On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. Definitely have mentors to some degree. Sometimes mentoring could be somebody you've never even met people you listen to, you read everything they put out. And then other times, it could be somebody who's one step ahead of or even right there along with You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolfe featuring fellow 78 and even 9 figure business owners who have real battle scars.
From business and life, but have prevailed as the king that they are designed to be. We welcome high performing entrepreneurs to the stage in order to reveal the real of the real on what it takes to build a successful business today. We dissect the good and bad decisions they've made along the way that give a true and accurate picture of the journey of success and how you too can get there.
Through this dialogue, you will learn the value of growing your network and surrounding yourself with power players and kings like today's guest. Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to dive in. Alright, everybody. I'm Chaz Wolfe. I'm back. Gathering the Kings. I got Justin Birock. It's Brock. What's up, man? You're at the Kings table. Thanks for coming today. Really appreciate you. How you doing? Absolutely, man. Thank you so much for having me.
Appreciate taking taking the time to interview little old me. Yeah, man. I I love that perspective, of little old me. In fact, you're not quite little old me altogether, but that's my job today. Promote you. And, I want folks to know what you've done, but before we jump into that story, tell us what kind of business that you're in. So I'm in the financial services niche which is a big niche, but we're we we we whittle it down a little bit more.
We're in the Medicare and health insurance focused space. Yeah. We break more out of that. We do life. We do annuity. We do the financial stuff, but Sure. What we're known for is the Medicare and health suck. And, you know, we built, a business that started with the consumer, the health insurance consumer in mind and built actual brick and mortar what I call hybrid offices where people work over the phone or in person, but not going to anyone's houses all people come to them or Yeah.
They're working over the phone. So that's 70 to 80% over the phone, 20 to 30 coming in the office Chaz kind of fluctuates. Yeah. You know, focusing heavily in one kind of quadrant of a state, Chaz our our our goal depending on the population of the area that can get more and more dialed in.
Sure. And when we built those offices and we started documenting the journey years ago, We ended up creating a lot of attention in the entrepreneur space, or, you know, specifically in the health insurance space where people were like, well, I wanna replicate hate your success. And so now we've built a value ladder of services, events, and you know, different things that can service that community. Yeah. And and bring them to our team or, you know, ultimately, they don't have to come join team.
They can just follow along and and and and have their team go right along with us and servicing and growing that niche, and expanding out of that So we're all out, you know, different verticals and integrating into different spaces, but, health insurance and Medicare consumer and agent focus is really our business. That's the that's the that's the technical. Yeah. Exactly. Well, it's funny. When we first met, you told me about you had just gotten back from Medicare con.
I think is what you call it. Right? Mhmm. And so there's this conference that you guys host. You guys put it on. All about Medicare. Like, That's the first time I'd ever heard of that. I mean, I'm not, like, oblivious to the health care space. I'm not in it either, so that's probably why, but that's kind of a big deal. Like, it's your event. It I mean, you talk you had tons of attendees.
Like, that's that's a huge part of one of these services that you're saying that that people can can come along with the ride for you guys. Yeah. So part of that value ladder is that we wanted to have an event for just getting people together and getting the in the energy, like, if you've been to a big internship in. I'm sure in, sure many of your audience members have. Nothing like the energy you get from that of getting a like minded niche community altogether.
And just kinda getting jazzed up, learning together, networking. And it also is a great content opportunity for us. A great opportunity to strengthen our relationships to the people that follow us online, but Medicare Khan is it started as the Medicare gurus your mind a couple of years ago. We we launched the idea or launched the official date of the first one was going to be. And I'm sure you've heard the story before and because I've heard it April of 2020. Oh, yes.
Yes. Yes. So I'm I remember I'm You and actually the NCAA tournament, I think. Right? Yeah. Like, exactly. So so I'm down in, I'm down in in Destin. On, like, the last trip. So, like, beginning of March or middle of March, spring, our spring break here, And, you know, this is like the ground zero time of COVID of like, you know, I'm still the biggest skeptic in the world at point.
I'm like, this is just gonna go away, like, ebolaides and all the other crap that comes out, you know, not to be Sure. Insensitive, but I was just thinking, like, this is just just gonna go away just like all this other stuff does. And we don't have to postpone, medic the Medicare guru's mastermind, which later became Medicare Khan. And, I ended up being wrong. We did have to pass forward. Because because the hotel shut down. I said, no, thanks.
Hosted in, and so I'm like, well, that's a factor outside of my control. So we moved it, but ended up having the first one, like, really right when people started coming back to events. And Chaz, like, the show up rate for our attendees was unparalleled. Like, I think it was over a 100%. I think we were sneaking in without tickets. Oh, wow. But, we it was meant to be a smaller intimate group, and it ended up being 200 plus people at the first one. And so this last one was close to 400 people.
And then next year in Vegas will be, 750 plus. So, very crazy that Medicare has a conference. And then another little funny story about Medicare con. When we first started talking to signs guys and, And we have a graphics team that we've kinda built around Medicare con and some of our other stuff, but we outsource the sign creation and install. Right? Yeah. Yeah. We started talking to them about Chaz. Oh, yeah.
And they started giving us ideas about things, and they thought because we didn't do a good job explaining on the front end that this was for Medicare beneficiaries. So they're, like, coming up with ideas that'll appeal to, like, seventy years old. And I was like, no. The Asians. Yeah. No. Different target completely. They're a little more edgy, a little edgier, not A little younger. Not the edgiest. But, definitely more edgy than seventy year olds. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
And and not in need of the service. Yeah. Not not yet at least. Not not yet. They need to know how to service. Not not how to get the service. That's right. You know, holding an event is huge, in itself, let alone one during that time. And then and then to have growth that you guys have is just incredible. My my question for you before we jump into some of the, like, Xs and Os of, like, how you built the business and some of that stuff.
