The Huddle - Episode 37 - No Wrong Way to Start Your Business
This week on The Huddle Paul, Daniel, Jose are live from the "training the trainer" event with some special guests (Joey Zago - The Carpet Guys, Dave Garden - CFI Certified Flooring Installers, Angel Saucedo - Installing Professionals of MI and Jimmy Salisbury - Blue Crew Installations) to share experiences on starting their businesses, and how different paths of starting can still lead you to success.
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The HUDDLE is where the flooring industry can get together and talk about everything! Lead by Paul Stuart from Go Carerra who is joined by Daniel and Jose Gonzalez from Preferred Flooring.
hey what's up everybody Paul's not here
today so I guess I have to do the introduction
Paul is traveling right now
we want to go where you're at I know I think Paul is a emergency job
stop right now to make sure that everything is all good with uh something that he's got going on so
uh today what we're going to be talking about is uh no wrong way to start your
business um there is never any perfect time right I always
like to try and relate it to uh having kids when are you ready to have kids you're not not until they just
pop out and then you just gotta roll with the punches we got a couple of guests here today we're actually over uh
near Detroit right now at a training so we got Dave Garden from CFI
we have you go by Joe or Joey either one Joey Joey Zago from the carpet guys as
you can see them it doesn't matter right it's all the same
and then we got people hiding back here too we got angel
y'all gotta get in here too and come introduce yourselves an angel
South Haven Court area the smallest town do a lot of work in Grand Rapids Michigan events
um having a beer having to listen learn what are you going to be doing I want to
be a certified uh requests teaching a five-week class he's
he's here learning to teach so you know when
oh J we got Jimmy back here give me Salisbury from Westfield Indiana
so we got a lot of people on here today so Christian oh yeah Crystal's over here but you know
they do see you too much you've been on a few of them already so when you're starting your business um like when Jose and I started in 2010
it was actually a horrible time because it was the month that my my first kid
was born and it was like uh basically starting off with nothing and
trying to to pick up pieces and figure things out as we went so
as you can see you know we were 12 13 years deep now um we've got some some roots in the
industry and trying to to just you know build everything up but it wasn't always this easy
um a lot of the times you hey Paul is jumping on a lot of times you uh
just have to that's what you have to do and like I said it's like having a kid you go in and think that it's going to
be one way and then the kid proves to you that what you thought is not how things are going to go and then you just
pick things up and move along so hey Paul how's it going
what's up guys hey I already I had to do the introduction since you weren't here you
didn't do it very well my man coming through in the clutch trying
so we gotta we got a few people over here
familiar faces yeah so I was just saying how you know we we started in 2010
um around when my first kid was going to be born and there's really never a perfect time to start a business
and you're just learning as you go just like when when you have a kid right it's figure things out that's all you can do
most times uh most times businesses
right no one ever wakes up more and says I want to be responsible for a 10 15 20
with a thousand people I don't think anybody ever links up saying that it's uh it's the passion for what you do and
maybe your volumes don't um
go down your own path of Entrepreneurship and was I ever ready no I don't ever think I'll be ready to
take the next step in inside no right but you have to do it you gotta take that leap of grades and
you got it you're gonna regret not ever trying if that is in the back anymore and you know
you guys be here for me all day and I'm pretty sure you've heard of the moving forward but so we got guests on today so
they can give a little insight on on who what when and why uh they started their
business so yeah it's hard to hear you so you're gonna have to we're gonna have to switch
spots you do got a great story I'm actually going to move out of the way too because
I'm gonna go share this history that was a trainer
how far you want to go back way back well I still remember the the address of
the Macomb County Youth Home 380 North Rose Road Mount Clemens Michigan that's Juvenile Detention Center I lived there
for most of my teenage years my parents were School teachers
visually impaired students and I went to uh when I got into public school where
they were teaching I got kicked out of every class and I had to be the attention for whatever reason I never
thought that I was good enough to fit in so I wanted to stand out something else
and I was very oppositional somebody told me to do this I would do the opposite I was very anti-authority
didn't like it listening to anybody who told me what to do and uh it was things that were once upon
a time really bad things and Rich actually became Life Savers sometimes down the road
when I eventually got out of school I saw an ad in the paper for shampooing
carpets for 400 a week and I was living in my aunt's basement she said you got to have a job if you're
going to live here so don't worry so I saw Jack's Car Wash and shampooing carpets and Jack's Car Wash and I
figured that would be the best job because I could get paid cash I wouldn't have to claim it on any sort of taxes I could meet pretty girls and get free car
washes I'd probably pocket a few tips what school did you go to that's that what's going on Facebook
93. I got 9th grade that's as far as you're young I only finished I didn't graduate I got it I got a GED I
got a good enough and that was only because I was on
probation show the probation officer I was doing something with my life and uh and that
was the extent of my Community College as well as every time I was in trouble I was Community College oh he's in college you know he doesn't feel sorry for me
anyway um the job at Jack's Car Wash was closed
wasn't available so I got a job champagne carpets and it was a blind dad not shampooing carpets actually it was
selling Kirby vacuum cleaners door-to-door and they said if you could shampoo a room with carpet and if you
shampooed five carpets one out of five people want to buy anything like you because it's so good and then if you sell it you make commission and you get
the 400 a week or the commission of 250 whichever is greater than the two so if you sell one in a week you make 400
bucks until two in a week you make 500 bucks and we can see people on here so it was whichever was greater was sort of thing and so I brought that home and
then when I was I told my Aunt my job and she said I thought you're going to go work at the car wash I mean she goes
you should go work at the car wash jewelry I said it wasn't available well how about the Chichi's restaurant I said yeah they fired
Oh I thought you just quit no no so so well um you know so what's this job again and I said well shampooing carpets
but it's really for Kirby vacuum she goes what my nephew is going to be selling vacuum cleaners you can't make
money selling vacuum cleaners what's your dad going to think of you and I stole my dad about it my dad says but my son's not gonna sell vacuum cleaners you
can't make money selling vacuum cleaners and so I was gonna quit but everyone's telling me that I couldn't do it
that oppositional behavior that I had that was just you know I just wanted to rebel against what they said I couldn't
do and so I never had any sales experience I had no no people skilled whatsoever I
just went stupid basic jobs and we're no brainer jobs and uh I watched some people that I
didn't think were very sharp or bright I thought I was a lot slicker than they were making seven eight hundred bucks a thousand dollars in a week and I was
