Scaling a Moving and Junk Removal Business: A Candid Conversation with Roger Panitch Artwork

The Small Business Safari

Have you ever sat there and wondered "What am I doing here stuck in the concrete zoo of the corporate world?" Are you itching to get out? Chris Lalomia and his co-host Alan Wyatt traverse the jungle of entrepreneurship. Together they share their stories and help you explore the wild world of SCALING your business. With many years of owning their own small businesses, they love to give insight to the aspiring entrepreneur. So, are you ready to make the jump?

All Episodes

The Small Business Safari

Scaling a Moving and Junk Removal Business: A Candid Conversation with Roger Panitch

May 09, 2023 • Chris Lalomia, Alan Wyatt, Roger Panitch • Season 4 • Episode 93

Send us a text

We sat down with Roger Panitch, founder of a successful moving and junk removal company (College Hunks). Roger shares his journey from starting with just two employees to scaling the business to over 75 employees and 24 vehicles. Along the way, he opens up about the challenges he faced, like trusting his team to represent the business without him being present. Roger also discusses the complementary nature of the moving and junk removal services and how his company is committed to donating or recycling 70% of the items they handle. Tune in for an insightful conversation filled with valuable lessons for entrepreneurs and business owners alike! Did you know our amazing voices can go beyond just the microphone? Yes, we have video! Subscribe to our YouTube channel here!

-----

Roger’s Links:

• LinkedIn | roger-panitch-132339229

• Website | https://www.collegehunkshaulingjunk.com/

------

GOLD NUGGETS:

(03:55) - Roger’s Bio

(10:19) - Franchising Funeral Homes?

(28:54) - Comparing Billion Dollar Business to Thousand Dollar Business

(41:32) - Breaking Down the Challenges of Scaling

-----

Previous guests on The Small Business Safari include Amy Lyle, Ben Alexander, Joseph Sission, Jonathan Ellis, Brad Dell, Chris Hanks, C.T. Emerson, Chad Brown, Tracy Moore, Wayne Sherger, David Raymond, Paul Redman, Gabby Meteor, Ryan Dement, Barbara Heil Sonneck, Bryan John, Tom Defore, Rusty Clifton, Duane Johns, Beth Miller, Jason Sleeman, Andy Suggs, Chris Michel, Jon Ostenson, Tommy Breedlove, Rocky Lalvani, Amanda Griffey, Spencer Powell, Joe Perrone, David Lupberger, Duane C. Barney, Dave Moerman, Jim Ryerson, Al Mishkoff, Scott Specker, Mike Claudio and more!

-----

If you loved this episode try these!

• Lessons Learned from the Accidental Entrepreneur: A Business Lawyer's Journey | Mitch Beinhaker

• Back to Basics: Building a Successful Business with the Right People and Processes

• What it Takes to Build an Organization that Scales | Tara Riley

From the Zoo to Wild is a book for entrepreneurs passionate about home services, looking to move away from corporate jobs. Chris Lalomia, a former executive, shares his path, discoveries, and tools to succeed as a small business owner in home improvement retail. The book provides the mindset, habits, leadership style, and customer-oriented processes necessary to succeed as a small business owner in home services.

00;00;00;05 - 00;00;01;04
Chris Lalomia
That was the first warning.

00;00;01;09 - 00;00;01;14
Chris Lalomia
That.

00;00;01;24 - 00;00;29;13
Alan Wyatt
I got to interrupt because, you know, you and I both lost a parent this last year in the same funeral home, took care of both my folks. And at 13 years apart. And it was the same guy. And we just love this guy. I mean, I'm so thankful for this guy being a mortician. And at one point I told him, because we're actually laughing on the phone together, I'm like, I got to tell you, I mean, I'm in a weird way, you're making this process enjoyable.

00;00;29;13 - 00;00;31;26
Alan Wyatt
And he goes, I do put the fun in funerals.

00;00;32;06 - 00;00;34;15
Chris Lalomia
Oh, my God. Oh, no.

00;00;34;16 - 00;00;35;19
Chris Lalomia
There's a billboard.

00;00;35;22 - 00;00;38;00
Chris Lalomia
Right at the front of you. Welcome to the.

00;00;38;00 - 00;00;59;22
Chris Lalomia
Small Business Safari, where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls and dangers. That lyric. When navigating the wild world of small business ownership. I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your ascent to that mountain top of success. It's a jungle out there, and I want to help you traverse through the levels of owning your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from your own personal and professional goals.

00;00;59;28 - 00;01;21;25
Chris Lalomia
So strap in, adventure team, and let's take a ride through the safari and get you to the mountaintop. Small business Safari. Back in action. Back going out. There we are making it happen in the wild world of starting your own business or trying to get that worker scaled up.

00;01;22;03 - 00;01;24;12
Chris Lalomia
I did see Fricker. I did.

00;01;25;01 - 00;01;28;27
Alan Wyatt
What are you, like, junior high Midwest, PG 13?

00;01;28;28 - 00;01;34;00
Chris Lalomia
I was trying to be PG 13 for our guest because he doesn't know. He does fucking.

00;01;34;06 - 00;01;36;20
Alan Wyatt
Got a big score of bourbon in front of. And he's back.

00;01;37;09 - 00;01;52;27
Chris Lalomia
He's back. All right, ladies and gentlemen, we have somebody who I've known for quite a while, and I'm excited to have him on. He's like, I don't know what this podcast thing is, but I'm okay if you think it's a good deal. I said, Look, come on over. We'll do it in my basement. I got a lot of bourbon.

00;01;53;12 - 00;01;55;17
Chris Lalomia
I know you like bourbon. He goes, Bourbon. Okay.

00;01;55;18 - 00;01;56;22
Roger Panitch
Yeah, We were done at that point.

00;01;56;23 - 00;01;57;26
Chris Lalomia
Yeah, I had him at Bourbon.

00;01;57;26 - 00;02;00;28
Alan Wyatt
Was this a guy that you were talking about? He was going to get an Uber.

00;02;01;06 - 00;02;16;14
Chris Lalomia
He was an Uber over just so he could get on this podcast and spend nuggets and get hammered with us. And then guess what happened? He had to get his knee operated on, and he's like, I can't Uber. I got to drive back and forth. I got to keep myself kind of in line. I'm like, Well, that's no fun.

00;02;17;00 - 00;02;18;26
Chris Lalomia
But ladies and.

00;02;18;26 - 00;02;19;06
Chris Lalomia
Gentlemen.

00;02;19;17 - 00;02;22;02
Alan Wyatt
Before you introduce him. Yeah, you bought me a present.

00;02;22;17 - 00;02;24;01
Chris Lalomia
I did. You want to talk about it for me?

00;02;24;02 - 00;02;25;02
Alan Wyatt
I do. I'm so excited.

00;02;25;02 - 00;02;44;07
Chris Lalomia
All right, let's talk about it. All right. So. And I'm going to make a ton of videos out of this show. And Gervais was on our podcast a couple episodes ago, and he is he has labeled himself a venture capitalist. And after listening to him, I would say, yes, he is truly a serial entrepreneur. That is truly a serial entrepreneur.

00;02;44;07 - 00;02;58;20
Chris Lalomia
When he got done talking to all his businesses, I just finally said, You know what? You're like that super duper super reindeer guy who just poops out businesses. In fact, wait a minute. Oh, I think you just had another business shot. Well, my guy, we're on the podcast. You start another one, and then he goes, You don't. I remember those.

00;02;58;20 - 00;03;07;00
Chris Lalomia
Now he goes, I've never heard of those. And so I said, Oh, you've never heard of Super duper reindeer poopers? I said, We have these at Christmas.

00;03;07;03 - 00;03;08;12
Alan Wyatt
Let's be a northern divide.

00;03;09;01 - 00;03;13;07
Chris Lalomia
So I have the super duper reindeer jelly bean jelly.

00;03;13;08 - 00;03;13;26
Alan Wyatt
Have you seen these?

00;03;14;05 - 00;03;14;26
Roger Panitch
I have not.

00;03;15;01 - 00;03;15;21
Chris Lalomia
These are super.

00;03;15;21 - 00;03;17;03
Alan Wyatt
Duper. It's a little toy.

00;03;17;03 - 00;03;18;08
Chris Lalomia
That deer pooper.

00;03;18;21 - 00;03;21;09
Alan Wyatt
Reindeer, jelly beans or something.

00;03;21;15 - 00;03;22;12
Chris Lalomia
Outstanding.

00;03;22;13 - 00;03;23;29
Alan Wyatt
Yeah. So Chris bought me.

00;03;23;29 - 00;03;40;00
Chris Lalomia
What I did. So gift for Alan. A little memento. And then forever. Sean said he could not buy one, so I was gonna buy one for him. And then I found out that it's four times the cost for me to buy it and ship it to him in Canada. It's like, But I'm gonna end up buying one. I'll get one too, eventually.

00;03;40;10 - 00;03;49;04
Chris Lalomia
So. But we don't have the super duper reindeer pooper with us today. But we do have this super duper scooper pooper because he's with College Hunks.

00;03;49;14 - 00;03;49;28
Chris Lalomia
Hauling.

00;03;49;28 - 00;04;00;26
Chris Lalomia
Junk. Yeah, how about that? That's a mouthful. But it's really not because they call themselves Hunks I we have one of my good friends, Roger PANITCH, coming in in studio. Welcome, Roger. Hey, Roger.

00;04;00;26 - 00;04;02;25
Roger Panitch
Hey, Thank you. Thank you for having me.

00;04;02;25 - 00;04;09;25
Chris Lalomia
Today we are drinking a really cool bourbon. Roger's going to do oak and barrel eating oak, right?

00;04;10;08 - 00;04;12;01
Alan Wyatt
He didn't know. I don't know. I'm not looking at the label.

00;04;12;03 - 00;04;23;04
Chris Lalomia
All right. But he brought us one called Barrel Seagrass. The whiskey finished in Martinique, rum, Madeira and apricot brandy barrels. Can't see that and haven't even been drinking.

00;04;23;26 - 00;04;27;14
Alan Wyatt
I know. I've just got four roses. You give me the you know, the BP.

00;04;27;15 - 00;04;31;01
Chris Lalomia
Actually, Roger has a phrase for that. When you bring four roses, that's.

00;04;31;01 - 00;04;32;03
Roger Panitch
Called maintenance.

00;04;32;10 - 00;04;32;24
Chris Lalomia
Bourbon.

00;04;34;03 - 00;04;48;08
Roger Panitch
So after you've had a couple of really good ones. Yeah. You don't need to waste your your nice stash on some of your high end bourbon. Yeah. If you're not going to notice the difference anyway at that point. But you don't want to be done drinking, so you need a maintenance bourbon.

00;04;48;16 - 00;04;50;01
Alan Wyatt
I need to do that on the golf course.

00;04;50;15 - 00;04;51;09
Chris Lalomia
Well, I think.

00;04;51;16 - 00;05;04;28
Chris Lalomia
You've already picked up one great gold nugget from this entire podcast. If you haven't picked up one thing, always have a maintenance bourbon and always have. I'm going to add one to that. Always have a low cost cab for your friends who come over, who don't really understand what great wine is.

00;05;05;02 - 00;05;06;05
Alan Wyatt
And you're looking at me when you.

00;05;06;05 - 00;05;12;02
Chris Lalomia
Say that I am and I'm looking at you, and that's why I have Josh sitting up there at $12 a bottle for you. But the maintenance.

00;05;12;06 - 00;05;14;17
Alan Wyatt
Is twice as much as I've ever spent on a bottle of wine.

00;05;14;17 - 00;05;16;05
Chris Lalomia
Actually. Yeah, that's good.

00;05;17;16 - 00;05;30;12
Chris Lalomia
And we're going to keep going for that. All right. Who is Roger? Well, I mentioned that Roger now owns a local company. It's a franchise here in Atlanta. It's called the College Hunks Hauling Junk. But before.

00;05;30;12 - 00;05;31;26
Roger Panitch
That and College Hunks moving.

00;05;31;26 - 00;05;58;21
Chris Lalomia
And College Hunks moving just a lot. So I just have to always go honks. And but before that, he he bought into this franchise system and did this. He actually had a very good and long run in corporate America good sales career moving around. He's originally from Philadelphia. His last job. I actually had not I lost the bio, but I'm going to ask him, Roger, what was the last job for you to do this?

00;05;59;01 - 00;06;03;26
Roger Panitch
I spent a really short stint doing some credit card processing sales.

00;06;03;29 - 00;06;04;17
Chris Lalomia
Which.

00;06;06;02 - 00;06;12;28
Roger Panitch
Was about three months, somewhat sold a bill of goods, but to take a lot of ownership because I didn't do my due diligence.

00;06;13;01 - 00;06;16;21
Alan Wyatt
But you had a big long career in restaurants and medical.

00;06;16;21 - 00;06;33;26
Roger Panitch
Yeah, I was. I was in I went to school for restaurant and hotel management and was in the restaurant business for about eight years and then was in the pharmaceutical industry. I was I was selling drugs, the legal kind nice for about eight years as well and downsized with 10,000 my closest friends.

00;06;34;19 - 00;06;44;29
Alan Wyatt
So you were split out of the corporate world. It's interesting how entrepreneurs are born. Kind of like this reindeer pooper. And in your case, you were pooped out of the corporate. I was, Yeah, but.

