On today's episode of gathering the Kings. What I actually found was more than the competition, the alone time, the quiet, the solace of just me and my bike and what's ahead of me, and no one asked me questions, and, you know, stress, no strategy, no none of that. It was just fresh air and freedom. Yeah. And the stress and anxiety of what was normally weighing on me just melted away. And so that's really why we started the shock was when I had that realization on, man.
I gotta share this with as many people as possible. 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.
We dissect the good and bad decisions they've made along the way that give a true and accurate picture 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. What's up, everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe, gathering the king's podcast. All of my shows are special, but this one has an extra layer of specialness.
I got Dave Forrester here on the show, and Dave and I have known each other for decades. That's tough to say when you're only in your thirties, but in all seriousness, Dave is a great friend of mine. Dave is also a part of the Gathering of King's Mastermind. And his wife and my wife are great friends.
And I it's just such an honor to not only have you here, Dave, as a friend, but, dude, your mind, the way that your brain works I just appreciate it, and I know that you're gonna bring a ton of value. So welcome, and thank you for being here. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. I'm absolutely honored to to be a part of the group and to be invited on. Yeah. Yeah, dude. You're you're a serial entrepreneur like me.
So I think some of these guys and gals listening today are gonna get added benefits from you because you've been in multiple industries. You've started and even and had multiple exits. And so I'm excited for you to be able to tell some of that story, but kind of business are you in now? So my wife and I own a local community bike shop. We operate in the Kansas City area. Really focusing on family and freedom.
We do that through events and educational clinics for our customers and clients to understand really that a bicycle is so much more than workout equipment that you can use it as a networking tool. You can use it as really just a tool to free yourself from the everyday stresses and anxieties of life and just go back to being a kid. I like to ask people, when's the last time you just went out and played? Yeah. You didn't measure it yet. So yeah.
It's funny because, obviously, not all of your clients are business owners, but most of the people listening here today are gonna be entrepreneurs. Gonna try to extract things from this conversation to help them grow their business, which I'm sure they'll get plenty. But one thing that you just said there that I think a lot of entrepreneurs overlook, it's When was the last time you played? When was the last time you took a breath?
And so I know mental health, like, you mentioned stress, even anxiety, like, All of those things go, like, super thick and deep when you're talking about being a business owner. Yeah. How for you personally, and maybe you could even speak for some of your clients that are business owners, but How has a bike changed or helped you grow another business? Yeah. So I've been riding since I was a kid. I did BMX stuff as a I tried to do BMX stuff as a kid. I wouldn't read it.
That's a clarification there. Yeah. Loved watching stuff on TV, the movie, Rad, and all that stuff, and trying to do flatland tricks and all that. And so that was just how we went around and just had fun together as kids. And then kinda got into that season where it didn't have a bike for a Wolfe. And just got into doing the routine of life and going to school and getting a job and doing all this stuff, starting a business, and ran across it again when I was riding with my brother-in-law.
After I got a little bit of a break in between businesses. Yeah. And was like, you know what? I'm gonna get back at this thing. My brother races road bikes. I'm gonna go try that because I love the competition and stuff. And Yeah. What I actually found was more than the competition, the alone time, the quiet, the solace of just me and my bike, and what's ahead of me and no one asked me questions and no stress, no strategy, no none of that. It was just fresh air and freedom.
And the stress and anxiety of what was normally weighing on me just melted away. And so that's really why we started. The shock was when I had that realization on, man, I gotta share this with as many people as possible. How do I do that? And it seemed like the best vehicle. That's awesome, man. I think if I hadn't had it experienced exactly what you just said. I would think it was a really nice thought. Oh, that's cool.
I hope that you're doing that for people, but I can actually speak from experience. Last summer, I came over and I got a bike. And I had this thought of just doing something a little different with my fitness, a tall skin people. I have to work at gaining weight, but for me, I needed a little mix up. And so you had encouraged me to look at some bikes. And so what I found is exactly what you just described.
It was all of the stress of multiple businesses and lots of employees and lots of big money decisions and family and kids and all this stuff just was gone. The second I was on my bike, it was just me, the cool air, or maybe a couple of cows I was passing for the for anybody listening in the city. I'm sorry. I was just outside of the city when I was riding it, but the reality is still the same, whether you're in a downtown Manhattan area or in Miami.