like man but that idiot can make 700 a thousand bucks a week I was 19. I said I could do better than that and so I
eventually learned how to communicate with customers how to how to overcome objections how to close sales and I
became a pretty darn good sales person selling vacuum cleaners over the door it was a hard sale though because it was a
1500 vacuum cleaner that we were selling to somebody you know typically a wife at home by herself while her husband is at
work and she wasn't expecting us we were knocking on the door giving her a bottle of Tide to take a look at my cleaning products and that's how we got it we
knocked that that's how we learned how to knock on doors also and I became a rejection specialist because I'd have to knock on 50 doors before I get into one
out so it gave me thick skin so all these little things in my
younger life eventually became blessings despite you know how much I hated them at the time fast forward I uh
after selling vacuums for several years I didn't know anything about Kirkwood but I knew what the story it was the
sand in the grit and all that other stuff we've gotten for base and so when I saw an Empire commercial on TV I said hey I remember that
commercial from Chicago and I used to stay out there and so I said that's a good company and so I applied at Empire
today through all these Empire Home Services back then in the morning they just come to Detroit and they weren't going to hire me because I you know they
were only hiring the new carpool accounts I had no carpet experience I didn't know anything about her except for fuzzy sale
and uh they they half the time they wouldn't return my call I was very persistent and
finally I showed up in the door there and I talked to the sailing manager of America says anybody that's just persistent to be you know told no on the
phone ignored by three of us and then show up on the door if you're that persistent you've got to be a hell of a
salesperson especially since you sold these 1500 so they gave me a shot and within six
months I was running circles around their tough guys and uh so that became my career at sales I became a really good salesperson for
them uh one of their top in the country and and one was number one consistently in Detroit
and uh they moved over to Belleville and then we before we know it we had 35 sales people and I was you know always
between one and two and um I left them higher there was things that took place that I wasn't
really happy with uh just run me really really severely the wrong way and I decided I was going to
leave and I went to sell Basement Waterproofing it was a completely different type of sale I hated it but I
was good at it because I was good at sales and then a bunch of people that left Empire at the same time I did one down to Arizona to work for Express
Flooring where Jerry Rutter and Jerry had a company here in down river called Fairway and they partnered me with a guy
named Brad with sun flooring in Phoenix and they formed Express Flooring and it was before Empire got to the market they
basically copied the Empire way of the stock shop at home installed next day if
they got to Phoenix before Empire got to Phoenix and so they really set the stage in that Narcan and trailblazed the whole
area and that market was growing super super fast I mean Phoenix was this big that the next year it was this big but
the next year it was this big it's got the only surrounding suburbs just became massive overnight so they really hit it
out of the park and I got there in 2007 and then at the end of 2008 when the
economy started tanking um it was like they were shell shocked but
most of the sales people were you know like we can't sell they were quitting because they're like oh no one's buying they were just panicking but I was used
to selling you know the people that were afraid to spend them because I was in Michigan you know I mean he was staying
for 20 years these guys are like you know so I I had thicker skin and I didn't quit and a lot of people put and I stuck it out but a few months later I
got a DUI and it was my second DUI and so when I got to DUI in seven years my license ago
and I was facing having to go to jail in their 10th city which is their little pink prison out in the desert here at
Joel Ohio made a demography of their jail inmates I was facing going to going
to jail over there for that and uh I had a way out of way out of going Tent
City and just having to go to county jail if I moved back to Michigan and so I uh I toyed with the idea of coming
back to Michigan um but originally I hired a driver out there to drive me to my sales calls and
my boss was helping pitch in for the price of a driver because I was one of his top sales people over there I wasn't there number one there but I was within
their top three um and so he invested in hiring this girl to drive me around but this girl was half the time she was there half the
time she wasn't so but she wasn't I'd Drive illegally one time I was going to cash my check
and I made an illegal left turn into the parking lot to go catch my check and I saw my Ruther miraculer and he saw him
he might be able to turn and I took off and I got away with him and but what happened was I was 35 years old and I
said what the hell am I doing I'm running from the class of 35 years old you know this is crazier than the I was doing what else to see if I can ask
where yeah yeah we're good this is crazy the stuff I was doing when I was 15 years old when I was in another food
and so uh I I just said it to my boss I said I can't do this well we'll get you another driver
every time I see my dad he looks older you know I I almost got this girl pregnant in Arizona when I was down here
what happens if you know what happens if I'd have started a family down there and my parents are old and they need me and you know I said I you know I I just need
to get back back to Michigan yeah so after three years of being in Arizona I left Arizona back to Michigan and I
immediately went back to Empire today say within a week or so they've completely heard that I was back I said
you should come back we'll get your driver we'll do this and that and so I was like okay I'll do that and so when I went to here went to Empire and I met
with uh two of my old bosses I remembered really quickly after a few minutes why I left in the first place
and I just went home that day and I was like yeah and so I was faced with you know my
house is in foreclosure the one that I had in Michigan I lost my place in Arizona uh my car I was hiding it from
the repo guy for about nine months and they finally got that uh and eventually I went bankrupt when I was living in my
friend's house in his basement and they were renting a house in St Clair Shores but the landlord wasn't paying the
mortgage on the with the rent money so the house with the Foreclosure so now we're inside now we're sliding in a
house it's none of ours uh I got out of having to go to tent city but I had to the deal was I had to go to jail for 30
days in here in Michigan but instead of going to jail because the jail is overcrowded the prosecutor made an
agreement with the prosecutor Arizona saying we'll put them on a five-year probation or put them on a house arrest Heather instead and the lady in Arizona
was pissed off about it but they said you know well we have real criminals in Michigan we're not going to stick him into jail and don't go out of jail for a
DUI we'll monitor them or you can come get them so they said okay and so I was on a house arrest each
other I couldn't leave the house from nine o'clock at night till seven in the morning so we started throwing after hours parties in the basement of this
house we'd hire a DJ we'd buy a bunch of the can we charge people ten dollars ahead to come in it was three o'clock in
the morning when it would start by that time people were already wasted and if they're you know if they're not wasted you're doing drugs they're not spending
the liquor money anyways and so we figured okay if we spend 500 on liquor and we get 100 people in the house we're
