On today's episode of Gathering the Kings, the folks that have been successful that are really making positive impact, they they're all values driven. Right, to the core, whether it's how they treat their employees, whether it's the impact they have on the environment or socially, or politically or whatever, there's always this positive impact that's driving them. And then they have success too. Right? It's inspiring to people to have someone that's driven based on values. Right?
No one wants a bad guy leading. Right? Wolfe, what's up, everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe, gathering the podcast coming back to you here today with another king on the stage. My brother. Only eight letters in his name. Alex Tuck. How we doing, man? Doing great, Chaz. Thanks for having me on the show. I am just thankful for simple gentleman like you, you know, for the listener's sake, we were just going over, you know, the pre show semantics and and he's like, yeah, man. Super easy name.
You can't mess it up. It's only eight letters. Well, here we are. Thanks for making it easy for me. Alex, tell us what kind of business that you have, brother. I run a project management consultancy, simple enough called Tuck Consulting Group. We have about 60 project managers distributed across the US, 100% remote, and we help small businesses do their projects better. And So we're working 4 different verticals, health care, IT professional services, nonprofit, and digital product.
Been having a lot of fun helping small businesses. You have organized a bunch of people who help other people get organized, it sounds like. That's exactly right. It's very meta. Yes. Yeah. Exactly then. It was I feel like I'm in the matrix. Like, who's organizing who here? You know? Okay. But you know, but it's interesting, though. It's it's actually pretty hard to do. Right? And, you know, our our team's pretty passionate about it, and you'd be surprised how easy things are.
You can get them all lined up in in an order. Stuff. Wolfe, I love that. That's the benefit. Right? The benefit of hiring your company is Chaz. Right? But but to get there, it it's not it's not like it's easy per se. There's an actual formula, but there there are, you know, some major benefits. It's funny as we kinda just you know, this this piece of, like, that it's not that difficult or not not that easy.
I mean, I've had I've had some people in our mastermind group get a little bit behind the scenes, especially ones that have been in other groups. And they're like, bro, first off, I've been in other groups, and so I know the value that you bring. First, like, just a. Well done. Number 2, dude, there's a lot of work that goes behind all this. Oh, yeah. Even the show. Oh, yeah. So Okay. You're helping people get organized, but really what I heard you say Chaz we have to dive into immediately.
And I'm always a big, like, kind of a emotion purpose guy first, but I'm gonna circle back around You said you're managing everybody remote, and I just love everything about that because it's 20 freaking 23. And This is the way I see things. I hope that we're on the same wavelength here, but you're managing 60 plus project managers and probably other team members who are then managing remotely. Help like, this is a huge, big bubble that I'm trying to burst over here.
I don't know if we're gonna be able to get to it all, but why are you remote? And let's just talk about some of the little things that are helping you keep everything organized for that. Yeah. Good question. We're remote for many reasons. I I live on an Edeker farm in the middle of nowhere, Vermont. And so it's very beneficial for me to be able to work remotely instead of getting on a plane and flying to Silicon Valley or Salt Lake City or New York City or anywhere else. Right?
So, you know, it it's started just with with me being a very rural area and trying to figure out, okay, how do I deliver services to folks that are really killing it? Right? And And then I realized that there were a bunch of people like me in rural areas all over the country who actually don't have a lot of economic opportunity in the areas that they're in. Yeah. Right? That's great for Silicon Valley client or a New York City client because they're used to paying 300, 400 bucks an hour.
So the kind of quality that they're getting from our team Right? And then they're only paying, like, a 125, 150 bucks an hour for that. Right? So huge arbitrage there for these companies in in these really expensive areas, and also all of our consultants get a huge benefit of getting really, really big paychecks that their neighbors really aren't getting. So Yeah. Yeah. That's that's the remote thing. And then tools wise, honestly, we automate and document as much as we can. Right?
We're a project management shop. So, like, we have to eat our own, yeah, eat the own dog food. Like, we have to do it ourselves and we we question ourselves constantly. Hey. We did this for a customer the other day. How are we not doing this internally? Right? And so we're constantly figuring out, okay. How do we put everything in the simplest way possible? How do we automate as much as possible so that we can communicate well while working in 60 different locations all over the country.
Yeah. A lot of lot of opportunity here for us to dive into, but, yeah, you have sixty people who know how to manage projects who probably are fairly organized or at least good discernors of information, right, because they're helping other people do this thing. I can only imagine what it would be like to to have that revelation of like, oh, we just did this for a customer the other day, but we're not doing it. And I it almost feels like you guys would be in constant tweak mode.
Do you have do you ever have to is that true, and would you ever have to stifle, you know, innovation at all? Oh my god. Yeah. Everyone has great ideas. And, you know, the thing is you have to have a decision making process at some point. Right? And as a leader of the company, I get a lot of ideas that get bubbled up to me, and I have to discern, okay, is this something that we want to tackle, or I pass that information down to to my leaders and say, hey.
