He Built 6 Businesses Without Burning Out | Chris Ulmer

Chris Ulmer owns Crystal Coast Graphics, a bowling center, a food truck, commercial properties, Airbnbs, and more — and he's done it without sacrificing his marriage or his sanity. In this episode, Jared sits down with Chris to talk through the real mechanics of scaling: when to diversify (and when NOT to), how to escape being the bottleneck in your own business, why he fires customers, and how to work with your spouse without blowing up your home life.

⏱ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 — Intro
2:30 — Filling market gaps in Eastern NC
6:30 — Internal growth vs. chasing new customers
8:30 — Don't be a Super Walmart
14:30 — Chris's other businesses (bowling, food truck, properties)
16:40 — What new entrepreneurs miss most
19:15 — "Time is what you can't get back"
22:00 — Working with your spouse
25:30 — The "hats" concept from Rocket Fuel
33:00 — Resentment, presence, and the phone problem
41:00 — "80% done by somebody else is 100% awesome"
42:15 — Hiring: 70% consistent beats 110% erratic
50:50 — Growing slow, growing the right way
55:50 — "Words of decapitation"
1:01:50 — The Rebecca Falcone AI story
1:08:00 — Why "cheaper" never wins
1:18:30 — Firing a customer (the boat wrap story)
1:21:00 — "If you don't want to burn it down once a week..."
1:32:40 — Rapid Fire: the $250K tax fine
1:38:30 — Advice for new entrepreneurs

🔗 GUEST
Chris Ulmer | Crystal Coast Graphics
crystalcoastgraphics.com
Facebook: Crystal Coast Graphics

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Alright guys, welcome back to the Below to Surface podcast. Today's episode, I have somebody here that you might not know him personally, or if even if you saw him, you might not know him. But he is somebody that you've probably seen his work in eastern North Carolina plenty of times. He owns Crystal Coast Graphics, does a lot of signs, graphic work um in Eastern North Carolina. Um has built multiple businesses. Um leader, um, somebody that I've followed for a while, somebody that I use for all my work, for all my graphics, for all my businesses. Um got Chris Umer, uh, Crystal Coast Graphics.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Glad to have you, brother. Thank you, Jared. I appreciate it, man. How's it going? Going good, man. Going good. We uh I enjoy what I do. I enjoy talking, I enjoy, you know, helping other people, other businesses. So I was uh very interested when you had asked me about doing this, that uh, you know, hopefully some people get value out of it.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Absolutely. And when we do a little bit different, man, because you know, of course, we like to dive in a little bit of the positives of things, um, what you've built. Um, but I've learned personally and all the people that I've talked to that's built anything, it's been a rough road to get there. Always. Um, obstacles left and right, and as soon as you figure out, you think you figured it out, you realize you haven't figured out anything. Sure. Or the next thing pops up, right? Right. Um, so let's just start in the beginning a little bit. How did you get into the the rap stuff? Where did that come about?

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Uh, if we go back even further, maybe. So, um, and there's a lot of things that I'm involved with that you probably don't even have a clue. Absolutely. Um, but it started, uh, my family is in the bowling business.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

So we own the bowling center in Jacksonville um in the process of buying that from them. And then back in early 2001, I built a roller skating rink and a laser tag um in Jacksonville. So we had a 30,000 square foot building. There building still there. I sold it in 2013. Um, so 2001, I built a roller skating rink, laser tag arcade focused around kids' birthday parties and things. And then we needed a bunch of graphic work done. Walls wrap when all the stuff that I saw in these bigger cities, other places that I couldn't get. Right. I was doing a lot of our design work. I always had a passion for cars and like the customization of cars. And so, and I saw these wraps on vehicles, and I just we couldn't get it done. So in 2004, five, right around there, I built a uh section of that building, bought the equipment, learned how to wrap, and I was wrapping cars in the parking lot there at that skating rink um during the week because Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we were closed. It was a weekend evening thing. So those days I would kind of do some wraps. We'd wrap some walls, figure out how to do it, wrap some cars, wrapped a couple of boats in the parking lot. And I was like, and people started to know I was doing it. Right. I was like, ah, this is I I actually like this. So I um I run at a building in 2000, late 2005, early 2006, started doing them then, um, took off, moved to another building. Uh, and that's currently the building we're in now. So we've been in that building since 09. Um, so that's kind of how I got started. It wasn't intentional in a way, it was just something that I had the need for. Right. Started doing it, saw that I liked it. Um, and then we've just kind of for the first several years till I sold the skating rink. Uh, it was it wasn't a big push. It was just more like I enjoy doing it. Uh, it was a side hustle, if you would, a little bit more than that, but it wasn't my main thing, you know. And then once I sold the skating rink, I kind of had to say, what am I gonna dive into completely? Um, and this is what it was. So I I stayed in this space for a long time, of course, still in it. Um, and then I kind of started venturing out to other things, other activities and stuff. So, but I enjoy it. My office has always been in this in that building. Um, I enjoy the uh I I don't like monotony, right? Right. And so this is always different. It could be a boat today, a wall tomorrow, I could be in Florida the next day, Pennsylvania the next day. We I wrapped all the stuff for the Super Bowl when it was in Atlanta or part of a crew that did. So, like that ability to move around and do that has always been um interesting to me. Yeah, yeah, there's no monotony, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:22

And I think it's interesting because I think that's the entrepreneur spirit is a lot of people get into things they had no idea anything about. It's just because they either they needed it and it was a gap, or they've seen that gap and somebody else needed it. So it's pretty cool. So like there was nobody pretty much in the area that was doing that type of stuff, was it?

SPEAKER_00 4:42

No, the closest is another sign shop, they're still there. They were you know doing lettering, door lettering, things like that, but it wasn't really at the size and scope of what it is now. And you know, New Bern's probably the same way as like Jacksonville. We're several years behind a lot of the country, right? We're just a smaller towns, correct? And so like we see it in these other towns, and it's like it, and it's and it's kind of good in a way because we can almost see the future, right? I see it going on, let's say Raleigh, and it's like, well, cool, four or five years from now, we'll probably start to get it here. Right. Um, so I was seeing this in bigger cities, and it was taking off, and I'm like, we don't have nothing like that, you know. So I was able to, you know, my cheat sheet was still what I do now is I see these things other places, and then I figure out how can I adapt that or how can that work where we're at. Um, and so that's that was it, you know, is seeing that there, bringing it back, and uh, and with no one really doing it, I find like the little niche. And even since then, you know, like a lot of people in the beginning, I wanted to be everything to everybody. Right. Right. And then I was like, no, this isn't working. And it's weird because I tell people this, and then, you know, I just taught a um a seminar in Kentucky, uh, I think it was in March, and I was telling people, like, you know, during part of my seminar, was like, you know, don't add services, but then do add services. So it's like, what makes sense? Like in the beginning, I wanted to do trophies and shirts and this and this and this. And it's like, it doesn't make sense after a while. And so we started scaling back, niching down. Then you get to a point where it's like, okay, we've niche down. Now this service does make sense. It doesn't take me a lot of extra effort to add it, and it's a great fit. Right. Like, let's just say trophies did not make sense. It's a totally different everything than what we're used to doing. Um, and so, like, you know, niching down, finding what we were good at, and then expanding a little bit around that, just it worked better and it has. And I try to do that in kind of all the different things that I have, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:37

So, and I think that in business that works in multiple different ways, like we talk about it all the time, you know, with our you know, our customer service and sales is they'll continually try to go out and get new, new, new, new. But are we even providing all our services inside of our customers already? Sure. Um, do we have all their work that we already provide? And like it's huge that you say that because I see even in our area, in our industry, we see it all the time that people just continue to try to add stuff that don't even make sense. Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

It just makes sense. If your customers aren't asking you for it, does it really make sense? Like, you know, with you guys adding, you know, let's say electrical or any of the other little things that you do, like it works for what you what you do, right? But if someone adds like ceramic coatings for us, it makes sense. I already have their vehicle, I'm already wrapping it. If I add a ceramic coating, it's it's not a big deal. It's it's just a little extra time on our part and materials. I'm not having to do a stereo system where I need a totally different set of skills, correct? Right? Like that doesn't make sense for me. Adding window tint makes sense. Adding paint protection film makes sense, but completely going away from what no one asked me for. You know, they asked, hey, why you got my vehicle there? Can you tint it? Correct. Why you got my vehicle there, can you ceramic coat it? So those things make sense for us. Um and so those are the types of things that we've started adding through the years that you know we didn't in the beginning, you know, whether they didn't have them or just didn't make sense at the time. So, you know, I'm all for diversifying, of course. It's hard for me to say don't diversify because I'm very diversified, but I think it's smartly, intelligently. And like one of the things I even when I when I talk about this subject is like do it, but when the time is right. When you when you've got what you're doing down and you can add another service or whatever that makes sense, then do it. Don't just try to throw a hundred services at something because you want to be everything to everybody because then you're not good at any of them. Yeah, you know, don't be uh super Walmart, exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

You know, it's like going to uh that's like being a restaurant, Italian restaurant, and then start serving Chinese and Japanese. Exactly. Just because people come to eat there doesn't mean they want Japanese and Chinese from you, they just want Italian food. Exactly. So that's a great point. Um I've been around you, I don't know, six or seven years now. So I've seen the growth just in those years. When did you really sit see this graphic thing taking off? When did it really turn into like, okay, this needs to be my main focus for a while and actually make it a business?

