Tyler Jefcoat has found his $100 million dollar niche! Tyler is the Founder and CEO of Seller Accountant, a company specializing in financial coaching for e-commerce sellers generating over $100 million in annual sales. Did you know our amazing voices can go beyond just the microphone? Yes, we have video! Subscribe to our YouTube channel here!
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Tyler’s Links:
• LinkedIn | @tylerjefcoat
• Website | https://www.selleraccountant.com/
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GOLD NUGGETS:
(03:16) - Transitions From Corporate Career to Entrepreneurship
(14:01) - Navigating Challenges in the E-Commerce Industry
(21:56) - Lessons and Opportunities in a Recession
(26:31) - Sell on Amazon, Work with Alibaba
(31:37) - Navigating Amazon as an Online Business
(38:17) - Discussion on Business Systems and Growth
(48:46) - Productivity, Hiring, and DIY Nightmares
(54:53) - The Importance of Doing Things Right
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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!
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If you loved this episode try these!
• Adults Need Stickers Too: Leadership Lessons with Brian Gottlieb
• Home Remodel Struggles and Million-Dollar Nightmares with Andy Apter
• Scaling a Moving and Junk Removal Business: A Candid Conversation with Roger Panitch
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Find our newsletter here! Or at chrislalomia.com
Tyler Jefcoat has found his $100 million dollar niche! Tyler is the Founder and CEO of Seller Accountant, a company specializing in financial coaching for e-commerce sellers generating over $100 million in annual sales. Did you know our amazing voices can go beyond just the microphone? Yes, we have video! Subscribe to our YouTube channel here!
-----
Tyler’s Links:
• LinkedIn | @tylerjefcoat
• Website | https://www.selleraccountant.com/
-----
GOLD NUGGETS:
(03:16) - Transitions From Corporate Career to Entrepreneurship
(14:01) - Navigating Challenges in the E-Commerce Industry
(21:56) - Lessons and Opportunities in a Recession
(26:31) - Sell on Amazon, Work with Alibaba
(31:37) - Navigating Amazon as an Online Business
(38:17) - Discussion on Business Systems and Growth
(48:46) - Productivity, Hiring, and DIY Nightmares
(54:53) - The Importance of Doing Things Right
-----
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!
• Adults Need Stickers Too: Leadership Lessons with Brian Gottlieb
• Home Remodel Struggles and Million-Dollar Nightmares with Andy Apter
• Scaling a Moving and Junk Removal Business: A Candid Conversation with Roger Panitch
-----
Find our newsletter here! Or at chrislalomia.com
The most miserable three months of my life. I just want to own. This was being the like lame duck speaking of ducks here, being the lame duck CEO for 90 days while I trained in the new group and I was like relegated to sidelines. I wasn't in charging more, I really didn't.
Chris Lalomia:The worst three months, he said, of all of it. It wasn't started up, it wasn't going fetal. It was the three months training the dumb assets to run your business.
Tyler Jefcoat:I think that's basically that should be. The topic of the episode here is teaching dumbasses to run your business or something like that.
Chris Lalomia:But like Welcome to the small business safari, where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls and dangers that lurk 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 mountaintop 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 any of your own personal and professional goals. So strap in adventure team and let's take a ride through the safari. Get you to the mountaintop. Welcome back to the small business safari. There is no global warming. I'm here to tell you that. Oh wait, that's not what this podcast is.
Chris Lalomia:But let me tell you about this guy who died in the small town of Gainesville, georgia. It's called True Crime. So now we're in the true crimes genre. So now we're gonna pump it up. We're gonna be crazy, right? Where are you going with this, chris? I'm going with this. Okay, so I'm not that guy, I'm not in that world, but listen, I put a newsletter out now once a month, where we capture what we've done, like that segue.
Alan Wyatt:I got it all the way, babe. I'm looking all the way home. Oh God, I'm not quite there yet.
Chris Lalomia:We're gonna get you, I'm gonna get you Lamb this plane All right newsletter. Go out there and subscribe, check it out, Get into this thing. We're putting some great gold nuggets. We're summarizing all the podcasts. I'm putting a little video out there. That's just as crazy as global warming is not real. I'm putting videos out there about true crimes. Well, at least I'm not doing that, but I'm definitely got really cool, awesome videos I can do. So I had to go out there and plug that. Go out there and check it out. If you wanna know where, you can always go to chrislalamiacom and sign up for the newsletter, because I can guarantee you once a month it'll be at least worth 15 seconds of your time. That's all I'm asking for. That's all I'm asking for 15 seconds.
Chris Lalomia:All right, let's get into this. We've got a guy that I had met a long time ago and we were shooting it around right before we got to the podcast that we have not seen each other physically in five years, but I do feel like I know, sounds like a restraining order period Well actually he does live in Athens-Thart County and my son goes over there and I have been followed by the cops and I think they know that I'm close.
Chris Lalomia:I'm getting close to Tyler's house. So we have Tyler, jeff Codon, and Tyler has a really unique business. It's called selleraccountingcom and if you wanna sell something on Amazon, you wanna sell something in e-commerce, and it sounds like it's really easy. In fact, I just laid this out to my son, who's in college, and just I said, hey, I'm gonna be interviewing this guy. He helps people sell stuff on Amazon. He goes. Well, how hard is that?
Alan Wyatt:I said oh, buddy, I'm guessing it's one of those things where it's not hard to start, it's just hard to do.
Chris Lalomia:Well, yeah, so this is gonna be a really interesting episode. Tyler, welcome to the show. Looking forward to kicking it wrong with you, man.
Tyler Jefcoat:Oh, boys, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me so.
Chris Lalomia:Tyler, you came, you went to UGA, go Dogs National Champs twice in a row, going for number three three feet. Look out how are you feeling now, alan, it still hurts. All right, one of Alan's kids went to UGA, but I still give him crap.
Alan Wyatt:No, I'm a duck and I'm still just feeling that pain from that massive beat down last season.
Tyler Jefcoat:Yeah, at least it was in the national championships. Yeah, dan Landings great. We love that guy.
Alan Wyatt:Yeah, no, he's doing great things Unbelievable that I can recruit too.
Chris Lalomia:Okay, all right, there you go, alan's back on the duck wagon, quack, quack. Yeah well, we'll see what happens on this season. But, tyler, so you went to UGA. But one of the things that we share in our bio is that we both work for the same company not at the same time, but you went to work at SunTrust Banks, where I had just left to start my own business. Tell me, tell us, how did you go to that? And then start the leap?
Tyler Jefcoat:Yeah, so I worked for a nonprofit for a couple of years out of college and then ended up working at SunTrust you know sales guy, market manager, doing investments, and when I was backing I ended up getting a chance to move back to Georgia. So I am an undergrad from UGA, love it here we're probably eight minutes from campus and so I was back in grad school as an MBA student at Georgia. That's where I met our mutual friend, chris Hanks. We were kind of talking about him a minute ago, met him as an MBA student, which is basically code for somebody in your corporation has decided to put together a budget for you to go to school while you're working for them, and thank you, suntrust, for doing that.
Chris Lalomia:But about how I do that.
