On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. I flew out of the parking lot that day, sixty five miles an hour, kinda a little bit of Tokyo drift leaving the parking odd. And my partner business partner called me, like, are you alright? That was totally uncalled for. My lead sales guy the next morning was really upset with me. To queued me up. Like, you care so much about the reputation of our company. Right. What if you did kill somebody leaving your own parking lot? Yeah. Big deal.
You know, like, he called me out straight up. What's up everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe, gathering the king's podcast. We're coming back to you here today with another king on the stage. My brother, Jeff. Janakavo. How we doing? Doing good, man. You nailed the last name. Love my Okay. Folks I'm with can get it right. You know, Chaz to have you say it three or 4 times, but then I just memorized it like I did in high school, just input, output, just immediately. That's right.
It's not past all my classes. You know? But you said there's a unique name in Ellis Island. I was just there and at Ellis Island, just a couple months ago with my family. Tell us the background of the name here real quick. Yeah. So the Janikavo family name Chaz it was originally spelled in the old country from Capobasso, Northern of Italy, didn't have that second g in there, and it got Yeah. It was just one of those Ella Island. Yeah. We don't yeah.
Obviously, we don't know the heart and mind of the the officer at the time in front of my great my great grandfather, but, either that second g gotta put in there on accident, gotta put in there on purpose, the speed of the moment, whatever. We we my one uncle actually researched it. We found the the original docket of of immigrating in into Ellis Island, my grandfather's It's right there on the ledger. That second g's in there. And then the, yeah, documents from the old country.
It's Janikavo, which makes a whole lot more sense. Right? Yes. Take that second g out of there. Right? Yeah. It is pretty crazy how that happened when I met my dad. I didn't know him growing up twenty four years old. I started chatting with his dad, my grandfather, and he's got papers from his great grandfather. So five up from me. He's in the civil war, and they got elisement papers, a packet of enlistment papers. And on in this one packet, Wolfe is spelled five different ways.
Some with a u, some with an o, some with 2 f, some with one f, some with no e, or just like, wait a second. What? The same guy, the same enlistment papers, I don't even know. So here we are with the crazy last name stories. But, Jeff, tell us what kind of business that you have. I know you got several, so just kinda give us a lay of the land. Yeah. So in a nutshell, I'm a consultant. And, I have 2 businesses in which I call on, but I sit specifically in that consulting seat. For myself.
So these businesses run. They they they run well. I don't have to be there each day. First one, the longest is my retail mattress our gardener's mattress and more, but we've owned that. My business partner and I, Ben, for 12 years now, we're a fourteen time favorite not your store winner. We take the 5 star experience very, very seriously. It's it's we work to that each and every single day. It's ingrained in our mission.
To change the way our customers feel about mattress stores, and that guides everything we do. And so that's that business. The other one was kind of birthed out of the retail business. We created a CRM for ourselves. We, Frankenstein Infusionsoft that's now called keep, but back in the day, it was Infusionsoft. Yeah. And, you know, plugged in some other apps and developed some code and some some other little zips oraps and do dads that make it all work the way we wanted.
Yeah. And we discovered something pretty cool that, you know, the problem with CRMs they become this big digital rolodex. And, you know, you just end up taking a business card in your hand and entering it, and then it just sets as time goes along.
Sure. And we created them for ourselves, And then for our industry and then for others outside the industry to where it really works the way you work in person with your prospects, with your leads, with your clients and customers, And all you have to do is go to a link. Every time you do something, you just further it by hitting enter. And you don't go into it. You don't need a username. You don't need a password.
Because if you're an Infusion soft OG, you remember that every 90 days, you had to reset your password. And half the time, even though you typed it right, it still said it was wrong, and it became a lot to recover. Know a few other companies that are like that. Mhmm. You're like, I know. I'm typing this right, sir. It's like, even copy paste it in, and it still would somehow get bounced back. And so we created it for the purpose of let's let's make this thing work the way people work.
Yeah. And so fast forwarding that business, now we just kinda focus on licensing organizations and help them onboard, new folks keep them in line legally with what their agreements are. You know, really for those folks, it's about a mass mass level of because when the inevitable, hey, you're franchises operating, not as a franchise, and this is a problem. And I'm gonna sue you.
We have a whole database worth of communications that are like, lined up to say, here's what's been communicated to you. It was obvious this wasn't franchising. This was licensing, and there's a big difference there. Sure. Sadly, a lot of people Chaz conflate the 2. Oh, yeah. But so those are the 2 businesses I own, and then I consult to other businesses and do some group coaching.
And and now in my journey, I'm kinda looking to be kind of that speaker guy helping to impact the world by creating healing for others. Yeah. I love that. There's a power in network healing. Maybe we'll get to that. I know that you've got a little bit of a backstory and a book that just came out. I'm gonna ask you a question that tie into some of those things, but my first question's always about the why. And I don't mean just, like, you know, give me the surface. Like, what's your why, Jeff?
I mean, like, deep down what's burning you today to do all of this, even be here today, even though you've had all the success. Yeah. I mean, I guess, you know, this might be a little atmosphere people a little woo woo, but, you know, we we I'll frame it. I'll frame this statement this way. If you're into health and fitness, you know Chaz there's biohacking you can hack your genetics and things like that.
You know, my genetics were, you know, so if we believe that can happen and we know that that can happen, Then the inverse, I believe, is also true when 2 people come doing some come together, that their caring with them does get passed on to that child. Right? And some people would refute that, but you can't you can't then go create it on the back end with biohacking and fitness and then not accepted on the other end. I think that's something people need to settle.
And so Sure. For me, what keeps me pushing forward is is this kind of ingrained belief, and it took me a while to figure it out that things are gonna be taken away from me. And, you know, my great grandfather in Alice Island fun of a story as that is, the man behind the name wasn't a great man.
