On today's episode of gathering the Kings. You can't be afraid of confrontations. Right. Sometimes clients are hard to work with. Even the best clients can be hard to work with. You gotta be able to close the job. You gotta be able to complete the service. 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 to 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 keys like today's guest.
Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to dive in. What's up, everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe. I'm your host. Gathering the Kings today. Got lawn. I got Ron Lateral. What's up, dude? Welcome to King Stage, man. Hey. Thanks, man. Appreciate you remembering my name right away. Well, it's like it's like it, like, rolled off the tongue, and it just kinda, like, all went together. You know? I'm I'm just so thankful that you're here. Thanks for being here.
Tell us what kind of business that you're in, brother, or businesses. To rather stretch it. Sure. Sure. Sure. Well, it it, please, appreciate, you know, being invited. That's a pretty honorary position. So, well, I'm in the the niche business of deck Building, and and I'm also a networker that Networking is what makes everything go wrong. I I'm a real firm believer in it. So from my deck building business branched off and created, scaffling system that's specific for deck building.
And then also in the marketing department or advertising, if you will, Mike created a hook, which is macaron cookies. My little sister makes them, and and, I'm slowly convincing her that this is a business she can retire from. So I'm I'm kinda hoping to hit a 1000 clients a year for her where she doesn't really have to do any work.
And what I do is every debt client I get gets a box of macaron cookies, And then their neighbors all get a smaller portion with our advertising, with the construction business, as well as for cookies. Yeah. So there's nothing better than free samples. That's right. That's right. You know, Ron, I I interviewed a gal, a queen, if you Wolfe, probably, I don't know how many months ago, but I I'm pretty sure the show is already up.
So you have to you have to have sister go check it out on on the Spotify or Google or Apple, but I interviewed a lady who's 7 figure business, and she teaches people how to run and operate a cookie business. A no joke. Like, she started making cookies, and then she now teaches other people how to have a cookie So it's incredible. You'll have to have her go listen to that show and maybe connect with her.
But, I love I love where you're coming from, man, serial entrepreneur, one idea to another, one one that solves another. I love I love the connection point there. I wanna ask you a question. Because at this level, you know, I asked the same question to everybody, right, when we first start the show. And it's for all intents and purposes, you've made it. Right? Like, you you're doing, you know, enough in revenue to where everybody else looks at you and says, wow. Right?
Yeah. And so so from that angle, like, why? Why do you still do it? Why do you push as hard as you do today even though you've had the success that you have? Well, because I've never done it for the money. I think there's a real, disconnect in reality if you're going to be in business, for money, you're going to miss the ride. You're you're gonna there's gonna be shortcomings. In in shorter words, follow your passion See if you follow passion, it's not work. It's your life.
Sure. The rewards the rewards will come. You you don't even have to plan them. They will come right to your door. I wake up every morning with the attention of doing my best. That's it. And Chaz and that, I I bring Chaz leadership of or that attitude of leadership I bring on to the to my staff. I I happen to hire a lot of carpenters. I have special carpenters. My carpenters are here because they wanna be here. Yeah. Yeah. They've never asked for a raise. I give them raises all the time.
They they're way above fair market value, but their performance is 10 times everybody else in the market. Investing your employees. It's so simple. If you're if you're sophisticated thinking, you're trying to get a guy to produce a $100 and hour, and you only wanna give him 10. Right. I guarantee you he makes 200 if you give him 30. Right. It's it's a no brainer. Yeah. So so take good care of your people and your network. You're you know, the the chain is only as strong as it's weakest link.
Well, we have apprentices that are just learning carpentry. We gotta pick those guys up and, more or less fuel the passion. So Do you feel at this level, Ron, like, because, like, you've kinda transitioned in your answer a little bit, which is great. I love it. From, like, do your passion to now it almost sounds like you're helping your team follow their passion. Is that Chaz that has that become your passion? Yes. My my my actual point of view is it or my modus operandi is to teach carpentry.
And teach high end finish carpentry, the best you can have, the illusion of perfection. Right. And So, you know, we quit trade schools a long time ago in the high schools, and we lost a lot of skilled tradesmen. Yeah. That's right. We had the 2008 crash. We lost even more tradesmen. Now we're they're the guys that are my agents are are their dinosaurs. And what happens is is they sit in their office, and and they, you know, they kind of manage from a a an office chair Right.