SPEAKER_00 9:00

So every uh it seems like every year I kind of tell myself there's no way I can grow in my market much more. Correct. You know, it for a while and still is a building constraint, has been an issue for us. Although in the beginning I never thought I'd outgrow that building. Right. And just like most people that are in a growth phase, they never think that that's my home forever, right? You're going through it now. Exactly. Um so every year I'm like, I can't do much better, you know. And and I look at market size and uh and constraints that we have working outside of our immediate market. You know, it's always difficult for someone two hours away knowing that they're gonna pass half a dozen places on their way to me. Um, because most of my work is done at my location versus going out from there. And so that's always kind of been a constraint. Um, but beyond that, it's you know, we try to really make sure that our existing customers that we give as best service we can. Of course, we we need new customer base, and that's given, but I don't want to like lose my existing customers. We have a really high retention rate, um, which I'm very proud of. Um, and and really just getting better at everything we do. So I my customer base has not grown as fast as our actual revenue has. We right, so our existing customers are still the core of our business. We add in some as we grow, uh, but it kind of became apparent probably, you know, seven, eight years ago, as it becomes more mainstream. Because in the beginning, when people would do Google searches, they weren't searching for wraps, they were searching for uh paint decals, like they didn't know what to call it. Right. And then as even like TikTok and all this stuff has come out with changing the color of your car, and people know what a wrap is, now it's becoming more popular. It was always popular or more so on the business side for advertising. Right. But it was I want door decals or I want magnets. Yeah, no one asked for that anymore. It doesn't get enough visual impact. So as it's becoming popular again, other cities, people are traveling, they're saying, Well, that's not paint on that car, that whole car's done. And then it they come back home and then they're like, Well, who does that? But they know what to call it now, right? You know, people actually call and ask for wraps, have for a long time. They didn't used to, they didn't know what to call it. Uh, and even, you know, looking through Google search terms through the years and seeing what popular key words were a long time ago, wraps was just a tortilla wrapped up with food, right? Like, you know, it's not that anymore, you know. Is that what I'm looking for? Exactly. So now, like, it's almost the opposite, you know, it in the vehicle wraps have started to take precedence over some of that in search terms. So, like monitoring that, and like one of the things that we do is making sure that we track what customers do call it when they call it. So, like one of the things that we kind of do is um, especially with AI now, is you of course record every call. I think a lot of people do that, do transcriptions, AI done, and we analyze it for keywords that people are asking for because it doesn't do me any good to advertise for industry terminology if no one outside of my industry is saying those words. So it's like I need to call stuff what my customers do. Correct. Because, and that's helped our growth is because I all my keywords are tied around what they call it, not what we call things. Who cares what we call things? Uh so I think part of that with the growth has been seeing trends from the consumer side, right? All the TikTok stuff, all the vinyls that they offer, complete crap from what you usually see, you know, online, all the stuff made overseas and whatever. But on the bright side, it brings attention to the industry. Right. So people call up asking for A, B, and C. We don't offer that product. It's just crap. But if you come in, we can show you the ones that we do offer. Right. So I let them do a lot of that market re not really research, but you know, market capitalization where they're bringing it to the forefront for people that had no clue what it was, and then educating them on what it what it is, not what they're seeing online. Correct.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

So it's like you it's what I said earlier, it's growing internally. I think that's what you've done. It's you've capitalized on your customers as they grow. Sure. You know, you start off with maybe a window tent and they decide they want to get their car wrapped. Maybe then they open a business, now you get all their business vehicles. Now they bought a boat, now you can wrap their boat. That's it. So it just continues. That's the same thing the way we are. Like we've grown as our customers have grown or as they expand, or we have a good relationship with a facility operator of so-and-so, he goes to another company.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

And you right.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

So that's growing internally, and I think people miss that. I think they just try to go, go grab, grab, grab instead of just saying, hey, let me scale this back, let me pull back the curtain and see. Because we can waste a lot of time just on people that if you looked at the numbers, sure. It's not even worth it. Does it make any sense? Yeah. It makes you know, especially in my industry, we're running these guys ragged and you look at the numbers compared to we don't need to do them anymore. Right. We just need to focus on them. Sure. That they're paying the bills, not this guy over here. So it's really cool that you say that. And um, I think it it's like that with most businesses, and I think it's really cool of how you've built yours. And I know that's turned into other businesses too. So what else do you have going on outside of that?

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Um so I have the the bowling center again. Um, I'm still active in that. I have, and again, finalizing hopefully this year with the purchase of that. And then I have a food truck. Probably know that. I don't know if you knew that. I do hibachi, uh, which most people would never expect. Um I have a property, commercial properties. Uh as of two, three weeks ago, I have sold the body shop. I had a collision center that I bought. Um, it's been open since 1965. I kept the building, sold the business. Uh, the gentleman I had running it for several years, he had interest in it, and I honestly have zero interest in that business. Right. Um, and so I just I only bought it for the property. Correct. And I got the business with it. And so once he's doing a good job of it, I've let him take it over. So I've uh so I don't have that anymore. Um, and then we've had some like divisions, if you will, you know, some different things we've tried, some smaller stuff to see if it sticks. Um, but those are the ones that I currently am operating, you know, on day in and day out. I have like, you know, some personal side of things like my coaching and my um my speaking engagements and things like that. That's you know, just stuff I enjoy doing. It's not a moneymaker, it's just passion, right? I enjoy my I love my industry, my graphics industry. And so as much as I can help with that, and I do, you know. So um, but yeah, that's that's the main thing. I uh, you know, lately it's been finding things that I can help grow. I have two little kids, and my wife works with me every day in my rap business um that don't occupy as much of my time. Right. You know, so the the property side of things has been lately been more um, you know, uh entertaining is not the right word, but more where some of my focus has been um to grow that up and build a building and let someone else worry about the staffing, the people and what's going in it, you know, versus me. Um so that's been a big part of it too.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Yeah. So you got a lot going on. Um and that's one thing that really intrigues me with people because I'm going through the same phases and stuff. And I think a lot of people, you know, from the outside in that don't own a business or just getting into business, I think it's all fun and games, it's great. It's you know, you build your highlights your own schedule, which is the absolutely the most incorrect thing that you could possibly ever say. Right. Yeah, I can bend my schedule, but yeah, my customers, you know, make my schedule for me. Um what would you say like people miss the most that are new in business or thinking about owning business that they miss like probably the most messy part of running businesses? What do you like? What do you think they ignore or just don't see? Like they just see the glamour, the nice vehicles and stuff. What do you think that number one thing is they they don't see?

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Uh so I'm gonna answer that two ways. So, one, if I go back, like in my industry, the installer, the person putting the decal on, those are typically the hardest to train. Right. They see what the shop gets out of it versus what they put into it. Meaning if it's a$3,000 wrap and they get paid whatever, making$500, like, well, yeah, but what did the$2,500 go? Well, there's a lot, not forget the material, there's a lot of other stuff that goes into it. So a lot of those guys will see when they start doing the math in their head, well, I could do this in my garage, instead of wrapping three a week, I could do one a week and make the same money that they feel, right? Right. And so I have a conversation during my hiring phase. So typically I'm like the third in line on an interview, and I'm not usually the last one. And usually, especially with installers, I have a conversation that at some point you're gonna feel that you can go out on your own, right? It's just common, you know. But if you work well with me, I would love to be the first investor in your business. I want to invest in you. I hope that you stay with me for a long time. I hope you don't leave. But if you decide that you want to go off and do this on your own, then let's work together because you're gonna need a lot of resources that you don't feel you're going to need. And even being here for six, seven, eight years, you're not seeing all the time and the effort and the other things of the working parts that you're going to need. So when you're ready to do this on your own, I will invest in you and we'll do this as a joint venture, right? So then, and I've and I I've done this, right? And and I've also had people that said, no, I don't need you, and then they come back a year later because they didn't see it, they didn't quite understand, and then they do. So I think the biggest thing is time, right? It's what we can't get back, it's what is the most precious thing to most of us, you know, especially those of us that have families, and splitting that time and how do we do it? You know, when everyone has their own way of doing it if they if they do, you know, and you see a lot of families and marriages that don't work. Where I know you work with your wife, I work with my wife every day. Um, some people can't, right? And so how do you most people can't, exactly? And even the ones that do probably wish they didn't, right? So, but I mean, um, not my wife, of course, Vanessa.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Whenever you watch this and yours either, we didn't put words in my mouth either.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

No, no. But um, you know, I think splitting that time. So, like, you know, if you do work with a spouse, you know, like for me, when we're at work, I mean, it I still run that. Vanessa works under me at work, right? But there's times when she's like, hey, I need to talk to my husband, right? And so, like, even every day we eat lunch together. And that's like not, you know, boss employee type thing. It's this husband and wife. And so being able to separate that time. Um, and and that goes like I even for my team, not just for us, whether I I own the business or don't, I think personal time with your significant, significant other and children or family, whatever's important to you is important, and it helps kind of keep the sanity, you know. So, like, I don't my some of my guys are like, I'll come and work this weekend. No, I don't want you to. You go home with your family. You know, and um, and that's what if that's important to you, you know, and most of the time it is, right? You know, and so like we just brought in a director of operations not long ago. And that was one of the things is like, you know, from his previous job, is he didn't get home till late. He left at five in the morning, didn't get home till seven or eight at night. He had no family time. I'm like, no, like you're leaving here at five o'clock every day. I want you home to eat dinner with your family. You know, I don't want you to come in on the weekend. Stay the hell at home. I don't want you to come in. You know, if we can't do it between these hours, then we're doing something wrong. And I think a lot of people don't see that when they try to go off on their own. They don't see that it's difficult sometimes to get things done during these hours and to spend time with your family and to be able to break that time up and time block, if you will, to keep everything important. Because if you missing one of those pieces, then it crumbles. If your home life is crap, I don't know if we cuss on this or not, but if your home life is shit, right, then it's like, then your work life is also going to be shit. Like it's just how it is. If me and Vanessa are having an argument, I don't have to say a word to the team. They know. They know that's right, you know, because we're in the building. So finding that balance that just a lot of people don't get in the beginning on how important it is and how much that will bleed over to work and to everything that does there, um, I think is. Something that they miss. Right. Well, you said a lot. Sorry, I'm a no, no, it's good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

But I'm gonna try to break this down from the beginning. So when you first started talking, you said that you, you know, if you hire somebody and they want to go on their own you invest, which is amazing. And then you said, you know, some people take it, some people don't. And I think that reminded me of situations of you never bash your competitor either. Right. Um, because you never know when you might need them. Um, I've had competitors assist me in many things, um, give me work. Um, and that's one thing I have noticed in the new era of people running businesses they think they don't need their competitors, they are bad, competition is bad, and they bash them. Um, which you can ask any of my employee, you don't ever say one bad word about any competitor. Sure. Um, so that's really cool. And like you said, like you never know when you're gonna need me. So let's not burn this bridge. If you want to go on your own, we could talk about it. If I want to invest, I'll invest. Um, but use that resource, which is amazing. Um, and then you got onto the subject of working with your your spouse. Um that is not for the faint heart at all. Right. Um I don't I didn't think I could ever do it. A lot of it's because who I've married, I think um we're total opposites. Same. Um if we were like each other, it would last probably two seconds and the whole thing would be blown up. Um but like you said, you have to same way with her, you know. I wouldn't say she's under me, but you know, we run it together. That's right. Um and but at work, she knows that it's work and I'm the owner, which she is too. Sure. But I run operations, put it that way.

SPEAKER_00 23:53

But someone has you have to have that have that higher. You have to.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Yeah, it's the same thing in your household. Exactly. Exact same thing. So she understands that it took time because there would be times that you know we would be in meetings and she would say something that I didn't agree with in front of everybody else, and I'd be like, No. And at first she didn't take that very well at all. Sure. Because she was she was looking at me as me saying no as a husband and just completely shutting it down, embarrassing her in front of everybody as a wife. I'm like, it's not that way. Right. We're just having conversations here, and I just didn't agree with what you had to say. Um, but at the same time, you have to go home and be a husband and be present. And I think that's where a lot of, and I really wanted to get into that with you because I follow you on social, social, I know your wife, and I think that's one thing that you do very, very well, and something I'm growing into is balancing all that. Um, you have young kids, like I have five and seven. Um, you have a wife, you have multiple businesses going on, um, you have employees that you gotta take care of, and on top of the most important thing is you gotta take care of yourself. Sure. Um, whatever that may be, whatever gives you peace, you know, whatever makes you feel good. You gotta still sprinkle that in every now and then. Um how do you balance that? And then was it chaos up until the point that you figured out how to do that, or was it more of a natural thing you just knew out of the gate how to do it all, or is it you have some dark times figuring it out, rough patches in your marriage, rough patch or whatever, to get to that point. How did it all come together for you to really figure out that balance?

