On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. I can't emphasize it enough. Having those difficult distractions 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 your picture of the journey of success and how you too can get there. Through this dialogue, you will learn the value of growing your network and surrounding yourself with power players and Kings like today's guest. Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to dive in. What's up, everybody? Chaz Wolfe, gathering the king's podcast, coming to you today. Craig, McLaren Taylor, and Taylor on the stage. The king stage, My brother, how you doing? Good. Very well. Thank you.
Thank you for having me here today. Of course. We're recording this on non labor day. And I know my team reached out to you to confirm because some people take today off, but here we are. Working services. If a a hassle doesn't stop. Yeah. Exactly. I think that I'm all down for vacationing. I love taking time with my family. I'm sure you do as well, but I don't necessarily look ahead at days like labor day and go, oh, gotta make sure I have that day off.
So I'm glad that we're here today recording, doing business, getting to know each other. Craig, tell me what kind of business got, brother. There's actually two parts to to what we do. So I have a construction cleaning business. I think the bigger picture is I'm involved with my family. I'd love from my father, down, my work is my brother who lives in South Africa. I live here in Fort Lauderdale.
And so we have a construction cleaning business in South Florida, And how I originally came back was I'm also involved in a business called Bathroom Butler, which originated in South Africa. Chaz we do bathroom accessories and heated tower. So we wanted to bring that to the US a number of years ago, so I decided to move over. In fact, we wanted to expand a internationally just outside of South Africa. So we have an office in we have a distributor in the office in Australia.
So we introduced that here in the US, and then At the same time, an opportunity came up where with my accountant, somebody was looking to sell a business that was construction cleaning when we decided it was a wouldn't say a good fit because it's completely different to what we were doing, but we just liked the business model Yeah. Of what the guy of what they were doing. And we decided to get in. And so when we got involved, there was about 4 years ago.
We had about 10 staff, but there's a small business, and they had one what we would call a contract with a property built. Properly develop her. Yeah. And we're now at closing close on fifty people Wow. Been 4 years with about 5 or 6 contracts. Besides various other builders that we work with. So that's essentially what we do in a nutshell. We go into homes. And during the construction process, we contracted to clean them So the builders can do their QA process, the quality assurance process.
And then at the end of it, I'll receive make sure that it's buttoned up that the homeowner gets a nice, clean home. Yeah. Exactly. It's funny.
I I have a near and dear connection from my story to your business, not specifically your business, but this industry, I'm Wolfe, thirteen, fourteen years old, and I am doing construction cleanup in between certain phases because that's only thing I could really do that and some concrete work underneath the table, work for a concrete company or an instruction company that did concrete as Wolfe.
But I would come in as a little kid and and sweep the floors and get everything cleaned up in between the trades and be good to go. So I've got a fond memory of probably looked a little different than what you do with fifty people, but neither here nor there. We had a question for you. At this stage, before we kinda get into the story and how you developed all this up, I mean, because incredible growth over the last 4 years, for sure. Wanna know why. Like, why are you still pushing?
You came to America to build a business. You purchased another business that really had nothing to do with your other business. Obviously have this need to keep going. You could probably sail off into the sunset back to South Africa, but you don't. Why? I think there are many reasons. I think I wanna make sure that I give my family, there's the personal side to it.
So I wanna make sure I I give my family the experiences that I was brought up as as I alluded to my father as an entrepreneur, he had his own business and that eventually we all came into. And that created certain opportunities and experiences as kids, every school holiday, we were able to go away. Just we had a holiday home, and those sorts of memories are very important to me, and I wanna make sure that I'm able to give my kids those experiences.
We always talk about it with my wife and I. We always talk about experiences are exceptionally valuable. For the kids. Yeah. So we wanna be able to do that sort of thing, provide those sorts of experiences for the kids. So I suppose my family goals drive me a lot, and then there's I don't think it's ever about that it's not enough. It's about always making sure that we're not planning for tomorrow or the next day. We're planning for 5 years down the line. Continuity.
What happens when we're going to the 3rd generation is there gonna be enough of a business to pass on to cousins and so forth. You wanna continue building on that to make sure you can, as I said, create the same opportunities where we're given, with whether, whether the next generation wants to be involved in that is up to them as well. I think one has to be very clear and careful on the some of the lessons I've learned, wanna actually be very clear and careful on Chalas.
