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
From Service to Skilled Trades: Creating Real Jobs for Veterans | Marty Strong
🎧 The Small Business Safari
Title: From Service to Skilled Trades: Creating Real Jobs for Veterans
Too many veterans leave the military with discipline and grit—but no clear civilian pathway. Marty Strong is fixing that with real skills, real employers, and paid apprenticeships.
Summary:
We sit down with Marty Strong, founder of Warriors Haven USA, to break down a practical, no-fluff pathway that helps veterans find both purpose and pay through the skilled trades. Marty explains why blue-collar work isn’t a fallback—it’s a solution to a massive talent gap—and why combat arms veterans are uniquely wired to succeed in this space.
We unpack the “transition shock” many vets experience, the cultural myths that keep people away from trades, and how Warriors Haven USA’s three-level training model moves participants from exposure, to skill-building, to paid apprenticeships with employer partners who are ready to hire.
Marty also shares the hard truths around funding, the vision behind a new 9,000-square-foot training center, and why real momentum comes from mentors, networking, and matching skills to actual market demand. This episode is a must-listen for veterans, employers, and business owners who believe meaningful work should lead to real opportunity.
🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSmallBusinessSafari
đź’ˇ GOLD NUGGETS
• Why skilled trades solve a real and growing talent shortage
• Who Warriors Haven USA serves—and why this model fits veterans
• The three-level pipeline from exposure to paid apprenticeship
• Employer-ready skills in HVAC, metalwork, woodworking, and culinary
• The Business Academy: sales, hiring, and scaling beyond the tools
• Funding realities and building a 9,000 sq ft training facility
• How purpose returns when skills align with real demand
• Why networking and mentors beat cold calls every time
đź”— Guest Links
• Website: https://warriorshavenusa.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marty-strong-9676bb13/
🌍 Follow The Small Business Safari
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• LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrislalomia/
• Website | https://chrislalomia.com
Thanks to our sponsor Smart Hire Solutions LLC!
You know, I I I often talk about one of the one of the jobs I had, and about five minutes to five, it sounded like you know, the the Indy five hundred out of the parking lot because all the cars, 200 and something cars, they'd all start up because they were that close to sliding down the dinosaur and getting the hell out of there. And then we had about a third of the population were military guys.
SPEAKER_02:Fred Flintstone reference. I love it. That's one of the variants of the podcast.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my god, the Fred Flintstone. Well done, Marty. Well, we've all dated ourselves, everybody. That's right. You're getting great knowledge from Marty Strong. Slide down the dinosaur. If you don't know what that is, go look it up. It's a Fred Flintstone reference. It's W Lee's work. 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 extent 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 this safari. Did he say IQ, Alan? He did say IQ. I can't even spell IQ. Wait, I did oh, it's got too many letters. Oh my god, that's a lot of letters. Guys, another great week. We got to get moving. I'll tell you what, every week brings a new and unique challenge. Um, 17 years in business, Alan. I've had one customer lawsuit. And I just had amazing because you've you you have a high transaction volume. Hang on. That's right, everybody. I just knocked down wood. That's right. I mean, we do over 2,500 transactions a year in the home services business, handyman and remodeling. And I had one completely unscrupulous piece of shit. I can't even say there's no other word. I was I started with a big word, I can't even take it. We knew right off the rip that it was going to be bad, and we did everything we could to get it, and it was a finance deal, and he denied the last half of the finance payment. Um, we put a lien on the house, he sued me, I sued him a year later. I didn't get 15 grand out, I just got all my legal fees back. That's all I got. How did I do?
SPEAKER_03:And we by the way, did you just find that out right before we got on with our guest? Yeah. Okay, so you just had to kind of vomit that out there. I did.
SPEAKER_01:And it had nothing to do with our guest. Even 17 years in business, as successful as you think I'm going. Uh, the trusted toolbox in Atlanta and Athens doing, you know, over five million a year, yay, yay, yay. Wow. Pretend this is a damn it call. Oh my god. Oh. Oh my god, I'm so pissed right now. It's not even funny. Is that these guys got away with it? You know what? And those people are out there and they're bad people. And if you saw the work, which we had pictures, testimonial, we had the contract, we're all in place. And even my lawyer said we could do this, but if we end up recovering the lost money, you'll end up just paying me.
SPEAKER_03:As my mom said, God is on his throne.
SPEAKER_01:You know, we have a guest here. Oh, that's right. Um, let's get back to it. I'm just so mad right now. All right, no, I'm not gonna be mad. I'm gonna be happy. Like, I'm back. I got the damn doll out, guys. We got a great guest for you today.
SPEAKER_03:You know, given what this guy has seen and done in his life, he's like, What are you doing? Why are you even mad?
SPEAKER_01:Really?
SPEAKER_03:Why are you mad about that? Seriously. Your blood pressure went up for a second.
SPEAKER_01:Did you have a pimple on your ass too? I mean, come on, seriously.
SPEAKER_00:Grow up, son. I wasn't thinking any of that. I was thinking that those are some really nice rattan stools back there.
SPEAKER_01:Hey, that's what I wanted to hear. People are doing this from the bar in my basement, bro. Loving it. Marty Strong, welcome to the show. Marty. Thanks for having me. All right, man. All right. So uh we're gonna go back to the background in a minute, but tell us what you do right now.
SPEAKER_00:Um, I do two things. My main my main job is on the CEO of a Veterans Foundation called Warriors Haven USA, which focuses on vocational training, kind of blue, blue-collar trades. And we have a business academy too for for um veterans that are either starting a business or um are getting stuck in some aspects of their business journey. And uh we do it all in in Florida.
SPEAKER_01:You're all in Florida. So uh let's let's pump that uh that group up because we do have a lot of veterans that do listen to this show uh because I get pinged by them all quite a bit. So what what can they find out in Florida and get some help?
