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You Can't Afford Me
Making the leap from employment to entrepreneurship can be a scary time. The biggest fear people have is the unknown. Here on the “You Can’t Afford Me Podast” we speak with hustlers and innovators on how to make the most of your journey. If you have questions we have answers.
You Can't Afford Me
Leading with Biblical Principles in Business
Ever wondered how faith and business can intersect to create something extraordinary? Tony Ponsiglione's story illuminates this powerful connection through his remarkable journey from corporate executive to purpose-driven entrepreneur.
Tony's path defies conventional career trajectories. With a geography degree in hand, he unexpectedly landed in human resources at Safeway Stores, launching a corporate adventure that would span Fortune 500 companies, international assignments, and executive leadership roles. When his corporate chapter concluded, Tony purchased Splash and Dash Car Wash in Richmond, Virginia, where he implemented business practices that challenged industry norms.
What sets Tony's entrepreneurial approach apart is his unwavering commitment to giving back. From day one, he dedicated 10% of his business's top-line revenue to charitable causes—not from profits, but from gross income. This counterintuitive approach embodies what Tony calls "God's math," a principle suggesting that generosity creates abundance rather than scarcity. The results speak for themselves, with his business thriving while making significant community impact.
Today, Tony leads C12, a peer advisory organization helping CEOs and business owners integrate biblical principles into their leadership. He offers a refreshing perspective on success, defining it not merely by financial metrics but by balanced achievement across spiritual health, relationships, physical wellbeing, and business growth. For entrepreneurs feeling isolated or struggling to navigate challenges, Tony's message provides both practical wisdom and spiritual encouragement.
The conversation delves into the unique loneliness of leadership and the critical importance of surrounding yourself with like-minded peers who understand your struggles. As Tony shares his lowest professional moment—when he learned that team success trumps individual achievement—listeners gain insight into how challenges prepare us for greater opportunities ahead.
Ready to transform your approach to business leadership? Connect with Tony through C12 Mid-Atlantic or visit Splash and Dash in Richmond to experience his customer service philosophy firsthand. Your journey toward purpose-driven entrepreneurship starts now.
www.themrpreneur.com
Welcome to the you Can't Afford Me podcast, where we skip the fluff and dive straight into the grind Real entrepreneurs, real struggles and the unfiltered journey behind success. Let's get into it. Hey guys, thanks for joining us on another episode of the you Can't Afford Me podcast. When I say I'm excited about this interview, I am super excited. I've known this gentleman for years. We've done business together, but I've also admired him from afar in terms of what he's done in business and community development, with nonprofit work and the new organization that he's currently working with. So, without further ado, we got Tony on the podcast today. Tony, how you doing, buddy.
Speaker 2:I'm well. How are you Sam?
Speaker 1:Awesome man, Glad to have you here today. I'm glad to be here. So real quick, give everybody a quick rundown of who you are and what you do.
Speaker 2:So I am Tony P, as many people refer to me. I'm Tony Ponceleon, and I have just joined an organization called C12. And C12 is a peer advisory group and there are many peer advisory groups out there, but we're a peer advisory group that's got a very different bent on things. So we work with about 4,800 executives and CEOs, business owners around the world, and we work with them to help them lead their businesses in a way that advances the kingdom in the marketplace. So contemporary business practices, but with a biblical underpinning, to make sure that everything that you're doing is something that would glorify the Lord, love it.
Speaker 1:Love it. All right, we're going to build up to that. I want to get a little bit more of your background for people to get a full understanding of who you are. So talk to us about the start of your career. What were you doing when you first got into the workplace?
Speaker 2:So I actually kind of stumbled into the workplace, not because I was doing things I shouldn't do at school but because I thought I wanted to be in real estate and so I actually studied geography and site location at the University of California and I was working for the largest retail company in the world at the time Safeway Stores, largest grocery retailer, yeah, and the head of human resources interviewed me and said don't have anything in real estate, but I have something in my training department. So I went to work in the training department and started off in a number of different HR positions training, employment, affirmative action Back before DEI was called DEI. It was called affirmative action, so did all those things for the largest division in the largest grocery retailer in the world, went to work for some other retailers in human resources, got into operations. I grew up in operations, worked my way through school at Safeway and so I worked for a number of Fortune 500 companies in a variety of different industries. Worked as an executive in Europe for a British conglomerate.
Speaker 2:I can say that I used to work for the same companies Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty because they actually owned EMI Records and Capitol Records and then came back to the States, moved to Richmond to work for a venture capital firm that had acquired AMF Bowling and we tripled the value of the business and my wife fell in love with Richmond, virginia. It's hard not to yeah, well, it's hard not to yeah. Well, it's a funny thing. We lived in three states in a foreign country, and this is the first place she said I'm not moving from, and so having been married for 30-some-odd years at that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you knew better than to argue to that.
