Unarmored Talk

When an Army Squad Leader Trades his Rifle for a Business Plan

• Mario P. Fields - Sergeant Major (Ret.) • Episode 149

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What happens when an Army infantry squad leader swaps his rifle for a business plan? 

In this episode of Unarmored Talk, I sit down with veteran entrepreneur Matthew Kemp to hear how he went from leading combat missions in Baghdad to building two thriving businesses.

Matthew shares how he defied the odds—finishing college in under three years, navigating corporate America, and ultimately breaking free from layoffs and cold calls to launch his own staffing firm during one of the toughest economic climates. His story is packed with real lessons on risk, resilience, and the freedom that comes with entrepreneurship.

👉 Connect with Matthew on LinkedIn or follow Red 7 Strategy Group. https://www.redsevensg.com/

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Mario P. Fields:

Welcome back to Unarmored Talk Podcast. Thank you so much for listening and watching each episode and continue, please, to share with your friends and family members and colleagues, and don't forget to leave a rating or review if you feel this is an awesome show. And you can connect to all of my social media on the Parade Deck Just look in the show notes. Media on the parade deck just look in the show notes. Or you can put in the search engine Mario P Fields parade deck and get all access to my social media. Well, let's get ready to interview another guest who is willing to remove their armor to help other people and everyone. Welcome back to Unarmored Talk podcast. I'm still your host, mario P Fields, and today, in a few minutes, I'll have another guest coming on the show willing to remove their armor to help people develop an accurate way of thinking. You guys know the deal, all of us that were born as humans. We are born with emotions, but to think unless you're insane is a choice. Before we get to our amazing guest, again, thank you everyone as we rapidly approach five years in production, but the biggest part of this on armor talk podcast and my youtube channel and all the social media content that's created with the help of amazing guests and amazing fans like you all. If you listen, if you know you're a listener or you watched the video on the youtube channel, is all of the money raised in the last five plus years for Still Serving Incorporated Again. I think by 2026, I'll get that button. I'll raise enough money to get one of those special buttons. And so thank you so much Over 30, almost approaching $40,000 that have been donated to students in Pitt County, the two schools we've adopted, and also the money raised on the audio and video from an Armored Talk podcast. So again, thank you everyone.

Mario P. Fields:

But today we have Matthew Kemp. He is a United States military veteran. The branch of service was United States Army. He went from check it out everyone infantry squad leader, the infantry to academics. He went to college right after the infantry. What a transition. And then from there he went to corporate United States of America. We'll just say global environment, corporate America, we'll use that metaphor. And then from there, he became an entrepreneur and a business owner. You guys know the metaphor. And then from there, he became an entrepreneur and a business owner. You guys know the deal. They are fundamentally different. But you're looking at Matt, who's achieving this entrepreneurship and business owner all in one. Welcome to the show man.

Matthew Kemp:

Hey, thanks for having me.

Mario P. Fields:

No, I am honored. And what you guys don't know is last time with him and I had a discovery meeting. Before I got off I said go, go go, navy.

Matthew Kemp:

Hell as old as time.

Mario P. Fields:

Yeah, man, I'm telling you. Well, can you do me a favor, tell the listeners and viewers just a little bit about Matt Kemp.

Matthew Kemp:

Yeah, absolutely so. I grew up in Montana there were two there. You know like a lot, of, a lot of folks had that crossroads of like. You know what the hell am I supposed to do now? Traveled for a little bit, realized that I needed to, you know, channel something. You know I was just kind of working, working odd jobs here and there, and then decided that college and you know kind of the marketing and advertising industry is what I wanted to do.

Matthew Kemp:

You know I I look back at who I thought I was, you know, at 18. And then at you know, 21, after my first deployment and 24, after my second deployment. It's like you change a lot in such a short amount of time but you really don't notice until you, you know, you look in hindsight. So you know I was in the corporate world for about a decade and then, right before I turned 40, I realized that I never wanted to make a cold call again, I never wanted to be on the cusp of another layoff again, I never wanted to be out of control of, you know, my, my family's, financial wellbeing.

