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?
The Small Business Safari
The Financial Compass: Navigating Business Success with a Fractional CFO | Rosco Graves
Rosco Graves, founder and CEO of Polaxis, shares his journey from corporate finance to entrepreneurship and explains how fractional CFO services can transform small business operations and profitability.
• Building trust with clients starts with understanding their unique needs and personalities
• The value of storytelling in financial services—translating numbers into meaningful narratives
• Why "you don't know what you don't know" can be the biggest threat to your business
• How fractional CFO services provide Fortune 500 financial expertise to small and medium businesses
• The importance of having finance professionals involved in business decisions before problems arise
• Common financial blind spots that cost business owners thousands
• The transition from corporate mindset to entrepreneurial thinking requires deliberate reprogramming
• Starting with a $50 client and growing to serve businesses across multiple industries and states
• The power of combining technical expertise with strong communication skills
• Financial professionals who can tell you things you need to hear, not just what you want to hear
• The realistic risks of entrepreneurship versus corporate employment
Check out Polaxis and connect with Rosco at polaxis.co or email info@polaxis.co to learn how his team can help your business make better financial decisions and achieve greater profitability.
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.
I made a lot of mistakes, but learned a lot as well.
Speaker 2:See, it ain't true, Roscoe. That's not true. I made mistakes. We don't do those.
Speaker 2: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 hitting your own personal and professional goals. So strap in Adventure Team and let's take a ride through the safari and get you to the mountaintop. Alan, we're ready to rock and roll. We got to get it going. Man, I love that music. I know I say it every time, but I was doing some editing of our podcast. I've got a new person helping me out with editing and we keep listening to it and she's like boy, you really just like that music. I said you know I do, it's just cool. So we're off. We're rocking, we're ready to get back and going. We're going to get into this.
Speaker 2:But before we got started, roscoe and Alan and I were talking. We're going to introduce Roscoe in just a second, but he brought something up about have you ever made a mistake as a business owner? I'm like, well, you know, in 17 years uh, no, no, never. Or I'll give you this one. I've made a lot of them, but one time my guy goes out and does an estimate, it is off by half. Customer says no way, you guys did it, he wrote it. He wrote it exactly like you said. You guys got to honor it, I did, and I get done and I'm just ready to just absolutely this dude out right. I'm like what the hell? You know I, I stood up, I did the right thing. This is early on and he goes. You know what, chris, sometimes, sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes it eats you. I'm like you know what I'm thinking right now. This bear is about to beat you, buddy I said you're rude is that really what you just wanted to tell me?
Speaker 2:right now I'm like no, that ain't happening, big boy. So when an employee tells you that one, you can file that away, but you can use that anytime you want. But it's uh, it is, it is apropos, uh, out there. You're out there just trying to eat bear all the time. Sometimes it grabs you back and beats the yeah, it's not out of you, that is true, that is true. All right, let's get into this. We got rosco Graves on and he's going to talk a lot about, I think, business stuff.
Speaker 3:Well, good yeah, you sound so erudite.
Speaker 2:Roscoe, why don't you give us a quick lowdown? Just tell everybody a little bit more about what your business is and what you do, and then we'll backtrack on a couple of things couple of things, sure, so I am the founder and CEO.
Speaker 1:Thank you guys for having me on. Founder and CEO of Plaxis. We're a professional services firm. We do tax preparation, tax consulting, we do bookkeeping and fractional CFO services. So primarily we work with we do some work with individuals, but primarily with businesses small to medium sized businesses. We want to partner with our clients. We want to help them run their business better, make more money, be happier, and so that's what we do.
Speaker 2:And that's why I wanted Roscoe to introduce himself, because I could have done that. I could have just gone blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I never would have gone. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Listen, roscoe, you said something right off the bat that actually was going to be. One of the themes is that people don't switch to you unless they know you, and I'm not going to know you from one podcast and you know that. Guys, you're not going to get it. I get it. But you may get introduced to him and there might come a time where he says something you went huh, I might want to go pull that thread and get to know Roscoe a little bit more. But when you talk about, you have to know that business. You got to know that person to do that business with them. How have you found that trust to get built and continue it on? I assume it's a lot of referral work.
Speaker 1:A lot of referral work. You know the best clients come from referrals. It also helps because it's a little bit of that tacit trust is already started, and then you got to know your client right, and so you know, before I started this I was in corporate America and you got to know your boss. You have to know how your boss thinks, you have to know how your boss operates, what they like, what they don't like, and it's the same way with every single one of our clients. So when I'm thinking about how to present something, I may have the exact same advice, but I got to present it to two different owners because they have two different personalities, two different life's experiences.
Speaker 2:And so it's the challenge but it's also a little bit of what makes life fun. Yeah, you hit on the well, we'll get to that in a minute, but that's just it. You know nobody's going to just call you out of the blue. Hey, I just ran into Roscoe. Hey, roscoe, can I just give you all my tax information? Hey, can you come do an audit? Hey, can you be my CFO? No, it doesn't work like that. So when you talk about that tacit trust and building on it, what do you do and how do you see that being built to?