There's a lot of bikes, bike riders when I was in Miami. Or if you're in the country, it was freedom, like you said. And so I think the reason why I pressed into this, I'm not I hope that, so your business gets some great promotion out of what we're talking about. But I'm pressing into freedom on purpose because isn't that what we want as business owners? Yep. That's usually why we started, right, is because we felt like they're was something better that we could do.
We wanted freedom away from the man or whatever we had in our brain. Right? Just real quick here, before we jump into your history and your story, stuff like that, how is How is that portion for you? Like, now that you understand the freedom that the bike offers that maybe you hadn't experienced before Yeah. That gave you, like, a picture of what freedom look like, for you in business even or have those correlated at all? Like, just speak openly on that.
Yeah. So knowing that real freedom is an existence without the weight of those things. However, that comes about. For me, it was on the bike when I discovered it. That lack of stress and anxiety that comes with decision making and responsibility and authority and leadership and customers and project management and all of those things.
The freedom that you pursue as a business owner also being that the freedom from that just on a day to day basis, not just during that bike ride, during, building building something, a system, and a team of people who you don't want them to bear the bear. You want them to be free as well, but creating something in a system in place that allows them to operate and you to operate that just doesn't bury you in that feeling.
Love what you just said, because I think a lot of business owners, and maybe some listening today had that that fear, which is, oh, the gurus tell me just to hire and delegate and just give it to somebody else. And there is a reality. What you just said is that some of us feel like if we delegate or we give things away, then it's just passing the burden, passing the buck. Right?
And so for extreme ownership guys, like you and I know that we're similar in this way where we're like, no. I'm not gonna pass the buck. I'll just take care of it myself. Really, the answer is creating a system like you said or a process or a culture or a team to where it's there's no burden on anyone. Of course, it's gonna be hard work. Right. Nothing worth achieving is easy. Right?
So, like, we know it's gonna be hard, but if we can create something processes within the team, culture within the team, hiring the right people, If we can melt this thing altogether, then it's, like, enjoyable. Freedom. The same feelings that you just described with cool air in front of my face, I'm not thinking about much. I'm enjoying myself. Business can be like that is what you're saying if the system is built correctly. Is that what I'm hearing you say? Yes. Absolutely. So let's dive in.
Tell us a little bit how you got started in business. I know you're a serial entrepreneur. This is not your first business. Tell us how you got started originally. So I read a book when I was very young Chaz was, like, 10 different ways a kid can make money or something like that. Love it. Have one of those. Actually, JC, my oldest is in the process of reading. It's probably, like, twelve year old read, but she's 8. We're working through it. And I don't know. I can't remember what level.
I've looked at my parents' house numerous times trying to find it because I'm like, I gotta find this thing. I can't I love it. But garage sales and lemonade stands and all this stuff's listed in there. And I tried them all, and we lived in the middle of nowhere. I don't grew up on a cattle farm. My closest neighbor was my great grandparent. That lived on the they have the original house on the property. So lemonade stands didn't do so hot. And garage shales did okay.
And I know I remember multiple times my brother and I not getting in trouble, but getting like a, wait. What did you guys sell today? Uh-oh. Like, we just gathered stuff around the house that didn't seem like, you know, put a sign into the driveway and somebody pulled in and gave us some whatever. My parents really didn't discourage it, but they clarified some things. Yeah. That's good.
But I would say my first actual taste of entrepreneurship, the neighboring farmer asked my dad to have one of his boys, which was me and my brother, to clear the cedar trees from his pasture. Yeah. He said they were just starting to proliferate a little too much and there's a little one's medium size or whatever. Just take the ones that you can get and a lot of the weed sized ones and just clear them out and he'd pay a dollar a tree.
Oh. And I, like, just being, I'm like, oh, like, this is an hourly, which I'm ten years old. I didn't really think deeply about that, but Yeah. Yeah. Like, a dollar a tree. Alright. So I grabbed an ax and I started swinging, man. I was taken out, you know. You're you're Some people are dialing for dollar you're quacking for dollars. That's right.
And I think the bill ended up being the invoice that I sent him handwritten out on a piece of notebook paper I think it was, like, 230 bucks or something, but I think he about, a connection fit when he saw it. Wait a minute. $230. This is 30 years ago. And my dad I'm sure my dad was on the phone just clarifying whatever my son's tent, whatever. That was my first real taste of what wait a minute.
I just spent a few hours, but and I helped my neighbor because I was, like, just going to town with kid kid energy. Clearing this thing out. And I made really good money. Yeah. So I didn't really have a whole lot of excitement about going and doing anything different. Yeah. I it's like you got ruined for the trade of value. And I think that's even for the listener, they're not clearing trees for a dollar.