00;06;44;29 - 00;07;04;00
Roger Panitch
I was pooped out early on. The industry has changed so much that industry has changed so much. I was lucky with my severance package because they kept getting a little bit less and a little bit less and a little bit less. So I got out, I guess, at the right time, if you would.

00;07;05;23 - 00;07;20;16
Chris Lalomia
So I've known Roger Lou. Jeez, I don't know, six, seven years now, at least. At least. So I didn't realize he had started out in hospitality because I knew him as the drug rep. The drug seller. And then so he's peddling drugs. I'm thinking always in my head, Breaking Bad.

00;07;20;28 - 00;07;22;14
Alan Wyatt
And he was got a trunk full of samples.

00;07;22;14 - 00;07;41;14
Chris Lalomia
I'm sure he's like, No, no number. I was pharma, I was big Pharma. I was way above that. He a then then and I forgot about the, the credit card thing. So obviously you were forced into this. Oh now what. And you decided not to stay in corporate America but kind of pursue the entrepreneurial vision. Is that something you had always wanted to do?

00;07;41;14 - 00;07;44;07
Chris Lalomia
Is that something you're like, Hey, I got this chance, let's do it?

00;07;44;17 - 00;08;07;21
Roger Panitch
It was more the latter and some of the circumstances of it. I mean, I spent after getting downsized from Pfizer, I spent about two and a half years being an executive recruiter. And if you could pick a window, December of 2007 to March of 2009, probably not the best time to be an executive recruiter. Job market was not wonderful.

00;08;07;21 - 00;08;09;01
Alan Wyatt
Really. Did something go on then?

00;08;10;10 - 00;08;19;25
Roger Panitch
So and I, I started becoming a miserable person. Just I didn't like what I was doing and I was be kind. It was bleeding into my personal life.

00;08;19;25 - 00;08;20;10
Chris Lalomia
Which.

00;08;20;21 - 00;08;31;09
Roger Panitch
I realized I needed to make a change. So I clicked on one of those links. Have you ever thought about owning your own business? And little did I know. So those work. Little did I know that the phone was going to ring off the hook with that.

00;08;32;23 - 00;08;50;18
Chris Lalomia
So yeah, it's funny you say that because I did one thing where I said I'm interested in a franchise opportunity and I was just thinking about the Mister Handyman one and like you said, the phone rang off the hook. I was. And this is before you could block people too. And, you know, I'm sitting in the bank, you know, still thinking about whether or not I'm going to leave or not.

00;08;50;27 - 00;09;01;15
Chris Lalomia
I'm just getting blown up. But you did that. But this is this is like that. Maybe like that, too. I am. You're watching the telemarketer. Are you feeling down? Yes. Are you feeling lonely?

00;09;01;15 - 00;09;02;00
Chris Lalomia
Yes.

00;09;02;09 - 00;09;09;14
Chris Lalomia
Are you feeling like you want to give me $5 million? You had me there. That's a runway to get. But but you did. You went click. And then what?

00;09;10;01 - 00;09;13;08
Roger Panitch
I started the process and it's a more intense process.

00;09;13;17 - 00;09;25;07
Alan Wyatt
Was it did you meet with a franchise broker that put you on their couch and they ask all the questions and then they present three to you and two of them suck. And then this one was good. I mean, is that kind of how that is?

00;09;25;07 - 00;09;41;00
Roger Panitch
That is somewhat how it went. It wasn't on their couch because it was over the phone and they were in Colorado at the time. Oh, but that's pretty much out. And I and I guess I probably clicked on more than one of those. Have you ever thought about owning your own business? Because one of the fun ones that I met with was a sane person.

00;09;41;07 - 00;09;53;23
Roger Panitch
And when I met with that person here locally, one of the conversations we had, I said, Well, what are we going to do in the future? As things continue to evolve? Well, you'll always need X, Y and Z. I said.

00;09;53;23 - 00;09;54;07
Chris Lalomia
Well.

00;09;54;18 - 00;10;17;21
Roger Panitch
You know, if in the 1980s I would have told you that every single person would have a color printer in their home, you would have called me crazy. But everybody has a color printer in their home. Things are going to change. Will not the same business They're not. And I went, okay. And I realized that that was not the right business for me because I just didn't feel that they had the forward insight into that aspect.

00;10;19;02 - 00;10;47;03
Roger Panitch
So the first recruiter I met with put three jobs, three companies in front of me, three different genres, and none of them were perfect. The one that was most intriguing was nonmedical in-home senior care. I'm kind of a happy go lucky, goofy individual, as Chris can attest to and check. And you know, while you're doing a great service and it's very important, your clients are dying on you at the end of the day.

00;10;47;14 - 00;10;47;29
Roger Panitch
And I.

00;10;47;29 - 00;10;48;25
Chris Lalomia
Just it's just.

00;10;50;00 - 00;10;52;04
Roger Panitch
I didn't I wanted something different.

00;10;52;05 - 00;10;53;19
Alan Wyatt
Doesn't go with the handlebar mustache.

00;10;53;19 - 00;10;55;00
Roger Panitch
No, that's.

00;10;55;00 - 00;11;14;02
Chris Lalomia
Right. For those on the podcast who can't see that yet, Roger, I'm a goofy, happy go lucky guy, as Chris can attest, with his handlebar mustache, which is new. That's a new. That's a new addition. Yeah. I was like, Yes, he's definitely wrapped it up. But you're right, you know? So you think about the like, Oh God, I could mint money taking care of people who are about to die.

00;11;14;14 - 00;11;35;18
Chris Lalomia
Yeah, that's great. How you can feel about yourself every day. I don't know. And that's, you know, mortuary science. And all these people do this. I, one of my best friends and I, when I played softball in college, I came home for the summers and worked and played softball Great. The friend we used to get hammered together. This is back when 21 was just kind of a general idea.

00;11;35;18 - 00;11;52;21
Chris Lalomia
When you start drinking, what was the mortuary science and what was he? He was a mortician. He actually ran the funeral. And I he kind of said that until I had to go to somebody locally. Their father died and I went to the funeral and he was there. It was his company. I'm like, dude, you're in a suit.

00;11;52;21 - 00;11;57;11
Chris Lalomia
And you're not smiling. He goes, I can't smile here. I'll see you tonight.

00;11;57;26 - 00;11;59;29
Roger Panitch
Yeah, the old people are dying to get in here.

00;11;59;29 - 00;12;00;28
Chris Lalomia
Yeah, but but.

00;12;01;10 - 00;12;08;24
Chris Lalomia
But it, but it bleeds into your personal life. I mean, he was able to compartmentalize. I just don't know how you do that. All right, So that was the first one.

00;12;09;00 - 00;12;09;06
Chris Lalomia
That.

00;12;09;15 - 00;12;37;04
Alan Wyatt
I got to interrupt, because, you know, you and I both lost a parent this last year in the same funeral home, took care of both my folks and that 13 years apart. And it was the same guy. And we just loved this guy. I mean, I'm so thankful for this guy being a mortician. And at one point I told him, because we're actually laughing on the phone together, I'm like, I got to tell you, I mean, I'm yeah, in a weird way, you're making this process enjoyable.

00;12;37;04 - 00;12;39;18
Alan Wyatt
And he goes, I do put the fun in funerals.

00;12;39;28 - 00;12;42;06
Chris Lalomia
Oh, my God. Oh, no.

00;12;42;06 - 00;12;43;09
Chris Lalomia
There is a billboard.

00;12;43;14 - 00;12;43;24
Chris Lalomia
Right?

00;12;43;26 - 00;12;47;08
Chris Lalomia
Let's put the fun and funerals. In fact, I think that's what I want my funeral to be.

00;12;47;08 - 00;12;54;13
Alan Wyatt
Yeah, the dude was awesome. I mean, I'm glad that he didn't make it feel like it was a business transaction. Can you imagine franchising in funerals?

00;12;55;01 - 00;12;55;10
Chris Lalomia
Oh.

00;12;55;20 - 00;13;07;07
Chris Lalomia
Well. Well, the consolidations happened huge. I mean, I know there's big money in it. The. Oh, yeah. As as Roger said, the people are dying and do get into it, but they're buying up all the local funeral homes. It's a big business.

00;13;07;23 - 00;13;08;23
Chris Lalomia
But we.

00;13;08;23 - 00;13;09;07
Alan Wyatt
Have grass.

00;13;09;07 - 00;13;13;20
Chris Lalomia
But we digress into this is not a funeral podcast. It's not about death, it's about growth. No, I.

00;13;13;20 - 00;13;18;03
Roger Panitch
Think it does seem to be a little bit about alcohol, and that's what introduced me to the second.

00;13;18;03 - 00;13;19;07
Chris Lalomia
Recruiter. Let's go.

00;13;19;07 - 00;13;20;09
Alan Wyatt
Oh, nice segway.

00;13;20;10 - 00;13;37;28
Roger Panitch
Thank you. So I was at a I was at a Shabbat dinner, a Friday night dinner, and it was with four other families and all the guys were in the kitchen and they all said, Well, do you want to have a priest, Bob? A scotch? And they were all like, Yeah, yeah. Then laid back.

00;13;37;28 - 00;13;39;09
Alan Wyatt
Yeah, sure. Shabbat.

00;13;39;14 - 00;13;44;20
Roger Panitch
Shabbat is Friday night to Saturday night. It's the Hebrew or the Jewish Sabbath.

00;13;45;08 - 00;13;47;03
Alan Wyatt
So this is every Friday night? Yes.

00;13;47;06 - 00;13;48;20
Chris Lalomia
Oh, this is not a special event.

00;13;48;20 - 00;13;56;16
Roger Panitch
No, it was every Friday night. Every Friday night is actually the Sabbath. And it's actually considered one of the most holy days in the religion.

00;13;56;16 - 00;13;57;19
Alan Wyatt
And you have a dinner?

00;13;58;00 - 00;14;06;01
Roger Panitch
Yeah, You have a meal? Yes, you have dinner, light candles, say the Kiddush, say a blessing over the bread and then you have dinner. All right, French. But.

00;14;06;18 - 00;14;08;25
Chris Lalomia
But bless back that up. You get to drink first.

00;14;09;01 - 00;14;09;18
Chris Lalomia
Let's go.

00;14;09;25 - 00;14;10;06
Roger Panitch
To drink.

00;14;10;06 - 00;14;11;13
Chris Lalomia
First. Get back to alcohol.

00;14;11;13 - 00;14;12;16
Alan Wyatt
I need to go to a Shabbat.

00;14;12;22 - 00;14;13;25
Chris Lalomia
So I do every night.

00;14;15;08 - 00;14;36;24
Roger Panitch
So of course I said, yeah, I'll have a I'll have a pre Shabbat scotch. And then about 4 seconds later I went, I've never really had scotch and not really know how to drink it. And that was my original foray about 14 years ago into the Scotch, and then that transferred into bourbon.

00;14;37;07 - 00;14;38;13
Alan Wyatt
So you get the hang of it pretty well.

00;14;38;13 - 00;14;42;14
Roger Panitch
I did. I was I was able to, like, almost earn a degree and get a master's and a.

00;14;42;23 - 00;14;43;03
Chris Lalomia
Ph.D..

00;14;44;03 - 00;14;45;01
Chris Lalomia
There's a hang in that.

00;14;45;01 - 00;14;45;16
Alan Wyatt
So anyway.

00;14;45;16 - 00;14;46;24
Chris Lalomia
You were an author after it.

00;14;46;24 - 00;14;48;26
Alan Wyatt
This was transitioning into your second.

00;14;48;29 - 00;15;09;16
Roger Panitch
So I met another. So he and one of the one of the individuals introduced me to another recruiter who I met on Monday afternoon. He was showing me a bunch of things in his little pitch book, and College Hunks kind of jumped off the page. The first one was a shredding company. The trucks for a shredding company were 250,000.

00;15;09;16 - 00;15;11;17
Chris Lalomia
Dollars or so. The initial investment.

00;15;11;17 - 00;15;26;05
Roger Panitch
Was pretty high. I was like, Turn the page and turn it quickly. And then there was another company that would be competing with two of my buddies who live here in Georgia. And I went, If I'm going to, there's so many companies out there, I don't need to buy one just to go into competition with some friend. So he.

00;15;26;05 - 00;15;27;18
Alan Wyatt
Wouldn't join the live tour.

00;15;28;04 - 00;15;36;10
Chris Lalomia
Right? Not during a live tour. Yeah. You mean let's go back a number of episodes. You don't think he'd start the more trusted to about asshole Van?

00;15;36;10 - 00;15;36;28
Alan Wyatt
I tell you.

00;15;36;29 - 00;15;37;29
Chris Lalomia
Don't worry, I've forgotten.

00;15;37;29 - 00;15;39;13
Chris Lalomia
Yeah, apparently. Huh?

00;15;39;16 - 00;15;40;20
Alan Wyatt
Let things go, Chris.

00;15;40;20 - 00;15;41;24
Chris Lalomia
It's okay to little tense.

00;15;41;25 - 00;15;43;06
Alan Wyatt
You need another counseling.

00;15;43;06 - 00;15;45;10
Chris Lalomia
The diamond. The dinosaur. The dinosaur here.

00;15;45;18 - 00;15;50;22
Roger Panitch
And then college. College Hunks was the next one. He showed me and look.

00;15;51;03 - 00;15;51;18
Chris Lalomia
Sorry.

00;15;52;23 - 00;16;04;16
Roger Panitch
And it somewhat jumped off the page. The next day I was on the phone with their internal recruiter and the day after that, in the franchising world, as you know, you start making validation calls. I was making validation calls.