Speaker 1:the point where they go all right, I'm high enough on that trust mountain. I'm ready to work with you, yeah. So a lot of those initial conversations we try to talk to them, get to know their wants, their needs. I like storytelling and so I try to relate to things that have been similar. But even in those conversations everybody gravitates to something different. They gravitate to maybe a place that I used to work that they feel very great about, and so you know, I get credibility based on that, or maybe it's something I said.
Speaker 1:I've been a business owner in other businesses before and I think that really relates and resonates with a lot of businesses, because I'm not the accountant that's never tried to run a business. That's telling you how to run yours. I've actually done it and that's how I think of my business. So it kind of depends on every single individual situation, but a lot of it is just talking to them being honest and transparent. There's a lot of things I'm probably going to tell you that you don't like, but I'm going to give you the truth versus buttering you up, telling you what you want to hear, and I think over time those are the things that people say hey, he was fair to me. He was transparent and the advice he gave made sense.
Speaker 2:So I know, one of the ones that I saw on LinkedIn because I was excited until it said he was a passive investor is that he actually got into a franchise. And I was like, oh good, I'm like oh, so which franchise did you get into and how much were you involved or not? What does this mean? Because I was like, oh, he got beaten just like I did. I didn't start a franchise, I did not do a franchise thing.
Speaker 3:He probably did really well, he probably made a lot of good decisions.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, he probably made a lot better than I did and Alan, having been in franchising like you have, I saw it and I wanted to talk about it. I'm still going to talk about it because I just brought it up you did, so let's do it, you're down. Come on, let's go.
Speaker 1:All right, so tell us about the franchise you either invested in or how you did that and what you did in that role. Yeah, so I had a gym franchise. Took about a year to look into various franchises, had a franchise consultant help me Chose a yoga-focused franchise. I liked the aesthetics of it, I liked helping people and if I could make some money, great.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, I started the franchise probably three months before COVID and we were very much the brand was do it together. You know you got to be in the same place. You want to have a community and obviously that doesn't work very well when COVID so you know, financially it wasn't the greatest thing, but it was I learned a tremendous amount. You could never have written enough or read enough books to get the knowledge that I you know that I got. I made a lot of mistakes what no? But learned a lot as well.
Speaker 2:See, it ain't true Roscoe, that's not true. I made mistakes.
Speaker 3:We don't do those.
Speaker 2:So bottom line is you just picked a scab, I did Well because I was excited about it, because I saw it Well, because misery loves company.
Speaker 3:Oh, shut up, that's what we're dealing with.
Speaker 2:I started my business in the recession. I had to live through COVID. I'm getting my butt kicked left and right. I mean my God.
Speaker 3:When I saw that, I said, oh my God, you just had this nasty little grin on your face when you asked about it.
Speaker 2:I want to apologize on behalf of.
Speaker 1:So what was your franchise?
Speaker 2:So Alan's franchise Go ahead.
Speaker 3:You tell me no, I don't remember.
Speaker 2:I.
Speaker 3:So Alan's franchise go ahead? You tell me, no, I don't remember. All right, he doesn't like to talk about it. It was something I opened right before 2008,. So kind of a similar thing. Okay, yeah, but I love franchising.
Speaker 2:Then he got in and helped other people franchise.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I did work at a franchisor's office, which was so much fun helping other people spend their money Right it's always their money.
Speaker 2:But the Yoga 6, I saw that. But you put passive investor. I was like, oh, I wonder if.
Speaker 1:But now you just said it, you learned, yeah, it wasn't passive at all, yeah it wasn't passive at all and that was the thing I wanted to work full-time and do this and you know, thought it was kind of a side thing and it was a full-time job.
Speaker 3:Um and, I think, rusco. I think we're gonna have to have a signal today where I hit chris under the table no, let's have a safe word, let's do safe word, let's do. Let's do downward dog safe yeah I noticed you struck a little bit of a yoga pose, Chris. I don't ever need to see that again.
Speaker 2:So no, but you hit on. But that's what makes you so relatable. When somebody says, hey, my friend said I should talk to you, roscoe, so you've got the trust of the friend, that relates. But then you start talking hey, man, I'm not just some beankeeper who went to the wrong consulting firm, by the way, because I worked at Accenture, but you were at Deloitte, you were auditor, I was always in the consulting firm. I'm picking that. You're a mess. I'm excited. This is bad ground.
Speaker 3:You know, roscoe his wife's been out of town for quite a while, and this is what I have to deal with. You should see the way he parked his cars in his garage. They're diagonal, hey, you know what. And I'm like is it because they won't fit? He's like no, because.
Speaker 2:I'm conformed to societal norms. I was like my buddy came over and I did, I parked, I parked one, I parked one SUV, uh, diagonal, so I could pull my truck in and out, cause I drive the pickup and that's diagonal too, and that's diagonal too. And I was like you know what?