And and you can't when it comes to what we actually do. I mean, we're deck builders and parts builders who So there there's a lot of different components, and there's different fasteners. And, there's just so many parts to it you can't let that quality go to the wind. The reason why people hire me right off of my other jobs because I have no internet present whatsoever. Absolutely zero. I don't even own a business card.
Wow. So the the only way that you can retain my services is by seeing me on a job site where I don't even post a sign. So they actually have to physically go or be one of the neighbors. Right. So by hooking the neighbors with with the cookies, it it keeps my name in their mouth. They always walk neighbors walk by each other. They both know they got a cookie. They they got different kinds of cookies. They can talk about, oh, I got lemon. I got a server. Oh, it's such a wonderful thing.
I wish we would've had 20 of them instead of 2. Yeah. But it keeps your name in in in their mouth, and that's really what word-of-mouth advertisement and marketing, you know, where it comes from. Yeah. So we get into these neighborhoods. Also, one job on 1 Nice street on a golf course. And by the time I'm done there, I, myself, have physically walked the majority of the houses that you can see. Let them know that we're there. And and what what services we we provide.
I give great credit to these search engines that can create phone calls that come in, like, home advisor and let's say, you know, great job. You know, if I knew how to write computer programs, I'd own all of that business. Sir, unfortunately, I'm just a carpenter. So I I'm kinda old school, but I tell you what about old school. And I just had this debate with with some reps from Yelp. Okay. Nothing beats a relationship.
Right. If I have a great relationship with a client, You provide the best service. You have the best communication. You know, you never miss a phone call. I can't stress enough how much business is missed by a phone call, it doesn't get an answer. Right. You can't be afraid of confrontations. Right. Sometimes clients are hard to work with. Even the best clients can be hard to work with. You gotta be able to close the job. You gotta be able to complete the service.
So many times we have a contractor with a subcontractor attached. The subcontractor comes in, does the work they're doing it as fast as they possibly can cut in every corner they can. Yeah. And if there's a screw missing, they don't care. Right. They got paid. They're on the next job. You can't get them to come back. Right. Where our service, I literally set up a a carpentry shop on the job site. So we can do all our cutting, milling, whatever it is that we need to do.
And and then when the job is a 100% finished, so that means the client Chaz write me a check and a smiling about it. Right? Because if you can't achieve that, go work at McDonald's. You know, practice there. Yeah. You gotta practice. Yeah. We'll happy there. Before you come into this money. Our strategy there with closing and the the service, it just can't be beat. People buy service. 100%. I and and the experience, the relationship that you're referring to.
Okay. We're getting you some really juicy stuff, and I wanna ask you some pointed questions here. So obviously, these are things that you've probably learned along the way, would be my guess. And so I wanna take you back a little bit. Maybe be 4, you had multiple businesses, definitely before you were doing 7 figures. But I want I wanna know along the way, what did you do that caused an issue.
It was a mistake, a bad choice, a decision that was just like, that has helped you understand some of these things, Well, I I think one of the my biggest mistake was giving away who I am and giving away my knowledge. K. I I was so, for example, I would go and I'd look at a a project And I would give the client every single answer there was to do with no contract. Got it. Well, guess what? I've educated him so much now. They can kinda do it on their own.
Thus, you know, now all of a sudden, they can have the the No need for the expert. Right? Or at least in their mind, maybe. Right. And the other one is is perseverance. You can't stop because you hit a Wolfe. Right. People who are successful, we lose money on things. We run into problems, and and you can't stop fighting every single problem you have to address with perseverance. Yeah. You gotta be optimistic. You gotta get around that. Wolfe, and you can't stop. I love that.
The persistence and tenacity, and even just like the energy that you're giving us that answer. I just love it. Give us an example of of the wall that you hit and how you were able to persist through it. Okay. So in the beginning, of the deck company, and I'm just gonna listen to the last 5 years. So in the beginning of the debt company, I'm recognizing that using these of products. You've got we've got a lot of hands and, you know, we're on our hands and knees Yeah.
Putting these little clips out. And and I'm looking at my guys going, jeez, you know, they're not gonna wanna do this next year. They're gonna hang with me for 1 year and go, hey. You can work on your hands and knees. Right. I started trying to develop a scaffolding system that would be user friendly to bring to every job that would accommodate all the different elevations.