Speaker 2:So I went to work for Genworth here in town, was a member of the leadership team there and ran a division from an HR perspective. And then my run in corporate America came to an end and I bought a business in town that you know because you've done some work with us. So I was operating that business and a friend came to me someone had worked with me from the finance organization at Genworth and had an ad for a peer advisory group and said hey, would you ever be interested in doing this? You'd be really good at it. So I started that process and was literally going to join them when I got contacted by someone in town who said hey, would you mind going and talking with this national not-for-profit about what they might need to have as some help? And so I walked into UNOS in March of 17 and agreed to go help them for a couple of months and seven years later I retired from there last summer.
Speaker 1:Let me pause right there for a second and let people know, because I want to make sure everybody listening to this knows who UNOS is. Unos deals with the organ transplants for the entire country. Yes, and it's right here in downtown Richmond, so that's not like some rplants for the entire country. Yes, and it's right here in downtown Richmond, so that's not like some rinky-dink nonprofit. This is a massive organization.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is the United Network for Organ Sharing, literally. When I got there we did about 30,000 transplants a year and six years later we were doing 48,000 transplants a year. So we made a lot of improvements and advanced the system a lot and by the time I left I started there to help out in one department. By the time I left I was running about a third of the organization. So I had human resources, professional education, I had communications, the organ center, patient and member relations and the policy shop and the policy shop that actually sets the policies for equitable transplant, um organ transplants and access to transplants across the country.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it's what did you. What did you study in college?
Speaker 2:I was a geography major, which is why real estate so how?
Speaker 1:all right, because that is a color, and we haven't even gotten a c12 yet. Yeah, but that is a colorful, robust career path. Yeah't even gotten to C12 yet, but that is a colorful, robust career path. What were from working in the grocery store chain to working with these organizations that were making massive acquisitions? What were the skill sets and things you were picking up and learning along the way? Because, from what I'm hearing from somebody who majored in geography and ended up sitting at the top of corporate America, it sounds like you've learned a lot along the way and were able to develop certain skill sets.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I am Just like I stumbled into my career. I mean, I went once someone actually asked me to sit down with him and talk about career management and I said you, you've kind of you wasted lunch, the price of the lunch that you're buying me, because I'm the idiot savant of career management.
Speaker 2:So I will say that I started off and what I learned very early on was hang around with really smart people and learn from them, and I was always willing to try a new project and learn something new.
Speaker 2:And it serves me well because I get to now meet interesting people and learn about their businesses. So, starting in the human resources function, I got to learn how a lot of people did their jobs and I got to teach people how to do those jobs and then from there you get into kind of almost a general management role because you're observing people and you're helping the general managers manage their organizations. But I was never the normal quote unquote HR person. I've always been really interested in the numbers and really tried to understand how the business operates and what the key, the critical pieces are. And I have a I like puzzles and working in businesses is always about what problem are you working on and how you fix that puzzle. And so I got to do really cool things like acquisitions and and I got to work with attorneys who taught me all those things and so little by little over the years, I just picked up a lot of different kinds of experiences, which really helped.
Speaker 1:And it seems like you were. You always had an open mind and always had wide eyes in terms of, like looking for something, like something may pop up in the organization, or you hear something like hey, I wouldn't mind learning a little bit more about that. Would you mind if I sat in on that meeting?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's, it's interesting, I am, it's you get a little bit of a reputation for being interested. Um, I, uh. One of the pieces of advice I've given to people over the years is don't worry about that next job, worry about doing the job you're in right now exceptionally well. Create bandwidth for yourself, and then people will come up to you with opportunities. And so what would happen is people would notice hey, you've got this licked, you really understand how to do this. You've got some extra time. Would you be interested in helping me with this project or helping me with that project? And I learned early on that making the team better was more important than kind of worrying about me, because if you had that reputation of being someone that would help the team be better and I learned that in high school playing for a great football coach that it just made opportunities happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's talk about this is always fascinating, always fascinating. You were, I think, one of the first entrepreneurs I met. I want to talk about the car wash splash and dash. That was owner operator but working another job, and that always kind of sat with me. I'm like wait, hold up. How is this dude making money over here got this thing running on its own, and I know you were very hands-on with it, but to be able to juggle both of those was something that I found extremely fascinating. So, number one, let's start with this how did you get into the car wash business? It wasn't like for the last 10 years you were like man. Owning a car wash is my dream. This is something I'm meant to do. What was it that got you in that space?
Speaker 2:Well, my lovely bride of 30 some odd years at that point not wanting to leave Richmond was a big part of it, and so I realized I needed to do something. I couldn't be a guy who'd sit around the house and I did not know what. I wanted to go out and work for another company after my last corporate opportunity happened, and so I started looking at businesses. Corporate opportunity happened and so I started looking at businesses and I've always wanted to. Early on in kindergarten I was an entrepreneur hustling, selling bags of Skittles and stuff like that. Yeah, actually selling trading cards.
Speaker 1:Oh nice which is a massive business now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I didn't know I was setting the standard back in those days.
Speaker 1:This was in the 60s, hey there might be some kid right now in America that bought a trading card off you for 10 cents. That's worth $10,000 right now. Who knows?