Is this something we wanna tackle here, but it all comes back for us. We actually use objectives and key results to to run our company. And so we have 5 five key result objectives that we work on every single quarter. And if it's not on that list, then it gets put on a really good idea list. And then maybe maybe it's tackled next order. Yeah. Yeah. And so even down to the little things that you might be doing for other other folks, that could be a great idea. What what would be the negative?
I guess there's probably people listening right now who are constantly thinking of new things, trying to always start new things, I I'm trying really hard to get myself out of that box too. But as entrepreneurs, we just like we like fun stuff. We like starting things. Tell us what the benefit of keeping those things away on that other list. Yeah. Well, one, you can stay focused on the stuff that's actually, you know, you're you're really, really good at.
Something that we realized really early is we actually got too wide at the beginning. Right? We were like trying to we're trying to service too many clients, and we realized, hey. Let's just get really good in these couple of verticals and deliver really, really good services for them.
And when we realized that if we could stay super narrow, as long as it was going well in those spaces, You can pivot within those those verticals, but at the end of the day, you stayed focused on it and didn't get distracted by the other things. Right? And so that's that's the most important thing is pivot when it makes sense if it's a small pivot, right, but then, you know, make sure it's always going towards your north star. And for us, OKRs are in North Star.
Okay. And so I want you to break this down for us a little bit because you might have a listener thinking right now I mean, managing a project is managing a project, whether it's for medical or IT or a podcast. There's gonna be steps, process, people like all the general items, but what you're saying is that actually, no, when we dialed it down, we could be more specific, more precise, more valuable. How is that so? Yeah. It's interesting.
I mean, each of those companies is really, really complex. And within each of those companies, like, you think about a health care company, for instance, they're using electronic medical records, and they're using, you know, ERPs that are specialized for health care companies. And they have to deal with things like HIPAA and, you know, HITRUST certifications. And that stuff gets really complex.
And if you try to come in and you have a project manager that hasn't worked in that space before, they're gonna eat a lot. They're going to, like, cut some corner that they didn't even realize they were cutting. Right? And then all of a sudden, you know, they they violated some, you know, someone's HIPAA HIPAA rights.
And so it's really, really important to get experts in that specific field and just know what you're gonna be an expert in, right, and just keep digging in and and, again, I I'm all for pivoting. Right? It's really, really important to adjust Right? As entrepreneurs, we know that really Wolfe, but, just making sure that you understand what your guardrails are is really important.
Yeah. And and, obviously, I I know that you're speaking from experience, but but there's a there was a pivot that you had that you made where before it was, like, okay, and things were okay. But then when you made the pivot, things really took off. Tell us about that. Yeah. There's a couple of things that were going on. We had a bunch of different companies that we were helping or trying to help And then we realized that our messaging was very, very blurry. Right?
So we pivoted and we got a little bit narrower. Right? And then we realized, okay. Where's our talent? Where does our talent sit right now? Right? So we there are probably 20 of us at the beginning. And so we realized, okay. We broke it down. Right. We're really good at health care, really good at IT, professional services. Let's stay there and get really, really good at Chaz, and then and then move on from there. Right?
So it's it's all about it's all about just taking a step back, evaluating what's sitting in front of you right now, what you're really good at, and then adjusting just slightly, right, taking little micro changes, every single day, until you get the right formula, and then you just pushing, put gas on that fire once you get it right.
Yeah. There's there's, there's real work in what you're talking about as far as, like, the the distilling down of whether it be messaging or services, you get started and you feel like you know what you wanna do, and and you do for that level of enlightenment. It's kinda like the language I like to use. But, eventually, you your enlightenment changes, and you have to go, okay. Well, this is, wow. I'm I'm serving too many people.
I remember starting gathering the Kings just a short 18, 19 months ago, and as a mastermind group, and it's like, well, wait a second. There are a lot of groups. Like, why why is this one friend? Why am why am I starting this one as opposed to just joining another one? And I and and it's taken me a minute to really go, what is this thing? You know?
And and luckily, there's been people along the way that we've been creating great relationships with and and but that doesn't mean that somebody joining tomorrow isn't gonna get a much clearer message. You know what I mean? Then then that's 19 months ago. Okay. So Was there was there a key factor inside of this for you of paying attention? Like, I can only imagine just the story I just gave of not paying attention to the the message. And just keeping with it.
Just steady Eddie just just doing the same thing over and over. Like, what were you doing in the meantime to recognize? Maybe this is different. Maybe our messaging isn't clear? Like, what were some of those indicators? Yeah. Good question. Well, COVID happened. So that was interesting. Right? It's an interesting way to say it. Luckily, for us, COVID resulted in 1700% growth. And it it was really easy to say Wow. This is really scary.