SPEAKER_00:Well, for our particular program, you just go to warriorshavenusa.com. The website shows all the programs. The the business academy is is virtual. There's really no need to uh you know lock it down to a wood shop or a metal shop or anything like that. But we also have um a culinary program, and we have equine and canine therapy. So then there's three levels. There's kind of come in, have a good time for a day, learn a little bit about either woodworking or metalworking, or you know, the culinary uh environment, or do the do the equine thing, whatever. But then level two is anywhere from a week to a month where you actually come come away with some actual skills, some some practicable skills. Level three, you're basically being trained to be an apprentice to onboard into somebody's company, which we've lined up a lot of companies, corporations that are ready to take veterans on.
SPEAKER_03:It's a great website. I don't know if you had a chance to look at it, but unfortunately I didn't know. Yeah, no, I encourage anybody to take a look. It's really cool. The programs that you picked, I was like, wow, those are some really interesting and varied things that you offer. Was it just there a rhyme or reason behind that? I'm assuming there was, but uh, or was it just something that the people on your organization had uh an affinity for or a skill set that they could, or did you find that it it provided the most value to the people that were coming to the program?
SPEAKER_00:So my my co-founder, Pete Gary, it was his brainchild, and he went ahead, and we've both been on lots and lots of veterans boards. Um all ten of my novels, all the proceeds go to the SEAL Veterans Foundation. So we've been involved in charitable events and activities at many and many levels for a long time. He's a uh former uh eight-year Force Recon Marine, and we've known each other since 1994, so we've been friends. He grew up in a construction family. His whole family learned uh the trades, every everybody had to have a hammer or a screw in their hands as soon as they could walk. So he's always loved that, but he never worked in it. He went in the Marine Corps, then he went to two years of culinary institute, and then he decided to sell cars. And then he really did well at that. I mean, really, really well, and eventually started advertising businesses and other things. So we've kind of come together. I just finished a stint as the CEO of a of a healthcare uh company, like the last 13 years. So we're kind of coming together. What do we want to do that's a little bit more fun, a little bit more meaningful, a little more hands-on? And he did some marketing, uh, research to figure out, you know, where's the gap, where's the the lane that isn't covered very well in veteran services. And it turns out there's a lot of things that are covered really well, and a lot of great groups out there that are doing um great work in those lanes, but there's kind of this weird little underutilized area, and it's anything to do with the blue, um, blue-collar trades. So if you if you're gonna bend metal or you're gonna cut wood, if you're gonna do anything like that, if you're gonna be an electrician, it's it's just kind of not there. And think of it like there's no veteran votech program writ large for the federal government or states. What they do, you go through hundreds of grants, and the grants are all focused on giving ten thousand dollars or whatever, so you can go to college. Right? So, and there's okay, that works. That's that's that's fine too. But as you as you well know, especially anybody that's uh looked for a plumber and and paid a plumber in the last five, six years, they're the ones that are driving the sports cars and living in the big fancy houses. It you know, blue collar is the new blue chip, so that's kind of one of those. Amen, brother. Amen.
SPEAKER_03:This is a solution to the problem. I mean, there's just not enough people going into the trades.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, 100%. We well, you know, uh, so uh I have a remodeling and handyman business uh here in Atlanta and in Athens, Georgia, and uh I've been doing it for 17 years. And yes, the answer is not enough people going to trades. Here's the cool thing. Actually, this year was the first year where enrollment in colleges, four-year colleges went down, and trade schools actually went up. First time in, I forget the number. But um, I read an article and I gotta find this one. Uh, and I promise you I will find it. But it was uh basically there's not enough people going in the trades. Article was dated blank, blank, blank, 1968. Yeah, right. We've been talking about this forever, but I think yeah, it's still a problem. And you're right, the guys who are are tonit are definitely not handyman, they're plumbers, and so that's why I became a handyman. Oh god, Marty, why'd you bring that up, buddy? I'm hurting now.
SPEAKER_00:Well, the other the other issue, the biggest issue, I think, is the culture. So we all know, you know, Gordon Gecko, movie, lots of lots of white-collar money, lots of lots of action. Where's the blue-collar version of that? Where's the you know, you know, Stanley's millionaire next door version of a of a of a TV show or any kind of cultural um expose of people doing well and kicking butt, making money as plumbers, electricians, carpenters, you know, steelworkers, HVAC. It's not there. It doesn't exist. So that unfortunately, the general public gets conditioned that that's kind of a a path where you're not really gonna make very much money. And the military, all these guys coming out, the first thing they're thinking is I want a corner office and a white-collar job and you know, six-figure salary. And what do I got to do to get that? How do I get that brass ring? Because they don't even know this other world kind of exists.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And yeah, you're you're exactly right. And I'll tell you exactly why this is not gonna make a good movie. Because if you are a good HVAC or an operator in the home services space, your life should be pretty boring. Uh, unfortunately, it's the people that we're beating out there as good companies that make the stories really good. But you see them on bad guy, bad guy or with that cops, cops, or what's the show? Whatever. I don't know. The dumbasses that get but Wall Street, they sensationalize the you know, the Gordon geckos of the world because it's it seems sexy. But in our world, what's sexy is boring and it works, it really works if you do it right. You have a home life, you get to see your kids, you get to go to their baseball games and coach them and do all that stuff. So uh keep preaching, I mean, amen, brother. I love this.
SPEAKER_03:Marty, tell it what what's the typical person that you're serving? I mean, what's their story?
SPEAKER_00:Well, for the most part, what we're looking for are people that were in combat arms. And we say that on the site, you know, kind of the who we serve section of the website. I wasn't getting choked up, I was just coughing.
SPEAKER_01:Um we'll have Cindy cut that. She she probably won't. She won't.
