On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. Piece of advice after this many years, I wish I would have done it earlier. So Yeah. Get out there and take the risk if you got it. If you've got it in your in you to to do it, do it sooner rather than later. I looked for 5 years to buy it. What's up everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe, gathering the king's podcast, coming back to you today with another king on the stage. My brother, Greg, Satterwhite. How are we doing? I'm doing great. How are you?
How's everybody out there in the audience? You know, yeah, they're we're crushing it's Monday. Well, who knows actually when this recording's gonna go up? But right now, it's Monday. Monday is your final tax day when taxes are due today. That's right. That's right. You're gonna do it late like me. Had to hurry up quick and finish those on Friday. Alright. But for for all of the extender out there like you and me.
Hopefully, they got through that this weekend, but, Greg, tell us what kind of business that you got, my man. So the business is called outhouse tickets. Little bit of a story by the name there, but we work with venues, small, medium sized venues, festivals, events, anybody really who needs to sell tickets online, and we've got the the back end, you know, all the software and everything. We do ticketing. It get get people in the door, ticket scanners, things like that.
So in short, we help you sell tickets and get people through the door. Yeah. I love that. And I know that a lot of your stuff is in the Midwest, but you're but you're you're nationwide, but I know that, I mean, you're in Dallas. I'm in Kansas City and that it's a little bit of your sweet spot. Right? Yeah. I mean, the business started in in Texas, and so it kinda grew the I bought the company about 7 years ago. So I've been at it a little over 7 years now.
The guy who started it was in East Texas, and it just kinda grew from there. So it moved east a little bit. It moved into Louisiana. I moved all across Texas. I moved up through going, you know, up through Texas and into Nebraska. Got some customers in New York. I haven't moved very far west. So, yeah, we're kinda We're kind of on the, you know, central and then moving east and got some all the way up in Minnesota and Wisconsin and all kinds of good. So it's great.
Yeah. I've I've gotta get you one of my peer to peer mastermind members is building a an event space in in Medina, Minnesota. Perfect. And he actually has kind of a unique spin on that. He's got a he's building an NFT project around it as well, but he's definitely gonna need an opportunity to help grow tickets or ticket sales. And so I guess if the listener is in the west and they have a venue or if they know people in the venue, they should they should look you up. But That's true.
I'd love to move west here. That's awesome. Well, so you help venues, sell tickets, and that's a fun business. I'm sure. It's, like, going on, a lot of marketing, a lot of streamlining and systems, but Well, the one thing that you just said was that you bought the business, and I know Chaz, so there's some unique pieces of that story I wanna get to. Before we do, though, tell us why you're in business? Like, why are you an entrepreneur? Why why did you buy a business? What's the deep seated?
Like, what's in it for Greg? Yeah. What's in it for me was just wanting to do my own thing. So, you know, I as a I guess when I was in college back in the day, I'd seen I graduated undergrad in 97. So day ages me a little bit there. I, you know, I was having ideas all the time Chaz a one of the summers I worked for an apartment locator service. I was an apartment locator. This was pre Internet days, and you couldn't just go online and look up an apartment.
And I I've I went to work for these these folks. They didn't have anything online. Didn't even have spreadsheets with anything. You had to call up every apartment in town to figure out what's what their availability is. So I built a database and, like, helped everybody in the office, like, have all their information available and fast forward a few years. I I worked in sales for a couple of years after after Chaz. Got a little more entrepreneurial bug doing that.
Had one of the guys I was selling something to, they were all small businesses and He encouraged me to start at a marketing degree. He encouraged me to start, like, a little advertising marketing firm, and he was my first customer. So that that was the kind of the first entree and entrepreneurship. Did that on the side while I was also out there selling office equipment. Yeah. And then which is a miserable job, by the way.
And and then so it works for a couple years and then went to grad school, got an MBA soon after Chaz. And being around Lots of business minded people was super cool. That's, you know, you're just always throwing out ideas, and you're always talking about stuff. I heard an ad for a company that would It was an apartment locator that would move you for free.
They'd, you know, you you use them as their locator, and they'd and I thought And then they'll, you know, send out a mover and move your stuff. I'm like, wow. That's a fantastic idea. Yeah. I already know that apartment locating business. So I started a business This is after you already had a job. I didn't wanna be in the moving business. Chaz sounded like a real hassle. So I I thought, well, I'm a recent graduate.
Money's more important to me than, you know, I can grab a bunch of guys in case of beer, and we can go move my stuff from one apartment to the next. So I I started a company called free rent money.com. This was, like, in 99 or maybe 2000, so long time ago. And I started an online apartment locator service where I give you money back. So that was kinda really my, you know, that was where I got back into entrepreneurship and Yeah. Moved on around there and just did that on the side.
That was a side gig for a number of years. Got out of that business. Finally, while I was still working for other, you know, working in in corporate, And then I stayed in corporate America for a long time. 15 years. Just got really burned out. Why I'd why I'm doing what I'm doing because I just got tired of working for the man. You know? Yeah. Yeah. I it was funny.