gonna walk away with at least three or four hundred dollars a piece between me and one of the roommates and that's what we've done we did it three days a week
and once we ran a legal Club out of this house that isn't even ours
so we put a bunch of space heaters in there but good thank God we had electricity so the DJ equipment works
there's entrepreneurial and then there's you right and so this is businesses
so I didn't want to go work to Empire um I'm just going to share with you but I'm just being very fruitful and you
know the good and bad transparency is phenomenal the the ugly part about it was I had I was an alcoholic I drank
every day I drink every day for a lot of years I didn't drink because I was lonely or depressed I didn't drink when
I was by myself I drank because I wanted to have a good time but I did it every day I was in the nightclub businesses
and so part of being a good promoter is you're at the clubs making friends with people and promoting your next party and
so I did that every single day for a lot of years in Arizona and Chicago here in Miami and um
so that's that's what I did and so I was uh still throwing these parties in this house and one night I smoked cigarettes
I used to smoke Newport chips went to pack and a half or so a day and I did that since I was 13 years old when I was with 35 or 46 at this point and uh it
was I ran out of cigarettes it was about one o'clock 1 30 in the morning I wasn't supposed to be drinking but the
title didn't test if I was drunk it just tested if I was in a location and uh so I asked people to go to the
7-Eleven two miles on the street to go give me a cup of smoke so nobody would like let's come out of having this great big Earth no I'm too messed up to drive
man were you crazy I'm like come on dude it's a mile away I'm trying to talk these people into drunk driving because I thought it was normal you know and uh
and I was getting angry and finally I got out of drunken frustration I ripped the tether off my ankle and I threw it
on the table I'm like dude you're crazy you're gonna go to jail said I don't care those are my words I said the other
words but I want to say it on here um and uh nobody was going to give me their keys so there was this girl that
was passed out of the floor I just thought it was a few minutes ago and I went into a person this day I don't even know what it was going on she was just
passed out and LeBron has been a skirt laying on the floor to run her beer was built next door no one was cleaning up the beard with the houses and
foreclosures they cared about the wooden floors and I went there first and I started going down the street hitting the alarm button until I found the jeep
with lights blinking and I hopped in her car and then I went to 7-Eleven dropped off my ass you know it would have been
three DUIs and it was only five years without that way and I went to 7-Eleven I got smokes and I came back and on my
way back I saw this car roaring up behind me in the room here yeah oh I'm panicking my heart dropping had this
sinking feeling in my stomach thinking oh it's a cop what did I do you know I mean I know what I'm doing I just
don't know what what I did to get his attention and as I'm looking in the mirror I hit the curb so now I'm damn
drunk going over the curb and I'm thinking it was a cop and the car went around me and it wasn't a cop I was I
was just like oh my God I got it I was saved you know like because if I would have got a pot right there
it would have been three DUIs probably need DUI and this much time which would have put me fell in it would have gone
to prison for no less than two years and then by the way they found the car whose cars I don't know it's still a cartoon I
mean I was about a person for two to five years my life would have been good it wasn't looking really good at that point plus I was on probation I wasn't
even supposed to leave the house I was on a house arrest other and I called out for a services and lied to them so that my other Road broke off in my in my in
my sleep and I can't get anyone to drive me up there to test until the morning and so I mean all I mean lie after lie
after life and uh yeah so then so I got back and I and I started drinking a bunch of water and I
went tested the next morning but like God's grace I grew zero
and uh but the next day I said you know what I gotta finish this house or this thing again
so the next day it was the Super Bowl Sunday and uh we had another party planned and
by seven or eight o'clock that that evening people were already demolished because of the Super Bowl but it didn't have to be three o'clock in the morning
when people started all day and during their lands and I'm sober and I'm just irritated number one I'm going through
withdrawals from drinking every day and all of a sudden not drinking out another way and people are coming up to me
hugging me man this is a great party man slobber and saying I love you Joe man you're the greatest you know and uh and
I'm just getting irritated and angry and uh I give myself you know and I just kind of isolated
myself in my room for like an hour and I started thinking of myself well it happened if that was a complex then what
would I be doing right now I wouldn't be this part of it you know I'd be in county jail and uh you know waiting for it probably going over to probably going
to be sent over to prison and if I go to prison you know you know then one you know if I
was lucky enough to avoid prison in Stanton County Jail I'd be begging for you know God get me out of this and I'll never do it again please give me work
release so I can just work and sleep sleep in the jail I'd be you know and so what I did at that moment when I went
back out of the room and then out of my room and everyone's still drunk off their butts I kicked everybody out and I
started looking around the room and I'm crying as I'm looking around the room I remember feeling the tears in my face because I'm looking at these people that
were saying they love me they've known me since I was a kid they're my best friends and I'm thinking to myself if I
did go to jail last night and I went to Jackson Prison an hour and a half up the road who would come to visit me
and I started looking around and I said that person might no no no way no no maybe no no and then I started
asking myself won't even take the time to get the paperwork to fill out again my visitors list no no no at that moment
I realized that I had to change my life my life was more out of control than it was ever before and so I I kicked everybody out and uh I
knew how to sell carpet I wasn't going to go back to work for Empire and there was a new couple installers from when I
worked in Empire um they were slow and so they said well Joe why don't you get the carpet from doors that's the way
foreign
I get samples from these guys and it was 2009 so the economy was tanked beginning
in 2010 and 2000 beginning of 2010 it was super important so it was exciting one and um
they gave me samples they said there how about it you know you know I mean nobody's buying anything right now and
uh I didn't have a license and you know I couldn't take credit cards no Merchant
would sign me up because I bankruptcy you know and then you know there was no financing back then for anybody and so
uh I I just I knew what I I did what I knew I knocked over the world what's that you did real well with that
knocking doors no you're working with floor swords where are you here oh yeah not at first first it was just me yeah
you made a name for yourself over there that's for sure and it was because you could sell more than anything else I had
to generate leads because I can't sell if I can't get in front of a customer and so I uh you know when the topic is
you know when it's never what kind of when's the best time to start a business best time to start a business right now most people go into business and they
they you know they think I gotta come look at the perfect plan I've got to do this they spend months and months and months planning with no execution