At this level, for all intents and purposes, I I say this every every show, but the audience sees you as and you're you've done something that hardly anybody else Chaz. You got a business that does at least 7 failures and above, and less than 9% of businesses do that. And so, like, why do you keep pushing? Like, for all intents and purposes, you've made it. You have this thing. You've got a you've got an incredible podcast room. I can see you there. You've got a team. You've got an event.
Like, Why do you still push hard every day? Cause I follow you on social media now. I know you are. Yeah. So here's what it to me comes down to. There's only two people that get into the breakthrough to 7 figures and and and actually, the goal this year is to hit 8 figures in revenue and then gross revenue. Yeah. We're either gonna hit it or we're gonna fall very, like, just slightly short. But, when when you look at Chaz growth pattern, there's there's a couple of answers to that.
First, I think the person that hits 7 figures is not the type of person Chaz slows down because hitting 7 figures help hitting 6 figures on your own in business can be one of the harder points. 100%. Then you look back and you're like, Wolfe, it's not really that hard, but it's not that hard because now you've gained the knowledge, but gaining information that makes 6 figures and 7 figures and 8, you know, and beyond easiest is something that it takes a certain type of person to break through.
And so I think answer one is the type of person that gets to point x wherever that is. Isn't the type of person that was designed to slow down. And sometimes they think they are because they don't know. They think I want this, but they get Chaz, and they think that's not That's not all it's cracked. It's good. It's not like it's bad. It's not, but it's not all it's cracked up to be. Now where I wanna be, I think, is why? And then see, you know, so you're moving from that center.
I also think on the back end of it is for me, you find different gratification at different points from things that you didn't even realize you would. So for me, like, the most recent and probably highest level of gratification in business I ever had was at the end of this Medicare con where I had 27 w two staff members there with me. And it's over, and we're popping champagne and and hanging out and celebrating.
And there's people in the room, like, literally crying because they're so happy about what we as a team are able to accomplish. And so that level of, like, this ethereal feeling you get is Yeah. You can't get it from just money. You can't get it from, you know, you get it from building something, throwing together a team, and seeing other people's lives change. So that's been the most gratifying, but it's it's always different points of gratification.
It's Yeah. So it's breaking free in the beginning from like, holy crap. As an individual, I don't think that I would ever have to go back to make him below 500,000 a year because I know how to make that just by myself. And then it's Right. You know, growing a team and seeing individuals within that team prosper for different reasons. It's not always about money for them. Sometimes it's about being part of something bigger than what they had at, you know, Walmart or or I think it's Walmart.
They've done great things. But you know what I mean? Like, it's part of, just kind of the the drag or the the societal business that just feels like a dead end. Like, I show up there because I have to to make ends meet, making them feel like they're part of the progress of what you're doing together. That's been very gratifying. Yeah. I love both of those angles, man.
I I hear you, like, that the two points are that you yourself, the person who's gonna break through is a maybe not Chaz, like, naturally a certain way. Maybe they are, but but they've at least picked up on certain things along the way where they more and more and more.
And not because they're not satisfied or not, grateful, but because along the way, I love that second point of just that there's different gratification points along the way, which has a lot to do with in the influence past you, especially when some figures and above, it's like, it's all about the now your team and your community and and how can you service those folks, and it's like the weight of the kingdom as opposed to just the the individual warrior and the battle more so focused on self.
You know what I mean? Right. Absolutely. Yeah. It's just something that people can do. There's a scene in Wolfe Street with, it's the second one. Shyle Labeouf and, Ockemer, the guy that played, Thanos, Kimber's name, but he's I'm I'm trying really hard myself. Yeah. No. I'm on Josh Brolin. That's his name. So Josh Brolin plays this billionaire, like, 1,000,000,000, 1,000,000,000aire, right, in Wall Street.
And, you know, Wall Street, the whole angle of the movies is kind of to make money look evil. And cool all at the same time. But, in in the in the movie, Shylabuff asked him how much he wants He he says he says, what's your number? Like, what what number do you get to where you he said, I find most people have a number and Josh Brolin or this guy, Wall Street says, more, like his numbers more. And they make it evil. Like, oh, he was he wants more.
You know, he wants to get more and more and more. What I find in business owners It's super high levels. It's not an evil want of more. There is a want of more, but it's more growth. There's a point where like, what I can buy is as much as, like, like, I'm kinda at this point now where I I don't really pay myself any more out of the business since I'm pushing it all into the business. I've set myself with a comfortable amount that I'm getting very comfortable.
But and I'm putting it all in the business because there's this big gap between I can go on any vacation I want and I can live in the house. I want my kids to do extracurriculars, and we're living a top 1% lifestyle. But then there's this huge gap between that and you know, a yacht in a private plane. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And so everything's short of that at this point. I have, and I'm not saying that I even want Chaz.
But what's the point of even taking more money out of my business where I Chaz just grow the business? Chaz it gets to that potential. So so I do have put those things out there. I look at them. Look at bigger houses. I do that. I always did. Even early on, I drive it. Some of the houses that I used to drive by and look at them, like, if I could just make it to Chaz. Right. You know? And then now I drive by this house. I was like, I can't believe I thought that was a big house.
Yeah. Yeah. You know what I should say? I should say, what do all these people do? I mean, I still say that because I'm still like, I'll I mean, I'm living in Tupelo, which is not a it's not as small as people think, but it's also not not a big place. Yeah. And I'll be driving through neighborhoods and see these just I mean, here, even in Tupelo is 100 of neighborhoods, nice houses, and beautiful neighborhoods. And I am like, I'm like, I know a lot of them are doctors.