00;16;04;17 - 00;16;05;21
Chris Lalomia
So he called a bunch of CS.

00;16;05;26 - 00;16;06;11
Roger Panitch
Called a bunch of.

00;16;06;17 - 00;16;08;03
Alan Wyatt
Server. There weren't that many.

00;16;08;03 - 00;16;10;14
Roger Panitch
No, there was only about 15 times.

00;16;10;14 - 00;16;14;23
Chris Lalomia
You had 15 CS when you first started College Hunks, Young Junk and Moving.

00;16;15;16 - 00;16;29;24
Alan Wyatt
And that's an interesting little nuance in franchising because, you know, you can go in, you can buy McDonald's or Subway and there's, you know, almost every territory in the world is taken. And then there's other franchises where it's just getting off the ground. And that's a big decision.

00;16;29;24 - 00;16;33;16
Roger Panitch
If you can fog a mirror, they'll sell you a franchise. They're brand new.

00;16;33;16 - 00;16;34;05
Alan Wyatt
Right? Right.

00;16;34;08 - 00;16;35;18
Chris Lalomia
And that's how it felt in the beginning. Yeah.

00;16;35;27 - 00;16;36;10
Chris Lalomia
Yeah.

00;16;36;19 - 00;16;43;14
Chris Lalomia
All right. So you got you you get you get on the phone with these guys and you call the Zs and Aziz again, there's love 33rd.

00;16;44;03 - 00;16;45;07
Roger Panitch
Nobody was making money yet.

00;16;45;11 - 00;16;45;19
Chris Lalomia
But.

00;16;45;19 - 00;16;55;19
Roger Panitch
Everybody. It was almost like a cult. That was a little scary because there wasn't a bad thing to be said and the culture was so strong and.

00;16;56;15 - 00;17;02;27
Alan Wyatt
We would turn to your wife and you're like, Hey, honey, I want to do this. And nobody's making money yet. But I really got it.

00;17;02;27 - 00;17;04;03
Roger Panitch
I may have left that part out.

00;17;04;04 - 00;17;04;19
Alan Wyatt
Okay.

00;17;05;02 - 00;17;21;25
Chris Lalomia
Well, wait a minute. I people at that, you know, because we want that. We want the hunks to, you know, sponsor us. Ellen So let's go back to that for a minute. So amazing culture. Loved everybody. Let's skip over the details up. Nobody's making any fucking money. No more about that baby.

00;17;21;25 - 00;17;22;17
Roger Panitch
People are now.

00;17;22;27 - 00;17;23;15
Chris Lalomia
I know. They're.

00;17;23;20 - 00;17;28;02
Chris Lalomia
I know. So this is. Did you actually talk to the owners of the company?

00;17;28;05 - 00;17;42;07
Roger Panitch
Yes. So I went down to Discovery Day and met with the owners and actually handed them a check while I was down there. Wow. Bullying, bullying. Turn to get that. Get involved and join in.

00;17;42;20 - 00;17;50;21
Chris Lalomia
All right. So that's a big deal, right? You went in and when we say a check, this isn't like $1,000. Hey, I'm about to get interested.

00;17;51;01 - 00;17;51;17
Alan Wyatt
The real money.

00;17;51;17 - 00;17;53;09
Roger Panitch
$50,000 check.

00;17;53;09 - 00;17;55;25
Chris Lalomia
So that's a that's a five in front of the zero.

00;17;56;03 - 00;17;59;07
Alan Wyatt
Which is it? Not an uncommon number and buying a franchise.

00;17;59;07 - 00;18;08;21
Chris Lalomia
Right. And he did it that day. I don't I don't think people can fully appreciate the magnitude of that. I mean, that's 50,000. So I don't know about you, but that's real money.

00;18;09;00 - 00;18;13;03
Alan Wyatt
And it's kind of blue sky money in your mind when you're looking at your business plan, isn't it?

00;18;13;03 - 00;18;13;15
Roger Panitch
Yeah.

00;18;13;21 - 00;18;32;06
Chris Lalomia
And so you gave him that 50,000. But what you don't know is he said, I'm happy go lucky guy. But what I also know is he's a very sharp businessman and a great leader, too, not to give you too many props, because I'll bring it down later. No, I'm kidding. But she wrote that check that day. So we clearly had done a lot of research before that.

00;18;32;13 - 00;18;38;19
Chris Lalomia
Yeah. So tell us why you did all that research or how you did the research and why you said 50,000 that day. Yes, I'm doing it.

00;18;39;14 - 00;19;11;25
Roger Panitch
Well, a lot of it was the combination of researching the other companies that I had already researched. So I was like a professional franchise investigator at that point and then knew the questions to ask, knew how to get in touch with the franchisees because I had previously been a recruiter. So smiling and dialing was not a challenge for me, and having the conversations on the phone was pretty easy and asking the questions and really understanding where they were going and buying into their vision.

00;19;12;24 - 00;19;14;00
Chris Lalomia
Of how.

00;19;14;00 - 00;19;21;18
Roger Panitch
They were going to be a massive company, which I mean, we have 215 franchises now across the country.

00;19;21;20 - 00;19;41;29
Chris Lalomia
That's 215 versus 14. When you first started. Correct at number 15. So I think the golden nugget I took away from that is you didn't just research within the industry. You researched around the industry of other things to see if this is going to be a good fit because as we all know, franchise works. There's some really shitty ones out there and there's some really good ones.

00;19;42;18 - 00;19;50;12
Chris Lalomia
But but you didn't dive into the industry vertical. You went across the board. I think that's pretty interesting. I don't know if I would have played that well.

00;19;50;12 - 00;20;06;16
Alan Wyatt
And it's also another thing to point out when you only have 15 franchisees, the franchisor doesn't have a lot of capital to work with. So the services that they can provide that you're, you know, paying with your royalties are kind of limited at that point. Oh, yeah. You really were taking a flier?

00;20;06;16 - 00;20;13;24
Roger Panitch
Yes, helping me. Basically. I was I was one of the pioneers to help build the organization that we have now.

00;20;13;24 - 00;20;15;25
Alan Wyatt
So you get a special table at the idea meeting. You know?

00;20;15;26 - 00;20;19;19
Chris Lalomia
I do. Okay. Oh, he gets a special table now.

00;20;20;01 - 00;20;24;12
Chris Lalomia
You know, I was gonna say, you know, the definition of Pioneer was that you're the one who takes the arrows in the back.

00;20;26;01 - 00;20;27;17
Chris Lalomia
Oh, nice.

00;20;27;24 - 00;20;30;20
Chris Lalomia
Yeah, well, you did it, though, and you're up. I'm still standing.

00;20;30;20 - 00;20;34;15
Roger Panitch
We were not a moving company at that point. We were only junk removal.

00;20;34;15 - 00;20;35;10
Chris Lalomia
Right. I remember. Okay.

00;20;35;11 - 00;20;50;13
Roger Panitch
And we, you know, we modeled after the £800 gorilla, which was one 800 cat junk. And I mean, they have they had 600 franchises. So they're not exactly a small organization. They started in Canada, right? I believe in Toronto.

00;20;50;18 - 00;20;51;12
Chris Lalomia
Toronto, Yeah.

00;20;53;05 - 00;21;16;09
Alan Wyatt
I ask a question about that. I think this is the elephant in the room, the name of the company. It creates an image in your mind of who's going to show up and haul the junk, the college hunk. I mean, what's the history of that? And do you have to kind of hire somebody to fit that? In other words, could Chris and I come all junk for you?

00;21;16;27 - 00;21;24;09
Roger Panitch
Yes. But the challenge would be that you have to work. Oh, okay. So I'm not sure that Chris would fit in. I have a bad.

00;21;24;09 - 00;21;26;08
Chris Lalomia
Back and I like to tell everybody else what to do.

00;21;26;22 - 00;21;27;03
Chris Lalomia
Right.

00;21;27;21 - 00;21;30;12
Alan Wyatt
So he doesn't he doesn't get along well with others either.

00;21;31;25 - 00;21;55;20
Roger Panitch
Thanks is an acronym. Punks, isn't it? Honest, uniformed, nice, knowledgeable service. But it was started by two high school buddies who, between their junior and senior year of college, borrowed their mom's beat up moving van, threw out a bunch of fliers, came up with a fun name that one of their moms kind of introduced and was thrown out while they were sitting around the pool one night drinking some beer and they started a business.

00;21;55;28 - 00;22;14;10
Roger Panitch
And that fall, the one who went to the University of Miami submitted a business plan. One first place about a out of 150 people won $10,000, which I would love to tell you. They used to start the company Buy more beer. He was a senior in college at the University of Miami. He had ten grand in his pocket.

00;22;14;10 - 00;22;21;12
Roger Panitch
That's a lot of fun. So they went on to corporate America. They're both pretty miserable. They started email back and forth when really?

00;22;21;12 - 00;22;24;22
Chris Lalomia
Yeah, they did not take their business plan, put it in action, then, not immediately.

00;22;24;22 - 00;22;26;00
Roger Panitch
And about two years later, they did.

00;22;26;09 - 00;22;27;07
Chris Lalomia
Okay. All right.

00;22;28;02 - 00;22;56;24
Roger Panitch
When you want to put this business plan into play, let's do it right now. In a drove in and they started in Washington DC, which is one of our flagship locations and they about two years later, they started franchising. Wow. And they were they were both very young. I mean, they were both on the 30 under 30 list for ink and Entrepreneur and they were young, ambitious individuals.

00;22;57;08 - 00;23;13;24
Roger Panitch
So part of the downside or part of the upside, depending on how you look at it, from having some corporate experience, is they didn't really have the experience. I like to say when I was in the restaurant business, I remember getting pulled in in the walk in cooler in the wet box by my general manager, get my face ripped off.

00;23;14;00 - 00;23;22;17
Roger Panitch
I mean, just getting absolutely berated for doing something stupid. They never had those experiences. They never had to deal with some of those things when you.

00;23;23;00 - 00;23;25;04
Chris Lalomia
So they didn't have like beat them down. Right.

00;23;25;18 - 00;23;26;01
Chris Lalomia
To tell.

00;23;26;01 - 00;23;35;01
Chris Lalomia
Them that their optimism was completely unfounded and that you're unrealistic and you get your ass back down in that cubicle and you give me that TPS report by Friday.

00;23;35;01 - 00;23;36;25
Chris Lalomia
Right? Yeah. Nice. Paul.

00;23;37;02 - 00;23;47;27
Roger Panitch
Thank you. You know, the the bad email that your boss pulls you into his office and he's like, What are you doing? How dumb are you? And they didn't have those experiences.

00;23;48;03 - 00;23;53;13
Chris Lalomia
27. Go ahead. That was 27. That's all there was when that first happened.

00;23;54;12 - 00;23;55;00
Chris Lalomia
I have a lot of.

00;23;56;24 - 00;24;04;04
Chris Lalomia
By the way, I what clearly we hope we talked about if you listen to podcasts much my history of bad decisions and bad.

00;24;04;07 - 00;24;05;12
Alan Wyatt
It's pretty epic.

00;24;05;15 - 00;24;21;20
Chris Lalomia
It is epic, but yes, I've been pulled in for that one. So. So these guys did that. Isn't that so interesting? Because I talk about this a lot. I think you have to. For me it was a very thoughtful process for me to start my business, and I felt like I had built my toolbox up, punched, opened it.

00;24;21;20 - 00;24;25;15
Chris Lalomia
Okay, I did, pun intended, because the trusted toolbox is my toolbox.

00;24;25;23 - 00;24;27;29
Alan Wyatt
But but a more trusted toolbox.

00;24;28;05 - 00;24;36;08
Chris Lalomia
Would suck you. I'm going to take you down because you would never go into competition to get your friend if you had no another friend in the room. Alan Oh my God.

00;24;36;08 - 00;24;39;11
Alan Wyatt
They offered me $200 million to play on the live tour.

00;24;39;17 - 00;24;42;06
Chris Lalomia
I would say, Go with you. Take me with you. I'll be your caddie. Okay?

00;24;43;10 - 00;24;44;07
Roger Panitch
Right. 10%.

00;24;44;11 - 00;25;00;12
Chris Lalomia
I'll take it. I'll take all 2%. But when you think about you're building up your skill set, do you have the skills to do it? I mean, we will you be successful because we don't know? Because, again, nine out of ten businesses fail. Everybody rate nine out of ten, not four, not five, nine.

00;25;00;19 - 00;25;08;00
Roger Panitch
Yeah, but that goes down pretty significantly in the franchise world, or at least with the establishment. I mean, you're an emerging franchise. I think until.

00;25;08;11 - 00;25;08;15
Chris Lalomia
I.

00;25;08;15 - 00;25;34;06
Roger Panitch
Think until about 75 locations is 75 to 100. And then you become more mature and there's certain little benchmarks that you'll see in different franchise organizations because the person typically to lead you from 0 to 75 or 100 may not be the same leader who can lead you from 100 franchises to a thousand. And then like in the McDonald's subway world, from 1000 to 10000, you know, what.

00;25;34;06 - 00;25;42;00
Alan Wyatt
Are some of the differences you see in your franchise or in the support and the quality of the talent they have today versus when you started?