SPEAKER_00:And the problem is from the way we looked at it, we analyzed this, besides the underserved kind of niche that we're we're addressing. Everybody in the military is kind of aligned into two different functions. They're either the tooth or the tail. They're either the people that are shooting, dropping bombs, flying and attack vessels, platforms, helicopters, whatever it is, or they're making sure there's enough beans, bullets, the money's flowing for their paydays, you know, the the whole support um element. So when you go into the military, you are taught a vocation. If you're not at the tip of the spear. You're taught supply chain management, you're taught how to repair vehicles, repair jet engine uh aircraft, you're taught all kinds of medical, you become a medic, all these things that it may not be what you want to do for the rest of your life, but at least you have something. Right? If you're like I was, if you do 20 years as a Navy SEAL and you walk out, you know, it can be a cop, you can get to go back into the federal government in some law enforcement capacity, but it you know, you're starting from scratch, just like you just walked out of high school or walked out of college. You don't have any actionable skills in the real world. So that's kind of what we're focusing on. That's who we're trying to attract. And right now we're doing it through word of mouth. So we're getting, you know, marines, green berets, people that are pretty obvious, um, low-hanging fruit from that definition of you know, the perfect profile. And anybody else that's that's looking for help, we do this, we have a network, we've vetted all these other organizations that do other things. They get housing for veterans, they get uh educational support for veterans. Um there's even one that's that for paraplegiate and quadriplegiate veterans that teaches them how to scuba dive and then takes them off the Gulf Coast of Florida and for that experience. There's there's something out there for almost everybody. TBI, you know, traumatic brain injury, and PTSD. There are funded programs around the United States where they will put your family and you up in a hotel, full week, sometimes longer than a week program, sleep studies, mind brain mapping, all kinds of things. And most veterans don't know about this. If that's what the need is when they come to us, we immediately direct them to a hand-in-glove turnover and and can we stick to our knitting after that?
SPEAKER_01:I like what you're doing. Uh, I when you come to this. So, how long have you guys started this uh program? It looks like you just started it pretty much this in 2025.
SPEAKER_00:Uh, it's about a year, almost two years now. Okay. So we've been functioning for about a year. We were putting things together and and and building the whole thing uh last year.
SPEAKER_01:So talk about, you know, you you came out uh obviously, well, you you you actually discounted. So I came out with uh as a SEAL and I had no uh actionable skills on years as a navy seal. Yeah, I disagree, big guy. I think I think you had a lot going for you, big guy.
SPEAKER_03:You did a great job. But he brings up a good point. The people who say, I mean, can you imagine? I I I think about uh it's a sort of a adjacent story, but I heard uh President Bush, the second one, when he stopped being president, they asked him why do you oil paint? And he goes, You go from going a million miles an hour to zero. And he goes, and so I looked around at other people, and Winston Churchill did the same thing and he started oil painting, and so that's why he started doing it. But you think about these men and women who, I mean, their life is so intense and they're the tip of the spear and they are so relevant, and and they're every moment of their life is so alive to just like all of a sudden, okay, how do I fit in society again? I mean, that's it's an unbelievable shock that I can't even imagine, I would assume. Is that what we're dealing with?
SPEAKER_00:It is. The other thing we boiled down to our slogan, uh, believe in you with you capitalized, the purpose piece that you you you kind of hit on there. You have you have a purpose when you're in the military. You have a very defined purpose, you have a um a well-documented purpose, and everybody around you and everybody below you and everybody above you in the entire organization knows what your purpose is. And they the thing is they help you, they train you, they prepare you because they want you to be the best at what you're what you're doing. Because nobody wants one guy who's a mechanic on a helicopter to really stink if they're going to get on that helicopter. Everybody wants everybody to be the best they can be. And in the combat arms, like in the SEAL teams, they used to say when I first came in, you go with what you got when the phone rings. So it's it's it's kind of like you know, there's no, you know, it's like the way the UFC is now. It used to be at all this time prepare and all that, you know. Now they call up. You're ready? You got five days, you know, make wait, get here and and fight on TV. That's how the real world is for the military. And because of that, you you always know what you're doing is matter, matters, and you always know the people around you are trying to do the best they can to cover you and and vice versa. And you have kind of you know bigger, bigger aspirations. You have missions, you're obviously you're obviously doing what you're doing for you know, God and country and and life and limb and all that. You step out, that ain't there. You step out and nobody's doing anything for life and limb. You know, I I I often talk about one of the one of the jobs I had, and at about five minutes to five, it sounded like you know, the the Indy 500 out of the parking lot, because all the cars, 200 and something cars, they'd all start up because they were that close to sliding down the dinosaur and getting the hell out of there. And then we had about a third of the population were military guys.
SPEAKER_02:Fred Flintstone reference. I love it.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my god, the Fred Flintstone. Well done, Marty. Well, we've all dated ourselves, everybody. That's right. You're getting great knowledge from Marty Strong. Slide down the dinosaur. If you don't know what that is, go look it up. It's a Fred Flintstone reference.
SPEAKER_00:It's how he leaves work every day.
SPEAKER_03:So see, you gotta be helping people just accept the fact that the people around them aren't the best of the best anymore.
