Fueling Education with Passion and Scaling with Jeff Gargas

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We're sharing a great entrepreneurial story, right? We're talking with an entrepreneur about their journey, about the surprising way that they got to where they are. And the reason that's cool for you is because we all have a story like that. And when you hear other people's stories, you tap into something and you're reminded of something about your story that's powerful and useful and that would be good to lean into to embrace that kind of thing, everybody. Bill Gallagher, scaling coach and host of the Scaling Up Business podcast. Our show comes here weekly and we have got more than 600 shows now. And then we do workshops and we have coaching programs and all kinds of things like that. So. And you know, in particular this year we're leaning into more ways to speed and ease your scaling process using the latest AI tools. So all of the cool kinds of prompts and tips and techniques and tools and which ones to go and where they make the biggest advantage and you know, what not to bother with. Like, where's the snake oil that's being sold around all this thing? The false promise from the carpetbaggers that are out there pimping their AI hacks and tricks. We're going to tell you some real practical things in our workshops this year. All right? All right, so listen now I'm joined by Jeff Vargas, who's already on screen if you're watching us live. And so Jeff is the COO and co founder of a company called Teach better dot com. They work with educational districts across the United States, particularly in the Midwest, but all over the US Helping them to do a better job teaching and to upgrade their lessons and curriculums and methods and things like that. And here's the thing, Jeff's a four time college dropout. He'll tell you more about that kind of thing. He's got a background in music and music promotion, music making, bands and things like that. What does a guy like this know about education? Where does he get the nerve to do what he does? Where do you get the nerve to do what you do? I think most of the entrepreneurs that I've met and spoken to over the years really like they got into something that they never should have gotten into. They, they bucked the trend. They did something new and different. And that is, is a cool thing. There's something underlying there, an education that we have that we bring to bear, but it's not the traditional one. And that's where the innovation, the value. So listen in. Jeff, welcome to the show.

Bill, thanks for having me, man. That was an awesome intro. I'm excited to be here.

Yeah. Can you believe what an amazing story you're about to tell?

I. You know, I. Sometimes I don't. So I. It's really nice when someone calls it amazing and looks at it as a good thing. So I appreciate that a whole lot. And by the way, 600 plus episodes, that's nothing to be shy about. That's insane, man. That's awesome. So congrats to you and your team. Like, this is a heck of a show, and 600 is not easy to.

Do, you know, if you just keep at it and you don't quit or die, you know, you get somewhere in the end.

That's just. It's great. Well, when the majority of podcasts don't make it past, I think it's like seven or eight episodes, it's crazy to think that you guys are still going. So it's awesome. You provide a lot of value. So it's really cool to be here.

Well, I. I don't play any music myself, but I have always joked that I play the stereo really well. And I found myself late one night as an accidental dj, and that continued on for some time and affects my work to this day. But you started. You played in bands, and what. What instruments do you play? What kind of music? Tell us about your music background before we get into the. The business.

Sure, sure. Yeah. So I. So I played in bands, in and out for a little bit. I was. I was a lead singer and played guitar, you know, typically like a rhythm guitar, and bounced around a little bit and finally got with one band that I stuck with for the longest. We were together for about five years and, you know, just played locally, a little bit regionally, nothing crazy. We performed for a few hundred, usually locally, and did okay there and stuff. And as we got closer to, like, the college age, we were trying to figure out what we were doing and. And we ended up breaking up. And it was like right after I started the record label as well and kind of came from that. But so high.

College years.

Yeah, so it was me. I was like. I was actually the old guy in the band. I was four years older than the other guys. I was like. It was in my senior year, into my first out of high school, and then like the last couple years of their high school and then into college and stuff. So it was a weird. It was a weird point because, you know, guys in the band younger was hard to get into bars and play for the first few years. So we actually had to put on our own shows. So we'd rent out, like, Knights of Columbus halls and stuff like that and. And find our own place to play. Which kind of led into the whole record label and promotion side of things because we were kind of doing it anyway, garages.

So what kind of music were you putting out?