meanwhile they're going broken or broker and broker now they don't have any Capital to start anything I started with nothing I had nothing no investors I had
no money except for the money from the night before the Super Bowl party you know I mean I had maybe 250 300 in my in
my name and so but I did know how to make a flyer on a printer I knew how to knock on doors because I did that in
perfect selling vacuum cleaners 1500 vacuum cleaners and I knew that I knew the laws of
averages that if I you know if I want to get in front of three customers in a day and I I gotta I've gotta be able to
knock enough doors to do it and so I uh I when I was on house arrest I um
I watched the documentary The Secret and YouTube which you can still look at the secretive on YouTube it's cost
nothing you can watch it I thought it was much hope this book was nonsense what was first introduced to me but I said you know what my Way's not working
maybe I should show up and listening to do and see what they do and uh my old
boss used to say if you do what they do you get what they got and so I just tried to copy mentors habits from my
past and then I also listened to Stephen Covey sub inhabits sometimes effective people on audiobook I'm not a very good
reader um but uh but I can retain things through audio and so I listened to that
over and over again and uh they gave me the motivation to write down goals instead of thinking about goals my old boss we should say if you wish in one
hand and and the other one or if it was gonna go full faster he says the one with substance he goes so you know thinking of your goals is nothing you
have to write them down on a paper and put in places so that way you actually see them I mean you know and uh and the secret they've talked about a vision
board so I made my first vision and my vision board was I put a picture of a
yellow Corvette with my mom's face on it because that was her dream car so one day I hope to buy her Green Card my uh I
wrote all these silly goals they were completely unrealistic and one of the goals was because when I worked at
Empire and express I'm not the most I ever made in a year was 92 000.
as a salesperson as a good sales person but I worked nine months a year and I took a lot of ten minutes
um so I so I I said what would be a
completely unrealistic goal I've got no driver's license I've got no car I've got no credit you know there's not a
single credit card or whatever sign me up except for my free spirit MasterCard that I had from from Barclay Bank out of
the UK with the weapon by bankruptcy they didn't catch it so I still had that 600 credit line that's all I had and uh
I said well I'd like to figure out a way to make a hundred thousand dollars so that was the The Big Goal how do I
make 100 000 RG I don't know how I'm gonna figure that out uh and I then I started working backwards and I said if
I can get in front of three customers a day three leads a day I'd sell two out of the three and it's
from April until the end of the year I can sell 300 000 if I can get in front of three customers a day and I said okay
so three leads a day equals 300K by that time I had a girlfriend we moved out of the foreclosed house and I moved into
her condo issues where I think so an apartment and she was irritated with me because I put these yellow sticky notes
all over the place I'm a milk jug next to the toothbrush on her alarm clock on her rear view mirror in her car you know
every place I could put said three leads a day goes 300K and I stared at it all day long everywhere
and I figured three leads a day 300K if I could sell 300 000 a third of the money would go to the labor a third of
the money would go to the materials and a third of them money would be profit which would like you so if I could sell
300 000 by then be here I'll make 100k and then so you know I just cut down working I just knocked down 100 Doors a
day because if I knocked on 100 Doors a day 30 or 40 even would be home you know one out of every 10 of them would have ugly carpet because carpets you know
looks good for a year looks okay for the second year let's kind of okay for the third year by the seventh and eighth
year it looks like so so I figured if I knock enough doors I'm gonna you know come across enough people to have
ugly carpet in their family and so that's what I did and before I knew it um the girl that was dating started driving
me around in this journey To Be My Chauffeur so I could I ran out of the doors or not in
St Clair Shores um and I started uh using my promoter skills from when I was a nightclub
Promoter on MySpace and Facebook oh no Instagram wasn't right out there
at that point it just started but I was using social media
next time yeah
and you know I had 40 000 friends on MySpace clubs you know and I but I used
op other people's interviews and that ope what did I do when I was a nightclub promoter I got other other people to be
sub promoters so I'm not the only one out there firing cars and promoting I got these people they advertise for me
and get people to the club and they would give a promoter code and when they got to the door to get half off cover so I could track you know got their kpis
going the key performance indicators includes performing who's that and the person the top three promoters got a
free bottle of champagne or whatever it was of the night they got a VIP thing so they got to be a baller for tonight and
so I had 10 little sub promoters making my party good and they did the energy 10 times what I could do I learned how to
you know motivate other people and and that was a blessing also because when I started my business I could just
I couldn't scale anything until I was able to get other people to do a lot of that partner I'm the power of one you know but if I can get 50 or 100 people
to do stuff then great so anyways uh I uh I my girlfriend was driving me around
and uh I paid all of her bills first with what we made and then everything else after that was split
and that first year around November middle of November right around Thanksgiving I decided I was going to
count the money I didn't I didn't take my half the ball at that point until that day and I said let's see we're at I
want to look at those three weeks a day where are we at are we at 300 000 how much more do we have to do when we were already over 300 000. so I said holy
Grant I have a revoked driver's license no house I've been living in my girlfriend's place and I made a hundred
thousand dollars this year but you know this goal stuff really works
exactly where the money go went back into advertising because I needed to generate leads that were further away from so you know then I started doing uh
Facebook advertising and then Google pay-per-click and things like that and uh and then the so I said let's think of
a bigger outlandish Bowl so the next year I see the school for a million bucks there's no way for 300 money let's
try it anyways and we're 1.6 million and by that point it was me as a salesperson and the guy that I had
driving me around after my girlfriend eventually gone to me I hired my friend to drive me around and while he was
driving me around I convinced him to come into the houses with me and I taught him how to stop so now I had I
hired another driver he was selling and I was selling and then before you know it a couple of guys from Empire that I
used to work with say Hey Joe I'm coming back to Michigan also you know but I don't want to go back to that place man you know hey we got a spot you know what
kind of commission is it I said it's better than how it was over there okay you know it's the next thing I know
I had four sales people and uh and then next year we did three and a half million and then we did five million and
six then nine then eleven and thirteen and then 18 and then 20 and then 20 again and then we've been 30 million the
last two three years and so I mean we just scaled and um well
that's gonna be a hard story to follow up
thanks a real long-winded too he can keep on going sorry no that's awesome at any