I wouldn't say forcing is the wrong word, but I would say strongly encouraging for kids to get involved in the family business. It takes a specific mindset. Yeah. To get involved in that sort of thing. Yeah. Really wanna stay here in this vein just for a minute. We'll get to your story and all your success here in a second. I this conversation of, what do they say Chaz wealth is lost in the 3rd generation? Typically, you've got the the grandparent, in this case, your dad who had hard times.
Like, he had nothing. He created this huge thing. And then your 2nd generation, you hold on to it or you try to at least. And then by the 3rd generation, It's gone. So this continuity that you're talking about or this strongly encouraging of your children to be involved, What does that look like, man?
I wanna know because I'm 1st generation, and I'm thinking, as a grandpa, I'm gonna have to be, like, in in the daily with my grandchildren to make sure that they, like, have the right mindset and they're Chaz they're building on to what's been built by me and my kids. And tell me what you're doing. Sure. So, again, talk about, you know, earlier discussion. We're talking about networking, and I think learning from other people is very important.
So I've I've been very fortunate with the people I'm surrounded with in general. For example, I have a a very close friend of mine. He's one of the best men at my weddings, who's a consultant for one of the big 5 accounting firms. And currently, he gets what he consulting specifically on family businesses.
Yeah. So, you know, bounce ideas of him and he gives me a lot of feedback that there is also not only the passing from this 1st from the second to 3rd generation, but there is a statistic because every generation that it's handed down a business's rate of failure increases exponentially. So it's not only from the second to the third. It's also from the first to the second. I think we've always been very cautious of that.
And that's why I said, so, like, coming up with plans are some of the bigger corporates, and I'm Chaz I'm seeing bigger corporates that you're talking about the waltons from Omar. These guys have family offices. So the point is there is a certain point where you have to start formalizing certain things Chaz My brother and I discussed very openly certain topics. If we wanna bring our kids into the business, what are the requirements?
You need to have a college degree, and you come up with a family constitution that puts everything in writing. Everybody knows where they stand Chaz if they wanna come in, there is an opportunity, but these are the requirement. So I think the I suppose the secret is formalizing. And I think one of the other things I wanna keep in thinking about prior to this, those what we're discussing would be how would how would it set us apart?
How does the how does our success as a family business set apart set us apart from a sort of I've seen friends and my father who've he's he's surrounded himself with entrepreneurs, and they struggle to to hand down their businesses. Yeah. So the important part is to have very open discussions. It's very difficult. You've gotta hope for the best and plan for the worst.
Yeah. I think one of the other things I was thinking about was In South Africa, a pre map or an anti NAFL contract is pretty standard. Correct me if I'm wrong, but here in the US, it's a little bit frowned upon. Yeah. And so for me, that's surprising because at the end of the day, you don't know where life is gonna take you. And if if you have a document that says, hey, in the worst case scenario, this is what we need to do. Emotions are taken out of it.
So, again, you gotta you gotta put those things in place for a family business Chaz take the emotions out of it because personality is a very different people's priorities change over time. I can't emphasize it enough having those difficult distortion. Or what do you may think may be difficult? But as I said, we I've discussed it with my brother, and they're very easy discussions. We we are very 2 different people, but in some ways, we think very similarly.
And in some ways, we think very differently. And I think we we've been fortunate enough when it comes to the family side of things, that we think very similarly about. We've had very similar experiences about coming into the business. Yep. Now I would prefer my kids to I often get work experience somewhere else before they come into the family business. Yeah. So Interesting. A lot of dynamics and a lot of thoughts, I guess.
Probably the number one takeaway that I took from you, and I'm not sure if the listener is thinking a multi generational business like like I am, but the just the formality or the thinking ahead piece, which fits into, like, just so many successful principles that probably you and I live by anyway, but it's formalizing it around the family so that number 1, there's plans in place. There's, like, actual strategic moves being made But then when those moves get made, what's the worst?
What's the best? Love Chaz. We do this every day in business. Anyway, why would we not do it with our family to your So I think I'm going through it. That's also applicable in partnerships. Oh. And I bring up the case of, like, the prenup and the Internet in partnerships. You you it's you start these relationships off in the instead of the honeymoon phase Chaz they call it. Nothing can go wrong, but like I said, people's priorities change. Just one partner might have a medical situation.
