SPEAKER_00 0:00

To me and a lot of people that I know, it's like it's not even a money thing. Like it's freedom and a sense of accomplishment that you get that you can't match on any job that you would ever have. I would much rather make forty grand a year and have my own business than go back to the corporate world where I was making, you know, mid six figures didn't make me happy. I didn't it doesn't matter at a certain point. Like now you're trading money and you're miserable and your family has to deal with a miserable person. Like that that doesn't really help anybody. That's not the life that I want to live.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

All right, guys, welcome back to another episode of the Brotherhood Beyond Business Podcast. I'm take here today with Keith Klarski, and we're doing it from the Prescott location. We're gonna dive through Keith's life, understanding the different businesses that he's running, and just focusing on his life and him as man. All right. So first thing, Keith, just give me your story of how you I know you're not originally from Prescott, what you did before that, how you came here, and now kind of what you and your family are doing now. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Yeah, so uh I grew up in Southern California and lived most of my life there. Uh we ended up coming out to Prescott to visit some friends who had moved from Pasadena, which is where my wife and I were living, and came out. We were looking for a place to move our family to get our kids out of California. Came here, we visited one time, we're like, this is it, this is the best place we've found. We traveled a lot of places trying to find that right spot. Found it, came here, and we decided, okay, we're selling the house and we're gonna move. Uh at that time I was working, was doing some entrepreneur stuff, and then I was working at UPS doing sales management for them. So um dropped that. That would have been uh 2020.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

It was right after COVID. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Yeah. So we did that, moved, um put an offer and on a house out here, and the rest is history. And you're married with how many kids? I have two kids. Two kids ages. Uh my daughter's nine, my son is five.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