This was a man who immigrated to the US and decided to be a bachelor, orphaning off 8 children, Wolfe, I'm sorry, 10 children and and divorcing my great grandmother, which in the Catholic faith, you could only do through insanity or adultery. And so he paid off a a father in the church to commit my great grandmother. And so taken away Chaz was passed down through me.
And, you know, I saw that, a little bit in in my personal relationships at home and how how some of that worked, with parents who were who were working for others as employees. And so that that that belief that things can be taken away through no choice of your own, but this this desire to create massive action to create foundation and solidify my position is is really what drives me, yeah, to to create that foundation. And along with that, I'm I'm leveling people up, bringing people with me.
You know, and through the store, we elevate people One of my biggest success stories there is somebody that left our company. You know, this was this was a guy who was a delivery guy. Worked his way up to the sales floor. Now he's in management and rising in a company that does, you know, printing and copier sales and print services and all kinds of stuff. If you can print it, they basically do it. And it's a big company, and he's we were able to give him that launching pad.
I'm really proud of that. Yeah. So when I say we level up our humans, those are the kinds of things we do. I love the the human respect there, the just leveling up humans in in general. Going going back to a few things that you said there. It's interesting that, you know, you'd maybe point out so that some listeners or maybe even some experts would refute that certain things can be passed down. And I think Chaz, so there's two sides of this story.
So I wanna kinda open up this can of worms here, and let's see where we can go with it. But We've got, you know, obviously, genetics that are passed down. That's hard to to overcome because it's real. I told you already, which not not many people know, but I did I did meet my dad when I was 24, and I didn't know him. He didn't even know I existed. And so when I met him and the fact that we look alike and talk alike, have some of the same phrases. And It's just so weird, man.
No environment whatsoever impact. However Right. DNA. Okay. Fine. And then we're talking about environment, which is a lot of the pieces that, you know, the the environment that was created for your family, your your your ancestors through the generations were a product of some decisions. And so, yes, those both things can be passed down. I agree with you. But what you said, what I heard you say was that that wasn't the end of the story for you.
That you had to acknowledge it, grab a hold of it, and then now you're rewriting your own story, or you said you're you're taking from here going forward, kinda saying, no. Thank you. And and moving on. So let's just open up that right there because I think that we're in agreement here that, okay. Fine. We've got some things passed down to us. Our environment, our DNA, It kind of our deck of cars that was dealt to us, but you're doing something with it even though. Talk about that for a second.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, all that said, I grew up Sunday dinner at my grandfather's house. So my grandfather was one of those 10 orphan children and was sent to a an Amish farm at, I think, it was 3 or 4. Wow. It basically was a child slave laborer. You know, that's that that was the intention.
And at least of the family that took him in, and he had an 8th grade education, ran away at 16, ended up finding his mother, my great grandmother, and was able to rescue her and then lived with her for a little while tragically. She passed in a fire in their home. And and so I saw this tenacity to succeed. I saw this entrepreneurial spirit from my grandfather. I saw it with, his sons, my uncles, and and even my father who had trucking businesses over the years.
You know, interesting little fact about my grandfather. He's you know, everybody has a laundry detergent bottle in their laundry room right now, probably. And that little pour spout out the top, that little mold and pour spout. Yeah. Chaz was my grandfather. That's cool. That's pretty good. Wolfe, it is. We didn't get no money for it because his stubbornness in his belief when I frame all the story to this point, you can understand why a man would turn away Chaz one was Procter And Gamble.
There was another one Johnson and Johnson, but P and G came and said, you know, look. We wanna bring you in. We know you don't have this protected, but we wanna do the right thing. Please join us. We like your mind. We like your innovations. We we understand your end to all this other stuff. Please, we want you on board. Your sons will be brought along as they age into the company, etcetera. And he basically said, no. Thank you. I can do it on my own.
You know, and I wonder if that wasn't as much stubborn as as it was looking at what was around him, and he just couldn't trust anybody. Yeah. Because how could he Yeah. His his his map had been filled with the turns along the way where he he actually couldn't trust anybody. So, yeah, he his only option was subconsciously to do it on his own. Right. Anything. Right. And so so I saw Chaz. And I've been trying to, like, test myself as I go through life now?
Like, am I am I reliving that or am I not? Yeah. Because I don't wanna be that stubborn individual. Yeah. There's it stubborn's a fun word because it can mean persist. Right? We can be stubborn about certain things that we need to be stubborn about and press on. I just had a conversation with a guy a couple days ago here on the pod that we we talked about this exact thing because it's like, you know, he's he's interviewed 100 of successful entrepreneurs like I have.
And he said, you know, we we culminated a lot of our answers. A lot of the book recommendations, a lot of the answers which we've done the same kind of fun to look at the kinda like the stats, but it's like, you know, you have some people say that the number one reason for success is to you know, be willing to pivot, you know, and be willing to be open minded to the things that are around you.
And then you Chaz the other half that says, to persist and don't give up and don't quit, you know, and don't ever like you Chaz pivoting and quitting, you know, and staying our opposite, but yet both needed. For success. And so this is interesting thinking about your grandfather. What do you think that he would say if he were on the show right now? Like, if you just were to chime in, what do you think he would say? That's a fantastic question.
He would probably argue all the reasons that he was right often have pushed away PNG. Yeah. Do you think he'd be open minded to what could have been? I don't know. You know, I get a lot I get a lot of the stories from secondhand through my father Oh, sure. Through my uncles. Over the years. I mean, I knew him as a young boy through the age of, like, thirteen ish or so Chaz my parents got divorced and family kinda splintered. We also moved to the US from Canada where he was living.
And so Okay. So, yeah, there you know, I think he would argue it. You know, this was a guy who would go to court endlessly over getting speeding tickets and and argue for hours. Why? Yeah. This this speeding ticket was unwarranted. And and it came to a point where the local police just didn't even bother. So, like, unless unless this guy runs somebody over right in front of our eyes, Just don't do it. We're not even gonna bother. It's just not worth our time. The squeaky wheel gets the oil.