We played the way I've always tried. I sort of described it. And hopefully this will make sense to you is like, think like incubus meets matchbox 20. I don't know if that makes sense. So I wrote these simple little typically love songs. And then the three guys in my band, who were way far more talented musicians and had crazy eclectic backgrounds, kind of brought in their own influence and it became something way different than what I created. And so a lot of stuff come in heavily influenced by Dave Matthews, Nirvana, the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel and 5. A whole bunch of bands I don't even know to this day because they were so out there that my drummer used to listen to. And they kind of. We made them into our own little weird. I don't know. It was. Probably would fall into like the alternative rock genre of the. Of the early 2000s, I think, with a little bit of pop in there for sure. I think definitely that was me, I think. Yeah. So it's been a while.

Some famous writer said there's nothing new under the sun. Right. And. And I think. And then some friends of. Of ours said everything's a remix. And I. I love that as a more modern interpretation that. That same idea, like, you know, the things that we do that feel fresh, that feel new, they're just some familiar stuff combined in a new way. And really.

Yeah, right. It's really hard to. Like when someone says it's all original. There's no. We don't f. Ah, you probably fit somewhere. You just don't know how to hear yourself and where that is. But yeah, you're right. I like that too. Like, there's. Everything's a remix. It's just with your. Your little twist to it, hopefully. Right, hopefully with your personality and your art and your passions thrown in there a little bit. And that's what makes it yours versus whatever it was originally. So.

And then you just need the clearances and. And to pay the money for your samples.

Yeah, well, yeah, if you take samples. Yeah, yeah. Make sure you're doing that. Yeah, we never did that, but. So we never got to explore that world all that much. But until I was told with the record label, I had a little bit of that, but I prefer to stay away from that. That's a.

So I have a funny question you're not prepared for, but the kookiest story that you could think of that comes to mind about your whole sort of from performing to promoting, like, you know, what's the weirdest music industry, music business story you have for us?

Like, coolest or weirdest?

I don't know. You. You decide.

So I have two I could go to. I think the coolest was when I got. The first time I ever got recognized as I was on a first date, which was really cool. Kid recognized me. That's whatever the.

The.

One of the strangest one was. We, you know, we promoted all these shows. We did a battle of the bands once, and a guy was trying to attack me afterwards with a knife because his band didn't win. When and for some reason blame me, even though I had nothing to do with the vote and I just happened.

Yeah, it was.

It wasn't even my band. It was when I had my record label. We put it on and was judges of the panel. Like, it was voted by people. His band had no one there and. And they had to escort him out. And the whole way out, he was just cursing me out, y'.

All.

I mean, I'm like, what did I do? I'm just trying to help music here. And it was. That was one of the weirdest, I think, experiences. But I also, like, though, you kind of wake up to a little bit of like, okay, well, when you do this types of event, you run the risk of, like, you're the one who hosted it. It's your fault if it doesn't go the way. And man, musicians are passionate, that's for sure. We found out later that he had been in jail and it went back to jail for. For attack assaults with weapons. So that was kind of scary. But that was probably the weirdest, I think, because it was just like a strange. Never saw that coming kind of a thing.

But he'd been in jail. There were restraining orders against him. He was presently armed and under the influence.

Yeah, I mean, I thought, you know, the worst part about it, Bill, I like their music. Like, I like their band. I thought they were like, I enjoyed the music. Just. I don't think anybody else did. That was the problem. What are you going to do?

Yeah, well, I. You know, it's funny, people ask me, what's your favorite kind of music? I'm like, I could think of songs I like from many different genres, but they're not right for every moment. Right. Like, there's Times that I am in the mood for something Slow times I want something sexy Times that I need to get the energy up like times that I need to shout like, you know, there's. There's a different vibe. It's different vibes for different times.

Well, I think that's. That's what's great about music though, right? Because if you. If you're open to it, you can find a song for like, any feeling you're having to, like, whether you need to, like, wallow in that. That feeling or if you need to, like, you said, like, get it out, there's something you can listen to. That's how I've always looked at it.

So I remember when somebody on my team was going through a breakup once, and they came in the office and we always had music in my offices, and even to this day, and they were like, yeah, no love songs. We just killed a love song. So I'm like, okay, wait, let's. Let's throw together a playlist of no love songs and just, you know, everything is prodigy and.

Nice.

Lots of anger, a lot of slipknot in there.

Yeah.

So what do you think now is what. What are the takeaways or the main thing that you bring from music to the business of education?