Speaker 2:Yeah, literally I had access to them because I had a lot of freedom as a kid and so I'd go buy them and sell them at school and I got accused of taking people's lunch money. But at the time I was just selling things and so I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit and so I was thinking, well, I'm just going to go buy my own business and stay here in town, and so literally thought, what kind of business do I want to do? My wife's family had owned a restaurant. She knew she didn't want to be in a restaurant business which, by the way, is the hardest business in the world to run.
Speaker 1:Amen, yep, amen, yep, amen. I've owned and operated a lot of businesses. The one I will never own. You will never see Sam Anderson's name attached to a restaurant. That ain't happening.
Speaker 2:I never say never, because God has a sense of humor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is true, so you better be careful.
Speaker 2:All right, I'll take it back. So I was looking at businesses and I was on a site that posts businesses for sale and there was a car wash on the south side that was for sale and I thought, interesting, car wash Doesn't have a lot of this particular model as a self-service model. I thought, interesting, not a lot of staff, that could be. Really. As a guy who dealt with human resources issues for decades, I thought that could be really good. Yeah, so I started looking at these. It was three sites. I wanted to do the site location work and I thought this is not as good as the one that I normally go to, and so literally the one that we bought was one that we were customers of for years before and I reached out to the son and I said, hey, I'm interested in buying your business because I knew his dad had passed away. If you're ever interested in selling, let me know. He said, hey, let's get together next Tuesday. So that's what I stumbled into the business. I did due diligence, we bought the business.
Speaker 1:You got some strong angles, man. You've stumbled into a lot of stuff, yeah.
Speaker 2:Amen. And so I mean I got to work, I got to learn the business. I inherited a really good staff member and we just hit it off and I learned a lot and I'm always interested in tinkering and figuring things out and figuring what the puzzle was. And what I knew was I had certain levers that were going to be good for me. I had a contract that was unlimited chemicals. Was I had certain levers that were going to be good for me. I had a contract that was unlimited chemicals. So at that point I thought I'm going to drive as much business as possible, drive the top line, create as much reputation as possible and then go from there. And I really wanted to be customer service oriented.
Speaker 2:And so those are the things that we do differently than everybody else. In my opinion, we give people flexibility and we give people customer service.
Speaker 1:Love it. So talk to us about that acquisition piece. That's this audience going to be really interested in how this deal came together. So, number one, I always like to ask people in situations like this were you using OPM other people's money or had you stashed up enough cash that you were ready to go out and purchase something?
Speaker 2:I got an SBA loan and but I had my, because a car wash is a is a um, very unique business. Yeah, they require a 20% down payment. So I used my own money, um in that instance, Um, and we borrowed against equity in the house, um for part of the down payment, and then we had other money that we had stashed away and so we used the combination of those things to get started and over the years it's been good, it's kicked capital to us and we've been able to upgrade it and do a lot of other things to it. But, yeah, we didn't have anybody else's money other than the bank's money, the SBA's money, to begin with.
Speaker 1:Gotcha.
Speaker 1:And then in terms of like operating a car wash, so the fact that it's self-service but you do have a detailing component of what you do.
Speaker 1:You guys do fleet, that customer service aspect that you talked about, where you guys will literally go pick up the vehicles for a business, drive them to your location to detail, take them back to them, which I think any business that's going that direction. Like when I had my laundry business, I literally had a customer ask me one time hey, this is great that you wash and fold my clothes and drop it off at my front door, how much would it cost for you to actually come in my house and hang the clothes up for me? And at first I was like, lady, you are crazy. But she looked at me. No, I'm dead serious and I've always had this idea in my head that I think we'll get to a point in society you're going to have a fair amount of strangers running through your house at one point. You think about people that hire dog walkers or grocery delivery services, laundry service, like it could be a number of different things and these keyless entry things.
Speaker 2:Now, yeah, so great, because you can have like 20 30.
Speaker 1:So this is for my laundry guy, this is for my car detailer, this is my dog walker and when you change services, you just change that one code and everything else stays the same, as opposed to I gotta change the lock and give out 18 keys amazon even has a feature now where, like you can do, uh, the garage thing where, like now, the amazon driver has access to my house, where, like when they get there, there's a button that they hit in the app, my garage door opens. They put it right in there. It's cool if I'm ordering something expensive and I don't want a brand new computer sitting out on my doorstep because I'm not gonna be home for a while, like they can put it right in there for me.
Speaker 2:And I think that goes back to that puzzling thing. I just look at the world and think what's a different way of putting this on a 90 degree slant that makes a different angle and a different use. And so the pickup service was actually born out of me having an idea that says people are busy, we'll go pick up at their office, and so I thought there'd be a big market for that, and I've just never been good at advertising. So there's one place I haven't learned as much as I should have.
Speaker 2:But we started off with picking up people's cars at their offices and we would tell them we guarantee your car will be in the same spot when you come out at night. And they go, how can you come? I work at Capital One. How can you guarantee that? Because we put our car in your space. I mean, it's pretty simple, but they never could figure out how we did it right.