Right? Yeah. So can we he was but he loved his grandkids immensely. He was so proud of all of us. I know that. I see it in the see it in the pictures that I've seen over the years. Yeah. I mean, this was a guy who had family ripped from him and then and then built a big family of his own. My my my aunts and uncles total 6. 7 kids and all with my dad.
And so he had a belief in family and he had a belief in legacy, but, man, he had a he he wasn't equipped with the tools to to really keep that together, unfortunately. What do you think the takeaway, obviously, for you as his grandson, but for the listener, listening right now, that that stubborn, but yet very entrepreneur. Obviously, he was an inventor. He had ideas, which is all of us right now listening. What what would you say our takeaway is?
Yeah. I think what I just where I kinda wrapped up there about his him not being equipped with the tools. Right? You know, we can we can get frustrated with employees. We can get frustrated with partners. We can get frustrated with vendors. You know, people that are in our life for any reason. Step back from the emotion and ask yourself, does this person have the toolkit? Right. For this moment. And then as a leader, ask yourself, take another step back and ask, have I given them the tools?
Yeah. I think all of these problems come back to us as leaders and us as influences in our relationships, leaders in our relationships. Those are the questions we need to ask ourselves. Yeah. And, you know, the ability to do so, I think, is powerful. K. Well, let's let's take your on ramp there. Let's talk about leadership for a second because the listener's thinking, okay.
Well, so I gotta be a good listener, so or a good leader so that I can you know, not make the same mistakes and and, you know, not miss the opportunity for PNG or or whatever. But leadership's a big topic. When you say I need to be a better leader, give us give us 2 things. Actually, I'd love to kinda split this up. I know you've got such podcast experience that you can handle two questions in one.
Where so what I wanna know is a practical thing that you've done to become a good leader, but I also wanna know Like, what do you think the on ramp for someone listening right now? Is it the same thing that you're gonna tell me, or is it, like, what's their practical first step towards becoming a good leader? Yeah. I think the the becoming a good leader for me, and I had to learn this. And I had to learn it the hard way we can get into a couple anecdotal stories, but is being vulnerable. Right?
And understanding that your idea doesn't have to be the idea. That's right. In In fact, the people you you should be bringing people around you to always arrive at the best idea. Right. And in creating an environment in which you get better and better and better ideas. I'm a big fan of mad men, the TV show that ran on AMC. I love advertising. And, I actually collect old ads and print.
And there's one moment in that show where Draper's getting pinned to the wall about the expense of papers and pencils. He's like, look. We we run through paper to get to bad we go through bad ideas faster so we get better and better good ideas quicker. Something to that effect. I've nurtured it, but that was the that was the takeaway. And as a leader, that's what we gotta do.
We have to create these environments for the best idea to rise above test it as fast as possible, fail it out as fast as possible, but ultimately, we hear fail faster often Right. But as a leader, we gotta get to winning fast as well. Yeah. If we're just failing fast constantly, yeah, we can learn some stuff, but man. Yeah. That's a hamster wheel. We need to exit pretty quickly. Right? Yeah. So look to create that exit to winning when you can as a leader, I would say.
And then that that vulnerability of saying, you know what? I don't it doesn't have to be my idea. I can have these people win and win for us. Yeah. And and and allow them to take the credit. Yeah. The the vulnerability, I think I you've tied these answers in well together.
The vulnerability in your story plays into what you just gave to the listener, which is you have to create a a collaborative environment to where, yes, we can have a lot of ideas and fail, but, ideally, we can vet things out and and win. And I think that that's the the ultimate of every decision making think take session is to have a bunch of stuff go up on the board, and then quickly we resolute at the one thing that we're gonna move forward. And if it works, it works.
If it doesn't, we tear it apart and move on to the next one. You know? So all that super practical. But in the midst of that, the person listening right now, and they're going, okay, vulnerable. I gotta I gotta let other people share I gotta fail fast, but but I also gotta win. So in your mind, what's the difference between failing fast or, like, opening up and having ideas and failing testing? Versus winning? Because you said you gotta do both.
Right. Well, I think I think if if anybody listening is owned a business or been for any amount of time 6 months and beyond, I think you've had a point of I can't believe I made that same mistake again. Right? Right? So that means you've created a path to fail faster, but you didn't create that path of, okay, where did I apply the practical knowledge of learning in Chaz moment.
Yeah. What what is that parallel ramp if if we gotta fail faster ramp and we got or or lane and we gotta win faster lane, and they can converge and they can cross over. How ultimately does it become a super lane? 2 and 3 lanes of winning. Yeah. And a service road to fail faster. Right? How do we change that versus being on the HOV high fast speed lane to fail? Right? Yeah. Like, how do we do that? And and I see business owners all the time. Like, man, that was a mistake I learned 20 years ago.
Right? You know, sometimes through the context of I I've seen that a lot in the last 5 years, 10 years with, you know, digital media. You know, it's it's media. It's not marketing. It's media. And you can make the same mistakes that you did as a season business owner that you made 20 years ago on radio and TV. You can make those same mistakes on Facebook and Instagram. It's not new. It's just a different media.
And people who've understood, okay, why you failed because I forgot to put a call to action in the ad on the radio commercial. Right. Well, I forgot to put a call to action on my YouTube ad or my Facebook ad. Right? So they they're like, that's why I made that same mistake. What, in other words, The crossroad, the thing that creates the divide and cements that winning lane is what did I learn and how do I create a system to take that failing and shift it into winning.
Yeah. You did a beautiful job with that. It's the failing, not so that we just check it off the list and don't do it again. But it's Right. In detail. Yeah. Yeah. That's part of it. Like, let's not do that again. But what does that actually look like to not do that again? What are the components of this failure? What did we learn from it? What should we do? What should we not do? And then there's implementation. And so I was, you know, I'm a big fan of this.