Speaker 1:I'm not conforming to lines, my friends, that's so I will tell you this. We're watching a movie. My wife and I are watching a movie this past weekend and, um, the uh character in the movie pulls in his car. He's single and he pulls in diagonal. And I told my wife, I said I love you, but you remember when we were dating I had a house and I used to pull in diagonal because I have one car and I can't. I simply can't. I can do whatever I want, so I used to park diagonal in my garage.
Speaker 2:So this is how he bonds with clients. Signs with entrepreneurs, right, I mean, he is an entrepreneur, right, if he? If he's working with a client listen, man, this guy knows how to not have to work within the lines. Hey, the tax code says not have to work within the lines. Hey, yeah, the tax code says I have to pay this.
Speaker 3:Ah, those are just now you are in construction, so the fact that you just on the air said you don't like straight lines makes me really nervous.
Speaker 2:All right, hang on now in people's houses, and you know this because we've done a number of projects for not only you but you're working on one right now, yeah, and you know that. No, when it comes to my work, when I'm at somebody's house. But when I pulled in, I was like you know what, for the first time in I think 28 years, I can do whatever I want in the house because I am king of the castle, I own my domain. You're like, oh, is your wife gone?
Speaker 3:I'm like, oh, yeah, when did she come back? When does all the fun stop?
Speaker 2:it all. It all is coming to a screeching halt. Soon, my friends. So the.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you're eating very healthy while she's gone and uh dude that tv.
Speaker 3:He did just go to the liquor store.
Speaker 2:I did just go to the liquor store, that's why we're drinking to replenish, by the way, because it's been 30 days, uh, and I'm talking, I'm watching sports. I never even thought I would. I was telling these guys before I said I watched the nba when the playoffs get started. Well, the playoffs weren't started yet, but I was watching them anyway, watching the Hawks go down. And then I'm from Detroit, so the Pistons are really good this year, yeah, but I don't watch. But I'm like heck, I'm watching it, you know. And then I watched everything. Draft day, draft night, thursday night, turned into draft weekend for Chris. Draft night, thursday night, turned into draft weekend for Chris. I watched all of it. I mean, well, I had it on. I wouldn't say I watched all of it, but that was fun so can we go back to Roscoe?
Speaker 3:You know I was wondering if we were going to do that. I want to say I love the whole fractional CFO thing and I know it's been around a while, obviously, but I still think a lot of people don't know about it. Don't know about it, and when you're scaling up your business, you you need that expert help and yet you may not have the money for it. And I've I've seen a lot of businesses make poor hiring decisions just based on how much they can afford to get a full-time person when they might not need that person full-time. But they need that expertise. It's just brilliant. And and actually my wife in full time, but they need that expertise. It's just brilliant. And actually my wife has a similar background as you.
Speaker 3:She started with Deloitte, yeah and uh, and so she um actually ended up getting hired by a buddy of mine who just had that exact same problem. He goes I need the help, I just really don't need it all the time and hired her on as a fractional and now she's full-time CFO. But I mean it was a brilliant solution for him.
Speaker 1:Most definitely.
Speaker 2:Did you ask a question?
Speaker 3:I was, do I do, I have to.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I want to hear. So, all right, so you said it. But I think you said hey, it's been around a long time and I disagree. I don't think a lot of people, especially small business people, understand what it is. And I will tell you just the term cfo scares everybody right off like dude. I can't even afford a bookkeeper, much less a cpo cfo.
Speaker 3:So let's talk about how you guys get implemented into there see I was having a conversation which doesn't mean just endless berating questions like like oh, tell me about your hello tell me, tell me about this painful experience you had in franchising to start there was a bass.
Speaker 2:I loosened them up. That way it works. You gotta soften them up a little bit. Roscoe, talk to us a little bit about how a fractal cfo can help and give us some examples. I think that will help a lot of people yeah.
Speaker 1:So we try to be consultative really with everything right. So, even if it's just a very small organization, I, when I was an accountant and I worked in corporate America I worked at corporate America 20 years A lot of what I did was help create the story of what's happening with the numbers. And so you know, in my mind, an accountant shouldn't just pass you P&Ls and balance sheets. They should help you understand what's going on and the narrative behind what's going on. And so even on a simple, very simple tax return, we're going to like talk through. I want to understand why your W-2 wages went up or why they went down, et cetera. So the way we kind of think about fractional CFO services is first off, you need a team, and so that's what I learned when I had the franchise. I tried to do everything as an accountant, of course, yeah, I can do this on my own, I can do that on my own, I can do everything. And I quickly realized I don't know what I don't know, and the stuff I don't know is what's hurting me, and there's just not enough time in the day, and so you need to build a team around you of trusted individuals that you can go to very quickly and get stuff that you may not know, and so we try to help people professionalize their organizations.
Speaker 1:And so if you're a business and you make $200,000, you have three employees, what you need you may be in that compliance bucket. You need tax returns, you need financials to maybe get a bank loan. That's kind of where you are. If you're 25, 30 million, 40 million, you're in a totally different boat, and so some of that may be you need to get out of just trying to say, hey, we did our tax return and everything's fine.