Speaker 2:So the fleet service was born out of that idea. And so Mark Smith, who does amazing stuff in the community, saw a flyer that we do because we want to have 10% of our top line go to those, to not-for-profits. He saw that and he said, hey, I want to know who this guy is. And so we started talking and now we do 70 cars for him on a weekly basis. My wife and kids and our staff are running around picking up cars from Midas and cleaning them and bringing them back so the customers have clean cars, love it.
Speaker 1:Talk to us about this business model with car washes, because are you familiar with Cody Sanchez? So she is my all-time favorite entrepreneur. Right now, at this moment as we sit here, I've heard of her now that you mentioned this, she writes books.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like acquiring Buddy of mine, loves her Dude. She is amazing To me. She is Gary V 2.0. Well, that's the funny thing is he says you've been telling me these things for years and now Cody's telling me and I'm thinking why didn't I listen to Tony?
Speaker 1:No, she is brilliant, but she talks about acquiring boring businesses and like. These are the areas. So, like you know, I own the vending machine business. For one point she was preaching about that. Laundromats she's preached about that. And car washes she often preaches about. Talk to us about what those margins look like, because I'm not going to reveal the number. But I remember one time when we were shooting the video for you, we had to go through the automatic wash and I was like Tony, I'm sorry We've got to do this again, man, if you need me to put money in the thing to pay for it. And you were like, no, it ain't what you think it is Well back in the day.
Speaker 2:so I inherited a sweetheart deal that was literally unlimited chemicals.
Speaker 1:Oh, so you don't have that deal anymore.
Speaker 2:So back then I had huge margin back in those days because it didn't matter how many times I washed cars and so. But my perspective was, and my perspective still is if a customer has a bad experience I'm going to fix it. And what's my cost for a car wash? It's a good, good margin Because if you think about it, there's the chemical and the chemical is, you know, depending on the quality of the chemical and we buy top quality chemicals.
Speaker 2:But then there's water and we have a recycling machine and we recycle that water and so we lose about 25% to drive off and we lose another 10, 15% to evaporation. But the rest of it we're recycling and we run it through a reclaim unit and then we run it through a reverse osmosis machine and that way it's spotless to be able to run into your car. That adds cost when you start off the business and when you go to replace it, because those machines I just bought a new one of those last two years ago was ninety thousand dollars for that reclaim unit but it lasts for 15 years and so you know there's a big capital expense in building a car wash, but once you have it it's a sunk cost business yeah, and I love the idea.
Speaker 1:That's what got me interested with the vending machine businesses. I was like, out of all the businesses I've owned, that was one that got me more excited simply because of this aspect is that I would have an employee out there working for me 24-7 that would never talk back to me, would never need a sick day, never has an attitude. It's just a machine out there making money for me and obviously you still have to employ people on the detailing side and things like that, but for the most part you're making cash and people can just come and get the service without you having to have someone there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's part of why I love the business as well. We self-serve an automated bays, but our automated bays don't have to have an attendant, so the tunnel washes all have to. They all close down, and so you know. They talk about an unlimited car wash package, but it's not unlimited. It's limited based on the times that they're open. It's limited on what kind of machine they have, Whereas ours we have unlimited time because it's 24 seven. So I actually did a spot that I was going to talk with you about. That's like me at six o'clock in the morning, running over to Lowe's thinking, oh, I want to go get a car wash, oh, I can't because they're not open.
Speaker 1:Oh, but wait.
Speaker 2:Splash and Dash is open, and so that's. It's unlimited in that respect. But the other thing is we have unlimited options. So you want touch-free? We have a touch-free machine. You want brushes? We've got brushes. You want to do it yourself? We got to do it yourself. You want a high-end detail or a restoration work? We got that. So we give you everything. Oh, you don't have time for it, We'll pick it up, We'll bring it back to you. I mean, so ours is all about giving people flexibility and the interesting thing. And back to your dry cleaning business. I tell people, hey, who are our regulars, that we pick up. If you want, we'll bring you a Starbucks back because we're right next to Starbucks. You want us to fill up your tank? We'll fill up your tank. You want us to take it to Midas to get an oil change or a state inspection? We'll take you there. And so we do a lot of work with Midas. Yeah, I'll come and say, hey, do you have a spot?
Speaker 1:And they'll jam me in there and we make it happen, Love that I've known these things about you, but now that I'm getting this refresher, I'm like all right, I need to lift the hood up on my business and see other ways that you can provide better service to people.
Speaker 2:Adjacencies and tangents are always incredible in my life. I mean, I'm doing some work with a construction. You met Scott, yeah, yeah, and I'm trying to convince him that he needs to be thinking about how he can expand his business, because that's how he can make a bigger impact. And he is a quality, quality guy and he is a guy who wants to have the ultimate touch on just the high end attention to detail and my perspective is okay. So if you can't find people who have that same level, can you get into an adjacency that capitalizes on your sources for product or your sources for raw materials? You get better margins on those things because of your volume, but doesn't have to have that. So could you do deck building or fence building where you could have a crew doing that work? That is an adjacency to the work that you're doing, but isn't that high end? Maybe you've got a different. It's like GM and GM has Chevy and they have GM and then they've got Cadillac, toyota's got Lexus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, same thing.