SPEAKER_00:Correct. And and there's there's no distinction in the best of the best, whether it's the tooth or tail. And I was saying that before. Yeah, if you if you were not good at it's your job, and the the guys at the pointy and the spear are gonna fail. They're gonna fail big time. So everybody's gotta do their part, right? And everybody has that appreciation forwards and backwards. That is that's just not the way the commercial world's built. The commercial world's built, you're not doing it for God and country, you're doing it for your family, you're doing it for a lifestyle, you're working to go do other things that you want to do. You don't, you're not, you're not dedicated to the mission of the of the guy that owns the company the same way the guy who owns the company is. And and anybody that's owned a company always hopes that their employees feel the same way they do, but nobody else in that company has everything on the line. Nobody else in that company has had the dream and then fought the battle, has all the scar tissue, and just standing there with a ragged flag and broken sword going, I'm still here, you know, you bastards. And they didn't live any of that. Everybody in the military did, and then they get out, and they can't, even when they ask the question, nobody can tell them what they're supposed to care about.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's gotta be a hard. I mean, obviously, I don't want to get into too much of the transition mentally because that there's a whole another podcast, a whole series of podcasts to do that. But uh going back to where you guys found that niche, I want to talk a little bit about you. So you came out and obviously became a successful uh businessman and and you got integrated back in society, and then you decided to do this and start giving back. You started to do it, but you didn't have the funding, and you you had an idea, and you're really an entrepreneur now. Uh, so tell us how you got this thing going and how you're how you're making this thing move.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I've I've been an entrepreneur and been involved in lots of startups and small small scaling companies as a CEO for PE companies, things like that. So I've been through, you know, not so much begging for money related to donations, but begging for money related to rounds of investment capital. And it's the same song and dance, it's the same actually in the in the uh charitable giving world, uh especially in the veteran side, since uh we left Afghanistan. Eight, nine years ago, all these organizations told me all all you have to do is just say, Hey, I have a veteran need, and somebody would just stroke a check. Here you go. God bless you. You know, but now it's they want ROI, they want impact for beneficiary, they want$200,000 in dry powder. I mean, these are all things you hear if you're if you're pitching a VC. Right? That's that's what they're looking for. So anybody that has a significant amount of money has become very serious about this because there's a lot of need. And they only have so much bandwidth and so many, so much as far as assets and resources. So it makes perfect sense. But they want you to be in the business as a charitable um organization for anywhere from one to three years with that many tax returns and everything. So there's a bar there, which isn't much different than you know the old slow about if you go to the bank with everything that the bank likes to see in a company, all your financials and everything, it basically proves you don't really need the loan. You have to show that you're really healthy and don't need the loan to get the loan.
SPEAKER_01:Is that why I got nine text messages today asking me about uh, hey, you need funding, you need capital? I'm like, where the where the where the hell were you like 15 years ago, bro? Yeah, when I record a bank payroll. Yeah. So you're right. Okay. Yeah. So it's hard to find that money. So your your business experience coming out and being through that, that's why I set that up. What has helped you guys figure out how to navigate that funding model?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, both of us. He um Pete's also a serial entrepreneur, and he's been in actually been other spaces and other markets that I haven't been in, and vice versa. But the principles of basic business and basic uh management awareness and being able to pitch and explain a good story and why it matters and all that. Both of us, you know, we're kind of like two pistons move in in sync there. Um, so now we've basically been lining up all the fundraising events. So we've got we're getting ready to go into about a five or six fundraising cycle. And uh we've got GoFundMe campaigns set up and everything, and there's donation site on the website. So these are all the things we had to set up to get kind of the juices flowing a little bit. And uh, we're also building a 9,000 square foot two-story vocational training center.
SPEAKER_01:And where are you building that at?
SPEAKER_00:So we have a uh horse farm, about an eight-acre horse farm. Right, it's Wellington, so it's just uh 13 miles west of West Palm Beach. Okay. So that's it.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, the reason I set that up is uh a lot of our listeners are all over the nation and all over the country and all over the world. So uh it's in Wellington, Florida, which is uh 17 miles west of uh West Palm Beach. South? South.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's kind of like the home of polo for the United States. All the polo, big polo grounds are here and everything. Um two-story facility, anywhere from 15 to 18 veterans can stay in the uh second floor. There's gonna be rooms, all that. It's all designed, ready, ready to be built. We're probably gonna do the ribbon cutting, not ribbon cutting, but the the uh groundbreaking in January. And it's gonna have a rick area and kitchens and all that stuff on the second floor. The lower floor is gonna have a um kind of city of the art TV studio and a large conference room that we can do a lot of the um the business um academy work out of. And then there's three other sections to the building: a woodworking shop, uh metal working shop, and a culinary kitchen, all of which are big enough to s to hold maybe eight to ten students, each each one of them. So that's what we're building, that's kind of what we're pushing to. We have a 1200 square foot facility right now, and um just rocking and rolling.
SPEAKER_03:Can you talk about your personal experience? I mean, you were you you were in the SEALs for 20 years, and then you came out, and you're so you're facing the same transition at that time that you're trying to help these people. Did you have people that helped you, or was there a mentor, or did you have some skills before that you could rely on when you came out?
SPEAKER_00:All right, so I didn't know I had some skills I could rely on.
SPEAKER_03:There's a a little wry grin on his face.
SPEAKER_00:That kind of evolved. I was really good at at planning, I was really good at leading large groups of people, coming up with lots of creative ideas and things. I was I was a briefer for joint chiefs of staff and and senior armed service committee people. I went right into financial services and they basically gave me a phone, a phone book, and a and a computer screen said start pounding plastic, you know, and finding clients.
SPEAKER_01:What year did you come out? Uh 96. So 96, you felt like the transition then is that somebody didn't help you with that transition to get out, or if they did, they were ill-equipped to do it to tell you that, oh, by the way, you have a lot of transferable skills that are really going to be applicable in the business world.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the the program hasn't changed much. Oh what you get when you walk out the door from the from the military, they teach you uh, you know, you got to wear a suit and a tie, how to go through an interview, what a resume looks like. They they have you take all the things you do and convert it into resume language so that you can you know you'll kind of show that you're um uh you've got all these capabilities. But the problem is if you're a general and you have a billion-dollar budget and you put that in your resume, and you walk into a Fortune 50 company and say, I can manage and I have experience managing a billion-dollar budget, all they have to do is ask I did this myself to a couple people. Here's a dry erase, again, go up to the whiteboard, write E B I T A, and then explain what the acronym means.