Speaker 1:You need to be talking about internal controls. You need to make sure you're having inventory observations. You need to talk about risk management. Maybe you need to talk about treasury management. You need to even consider well, let me think through. I know I want to get a loan, but do I need to get a loan or do I really need a line of credit? And so it's all these other financial decisions that are outside of just compliance profitability analysis, sales analysis. So these are all the things that we want to really work with our clients and help with, either as special projects or on ongoing basis, but really all of the things that a Fortune 500 company would go to a accounting or finance department. Those are the things that we try to do. Obviously, you don't need that on a daily basis, but there's certain periods of time where you may say, hey, something's going on here and we need to investigate. So that's what we try to do.
Speaker 3:That's so well said and I mean I think a great CFO or business manager or whatever the title is. They've got your back, you know. They've got the fiduciary responsibility. They get a second set of eyes. It's like having a second owner. It's kind of nice to have somebody who's got the power to maybe say no, but they're going to protect you from things you don't even know that you needed protection from.
Speaker 2:Yeah, back to the you know what I didn't know was hurting me. I mean, that's just a huge gold nugget that that. That alone is one of those things where you know, I'm working with the Nary and the nonprofit. So Nary is the National Association of Remodeling Industry and I'm the president here locally in Atlanta. He casually drops Thank you. I'll drop the book thing later, but here's one of the things that happened to me, and so I was over the finance committee before this because they brought me in, because the books were all messed up.
Speaker 2:Well, covid hit rascal and I just talked about that. Uh, we had to move out of our offices. Well, we moved out of the offices. I'm on the financial committee, you know, and I'm doing the whole thing. We move our executive director and leave the office, we exit the office and disposition it, move her into her home. Well, for the last. So, covid's now, five years ago right, four years ago, whatever you want to say we had an auditor come in not an auditor, but a financial guy came in and said you guys never wrote off your pictures and assets there.
Speaker 2:So we had to take an $8,000 hit this year because of that and you're like you don't know the value of an auditor until something like that happens, because we just went as a nonprofit organization, we had extra money to do things like charitable events and we were going to give out more scholarships, and now we're trying to figure out how to overcome that $8,000 through our revenue gain. So you don't know what you don't know, and what you don't know is hurting you, and I mean maybe you could have sold those.
Speaker 1:You could have maybe even sold it, so then maybe you would have had a gain. So, like these are the things that that we can be a part of and help give people advice on or suggestions.
Speaker 3:And I don't know what the, the, the sales numbers have to be Um, but there's a certain point where hiring a good CFO pays for itself.
Speaker 2:Yes, do you have a number on that? What's a revenue number that? Have you seen where people enter it? Or a good sweet spot for you and your company?
Speaker 1:So I would say for our services, I think really and again, we're very comfortable with just doing hourly work. Charge me for an hour for me to download my experience for an hour. As far as a good CFO, I think it depends on the industry and how complex the end of business is. Complexity in the businesses, I know there's, there's not, you know. There's just not one answer because you got to think through inventory vendors. I think you have to.
Speaker 1:I think it does depend on do you have a business that has debt and equity holders? You know passive equity holders or is this just owned by one person or a couple? Those? The reporting requirements are different. Are you? Do you have any regulatory requirements? You know, if you're doing fertilizer, that's something that you know you kind of have to work through right, where a really qualified CFO would be very helpful. If you're selling widgets that you don't have to worry about, you don't have to worry about labels completely different. So I think it really, you know it depends just on all of those factors and you know I would say the other thing is I don't necessarily have to be there the entire time. Maybe my job is to train your staff up to where they can operate on their own, and then I can sunset and move on to something else, so I don't have to be there all the whole time. I'm just trying to get you to the place where you need to be.
Speaker 2:All right, so let's talk about this for a minute. In your company, your typical engagements. I'm not hiring you as a fractional CFO for years. I'm usually hiring you and your company for months.
Speaker 1:It can be either way.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:Either way, you and your company for months it can be either way, yeah, either way, right in the stone. Yeah, I, I just it's so funny. Uh, so I've been married for oh god, it's over 30 years. Like like I'm freezing on air hopefully judy doesn't listen to this one but um, anyway, over 30 years. And I can't tell you how many times she's come home and said, oh, I just saved the company X today, and one time it was 5 million, whoa, yeah, and that was when she was actually doing a temp job filling in for somebody who was on maternity leave and and she went and worked for a big oil company for a little while. And she went and worked for a big oil company for a little while, but yeah, I mean, it was constant, just always, you know, and whether you know, getting people out of bad pay plans there's, I mean, there's so many different ways that somebody who's thinking in financially strategic ways can help your business so much and honestly, this happens.
Speaker 1:We talk about small to medium-sized businesses, but it also happens in very large businesses as well. I've worked in organizations. Thankfully, most of the organizations I've worked in, finance was always at the table. So if we're going to go out and we're going to get this great new customer, we're going to bring a finance guy. Sales guys are doing most of the work, but we're going to be a finance guy just in case something comes up that we need to talk through. You know, and but there's plenty of large organizations where, after everything is done, then we take it to accounting and say go account for this. And you know someone says, yeah, you know that this isn't actually going to work the way you thought it was going to work, right. And then it becomes kind of a big deal work the way you thought it was going to work Right, and then it becomes kind of a big deal.