Tyler Jefcoat:Yeah, listen, but it didn't end well because I got to a point within my SunTrust journey and discovered that I'm just not a corporate guy. I'm just not. I didn't get it. I was a cog in a really big machine. It wasn't great at it, I was a good performer, but I didn't understand why I was there and I was getting to a point where I wasn't playing nice with others and-.
Alan Wyatt:That sounds familiar. Is there something there seems to be a pattern.
Chris Lalomia:And I blame SunTrust, not me, not Tyler. It must be SunTrust's fault, yeah it must have been, or maybe we're talking to birds of the same feather here. That's true, okay.
Tyler Jefcoat:Yeah, yeah, we are not saying that SunTrust was like the depths of Mordor or like the Death Star. We're not. That's not what we're saying here. Actually, we're just saying that if you have a lot of entrepreneurial DNA, being a part of any Fortune 100 company can feel like a suffocating, bow constrictor kind of move. And so I was in an MBA class with a guy who convinced me that having one paycheck is actually riskier than having a hundred customers paying you a little bit, and I was like huh, that's interesting.
Tyler Jefcoat:And so about the same time, I had a guy reach out to me and say hey, I got some money and I'd love for you to join me to build this healthcare company in 2012. And I was like what me? I'm 29, I don't have any money, never worked in healthcare, I'm completely unqualified. He's like you're my guy. And so I went to my wife and was like hey, babe, I know you just quit your job. We have a six week old, but I'm thinking about quitting my job and joining a guy you've never met to build a company in an industry we've never worked in. You know what are you saying. And, to her credit, she's like I think, I think we should do it, let's go for it, and so in 2012, wow, we should do a whole podcast on that you know what?
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, skip this. Get out of here we're going to talk to her man, she goes ah, this is great idea, yeah. And then we go you quit that job.
Alan Wyatt:Who needs benefits. I believe in you, honey, wow.
Tyler Jefcoat:And then the next day was even better, because I was like, yeah, okay. So remember when you said that was a great idea, we're going to quit the JOB and start business. Okay, there's a part of this contract with this MBA funding where I've got a stroke about a $20,000 check to pay them back for the tuition here. It's like the opposite of a severance, it's like a SunTrust got a severance, right, right. And so she was like, yeah, well, at this point I said, yes, I guess I'm going to stay with it, but anyway. So we started this whole.
Alan Wyatt:So the gold nugget there is when you're dropping bombs on your wife, you spread them out. You don't do it all at once.
Chris Lalomia:Don't just lay waste to it and drop the nuclear bomb. Do little bombs at a time and spread them out over a little bit of time, 24 hours apart, perfect answer Way to go, that's great long-term marriage solutions.
Tyler Jefcoat:Yeah, that's what we're going to pick at a time when they're completely sleep deprived and there's not a lot of like rational thought happening because they're whatever, up at two o'clock in the morning and you know, you say in such a way that it seems like it must be good. This is why I'm a good sales guy, I guess. But for whatever reason, she said yes and so we launched a home healthcare company in 2012. Started with a focus group of literally 35-ish target customers, they named the company, they helped us build the essence of the brand and we learned through that experience that listening to customers is a good idea. It was kind of an accident. We just didn't know what we were doing and decided to ask them, and so that company had a good run. You know, had like 100 employees at one point. Most of them were part time.
Alan Wyatt:Chris, are you writing down listening to customers? How long have?
Chris Lalomia:you been in business. I just wrote down I did. I wrote down two things. One, I need to find another wife. Two, I did not just say that I think she doesn't listen. I know she never listens to me. No, I was. I was right now in the fact.
Chris Lalomia:He did it the right way, man. I mean, you know, somebody asked him to go on a journey. He said I want to go on his journey, and we heard that how many times in the entrepreneurial story is that nobody started out when they were 17 years old and said I'm committed and I'm going to do this by the time I'm 35. We just don't do it like that. Sometimes that opportunity gets presented to you and you got to know to take that door and open it, and he did. But then he went and listened to people before he just went off and said you know what? I'm the smartest guy in the room Home health care, because in 2012, that was a hot thing too. I knew a lot of guys getting into those franchises. I'm doing home health care. I got this, I'm going to figure it out and guess who's not business anymore? A lot of these guys, all right, so you're in there. You did the focus group, you built your brand and your essence. I actually wrote down the word essence because I had to look that up.
Tyler Jefcoat:Yeah, we built it and we of course, want to hear.
Tyler Jefcoat:It's good. It's all right. We weren't very smart either. We barely made it. It's funny. We actually almost bought one of the franchises that wanted to move into our area and in hindsight I'm really glad we didn't, because learned a lot. Maybe it actually, in hindsight, might have been cheaper to spend that 30K and just have somebody teach us how to do this, but we didn't do that.
Tyler Jefcoat:We got a focus group. Those guys named the company, hired a bunch of people, made a bunch of mistakes and ultimately got to sell that company in 2017 and start the one I'm in now. But I just want to say this For any of you guys out there that struggle to manage money I'm supposed to be an accountant with a finance focused MBA that worked at a major bank for five years I don't know whatever all the different things and I was absolute dog crap at managing our money as our business scaled from just me to 100 bodies. And I just want to say that I learned more through the like MBA of the fetal position at two o'clock in the morning for like the first year and a half than I ever did in any classroom, you know, even though the classes were great, I think it's such a big admission, and I love it.
Chris Lalomia:I do too. A lot of times. We don't want to say it, but I was right there with him, probably, just probably, literally just 60 miles away at the same time from where he lives is probably where I'm at and I was in that same fetal position at three o'clock going. What have I just done to myself and my family? What have I just done?
Tyler Jefcoat:We're going to come crash again and we're never going to make payroll right, and so you know, obviously that's a test of faith. It's also just a good learning experience that education expense can sometimes be high. Ultimately, I did get to sell that company in 2017. And the most miserable three months of my life I just want to, I want to own this was being the like lame duck speaking of ducks here, being the lame duck CEO for 90 days while I trained the new group and I was like relegated to sidelines. I wasn't in charging more. I really didn't.
Chris Lalomia:So let's talk about that one for just a minute, because we I've got a couple of friends who've exited and we had the mastermind group I'm part of here. We had them. We had a number of guys come in and do this in a panel forum discussion of selling your businesses and, honestly, you've never heard guys who cashed out sitting on the beach bitch more in your life than these guys. Because of that, what he just what? Tyler?
Chris Lalomia:just the humiliation of no, it was the. I have built this beautiful baby. I built this beautiful baby and now the adolescent is about to run and you guys come in and you start making dumb ass decisions. And I'm supposed to sit there and go Well, I wouldn't do that, I think you should do that. And then they're back in corporate meetings which they never wanted to be in in the first place. So they they were bitching up a storm about exiting, and so to have Tyler talk about that too, a lot of us are again thinking about leaving the business and getting out. The worst three months, he said, of all of it. It wasn't started up, it wasn't going fetal, it was the three months training the dumbasses to run your business.
Tyler Jefcoat:I think that's basically that should be the topic of the episode here is teaching dumbasses to run your business, or something like that. But like, yeah and so. But, like you know, because they needed to keep that I was under contract for them to pay me, they moved me into a essentially a bookkeeping role. You know, hey, we need you to do the accounting. You've got an accounting degree, don't you? I'm like, yeah and so.