SPEAKER_01:Oh no.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Or show me, show me your your whole chain of command and how you controlled what your controls were for your for your cash flows, for your all your uh money, inputs, outputs, you know, what what's AR, what's AP. They don't know any of that lingo because they didn't do it. They had a whole division of people that all they did was that. They just had the responsibility at the top that if something went wrong, or they need to beg for more money, they might build the presentation or something. Totally different kind of dynamic. It's more of a bureaucratic authority than it is like a business authority or a corporate authority. So if I get out and I don't know how to do the one thing that I absolutely had had to do, and that was sell. They don't teach. I had an undergraduate in business and an MBA, and they didn't teach, they I don't think it was one minute given to selling the actual you know act of it, the art of it.
SPEAKER_01:So that's why you said I'm gonna take on this challenge, I'm gonna learn how to sell.
SPEAKER_03:Well, isn't that interesting? You get all that education and they miss the one thing that you kind of need to do, right?
SPEAKER_01:Because you know, again, we talk about this all the time in business, right? Cash is king, but if you ain't selling, you ain't ringing the bell, it ain't happening, bro. You got to make that money come in. So cash is king, but yeah, it but the queen is sales.
SPEAKER_00:And you had a we had a training salary for four months where we got all of our licenses and everything, and then you were on pure commission and fees, no salary.
SPEAKER_01:And I did that for eight years, but you did that because you could bet on yourself, because that's how you you you did. You go into the military right out of high school?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, 17.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so that you're like, you know what, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna bend on myself. I mean, I always have, so I will do it again.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it was brutal in the beginning, and I did I had not assigned mentors, but I called families and friends. Hey, anybody know how to sell? Believe it or not, Pete was the manager of a car dealership. This guy that I'm that I'm partnering with now for uh Warriors Saving USA. And I called him up and he sends me back then. He sends me this big open book like Tony Robbins used to send out with with um BHS cassettes, right? It was like the guy in the plaid jacket teaching feature features and benefits. I mean, that was my first real sales training program, which doesn't work with high net worth people.
SPEAKER_01:Um that's a great note, which doesn't work with high net people. Oh my gosh, who was the who was that plaid jacket sales guy back in the 90s? Oh my god.
SPEAKER_00:WKRP in Cincinnati.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, I can't remember his name though. Oh, come on, that's another great reference. Oh, great poll.
SPEAKER_00:All I remember is Les Nessman.
SPEAKER_01:Her no Les Nessman was yeah, it was the guy with the glasses, yeah. And with the with the box there, but we all remember Lonnie. Well, at our age, we do. That was the only reason why I watched.
SPEAKER_00:So I called people, like I finally got a hold of somebody who did sales, and the advice was nice, but and it was accurate, but I didn't really get it. He said, You're trustworthy, you're articulate, people are gonna like you, they're gonna buy from you. Just relax and just keep going out there and and being authentic, right? Being authentic, yeah, try to meet people that are qualified for what you're doing. And another guy dropped in, a vice president one day, and he said, What are you doing? And I said, Well, I'm starting to cold walk and I'm doing all 300 cold calls a day, I'm doing all this stuff. And he goes, Let me give you a little tip. Find out where the money is, go there, shake hands with it. And he walks out of my office. Well, it wasn't really an office, I could.
SPEAKER_03:Genius, genius.
SPEAKER_00:And I thought about it, and that that also was absolutely true. But just sounds too simplistic when you're waiting for a formula or something. But yeah, so when I figured it out, everything, everything took off like a rocket. But then I ended up with UBS after that.
SPEAKER_01:There you go. I think that's great. Uh, great. We talk about this all the time, Alan. You want to go out there and make money, especially it's a low-hanging fruit. It's not a big, it's not a big financial investment. Network, get out there, find the money, go talk to people. It's still a relationship game. I don't care what's going on and how many years it's been. We just joked about a bunch of old references, but even in today's world, it's still about people and knowing people, and you trust people, and you work with people you trust and like, right? So you got to get out there and then you got to believe in yourself.
SPEAKER_03:Well, and it's a more and more valuable skill the more uh you know advanced we get technologically and the AI, and people are siloed so much, and so you find somebody who's engaging and knows what they're talking about, it's pretty compelling.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you got to have the digital slash uh personal relationship. I still believe this. I don't care what business you're in. We keep talking about AI and what it's gonna do. And every time somebody brings that up, you've heard me do this, Alan. I challenge everybody to say, well, give me one thing you're using in your business that is doing that because just don't throw that that it's like saying, hey, the internet's coming back in the day. I think it still comes back to people, and and you know, you got to understand people, and doing that is gonna make you more successful, even if that's not your lane, if that's not where you were successful. Was that your thing? Were you did you feel like you were a people person to begin with?
SPEAKER_00:I yeah, I was a wallflower as a kid, but I think once I got a little rank in the in the teams, you everybody has to teach, everybody has to train, be a trainer, and so I got comfortable standing in front of a group of people that would throw stuff at me.
SPEAKER_01:There you go.
SPEAKER_00:Because you know, because they're they're SEALs, right? So they're gonna give you a hard time. But so you get kind of comfortable and confident in being able to uh communicate, and so I got out of my skin a little bit. When I got out and started talking to people about their money, I was a little sheepish, though. I I'd never really talked to because I'm from Nebraska. My parents never talked about their money. I didn't know any multimillionaires, so it was not normal for me to just sit down with Mr. and Mrs. Jones and say, so you know, let's talk about your assets. Let's see if we can kind of inventory the assets. What do you got? What do you got? You know, that that that was not a natural, it was it felt like a rude and it felt like I was intruding, but that was what I was supposed to do.
SPEAKER_01:So there's a way to do it. The way you tell the story, it's almost like I would say right now, your toughest SEAL mission you ever did, and your toughest client you had to deal with at UBS, would you put them on par? I mean I would be like it's still crazy because you're putting your life on the line, but there's times.