Speaker 1:And so you know this isn't a, this is, I think sometimes we think this just happens at the smaller, you know, companies, but almost every company I've been in there's at least been one conversation where a finance person says you know, excuse me, that's actually not how this is going to work and it becomes a big problem, a big, a multimillion dollar problem. And it becomes a big problem, a multi-million dollar problem.
Speaker 2:That is a great one because I think again as small business owners trying to scale a business or thinking about getting into it and leaving the corporate world, as you did and Alan and I both did. You're right, there's just more zeros behind our decisions when we're in large corporate and when we went to a small business. A lot of less zeros, but the same decisions and sometimes some of the same outcomes would happen from bad decisions.
Speaker 3:Bad decisions hurt a lot worse when you're in business for yourself. Tell me about it, don't they? Why does every lesson have to?
Speaker 2:cost me so much money Alan.
Speaker 1:And it's always my money.
Speaker 3:Because you're supposed to learn from them, Chris? Oh, damn it.
Speaker 1:And that's what I try to tell people the difference of working in an organization where you're in a leadership capacity and doing it on your own. You make a bad decision, you maybe lose your job, you maybe lose your 401k match, you maybe lose some stock. You lose all of that as a business owner. Plus you lose your retirement, you lose your livelihood. I mean it is, it can be big. So that's why you need that team. You need people that are going to tell you some things that maybe you don't want to hear but you need to hear because otherwise you can.
Speaker 1:You can cause yourself some, some problems and I will say you know I was trotting and being that. You know, hey, I'm gonna make this work when I own the franchise and you know, some things are just completely out of your control. And it was my wife that said, hey, you got to really start thinking, even if you did make this work, where are you? And that advice was key for me to be able to kind of start crunching numbers. I'm a number cruncher and I crunching numbers and and said, hey, man, I can have two great years, but I still got these bad years and I may end up still being breakeven. That's not what I wanted you know. So sometimes that independent source, that independent person's what you need to be able to push you in one direction or the other.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about your leap into starting your own business. Did you have clients ready to rock and roll? Did you have a ready set business ready to go? Portfolio.
Speaker 1:Tell us how you started it? I didn't have any of that, so I was working in corporate America. So my kind of initial was I never wanted to work for somebody when I went to college. So I wanted to be an entrepreneur, go to college, learn some stuff and then become an entrepreneur. While I was there, I worked for a small CPA firm in Houston and that's really where I fell in love, because I got to see the personalities behind the businesses right, and why this person is successful and why this person is and this person's not paying their people and this person is and this person's paying too much. And I just loved all of that learning and so I said, hey, I can probably extend this. I can go to Deloitte and kind of do the same thing. So I'm in there auditing, but same time I'm asking about revenue and why your tractors have more equipment than someone else's tractors, just because I'm learning business Right.
Speaker 1:And so I woke up one day and said, hey, you've been kind of in corporate America 20 years. You're not getting any younger. You need to kind of start like trying to make a move if this is still something that you want to do. So I worked and then and. But I took a year to say I need to reprogram my mind. I think like a business person, like a big business person, but this is going to be me.
Speaker 1:And so I started a t-shirt business just to start getting my mind focused around small business and making decisions outside of being an accountant. I'd never sold a shirt, but it was just the creativity and I got to think through colors and logos and all this stuff that I don't have to do when I'm in corporate America right, because we've got teams for that and made some mistakes in that. And so then I made the leap into franchising and I was doing some consulting on the side, but it was really through that and actually another person came to me and said hey, I think you can take all this stuff that you've been doing and you can do this for small to medium-sized businesses. And so we started. We didn't have a single client. It was just all right. We got to figure it out who are we going to call? That's how we started.
Speaker 2:Our first client paid us $50. Your first client paid how much $50. That was 5-0. 5-0.
Speaker 1:That's not how you should do it, but that that's what happened you were excited to get it.
Speaker 3:I bet, yeah, you know all jokes aside about the deloitte and accenture thing.
Speaker 2:You know, for a lot of us, if you're listening, if one of your kids or ever have a chance, I think that experience not only formed a basis for who I am, but it really molded me a lot more. I was pretty rough around the edges coming out of manufacturing. I was only in there for a little bit. Oh, so you're not anymore. Fuck, no, come on man, seriously, what the fuck Jesus Get with me.
Speaker 2:Alan, I'm going to start slapping you around again, son. All right, back to it. I said I don't have any rough edges. I'm I'm the calmer, softer chris, but no, back to the uh, swimming with those sharks you learned a lot, so you learned a lot there. You talked about the t-shirt biz, which, uh, al and I, both our eyebrows are. I love that you didn't sell one t-shirt. Did you make any?