Like, I just started my company a year ago, but let me go back and work someplace else. Right? But we leaned in, I talked to my team, I trusted my team, and I said, hey. Look. I think this is a great opportunity for us. Right? Like, What kind of changes can we make to really take advantage of of this situation and help people get through this? And you know, for us, our values really drives all of our decision making at our company.
If we're not helping a company, or helping their clients, it doesn't go on the board. We don't we don't do the work with that with that company. And so, anyway, COVID happened, and it really made us get focused on what services are we gonna provide? How can we help people help their clients the best way possible? Right? And so we just kept digging in, digging in, digging in on that focus. Yeah. What what about COVID, though? I mean, okay.
So COVID happens and all are were sent home, you know, and all the stuff. But, like, what about that? I mean, you could have kept doing the same thing, but you didn't Yeah. We could have, you know, COVID actually, COVID made us get narrower. So we found that the industries that we were focusing on a bunch of industries, and then we got really narrow because there were a couple industries, health care and IT, where tons of cuts were happening. Right?
Like, in health care, couldn't go into the doctor anymore because they're fighting something else. Right? And with IT, couldn't go on-site anymore. So you had to do it remotely. And so we got really, really good. So we found that those to those 2 verticals and then throw in nonprofit that because they really needed some help in digital product. You know, we we started to see that, like, Okay. These verticals were really getting impacted by COVID, and they need help doing things remotely.
And we were a 100% remote company. And so we just build in the gaps. And taught all of our clients how to work remotely. Yeah. Okay. Well, it's it's how I started the show. So we're gonna press into it again because Yeah. 60 people across the country all remote. You gave us you gave us the short answer of, like, there's some cool automations and you know, we get to help small communities, which is a great. I love the answer, but how are you doing it? Yeah. You know?
Like, the people management stuff. Let's let's dial in there. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard. It's really hard. It's really hard. We We picked our tools. We were very clear about how we were gonna communicate, and we made sure that everyone followed that. And if people weren't following that, we'd work with them to figure out why they weren't following that. And maybe there was a better tool that we could use. Knew some training that needed to happen.
But at the end of the day, identifying your tools, saying this is the source of truth, and and this is how we're going to communicate. That's it. Everything else, you can figure out later. Right? But you have to know how you're gonna communicate with one another. And for us, you know, we literally, we put our I I Chaz my entire calendar blocked out.
Like, the entire thing from my kids' soccer games, to when I'm gonna go on a run-in the middle of the day to my personal time when you can text me versus the personal time that you can't text me and you know, we have this culture where, you know, there's full transparency, and that's the only way that I think we've been able to be successful at that scale. Yeah. I mean, so that that's a great kind of, like, we've done this to create an environment of winning.
What's the challenge around remote, whether for you guys or a a good majority of your customers? Challenges. Biggest challenge is gaining trust with new customers quickly. It's very easy to walk into a room as a new person, as a new consultant, and, you know, make that face to face contact, handshake, read body language in the room. Yeah. It's much harder to do that remotely. And I don't think we've found a cure to that. What we've had to do is build that trust over a longer period of time.
Yeah. So, you know, I I think that's the thing is just setting expectations with the client, say, hey. Look. You know, is not going to be easy and maybe even spending, like, maybe taking a trip at the beginning to have a little bit of FaceTime to build that that trust, but And we do get together as a team periodically to get a little bit of FaceTime in person because that's you can't replace that. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. It's it's unique to to build a relationship with somebody virtually.
I can see you. Yep. But it when we're in person, it's different. And we know this. But but we don't really know it until you've been doing it for a minute. And you're like, I know him, but do I know him? Yeah. That's right. Yeah. That's right. My favorite thing to do at conferences, when I meet people for the first time is guess how tall they are. Right? Oh, yeah. You've you've done it.
You've experienced this, right, where you get in there and, you know, you have the six foot four person that, you know, just the same same looking first as as you are on the other side of the screen. So Yep. I've had I've had that exact scenario happen. They're like, bro. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I know. I know. That's right. You would have never known. Hey. You can't see you can't see the legs. Yeah. But yeah. Okay. So tell us there's this moment here.
I'm setting you up here because I I also wanna bring some value to the listener because I'm sure there's people right now listening that have either some remote folks on their team, or maybe they're helping their their customers in a remote fashion. So there's lots of value here. But for this moment where you've been doing the relationship virtual and then you meet in person. Yeah. It's fun because one's taller, one shorter, and you didn't realize the guy x y z. Right?
But once you get past that, what's then the value of that in person, even if it's just for a short time, now having the relationship already built virtually? That's right. Yeah. Yeah. It's really good. I mean, so we we're very intentional when we do on-site work, and we really try to limit it because spend for the environment, cost a lot of money, all the thing, all the reasons why, you know, you shouldn't fly across the country.
But we try to find opportunities where we're gonna mutually be traveling anyway, right, like conference or something like that. And then we really try to zero in on. Okay. What are we going to do when we are in person? Right? Like, Chaz we do a 2 hour session where we're whiteboarding these things where it's really helpful to be in a room together and you know, use sticky notes to put things on the board and stuff. So Yeah. We're very intentional about how we use that in person time.