point were you like did you ever doubt yourself like why did
I do this you know what I was I was blessed with you know
people have different acronyms for God I believe in God Jesus but people have other things that I've heard of my AAA
program that I go to and one of the things that I hear is the gift of desperation feel good but some people use that as
their their definition of their fireplace and uh I was I had that gift of
desperation I had nothing to lose but I had anything to give I have no comment no harm here Nokia no heat in the house
and so I had you know I I always wanted to own my own business because I looked at entrepreneur just said man you know
my old boss man he was 28 years old I was driving around a Viber and a million dollars in the bank and he came from nothing when he was 20. I said man if
that idiot can do it I could do it and that person could do it not only that you got the sales background right and
as a Salesman you're pretty much no matter who you work for you're kind of working for yourself anyway because
everything that you're selling is based on your personality and and being able
to sell ever since I was in Kirby I always did say this because I like the idea of being able to turn my term in my
own wages I never wanted to work it Forward because no matter how hard I worked or how lazy I was as long as I did just enough to get by they were
going to determine how much I was worth if I worked extra hard that week am I going but in sales if I worked harder and I'd
devoted to my trade and I got really really good at it I determined my own work you get what you put in right and
that's what I that's what I always liked because I was competitive in sports and I was competitive and you know against myself
you know was the ego's been my amigo and also not my amigo and other things you know but uh that that ego that drives
that competitiveness is something that really pushed me I wanted to be the best guy because
what about you there Paul I know that was capable a long one there but
well first off hey sorry I got here late guys I uh
wanted to bring up a couple of things that I heard here that was like
I wrote down a bunch of stuff while you were talking persistence that you have had regardless
of the condition and you had that natural thick skin that you know you're able to be told no
and keep driving towards you know you didn't even have goals probably at that time because it sounds like from your
story the goals came later but you kind of did you still knew that you wanted better than what you had at that moment
and that thick skin and then just pure old entrepreneurship from being a club
promoter to you know having the due diligence to to seek out
more knowledge the secret for for um those who don't know is just basically
it's very poor just like think about what you want quit thinking about the
bad things in life and think about what you want that's if you broke it all down and took all the fluff away and just did
that it it can uh be a great um help to you know getting through some of the
tough times but also I wrote down it's never too late to get
your together it's like you started working sometimes
yeah you started I just I admire people who have
taken a tough road uh and you know had the thick skin and the
persistence and this this thought in their head whether it's been distilled
down into actual goals yet or not it's like this thought in their head that they can do it like this unshakable
thought that like I can do this I can do whatever it is um
my stories pretty quick but what I want to point out to everybody this is about not really having there's
no right way or best way to start a business there's some best practices like you know and a lot of those it
sounds like you had it they kind of came natural to you almost and what I mean by that is
the the Natural Instinct that I know salesmen have been around for 20
years that don't do what you just said which is you know if if working
backwards from a big goal if you have a big goal and you work backwards and break that into daily activities
that's how you succeed it doesn't have a a lot to do with the planning planning's
good to an extent but then you could you can uh what do they call that like
um paralysis analysis you know you can just keep trying to reinvent the will
until you've wasted so much time that it's it's uh you look back and you're
like well I didn't get much done in where the action takers they just go do fail do fail do fail and
and learn from that I heard a good analogy once that you know when I'm we
are blown away at how precise these missiles can be that the the defense
departments have and the fact is is that they're off course about 98 of the time
they're constantly getting feedback as they're going towards the target until
they hit the target it's actually the failure of it that creates the the Precision and success
and so you know they're while there may not be a perfect moment for a perfect
time to start a business having the gumption to do it is first
and then the the Natural Instincts you had to work backwards from a goal and create
daily activities that that serve that goal I mean I know I know businessmen
like I said that have been doing it for 20 years and don't approach life that way so kudos
it was definitely something I learned from those two I I was I was dumb enough to listen and
finally it's smart enough to follow through it I guess I would say you know I eventually got life kicked my ass so
many times because I wasn't born with any disabilities I was born as a mental disability because I'm hard-headed you
know and then I didn't listen to people and finally I you know those that those disabilities that were self-inflicted uh
you know eventually made me um finally surrender it say you know what maybe I should just shut up and listen
to what these people that are doing it the right way maybe I should just copy what they're doing and so the two things that I that that were really brought to
me was that movie The Secret the and watching that over and over and over again and then listen to Stephen covey's
highly Seven Habits of Highly Effective People because I didn't work I didn't that wasn't my natural way of doing it I
learned that I didn't invent that somebody trained it to me through my listening to that audiobook and one of
the first ones that is to start with the end of mine and it went and that audiobook that I haven't listened to for several years I remember very clearly it
says close your eyes and picture your family you know if you picture your funeral you're dead in the box and all your
friends are coming up your family's coming up and they're saying their prayers and there you can hear them in the distance you know talking about you
and memories they had with you what do you want them saying about how do you impact their life what do you do with this knife you know what do you want
them saying about what do you hope that they can say about you you know okay so that's your that's your it's morbid but
that's your that's your end you know on Earth at least that's your end you know and so what do you want to accomplish at
the end of that period of time and what kind of you know outlandish gold would it is it I mean is is your goal to help
people is your goal to be successful financially is your goal to uh create
something or whatever it may be is your goal to change the way somebody on Earth does something what's your life goal how
do you in what do you do in this world that made a difference and you know what do you want that I'm saying about you at
your funeral no now now when you're there you know how do you work backwards if you're driving through the nights
from Detroit to to Miami you can only see you know 150 feet ahead of you but
when you get 100 feet up you can see another 150 feet ahead of you when you're 100 feet up you can see another 150 feet out of you so if you look at
this road map from Detroit to Miami you know that it's 25 hour drive the halfway Point's going to be Atlanta halfway