They they applied the same principle their business of working with better clients that are willing to pay or willing to pay more or ones that just fit what they do best. Like, there's a lot of ways to correlate that that same mentality. Okay. So you jump from wack in trees from a dollar to a bike shop, or was there anything in between? Yeah. No. That's a wild journey of a mountain tops and valleys and all that stuff. Right after that, loved working out.
We always, obviously, we had chores and learned a lot of stuff outdoors on the farm. But after my great grandma sold the house and moved out, the couple that moved in, was an awesome couple that had kids a little older than us. And she had diabetes, so she couldn't really get around very well because of the circulation in her feet. So gardening was difficult, but they had a garden and she wanted to use it to cook because they cooked a lot.
So I had basically just she hired me on as a caretaker to weed the garden and clean things up and do all that, which snowballed into. And I was probably in Chaz, still in that 10, 12 range, whatever. Yeah. I bought into mowing lawns and then got a job working for a buddy's dad Chaz I got into a later high school into college Chaz it's worth stonemason business. So I was just their tender, which meant I tended to what they needed.
I mixed up the mortar and took them cut stones and all this stuff and Yeah. Learn work ethic there because you had to hustle because if mortar sets up, it's not good. So you had to get that stuff done and get it to them. Chaz rolled into me starting my own landscape, a construction business, which then ended when I got more serious in college. Did some weekends and summer stuff. Sure. Later turning into, starting a actual business once I moved to Kansas City and met my wife.
Yeah. That's a funny story, like, slight side note. 3 weeks before we got married, I was like, hey. I need you to cosign on this. Like, well, I can have a truck to start this landscape business. And she was like, what? Uh-huh. And I heard dad love that idea, obviously, but we've all Yeah. Proven that it was okay, and I can still take care of her blah blah blah. That's good. Did that for a few years. Just had a great realization that I wasn't putting a focus on my family at the time.
So I needed to look at a different path. We sold that business. Really awesome deep story in that one that for another time, but god is good. And took about a year off doing some project, property management for a friend, and spending a lot of time with people like you and other friends and just really working on what was it that was keeping me from focusing on my family and just diving into business and being, self absorbed jerk.
Yeah. And Chaz turned into her being totally willing to jump into doing another landscape business again, which we thought we wouldn't do. And that one for about 4 or 5 years just really thrived. Had awesome community. Did that again, built a really good team and came to another season where god had a change for when I just dove in deep and realizing the anxiety relief of the writing.
And, more than anything, I probably I think I just got so enthralled with the idea of sharing that with people Yeah. That I lost my passion on the construction side. Yeah. Just kept start knocking on doors and seeing where that led. Doors kept opening. I told Tabitha, I'm like, Let's just see maybe a 2, 3 year plan, see what it would look like to open a bike shop, see what that even entails, what kind of capital it needs, what kind of inventory. Where does it come from? Who are the suppliers?
I don't even know what this looks like yet. And over a course of about 4 to 6 weeks, like, all of that just opened up. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Patient opened up. Like, everything just started falling into play. Some 3 months later, not 3 years later, we were having a grand opening. Yeah. I wanna pull out a couple of things here because you're you're a man of many projects. You're obviously moving fast. And we've talked about this as far as our personalities. We're very similar in this way.
Yeah. We gotta be moving fast with a lot going on to keep my attention. And so there there's good and bad to that. For the guy listening right now, probably the biggest thing I can give to him is that what you just said was, hey. Let me go see what happens, and you didn't have fear around it. It was something brand new.
You'd never done any sort of retail You obviously were very good in the landscape plant mowing, install construction business because you had done it multiple times, sold multiple times, it would have made sense for you to keep doing that, but herein lies this new passion. And, and you just you just worked the angle to see what happens. And 3 months later, you're saying you have a grand opening.
So I think that there's just a lot of belief that you have in you, which obviously then your wife has been huge supporter in that as well. Maybe you can talk about that here in a little bit, but Yeah. You know, that that's the biggest thing I could pick up from your story so far.
It's just that no matter what direction or what way the wind is blown, Whether it was a heavenly inspiration or just something that kicked up inside of your heart, I think that you've just trusted yourself, and you've been able to press in with whatever was in front of you because you've got some confidence. I wanna know at this level in the game, I held on to this question. Usually, it's one of questions, but I held onto this question on purpose.