You did a an amazing job in that, but It's the time frame from failure or learning, as you just said. Mhmm. But it's a it can only be considered learning if you do something about it. Otherwise, it is an actual failure. You just did it and you lost. You're a loser. Right. But if you if you take the the learning piece and you apply it and actually implement. So it was, like, 0 at the time from failure to to implementation. That now becomes lanes of winning. Is that what I'm hearing you say?
100%. And I'll give you I'll give you a super tactical drill down example of this through my retail business. So I got a lot of good puns with the mattress store business. I like to say I do business in your bedroom. We don't 1 nightstand our customers. Right? We get married to our customers. When when you become a customer of ours, we're married for 4 months through our comfort guarantee program.
Yeah. Okay. Now just as in an any marriage, you go into it eyes wide open, hopefully, and you have some rules and boundaries set, like we won't cheat on each other. As one. That's typically a key core ingredient of a successful marriage. Right? And so with our comfort guarantee, the thing about mattresses is you you typically keep them for a decade at a time. You build up muscle memory. It takes some time to get used to this new one. Right? And we ask our customers, hey.
We need you to try this for for for a few at least 60 days If it's really, really terrible, let's have a conversation, but the goal is 60 days because it can take that long. You're unwinding just a tremendous amount of muscle memory. You're shifting from something old school to something new school. If we can have that understanding, we're gonna have a great little marriage here for these next 4 months.
And in and in doing that and in working with customers, sometimes we identify what I call exceeding exceeding the level of expectation we can deliver on. Aka crazy. Okay. And so working with my team, I've said, over the years, like, we have to identify these moments where the expectations that are being communicated to us. Mhmm. We're not hearing. We're not hearing because we wanna make that sale. That's right.
But the problem Chaz ownership, I'm the one holding the financial fallout to this failed marriage in our comfort exchange. That's right. And so as a so as finally as a leader where it came down to it, as I said, listen. Here's what I'm going to empower you to do on the sales floor. Work work our process. We we have we role play, we have our objections, all this stuff. We've worked through it all.
If at the end of all of that process, you're still dealing with someone who their expectations just are not on with what we can deliver. You have permission to just suggest diplomatically that they're they're better served elsewhere. And I'll pay you for whatever you think they were gonna land on. Because in the long run, that's gonna be cheaper for me anyway. That's right. That's right. Yeah. You removed the the possible greed, the the wrong action. Right? Right. K? Well, and and I can't.
Listen. I can't fall. Our our team is paid to mix a salary and commission. Sure. And the salary is there to keep you sane when it's a little slower. Yeah. Right? You're not gonna you're not you're not popping bottles with the salary. So with that said, the the commission thing is is not as much greed as it is. Okay. This is this is where I do pay my bills. This is where I do get my funding. This is where I do get go live my hobbies and and everything. So I understand that.
I understand that guys wanna sell. Salespeople want to sell. Absolutely. And if and if the boss is putting a parameter on them where they can't sell or there is no, negative fallout for them for selling a bad deal Right. That they knew. What's a bad deal? Well, then how do I solve that? And so it just came down to saying alright. I'm gonna give you permission to walk this person, and and I'll pay it for it. Now Chaz might sound pretty bold. Some people hear that sale.
My gosh, guys would that would kill my sales floor. I would kill my sales team. Yeah. We wouldn't do any business. I'd be on the hook to pay all these deals. I haven't had one happen. Interesting. Why do you think that is? Because it's Wolfe, along along with that, just deeper commitment and leadership from me, right, to continue to reinforce our process. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, eventually, you even mentioned it through you. You said muscle memory with your body, but it's subconscious.
I've been laying in this bed, and this is how I feel. So, yes, it's muscle memory, but it's all it's all ingrained in in my brain Mhmm. Or in my mind, rather. And so the same thing for the sales guy. Right? You've just slowly over the course time convince them that what's good for you is also good for them, which really is Chaz we're talking about ethics.
And and and as a salesperson or a business owner, I don't wanna sell something to someone, which even if it's a bed and they want a bed, but they have wrong expectations, I shouldn't sell that person. To your point, you're making this very clear Chaz it's not good for anybody. Them, they're gonna be pissed just no matter what. And it's not gonna be good for the business. The salesperson's gonna get a Chaz back and and have to give up commissions, and it's just a bad scenario for everybody.
So I love what you did there as far as convincing them, but wanna point out to the listeners, like, you trained, and that that piece that you gave at the end there was you took the time, the effort as the leader, going back to the leadership now, to not only just create an on ramp for a solution, but then to actually like, okay. I'm gonna build this human, back to some of your early comments, so that they operate. Like, I would wanna operate in this moment and only selling when we need to.
Yeah. I mean, and and to really put a nice little ball on it. As a leader, I was asking why do we keep having these customers who are frustrating? And this goes back a number of years now, but It was a question Chaz I was okay. Well, I see a failure in the process. I need to lead that better. I see a failure and understanding when we identify someone who has expectations that exceed what we know to be we can deliver on and have it be a 5 star experience.
And then I see and understand the empathetic aspect that these people need to sell. They wanna sell. Yeah. This is how they provide. And so it was it was putting the right tools in the toolkit. Yeah. Making sure they had the toolkit. So I had to stop asking the question, or I could stop asking the question. Why does this keep happening?
Yeah. Yeah. And and again, you you gave a great job of kinda sharing that maybe small failure or something that was happening over and over again that you were able to make a good decision out of. I love the practicality of all Chaz. Let's flip the coin to a bad decision to an hour in your business history. It was just bad. And I wanna know the juicy details so that we don't have to do it ourselves. We can just work Yeah.
Yeah. So bad decision would be hitting 65 miles an hour, leaving the parking lot of the store. Okay. Because I was super pissed. K. Emotions got the best of you? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I could've killed somebody coming out of the parking lot. Now it was late on a labor day Monday, so traffic wasn't exactly busy, but that's not an excuse. I could make that an excuse.