I know a lot of them are lawyers. But how the hell many doctors and lawyers? Chaz do some of these people do? What are these businesses? And the the answer really is All kinds of crap. I mean All kinds. There's money everywhere. People are having vape shops are doing well. People they're mechanic shops doing it. One of the guys in my neighborhood. Now that does really well owns a couple of Napa auto parts stores. I don't even know how the Napa model makes money, but he seems to be doing great.
Yeah. A quick quick quick story on that head. I bought my first franchise. I'm twenty four, twenty five years old. I'm doing some delivery. Right? I'm still very much in I'm a local one store, you know, owner, and I'm doing some deliveries. And here in Kansas City, we've got some pretty wealthy, areas, on the Kansas side. And it's like, I remember going the same thing going like, what all these people do? I don't understand. Like, I'm a business owner. I'm young.
I'm ambitious. Like, I'm I'm getting it. Like, in comparison, I'm doing pretty good, but, like, I've never played that game of, like, I feel good compared. I'm always looking for more. And so I remember driving through not just a neighborhood, but, like, whole sections of town going, holy moly. Where do what are these people? Like, who are these people? What do they do? Crazy. Money everywhere.
And and then when I moved to Miami and worked for Grant Cardone for a period of time, it was like, just unscrew the cap. It comes off. There's you know, there's Rolls Royce. There's $40,000,000 condos Chaz, I mean, it's just, like, money everywhere, and it and it just puts it in perspective. I'm I'm gonna try this all back. To Miami. And, I told I I never I had passed through, like, the airport a couple of times, stayed in, like, an overnight you know, but never really gotten into it.
And, this past year, because we threw a conference, I go to growth con. I started getting into that ecosystem. I buy his TBT. I bought been several events. I've done the card on ventures. I've spent quite a bit of money with them since growth con. Peter asked me 4 months ago would I have done that? I do think I'm uniquely positioned to benefit from it because there's information, but it's also, for me, like, research of of value Replication. Yeah. Replication.
So there's some there's some degree that you're not not from a ripping it off, but from an inspiration to, like, I mean, these people have clearly learned that the value ladder to the max. And so but anyway, going down to Miami, I've made four trips down there this year, And, there's so much money in that area. The number. The only other place I've been, I was in Qatar, over near, like, the Doha and, and the United Arab Emirates. But when I went to Iraq 2008, went on R and R over there.
Chaz place had money like that. Like, the the cheapest, the poor people were driving Range Rover. Yes. So, you know, it was a different Wolfe. But Miami's just Yeah. A different level. I remember telling a couple of my buddies here that that do pretty Wolfe. Did do really well. We were living in a little town home down there, paying, like, $5 a month. And he just about, you know, just sold himself, you know, thinking, bro, you could have almost any house you wanna do Kansas City.
What are you talking about? Like, yeah, man. It just it is a whole another perspective. So let's jump into your story here a little bit. I wanna know, was this the 1st business or if not, tell us how you got kinda just started in business in general. It's just like the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey. So I never wanted to be in business. Didn't interesting. I I meet guys that are 2021, 22, and they're like, I'm gonna be in business. I'm gonna do this.
And and now at my level, like, I've seen the mistakes ahead of them, and I I feel for them. And I'm like, you know, come on little baby bird. Let me show you what not to do. But at the same time, I'm envious that they have that aspiration at that age. Right? I wasn't super old when I got in business. I was twenty six. But at 18, I went into the marine corps, and I did almost 8 years in the marine corps.
I Chaz, started a family there, had a wife, had kids, heavily considered staying in the marine corps for 20 to 30 years and retired. Yeah. Wow. But, you know, Chaz kids. I was in I I did my first tours, on the East Coast and the Middle East. And then my last 4 years where my daughter was born in Tokyo, we were on Mainland, Japan. So we went on the island with most of the military. It was in a smaller base called Iwakuni.
And, had some great experiences, but while I was over there, they would deploy me for 2 months away, 2 months back, and they're training detachment. So I'd go to Guam. I'd go to Okinawa. I'd go to South Korea. I'd go to Thailand. Got to go to a lot of places. But every time I'd go, my wife and son, when I first got there, my son's three months old, it had come back and he would he forgot who I was. Right? So when you're you have a kid like that and they forget who you are. Oh, Chaz yeah.
It's terrible. It's rough on you. Right? And so right around the time I was deciding whether I was gonna be honest again, my daughter's born. And I'm thinking, you know, and I and I knew that here's what could have happened. I can go to a base where they're gonna deploy me 6 to 12 months away 6 to 12 months back, or I can go somewhere where it's 2 months away, 2 months back. There's really not many posts where they're not sending you somewhere for different periods of time.
And so I just decided, you know what? Because I'm just not in that point in my life anymore. I wanna I want to be able to, you know, be around my kids. So when I get out, I decided and I had a, I had a relative who was in the insurance industry. I'd seen them go from carpet salesman at Sears to, to middle class.
I didn't and I'm not saying I saw them get rich or saw them be wildly successful, build a big business, but as an independent agent on their own pen, that's what we say on your on my own pen as an insurance agent. I saw them go out and make a decent life for themselves. Right? Yeah. And not have to work for anybody. And that sounded nice, but my goal was to replace my military income what happened was I got into a business that really your own individual work ethic Yeah.
Was directly correlated or tied to the amount of profit that you would make in in your success. Right. And I had never been in Chaz, and I became addicted. So when you really tie those two things together, I was sleeping at my house every night and with my kids, I became so addicted to business and work. It was still like I wasn't getting as much time because starting a business is hard. Totally. Yep. But I enjoyed it immensely. I enjoyed every step of it.