00;25;42;06 - 00;26;02;02
Roger Panitch
Well, when I started, there was two people in the call center. I knew both their names. So now there's 150 reps in the call center just in and of itself. There was there was holy cow. There was three people on the executive team. There was the two founders, Nic and Omar, and one of my good friend, Steven Nichols, who's now also a franchisee up in Long Island.

00;26;03;10 - 00;26;21;23
Roger Panitch
And that was it. So, you know, you had I had access to the owners. I had a question. I could pick up the phone and call Nick. And if Nick didn't answer, I could call Omar in a moment and answer. I call Steven. So now you have an entire executive team, you have support, you have all kinds of different departments.

00;26;21;23 - 00;26;22;28
Roger Panitch
You have it, you have.

00;26;23;08 - 00;26;43;01
Chris Lalomia
All right. So let me ask this question. Warren Buffett says, I keep saying this because I love this phrase. It's my mantra this year, besides the word finish, bigger is not better. Better is better. They're bigger now. Are they better now at servicing you and helping you? Because you said Nick and Omar. But today, if I buy into the culture, so I call Nick and Omar.

00;26;43;02 - 00;27;03;24
Roger Panitch
No, because Nick and Omar have transitioned into the visionary role. So if you're familiar with the traction model at all, correct. By Geno Wickman, there's the integrator who's more of like a CEO and operations person and a visionary who a lot of us entrepreneurs are where you have a thousand stupid ideas a day. And one of them might stick to the wall.

00;27;04;04 - 00;27;08;14
Roger Panitch
So they're more in that visionary role and not in the day to day at all.

00;27;08;22 - 00;27;13;19
Chris Lalomia
Right. So is it better today now that Nick and Omar aren't accessible? Do you feel like.

00;27;13;25 - 00;27;15;08
Roger Panitch
Well, they're accessible to me, Yeah. I was.

00;27;15;08 - 00;27;16;20
Alan Wyatt
Just going to say he's at the special.

00;27;16;20 - 00;27;18;07
Roger Panitch
Table. This special table?

00;27;18;07 - 00;27;23;13
Chris Lalomia
Yeah. All right. But do you feel like if you if you were talking to another College Hunks potential franchisee.

00;27;23;14 - 00;27;25;28
Alan Wyatt
Which he will, I'm sure you take validation calls.

00;27;25;28 - 00;27;31;23
Chris Lalomia
Absolutely right. Would you say it's a better a better transition in operation model today?

00;27;31;24 - 00;27;47;15
Roger Panitch
Yes. And one of the main reasons is, is we've built out what the company should be and what it can be. So when I started a business plan was kind of you work out of your house, you weren't even allowed to get in office at that point. Now you have to have an office, but you weren't allowed to get in office.

00;27;48;00 - 00;27;58;05
Roger Panitch
You start on the truck, you try and get to $20,000 a month on the truck and then you buy another truck. And that was the end of the business plan. There wasn't any there wasn't a page two.

00;27;58;06 - 00;27;58;26
Alan Wyatt
Pretty simple.

00;27;58;26 - 00;28;00;19
Roger Panitch
Right? There wasn't a page two at that point.

00;28;00;19 - 00;28;02;00
Chris Lalomia
And now there you go.

00;28;02;11 - 00;28;12;11
Chris Lalomia
See, that's that's that's the definition of a great franchisor versus those shitty ones you hear about. Yeah. Because they've gotten better because now they have not just they're not the only.

00;28;12;11 - 00;28;14;17
Alan Wyatt
People, they're actually reinvesting the money. Yeah.

00;28;15;11 - 00;28;16;06
Chris Lalomia
That's pretty impressive.

00;28;16;08 - 00;28;27;25
Alan Wyatt
So you when, when you started with these guys, I mean, you mentioned you named the main player and at that point you probably weren't even a blip on there.

00;28;28;01 - 00;28;28;26
Roger Panitch
No, not at all.

00;28;28;26 - 00;28;31;15
Alan Wyatt
Yeah. And now it's coke versus Pepsi. It's got to.

00;28;31;15 - 00;28;33;04
Chris Lalomia
Be we're.

00;28;33;04 - 00;28;54;03
Roger Panitch
Playing we're certainly playing in the same beat the same sandboxes them now. And what's interesting is that we started moving about 15 months after I joined. Okay. So in December and I got my moving license in on tax day of 2011. So I still remember that. And I signed my I mean, I opened my doors in January of 2010.

00;28;54;16 - 00;29;22;08
Roger Panitch
So once we got into moving and then we became a legitimate moving company and moving about 60% of my top line sales now. So and it's about 50% of the maybe a little bit more of the entire company's sales. I think we're going to do somewhere in about the $300 million range this year. And the goal is to hopefully be $1,000,000,000 company by, I think, 20, 25, 2026.

00;29;22;12 - 00;29;24;15
Chris Lalomia
That's overall college overall, you hear?

00;29;24;17 - 00;29;26;24
Roger Panitch
No, I mean, it'd be nice, right?

00;29;27;16 - 00;29;28;23
Chris Lalomia
Well, I just.

00;29;28;24 - 00;29;30;20
Alan Wyatt
You were wondering how much you needed to suck up.

00;29;30;27 - 00;29;52;05
Chris Lalomia
It was because you were doing is when you get to those numbers. But again, that was the problem I had when I came from corporate America in SunTrust and doing corporate earnings, talking about millions and billions down to Chris that jobs $1,000. Oh, you know what? That's your money. Get that, get that. What would they take that back?

00;29;52;14 - 00;29;57;28
Chris Lalomia
Put that $5 thing back. Know when you're going with the $4 thing. So I just want to double check. All right. So back to.

00;29;57;28 - 00;30;19;04
Roger Panitch
You. So then our competitor tried to launch a moving business after about five or six years, got junk launch a business called You Move Me. And it kind of it kind of fell on its face because one of the beauties of their name is their name, right? I mean, it's it's it's a very it's a very branded name and and great.

00;30;19;04 - 00;30;22;16
Roger Panitch
But you move me is not. And now that.

00;30;22;16 - 00;30;22;24
Alan Wyatt
Sounds.

00;30;22;24 - 00;30;30;15
Roger Panitch
Weird. Two men in a truck. Two men in a truck now has junk removal. They just started it about a year and a half ago. All right.

00;30;30;16 - 00;30;48;01
Chris Lalomia
So quick. Interesting thing is, again, back to there's plenty of other business you can get into. I can't tell you how many different junk removal companies that I've seen when I'm on the road and back out training a couple of surveyors this spring, I've been driving around. I'm like, where this guy came from? Where this guy come from?

00;30;48;01 - 00;31;10;20
Chris Lalomia
Oh, my God, Oh my God. You know, there's always going to be the smaller players. There's plenty to go around for all of us. And I think, again, if the professional ism rises in our business, home services, across the board, we all benefit from it. And in so again, you again as a business owners, we want to win, but it's home service providers in a local market.

00;31;10;24 - 00;31;18;06
Chris Lalomia
It's okay, I'm good. I actually told somebody, I'm like, I don't think I have any competition. Think I went, well, I have your competition come out tomorrow. I'm like.

00;31;18;06 - 00;31;20;01
Chris Lalomia
Good, right?

00;31;20;19 - 00;31;21;22
Chris Lalomia
So you do the same thing.

00;31;21;22 - 00;31;22;27
Roger Panitch
Absolutely. Yeah.

00;31;23;05 - 00;31;46;21
Chris Lalomia
All right. So as we as we continue on the evolution of where you've been, so we started in 11. Here we are in 23 today. You're punks and you're your junk removal and moving business. Yes. And you're moving business as you've scaled your business. That's the big thing. Did you think your franchisor helped you scale or was that you and you how you work your business?

00;31;46;21 - 00;31;55;13
Roger Panitch
I think it was the people. There was a group of franchisees that kind of started after me, and I might be the earliest one.

00;31;55;26 - 00;31;57;25
Chris Lalomia
Who were.

00;32;00;02 - 00;32;02;29
Roger Panitch
Let me say this politically correct balls to the wall. Let's go.

00;32;03;08 - 00;32;22;08
Chris Lalomia
And again, balls to the wall. Totally correct, because it's a military reference and it's not what you think. It's called. When you were a pilot in World War One, you had to put your balls to the wall, you to put your throttle to the max to go out to launch. So you're fair. So just for the record, just for the record, he did not swear yet.

00;32;22;10 - 00;32;24;02
Chris Lalomia
Not yet. Which is which I believe.

00;32;24;02 - 00;32;25;02
Roger Panitch
I have sworn at this.

00;32;25;02 - 00;32;27;05
Chris Lalomia
Point, though at this point, I think this is a fucking record.

00;32;27;05 - 00;32;30;17
Chris Lalomia
Of me talking with him. But anyway. All right, keep up.

00;32;30;22 - 00;32;37;25
Roger Panitch
So we we were of the mindset of it's amazing what happens, how those things just get empty, huh?

00;32;39;22 - 00;32;41;13
Alan Wyatt
I was looking at the bottom of my glass.

00;32;41;20 - 00;32;42;28
Chris Lalomia
Alan, these more drinks.

00;32;44;11 - 00;33;11;19
Roger Panitch
So we were of the ilk of Let's. Let's just buy trucks and and hire hunks and keep going. And if you wheels moving, wheels rolling, if you build it, they will come and let's get more trucks on the road and more people and keep growing and the business will come and, you know, it was it wasn't just me.

00;33;11;20 - 00;33;28;04
Roger Panitch
There were some other locations as well. I'm in a I'm in a mastermind group with, you know, five of the top eight performing locations in the entire system. And we've been in the same group together now for, I guess, probably ten, 11 years.

00;33;28;04 - 00;33;30;05
Chris Lalomia
You guys meet virtually or we ever get together Person.

00;33;30;06 - 00;33;42;23
Roger Panitch
No we get together and it and it's evolved to were more than just business meetings now so our last one was a week in Puerto Rico where we were at.

00;33;42;23 - 00;33;43;26
Chris Lalomia
A a.

00;33;43;26 - 00;33;55;04
Roger Panitch
Nice Airbnb and yes, we're definitely doing business, but we're also having fun and we make family meals. And I mean, we're all all of our families are so tight.

00;33;55;04 - 00;34;11;27
Chris Lalomia
That that's a huge point because as we've done this podcast, we've been doing this for a year and a half. You hope that you've been listening, but I will tell you that people have been reaching out to me lately. Have been, Hey, Chris, can I be part of your mastermind group? I'm like, Well, it's here locally in Atlanta because I'm a big proponent of this.

00;34;12;15 - 00;34;31;13
Chris Lalomia
When you're an entrepreneur and you're running your own business, I don't care if you're in a franchise system or not, you're alone. It's very lonely and you need somebody else to talk to who thinks like you because your employees, of course, think if you're bringing in 5 million your you're collecting. Well, the studies say you're collecting exactly 47% of that.

00;34;32;00 - 00;34;32;14
Chris Lalomia
So.

00;34;33;03 - 00;34;38;28
Roger Panitch
Yeah, know, your employees think that you're collecting 5 million. Your employees think that you have $5 million in the bank as they did.

00;34;39;10 - 00;34;56;07
Chris Lalomia
So you said no, no, no, no. 5 million. They're not completely irrational. They think you're getting two and a half million. Okay. Okay. So it's not so bad. But as we all know, it's a very low net business that we're in. So you can't share with other people. And the best definition I've ever heard is when's the first day you sort of lied to your wife?

00;34;56;07 - 00;35;01;24
Chris Lalomia
The day I started my business. You bet. Because, hey, baby, you make money. Oh, yeah, every day. How was your.

00;35;01;24 - 00;35;03;06
Chris Lalomia
Day? Good. Great.

00;35;03;08 - 00;35;19;11
Chris Lalomia
Great, great, great. But it's not as we all know. So having somebody, you can knock this off a and we've also talked about this, and I'm willing to share it again. I have been to counseling. I have been to therapy for my own self. And this is a lot of personal stuff. We call it self care. Now I find that out.

00;35;19;27 - 00;35;20;22
Chris Lalomia
There's a definition for.

00;35;20;22 - 00;35;22;12
Alan Wyatt
Doing so well. Chris Oh.

00;35;22;12 - 00;35;22;24
Chris Lalomia
Is that.

00;35;23;01 - 00;35;26;23
Chris Lalomia
Right? Self care. I'm so proud of. I know I do it fucking awesome.

00;35;28;17 - 00;35;31;11
Chris Lalomia
But it's been hard for anger management but different story.

00;35;31;12 - 00;35;31;21
Chris Lalomia
Yeah.

00;35;32;02 - 00;35;50;15
Chris Lalomia
But the mastermind group you just talked about, when you get into the franchise system you found and and navigated, or maybe you guys even manufactured your own group mastermind group within it. So don't just during the franchise and go, Hey, they're going to give me money or give me business. They're going to make my business happen. You've made it happen.

00;35;51;13 - 00;35;56;12
Chris Lalomia
So talk a little bit about how you were. You got into that mastermind group and what's that done for you?

00;35;57;23 - 00;36;20;14
Roger Panitch
I would say it's one of the most valuable things that that has happened because this group of of friends and colleagues, we've all pushed each other. And when you can't see your own blind spots, your best friends can't. And what's great about a mastermind group is sometimes your best friends will see it. But because your friends, they won't tell you.

00;36;20;24 - 00;36;37;28
Roger Panitch
But when your best friends are also business owners, they're obligated kind of to tell you and they're obligated to help you because that's what our group is and that's that's the relationship we've had. And what's great is the franchisor actually is part of our mastermind group because.