Sure. But the the long story short is there were there were communications that I was putting out about payroll and about our team understanding how sales are made, how the structure is done, where the profit lies, how they get paid, those impacts, because Where we were going at the time was expansion. I wanted to make leaders out of these people. Mhmm. What I failed to understand is They didn't want that role. I was pushing them into it. K. Give us some more.
And so when I find out that payroll was yet again processed without the report, the the handwritten manual report done, I sound like the guy from office space with TPS reports. Right? Hey. We're so important. It was it right. Again, it was all intentional and that I want you to understand how we put money in the bank around here. Yeah. Problem was they didn't that that they weren't those people. 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 possible. Together, we are building a community of like minded entrepreneurs who are committed to growing their businesses to new heights. So let's do this. Let's help each other. Let's help each other grow. Yeah. K. So how did you know that eventually? And what did you do to put the right people in place?
Yeah. So I you know, really, it was it was attoning for my mistakes, reflecting asking myself why, you know, why did I react that way? And then and then just within that size realizing, oh, crap. Yeah. These guys aren't those those people. They they don't want that. I'm pushing a wet noodle here. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. That's what it was. And yeah.
So I flew out of the parking lot that day, sixty five miles an hour, kinda a little bit of Tokyo drift leaving the parking and my partner business partner called me, like, are you alright? That was totally uncalled for my lead sales guy the next morning was really upset with me for the fact that I could've hurt someone else. You know, plus he queued me up. Like, you care so much about the reputation of our company. Right. What if you did kill somebody leaving your own parking lot?
Yeah. Big deal. You know, like, he called me out straight up. Yeah. So Well, I like how that started with, emotion and some thoughts. Some decisions on your side, but that how it led to you really realizing or maybe dialing in maybe is a better word too. What were you really frustrated with? Well, you were frustrated that you weren't getting reports, but that's just a symptom of the actual problem. Right? The problem was is that you didn't have the right people on the bus.
And so, okay, so you go to work trying to replace folks, or you try bringing a a players what were the next steps you took? Yeah. I mean, so the the reality is we ended up not expanding in the plans that we did in hindsight, really, it was a good thing for the with the last few years of Bim. And we just decided, let's get really, really good within the four wall that we occupy now.
We decided, what if what if we took these Four walls and could do the business that 4 or 5 good stores do within this one footprint. Yeah. Maximizing our operations, maximizing our people, maximizing our ad spend, not having to stress out over management of people, which is not something I enjoy doing quite honestly. Yeah. It's not I'm I'm the idea guy. I'm the visionary guy. I'm not the manager. That's what my business partner does, and he's fantastic at it. We complement each other well.
And almost every time I get in the mix of that, I mess it up. Mhmm. Yeah. So I just have learned to stay out and vice versa for him. And, and so what we realized is let's we can be far more profitable. Far more sane, have far more business owner freedom within our own Four walls. Yeah. And and what if we just answered the question of how do we get to the business of what 4 or 5 good stores do, and and we've done that.
And and we do it our way, and it's a cool little business that runs and will always run. They'll always pay me. And I'm only in that business 2 days a week. 6 hours or so on a Monday. Thursdays is is kinda my it's the day I'm at the business, but I can be there 2 hours. I can be there 8 hours, you know, just depends on on the Nate. Yeah. I love the systems that you've set up.
I think if anything, you've just developed some courage, you know, for the listener to know that that it's possible to dial in. And and I was just having a conversation with a smaller business owner this morning, one of our one of our newer mastermind members, but we we just we've just opened up for smaller business owners. And the challenges for that person you know, this sub $1,000,000 business owner are are always the same. They're very practical. They need coaching.
They need, like, the steps 1234, which know that you've probably dealt with plenty of your clients in the same way, but this this particular client this morning was trying to come up with a plan on how to open up his 3rd business. And I'm like, Chaz can we just can you can we not for a second? And and his response was I just don't wanna miss the opportunity. It's just such a great opportunity.
And everything from my conversation this morning makes me think of what you just said because back in the day, when you were having those emotional push as and speeding out of the parking lot is because you saw the opportunity for growth. You you were being told that growth looked a certain way. But your ego was like, no. We gotta go. And and all these things are okay as entrepreneurs. Like, I wanna give the listener permission to be like, it's okay to wanna grow. I love growth.
In fact, I say it to myself every morning that I'm obsessed with growth in all areas. But what is growth? What does growth look like? And so for you, a new defined definition of that was we're gonna do what 4 or 5 stores do, you know, combined into one footprint in these four walls, and we're just gonna get darn good right here is in essence what I was trying to tell this guy this morning. I'm just like, look, man. Mhmm. You've got a couple of really good things going. Just focus.
Yeah. Just focus. You know, Ryan says, don't work for the same dollar twice. It's good. And, ultimately, I think that's where that third opportunity would go. The dollars from is this 1 or 2 would fund the opportunity for 3. Yeah. That's right. And that's cool. And I I've been there. I've done that. Makes you feel like you're busy in doing something. Right. So the problem is the eye can only focus on one thing at a time. And Soon enough, the dollars from business 1 slow down.
Yeah. And now it becomes a problem. The dominoes fall and they fall quick and hard. Yeah. I I yeah. There's opportunity everywhere. I mean, there's opportunity in Bitcoin. There's opportunity in Touro. There's opportunity in real estate. There's opportunity in a pizza shop. There there is no shortage of opportunity. This FOMO that's been put into people Yeah. It's it's it's unethical. It's immoral. That what you need to do is focus on what you're doing.
And I to me, anybody that I work with, I say, unless you're putting 6 figures in your bank account, in in a paycheck, whether that's a a once a year dividend, a w 2, 26 times a year, you know, and and don't come at me folks listening about taxes and this like, everybody's got their own tax situation. There's all the reasons. Whatever. Yeah. However you're getting paid, you should be getting paid at least 6 figures. It should be pulling profit annually.