I enjoyed the marketing side a lot, so I started and heavily on the marketing. I'm a big proponent of if you're not heavily involved in your own marketing and learning your marketing, you don't really have a business. Right. Yep. You know, because It's a huge part of it. Sales is great. You know, and sales and marketing is the core of a business. But without marketing, a salesperson without marketing is just is I mean, you know, you're you can only do so much. Right?
Yeah. Yeah. And and there's different levels of all that, but I started staying up you know, to 2, 3 in the morning, researching different marketing tactics, learning Facebook marketing back 2014 before a lot of people were doing it. Chaz some great success 2014, 2015, hit some home runs, started building, and then started hiring, and then realized pretty quickly that people were a huge resource that, you know, it's easy to be cheap and say, oh, I can do that myself. I don't wanna hire people.
Right. But even people that are not with me anymore, I don't regret hiring them because of where we've gotten to based off, you know, trading on on other people's time. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. You're creating a a system that, whether the individual piece of the system is isn't there or not, the system still operates The the the seat is still there.
Okay. So this is a perfect segue in this journey here that you've kinda described What would you say was a good decision that you made that just, like, really catapulted, the business? Was it to do with this marketing stuff that you're talking about, or was it something different maybe?
I would say, early on diving into Facebook marketing when everybody was telling me that seniors were on Facebook, and I was I was pushing Facebook ads, which if you if I told you these ads now, you'd be like, Chaz don't that won't work. And it they won't work now. Because I'm the guy that made them not work because marketers ruined everything, and that's a a good core principle. And, the early marketing we were doing to seniors on Facebook worked very well.
If I realized how, like, uncannily profitable it was at the time. I would have 10 x'd it. Done more spent more. Spend more. Yes. I would have really spent more on that and and scaled it out more. But I didn't know what I didn't know and so I just thought it would continue forever. And I was I was doing pretty well on those. Didn't know a lot about building sales teams at the time. I didn't know what I didn't Right?
Yeah. Yeah. But I did know something, and I I did layer on a lot of residual based products in Medicare and health insurance the cool thing is if you come into it the 1st couple of years, not saying I gotta get rich right away or I gotta make a 100,000 right away, These products pay residual commissions forever, basically, as long as those people are alive.
And so if you're, as long as they stay with you, So if I put them on the right plan that's best for them and they like it, they're probably not gonna change, and then I'm gonna keep you know, residual commissions coming. So things that I wrote my 1st day in the business, my 1st day where I actually sold something, I still have them on books that I'm collecting you know, and it might now be 5, 10 bucks a month, 15 bucks a month, 20 bucks a month.
But when you layer that up, so that Facebook success I Chaz, trying it set me up for revenue that is able to be reinvested in more things. And now as marketing, I believe, has gotten more expensive, I have compounded revenue over time that I can use to test things where other people getting into the market without that revenue would really struggle to do that. So that is a huge win. You know?
And then I've made some huge wins and hires that I've made that I didn't even realize that would be as big as they were. You know? Yeah. My number 2 that's with me now, I hired him to be an agent. And now he's basically running all of our technology and marketing and makes four times as much money as his entire life goal was, you know, working within our business, which is really cool. To be able to do for somebody. So and I'll make more and more. So Exactly.
I think that that even tips, just a scratch on the, the first point that you made of eventually taking care of the, you know, the other people around you. And I've felt that same thing. Like, when you have people on your team that you can help get to another level, in their life financially or just leveling up, leadership wise and all those little key components that we can help other people in.
When you do that for somebody, like, on your team, it is, like, super impactful, and it's another one of those gratification points that you mentioned. So, that's huge. Okay. Let's flip the coin. What about a bad decision? Something that you did that was just, ugh, and we need to write it down and stay far, far away. Yeah. So, the My the first thing that comes to mind is, Chaz a technical, is a little bit technical. We've done advertising on broadcast television.
And, I abandoned my core principle of high frequency ads on individual programs. So, like, I'm a big believer in advertising. If somebody tells you that, you know, okay, on the on channel 4, there's a 150,000 viewers a day. I'm gonna say, okay. Let me figure out where I think the people that I wanna hit are watching and how many are watching that program, and then I'm gonna concentrate as much of my dollars towards that program or 1 or 2 programs.
Well, I segued in to another market, a bigger metro market, and was gonna test it. And I spent 240,000 last year testing it, but I let somebody talk me in shotgun approaching it and and abandoning me my high frequency principle altogether. Uh-huh. Another big one, and this is gonna be a macroeconomic concept. I feel like our macro, sales hiring cultural concept.
If you if you're building a team and you begin to build it, whether it's one person at a time or you're hiring a bunch of people, there's two way, and this is more of a sales team concept. But if you're building a sales team, there's two books out there that I read early on. The first one I read, I wish I'd have read the other one first, but I read the first one. It was, I think it's Chet Homes, the ultimate sales machine.
K. Yeah. So his book, talks about building a sales team, and and hiring people with egos so big, they're hard to check. That's me. I might be taking that quote out of context to some degree, but if he was talking about these, you know, ultra sales like, you know Yeah. High d personality people. Yep. And and I've hired a couple of those, early on because of that concept, like, and these people with crazy personalities that are, you know, intense. Yes. Intense. That's a good word.
Yeah. It can be good salespeople, but what happens is they don't work for the team they're trying to make the team and the business work for them. Yeah. Benefit them. And so there's another book by Patrick Lindsay on always recommend this. Patrick Lindsay only has one called the ultimate team player. Yeah. And he told us that. Give us the 3 components. The the smart hungry and humble. He wants he wants you to hire smart hungry and humble people who can work within a team.