At this level in the game, you've got multiple businesses that you've built, sold, built, sold, and now you're gonna a completely different industry you're years in. You've got an incredible team. You've done something in the bike industry that, you know, most don't even get to half of where you are type of a impact and influence and community involvement and just stuff. What makes you go? Why are you still doing it?
I I asked myself to go deeper on that every day because I know, but I think I know, but I just every day, it opens up a little more. But I would say the bulk of it is every time somebody comes in that hasn't ridden the bike, whether it's been, like, 2 years or 25 years or whatever it's been, and seeing those the change in their life, whether they're it's a fitness thing and they wanna lose some weight or blood pressure or if it's depression, anxiety, that stuff. We get to see it.
Like, when we did landscaping, we could improve somebody's backyard and give them beautiful space where they could entertain family and friends and do all this stuff.
And But then rarely did we really get to see that come to fruition, like the actual enjoyment of we get to see people come back in, like, on a daily or weekly or monthly basis and watch their life change and watch that smile returned to their face and the joy come back and see the pounds melt off or them come in and tell us about the doctor visit. Now they don't have to take medication.
One of the guys on our team has an amazing story about that that losing weight, cutting blood pressure, fixing this cholesterol. Anyway, So It's incredible. That that helps me jump out of bed pretty excited knowing that the next person on the door could be another story like that. Yeah. I love and, obviously, transcends. It's not just mental health.
Like, what we started about, like, with entrepreneurs, man, if I can protect my mind, if I can give myself an opportunity to breathe, fresh air without having to think about the stresses of the business. That prolongs my life. I feel like. But it goes beyond that into the physical whether that's with staying in fitness, losing weight, getting regular when it comes to just our bodily functions. So that way medication isn't necessary.
Whatever it is, I think that your reach transcents, which is pretty pretty powerful. We don't always have that opportunity in a business. Alright. So I wanna know, like, in the bike shop specifically. You've been doing this for years now. What was a good decision that you made that has you can look back and you go, okay. Yep. That one decision right there was the pillar of what got us to where we are today. Gosh. Alright.
For having events, hosting events, I think, would be the foundation of that, but even a little deeper than that, like adding a meal to the events. All of our events are somehow focused around a meal gathering either at the end or at some point in the event. And there's just so much community and connection that happens over the table that It's really created awesome connection points. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think anybody that just heard you say that was, like, rocket science, Dave.
But if they're like me, they were like, okay. I knew Chaz. But that was a really powerful reminder of what breaking bread between people can do for relationship. Okay. So how may how did you figure that out? Did you just start doing this and it was a realization, or the events were happening and then you added food later, give us the practical on this. Yeah. So we started a ride on Thursday evenings. I honestly I'm a competitive guy, but I also I'd rather compete with myself than somebody else.
And so there's a handful of shops in the Kansas City area. And I respect all of them, and they all have their own kind of identity. And so I wanted to choose a night that didn't step on the toes of where our customers might go for another ride in the we just chose Thursday night as that's the night. There's not a lot of other rides. And we just did a ride, and it started with 4 or 5 whatever. We just went on and had fun and rode together.
And as that started to grow, and we started to actually make other connections in the community met the owners of the local Mexican restaurant Chaz just right next to us or right. And what at that time was a couple blocks over. Yeah. And on Thursday nights, they have 99¢ enchil out And I'm a huge Mexican food guy. And I was like, we're gonna go ride. And then I told him, like, hey, I'm gonna go have enchiladas. We're going over there for dinner. If you guys won't come.
And so we just stumbled into it. And the following season of cycling, I said, why don't we start the ride from there? And end there, and then anybody wants to stay for enchiladas with us, we'll just go in and everybody can have enchiladas. Just wanted to promote another local business and help my friends that own that. Just by bringing in as much business as I could with my community. And so we stumbled into it, but it just turned into this amazing culture shift.
So the ride wouldn't be what you're saying that it is now today without the food specifically. Correct. Yeah. And we call it the enchilada ride, and we joke we have a t shirt that says I ride for the enchiladas. Yeah. We joke. There's always enchiladas. There's usually a Yeah. If it's raining, whatever. We're still here. Yeah. It's I'm just trying to correlate this to to a Lance keeping business or a guy's listening today, and he's a digital marketer.
I don't know what the gal listening right now or the guy, but the reality of it is that you're bringing clients into an experience with you, with other clients, it's community, and people long for community. And so what would you say on this kinda like piece here? Cause really what I'm taking away is your number 1, yes food, yes events, but you've created an opportunity for people to find a home or a community or a feel or a family, something to be a part of.