And then we also try to find the, like, we're always trying to improve, right, at the end of it. Right? So doing things remotely, meet in person for a little bit, come back, and say, hey. What do we how could we've gotten more value out of that the next time around? And so Yeah. We really try to plan that next trip where we're gonna meet up and say, hey. We really should add 4 hours to meet sit at 2 hours to meet, or let's do more than dinner next time.
Let's try to do let's try to really do a strategy session first. Yeah. Yeah. It always feels like you could do more in person. Yeah. But what I heard you say, tell me if I heard you wrong, is that in person, it's like you're reaching for the depths, right, because, yep, you know, it's easier to go maybe surface level virtually. One of the very first things I told you, which I tell every single guest is, hey.
Look. We're gonna talk, and it's gonna be surface for a second, but forget all that because I'm gonna try to go deep. It there's just it's just easier to do when you're in person. And so the whiteboard session or whatever it is that you guys are doing with sticky notes or whatnot. It's like, what you're what you're actually doing is pulling out the depths of the situation or the person or whatever. Right? Yep. Yep. Yeah. 100%.
And, you know, the truth is that there's some really cool tools out there now. Like, Miro, you can whiteboard and, you know, just like you used to, And in fact, it's a little bit easier because you're not, like, bumping into each other while you're, like, putting sticky notes on the wall. Right? Like, you're just moving around the screen. So You know, the that's some of the stuff that we've gotten better at over the past few years.
I mean, most of most of our consultants have been management consultants that have always been remote. And so that's the value that that a lot of our clients are getting is, hey. Look. You know, not only are we saving money, but, like, you know, you've been doing this for a while. Right? And What was interesting was that a lot of these tools didn't exist, so we were doing it remotely with, like, a word document. Or Right. I I don't know. Whatever you whatever.
Like, just like, anything, like, just making things up on the fly and doing a screen share. And now these tools that exist, like, Euro and all these other things do a lot of that stuff even better. Virtually. But so you do have to force yourself to dig deep to your point. Right? Yeah. And I think that what you can take advantage of when you're doing the things in person is doing some of that trust building that you didn't even realize that you didn't didn't didn't get by doing things virtually.
You know, you read a psychology book or sociology book about, you know, how how we interact as physical beings with each other in the same room versus on a computer screen. And Yeah. It's amazing. The physiological differences. Right? And so just trying to figure out, like, how do you take advantage of that stuff in person? That that's the that's the good stuff. That's that's the reason why you do stuff in person. Yeah. Know the number one thing I try to take advantage of in person? What's that?
The bro hug. I love it. Yeah. I love a good hug. I I usually stand back and I I wait because I have to see if it's coming. Other person to feel I want to talk with other person to feel comfortable. But, yeah, Yeah. I don't I don't wait at all. In fact, I'm the guy Chaz he's immediately. I'm walking right up to you handshake, but I will there's just a slight bit in there. Like, as soon as we handshake, especially because I'm watching your hand.
So if you're coming at me like an actual handshake, I'm gonna handshake you. I'm still gonna lean in a little bit to see if you give it to me. But if you come at me like this, like, we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna do the actual clap and then pull in all in right away. Love it. Because because why not why not? Life's too short. I think I have a sim I have a similar tactic. Yeah. I think you and you and me are probably about the same, Chaz. Hey, Kings and Queens. Jazz Wolf.
I wanna talk to you about something that's super important to me. We put a lot of time and effort. We, meaning myself and my team, into this podcast, into the content that goes out every single day. And if you have been getting any sort of value or insight from this, we want it to be able to reach other business owners too.
So we would love if you would like, comment share, leave a review, post, share again, all of the things on social media, on all the different platforms, or even on the podcast mediums of Apple and Spotify. We would love to be able to get our content into more hands, more entrepreneurs so they can grow their business as quick as Together, we are building a community of like minded entrepreneurs who are committed to growing their businesses to new heights. So let's do this. Let's help each other.
Help each other grow. Yeah, dude. So I met my dad 12 years ago. He didn't know I existed. I thought somebody else was my dad, and I had this exact moment. With him when we met for the first time. I'm like, I Chaz had people ask me, did did you shake your hand? Did you shake hand? Did you did you hug? Like, woah, what was it like? You know? And so I just described everything that happened in that moment. It was like a shake of the hand. You lean in a little bit to see what's gonna happen.
Yeah. And then you you do it, or you don't. Either way, John, don't be respectful here. That's so cool. But that's that's awesome. I love it. Good stuff. Love it. Okay. So let's talk about your, like, you individually. Purpose wise is normally how I start the shows, but he threw everything off today. 8 letter Alex. Okay? Love it. Which is fine. Love it. You're doing this for a reason. Doing this company for a reason. You're living your life this way for a reason. You you're remote.