between Atlanta and there's going to be Columbus you know halfway between you know so you have checkpoints along the way so you know where the end is now you
work back way to backwards to find the most direct routes so that's just something that and that's why that's kind of like where where the where the
podcast came from and why the name is the Huddle right because Paul is a huge football fan so we're related to sports
and it's kind of like what you said you know as a football player you're looking at that next first down
so sometimes you get knocked back but what are you going to do to get that next verse down and it's just that's I
love how it relates to sports you know Babe Ruth was was the the strikeout King people didn't look and it was just breaking up right it was the Home Run
King until 74 Hank Eric finally passed up right but up until way after that he struck out more than any better in
history of baseball anytime you asked him what he was thinking about I was thinking about heading home runs you know and Michael Jordan missed more free
throws more more jump shots more layups more you know he had he failed over and over and over and over and over again
but he wasn't afraid to try it you know and like the launcher we were talking about the missiles I mean you got to
launch you know if you sit there on the launch okay thinking okay I gotta figure this I got to figure no that's bad launch you know and and just as you go
you know that that would be my yeah so many people try to plan their way and then before you know it they're broken
they can't start here's the thing for me it was uh I wouldn't have
anything you have a job nobody would hire me create my own business
that's uh that's that's so that's the way it was it wasn't to talk about the right time to do it the right time to do
it was the fact that I didn't have a job and uh much like yourself man I I had
the the application the Ford Staffing plan on the common half filled out all I
had to do was pass a drug test which is a formality you know was it wasn't it wasn't an issue for me
but I kept staring at this and my wife's looking at me she said wait you know hey how are we going to
make the house she's probably a little nervous um you know and it's just but she's
going to say she was why don't you try doing this on your own what do you mean
and so that's how it started for me and you're talking about Mindless Builder again I can smoke that like Paris
I worked for filter three ten bucks an hour it uh I was doing that while I was
laying Carpenter and then I gave up on that because I was a terrible salesman
absolutely horrific salesman it turns out I could sell myself not a product all right and then uh then I went to I
bartended while I worked at bartend as it turns out you learned how to sell
things in a guitar tech right you should have done it the other reverse order but uh but um uh yeah for me if it
worked for my wife and kid and having having shot
my goodness and Kathy you know if you don't provide for your kids then then
you know the the I guess maybe the guilt and the feeling of failure push pushing
push a minute there and keep pushing you and it keep pushes you in until No Angel you're gonna have your first kid here or
you're going to get that Spades all right you're going to get that in space where you're going to come back here your wife's watching Facebook
let me tell you something you can feel it anything in life that's one thing you can't fail in as long as
you're there right you're there for your kids you don't come you don't fail because you're their hero no matter what
right but you also find out that that love you have for your kids or or for your wife man that drives you and and
that really drives it that makes you do things that you didn't think you're capable of doing before in a good way
you know in a good way and I got to tell you my my wife is still the like the
strongest person in my life right I'll come home tonight and she'll tell me exactly what I didn't do today on the
way home but uh but with without that in my life
I I've been I guys I was happy being a torn carpet installer you know 19 years old I had my own truck
and tools I was 10.99 and and not paying any tax don't get me wrong I don't care
I didn't carry enough money to go to a bar like Joey would have I mean I was
the patron at a place like that for holding out the hundred dollars saying I got this round I got this wrong you know
I made 700 that week and by by Monday morning I had maybe a
hundred dollars in my pocket I had to supply I had to buy either by supplies I had to pay for gas
you know and and oh goodness gracious got to eat sometime this week you know
and somehow I had to make that somehow I'd make that go through and without care yeah never would never
Dave how long were you uh in that position before you met your wife
well here's the thing she was there all along all right we were we were uh I met
my wife just after I got out of high school we were we were friends more than anything else uh she lived in a
different state we we would you know but we had our own things going on and
um I I I like to think that uh I like to think that I was surprised but
that we've all know that's wrong but what it was we were we were two kids
trying to figure our way out right we're trying to figure our way we we helped each other grow up and
um at the end of the day with by having Chuck I mean she had
Chuck my goodness we got married she was still 19 years old I think now no she just turned 20 when we got
married so so we were we were really young you know and and we we did a lot
of we made a lot of mistakes together and then Along Comes Chuck so now mind
you she's the mom she grows up in a hurry all right we usually do this I'm playing softball on 17 and 17 six nights
a week disappearing for the weekend you know at the time of my life and
she's and she's she's raised a shot by her pretty much by herself and uh as she
threw a fit you know she threw a fitting academy uh it got to me one night and I
came home I came home from working and we had uh me and my little brother and we guys all came and tell us stories
about my little brother but we've been working together and and we had a few
I show up at home she cooked you know she she cooked and uh I I um
I had eaten you know and so what I I don't need that I don't need to eat yeah
I don't need any so my wife is five foot three she took that hamburger
and she made it a sloppy joe in my mouth and you know what I did I stood there
and I took it okay in my mouth but but it actually scared
me because I got so mad I got so mad at her that that uh I'm thinking things that aren't right for a
husband to think right and so what do I do I leave for the night um I'll go to the gym and shots and
moves but uh when I do that I'm thinking you know you're thinking and you're thinking by yourself you're thinking
about yourself you go what an idiot so I talked to my dad and my dad by the way I
had a great great parents talk to my dad I tell my dad I said this is you know I'm leaving
and my dad tell you know he says he says you should leave it no I said you should if you obviously don't love
it well no no I didn't say that he said and love her I said I'm leaving her because
she don't love me I says well this you know you love her I'm like gosh darn it did you know why
you have to do that to me you have to make me think that I'm wrong right and you know what I was wrong
I was wrong but uh uh if it weren't for conversations like that and there's
always been people God puts people in your way right he puts people in your way to place your making all your bad
decisions don't be wrong half the time you still make them but they're still there right and they're still there are
the people that they put away and and uh so so for me yeah diesel Pete's I wasn't
a hireable person at all and you talk about that I mean I was I was a uh I'm granted really good with my hands but I
was the clubhouse lawyer you know and the clubhouse lawyers that guy that nobody really wants working for him he's