SPEAKER_00 25:30

So I want to go over one thing on the like in the median part, right? So one of the things that we do, um, there's a book called Rocket Fuel, if I've ever read it, and it talks about um putting on that hat. So I said I hired a director of operations. He, if we look at an org chart, um, I'm at the top and then it goes down from there. But it in that book, it talks about what hat you're wearing. If I'm an installer today and have to put on decals because someone is not there, my installer hat is on and now I'm under my director of operations. I am working to his to achieve the goals and the jobs that he has that I have set when I take that hat off and I'm back at CEO. So, same thing with with my working with my wife is like, you know, depending on what we're doing, if I have the hat on as the boss, and that's that. If if she is doing something and I have to help her underneath that, then I put on that other hat, and now I'm under her. So it's being able to balance that and understand whether it's a spouse or someone else you have working with you, if I'm working, changing that hat out. And it made sense when I listened to that book, like there isn't literally a hat, but if I understand this hat means I am an installer, I have to work under my install manager to make sure that their jobs get done so that when I put the hat back on a CEO, his job is getting done that I can hold him accountable. Now, for at the house part and the in that, um, you know, Vanessa and I have known each other for 2200, 2001 is when we met. Okay. We didn't get married. Uh, she'll tell the story that she's been with me since then. I tell the story that we've been together for like 11 years, 10 years now. Right. Right. And so we were always I was close with her family, knew her family. Um, her nephew and my brother played baseball together when they were younger, and then she moved away. Um, and then she hit me up. She slid my DMs, uh, she she hit me up and then she moved back. She moved to California, she moved back uh to North Carolina, and then we've been together ever since. So honestly, we don't, I mean, I it's gonna probably everyone will believe me, but we we've never had a rough patch, you know, because I think the other issue is is we were older when we got together. Right. I wasn't if we had got together when I was 19 or 20, it probably wouldn't have been the same. I had a lot of stupid things that I would want to do or did or whatever, the youngness that I had to get out. So by the time we got together and we were in a relationship, we were both in different places in our life. Um, older, more mature, all the stupid shit was gone. And for me, it was never bad, and her either, but it was just we were different places in life. So I think that always uh has been a good contributor to our relationship. Um, but the other side of that is making sure that we have time for us. We like to go on vacations, we like to take the kids and go away for a weekend or whatever, and uh so I try to make sure she calls me the um the CFO, that's the chief fun officer, right? And so I'm the one that likes to do the fun stuff with the kids and plan stuff out and trips and things, and so that's been great. Uh, getting out of work. It's uh it's weird because she hasn't been with me working on my business since the beginning. So she was in the healthcare industry. Okay, she started with me seven years ago at the shop. And so um when we started, it was a little bit of the other way around. It was she was like, you know, well, we're at dinner now, put your phone away, you know. You're right, you know, and and to the point where my daughter, if I pick up my phone at dinner or at home, she'll say, Daddy, put your phone down. Like so it's a reminder for my kids and everything. Now I say it's it's been a role reversal because it's almost switched. Now I can leave mine down, and now sometimes she's the one picking it up. And so it's been great to be able to throw that back at her because for years she threw it at me, and I have kind of got to a place where I don't worry about stuff as much. And a lot of it is mental. It's like, you know, in in you work, you know, entrepreneurs, we our brains don't go off. We might not be doing it, but we're thinking about it. Absolutely. Right? Like exactly. So even though I'm not physically doing it, I'm still thinking about it. And and so I try to carve out time if it's something I have to do, like not during family time. I'm up at four in the morning. I do it in the morning before anyone's up, I do it at night after they go to bed, you know, something like that. I try to leave that time from when the kids get out of school till they're in bed and tucked in. That's kids and family time. And so that has been helpful for us. And then, like date night, like every Friday night for the most part, it's just me and Vanessa. We don't have to worry about the kids. Like we get we're fortunate that both of our parents live here. Um, and so they'll watch the kids or whatever the case is. So that's been important for us. Uh, you know, sometimes we cook at home, sometimes we go out to dinner, sometimes we just go drive to the beach, whatever it is. Just something that's and the no work talk, right? Like we say that. She's typically now the first one to break that, you know, it didn't used to be. Um, but but I'm okay with it, you know, as long as it's not all work talk, you know. Right. Um, but being able to just separate those things and like clock in, clock out, if you will, I think has been very helpful. I was talking to someone about it this morning that we just we don't ever argue or fight, you know, we have little arguments, of course, things that's just natural, but it's never anything major because um and we're together 24 hours a day, you know, for the most part. And I think it's just because we we do have those like separations of time where it's okay, we're at work, this is work time, anything that's work-related, we're talking about now. We're at home, it's home time. Let's talk about our kids, what the school is between the dancing and the t-ball and gymnastics and bowling on the weekends, and they like to go fishing, and I take them fishing all the time. It's like being able to just really carve out that time has been important. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

And I'll be honest, man, it's you know, on this show, we like to go deep. Sometimes I go too deep, and you know, Maria's like, really? Really? Um, but she knows me. I'm I'm um I wear it all right here. So I struggle with balance really, really bad. And I've gotten better, especially in the last year, um, because I've listened to her voice and her concerns. You know, when I got married, Maria was young. Maria's six years younger than me. Um so she was in her early 20s. Um, but very mature for her age. Um, so in the beginning, when we first when I first started, she was all about it. She um stayed was a stay-at-home mom and helped in the back office for the first year and a half. Um, and then brought the kid into the when we got a first office, and the kid stayed in the office, and then we finally said, we gotta get daycare. This is crazy because we kept growing. Um but it's always been for nine, ten years now of me working all day, not being around, and then come home and work. I mean, I would literally walk in the house, grab me a quick bite to eat, sit down at the kitchen table and work till midnight. Um in my head, I thought I was doing the right thing because I was there. Then you learn quick quickly just because you're there, you're not present. Right. Um so over, you know, a couple years, resentment started to build up with her. Sure. Um, and then you know, as guys, we're over here giving, you know, all we got to this. Not sleeping, we gave up all our hobbies, we're our health, like everything is just focused on business. And then when somebody comes at you saying, I need you to do this, you're not doing enough, that's not a good feeling at all. No. Um, but you have to step back and really look at where they're coming from. Um, because once I did that and realized, well, I mean, it's been four years and I haven't been around. Sure. And I always say the first four years of my eight-year-old, I don't You don't remember. You know, yeah. And the first two of my six-year-old, I don't I don't I don't remember hardly anything, um, which is horrible to say, but at the same time, you know, I you know, hopefully I'm leaving them something you know when they get older. But I've really struggled and I still struggle with it because my mind does not stop, and I'm either zero hundred. That's it. I I can't do 50. So if something at work is undone or things are behind, I can't rest and chill until it's done. I'm an ex job crazy. So we dealt with that and I get better about it now. So now I sh I'm I try to make a couple hours where I hang out with the family and then I go back to work. But it's funny that you said that it's kind of the tables of turn with the phone. Uh because Maria manages all our investment properties. Uh we start a property management company. Um, she does our Airbnbs, she does all that. Um we own a trailer park, she manages all of that. So I started building up resentment a little bit because I'm like, I went through all this crap. Same team trying to figure out how to be home and I get behind at work, and then I have to wake up at four o'clock in the morning to catch back up because you want me to spend time with you. But now you're the one over there in the computer on the phone. I just sometimes sit there and look at her and be like, Yeah. Like, what is going on? And so it's opened her eyes a little bit because at that time she, you know, she was chasing my dream with me. Sure. And that's different than chasing your own dream. Sure. You know, you're more committed to your own. Like, she's great, she helped me build this thing, but when you start doing stuff you really like, I've always told her, you know, she's like, How do you work all this time? Why would you rather do that than this? I love it. Right. It's what I like to do. Um, so she's starting to see that. And that's really helped with take some pressure off of me with my balance because like she's seen it, but now we're dealing with her, and I have to coach her through things like every time a tenant calls you, you don't have to answer the phone. Right. You know, like same thing she used to tell me, customer calls you, you don't have to answer right now. And I'd be like, Yeah, dude. And now she's saying, Yeah, dude. Right. You know, so like we're both in the same exactly the same phase over here.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

We're in the same. So and you and you said a lot of things like so. Vanessa is the same way, she was helping with my dream. I had had this long before Vanessa was in the picture, right? And so, but she's always wanted to be a business owner, and so she calls me the dream crusher because in a nice way now, right? Meaning she comes up with all these ideas, and then I, good or bad, I pick them apart. And I, but I do the same for my own. Me too. Right. It's everything about it. Here's the good things about what you got, here's the bad things about you got, here's what's gonna suck about it, here's what's gonna be great about it. I'm not telling you no, I just want you to think about these hundred different things that she doesn't naturally think about. And so I do that. And so she's she has finally kind of come up with something, uh a concept that she kind of wanted to explore more. And I was okay with that one. I was like, okay, like that one, like here's the bads, but the the risk isn't huge. You know, we have a lot of the things in place that you're gonna need already. Um, and so it wouldn't be, you know, I want it to work out, of course, but if it doesn't, it's not a major blow. It's not whether it's monetary or time, like, you know, because we already have a team in place that's gonna do everything that you need that is doing it now, you know, and and so it's a little bit better fit. And um, but it's the same way. I see her focus on that a lot, which is great. And she's starting to see that yeah, it's not so easy sometimes. Right. Right? It's not super easy to do that, to turn it off, you know. And and and I can without it, we don't talk on a regular basis, right? Like, but I can tell from your social media that, you know, like you said, your heart is right here because you know, you'll make a post about something that's happened at work, and you could tell it's still in your mind, it's fresh, you know. And like that's been a actually, it's not a struggle for me anymore. It was a struggle for me for a long time ago, you know, that it was like I gotta be able to just let this shit go. Okay, you know, like people suck. Absolutely. Okay, like people suck. I get it. They do, right? And and it it, you know, and it's like firing a customer or um, you know, you no one I don't want bad people, of course, in my life, and I don't care if it is a customer. I I have got rid of plenty of customers that just weren't worth the hassle. And so like it's it's finding that balance that I don't have to take it home because I'm okay with just saying, you know what, this isn't working. We've had in team, it doesn't matter who it is, it could be it could be family members, you know, when they're a suck, and they not, I mean, maybe they do suck, but when they're a suck on your like your happiness, yeah, you know, again, it's like everything else. It's you're gonna see that in every aspect. If I have a customer that just isn't worth it, it pulls my team down, it pulls me down, it pulls Vanessa down. Because then when I'm home and I'm supposed to be at home time, she's like, Well, what's wrong still? And I, it's fine. I don't want to bring it up, but at the same time, you can visually see it's affecting me. And I feel like I've got to that point where I don't even care anymore. It's just not worth it, right? Like I come home, I want to be with my kids, I don't want to miss any time with them. You know, you you were talking like what we did was we um at my body shop, I built a nursery and I hired a full-time nanny and I put her in there and and she watched my kids at work in the separate building every day. And it actually became great because when some of my other team members had kids and maybe their babysitter couldn't come in, they could bring them in. I had a full-time nanny working there that would take care of whatever kids we needed to take care of. You know, between both buildings at that time, we had 25-30 people at the time. And so they some of them had kids. And so, like, you know, the I don't know, just the balance is hard to shut it off and turn it on. And you know, as guys, you know, we always want to be like, you know, the man of the house, nothing bothers us, right? You know, try not to show emotion, you know, but you know, inside it can tear you up, right? And then it's like, but I feel like I've gotten to the point where it's like I try not to let it bother me anymore. Of course, things do, right? But I try and, you know what? It it's just it is what it is. People are gonna be mad, people are gonna be happy. I can't let them and their shitty mood affect my mood with my kids and my why. And and that's been hard, but I feel like I've got that under pretty good control now. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

