On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. That's the thing that's left out of the school system in this day and age is how to make money. It's our responsibility to make money for our families, but then also to teach our kids how to continue that growth. 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 reel of the reel. On what it takes to build a successful business today. Assess 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. Alright, everybody. I'm Chaz Wolfe. Back to you here today. Paul Harmier at the King Stage.
Welcome, brother. How are you? Thanks. Doing great. Thanks for having me. Absolutely, man. We were just kinda talking off offline here. For a half second. He said you got to go to an event over the weekend, and we were kinda hashing out the word scaling and more. And I feel like guys like you and I are always after it, but I got a question for you here in a second after you tell me, what kind of business are you in? What are you up to? What brings you to the King stage?
Cool. Yeah. So back in 2017, I started a dental supply company. So it's called Alliance Dental Solutions. We specialize in CBCT is what we really started selling. So the head scan and things like that. Panos went from there. We've just, like, started selling some other products as well. We got 5 different CBCT brands and intra roll centers, 3 d printers, and they're the whole 9 for for dentists. Love it. Love it. Okay. And your side real estate mogul? That is correct.
Yeah. So my story is a little different than the norm, but it started single family houses like everybody else, and the market crash 2007, 2008 got out of it, and that's when I got into dental cells, to be honest. Like, somebody was like, hey. I'm just like, I need a job. They're like, yeah. Yeah. We can get you a job. So I'm demo. Come on with that. I don't know if you want dental. Like, oh, we'll train you. I was like, alright. Cool. So got in got trained.
And then here I still am running my own business down the road. Right? It's like, sort of take Chaz take the pieces away from the place I was working on, hey. I think I could do this better. I could do that better. And Yeah. I started steering that that ship. And then a couple years ago, got an back into real estate and said I don't wanna do single family. So here we are buying multifamily real estate. I love it. I love it. We're gonna definitely dive into Chaz.
But before we do to kinda pick up where I started the started the the call here, when we talk about more or, like, why you're still pressing. The fact that you could have just kept working for that company, but you started your own and you had the itch to get back into real estate and you wanted to have more and more and more. My question is why? Why are you still pushing? So creating legacy wealth. Obviously, I I have a family of kids.
So but, you know, it's it's taking them showing them how to do it as well. So even when I'm, like, real estate, my son's 22, so I'm trying to get him more into real estate analyzing the deals with us so that he can sort of see too like, how to make money. And that's the thing that's left out of the school system in this day and age is how to make money. It's our responsibility to make money for our families, but then also to teach our kids how to continue that growth. I love that.
Why do you think that at this stage, that's so important to you? Is it is it your son specifically, or is it are you thinking generations ahead? Like, what where's the where's the tug point for you that you're thinking about constantly? It's just it's the whole thing. Right? So it's it's my son. It's it's his kids because he already has a kid. Wow. You know, so it's it's it's teaching them, and then he can pass down the knowledge and everything to his kids. Same with my daughters.
My daughters are a little younger than him. I started over. So I've got a nine and a twelve year old, but it it's teaching them the right way too. Right? It's not having a struggle for anything. Right? It's trying to get them to where they they'd have the discipline to to keep pushing. Exactly. I'm just like, when you said your son has a child, I just like the generations are before you. Like, you can literally see. See it. Yep. Yeah, dude. That must be super powerful for you. Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah. So it's like, then you see your gankage. And I'm like, hey. Let me This is gonna continue. Right? My kids hopefully, my daughters have kids. And if you wanna be able to leave something for them and you for at least for me, I envision the big house on the Chaz I get older and retire and them coming to visit and that type of thing. Yeah. Yeah. I love I love legacy.
That's a huge push factor for me as well, but to but to see it right in front of you, would almost, I think, would almost, like, hit my urgency button of, like, oh, crap. Here here it is. I gotta I gotta go faster. Right. Right. I gotcha. Yeah. For sure. My kids are about the same age as your daughters.
I'm eight, six, and and some youngers, but I'm already feeling like I'm behind, which is hilarious because guys like you and me, I think we're behind, but the reality of it is is that we've done something super unique and special. So I wanna dive into that because you have done something unique, you know, in the marketplace with with the size of business that you have.