Tyler Jefcoat:What was really cool and I'm not proud of this, but over that 90 days, other than not getting to be in charge, I actually learned how valuable it is to have good numbers. Like I mean, this seems like such an asinine thing to say after you sell a company that has 100 bodies in it. But we were really not great at using, like good analytics to make better choices. We were just like, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, and we'll figure it out at some point. And so that last 90 days I was like, oh man, I bet there's a lot of business owners out there who are don't have a degree in accounting, didn't ever work at a bank, and like are scared to death, just like I have been, that would benefit from learning how to get a better handle on their finances, and so that's really where seller accountant was born.
Chris Lalomia:All right. So you got this idea. Talk us through how you made the leap. So your cash out you're making multi millions at this point. I mean I'm sure it was a huge cash out. You could have made it all the way to 80 on a yacht in where do we want to go? Turks and Caicos. Turks and Caicos is a good one. I would also put up money curl.
Alan Wyatt:But, anyway.
Chris Lalomia:So I tell you you didn't go there, so I guess that's waiting for you when you're done, but you decided to go start it again.
Tyler Jefcoat:Yeah, that does kind of I don't feel as smart when you say it like that, but no, I honestly. Two reasons is that it really wasn't because I had an investor. I wasn't a majority owner, so I didn't. It wasn't life changing money, it was cool. I've got runway to go build something for myself where I'm not just a quarter owner of the business, I can actually build a company. And and because you're kind of bored for that 90 day transition, you got a little time to think about what's next.
Tyler Jefcoat:And you know, I had been like selling stuff on eBay when I was in undergrad at Georgia a while back and I was like e-commerce is cool and had a cup of coffee with a guy who owned a large software company in the Amazon space and it just seemed like a really good fit. I remember that the guy we've talked about here a couple of times on the show already, chris Hanks that was his mantra is that there are riches and niches. Find something that's really finite and get into the middle of it. I actually think your your buddy last week on the episode said that. By the way, if you guys haven't seen that episode, go to YouTube or listen to it on the podcast. These guys are awesome, but that's that episode?
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, that was really good yeah.
Tyler Jefcoat:Yeah, that guy's, that guy's amazing, right, and so believing that and, by the way, like riches and niches it's easy to say that from like ooh, that's marketing, people are going to love me because I'm really focused. But the other part of it is I get to be lazier. Like, I get to be lazier if I pick something that's really focused because I don't have to learn a million things. I can learn like three things and get good at them. And so, as an accountant that's never had a real accounting job, you know, don't hire these guys, but like, as an accountant, it's never had a real accounting job I needed to get really focused on my practice and so we chose e-commerce and Amazon sellers.
Alan Wyatt:What year?
Tyler Jefcoat:was that 2018.
Alan Wyatt:So two years before the world went upside down right, Everything went to e-commerce.
Tyler Jefcoat:Nice timing that was literally could not have been a better year to not be managing LPN CNAs that were going into people's homes and to instead be managing a remote team that's helping people remotely in the e-commerce space. So I could not have planned that timing better. To be honest with you, it was great. This is awesome people.
Chris Lalomia:Here's your gold nugget See into the future, see when the next one's going to happen and figure out how you can start a business that can go just like that. Good luck everybody. Hey, and that's after you find the perfect wife. Yeah, you need to find a perfect wife and, by the way, I'm still looking for that business with no employees and no customers. So sign me up when you find that one too. So keep me on, you know, get ready, keep, give me feedback. I'm ready, I'm ready for it. All right. So back to your plan. So you built the business plan, but this time no investors. This was all on you in this time. So you were going to sell fun, you were going to build this up and you started to see that niche.
Tyler Jefcoat:Yeah, and we actually and I had the I could have built it without investors, but actually got an investor that had connections in our industry and took and let him take a minority position to like fund something that didn't exist yet. So that was so in some ways it was like a double blessing, because not only did I not necessarily need his money, but like I had it anyway, and it gave me additional runway to kind of run until we figured it out, and so that worked out. Yeah, so seller accountant, I mean we, you know we've had ups and downs, but yeah, you know we're about 20, 20 employees. So I haven't solved the no customers, no employees.
Chris Lalomia:Yet there, chris, I'm sorry, but you know what, I would say I should forgive you because that's what we're supposed to say, but I'm like. You know what, man? Come on, quit screwing up. I'm kidding, do better.
Alan Wyatt:Just pile up, hey do better.
Chris Lalomia:Chris, that's actually my mantra for my daughter. Yeah, yeah.
Alan Wyatt:Every time a t-shirt made.
Chris Lalomia:I am just kidding. I got a couple of teachers who I'm going to make. One is striving for solidly overweight when I'm in the gym, because I, because I we talked about this before yeah, more horizon, less forehead, more horizon, less forehead. There's another one Uh, because when I take pictures of my daughter, uh and so, and then do better. When I told her that we're going to have leftovers tonight and I wasn't cooking, and she said do better. So there we go. So, taylor, you got that to look forward to. Now let's talk a little bit more about this biz. So, um, explain to us, uh, maybe a case study. It seems easy to sell something on Amazon. Tell me why it's not and give us an example of somebody you help get on Amazon and sell stuff.
Tyler Jefcoat:Yeah, so it is one of those things that seems like it'd be pretty simple, because Amazon has something like 50% of all buyer searches start on Amazon. So you're like heck, put products on there, People buy them. Here's the real challenge, that the challenge is not getting something to sell. The challenge is making money right. So our average customer is across. I think it's something like 280 million in Amazon sales that we're supporting now literally 44% of that entire pile of money.
Alan Wyatt:Can you drop that number one more time? What, what, what?
Chris Lalomia:just one more time because I couldn't put enough zeros in there before you kept talking.
Tyler Jefcoat:Yeah, it's something. It's something about a quarter billion, about 250, 280 million in sales. That's a B billion. Yeah, yeah, not myself, not to be clear, not my sales.
Chris Lalomia:No, I know, I know, but that's, I don't care. I mean, that's a lot of commerce, bro, that's awesome.
Alan Wyatt:That's like a small puppet nation that you're supporting. Wait a minute, wait a minute, dude.
Tyler Jefcoat:This is a. This is not a math pocket. I'm sorry, it is million, not billion. I started thinking about it and I was like, wait a minute, what's the market cap of Amazon? No, no, it's not 250 billion, 250 million.
Chris Lalomia:I'm sorry, a quarter billion, not 250 billion to be clear hey an M, I'm still good with the M, yeah yeah, especially with 250. In front of that one All right, yeah.
Tyler Jefcoat:So if you want to sell $250,. No, I'm just kidding. The issue is that you know, 44% of the entire profit and loss statement goes to Amazon, right? There's an Amazon fee for picking and packing the product, there's an Amazon fee for just facilitating the transaction, and then you're paying Amazon to advertise the product, and so being profitable is hard.
Alan Wyatt:There's taxes involved, now, right, and it kind of depends on where you're shipping your stuff, and so that could be a hairball in a hurry.
Tyler Jefcoat:Lots of hair, lots of balls. Yeah, it's exactly right. Yeah, it's a lots of balls.
Chris Lalomia:Chris, why are that? Lots of balls, lots of hairballs, all right, beautiful Maybe. Lots of balls in the air that are here. What?