00;36;38;06 - 00;36;38;20
Chris Lalomia
As.

00;36;39;12 - 00;37;05;26
Roger Panitch
We're the largest locations. Okay. And my buddies up in Long Island are the largest location and they're on our mastermind group. So Steven is one of them. And, and his husband, Ted, and they, they're navigating territory that nobody has done in our business. But our franchisor is also navigating new challenges that they've never experienced as we're growing by leaps and bounds.

00;37;06;08 - 00;37;24;14
Roger Panitch
So they're able to share stuff with us in a safe space with franchisees that they know they can feel comfortable and confident that we're not going to, you know, hurt their trust in any way. It's it's been just a great relationship in that regard.

00;37;25;01 - 00;37;33;00
Chris Lalomia
Yeah, I think so. The franchisee or the or the franchise or they can't they can't legislate at that rate, I don't think.

00;37;33;19 - 00;37;35;24
Chris Lalomia
Because they you know.

00;37;35;24 - 00;37;36;21
Alan Wyatt
They'll try to build.

00;37;36;21 - 00;37;54;10
Roger Panitch
Those. They try and build them right to Allan's point. They'll try and build I mean they'll try and model at them as well and kind of steer them a little bit. Hopefully the mastermind group can become as independent in ours as, you know, we get people coming in asking to join us.

00;37;54;16 - 00;37;56;15
Chris Lalomia
Yeah. And it's, it's, it's.

00;37;56;15 - 00;38;06;23
Roger Panitch
Distressing that you can't I mean, I think the last person to join joined over five or six years ago. It's hard to break into our circle of trust.

00;38;06;24 - 00;38;28;29
Chris Lalomia
Yeah. So I'm in a great mastermind group here locally and we're not all we're not all the same. I'm a handyman and remodeler and there's nobody else like me in the group, but there's some home services people, there's some insurance people. But we it's funny how you start this year that seems stories and you but what's fun The best part is that when somebody puts themselves in the hot box again, back to you.

00;38;29;00 - 00;38;39;24
Chris Lalomia
You can only do this with your best friends. Here's my issue. And you just pound them and we are pound him over his issue. You're like, Oh shit, I have the same problem.

00;38;40;08 - 00;38;41;24
Roger Panitch
And damn it, there's a mirror in front of me and.

00;38;41;24 - 00;38;58;12
Chris Lalomia
I hate that. So I put myself in that box two months ago. You'll love this too. And I didn't mean to, but I did because I have a big problem I was trying to work through and they put me in there and I'm telling you, man, I had one guy. Literally, the question was, Well, why don't you just close your business?

00;38;59;03 - 00;38;59;24
Alan Wyatt
Wow.

00;38;59;29 - 00;39;00;18
Roger Panitch
Yeah. Wow.

00;39;00;27 - 00;39;07;04
Chris Lalomia
And I wanted to come across the table and say, Fuck you. I was about to kill him. I mean, that's how many of was Do we.

00;39;07;04 - 00;39;08;19
Alan Wyatt
Have a little twinkle in his eye when he said.

00;39;08;19 - 00;39;10;25
Chris Lalomia
That? No, but he knew what he was doing. Yeah.

00;39;10;27 - 00;39;11;07
Chris Lalomia
Yeah.

00;39;11;07 - 00;39;16;04
Chris Lalomia
And what he was saying basically to me was, you're going to get up and fight. Are you going to sit there and lay on the canvas?

00;39;16;04 - 00;39;17;22
Alan Wyatt
So he did have a twinkle in his eye. He did.

00;39;17;22 - 00;39;27;10
Chris Lalomia
He knew what he was doing, looking back on it. But he got me because I think so much of him and I put so much personal personal power in him, he did that and I was like.

00;39;28;05 - 00;39;29;09
Chris Lalomia
Oh my God, I'm going.

00;39;29;09 - 00;39;43;14
Chris Lalomia
To figure out this problem. You're going to solve this problem. And then he was like, okay, all right. And so then they all start to give me really good advice. And I executed on it. And they were all they were right. And the fact that the collective environment was way better and way smarter than I am.

00;39;43;27 - 00;39;52;08
Roger Panitch
And I think that's the beauty of it. The beauty is that at the end of it, you know, while you are ready to come off the table and Rip is fucking head off, I was too, you know.

00;39;52;10 - 00;39;55;27
Alan Wyatt
That's just not my reaction to everything. And why would you like a cup of coffee?

00;39;55;27 - 00;39;59;04
Chris Lalomia
Crystal, Shut up. Wrong answer.

00;39;59;16 - 00;40;06;26
Roger Panitch
You realize at the end of it that, Wow. Thank you. And that's so powerful.

00;40;06;27 - 00;40;12;01
Chris Lalomia
Yeah. Actually, I want to thank you, because what you heard off the bat was probably not. Thank you.

00;40;12;27 - 00;40;14;07
Alan Wyatt
Because it was a safe space.

00;40;14;07 - 00;40;16;01
Roger Panitch
The. You was the same word.

00;40;16;01 - 00;40;17;03
Chris Lalomia
Yeah. And yeah.

00;40;17;21 - 00;40;26;01
Chris Lalomia
Yeah. And the bank was for it was spelled a little differently. The problem was course especially in corporate America ended with a K you know.

00;40;26;01 - 00;40;39;03
Chris Lalomia
It's not that you're a physical posing guy, but again, you guys don't know that you can't do this podcast. The three of us sitting around the room. I mean, I think I'm the shortest one at 62 and the guy who was calling me on this was like five nine and.

00;40;39;06 - 00;40;40;13
Alan Wyatt
He wanted to squeeze his head.

00;40;40;13 - 00;41;00;23
Chris Lalomia
Off. I was in there. I was I mean, it wasn't a size thing. I that's not do nothing about it, but I was bringing a flip a table and flying across that room, and I realized that I had that anger look at me. And I realized I'm a pretty bigger guy, you know, And it could be pretty. It's So the next day I went, Oh, I should I apologize.

00;41;01;20 - 00;41;03;20
Chris Lalomia
But again, with best friend, you don't have to.

00;41;03;27 - 00;41;04;08
Chris Lalomia
Right?

00;41;04;16 - 00;41;10;02
Roger Panitch
Right. And and he was leading with love. He did. He did. And that's what's so valuable.

00;41;10;02 - 00;41;24;20
Chris Lalomia
I'll tell you what, he probably doesn't even think at this point we had a problem or it's a problem. It's going to linger. Because when he sees me next month, he's like, you know, big hug. How's it going? Great. And if I even say the word, I apologize. Well, of course.

00;41;24;25 - 00;41;25;02
Chris Lalomia
Right.

00;41;25;13 - 00;41;27;24
Roger Panitch
But what are you apologizing for? I'm just helping you.

00;41;27;24 - 00;41;42;06
Chris Lalomia
Yeah, right. This is what we do. This is what we do as brothers. This is what we do is trying to get your business. It's so hard to scale. And so you've done it. And I know you wanted to get in a point, but I'm going to, sir. That's right. You know, so I watched you scale.

00;41;42;06 - 00;41;43;16
Alan Wyatt
I'll just sit here during you.

00;41;43;16 - 00;42;03;22
Chris Lalomia
Did you did the you did the guerilla marketing. You guys went after it. You have the big behemoth, but you realize now it's a fragmented space of people just picking up shit and doing things and pulling the way in there. But no, but as you grew today, you started with you and how many people and now where are you now this many years later?

00;42;04;03 - 00;42;15;19
Roger Panitch
That was me in two hunts when I first started. And then about three months later, four months later, we added a third, which was a big deal. I would say one of the biggest challenges I had.

00;42;16;00 - 00;42;16;17
Chris Lalomia
Was.

00;42;17;11 - 00;42;24;19
Roger Panitch
The first one was allowing one of my other guys to drive the truck. Okay.

00;42;25;05 - 00;42;27;13
Alan Wyatt
So we were just given up everything slowly.

00;42;27;25 - 00;42;40;09
Roger Panitch
I was awful at it. And then the second big step was allowing them to go out and represent the business without me being there and realizing.

00;42;40;10 - 00;42;41;13
Alan Wyatt
That's terrifying, isn't it?

00;42;41;13 - 00;43;14;06
Roger Panitch
It was. It was it was beyond terrifying. It was so stressful. And realizing that they were doing it the right way. And part of that, I truly think, comes from, you know, the culture and the leadership, you know, But you still putting a lot of trust in people. And now I think we have we have about 75 employees now we have 24 or 25 vehicles rolling around.

00;43;14;06 - 00;43;26;03
Roger Panitch
Atlanta probably need another 50 employees. So if you're you know, if you're listening and you're looking for a job this summer, probably need another 50 employees to get through this summer.

00;43;26;07 - 00;43;27;14
Chris Lalomia
Definitely not our audience.

00;43;27;14 - 00;43;29;22
Alan Wyatt
However, the summertime, the peak time for you.

00;43;30;21 - 00;43;36;23
Roger Panitch
Yet because at the end of the day, more people will put their houses on the market because you want to be settled.

00;43;36;23 - 00;43;37;14
Chris Lalomia
On the move, because.

00;43;37;24 - 00;43;51;01
Roger Panitch
You want to be settled for the school year. Yeah. So even if you don't have school age children, you know that, that more people are looking at the housing market. When other people are looking. So it behooves you to put it on the market as well.

00;43;51;29 - 00;44;11;09
Alan Wyatt
There's a huge difference between your two businesses, though. So are they I mean, do they kind of operate out of the same core team or I mean, do you have two completely different divisions? Because when I think about, like, for example, I may need to use you, I've got a hot tub that needs to be hauled away. And that's a that's a pretty simple transaction.

00;44;11;09 - 00;44;27;22
Alan Wyatt
But then moving, like if I were going to move, I'm assuming you're talking about a four pack and and all that. I mean, that's my own. That's the stuff. So in other words, one of your businesses is stuff I don't care about and the other businesses stuff I do care about.

00;44;27;27 - 00;44;51;14
Roger Panitch
Yeah, but besides your broken hot tub, let's say you have that old desk that you want to donate. You don't just want it thrown into the dump. We donate or recycle about 70% of everything we touch. So if we can find a home for it, we do. And I have a I have a couple of hybrid employees who can do both, who can work both on the junk removal side and the moving side.

00;44;52;13 - 00;45;02;21
Roger Panitch
But and they're very complementary businesses because as you know, as a realtor, you know, you have to declutter your home before you can list it or even start showing.

00;45;02;21 - 00;45;04;14
Alan Wyatt
Them in commercial. But I get it. Yeah. Okay.

00;45;04;15 - 00;45;04;25
Roger Panitch
Yeah, yeah.

00;45;06;07 - 00;45;07;09
Chris Lalomia
So we started there.

00;45;07;22 - 00;45;09;16
Alan Wyatt
But I didn't look at my chart.

00;45;09;16 - 00;45;12;12
Chris Lalomia
You did. You tweaked, you tweaked a little bit. I saw it's.

00;45;12;12 - 00;45;14;05
Alan Wyatt
About to blow up. And as.

00;45;14;08 - 00;45;15;24
Chris Lalomia
You look at the blow up.

00;45;15;24 - 00;45;18;23
Alan Wyatt
Just like Chris, I wanted to be like Chris for a second. You were the record I.

00;45;18;23 - 00;45;25;23
Roger Panitch
Love on this car. Does it say commercial? Because I'm looking and I'm reading the card and I don't. I'm just checking to see if it says.

00;45;26;02 - 00;45;26;10
Chris Lalomia
All right.

00;45;26;10 - 00;45;27;06
Roger Panitch
Commercial.

00;45;27;20 - 00;45;28;01
Alan Wyatt
Children's.

00;45;28;09 - 00;45;31;02
Chris Lalomia
Music, color will air and what bullshit I.

00;45;31;02 - 00;45;32;03
Chris Lalomia
Won't be coloring.

00;45;32;03 - 00;45;33;05
Chris Lalomia
And. All right, back to you.

00;45;33;13 - 00;45;38;02
Chris Lalomia
Old card. Hey. Oh, yeah. The we we have we had branding opportunities.

00;45;38;02 - 00;45;39;00
Chris Lalomia
Wow, you're Alan.

00;45;39;04 - 00;45;39;27
Alan Wyatt
I just got called out.

00;45;39;27 - 00;45;44;18
Roger Panitch
Alan, you can give me your apology in writing after the podcast ends.

00;45;45;15 - 00;45;49;09
Chris Lalomia
He'll have his lawyer approve that. Because we had mentioned before you. That's right. It was last.

00;45;49;09 - 00;45;52;01
Alan Wyatt
Week. My attorney's going to read it. Write a letter to you.

00;45;52;29 - 00;46;05;08
Chris Lalomia
Ah, we got a little off the rails there. Let's get back to what's really cool because he said I started with me and two hugs and when he says me and two hugs, who was driving that truck?

00;46;05;11 - 00;46;05;22
Roger Panitch
Me.

00;46;06;02 - 00;46;07;05
Chris Lalomia
Who was picking up shit?

00;46;07;16 - 00;46;09;06
Roger Panitch
I actually was back then.

00;46;09;07 - 00;46;09;25
Chris Lalomia
Yes, you were.

00;46;10;03 - 00;46;11;13
Roger Panitch
There ain't no picking up anymore.