You know, it's interesting, I think. I think similar. So similar to what we were just kind of talking about of. Well, you kind of alluded to, like, sort of. And hopefully our conversation here will inspire someone listening, going, oh, I have a unique story that doesn't make sense and I gotta find the thing from my past that makes me right for what I'm trying to do or. And I think about the music and how there's a different song for everything. There's. People have. I mean, our taste of music can go so one end to the other end, and we fight about it and there's legions. And when we look at, like, educators and the. The art form that they have in their classrooms or in their building with their leadership, there's no one size fits all. There's no right. One right thing that works for all of them. No students are the same. No group of students the same. No community is the same. No teacher is the same, even if they're side by side in the hallway. And Chad also being a musician. Chad's my co founder, also being a musician. He was the teacher. That's always been really important us to understand that, like, while we have things in a framework that we believe worked and different systems and ideas that we know work we have data to support them. They only work when we allow the teachers to bring their unique style and their unique passions into it and infuse it with it. Because, again, not every teacher is the same. And so I think it's very similar. It's interesting that we kind of started with the music side of stuff, because no one's ever taken me that way because it's the same type of thing. Right? You can't force a musician who's passionate about their art to go this way or that way. You're not going to get that feeling. It's the same way in a classroom. You can't force a passionate teacher to go this way or that way. You have to support them and guide them and give them the tools so they can then find the way to use it and, you know, teach better actually comes from one of the things, when our company started from something that we now call the grid method, which is a framework for utilizing mastery learning. It's like the thing that started it all. And Chad from day one said, I never want to go into a classroom and tell a teacher how to teach. They don't need me to do that. I just want to say, hey, this helped me teach better. Maybe it'll help you. And that's what we try to do. And it's like, hey. And our framework's very flexible. It's not rigid. That's why we never created curriculum. We don't want to create curriculum or books or anything. We create a framework of best practices that allow them to piece together things that data supports and shows work so that they can then put their own little spin on it because they're already a good teacher. We're just hoping to make them a little bit better if we can. And so it's very similar to the way that music style is different and art and performances are all different, but the right one makes sense for the.

Right person, you know, so this will go in, like, all sorts of weird ways, I think, but it'll be interesting, so. And perhaps valuable in some unexpected ways for our audience, but it'll be up to the guys to pick up what to do later. So I remember being about 10 years old and getting in trouble for not paying attention in class. And I went home and I, you know, I talked to my dad. My. My parents are both educators for most of my life. My dad was also an entrepreneur and author, but. But educators in one sense or another, and PhDs and masters and things like that. So I go home and I complain my dad's like, why'd you get in trouble? And I'm like, yeah, I wasn't paying attention. Teacher stupid. And the class is boring and the textbooks are stupid and the, and the worksheets are idiotic and the, you know, I wouldn't use the words, but I'm like the, all the conversation, the interactions are insipid and, and pedantic. And I want no part of any of this crap. Like, right? Except I would have used 10 year old words which say great words as.

A 10 year old. What a vocabulary. That's great. That's.

So I, so I, I, So he's like, well, why don't you offer to teach a class, right? And he's like calling my bluff or teaching me or I, I have no idea. Right. And, and, and to this day I'm surprised that I do the work that I do because I never would have predicted it and I never thought of it. But now I look back, so, so I'm like, oh, great. So I go in and I tell my teacher, hey, look, I, you know, I'm sorry. Whenever I got in trouble, I love to teach a class and just like, all right, let's see what you got. Like, you know, prepare your lesson plan or whatever. So I'm like, okay, we have this subject. I don't even remember what it was now. And what do kids like? Kids like comic books. So I'm like, I am gonna use a comic book to teach this subject. You know, something from this. And so I prepare this lesson plan and I go and I tell the story and I show the comic book and we talk about it. And I, I don't know, I don't remember, you know, did I have copies of it or whatever. Exactly. But that was the basic structure. And the kids were just entertained that somebody was up there doing it different, you know. So I like. Of the class and I got the thing and I. A little seed must have been planted, right? And, and now I think about today, like as a CEO, as an entrepreneur, and, and now as a coach, I'm teaching. But before then I was teaching my teams, I was evangelizing, I was teaching the marketplace, investors, customers, right? So, and, and I think like so much of it is lost right in the opening, right? We take for granted the attention or whatever. So the hook, the open, like grab them with something is the first thing I think about, like get engaged. So a little kid stepping on the front of the room with a comic book is, is a surprising thing right there. Thing that surprises and grabs the attention. I I walked to the stage at a memorable big talk once and I dropped a story on people. People were not expecting that story. It was, it was riveting and powerful and heartbreaking. And they're like, oh, this is not a normal business talk. Right. So then there's the inquiry, then there's the mapping it back, and then there's the, the actual, like, grappling with it. So first the thinking worksheet or exercise, that kind of thing and kind of in that sequence. And I think about that today. So is that right on? Or would you do it differently with your folks?