SPEAKER_00:There were a lot of non a lot of non-SEAL characters, um, senior officers, other services, things like that. Uh, before everybody knew what SEALs were, and we'd walk in looking the way we did, and we have a little longer hair, maybe it was a little longer facial hair, and maybe our uniforms wouldn't have any badges or rank on them. And I was stood up more than four or five times by Navy captains, Air Force colonels getting yelled at, and you can't really explain why you're there looking that way. You know, that was the way it was back then because you you were an unknown, and sometimes you needed to go to a base and ask for a plane, and they were who the hell are you? You know, and then we'll just call this number, and then they call the number and okay, then you eat the plane. But you have to eat, you have to eat all that first because you know nobody nobody took you seriously because they didn't know who you were. Um yeah, I mean, those people were very hard to deal with. I had only I don't know if I had any real rude or hard to deal with clients because I I found out after about eight months. Because when you knew in any business, you know, the old, you know, how do you qualify a customer client? You fog and mirror and just make sure they have a pulse.
SPEAKER_01:He understands my sales model now.
SPEAKER_00:And so you're not thinking about qualifying, you're just thinking about you know, racking up some scores by having you know applications or accounts opened up or whatever. But eventually, I had a real hard time with somebody, and one of the other um financial advisors kind of overheard it. And when they left, he walks in and he goes, You know, you don't have to take anybody, it's your choice. They're not paying you a salary, it's not like they're paying you to bring people in here. You get to decide the kind of people you want to work with, and you also get to decide the kind of the kind of products that you would like to work with directly and those that you'd like the company to handle with their expertise. So that's a big transition.
SPEAKER_03:That's a big transition.
SPEAKER_00:Eight months in. Really? I don't have and so I was it puts you in control.
SPEAKER_01:It puts you in control, yeah. Sounds like you had some great mentors coming out, though, that helps you navigate the business world, regardless of veteran or not. Um, so you've you've already laid in a number of things. Uh, who was the one that you really helped you on the path that really got you to where you are today?
SPEAKER_00:Uh um there's a guy named Bill McMahon. He's uh part of Mosaic Capital, it's a private equity firm. I'd say for the last 15 years, he's been my main mentor, Citadel graduate. He was actually an officer and Desert Storm Artillery Officer, and then went into banking. And I I lucked out that in the portfolio that they had, he ended up being my um my senior point of contact, kind of like the chairman of my board. And I say it because there are other people, there's too many people to mention up to that point in my career where they're all more technical mentors, not not business writ large. Um, I believe in being trying to apprentice yourself to whatever it is that you want to learn. You know, if you want to learn how to how to diffuse a bomb, you go through a mall, you go through the town asking, and eventually you're gonna run into somebody who knows how to defuse a bomb. You just have to have the humility to get out there and just keep asking until you find out the answer. So you can get some really strange, esoteric information and insights and help if you just don't care about, you know, your ego and just ask people politely. So I was able to get lots and lots of help technically in business that way. But I was always a strategy guy in in the Navy. And where I really started to get the strategy gene was dealing with the PE guys and dealing with uh specific, specifically the guidance that I was getting from from Bill. So um, yeah, and he knows that he knows I think that way.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, think about what he just said. Uh McMahon goes from being an uh artillery officer in Desert Storm to being a banker. Yeah. Right there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you definitely have to gear it back down. And then uh, you know, uh Marty's already brought this up, you know, find that new purpose. I think that's you know, the mental struggle a lot of these guys have to go through is that new purpose and that that new fulfillment, in which we talked about a lot, is that that's that's what we're all about, right? That's why we start businesses. That's why we have this podcast, Alan. We talk to people and why do we do what we do? I mean, it's it's it's hard as shit. I mean, why do you start your own business? I mean, you could have just gone to a company, got the cubicle job, got the 401k, got the go down the dinosaur and fly out at five o'clock in the afternoon. But no, you want to see if you got what it's what it takes to make it happen to business. So I think that's awesome. Can you talk to me?
SPEAKER_00:One one point real quick though. Yes, sliding down the dinosaur is different than flying out of the dinosaur.
SPEAKER_01:So you get flown out of the dinosaur, Marty. I got that one. I have absolutely gotten shit the shit right out, brother. Oh, business. Why do you have to learn so many lessons? So hard. They're all the hard way. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Can you talk a little bit about the vocational programs? And I know that you know you do the white-collar stuff too, but uh like so what does that look like for somebody that gets in the program? How long? Culinary, let's just take that for an example. How long is that program and what are they qualified to do when they're done?