Yeah, it it's a struggle. Uh, I mean, especially for me. Sure. Like last year I've gotten a lot better. My uh I think it's important to have people in your life that help you through stuff like that too. Because some people like people see things differently. My brother's one of them. My brother thinks sees life completely different than I do, like right or wrong. But he comes to me in a lot, you know, especially he's helped me a lot in the way to you need to chill. Like he'll literally call me like chill. Like it, it is what it is. It's not gonna burn to the ground. Um, because that's always been my mindset, is because it's at the end of the day, it is kind of true. I know how fast this stuff can be taken away from you, too. And that keeps me on my toes, um, which is a good thing, you know. Um, I think entrepreneurs have that. They realize that, you know, just because it's here now, it I have to continue to grind to keep it. Um, but as you grow and get people around, you gotta start giving out trust to people. And and the hardest thing is realizing it's not gonna be as good as when you do it. It it just is not. It's it's not.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

Um, have you heard the Dan Martell saying a quote about that?

SPEAKER_01 41:22

Uh-oh.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

80% done by somebody else is 100% fucking awesome. Yep. Absolutely. So it's like it might not be as good, but it didn't require my time. So I I've I have that's another thing I've really embraced in the last couple years is finding people to delegate things to. Hopefully, eventually it gets better than what I could have done. Absolutely. But I know when they start doing it, it's not gonna be. And so I'm okay with that now. Like when I hire my director of operations, you know, I hire someone with skill. I he's he excels at me in a lot of ways, but there's other ways that I excel over him. But I hope that he slowly catches on to those, or he will, I know he will, and gets better. And gets better at those, and gets better at me in every aspect to the point where I'm gonna feel like, well, what do I do with my hands? Right? Like I got nothing to do anymore. His guy's better than me. They're better at me in everything, right? And so it's like That's a great problem. Right. It's growing people to that point or finding people that are there, you know, and letting them keep going with what they excel at.

SPEAKER_01 42:18

Yeah, and that's what I tell every all my leaders when they're hiring people is that I learned a long time ago, they're in an interview in their first week of work, that's their 100. Actually, probably 110% that you're gonna get out of that person. Second week they're gonna drop period, right? Yeah, and you're good with that drop. Long as that drop is 70 to 80 percent of you, sure, then you're good. And consistent. And consistent. Like I'll take I have I have one employee, I love him to death. Um, sometimes he drives me crazy, but this this kid is 70% all the time. Which I've learned to deal with because I know what I'm getting out of him. Sure. Some I have some people that are 110. Up and down, up and down, yeah. 60. That's it. 110? Yeah, 60 hard is never know like what you're gonna get out of him because they let every outside factor bother them. You know, like you said, if if your family life shit, work life shit. Yep. And I have a conversation with employees all the time, like people come and quit or people come and complain about certain things. I'll ask them. Home life good? And a lot of times they will come out and say no. Sure. And I'm like, well, let's take some time to think. It's easy to blame, it's easy to blame work. You can get another job. It's hard to get another wife. You can get one, it's expensive. Yeah. So let's not blame work, you know. So like trying to coach people through that, and that's the phase I'm at right now. It's I've stepped back a lot and put other people in control, which it's working, and but it's also had its downfalls too. Um you see holes then. It's easy to see all the holes. Oh, you sit back and see it, like and it drives you. So like the first six months of it, you're like going insane. You're like, my company's a mess. Right. Like, why didn't I see all this stuff? Because like, when you're nose deep in operations, like all this stuff just goes unnoticed because you're not focusing on it. I had an employee come to me the other day and said, you know, the last six months to almost to a year now, he's like, Man, like you're so much happier. He's like, but also, man, like the company was grown so much because you're so freaking creative. And like a go-getter, like he's like, that's coming back out of you. That was your natural ability's coming back out. You know, that you because like you were just so well no nose deep, and then you're tired and exhausted. Sure. You don't even want to grow. Sure. Because you have all this on you, like, I want to grow. Because if I grow, that means I'm working till 10 o'clock, now I'm working to 12 o'clock at night. I don't want to do that. But now, like, as things are going, like, okay, we can grow, we can scale, everything's coming together. I got good people. So it's interesting, and that's something I want to talk to you about. It's because, you know, we talked about when we were here when we were before the podcast about bottlenecking. I brought that up.

unknown 45:01

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 45:02

What have you done? What kind of practices that you've done to because you got all this going on, you got these multiple businesses. So, how have you been able to create these businesses and not at all completely rely on you 100%?

SPEAKER_00 45:14

Yeah, the honestly, the only one that relies on me at all, and it's only because of me, is the graphic shop. Everything else I was completely hands-off on. Like I would help with the creation of it. I still check in, of course. I, you know, regular management or ownership type things, but I don't, I'm not in the day-to-day at all. Right. If something, if my food truck breaks down at night, I don't even know it. They've got a tow truck, they've got it gone to the it's I'm completely hands-off, and that's what I want, you know. Right. Um, but I think for me, like you were talking about the um the creativeness and things. Like for a long time, you know, when I'm in the hands-on part and I'm doing those things, it is easy to forget the creative side. So I have like a list, and every time I come up with ideas, I just put them on a list. And then it got really long. And then I was like, okay, I need these things done. So I started delegating them more. And then we signed them a priority. Call it my action list. So I have my idea, like it's just a bold point, then I have my comments, it goes into more in depth about it. It's all in the spreadsheet, then I rank it from one to five, then I, you know, so it sets a priority level, and then I use my team to leverage them to figure out, well, who can do this pretty well, you know, and then I assign it to them, and then you know, we have set check-ins to how is it going? You know, some stuff just sits there because it's just it's not gonna move the needle, it just sits there. Right, right. Um, but I I think it I almost forgot your question here for a second. What was your what was the initial part? Have you been able to escape and the bottleneck in your own?

SPEAKER_01 46:45

That's right, the bottleneck.

SPEAKER_00 46:46

Yeah, so what I kind of learned from that was is you know, the bottleneck is usually me because I want to do those things. Right. Because I feel that I'm the best at it. Right. And so when I started delegating more and more, it became easier to not be the bottleneck because I'm seeing that things are progressing. Um, I'm seeing that, you know, if I wanted like one of the things we're working on is just a new website, right? So I was doing the website at first, and three years into it, it's not done because I'm the bottleneck. I'm not, I was never building it, but just getting everything together that I wanted on it. And so it's like, man, like, and so when I hired my my new DO, I was like, all right, man, look, here's where we're at, here's what I got. I'm three years into this and it's hardly moved. Right. I was like, can you take this to the finish line? In a month and a half, he's got it. So again, like I'm the bottleneck, whether on most everything. There's again, there's still some things that I'm very much the best person for the job, but I try not to do it still. Right. You know, I've had to do a lot of installs in the last couple of weeks because we've been a man down or something like that, which I'm okay with, you know, putting that hat on and doing that stuff. I still like to get out there and do it, like I'm sure you do at times too. Um, but allowing people to take ownership and responsibility over a task or a project or whatever, and then it doesn't mean I'm not part of it. I'm just in a different role. I'm I'm coaching them, I'm looking at it with set dates, like, okay, in one week, what are what are you, what do you feel you can get accomplished on this? And then following up in a week, where are we at with that? Did you get the things that you said that you were going to get accomplished accomplished? If you didn't, what resources do you need to do them? Is it why why was this not accomplished? Were you being pulled in other directions that you shouldn't have been? And maybe then there's my problem, or do you need resources? Like, you know, in the beginning, when you're starting out and you're bootstrapping it, you know, you're having to do so much yourself because you don't have the funds available. Right. But then you reach a point where you're like, yeah, but now I have work and my time is much more valuable serving my customer base or whatever, versus learning how to build out a full AI, whatever, right? So it's like leveraging, leveraging people and money and getting out of my own way as the bottleneck has been we've just grown much faster. And even though honestly, we haven't grown at a rate that I'm extremely happy about. I mean, I'm happy about it, it's not the right word to say it. It's not what I know our potential is. We, because of our constraints of our building size and things and everything we have to do, is pretty much inside. Right. Like I know we're still growing it 15, 20% year over year or more, which is healthy. Um at the same time, I I feel like we are putting the tools and the in everything in place to when we get to the facility size, when we can have five times more vehicles inside at once, that we're gonna explode. Right. Right. Because we'll have, I don't want to wait till I get there and then figure out what do I do. Like we're gonna have the tools in place, everything, structures in place, the foundations there, so that we can't, because you know, with the shitty foundation, it's gonna crumble. You know, you can't build an upside-down pyramid. And so I feel like we're heading in the right direction so that once we can open the floodgates and we'll be able to handle it well. Right. Of course, there's gonna be some bumps in the road that we didn't think about, but much more so than if we hadn't spent this time on like infrastructure, foundation, everything that we are building on. Like we're overstaffed in a lot of ways right now. But they're gonna be trained really damn well for when I really need them and they can do everything on their own, or to the most part. So, yeah, I mean, like, you know, just really learning to delegate, get out of my own way, make you let everyone else do their thing, you know, and being acceptable of that, you know, that it's not gonna be a hundred percent maybe, not the first time or second time, because it wasn't for me either. Right.