And all of that should be happening without you having to be at the business. That's right. If you gotta sell it, if you gotta fulfill it, you gotta job, not a business. Yep. And you got a job that has to worry about the rent, the payroll, the mortgage, all that stuff. Only then do you move on to another opportunity? Yeah. Yeah. It's opportunity because what you're doing right now, you're not 100% committed to. Right.
Yeah. Yeah. And and it's easier from my experience as well because I I was telling this guy this morning the same thing. It's like, you know, it's easier as entrepreneurs just to try the new thing because starting something new As scary as that sounds for entrepreneurs, it's actually easier. It's the easy ticket. It's the easy button just to go start something new as opposed to Oh, okay.
And press in and build process like you're talking about and actually make it to where it pays me and pays profit and pays my people. And we take good I mean, I'm with the revenue you're doing now in that one location, I'm sure you have people that are very happy to work for you because you've been able to, you know, Yeah. We have we have a sales team of 3 full time guys. 2 of them, 6 figures. Yeah. Yeah. One of them one of them knocking on the door. Yeah. They're happy about it.
Okay. So we've got this, you know, shiny object syndrome that I'm sure a lot of listeners right now are going like, oh, man, I I either feel it. I felt it. Do you think the equation is for building a business like what you just said? Okay. We let's focus in on these Four Wolfe. If if that's what the listener is doing right now from our conversation going, okay. I'm not gonna get distracted. Jeff. Okay. Chaz, I'm gonna just dial in. What is what does that look like?
What's the equation do you Yep. You know, for me, like, I'm not gonna be able to give you e's, you know, e squared plus c squared equal equals MC squared. Right? Right. Right. I just could confuse the theory of what what is the equals MC square. Yeah. There you go. You said it right. There you go. In some wild stuff. Total brain lapse. But it's not that in the pythagorean theorem, which I just tried to combine. That's funny.
So I'm not gonna be able to give you Chaz, but here here are some key things that I feel everybody needs to have. One is you've gotta put your business in a position of magnetism and attraction. That's right. Okay. And this dovetails to part of what was in my childhood. So for me, I hate asking people for things. Alright. There's a lot of pain behind that for me. So I'll I'll do the business lesson. If we get time to the personal story, we'll get to it.
But being in a position of magnetism and attraction, creating need, desire, and want through your marketing, Chaz is the single biggest thing, single biggest success ingredient part of the equation I could share. You know, we wrote we have always had a It's now called a trip wire. This goes back to there's nothing new under the sun. TV advertising is the same as Facebook advertising, and I don't care what you say You will never change my mind on that.
There are all core tenants that exist if you want good campaigns anywhere. But so a trip wire Chaz it's called today, a lead magnet Chaz it's called today, I've called it a a a marketing asset, an educational asset. We've always had a book a printed thing.
And and the people I consult with, we get that installed quickly to create leads to generate leads because the problem is so much of your advertising, so much of you're putting out today, there's only a single digit percentage of people that are interested hungry, ready to buy Wolfe out, Check halfway filled out. They just gotta write the total. They've signed it. They got the date at the top. They gotta put your business name and the total end. That's right.
There's only so many people ready to do that at any given time when it's single digits most often. And so every dollar you spend speaks to a 100% So what are you doing in that advertising? To get the person who's like, you know what? We're saving money for that home edition. I really like what this person has to say about these 7 pitfalls of renovating your kitchen and converting an open floor home plan. Let's get that. You know, renovating your kitchen open home floor plan.
That's very specific. Speaks to people that wanna take their 19, you know, forties home that's all cut up, like, like, little match boxes and open it up. That's right. Speak to a large project. Have that. Yeah. Yeah. That's a $80,000, $100,000 project. Yeah. And you can create that piece very easily today. I mean, you can have that in AI. You can have the framework of that typed down. Now go make it your own. Right? But there's so many tools to do things like that.
So creating these assets to put yourself in a position of attraction and magnetism Chaz showcase you're the expert. You're the authority. We've taken these, you know, just to show you. This is this is our attraction tool kit. I realized I knocked one of the other pieces on the form before I start, so I won't leave. But, yeah, these are just 33 of the 5 that we use. Yeah. Love that. One general sleep better book about sleep routine sleep habits, sleep hygiene. Wow. Tremendous lead magnet.
Our book buyers buy Yeah. I mean, if I'm gonna buy a book and read about sleep, I'm interested in my I'm a I'm a real buyer. Yeah. Yeah. The people that get our book So our average ticket, 1600 bucks all in. So this is somebody that buys our most expensive package at, like, 13, 14 grand on down to somebody that buys a bed frame. So that's that ticket. Master bedroom tickets about 37100. People that get our book is about 42100.
So the on paper guidance would be do every ounce of marketing every effort to get people to buy the book. Right. Because you'll raise your ticket about 20%. Yeah. But that's scary, Jeff, because if I'm promoting the book, I don't get, you know, someone who's actually in buying a a mattress, they're interested in in sleep education. Jeff, that's scary. Exactly. Yeah. It is. It is. Right? And so and so you find you blend. Right. Okay. But I put that out there to get people I work with to fake.
Yeah. I had a 50 store chain. We put our CRM into way back. This goes back, like, 2015, 2014. We put the CRM into. We custom labeled and private license, the the mattress buying guide for them, and we quickly realized that the prospects that got the guy at the store level came back and bought 25 percent higher than their average ticket. Wow. And so I just I just put that out there as a challenge statement.
Like, you know, if you do nothing else but could corral everybody to go through those steps, handing out a guide costs you, like, $3. Right, against the 25 percent lift on a $1200 ticket, 1600. Right. That's massive. And so, no, we're not gonna do that because, yeah, we take away the people that are in front of us ready to put cash in our hand today. But how can we answer that question in other ways?