Tyler Jefcoat:So what we think that discussion so like when the pandemic was was in the heat of the pandemic, there was a lot of additional demand you guys can believe this on e-commerce, and cash was really, really cheap. The feds were pumping money into the system, and so what did we do as Amazon sellers? We went out and bought like a million dollars worth of inventory because we were worried that our supply chain was going to get stuck in the Suez Canal again or something like that.
Alan Wyatt:Totally legitimate worry, because it was stuck Got way.
Tyler Jefcoat:Stuck Like like whatever 700 foot ship turns sideways. Not what you're looking for. Like not a good situation, right and. But then the interest rates triple. I don't know if you guys have noticed, but they're not as good now.
Alan Wyatt:And I'm in real estate, so I kind of noticed that too yeah.
Tyler Jefcoat:Sucks man.
Chris Lalomia:So the net impact, I blame Alan.
Tyler Jefcoat:I actually was thinking I was looking for someone to blame.
Chris Lalomia:Now I know, now you hear me, we'll put a face with that blame. It's definitely not. It's definitely not our government, it's Alan. All right, so that's a great one. Bring it up. That Suez Canal turn, that was one. I think that was just a precursor to a lot of this. When you saw that you're like, wow, just watch how quickly something gets shut down with one. Obviously it was a big thing, but it's one little thing that literally shut down commerce for people, and that was I mean crazy.
Alan Wyatt:So it made sense that people were trying to stock up, but then next thing you know they're out of cash, right?
Tyler Jefcoat:That's exactly what happened. So you fast forward to the like end of 2022. And all of a sudden, we have all that inventory sitting in our warehouse and we're out of money and we can't borrow it anymore because the interest rates are high. And so our entire year literally 2020 and 2021, we're all about selling Amazon businesses. All the private equity guys in the world were buying these businesses.
Tyler Jefcoat:It was a great time to be in the space. Now it's kind of hard because we've had to do that thing where you liquidate bad inventory, you try to get healthier, you try to get better at managing margins and it's also I mean, it's good for us because we are still needed as an accounting and CFO partner. But it also sucks to like have every single CFO call be like yeah, jimmy, you're out of money again. I mean I'm not making a lot of it, but it's like you know, it's like it used to be like everything's a part of like wow, I can't believe how much money you're making. This is great. I love being your CFO. Now it's like hey, tyler, why can't you find me any more cash? I'm like well, it got stuck in the Suez Canal. I don't know. What do we do here?
Chris Lalomia:And so you know, I don't know. I said, look at the bottom, maybe it's on there.
Tyler Jefcoat:That's right, it's actually it's about 85 feet down, but I'm going to ask you guys this so, like, I started my business the first business in 2012, which means that I'm a pile of there's a big pile of CEOs out there that have never had to lead a company through a bearish market. Like I'm just curious, like what are you guys? What have you learned from your prior experience? What are you learning?
Alan Wyatt:that's like I think what Tyler is saying is is since you're so old, chris, and you've gone through at least 12 recessions since the Hoover administration, what is a nugget that you can give a young guy like that?
Chris Lalomia:Well, you know, listen here, young, and everybody listen up here, because you're listening on these fancy devices that you all have. Get off my porch, get out, yeah, so hey, get up along, kid, and turn on that transistor radio and give me that big battery. Here's a good thing, you'll know this is going to ring. It sounds pretty, it sounds trite, but it's true. And that is not only. Don't know your numbers, but know your people and know your go to market numbers, especially somebody like me. I've got 35 employees.
Chris Lalomia:I am not looking to get to 45 right now because I do think, like in home services space, we're going to pull back a little here in Atlanta, not a lot, I'm not making it and I'm liking it, but watching that and knowing how you can scale back down, because that's I think that's the thing when you go into bear market. That that's where you have your opportunity. And just remember is that if you come out stronger, leaner and meaner, the theory of you know, the rising tide raises all ships, so when it comes back, you're going to be ready to go to market quicker and stronger than everybody else. So it's, it's an opportunity. You just got to look at it like that, right?
Chris Lalomia:But it's hard because when you're staring, especially when you're staring at COVID in the face, and so for you it probably looked like a quasi opportunity for the rest of us we're all like, oh my God, the whole world's about to shut down and all the news says we're all going to die and we're not ever, we're never, ever going to go back to work again, and it's hard to think about how you're going to get better when you're staring at that every single day and you have to be able to pivot around it and start looking for it. But it's, it's hard. I mean, it was hard for me for the first three weeks to actually say you know my business will survive. Well, yeah, I mean COVID was just a complete outlier.
Alan Wyatt:But I think, just in a general recessionary environment, my mindset has always been and I learned this back in my old corporate days was it's a great opportunity to get better employees because, right, you know for the last number of years, you can't hire anybody. And all of a sudden there's going to be some more people on the market and you might be able to get better people and your weaker competition is going to flail. So it's an opportunity for you to get back to blocking and tackling and making things real simple. And you know, telling yourself a recession doesn't mean all business stops. There's people buying stuff every day and it's just who are they going to buy it from? And you just have to be better. And if you are better, you're going to do all right and then, when we come out of the recession, you're just going to feast.
Chris Lalomia:I think this one's going to feel a little bit different as well, because, again back to last year, I said this before the definition of recession you're in the counting world, the definition of recession has not changed, and we retracted GDP and came back, and so it's been back. I think what we're seeing right now and I've just had this told to me locally, and I think this is more relevant in Atlanta, maybe in a lot of markets is that if you have a job and you're still working, you're not in a recession. Now, if your neighbor lost his job, he's in a recession. What's going on now, though, is entire neighborhoods are not getting laid off. It's house by house, because of the distributed workforce and where everything's going, so this is one where it's going to feel a little bit different, and that's the thing I've been watching out for and want to keep my eye.
Alan Wyatt:Well, it feels way different because it's a forced recession, don't you think? I mean the government's trying to crush the economy just to kill inflation and it doesn't want to be crushed?
Chris Lalomia:And I mean people are still out spending ridiculous amounts of money on dinner and all the places that you go to on vacation every other week, just because I'm still employed and I get to go to Lake Tahoe and Vegas and Napa and Lake Iconi and New York City Whoops you didn't mention that one yet.
Alan Wyatt:That's no one and.
Chris Lalomia:but just because my neighbor got laid off doesn't mean I can't keep doing this stuff. So so when you talked about that, you'd ask that question and you let the old people wait. Don't, is true, right? You ask the old person a question and they just do not shut the fuck up.
Alan Wyatt:Well, back in my day I kept talking. I mean, a real recession is when you're waiting in a gas line, you know, and you have the odd and even license plates. Oh, whether or not you asked, you, remember that one.
Chris Lalomia:Wow, well, that's really kicking way back. Yeah, yeah, because I mean the 70s recession, and I was a kid so that didn't mean anything, but when you couldn't find gas, and then the even odds.
Alan Wyatt:So all right, there you go. Other than that, everything's great. Well, let's go back to.
Chris Lalomia:So who is I mean? What do you sell? I have a product. I go out there and buy Sherman and I sell Sherman on. Is it? Is that I have a product I'm selling on Amazon, or is it? I found a product and I can buy it here and I can sell it on Amazon? How do they do it?