I was just going through some marketing stuff for gathering the kings and kind of surveying a couple of our our members and not everybody, but there's a lot of people like you and me who you know, you spend time for whether it's it's a couple of months or several decades working for somebody else and you're like, you know, I can think I could do this myself, you know, or I think I could do it better. It it might be another response. I think I think the listener's gonna relate to that.
So then I went through I was in the telecom industry for a long time and then went through a big layoff in around 2010, I guess. Company a giant company I work for went bankrupt And so got a job right after that. It only took me about a month. So I was in a position where I had a mortgage, had kids, cars, wife, you know, and couldn't just quit having an income. So I started looking for a company to buy and figured out a way to to fund Chaz, and we can talk about that whenever you want.
But for 5 years, the people I was working for probably don't wanna hear this. I was looking for different companies to buy. You know, so it's been part of my my day sitting at my desk, going through basically doing due diligence on companies for sale. I looked at everything from gas stations to restaurants, to dry cleaners, looked at at everything and then ran across this business, outhouse tickets, and it was in the music industry, which I thought was cool. Grew up playing the drums.
I was always in a band, and my dad used to joke. Well, I'm gonna drive your, limo around and, you know, when you're out touring as a musician. Yeah. Never never evaded as a musician, but ran across this business thought I I Chaz handle the technology. Sounds relatively simple. In the music business. Sounds like fun. And, you know, took the took the leap of faith and quit my job, borrowed a bunch of money, and, been out of her 7 years. The ships, and you've been out of her since.
There's so many pieces of the story that I love, and I don't wanna spend a ton of time here, but I think that everything that you've just displayed is in some way, former fashion, the entrepreneurial trainer, the American dream when it comes to business. It's this realization that I can do this. And and so we typically start with a side hustle. And and really all that is related to frustration because it tickles the itch but it doesn't actually get us there. Right? That's what I heard you say.
Is that right? It made a car payment. That's about all it did. Yeah. Exactly. It the longer you spent in corporate America was the the the more pressure that you put on yourself of, like, you know, I know I can do this myself. The the cool thing that you just said, though, is that you buying the biz this was a easier way for you to justify making that leap. Even though you had to go borrow much money, which I'm sure we'll get to, and you still had a a bunch of risk that you were taking.
But for you, very similar to my story is that you transitioned by looking for a business and then purchasing the 1st business. Give us a little bit more there. Why why purchasing? How did you even come to that realization that buying was a better option than than just starting? Yeah. Good question.
So because I had lots of responsibilities and financial responsibilities, I And that's the reason that I wanted to buy something instead of starting something is I didn't I wasn't risky enough to just quit, start something, and I didn't really have any great ideas to start something at the at that time. And so that's kind of the point here is You don't have to have a big stellar idea and a brand new product or anything like that, but I looked at how much money I needed to live on.
I started looking at businesses that after the financing and after the expenses had enough income already, it had to have a high enough income profitability that after all my debt payments that I was about to get into, they would cover all that and still pay me and, you know, have a wonderful Wolfe. And she said we gotta we still gotta maintain where we're where we're at. You know?
And so that was that was kind of one of one of the larger criteria was to make sure that that cash flow was high enough. And that's that's where I started weeding out all the different companies. Like, they make x amount of money. I I've gotta be able to pay myself x amount. And so that was kind of that, you know, a lot of the due diligence was first, just finding that, finding one of the high enough cash flow and making sure I could borrow enough, because it couldn't be too huge.
I didn't have a ton of money. And I couldn't borrow that much. So set that criteria in place and then just started looking, looked at a whole bunch of things. Yeah. I think that there's a there's a cool piece of part of the story. Again, that's first similar to mine where, you know, the the obligations that you had kind of forced you to think how do I purchase something already winning.
And but he at the same time, both of us constrained by I wanna buy something that has cash flow, but I can't go buy a 10,000,000 or a $100,000,000 business. It's still gotta be within the means that I have, you know, the humble beginnings. Right? Right. Right. And so I think the that the that the awareness or the enlightenment here for the listener is that these deals do exist.
Now mine was a franchise, probably, smaller entry than than what you did maybe, but regardless, it's whether a franchise, not franchise, certain type of industry or not, what I'm hearing you say, the same thing that I was calculating was what's the what's the business? How long has it been you know, winning or or steady or whatever word you wanna put in there, what's the cash flow and does it work for our situation? Yeah. Because very similar to you, I looked at pretty much everything.
And so was there a specific industry that you were looking for, or was it just strictly kinda numbers and then win one kinda more unique that fit what you were looking for popped out was like, oh, well, this Wolfe really make sense. It it was more The the latter there. I, you know, I I said I looked at everything. I looked at franchises. I almost bought a frozen yogurt franchise. I think I think you and about 1,300,000 other people almost bought it.
When when the frozen yogurt craze was, you know, was booming, I I was looking at that I and I was to the point of trying to find real estate and everything. I think every single location I looked at already had 2 or 3 other frozen yogurt places looking at that specific location. And at that point, I said, I think the market's gonna get a little saturated, and I don't wanna be in it.