No, no. And I think that, you know, it's, it's, you're, you're spot on. It's the hook. Right? And that's, that's one thing, I mean, that's a big part of, like, the progressive movement in education is like, hey, like, it is your responsibility to entertain them and with the intent of capturing their interest so that you can then present them with the information that we're supposed to get them. Because if we can't capture them, then they're not even getting a fair chance to even try to understand the material because you lost them. So, yeah, how do we capture them? And again, that's different for every, every person. But how do you capture them so that then they can actually, you know, even have a prayer of paying attention to all the stuff that you're going to ask them to, to connect with. And, and that's a big part of our thing. You know, one of the big things that we do in a shift from teachers is shifting from this idea that a teacher is still someone who stands at the front of the room and delivers information. One of the things that we always say, I'm grabbing my phone here, is that if you think, if you're a teacher and you think your job's to deliver information, you've been replaced by this guy because they can do it a whole lot faster. Right?

Yeah.

And with, with all types of sources. Right. And so it's no longer your job to stand up there and deliver information. It's your job to facilitate learning, which is the very first part of facilitating learning is get the learners to want to actually learn something. Right. And if you can't, to your point, the hook, if you can't get them on the hook, if you can't get them to engage with you right away, it doesn't matter. You can say all the stuff you want to say and you can check off the box that you covered it, but they're not going to do well in test. And they're certainly not going to understand it for the rest of, you know, for whatever they need it for, you know, for the future. And so, yeah, 100% agree. And one of the things that we do is challenge. Do a lot of challenge. And that's a lot of shifting of the mindset, of shifting the ownership of the, of the education back to the students, allowing them to move at their own pace and allowing them to really engage with materials instead of just sitting rows, listen to me talk for 40 minutes and then move on. Because that just doesn't work. One, it's not just not an effective way to teach someone, but also the students to your point, they're bored, they're annoyed. And it was funny that you talked about you getting in trouble. Is what we've also found is that the majority of kids who get in trouble are kids that are either bored because they already get it or they don't see how it's important or are so far behind because they didn't understand the concept that they needed in order to start that they're frustrated. It's very, it's very rarely that they're just bad kids. Like there's usually. Now there's a lot of other reasons too, potentially emotional things, whatever. But a lot of kids we see that are actually getting in trouble are actually incredibly bright kids who are just bored. And they get to your point of like, this worksheet's stupid. Why am I here? Like, yeah, listen to my 10 year old vocabulary. Like, it's incredible. Why am I right? And they're just bored. And so when you look at mastery learning and shifting that you're, you're now allowing kids that are that already understand it to continue moving on and learning, while the kids who are struggling have the ability to take the time they actually need to better understand it so they don't get lost.

Yeah. So it's great. And here's the thing, I want to call out to the audience, this audience, right? You watching and listening. Every time you talk to the marketplace, to your team, your leaders, to your whole employee base, to your partners, to a trade show, a conference, investors, customer, like all of it, you're in every case you're teaching something. So you first you have to hook people and you have to find the surprising, interesting, engaging things that grab people's attention in this increasingly crowded world. You know, you've got Twitter x, you've got TikTok off and on again as we speak, and you've got dramatic events happening in the world. And people who can't stand two seconds of boredom, they have to fill it. Flicking through something or other, like the short attention span just ups the ante on that. And in the middle of all that is noise and garbage. And then you've got what you care about, what you've worked really hard about. And so somehow you have to figure out how to grab attention. And then you have to get people to start to think, to engage with it. Right? So now I have your attention. Now I'm going to pass it back over to you. And then you go into like actually having them connect their thoughts and ideas about a thing that you've engaged them with to what it means for them to buy, work with, partner with, sell, contribute, invest. Like all that last bit is like, what does it mean for me? Whatever this opportunity is, that's your business, right? I've. Now I'm interested in it. I've grappled with a little bit and now I'm like, oh, this fits for me here. And I connect the dots. And now I'm in, right? Like now I've done. That's. That's actually a teaching experience, right?