I'm on acreage and have a farm too, but that's okay. We won't tell anybody, but why are you doing this? Like, what's the burning, deep down? Alex reason that he wakes up every day. Yeah. I I feel a sense of purpose to, like, get out of bed every single day and make the world a better place. That sounds super cheesy, but, like, whether it's how I raise my kids, how I run my company, like, how I pull together my running community, whatever. I that's Always what's driving me every single day.
Just focusing specifically on the company. I started the I restarted the company about 4 years ago. I actually started a consulting group decade ago Chaz an independent consultant. I the the same independent consultant that now works for me, you know, I I wanted to work on big projects wanted to work on Obamacare. Right? And then because I wanted to affect change. And, you know, I I joined a couple of those firms along the way, And I thought, oh, I'm gonna change these big companies. You know?
And then I got inside, and I wasn't changing those big companies. It wasn't wasn't their fault. It was my, I mean, like, I had I had unrealistic expectations about how I changed these firms. Yeah. So after the third one, I said, hey. Look. You know, I wanna change this industry, however I can. Right? And so I'm doing it with 60 consultants right now with a handful of clients and doing what I can on the industry, but I wanted to increase the level of diversity and management consulting.
I wanted to make management consulting, accessible for small businesses And I wanted to work with only customers that were having a net positive impact on our on our society, whether it was environmental, political, whatever, I wanted to work with companies, that were doing that. That was our barometer, for whether or not we wanted to work with them. And it's nice now that We can say no to clients, Chaz, and we can walk away from clients that don't have that value alignment.
And so that's what's really important is figuring out, like, what's driving you you know, add add from a values perspective and then getting your company to align around that. Yeah. Yeah. You said a couple of things. You you mentioned just different areas of your life that you're leading, and so I can see impact in you as a leader. But you also just Chaz this innate desire to change or to to bring change or to bring impact. Where do you think that that stems from?
Was it was that given to you by a father figure or a mother figure? Or Sure. Yeah. Good question. Both of my parents, grew up in very rural poor areas. My dad, was from Northwestern, Tennessee. My mom's from Cambodia. She's a refugee from Cambodia. Left during the community. So there's a there's some resilience that's going on there for sure. What was cool was as a kid, both of my parents, you know, All they wanted for me, my brother, was to have a better life than they Chaz.
Neither than went to college, they both work in restaurants. They met in restaurants, working together. They just wanted us to have a better life. They didn't even care. Like, they didn't care if we made a bunch of money, although they thought that Chaz would be helpful. You know, they they just kept on encouraging us to be kind to other people and just have a better life. And, you know, that that's driven both both my brother and myself.
For me, You know, I I wanted to provide service to my community. I actually started it. I I worked in finance. My parents, you know, they didn't know what the heck they were doing. Right? They were raising a kid. They had never gone to college. They just told me to get straight a's and, like, try to do as best as I could and, you know, so I did the first thing that would make me a bunch of money. I went into finance and and worked at financial services.
And then I was like, this is this is not the North Star that my my parents taught me. Right? Like, they didn't want me just to make a bunch of money. They wanted me to do something that contributed to society in some way. So I left this job and started a nonprofit in Central America and did that for 4 years. You know?
So it's the the childhood that I had And the faith that I had as a kid and and the the the values that my parents instilled in me has carried through out my entire career with the with potentially a little exception, right, at the beginning of my career because I didn't know what I was doing. I thought that might have been part of the equation to making money part, but then I realized like, oh, if I follow my values and I do the right thing, the the money will come and and the success will come.
Right? And and that's that's where we're at right now. Yeah. What do you think that those things are attached? Like, why do you have such confidence that do the right thing first? And then the rest kinda falls into place. Wolfe, I mean, I've seen it. I've seen it in my own life, for sure.
And then as I've started to study entrepreneurship and and, you know, talk to other people that have had success, realize a lot of them, you know, there there's a couple of there are outliers where There's no values compass. And they have they make a lot of money on, you know, they're successful Chaz way.
There there are a few outliers, but these are exceptions from what I've told I've been able to see, like, most of the folks that have been successful that are really making positive impact, they they're all values driven, right, like, to the core, whether it's how they treat their employees, whether it's the amount, you know, the the impact they have on the environment or socially or politically or whatever, there's always this positive impact that's driving them. And then they have success too.
Right? It's inspiring to people to have someone that's driven based on values. Right? No one wants a bad guy leading. Right? So Yeah. You know, I just to really look up to the bad guy, you know, he just I know. Exactly. Really, really does it for me. You know? Yeah. What what do you think? I'm just imagining you know, the first off winning or or being successful like it or not does put a little bit of a target on your back.
Because of maybe some of those outliers, the the one the the bad apples, if you will. And so I'm sure you've been projected as, you know, someone who maybe was taking advantage or, you know, manipulating situations as I'm I'm sure every successful person has been, challenged with. So I guess my my question to you is, have you overcome those moments? Because I know that they've happened. They've happened for me for for sure.