And It wasn't really a longstanding business model, even though I I knew a bunch of them that were making a lot of money and did extremely well. And now they're called. They've all faded away. That's a Ice cream is a is a hilarious business, or I guess really desserts because if you just look back, it just goes from kinda one new idea to another. You know? Yeah. Once you realize that, you're like, oh, okay. I see it. Like, if you're gonna play that business, you're playing a 3 to 7 year run.
Hey, Kings and Queens. Chaz Wolfe. I wanna talk to you about something that's super important to me. We put a lot of time and effort. We, meaning myself and my team, into this podcast, into the content that goes out every single day. And if you have been getting any sort of value or 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. Help each other.
Let's help each other grow. So I I guess your question was around, you know, was it just a cash flow question, or was it what did I wanna do? And, you know, I found some other businesses that had good cash flow and that I could afford, but they didn't really click. You know, one of them was, like, an IT company, and they sold the school districts and like, yeah. It's kinda working with the government.
I don't really wanna work with the government and deal with contracts and stuff like that and convenience stores, everything. You know, just nothing really quick. And so Yeah. It it had to be something that at least I could resonate with personally. This one, outhouse tickets, it basically didn't have any employees. So and that was not necessarily important to me, but I never had been much of a people manager. It was important to me that I don't really have to manage a lot of people.
You know, we've got software developers. And now Who are who are robots anyway. Right? Well, may probably they will be soon anyway. Right? Yeah. And, you know, since then, I've hired some people because the business has grown quite a bit, and, you know, I just couldn't do it all myself. Yeah. But, yeah, that's part of my story. It was I was always always do it myself kinda guy. I that's the way I grew up. My dad is always like, yep. You can fix it. You can just fix it yourself.
And Yeah. It's been a blessing and a curse. Because, you know, I I tend to take that on almost no matter what the situation. I can do it myself. And that's a a bit of advice that I would like to offer to other entrepreneurs or anybody out there. There's somebody else who knows more than you do, smarter than you at some aspect of whatever you're doing.
And so that's why I think being in a community is really important to get those ideas to learn from others You know, if I think one of the one of your questions you're probably gonna ask me is what was a what was a bad decision I've made? And I I struggle with saying I've made a bad decision because I can't I couldn't really think back to things that I've I've done where oh, man. That just failed or something like Chaz. But if that lack of making a decision, lack of moving forward.
You know, from the beginning, I should have hired some sort of a at least a bookkeeper. Even though I've got an MBA, I know all the financial stuff. I don't like doing it. So the stuff you don't like to do, hire people for it, hires a CFO or a CFO service or something. And, you know, so those Chaz it's those those lack of making decisions that I think have probably hindered my credits a little bit. Probably hindered profitability.
I won't really know until I actually do hire some as far as the CFO. Yeah. That's interesting because it's, you know, the the small mindedness, right, or or the the stagnation of growth can be tied a lot to either hesitation or lack of decision making or just or just lack of big moves. Right? And and especially when you said you bought a company that had no employees, I'm sure that was a wave of, like, like, why wouldn't I wanna hire anybody else? Because yeah.
Hey. I can do it myself because that's what you learned from your pot, but also then why would I want the stress of having somebody else? And and those things are accurate. I've I've talked to business owners for for a couple of decades now, and it's like, well, Why would I wanna grow when there's just a bunch of headache?
And and I get that, but I think the headache of staying small, everything that you just said, doing it yourself, doing the things that you don't like to do, that headache is way worse than hiring people, man. Yeah. All the things that maybe you said that were maybe maybe not in your wheelhouse to begin with. So being that that's been some of your struggle, I mean, okay.
So hiring the accountant, for example, or know, other people that may be brought on your team, even the software developers, I mean, they're not gonna be completely removed by AI, but they're gonna be the ones who run AI. You know? That's still people management. That's still big decisions that you've gotta make. You know? And so I guess what's the caveat here is that now you kinda been on the small side and then now may maybe some of the made some of those bigger moves.
Why would somebody listening right now who has that older thinking that you used to have of Maybe I'll just do it myself. Why why why should they change that thinking? Well, it was best decision I ever made was hiring somebody to to do a lot of the tactical stuff. So it it frees you up to make and think about to think about making the bigger decisions.
So think about if you wanna grow, how you're gonna grow, But when you get so into the the mire and you're you're just doing the day to day operations of the business, it just doesn't give you time to do that.
So it it really once you get people on board, then if you get high good people, that's a really It's hard to do, but when you find the right person, take care of them, make sure they're happy, and they'll end up making you happy, which you know, ends up helping you grow, helping you think about other people, helping you serve your customers. You know, it's a huge aspect of our business is Yeah. I mean, one thing that sets us apart, really, from other ticket companies.
There's a lot of ticket companies out there. And a lot of them are just, like, do it yourself companies you get online. You if you're throwing a backyard party, you can get online and create your own event. You know? A lot of people have probably done that. But the the customers that I cater to are these small to medium sized venues that are not necessarily in the cities. They're more out in the country.