And so talk about the businesses that you're currently running here and how you got into the different businesses. Cause I know your story is a little different than the average entrepreneur story in my opinion. The average entrepreneur, in my opinion, kind of like comes up with an idea and is like, hey, I'm gonna like they're it not only comes, they're probably a technician, right? They're a technician that's like, hey, I can probably turn this into a business. Sure. Whereas for you, I feel like you can keep your your path in in in prescape's been a little bit different than that.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Yeah. I mean, I tried my hand at entrepreneurship through starting something, and I had a couple of things like that that never really panned out. My entrance into business ownership here was purchasing an existing business, which is Rutamuk, which was a dog boarding and daycare facility. And that one was not performing that well. I basically bought it for the price of the building and then came in and made the adjustments that I needed to to make that a viable standalone business. And that's how it is operating now. Like it's a great business. Our customers love it. So that's kind of how I got started with that. That rolled into me partnering with one of my current business partners and finding other dog locations to buy. So I just started cold calling other kennels in town and found somebody who was willing to sell, and we rolled that into that's how we bought our second locations.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Yeah, and that's how I actually ran across you. Is like I was we would we used Run and Muck originally, and then we moved to Chino, and that was just too far to come all the way over to Run and Muck. Um, and then you guys said, I think you just purchased, is it Hampa? Haciampa. I can never Haciampa. Yeah, I said just purchases Haciampa. And so that's when we started taking our dog Duke there. I think one time you were sitting at the front desk running, just talking to somebody, whatever. Um, and I was like, I just love the customer service that you guys provided at like it's you know, and our dog loved it and all that kind of stuff. And it's like for us, as not having kids, that's our kid right now. Sure. Okay, well, whoever takes the best care of our kid. Um, so I love the customer service that you I don't know what it looked like before that point because I obviously never seen it before that point. But what you guys have done, that's when I reached out to you is like, hey, you're running a really good system, in my opinion, because all the businesses that I run are completely built on the customer service. Like we we have technician things we do, like we own a gym, uh marketing company. Um, and those things are we well, our customer service, WordPress customer service is what I truly believe is the most important thing. So when I saw you guys were doing that, I was like, okay, that's pretty awesome that you guys are doing that. And then I found out I didn't even know at that time I even that you worked or owned Titan's.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Yeah, and then we we ended up finding another partner and we purchased uh commercial landscape company and a uh pest control and weed spraying company. And then we do a couple of other things. We build houses and uh communities too. So we're trying to do a bunch of different things and um they've all worked out well for us. But to your point, the common theme throughout all of it that I've found is that customer experience. Uh you can call it customer service whatever you want. It's like when that customer comes in, they're gonna give you money, or when you run into that customer uh throughout your day, they're paying you to provide whatever service it is, and you need to make sure that their experience is great. Any chance that you can make their day better, we need to take that opportunity and do that for them. Um, because it's easy for us to, you know, we're in a in our job or doing what we're doing every day. It's easy to get that the customers are so important. And we like I try to make my staff like aware of like every time you do something, put yourself in the customers' shoes. And how would that be perceived if you were on the receiving end of this interaction? Is that how you would want to be treated if you were coming into somebody's location? So I think just changing how people view what their interaction with the customer is is so important to the product that our consumers end up getting.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Yeah, I think uh I would say for young entrepreneurs, that's probably you you're so you're in such a hurry to get new clients because you have no clients, right? Yeah. And so it's just like new, new, new, and you almost like you just kind of like not even worried about the people that you did get. You're just chasing new. And I do think when you're early on a business, it kind of has to be the equation because you got to have enough to make revenue. But then there's gotta be a point when all businesses flip the switch where it's like, well, actually, retention of our current client, I think from beginning is always the most important thing. Sure. But for new new people's like that retention size, like we do a really good experience from day one. We're gonna keep this person, you know, for landscaping, it could be for years, you know, like you could be keeping them for years on this kind of thing. And so it's like, how long can you keep this customer or get this customer for coming back? I know yesterday I did that podcast with uh uh hair by Joey, and he had talked about the fact that like when he gets somebody cutting his hair, I could keep them for 30 years, you know, if I'm 30 years old. So the idea is that customer service is the most important or our customer experience, the most important thing because we want to keep them coming back. For sure. So I like that you already that you have that built into your philosophy. But I think a lot of young entrepreneurs missed that because they're always chasing another new customer when the revenue is you got to keep that base revenue, or even you can take your current clients and increase the revenue through them by offering them more services.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Yeah, or I mean, some of the biggest companies that I know when I talk to the owners, referrals are some of their biggest lead sources. And that's a free thing that you can get from somebody just by giving them the experience that they're looking for. So it's not just that they're gonna be willing to spend more money with you and continue to stay with you. To your point, like all of our businesses have an opportunity for us to interact with that customer for years. And we want to be able to provide the service where they want to keep coming back to us for years. But yeah, it's just it's so important to not forget. Like, I know it's scary when you're first starting out, like, man, I really need to go get another customer. I know that this one, the one I've got, is calling me, but I'm in a meeting with somebody else right now. Like, the dollars that you have are the most important. We need to find a way to maximize the experience for the people who've already agreed to work with you. And if you do that, I think in the long term, that success is unmatched.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Completely. It's uh like you said with the referral side, it's like that one person can become three pretty quickly, giving them a great experience. Like that person would be like, go talk to three other people, and that's a quick multiplier. I know Alex Ramosi's big on that multiplier of getting turning one into three. So I love that idea that like you're focusing on this, that great experience, and then also being bold enough to ask for a referral too. Like, hey, oh, we did a great job. Is there somebody else that could you could really benefit from this? Yeah. So, based on that, what would you say are like your two or three differentiators from other landscaping? Well, I mean, you got different businesses from the different businesses that you run. What do you think you you are doing? You can pick one business from the different businesses, and what are the things that you think you do different than other services that have a similar thing in the area?