Speaker 1:totally, I had at one point I had like these you know you go to, uh, these big box stores and buy these big totes. You know they're like four feet long or three feet. Yeah, I had like four boxes of. So I had shirts and actually so the funny story was, um, I got my, I had some designs, I had them made. I was actually driving to pick up all the shirts that that I just made and the day I received it, I got a cease and desist letter from Europe saying that my brand, it was the same that they were, and I needed to cease and desist. So me, being a corporate person, I need to hire an attorney, I need to trademark, I need to do all this stuff. But before I did it, I said let me call a guy that I know that has been an entrepreneur for 40 years. He said send that email to the delete box and go pick up your shirts.
Speaker 2:That's right. You go sell those things. That's what I did, and that was again.
Speaker 1:It was part of that mindset of me, though having to go out of the box is this, and you can only do this too. And they never emailed me again. It was, but it was, and after I thought about it's like, what are they going to do in you know ex-european country? And it wasn't exactly the same, but scare tactic right it was.
Speaker 3:That's right. One more thing you learned that can somehow help a customer someday.
Speaker 2:I know exactly exactly right man, I love how you started that. You just put it out there. But you, you actually hit on the uh big thing. I think a lot of people don't realize if they're thinking about making that leap. Your risk of staying in your business is you lose your job. Your risk, if you start your own business and it doesn't work out, is you drain a lot more than just your job, man. You're draining life savings. You're doing a lot of stuff and I don't think a lot of people realize the gravitas of that and the gravity of what we're saying, because they think everybody's successful.
Speaker 2:Well, we're on this podcast to tell you man, it's not happening. Man, one out of ten make it. We've heard that before over and over and over. I just got done talking with somebody else that says, man, I'm gonna start my own business. I'm like, before you do that, I just want to. I want to scare the absolute hell out of you and tell you that nine times out of ten you're going to fail. I know you're looking at me going. I'm the ace, I'm the superstar.
Speaker 3:I said I'm sure you're the quarterback there's no way to get that through their head. No, not a chance. Nobody get it through my head.
Speaker 2:Nobody got it through my head either, but I didn't have somebody doing that and so that's why I hit him right in the. I mean I said. I said I'll be honest with you, man. I said I'm going to split your forehead. I said, and after after you're done, I'm done with you. If you still want to do that, I said, then starts at three 30 in the morning, when you wake up and you can't go back to sleep because you don't know what the hell you just did to yourself.
Speaker 3:You need to open your eyes in the morning going what do I get to solve today? That's right.
Speaker 2:So that's how business works and Roscoe understands it, gets it, and now he can help you with the CFO stuff. So who are some of your clients? You?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I got a fun with and that's one of the things I love about our client base is we're pretty much industry agnostic, so we have not for profits. We have residential treatment centers, we have manufacturing companies, we have apparel companies, we have restaurants, we have a couple of franchisors, we have franchisees, franchisors, we have franchisees, you name it. We're kind of in the middle of it. We have some construction related as well, and that's what I love is every business is different and how you make money in those businesses is different and what your risks are different, and again, I enjoy that.
Speaker 3:You know what's unique about Roscoe?
Speaker 2:I think he's an extrovert roscoe, would you put yourself in an extrovert as an accountant? That's an odd, that's I mean okay.
Speaker 3:So my wife, big introvert every person that she's ever worked with big introvert. The worst christmas parties I ever went to were accounting christmas parties. So if you're not an introvert or if you're not an extrovert, you're a very gregarious introvert, which is kind of what I am.
Speaker 1:So, honestly, if you probably met me 15 years ago, you'd probably say I was a completely different person. And it's part of this and my wife has kind of said this, I think I've always been an introvert, but she says, like you're changing, and I think I am Part of it is I kind of work in a much smaller organization. You know, I kind of don't talk to as many people as I did in corporate when I'm driving into a job and there's everybody there. But I like talking to people, especially talking about business, and so maybe I'm changing. I like talking to people, especially talking about business and so maybe I'm changing.
Speaker 2:I like it, he's evolving, you guys are evolving, you're coming to my side, my friends, my introverted friends.
Speaker 3:Oh, I see, I thought you were suggesting that you evolve.
Speaker 2:I haven't evolved a damn thing. I've always been a talker and an extrovert and I went to get an engineering degree and everybody's like really, I'm like, yeah, I'm doing it.
Speaker 3:But if you can be an extrovert in an introverted industry, you get to own the world. I, you know, I think that's, you know, that's something we should really debate.
Speaker 2:I think that's debatable, because just because you're the loudest talker doesn't mean you're good.
Speaker 3:I don't mean obnoxious like you, I'm talking about charming like roscoe, oh, and I mean the fact that he's engaging and he wants let's say he wants to explain some sort of you know, financial thing to the rest of the team. He can do it in a way where they're going to listen storytelling.
Speaker 2:He said that earlier. Yep, I think, um, uh, he actually comes across and I think that that's been. That's telling is that numbers are numbers. But if you can tell the story behind the numbers for somebody who's not a numbers guy because usually that's who you're working for, right, it's the guy who's not the numbers guy and if you can tell him the story or her, and then they can understand it, digest it and then react to it, that's powerful. I mean that's serious power, right, yeah, I mean that's serious power, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I have told people. Somebody called me and they were a college student and they were going into finance, and what should they do? I said, if you can take the technical and you can marry that with the soft skills, I said the world's your oyster.