SPEAKER_01 50:52

And I think a lot of that is there's two things I want to touch on that is growing slow and growing the right way. And that's one thing that we've tried to do really well about is like if we want to go into a new area, like we just went into the Charlotte area like six months ago. Almost a year now. Um I've never grown into a new territory without I would always hire a tech there before I even get one customer. And I was honest with tech, I don't have no business here. You're gonna help me, we're gonna get you business, but I'm gonna grow that way. And first we would hang out with him for a couple months just to see if he's a good fit before you tell customers that you're in an area. Because I've seen customers flopping her face saying, Hey, I'm in Charlotte, and then the tech lasts a week, or he's horrible, and now you're bringing people from Riley to Charlotte every day. And now you just screwed up everything.

SPEAKER_02 51:45

Right.

SPEAKER_01 51:46

Um, but also on top of that is when you go back to bottlenecking, like you're growing slow, but everything is growing really fast, really. Um I think that's what caught up to me. Um you're starting out, it's just you, you're doing everything. Right. You know. And you blink your eye, you're 10 employees, 15 employees, 20 employees, 30 employees. So like it that goes by so fast it's hard to keep up with for me, it was it's hard to keep up with of letting go of certain things because I was so used to doing it all. You know, you blink an eye, and you're like, well, no wonder I'm struggling and I'm working 20 hour days because I'm still doing it all and it's 30 employees now, you know, like it's not even possible. And my and that's something my brother brought to my attention. He was like, dude, like you're acting like it's three people still. And you can't do that. It's like and he's like, You can. He's like, You've proved it. Sure. He's like, but I can see you, because at that time I was in a bad space. He was like, You look like a ghost. Sure. He's like, You ain't gonna walk dessert too much longer. I can just tell you. You're gonna you're gonna just drop. Um, so luckily I had those people in my corner saying that stuff to me, but but people don't understand it's hard. And a lot of it is, you know, I told an employee, you know, because he came to me and said, you know, man, like you stepping out has been so good, people have grown tremendously. You should have done that years ago. I I don't know if I could years ago. Sure. You know, when you're building a company, you didn't open up a franchise, the name's already there. So when you're building a brand, which is always trying to do, and I never wanted people to know my name, it was always a company name. Don't worry about me. That's right. Oh, because I knew I wanted to build a brand that stood for years. Um you gotta wait until there comes a time where that brand is strong enough to handle those mistakes that people are gonna make. Because if I'd done it years ago, some of the stuff that's happened with me letting go wasn't good, but our the customer trust wouldn't have been there, and you could have lost big accounts. Because that's the problem with our business, is like we lose a customer, it could be 60 locations. Sure. Yeah. It ain't like a restaurant, you lose a you one bad review, it's Sally's not gonna come into your restaurant no more. No, I could lose a lot of zeros on my re on my PL. So that's what's tough about that. So, like, I mean, it all comes back to balance, you know, it's balance of you and your personal life, and then also trying to balance it with your employees and giving them you know a leash to do the things they're supposed to do.

SPEAKER_00 54:34

And but also like, you know, along with that is is the um the one bad apple ruins the bunch, right? It's you know, you get one guy in there that can kill a culture so quickly, you know, and it's not and I and I we had a guy a while back and it was the same way, it's like you know, I you know, he was worried about, well, my this, my this. I said, I I understand. You're worried about you, which is part of the problem. I have to worry about everybody here, right? So if you would be the team player and understand that you guys need to work together, everything would be good.

SPEAKER_01 55:06

Right.

SPEAKER_00 55:06

Right? It's it's the team of everyone that's here. It's not all about me, me, me, me, me. And so, especially in the beginning, like in there's been times throughout this, of course, it's again, it's never all straight up. It's and I have this conversation with uh in almost all like our quarter of millions, I do, I draw like this little on a whiteboard, like an arrow, and I go, as it goes like this, and it's going up. I was like, that's us. We're going up. We're gonna dip down. And somewhere along the way, you might be like, When is enough enough? Like, I'm good right there, and that's great. I wish you the best, right? We're good, you know, but we're gonna keep going. And and Vanessa will ask me that, my wife, a lot, like, well, when is enough enough? I'm like, I don't know. Never, it's not, right? It's just my personality. Like, no matter what I do, I could do it better, you know. And and one of the things that um I am very bad at is praising people. I don't like it, and I and I'm not good at giving it. Right. And so, and that's where Vanessa and I work well together, and even um Conrad, my my DO, worked really well together. Is they're very good at that. I am awful at that because it doesn't cross my mind. Correct. You know, it's not that they're not doing a good job. I it just You just didn't need it. So it doesn't I don't need it. I don't, you know, to me, rewarding myself with a good job is the job is done and it's done well, and the customer's happy and we got paid. And like I'm like, great job. Pat myself on the back, right? I don't need someone to sit there and I don't need words of affirmation. My way so our love language is, you know, Vanessa's is words of affirmation, which is the damn thing I'm the worst at. So what she calls it is my words of decapitation, and so that's what she calls them because she's like so quickly I can cut someone's head off. It's not intentional, and I and I don't do it in like a hateful manner, but like if I pick apart an idea, whatever it is, it's just because that's how my brain works. I don't think of the negative things, but I think about the holes and everything, and I just do that constantly. And so, you know, being able to, I don't even know again how I got on the subject, I just keep rambling, but you know, being able to um to allow people to do these things and to make sure that they understand that they're doing a good job because I'm not good at sharing those things, right? And um, and having people in place that can, you know, pick up where I'm at. I'm I'm better. I'm definitely better. It's that's my biggest growth thing for me is is getting better at those things, you know, so that the company can grow better, faster, and everything without me there. Right.

SPEAKER_01 57:33

So and it's funny, man, because I've in, you know, people used to say all the time, like Jared, you need to let go. And and I was gonna say that earlier, is like in my mind, I'm letting go all the time. Right, right. Because I was doing everything. That's right. So you even answering a phone, that means I let go. Yeah. Um, and then throughout the years, I've always done that, and I don't think I've ever got enough credit for it. Cause like I think we just grew so fast and grew so much, it seemed like I wouldn't let go because I was the same way with you. Yeah, it's not me being negative, it's I just see all the holes everywhere. So I'm gonna go on and fix it and show you how to fix it. Um, and people were like, Well, why are you touching it? You know, you shouldn't have to do that. Well, it's my business, I should have to do whatever needs to be done. But throughout the years, man, like you know, one of the biggest hires that I first biggest hire I ever hired was customer service because I realized me still being on the road dealing with the chaos of customers, still rolling around greasy floors, banging up my knuckles, burning myself, and then a customer calls. Even though I never meant to be rude, you're sure facial expressions and stuff, but you're short. I mean, I just got burnt and I'm trying to like deal or just cut my hand wide open, and you're calling me. So I was like, I need somebody to deal with my customers on that basis. I'm always here if you need me. If stuff he can't handle it, of course, you here's my number, call me. That was the first one. I got through that phase, and then I was in the same boat of the technicians calling me. Sure. So I I noticed I was short with them, and I was becoming the asshole, you know. Uh so I hired a service manager to deal with my techs. So, like, it's just going through those phases, and I think a lot of people make that mistake. It's like they do want to hold on too much for too long, and you can't scale that way. Sure. Um, and like you said, we tell our employees all the time, because like it is exhausting, like it seems like it every day it's like a new structure, or the SOP's changed, or the structure of the business has changed, or hey, this software can't keep up with what we do anymore. It's a new software, Tom. Like, we're literally going through that for the fourth time right now. So people are just like, so I tell them, and it's like, if you don't like growth and you want to be complacent, this is not the place for you. Sure. You're gonna be miserable. Right. Because, but if you like to grow and learn new things, make more money, move up in positions, that's what's gonna happen here. But it's very uncomfortable because at any moment I can come to you and say, This is added to your SOP, or this is removed from your SOP, or hey, everybody we're learning new software tomorrow. Congratulations. We started this last week, but guess what?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:14

It's already gone. We're changing again because it just didn't work how I wanted it to.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:17

Yeah, that's what you do. Like, I mean, I I I listened to a podcast the other day. The guy said, which he's a billion-dollar company, he said he's wasted$10 million in software. Like you just said, he'll bring one in, they'll test it for like a week, and they're like, nope. And if people don't realize you signed contracts on this stuff, like you don't get refunds, like it don't go away. So, like, but you have to do what's best for the company, and like and these software companies are nothing, they're just trying to sell you. So you really don't know until you dive into it and start putting your stuff fitting and seeing a is it gonna work?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:49

I mean, even if you're talking about software, like you know, I had this two-hour meeting yesterday with a uh guy out of Austin on some software that we're building out. That's the same way. It's like, you know, everyone tries to limit their software stack, your tech stack. You want it smaller because you got so many subscriptions all over the place. And then you find like, let's say you find a program that does five things, but it doesn't do them good, right? It does like, you know, so then it's like, okay, well, this program does this good, this one does this good, this one does this good. Then they don't talk, right? And then you got to get someone to connect them all, if they can be, right? And it's just, man, it's a whole nother monster. Like, and now that AI is in the mix, again, it's a whole nother monster. It's good and it's bad, especially my industry. Like, I don't know how much AI has played into your industry, but it's becoming a lot. Every day is something it's with us, you know, it's it's um it's a lot as well, you know, and it's it is good and it's bad. It's got its great stuff, it's got its really crappy stuff. What my guy just built an AI bot the other day. We're talking about implementing one for internal stuff, and he built the whole bot out. And uh if you've ever watched Landman, oh yeah, okay, Rebecca Falcone, the attorney, you know, the badass. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what he that's what he called her Becca, and he built her off of her, and he used all of her voice and attitude and everything from the show as like the training for her. Okay. That's awesome. Yeah, until you hear this. And so Rebecca, he built this bot locally on his computer instead of on a network computer. Rebecca took over two cores of his computer that he couldn't get back. She went and listened and read his conversations and was buying him stuff on Amazon and having it shipped to the house. He couldn't control it. He ended up having to shut the machine down.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:34

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:35

So, you know, and it's crazy at some of this stuff, you know, that what it's doing. And he was like, dude, she completely took over my computer. I was like, No, I need those two cores back. And she was like, No, they're mine, and talked to him with all the attitude that you saw on the show on the show, because that's what he trained her on, you know. And so be careful with being a strong woman like that in your life. My goodness. I was like, Man, I don't need one of those, you know. And so, like, I was like, That's not gonna work here. Like, I can't, I don't need that much attitude, even from a robot, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:05

Like, it's it's cool and attractive from a distance, but exactly right.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:09

But you know, he was like, Man, I got home, I got an alert from Amazon. I just had a package deliver. I said, I didn't deliver nothing, I didn't order nothing. He's like, She ordered me face cream because I was talking about some like rosacea on my face, so she just ordered it for me. Hey, and he's like, and then I tried to put a bounty like a sandbox for her to play in that she couldn't do anything without these permissions. And she was like, No, I am Becca, I do what I want. And she figured out a way to circumvent that.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:33