a necessity as an installer because you need to have good installers but you don't really want that guy because that
guy's a big idiot that tells you everything you sold is wrong and uh and so it took me a second to
catch on it really did and uh uh thank goodness I did you know because like I
said I well I've got a mortgage to pay and and no job and then I started
started doing it on my own and it worked out for me right and now I no longer
um no longer run a company but you know I did end up with a CFI I gotta tell you
telling that story and you look at these installers and they're all off the same path we all have the same issues in life
right you look at the sales people they all have the same issues when you get to talk to the sales people they they you
know it because we all live in the same lives together we're all living in the same Community we're all living and the
thing about it as we help each other grow right and for instance your your story house right your story when you and I
talk your story when we share we share our story we say help each other grow and that's and that's how we do it as
people and when you grow as people what happens your business starts growing because you're growing as a person when
you handle situations better you handle the little things in life just a little bit a little bit differently because of
the relationships you make and because you learn how to deal with them as you grow so the right time to do something
is man get out the boat see how it works right
what's it well I was just saying when it feels right like yeah yeah just jump up and do it
yeah that's just it Paul uh you say when you're right when you say it when it feels right it's never going to feel
right if you wait if you wait I'll never know people it's on the installer walk through an Open
Door the doors were open I recognized them I walked through them ended up with this great comfort right but uh I I did
that not because it never felt right don't get me wrong we were going out of
business more than we were in business oh yeah it always felt like it you know
because at the end of the day my wife would come to me and she's saying you know we got everybody paid but we don't have enough for the mortgage right but
that's that's the top that's because you're you're paying all your employees first those guys come first that's why
he's giving business and then and then and they're sitting there and so you're living off a credit card you know to
make sure everybody else is taking care of and it eventually if it works its way out because you figure out where your
money's going you figure out how not to spend money on the frivolous stuff and the frivolous stuff for me was spending
time with other people you know and and uh you know I got to tell you something
you're going out with other people and they all expect you to buy you're with the wrong people it took me forever
it really did uh you know that we go out to the bar after softball after softball
and and I'd be paying for three rounds and I come home the next day and you know
when I say I could come home the next day by four o'clock in the morning I'm showing up at home in the bar at the softball right my wife's getting up to
go to work you know and here I am I'm showing up and and those that's always a
problem as well you don't want to be that guy and uh you don't want to be that guy that's uh that's a that's a
tough way to go and it took me a while to figure it out but I think especially as installers
right because uh you you look at the industry and uh especially being in the industry for
this long we're look kind of down upon as installers because you know we are
riddled with people that are alcoholics and drug addicts and stuff like that and and those are the the type of guys that
do end up starting their own business not because they know what they're doing but because out of necessity right no one else is
going to hire them so that's what they do but those are also the types of people that never learn from any of their mistakes they're just they're
always going to be working for that beer at the end of the day or for whatever you know whatever whatever they're addicted to
and that that's the thing is the people that are listening to this are listening to this because they're looking for that
outlet they're looking for that story where I was an alcoholic and I realized
that you know something had to change my wife stuffed my mouth full of hamburger
and you know you did you had to reflect on that by yourself and then you talk to
your dad and realize that man that this is my fault it's like what am I going to do to change and unless you make that
realization you're always going to be in the same spot but the the fact of the matter is is that you started from
somewhere and you're at where you're at now because of learning from all your mistakes and all
your failures and I think that like if if I had this 10 years ago and I would
if I could have listened to your story 10 years ago or Dave's story 10 years ago or even our story 10 years ago
and knowing that you have to fail you have to put yourself out there and be
willing to fail in order to grow I think we would have been a lot further along right now
yeah a lot of it in my experience Angel has something to say so go ahead
Paul no I'm just going to say a lot of it in my experiences when I say that like when
it feels right we all get that like idea about starting your business and
and it's not procrastinating in that moment Dave did it out of necessity uh you know
in my uh case we got I I made pretty good money as a employee installer and
then doing jobs on the side that the company I worked with uh were worked for at the time was
getting ready to get bought out like the third or fourth time and I just decided that I uh if this is going to be the way
it is I'll go start my own and being at one of the PMS went and started our own thing and
you know talk about your wives and how family plays into it my wife you know
was a stay-at-home mom and and um out of necessity she couldn't really uh work because of some
health conditions but um I made like almost 60k that last year
and I go to my wife and I'm like hey I'm gonna go start this business and I know we only got 1500 bucks but I'd like to
buy a fax machine and uh we're gonna start this thing we're gonna we're gonna
make millions of dollars right the fact is is if I wouldn't have jumped
or launched or whatever you want to say it never would have happened and uh I
could have talked myself out of that real quick but out of the support with my wife and the uh assumption to just
give it a shot you know we started a business they grew rapidly and I bought my partner out no
three and the rest is history so like when when we talk about the right timing
there is no perfect time there's some good practices you ought to put in place like some proper planning a lot of this
ought to come to uh our audience to understand that there are some some hardships that have been shared here
not to say that you have to go that direction but maybe avoid some of those
pitfalls that that some of us have experienced and um you know create a company that that
does not have to go through all those hardships you're always going to have failure you just got to learn from it so
that's all that's all I got to say about that [Laughter]
pretty much I know I'm off camera here but pretty much what you're saying is that uh when we're growing up and all
those older people that gave us advice and information that could lead us to be a better person and make the right
decisions without having to experience failure that's kind of what we're trying to do here right like everybody's going to do
it again on their own time their own free will but take some of the information that you're Gathering here
from everyone who's here today remember everyone who's going to be here tomorrow take some of that information and retain
it and use some of it you don't have to do step by step this isn't a template we're not giving you
um advice for your life we're just trying to help you um in your forward progress of your your