And so tell us the story a little bit about how you got started with your specific dental company because you you said you were working for somebody else. How did that transition from working for somebody else to doing your own thing? So that transition was a little bit different. So it was used to be coat Kodak Dental. They got bought out. It was Carestream Health 2017. They said, hey. We're restructuring a department, and they got rid of, like, 10 of us. Right?
All the ten people that they got rid of were over forty years old. They were all six figure earners. And then literally within, like, a month, month and a half, you see the add up Hey. We're looking to hire. That obviously was less pay than we were getting. So it's like you didn't change the department, and you just wanted to push out the people you felt were making too much to bring in some younger talent that you could pay less to.
So at that point in 2017, I had a a buddy of mine that I used to work with at Carestream that went and worked for a company called Ray America. It was there was a subsidiary of Samsung back then. K. Started talking to him. I was like, I need to go. I wanna start my own business. Do you think you can help me out? 2017. He was like, yeah. I'll give you a shot and gave me a a shot to to start distributing their products. And Yep. That year, we came out the gate in sup I think it was September ish.
When we really started the company. And I think even that, you know, we finished at their top 4 Wow. Sales, and we just pushed, pushed, pushed the whole I mean, q Four is always busy in the dental industry. It's the busiest time of the year. So Yeah. Just pushed and killed it and then kept doing it, and it's grow our product line from there. Wow. And so do you think at that level, or that moment, especially saying he gave you a chance and you hit in the top 4.
Was that because you had to, like, survival, or was that, like, to prove something. Like, you got rid of me, but I can do my own thing. Like, what what was the reason that you press the? The proof. Yeah. To prove to them, like, hey. I wanna be your competition. I wanna even if I don't get to the $1,000,000,000 love levels like they are, at least just stealing deals from them. Right? Like, hey. We're up against the same deal. I won that deal away from you as sort of that instant gratification.
Uh-huh. Plus, I mean, when when we left, I took about 10 of the guys with me. I actually, I think I had 8 of the 10 came with me, and I was like, hey. Still kick their butts. Right? That's that's start something different. Right? And, I mean, I think I've got, like, one that still helps me out from time to time, but they all start over the years of going their different directions. But at that point, everybody's like, yeah. Let's go. That's that's let's see what we can do.
Let's go up against them. So Interesting. And and where do you think inside of you that that comes from? That that innate, like, let's go let's go compete, like, Chaz come from sports from before or the way that you were raised? Like, how do you think that that that was your initial fight response? I think it was it's just from sports. Right? It's always It's always been push. Right? I mean, in sports, I was I I didn't like to lose.
I still don't like to lose in anything that I do, so I'm very competitive, which I think a lot of us entrepreneurs are. Yeah. I mean, you hear the same story amongst entrepreneurs, like, growing up. Like, I had, like, a learning disability. I did special ed classes in in in school when I was in elementary school and things like that. Right? So a lot of us entrepreneurs that, you know, ADHD and it runs it sort of runs through our our bloodstream.
It seems like because you talked to a lot of people, like, dude, I barely got through high school, which is sort of the same story for me. I hear a lot of other entrepreneurs say the same thing. Barely made through high school. Yep. And it's I think it's because we're the underdogs for so long growing up, even, like, as educational wise and everything else, that it automatically forces you to want to be the best and sort of prove yourself. Right?
Right. So I think it came from from really young on. I mean, I started a backyard pool company when I was eighteen years old, which most people at 18 are not even thinking that way. Right? So And so I guess take us back there for just a half second. Was that out of, like, creative or, like, like, creative flow of eighteen years old. I wanna make money, or was that out of I came from a poor family, and so I had to to survive. Like, what was was the what were you thinking then?
We were middle class, but it was I wanted to make money. Right? It was I think for us, so I grew up. The school that I went to, the high school was it was more like the middle class society, and then there was a high school around on the corner that I still had some friends that went to, but that was more the upperty class. Right?
So you'd have the dads that owned the Dodge dealership around the corner, or they were the kids that were driving to school with their daddy bought them a brand new BMW M3 or whatever it was. Right? They had the money. So seeing that side of it and the nicer houses with the pools in the backyard, so the neighborhood pool, things like Chaz, right, that was a driving force saw it, you wanted it. And then I started lifeguard when I was, like, sixteen, which was a great summer job.