SPEAKER_00:Well, the the three levels I described earlier, the the first and second are really one's experience, the next one's kind of a hobbyist level. Let's say you want to learn how to use a 3D printer, or you want to learn how to use a particular kind of lathe or a particular kind of laser, or you want to you want to build, you see how hard it is to um forge your own knife. Or you want to get into um um being an electrician and you want to know how difficult is that. That's that's the second level. You kind of get enough direct hands-on doing what you've asked to learn about, and you build some things and you learn the machines and the different methods for building those things with those machines, all the different tools besides the machines involved. And I mean, we had about half a million dollars worth of just small tools, not even counting the big machines right now. So that may weigh your appetite, that may turn you off, that may you may say, hey, you know, I'd really like to do this as a hobby. I'm gonna go make, you know, bookcases and tables for a living, or not for a living, but for a hobby. And and that's fine, that all works. The third level is where you're serious and you want to get into the industry of whatever whatever we're we're supporting. On the culinary side, we've actually got Michelin, Michelin-level restaurants right now that are ready to take veteran apprentices. So they're gonna give us a list, we've talked about it already, of you know, these are all the tools, these are all the things that are in the kitchen that they have to be good at using. They have to be a you know, adept. They don't have to be a master or anything, but they have to know which end of the knife to use, right? And then the differences between all the different kinds of knives and all the different kinds of machinery you'd find in the kitchen, and also the flow. You know, most people, unless you've watched a lot of you know, um documentaries or what do they call reality shows about about kitchens. Kitchens are kind of like football plays. Every team's got their own little you know method of doing things, and they don't have little blue and red lines on the floor to keep you from running into people, you got them know this stuff. So you learn all that and you come in as an as a paid apprentice, but we have to prep you, and that may be a three or four-month program on the culinary side, but we have people ready to take them in right now. Uh, we got the same thing on HVAC electricity and uh some other related trades that this is what they want. They want people to know how to bend steel, cut cut various kinds of uh metal, uh certain uh basic levels of welding, but to a certain standard. They want them to be able to come in and immediately employ them, use them, and think on the other side about the purpose side. We want the veteran to come in and be a contributing participant. Not just, you know, standing there. A lot of veterans, you know, they'll get hired and they'll go in there and they're standing around and then they'll go wonder why nobody's giving them anything to do. Well, the problem is you know, the patriotism got you in the door, but you don't know how to bake the bread. Whatever, whatever it is that company does, whatever that organization does. So if you're smart, you humble yourself, you apprentice yourself and say, What's the lowest rug on this ladder? And I want to be good at that, understand that, I'm gonna work my way up. And then that's when we talked about this earlier, that's when all these other skills that you had in the military, how you're extremely trainable. You you're able Retain both um knowledge and also physical skills, and you practice them because you that's the way you were taught how to do those kinds of things. And you push to a certain level of achievement, you don't just kind of sort of kind of do it, and then that's good enough. You actually push yourself to be really, really good at it. You understand how everything around you fits in the whole. You realize you're you're not just the only thing in the universe, all these other things, other people rely on you to left you, right of you, up and down. So you you get all that already. You don't have to be taught that. That's not a mindset that has to be pushed into your head through HR classes. And then you know how to plan, you know how to lead, you know how to communicate. You usually can handle stress to a great level. But you have to be able to bake the bread. You have to be able to understand what a waiter does before you become a cook, and understand what the cook does before you own the restaurant or run the restaurant.
SPEAKER_03:Do you provide anything for the employers on how to best take advantage of somebody who's got the experience that you're talking about coming into their organization, you know, to just keep them busy and keep the process tight and that kind of thing?
SPEAKER_00:Nothing written down. I mean, we've probably probably talked and recruited about 25 companies and corporations, and not all of them are in Florida. There's some that are in other states that that are ready to. I mean, there's a company in Minnesota that makes massive uh kitchen stoves for big commercial kitchens, and they never have enough people to to to assemble these things, to build these things. And so they're just standing by. They want us to, you know, get somebody in that third-level program and then get it and get it to them up there, and they're willing to, you know, these are these are not internships, these are jobs, these are but they but because they can walk in and they they know the lingo and they walk in and they know the tools and they understand the environment, they've got a fighting chance to actually get some traction.
SPEAKER_01:All right, we're gonna finish up here real quick. So, what does success look like for you in this new adventure?
SPEAKER_00:I would love to see the the 9,000 square foot training center up, running full, which would mean, you know, anywhere from from 15 to 20 veterans um utilizing all three levels of our program. I'd love to see at least two or three hundred veterans in the academy that are doing various, you know, learning various things about business. We're teaching them how to find money, how you know how to apply for money, how to scale, how to hire, how to fire. Uh, we've got one guy right now who's uh actually he's an army guy, went to school and he got a PhD in physics, and he's got software that he's writing patents for. So we connected him with a guy that's written like a hundred patents on unmanned aerial vehicles. So they could link and he he basically cut his learning curve, you know, radically. So that's the kind of thing we'd like to see. Um we'd love to be kind of a beacon and that people see us not just for these things, but also we will turn around and help refer them and get them to all the other possible sources of assistance and help that they they may need.
SPEAKER_01:Well done. Well, obviously, you found your purpose even later. Uh so you keep finding purpose, you keep doing things and giving back. And Marty, I mean, you you you said it on uh ahead. We always are learning, we always gotta humble ourselves. We can't always be the big dog. Well, I'm trying. I do. All right, who am I kidding? I try, I try, but no, I love learning. That's why I graciously read books. I listen to books, I shouldn't say read them, mostly reading them. Uh audible now. Three times speed. I do it one and a half, just one and a half. That's all I can do. So, Marty, this has been awesome, man. Uh, how can everybody find your organization? What you're doing now?
SPEAKER_00:You just go to warriorshavenusa.com. Dot com. It's all right there. Warriorshavenusa.com.
SPEAKER_01:Love it. All right, Marty. This has been awesome. All right, we got to go to our final four questions. I said I love books, and I am. I'm uh we've talked about one of the books that I'm actually using with my sales team right now, and that's called Never Split the Difference by Chris Foss. I've left read a couple other books. We've had a guy on recently talked about his real estate books, and uh he sent them to us, but they're not audible yet. So no, I'll read them eventually. And I've had another book uh referred to me because of the podcast. He says, You're gonna love this book called House. And so he just gave it to me. It just got it in the mail. I'm gonna start reading it. It's all the reasons that we call different pieces of the house the words that we use and it's where they came from. And I'm like, I'm so fascinated in this. So I've got the book, I'm gonna get ready to read it. But Marty, threshold, exactly. Yeah, why is it threshold?
SPEAKER_03:There was something about the threshing, the I don't know, the straw or whatever.
SPEAKER_01:That's exactly what he told me. That's exactly he says, Do you know why they call it a threshold? I said, because kept the straw out of the house or something, kept the threshold out of the house. That's right. So, all right, Marty, what's up based on that leading? What's a book you'd recommend to our audience, the adventure team, trying to build a business, start a business, scale a business? Let's go.
SPEAKER_00:There's actually a book called Scaling. There's probably a lot of books called Scaling. This one just came out about 12 months ago. I believe it's one of the guys involved with Pennett Planteer. And it's a technology, uh technology guy that wrote the book, but it basically talks about all the human and mechanical operational aspects of scaling. And um I I think it's really good. I mean, I I've read lots and lots of books on scaling, but I really recommend that. And I know I know Chris Foss, I had him come in and run that whole program from that book with my guys about nine years ago.