They may have to deal with, and they may have to bail out of the business. So the point is to put plans in place, as I said, hope for the best, plan for the worst, put those situations in those plans, and those formal documents in place that you guys know that if you're booming, what happens? If it's not booming or if there's a crisis that happens with one partner, how does that get to us? I think those are very important steps to take at the very early on stages. Yep. 100%. Love it.
Okay. Let's get into your story a little bit. Let's go to you've kinda given us the backdrop of how you got to where you were 4 years ago. Let's take it from there. 4 years ago, you're seeing this business. There's ten people on the team, one contract. I wanna know in that 1st year or 2, as you're starting to a couple years ago, What was a good decision that you made that you can look back on and go, oh, because I did that, I can see the success that we've had.
I'm gonna I'm gonna go back, I think, probably even further than that because I think it goes back to mentality. So I don't know if you get in on our bathroom side in our business. I had a customer wanted to start expanding. And I had a customer in a little island called Mauritius. And but he supplied he was one of 2 suppliers that supplied the interior designers in the hotels, and Marissa says about the size of the Bahamas.
And in South Africa, which was a nice step for us, and somebody recommended him to us as a distributor, and I've contacted him. And whenever I spoke to him, he was very the product, but he would never give me a he would never say yes, but he would never give me a no. Interesting. And and I wouldn't pester him. I wouldn't bad dream my thing is that I'm exceptionally patient. So it took me 2 years, and eventually I got a yes. And then all of a sudden, the business started coming hard and fast.
So fast forward now to the cleaning business, and I'm able to get off we purchased the business shortly after that. We were lucky where one of the purchasing managers who dealt with the previous owner called us up and said, hey, listen. We're not happy with our current vendor. Wolfe you like to come and try it out? The problem was is this is in Vero Beach, which is a two and a half, two to two and a half hour drive from where a lot of our work was. And I just thought, are we gonna try it out?
We wanna grow this business. And if I have to send the crew up there, we'll get the contract and figure out the rest later. Yeah. And then they gave us the business, but they had about 3 other cleaning vendors on their books. And I said my goal is to be the number one vendor. And how we're gonna do that is we're gonna make sure we do the best that we do, and we're gonna do a better job than any of the other And when we get a phone call, we're gonna make sure we react.
We're gonna make sure that we do the houses according to their schedules. But one thing I picked up is that A lot of the vendors work according to their own schedule and not to the builders schedule. They're the customer. For me, I've gotta work according to their schedule. Fast forward, 3, 4 years later. And eventually, slowly but surely, they started giving us more and more work and eliminating the other vendors and just saying, these guys pleasure to deal with. They know what they're doing.
So I also I also focused on upscaling my crews to make sure we weren't just another cleaning company. One of the biggest problems we Chaz, and this mentality is carried through from our other business. One of the biggest problems we had is I don't compete on price. I will never ever compete on price. Because anybody can do something cheaper than you. That's the reality. Yep. You gotta figure out how you can add value, all these great corporate words Yep. Or USPs and all that sort of thing.
How do you add value? How do you differentiate yourself? I make sure we steal our staff on different cleaning problems that weren't really our responsibility, but I decided to take it on. Yeah. Because I thought, you know what? These builders like dealing with us. They like dealing with us because we have a specific mentality. So imagine if we could solve x, y, zed problem for them. I'll give you an example. Ground hairs. So when they tile the floors Yeah.
The tile is if they don't clean the floors properly, there's a haze that sits on there and eventually it's cementitious, so it becomes very hard. It's the tireless responsibility to get that off. On these contracts, do they get it off, not all the time? So we came up with various techniques and we learned from what other companies do in terms of not just cleaning companies, but floor install companies. How do they remove graph ads? Wolfe figured that out.
And I just that was another value added service that we're charging for. And the guys are like, we don't wanna get the tireless to do it because they're too busy. You guys can do it. So We add all those little services on. You figure out how to be the best, and you work with the customer, and we just slowly grew it like that. And then from that, everything that we thought was reputation based. Yeah. Not price. So I think that was, for me, that was that was very key, very important.
Yeah. I I there's several things here I wanna point out for the listener. Obviously, you've done a really great job of just giving us multiple great decisions and even examples. Thank you for that. What I heard you say heaviest hitting was that you decided to be the best, which then led to a trickle effect of ideas of creating more value, being literally the best cleaner or the best at the task, being the easiest to work with.