Anybody out there should do that. Right? And then so there, I learned how to clean pools and do stuff. So at 18, I was like, well, let me just go do this. I'm like, oh, why not? I've already got friends that already have the pools in their backyards. Already know how to do it. So that's let's go after it. So That's awesome, man. I love that. It's funny as you were kinda just sharing there about your effective of being a kid and and wanting more and the underdog. Like, all that resonates.
I think it resonates with listener. I mean, if it doesn't, then, like, hang up the the business belt right now. But for me, specifically, I remember a time I was, oh, I had just gotten married. So maybe 20 maybe I wasn't even married yet. I think it was maybe 1920 right around there. Right. And my wife's grandma totally adored me. Just love me. Like, walked on my arm down to church. That type of thing. Right?
And, when she found out that I was not not only had I dropped out of college, but that I had no intentions of finishing. It was, like, just this huge thing about, you won't be successful and just Oh, just blah blah blah blah blah. You know, so it's funny. Yeah. I don't necessarily think about that every day, but that's what came in my mind when Yeah. When you were saying that of like, Who are you to say that I won't be successful because of a degree or whatever? Yeah. Yeah. It is sort of funny.
I saw it with somebody the other day, and they brought up the fact of, just business owners. Like, you when you look at a lot of the entrepreneurs, especially the successful ones, it's like even if you weren't diagnosed with ADHD or even when you're a kid, you didn't have ADHD. Being in a business where you have to think on a dime and change the trajectory of your day in a heartbeat Yep. Yep. Makes you almost have ADHD if you didn't know before you became an entrepreneur.
It's pretty funny, but it's the reality of it. Right? Cause you gotta be able to shift and multitask so much. It's almost like Yeah. It's just it's wild. It is Wolfe. And I think that it it's the skill set that we all need at the same time too. I think once you finally get to a place where you've got the resources to be able to put people in place, then it's almost like a a an unwinding of that. Then that's that's where I find myself a lot now, which is like, I'm I've I've been in the grind.
I've I've worn multiple hats. I've I've had the ADD for so long that I almost like began to love it, began to love the the craziness, the stress, the chaos, the going 3 14 different directions at once, Yep. To where it really to to, like, scale up beyond that, you've gotta start and you hand that and you hand things off and you and you have key roles and key people. So you have to, like, have that, but then, like, make it through that.
Yep. Which is, man, I think I I would have been stuck there forever if I hadn't started to, like, peel things away. You know what I mean? That's the hardest part, I think, is delegating, right, because Chaz an entrepreneur, you always think, oh, I can do it better, faster, quicker. Yeah. I just try to teach somebody. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.
Yeah. Because it because it's, like you said, immediate gratification of right now, it's done better, faster, stronger right now Chaz opposed to creating the system to where you don't have to. Right. And that long term is better, faster, stronger. Exactly. Exactly. Right. Right? I mean Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy because you don't get it. It's it's the compound effect of the time, and you start realizing that the time is is the most important piece. So I'm loving your story, man.
It's it's resonating. I I think that the listeners are gonna get a whole bunch here. I wanna transition the conversation to a good decision that you made coming up in your dental business. Of course, we could go back to your fix and flip stuff before the before the recession as Wolfe, if you'd like. But I wanna know a good decision that you made that just was like, boom. You would do this over and over and over again. We should be writing it down, taking notes. What was that?
I think it's just it's just in general, like, with the real estate, especially, right, I mean, I started flipping houses. I started wholesaling on And it was, like, that first I remember that first check I got when I wholesaled a property. Right? Put it under contract, turned it out in a month, found another investor, made, like, 10 grams dude. That was, like, 10,000 bucks for a couple hours worth of work. Why would you not just rinse and repeat? Rinch and repeat. Right?
And so I started doing Chaz. And then that's when 2007, 2008, and nobody was buying everything. Everybody lost their shirts. Yeah. So then it was like, hit the reboot, but, I mean, wholesaling. I mean, if if you don't know anything about real estate, I highly suggest getting into, like, wholesaling houses and just learning that way. Right? Find somebody put yourself in that room with people. Networking is huge and Without it, I I wouldn't even be where I'm at today.
I don't think without networking. Right? It's it's who's your inner circle. It's and it's it's finding that person that is doing what you wanna do and then just paying them or hold need to hold your hand if you need to. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I love that perspective of of being willing to do that. So there are several good decisions here. I wanna pull them out just for the listener. I heard getting around the right people. I heard learning something and pressing in when it works.