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Yeah, I mean, it would be different for all of them. Like in the landscaping one, I think the biggest thing is just timeliness and professional communication. If you do that, if you answer your phone, if you respond to emails, if you get bids out to people, you're already going to be different than 90% of the other competitors out there. So if you're providing that, that's the customer experience on that side, right? Like if I need something, can I call you and get it done? So I think that's where we differentiate ourselves on the landscape side. On the dogs, it's really just the experience that the dogs have that we kind of differentiate. Where our two locations provide a different environment for different types of dogs, but both of them give your dog at the end of the day, like our goal is your dog goes home and you don't have to take them out for a walk, right? Like they're completely exhausted, they're good to just go home and lay down, and you are free to do whatever you need to do the rest of the day. And then our people, right, on both on all the businesses. But like if you've got great people that you trust and you delegate the responsibility correctly to and you let them go do what they're best at, they're gonna far surpass what you as an individual could do. So allowing the the team to get out there and interact with the customers and provide the right experience, the dog places, provide the right product and service at the landscape company is really what kind of sets us apart. And we work really hard to make sure that we were bringing in the best people that we can.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Yeah, I we'll use the dog one for an example. So when we lived in Illinois, we always took took our dog to a doggy daycare, but it was probably, I don't know, once every other month. He just didn't seem to really enjoy it. The second we took him to you guys, we run a muck the first time, and he came back. I think it was like the third first time he had to go through like a testing, which is awesome because the first one didn't do that. So it was awesome that he has like a temperament testing kind of thing. Yeah, and then from there he came back like the third time. He was excited to like go instead of before he was always nervous when we dropped off. Sure. And the same thing as the hampa sampa. I was gonna say the other one for yeah. Uh for that one, same thing. He's like, he knows when we're going that direction in the car. He's like super excited about that, which tells me that he loves the experience there.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

And my main differentiator for me was the fact that you guys really let him play a lot more. The other one that we took to, they stick him in a cage every like they go off for 15 minutes and then a cage for like an hour for 15 minutes, and they said that was how you do it. Well, then when I went to you guys, he got a play all day, and then this dog comes back and he's exhausted. I love this. Like, he's not like wanting to play when we get home. And so that was a huge needle mover for us. Like, hey, we can actually take him there more consistently and make it part of our routine to take him. Right. Um, and I love the thing that you said on the landscaping side of things. Actually, in a couple different podcasts I've had this year, multiple people have talked about that side of it where just answering the dar on a phone is a step above 90% of other businesses. The amount of things that have to go to voicemail or the amount of uh questions that don't get returned in a timely manner or quotes or whatever, that's uh sales they talk about. You should, you, you need to uh answer within five minutes of whatever they do. And because they're gonna be moving on to whatever's the next service because they're trying to get an answer relatively quick. And I think a lot of people, businesses struggle with that because either one, they're trying to be the technician and the business owner, or they're just like don't like answering the phone. I think that's pretty common where you know, every uh especially with the new softwares and stuff, everything goes to texting. I'd rather text back and forth. But in a place like Prescott, there's a lot of older people that still just want to do a phone call. And I think that's a hard thing. I know Joey on the our podcast the other day has said that he's like, it's amazing how many people, like he's the person that still answers the phone a lot there. And he's like, it's just amazing how they just want to have like a you know five-minute conversation while we're setting up their hair right now. Sure. People just want somebody to talk to too. So I do think that is a differentiator that's so simple. It's like just running your business. Yeah, taking advantage of the fact you actually got a lead, convert that lead. Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Yeah, and uh you know the thing I don't like about text is so much it can be misconstrued through a text. Like you could misunderstand the customer's tone, or the customer could misunderstand your response to that. A phone call, I think, is much better to, especially with like something that's a lot more detailed. But just any time that you can talk to somebody on the phone when you're talking about your customers, I think you should take that opportunity. You you never know what that conversation is gonna turn into. And every time that you do, you're building a little bit of trust with that customer. And that's probably what Joey's talking about. Like, yeah, I'm just getting my haircut, but I also want to know before I go in there, am I gonna like this person? Are they gonna like how you treat me on the phone is a pretty good indicator of how you're gonna treat me when I show up? So those are all just little opportunities to me to be able to prove to your customers like that you are different, that you are gonna do what you say you're gonna do, and that you do pride yourself on providing a great experience for them.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