Like, you mentioned several of those things that kinda fit into being the best, which then, of course, plays into the reputation. And so I just wanna hit that for the listener because those things don't happen over time. You said before this example that you're incredibly patient, and I think most business owners aren't. Right? We want it, and we want it now. We want results. And that's all great. I'm a huge results driven person, and I'm gonna just push, push, push.
But the reality of it is that you're gonna build sustainably. Something that's gonna be around for your kids and their kids, there's gotta be a level of, what I call, poise. In this case, patience of, you gotta just do the right things. Aka, be the best, add value, put your crews in a position to be an extension of you, like, You're the best on the phone when you got the contract, but is your crew the best or whatever?
Isn't an extension of your premium feel that you, well, you don't have to compete on price. And then eventually over the course of time, what this does is it builds a reputation, which then you've got business coming to you because this one business has more business they're bringing to you. They've referred you to other businesses. And at some point, it there's a domino effect here that you've created all by doing the right things and then being having poise over the course of time.
Would you like to add anything about. I think you've hit the nail on the head there. It's and don't don't get me wrong. It's funny because I have a very patient side, and I have a very impatient side. Oh, sure. So I've learned when to be patient and when in patient is being is required. Yeah. No. It's so good because you do. You there are many moments where we have to go here's where I just need to take a deep breath and let time work for me.
Because anytime I've looked back 5 or 10 years, I've been extremely thankful for the things that I was doing and the actions I was taking 5 10 15 years ago. But it's tough right in there in the moment to go, I want this done right now. But if I look back 5 10 years, if I'm making a 5 or 10 or even a 20 year decision today, that's that poise that we're talking about. It's not just let me get this new client today so I can get the money today so I can go buy food today.
Yes. Those things are important. But the bigger decisions, the 5 or 10 or 20 year decision that we can make, it zooms us out, gives us more poise, more patients. Totally. And even my goals, I have goals that are set for a year ahead, 2 years ahead, 3, 4 years ahead. Do you and I have different goals that set for different timelines, and that creates a set of patients for the longest set of goals.
Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting too because you obviously have a dynamic of having your dad being a great business owner in another country. It was a book that I was just reading. Your next five moves by Patrick. I'm drawn a blank on his name. Anyway, my my editor will put it in the show notes, but He talks about it in there how the Japanese make 20 year business plans. In America, it's like a 1 year business plan. There would Wolfe, like, a long time business plan.
And so, again, it's just perspective on on the length of the decisions, which then gives you poise and not to run certain things. I think the the German family business is a very similar. So they reinvest a lot of their profits back into the business and then pull it out, and they're reinvesting for the longer term longevity of the business and the future generations. Yeah. Yep. It I think that there's a lot of ways to do that.
I think it's it's hard in the moment, especially we'll just take it all the way back to your very first point. If some of that's not outlined or formalized like you talked about, then it's very in the moment you're making decisions in the moment for the moment Chaz opposed to up ahead, we've agreed upon, hey. We wanna build this for generations. We want this to really be around, be sustainable. Let's flip the coin here, Craig, because I wanna know a bad decision.
So I suppose going back to what I've been discussing in terms of a family business, in hindsight, bad decision would have been going directly into the family business. Believe it or not. K? And that's why I can make a comment about, I'm very specific that if my kids wanna come into the business, they've gotta go out into the business world for a couple of years first. So I went straight from university straight into the family business, Yeah.
And in one way, I don't regret it, but in the other way, I do regret it. I don't regret it because I've learned a lot that set me on the path that I'm on. But the flip side is what would I have experienced if I'd gone out into the Wolfe? Would it have made me a stronger, better person? So I think that's probably funny enough. Probably one of my decisions that I do regret. And and I touch Wolfe.
I think my brother and I haven't properly discussed it, but I think these are the similar mind as well. We because my father was even though we had family holidays, there were other times where during your university, I would go up and work in the business for our university holidays. Even Chaz kid, we used to play around in the factory. So the business has always been there. It's always been around us.
Yeah. Even when my father did go on holiday, he did give us his own time, I remember we used to there was a we had drive from the city that we lived in to, well, Hollywood, it was about a 4 hour drive. He had customers along the way. Now bear in mind, you had a full sales team that could do this, but he still took the time off, and these are the little entrepreneurial lessons that are there.