Is that important for every business? Is this just because you're on in bikes? What would you say to the guy list It is for me. I've got several other ideas of businesses that we hope to one day help come to fruition, and they're all gonna be based around community, and they're all going to compliment each other. And so regardless of what widget or whatever would be in the shop, I don't care if they outlaw bikes.
We're still gonna be having community events and bringing people together around the table in some way. And when I think back to what we could have done with our landscaping business, now that I've experience this. Yeah. There are landscape businesses out there that do, you know, hey, we just bill you this amazing patio and outdoor living area. We're gonna throw you a party.
We're gonna cater the party, invite your closest friends, and that could be potential clients, or it's just, you know, what? We just wanna enjoy this with you and celebrate this with you so that you can There are companies that do that, and I wish not wish, but looking back, if we would have been able to do that resource wise, we may have found a little love in what we were doing. A 100%.
Yeah. And even what you just said there, obviously, just doing it for the community effect, but you cater some food as a landscaping company or a remodel company or whatever. Yep. And you have them invite their friends over, to celebrate the completion of the project, all the questions and the attentions are gonna be on the project, which inevitably is gonna be good for the business.
And so I just think that, again, using what you're saying, if you're community driven, if you're people driven, if you're authentic, you're trying to help people. Like, really, Yeah. Business circles back fast if you do it in that way. Would you agree with that? Absolutely. Yeah. And that's and it's one of those areas that is not necessarily missing, but is less involved these days with so much online business and brick and mortar businesses like ours and several other industry.
It's hard to figure out what how am I gonna compete and what and we really just don't you don't compete. You just that's the gravy that makes everything different is the connection, the people, the community. So Yeah. Make it rather than compete, you make it I think that you've already given so much value. I wanna flip the coin. I wanna talk about a bad decision that you've made that is, you know, face palm.
What would you go back and change if maybe you would change it at what was that bad decision? Stop trusting myself. Get too wrapped up and thinking about the processes are good, but getting too wrapped up in the process and thinking about how would somebody else do this? And that's am I thinking properly or whatever? Just not trusting myself to just Almost like analysis paralysis. Yeah. Absolutely.
Yeah. Oh, so for the guy that's maybe like you who likes detail, who likes to be accurate, who likes to know what other people are doing, and could conjure up their plan, who's in their head is what I'm hearing you say. Yep. Like, why would you change that? What is that or what decision in the business practically has that held you back on or negative effect does that have? It took it robbed me of my energy of the forward progress.
And I think a lot of guys that are detail oriented and whatnot are energy and our, like, momentum and our fuel comes from progress. We wanna see progress. And when we're not seeing progress, then We not we get confused. We get tired. We get frustrated. We start looking for other things to do, and you know, that your gut tells you which way to go. Your gut's gonna tell you what's right. And if you just if you squash that down and say, I don't know. That's different than what the book I read said.
Do. Maybe I shouldn't start questioning yourself. And then you start backpedaling and hitting the brakes too much, and that momentum is lost. And it takes a long time to get back. And so if you look back at your own history and think about the times that you just went with it, it felt right. The vision was there, the excitement was there, the energy was there, and you you just trusted yourself and did it. You know, most of those times, it probably worked out well.
And even if it didn't, it probably got you quicker to a thing that did Yeah. And just carrying that forward. Yeah. I guess the the perfectionism, right, that's in folks that are detailed like you and I is we want it to be right. So we want it to be accurate. We want it to be right. And so we toggle back and forth before or ever even taking action sometimes. And so what I'm hearing you say is take the action work it out.
It doesn't have to be that that you don't provide something whether the service, you're working for somebody, the business that you're doing, it it doesn't have to not be excellent. It just doesn't have to be perfect version 1. Just go. Get started, just go with it. Is what I'm hearing you say? Would you like to add anything to that? Yeah. It just as another maybe using the example I used earlier was opening the bike shop. Like, I didn't I had no idea.
I'd worked in a bike shop part time at one point. I spent a lot of my time in bike shops. All I knew was what I didn't want it to be. Good. There were a lot of things that I didn't like about these other shops. Which one were those?
Just the and not every shop is like this, but the kind of the cliche thought of a bike shop is it's a bunch of yeah, bra, like, concrete metal grease, smells like rubber tires, you're probably gonna get somebody talking over your head about parts and gadgets of a bike that, you know, I don't even know what that is. Just the experience of overwhelm Yeah. Most people get when they see 100 of bikes in front of them, and they don't know what any of them actually do. And Right.