How can we create those other moments of attraction magnetism put them through a system to gestate, to become our customer. The other thing I'll give you listeners is the more time people give you the more invested they are with you. That's right. We often hear times our most valuable commodity. Right? I would imagine if you could search all podcasts out there and put time in, 80% of podcasts would come back with the word time being hit on. At least three times in a show. Sure. Right?
And so if times are most valuable commodity and people are giving it to us before walking in picking up a phone, big booking an appointment, that's valuable. So how does your marketing, how does your advertising, How does your process respect Chaz? Well, really putting that mow around that prospect to become your customer. Chaz that is completely doable, completely possible.
To put into the mix, I would contend easier to put into a mix at a company sub a $1,000,000 than a company doing 3, 4,000,000 dollars, $5,000,000. Because you've gotta process this led to that point. Right. So it's kinda hard to break away from what's worked. But it can be done. Yeah. But it's really easy a sub $1,000,000 business. Yeah. I wanna point out one thing that you've operated in.
And as you've explained this, you've done, again, a great job, but, the confidence that you have in this, you've you've rattled off stats a couple of times. And and as a good marketer, I can tell that you are because you have operated your marketing tactics based on stats. It's, hey. We should do this because it helps increase 25% based on the historical data. And so Chaz that's a challenge now in the listeners thought of, well, I'm not just marketing to market.
I'm marketing based on historical data. And so what are some of that data that you're looking at or that you would suggest that they're looking at in order to kinda come up with these things? I mean, you're talking about putting out a lead magnet. Okay. Fine. But it's like forcing people to go through it. Generally, because on the back end, it's gonna lead to a higher ticket, but how do I get that data to begin with, or how are you getting it?
Yeah. So, I mean, it comes from you have to, you know, good in, good out, right, very simple statement. Yeah. You're All tracking. Professionals Yeah. Your IT professionals live and die by that statement. It it's maximizing every opportunity. And so Our like, our book funnel is name and email first, and then it's, hey. We wanna mail this to you because it is a 100 PEL plus pages. It's not gonna be something that you're gonna wanna read on a PDF. Let us mail it to you. We'll do it for free.
We make that investment, and we mail it out. Well, now we have a complete contact record. Right. Well, that contact record, there are softwares where you can go and score that address. Doesn't match up with our demographic psychographic profiles that we invested in years ago, doesn't match up. Well, now Chaz, if it is a ring a bell, yes. Well, now that kicks off another path of marketing. Yep. If it doesn't, they go on a different path of marketing. Right. Okay? It's good.
And all of that's pointing to driving them into the store for a visit because where we transact business. We're not an online. We're not an online company. And and so that's one way. Chaz might be a little too high-tech for some. Here's something we do as well. This is face to face toes to toes. We're working with a guest in our store I urge everybody I work with to you're you have this person captive in front of you. You've just done business. You've established a relationship.
It's okay to tactfully diplomatically ask some questions. Hey. So we're selling you, you know, you're investing in this master bedroom mattress today. Are are the mattresses in the rest of the house about the same age? Yeah. They're pretty old. This this one was like the newest one, and it's pretty bad. Okay. Fantastic. So is that like your kid's bedrooms, guest bedroom? How many in other words, how many more opportunities do we have with you? Yeah. Today or not today? Can we send right.
Well, it's not today, but can we send marketing messages tomorrow next month, next year? Exactly. How old are your kids? Wolfe. They're, like, 7, 8. Oh, wow. So they're getting ready to hit a gross spurt. You know? So that twenty year old mattress that you're gonna give to them That's yours? Okay. Cool. But as they really start to get into those teen years, you might wanna consider investing in something a little newer. And that's a little more supportive for them.
Yeah. And then magically in a couple of years, what what starts ramping up? Our marketing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's the opportunity to have right in front of me. Now you can do that old school way. You can do that heavy lift way if you just don't have the finances to go invest. In larger technology packages and decks and things like that. Yep. You do that. The old school white pen and paper, you can put that into an Excel spreadsheet. You heck.
You can go on Google forms and create your own form. That's right. Where you enter that data and at least manages it for you. So there's a lot of things you can do. But there's so much that people don't do. They just eat today what they kill today. Yep. And that's very problematic for a business to from, you know, doing $300 a year to doing a 1,000,000 to doing 3,000,000 to doing 10,000,000.
Those Doing those things I just laid out about asking more questions with the buyer in front of you, that's what creates separation. That's what creates new levels of success. I love all of that. I think we could probably go another few hours on that. You're clearly an expert and have some cool things that are happening in your sales process and and marketing process. Hopefully, the listener got some notes there. I wanna ask a question about family.
You've mentioned the family, you know, kinda history a little bit, but I'm gonna kinda take it a little different angle. I can I can tell you're all in on your business? You're all in on your show. You're all in on, you know, all I mean, my wife's Italian. So just the fact that knowing you're Italian, I already know you're all It's either on or off and the off rarely happens. Okay?
And so knowing that about you, how have you been all in on the family Chaz well as the business because there's so many times right now that people are talking about balance, and I just I think it's for the birds. I think obsession is the right word, and we go all in. I choose to be all in on my marriage. I choose to be all in with my kiddos. I choose to be all in on all my businesses, all at the same time. How are you doing that? Yeah. I I'm in the same camp as you about finding that balance.
Actually, in my book, I wrote a there's a chapter about it. And if you put the visual in your mind of that, like, the the scales of justice, right, the bronze scale. Yeah. When both of those baskets are balanced, what's the meter rate? It reads it reads 0. Yeah. And I don't want 0 of anything. And So for me, it's about when I'm with my family, am I with them, am I focused?
You know, one of the things in my coaching group for battlefield alliance, we have a a daily battle plan on one of the daily habits is Family time with no screens for an hour. Right? Now we're not the greatest at that, but we do try to connect as a family each day even if it's for 5 minutes without screens. Okay. And that's that's becoming more difficult. We got a near twenty year old and a near sixteen year old. Okay. Sixteen year olds in immersed in football right now.