100%. Yeah. And I think, I love how you say that, Bill, because I think a couple of. A bunch of things on there. Like one is it's absolutely teaching and it's. And I think we sometimes we forget that it's not just. You're not just teaching them about what is. You're trying to sell them. That's to your point. It's kind of a little bit later, right? You might just need to be teaching them how to laugh at this thing or how to look at that thing or how to smile about this thing or how to engage with you or how to engage with friends. Like, there's a lot of. Like this. I mean, we get taught humor by comedians, we get taught music by musicians. We get taught. Right. There's all these different things, right? And I think another point to add on to your. Your point there that I thought you put put together really well is like you talk about like there's, there's all this engagement and get them hooked and connected and then eventually helping them understand what's in it for me. Right? And then how do I also. How do I work with you? How do I get into your coaching program? Why should I. What's the. All that stuff? The patience that is needed between here and here is insane because that doesn't all happen usually in one day or a couple posts. That's A lot. Right. It's the machine you have to build of like, you have to be constantly hooking that initial step. Right. And getting that a first engagement. You also have to constantly be. Be and having the pieces here of they starting to educate on how to ask the questions and engage. And you also have it. Have to have it all set up to where they can also explore. Well, wait, what. What is it that you actually do? Bill, you got me with this post or you got me with this thing and I'm hooked. And I understand that I. You're funny or you're intelligent or whatever it is that attracted me to your brand. But also now I'm engaged with. Oh, you also do this stuff. Great. What does that mean? What does that look like? What does that cost? And how would that be beneficial to me? And then also if you still got me, how do I buy? What does that look like? What if I'm not happy and what am I? And that's all the stuff that has to be going all at the same time. And it could take someone a day to get through that and it takes someone else a year.

Yeah.

I think that's like the consistency and the patience to understand of all this stuff that you need to be thinking through and constantly teaching. I love that you're connected to teaching. That's really cool. Is. I think probably one of the hardest parts about entrepreneurship is that is this idea and this non realization. I don't know if that's the right word I'm looking for. Of this is going to take so much longer than you think and probably way longer than you want it to. But you. Because you first have to build all this stuff, then you have to have systems and routines in place to keep it going all the time, inconsistently, which usually involves some sort of scaling of probably your team or at least contractors or something. And then also you have to keep it fresh the whole time and also you have to be patient the whole time because you're not making enough money and so on and so forth. So much like a music career, honestly. Same thing. Right. So now I really. That's. That's awesome. I love how you put that all together. So what.

So why did you get into this? Tell me about when you decided to get into this business. How did you go? Where did. What led you to starting Teach Better?