Speaker 2:So I mean, yeah, I'm always thinking like that and that's the business model that I'm used to Talk to us about.
Speaker 1:the giving back aspect of your business, because a lot of business owners are looking at their margins and since I've known you and you've owned Splash and Dash this is one thing that you've been known for. In fact, I think that's how you were introduced to me when we were part of Synapse, and it was just like this is the car wash guy that is always giving back. You literally even have it at your station. When people are paying for the car wash, they can put in a code and donate a portion of what they're paying to go directly to a local nonprofit. Where did that first? And I know from a biblical and spiritual background where your heart probably is with that, but a lot of people probably look at their business and be like man. I would love to give back to nonprofits more, but I can't afford it. How did you figure out a way to afford it?
Speaker 2:Well, so it is all about my faith, and I was not always a believer. I mean, god has no grandchildren, and I will tell you my parents my dad, used to believe religion was about power and control, so he was definitely not about faith, and my mom did it more from a cultural perspective. But when I started reading the Bible for myself, I started recognizing that I'm encouraged to do those things. My wife and I made the decision that we were going to give 10% of everything at a minimum, and so there's all kinds of ways of interpreting this, but our perspective is the top line. You don't do it off of your profit.
Speaker 2:You do it off of the top. You don't gross, not net, yeah. And so my perspective on that with the car wash was and I once read a book that said if you were in the Confederate States and you had $100,000 in Confederate money a year before the end of the Civil War, and you knew the outcome what would you be doing? You'd be transferring your currency into federal money as fast as you could. And I know I'm in a world that is not. I know who wins this battle and it isn't the powers of darkness, so I'm trying to transfer all my currency as fast as I can into heavenly currency.
Speaker 2:And that analogy came to me. I thought, oh my goodness, what am I storing this up for here? I should be doing as much as I possibly can, and there's scripture that will tell you you can't outgive God. There's a whole bunch of things. I'll do a Bible study with you on that one, but so it was on our hearts to do that. I'll do a Bible study with you on that one, but so it was on our hearts to do that, and so we started doing that. When I was working for companies and when I got bonuses or anything, it was always top line. And so when we bought the business, it was just the next natural thing and we wanted to model for our kids that we give first. And so when we first started, the first weekend of every month, every cash sale, we'd empty everything out and everything that came in as cash went to faith, went out to charities, and my kids were like you're crazy, dad. But I mean, god blessed us and he continues to do that.
Speaker 1:So that's the point I want to hit on, which I think a lot of people have. Even if you take the religious component out of it, there is just a principle in life that when you give stuff comes back to you. What would you say to someone who's just like man I'm on a tight budget, I can't make this work. I want you to talk about, because I'm sure you've seen a correlation in your life where man, I just gave to this and I did this and look what just happened in my life.
Speaker 2:Before I do that, let me tell you, I have a nephew and he's an incredible guy who was a double major finance and computer science. So he is very analytical, very numbers-oriented. And he came to me one time as a young man, a newlywed, and he said Uncle Tony, I'm feeling a little bit convicted. I've been at church and they were talking about tithing and I just don't know how I can give 10%. And I said, okay, so, jay, do me this favor, do a calculation. And they were doing the envelope thing, where they had an envelope for everything, and I said, okay, so do the calculation Must have been reading Dave.
Speaker 2:Ramsey stuff? Yeah, I don't know. I said do your calculation and figure out what you can give. What do you think you can give every month? And he says okay. I said, now add 10% to that amount. So if you think you can only give $100 a month, then give 110. I said but do this, jace, give it to him, put it in the offering plate the first week of the month and watch what happens. So then at the first month comes around, he goes Uncle Tom, I don't know how this happened. I have extra money. I said okay, now cut the difference between that and what your 10% is in half and put that amount in Next month. He goes Uncle Tom. I don't understand this. I got extra money.
Speaker 2:I said that's how God math works. God math doesn't make sense. God math relies on us having faith. And I get the chills a little bit when I start thinking about this, because that is how he operates. I mean, he's always. If I designed my life, I couldn't have done a better job, obviously, than what he has done to prepare me to do what I'm doing now. And the experiences I would have never guessed I would have had, the experiences I've had living in three states in a foreign country, getting to spend all kinds of time in Europe, going to Asia on business. Who would have ever thought I had that opportunity as a kid, growing up in a factory town on the Delta between San Francisco and Sacramento, never would have thought that.
Speaker 1:Man, and we've got to make that a training. You remember everybody was talking about girl math at one point.
Speaker 2:We need math to be training god, math is way better than that's pretty insane um, man, appreciate you sharing that story.
Speaker 1:Um, all right, let's go into what you're what you're currently doing right now with c12. So, um, just be candid. Me and tony have been talking. I've been to an informational session with his organization. I'm 1,000% recognized that I need to be part of this and before you get into it, I'm going to tell people why and this is not necessarily a sales pitch or anything.