And he still took the time off that on holiday, he would stop by 1 or 2 customers to stick his head in and say hello. I mean, that's probably my one decision if I were to label the biggest Yeah. That I would change. And it's so interesting to me that after all of our conversation about multi generations, this is the topic, but it makes sense. I think our brains, I I even try to correlate this to the listeners here today. Most of them probably started their own thing.
They're not necessarily 2nd generation, although they might be, maybe even 3rd generation, but the reality is that they probably started their own thing. And our brains search constantly to Wolfe, not only problems, but to give us answers of things that are unknown. Our brains don't like the unknown. Right? So we're always trying to fill in the gap. And I think that's the gap for you. You're like, oh, man. I don't it's unknown what would have happened. Exactly. Yeah. Taken a different rally.
So we have that regret or that moment of, oh, man. Because our brains are trying to function in the unknown, but we just can't. And so the maybe the listener right now doesn't relate to that specifically, but they relate to, okay, I opened up a franchise. I I don't really wanna do a franchise anymore. What if I had done my own thing? There's always that grass is greener on the other side Yeah. Potential? What would you say?
Because, obviously, you're not, like, docking on the family business now to go explore those options. What would you say to the listener who has that feeling of, oh, man, should I've done something different? Do they just stay focused on what they're doing? What would you say? I think they're they're they're so there are a couple of expressions on the bottom left. And one of them is regret what you do rather than regretting what you don't do.
So rather make that decision and go, like, at work after you tried it, it didn't work. I'm rather than going, hey, man. I wish I'd done this. I wish I'd done that. And then regret regretting not doing those decision making those decisions or doing those following those choices or whichever. So that's probably what I would say. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting.
I feel the same way because there's moments in my life where we've taken an opportunity, and it's if I don't do this, I know that I'll always look back and be like, man, what if? Yeah. But if we're being honest, especially as multiple generational focused entrepreneurs. It's like what we're trying to teach our children are like, hey. Don't do X Y Z because I've already done that. No. It's like, same thing as, like, a coach. Right?
Like, we go and hire a business coach or we join a mastermind or something like that so we can learn the things not to do. But then as entrepreneurs, It's like we have to do them anyway, at least to a degree. And then as as far as that's also a while to say, do I happen working another business somewhere else?
Because I want somebody I want somebody else to deal with you and your sort of strong personality before you come into the business and tell me what to do after I've been digging for so long. That's right. That's right. Mesi, now they hit motivation comes up. I've got an 8, a 6, a 3, and a 9 week old, and other than the 9 week old, because I don't know, other 3, I'm telling you they're strong already. And I'm like, jeez.
How am I gonna I'm trying to I'm trying to mold these mines and build them up so that they are strong, but someone Like you said, I don't need you coming in here, but at the same time, there's another generation. There's a whole new way of doing things. There's this huge balance of next generation. So I love all of this. I we could just go hours and hours. Tell me about a process that you have now. We've talked about a good and bad decision from previously.
How do you decide on things now that you've been uber successful? I suppose every year at the beginning of the year, I always I've been doing this for a long time. I set my goals for the year, besides what I wanna do in the next 2 to 3 years, 4 years. I set my goals for the year, and I write them down. I write them down as as visible as I can. And finally, I was listening to a podcast the other day with a guy a South African called rule of. In America, you pronounce that rule of with her.
But, anyway, he's a and he does the exact same thing. And it's he's a venture capitalist to Sequoia Capital. And we're talking about 1,000,000,000 of dollars. And he said, like, what he used to do was when he started Sequoia Capital, he had on his notepad, 10 to the power of 9, which was in order to be partner, he knew he had to make contribute a $1,000,000,000 in returns. Wow. And so that writing down of the goals is very important for me.
And it's funny because it's a process that I'm always still amazed with. I look at my whiteboard, and I've I have a home office, and I have an office somewhere else. And I have the similar goals written down on both boards. And when I'm talking to my staff, I find myself 6 months 6 months in if I'm working certain company goals in, and they don't have to be financial. One of my goals this year is work hard and not smarter. It's a simple goal. And how do we make decisions around it?
I need to make sure our internal communication is better because I don't want that person working, because somebody has a communicator property. And so I found myself talking even now this year, talking through various things, and I had to say, look, there it is on the board. That's part of that goal. That we gotta keep working towards. Yeah. So I think writing down goals is very important and visualizing them and having them in front of you all the time.