SPEAKER_01:Really? Hey man, I'd love an intro because I want to get him on the pod too. Dude, I love Never Split the Difference because one thing that I am is very emotional. One thing I am is very high strung. And one thing he talked about was bring it down. Get your late night DJ voice down. I love that. Oh my god, it was so cool.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, Patrick Swayze and Roadhouse. That's what you got to be all the time.
SPEAKER_01:Right? Oh my god. I am until it's time not to be nice. Right. Until it's time not to be nice. Another great reference. I mean, he's hitting all my players. Brother, we're in the same same breath. All right, here we go. What's the favorite feature of your current home?
SPEAKER_00:Uh my office. This is where where I'm sitting right now. Why is that? Uh, because my wife helped build it. We just moved down here about two and a half months ago. My dog loves it. We got a Yorkie sitting over here sleeping. Yeah, it's oh love it.
SPEAKER_01:Where'd you guys move from? Virginia Beach. All right. So can you see the beach from your house?
unknown:No.
SPEAKER_01:No. Yeah. Not here.
SPEAKER_00:No.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. No.
unknown:No.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no.
SPEAKER_00:I was a six-minute walk from the beach in Virginia Beach, but uh I can't see it from here.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, that's still cool. All right. We haven't talked about customer service a lot, but Alan and I are kind of customer service freaks. Completely love it. What's a customer service pet peeve of yours when you're out and you're the customer?
SPEAKER_00:Um it's actually more of a managerial element of it. I hate when it's clear there's a lot of people lined up at the customer service, whatever the cue is, and there's one person that's been assigned that task. Like somebody hasn't mashed, because whatever you whatever you teach somebody about customer service, line 10 people up that are staring at them, you know, throwing knives at them, going like, what the hell? Looking at their watch and everything. That means that nobody's problem is is as important as my problem because they're getting frustrated, and all that heat comes to that person. You do that a couple of weeks, the person behind the they become a DMV employee, they they don't care.
SPEAKER_01:So make sure there's enough people. 100%. You know what? A lot of times when we ask this question a lot, we talk about the person in front of us. Oh, they don't care. Oh, they're staring at their phone. Oh, they're doing this, they're doing that. Well, you know what? That's a managerial problem. That's a leadership problem, that's a culture problem.
SPEAKER_03:You know, and I've been thinking about this a lot because it happens in restaurants all the time. And what it is is they put the worst, most useless person in that job because all the other jobs seem to be more important. But the fact is they're setting the tone for the customer's experience the rest of the time. And it's like you can't you can't afford to have a horrible person being the first point of contact with your customers.
SPEAKER_01:And you know what? A lot of times it's not their fault, it's not the person we're sitting in front of. How many times have you called? Uh, you know, they they'll press eight to hear a duck quack, press nine to get your problem solved. Press nine. Um, what what's your number, sir? Oh, well, I already put that in. All right, what's your name? Oh, I already put that in. Um, I can't see it. Okay. All right. Oh, I can't help you. I have to transfer you over here. It's not their fault, it's the managerial systems and processes that weren't set up correctly. So, you know, a lot of times, and we definitely want to take it out on that frontline one, and we're getting ready to go into the holiday season. We're where emotions get very high. And there's one thing we all know about human beings. We're irrational and we're emotional. And so it's gonna get really high, Alan. That's right. Keep talking about yourself. No, am I damn it? I'll be nicer to I am still nicer, though. I you know what is that your new year's resolution again? I actually never yell at the person in front of me. I said, you know what, especially when I'm in depot. I'm like, you don't want this, but I know people and I'm gonna go tell them how bad they are because you're great, they suck. All right, Marty. What is a DIY nightmare story? I love working on houses. I've worked on houses all my life. Uh, so I got into this business, but I have a lot of DIY nightmare stories. I have flooded shit, I have fired shit up, I have almost burned one house down. Didn't, thank you. But these hands have shown you that I know how to hold a nail in my fingers as it goes to the house.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, my my worst one's a little dated, but I tried to put uh little mosaic type tiles as a backsplash. And um I thought I had it just right, and and I guess it sunk a little bit. So my wife came in and that was exactly what she wanted. Except because there's so many lines and a kitchen, right?
SPEAKER_02:And you're you're all proud.
SPEAKER_00:You can instantly see that you know there was like a little bit of a left to right drift, and it wasn't a huge drift. You know, you can take it like a micrometer, but the eyeball picks up this, you know, the the straight counter, the straight um cupboard above it, and and I tried to talk my way out of it. I tried to, you know, but it it sucked. It was a terrible job. And that was the last time she let me work on anything in the house.
SPEAKER_01:Atta boy. You know what? You did yourself a favor, brother, because I keep working on the house. But the house I was gonna tell you, that's where you learn that you can't use mastic, uh, or you got to use mastic, you can't use uh big thin set, and you gotta use spacers, especially when you're a beginner. But no, that that's been awesome. Marty Strong making it happen. He has done great things. Thank you for your service, Marty. That was 20 plus years uh doing what you did at the tip of the spear. Amazing. Well, and he's still serving, so we appreciate that too. Yeah, man. Moving down to Florida. All right, you're not gonna hate the weather, you're gonna like it a little bit. Okay, all right. New York's gonna like it, wife's gonna like it. But love that you're going to make it happen again, making other people stronger, making us all stronger. Let's keep doing it. Get up that mountaintop, go make it happen. Let's get back into our communities, make something happen. We're doing it here. Alan and I joined a chamber of commerce again. Alan dragged me in. Damn it. All right, we're gonna keep doing it. All right, we gotta go get out of here. Cheers, everybody. You guys, thank you for listening to this episode of the Small Business Department. Remember, your positive attitude will help you achieve that higher altitude you're looking for in a wild world of small business ownership. Until next time, make it a great day.
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