Speaker 1:But when you are a CEO, it can be a lonesome life sometimes Because stuff will happen and I can't turn around to the people I employ here and share those things. Like your organization will crumble apart if you shared everything with with your staff members. Um, my wife's not in business. Well, soon to be with me here pretty soon, uh, but yeah, I can talk to her about some things and she gives me good perspective, but it's like, well, she's not in the business so she doesn't know everything that's that's going on. So oftentimes, like we just need that sounding board, we need some guidance, we need some leadership and I think too often, entrepreneurs, we get this in our head that, like you know, I'm the head of the organization. I need to have all my stuff figured out, I need to have the game plan. I need to have all the answers. We're not going to have all the answers. You need to be able to collaborate, conversate and just learn from others, because probably some of the best business advice I get from people are people that are completely outside of my industry, like my main mentors, know nothing about marketing but every aspect of this business. They have some knowledge to give me. And walking in that room when I was there for that first session and just to hear some of the story and it's number one it's like, oh, I'm not the only one going through this, this is something that everybody running the business deals with. Or I hear one person sharing a story and I'm like, dude, I dealt with that two months ago. Here's exactly how you navigate that. And I don't care what the cost is, because, number one, I don't want people to think this is a free service, like you got to pay to to play, but the value that you get from it, because and I a single idea can be worth a million dollars. So is it worth paying x amount of dollars per month to continually receive million dollars ideas? You better believe it and also understand.
Speaker 1:I think we we kind of talked about this and, uh, I was about to open up a can of worms at me. You were like this is a different conversation, let's not go down that route. But we talked about this and I was about to open up a can of worms at me and you were like this is a different conversation, let's not go down that route. But we talked about like private school with with kids, and I was like you know, I've come around to a way of thinking where, like, if I send my kids to private school, it's not, it is partly for them, but I'm buying into a network because the parents that are sending their kids to these best schools Now they're going to be on play dates. I'm getting introduced to this guy oh yeah, my dad does this or blah, blah, blah. And we're at the cookout together Next thing you know we're doing, but like it just opens up doors.
Speaker 1:So one thing I learned that it took way too long as an entrepreneur to learn is you need to pay to be in certain rooms.
Speaker 1:Like there are conferences that you can go to where you can get the digital package that's like a quarter of the cost to be there live. But if you go to that conference in person, you're going to get 20 times the value being there in person than you will get sitting at your computer in your underwear eating popcorn, listening to these talks by yourself. So as we get into that number one also understanding that and again I don't want to separate this we're going to bring it back together. But people need to understand the biblical principles that are in the Bible that involve business, finances, things like that. These are universal truths. So, whether you're a Christian or believer or not, you can't deny that these principles work. So, yes, there is a faith-based piece to this, but the principles that we're going through, the things we're learning, the teachings that we have there, these are universal things. I don't care if you're an atheist. You can take the education from this and be able to apply it to your business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I started telling people because people ask me questions and over the years working Fortune 500 companies, I couldn't always be as overt about my faith. I got in trouble.
Speaker 1:Especially being in HR. You can't be doing that A lot of times.
Speaker 2:I had people say you can't be whatever, whatever, whatever and I'd say actually I can.
Speaker 1:I know what I can do.
Speaker 2:And so. But this is eternal wisdom, not. This is not wisdom from some fly by night, some flash in the pan, some fat and, oh, by the way, most of the people who are really successful, folks who are, who are coaches, they're using that same content yeah, they may not know.
Speaker 2:It formulated in a different way, it's packaged differently. They may not know it. I mean, dave ramsay, what is he teaching? He's teaching biblical. It's the same stuff as but there are guys and ladies who are doing that work that are not believers, but they're still doing the same concepts, because those are it's wisdom. It is eternal wisdom, and so I just like to be able to, for the first time, instead of writing on my whiteboard a scripture without an address on it, I can actually point to that scripture and say what it's about, and we can talk about it and what the concepts are behind it.
Speaker 2:And that's the beauty of it from my perspective, and I just think relationships are really critical. Like you said, going off and doing a conference and listening to it. The content is great and you should ruminate in it. I think it's like putting a teabag in a container of hot water. I always buy the tapes, I load them on my old 2009 pickup truck because it has a disc that has a lot of capacity on it, and I listen to them over and over and over again because I want to really catch all the nuances.
Speaker 2:But the power is in the relationships and the power is in the people that you get to meet and the things that you get to do with them and the relationships you create with them and the support you get from them. And I think that's getting lost in our society, absolutely. Our society thinks, hey, I can do this online, I can do this remote, I can, but there is power in the relationships and, again, it's eternal wisdom. My mom, the little Asian immigrant woman, used to say be careful, who you spend your time with, right, and she was right. Yep, who I spend my time with, the peers that I work with. That's what this is about. That's what C12 is about C12 is about. It's not about me, it's not about you, it's the collective of the group, it's all the content and all the information that we have as a group. But on top of that, it's everybody in the network, 4,800 people around the globe. And so if you're working with media firms, you don't just talk with the media folks that are local to here that you could potentially connect with. You could reach out to other media firms that we have in the network or around the globe, and there's power.