Is there, like, I think that principle right there of when you find something that works and repeating it.
Yep. It seems so simple, but so many entrepreneurs, I think, miss it where they've tried something at work, then they're so almost addicted, like you said earlier, of trying the next new thing or the new shiny thing, object syndrome, where they literally won't repeat what has gotten them clients or gotten success with their delivery or whatever And so how have you been able to hold on to Chaz, that that nugget, that principle, if you will?
I think it's, like like you said, it's You have to hone in on it. Right? So on my calendar on a daily schedule, like, even on my calendar, I carve out whatever needs to be done. If it's if I know I've got appointments that I need to call or or doctors that I need to call, you know, it's it's getting up. It's it's having that on the calendar and just taking that time out of the day to do it. Right? Everybody says it's like, eat the frog. I don't know if you've ever heard that term or whatever.
Right? Yeah. It's like, even if you don't wanna do something, if it's gotten you to where you're at, eat that frog, still do it on a daily basis and still make sure that you're following that principle. Right? I mean, it's like, oh, man, everybody hates cold calling. Everybody hates doing stuff. Well, I mean, if you're just starting out on a business, especially if you're not scaled like we were talking about, it's you. You're the person that has to eat that frog every day.
And if you if Whatever the worst thing is, if it's doing emails, make sure you knock that out and continuously do it. That's the only way you're gonna get to the next level where you can get past having to do what you don't wanna do. Because then you can scale and hire the people to do what you don't wanna do. Yeah. It's funny. I was just this morning. My team was asking me some questions that I could create for some content and stuff.
And one of the questions was when did I start valuing my morning routine? And my response was kinda similar to you. It wasn't like I decided, like, okay. I'm gonna get up early. I'm gonna read and pray and work out and all these things so that I'll be successful It was actually the reverse. I filled the calendar, like what you're saying. So freaking full of activities and things to press the businesses forward Chaz I had no time.
And if I wanted some time to myself, I went if I wanted to read or get some get some quiet time or work out, like, was gonna have to be between 5:7 AM, especially before the kids got up. You know? Agree. So I think I think that's the what I'm hearing you say is the, a huge piece there, which is, yeah, course, eat the frog, but put it on the calendar. Freaking fill it. This must be fun. Yeah. Love that. Okay. What about a bad decision? Let's flip the coin here.
Let's talk about a huge mistake that we can stay far, far away from. So I bought a company. This is twenties end of 2016, beginning of 2017. This is right before I did the dental thing. K. Construction company, property preservation for the gut, listeners that don't know what that is. It's basically There's certain companies that are like the middle man, but they work for the banks. So if there's a foreclosure, you might meet the sheriff on-site to evict somebody. Change out the locks.
And then what you do is you do a punch list of all the items that need to be done to that house so that they can turn around and resell it. Got it. So I went in. I bought this company for That was the 1st company I'd ever bought, really, to be honest, I'd always ever started anything myself. I bought it for 1,300,000. K. And I went through a bunch of different lenders. Came out, like, 45,000 out of pocket to buy it. Wow. Got into it.
And the percentages and everything that it look like was coming in on the side. It looked like there was 4 big major clients, and they were all doing about 25%. Oh, by the time the sell had gone through and we actually closed on it Oh. Well, that it had gotten to where it was, like, 70 to 80% one client giving you all the business.
So started working working the business like you normally would when you buy a company and then started realizing this, well, that company is a multi $1,000,000,000 company, and they started supposed to be net 30 paying at 30, turning to net 60, and at 90. And you've got all this money that we've out outlaid for materials. All this money that we've outlaid for our employees, for salaries, labor, everything like that.
So, ultimately, within 2 years of me buying this company, we shut the doors because they had a huge debt. And if they're giving you all your business, what are you gonna do? You can't keep working for them and and making that day get bigger, bigger, bigger, So we'd ultimately shut down the doors, and that was a SBA loan owed to bank still, like, $600,000 and Yeah. Just crazy. Right? I mean, it sort of puts your puts everything into perspective. So that business failed.
And luckily, I Chaz my dental business to fall back on, but it's still you're wiping the dirt off yourself and sort of have to reevaluate. Like, where where do I wanna go? I need to spend all my energy now on the dental even though I had business partners in that that were helping to run that business. Like, now I need to focus all my time on that and try to go and and take that to the next level because what I thought was gonna take me to the next level backfired. Right?