00;46;11;22 - 00;46;29;07
Chris Lalomia
Right? I know you're not now. So now you do it. So it's scale perfectly right. You got from 0 to 75 with the right people in place, you made every right move and everything happened just right. And you've moved everything and you never had to go back and revert and bring other people. All right. This is sarcasm, by the way, everybody.

00;46;29;07 - 00;46;33;14
Chris Lalomia
And doesn't play well over podcasts. However, it didn't happen like that, did it?

00;46;33;24 - 00;46;35;23
Roger Panitch
It's not linear growth.

00;46;35;26 - 00;46;36;19
Chris Lalomia
Exactly.

00;46;37;19 - 00;46;38;10
Chris Lalomia
However.

00;46;38;29 - 00;46;44;10
Roger Panitch
Until 2022 I had positive growth every single year I was in business.

00;46;45;12 - 00;46;53;14
Chris Lalomia
What was the hardest part? A part of your growth people training process? Eat sometimes the shit sandwich.

00;46;54;04 - 00;47;15;10
Roger Panitch
I think it was allowing some of our service standards to get sacrificed. I'm a huge, huge fan of customer service and it's so important because I think that's what that's what allows you to refer your friends, is if you get treated well.

00;47;16;10 - 00;47;18;13
Chris Lalomia
Even if you go to a.

00;47;18;13 - 00;47;22;19
Roger Panitch
Restaurant and you have amazing service, the food doesn't have to be great.

00;47;23;04 - 00;47;23;24
Alan Wyatt
Yeah, you write about.

00;47;23;24 - 00;47;35;05
Roger Panitch
You're going back because you want your friends to enjoy this with you. This server was so great and made you guys feel like champions. The food was all right, but you're going back.

00;47;36;11 - 00;47;41;13
Alan Wyatt
So going back to your original statement, are you saying in order to scale, you had to sacrifice some of that?

00;47;42;14 - 00;48;01;15
Roger Panitch
I think it got sacrificed at times because whether it was whether it was you just needed people. I mean, there was times when you just need the business was there and you just and you had the the bandwidth to do it and you needed people and you didn't you didn't train them as well as you should.

00;48;01;16 - 00;48;09;26
Chris Lalomia
All right. Let me double down on that. He's not willing to say it. I'll say it because I did it. I told you when I first started my business, I would do anything to anybody at any time.

00;48;09;26 - 00;48;13;02
Alan Wyatt
We've established a fact over 85 podcasts. You're a big.

00;48;13;02 - 00;48;35;13
Chris Lalomia
Whore. Yeah, but when you scale and you start doing it, you're like, You know what? Screw that person. That wasn't the problem. They're the problem. I'm not the problem. Like, my company was great. And that's the hard part because you do that, you get that blindspot, you start to think that, Hey, maybe that was a me, right? A great phrase, actually completely, 100% shoved into my face.

00;48;36;06 - 00;49;00;16
Chris Lalomia
Guy says, Chris, I want to go and see what you guys did. I'm like, okay. Because Chris, I, I am the general manager of a Lexus dealer and sometimes what I've been told desired to come out there and kick the tires. But so we started by the way, this is before we looked at any of the work my guys did, he said, And I want you to come out here and kick the tires with me and let me know if this is how your company works.

00;49;00;25 - 00;49;09;29
Chris Lalomia
And I worked out back and it was abhorrent. It was the worst work I've seen. It looked like a three year old had done this shit. I mean, I couldn't have gnawed it with my teeth.

00;49;10;01 - 00;49;11;20
Alan Wyatt
You're making me sick to the stomach.

00;49;11;21 - 00;49;14;09
Chris Lalomia
It was. I was sick to my stomach. I'm like, Oh, my God.

00;49;14;13 - 00;49;19;14
Chris Lalomia
They used paste. We don't even use paste. We now use glue. I'm like, It.

00;49;19;14 - 00;49;30;13
Chris Lalomia
Would have been easier to use a saw versus what he had done. And like, Oh my God, He goes, I just want you to see what your guys have done. And I was I had I had no words.

00;49;30;13 - 00;49;31;12
Alan Wyatt
Right? He's right.

00;49;31;18 - 00;49;48;12
Chris Lalomia
He said, you know, Chris, I've been in the car industry for 35 years and every once while I'm the general manager now you have to go out there and kick the tires. He goes, I just wanted you to come out here and kick the tires with me. I said, I understand and I will make this happen. He I know you would use.

00;49;48;12 - 00;49;49;04
Chris Lalomia
That's why I heard you.

00;49;49;07 - 00;49;50;06
Alan Wyatt
That dude is cool.

00;49;50;18 - 00;49;59;06
Chris Lalomia
That guy was cool. He is super cool. I have to say now I got the car. I would call my Uncle Tony. I was going to take somebody out.

00;49;59;21 - 00;50;00;03
Chris Lalomia
That's right.

00;50;00;04 - 00;50;00;23
Chris Lalomia
He was going to be.

00;50;00;23 - 00;50;02;07
Alan Wyatt
Getting ready to slash some tire.

00;50;02;08 - 00;50;04;14
Chris Lalomia
I was guy. He was going down. He was going to live again.

00;50;04;22 - 00;50;07;10
Roger Panitch
All those tires were going to be flat when he went to go kick them.

00;50;07;13 - 00;50;10;09
Chris Lalomia
Yeah, you're going to kick tires. You're at that. You're at that.

00;50;10;12 - 00;50;33;26
Chris Lalomia
You're you know what you said? You said I go back to the word over. You said Lexus dealer. I'm going to find that. I'm going to blow it up. You're going to die. And by the way, the guy that did that work is fired in. So what do they do? First, on the way back, I said to my operations manager, I said, this guy is coming into the office tomorrow because that's enough.

00;50;34;05 - 00;50;34;19
Chris Lalomia
I'm done.

00;50;35;10 - 00;50;43;00
Roger Panitch
But that was that was that the first time you heard that he had substandard work or was that the first time it was actually shown to you and you actually decided.

00;50;43;00 - 00;50;44;00
Chris Lalomia
To look, look who's.

00;50;44;00 - 00;50;45;13
Alan Wyatt
Running the podcast now?

00;50;45;13 - 00;50;49;08
Chris Lalomia
Whoa, Hey, Joe, This podcast is this woman who.

00;50;49;08 - 00;50;50;03
Chris Lalomia
Brought this book around.

00;50;50;09 - 00;50;51;04
Chris Lalomia
Right? You know.

00;50;51;05 - 00;51;08;23
Chris Lalomia
And so I love this guy because he you're right. I had heard it and I ignored it. And you know what? When it was in your face and it's visceral, it's very difficult to ignore. And so that's the big thing I think we both would say, is everyone trying to go out there and kick the tires? You'd have to go back out there.

00;51;08;28 - 00;51;13;22
Chris Lalomia
I don't care if the CEO of Disney. I'm listening the Iger thing again. And I go back and I got.

00;51;13;22 - 00;51;14;27
Alan Wyatt
A little man love for him.

00;51;14;27 - 00;51;21;20
Chris Lalomia
I do I well I love Disney except the people who go there. I mean if I go to the Disney parks and have a.

00;51;21;20 - 00;51;22;09
Alan Wyatt
Go yourself.

00;51;22;12 - 00;51;32;22
Chris Lalomia
By myself, it's all the other people. But I'm a I'm a huge Disney. I'm a Disney fail. I'm not going to lie. I am I study that stuff. I love it because I think it's a huge customer service model.

00;51;32;25 - 00;51;33;16
Roger Panitch
Absolutely.

00;51;33;16 - 00;51;33;29
Chris Lalomia
We should all.

00;51;33;29 - 00;51;56;02
Roger Panitch
Have my favorite Disney story if we can get sidetracked. Logic is before they opened Disney World in Florida. They were deciding how far to put garbage cans away from each other. And what they did is they handed every single guest as they were walking into Walt Disney Land in California, a piece of candy that was wrapped in a rapper.

00;51;56;10 - 00;52;09;27
Roger Panitch
And they followed people and track them for how long they would hold on to that piece of paper before they would drop it on the ground. When he said, you will find a garbage can every 27 feet. And Walt Disney World, that unbeliever will.

00;52;09;27 - 00;52;29;16
Chris Lalomia
I love this story. I mean, everything about them is so big. I mean, the reason I'm so in love with them is that well, of course, as a kid growing up, we had the we had every Sunday night. That's all we could watch. I mean, you know, age is all big brown, that same age group that I mean, Wide world of Disney.

00;52;29;18 - 00;52;31;01
Chris Lalomia
We didn't have Sunday Night football.

00;52;31;13 - 00;52;33;22
Roger Panitch
Tinkerbell would come on with their little when.

00;52;34;14 - 00;52;36;01
Chris Lalomia
You start watching how.

00;52;36;01 - 00;52;37;03
Alan Wyatt
They go how they go again.

00;52;37;07 - 00;52;38;16
Roger Panitch
When you.

00;52;38;16 - 00;52;41;21
Chris Lalomia
Wish on stars.

00;52;42;01 - 00;53;06;01
Chris Lalomia
Do we really harmonize? Hey, we got something here. But when you when you think about what they've done and how they do, it's amazing. I remember back when I was at Accenture, my first little my first time leading a team. So I was 28 years, first time leading a corporate team, quote unquote. And they were there. I had three of them, and she was 24.

00;53;06;01 - 00;53;25;18
Chris Lalomia
She was an analyst. She had gone through the Disney Institute. And I said, All right, every Monday, once a month, you have to come in and present to us what you've learned over your life, that you think that we can all take into this day. To this day. I still remember this. She was at Disney. She was at a dream, believe do.

00;53;26;11 - 00;53;43;02
Chris Lalomia
And she brought that book in and she presented it to all of us. So to this day, I still remember that. And now that's part of our remodeling process. When I come in to you to talk to you about your bathroom or your kitchen, what do you want? And Roger can attest to this because him and his wife brought me in.

00;53;43;08 - 00;53;47;24
Chris Lalomia
They're like, Oh, it's just a whole bath. I'm like, okay, what do you want? What do you want?

00;53;47;27 - 00;53;51;21
Roger Panitch
What would be ideal? What like if you could if you could have a magic wand?

00;53;51;27 - 00;54;08;10
Chris Lalomia
I kept saying, if you what did you forget money? Just tell me what you want. Because if I can dream with you, then let's believe it. And then we'll figure out what can do with it, which will be in your budget. And it was so hard for me to do that. I couldn't. I had to refer them to a designer.

00;54;08;10 - 00;54;24;14
Chris Lalomia
But but I figured it out. And that's what we do. And that comes from Disney. But it's all about that customer service mindset. It's hard, but it is paramount because if you're not in that business, even if you think you're B2B, you're still in that customer service mindset, right?

00;54;24;16 - 00;54;27;12
Alan Wyatt
Use the big word there. What's paramount.

00;54;27;26 - 00;54;29;00
Chris Lalomia
There? Tense. That word I.

00;54;29;00 - 00;54;30;18
Chris Lalomia
Served, it was just he.

00;54;30;18 - 00;54;35;29
Roger Panitch
Got there from Disney. It's another film company. It was just 20, he might said 20th Century Fox. And the.

00;54;35;29 - 00;54;37;00
Chris Lalomia
Next one Oh we just.

00;54;37;00 - 00;54;55;15
Chris Lalomia
Short circuit circuited my He must know I'm an engineer that I don't even know those great words. Now this has been awesome. So, Roger, looking back on the the College Hunks journey, what's been the most fun you've ever had in your company? I mean, period time, whatever, maybe day.

00;54;59;23 - 00;55;31;25
Roger Panitch
I think the most fun that I have is now when we go to our annual convention and part of the fun that we get to have with our name, it's our it's our reunion. It's not our convention. So it's our reunion. You know, the whole college thing is now going. And seeing all my friends that I've been friends with for 13 years and getting to hang out with them and swap the same silly war stories that we've been telling each other for year after year.

00;55;32;06 - 00;56;00;29
Roger Panitch
So to me it's the relationships that I've been able to build. I would say some of the some of the highlights are seeing the successes as of some of the people that have worked for me. And I've always said it like I still do our orientation for all of our brand new employees I do our orientation because I want to make sure they hear the vision from me.

00;56;00;29 - 00;56;28;05
Roger Panitch
That's right. They hear what our standards are from me. I don't have much day to day contact with them after that. I mean, I say hi, but I'm more of a cheerleader after that than anything else. But when I can come back, when somebody can come back to me five years later, eight years later, ten years later, and thank me for something that I don't even remember the conversation, but it stuck out to them, That has a lot of impact for me.

00;56;28;20 - 00;56;47;09
Chris Lalomia
That's very fulfilling. That is something again, back to I have a Disney Love and Bob Iger. Bob Iger doesn't do that. You know that. And but you and I know we do that. And that's the part that's so cool. And now I can attest to this is that as a small business owner, you can scale. You want to be a billionaire Titan.

00;56;47;09 - 00;56;56;27
Chris Lalomia
Good job, man. Way to go. But you know what? Being able to do that and have somebody come back to you five years later and say, I remember when you told me that and here's what I did. Isn't that cool?

00;56;57;03 - 00;56;59;13
Roger Panitch
It's great. I mean, I still have people who call me coach.

00;56;59;23 - 00;57;00;11
Chris Lalomia
Because I was.

00;57;01;02 - 00;57;06;19
Roger Panitch
They called me their head coach at at a point when I was in the business. So they still call me coach.