Sure. So after. After the. The record label, eventually I shut that down. I was just sort of the end of record labels kind of. And I made the decision. I had told myself as an artist that I Forever got to the point where I thought about doing something shady. That was it. That's the point where I'm like, I'm not, I'm not making money unless I steal. So I'm done. It's, we're done. And I did some little things here and there. I've, I've, I've worked in the, the. The ran restaurants and open restaurants and done some miscellaneous things in there. But eventually sort of born out of the, the. The record label and having to learn how to code and create websites for my artist, I got asked by a city randomly to create a website and end up starting a business creating, doing online marketing. So I started doing website design and SEO and content marketing, social media and such for small businesses. And as I was building that, this is when Chad, who I knew from a band, he was a drummer in he. We, we got to know each other more around, outside of the band, around coaching soccer together and stuff. And he went on, became a teacher and I'm trying to grow this online thing. And I had occasionally thrown him an idea he had his decent design eye for. I did, I remember I asked him about an ebook I was putting out. This was like ebooks were like the biggest, the only thing you did. And he reaches out a couple years later and says, hey, I want to talk to you about doing an ebook. And I'm like, okay. So I remember driving around my neighborhood, it was dark, it was rainy and just I drove around the block for like an hour and a half. And he was telling me all about this, these changes he had made in his classroom and the way he had shifted to mastery learning and what it was doing for his students and for him and for not just him as a teacher, but also as a husband and a father and just the, the stress that was gone, the success. And he's like, I'm like, teachers are starting to catch on. They're asking me questions, they're trying it. It's, you know, whatever. He goes, I'm getting stopped in the hall a lot. Like I'm wondering, I'm thinking if I could put it up in an ebook online. My colleagues can go read all like the foundation and then I can just answer follow up questions. And I told him this is the inspirational words I had for him, Bill, that we still talk about him in the team now. As I said, dude, we're not just doing an ebook. I don't know what it was. I know you'll know this. And probably everyone listening notice I just had like that tingling where I'm like, ooh, you got something, dude. I don't know what the hell you're saying to me right now, but you have something. And I just got excited as an entrepreneur. I think you have something here. The teachers. Yeah, I just felt it and I, you know, I joke with him like about that, that he was Michelle Pfeiffer and Dangerous Minds, which he yelled at before because I guess teachers don't like that because it's not realistic. But that's not the point. So we end up meeting. We met at a Buffalo Wild Wings over what I sometimes describe as a plate, but it's probably more of a bucket of wings. And we just kind of started talking. I'm like, I think we should create an online course. I think we can put out content and I think we can sell this to districts to do it on a bigger level. And that's just. And for whatever reason said yes. And so that's kind of how it started. It was a weird. I had already had the conversation with my wife where I'm like, hey, if this thing that I was doing my ni multimedia, my website, I'm like, this doesn't work out, I'm done. I'm going to go corporate. I'm just, I'm not going to put us through this again. And then I came home and I'm like, hey, listen, change of, change of plan. I'm going to start this, a whole another business over here and education of all things. And yeah. And so from there on we just kind of started building from there and here we are 10 years later, still going.

So, you know, I coached a company in the education space past 100 million a few years ago. Yeah. And yeah, it's totally possible. Pure education, like public school education primarily. Right. So you can scale something when it's working. So. And it brings unique character. Right. Working with school districts and governments is a different kind of a customer. But look, people sell to Defense, they sell to Department of Energy, they sell. You can work with selling to these kinds of entities. It's just a different kind of a customer with a different buying cycle. Different.

Yeah, the buying cycle is a big one because it's a lot of times it's state, state funded and that's typically from a federal funding source and, or grants or a combination. Typically things are earmarked very strictly to certain things. And so you have to play, play in that, in that world and actually fun story about the, the way the funs are handled. When we got our first big client that led to Chad Happen to leave the classroom because we needed. He needed to be full time like we had. It was gonna be enough for us to pull him full time, but also he had to be or else we weren't gonna be able to service them. The money got tied up at the state, so Chad put in his. His notice with the school. It went great. They were amazing with it. Whatever. So he got his last paycheck, and then our money got held up for 45 days. And so Chad didn't have a paycheck coming in. And. And that was when we first learned that, hey, sometimes the money gets held up at the state level, so don't plan on that. But yeah, it's been an interesting. But we've also had some really great opportunities because of federally funded grants and programs and things of that nature or just the sourcing, looking for it, you know, so it is a different world, but you can absolutely scale up and if you're doing good work, you can feel good about that scaling too.

So it's really interesting on all that. And I love that there's driving around in the rain. There's. There's a bucket of wings and there's a guy named Chad in the story.

Yeah, that's a. That's a good premise.

I think somewhere there we've got a lot of. Who's the guy? Chat. The Chad character. The Chad.

Oh, yeah. Oh, gosh. Who is that? I can't. I know who you're talking about, but I cannot. I can picture it.

I'm green.

Is. Oh, that. Yeah. Is it.

Is that who that is with Drew Barrymore?

Yes. Yes. Oh, man, that's funny. I'm going to be texting him after this.

I also think about the surfer Chad character in the YouTube videos talking to the town councils about.

Oh, gosh.

Yeah.

Oh, my God. Oh, man. Boy, Geez, Bill, now I got a bunch of stuff. I have to text Chad and laugh at him for us.

Good reference. I love it. That's great. Yeah. Okay, so, like, back to the serious things, right?

So.

Yeah, I'm just. I'm like. I'm lost there. I took myself down a road.

You know, hopefully someone's laughing with us, Bill, and that makes it okay.

None of our entrepreneurs have ever done that, right?

Yeah, no, yeah, we. None of us. We don't. Our minds are always super focused and never go anywhere.