When the target's on your back and maybe someone's coming at you and it's and and it's It's not valid because you've been doing the right things. You've been trying to make a real impact. You've been trying to help people, whatever it is. How do you overcome those? It's interesting. I I think there's there's 2 types of people that sort of do that.
They're there are Wolfe intentioned people that maybe just misunderstand, and there are people that are just trolling and they're, you know, what are you gonna do? Like, you can't you can't compete with that second type of person. Right? So, you know, for us, you know, there's gonna be a hater. You just let them do that.
And, you know, the only thing you do by engaging with that person is amplify their message more, right, So with that second type of person, we usually acknowledge check-in with them and try to figure out if there's a goal that they have and If there isn't, then we move on.
But for that first type of person that's well intention, it's really trying to I I I think they're driven based on their own values, right, and they something that you're doing is challenging their view of of of the world and and the values that they have. And so with those people, I really do try to dig in and try to understand, okay, how can we be better, right, because maybe we made a mistake. Right? Like, maybe maybe we couldn't be doing something a little bit better.
And so we engage them and try to understand is there some dialogue, that we can have either for us to understand things better, or or maybe maybe it's an improvement opportunity for us. So yeah. Yeah. I like the, yeah, just the maybe the the purity of that where it's Yeah.
You know, you have somebody who, you know, they don't really know, but in their own enlightenment and their own frame, they see you being successful and it means something different to them than it does, you know, to us, but that was a really good answer. I appreciate that. I'm gonna transition here to family. You've mentioned family a couple times, you know, and just the value of the kids and all that fun stuff.
What is your thought, especially with you being a 100% remote, especially with you having, you know, some land and and and valuing you know, just some of those values that come along with land and and family and stuff. You're all in on your business, obviously. Sure. The the word that I'm I'm I have, like, a battle against, not really, but you get what I'm saying, is balance. I I just I just Yeah. I just don't see it. In fact, it doesn't exist.
The word obsession does, though, and you've been obsessed with your business, I can tell. And I can also see by some of your life choices that you've been obsessed with your family. How are you doing both? How are you obsessed with both and running and leading in your running community. And, like, all these things, you're, like, all in on all of them. But how are you doing it all at the same time? Yeah. Good question. Yeah. And I I I love I love your podcast, by the way.
And, you know, I I have I've heard you talk about balance a lot, and I agree with you. I don't think there's any such thing as balance as much as it is. Like, the symbiosis of everything that exists in your entire life. Yeah. My my work, like, supplements my life. Right? My family means more to me than anything. Chaz a project manager, I am very good at organizing each part of my life and being very intentional about time boxing every single piece of my life.
And also even, you know, taking into account potential risks than things that pop up and needing to adjust. And so for me, I, you know, just make sure I make sure I get enough sleep. And then the 16, 17 hours a day that I'm awake, I'm running the nonprofit that I started or running the company that I work on or attending my kid's soccer or going to parent teacher meetings or do it or you know, doing whatever, teaching my kid how to do math.
And I think that being very intentional and being a partner to my wife too and figuring out, okay, how do we run this ship together in addition to all the things that she's working on and and I'm working on. So, really just trying to be intentional about boxing in every single hour and every single minute and realizing that that's the only thing. Like, that's the most limited resource we have. Right? Yes. What what I'm hearing you say is that you at a project management, it it it's it's obvious.
Like, you bring order to it. But when we talk about our life, there's a lot of entrepreneurs that don't don't put me in a box, Alex. Don't don't tell me to time block. You know, I only get 3 minutes to brush my teeth, and then I gotta move on. You know, like, don't don't pinch me in so close. Yeah. But but order is what you're saying has brought the ability then to be obsessed. Or you know, maybe the the opportunity to go all in. Right?
Sure. What what would you say to the guy who's who's just fighting order, who's fighting, you know, everything that you teach your clients to do, which is to block time, to be to think ahead, to plan, you know, to be to to be organized, to be ordered. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. So I'm a project management consultant, but I actually am naturally not that organized. Right? It's funny how you know, how we all are. Right?
It's like a mechanic that doesn't have their own, you know, car in order, but, you know, it's The thing that that you do really well professionally is usually the thing that you had to work on. Right? So I think I can empathize with that. Like, I I hate getting back. In that way. But I do have a technique, though, that I use. So I I do time boxing.
You could look at my calendar and see, like, all the different colors and, like, how I have blocks for sales and marketing and and client meetings and this and the other. But even when I blocked, I blocked sections for creativity and strategy. And I block sections of time every single day. My wife and I both get 1 hour to exercise or do some sort of, like, mental, wellness state, whatever it is. Right?
So, you know, we have these blocks, and you can move those blocks around, right, like, If you're not feeling creative, when you have creative time, move something, you know, more solid, more technical into that block. And so even if you don't like being bought in, you can just box in the time that can be moved around a little bit. Right? And that that does it for me. I I just I love having the ability to move my run.