00;57;07;01 - 00;57;07;24
Chris Lalomia
And that's the best.

00;57;08;03 - 00;57;19;17
Alan Wyatt
Do you remember the moment that you went from I hope this is going to work. I wonder if this is going to work too. This is actually working. I've got something.

00;57;23;02 - 00;57;55;29
Roger Panitch
I think it may have. I don't remember the moment per se, but I remember the moment may have been, you know, that first year when we did $1.1 million, when we finally broke $1,000,000 in sales and then realizing a few years later that we had done $1,000,000 in a quarter and were like, Holy shit. Like, do you remember when we used to just we were watching the sales thing every single day, wondered if we could get here.

00;57;56;11 - 00;58;07;14
Roger Panitch
And now it's we're doing more. We're doing more. We've done more in a week than I did my entire first year in business. Like, it's it's just mind boggling.

00;58;07;14 - 00;58;08;26
Chris Lalomia
Oh, my God, that's awesome. Yeah.

00;58;09;08 - 00;58;20;22
Alan Wyatt
I mean, that really cool thing because you're so scared when you first start and you're wondering if you know that 50 grand and the fact you lied to your wife and all that stuff, you know, is this going to For the.

00;58;20;22 - 00;58;21;28
Roger Panitch
Record, I have yet.

00;58;21;28 - 00;58;24;11
Chris Lalomia
To say that you have both said I've yet.

00;58;24;11 - 00;58;27;24
Roger Panitch
To say that I've lied to my wife and she is an attorney.

00;58;27;24 - 00;58;29;15
Alan Wyatt
And the reps there come on.

00;58;29;20 - 00;58;30;03
Chris Lalomia
All right.

00;58;30;07 - 00;58;32;17
Roger Panitch
So I'm not saying it hasn't happened. I'm just like.

00;58;32;18 - 00;58;34;08
Chris Lalomia
I haven't said it.

00;58;34;08 - 00;58;39;17
Chris Lalomia
I know she's a lawyer and I know she is. She's a beautiful woman. I guess she's an.

00;58;39;17 - 00;58;40;00
Alan Wyatt
Elected.

00;58;40;00 - 00;58;42;05
Roger Panitch
Way out. Way out. Kicked my cover.

00;58;42;05 - 00;58;42;10
Alan Wyatt
Yeah.

00;58;42;11 - 00;58;43;17
Roger Panitch
You know, gray area.

00;58;43;17 - 00;58;47;24
Chris Lalomia
Yeah. Yeah, you did, by the way, 100%. So I'm just saying.

00;58;47;24 - 00;58;51;16
Chris Lalomia
Yes, you lied, but I used to.

00;58;51;16 - 00;59;05;28
Roger Panitch
Drive my truck when I first had that job truck. You should drive it everywhere. Like, if I. If we needed flour from Kroger, I would take the junk truck because it needed to be on the road. Right. Okay. I think maybe I would pick up my kids from carpool in the junk truck.

00;59;05;28 - 00;59;14;26
Chris Lalomia
I did the same thing. I used to my kids. It was the big rig. You should be proud. They used to run out and carpool trying at a private school. No, they. Because they.

00;59;15;12 - 00;59;16;08
Roger Panitch
Were crying.

00;59;16;11 - 00;59;19;14
Alan Wyatt
So it's like arrested the ladder truck?

00;59;19;14 - 00;59;22;12
Chris Lalomia
Yes, I was the Latin truck, but.

00;59;22;18 - 00;59;29;20
Chris Lalomia
I convinced my kids it was the best speaking. I was such pride when I show up and my my EF2 F-150.

00;59;29;20 - 00;59;30;01
Roger Panitch
Was it a.

00;59;30;01 - 00;59;30;29
Chris Lalomia
Dooley? No.

00;59;31;06 - 00;59;32;13
Chris Lalomia
By the E250. I'm sorry.

00;59;32;20 - 00;59;34;00
Chris Lalomia
So it was.

00;59;34;00 - 00;59;35;11
Chris Lalomia
The van and we go three.

00;59;35;11 - 00;59;36;23
Chris Lalomia
Wide across the front.

00;59;37;10 - 00;59;46;05
Chris Lalomia
And I told him, I'm like, Hey, you know what? This just shows the kids that we we are somebody and they loved it. Now none of them wants to be in my business.

00;59;46;10 - 01;00;04;01
Roger Panitch
So what's interesting is I have a different I have I have the opposite because my daughter would cry when I would make her get in the truck or make her ride in the minivan that was branded and rap. But now can I have another sweatshirt? Can I have no shirt? Can I have this sweatshirt? Right. All my friends want a shirt.

01;00;04;03 - 01;00;04;27
Roger Panitch
Can you get them a shirt?

01;00;05;16 - 01;00;14;14
Chris Lalomia
You know, they never offered me a shirt. But you know what? We'll swap shirts because trust toolbox, baby. We're going worldwide. Mr. 305 Going worldwide. Not kidding.

01;00;14;14 - 01;00;16;29
Roger Panitch
Prestige worldwide, Worldwide. I love that.

01;00;17;13 - 01;00;37;09
Chris Lalomia
All right, Roger, this has been amazing. I think if you haven't listened to this episode again, I keep saying this, but I listen this guy and I've enjoyed talking to him over the years. I'm not part of his inner circle because I'm not in this franchise. However, I feel like I'm in his inner circle because I, I know I can pick up the phone any time I want.

01;00;37;14 - 01;00;54;23
Chris Lalomia
Call him and he will call back. Maybe I don't get it right away, but it will get answers and we answer each other. And that's called finding your network. Finding your network becomes finding your net worth and the finding of your net worth means you find something that's beautiful. It's not about money. A lot of times. I don't know if you caught this.

01;00;55;04 - 01;01;13;29
Chris Lalomia
Here's what Roger just said. It wasn't. Hey, man, I made $1,000,000. Now. It was when the guy came back to me and said. I remember when you said this. That's how memories are made. That's how you're going to be rewarded. That's how you're going to be remembered. That's the big thing that we all have to realize. That's awesome.

01;01;14;07 - 01;01;35;13
Roger Panitch
But I would I would take that one step further if I can. And I would say that those phone conversations that we've had when it might start with, hey, I have a question for you. We'll talk for 45 minutes because we'll bounce stuff off each other and hey, I'm having an issue with this. And it didn't start by me going, Oh, you know what I should call Chris for advice on this?

01;01;35;26 - 01;01;56;01
Roger Panitch
Or maybe Chris needs my insight on this. No, it started with something benign and and simple, like, Hey, my ceiling fan isn't working, what do I do? And 45 minutes later, we're once again changing the world and redesigning our businesses. And that to me is the beauty.

01;01;56;01 - 01;01;57;12
Chris Lalomia
Of the.

01;01;58;15 - 01;02;02;08
Roger Panitch
The networking and the entrepreneurship that we all share.

01;02;02;12 - 01;02;29;17
Chris Lalomia
Yeah, I appreciate that. That's awesome. I yeah, I can't say enough about that. It's, it's so important because you just brought that up that actually I'm teared up a little bit because you're right I just I love every time I call you, we get on the phone and it's never a quick conversation. And next thing you know, we're talking about kids term of life and we're talking about the next question I'm going to ask him because I'm going to supersede and then go back to I got to know because this is the best.

01;02;29;24 - 01;02;33;06
Chris Lalomia
All right. Four questions. Bring me back to my original question.

01;02;33;22 - 01;02;38;18
Roger Panitch
The end of Passover. This is great. The the four questions are a big thing during Passover.

01;02;38;27 - 01;02;39;09
Chris Lalomia
Oh, yeah.

01;02;39;11 - 01;02;39;27
Roger Panitch
That's the for.

01;02;39;27 - 01;02;42;24
Alan Wyatt
Questioning. If you'd done a Passover, Chris, you'd know this. Well, I've.

01;02;42;24 - 01;02;47;11
Chris Lalomia
Never invite, you know, I would go. I'm a Catholic, but I'm a I'm all in. We're just one guy.

01;02;47;11 - 01;02;51;22
Chris Lalomia
Oh, with the tables are all right I.

01;02;52;00 - 01;02;57;06
Chris Lalomia
I don't, don't get offended if you're getting offended. This is not your show, right? We got a lot more worship.

01;02;57;07 - 01;03;02;03
Alan Wyatt
So that is the most full I've ever been. Was after Passover dinner. Oh, my God.

01;03;02;03 - 01;03;03;06
Chris Lalomia
Yeah. All right.

01;03;03;06 - 01;03;03;17
Alan Wyatt
On.

01;03;03;28 - 01;03;05;21
Roger Panitch
And we drink four glasses of wine during dinner.

01;03;05;23 - 01;03;08;27
Alan Wyatt
Just to get started for glasses. It's mandatory. The four mandatory?

01;03;09;04 - 01;03;09;13
Chris Lalomia
Yeah.

01;03;09;22 - 01;03;16;20
Chris Lalomia
That's just getting warmed up. Yeah. Hey, count me in. I'm coming back. All right, here we go. Number one, what's the favorite feature of your house?

01;03;18;08 - 01;03;45;22
Roger Panitch
I would say the favorite feature of my house is my house. It's up in the mountains, our lake house, and it's our deck. Wow. All right. Why? Yeah, because it looks out over the Dakota River, and it's my favorite place. It has our egg on it. Okay, It has a Komodo joe on it, and it has a shuffleboard table on it that we got off a junk job.

01;03;46;02 - 01;04;00;20
Roger Panitch
Okay, One of those. One of those fun little shuffleboard tables. Nice. And it's where I smoke cigars and I drink my bourbon, and I love cooking for everybody up there. So to match that, that's my happy spot. When I go, What's.

01;04;00;20 - 01;04;01;26
Alan Wyatt
The best thing you do on the.

01;04;04;11 - 01;04;24;26
Roger Panitch
You lately? So I love making the full meal like I can make a good steak and the potatoes and the vegetables all on the egg at the same time. But everybody up there has fallen in love with the way I've been doing wings lately on the egg.

01;04;25;00 - 01;04;36;16
Chris Lalomia
Oh, let's go. All right. I knew Egg was coming. Smoked one. All right. You can't see this on the podcast, but you will if you watch on the YouTube shorts, because, by the way, our YouTube shorts are getting crazy.

01;04;36;16 - 01;04;37;03
Chris Lalomia
Big.

01;04;37;26 - 01;04;55;19
Chris Lalomia
Because what you would have saw was, Oh, my God, no, not there. Oh. Oh, okay. Thank God. Because I know he loves to cook and he is a master chef on the on the egg. He got in the hospitality business for a reason. He has a passion for food. He understands what food is. And we are foodies.

01;04;55;28 - 01;04;56;22
Alan Wyatt
Absolutely.

01;04;56;22 - 01;05;03;00
Chris Lalomia
All right, let's go. All right. If you wanted to recommend a book to us today, what's a great book we should all read?

01;05;03;00 - 01;05;11;21
Alan Wyatt
Well, let me let me tweak that a little bit. So we no so our audience are people that are thinking about leaving the corporate world maybe to start their own business.

01;05;11;21 - 01;05;13;13
Roger Panitch
The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Micklethwait.

01;05;13;28 - 01;05;15;16
Chris Lalomia
Here we go. That was easy. Yeah.

01;05;15;16 - 01;05;22;03
Roger Panitch
So he wrote the first book that he wrote was called The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. Okay. Yeah. And I don't know if you are.

01;05;22;10 - 01;05;26;24
Chris Lalomia
You know what? I am a big fan of the following. I want him. I'm going to get him on the podcast.

01;05;26;24 - 01;05;35;25
Roger Panitch
He's great. But the Pumpkin plan basically talks about not just finding your business, but finding your.

01;05;35;25 - 01;05;37;05
Chris Lalomia
Niche in your.

01;05;37;05 - 01;05;50;02
Roger Panitch
Business. So instead of being the best dog walker, one of his little vignettes is Why don't you become the best big dog walker? And anybody who has a big dog knows that they have to call.

01;05;50;02 - 01;05;51;10
Chris Lalomia
You to.

01;05;51;10 - 01;05;58;08
Roger Panitch
Walk their dog, okay? And if you have little dogs. No, thanks. That's not really my wheelhouse.

01;05;58;08 - 01;05;59;08
Alan Wyatt
It's like super niching.

01;05;59;09 - 01;06;23;00
Roger Panitch
It's super niching because it talks about those massive pumpkins, the whole mindset is those massive pumpkins that you see at the the state fair. They don't just happen. They happen from years of building and buying seeds. One seed can cost over a thousand bucks and you hope that you get that pumpkin to come out of that one seed, which is just mind boggling.

01;06;23;00 - 01;06;38;15
Roger Panitch
But the toilet paper entrepreneurs, the mindset of it is, you know, you've all been there, you've all been in the stall and you reach over and there's one square left. But guess what? You figure it out. And if you're an entrepreneur, you're going to figure it out.

01;06;39;17 - 01;06;42;00
Alan Wyatt
And with that image, what's our next question?

01;06;42;00 - 01;06;45;06
Chris Lalomia
All right. All right. To be fair, read it. Love it.

01;06;45;06 - 01;06;47;15
Roger Panitch
And I'm also a big fan of the Five Dysfunctions of a team.

01;06;47;28 - 01;06;56;02
Chris Lalomia
Yep, that's Patrick. So, Michaela, it's and Lindsay, Ione, Brett, all those. That's amazing.