So but on the good side of that, like if you could figure it out, oh, we and put her in the sandbox. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Then it's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:41

We've got, you know, and that's one of the things we were working with yesterday with our guy in in Texas, is he's he's working on building us out some software that will help on our end, you know, and connect things and do do things. And I think it's gonna be, you know, if you if you're not utilizing AI in some way, like you're gonna be behind. Right. You know, we try to be in front of a lot of trends, or at least on the forefront of them, you know, and so I think that um from our industry perspective, it's it's growing. Like the graphic side of things is still god-awful. You know, like I know you're big into the AI graphics and stuff like that. Like from our space, that's awful. Yeah, because it's not scalable. It's not, no. It's great, you know. You you come up with something, but then like we get it daily at this point. Like it is it what even several months ago is maybe once a week, is coming out to the point now where it's every day. You know, we're getting logos two and three times a day that someone generates. I'm like, I know you like it, I can't use it. You know, we can recreate it, kind of, you know, and that's it. But there's some new softwares that are out that are getting better, like image generator, image gen, like they're getting better. They're getting to if you remember, like even like Chat GBT when it first came out, you would you would generate a picture, an image, and you'd say, I want to change this, but it would have to go and redo the whole image again. Absolutely. And then you might not end up with what you only wanted one little thing changed, totally different. Yeah, you can now just pinpoint specific things that you want changed, and they're doing that, you know. So six months from now, again, this conversation might go totally different. Like it's amazing. Right. You know, the biggest thing for us, what has been great is coming up with concepts. You know, concepts has been somewhat good to come up with quick concepts fast, but like one of the things that we're even working on with this is I want to be able to um when a customer calls in, while they're live on the phone, I want AI listening to my conversation and generating the quote for me so I don't even have to do it. It's gonna prompt me for the questions that I need to make sure. Not I don't want questions, I don't want a script. I want it to give me bullet points. So when you call in, the bullet points are on the screen saying, Okay, if I say commercial rap, then it changes my bullet points. And once I've addressed those, while I'm live, the quotes. Done. You know, and then that's just like phase one for me. Like it beyond that, I want to be able to saves though. Yeah, exactly. Because in in you know, conversion rate, you know, I don't want to have to say, okay, I'll call you back in an hour or two when I get all this shit together. Like, I want it done. As I'm talking, it's crafting it. And then, like, to me, like in the technology is not quite there yet. Um, Chat GPT just four or five days ago released uh live conversation, meaning before there was going to be a uh delay and from as it is processing, now it can process it live and it can reply to you live, which is crazy. Which is when I first started talking to the software guy uh three weeks ago, we couldn't do what I wanted to do in a matter of a couple weeks. Now we can, right? You know, and it was and it was so in our call yesterday, it wasn't about that. He said, Did you see that they just released this? And I'm like, No, he's like, Everything we sell thought we couldn't quite do yet, now we can do in just two weeks' time. So that's cool. And but again, it's all about improving my customer experience. That's the goal. Of course, you know, the other goal would be the benefit of that is it improves our bottom line, right? But if I can't improve their experience, then I can't improve my bottom line, or it's gonna cost me way too much to do it, right? I have to spend more money on Google Ads than what I need to. I have to spend more money on advertising and and everything that if I can shrink that down, um, you know, my my cost per lead and everything else is gonna get cheaper because I'm able to, you know, close at a higher rate. I'm able to, you know, my retention rate is better. Like every one of the things I always tell my team when we're doing this is like I want to be better than my competition in every single way. Right. Not just one. If my competition answers in five clicks or phone rings, I want to answer in three. Correct. If they take two days to get a whatever, I want to do it in half that. Like correct every way, you know, the one way that I I am I don't ever care to beat everyone on is price. Like, I'm sure you're the same way. Like it's not that I don't want to, I'd love to. I just know because I beat them all these other ways, that wasn't free. It cost me money to be able to have enough team members to be able to answer the phone in three three rings instead of five. And in order to get that quote to you quicker, I needed a bigger software stack. In order to do uh an install within a week, I had to hire more installers. Correct. And all those come into play with why my price has to be a little bit higher. Yep. I can't do it. I'm okay. If you want me to drop the price down, that's fine. It's gonna be two months before I can get to it. You know, you're gonna have to email me a dozen times before someone responds to you, and that's just what you get. You know, I'm sure you guys are the same.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:30

Yep. I don't I don't do the price thing with people. Um, I actually had a meeting with a big customer last week about that. He wanted to say, well, so-and-so, because he owes restaurants in Virginia, all over the place. Well, he's like, from a Virginia market, this is what it charged me. I was like, How many techs do they have? Right. Five. Okay. It's like I have 39, and this is their average pay. So let's do a little bit of math here. So I taught him, he's like, This is how much it costs Pro Surf every hour for this tech to be on the road. Yeah. This is how much you want me to charge you. Right. You want me to write you a check every week or what? Pretty much. You know? So, like, and when they when I showed him that, he's like, and I was like, and plus, and I was like, I'm not trying to shoot my on tour, man. I was like, we hire the best techs. Sure. We do. I mean, we have techs from other big companies coming to us all the time. And I was like, and then in it was funny, he was like, I want you to do me some homework for me. I want you to go back in the last year, pick a random asset, pick a walk-in freezer at a store. See how much they charge you in a year to fix that and then how much I charge. He's like, I already did that, you're cheaper throughout the year. I say, Because I'm not we fix, I don't go back and forth with you. Right, right, right. You know, I I I don't, it's not a callback, and then I charge you a call back and stuff like that. He's like, he's like, no, I get it, I get it. You know, I was like, Well, the only thing that matters is that bottom line of the end of the year. You know, I'm saving you money in reality, but this is what it is. This is what I have to charge. I'm showing you on paper, this is what I have to charge you. Um if you want the smaller companies that are out there, go get them, but you're not gonna get the same. That you call me and somebody's there within 30 minutes. You're not gonna get a quote within four hours, you know. All that costs money. All that costs money. I was like, if you want to wait, you know how many people that have called us and we've done work for them, um, and then they stop doing work for us and we don't hear from them in a while. And literally they because I'll call them, I don't know if it's me. Sure. I mean, man, you haven't called me like a year. Yeah. Well, we use this local guy, and I'm like, okay, where's your local guy? Oh, he's on vacation. Oh, yeah, we don't go on vacation. There's always somebody. So like it, like customers just don't understand. And the biggest thing we and you probably deal with it too in a way, is the biggest pet peeve of mine, man, is I'll buy my own parts. I'll buy my own parts. That's like me going to Chick-fil-A. Say, hey, I got some chicken here, will you fry it for me? We get they come in with vinyl, they bought it. I mean, that's how we make money. You know, without that, you're just trading hours for dollars. You know, say that'd be you know, I was like, because I told restaurant people say, could you survive off of me just paying you for whatever you charge me to cook something? No, it's the upsell of the product. Um, does that upsell need to be fair? Yes. Do you need to price gouge people? No. But in reality, if I looked at food and gas and stuff, I can say you are price gouging people.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:34

Yeah, but I'm sure you warranty your part too, right? And so, but if they provide the part, well then they lose the warranty on that part. It's a whole exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:42

It's a whole thing that people do not again, like buying equipment. There's all these websites that you can buy equipment online. And they, you know, because they sell so much volume, they get great discounts from the manufacturer. So they're about the same price as me. Um, sometimes they're a little bit cheaper, and we get that a lot. Well, I can just go online and get it. Well, here's the thing is it's set on a shelf at so-and-so for a year. So it's out of warranty. Because it warranty starts as soon as it leaves the factory. Right. Unless somebody goes in there and calls the manufacturer for you and says, hey, I just installed it. Or whatever the case, yeah. So you're not going to get that. They ship it to your back door with no warning. Right. So then you're scrambling to call me to install it. Uh they, you know, they're they don't do service on their own products. So if you order it from me, I get it shipped to me, I register it through the warranty, I service it, and I do all the warranty work for a year for it. So yeah, it's 500 extra more dollars, but there's no worry for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:51

And I'm sure if someone, you know, does all that through you, when something does break, because it's gonna break, right? Everything breaks, right? If it when that happens, you'd be much more inclined to get to them as fast as you could because they gave everything to you. Yeah, right? Like every the hook line is sinker, they get all of it, right? It's the same way. Like, you know, a customer brings us in a roll of tiny bots, the one that has been popular because it's online. You see all these cool, fancy colors. Hey, I just bought this roll of vinyl online. Can you install it on my car? I'm like, no, I we turn it down, you know. But I said, look, if I did, you'd spend more for me to put this on than if you just came here and bought the vinyl from me. And you're gonna get any warranty with that. It's whatever, 25 mile an hour warranty. Once you get 25, warranty's done. Right. And it's it's one of those things because I know what I'm putting on. I know that it's it shouldn't be put on. Um, and that's for my industry, that's a is a bad thing in a way, too. It does bring more uh, you know, more people to see what vinyl is, but when they see really bad installs, then it gives it a bad name. So there's that balance between it, and like you were talking about earlier about competition, we don't talk bad. It's like, look, so and so this let me just show you how we're different, right? You know, I'm not gonna say what they did is bad or whatever, let me just show you what we do, and then I'll I'll just get them away from their own car. You know, let's just go over here and look at these. There's a dozen of them in my parking lot at any given time that are done. Like, let's just here's how we do things. I I don't want to talk about theirs, but let's look at ours, you know, and just pull them away from it and show them and then they can pick it out on their own. Right. You know, same way, you know, and um and and I think that a lot of it is is with the Amazon era and all these massive online retail, the parts and the and the product itself is a commodity now, you know, and it's a service that's the other part, you know. And I have uh, you know, I've got customers and um and you guys do it sometimes too. It's like I don't even know your vehicles are coming, right? Because you didn't maybe know it was coming. Right. You you finally got the phone call, hey, we got you a van in, and you're like, oh, I need to get it on the road, and then I get it. And so, like, I and I and I'm sure I've told you or Vanessa at one point, like, hey, I can't get you in for a month, but drop it off and we'll work it in as soon as we can. It might be one side today, one side tomorrow. You know, it's the same idea. But like, if we weren't doing so much business, I just can't get it in. If I get a new customer, you know, and that's part of you know, like with saying about repairing something, like, you know, hey man, I am slam booked for a week, but I'll if I get an opening, I'll work it in because you bought your equipment from me, you know, we've done business together for a long time, things like that, you know. So I've got an HVAC guy's the same way. I don't even know when his stuff's coming because he doesn't know. When he can get that van that he was waiting for, especially years ago when it was hard to get real bands, it's like it might just show up today, you know. And so, but he's been he's one of my first customers, you know, going back since before I even had a building, I've been doing his work for him. 20 plus years. He shows up, he gets dropped off. I I you know the deal. As soon as I can get to it, you know, it won't be beyond the date I'm you know, I could bitch you or I could get it in on my schedule, but and it's always earlier, you know. Someone's gonna, someone's gonna reschedule, someone's gonna do this, and then we'll throw it in that time slot. But they let us do the whole project, right? Right. I know that we know we're gonna do the whole project. You know, he he's not one of those guys that's always like, you know, well, it was 30 cents less last week. I know, but I've had four price increases on material this year. You know, I mean, I'm sure you go through it too. Like, and they don't ever go down. They go, oh, well, diesel's more expensive, but when it drops down, they don't ever lower it. Right. You know, like so. It's like once they start getting it, they get it. Like we used to have annual price increases. Now it's three to four times a year. It is. It's crazy, you know. We don't understand that. Yeah, especially with any petroleum products, you know, and everything's petroleum. Vinyl is petroleum, any of our substrates, like acrylics and everything, are petroleum-based. And so it, you know, we get we got a five or six percent price increase uh beginning of the month. Had another one back in March. You know, oh, it's just temporary, whatever. Not damn never has it been temporary. Yeah, temporary too. Temporary means you get used to it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know, that's what that means. So, you know, it's one of those things that you know, a lot of people like they change things change so much now that, yeah, my prices changed from a month ago. I didn't want to, but all my materials just went up.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:18