And so then I came up with this Joyce Runner's scaffolding that hooks on to the Joyce and and and what had happened with that. So here's here's the wall. We're abusing the body. Now we wanna get them a little more ergonomically correct. K. So I I create this platform underneath the deck. Now now the guys are building a 170 percent faster. Wow. We're gonna do a high estimate and say that a carpenter should earn a $120 an hour per man hour. Okay?
K. I found that with my own testing, 80 was pretty good. So you're paying out 50. You're making 30. You got 20 guys. You're making money. That's just on the labor side. That's not sales. Right. You know, you sales are, you know, another 25% of the job Chaz a whole. Yeah. Exactly. Right. Right. So my issue is always in labor, And the reason that was is because you Chaz only get so many jobs done. Sure. We've got a Lim. Right? Yeah. We we've got no help. You know?
There's no help anywhere for anyone. So so now what you have to do is be able to make you more work more efficient. Yeah. So so in the deck building process, there was other other issues I had to fire Wolfe. Joists being flat, you know, these kinds of things. So I developed these small tools or components, that would ensure flatness and crack crowning and, this kind of thing. So along with the scaffolding system, So or now it's a a system before I was just a scaffolding member. Now you're right.
Now I actually have a complete building system. So now as as the guys become better at at using the system, you know, they're they're already finding shortcuts in how they can build themselves. Oh, 100%. Right. How And they're and it sounds like they're encouraged to do so by you thinking from the top up going, wow. How can we make this thing better? Constantly. Sounds like. Exactly. Yep. So to maximize foot movements, I mean, that's really what it comes down to.
So typically, to build a deck, you'd have a van and a trailer, a truck, and a trailer, and you pull up to the front of the house, You gotta unload all your tools, bring them behind the house, set them up, work for 8 hours, tear them all down, bring all this stuff back to a neutral location like a shop in Barcat. Well, I was spending about 75,000 a year just moving my tools. Here's a great firewall. How can I stop that? Well, pretty easy. You buy a gang box with great big lock sets on them.
They're a thousand bucks a piece. Set them at the job. Your tools are locked up now. You're not dragging them back and forth. You're not driving a van every day. Right. You know, if you got 3 crews, that's 3 vans, 5 crews, 5 vans. Ron has 5 crews, one van. Interesting. You're right. Well, so then I took it another step further. I had a a electrician wire my gang box with the GFI and, of course, an insulated waterproof cord.
So now we plug the box into the house, Now we have a power station Right. And a gang box. So what that is translated into with labor is instead of having 10 guys spend an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, Those hours, that 20 man hours is now focused back into production. Right. They're cutting and nailing. They're not carrying tools. Right? King tools doesn't pay anything. Yeah. So Exactly. I feel like you're I'm talking to, like, the Elon Musk of of the deck building world.
Like, you're just innovating constantly. I like Henry Ford myself. I Love it. Yes. Yeah. I'm I'm more of a Henry Ford guy than I Hey, that's okay. I mean, assembly line. You know, you're making things better. You're an innovator. You're you're a current day genius. You know? What what I wanna hear, what I wanna have the the listener here is whether whether it's them that comes up with this specific unique innovation idea or or not, or they're just listening.
Now they get benefit of the fact that they chose to listen to this podcast, they get the benefit of hearing your genius. The reality here that the point that we're we're trying to hit home is you're going to come across issues, problems, walls, as you've said. And if you just roll over or give up or cry home to mom, like, It's just not gonna work. Like, you need to persist.
And some of the persistence that you're referring to for you has been innovating or creating streamlined systems or processes which I think we all do as entrepreneurs, but some of it is recognizing, I don't know how to solve this. And so now I'm gonna listen to Ron on Gathering the Kings so I hear what he's done so that I can go take his thought or buy his system or whatever and go implement, even though I'm not the one who came up with it, you still are able to persist. Through the problem.
You're right on track. So this is this is one of the greater lessons is that your problems should be created into an asset. Yeah. And that that's really the the base of my success. So I had a problem with Joyce not being level at the top. I create this little clip. No. They're level at the top. The guy's been in over and being on their hands and knees. I create something, so they're not. Right. That's kind of a firewall system.
For problems that I've had when it comes to actually building the deck. Sure. You know, in in its simplest form. So there there's, of course, there's other obvious structural things and the the concept that is so if we look at concept, our problems should become assets. Yeah. And if you keep doing that, because everybody else is gonna experience these problems. I'm not the only one that's had a choice up and down or whatever. What are they doing about it? They're not. They're not. Right.