Tyler Jefcoat:It could be either. So there's different, like we call them, business models. So the arbitrage model is the one where you go buy a Nintendo from Walmart that's on sale and turn around and sell it on Amazon. You don't have a lot of a moat there, right? Any money can jump on those listings, so it's difficult to make much money there, and you've got to physically go buy something, so that's a difficult way to make a living at scale.
Tyler Jefcoat:The brands that we're most focused on are companies that would consider themselves brands. They've taken a product and tweaked it and redesigned it Literally, you know, gone to China, kissed babies, drink sake, develop a relationship with a factory right and then have your container ship that may or may not make it, depending on the Suez Canal, and then. So you actually are controlling more of the brand experience and you're leveraging Amazon's buyers, which is a bunch of them, to help you get started, and so the cool thing is that Amazon will allow you to own your own real estate, like your listing is yours. Now, if I'm selling a Nike shoe, I don't own that listing. Nike, does you know that kind of thing?
Tyler Jefcoat:So our preference as an accounting firm is to help the brand owners, because they tend to have more of the problems that need our help. But you can sell anything on Amazon. You can sell something used on Amazon, that's just. That's normally gonna be your really tiny hobby guys that are just trying to clean up the basement. Most of the real six, seven, eight figure businesses are selling some kind of a product they help design.
Chris Lalomia:Okay, so that's what you're focused on. So I had this really cool design and, instead of me trying to take it to the Walmart and the targets of the world and pitching all the distributors to do this, I can sell through Amazon, and that's the guys you're helping.
Tyler Jefcoat:Yeah, and actually what's crazy is that selling on Amazon allows you to go to the buyers at Walmart and say look at the volume we've done on Amazon over the last six months, what do you think? And so I think it's actually become the new normal. You almost can't get the attention of a buyer within a traditional retail bricks and mortar unless your own website or a marketplace has showed proof of concept. It just lowers the risk. So much for a target or for a Walmart or Costco. Yeah.
Chris Lalomia:So are you 100% of your businesses around Amazon or do you work with other online retailers?
Tyler Jefcoat:So any online retailer. They fall into buckets. A direct to consumer business means it's my website, I'm paying to drive traffic to it, you buy the stuff and it could be a Shopify site or something like that, or a marketplace seller. It's different than direct to consumer. Marketplace could be eBay, Walmart, Amazon, but basically our entire business is around. I've got something, I've got stuff I wanna sell and that stuff gets sold online.
Chris Lalomia:All right. So I've heard about this other one just recently as I was looking into this, called Alibaba. And so we don't buy from Alibaba.
Alan Wyatt:Never heard of it Really. Yeah, well, I knew something.
Chris Lalomia:You know a lot of things. Yes, look at that. So you don't work with people like that. You stick with your Amazon guys, but Alibaba is the Amazon for the Asian world.
Tyler Jefcoat:Yeah, it is, and the way we interface with Alibaba is that it's crazy to say this, but actually all of your factories in China list their products on Alibaba for American business owners to find and say, hey, if you're gonna do your test run of manufacturing the green one, hey, I can make the green one. And so Alibaba is a pretty popular way to connect with manufacturers. I think if you actually live in Asia, it's also a popular way to buy the stuff that we might buy on Amazon. But in the States you're interfacing with, alibaba is all around sourcing. I need to source product. I need to find someone who's competent, you know doing injection, molding or doing like textiles or something like that, and I might be able to use Alibaba to message the guy behind it and say, wait a minute, you make that, what's your price? And try to get a quote.
Alan Wyatt:that kind of thing Is it possible for a e-commerce business to have just a long tail? And I mean because what I've heard is you come up with a product and you put it out on Amazon and within six months it's copied and you're getting undercut price overseas. So how do you navigate that? How are your people navigating that?
Tyler Jefcoat:It's hard. So I mean, when you first said long tail, I wasn't sure if you were talking about just like the niche of your products.
Alan Wyatt:Yeah, I kind of used it wrong.
Tyler Jefcoat:But you know what I meant, but no, I do know what you mean. It's basically like can you get enough? Is the juice worth the squeeze? Can you get enough mileage off of this product to make the investment? You had to design it. You had to try to create the mold. You're gonna spend a bunch of money to get product over from Asia. Can it stay relevant long enough to give you ROI? And the answer is it can, but it's just hard. And I think here's what's really cool Whether it's chat, GBT or Asian sellers or Russian hack shops or whatever might be trying to get on and take advantage of the IP, there's just no substitute to kind of where we started this discussion listening to your customers and understanding their use case.
Tyler Jefcoat:That's why, like if somebody out there was thinking about opening an online business, I would start with what's the thing that I would buy or something I'm buying.
Tyler Jefcoat:That kind of hacks me off and if you deeply understand your customer's journey, it's kind of hard to fake that Like somebody that doesn't understand English that well or somebody that hasn't actually lived where I live, when I'm buying camping equipment or guitar stuff or whatever it is that might be my hobby. So if I design products around that I have an unfair advantage longer. And then the name of the game is to say how can I continue to build my brand? Because, let's be honest, when you sell something on Amazon for the first time, even if it's your product, no one cares about your brand. They're buying it because it has Amazon's Prime sticker on it and it'll ship it in two days to their house. Your job is to build that trust towards you. Know Amazon Tyler, and then after a little while later, it's like Amazon Tyler, and so try to build your brand so that you can try to divert some of those customers to your own website or develop an engaging relationship. So, but to your point, yeah, it's not easy.
Chris Lalomia:So you fit in with Amazon and you work with people to help them with Amazon. As I've learned about Amazon, when they see a place to make some dollars, they come after it and tell me how come they let you stay around and don't come after you and say, Tyler, get the hell out of the way. We do this way better and we're gonna do it ourselves. We're gonna have Amazon CFO consulting services.
Alan Wyatt:Chris, I gotta say that's a good question. Thank you, Ellen. Wow, we keep score.
Chris Lalomia:By the way, it's really hard for me to say this we keep score and I'm telling you right now that one right there, we're gonna bracket that one.
Alan Wyatt:We're gonna have a moment.
Chris Lalomia:We're gonna get a little bit clumped, really All right. Well, we gotta let them answer this question, because I'm dying to know, because you are dancing right around the dragon bro.
Tyler Jefcoat:Yeah, Well, it's funny. You gotta call this segment the fetal position segment, where you're like. Can I try to find a question that most closely elicits the fetal position tonight when Tyler's in bed?
Alan Wyatt:And Tyler in the balls is what he's saying.
Chris Lalomia:I kicked him right in the hairy balls. Yeah, you did. There's lots of hairy balls.
Tyler Jefcoat:Here's the simple answer is that Amazon is our frenemy. Like we have to do business with Amazon because they own the eyeballs, but Amazon's already telling us hey, trust me, we're gonna pay you the right amount, we're gonna take care of you, like, what these million dollar brand owners want is actually not to have to take Amazon at their face value. They actually want outside advice. That isn't Bezos making Bezos more money, because and so it's actually because Amazon is so greedy, because, let's be real the antitrust stuff whether it goes through or not, amazon owns a ton of the value chain and so being a partner that helps be on the side of the table with the entrepreneur, that isn't Bezos, that isn't Amazon. Because that guy is gonna make money and they're gonna find a way to make a cheap, under market product, like they're doing it right now with shipping.