So talk about the what, like, what's been the biggest challenge in growing that business so far? Where have you, like, been? Right to the edge and nearly lost it.

That's A good question. I think our biggest challenge. Boy, that's a really good one. I don't. I think, you know, honestly, darkest moment.

Like, you know, so, so.

Yeah, so. Well, darkest moments. I mean, we, We've. We've had some rough ones, but got hit with the check fraud scheme. I won't go into the whole thing, but it turned into a legal battle with the bank. And that was really rough. So that's tough. That kind of rocks things. But honestly, recently, actually, I'll look at just like the last 12ish months, you know, with COVID and the relief that came from COVID from the CARES act and Esther funding and things of that nature, our industry got a nice surplus of money. And that all kind of dried up this past year in 24. And we knew that was happening. We were planning for it, we were making adjustments for it. It's hit a little harder than expected, so we've had to adjust some more. Luckily, we were thinking about it, but one of the really interesting thing has been. I don't know if that. I don't even close the dark. Because, like, we're excited about it because it's changing the way schools look at things because their budgets are all different now. They're getting adjusted very differently. States, Some states looked at schools and went, well, you got a lot of money over the last three years, so we're cutting it almost to like, we're ripping money away from you. So we've had to get a little more experimental. We're going after grants more. We're helping them go get money that they didn't know they could get, which is actually more exciting than it is dark. I think for us, maybe one of the things was we've done some. And it's an interesting bit on. Sorry, I didn't mean to hit my mic there. But scaling up, like, we scaled a little too quick, too fast when we had a lot of success and we scaled out of this fear of not being able to take advantage of the success. And I think that led to some, I'll say dark moments because we had to make some decisions.

You had too many people or the wrong people.

Yeah, we got, yeah, we, we, we. We grew our, we grew our expenses and our, and our, our. Our team faster than our, Than our, our margins. Right. And, and we did that out of this worry that we weren't gonna be able to take advantage of the momentum we had. And. Yeah, and that's fine. You gotta look at that and go, okay, that's fine. But if we wouldn't have done that. We wouldn't have learned the lessons we had from it. And we're so much more efficient now and focused on things now. We had to let people go. We had to make decisions. Like, that's something that. When you're. When you start, when you're in a spot where you're like, okay, this is something we can scale, and we're going to need. Need to scale, and that scaling does involve other people, you got to understand that that means there's a good chance you're probably going to have to let people go. You're going to have to have tough conversations. You're gonna have to do these things. I think that's been a. I don't even want to say dark moment either, but just a challenging thing for us. As me, as an individual, I'm a nice guy. I get. I don't like making people feel bad. But I also have to make sure that we're staying true to the mission, that we can't service our clients the right way. We can't have that impact if we're not doing things the most efficiently as possible. So that's been, I think, one of my biggest challenges. I think understanding this industry that is super slow moving has been really tough. I talked about, like, the money getting held up, having to realize very early. It was very early on that we almost went out of business right away because. Because of cash flow gaps, because we don't get paid on that for most things. Some small parts for our business, we do. But the biggest bulk, it's not reoccurring revenue. It's big checks a couple times throughout the year that line up. But there's always a chance that something gets caught up, something doesn't do it. You don't, you know, and you have an option of either going out, getting some sort of advance, and then you're paying interest and do that, or just putting yourself in a position. We were fortunate that we've been able to get through it, and we've been in a good spot. We have a lot of cash reserves so that we can. But that's tough, like, and that's something that you just don't think about. You're like, here's this thing people are excited about. It's catching on. People want to pay us money to do it. That's insane. This is great. Let's go. Big checks, big contracts, like, lots of zeros. This is awesome. But it's like, oh, but wait a minute. No one can cut that check till July. What the heck do we do between February and July? And. And I think that that was early on, and I think that was a big challenge as well. So a lot of these just come with the idea of, like, understanding that it's not just enough to have a great idea or a great product or a great service or a great marketing, but you've. You've got through all the other things, too, especially as that thing starts to grow, because there's a lot of stuff that comes along with it, which I'm sure you have so many conversations with your coaching clients of, like, hey, but did you think about. And they're like, oh, crap. No. Like, okay. Like, you know, it's just. It's tough. And that becomes sort of learning moments. I think I have a trouble with the dark moment because I look back at everything and I'm like, it was just a road sign I didn't see at the time, but now that I can look back and see it, I'm gonna pull that lesson, and we're not gonna do that going forward.