Because then you base your decisions on that. That's good. That's good. I'm gonna go switch over to the speed round here. I'm gonna come at you in a little different angle on some questions. Want you to take your business or businesses. Really, it's applicable to all of this, but I want you to dwindle them down into one trackable metric. If there was only one metric that you could track forever and ever, it was just the 1. What would it be? Profitability. Very simple. You can chase turnover.
You can have $10,000,000 in turnover and have zero profit. Yeah. If your company is not profitable, if you're doing $10,000,000, or a $1,000,000 or cover a 100,000. But do you have a business? Yes. As planted it would be. Yeah. A big organization that doesn't value isn't valuable. Exactly. Yeah. K. What book would you recommend, Craig, for a 6 figure business owner? Trying to get to that 7 figure mark. Pitch anything by all in class of years.
I wrote down a number of years ago, and it's funny enough, a 1000 with a couple So there's another guy that I follow also is Simon Semic. Okay. Yeah. And I think the the various things that if you I I believe the principle of the what's the golden circle? I don't know if you heard about Chaz, is why, how, and what, and they're based on very similar principles. That's awesome. How does a 6 figure business owner apply that principle in their business today? Do you think? Very simple.
Firms down to goal setting. So figure out what your goals are and don't like, I I had to rewatch that time, listen, like, video and watch as many as gonna watched a couple times and figure out what your goals are. My goals are shouldn't be just financial. Yeah. Because The financial part is a result of what your goal is. My goal is I want my customers to be happy. That's my goal. That's my ultimate goal in the business. And it's not what we sell. It's not what we do.
But from that, if I make sure my staff are happy, they're gonna make sure my customers are happy. If my customers are happy, guess what? We're gonna be profitable, and we'll continue to grow. We'll continue to get business. So it all trickles down to that bottom line, which is you wanna be profitable. Right. But you gotta figure out Chaz goal that doesn't relate to profits, if that makes sense.
Yeah. Yeah. There's gotta be something unique that's connecting everybody together Chaz far as the mission goes. There's gonna be something emotional. Yeah. Because when you're selling yourself to your staff and to your clients, Again, I don't wanna deal with price. Anybody can deal. Anybody can be cheaper than you. I want them to connect with us. And my staff after this, I have to have that same emotional with the staff. They have to believe in what we're doing.
So, again, that they're passionate about the company. Whether we do talking about our cleaning business or or bathroom butler, they gotta be passionate about the business and conveying that message to the customers. Whether it and I don't mean verbally conveying it, I just mean in what they do, making sure Chaz, as we said, you being the best that you want what you wanna be. Yeah. That's right. Okay. My next question, what do you think about networking or master mining with other entrepreneurs?
I think very important. I think learning from everybody's successes and most importantly, everybody's mistakes, I still I think my father is a very successful person. Very grateful for what he's passed on to us, but at the same time, I will try and analyze and look at his mistakes So I don't make those mistakes, whether it's personal or business, and some of them are intertwined, but that's very important. Yeah. We were talking about networking 4.
We popped on here as far as just popping on podcasts and meeting people. You coming from another country. Right? You starting a business over here, obviously, it was an extension of a current business, but then and then you purchased a brand new business. I can't imagine that you had that many contacts when you came here. We didn't, and we're still in the process of growing the other business. I will, I think for us, we're I would still consider us a small family business.
Yeah. I always say that we're I always have the analogy. We're like about awkward teenager. Shit. We're still learning, especially the bathroom side. We're still learning that has been very difficult. Funny enough, the cleaning business has been easier to grow than the bathroom side clearly because also our model on the bathroom side has been completely different. We're doing we're going online here. Whereas previously, we'd be doing it face to face with retailers and distributors Sure.
So it has been very different, and it hasn't been easy. But then again, growing the business is not meant to be easy. Yeah. Yeah. I guess. I think one of the other expressions I also have looked easy come, easy go. In other words, if you make a lot of money easily, quickly, you can lose it very easily and quickly, and it goes back to a story of patients. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Alright. Last question here for you. If you lost it all, Craig, what would you do?
Since you're looking for other opportunities, you're just that's in my nature, we have to continuously look for opportunities. Yeah. Start again, and that's life. If life goes and that's ups and downs, and I think we're just fortunate to right now, be consistently on the app. But I understand that it can disappear. And I think as long as you have a strong foundation, which is an important part. Strong foundation be it family or mentally, you can achieve what you wanna achieve That's right.