And so it may be that you as a business owner may be that extreme person, but that doesn't mean you need to hire much people that are extreme because then you're gonna be a a bull wrangler, you know, rather than having a bunch of people that they don't have you gotta remember that the the person on the team doesn't have to outwork you. Doesn't have to be better than you. Doesn't have to be, or as good as you even.
And I I say that in you know, doesn't even make sense because sometimes we think what we think is good or what we think we need. We find out from somebody else being a different person and it being valuable. That I needed something else. Yeah. I don't necessarily need a 100 Justin Brock's, you know, maybe I need you know, I need a John and a Joe and a a Grace and a Mary. I need these different people that are different collection of personalities that Chaz bring different things to the table.
Yeah. I love that perspective of the of the personality piece. I just wanna just highlight for the listener here. Especially, especially in the sales world because you're right. If you're looking for you, it's just probably not gonna work. First off, it's gonna be it's really difficult to find Yeah. It's really just part of our business. Yeah. You is probably somewhere else starting another business. Literally. That's the sentence I've I told myself after a couple years of find myself.
I go, wait a second. I'm out doing my thing. How am I gonna find me? So I think that that's super applicable for all seats on the bus. The second point is that you just made, though. Is that there are different seats on the bus that require different skill sets, personalities, you know, tendencies, characteristics, and all those things.
And so I think if you what you're saying to the listener right now is that as a business, you're trying to scale out, first off, you have to be able to build a team. Gonna grow your sales. So you probably need a salesperson if you don't have one or 2 or 3, and you don't have to go hire the guy that's just a bull.
And then the second piece is that there's other seats on the bus that maybe you've identified, maybe you haven't, but that Justin is telling you right now that it doesn't have to be someone that's just like you, but you need to look at each individual seat and go, okay. What characteristics or what personality traits or what, talents are best for this specific role and then go look for that person. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. That that's that's exactly right.
And, you know, if you hadn't got into, like, I used to think a lot of things that I don't think anymore. One one recently than, you know, in the past several months, I I used to think that people focus too much on mindset training and then I realized, oh, okay. To get to where I am, I had the right mindset for it. Yeah. Yep. I agree. Twofold there. So, like, now I'm realizing to get to where I need to go. My mindset has to change because I've pretty much maxed out what my default mindset is.
But when you're bringing on somebody else, their default mindset may be much more limited in view and scope than yours is. And so you're gonna have to adjust or help them to bring them along to to increase what their you know, perspective is. Some people can be way too skeptical, and I'm I was a skeptic, but I was a skeptic that believed in myself Sure. Yep. We close all the other doors because I'm like, I'm gonna run through it.
And there was something, I can't even remember who said it, but he said, you know, some of you guys are gonna build impressive businesses by running through every wall in front of you. Yeah. And then one day, you're gonna hit walls that you your head just doesn't go through anymore. Like, you can't just run through every wall. You gotta put the right people in in front of you. You gotta put the right process. You gotta have the right mindset. You gotta have so many different things.
And, as I got into the the value ladder of different trainings out there, someone were focusing so much on mindset. And for years, I was just like, why are they doing that? You know? And I know it's it's sales to people too. And so that was my skeptical side coming up. They're like, they're selling them what they want. But then there's a point where I'm like, you know, they broke through. This is what I started believing.
Okay. I think you can, you know, change your language and, and increase the scope of what you think is possible and manifest things. And so I I broke through. And so the cool thing is if you're a skeptic So then this is the double edged sword of the mindset jargon. There's some people that are absolute junkies on mindset training. Yep. And they never do anything with it. But if you Chaz take a guy, and this is who I was, a doer, a run a wall runner through her. Yeah. Exactly.
And then you can get him to a finally buy in to some of the other stuff. Yeah. After he's achieve stuff, like, I feel like I'm in this, like, I feel like this superpower now where I'm like, Oh, shit. I got both sides. Like, I I have what I need to put one foot in front of the other, and then I have the mindset to begin to like, cultivate the right collective mindset of my team to run to help me build doors and walk through them rather than run through the damn wall.
Yeah. I think what you just said, we could just we could stop the whole thing right now and just mic drop it on that because and not that we will, but, everything that you just said is so applicable to the guy who's listening right now or the gal 6 figure mark, and that's what they're doing. They're just been boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. You know, running through doors over and over. And and they feel frustrated, and they can't keep good people. And, you know, they're running around.
And and during the day, they're all over the place. And then at night, they're trying to pick up all the admin work, and it's just, like, super draining because of what you just said. And so at some point, that wall that the other person was talking about I think you and I both know exactly what that is. And eventually, everybody who's listening will hit it too, where you just literally go, this can't happen anymore.
And so you almost, like, force yourself into the mindset of at least solving the problem I think that's where it starts is I can't take this anymore. I'm gonna kill myself running through all these doors. So let me take a look at whether it's investing, whether it's hiring, whether it's you need help, whether it's, you know, mentorship or coaching or friend or, like, whatever, something has to change. So then, therefore, your mindset to change.
And then the rest of it to your point then, it has to flow after that. It can't just be this I'm a better thinker now. It's gotta be I'm a better thinker, and then I'm gonna use that superpower in my already action taker spirit to then go put it to use. If that's what I'm hearing, you say. Yeah. Absolutely. It's you you have to have I wanna, you know, craft my personal professional financial goals. I wanna have my grandiose vision.
I wanna manifest this long term, you know, vision but I wanna have the skill set to put one foot in front of the other and to understand that it's micro steps that push me to that. And if you're like, what you're saying to, if you're hitting walls and you're staying up late at night and you're doing admin and all that, There's a point, and I wish everybody knew the perfect time.