If I'm feeling really good and I'm working on my OKRs and I'm feeling good about my strategy, I'm gonna throw that block in for another hour and then push my run towards a little bit later in the day. Yeah. Yeah. It's more of a a holistic list, if you Wolfe. As opposed to I I must stop what I'm doing because the calendar says so. Now I I understand that there are some list, you know, entrepreneurs listening right now where they don't even use a calendar. Yeah. And so it's scary.
Use a calendar, please. Yeah. Please use a calendar. I bet you're just gonna help me. Thank you. How to how to win 101 called Google. And not you searching something. It's your Google calendar. And and there's pretty colors and all kinds of fun stuff to keep your very scatter brain entrepreneurial attention in one place. There's also reminders and things that pop up and help you in encourage you. Sometimes strongly suggest, depending upon how many reminders you set, Okay. So okay.
We we've given the listener this this approach to how to win in not not just business, but in my life, is to be orderly. Okay. Fine. But I can move things around. That gives me flexibility for you. Really, I've heard you say it's autonomy. Right? I can I can give myself freedom or autonomy by projecting out what I actually want and then sticking to it generally? Can move things around.
There's flexibility there, but the the autonomy piece starts always with ownership because you have to first determine what it is that you want or what, like, why are we even doing this? Which is, I mean, autonomy is not someone else telling you what to do. And so for so for you being a person that helps other people, you know, stay organized. And then, of course, now your clients, How does that look for an entrepreneur, maybe as opposed to their their people? So I'm I'm two angles here.
As an entrepreneur, we still need to have a ton. I mean, that's that's why we're revenues, but we still need to be ordered. We still need to use a calendar. We still need to, you know, project out. But then our teams, maybe you can speak to this from your project managers. They actually they need autonomy, but but they need your vision. They need your structure to maybe work inside of, and that's different than how maybe you and I operate as an entrepreneur.
Can you talk about this for a little bit? Yeah. That's a really interesting question, Chaz. I I like I like that question a lot. And I do have an answer. Like, I I Yeah. Because because, obviously, we're doing this on a daily basis. Right? Yeah. So, you know, for for my team, I'm a big fan of setting North Star giving autonomy. Right? Here are processes. How do we include them? You know, the goal for this client is to do X. Right, go figure out how to do x within this box.
And and they're very good at that. I I'm pretty I'm pretty good at being self motivated, right, and so I know that that's a strength of mine. And so I'm I'm I'm good at sitting down and saying, alright. I need to set my own personal, like, I need to set that north star for myself. Yeah. And have that drive me. I know a lot of entrepreneurs that aren't that way. And one of the things Chaz you help with is is setting that. And so There's 2 things, that I usually suggest there.
One is if there's internal folks or peers that you can talk to to bounce ideas off of to get that North Star do that. And then the other thing is sometimes it's nice just to hire an assistant that can ask you the the simple question of, like, how do I set this? Right?
And so for me, you know, I have the discipline to sit down, and then I bounce those ideas off of my peers, right, because, you know, whether my peers are internal and they're my teammates, my senior leaders on my team, or whether that's, you know, Jay was on your show a few weeks ago or other entrepreneurs. Yeah. I think that's great. I think it gives I mean, even just your your distinction between the North Star and then go figure this out inside this box. Right?
And I think that that's it's actually great for the person listening right now. Of course, you gave a great box for the entrepreneur, but for them to be able to give to their people because that's why they work for you most likely is, right, is they don't want to create their own North Star.
And then even inside of that conversation, you have a different levels of autonomy desire for employees that you know, you've got a you've got a guy or a gal who who doesn't necessarily wanna start their own company, but they absolutely need autonomy. And so, again, you set the north star and say, hey. Here you go. Have at it. All the way down to here's the exact four steps I need you to take in order to win in this position. Right?
Yeah. But even that person that's down to the four steps, like, I still want them to have a level of autonomy because none of us, no one wants to be told exactly what to do. Exactly. And so even if it's, like, how the the order that they do those things, right, that all time or, like, tell me how we can do this better. Can we get it down to steps. Like, you know, how does it how's this gonna work for you and how can you spread that knowledge that you've created with other people on the team?
Yeah. My first business as a franchise, and so, you know, a lot of just you know, we'd cut fruit, dip it in chocolate, put it out in a basket. It looked I mean, it's not that hard. And so you have a pretty low level of autonomy. It's on top of that as a franchise, and so it literally there's a video telling you how to do it step by step.
And so, okay, but inside of that, what I learned, for even that that maybe entry level position or that individual who just likes that type of low tenacity level work, is that they can just be themselves. Maybe they don't wanna recreate your four steps into 3, although maybe they do. They just want to be them.