You know, we work with saloons and dance halls and, you know, backyard barbecue joints that have big outdoor venues and stages. And they like somebody else doing it for them because they don't have the time. They've they've learned. They don't wanna do it themselves, and they may not have the young younger people because they're not in the middle of a big city, you know, some of the more technologically advanced kids that are gonna, and they love getting online and doing all that stuff.
They like it that we take that off their plate. And and the way the business has grown is through those relationships. So I I know almost every one of my customers. You know, I work with hundreds of venues and I go visit them. That's one of the more enjoyable parts of my job is I don't get out enough, but, you know, I'll hop in the car, hop on a plane. I can go into fill in about a week.
I'm gonna go see some customers meet some of the venues out there that I haven't met and just spending time with them, getting to know them better, seeing their venue, And that way, I can I can service the ticket buyer better Yeah? Because then they come asking me questions like, oh, well, how do I get in? What's the seating like year. I'm like, oh, well, I've been there. And Right. You know, you're just not gonna find that with, I don't know, any other ticket company that really does that.
So, it's just that's that's kinda what sets apart is the relationships I have with the Hold on. I think that the I I mean, there's several pieces here that you're given that are just really valuable I hope the listener's paying attention to you, but the it's like, it's like the matrix or, like, the catch 22. Every business owner has a service or a product that alleviates something or a problem, solves a problem for someone else. And so even if it's like, okay.
I'm a I'm a you know, I'm a garage door guy who comes in and services a homeowner's garage door. Well, he could do it. The homeowner could do it. But he but he he doesn't. He he put takes that office plate and gives it to a specialist or someone who can maybe do it faster, better, stronger. And and so as an entrepreneur, somehow we we start out thinking, well, I just have to do it all myself.
And and for some businesses and for some length of time, you kinda have to to kinda bootstrap things together. But the quicker the better, what I'm hearing from your story is every service, every business owner who's listening right now, they alleviate things for other people.
Well, it's like, well, you have to do the same thing for you, whether I'm a small venue and I hire Greg to come in and sell tickets for me or whether I'm a, you know, a mastermind group that works with you know, an advertising agency or or a venue, you know, like, there's just there's there's things that alleviate our plate, whether that's hiring or working with a a third party source or or whatever.
So I think I think it's the cash 22 because we find ourselves trying to do it all ourselves Yeah. Which is the exact reason the exact opposite reason why we're in business because we sell our service or our thing to alleviate or solve a problem for somebody else. So they're doing we're selling our service to them to do it, but we don't do it for ourselves. Is that right? That's what business is. That's all business is is serving someone else.
Something that either they can't do themselves or don't wanna do themselves. I mean, What? Yeah. So, like, the ultimate peak performance, what I'm hearing from your story is, like, how do I apply that to me? Right? And so for you, it was hiring and and you know, offloading a few of these things, what would you say now? Like, how did you kind of known this for a Wolfe?
And you've been successfully whether it be hiring or collaborating even, like you said, mentioned getting in a room where there's other ideas from other people, how do you do that now at your level of success? Versus, yeah, at the beginning, it was just like, oh my gosh. I'm scared. I wanna make my first hire. You know what I mean? Here's the takeaway that I've learned. Make that decision in less of a reactionary way. But more in a proactive way.
So instead of avoiding it as long as you can, think about those upcoming needs. As you see the growth starting to happen, plan for it, get the people in place. It's hard because you can't necessarily afford it, but thinking about what you're going to need and be ready for that. So when that next level of revenue hits, go ahead and hire somebody. You know?
Take the take the risk and and get somebody on board to help, whether it's even like a virtual assistant or, you know, just somebody, even a secretary. Yeah. I'm a secretary, but, you know, somebody to help you do things. If you're starting to starting to get so busy, hire an assistant to help you plan your schedule out. You know? Just I think it's it's just being proactive rather than reactive.
And when you're when you're a smaller company and you don't have the revenue to pay for it, then it's hard to be proactive because you may not have the money to do it. So be ready for it. And then doing it before maybe you get upped into making more money. And then having to part with it is, you know, not necessarily the easiest thing. So You just gave really 2 amazing principles. I wanna just piggyback off of your preparation.
It's interesting as you're preparing for that next level, like you're saying. Funny, as you're preparing, you're you're thinking about it and you're, like, bringing it to you. Because if you're never preparing for growth, guess what happens? You never grow.
Yeah. Because because you're not thinking about what that looks like or what moves you would make or what hires you would make or what money you would need, even like you said, even if you don't have the money now, you're still thinking as if, okay, well, what what if it were to happen in the next 30, 60, 90 days, 3 years, even, like, Maybe I can't hire anybody, but but what it looks like when I can, here's the plan.
And so those thoughts towards growth then start putting shin, subconsciously, even, into into motion, which then eventually brings the growth. And so I think everything is what you're saying is is spot on here. The the good decision I know you kinda mentioned at the beginning about how you funded this business. I kinda wanna get into this. You've got a little bit of a of some, you know, trade secrets, if you will, or just some some information that could be very helpful to the audience.