Like, there's no perfect time, but there's a point where if you can hire someone you know, to to take on some of these other things. Like, it the here's the thing about hiring. I would say the first, depending on what type of business you have, you know, mine, I would say probably is a you know, if you're if you look at the metric revenue per employee, heard of revenue per employee, but, that's the, Brandon Dawson talks about it as the guardrail for for business growth.
And I love the metric because some businesses have a high revenue per employee model. Some some are harder. Their their revenue per employee is gonna be lower.
Like, if you're a framing company for houses, you're gonna have to hire a lot of lower income, low producing, employees to sit there and bang up studs in house, right, and it's gonna be a higher volume employees But, but for, like, a group like what we have and what I think most businesses and entrepreneurs initially get into what most of them do, when you can hire someone to start doing certain tasks. If you have 1 or 2 tasks and you think, okay. I don't have enough for this guy to do.
Get them there. Get her there. Get them start doing 1, 2, 3 tasks. You're gonna find different things for them to do and pile on them. It's not to get you to be able to sleep better at night. So that that time that you were gonna spend doing admin work, now you can spend doing something more useful of the business owner's time. Yeah. And then eventually create more revenue, hire the next person. The more people I hire, the more people I feel like I can use.
Yeah. And you get better, and it's not like it's and that's not me saying I have, like, some amazing onboarding process. That's something we're consistently working on. I'm trying to chart out and have Ebb and flow to hiring to plug and play people, but there's so many different roles in what we have right now that really every time I hire somebody, they're doing something different. And they start to overlap, but then they're all training 1 another.
And then when you hire them, you're like, now that I have this person, like, we have 2 videographers. Right? We're the 1st videographer. Is spending time. He's setting stuff up like this for me. He's he's doing all my long form content, the podcast, things like that. And then on the back end, I hire a second videographer. I have him doing all my shorts. Yeah. So he's putting out all the reels. He's putting out all the LinkedIn, all the TikToks, all that kind of stuff.
I have 3 graphic designers, and that's just on our marketing side. When you look at agents and administrative employees, service to clients, administrative employees, servicing our agent force.
There's just no, like, shortage of things to do once you have and cultivate the talent and the people willing to do a good job at I think the piece there that you said so easy, that I really want the listener to to pay attention to and for sure write down is that as you do those things, right, hire and give those things away. As you repeat that process over and over, what it does for you as the owner is not to necessarily sleep or go to the beach and have 4 hour workweek. Right?
But what it does is it allows you to work on just those few things that allow the business to scale that much faster But specifically, it allows for, you know, you to be able to you you don't even know Chaz, like, all these things that are on your plate until you start having the people to give them away. And then, of course, then some of your people need people.
And so I think it's just a it's like a downward slope, you know, of, what you don't know, what you don't know until you start, like, getting into it and building the team. But as you do that, you would think untrained is, man, this is gonna cost me a lot of money if I'm adding all these people. But it frees up the whole process to then grow and scale from the top end. And so it it actually has a domino effect with with revenue. Yeah. It does.
And you can begin to like, if I'm offloading in in the beginning, I'm offloading individual tasks, that I am spending time on that are not you know, income producing activities, IPAs, and and I can begin to focus my time. And this is you just said it too. My time gets increasingly spent on the highest value concepts. In the beginning, I'm not giving my time back to me or my family. Ultimately, that's what I wanna do.
But all but my goal is to give, like, 98% of that time back years down the road rather than trying to give 4 hours back now by hiring somebody. That's not an adequate use of hiring somebody because you'll you'll lose money doing that. You all flowed fast.
So that I can spend my entire time the same amount of time, if not more than I was before, but on higher value items, talking to the people that are gonna to increase revenue working on the business in a way that nobody else can be trained to or at least not for a long time.
But then like you just said, that ladder becomes now I have somebody who's the head of my contracting department, and then I'm adding 2 people into that contracting department to try to split tasks for one of them is working on reporting and the other one's working on, smaller accounts by the main core person that's now working on all the bigger accounts as we grow. It's creating like, many structures within your structure to silo off work.
Like, even when talking about videographer and you get the second videographer, well, before what was happening, the first videographer, I'm telling, okay. You gotta do reels and you gotta do this. You gotta do this and you gotta do this. And then after a while, I'm like, I get it. Like, it takes so long to edit this long form video, how in the world is gonna do the reels and everything. So I need the second one. So the things that you wanna do require more people.
And then I think about somebody else trying to do, like, what you're doing with a podcast and trying to start a business at the same time with a content machine and trying to build you know, like the things that we've built. Yeah. I have an entire team doing that. Like, how is twenty two year old Joe Blow coming out of college gonna compete with the amount of content and the quality of content that I can put out at this point.
And a big part, like even, you know, like, you have businesses that are running efficiently without you being completely involved in them. So now you have immense time to focus on the things that you enjoy, which are probably content production, you know, look, you know, working on the business, not within the business, And so you're getting to enjoy your time too. So it's that gratification rider as well.
Like, spending my time doing what I enjoy the most, And when I enjoy it, it doesn't tire me out as much so I can give way more than I can if I'm spending my time doing things that I don't enjoy. Yeah. And it's usually more valuable too because you're probably the only one that can do it. Or Or you're better. Chaz level. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It's good stuff, man.
I I think that, if, somebody's tuning in today, they should probably listen to this one a couple I wanna switch over to speed round, but before I do, just real quick, do you have some sort of a process or discipline? That you take things through in order to make a good decision now that you've been through so much. Good and bad. I heard in an Elon Musk interview. They somebody asked him, what is the number? You know, and I pay attention to these guys, like, you know, I listen to them.