Tyler Jefcoat:So if you buy Amazon Global Logistics, you can get product from China to America normally cheaper than you would buying your own freight. But here's what's gonna happen, because it happens every year Amazon's gonna get X number of adoptions to that new system and then triple the price. We're like whoa, you know what? Now AGL is gonna cost whatever $5,000 per container instead of $2,000. And so making sure that you keep Amazon at arm's length is a really important survival strategy. We're talking about Safari here, guys. A way to get eaten is to make Amazon get in bed with Amazon and don't keep an eye on them. You know, huh.
Alan Wyatt:Let's just sit on that for a second. I know actually I was going to pick a whole lot of that.
Chris Lalomia:Sounds like a cheap date. Bring them into bed, keep an eye on them. So again, you're dancing around with the bear doing that, so it sounds like. But the buyers, how much power do they have? I mean, I'm sorry, the sellers how much power do they have when they come to Amazon? Because Amazon sets the rates? That's the old. How do they get there and actually get to control what they get? Because, you just said it, 40, 44% of their P&L goes to Amazon. So you're starting right there. It's it, but I can't do the math. Help me.
Alan Wyatt:Yeah, it's more than that. It's slightly more than half.
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, more they take more than half no they take less than half.
Alan Wyatt:They take less than half, but I get slightly more, so I don't get.
Chris Lalomia:if so, if I made $2, they're already taken, I can't do that. Matthew gets to $10. They're taking $4.44.
Alan Wyatt:Ten beers and you take nine. Oh, my God.
Chris Lalomia:Which I need one.
Tyler Jefcoat:Getting close to home here.
Chris Lalomia:Yeah Well, so here's the reason.
Tyler Jefcoat:Well, why do we put up with Amazon? Is the real question. And here's why we do because Amazon still has I don't know if you guys have you guys have spent money on advertising before. We have marketing dollars. If you spend dollars with Google or Facebook or Instagram or tech talk or YouTube and try to drive traffic to sell something on your website, you will get a 5x better result with Amazon than you will with your own dollars.
Tyler Jefcoat:And so for a lot of product lines out there, because Amazon has so many what is it? 300x million prime users, so you partner with Amazon and you use their buyer power to help build your brand on your website as well. And then you kind of have to have both. And so you put up with Amazon because, frankly, they can generate cheap buying, converting traffic for you and they handle a lot of the stuff you're bad at. Like, I don't want to have to open a warehouse. The same time I'm designing a new product, amazon's got a warehouse and guess what? They're better at pickpacking shipping than you are. They're going to be able to do it cheaper. So even though you're paying them, they're a big chunk of your P&L. They're still probably less than you hiring four employees, putting a three year lease together for a warehouse and then paying FedEx to ship the stuff that kind of thing Got it, so I see the benefit on that.
Chris Lalomia:That's awesome. All right, let's go back to you scaling your business, getting out of it. What is your role today in the business? How have you helped scale it from just you with an investor and then you got employee too, and I used to say you have 20 employees. What's your role today and how did you get yourself through those roles?
Tyler Jefcoat:You know, like the hard way, probably right, like the easy answer is whatever, the hardest way is probably that Add a boy.
Chris Lalomia:Me too, by the way I resemble that.
Tyler Jefcoat:I can't seem to like hire well and I finally think I feel really grateful for this, but like hiring another salesperson that can get it done in our industry has been a real challenge for us. We've had a couple that we've tried that just didn't work out, and all the surnames.
Tyler Jefcoat:Chris. Well, all of them are Chris. So you know we're big. We're big fans of the traction EOS system and that's a. That's a bunch of geeky words for like put systems around your business so that you don't have to do everything every day. That's the one with the rocks.
Chris Lalomia:That is rocks level. 10 meetings Yep. I self implemented at least part of it, so I'm actually not all the way through traction, I'm more like tracked Yep. I like try, it hasn't happened, yet I'm a truck.
Tyler Jefcoat:By the way, quick, quick story about that Like. So I've also been like flirting with traction for like whatever 10 years for the first company and then this one. And so what happened, guys, is last year we finally got fed up with not doing a good job, like in every part of our business, like what is going wrong here, and we finally we did Okay, okay, I'm sure it's the video here because it shows off a great no attempt at amb还是 it's good imaging done a great job at the management of whatever the program was. Thank you, great. And then we had this guy in business, going in business. We came together for a rally. He shade and he was a two year sedan. I have to say, yeah, for me he's again two years. Onstar sergeant was a banker on the team. Yeah, two years, 6 months literally revolutionize the way we run our business. And, as a result, you asked me what my role is. I get to kind of create content. I have my little podcast. Return on podcast.
Alan Wyatt:Hey, I gotta interrupt you right there. So my wife's an accountant. I've been around accountants my whole life. I've gone to accounting Christmas parties and they make me wanna gouge my eyes out. And I listened to two episodes of your podcast and you are awesome and you have an ability to explain pretty complex accounting principles in a way that a numb nut like me can understand and actually enjoy. I mean great job, high five, bravo, great podcast.
Chris Lalomia:There's not a question or a future. It was a statement.
Alan Wyatt:I just said I wanna interrupt a little bit hey.
Chris Lalomia:Edie, can we go back?
Alan Wyatt:No.
Chris Lalomia:I was right in the middle of this.
Alan Wyatt:I was I was he mentioned his podcast and I've given him Thank you. Thank you, we're gonna prop him just because I'm not propping up your podcast, which I happen to be a part of. Yeah, I'm giving somebody else a little bit of a bad on the back. It's amazing. It's amazing because you share-. Sure, we're gonna have to go to couples therapy again.
Chris Lalomia:We are again. Just because you share a light with other people does not mean that I like that. I want the light right here focused on me. Baby, let's go. This podcast is almost as good as yours, chris. Well, actually, I've listened to it too. I think it's really good. It's phenomenal. And you're right, let's face it, man, accounting is a boring, flippant subject, and he makes it unboring and makes it. I know he had one episode on the EOS and the traction which we were talking about.
Alan Wyatt:Well, and I will say to our listeners so you may not know our target audience tends to be people thinking about starting a business, or maybe they're new in business. They often are in the home services space. So he's got a whole series on cashflow. Cash is king Brilliant and I would encourage anybody who's thinking about starting a business to just listen to those. He's actually there on YouTube, so he's got things that you can look at and while he's talking, and it'll help you understand much more than probably the accountant.
Chris Lalomia:What are you? Oh my God, we're back to another Tyler advertising session. Listen, unless he gets a free creature comforts when we go to Athens. You can't do that. Yes, he can. By the way, I just dropped it. So, thank you, that's what I wanted.
Alan Wyatt:All right, I'm done, you did, you parted them up.
Chris Lalomia:You parted them up. I'm just getting what we want out of this, which is we're going to Athens. I tore the top off of my beard. I'm so pissed at you. You should not be pissed at me. That was good, though. You're right, we're going to plug your podcast. What is the podcast? What's the name of it?
Tyler Jefcoat:It's called Return on Podcast. It's like instead of ROI it's ROP, get it.