Speaker 1:Your world is your oyster, because there, unfortunately, are so many technical people that just they don't want to do any of the other stuff. Just let me work the numbers, let me do the diagrams, let me code. I don't want to do anything else, but in order to be successful, whether you're at a Fortune 500 company or you're leading your own business or helping people out, you got to be able to talk to people.
Speaker 2:So let's talk about your business a little bit more, because we're coming towards the end. But uh, where do you see yourself in five years? Where are you projecting yourself? Where do you want to be?
Speaker 1:um. So we've doubled over the last two years. I'm going to keep doubling um and um. I don't know exactly. You know like what that looks like or maybe able to share, but I want to just keep doubling. We're still kind of Texas based. We're always going to have Texas roots, but I'd love to have more clients outside of the state. We do have a couple of clients in three or four states, but I'd love to increase that and really start working with continue what we're doing, but really get in deep with organizations where we're truly helping. It's not transactional. We have some larger clients and we're in there helping them Again, maybe for a short period of time, but we're actually going in doing a lot more of the consultative, getting out of the compliance and getting into the consultative.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. All right, Roscoe, great information. We've got to go to our famous four questions. But before we do that, how can everybody find you? Besides LinkedIn, which is where I checked out all the extra profile stuff, If you want to get a hold of Roscoe Graves and your company, how do we find you?
Speaker 1:So email, that's the best way. Info at Plexusco you can also. We have all of our socials. They're generally Plexus or Plexus LLC. Or we have all of our socials. They're generally Palaxis or Palaxis LLC. Or you can go to our newly redesigned website at palaxisco.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those websites. That's just a poster board, so I wouldn't worry about that. That's just going to find people out. But, Roscoe, I want to know where Palaxis came from. I do too. Yeah, Before we go we got to know. Good question, thank you Alan. That's worth two.
Speaker 1:One is to be two syllables or less, and one is something that no one had ever heard of.
Speaker 3:Isn't that three syllables, plexus, or?
Speaker 2:Plaxus, plexus.
Speaker 1:I call it two, maybe it's three, maybe three syllables or less. Hey, who's the numbers guy here?
Speaker 2:Hey, who's telling the story? Hi, Alan, Go with it.
Speaker 1:It's a story, Alright was it over with the Germans about.
Speaker 2:Pearl Harbor, let's go.
Speaker 1:There is a little bit of like North Star that kind of thing, but that was the Like. The big thing is not very long, something that is not out there. There is a language, apparently, that's called plexus really um, it's in a whole nother country. I guess my thing is, I'm always dealing with stuff that's in other countries. Apparently maybe that's a running thing, but uh, um yeah, I just wanted something that was easy and that no one had ever heard of so, roscoe your tagline we piss off other countries.
Speaker 2:Come work with me, especially coming from texas, because texas, I think most people think the right, you are real country, my son's going to baylor right now and I figured that out really quick when I was down there. I'm like holy crap, these guys think they're their own country, man anyway, yeah yeah, yeah, you were born and raised there, so that's solid man. This has been awesome. This has been great. Check it out, man.
Speaker 2:Fractional cfo plaques it's roscoe graves, but before we let him, go more he does a lot more and more and more and more and more and more, and he could piss off other countries actually just that line alone got me you know what I would love to piss off another country.
Speaker 3:Let's go figure out what should be the title of this podcast piss it off other countries.
Speaker 2:All right, let's get into this roscoe. What's the favorite feature of your home?
Speaker 1:so I'm gonna go with. Uh, we have a shower, it's not? We have a fairly new home, so you know standard track house. You got the I don't know if it's two by two or three by three shower stall. We have one that's a little bit longer. I don't hit my elbows on the on the thing, so that's my favorite feature of our house first shower answer you know what I love?
Speaker 2:the shower, and my god, I can go on for hours because that's. We do a lot of bathroom modeling here. The first thing I say, and I can't tell if roscoe's a big guy, but you know, you can't tell it on the podcast, everybody but alan is six, six, uh, I like to call myself six two, he's a, he's a big guy, but I'm a, I'm a bigger guy, uh, when it comes to girth.
Speaker 3:That's right thank you, uh.
Speaker 2:So I tell people all the time just an extra foot in the bathroom means yeah all the world to us big guys. I remember when I went on a cruise and one of those little cruise things and oh my gosh I went to get the soap boom hit my head, then I fell back, then I fell down and the next thing I know I'm sitting next to the soap or when you're sitting on the pot and your feet are in the shower.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, I mean you're like this is not fun. No, I'm just. This is not built for big guys. Yeah, yeah, you're speaking. Yes, so that's a great answer. You know what the shower is your escape, it's your release, it's where we do our best thinking, not the pot.
Speaker 3:I don't want to think about you in the shower anymore, so let's go to question number two.
Speaker 2:All right, question number two what is a favorite book that you'd recommend to?
Speaker 1:everybody is Fanatical. Prospecting by Jeb Blount, one of those two.