And so you're you're coming from a from a corporate background, you know, you can't just, you know, take 1,000,000 of dollars out of out of your current business or your savings account. You had to get creative. So tell us about tell us about that amazing decision, which ended up allowing you to buy the business and then have a successful business.
Yeah. So when I was looking for how to how to buy a business, first of all, I ran across a funding method, it's an acronym spelled Robs, r o b s. Maybe that's a bad acronym, but and I don't remember what it stands for. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. It's sort of governmental and kinda tax related program where basically you can take money from your existing retirement account. So I've been in corporate for over 15 years.
So I had, you know, I'd been put putting money into a 401 k. And normally, you take that out and you get punished for the tax reasons. But with the robs, you can use some or all of your retirement money if you're willing to take that risk and use it to either start a company or buy a company.
And it happens by you have to create a C corp and you create a C corp, which is owned by a 401 k. So you're you create a 401 k yourself, take some money out of your current 401 k, move it into that 401 k, and that's how you can either start a business or or buy a business. And in my case, I used that money as basically down payment on an SBA loan. So I took out money from my my existing 401 k and basically borrowed against myself.
Yep. And then and then also borrowed, got an SBA loan, and then also borrowed money from the seller. So, you know, there's there's lots of different ways to to buy and fund a business. And that's the way I did it was because I had some retirement money, was willing to risk it due to the cash flow that I analyzed ahead of time and planned on. Alright. I'm gonna have to make x number dollars to pay the SBA. Gotta make x number dollars to pay myself back.
From that borrowing from my 401 k essentially. And you don't have to pay yourself back, but that's just that was my mentality. It was I I had to practice. Yeah. Right. Still wanna retire one of these days. And and then, you know, the SBA wouldn't value the business necessarily at what the seller wanted to sell it for, which is very common, but it was growing. It Chaz a good track record, and, you know, I was willing to take the rest.
So if you're looking to buy a business and you've got some retirement money, whether it's in a IRA or a 401 k or whatever, you can you can look up that robs, whatever it's called, you know, the method to do that and and get going that way. You gotta hire it. You know, you don't maybe not have to, but I found a company that did it all for me. You know, it was like a big law firm, essentially, that that set it all up. So Yeah. Move the puzzle pieces. Make it legit.
Again, I'm sure all those things could be could be done on your own, but isn't that what we just got done talking about? Exactly. Right. First of all, thanks for sharing that. I think super tactical for anybody who's listening, who's looking to buy a business. The SBA 7 loans is exactly what I did as well. I didn't have a 401 k because I was not diligent like you and put money away, although I didn't have quite as long of a tenure. Sounds like you're a little younger Chaz.
Probably just just a little bit. But regardless, I think that it it makes a lot of sense because, you know, I think the average person that actually goes and starts a business or buys a business is in their forties. And so there's probably people listening today who maybe already have their own but maybe still have a 401 k that they had from previous work, and it's just kinda sitting out there. And they didn't know that they could leverage it in this way.
Right. And so I think that's that's huge. I also think that the that the seller finance piece is not only applicable in your situation of just the know, he wanted to value it higher than what the SBA was, which is common, like you said, but in today's environment, I mean, we're fall of 2023 right now. You know, in the next 3 years ish, there's gonna be a ton of businesses that just close because boomers are retiring and and getting rid of their businesses.
And so if you can find a seller who's motivated, who's willing to take on some or all of the risk of that, this is happening. A regular basis every single day for entrepreneurs who are looking to either grow locations or or expand into different industries, There's a lot of sellers. And so speak to that just for a half second.
You don't have to give the details of of of the seller Carrie, but give give maybe the motivation or what maybe the listener could thinking about as they're maybe talking to a prospect, on doing a seller finance situation or seller carry? Yeah. Well, from the seller's perspective, you know, he's taking the risk. He or she because you have to you're gonna rely on on the on the person who's buying your company to to pay you.
Yeah. But it was about maybe a third of the value if I think back a little bit less than that, maybe. And he thought the company was value, you know, as valuable as you wanted to sell it for. And and I agreed. It had good cash flow, and it met all the right multiples and all that stuff. And so then you just gotta really dig into the the books and make sure that the revenue is really there. But then, yeah, you put it in a contract.
And if if I didn't pay him back in the time specified, then he still had the source code of the software. It was written into the contract that he gets the business back. So it was really it puts some pressure on you as the business buyer. You gotta you gotta keep the business up, or you're gonna lose it. So that was Chaz was kind of the, you know, the the detail of it. It's a he would get the business back.
And so I guess if I were to sell a company to some at some point, I would probably I'm sure I would have to if I sold it to an individual, I'd I'd probably have to finance part of it as Wolfe, and that would be part of the deal. You you're you're gonna buy my company. If if you don't pay me, I'm taking it back. Yeah. Yeah. And there's obviously all kinds of recourse that can happen there. It doesn't always have to be taken the company back, but that's that's a that's an obvious one.
Yeah. Well, why would you let the person have it if they they can't make the payments? Unless there's other recourse that maybe is just a better situation, but I think all that's great. What would you say to the person right now? Who's, you know, sifting through businesses.