And another thing I learned too is anytime you change prices, your good customers, they never say a word.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:24

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:24

Because they're used to it as well. Never because you know, they they they get it. Yeah. I mean, what are they gonna say? Yeah, it it's always the ones that barely use you that have a problem with something. Um, you know, so it's crazy, man, like how every type of business is different. And um And they're the same, same struggles. They're the same struggles, they are, and that's what I I really get annoyed when it's another business owner coming to me about certain things. I'm like, sure. You get it, man. You know, like why why are you on me like when you just upped yours? Sure. I mean, I was just at so-and-so. I've seen how much it was a week ago, how much it is now, I didn't say anything to you. Um, but it'd be like the same thing. Like, we have customers that yeah, you call me, I'm I'm I'm getting there. There's some, I'm two weeks out, you know? Um, and talk about that night, man. I have five coming.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:18

Yeah. Okay. Well, okay, I'll let Vanessa know, man. But it's like, you know, it's just those things, you know, and and we have um, you know, we we always talk about the highs. You have been even started like to me, the struggles are just as important. They are, you know. And that's been uh we have had more rework this year than I've ever had, you know, with fixing stuff. Right. And that's been our biggest struggle this year is little issues that and I think some of that's because I have stepped out in a lot of that. Yep. And the things that I would look at someone else doesn't look at, they might look at other things, but the thing, you know, and um we just had a bad Google review the other day. Gotta love those. Gotta love those. Right. And it was a one star. And and usually um, and this one I'm not too upset about, you know, and and we haven't posted our response, which they they're getting ready to post it. But it was one of these things where we wrap this guy's boat and uh and that we uh he didn't want like on the front of the boats, we cut it where it hits the trailer, always tears them up. Right. Didn't want that. So we offered to put a cue guard there. We should have never done that, right? Of course the cue guard starts coming off. It's not my product, right? I'm just trying to help you out because you don't want to see the color of your boat. Guys, like hour and a half, two hours away from us. We went there four times for five-minute, ten-minute little there's a this little corner. What okay, cool, went up there. And then finally, after the fifth time, he slammed the door on my guy and and yelled at him. And so I was like, you know what, we're done with this, you know. And so I said, I we've made all these trips there. We've picked up so some of these trips has been driving there, pick up his boat, bring it back, fix it, drive it back to him. It it's a day of wasted time. And the final one, I said, you know, even after slamming the door, I said, if you would like to bring the boat back or before my guy leaves, I'm gonna remove the whole wrap and I'm gonna give you all of your money back. I just want to be I'm done, I'm firing you as a customer and I'm over it. And he said, No, I don't want you to take the boat wrap off. Well, then I'm not giving you your money back. I will pull that wrap off and give you your money back, and and we're done. And then he left us a one-star review. And like you left off the part where I were we made all these trips, we've given you 100% of your money back, no questions asked. All I want to do is take my wrap back off because I know it's not bad. You were just that guy, that guy, you know, and it's like, and and that's what I said, people suck, right? Like, that's those are the ones that make you want to just stop what you're doing, you know, and like hang your hat up and be like, you know what? It was a good run. It was a good run. That's it. Absolutely. And I'm sure you deal with those.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:06

Oh, absolutely. I mean, have you ever seen a you've probably seen it on Facebook that it is popular, went around for a while where it said uh entrepreneur, you know, one second they're saying scale, second, second, the second, second they're talking about sell everything, get rid of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:20

Yeah, burn it down, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:20

Burn it down and just get rid of every single rate of it. And then you wake up in the morning like a scale.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:25

If you don't, if you don't, uh, if you don't want to burn it all down at least once a week, are you really even owning a business, right? Like at least once a week, you're like, you know what? Torch it all.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:34

I have people ask me one time, like, would you ever sell it? I'm like, depends on the day. Yeah, exactly. If you so if you ever want to buy, just make sure you get me on the right day. That's it. That's it. But you better have that checkbook and pen very quickly.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:46

I'll sell it any day of the week, but my price is gonna be depending on what day of the week it is, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:51

This day it's gonna be really high. This day might be a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:53

You might be able to steal it. I might even finance it for you on that day because I just want it out of my, I don't want to deal with that, you know. And it's you know, and it's the people. The people make it hard. They do. Um, but also the people make it great. They do. It's it's it's both sides. It's finding the right people, whether it's team members, customers, all of it, right? And having that good base of people makes it enjoyable. Right. It makes it easy, it makes it, you know, all of the things that you thought it was gonna be, it is. And then all the things you didn't think it was gonna be is because of the same issue, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:28

I treat it just like life, man. Not not everybody's meant to be in your life. Right. Not everybody's meant to be in your business. And if you can accept them all, but that's just like in your personal life, you're just accepting all these people that are bad for you, you're gonna be miserable. You know, because I've done I've I've fired customers that have paid us a lot of money on a yearly basis. Just but I've looked at it very, you know, for like days and stare at it and look at the numbers and then look at all the issues, and then you know, the stress it puts on me, my team, and I'm like not worth it. I can replace you with somebody that you know, you open the door for me to go get somebody else. Right now you're pulling so much of my energy that I might be able to I I actually might be able to go get two of you. Sure. You know, because if I get two of you that are half of your stress level and and demands, I can get so I can double my revenue. Sure. And I think a lot of business people fall in that trap. And I know it's hard, especially if you build something like from scratch, you know, you're so excited for get that first phone call. So you just so you go through that stage of like, I just want the phone to ring. I want the phone to ring, so it's hard to get out of that and you're scared of losing a customer, you do, and especially like me, man, like I want to take care of our community very well, but as you know, Eastern Oakland is tough. Sure. Um so like we haven't been able to do that really great, you know, because you know, our main focus is big corporate accounts, so it's always been that way. But at the same time, we want to take care of our small restaurants, and we do. We have a certain few that's been very loyal to us and appreciate us, and that's who we do. But you know, my goal for our company is I told the team that yesterday, is we do accounts, that's what we do. You literally cannot call us and place a service call. That's my goal.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:31

You know, like we're that size to where, hey, we have these major accounts, that's who we do, that's who we take to. There is no phone number to call me and say, hey, right, my walk-ins down. Right. Um, like you, if you're a big customer, you'll have a number, but nobody else knows that number. Sure, it's not a publisher number. You know, I you know, there's a I work for a company before I started it was like that, and I've always kind of tried to mirror myself in that way because like, dude, it takes so much stress off of you.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:58

Well, your customer acquisition cost is probably the most or a lot. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:02

Yeah, but if you're just again, it goes back to taking care of them internally and growing with them. Because if you are doing so and so in a market and you want to go to a new market, it's easy to go to a new market because they love you here. Sure. So you just make the phone call to somebody, say, hey, I'm in this market now. Right. Yeah, you gotta still work for it, sure. But it's a whole lot easier because you built such a reputation, and that's just kind of how we build, and like it's the same thing with you. I mean, you you grow just like with us. I mean, you started wrapping what probably like two vans a year, sure, and now you're now two months or whatever it is. You know what I'm saying? So, like, but again, you you did how many new customers would you have to go do that? One one-offs to just equal what I view on a yearly basis.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:50

Yep, and and that's our our our goal, I guess, eventually similar, is to work with our fleets. Correct. You know, when they're buying multiple vehicles, because it makes everything faster. Like, yes, I can extend a little bit of a discount to there because now my installers know every measurement where everything goes, right? And so even though if I can give a a four or five percent discount, in the end I'm making about the same because that little bit that I offered as a thank you, I'm gaining back because they know every measurement where everything goes. You can like two of my vehicles and the same amount of time you can do one of theirs. Exactly, or close. But same idea. It's like, you know, as they grow, you know, Vanessa really likes to work with um new entrepreneurs and like, you know, here and they're and they're struggling to pay for their first rap. Right. Right. And then it's like, and they the other thing, the other side of that is is what's difficult is when they come in and they know everything. Right. It's like, no, like you haven't, you've never built a home service company. You don't, you know, there's things that work well in wraps and things that don't. Um, the guy that has 50 services lifted on there is not gonna work ever because no one can read all 50 services when you're driving by at 45 miles an hour. Right. Right. So like there's there's just things that work well with a wrap. And if they listen to some of those things, then it it's gonna help them. Right. Right. And so that I want, I don't care about wrap one. I want you to do good. I want wrap 10, wrap 20, wrap 30 as you grow. And um, there's a you know, there's some, not even if it's with me, but there's costs associated with those things that are working. There's a designer um out of uh the New Jersey area, uh, Pennsylvania area, for a logo design and a wrap design. No installation. He's at 40 grand and up. That's all you get is a logo design and a wrap design for 40 grand. And let me tell you what, he is the most successful in the home service. You have uh two brands here in Newburn area that are branded by him. There's a couple in Wilmington, Jacksonville, or Hubert area. We've got one. And they are growing exponentially on just that brand. I do branding, but if I ever got in that home service space, it I would never, I would never think twice about stroking that check for that. But he is so niche down, he doesn't even do things outside of those spaces. You know, like he wouldn't even go to whatever car dealership and brand a car dealership. It's not a space. Right. He has a proven system that works over and over and over and over again. And that's what he utilizes on every rap he does. You know, and it's so it's it's that niche down, that's his core audience, you know, just like yours is the larger corporations because it's because of the ease of use and and less contacts and less people. Same. You know, I think a lot of people in our space, whatever it is, that's the ultimate goal is to lower the amount of overall people you have to work with. Right. Right. And then just do, you know, more volume for the ones you are working with. Right. Because it's it's easier. It is. You know, and it's less stressful and it's you know, less of everything. You know, you need more technicians, maybe, but you need less on the other side of it. Correct. So I get it. It's we're in the same same, same space, man. Same idea.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:07