And guess where they're at. Stuck. Frustrated. Right. Right. They're they're at a 100,000 a year working their ass off and and and wondering why somebody else is. Lucky. You're lucky, Ron. Lucky. Yeah. I'm lucky. It's got nothing to do with luck. Another real big one if being an entrepreneur is not a job. It's a life. You wake up in the morning at 6 o'clock in the morning. You have coffee. The first thing you're thinking about is, how am I gonna make today better than yesterday?
And that's the challenge. You have to wanna trend up. Yeah. Exactly. Gonna get knocked on. You're gonna get knocked on. The strong Get back up, make that problem into an asset. Yeah. Drive the horses forward again. Yeah. I love it. I mean, the the the the point that you're hitting home, you know, I've I I've heard, you know, obviously, other entrepreneurs say the same thing but in a different way.
But the way that you're saying it, as far as, like, turning it into an asset, obviously, with with me having a few of my companies being real estate companies, like, the word asset is very, very unique. And and what it means is that it specifically brings value and usually value over and over and over again. And so the one time problem can either turn into an over the, like, over, like, problem problem problem problem problem problem.
Or if you persist and take care of it, solve the problem, which is this is what we're made to do as entrepreneurs anyway Yeah. Slow down enough to to solve the problem. So that way it it turns into an asset to your point, which is now it pays me or now it provides value to me over and over and over again as opposed to being the same old problem over and over and over. Right. Right. It the you're you couldn't have said it any any simpler.
So you you, you know, like I said, everybody's gonna experience problems. And no matter what business they're at, you know, how to get clients or How to how to provide a service? You know, what what makes you stand out from everyone else? Yeah. I didn't plan to invent the joist runners. This is as a result of firewalling Chaz. My jobs. You know? And wanting to be and wanting to be better. Like you said, you you have to desire the uptrend.
And even just that in itself can be applied to every area. Right? Like, we can apply that to our marriage. We can apply that to being a good dad or a good mom. We can apply that to, you know, leadership to to our teams. We can apply that to the job site and wanting to help the guys or or provide a better product to the client or whatever it is, it's that desire to to do it in a better way or to solve the next problem.
It were, you know, saying the same thing just in different words, which I think is every every entrepreneur's heart's desire. Like, that's what we wanna do to solve the problems. What do you think keeps people? From when they hit that firewall, what do you what do you think keeps them from staying there? So okay. So when they hit a plateau, Yeah. Or a firewall rather than creating the solution like you did for the X Y Z problem, what what do you think keeps them there in the problem?
Like, hitting it over and over and not not necessarily persisting through it. With problems, people don't like the challenge. Some do and thrive off it. I'm a I thrive off a challenge, performing You know, how are you performing for yourself? So so I think what happens is is is people lose confidence when they hit a wall and they can't get around it and they get stuck there, and they're just gonna stay there. And then then then they become complacent.
Wolfe, you're no longer an entrepreneur if you can place that. Yeah. Because you've accepted your current conditions. Right. You can't get any higher. You're done. Yeah. Go work for somebody. It's not it's not about the money. It it it's it's measured in money. Right? People measured money. Success Chaz measured money. True success is measured in happiness. Sure. Yeah. Happiness is better shared. Money is never better shared. No wants to share money. Yeah. Right? Right.
But the attitude of happiness, that's an easy one to share. Yeah. And and because it's such a, that's an asset. And it's such a valuable one, especially in a relationship, which is, again, the core of why you got hired or why somebody went with you. Right. It's because of that relationship that you established. I for me personally, I've been told that I'm 99% BS, but it's a 100% true. See, there lies the difference. Sure. You Chaz be a BSer, but Yeah. It has to be the truth. You know, what?
Experience? For something. Yeah. You know, you can't make it up. Or if you're not accepting some things, you're you're in trouble already. You know, Chaz it like I said, that's, again, those walls that people hit, in it, you know, it could there's so many different ones. Yeah. Well, I think I think the what I mean, the the the reality of running into a Wolfe is is real.
What you just said even about the bs thing is it's so funny because a lot of people, and you have to, in order to persist sometimes, just to kind of stay on topic here for your word of persistence, the listener right now is thinking there's times in order to persist through a problem. I have to BS. Like, they they don't know what to do, so they gotta look it up on YouTube, or they gotta figure it out, or they gotta kinda, like, you know, kinda word it to get through. Right?