Speaker 2:And then every other year we have a conference where we last in April not last month, but the month before that, we had 1,800 people in a conference in Dallas. It's the largest conference of Bible believing business owners who are really committed to doing great work and glorifying God in that work, the quality of that work and making an impact in the world. And I'm going to use I shared with you at that meeting a video of a gal who Yale educated business. Her parents made incredible sacrifices, coming to this country as an immigrant, to get her to go to Yale. Her husband was a boat person they were. She went to that conference in 2023. They had one skin cancer clinic in Colorado Springs. They were treating a small group of people and, as a result of being at that conference, in two years they've gone to nine of these clinics. They now treat tens of thousands of people. Why? Because they want to make an impact in their community and in the world and they are giving and and supporting so many uh efforts around the world for people who her passion is for. The things that make God cry are the things she wants to address, and they're an amazing couple. So, yeah, I just think those are all the reasons.
Speaker 2:You actually did a heck of an ad for me. I didn't have to, but what we hear from our. So every year, because our members are really important, in fact, I'm going to send you I'll give you a link at the end of the day, we do a survey this month, and this month it's about what are the things that we're doing well, what are the things that are keeping you up at night? What are the things that we're not doing well that you want us to fix and make better? But what are the things that are keeping you up at night as a business person? And that becomes the content for next year.
Speaker 2:Which is what's different about how we do this? One thing is it's biblically based. The other one is that it's all based off of what's keeping you guys up at night and ladies, it's not some pointed head in San Antonio thinking, oh, this is what we should be teaching people. This is what you all tell us you want as content. Every other peer group out there some of the ones that do offer a curriculum offer six months' worth of curriculum. We do 12 months' worth, and it's curriculum that is accredited for continuing ed or for college credits, so you could actually use it towards a degree program. Nobody else has that. Nobody else does it 12 months out of the year and nobody else has it biblically based and has the underpinnings. And you get together as a group, you go through that content, you talk about how it applies, you have a network, you have relationship, you have support.
Speaker 2:It is not about advancing your business with those other people around the table that might happen but it is not specifically about soliciting people yeah and so it's just, it is something that's completely unique and nobody else does it, and I'm just, I feel, just so excited about the fact that it has such potential to make an impact in richmond.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no absolutely and I need, I need people to understand again. This is this is why I feel, like you know, I've been an entrepreneur for 10 years, but like I feel like this last year, I've learned more as an entrepreneur than I have the first nine. Like I I feel, like you know, I've been an entrepreneur for 10 years, but like I feel like this last year, I've learned more as an entrepreneur than I have the first nine. Like I almost feel like I'm starting over, but I'm starting over with more knowledge and a base. But like I feel like I'm really just getting started. Like I can see the next 20 years ahead of me now.
Speaker 1:Because when you're super hyper-focused on just one thing in your life and in this scenario talking about business and you neglect all the other pieces your physical health, your spiritual health, your finances, all these different things nothing ever feels right. Like it's always going to be chaotic and whatever it is that you're working on is never truly going to reach the pinnacle of what it could be, because all these other areas of your life are kind of falling apart the. I remember early on in my career, like even before becoming an entrepreneur, I would see a guy that had $10 million in the bank and I'm like I want to be that guy. And then I sat down and talked to him 200 pounds overweight, been divorced twice, his kids don't talk to him. He's got a bad relationship with him. Yeah, I don't want that kind of success. Like I want the spiritual health, I want to have healthy relationships, I want to have a healthy body, I want to have healthy finances, I want to have a healthy business. And when you break that down to someone, doesn't that sound like an amazing life to have great relationships, to have a growing, flourishing business, to have a great spiritual life. Once you combine all those things together, that's truly success to me.
Speaker 1:And what you're doing, what c12 is doing, um, I'm with it because it's too many entrepreneurs and ceos are out there without the other pieces, because I felt for a long time like man, what am I doing wrong? Like I know I know this is right, I know this is a game plan, I know this is strategy, oh, but like this is the game plan. I know this is strategy, oh, but like I haven't been in the gym in two and a half months, like my physical body is just breaking down on me and I'm not thinking at the level that I should be because I'm not taking care of this vessel. Oh, I haven't been to church in a couple years. I haven't opened up my Bible Like I in my head, because when the tough times do come, it's not if they'll come, it's when they come. Like you know, you and I have personally talked.
Speaker 1:I've been dealing with some stuff in the business this past week and ordinarily I get in the car, I'm listening to a podcast or an audiobook and for the last two days I was like man, I just need some old school gospel playing. Like I need the word like in this capacity, because that type of music and that ministering to me has let me know, bro, you're not by yourself. There's somebody up here much higher power that talk to a few people and immediately figure out how to adjust and I couldn't be more excited about what's to come. So the work that you're doing like it's so amazing. On another level, like I think this is not just going to truly affect business here in Richmond and people's lives, but what you guys are doing across the country. So last question I have for you before we finish up is I just recently started asking this question in every podcast, tell us about your lowest moment as an entrepreneur and how you were able to come out of that.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you I I'd rather talk about my lowest moment in the business world. So I grew up with my mom invented the concept of a tiger mom, my mom taught us to be on a seek and destroy mission. Every room you walked into. Who's the competition? How can you beat them? How do you be the best that you could potentially be? Yep, and it's an interesting thing because that's how I operated in work. At work, it was always about me demonstrating that I was better, faster, stronger, smarter than everybody else in the room.