I think the what you said there about tone, I think about when I write emails back to clients and they email, I'm very specific on making sure I'm writing with a tone and like making using certain things, like either laughing inside of there if it's because sometimes when you email back as customer service to them, like let's say something went wrong with the software. So they're using our software, something goes wrong with the software, and all of a sudden they they might be upset when they said the thing. Well, I want to come, I want to come back with a happ as much of a happy tone as I can create inside of an email, which is super hard to do in text, you don't have enough. Email, I try to always create that happy tone because I am when I read their email, I like sometimes get like, oh man, I get my my heart rate gets elevated because like there's something that went wrong. But the idea is like I don't know their tone or anything. They might just wrote a quick email that had no tone to it at all. If I do like how you said that is like texting for sure, it creates tone email has a specific tone to it that you don't understand. You can, I can make it a little bit better, but it's so much only so much I can do. So we actually shoot a lot of Loom videos, like video recordings of stuff to send back to our customers. A lot of our customers like to send via email because they don't have time to jump on a phone. Sure. So we just send back a lot of loom. I'll just respond in a Loom video because I want to create that like, hey, you know, oh, there's no big deal. We'll fix this real quick. Here's how I'm gonna fix it real quick on this Loom video, just to add that happy tone so that person feels instantly satisfied, but then like, oh, cool, like this is a quick fix and there's no big deal.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Yeah, like I said, both ways, it's it's easy to just forget like the people that are reaching out to you are also busy. Like they may just be sending something quick. It may not even be an issue to them, but then you've got yourself all worked up, like, man, I gotta do something, I gotta make sure that they're happy. And that may have not even been what the issue was. But so that's why I think phone or in person, if you can do it, goes a long way.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Yeah, it's I mean, if you just take into account like the a text between you and the wife. Like I think about text between me and my wife, it's like sometimes like I don't even mean to put tone into it. I'll just like answer real quick and it'll be misconstrued on her side. Well, are you upset about something? Like, no, not at all. Like, what do you read? What are you reading? But her perspective might have been like the elevation of her, what she was doing at the time might have read that text from that's just between some people that love each other, not not something I don't even really know.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

For sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Dive into your family life a little bit. So I know when we first talked about it, that being a yeah, uh, your family life is really important into what you're doing in life. And I think even when we were talking the first time we talked, it was like it's kind of like why you do what you do and business wise, right? Yeah, doing that stuff more to build up your the the life for your family than even being like, oh man, I love running these specific businesses, right? It's more like, hey, I'm building business and it's it's fun because building business marketing is fun, but it's also like I'm doing this specifically to build up my family.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that society's lied to a lot of people and told them, you know, go chase your dreams, excuse me. Which I think is a fine thing to do, but you've also got to provide for your family. And yeah, part of the reason that I'm doing this is so that I can show my kids a certain skill set that I never had and never got shown to me, and I had to go out and learn, and you know, I can shorten the time span on them learning it by years, and then also to provide the quality time with them that I want. Like when I was working for somebody else, you don't get freedom of when you want to go on vacation or when you want to go home or just meet them up for lunch. Like you're on somebody else's time. And so you've got to be cognizant of that. Now whenever I want to meet up with the kids or my wife, like we just do it, and I don't have to worry about is somebody you know gonna be upset. At the end of the day, the deliverables are on me. I know what I need to get done to uh and what I need to execute to get the business where it's supposed to go. I'm gonna do those things and I can fit that around the time that my family needs me as well. You know, because that's a to me, all of this is nothing if my family is upset that I'm doing it.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Yeah, that's uh the entrepreneurial trap. Uh well, I talked about it like I heard one person say this in a meeting I was in one time. He said the reason sometimes he dives so much in the business is it's the only area where he feels like the superhero because he doesn't feel like at home he can be the superhero. And I remember that conversation being like, well, why don't you feel like you'd be the superhero at home? You should that should be the one place you can be the superhero. Um, but the idea was with business, you get the instant reward of the profit or something, you know, uh you get a metric that moves life forward, right? And at home, it's it's really in certain ways delayed profit. I mean, like what you talk about, like these I'm teaching my kids things along the journey that maybe we won't even come to fruition for 10 years from now. But I'm building their character and the moments aren't always perfect. Some are amazing, the hugs and and the things we do are amazing in the moment, but they're not always as instantly rewarding as businesses. But it's like, I mean, from a faith perspective, it's literally what God put us on earth to do, right? It's to like multi go go out and multiply, right? And to build and lead others. And it's like we can go out and lead communities, we can lead businesses and that kind of stuff, but if you can't lead your own family and do that kind of stuff, well, what was the purpose of all the things you're doing? At least from a faith perspective, you're not going down the right path or the direct path that that God probably puts you on the path to do. So I love that you have that perspective. As a I I always kind of pigeon this back to like uh young entrepreneurs as they they learn this kind of stuff. Oh, when you first start business, sometimes you have to be all in, right? You just gotta be all in because the business needs it, because that's how start creating that providing for the family. But you've got to know when that cutoff time is, when it's no longer outweighs the time spent, right? Because conceptually it's like you can always there's always gonna be another metric to chase. There's always gonna be more profit to do, there's always gonna be something more you can build, tidy business, buy new businesses. But if they take away from your core values, which is spending time with your family, that kind of stuff, then what's the point of adding another business or adding another project onto your plate if it's gonna pull away from those things? So go all in for a period of time. I can't tell you based on what your business is, well, how that period would be, but I can tell you there is gonna be a point when you need to flip the switch. And usually it's hopefully you can do some of that before you have kids, so that you don't have to have to wait your kids 10 years old before you can flip the switch. Which would when for you do you feel like from always from the beginning, were you able to flip that switch, being like, hey, I'm all I'm able to like balance this, or when did balance start? I don't even know balance the right word, harmony between the two make sense.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