What's one what's carbon fiber and aluminum, and I don't even know. So we just wanted it to be, like, coming into a friend's family room and chatting about solutions. Yeah. What do you think that mindset? Because, obviously, you were limited in your Right? I know that you're a technical guy. You've learned all of those things. Like, you could go fit in with the Hey bra community now if you wanted to.
Yeah. But the reality of it is at the beginning, no. But you still started the bike shop because you wanted it to be different than that. So what I'm hearing, like, I see a lot of business owners Chaz, you know, like, even even me, bro, I know that I knew you when before I was a business owner years years ago. And I remember thinking, well, I can't do that business because I don't know how to do that specific thing. Right? I don't know how to do landscaping.
I don't know how to do roofing or I don't know how to do marketing or whatever the technical widget was at that time. That limited my thinking or my ability to move forward because I was like, I can't do that. Or I don't know how to do that yet. And so even though there's, I think, there's importance in knowing how to do it, right, like you've eventually grown yourself into a bike expert, obviously. But at the beginning, you just said you just knew what you didn't want.
You didn't you wanted it community. You wanted to be like a friend's family room. And so I think that piece right there, the listener can take and go, okay. Maybe you aren't. The technical best at whatever it is that your service or product offers. Obviously, we're trying to become that. But what is it that you can have now, or what is it that you don't want your company to be that maybe allows you to stand out? Because that's the way I see your brand now.
I see your brand now as something that nobody has, not even other types of community event companies. Right? Like, you're a bike company. You're the only bike company that I know that's family and freedom and all these other things, community driven. So it's literally even though you're the bike expert now, it's built your DNA. Right? The person listening right now, who's the owner of the company. Yeah. They don't have to be the technical expert. Oh, yeah.
So, again, it circles back to the community side. You don't have to be we're I Wolfe even say now, we don't have the best mechanics in the industry. We don't have the best technical experts in the industry. But what we do have, and I guarantee you, we are better than any other bike shop Chaz we care more about you, and what your goals are, what the solution finding for you to solve Chaz, what so that we can get you on the bike that you are going to ride.
We don't care if it's a $10,000 bike or a $500 bike. If it's the right bike that's not gonna sit in the garage and collect dust, and you're gonna get on it and ride and feel free and feel happy and just overcome whatever struggle you're having, then we wanna help. And Yeah. When it comes to then fixing your bike, we may not be the best technical experts yet, but we know the resources to get all the answers we need and you don't have to worry about it. We're gonna take care of all of that. Right.
On the back end, our customers don't need to worry about Chaz. But me and my team know we can go to get the answers we need, the customers just need to come to us. Yeah. Yeah. I love that approach. Obviously, your year's in. We know that you team members now that are solid and certified or whatever you guys do that now, but the reality of it is it wasn't always like that.
And that's the point that I'm hearing you make is If you make it about people, if you make it about the solution, if you make it about authenticity, then that's how business survives. I think that you can just snap that, put it in a statement. If anybody business owner just follows those things, they'll eventually figure out the technical, the SOPs, the process the hiring, the all of those other things that, of course, are important, but these are this is like the meat potatoes.
Yeah. And those are the things that to me are, like, a whole another language. Like, I've always worked for myself other than a few stints. I didn't have any comparison or understanding of another bigger companies like SOPs and, you know, that will the all those acronyms to me, I was like, what do you talk about? This is how this is how I do it. It's all in here. Uh-huh. Trying to get it out of here and on to here so that other people can duplicate. But, that's right.
It takes time and diligence, but it happens if you focus Before we go to the speed round, I wanna know when you were talking about decisions, now that you're years years into multiple businesses, how do you make decisions now, or what process maybe do you follow trying to make good decisions. So I really do the process start in my morning routine every day. K. I do my morning routine. I get up. I work out. And then my next step is just prayer and time in the Bible.
And every day, I ask a a friend of mine several years ago told me every time god gives him something, he gives it back. Every time god gives him a blessing, he glorifies god. And when god gives it back, it's even better, and he gives it back. It just it's like playing Chaz Yeah. So every morning, I ask God, how are we playing catch today? Oh, well, that's cool.
And so it helps me filter the day, and it helps me really run things throughout trusting my gut and listening deep, like, just quiet time to listen. Yeah. And then and every interaction I have, I'm filtering through, okay, are you tossing me something that I need to toss back? What is how does this work out? Love that. I love that. The morning routine, obviously, is no no surprise, but I love the analogy of playing catch. It's good, man. Super deep. Okay. Speed round. Ready?