I believe he's a kid that can play division 1 college football. So we're on that march. That's how we're all in our family, supporting that journey. Yeah. My other son's a career kid, He works at Chick Fil A. We're supporting him. There's talk of him joining the training team that flies around the nation and opens up new Very cool. That's a very cool opportunity for him. So we're supporting that. You know, for my wife, I just love my wife a lot. And I try to show her that each day.
Yeah. Usually through laughter. We were at our campsite this weekend we have a camp trailer that we park at a seasonal site. We were up there Saturday night in a Sunday morning. There wasn't much going on Sunday morning. We didn't need to be anywhere or do anything. We didn't bring the dogs with us. It was just us. And we laughed in bed for probably 2 hours. I just kinda got on a tear, and it was just laughing, laughing, laughing. It was a lot of fun. It's moments and memories. Right?
Try to create those moments. Right? Even if it's 5 minutes. Yeah. Chaz was a lot of fun for us. And so those kinds of things are where I'm all in on. I appreciate that perspective and even just the uniqueness or specialty comments on the the laughing in the bed.
I think that some of those moments, even though I I I may not ever remember what we were joking about, Chaz night, you know, that that proverbial night, but those moments where we just were just having joy together, I think, is is what you're talking about, I think, is pretty pretty amazing. Got one last question here for you, Jeff. I wanna know if you have the opportunity to whisper in the younger, Jeff's here. What would you tell?
I would say that the evil that was put upon you and then I know we're probably nearing the end of our time, but I'll I'll say I'm gonna answer the question honestly with what I'm called with what I'm feeling called to answer it right now with evil put upon you is meant for you and and step into the power of it and show others. It doesn't have to define you. True. A lot of power in that. Give us just a quick peel that back. Just one layer for us. Yeah. Yeah. So I was I wrote about it on my book.
I was a victim of sexual abuse as a child, very, very rough, very terrible. When you look at the the the person in the community, a friend of our families, who did this, checked all the usual boxes that you would think of predatory behavior. And, it was very rough. Went on for 5 years. Even after we moved from Canada to the US, he decided to have his family vacations visiting us and the abuse continued. So I couldn't even, as a kid, 500 miles away escape it.
And I felt very alone, and I didn't understand it, and I didn't understand why this had to happen to me. And now today, I realize I've come to a point of realizing that that evil, you know, there there's two statements I'll leave people with and You're gonna have to think on them and and it could be something that gets discussed till the end of time. One is that god will do no harm. And I know that's a hard hard thing to hear if you're a parent with a kid with cancer.
Yeah. If you've lost somebody tragically, but I believe Chaz. And I feel I'm I'm okay to say that given my journey. And, 2, sometimes the bad things are given to the strong p strongest people. And so for me, what was in that circle of damage and evil and terribleness were were other young men and One of them, I'm sorry, 2 of them also committed suicide. And so maybe I was put into that position so someone else wouldn't do that.
Yeah. And so now here I am today talking about it and showing others that whatever you're struggling with isn't that past, and it and I don't wanna weigh it out. I don't wanna have a contest of who had something worse. That's never something I wanna leave someone with. Whatever was terrible for you, It it was for you, and I would ask you and challenge you to think about why and think about what possible power are you being given over it to use it and then to help others and to help others heal.
And so that's what I would tell young Jeff Chaz old Jeff today. Yeah. Super powerful. You've you've spent time not only healing yourself, but you spent time just processing all of that. Appreciate your articulation. I think that you're a 100% right. I think that all things refer are good if we can if we can just imagine it that way. It's tough in the mind. Sometimes to be able to do that, but we have been given the power to do that. So, you've been incredible here today.
Your journey is is so fun. I wish we could have more time here to talk further. I could I could exploit all of your marketing and your history, but appreciate you being here. How can the listener find you one if they're in your area? So tell us tell us exactly where the store is located and how can they get by a mattress? Yeah. Or I can make the major software or if they wanna get group coaching, like, how Chaz they connect with you? Yeah. So I do a lot of things. I make it easy on you.
Go to vgfddot com, and that's kinda set up like one of those choose your own adventure novels you read as a kid in school. I love that. So, yeah, if you're local to the Lancaster, Pennsylvania area, and you wanna utilize my team's expertise to help you wake up happy so you're more productive for your day and impactful to those you care about. We service the TriState area.
We get into the South Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and of course, the southeast corner of Pennsylvania we can go farther, and have and do. So we're a 30 plausible of our Lancaster Gardners, Mattresson Moore. That link is on the jeffg.com. If you're a an integrator type person, you love leading your team, you like swinging the hammer, so to say, and you need an ally for big ideas. You need an ally to press out of what your business partner. Your spouse says you can do.
Your industry says you can do. You need that vision area. I'm that guy who can turn big ideas into profit and and be be that person in your corner. Right? I like to say I'm the custom model to Mike Tyson. You know, I'm the guy that can help you level up and and become that that heavyweight champ in your industry. And so you could connect with me through the jeffg.com Chaz way. And then if you want coaching for your people for your team to help solve that class between work and home.
That's what battlefield alliance is for. We're in a little bit of a pivot there from what we did do with entrepreneurs to what we do with companies and teams. But that clash between work and home exists, and we can help your management lead those folks Chaz they lead and lead them in a very impactful way. And live out the program for you to have success with it. I love it. Super powerful plays. All three of those.
And so I would urge the Listener to connect with you, we'll put all that information in the show notes as well. Jeff, I appreciate you being here, giving of your just your vulnerability, your your story, your time, your expertise. For being here. Blessings to you, your family, all your businesses. Thank you, sir. 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 businesses 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 bringing together successful entrepreneurs.
In fact, we are putting together 1000 Kings, specifically who are grateful, but not done. We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family, and communities, and here's what we believe. That 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. 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.