Yeah, I mean, I think for the landscape one was probably the longest one, but there was just so much for me to learn. Like, I think there's there is a part of it where like you're doing yourself and your family and your business a disservice if you don't understand it, right? So you've got to do some long days and sacrifices to make sure that you understand what's going on. As soon as I get to that point and I know what I need to start delegating and what like what processes we need to put in place or what needs to be fixed, that's when I can really start to step back. So I I don't know what the time like time frame is different on any business that you're gonna look at or own. Recognizing, like, okay, I now I know what is going on. I know enough to fix these things. I don't need to be here 18 hours every single day from sunup till sundown and have no time for anything else. Like you're always gonna be able to find work to do to stay busy as a business owner, right? And so you really have to prioritize like, is this busy work that I feel like I need to do, or is this stuff that the business doesn't move forward if I don't do it? And like that comes just with, like I said, time of being in the business and understanding. But I think most of it you'll find you can delegate and you can create processes for that will free you up immensely and give you the time and flexibility to do stuff that you want to do. And then if you are staying in your business, you know, 12 hours a day, I think that's a choice that you're making and you're probably not making the right choice because you have it prioritized and figured out. Okay, what am I actually doing that moves this forward?

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Yeah, I think that's where the gurus get us all confused. You know, like with the YouTube stuff of like Elon Musk working 24 hours in a row or Alex Thermozzi like not having kids because he wants him and his wife want to build the world's biggest business. Like, that's cool. That's their goals. But I would say that's like a 2% goal. I would say majority of humans, specifically men, are probably wanting to build a family and build they're they're building a business for their family, not to become a billionaire, right? Um, but we get stuck in the guru trap where the gurus are like, well, you got to do this to build and make this much money. But like, I mean, I think most people I talk to, it's like most men don't even have like a specific target. I need to make this much money a year. I don't you might even be like, I just need I I know roughly what the metric is. What I need my hand, my family would be in a really good place. Anything above and beyond that is great. However, if it sacrifices for my other goals, like it's just not there. But the gurus tell you like just keep going after more because the more you make, the more opportunities.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

For sure. Yeah. Yeah. And to me and a lot of the people that I know, it's like it's not even a money thing. Like it's freedom and a sense of accomplishment that you get that you can't match on any job that you would ever have. I would much rather make 40 grand a year and have my own business than go back to the corporate world where I was making, you know, mid six figures. Just it did it didn't make me happy. I didn't, it didn't doesn't matter at a certain point. Like now you're trading money and you're miserable and your family has to deal with a miserable person, like that that doesn't really help anybody. That's not the life that I want to live. But yeah, I think it people have like a number in their head, but really the thing that moves most of these businesses forward, I think, is just an internal drive to do things different and do things that you want to do and have a great company, have a great culture with your people. Like those things, I think when you stop worrying about the money and you can just focus on what why am I here? Why am I doing these things? Then everything else starts to become a little easier and and the money flows easier from my experience. Like you focus on the stuff that is important, focus on what you need to do to move the needle and let the rest be noise. Like you can't control a lot of the stuff anyway, so don't even worry about it.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