So Yeah. How did you decide in that moment to, like, between the dental business and that one to, like, really pressed into, because I'm sure on the other side, I'm sure that you could have spent time drumming up some other contracts or maybe going back to those other folks but it just sounds like you just decided it would be better to, you know, all in over here. So what what was that factor? Like, how did you determine that?
Well, I think it was that Go like, for Chaz a salesperson, picking up a phone and calling a dental office versus me trying to run that business I mean, I was running, running, running. I never saw my kids. It was sun up to sun down out on the road driving. We had multiple different states, so I was constantly traveling. And I was it was mainly children's based. Right? Like, call my kids, hey, you're not gonna be home again, dad.
Like, almost like I had let them down because they hadn't seen me in 4 days in a row, 5 days in a row, whatever it was. And at that point, I was like, look, I can sit down and call dental offices from home. Yes. I wanna take my business to the next level. Yes. I wanna make 1,000,000 of dollars, but is it worth my family and my kids suffering because I'm not there? Yeah. Yeah. So I had to make that mental shift and the answer was no, like, for for no amount of money, is it worth it for me?
Yeah. Well, I mean, that was the first question I asked you is why are you doing this still even? And you said my son, my grandchildren, my my daughters, like, that was the answer. So, yeah, it makes perfect sense that you would be able to transition. I love I love the perspective here that I wanna just point out for the listener is that you said that the business failed, but, really, you chose your family. Yeah. Yeah. Because you could have pressed in. Oh, I could have pressed in.
Yeah. More time, more energy, probably more money, and it probably would have eventually been just fine. Sure. Sure. Because that's that's what I've learned in in starting, purchasing, and even closing a couple of businesses myself is that time and money. Like, is if you got and if you got both of them and energy, then then something eventually is gonna work. Yeah. For sure. But I love the perspective that you put through the lens of, nope. Not gonna do it.
And it's the the trajectory of that is not worth it for me. And so yeah, it costs you a lot of money, but pressing in, spending the time while you're pressing into the dental business with your family, I'm sure that the lifestyle has been as good if not ten times better just because you dialed in. Yep. Yep. Exactly. I love that, man.
Okay. So what what process do you have now now that you've kinda had this crazy experience of real estate and the recession and buying this crazy business and it not working out so well. And and then now in the dental field, now into real estate on the multifamily side, like, you got all this experience. How do you make decisions now? Or is there a process that you follow to try to make good decisions? Mean, it's not wouldn't say actual prospect because every opportunity is different is right.
I mean, if you look at a real estate deal, none of them are cookie cutter. Right? That's right. But the process is more or less just we we analyze all the deals in real estate. We try to figure out what's what's the best way to to go into them in approach them. Yeah. Same with my dental business. I mean, I just brought on a guy. One of my buddies, Jim, I'd worked with him for years when I first got in a dental. He wasn't working. I was like, hey. I could use some help here.
Like, I know where I wanna take you to, you know, what position I wanna put you in, but first, let's start here and just figure it out, make sure that you it's something you wanna do. Right? Right. So it's, you know, it's p it's like a puzzle, man. It's like a chess piece. Every business you ever run is like a chess piece. Right? It's trying to strategically place your pieces to win to win the game.
Yeah. And I think that's that's sort of my philosophy is just figuring it out, digging in, figuring out who's the best role for whatever it is, whichever company it is. If it's real estate, I mean, we guys Chaz all they do is analyze deals. And then Right. So we don't have I don't have to do it anymore. Alright? And then, like, my buddy, Jim, it's I've already got a idea where I wanna put them. It's figuring it out, making sure it works. Yeah. Exactly.
You wanna sort of place today's people around you that you feel will help you to grow. Yeah. Yeah. I love I love, obviously, the the placing and and being able to put people in the right seat and that type of a thing. I love what you said there. You didn't say it exactly, but I I heard you underneath, which was for the collective.
Like, you're trying to grow, but you you like, I could even tell, like, when you said my buddy, Jim, like, I could tell the affection in your tone towards your buddy, Jim, that he's obviously close to you and that you guys have a good relationship. But when you put people in place, not just for your benefit, but for the collective, that's what I've seen just relationship, business. Like, it it it it goes to a whole another level because it's not just like, let me let me try to win. Yep. Right?
