#29 - 3 Years in Florida: Moving My Business, Managing It Remotely, and Figuring It Out As I Go

Three years ago, my wife and I packed up our life in Boston and moved to Florida. No five-year plan. No spreadsheet of pros and cons. Just a gut feeling and a decision to go.

This episode is about that move — but it's really about something bigger: the three types of people when it comes to change.

The first one plans everything before they act. The second one plans so much they never move at all. The third one jumps in and figures it out on the way down. I'm the third type. Always have been.

I get into the goods, the bads, and the ugly of starting over: keeping my 17-year Boston business alive from 1,200 miles away, learning to delegate when I thought nobody could do it better than me, walking into a more competitive market where literally nobody knew my name, and discovering a whole world of window treatments I'd never even heard of (hello, hurricane shutters and retractable awnings).

I also tell the Brazil investment story — the deal a friend talked himself out of while I jumped in, and what ten years revealed about which of us made the "right" call.

Here's the heart of it: there's no right or wrong way to face change. There's just knowing who you are and acting like it.

In this episode:

• The three mindsets people bring to risk and opportunity
• What it really takes to run a business long-distance
• Why letting go (delegating) was harder than the move itself
• Building a network and referrals from zero in a brand-new market
• The Brazil deal that taught me "no risk, no upside"
• The Florida surprises I never planned for

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Transcript

Three Ways People Face Change

Roger Magalhaes 0:00

This past weekend we celebrated three years since we moved to Florida. And as far as I know, there are three types of people when it comes to new challenges and possibilities. The first one analyzes it and draws a plan what to do what not to. The second type analyzes it and never do anything because it's so overwhelming. The third type acts upon quickly and figure it out as they go. I am the third one. Today I'll share with you what happened the goods and the bads and the ugly right after this.

Why Florida Became The Goal

Intro / Outro 0:52

Welcome to No Strings Attached, the place where we untangle honest conversations about business reinvention and the pursuit of the American dream. Hosted by Roger McGallas, Brazilian-born, Boston-bred, Florida based. He is an entrepreneur, speaker, and storyteller with 20 years of real stories, laughs, and screw-ups. This show is for anyone still searching for their place under the sun. So pull up the chair. The show is about to start. Here's Roger with No Strings Attached.

Roger Magalhaes 1:26

Welcome to another show of No Strings Attached. My name is Roger McGallis and I am your host. If this is your first time here, welcome to the show. And if you have been here before, welcome back. Today I am going to share my three years living in Florida. The things that I prepped for, the things that I didn't, and the things that I have no clue about it. So the whole thing started in January 2033 when I came back from a trip from Brazil. Summertime in Brazil, warm, nice weather, friends, sun, having a good time. Got back to Boston, mid-January, cold. I feel like something is not right. My wife was like, What's going on? You're so happy last week and now you feel miserable. What's going on? And I said, I think I had enough of the weather. So but you know, it is what it is. Life goes on. That's that's what we have and let's skip rolling. She said, What would you make you happy? And I say maybe if I get home and I still see the sun out, I'll have my flip flops on, maybe go for a walk. Maybe that will make me happy. She didn't say a thing and just another day.

Keeping The Boston Business Alive

Roger Magalhaes 3:11

Two weeks went by and she got a call from a friend that her husband came home and dropped dead on the floor. Out of the blue, 34 years old, gone because of stress. Two weeks after that she got another call from another friend, and her husband had a really close call from overwork and all the good stuff. She said she came to me and said, if you want to move, we'll move. I don't want to be the third one. So, long story short, we didn't really think much about it, other than, okay, you allow this to happen, let's make it happen. I had a business, obviously, 17 years in Boston, running well, lots of repeat customers, lots of five-star reviews. I thought quickly, alright, I can try to sell this business, and if I sell it, we'll move on. For some reason, I didn't have a five-year plan, a 10-year plan, or anything like that. I just felt that I could replicate what I had in Boston down in Florida. So we had an installer at that time. We explained to him the situation. I said, I'll have you here, and I'll be in Florida opening, you know, new territory, trying to figure it out, replicate what we did here down there. So I came in April, found a place to live, went back, back it up, the household really quick. Pretty much there's no time to regret. So couldn't sell the business, so we kept it, moved down here, and realized that I need to do something that I never did it before, which was managing my place long distance. So it was something new, something that I had to figure out one day at a time, because I didn't really create a plan for that. So that was one big challenge. I hired a virtual assistant and I started delegating things, which was something that I also never did it before. So I was super involved. Nobody could do things better than me. So it was hard for me to let it go. But eventually I started doing a little bit and then a little bit more, and then a little bit more, and things that I thought nobody could ever do it, I learned that some people can do actually better than you. And that was my case. So very luckily that I had found someone that perfectly fit the role. I also had a great installer in Boston that I pretty much taught from the beginning. So he learned from me the way I like things to be done. So I was very lucky in that regard as well.