Yeah, that's that's perfect. That's the little trap is the fact that you can work forever, that you can literally do whatever you want. For sure. But it's like not the reason anybody got on. And I think almost everybody that got into entrepreneurship want to create flexibility, more than even financially flexibility, just like flexibility. None nobody takes advantage of the thing that they they have something they can create, the flexibility you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

And it it can create the flexibility to the lifestyle that you want to live. And everybody's lifestyle is different, right? You don't have kids, it might be okay. I want to like, I'm okay with working evenings, but I want the middle of my day to like spend time with my wife. If you have kids, like hey, probably while they're in school is the only time I want to work and I want to be off for their sports. Entrepreneurship's cool in that way. We don't have somebody saying you have to work these specific hours or if you don't want to get paid this stuff. But it's a trap because we as soon as you get into it, you're like, oh man, now I've I could work all these hours and it's setting those boundaries that's important. How has your wife along this journey helped out with creating the values and setting the core values for your family?

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Yeah, I mean, she I mean, she's the um a huge driver of what the the core values of the family are, right? Because she's the one that is with the kids most of the day. We um do a mostly homeschool program for our kids, so they're learning from her all day, you know, working through the stuff. But she also um you know she does a great job when they're out and about in town. I'm making sure that she makes time to come meet up with me wherever I am so that the kids can see like throughout the day. And that it's just like a habit for them now. Like they know they get to see dad whenever you know they're around and I'm around. And I think as they grow older, they'll appreciate that. Like most kids don't get that experience. They don't get to just leave school and go find wherever dad's working and go say hi to them or grab lunch with them, you know. So she does a good job of reinforcing that and then also reinforcing the why of what I'm doing. So when there are days where something comes up and I've got to be gone in a time where I'm normally there, right? Because that does happen. I don't want to make it seem like I have complete control, and if something came up, I could just say no. Like there's some things that I have to go do, and there's times that it falls in a time where I'm normally not doing it, but this is what the customer or the business or the people need, and so I'm gonna go do it. Uh and she does a great job of explaining to the kids why it's so important and what is like hinging on me being successful, which is, you know, uh 50 or so families of people that work for us that are relying on me to move this business forward and keep giving them opportunities to raise their families. Uh, that's a big burden, and the kids are starting to understand, like, okay, dad gets a lot of flexibility, but there's also a lot of responsibility that goes along with that.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

I think that's uh we touched on there with the burden of other people's families that I think people don't realize that entrepreneurs have it's uh it's awesome because you get to provide, but it's also a big stress. My dad has a pretty big corporation and he has a lot of employees. And the thing that he always talks when they're young, and I love that you in this that journey is the fact that like when he would talk to things, he's like, I gotta make sure that these guys are provided for. And he tells told us that a lot when we're kids, like, my responsibility is not just to bring anymore, it's just to bring home money for you guys, it's also to provide for these guys. And if somebody loses their job because I didn't do what I was supposed to do, yeah. I always thought that was being taught that from a young age was really important to where my journey ended up as I got older. All my siblings run that corporation and I own my own businesses. So we all have that like entrepreneurship in our life, and we're all responsible for employees. And it's good to know that like that's a way we you're taking care of the community, but also if people don't re realize it, that the owners I think sometimes employees just think like the paycheck. They don't think about the burden that the owner's going through to make sure that I keep getting this paycheck. And I think that's something that is overbooked a lot.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Yeah. Yeah. I also don't, I mean, I certainly didn't when I was working for people, but you know, understand that most business owners, uh a good business owner is gonna care about that too. And it's not like you're not just a number, especially on a small business, like you're not just a number, like maybe I don't get to talk to you every day, right? But I'm doing my best to make sure that you still have a place to come and work. And I, you know, appreciate, I know they're doing the same, right? They're coming to help us grow, and I appreciate that. But there's a lot of stress that goes along with making sure that all these people continue to have the opportunities, and it doesn't just happen, right? Like I think it's easy to look at what's any business is going through and be like, okay, well, you know, like it's just going. No, that's not just moving. Like somebody's driving that business forward, somebody's winning new accounts, somebody's doing something different to continue to grow and provide those opportunities. It doesn't just happen by chance.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