It's can I put people in the right place so we can each use the skill sets that were given so that we collectively win? Yeah. I mean, I'd rather take a small piece of a lot than a large piece of one thing. That's right. How do you think that I mean, because entrepreneurs don't necessarily think like Chaz. Right? Because because if we go back to both you and I, kinda having that chip on our shoulder. Right?
Like, we want the 100% because it it, like, it proves us as men, as as providers, as we got that chip on our shoulder. We're gonna go prove somebody wrong that we can do it. But at some point, there's that transition to where it's like, Yeah. That's all good, but, like, I want a smaller piece of a much larger pie. How did you come to that recognition? Yeah. Awesome. Thanks. The biggest thing was real estate that made me realize that. Right?
It's when when I go back to real estate, it's especially in multifamily. I mean, multifamily is Like, I need you in my deals. I need you need me in your deals or whatever it is, right, because it's a team effort. And single family might be an I thing, but multifamily, you're talking about so much money and to get into a deal and then so much management and different things when you get into the deal Chaz it becomes a a team sport, right, mean, it's the same thing as a baseball game. Right?
I mean, you look at a baseball game and there's not just one person that wins the game. It's you have to have a bunch of different pieces of the puzzle. Yeah. Grant Clark Don said yesterday something was he's he's funny guys, but Grant was saying, he was talking about scaling. He goes, I mean, look at Jesus. He even walked out with twelve people. It wasn't just himself. That's that's a great that's a great point. And those 12 had led to many more. Alright.
Wow. Yeah. I think that's great perspective to have, which is you go if, what's what's the old saying? Like, if you wanna go fast, go alone, if you wanna go far, go together, go go with the team. Mhmm. And so if you have if you have short term perspective, if you're just trying to get rich today, if you're just trying to take care of number 1, Sure. Go take care of number 1, but I just don't what what I'm hearing you say is that it doesn't last that long. It doesn't last. Mm-mm.
Yeah. And you'll get burnt out if you're trying to do it all on your own. Spread the wealth around. Yeah. Which in return actually makes the pie bigger. That's that's how much bigger. That's what the entrepreneur right now listen. Right now, they're thinking, But if I but if I go hire someone else, I'm only making because we know as entrepreneurs, we don't really I mean, we're making a bunch of money, but not really. You know? Right. Right. Especially especially in the building stages.
Yeah. And I was like, okay. Well, I'm only making this. And so I'm gonna I'm gonna give that away to someone else so that they can do something that I'm fully capable of. Mean, what are you telling me to do here, Paul? Yep. Yep. No. It's a hard decision to make. It really is. I mean, as long as you got the food on your table and a roof over your head. Right?
I mean, obviously, don't take that away from your family, but if you've got if you've got that, then it's it's being able, like you said, like, replace yourself so that way you can focus on other resources, other opportunities that might come your way. Yeah. And what happens is people put those blinders on. Right? I can't focus on anything else. But then all these other opportunities are just passing you by. Right?
And it's because you don't have that hired help so that you can open up your mind other opportunities. Yeah. To to make the pie bigger.
And that's how it happens exactly is that the guy is focused on the the the dental practice, or he's on the job side, or he's working with a marketing client, whatever whatever he's doing that's keeping him from being able to hit the next opportunity, not shiny object syndrome necessarily, but whether it's passively investing in in real estate with a guy like you or whether it's being able to find a problem that we're encountering that I can solve with an ancillary business to my business.
Mhmm. But you're you're not open to those things if you can't if you're stuck in the daily, in the x's and the o's. So Yep. Okay. I've got to I've got some speed round quite here for you, Paul. Are you ready? Let's do it. Change the pace here a little bit. I want one word answers, if possible. First question is this. In your real estate and or dental because we're gonna go high level here. What's the one metric that you would choose to track if you could only pick 1? Marketing.
It's gotta be marketing. K. And what is, like, how would you track Chaz, or what specifically in that are you tracking? It's it's gotta be your success from the marketing campaigns that you're putting out there. If you're not getting success and you're not getting sales from the marketing dollar, that you're spending, then you're just wasting money. Yeah. Pipelines empty. There is no business. Yep. That's what I'm hearing you say. Okay?