But what what you're saying is at another level, you have to be able to pull from these experiences, from these walls that I've gone through, like, over the course time, I'm creating a history with myself and with other people that not only do I hit the wall, but then I I can persist through the wall, which then gives me experience to then what most people might see as BS, but be able to get my way through a lot of other things in the future.
And it's funny because I don't I don't tell a whole stories personally, but I'm gonna tell this one real quick because I think it's super applicable. My wife is funny. I I've done strategy coaching and even sales coaching and stuff like that with entrepreneurs for a couple years. And and she can hear me talking sometimes. I'm in I'm in one of our Florida homes right now, so she's not here. But she'll say to me, I'll come out, you know, come off of a coaching, and she'll say, hey, I don't know.
Like, how did you even know how to answer that guy's question? You know, it just sounds like golden b s Chaz just kinda flows out of your mouth. We kinda both laugh. And and she was like, no. No. But seriously, like, how'd you know that?
And I'm like, well, I was involved in a situation once before, whether it was a previous client or a business that I owned or someone that I worked for when I was younger or some sort of experience that I had that I understood how it worked, and then it made sense to me to be able to correlate this answer with this guy's problem, it unlocked something for him.
He's able to change his business, and she just was, like, like, mind blown because I was able to take this experience from years ago and be able to apply it to this guy's wall. And that's the that's the that's the key that you're talking about right now our ability to not only persist. I think that's a great step 1. Step 2, though, is how do I document the journey of the persistence through the issue.
So that way when other issues arise, because they will, I can persist through those as well and sometimes easier, faster, stronger, better. Right? Correct. Love it. Okay. Alright. So I got one question here for you before we go to the speed round. I wanna know, is there a certain discipline or a process that you follow because you've kinda given we kinda we kinda got there through a little bit of a story here, but you gave me good decisions that you've made.
You also gave me some bad decisions that you've made. Is there a discipline or process that you follow right now in order to try to make good decisions, like repeatedly? Yeah. It's all clinically thinking before you make the decision. I like simple. So if you can break down with no matter what to decision it is, break it down to its simplest form. It usually reveals itself which path to goal. Yeah. You know?
And when you say break it down simplest form, give us an example of Chaz, or maybe how someone would do that. Let's see. It got kinda got me on the spot. Good. So, I mean, I just do it out of nature. I mean, I Yeah. Of course. You know, the way I think you'd kinda have to give me a problem. Sure. I could break it down. K. Let's let's use the choices that are uneven, for example. Like, when you saw that, what was your ability to make the good decision? So so right away, I think okay.
So we have Joyce Chaz are uneven. I have to have them perfect. So the simplest form is is I'm making it flat. Right. How to make it flat? Right. How to make it flat. And then More so than how to make it flat is how to make it user friendly as well. Sure. Typically, two guys would handle a joist to put a joist in. And then they shoot it in with a temporary then put this bracket on. Which is a positive connection bracket, Joyce Hanger bracket.
So so I I broke it down to First, I can't have 2 guys holding a £40 board. So I need to have one guy clip on each end, So I put a clip on each end. These clips are 17¢ is what it cost me to manufacture them, and I sell them for 2.75. Nice. So it's still inexpensive. Super inexpensive. They should go all every single lumber yard who sells a deck package should give those things Yeah. To the builder. And I'm working on that. You can't beat it.
It's it's because it's a small component, It's so inexpensive. You're guaranteeing a quality finish. Right. Yeah. So so any rate, that particular firewall with that clip kinda solve 2 things at once. So a simplest form, I wanted it to be to to be flat. So I've I've put this bridge clip on and make it flat. All of a sudden, we recognize that now it's hands free. So now we add another step in there of power planning all the joists at the same time.
So you'll see a lot of guys will Wolfe, they'll build the whole frame and then they'll go back and they'll powerplane all the joists 1 by 1. Takes forever in a day It's never flat when they're done, very inconsistent. Ours, we put them all together as one unit, clamp them together, power playing the top, They're perfect. Literally perfect flat. So composite decking shows every imperfection with crowning. Concave and convex.
Right. So so I said, no. We have a perfectly flat tabletop, and the the joists that go in are self supported. So now they're hands free. So we skip right from from the power plane table. Can we go to a tablet? We put the brackets on immediately. We don't have to, temporary nail it. We don't have to have 2 guys. Right. We're not going up and down ladders. Right. So there's all these steps Chaz they get.
