of people listening today who share Chaz. You know, so how how do you go from now now knowing now verbally saying that that that's the most important metric How are you gonna track that?
And and, really, what I'm looking for is, you know, for the the key for the audience, like, how should they track that? Because you're right. It's it's very abstract. I don't know that it's something that you you can track fully. You know? But what comes to mind is the only way that you could know somehow you made a difference in someone's life is by keeping up the relationship with them, right? Like, you gotta stay in touch. You gotta see how they're doing.
I know for instance, one guy that I I had work for me, and he was just a laborer. We tried to teach him, didn't really work out. Yeah. Not really nothing when he came to work for us and left us. And now he has his car. He's got a good job. He's got a bike. Like, he's doing things that he wanted to do for his life Chaz he wasn't able to before he came here. Yeah. He gave him some structure. Yeah. I think that you're right. It's the relationship piece.
And so when you break that down into a business, it's you know, if clients are referring you, right, if they're leaving you obviously good reviews For sure. Coming back and doing second projects. If team members work for you for, you know, any given link, like, a long period of time, if your current team members are referring other people to come work for you. That's a big one. Right? I mean, not only do I love it here, but I think you'll love it here. That's a big one. Comes into culture too.
Right? I know we're getting off topic here, but culture is huge in any business. If there's one thing that that I could say to focus on Wolfe be build your culture, build your culture of taking care of people around you and being more selfless than selfish. Yeah. I think if you're looking to always take, like you said earlier, as opposed to give, and people recognize that pretty quickly. If you're if you're a giver, then I think also people recognize that pretty quick quick quickly as well.
Zach, what would a book be that you'd recommend You've said you've read a lot. You've done a lot of personal development. What would you recommend for a six figure owner to read? Just one book. Just one. Give us give us the best. Extreme ownership by Jackal Willink. Yeah. I wondered if, with your military experience, if you were a fan of his great book, give us your one nug from, like, what did you get from Chaz?
Especially since you already had kind of military experience, like Chaz ownership experience, what would you get from that? In some way, shape, or form as the boss, everything comes back to you. So did you your guys had one of your guys has a problem. Did you train that guy enough? Did you give him enough counseling? Did you work with him through the project or through the situation to try to have the best results. If not, then So it comes back to you. That problem's yours, man.
Yeah. Another thing is is decentralized command. Like, you need to have empower your people to really make decisions by themselves without having to come back to a centralized command because Yeah. If not, how are you gonna ever scale? Yeah. You can't. You can't. You just can't. You've gotta designate and and then we've done this with several clients, but, one of the easiest ways is just to literally write down what it is that you do and just going, okay.
I'm gonna assign this to this person and assign this to this person and and some of it works out. Some of it some of it, we gotta we gotta reel it back. You gotta give it somebody different. Maybe it's the wrong person. Maybe they're in the wrong seat on the bus, whatever it is, but you can't start if you hold it. Right? You can't start giving it away. Okay. Next question is, do you intentionally mastermind or network with other entrepreneurs and why? I do.
I follow the entrepreneur space, like, a lot, business space and all that. Yeah. Grant Cardone, Pace Moore's the, Albert Preciado. Sure. All those guys. You know? But I don't go to all their shows and events and all that stuff, but I do read a lot. I read a lot as much as I can. And when it's not actual paper in hand, I listen to a lot of audio. So that's typically how I read is audible. Listen to a lot of podcasts, always researching new things if I have a have an idea.
You know, you want a very very analytical person. Wanna know all the info before you make a decision. Totally. But, also local entrepreneurs for sure. Like, there's, as I'm sure you know, you may know lots of lots of people that are in the business space or our entrepreneurs. Maybe they're not all worth your time. So I look for guys that have similar propensity for growing a business Chaz I do. Yeah. There's a few around my area.
You know, we connect and share stories and stuff and that sort of thing. Yeah. That's cool, man. Knowledge is power. And I think that, obviously, that's the beginning of it. Like, what you're saying is that you have to have it, but and then and then you act on whatever that is in your side of your business. And I think that you gave plenty of examples there. I relate to many of those, especially early on six figures. I know that it's difficult.