I'm I'm sure if they're listening right now, they have a business, but if they don't yet and they're thinking like you or me about leaving their job and they're looking at businesses to buy, any one last little nugget there that that really helped you either find the right thing, finance the right thing, anything like that? I mean, Just look at look at lots of different options. I, like I said, I looked at everything from franchises to convenience stores, everything.
Yeah. But it it depends on you gotta you gotta set your realistically, look at what your potential budget can be and looking at using that Rob's financing or something, you know, looking look at different creative ways to to borrow money. You know, you can get hard money loans. You can do all kinds of stuff if if you're willing to take the risk and you know what you're gonna buy has good cash flow.
I made sure that it was a business that had it'd been around for nearly 10 years before I bought it. So it had a good track record, good customers, you know, either either look. Just make sure you you do your due diligence and look for a company that's either growing or if you're if you know something that the seller doesn't know and you know a way to take it so that you can grow it really quickly to get it, you know, get it out of the get it out of the gates there and just look at that.
But I'd I was Risk averse to a certain degree, which piece of advice from after after this many years, I wish I would have done it earlier. So get out there and take the risk. If you've got it, if you've got it in your in you to to do it, Do it sooner rather than later. I looked for 5 years to buy a company. Yeah. But it took that long for me to find something that You know? So don't do don't don't go buy something that's not just for the sake of it.
Look for something that you think you can enjoy because you're going to be doing it full time for a long time. Yeah. And there should be some fulfillment Yes. Exactly. You gotta you gotta like what you're doing. You gotta like the people you're going to be working with or for. And, you know, even though I was working for somebody in the past, don't really feel like that now, but I work for my customers. That's, you know, I I do. They're not a boss, but they are They're it's they're blessing.
You know, we've just been completely blessed to to grow like we did. We went through some massive struggles in 2020 Chaz you might imagine with not being able to gather in places together. A lot of places had to cancel events. I mean, one of my customers this is this is the relationship I have with my customer. We had a a big concert sold out about five thousand people. It was on a Friday night, Chaz Friday, the gun oh, yeah.
The no. A week before, they were starting to give warnings Chaz if you need to start reducing the numb this is in March of 2020. You you gotta you you got too many people coming in the in the door here. So they talked to the band. They split it into 2 nights. Then they only had 1500 people. So that kinda fell or, you know, 1500, 2000 people per night. Right. And it was gonna be a Friday and a Saturday. Chaz day, the Friday, the governor came out and said no more no more gatherings.
We're like, what? We got thousands of people showing up. So they made the decision. The venue owner actually got permission from the his his mayor or some local politician because it's it's in a small town, that he could go ahead and have it, but he made the choice to go ahead and cancel it because he didn't wanna have any repercussions of, you know, whatever back backlash there may have been. So we had to refund 100 of 1000 of dollars.
Which meant me losing a fair amount of money and him losing a lot of money, but this is the relationship I have with my customers. He said, I know this is gonna impact you. I will pay you, me, outhouse tickets, the lost service fee revenue. And usually, it's like I just lose the money, or I Right. I don't make it, but I do have a I do take a loss if I refund stuff. There's fees and credit cards and a lot of stuff, but that's the level of relationship that I maintained with customers.
He was Fantastic. Great guy. Yeah. And he basically helped keep me going through 2020 by helping fund, helping you know, he he's like, I don't want you to lose money because of this because part of it was his decision to cancel it. Right. Yeah. I mean, they've got one other customer that She's awesome. She's she's about trying to win a venue of the year award, and that's one of the reasons I'm going to Nashville next week. And Love it. She she wants to bring me up on stage.
Introduce me because I'm such an integral part to her business that she wants to get out there and and, you know, promote us just because that's the my customer's And not to tute mowing horn too much, but they love me. They like working with me, and, you know, it's it's that's what I think helps us thrive. Yeah. Well, I think that it's it's an important thing.
I mean, I I love that you two did your horn there because it's important not only for maybe some of those people to hear, I'm sure they'll be listening at some point, but but also for the for the for the business owner that has nothing to do with your business. They're just hearing your story. They, too, should have customers like this. Right? And and those relationships, even in the more transactional businesses, I I've been even before I had my own business. And I was just in sales.
And it was just very transactional. I stood out shoulders and and ahead above, not because I'm 65, but because I focused on the relationships, and I think that that what you're what you're saying, that principle of taking care of the other person and also then inevitably, they take care of you, and it becomes actually mutually benefiting.
It's not just like, ah, help you, help you, but you've helped that dude so many times, and you helped her build her business in such a grand way where they want to take care of you. They're they're propelled. Not just want to, but they do take care of you. I mean, she's been taken care of. She said, come to Nashville. I'll get you a hotel room. I'll buy your flight out there if you want, you know, and it's like they because I bend over backwards to serve them well.
A lot of them bend over backwards to serve me back. And having customers like that is great. I am in a very transactional business. I mean, the sales are just going on constantly. It's it's essentially an online business, you know, and I have to customers. I've got the ticket buyer, but then it's really my venues and events festival and things like that Chaz that's where the relationships come in.