Yeah, I I heard um my sister was telling me about one an employee that was complaining to her that I could be doing the other employee's job and and making their money too, and is like, is a salesman, right? Everybody always thinks salesmen are doing nothing because they are sitting behind a computer, right? Um, this is somebody back in the factory kind of thing. And she had to take there's that moment where it's like, do you realize like the fact that if he makes three sales this week, it pays for your salary for most of the year? You get to keep your job because of this. And that's the same, like that's a sales. Then you have the CEO or whatever on top of that that's like, hey, I'm making sure all these salesmen stay in business. And I think it's so tough. I've been in entrepreneurship pretty much my whole life. I've never worked for anybody but my dad. But I when I took over his corporation, I was a vice president right away. So I didn't really work, he wasn't even involved at that time. So I've never really had that experience of working for somebody else. So I never the idea is like, I don't know if I ever thought if that person was taking care of me or not. But I always have thought about that from day one is the fact that, like, hey, like every single moment of the day, the thing I affect affect everybody else in this business. And so me being the best version of myself really helps out with that. And it's just, I just think a lot of people in the community need to realize that all entrepreneurs out here are making it so all communities are moving forward because that's the only way. I mean, bit no business can run without I mean, unless you're a government-based business, that's coming from our taxes. So, like, it's still like realistically being small business entrepreneurs are paying the majority of the taxes. So, realistically, our whole society as Americans is built on small business entrepreneurs. And I just think people need to realize that there's we are supporting the community a ton.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing is like the business owners that I know and talk with, we all have the same goal of like, we want to grow our businesses and we want to grow the opportunities within our business so that people can have great jobs and raise their families comfortably. Like, I don't think that gets talked about a lot because you can't really convey that to an average person, but business owners care about providing opportunity, upward mobility, and a place where people are enjoy working and are happy and can provide for their families. So it's easy to forget that and you know think that they're just out to make money. A lot of them that I know aren't that way, and a big part of the uh reason why they're doing it is to provide things back to the community.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

Yeah, I think uh my dad talks about this a lot with that. Is he's like he's always has opportunities for people, but he also expects people to raise themselves into those opportunities. And that's I think a lot of uh employees kind of struggle with that concept is like there's these opportunities for you to do it, but I'm not just gonna pull you up to those and give you a higher salary. You've got to earn your way up those steps up that ladder. But I do think you're right. Most entrepreneurs are like, hey, I would love to have more salesmen, I'd love to have you come from the ground up and become a marketing person for our company. You've just got to earn your way into that path. Take that because from an entrepreneur perspective, every person that levels up technically should level up your business, right? If you level up a new salesman, that person's gonna bring in this much more money for your business. And so it's like, hey, we would love to level up every single person in this business because we'll all that that does is just it brings up higher platform margins that we can then reinvest in the business. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

Or it may some people make the decision that, okay, I'm gonna move somebody up, and it's not gonna improve the bottom line of the company, but it's gonna give them an opportunity and it'll free up time for me. If that's another decision, then that's not always that's not just okay, uh, I'm doing this because I'm making more money. It's like, okay, I'm doing this because there's multiple people that benefit from this opportunity coming to fruition for this person. But the other thing that you talked about, like the opportunities are there, people just don't take it. Like, I'm not gonna force somebody into another role, right? Like there's spots there, you can see them, you can see where the teams need help. Somebody's gonna step up and fill that role, but it's not gonna be because I went and told them you need to go do this. Do you want to be, if you express to me that you want to move up, okay. Now you know the opportunities, you find a way to help out these areas where there's help that needs to be had, and you'll find yourself in a better spot for it. I'm not gonna force that on somebody though.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