Yep. You can only pick one metric in your bike shop. To track forever and ever. Just the 1. What would it be? Add ons. Oh, okay. And Why would you track just that? So it's it tells me, are we actually serving our customer properly? We do we have true hospitality? Because sometimes you get a little locked up in scared on asking for more. Sure. When it comes to sales and that kind of stuff.
Yeah. But really what we focus on is we want you to have the best experience when you go out to ride that bike. And if you go on your first ride, with a friend. And the first thing that happens is that friend says, hey. How come you don't have this and this? Oh, they didn't tell me about that. Then all of a sudden, mud's on our face. And we didn't serve that person properly. So they feel somewhat humiliated. And then they come back to us frustrated if they come back to us.
They may say, where did you go? Cause they obviously educated you properly. Alright. So that tells me, you know, what are the add ons in either units or in dollars, either way. Are we getting them the proper helmet? Are we getting them a flat repair kit so that if they have trouble on the trailer, even if they're not gonna fix it themselves, If I rode by and they had it, I'd help them teach them out of that.
Are they do they have a pump at home to make sure that their tires are at the right pressure before they leave? Do they? Lights to be visible and be seen during the day, even not just at night. Yeah. There's all kinds of traffic. Craziness with bicycles on whether you're gonna bike lane or a path or on the road or Yeah. You wanna be seen. So Yeah. I love I love the heart there that you said that you because of the add on if you're serving properly.
And so I think that I think a lot of business owners, we've talked about this on the plenty of times. And, of course, through my sales career, we've talked about this with many people, but the idea around getting a sale is literally just to make money. That's all it is. It's if I can just turn it out quicker, to sell them the bike, move on, or maybe I do try to sell them the helmet, but it it's out of selfish ambition because I'm making a split or I get spiff from the manufacturer or whatever.
Obviously, those things are important for a business to grow. We gotta make money. We gotta have sales. We gotta have add ons. But if you can position it to where No. I get to serve them. Like, I get to keep them safe because they bought lights and a helmet. Like, how dare I not do those things? It's now my obligation, but then it's way more about person. So we come back to the same principles that we've been talking about, which is it's about the person.
Okay, Dave. What book would you recommend for a 6 figure business owner trying to get to that $1,000,000 mark? The e myth revisited, Michael Gruber, I think, mind shift for me, understanding the difference between a technician, a manager, and an entrepreneur, and what percentages of each of those live inside of you. Yeah. Found out that I'm almost 0% manager and I'm a bull in a China closet. I know what I want done, and I know the vision to get it done.
And the management part of it, I frustrated. I frustrated a lot. That's good. I think awareness, acknowledgement, and then change. Obviously, it it happens in that order. Alright. What do you think? I'm gonna I'm gonna twist this question a little bit. Most of my guests because we do this show with people who we meet all over the place, not just with guys that are in the mastermind. And so I always ask, what do you think about networking or master mining.
For you specifically, I'm gonna I'm gonna selfishly ask for a little bit of detail here. But what do you think about gathering the Kings as a match group. Obviously, for the folks listening today, they're 6 figure. We have a group for them, which, obviously, you're a part of the 7 figure plus, but just give us 15 seconds on your experience so far or what you've gotten from it, or what's the value of networking and or master mining with other folks inside of gathering the Kings.
Yeah. Let me preface with this isn't the only one that I've I've had experience with. So this isn't just a blind one experience. You're my friend, and it's the only one I've been in. And just amazing. Being able to sit in a group where initially I was a little bit nervous and didn't know how the relationship and that, am I gonna Are these guys gonna get the way I think? Are they gonna understand my industry? Does that matter?
All that's and the creativity, the openness, the it's not all guys, but the brotherhood, the family orientedness of the whole group. Everybody cares about seeing the others succeed, and it has 0 attachment to financial, right, success of everybody else. We just wanna see them overcome what's in front of them, the mountain in front of them. And if we have experience with that mountain, it's gonna be a great conversation. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
What would you say to the guy listening right now who's maybe never done one or done one had a bad experience. Didn't get value. That type of thing. What would you say to that person So my description I gave to several people when I was looking at different groups and trying different groups was that I felt like I was on an island. I was isolated the only people that I really had around me all the time were my customers and my team. I'm trying to lead those people.