It they've they've clearly done amazing things. And I don't like everything Elon does, but I do think he's a lot of aggressive dude, and I like most of what he does.
But, he he, he said, like, I think he said the the question was, like, what's the most important thing that you could tell people that work for you or something to help your, you know, business And, I can't remember exactly how it was phrased, but his answer, to the question was it's extremely important for people that work for him to know and for him to create an environment where they're not afraid to tell him when they disagree or tell him you
know, like, give him advice or have, like, input because it's really easy in a business to create an echo chain of, oh, yeah, Justin. Yeah. Course, Justin. Oh, good job, Justin. Really like you. We're behind you. You know? Right. Meanwhile, they're going, this is never gonna work. Keith, this is stupid. What's going on? If you don't have if you if you do everything, you know, and and and this is hard because I'm a pretty approach from Balson.
I still have people that are seem to be terrified on me. Like, if I asked one of them to go to a one on one lunch, some of them are just like, you know, why should I be worried? I don't know. And I'm like, I'm I'm really a normal dude. Like, I'm You did spend 8 years in the military. I mean, come on. Yeah. I guess I guess I'm a little intense sometimes. But anyway, like, So the system the process for me is thankfully throughout. I have I have a we've been slinking right now.
I think we're 28 now. W two staff members, several 1000 downline private contractor workers and relationships, but, like, all my team that I'm directly responsible for their income. It was about 28. But at the top of that, I have people that I think we've cultivated that are honest enough with me to where when I'm trying to make decisions, I'm throwing it out there too. You know? And they'll tell you, I'm a I'm an idea factory.
Yeah. You know, and so I'm I'm I'm sometimes change things really quickly, and I'm trying to work on it too because I want people to take when I Chaz an idea serious not when that's this week's idea. You know?
Yep. But I think that's my process is, you know, now I've built myself into where I have a couple of people that are they have their own roles, but I have I have 3 at the top in kind of different, you know, ones more operational, ones more design, ones more technology, and you know, detail oriented with it, and he's got probably the biggest vision of the overall business.
But when I share them, I like to share ideas I have with them individually, not in a group setting, because I don't want them to echo each other's. Yeah. Yeah. Which does happen where they'll just think up and echo. And I don't think that they all necessarily feel that way. They'll follow one of the other ones. Right? Because it sounds because it sounds right. Yeah. That's that's huge, man. I mean, I think that, everybody listening would would aspire to to be at that level at one point.
I think that you've given us plenty of other things before along the journey of how you how you did it before you had that luxury, but but now, I mean, what a what an incredible place, a process to have be able to bounce things off of. I think that there's other ways that you can do that too even before you get to that place of, you know, having that many staff members and and, that type of a thing.
So the principle stays the same is have a couple of key people that are close by that that can be honest with you Chaz, that you can run things by, but not necessarily be waived you know, constantly back and forth, but just get, you know, real direct feedback. And to to that point before you have it, definitely have been forced to some degree. Sometimes the mentor can be somebody you've never even met. Just people you listen to, you read everything they put out.
And then other times, it could be somebody who's one step ahead of or even right there along with you. That's great. And our industry, one of the the top, direct to consumer shops out there is ran by lady named Daniel, Uncle Roberts. I interviewed her at Medicare con, and, she talked about early on when that she would win these you know, kinda like chairman's club convention trips, and she would meet other people that were right where she was before she was at the very top. Right?
And she made most of her peers became her confidantes where because there was nobody else going through the level the stuff she was Yeah. That she could talk to. And so they would talk to one another and share they were competitors. Too. Like, these are competitors, but they just decided nobody knows what the hell I'm talking about. So I have to be friends with my competitors. Because they're the only people that get what we're going through, and the the marketplace is huge.
You know, and then they're all in different cities and they're working virtually, you know, all over the country. So, like, if you have a local business where maybe your competitor actually is your competitor and you're, like, stealing business from the other vice person. Maybe find somebody that's your peer level that's in a different city that's not, that's not competing with and creating. There's and, Leon, we're so fortunate. There's so many Facebook groups or There's options everywhere.
Yeah. There's so many there's so many influencers, and some people will say all that influence of Man, if they're out there creating a community in your niche, like, they're helping your your, like, you don't even have to follow it. You can join their that community to find other people at your level and build peer groups where you're just like accountability partners and if you have an idea or if you have a system or you're about to make a decision, bounce it off.
Anytime I've ever fired somebody, that's a shitty decision to have to make I've I've done it several times now, and I can't stand it. But in the process, I've asked plenty of people that were peer group partners of mine as we're growing what I should do. Yeah. 100%. And so many easy ways to, to to find those opportunities depending upon what business that you're in or we're at what level that you're at.
I think there's lots of ways to be able to associate, the value that you can get from those types of plays. For sure. Okay. So real quick, I got 2 speed round questions for you. Number 1 is what book would you recommend Chaz a six figure owner or a 6 figure business owner, read, trying to get to the 7 figure mark. A big one that I'd always recommend and I recommended earlier was, Patrick Lindsay on his the ultimate team player. As you begin to build a team, I think it is the book 14 building.
The first part of it is very narrative written. It's easy to get into. And then it gets into informative and, never met the guy, but he he seems like He'd be a really cool guy to hang out with Patrick Lindsay on his the ultimate team player. Pretty much anything he puts out is is is well written. I have to throw another one out there, though. I mean, it's a big one for me. Think what you want about a old Grant card on, and you work for him.
So I've seen you've seen it the good, the bad, and the ugly. Oh, sure. But the 10 x rule Yeah. Game changer. It's a good book, dude. I mean, I I didn't I never thought I'd buy anything for that guy, but I listened to that audio book And for me, I need a kick in the nuts, like Yeah. Every now and then, they just We all do. Man up. Like, come. And that book does that for me. Actually be obsessed or be average as well. Both of those, they're very similar.