Alan Wyatt:It's kind of that kind of thing. That's fun. That's fun for an accountant, isn't that great? Oh, I got it. Yeah, it took me a minute.
Chris Lalomia:No, I'm kidding. I got it. Of course I did, but it's not all about selling stuff on Amazon. Obviously, you've talked about that, but you've got a number of things that Alan brought up. Cash is King the Traction episode, I thought was good stepping out talking about how that works, because for me, I'd like for you to say you're running a level 10 meeting but you're not holding anybody accountable. Isn't that funny. You say I was running the meeting, but when they didn't do it, what happened then? Well, we just went to the next topic.
Tyler Jefcoat:We're like you know what, buddy, you'll get them next week. No big deal, just hang in there, pal. And for me, honestly, chris, it's because I'm a better visionary leader than I am a tactical manager, and so I need a system like Traction to make it idiot-proof for me to create accountability.
Alan Wyatt:I thought he was going to say he was a better visionary leader than you and I was waiting for you to slash his tires. That's a pissing contest.
Chris Lalomia:However, you've made it. Oh look, oh Tyler. Oh, we lost Tyler. Ok, great, all right, tyler's off the episode. Chris is talking to me, chris is. I have got to in contract. I tell my guys all the time you don't snuff out somebody else's light to make your light shine brighter. You've got to just shine bright. You've got to keep doing it. Don't put other people's work down, especially in contracting. However, I'm going against that right now, and OK. So, oh, look Tyler's back though.
Alan Wyatt:All right.
Chris Lalomia:So you implemented traction. You got yourself. You realize I think that's actually a huge realization you can tell if you haven't figured out. Listen to Tyler you have great self-awareness, which I think is an important point for a lot of folks who are trying to lead a business or start and grow a business. You've got to have that and it's hard sometimes, especially when you're in their grind, and as hard as you can, but you've been able to figure out. Stepping back has been better for your business to where you are now. So before we get into the rest of the plug in your stuff, where do you want to take this business? What's your 10-year plan? What's your three-year vision? What's your one-year?
Tyler Jefcoat:Yeah, I mean we'd love to be a bigger version of what we're doing. I think we like our niche, we like our customers, we love making our mom and pop three or four million dollar year Amazon seller kind of the hero of our story, and I don't know if you guys found this. But when you're not doing a good job in your business, you constantly think about exiting. You're like, oh baby, if I can just get to 2 million revenue, then I'm going to exit and then I'll be happy, like there's that kind of thing. But once you actually start executing well, you're like oh, can't really.
Chris Lalomia:Oh, my fucking kid. I really like like every hour on the hour right now, but they can tell that one cut a little deep though, bro, I'm sorry.
Tyler Jefcoat:It wasn't a personal attack. It was a personal attack. But now listen, we will exit at some point, but I'm not feeling as desperate as I was like a few years ago. We're just like oh God, please have somebody come and give me money.
Alan Wyatt:It's at least once a week. His eyes just went like oh, my God. That's so funny, so yeah if you're running your business.
Chris Lalomia:Yes, we all think about that magical exit here's the golden nugget there, though?
Tyler Jefcoat:Somewhere between 20 employees and 35 employees, that phenomenon happens where you're ready to exit immediately. Is that actually the golden nugget here? Is that something happens?
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, I'll tell you right now, at 35, I'll give you at least 15 of them. No, it's, but that's the growth. So that's the thing that, as you're thinking about growing and you think about where you got to go, it's not to say pick a magic number of revenue in the top line, the sanity line or the vanity line that we talk about, Because to grow you're going to need more people, you're going to need more customers there. Inherently, as we heard from Brian Gottlieb on an episode as you grow, it's easy to grow a complex business. It is hard to grow a simple business which can scale better.
Chris Lalomia:And that was the nugget I took from Brian's episode that in my own business. He's right it is easy to make things very complicated and complex because I can handle it, but it's really hard to scale it and then get out of the way and become that visionary you're talking about. If it's not easy and simple for people to see that line of sight where you're trying to go All right, did that make sense? For me? It did, okay. I mean, that was cathartic for me because I went from selling my business to okay, I guess I'll show up tomorrow morning, maybe.
Alan Wyatt:Tyler's taking a good long pull and you earned it, you did.
Chris Lalomia:Tyler, we're coming to the end of the episode. I've got a few minutes left so we pushed the return. On podcast we talked about seller counting. How old can people get a hold of you If they're listening to this thing and they're like you know what? I'm going to make my millions selling my awesome product on Amazon? How can people find you and how can people reach out to you and learn more about what you're doing?
Tyler Jefcoat:Yeah Well, if you're getting started, selleraccountantcom is a good place to find out about us. We also I agree with you that bookkeeping is not very sexy, and it's especially not sexy to pay someone to do it when you're not making money yet, and so we actually have a do it yourself. Course that's free. So if you go on our website, you can actually get access to our like how to build your own QuickBooks online. How to do it right? Listen, once you start making money, get it off your plate, hire us to do it. But if you're looking to get started, we've got a free resource for you that we can get to Brilliant, that is.
Chris Lalomia:Not only is that brilliant, that is genius. People. You got to at least go check that website out for that, right. I mean, he just told you a free resource, right, I can't afford it. Hey look, dude, I did the same thing. I kept it simple, stupid in the beginning. I did it all myself. I screwed it up horribly. You had to pay somebody to fix it all. But don't worry about that. You guys go out there or you do the online freebie thing. At least check it out, because that's huge, because I can show you YouTube videos all day long about it. Change your toilet, good luck. So you can guess about Tyler?
Chris Lalomia:I don't get upset about it because I was the one gushing, because if I gosh, then it lights up me. I'm bringing that up with the therapist.
Chris Lalomia:Oh God, not another thing. I mean, it's already two hours a week, all right. So let's go back. So, sellercounterncom, go out and check it out. You can check out Tyler's podcast. You can check out Tyler on LinkedIn. Go out there and LinkedIn with them, because I think that's also a great thing. You guys go see a little bit more about what he does and what his company can do for you. So that is awesomeness, absolutely All right. Let's get into our four questions, shall we? I think we should All right. Question number one what is a book you would refer to our audience that you think they should go out and read immediately?
Tyler Jefcoat:The one that's had the biggest impact on me this year is Buy Back your Time by Dan Martell. So if you guys haven't read Buy Back your Time, I say read it right away.
Alan Wyatt:What's the nugget you pull out of that book?
Tyler Jefcoat:I think in a nutshell, we've read lots of books about being more productive and finding out how to offload and delegate things that you shouldn't be doing in your business. I thought his energy audit leads to a job description with SOPs. To hire an executive assistant Was a game changer for me. It resulted in me hiring an assistant and that has changed my life as an executive. Yeah.
Chris Lalomia:That's awesome. I was about to say if I could. I don't have time to read that one All right?
Alan Wyatt:No, because it's good, you could listen to it at two times speed. Chris, I did Well that's somebody asked me.
Chris Lalomia:He said how are you able to get these books and these podcasts? I said I listened to one and a half. There's only a few of our episodes. I've had to slow down, yeah, Because I'm skipping over what I'm saying anyway. All right, Number two what's the favorite feature of your home?