Matthew Kemp:

And whenever I look back through my career in, you know, sales, advertising, marketing, corporate staffing, working for, you know, large conglomerates, I realized that you're not in control of any of that. So that's that's kind of my character arc coming into entrepreneurship from whenever I started my corporate staffing firm early last year probably one of the worst economic climates to do for that industry there. But I'm a baptism by fire type of guy. And then you know, through the success and you know the progress that I've made with that, you know that's fired up a veteran assistance and strategy firm to kind of help other veteran small business owners follow my playbook a little bit so they can, they can go that path of least resistance.

Mario P. Fields:

Yeah, I you know. A lot of times, matt, I will get a lot of questions from service members throughout all branches of service that have served in combat arms or the infantry, branches of service that have served in combat arms or the infantry, and a lot of times. Oftentimes they believe that they don't have transferable skills. Do you find? Did you find that you're?

Matthew Kemp:

suffering.

Mario P. Fields:

I mean I'm sorry, serving in the infantry actually created some transferable skills that you're using today. Yeah, Absolutely.

Matthew Kemp:

But back then and I say back then, early 2000s, early 2010s that was a retention strategy of some senior leadership. They would give us the stats on only 10% of veterans that get out and go to college, actually graduate. 2% of your infantry. Those, those numbers are probably wildly off, but I I look back at all that type of top-down communication to you know, to foster re-enlistment, to get folks to stay in. We have a deployment schedule coming up, so sometimes you end up leaving not knowing what that potential that you have is. So I kind of I took the inverse of that and I said I'm going to be part of, you know, the 2% of infantry guys that get out and go to college. And then, once I got there, started to talk to a whole bunch of infantry guys that were also in college who were on track to graduate and just like, hey, I think those numbers were a little off.

Matthew Kemp:

So I think the the big takeaway is you know, don't sell yourself short just because somebody says you're not going to be able to do this or the stats aren't in your favor. Same thing with small business, I mean, you can look at the stats. It's not great. Same thing with marriage you can look at the stats and take a negative outlook on it, but as long as you say no matter what the odds are, even if they're just a little bit in my favor, use that to your advantage, harness that be a part of the 2%. And then, once you get in there, you're like oh, I'm part of the 30% or 50%, you know.

Mario P. Fields:

Matt said they said only only 0.0000% will make it. Matt said oh, I'm that 0. Percent and I love the. Of course I am short, so I literally can't sell myself short. But but, like Matt said, you know, if someone says only one, two percent, then you know what. Be that two percent. And I love how you made that choice. Were there any times during your journey where you said OK what am I doing? Is this right for me? What is right?

Matthew Kemp:

Yeah, a number of times. I'm still going through that right now as a owner of two businesses. So I graduated college whenever I was 29. I started whenever I was 27. As we know, gi Bill covers you for 36 months. I said I can't get out of college with student debt. So I had to burn through it Full class load, full summers. Two years and 10 months, got a degree in mass comm advertising. So that's all great. But I was then a 30-year-old intern at an ad agency.

Matthew Kemp:

That comes with some challenges, going from three years before that, you know, doing multi-unit raids in West Baghdad, to now all of a sudden you know you're going to get stuff, you're putting stuff in the copier and like that's, that's your whole existence. So it's. It was a lot.

Matthew Kemp:

Numerous times in my career I had to look at the short-sighted challenges versus the long-term goals and I always thought of career progression and things like that. But it all even fared me well once I started up my own business to where I now still can look at the long-term you know, short-term challenges, long-term payoff, I mean stuff happens daily to where you know it's very easy on your journey to throw your hands up and you know not really quit, but not be optimistic about what your, what your route is. You know I think we talked about this last time it's like starting a road march with not knowing where your turnaround point is or where your end point is. You're just, it's just going to suck right from the start, and you know why. Why give yourself the added emotional trauma of just trying to do great things whenever you know you can lean on somebody to say hey, here's your turnaround point or here's your end point? So it's something that happened consistently throughout my career, but also now that I'm in charge of my own career. It still hasn't stopped.