They just, for me, they give me, like, if I'm feeling Like, I'm not coming to my true potential. I'm not, you know, getting energy into it. I need I can throw on those for 10 or 15 minutes, and I'm like, okay. Wake up. You know? Yep. Time to go. Yeah. I feel the same way about both of those, and and you're right. It's about, you know, constantly being challenged to go to the next level.
In fact, one thing that I got from those now just kinda piggyback off just for half second is permission permission to be crazy, permission to be intense, permission to be what we've talked about, like, Chaz the desire for more, the desire, like, when you look around, your your natural circle, you're probably the only one. You know? And so for me, it was like, I knew I wasn't alone. You know? So it was it's a be obsessed with the average nation. The 10 x nation was like, okay. Are my people.
You know? So No. That's huge. And and, and just to that exact point, you know, recently on Facebook, I put up this long post where I was I was charting out. And in the beginning of it, it was a little bit of peacocking for a purpose because I don't think people should be ashamed of things that they've accomplished. And so what was I was talk I was detailing them this weekend. I'm leaving with my wife. We're dropping our kids off for a 3 week summer camp.
That's a 1011,011,011,000 summer camp for them to go to while we go up to northeast to Nantucket to New York and and talking about staying in the highest in places you can't I'm talking about a 50, $60,000 a month worth of travel. Yeah. And, and I'm like, you know, but at the same time, I'm the guy that got a $100 marriage. I I went to a courthouse at nineteen years old. Got married. Didn't go on a honeymoon. You know, drug my wife all over the world.
Like, I earned I've I've drugged through the drags and the trenches to get where I'm at, and I shouldn't be, like, so many people are, like, worried. Like, I don't want people to know, like, they'll Chaz, you know, well, fuck. Screw that. Those people should aspire to do that because it's possible for anybody who puts one foot in front of the other and believes they can do and build something great. And in the process, you'll create prosperity for others most likely.
Yeah. So it shouldn't be demonized. And, and you're right. The 10 x rule and be obsessed to be average are kind of the bibles for giving you permission to kick ass. Yeah. 100%. Alright. Last question. If you lost it all, b rock, what would you do, man? I lost it all. I've always thought it like the the, if I woke up tomorrow and know everything I know now. Yeah. Start at 0 with everything you know. Yeah. Sometimes.
Okay. So just, you know, I know there's just speed round questions, but it's both thought for me. And so you ever think, like, I really love my life, but you ever think, like and I know a lot of guys think this way. Zombie apocalypse happens. And I get to go, you know, Rob gun stores, get jeep J. L. Wrangler's with big tires and just going down zombies. Like, in a way, Chaz seems like fun. I'd but in that theory, in that theory, I just lost it all. Right? A 100%.
But my my brain or my personal my personality is, like, the conquest was so much fun anyway. Uh-huh. But I get to keep all the info that I have in my brain. It can't be a bigger and faster and better. Yeah. I don't even know if I'd use the same exact market because the the information is so applicable to different verticals. Yep. I would probably go I mean, health insurance and Medicare, I'm telling you it's a great opportunity for anybody that's looking for the first leg in to six figures.
Yeah. It's a great opportunity and to expand on. It provides a levelized, you know, commission deal where, like, you could go do that for 2, 3, 4 years. And then just kinda take the foot off the gas and then say, I wanna do real estate investing. I wanna do some of the cooler things that are out. I wanna open up exotic car, used car lot, something like that. If you wanna do that, health insurance and Medicare can help pay the bills Totally. And it's a great, opportunity.
So I might Wolfe start there too, but, dude, I'd I would pick a vertical and I would go banana sandwich into that vertical. I'd be crazy in it. I mean, just like, I'd go crazier faster because it still took me a while to understand what's possible. Totally. Yep. I'm going, you know That's that mindset that you fought for so long. Yeah. And first thing I'm doing is is, say is telling my wife like, hey. We just lost it all, but I know this. Are you ready for 3 years of eating shit as Gary viewed?
Exactly. Yeah. Because that's exactly what it would take. And after 3 years, I mean, dude, you'd you'd be you'd be back. Yeah. Dude, you have given so much on this show. I'm incredibly thankful for your well thought out answers. You gave way more Chaz, than I bargained for. And so I wanna know how can someone connect with you. If if they've resonate with you, they wanna try to get into Medicare. Like, whatever the reason is that they're reaching out, how can they find you?
Yeah. It would be an absolute honor to have any of your audience subscribe to us on YouTube at youtube.com/justinbrock. Perfect. That's a platform that we value. It's one of our smallest subscriber bases, but the highest value because of the intention that people have when they go there and watch the content. We do put out some good, long form content there. So youtube.com/justin Brock is today where I would send people. That's awesome, man. I so appreciate that.
We, I look forward to just continuing a relationship with you. And, I've I've been challenged here today. I know the listeners have, so thank you for that and just giving up your time. We wish you absolutely nothing with Lester. Thanks, brother. Thanks for listening to gathering the Kings. We hope you got a ton of value today and learned a thing or 2 about taking your business to 7 figures and beyond. If you desire more and want a community around you to help you get there.
I want you to go to Gathering the Kings dot com. That's Gathering the Kings dot com, and I want you to apply for our next becoming a king 90 day intensive. We are extremely exclusive by nature as a group, but that means that we're really wanting only the entrepreneur take their business and targets super serious to apply. So if that's you, you think you got what it takes to level up your business. I want you to go to gathering the king's dot com and apply. And we will see you on the other