And I mean, it's somebody that see things the way I did or maybe even from above and giving me guidance and just a third set of eyes, third party looking in rather than trying to look out through the weeds. And that is, I think, what a lot of us are looking for. And there's no better place than guys that not only have experienced what you have. They're not just commiserating with you. Oh, yeah. I have the same problems, and I don't have a solution either and making you feel at least not alone.
But they're over the island with a helicopter and a ladder saying, hey, bro. I got what this guy or and I'm over here doing this. Right. Just jump on real quick and let me haul you over here, and you'll be able to see it better. Yeah. Yeah. The vision, I've heard it say vision, community, accountability, strategy Yeah. Community from an angle of being there, done that, or connection. So, yeah, just appreciate that.
Obviously, a little bit of selfish promotion there, but I also know that there are people listening who need help. There are people listening who are on an island that, don't have anybody around him that can help him see the bigger picture Chaz can help him implement, hold him accountable, stretch them, help them reach for their potential. So I think it's incredible. Yeah. If you only had 1 hour each week Oh. Work on the bike shop.
Would you do in that 1 hour to successfully run the business like you do now? That is a great question. For 1 hour, Honestly, we I would dive into our planning software that we use and just make an absolute clear plan for everybody. Not that I have to make their plans for them, but just seeing looking through those tabs in our software and making sure that I have communicated to the team updates and to the to do lists and to the service hours and stuff like that.
And in an hour, I could orchestrate everybody's week and help them prioritize based on the options they're giving me. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Good stuff. K. Last question here for you, Dave. K. If you lost it all, what would you do? Same. And the problem I don't know if it'd be the same industry or not, but I've done it a few times over now, and I we never sold anything worth enough to just retire and walk away at young age or anything. And I love the startup phase. I absolutely love it.
I think honestly, if I could just build businesses for 2 to 3 years and then go do another one. Get it off. Yeah. I would probably just live, like, a kid in the candy store doing that. So it was just definitely a startup, a launch of some type, or find somebody else that's hungry to do something and use my experience to help them launch in a stronger way. Yeah. Exactly. I love it. Yeah. I think that once you get the idea of putting someone in place, you can go be the idea guy. Right?
Like, you can go be the startup guy and then you put somebody in place because there are people on the other side of that coin who don't wanna deal with that, but they're the manager that you talked about. Right? They wanna manage what's already built. And so I think that when that comes together, it can be a beautiful thing. How can the listener find you? Whether they're in Kansas City. They've never heard of Dave's bike shop.
They need to bring their family, the whole kids, everybody come over and get a bike helmet set up kit, or maybe they're across the country, and they wanna just chat with you about business or potentially maybe you can ship them a bike because I know you guys maybe do that too. So how can they find you? Yeah. So the shop is on either Facebook or Instagram. Dave's bike shop KC is the underscore or the title on Facebook. On Instagram, it's actually daves_bike underscore shop.
You can check us out either place there, and you can also look for the bike it out community. Another place to really connect with other people who are writing if you wanna just get involved in our community side.
And then business wise, myself, on Instagram at together for Tabitha and I, have a passion for helping other couples who are entrepreneurs and maybe one is and 1 isn't, depending on either whatever spouse it doesn't matter, just helping encourage them through showing a little bit of our daily life and stuff like that. And, yeah, happy to connect. That's awesome, man. I really appreciate you.
Obviously, from, just a value perspective because you're just a valuable individual, but thanks for time, just your history, your journey, the story of all the things you've been up and down with over the years. It hasn't culminated yet. There's the best is yet to come. I'm excited to be with you on the journey, but Man, you've had some good stuff happen, and you've shared it. So I think that you've helped a lot of people here today. So thank you again for being here. Blessings.
And let me do can I say one more thing? Just You said it was a selfless plug for you earlier.
I think if anybody who's actually interested in gathering the kings or in any part of that community, just listening to how you host this podcast, and just taking that into perspective of the way that you were able to pull out my, sometimes over energetic rambling and to find those key points, having other people that have those skill sets in a group of people where you know, you could just, your, right, and what you're struggling with and somebody can pull
out those little nuggets and help direct Chaz, just all the different skill sets together. That's a great example of what is the value there. I appreciate that. No. Thank you very much. Yeah. We there's a lot of entrepreneurs that that that need help, so we're on a mission. And if you're one of them, you can go to Gathering the Kings com, take a look at Chaz, and apply to one of our groups. Dave, we appreciate you being here. Nothing but blessings to you, Tabitha, and your soon to be family.
Thanks.