Speaker 2:And I had the good fortune of playing for a high school football coach who was like it's not about you, it's about the team, absolutely. And I will tell you a story, a real quick story, after my years there. We weren't that good when he first started, but we were the number one rated team in the state of California. When my nephew was there, they were playing the number two rated team in California and the best player a guy who played in the NFL by the name of Imani Toomer team in California and the best player a guy who played in the NFL by the name of Imani Toomer broke a team rule and he didn't sit Imani for a quarter or for a half. He sat him for the entire game and they were able to overcome the fact that Imani wasn't on the field and beat that other team by three touchdowns. So I learned early on from him. The team was always more important, but at the same time I was getting all this. I mean, I grew up with seek and destroy always be the best and I was always about making the team better. But I was always about making myself look better than everybody else on the team. And in my mid twenties I was at work and I offended a very senior member of an organization and they were out to get me and they were going to fire me and nobody on the team rallied to my including my boss, rallied to my support and I recognized at that point in my mid-20s I have got to learn to make the team better and not worry about me.
Speaker 2:And so that piece I told you about earlier, that was my lowest moment. I was afraid I was going to lose my job, get fired from a job that I really needed and wanted. We had just had twins. My wife had decided to stay home with the twins. We were living in the San Francisco Bay Area. I mean we couldn't afford to live on my salary, much less not having my salary. I mean we couldn't afford to live on my salary, much less not having my salary. Yeah, and God exposed for me the importance of the team and I look at it and I think all those things back to your point about we're going to face challenges, all those things that were trials and tribulations through the course of our career. They made us better, absolutely. They made us stronger. What the enemy might think of as something that's going to undermine us is actually something that God's going to use for our good. Romans 28, right, and so any of those bad moments. I made so many stupid mistakes over the years.
Speaker 1:That reminds me of a quote from Bruce Almighty. Morgan Freeman's character was playing god in that movie. Yeah, um, was sitting at the the bar with, uh, jim carrey's wife in the movie and you know she was wanting patience in her life and love and all these different things.
Speaker 1:And he looked at her and said do you think when you pray for patience, god just snaps his fingers and gives you patience, or does he give you the opportunity to be patient? You want to be disciplined. Do you think God just snaps his finger and make you disciplined, or does he give you the opportunity to develop discipline? And that is a line in a movie that I will never forget, because when you're going through those difficult times I've recognized it probably took me until my mid-30s to get this but when you're going through these things, you're being prepared for something bigger. Because I think of where I am today. Me eight years ago. There's no way in the world I could handle what's going on right now. Like I would have had a mental health breakdown, like I would have had to check into a hospital. Like there's no way I would have gotten through this. But because of the trials that I've gone through, it's like when something comes up, bro, there ain't no thing. We know how to fix that. All right, let's do this. Let's keep it moving.
Speaker 2:And the other thing I think is back eight years ago. You probably would have been a little.
Speaker 1:I know when.
Speaker 2:I was younger, I was arrogant enough to think I could fix everything, and now, knowing that I have a network of people I can go to, I can ask people for questions.
Speaker 1:I can look to the scriptures. I can look to get advice that is freeing, because I don't have to be all that stuff.
Speaker 2:You don't have to be the guy. Yeah, and the world lives on social media and everybody's life seems so perfect. Yep, and it's just not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people only show them the best of the best. That's their highlight reel and it's just not. Yeah, people only show them the best of the best, like that's their highlight reel. I think I actually saw something the other day that said like couples that post X amount of times per week on social media are actually the unhappiest people in the world, because they're just trying to portray this image of blah blah, blah and then next thing I know I'm getting online.
Speaker 1:I'm like, hold up, why is her husband not in any of these pictures anymore? Oh, okay, man, tony, this has been awesome. This could have been a two-hour long episode with stuff we could talk about. I want you to direct people. Tell if they want to learn about C12. Don't forget about Splash and Dash. If they want to come to Best Car Wash in town, where can they go? Shout out that information for us.
Speaker 2:So Splash and Dash will make you fall in love with your car all over again. And we're at the corner of Gaskins and Malin, right next to the Starbucks, and we have a website. Splash and Dash RVA and then C12, there's a number of different ways for you to look us up on that. Obviously, I'm on LinkedIn and you can look me up Join.
Speaker 2:C12.com is for headquarters. There's c12midatlantic is the website for this region and you can get me through that. I'd love to just meet with as many business people who are interested in having a network.
Speaker 1:I will say this in having a network, I will say this at the very least if you're in the Richmond area and you're interested in this business, it's free to meet with Tony and just have a conversation and even if you decide this isn't something for you, you'll walk away a better person, just having that conversation with Tony and getting some insight there. So, tony, appreciate you being here, brother, Appreciate you being a part of my life and all the stewardship and tutelage that you give me and things you've helped me through. Greatly appreciate you, man. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Absolutely, we'll see you guys on the next episode.