Tyler Jefcoat:Yeah, we got a screen and porch. That's my second favorite feature. My first favorite feature is my shop, because I just got power run to it and I've got my shop set up. Now I'm pumped.
Chris Lalomia:Love it. What are you?
Tyler Jefcoat:making Nothing. I'm making shit disappear from my garage and end up in a shop when I keep going back and off.
Chris Lalomia:Right, oh nice, oh, so you're making your own mini storage.
Alan Wyatt:What it is is a place that he can hide.
Tyler Jefcoat:It's essentially $8,000 of mini storage and an escape retreat.
Alan Wyatt:That's exactly what it is, so nice Mini storage escape retreat, although he doesn't need to hide from his wife, because she's awesome.
Chris Lalomia:We've learned that Well, we have. I mean, if she stuck with him this long and said oh yeah, baby, this is great, what a great idea. Oh boy, yeah, my hand. Every great man's a great woman. All right, keep it going Again, back to therapy. Question C Question. We have only four questions, and so number C Question what is a customer service pet peeve of yours when you're out there trying to get good customer service as a customer? Thank you as a customer.
Tyler Jefcoat:Yeah, we had a home services guy come out last week and me with my wife and hasn't followed up. Like we want to give this guy our money. Chris, why don't you call?
Alan Wyatt:him back.
Chris Lalomia:You know, you could just why don't you just go out there and Google and slam me now? Well, you're an Athens bro, and so am I, so we'll get you hooked up. I got a number of guys out there for your first, so after this podcast, I'll let you know what's going on. He just built it for me and it was awesome. It might be.
Alan Wyatt:Thank you.
Chris Lalomia:I know.
Alan Wyatt:I know, I know you do, I love it. No, but I'm paranoid?
Chris Lalomia:I'm not paranoid. No, I was just thinking on the Athens thing. Yeah, if I don't, if I don't know who they are, we'll figure out who it is and we'll get them taken care of.
Tyler Jefcoat:Well, and this was kind of on like the gardening side, so this was just like, and so I wasn't sure if I wanted to spend money on this anyway. But if the guy's going to come out, my wife wants to give him money. Like you say, you're in sentence. Proposal. Send us a proposal.
Chris Lalomia:Dude, it kills me as a husband.
Tyler Jefcoat:Am I looking for an out? Am I looking for a potential out to not spend this money?
Chris Lalomia:I probably am hey, baby, it's not me, it's him Right, it's not me, I was, I was, I had the check written and he won't. He won't call back. You really want that Ivy garden on the right side of the set I'll look at. I mean, go get that baby. Oh, yeah, go. I mean, hey, you supported me, I support you. Hey guy, don't call back.
Tyler Jefcoat:All right, nice, all right. I didn't intentionally give him the wrong phone number.
Alan Wyatt:It wasn't anything like that yeah.
Chris Lalomia:Now we're talking. Actually that's a move I would have made. The wife really wants this done. So actually true story is my wife calls the office to get worked on at her house. She doesn't even let me know we had somebody showed up. I was in the production meeting on Tuesday and they're like all right, we're going to your house next Wednesday. I'm like, oh, we are. Oh, because I had Nicole called in directly, that's bad. Just because she's been asking you for three weeks to do it.
Chris Lalomia:I was like all right, I'm done, All right. Last thing give us a DIY nightmare story.
Tyler Jefcoat:Yeah, so this is back to the shed. So I bought this shed. I'm proud of the shed, guys. My wife painted it. It looks good, it's at the right spot in my house and it came with the package that has the lights and the you know the little panel in there, and so I got to run electricity from the house out to the shed and I think to myself I'm an accountant, what could go wrong? Let's go ahead and dig a trench and instead of like spending 50 bucks to rent a trencher I get my neighbors mad I can decide to like dig this damn trench by hand and halfway through the project Find I found. I didn't know it was there, but I found the extension PVC pipe for the irrigation system, found it by absolutely destroying it. That's, that's how I found it. That's how we usually find them. Yes, again.
Alan Wyatt:I didn't know, like this is, if you're going to put it in the procedure, isn't it? Isn't that how you're supposed to find it?
Chris Lalomia:I've. That's actually the way I usually do my projects oh look, there's the electrical. Oh look there's a. There's the wastewater. Oh look, that's the sewage. Oh, my kid just flushed the toilet right when I cut it. That's it.
Tyler Jefcoat:It's all about feeling a little bit of resistance with the swing and then swinging harder to see if it was just a blip right. So so I talked to a family member who's like, don't worry, I'll come help you run the rest of this electricity and get it done right. And here we are two months later it's not done. I can't use my shop. I'm not happy. I finally break down about a week ago and just text a guy that I've known for 12 years that does handyman services. I'm like hey, buddy, I got a thing. Do you know anybody?
Tyler Jefcoat:And I said I didn't know you weren't here in town, but I know, I know, don't worry about it, I forgive you. He texts me like within 48 hours this problem is solved. And it's solved for way less money than I thought it was going to need to be solved for. And so the the you're an accountant that really loves jockeying a spreadsheet and a podcast Like let a damn pro do the things around your house. That's what I love.
Alan Wyatt:I love that that's a good one. You know, you let that go pretty quick. I was just going to say Tyler. Next time you see, chris, if he kisses you on the lips, then don't go fishing with any of his friends.
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, don't worry, the Italian mafia is out there and we might have already just sent a text message saying to Google his address and so many of them be outside right now. But don't worry about it, they are. If they're in a trusted toolbox truck, don't worry about it. If they got a gun in there, it's okay. No, those are great stories that reminds me of.
Chris Lalomia:We did a pool in our backyard years ago and I was told do it right and do it right the first time, don't, don't skimp. And I did for most everything except my outdoor grilling. So I had to go tap into the natural gas line to run natural gas to the grill because I didn't want to use propane. I wouldn't have the whole thing. So I brought my father in law down and my dad came down they're both from Michigan, you know. They're in their late sixties at the time and we had to dig the trench. And so we're trenching and we're trenching, we get. We get the trench done.
Chris Lalomia:And my father-in-law is a perfectionist and he's like not trenches deep enough. I'm like it's 90 fucking degrees outside. I think that trenches perfect. And so he goes back out there with a pick and goes down again and he hits the two inch gas slide. Oh, your dad did, no, my father-in-law, which is even better. Oh, and you could see it and it was like oh shit, and the water started flying into it. You know, I got the gas cut off so that wasn't a big deal, but I had to have my plumber at the time come out and do it all and had to put these huge clamps on, cut it all out. And I'll never forget my father-in-law was sitting at dinner the night after and he goes. I sure wish you would have hit that line.
Tyler Jefcoat:And I was like I said.
Chris Lalomia:I understand that. All right, this has been awesome. Guys, this has been an adventure and you can hear Tyler had always had the entrepreneurial spirit. He has never given up on it and he's obviously done it twice. That's awesomeness and it made it happen. But you got some great gold nuggets on how to do things and you know what? Sometimes you share some of your best stuff when you admit that you made some mistakes. Guys, we're not all perfect, it happens, but you got to keep digging, keep going out there. Problem solving that's what makes us entrepreneurs, that's what makes us successful. Keep going up that mountaintop. Let's go make it happen. We're out of here. Cheers, tyler.