01;06;56;06 - 01;06;57;18
Chris Lalomia
About that. All right.

01;06;57;18 - 01;06;57;28
Chris Lalomia
Okay.

01;06;57;28 - 01;06;59;20
Alan Wyatt
Let's go back do audiobooks on all those.

01;06;59;20 - 01;07;01;24
Chris Lalomia
Chris No, I picture books. I actually get.

01;07;01;24 - 01;07;03;20
Alan Wyatt
Really read the words and everything.

01;07;03;29 - 01;07;17;10
Chris Lalomia
Well, you know what, with AA now I'm thinking I can say read this book and then make it a cartoon book so Chris can to absorb it. And it's just going to happen. This stuff is crazy, but let's go back to it. All right. The next question number two.

01;07;18;03 - 01;07;19;00
Roger Panitch
No. Number three.

01;07;19;11 - 01;07;20;18
Chris Lalomia
Shit. Thank you.

01;07;20;18 - 01;07;23;00
Roger Panitch
And look, you're holding up three fingers. It's not. I mean.

01;07;23;00 - 01;07;23;23
Chris Lalomia
I was sick.

01;07;24;04 - 01;07;25;25
Chris Lalomia
Damn it. All right, we are.

01;07;26;17 - 01;07;30;02
Chris Lalomia
I loved bourbon, but customer service spirit.

01;07;30;17 - 01;07;34;13
Chris Lalomia
We are customer service freaks. What's a customer service pet peeve of yours?

01;07;37;02 - 01;07;40;10
Roger Panitch
From my business, It's communication and lack of communication.

01;07;40;18 - 01;07;40;28
Chris Lalomia
All right?

01;07;41;22 - 01;08;13;12
Roger Panitch
When I'm at. When I'm out somewhere else, it's. I hate when there's inattentive or I when there's inattentive. So growing up in the restaurant business and and starting that and seeing people not paying attention to what's going on and seeing the whole room and seeing everything like seeing the person standing at the front door, I'm ready to jump out of my booth while I'm sitting there just to go greet them because I find it so important to me.

01;08;13;19 - 01;08;40;21
Roger Panitch
Everybody wears a sign around their neck that says, Make me feel important, every single person. Okay, So when you're when you're when you're Bob Iger at Disney, okay, whether it's whether it's your senior VP or the janitor, treat them all the same. They're all wearing that same sign around their neck that says, make me feel important. And so with a little bit with our business, communication to me is so valuable because if we have a two hour window.

01;08;41;01 - 01;09;03;18
Roger Panitch
Okay, And let's just say hypothetically, Alan your window is from 12 to 2 and I realize we're not getting to you till 130. I'm still within your window, which is fine. But if I can call you at 1030 and tell, Hey, Alan, by the way, we're not going to be there until 130. So if you want to go grab lunch with your friends, if you have some errands to run, whatever the case may be, we're still going to call you when we're 30 minutes away.

01;09;04;06 - 01;09;07;28
Roger Panitch
I freed up your whole morning. Your your day is now wonderful.

01;09;07;28 - 01;09;09;00
Alan Wyatt
And how hard is that?

01;09;09;00 - 01;09;17;26
Roger Panitch
It's. It's so easy. And it's so easy to blow off and not do. Unfortunately, they can't see you when you nod, by the way. They can't hear you, Chris.

01;09;18;05 - 01;09;20;08
Chris Lalomia
I, i, I.

01;09;20;13 - 01;09;31;08
Chris Lalomia
Because I can't because I can't tell this any better than the story you guys just said. You guys hit it on the head 100%. I can't even expound on. It's even better. All right, We're customer service freaks. Here we go.

01;09;31;22 - 01;09;54;19
Alan Wyatt
And I just have to say, had an excellent. Do we have time for this review? So, yeah, Customer service freaks, big foodies, all of us. My wife, Judy and I, we decide to go to restaurant we haven't been to before last night. And it's a place here in Johns Creek. It's been three different brands now in the same place, and they have got a rooftop.

01;09;54;29 - 01;10;15;13
Alan Wyatt
We're like, I just want to sit on the rooftop. And last night was a nice night. So we go there and we walk up to the front door and I'm like, I don't even know if it's open. It doesn't look open. And I'm like, It has to be open at 630 on a Wednesday night. And so I open the door and there's nobody at the hostess host stand.

01;10;16;00 - 01;10;30;25
Alan Wyatt
And it's this beautiful restaurant that I mean, it's just really well built out. There is not one table with customers. And finally, I see two employees look up irritated. Finally one of them walks over, not a smile on their face, Right.

01;10;30;26 - 01;10;34;04
Roger Panitch
Like you're your bothering, interrupting their conversation.

01;10;34;04 - 01;10;41;03
Alan Wyatt
Bothering them, and and she walks all the way up first thing out of her mouth. What would you think it should be?

01;10;42;29 - 01;10;44;21
Chris Lalomia
So sorry it took me so long to get up here.

01;10;44;21 - 01;10;46;04
Chris Lalomia
Yeah, Okay. Hey. Hey.

01;10;46;04 - 01;10;46;24
Roger Panitch
Welcome.

01;10;46;24 - 01;11;07;12
Alan Wyatt
Yeah, it's. Do you have a reservation? And I almost laughed in her face, and it really? Do I need one? There is not one other soul in here. Well, we wanted to go upstairs, and I said, No, we don't have a reservation. Can we? You know, is the upstairs open? She goes, Yes, it is. Do you have a reservation?

01;11;08;04 - 01;11;14;23
Alan Wyatt
I said, No. And then so she's says, Well, and she calls a guy on a walkie talkie.

01;11;14;24 - 01;11;16;02
Roger Panitch
Did you, Bree, have, you should go.

01;11;16;18 - 01;11;24;09
Alan Wyatt
Yeah, there was. I mean, she never once smiled. It was such a. I am really irritating her look on her face.

01;11;24;09 - 01;11;26;16
Chris Lalomia
I don't think that's a her. I think that's a process. Well, no.

01;11;26;16 - 01;11;45;15
Alan Wyatt
No, it wasn't a her. It was just. It was her. And. And so I'm thinking. I looked at my wife, I'm like, I'm about ready to just leave. But we really wanted to be upstairs outside of a nice day. And and so she walkie talkies. The guy upstairs. Hey, I've got two people. Do they have a reservation? She's like, No.

01;11;45;20 - 01;11;58;27
Alan Wyatt
And he's like, one minute. And so she makes us sit down. And then finally, a couple of minutes later, we get to go upstairs, and it's a pretty big space. There's only three tables that have somebody there. And this whole time out.

01;11;58;27 - 01;11;59;26
Chris Lalomia
Of like 20.

01;12;00;19 - 01;12;19;06
Alan Wyatt
This like this whole place could easily hold at least 300 people. Yeah, right. And it I mean, it was such a barrier to entry. Now, the funny thing was, is by the time we ordered and of course the first three things I ordered on the menu, they didn't have some like, can you just tell me what you do have?

01;12;19;20 - 01;12;36;19
Alan Wyatt
Yeah, I mean, I'm just working this, trying to make this thing work out for my own. And of course, with the three tables, they sat us right it right next to somebody else. Could you not us? A little space. I mean, everything was wrong. But then the food comes out and it was spectacular. I mean, it was spectacular.

01;12;36;19 - 01;12;36;27
Chris Lalomia
All right.

01;12;37;09 - 01;12;39;05
Roger Panitch
Different tree in front of the house and back of that which you.

01;12;39;06 - 01;12;39;17
Chris Lalomia
All right.

01;12;39;18 - 01;12;43;02
Chris Lalomia
And so I'm going to short circuit because we're out of time. Did you go back?

01;12;43;18 - 01;12;45;08
Alan Wyatt
Well, that was a conversation I had.

01;12;45;08 - 01;12;46;04
Chris Lalomia
With my wife. Did you go back?

01;12;46;27 - 01;12;49;14
Alan Wyatt
I'm like, I'm not so sure we're coming back to this. There you.

01;12;49;14 - 01;12;50;02
Chris Lalomia
Go. Yeah.

01;12;50;11 - 01;13;02;13
Roger Panitch
You know what? Can I go back to something a little earlier in the podcast? Go back by the general manager. Tommy, you need to kick his tires. You know, just the story. Just. Just go. Hey, this is. This is my.

01;13;02;13 - 01;13;04;02
Alan Wyatt
Experience. You made it really hard for me.

01;13;04;06 - 01;13;16;02
Roger Panitch
You made it really hard for me to want to come back here. Yeah. Food was next level. Great. And normally that would bring me back. However, you know what? I'm really concerned.

01;13;16;05 - 01;13;19;23
Chris Lalomia
Yeah. All right, There we go. Sorry. Keep Moving on. You did.

01;13;20;08 - 01;13;22;14
Alan Wyatt
Thank you for allowing me the time, Chris. I appreciate.

01;13;22;14 - 01;13;24;18
Chris Lalomia
It. I did. And if that were way over now.

01;13;24;18 - 01;13;32;19
Alan Wyatt
Yeah, well, you know, let's go. If we wait. Average of words you say versus words, I say. I think I got my thoughts on it.

01;13;32;19 - 01;13;34;08
Chris Lalomia
Don't get your panties in a wad. Okay?

01;13;34;09 - 01;13;36;13
Alan Wyatt
You're still here. A little boy. They're always all right.

01;13;36;14 - 01;13;43;23
Chris Lalomia
All right, let's go DIY I nightmare story. We've all done one. We have all screwed up stuff in our house.

01;13;44;02 - 01;13;47;22
Alan Wyatt
When Chris has shot himself in the hand with a nail gun, we determined that.

01;13;47;22 - 01;13;50;18
Chris Lalomia
Multiple times is called making clip.

01;13;50;28 - 01;13;51;17
Chris Lalomia
I have.

01;13;52;10 - 01;14;20;14
Chris Lalomia
I have. I watched the house get set on fire. That wasn't me. But I've also flooded the house that was me. I've done it all. However, I want to know. You just first get married. You tell your loving wife you're going to take care of her. You you just absolutely just pound something. It's worst ever. Or you're in a five storey apartment building and you try to change out your own garbage, dispose yourself.

01;14;20;14 - 01;14;26;26
Chris Lalomia
And next thing I know, the water flaps off and it's going down the wall and you can't stop it. So what do you got?

01;14;26;28 - 01;14;36;18
Roger Panitch
So part of the part of the positives and maybe negatives of, you know, growing up a nice Jewish boy is that we didn't learn how to do a lot of stuff all the time.

01;14;37;01 - 01;14;37;16
Chris Lalomia
And.

01;14;40;02 - 01;14;50;29
Roger Panitch
I don't know that I have any awful stories. I mean, I remember some frustrating things, like when I built a grill, I can build a grill, you know, I get the box from home D I can build the charbroiled.

01;14;50;29 - 01;14;53;05
Alan Wyatt
Or whatever it is. You put it together. Oh, yeah. Okay.

01;14;53;05 - 01;15;24;09
Roger Panitch
Oh, yeah. I'm an excellent. And it wasn't that. It was that there was like one thing in step three that was wrong and you have to take apart the entire thing to put it back together, which is a valuable learning tool that the directions actually are beneficial and do work. But as far as we've hired some, we've hired some people unfortunately, who were not the trusted toolbox.

01;15;25;29 - 01;15;29;03
Alan Wyatt
Ellen and should have hired them more trusted.

01;15;29;03 - 01;15;30;11
Chris Lalomia
And not as good as me.

01;15;30;11 - 01;15;33;05
Chris Lalomia
And we've we.

01;15;33;13 - 01;15;38;04
Roger Panitch
Have ripped out those items and had the trust toolbox come in, fix them.

01;15;38;24 - 01;15;39;13
Chris Lalomia
No them.

01;15;40;02 - 01;16;00;22
Roger Panitch
Oh, yeah. Multiple truths in that one. So that has happened. That has happened more times than it should have. And it really goes back, in my opinion, to you really get what you pay for. You really do. And if you're if you want to if you want professional work, you have to pay professionals. I'm a I'm a believer in that.

01;16;01;01 - 01;16;18;11
Chris Lalomia
And on that note, we need to hit the road. We're out of here because that's the number. Everybody listening to this, it is hard to say it. We've heard so many things over the years on this podcast. If you listen to the episodes, go back. People pay for good work and if you provide good work, then you get to pay.

01;16;18;11 - 01;16;38;19
Chris Lalomia
You get paid for good work, do the right thing. It's hard, as Michelle Delgado said, say it out loud and it will become true. And that's how much you want to get paid. You remember that one idea? That was really good. But it's not all about Michelle. It's about her. It's about Roger. This has been amazing. I'm so thrilled that you came in here, Roger.

01;16;38;19 - 01;16;54;25
Chris Lalomia
You don't get out there and talk to many people outside of the College Hunks world. I'm so glad you came out here and share with us, because I think a lot of people will pick up what you're putting down and we'll do anything from what you've done. So thank you from getting out of pedal on drugs and thank you for healing our shit and.

01;16;54;25 - 01;16;55;26
Alan Wyatt
Thanks for the whiskey.

01;16;55;29 - 01;16;56;26
Roger Panitch
Absolutely.

01;16;56;26 - 01;16;58;03
Chris Lalomia
We're out of here. Cheers.

01;16;58;05 - 01;16;58;11
Alan Wyatt
I'd.

People on this episode

Chris Lalomia

Host

Alan Wyatt

Co-host