The the simplest form that you're referring to, I'm just trying to make this applicable for everybody listening because not everybody's obviously in the decking world. Is you took this decision of, okay, here's the problem. And and then but each step along the way leading up to the problem, and then after the problem. And almost, like, broke it down almost in, like, a timeline, it sounds like, which is, like, one affects the other.
And if I solve this problem, does it also affect these other things. And sometimes, it sounds like you all you Wolfe some other problems that you didn't even know that you had. Right. And now that's completely different. Than creating a problem and creating a solution. Right. You see this all the time. Don't get caught. That's the the absolutely wrong way of You know, Wolfe, we're gonna prevent this or, you know, create a problem and create a solution. You can't sell that.
Right. You can sell There is a problem, and here is the solution. Right. That problem needs to be common in the field that you're trying to sell your solution to. Right. 100%. Yeah. But you can't get those 2 flipped around, and a and a lot of people do. Yeah. So mine just happened to now mind you, this is over a course in a couple of years. Sure. Yeah. It's not like it's not like you came up with the idea, but and that's that's neither here nor there. That's persistence. Right? Right.
Some sometimes you have to hit your head against the wall several times to figure out where the soft spot is either in your head or in the wall. We're gonna we're gonna hit this. We're gonna hit the speed round real quick. I wanna ask you some questions, and I want you answer in a one word answer, if possible, but I I I'm notorious for asking further questions. So the first question is this.
If you could only track one metric, inside of your entire business or businesses, I guess, what would that one metric be? Relationships. Okay. And how do you measure them? How long they last and the level of trust between the people. Very good. Great answer. Love it. What book do you recommend that a 6 figure business owner, Reed, who wants to get to the 7 figure mark. Crucial conversations. All day long. And what's your takeaway from that book? Learn how to talk to people.
You have to be able to learn how to say no. Don't go outside of what you know. Right. You see, I mean, you can learn, but shouldn't be at somebody else's expense. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love. That's integrity. Next question is, do you intentionally network or mastermind with other entrepreneurs and why if you do. Well, I I do. I do because I'm a relationship home. I absolutely love love languages. Chaz love language test thing. Yeah. Never knew who I was. Took that test. I'm a whole new man.
So the best husband. I'm telling you I'm the best husband for my wife. Yeah. And then what took me 5 minutes? I Chaz changed my whole relationship. Yeah. So, again, relationships, relationships. You know, clients, no matter what field you're in, you want clients for life. Right. Well, trustworthy people are hard to find. Hardworking, trustworthy people are hard to find. People love that. They respect that. They honor it. Right. They're going to people will fall over backwards.
To get you a referral just to say that the that they were a part of your success. If you're valued, if you're yep. Exactly. That's a big if. Yep. It's a big if. It is. And and that's that's our that's our game as an entrepreneur, right, is to provide value. Which is typically tied to solving, you know, solving the problem that you referred to earlier. So, okay, last question. Ron, this is a big one. Are you ready?
Yep. Ron, if you lost it all, man, no decking business, no cookies to hand out, no no clips, no inventions, you lost it all. What would you do? Well, the same time the same thing I've done 3 other times before today. You have all the bootstraps, and you get after that. That's right. Yeah. It's a wall. You lost everything. I literally sold, I was making around 20,000 a week, not having to do nothing but drive around with my Cadillac and play music and have fun with my buddies.
And I lost it while I gave it up. I moved to Detroit chased a woman every day in my life, but I ended up dead 0. Yeah. I ended up no driver's license. Wow. No job. Didn't know anyone in the middle of Detroit. And and took me about 2 years to get out of that mess. Came back to Minnesota. Didn't have nothing. No clothes. No place to live in January. If you ever been a minute or so in January, it's cold. Slipping my car until February. Got an apartment. Started over.
So this this where I'm at right now is is the result of 2017 to today. Yeah. So we're talking less than 5 years. Yeah. And I tell you what, the 1st 3 years about killed me. Yeah. But you can't give up. I mean, it's it's not about the money. It's it's about who you are So a lot of people, I think, neighbor, or some people, they wanna be an entrepreneur because they see Wolfe. There's, you know, they're so successful as easy. You know, you own a business.