I think that what you just said there, that inkling of we are on the up up, but, man, this could go away at any moment. It's that healthy nervousness. Chaz I think every entrepreneur keeps it probably keeps us driving that much harder, even, really. Since my father so, like, my father's drive was his parents and their money. Right. And he had to support his parents.
So his draw was he wanted, and it was like, he always spoke to us about this, and that was that He didn't wanna retire having to live off his kids. And that the you talk about that nervous energy. That's what pushed him, and that drove him. We have a slightly, maybe different reasons. We didn't have that experience, but what is our drive? Make sure we can create those experiences that we had as a family for our families. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. I'm curious.
I already said last question, but I got I got another one for you. About your dad specifically. I find myself sharing with my kids because, obviously, my kids are growing up in a completely different life than I did. A group single mom family, not a lot of resources. In comparison to my kids already at a young age, and I'm willing to have a dad, but then number 2, we have lots of resources. And so how from, like, the stories that you're dead, told you.
Did he talk about the difficulty of having to take care of his parents or growing up with no money, or how would how did he get that to translate that over to you because it's perspective of Sure. Something that he had that you didn't. So I don't think it was so much the stories. I think it was because he grew up not having anything, everything that he had evaluated. So a small example, and this is like an experience.
For some reason, this is one of these things that is so important to me just to experience. We he had a sixteen foot boat that we used to wanna ski on. And every holiday, we used to pull that boat out, and we still wash it down. Like, we knew at the beginning of the holiday, we knew that we had a day or 2 of doing stuff around the house. And at the end of the holiday, we had a day or 2 of locking it all up, cleaning everything, putting it all away.
And It sounds simple, but the reality is I think a lot of people who are fortunate and you have money, they hire people to do that. So I think what my father was really good at was saying, like, these are our things. You need to look after them, and you've gotta learn and learn to value and appreciate these sorts of things. Like, I said, we'll pull the boat out and we'll get a thorough clean rather than sending it into some shop and getting them to do half a job.
So it's and it that wasn't the only thing. It was many things around the house. We watched our own cars in South Africa. You you grew up with a lot of help, but he still insisted wash your cars. He said to my brother, you're gonna get a car. And but I understand if you do that, then you need to ferry your brother. I'm I'm the youngest. And so there were rules in in place. So you had to value those sorts of things. So Yeah. I think he was lucky to have us because we respected Chaz.
Yeah. But at the same time, we were very likely to have those situations created and those opportunities created and those experiences. So I think trying to transfer that onto our kids is important. It's not easy. Yeah. Because, yeah, it's teaching them to value everything that you have. You know, easy to buy it off Amazon if something gets broken. That's right. But how do you create those lessons and say, listen, man. You've gotta appreciate these things. You gotta look after it.
Yeah. Now you're a 100% right. They won't have the perspective if they don't go through the experience. And so for us creating those or recreating those opportunities to to have them value the things, even though they don't know what it's like to have without it, like we do Yes. Or that I do and your dad do. But creating those moments so that you can at least understand the value. I I just so appreciate that. Craig, how can the listener find you?
Maybe they're in South Florida, and they need to hire you as a post construction cleanup maybe they just wanna find you, get to know you better. How can they find you? Sure. So our 2 companies, bathroom, the heated towel racks, bathroom, butler, dock construction cleaning is custom touch cleaning.com. My personal Instagram, and I don't laugh at this. My personal Instagram is Macchunky, m a c h UNK y. And that's because I've been since I was thirteen, I've been this 12. I've been the same size.
I had a relatively early grades, but so, yeah, so you can find me on those platforms and feel free to reach out, ask any questions. I enjoy helping. I think it's I enjoy the principal of pay it forward and Yeah. I believe in karma, good energy you put out there. It comes back to you. Yeah. 100%. Well, you've done that here today. You've been extremely valuable. Thank you for your time, stories of, 2nd generation wealth being perpetrated. We appreciate those and just your opportunity.
So blessings on you, your businesses, your family, Thanks for being here. Very much. Thank you. Thanks for listening to Gathering the Kings. We hope you got ton of value today and learn a thing or 2 about taking your business to 7 figures and beyond. If you desire more and want a community around you to help you get there, I want you to go to gathering the 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 intense 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 gathering the king's dot com and apply. And we will see you on the other side.