Yeah, I don't remember. I think it was Andy Fascilla who runs that he has a company, uh podcast called Breal AF. And what he talked about is he's always looking for people to become their personal best. And by showing me you're doing your personal best, that's how you move up in a business. He's like, it's just like you're the person that might pick up garbage that was on the ground. It would just, you just you just show, if you show up every day to your business with your personal best, people, the entrepreneurs, the CEOs of the company will notice those things. Yeah. I think most people kind of forget that is they don't show up every single day. If they I mean, people that do usually do get rewarded for it, but if you don't show up every your best every single day, it's a choice. You can make a choice to show up your personal best, show up your personal best long enough, somebody will notice, and that moves you up in a business.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

Yeah. Yeah. And also like if you're not doing, I've seen it with employees and business owners alike. It's like if you're not doing your best, not only does everybody recognize that you're probably should be doing more and aren't, right? Like, but you also, as you're an individual, you don't feel good about yourself. Like you don't feel good about the job that you're doing, even if you're doing a good job at whatever the current job is that you have, but if you've got aspirations to be doing more and you're not taking steps to do anything about that, you're not going to be a great employee. You're not going to be a great person to be around because you're not going to be happy with what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

Exactly. So in this, in the Brotherhood, we talk about business, life, and legacy is a third thing we talk about a lot. When we talk going through the things you talked about, I think there's obviously the business legacy and there's personal legacy. Just talk to me a little bit like what is your legacy that you want to either leave your kids or latency doesn't mean like what's the lat the end of the thing, but what you're trying to build by your journey.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Yeah, I mean for my family, I'm just trying to show my kids that anything is possible, that they could do whatever they want, that nobody can stop them, that the whole world is open to whatever your imagination can come up with, you can do. I do I I don't know if my kids are gonna want to do anything entrepreneurial. Like they may be perfectly happy with going to work for somebody, and I would be totally fine with that. But I don't want it to be because I didn't provide them the tools and the knowledge and a roadmap of how to do something on their own if they wanted to. So yeah, family-wise, it's just really showing them the framework and what it's gonna take to do these things if they want to do it.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

Yeah, I think so. Think about like the AI revolution we're in right now. The way I think about AI for younger people is you can think about it, hey, I'm good, life is easier for me now. Or I think about it, at least I've used it so far in my life, to be like, I can learn things so much faster now. I mean, I can level up myself. And so I think of these younger kids, my wife's a teacher, and so a lot of them are just using it like they have ways of uh to like do it through school, right? Ways to cheat their way through school. Um, and if they're young enough, sometimes you just don't realize at that point in life. But like as you get older, it's like when you talk about with your kids, it's like it's the cool part for that generation that's coming up is you can learn anything. You're already teaching that your kids, but you can learn anything, you can do anything you want in this world, you but you also you get the choice to do anything you want in this world. You don't have to, you don't have to become a millionaire or a billionaire, you don't have to run businesses, you could be the world's greatest artist. Right. But the idea is like everything's at your fingertips to learn whatever you want. And I think that's kind of cool. I I would imagine, you know, talking to my dad going through when he was growing up, um, they didn't have that person that that concept that you can do anything you want, right? And we're probably in our generation, has been a little bit more. We could do college, you could go to college, do whatever you want, kind of thing. But I don't know if it was truly when you go to college, specifically pathwise, is like you're kind of stuck on that path a little bit. Never now it feels like, man, I with the technology and YouTube and all the things out there is like it's an endless possibility.

SPEAKER_00 35:59

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, you could you can find any business. There's so many ways to make money. Like just put your mind to it and you'll figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Well, thanks for the podcast today. Thanks for talking today. All right, guys, thanks for listening to this episode of the Brotherhood Beyond Business Podcast. Talk to you later. I appreciate it. Hit subscribe, turn on notifications, and stay locked in. Brotherhood is more than business. It's about leading from the front, leveling up in every domain, and becoming the CEO of your own life. Step up, execute, and we'll see you in the next one.