Delegation And Remote Management Lessons

Roger Magalhaes 6:56

Coming here, I learned that there was a lot more competition that I had in Boston. Obviously, I didn't had experience with the local market. People didn't charge as much as I charged in Boston. So there was another culture shock that I had to be more competitive because the market is more competitive for one. Second, nobody knew me down here, and I had to grind twice as hard to find the work. Third, because I never been here before, there was this thing that I didn't know anyone, so I didn't have a network to rely on. Back in Boston, I basically knew everyone. Clients would call me because they trust me, looking for references, looking for referrals, looking for contractors and you know, professionals that has nothing to do with my business, but because I instilled so much trust in these people, they trust me enough to refer professionals to them. So came to Florida and I started finding work, and people liked the way I did my work, how I protect their homes, how I responded to emails and inquiries. They start asking, oh Roger, do you know a painter? Do you know a house cleaner? Do you know a landscaper? And I said, No, I don't. And that triggered me to do the same thing that I did when I started in Boston. I joined some networking groups to start building my network of professionals. So two things happen there. I will be able to refer people to my clients, which create this bond. Also, it would help me develop my own marketing tactics because now I have these people that I give business to them. It is something humans automatically do. If you treat me well, I will treat you well back as a thank you. So if I give people business, automatically people will be appreciative and will try to return the favor to me. So I would expand my reach through referrals, and that's basically what I did. Now, something I have no clue about it because I'm not the type of guy that plan every single move. There are goods and there are bads about it. I'm not telling you to do my way. Some people plan too much. Plan the pros, the cons, what to do something goes right, what to do something goes wrong, and because of that they do well, but sometimes they miss the window of opportunity because it took them a little too long to decide. There's another group that analyzes it, draws a plan, the pros, the cons, what to do, what not to do, but they feel overwhelmed, and they never move because they see the bads being more overwhelming than the possibility of the goods. For example, I said these in one of my shows before. At one time, a few years back,

Starting Over With Competition And Networking

Roger Magalhaes 11:27

I was presented with an opportunity to buy a studio down in Brazil. It was a small contractor, a small builder that bought a piece of land and wanted to develop. But because he was too small, banks didn't want to work with him. So he started gathering private investors to pull this pool of money together and build this little complex with a few condo units. So somehow my name got referred to him. He reached out, I thought it was an interesting investment opportunity. So I said, okay, I'll go right in. And if it doesn't work out, doesn't work out, you know, is the price of admission for potential upside. That's how I thought. So I suggested to a friend of mine to jump in with me because I saw the potential. He thought it was nice, but there was a lot of ifs. What about if it doesn't work? What about if this guy goes out of business? What about if this guy takes the money, it runs away? And I said, there's uh opportunities there and there are risks. I am willing to bet the upside is greater than the risks. So if there's no risk, there's no upside. And that's basically how life works. Eventually he decided that he needed more time, and I said, Fine, I am going forward with this. Ten years went by, I came through a few more opportunities with the same builder, and while I'm building my portfolio, this friend of mine is still thinking about the first opportunity because he never moved forward. So it's a trade-off, he's on a much safer place because he didn't want to lose anything. On the other hand, he never moved forward either because he was so stuck with fear. So the third type is me. I see an opportunity, I quickly analyze yes and no, and I go for it. Does everything happen on the right way? Of course not. Absolutely not. You'd be crazy to think that everything is 100%

Risk, Fear, And The Brazil Investment Story

Roger Magalhaes 14:10

a score. No, it's not. And sometimes you lose. It's part of my game, it's part of my profile, and I'm happy with that. Because I didn't analyze every single detail prior to moving to Florida, I did not know, I never thought about that, that in Florida there is another whole world of window treatments. For instance, there are retractable awnings, there are exterior shades, there are hurricane shutters. All of these go on the outside of the house. There are opportunity to put shades on pergolas. I lived in Boston. The summertime there is really short. There's so much activities to be done on those three months that not many people spend a ton of time on the outdoors. I mean, not on the outdoors, on their backyard. So they don't want to spend so much money on all of these exterior products because it's hard to justify the investment. Florida is completely different. You basically live outside in your backyard nine to twelve months out of the year. Obviously, it's super hot, but some people like the heat and they enjoy outside. There are a lot of bugs down here, so they need the screens so they can enjoy the backyard, the Lanais, without being bit by mosquitoes. So all of those opportunities I did not know prior to moving here. I did not stud those things. I did not think about that. So took me a little while to catch up since I moved here. And that's my whole point with the show today. There's no right or wrong. Everyone has a system, everyone has a comfort zone. Some people need to understand every possibility before they make

Florida Surprises And Mindset Takeaways

Roger Magalhaes 16:50

a decision. Some people know all their possibilities but don't act on them because they feel overwhelmed. As a result, they never move forward with the chances they could have because they are just paralyzed. In the third group, they see opportunities, they move forward, sometimes they score, sometimes they lose. But most important to them, and I'm gonna include myself in that group, I like the challenges. I like to be open to figure things out as they come. Not necessarily, oh, I have a plan for whatever situation that comes across. I like to figure it out as they go. Here's the other thing. If I have answered for thin things, I spend a lot of time and a lot of energy on a lot of possibilities that may never ever realize, materialized. So why am I gonna spend my time, waste my energy on things that potentially never materialized? So again, there's no right or wrong, everyone is different. And that's just my point for today's show. Don't feel like the other guy does right because he has a different mindset. It doesn't work like that. You need to be comfortable with who you are and act accordingly to your profile. Hope you got something out of these. If you have any questions, suggestions, or comments, as always, I'm here. I read every single comment, and I'll see you next time. Take care.

Intro / Outro 19:02

And that's a wrap for today. Hope you're leaving with something that sticks. If this episode resonated, please share it with someone who needs to hear it. For more information, follow Roger at RogerMegallus.com and find the link in the show notes for a free chapter of his book, Nobody Told Me That. We'll see you next Sunday with no strings attached.