business that's pretty much all it is and and take it for what it is not for for what it is for you not what it is or
what it was for everyone else this is all information everybody's taking a different route and to them has
experience and success for them from where they started where they're at now
you're not failing you're not trying it's right there's no
no foreign
eventually you get it centered it's trial and error like this child trial and error business is trial and error
but if you sit on the sidelines you know trying to come up with the perfect plan and being too afraid to to get out there and fail get up there and fail you know
the biggest failure is not trying yeah Angel what you got
um
hey man you're you're still but uh you're still fairly new though right I I I I I try to listen to like Stephen
Colby and Brian Tracy try to try to repeat those things as well because yeah I mean
you do need a you do need to have that information with this podcast or little
books or people around who are the kind of teacher that's that's I think a lot of a lot of what it comes down to is
what you surround yourself with people you surround yourself around and and living in information that we do right
now we're we're paying attention to this paying attention to that we're on our phones either dedicating minutes that
tune into hours to something that's not going to benefit us in a year the two years so I think I think the struggle I
don't want to save me because I don't like putting excuses but in general because experiences not excuses
experiences yeah in general it's it's difficult for people to kind of aim for that like you said and fail because they
don't have that that Community or that you know that kind of um that that like
they don't have that hardship where they break down you know in in in like
psychic or I don't know like a drunken state in the middle of the road where they're just like they're pressure up
and they know that their light flashes in front of them are they're they're significant others putting that much
pressure you know because not everybody has that but I don't know that mental strengthness yeah that kind of capacity
that that luck you know to have such good people around me and sometimes they do have people that are just you know
look it's their phone that that's their Community if they're people around them because that's their community
so I mean I think chasing that and chasing that like Community is essentialing because I mean
um I think I think I've been with Solitude for like past three years in that sense
you know put Congress on the rules with your stepdaughter like I'm trying to teach like that's the first part of
letting go of the familiar with the familiarity of where you're used to right I always say like it's human
nature to hate change right humans don't like change but if you you're not changing something you're always going
to get what you're yeah right well I mean one of the one of my favorite
things is your net worth is your net worth like who you hang out with and who you choose to spend your time with and
what what you choose to consume online equals out to where you're going the
thread throughout all these conversations is personal development and the desire to get better at stuff
absolutely and if you think about it just a few years ago you know none of us
would have I never would have thought we'd be in here all talking together but
it's those experiences and reaching out you know Paul reached out to us then we reached out to Paul we've been reaching
out to Dave um you know we 've we've been fortunate enough to
realize that it's it's important to put yourself out there
regardless of how like introverted you are because I know
it's hard as an introvert I'm fairly introverted as well but put yourself out
there and just be able to say and realize that I don't know everything
but I do know something so I need to learn from someone but also I can be a teacher and let people learn from the
experiences I've already had and just just put yourself out there and that that's the same thing with starting a
business it's just put yourself out there and start doing it and make sure that you're picking up
little bits of information along the way and start implementing them I think that's the biggest thing is having the
information and doing nothing with it if someone's giving you the information and all it's doing is sitting there then
you're just failing yourself at that point so and you and you've seen it here
like some of the information that you can get is just uh past experiences along your way
um you know selling vacuums you know you got to deal with people uh
coming home and realizing that the hamburger at home tastes a lot better than the hamburger at the bar
um yeah you know and it's just for for me I think it was the realization that I
was leading people without knowing I was leading people and I was putting people in a bad position
by keeping myself in a bad position so it was time to make a change and I had to make a change for myself and be my
idea then being an entrepreneur is in you from day one you just have to realize uh
it takes more than just yourself to unlock it sometimes and surrounding yourself by like-minded people and or
surrounded yourself with people but where you think you want to be it'll get you on the right path it might take a little bit longer than than some some
others but it'll get you on the right path um so the best time to start a business
is today next week next month anytime you decide yes I'm doing it that's the best
time and if you if you ever need to reach out I'm sure you know everyone in here is pretty open to talking to anyone
at some point so I mean I I appreciate you guys Jimmy in
the background sorry Brother Jimmy's taking it all in he's from Indiana man yeah actually he's from
Michigan you're that he's a wolverine that's right that's it Go Blue go Blue go blue
but then like no I love the the flooring Community I love everyone that you know has
participated and uh and you know engaging With Us online and listening to
everything that that we have to say even though you know sometimes we think that it's pointless and it does get redundant
because everything ties together um we all go through the same things Jorge is you know on here constantly and
you know he'll reach out to me from time to time just to say hi you know and you
create friendships through things like this and I appreciate everyone that's here thank you to everyone that's
listening thank you Paul man I think you were gonna make it today it was a tough one it's one of those uh
one of those things you got to do in business so I get to the office and and find out that we had to have a bid that
we thought was just a a normal bid with a sealed
bed opening with a bid Bond and we were two hours from bid opening and an hour
and a half away from the job so luckily I got a good bonding company it got me a a bid Bond
and um I hustled down to Ponca City Oklahoma to deliver it so uh luckily I could make
it yeah if you're ever looking for an installer in Wichita I know a guy [Laughter]
the best way to describe Mr Duane Pruitt Dusty High that's the eye Dwayne the
other PF but I want to I want to thank everybody for contributing and uh again I
apologize for getting here late but thank you again to Daniel and Jose and
everybody you guys put together for this uh podcast it was I found myself listening a heck of a lot
more and just kind of taking everything in I get to learn that's another thing I
I think that you can if you're looking to be an entrepreneur be a consummate
learner like I'm 47 years old and I still learn stuff I took notes during
this podcast I took notes during this podcast because
you know never stop learning so I want to thank everybody for coming we've reached the end of our hour here and
um appreciate the input and uh yeah thanks a lot guys I appreciate it thank
you Paul we'll see you next week I'm sure we'll talk before then nice to meet you Paul nice to meet you guys
all right have a good one