And sometimes scary to invest, but even just committing to reading a book or listening to a book on the way to work or at the gym or whatever. I mean, I can think about myself even just years years ago. Audible was huge for me back then. I mean, it still is, but that was, like, the beginning piece for me. And it's like, okay. I'm gonna read a book a month or listen, and then it was then I'm gonna do it a a week. You know?
And if you're focused, if you're just committed to just gaining, gaining, gaining. Now at at some point, we have to shift and go, okay. Now I'm gonna take this information. I gotta hone in a little bit. I need less less general, more specific, but I think just the commitment piece of what you're saying is just like just get in the in the community, whether you're following somebody or going to an event, whatever. It doesn't really matter.
You just gotta get in the groove of of getting information. Otherwise, you're just gonna always do the same thing over and over. Exactly. K. And so last question. You ready? Sure. We talked about this off air a little bit. And so, you know, I I I'm curious to see how how far this goes for you, but the question is, if you lost it all, right, like, if the business just was gone, what would you do? What would be your response to that? It's a tough one.
It's tough because when you know how to do a thing, it's easy to just jump back in and try to do it again. And I know that I could I want it if I lost it all and wanted to start a new construction company, I could. I've learned a lot, but trades and construction is a very hard industry. So I don't know if I would go so much the construction route Chaz, as do something more with with real estate in terms of investing and and that sort of thing.
I already I did that on the side already, but haven't really had the bandwidth to to pour into it. You know? Yeah. But if I lost it all too, I I'd definitely take some time to to process. It'd it'd be something that I'd have to think about for a while. Exactly. I love what you said in there is, you know, you could do it again. But it would be a choice. Right? Like, whether you chose to do trades or not, real estate or something completely different.
Maybe you wanted to, you know, do something in another country. I don't know. Like, something off the wall, become a a soda model. I don't know. The thing with the thing with business is if you own your own business and you're successful with it, you're forced to get good at so many things. You're forced to get good at marketing. You're forced to get good at sales. You're forced to get good at the thing that you sell. You're forced to get good at team building.
So It o it really opens up a whole wide variety of of options that you never may have considered before. And that's why I say it. I don't know that I'd jump right back into construction. As much as I it's always gonna be a part of my life, you know. Yeah. Building because it's it's fun. But and I enjoy it to some extent, but when you're trying to scale business in it, it's, there's a lot of things and a lot of variables. So it makes it would be a tough choice. I understand.
Well, we we appreciate your authentic answers and just the ability to hear your story and if someone resonated with you today, they wanna get to know you or reach out to you. Maybe they wanna come work for you because they love your culture or something like that. How would they find you? How'd they connect with you, Hussein? So we do, everything online in terms of marketing. Your all your typical social media is our website is again, constructionct.com.
We're based in Connecticut, but Facebook, Zach Neville, Instagram, Zach Neville, or ZN Construction. Any any of the above. Yeah. That's awesome, man. Well, we so appreciate you coming, today onto the show and talked a lot about giving. You talked a lot about, serving and and, to even discipleship. And that's exactly what today was, man. So I just so appreciate that. And I think that the listener today, got a bunch. And so thank you for going through the things you've gone through good and bad.
And, well, obviously, we wish you nothing but success in all that you have going on. And, of course, those those side gigs, those side, real estate deals that maybe, will become a bigger business for We'll see. You never know. Absolutely, man. Well, thanks for being on the show. Thanks, Chaz. Thanks for listening to Gathering the Kings. We hope you got a ton of value today and learned a thing or 2 taking your business to 7 figures and beyond.
If you desire more and want a community around you to help you get there, I want you to go to Gathering the Kings dot com. That's Gathering the Kings dot com, and I want you to apply for our next becoming a king 90 day intensive We are extremely exclusive by nature as a group. What that means that we're really wanting only the entrepreneurs who take their business and targets super Sirius to apply. So if that's you, you think you got what it takes to level up your business.
I want you to go to gathering the king's dot com and apply. And we will see you on the other side.