You just go up for lunch whenever you want. And, no, that isn't. It takes ten times the work and ten times the hours And and for a long time, there might not be any reward. Yeah. The only the only reward you really they should be seeking is did you do your best? Right. You know, and and and did you let anything stop you? You know, that's you you gotta be tough. Yeah. That question that you just asked, if I had you on here and all you said was, here's the one question you need to ask off.
I think that would be it. You know? Like, did you let something stop you? I think that if we asked ourselves that every single day, and we were honest, about it at the end of every day. Did did I let something stop me today? I think I think it would change the game for a lot of entrepreneurs because the walls that we've been talking about this whole show, man, we all we all hit them. We all do. And sometimes multiple in a day. Yeah. Definitely.
And and that really is the measurement of the success is how we navigate through those. So, Ron, if if somebody listening today just Chaz like, dude, I gotta figure out who this Ron guy is. I wanna connect with How can they find you since you're not, you know, you're not on the internet? How how can how can someone how can someone find you and and reach out to you, man? Okay. Well, I I am on some sort of media. I've got, obviously, my phone number is 763-528-0098.
There you text me beforehand and give me a name. Sure. Chaz, otherwise, you just hit the scam box anyway. Otherwise, there's Facebook, Ron Lateral at Facebook, and then I'm also on TikTok. Okay. I believe you're not I make time for anyone. It doesn't matter if it's a woman walking into a a grocery store. You hold the door for her. Make to my So make time. Yeah. Yep. Make I'll make time for anybody who wants to get a hold of me. That's awesome, man. Well, I appreciate that.
Not only that Chaz extension of just clearly who you are as a good person. But, man, you've you've provided some awesome value here today. I hope that, you know, at least there's any deck builders out there, hopefully, they check out your systems and, you know, I don't know if if there's a certain plug on where they can buy them, anything like that Chaz you've got available. Yeah. There is. We we actually don't we actually don't launch the product here.
I've got a manufacturer out in York, Pennsylvania. They're a 4th generation casting structural casting company. Jake out there, really good guy. Matter of fact, I like, interview casting companies and different manufacturers for my component, I finally found the right one. So it's not just about Chaz you get part made. Right. But you have to find the right guy. This guy happened to just build a deck. When he seen the component, he says, oh my. I should have had Nice. Well, yeah. Now it gets it.
Exactly. Right. So we we do launch on that pretty soon. That'll be fun. So decking manufacturer offer me about 6,000,000 for it. 3 years ago. So we've been, of course, now I had a design engineer. Right. So it's a commercial, you know, develop it. So it's commercial viable product, meats, antsy, OSHA, all this other stuff. So so they'll be able to buy it soon. They'll be able to buy it soon. Yeah. It'll be good. Soon. Wolfe, I'll get back in touch with you, Zach. You'll see it.
I I do have the the patent coverage in, like, 9 countries. Yeah. There's actually that many other countries that use our same decking building material. Wow. That's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. I never knew So it's a lot larger than Yeah. The market. Right. Well, and this is, you know, humbly, I'm, you know, I'm a carpenter pool player I like to go fishing. Never did I think that I would stumble onto something like Chaz, and it really was. It was I did get lucky. But you were solving a problem.
Right. Exactly. Like, you were you were just doing what you should have been doing. I I think I think the message that, I mean, it ranged loud clear, you know, the value that you've given here today is not just, like, from your experience, but it's that, you know, like you just said, like, I I I love what you are portraying. I'm a regular Joe. I'm a regular guy. And if I can do it basically so can you and and I think that's true for me too.
Like, I look at me coming from a single mom household, you know, no father figure, no business background whatsoever. College drop out. And, you know, I had a millionaire in my twenties because I've just pressed in to you know, building businesses, man, and and loving on people and building teams and growing myself. And so we come we come from the same cloth man, and I think that the listener heard that today.
So I want to I wanna just sign off with just thanking you for your time and your value. And, dude, I I hope that the relationship continues. I hope that we do deals together because you're a quality person to know. So thank you for being here today, ma'am. Well, I sure appreciate that. Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, keep in touch, man. I I I love talking. So We we know. We appreciate you being here, bro. 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, but want you to go to gathering the king's dot com. That's gathering the king's dot com I want you to apply for our next becoming a king 90 day intensive. We are extremely exclusive by nature as a group.
What that means that we're really wanting only the entrepreneurs who take their business and targets super 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 gatheringthekings.com and apply. And we will see you on the other side.