You can't have a relationship with 100 of 1000 of ticket buyers, but I have relationships with the hundreds and thousands of venues that I work with. And Yeah. It just that's that's the fulfilling part of the business is getting to know these folks, going out, meeting them, hanging out with them for a day or 2, going to one of their concerts, So Right. Find something that's fulfilling to you in in whatever way that is.
You know, that some people might not like that, but that's that's what, I like it. It's fulfilling for you. Yeah. We talk in gathering the Kings to talk a lot about fulfillment. And for me, what what the exceptional life or being fulfilled truly is is about winning in in all areas, not just in business, but also, I mean, we've got other categories. There's family. There's health. There's, you know, faith. There's all these other things that that we that we have importance in.
And so my my next question for you is kind of a tangent or or a connection between all this stuff that you've been talking about business. You've been doing this for 7 years. You left your corporate career. Clearly, you're all in. You had to be all in. Like you said, you had you know, the SBA to pay. You had yourself to pay back. You had, you know, the seller to pay. You still had to make money for you because, you know, wifey still needed to eat. Morgan. I live in a house.
Yeah. I live in a house. Yeah. I live in a house. Exactly. And so we know that you've been all in. We we've heard that from your story. Question is, how have you also been all in on family, marriage, all of the other things that are important to you as well at the same time? Yeah. Yeah. Well, Because I didn't have any employees to start with. I could work at home, so I stuck around as much as I could. Try to balance my time, taking the time to spend with your family.
You know, now we My both my kids are out of the house, but, to me, my wife and I still spend a lot of time together. We take vacations and try to travel a little bit. Bought a bought an RV so that I could still work while I travel, you know, while we travel on, you know, and that was a couple of years ago, and it was harder to travel anyway. But I it to me, it's important to keep those relationships with your family. Yeah. Talk to you.
Family and your kids every day, but, you know, doing just just trying to don't get so sucked into your business that you're working 24 hours a day, and you can't spend time with the people you love. So Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we we just got done talking about relationships inside the business and how important those are. How much more important? Is it for the relationships that that we live with or that that's that we burst, you know?
If you're not happy at home, you're not gonna be happy in business. So yeah. That's right. How have you seen that play out? Either for the good or maybe you've seen it for the bad for yourself or for other people, you know, that that happy home, happy business thing. Yeah. Yeah. It is a struggle.
You know, if you're in the same household with the same person, all the time and you're bumping into each other all the time and you're used to being in an office where you're gone for 8 to 10 hours a day, for some new language that has to arrive. Yes. Exactly. So it it's, you know, it's been it's been good overall for sure. Just being able to having that flexibility. I yeah. I mean, I was able to coach my son's baseball team.
We were I could take off in the middle of the day and do whatever I wanted to do. And that's it's just a huge I I like I said, do the do it early. If you haven't if you haven't done something yet, take the leap because it ends up affording you so much flexibility in your your life and in your lifestyle and that you can spend with those that you do love. Because that's just, you know, that's a paramount importance, really. And Yeah. Your family's not happy, you're not gonna be happy.
Yeah. It's just really tough to show up as the, you know, the armored, you know, guide to to win the the business battle. If you're battered and torn because, you know, you didn't get any rest at the house. Exactly.
What what do you think as far as, like, kinda going back to our conversation a little bit ago and you know, making good decisions in the business, hiring, kinda taking those risks that maybe you you didn't right away, but eventually you were able to systems How much does that play into the freedom that you really just described? Because there's a lot of business owners right now today that might have taken the leap but they haven't hired.
They haven't done some systems yet, and so it's very much still, you know, got them gripped, and they don't they can't just take off in the middle of the day. They can't just vacation whenever they Right? You know what I'm saying? How much? Yeah. Some of those things play a part in it. Yeah. So I was always a very process oriented person. That was a lot of what I did in corporate was to improve processes and automate things. And I did a lot of that.
And when I bought the company and looked at it, when I was looking at it, I thought, yeah, I can I can automate a lot of this stuff? I can create some processes and free up some time. Wasn't really like that, but, you know, it was it was hiring somebody that that really freed me up. Totally allowed me to I didn't take a vacation, really, for 5, 6 years. Now we did, but I would still be on my phone in the morning get on the computer in the morning and try to take care of business.
Right. And I don't mind that so much, but being able to get away and I I had for 6 or 7 years 6 years probably, and not a day went by where I didn't do something with the business. Because I was for a long time, I was just doing everything for the most part. And but I had gotten it to the point where If I let my customers know I'm on vacation, I would still get up in the morning because I typically get up a little I get up pretty early, and then I could take care of a lot of the business early.
Yep. Yep. And and then have free time in the in the days, but it never really it never gave me that mental break I needed. So I'd say that that's it's more important than you may realize, and I I still haven't completely realized it. I still don't do it enough. I don't take a complete mental break, but being able to do that because when you work for somebody else, you can typically turn your phone off.