Mario P. Fields:

And let's talk about that. You know a lot of times you hear, you know for me, I hear you know, here's the challenges, here's the statistics of becoming a small business owner and the challenges and the barriers. But let's talk about the flip side of that. What are some advantages, matt, that you have experienced, now that you, pretty much, you know, can control your priorities within time and space?

Matthew Kemp:

It's a lot of growth. As a person, you know that's kind of the the, the intangible there, because no one's it's no one's fault but yours if things completely hit the fan, but it's also it's up to you to make it right, to fix it, to get things back on track. So the confidence behind the scenes whenever you're doing great is something that you're not going to get unless it's something you built yourself. Now the antithesis of that things start falling apart. Then you just got to look in the mirror and be like what are we doing? You got to figure it out, let's get this stuff going.

Matthew Kemp:

And then also, you know, with the way things in the economy have gone, you know things have been so crazy. You know, during COVID, post COVID, there's been a ton of layoffs. Like I will never be subject to another layoff again in my life. I don't have to. You know, if somebody else gets an office or some world event happens or something like, how is this going to affect the market? Is, mike, you know all of these what ifs that could be out there that there's never going to be anybody who's in charge of my paycheck to just say, hey, sorry, it's about the numbers, and then chop it off. Now again that there's a risk versus reward there. Uh, I don't have the guaranteed. You know, w-2 paycheck, uh, but they're in lives, more, more risk. So, um, it's, this is the long answer to your short question. There's a number of things, but, um, I think, just having that, once you get comfortable with that control, there's some secondary and tertiary effects of that in such a positive way.

Mario P. Fields:

Yeah, you know, like that clarity, like you mentioned where, okay, you're not a W-2 employee, by the way, you're in Montana. That's the only non-at-will employee.

Matthew Kemp:

Right, well, that's where I grew up. I'm currently in Austin, texas.

Mario P. Fields:

Yeah, yeah, you were born there as soon as you said, Montana, I thought about at-will employment, but how and I love how you talked about the clarity he's provided yeah, there's some other unknowns, but how important was your network and that could be family, friends, a coach when you made this decision to leave corporate America and become a business owner?

Matthew Kemp:

It became increasingly more aware that some of my best friends for the past five to ten years have owned their own businesses and it had never been on my radar that I want to do that because, you know, I worked at an advertising firm. I didn't want to start my own ad agency. That's not something I was passionate about or, you know, wanted to deal with. Uh, and then whenever I got into corporate staffing, like I, it took two years of really getting into the operations to look at my net, like my buddies just kept asking me what are you going to start your own shop? It seems like like it just kind of makes sense. And then finally it just clicked. So I I then had I was looking through the lens of a business owner at that point to look at my network and I was like holy cow, I actually know a lot of folks that are really good in finance, really good at you know raising capital, really good, you know all of these things that they're really great at, like operations experts, that I was like, okay, now I can start asking these folks for help, cause I never needed their, their help from a business standpoint, cause we were, you know, in different industries or you know things like that. So now that I was just in the same realm as a business owner like we have payroll vendor talks and you know, insurance cost discussions and you know it just it didn't change the friendship but we were just changing the conversation.

Matthew Kemp:

So now, once I started my business, I wanted to lean into all types of mentorship, all types of education, b2b networking groups. So then I'm talking to other business, to business owners that are having the same challenges with the downturn market or how are they navigating different sales funnels and just all stuff that you can nerd out on. But it's tough to have those conversations with my wife, who's not an entrepreneur, she's a nurse. She's very risk averse, you know, by nature and by job. So whenever I talk about, I think I'm gonna try this thing out, you know it's not in her DNA for that.

Matthew Kemp:

So being able to then look through the lens of a business owner and think, wow, I got a, I got a lot of resources, you know that I can pull from and then in turn kind of the give back. I've made a lot of mistakes in the last year and a half. Let me share those with other folks. They know you could lose a client if you don't have workers comp coverage over here or you can. You know you can kind of make sure that your funding is in order to do this payroll. You know it's having a give and get mentality has been really beneficial for. You know it's having a give and get mentality is has been really beneficial for you know kind of that short-term growth with the, the long-term benefits.