They don't wanna be you, wanna be their personality, especially if if if we're talking about entrepreneur, you know, profiles like you and me, where it's just like, you know, we're, you know, we're charging the hill hard. And it's like, That's probably not them, and they wanna probably just do those 4 steps, how they see those 4 steps being being done. Right? Beautiful. Love it. Love it. Yeah. Alright. I've got one last question here for you. I'm gonna digress this whole thing.
You've just been, you know, joyful, joyful conversation here. If you had a chance to reach back in a time and whisper in the younger Alex's ear, what would you tell?
Biggest lesson I learned starting this company, restarting this company 4 years ago, was that I needed to stop worrying about the vanity metrics And I'm not even saying, like, no one on my team even cares about the vanity behind it, but when I say vanity metrics, I mean, number of employees versus contractors, like, revenue numbers, all these things. You're not doing it for anyone else. Yeah. But yourself and your team, Right? And so I'd go back and tell Alex, you know, hey.
Look. Don't worry about what other people think success looks like. Listen and learn from other people and take take the nuggets that make sense for you. Right? Yeah. So do you think that the impact of that on perspective, like, what would have been the deposit afterwards if you had known that before? I probably have less gray hair right now. Now No. I'm I'm kidding.
No. I think know it knowing that earlier, I think I wouldn't have only helped you know, younger Alex, I would have actually helped a lot of my teammates too.
You know, when you high when you're growing, a company as quickly as we have been, you know, when you go from employee number 2 to employee number 68, 13 over 8 months, That's stressful for everyone, for everyone, not just Alex, right, but, like, his whole team and, you know, people people lose that that touch, that that personal connection that they had with the leader of this company and being a part of something bigger. And so you have to be really intentional as as you grow. Right?
Like, you you can grow that fast from an employee standpoint, but it has to be right for your company. Right? And you have to think about how it's gonna impact everything there. So, you know, for me, that that was that was the big learning. It's just that It wasn't it wasn't the right growth for my company at that time. Yeah. That's a I mean, now now we're back into the podcast. Here you go. Messing up my my my my flow again. I love it. I love it.
The the angle of it's not the right growth for my business or I mean, you hit you have some somebody listening right now. That's like, well, yeah, I mean, I would love to grow. I I can't figure out how to grow. And here you are talking about it's not the right growth for me. And it seems as if, like, well, wait a second. What are you what are you talking about? Doesn't does don't we wanna grow in that why you're in business? And from the outside, yes. But what are you saying underneath that?
Yeah. There are a lot of different ways to grow. Right? That that's really what I'm saying is okay, your services organization, right, do you you grow with contractors who want to experience that growth and don't want the drama of being in a company that's growing that fast. You know, does revenue really matter? It's matter for you? Like, you know, does cash flow matter for you? Like, there's a bunch of different things that come with growth.
And when you grow too fast, cash flow Wolfe be your biggest challenge, right, And it just disappears. Right? Clients don't pay on time all the time, and but you do. And and so Anyway, just thinking about, you know, what the right growth is for you. I I was on I was on Zap Connect. It was Zapier's annual conference. And I think it was the founder of OpenAI. He said he has a bet with his buddies about when the first $1,000,000,000 company is going to be run by a single person. Yeah. Right?
And so for that company, they they don't need any employees. Right? They need some contractors and and a lot of automations. Right? And so it's all about doing the right thing for your company. And the only way you're gonna figure that out is doing things that we talked about earlier. Right? Like, rely on all the people that are smart at what they do and setting your north star. Yeah. Clear as it comes. Okay. You've given us more than what we asked for, which is always a treat.
I would suggest that the listener goes back and listens to this a couple of times because you've given many angles sometimes in the same sentence moment. Okay. How can they find you? It number 1, if they're in any of the verticals and maybe say them again Chaz that you service, if they need a project management option, or 2, they're just an entrepreneur. They wanna connect with you. How do they find you?
Yep. So first of all, the 4 verticals, health care, IT professional services, nonprofit, and digital products. Honestly, I'm gonna I'm gonna give you my phone number too. Right? Text me if you want. Phone number is 802-372-1377. You can text me. LinkedIn is a big way to find me, and you can always go to the website, tuck consultantgroup.com. Love it. Love it. You've been not only just incredible, but a joy. That's a couple times I said that now. You just you're smiling. I'm smiling.
I'm gonna have to, like, I don't smile that often. I gotta, you know, work out the the the smiling muscles. He got me, he got me working out over here. But we wish you blessing on, your business, of course, your family, all the things that you're touching, all the people across the that he got working with you. Thanks for being here, man. Yeah. Thanks, guys. 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 bring together successful entrepreneurs. In fact, we are putting together 1000 Kings specifically who are grateful, but not done.
We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family communities, and here's what we believe Chaz in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy. So if that relates and and resonates with you and you know that you need people around you, sharp qualified other very successful business owners. I want you to go to gathering the king's dot com.
I want you to take a look at what we're doing and see if it makes sense you to be part of our pursuit to 1000 kings. Talk soon.