Speaker 2:That's good Fanatical.
Speaker 1:Prospecting. Yeah, for me it was again. I'm an accountant, I'm a numbers guy, and then I have this business where I need to sell, and I underestimated how much time and energy it was going to take me to get up to speed with selling, and so this book helped me do that. So for all of the maybe the introverts that that become maybe extroverts, or the people that are very technical, you got to be able to sell. You're either selling ideas, you're selling services, you're selling the product, and so this kind of helped me with that getting comfortable with the sales process.
Speaker 3:Cool endorsement.
Speaker 2:I like that Love. That that's a great one. Yeah, cause I've never heard of it. That's, that's amazing. All right, let's go to the next one. So Alan and I have talked a lot about customer service. We know that's how you build businesses. We're kind of customer service freaks. Hello, let's go. So what is a customer service pet peeve of yours when you're out there and you're the customer?
Speaker 1:I have. Probably I could spend a whole podcast on this. My dad and I talk about this all the time. My dad kind of raised me customer service first, so but the biggest one, the one that I don't make, the that that I don't understand the most, is making it difficult for me to pay you.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh, that's a great one.
Speaker 1:That one will drive me insane. So I want this product. But now I got to sign up and then you got to send me an email and then I have to do this. Yeah, that's going to stay in the cart and. I'm going to move on with something else.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a great one. Wow, people don't talk about that one Excellent man. He is dynamite.
Speaker 3:I know Ross goes on it.
Speaker 2:I'm going to say three for three right now. Let's see if he keeps it up. Okay, you ready? All right, give us a DIY nightmare story. We actually, funny enough, I was at the national convention, but we came back and it came up and they said, hey, give us some DIY nightmare stories. And people were telling stories. I'm like no, no, no, no. I want fire, I want floods, I want dismemberment, I want impaling.
Speaker 1:Give me something good that you did, yep so I tried not to do as much diy um. Can I give you a contractor nightmare story?
Speaker 2:all right only if it's really bad yeah, but just for the record, you're gonna be three for four because you went off, unless you, probably what I've done is ask my wife that question, because she can probably tell you 50 DIY.
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm great at that.
Speaker 1:All my DIY projects are great, so there is no way from my perspective.
Speaker 3:So he could sort of win by just saying I've never made a mistake. Well, he is still married. Yeah, that is true. Seems to be happy about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh that's actually I should have said, and it seems to be happily married. That, oh, that's actually I should have said, and it seems to be happily married. That makes two of you Whoa. All right, Okay, so continue on.
Speaker 3:I'm sure she won't listen this long. Oh, she doesn't listen this long, she doesn't listen to one of them.
Speaker 2:It's 160-something episodes. She doesn't listen to one. No, it's 260. Yeah, we're out there. Yeah, all right, can we get the contractor story?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I guess I have this coming, all right, so it's not the greatest of stories.
Speaker 1:It's not the greatest of stories, but it is.
Speaker 3:Well then we shouldn't end on a dud, all right.
Speaker 1:You know what Kill it Nope. End on a house? She did not. She moved into the city. She moved to Houston, where I was at. We were going to sell our house at a certain point. We lived in our house for a while, sell it to get the first co-husband-wife house right. So we hired a contractor to make some improvements and I have this mirror. I'm a bachelor. I have a mirror that's supposed to be above my dresser.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, I thought I was going to say bed. Oh my God, I was waiting. I thought you were about to say over my bed. I hear you, cal, hey, hey.
Speaker 3:Suddenly he's like oh, this is going to be a good story.
Speaker 2:I'm really excited. It's over, it's over, it's over my dresser excited it's over.
Speaker 1:It's over. It's over my dresser. So we need to just get this hung up to get in to beautify the place, and so we hired this guy that I had some boards in my fence that I needed to just put in. He did it. So I was like he's good with a hammer so he can hang up this mirror in my house, in my master bedroom. I don't know how he did it there were probably 20 holes where he tried to nail it in and it didn't work. Actually, the head of the hammer is in the drywall, but he did hang it up and so I was like, yeah, that piece is great, but all these other holes that you've created?
Speaker 3:there were holes outside of the mirror yes, I guess you tried multiple spots did he have a seizure while he was hanging in your room?
Speaker 2:that is, oh god, I could have. Actually, I have a whole. I started a podcast for that. It's called the small business safari and that's where we're on Roscoe Graves everybody that's ending on a high note. Do not put a mirror over your bed. I don't care who the hell you are or what you're thinking about doing. What you learn on this podcast is something that's a lot more reflective.
Speaker 3:So look, back in yourself Objects may be small and may appear.
Speaker 2:Let's go. Hey everybody, this is a great time. Hope you had a great time, man, Everybody. Let's get back after it. We'll see you next week. Thank you, Roscoe Graves, Black Cisco, check it out.
Speaker 3:Thank you for listening to this episode of the Small Business Safari.
Speaker 2:Remember your positive attitude will help you achieve that higher altitude you're looking for in the wild world of small business ownership. And until next time, make it a great day. We'll see you next time.
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