If you were to recommend a book for a 6 figure business owner specifically wanting to scale up, what would you recommend? Got a few here. Got it right here. Extreme ownership. It's a great one. Makes you think a little bit different than the average person. That's right. What what's your what's your one takeaway from that? I know that'd be kinda hard to nail one, but what's your what's your major takeaway for the listener on that? There's so many good ones that book.
Matt, I think the biggest thing is just ownership. Right? I mean, if you screw up something, be the first one to admit it. Right? It's it's Again, it's extreme ownership. So you gotta own up if you if you screw up instead of trying to blame it on somebody else or the economy or whatever it is. I mean, ultimately, every decision that made in your business or your personal life boils down to that decision that you made.
Yeah. Yeah. And how can you take ownership if you don't take ownership of the process of making decisions. Exactly. Which is what we just got done talking about. So thank you. Full circle. Full circle, man. 100%. How can you win if you don't know how to make good decisions or own them for that matter? Love it. Okay. Do you network or mastermind with other entrepreneurs? Network all the time. K. Why?
You don't know what the the next person that you're gonna meet has in common with you that can help you to even skill, whatever you're trying to accomplish bigger or what level they're at. Right? So you just go you go to events like yesterday, shaking random hands, trying to figure out who knows what, or that seems a little it seems a little painless. Meet meeting people, talking to them. Networking with them. How can I help you? How can you help me?
I've got another buddy of mine that runs a thing called CCC. He's opening a ball over. If you're into real estate or construction at all, check out CCC. He's got one here in Atlanta, Orlando, Tampa. Okay. Phoenix. They're opening them up all over. So That's awesome. Okay. Big event. Usually about a 100 to 200 you can network with. There you go. And, next question, if you only had 1 hour each week to work on your business or to successfully run your business like you do now.
If you had to dwindle it all down to just 1 hour in a week, what would you do in that hour to successfully run your business like you do train the next to me. How would you do that? You'd have to you'd have to have them sit either on a Zoom or sit right next to you depending on what what your work environment is and just train them on everything that you've been doing. Right?
Yeah. So each week, you spend an hour with them, train them how to market, how to make the decisions, how to purchase, and the whole the whole step how to run your business, basically. Try to try to work yourself out of the job. Yeah. Exactly. Good stuff. K. And last question, Paul. If you lost it all, what would you do, man? Start from scratch. I'd go back to my real estate days of wholesaling. Really? Okay. That'd be that'd be a good go to. I think that would be my go to. It's quick money.
Right? I mean, if if you if you lost everything and you need quick money, you make 5000, 10000 bucks a pop to wholesale it, deal in. Right. And you just you take that money and then you can grow it and you can start buying your own multifamily, whatever it is down the road from there. Yeah. Exactly. I love it. I didn't hear you say you would stop or roll over or pout. No. No. You can't, man. I mean, come on. Are you sure? But but but you'd be so tired.
You'd oh, it'd just be it'd be so hard, Paul. Why not? That's the that's the thing. Right? I mean, how many times I've Chaz so many times people go, like, when are you gonna retire? What's your goal for retirement? Why retire? If you love what you do and you love the game of business, why would you ever retire? Yeah. Yeah. You said it earlier, kinda referencing it to a chess game. And it's like, if that's all we're doing, it's playing a game, Why why am I looking to end?
I mean, unless I have to stop playing, if I'm good at playing and I keep winning because I don't know about you winning is, like, predictive. Oh, it's for sure. For sure. Like winning. Yeah. I mean, last year well, at the end of 2020, I got diagnosed with testicular cancer that is spread to my abdomen. Last year, I went through 4 months of chemo, January, February, March, April.
And even during that time, I found myself, like, sitting at home feeling like shit sometimes after chemo, but still had that itch in that drive. Like, I gotta do something. I can't just sit here. Right. Right? So, like, people are like, dude, you're inspired me because you kept working. I was like, yeah. But what else am I gonna do? Right. I'm just gonna stop. Like Right. That makes you feel crappier when you're stopped. It really does.
Like, especially if, like, you're in a chemo situation or where you still can work. Like Right. Just laying there makes you feel worse than if you're actually involved doing something. So Yeah. Body and motion stays in motion. I love Exactly. The mindset there. And, dude, wow. What an incredible, like, overcoming. What a what a, I'm sure a testing Do you have do you have, like, okay, bro, you saved the good for last. I gotta, like, I gotta, like, rewind this whole call.