Go away for a week, not think about it, and then, yeah, work your rear off when you get back, but Right. It's it's that's important if you can put processes in place. If you can systematize things, do it. My business didn't really like that because it's so relationship oriented, but it it can really help if you can get processes in place. And here's an important aspect.
Getting those processes written down so that you can hand that over to somebody else because if, right, If you can't if you can't verbalize it and then document it well enough that somebody else can do it, you're gonna struggle one of these days when you do wanna get out of the business, and you gotta you gotta be able to write stuff down, which is is hard whenever you've been at I've been at it for a long time now, and I know I know an inside and out. Yep. Writing down everything I do.
Yep. And it's just easier just to do it. Yeah. I don't know. That's Going back to our previous conversation. Exactly. Exactly. So so the things that give us the things that we actually want. So when we start our business, we want freedom and time with our family and money choices and money freedom and time freedom. And, every entrepreneur wants that. But what happens is that if we if we don't leverage systems and people and team building and and all of those things that are difficult.
But if we don't leverage those things, then we just keep getting stuck over and over. Eventually, it wears us out. It it really turns into hopelessness. Like, 72% of all entrepreneurs deal with some sort of mental health issue. What? Yeah. And and it's it's right in this moment here where you're like, I wanna spend more time with my family, but I'm It's like, well, there's there's certain key things, which obviously, Greg just gave you guys quite a bit of it.
You know, as far as systems and then earlier, talking about hiring people, Chaz that pain of having to manage people, even though you said maybe I wasn't, like, you know, the best manager of people. It's worth it so that you can obsessed in what I call, you know, the 5 dimensions of kingship, but it's like family marriage, you know, all the other things that we're talking about, traveling, fitness, like, all the I can't I can't focus on those things.
If I'm stuck, and you gave us some really, really key things to be able to get unstuck. I've got one last question here for you, Greg. I want you to just roll back the clock. Go back, and I want to talk to the younger Greg. Tap him on the shoulder and just what do you tell him? Take the risk earlier and get rid of the fear. So whatever you've gotta do, spiritually, emotionally, whatever's inside of you that's holding you back, figure out what that is. It's yeah.
For me, there was fear of failure, fear of not being able to provide whether it was for myself or for my family? Hit Get your head and your heart straight and forgive yourself. Forgive your Parents, if you have to get all those fears out of your life, and that will free you up to then make the decision and take the leap. I know I could have succeeded at that.com that I started a long time ago. But I was afraid to do it.
I knew other folks in that business who were making a ton of money back then. But I was afraid, and I didn't wanna take that leap. So I'd say In a nutshell, examine your fears, figure out where they came from. Forgive the person who gave them to you if that's, you know, that's usually the case. And and take the leap. Do it before your too old to have the energy to do it and and just go for it.
That's what I gotta say is I wish I would've gone for it way earlier in life because it was a great decision to to get out on my own. Yeah. I love every part of that answer. It wasn't just go forward earlier, it was a very succinct. This is why you didn't. And to be able to communicate that to the younger Greg, who's listening right now. Right? Like, that that's just a literal key that's gonna unlock someone's success a decade sooner, 2 decades sooner, you know, who knows.
And so I I'm indebted to you on their behalf, for giving that to us. Greg, how can the listener, a, find you because they're a venue, or they know someone who has a venue, and they need to hire you to help them sell tickets, or If they're an entrepreneur and they just wanna connect with you, they're like minded to you, they wanna get to know you. How can they find you? I'll give my email address out. It's Greg at outhousetickets.com. Contact me directly if you want.
For venues, events, festivals, whatever Chaz want to find me. Outhousetickets.com. We're all over the internet. You can look at the venues we deal with. You can see what kind of customers we serve. And contact me and, you know, there's a contact page on the website. We're on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram a little bit, but the website's really the best place to go. So but you got my email address now. If you wanna contact me directly, go for it. That's right.
I love talking to I love talking to other business owners. Love talking to entrepreneurs, especially young younger folks who are, like, wanting to to take that next step, you know, and really figure out how to go deep and and do it. I I I love those conversations. That's part of the way I like giving back is talking to younger folks who wanna do something. Love talking about business and what I do and what somebody else might be wanting to do and how they can succeed. So I really enjoy Chaz.
So I'm I'd love to talk to anybody that wants to. Well, that position of giving back Chaz well as everything you've done with us here today is straight from a kingly position. You you are, an absolute king and everything that you've been able to accomplish, not perfect, but one that is is doing it, doing it Wolfe, and we appreciate you sharing your story. I'm sure there's gonna be many encouraged here listening today.
So, Greg, blessings to you, your family, all the venues that you're helping this year and next. So we just are so thankful that you got to be here and and share your time with us. Thank you so much for being here. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me off. 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 from multiple businesses in multiple different industries and now interviewing over 2 or 300 other very successful 7, 8, and 9 figure business owners is Chaz 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, and communities, and here's what we believe Chaz in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy.
So if that relates and and resonates with you, and you know that you need people around you, sharp, qualified other very successful business owners. I want you to go to gatheringthekings.com. Want you to take a look at what we're doing and see if it makes sense for you to be part of our pursuit to 1000 kings. Talk soon.