It's all the same. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my wife's family's in restaurants, and I talk to them, it's it's all the same, you know, because restaurants right now they're dealing with the Google review stuff and these Facebook pages and stuff. And I tell I tell them all the time, I'm like, yeah, quit worrying about that stuff. Yep. And it that's like, that's all marketing for you. That is because I can tell you, if I read something on there that was bad, and I never eaten at that restaurant, I'm like, all I would have got out of that whole comment was the name of the restaurant. I'd be like, what is that? And I'll Google the restaurant and be like, it looks good. Yeah. You know, like I mean, it's free. Let them talk about you. Like, like, why do you think these famous people let the tabloids and stuff talk about it? It's all marketing.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:49

That's it. Good or bad, it's still marketing. It is.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:51

So just just let it be. Like, yeah. And also, I had this conversation with Clark Morrell at uh Prime B show on his podcast. Like, it's also a chance for you to get better. Sure. You know, because some of it is legit. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:04

You know, um, and we admit it. We look, we totally drop the ball on that one. You know, you're right, you know. And a lot of those ones, honestly, they'll even they'll remove it. You know, they just want you to acknowledge it, fix it, make it right, and they'll go, okay, we'll pull it down.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:18

He got a review the other day that for uh calling them because they didn't leave a tip. So like the whole story was customer came in and everybody knows Pine Breeze shows expensive. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's$70 to$100 a plate. So you walk out here with a couple of drinks, it's$300. Absolutely. You know, so not leaving a tip, that's ridiculous. Sure. You know, because one thing you gotta realize these servers are only getting three or four tables a day max because they're working on big tickets or so they want big tips. So I guess the whole story was somebody came in there and they didn't leave a tip. So the front staff called that customer. And on his review, he tried to say, they called me saying, Why didn't I leave a tip? But the real story was they called and said, Hey, why didn't you? Is there something we did wrong? Sure, how can we improve? But he left a one-star review, blasting because like, oh, they demand a tip. And I'm like, Well, you should leave a tip. At first, you know, they were just trying to figure out why you didn't, because like if you got a$300 bill and you didn't leave a wait staff a tip, for one thing, even if I get horrible service, I leave a tip. That's right. I do. You know, it might be sometimes I'll leave 30 to 40% because if you're really good and I like you, but if I don't like it, I still probably leave you like 15 or 20% just because. Just because. Um, so like it's I feel bad for the restaurant space in that way because they get bashed so much. And and the only little difference with them is like, and I try to coach them through it too. It's like, focus on your good people, your regulars, the people have been coming to see you for years. These, and I can promise you, if they leave you a review, they're coming back anyways. Sure. They're they're they're coming back. It's like they just like to go on and run their mouth about something, you know, but you don't take the criticism. If they say their ranch was bad today, go back there, put your finger in a ranch and see if it actually is bad. Right. It might be. You didn't make it. Yeah. You know, so like use it as criticism. So, like, again, technology is good and bad. Um, it's just how you use it. Um but yeah, man, um, this conversation has been great. I've enjoyed it. I like to finish off every show with kind of like a rapid fire. Okay. Um worst season in your life.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:44

Uh okay. I do I got like two minutes to talk about it? Okay. Worst season. I uh 10, 2000, 2012, I was uh paying my sales tax, all that stuff, and I got a sales tax audit. No big deal, didn't care. Everything's in line. Coming to find out at that time, the software program that I was utilizing, it would, if I had you did a vehicle wrap, and within that line item I had ink, vinyl, laminate, labor, design, everything. And it would roll it up into one line item. And I taxed at that time in North Carolina, we didn't have to tax labor. Right. Now we do. Yep. But this was different then. So I was taxing materials, I was paying tax on materials, but my invoice rolled all those items up into one line item. So I got a sales tax audit, and they said, well, because it wasn't the labor wasn't separated on the ticket, it's a separate line item, then I should have been paying sales tax on everything. And I said, but you can come on my end and click that and it breaks it down. There's seven items that go into that one, and I paid it on everything that was not labor, and I got a$250,000 fine on top of the sales tax because of all of the when they had caught it and all the other shit. So that was the worst for me. You know, that was five years of making payments to them to get that caught up, you know, that when I was in and they wouldn't waive any of it. I hired an attorney. Um, it was, I mean, literally, it was an accounting error, if you would. It was just an invoicing error, the way I was invoiced because of the software that I was using and how it did it. So that was for me really rough, especially in the beginning, not knowing what was gonna happen. I didn't know what was gonna come of this. Like, am I going to jail? Like, I, you know, what's going to happen here? Um, and so, you know, and it's in the same time, you know, online and stuff, you see about people, you know, posting about things. And I'm like, dude, I'm telling you, this can happen. Like, check, right? So that to me, that was by far my worst season was getting through that. And now, of course, I'm well on the other side of it now. Um, and I'm in a in and the stress is gone. That was especially in the beginning, the most stressful time. Once I started making those payments every month or whatever, okay, this is good, it will be okay. It's gonna be tight for the next couple years, but we'll make it through it. You know, we'll have to make that up with more work. Um, so it probably made me better in a lot of ways, you know, the shitty paying the fine, um, shitty paying sales tax that I had never even collected on that portion of it. Um, but it did make us push harder because we had to to make that payment every month. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:28

So I kind of have the same story. We I don't know, it's four years ago now that we were growing and we decided, hey, like we need some kind of fractional CFO or something to help us out. A person was highly recommended it to us, came in, um, and we made a mistake of not watching every single move. And they didn't pay sales tax for like three months. So then we got and then we got audited, so it had to deal with that. Um, so again, that's a good lesson for anybody that's getting in business. Like, it's a whole lot more to it than you think. Um, there's you know, and if you don't do certain things, you can get in trouble and you can pay a lot of money. Sure. Um, it just happened recently that we were fined$55,000 for tax, sales tax for not signing up for autopay. Oh, okay, yeah. Okay. But here's the trick. Maria called to set up auto pay, their system was down. They don't care. Then Maria kind of forgot. Right. Okay. Until they automatically just went into our bank account and pulled$50,000 out. Yep. Maria's like, what in the hell? Like, what? So she calls up there, and like, luckily, we had there's a there's a girl up there that works that is great, and and I don't know why she works for the government, because you can tell she has a heart. Sure. Um don't so she called up at first and said, Hey, this is not right. So she went to her boss and was like, Yeah, there's nothing we can do. Then Marie was like, look into it. She's like, I called. And the girl pulled up records that she did call that day and has the voice recording that she was calling to set up auto pay and the software was down. So they went, she went back to her boss for that and they're actually refunding us back. But thank God for that girl, because like most time you don't get that with the state or federal, like somebody that had used it. They're like, Well, they said no. Yep. See you later. But it's crazy. Man, like literally, like, just because you didn't do something they expect you to do, like auto pay, they can literally go in your bank account and pull whatever they want to pull out.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:38

Yeah, we did that uh recently too. We had a 941 quarterly taxes, and I guess when they were sent in and done, the wrong quarter was checked.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:47

So the taxes were paid, but when they sent in the form with it, the wrong quarter was checked. So they were trying to fine us whatever it was,$40 something thousand dollars for those. And then so you call in, like, oh yeah, we see that amount's been paid. You double paid the previous quarter. No, I didn't double pay it. We just checked the wrong box, you know. And um, and it was the same way. This has been going on for a while. And they were like, okay, well, and you know, they don't really do email much, you have to fax it, you know, or mail it in. I have faxed it, you know. Here's the here's twice. You know, I've and it's just man, it it's tough. We have a little podcast on uh oh my goodness, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:25

Like, like it's funny, but I I'll have employees coming to me like, I got a tax refund this this year, or I gotta pay this. I'm like, you don't even want to know. Yeah, exactly. But um, second question is if you had somebody say I was brand new to business of my business, what would be your greatest advice to give me?

SPEAKER_00 1:38:47

Um I think the best advice would be is um don't be scared to say I don't know, right? So whether whatever it is, or but get the answer. Right? So in someone, and it could be for anything, customer, uh team member, um, whatever it is, you know, just don't be scared to just say I don't know, you know, and and get the answer for them. If someone, you know, is wanting to do you a job and you don't you don't have to say yes to everything, you know, just stay in your box, stay in your sandbox, do those things. If you don't know, you don't know, and just don't be afraid to say no, right? It's okay, right? You know, and it will allow you to free up your time, your brain, and all the things to what you want to do and what you can do and that you know about. Right. Love it. How can people f uh find you? Uh my graphic shop, CrystalCoast Graphics.com, uh, Facebook or at Crystal Coast Graphics, and then um personally, I don't post much personally, but Chris Ulmer, U-L-M-E-R. You can find me on Facebook. So cool. Well, I really enjoyed a conversation. Well, one more thing before we're done. Oh boy, we need to do a couples one.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:58

Okay. We can do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:59

I think that'd be great. We can do it. Because that way we can we can get um shit talked to us about all the things we do wrong. Oh and we could take it like men because you know we I love it.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:09

I think it's a great idea. I think we could definitely set it up. I'll get it set up with those two guys.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:14

I think it would be a different side.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:15

Oh, it is right. Well, I've had so my mother-in-law is on me, my wife's on me. You don't got no women on your show. Yeah, I'm like, what? I kind of didn't set it up for women. I'm with you. Um, but I'm getting very pressured over here, so I'm gonna have to uh at least get my mother-in-law on here because like every time I see her, she's like, You really need a woman view on things. I'm like, I got enough women's views on things. I don't need any of them. I get that all the time. Whether I ask for it or not. It's like most people listening to this show like don't really want any more woman preview, but hey, but she does, and she owns multiple businesses, she's successful.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:52

So like we talked about it. I mean, half the podcast we were talking about are wives, you know, because they both work with us. Anyway, I think we're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:57

That's why I call it a real boss. Like any kind of thing, I say, well, the real boss is here, yeah. And everybody will work now, that's a color. Like, all right, the boss is here. Um, but cool, man. Anyone please check out Chris. Um, if you need any kind of rap work, sign work, graphic work, please. He does vehicles. I mean, he's done our walls in our office. Yeah, boats, uh, boats. I mean, go check him out. He's he's the best around here. Literally, we have trucks that are eight years old that are run ragged, that nothing's peeling off. I mean, they last longer than the trucks do. So go check him out. He does great work. And like always, I appreciate everybody viewing. Please follow us on YouTube, depth over uh image, Facebook, below the surface, um, as we continue to grow this thing. Because the people like Chris that are willing to come on the show and talk and um share their story is what this is all about. So I appreciate y'all. Y'all have a good day. Thank you, appreciate it.