To talk about the good stuff, man. I'm gonna have to preface in the intro now that they gotta wait all the way to the end for the good stuff. No. But in all seriousness, bro, those 4 months, like, what what did you walk away out of that 4 months knowing outside of what you just kinda said, like, that you didn't have before? Like, what did that experience give you that you just that I'm I don't have because I haven't been through. Think bigger. Think bigger. Faster.
And how did sitting getting chemo Like, how did that how did how did that translate to think bigger and and and go faster? I think it's because you're sitting there and all you're you're just sitting going okay. Like, there's nothing that you can do. Sometimes there's I couldn't do anything. I didn't wanna talk. Like, going through the chemo, I had blisters in my mouth, Like, they call it they call it burns in your mouth.
So you're like, you don't really wanna talk because it your mouth just hurts all the time. You don't wanna eat. You don't wanna do anything. But during that time, it was like, okay. Well, I was still grinding, but I was more of, like, instead of having an entrepreneur in a company, I had, like, one business partner in myself at that time.
So it was I'm still doing the everyday grind, and I'm still trying to make income and still trying to make sales and still worried about running the company, the bills that are coming in and everything else. But if I'm could grow and I was already at that stage, you wouldn't have to worry about those struggles because now you've got people running your business for you. Now you've got Right. Money sitting in the bank because you're You're at the next tier. Right?
I mean Yeah. As Grant Cardone says, there's different phases. Right? Are you at that 1,000,000 to the 5,000,000 stage, that 5 to 10,000,000 stage. Right? And we were sort of sitting at that 1a half to 2,000,000 stage, which, I mean, this year, we're we'll be a little over that. Like, we didn't 10x it. We're gonna do 5,000,000 this year or something like that, but we'll, we're definitely growing. Right? We're trying to grow 30% this year, which should be able to accomplish.
So Yeah. That's awesome. I think that you you hit the nail on the head, especially for the listener, because that's what they're dealing with right now. Even though you were at the 1,000,000,000 a half at what you're what you're describing. It's the beginning of what I call the king stage, is at the beginning of that 7 figures. And really until you get there, you don't have enough resources because you're in the daily grind. You're you're wearing too many hats.
All of these things where, you know, that moment in time, whether it's cancer or whether it's a an an accident or whether it's something's happened in the family or you need to do something else outside. You you either can't or everything stops or shuts down because you can't. Right. Be in the business. And so I think that that's huge perspective, especially even at that level for someone who's listening today going, if I got to 7 figures, everything would be fine. And it's like, okay.
Well, maybe it might better, but really the press now is for you is, okay, we got enough resources. Now we're trying to grow enough to where we've got the right people in place They got the support that they need, the revenues coming in automatically, and you have all these systems in place where it can continue to grow minus your your energy and time. Right. Exactly. Right. Exactly. And so I guess I would just employ the listener to think if if Paul can do it, you can do it.
If Chaz can do it, you can do it. Because we we can both right now. I'm sure think back to that moment when we weren't quite yet 7 figures, and it was like, I was in everything. Yep. Or like you said, I Chaz, like, you couldn't make a phone call to get the next deal because your mouth was sore. And it's like, Man, that's not the place you need that you as an entrepreneur, that's that's that's being self employed. That's not a good question. Yep. That's what everybody wants. Right?
Go for the business system. Don't be the the self employed. You're just having a job if you're self employed. Man, so powerful. If somebody related with you to hear today, Paul, or they wanna do a deal with you, how can they find you on social media or your website? Well, how can they find So you can go to facebook. It's facebook.obviously.com. I'll just look up Paul Harmier.
Last name's h a r, m as in Mary, e y e r. You can go to LinkedIn, look up my name, or Alliance Dental Solutions is our user for Instagram. There you go. You've heard it first here. Paul, dude, I just I love the story, the up and down. I think it's true to most entrepreneurs, but, man, the way that you shared it. Not only have I been inspired, but I'm sure many, many people on the other side of the mic have been inspired here today as well. So thank you for Chaz. Super valuable.
We appreciate it and wish you nothing but success, obviously, in your dental business, but, bro, We gotta do a deal in real estate. Yes, sir. Thanks for listening to Gathering the Kings. We hope you got a ton of value today and low 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, want you to go to gathering the king's dot com.
That's gathering the king's 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 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