Mario P. Fields:

I love your approach, erwin. If you guys didn't catch it, I'll say it again Give, you know, give and receive. It's a, it's a reciprocating relationship, the power of a network. You know, like Matt said matt said I mean, I mean he doesn't look like he's in his 40s. Everyone, there's hope for me. I'll. I'll be 89 next year, no, I'll just tell you.

Mario P. Fields:

But you know, and it's never too late, you know again, you know he did some about eight years in the military. You know about 10 years in corporate america and, like you said, you know, I graduated college at 29, almost 30. It's never too late to pursue what you believe is best for you, your family, doing research and leveraging that network, matt, and I really appreciate you doing that, cause I mean you've done a lot for the veteran community and more hell. Just being an example, especially from from folks who serve, who are, who served or currently serving in combat arms. Looking back, or any branch of service for that matter. But looking back, if you had to give yourself a piece of advice when you got out of the military, what would you give yourself? The military, what?

Matthew Kemp:

would you give yourself, whenever I, whenever I think back on the advice that I actually got, which was go to college, don't hit the booze too hard like that. That was the advice that I got. So then, whenever folks come to me or you know, I get posed with this question you know it's a million things race through my head because it's one uh leverage all of your resources. You know, make attainable goals. You know, some type of education is probably going to have an ROI to it. Whether you do trades, whether you do associates with a trade and get the four-year like whatever it is, there's probably going to be a little bit of a an ROI there. But just think more long-term, because I thought so short-term all the way up until my first son was born. Once he was born, it was now not just about me, not just about what I wanted to do, what you know, I never planned more than three months in advance.

Matthew Kemp:

I just think back, man, if I would have just saved a little bit of deployment money for the down payment on a house in 2008. That would have been a little bit different financial situation than buying my house in 2018. So I know it's tough to tell somebody who just made the transition to the civilian world, have long-term goals that are obtainable and obtainable, uh, and executable on. But that would be it. Probably wouldn't have listened to myself back then anyway, but like, that's, the biggest takeaway was just like, man, just have a little bit of long-term planning.

Matthew Kemp:

Uh, because I didn't essentially start long-term planning until, you know, 10 years after I got out of the military. So now, granted, I'm not saying that that was lost time or wasted time, but, man, if I could go back, you know, 2008, I think I think we'd make some different financial decisions. Uh, I think we might've, you know, streamlined some things, uh, but yeah, it's, just do what's right for yourself, but just know that there's, you know, there's still going to be a you 10 years from now. There's still going to be a U20 years from now. So, like, don't screw that guy over.

Mario P. Fields:

Pay it forward. You got me thinking I love it, man. Matt, I love chatting with you, I really enjoy what you're doing and thank you for coming on the show. How can people find you everyone If you guys are not connecting with Matt when he gives you kind of his links? Shame on you. This retired star major will make you do a half a push-up. How can they find you, man?

Matthew Kemp:

On LinkedIn Matthew H Kemp. I'm the manager of operations at Dialed In Staffing and managing partner at Red 7 Strategy Group. You can search Red 7 Strategy Group on YouTube, instagram, facebook and TikTok. It's Red 7 Strategy Group on all four.

Mario P. Fields:

There we go and I'll make sure Red 7 Strategy Group and all the links will be in the show notes. But again, matt, thank you for your service. My friend, happy belated Veterans Day, appreciate that. And just anytime you need anything, you let me know my friend.

Matthew Kemp:

But again, thank you for coming on the show absolutely thoroughly enjoyed it and I love to do it again hey, same here if there's ever an opportunity to come your way.

Mario P. Fields:

but everyone again, uh, this uh ends. Another amazing I think it's amazing show. Well, you guys do too, because you keep downloading and watching. So thank you for listening to this most recent episode and remember you can listen and watch all of the previous episodes on my YouTube channel. The best way to connect to me and all of my social media is follow me on the parade deck that is wwwparadecom, or you can click on the link in the show notes. I'll see you guys soon.

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