The dark is when you. You get scared and you realize, oh, we could be at a point business and all the. Whatever that represents. And I love that you brought up a cash issue, because it's very easy to think just about doing a good product and having a good team and things like that and then. But, like, if you don't manage your cash, if you don't get paid and if you don't hang on to the cash that you've got, like, it's game over. Like, you. You can't miss payroll twice in a row. You miss one, you might get away with it a little bit.

That's. That actually leads me to. If I interrupt you like that, but you're right on, because. So something early on that we did is. And I don't. I'll see how you respond to this. Is for the first. What would have been first five years, Chad and I did not take our owner, like, our profits. For as owners, we. We paid ourselves, and the profits stay in the bank account. They stay with the business. And had we not done that, we would not have survived Covid, because when Covid hit and they shut down all the schools, 96% of our revenue came from being in person, out of school. So we saw a lot of friends and colleagues and people we knew go out of business really quick and. Or spend the next three months after. After that March, what it was like, March 9th, 15th, or whatever, go and just pound everyone for money. And we made the decision. We Said, nope, turn off all sales. We're not sending out anything to any client except for, do you need any support? Because you. This is insane. Because teachers had to go on Friday. They were told on Monday, we're going all virtual. And we started streaming five days a week to support them and do that. We end up picking up more business during that time than we ever imagined because we were able to sit back and go, hey, we have enough cash in the bank right now. We're gonna be okay. Unless the world ends, of course. But, like. Like, we can manage this for a while. We don't have to go be the person that knocks on the door for the check when they're trying to figure out how to put the fire out. Instead, we're gonna call, hey, can we help put the fire out? What that did was once they got settled, they're like, hey, we need help with virtual. We're like, we'll help you with virtual.

Right?

We're set to go. And then a whole nother thing come out because now we can do virtual. And I think having that cash and us not going, hey, we made some money. Let's reward ourselves and go buy a boat. We were like, nope, we're going to stay at the same salary out, which is what our families need. And that's it. We need to keep putting this back in because we know that there might be cash gaps, because I know cash is king is like a whatever, but it's like, that's true, man. Like, especially when you start having payroll.

Like, yeah, you can't miss cash and time give you room to think, give you room to find and seize opportunities. Give a chance to breathe, give you a sense of calm. Super valuable. Both money and time, if you can have a reservoir of them, if you can earmark some time in your schedule so you're not running from one thing to the next, if you can leave a little cash in your bank, then you can breathe easier. You don't panic. And then you can look out at opportunities world and you can see them. And I, you know, I think we saw with COVID Covid's like an old topic now, but it's useful to look back on it. I saw three big categories of response to Covid, right? If I take them really at a very high level, one of them is, it doesn't exist. We're just going to keep on acting like normal. And that had issues with then losing some customers who were terrified and some people and some things like that. And then you had other people who were like, we can't do anything. This is a night. And we just shut down and. Or they put in such draconian kinds of limits on their business that they couldn't practically do anything. So pretend like nothing. Pretend like everything and the sky is falling. And then the pragmatic, creative, innovative middle who are like, okay, let's think about our business. How could we do it? Let's go virtual or let's do a combination or let's move it outdoors or let's like, whatever. And those are the people that did the best, right? And I saw people alienate or suffer or go through all sorts of weird things on the two extremes. And then the pragmatic middle thrived. And of course there's this up and down and blowback in sort of the post Covid after kind of the money dried up and it started to get harder and last couple of years were pretty challenging for folks after the initial recovery. But. But again, it's just you've got to adapt, you've got to evolve, you've got to pivot. And, and that, I think, is a fundamental thing, no matter what it is. You know, the. I had production throughout Asia some years ago, and for a while there were these massive floods in and around Bangkok, Thailand. We had a significant factory there. And, and the factory was fantastic. They sent us videos and they had put up all these blocks and these walking paths to get to, and they'd move their equipment up to the second floor and things like that. And I'm like, yes, and if you, like, if you go to world famous Venice tourist destination, right, they do the same thing. They get the high water and then they have these things and they either trudge around and use boots or they get wet or they stand on planks. So they figure out, like, like, all right, the water's up, like, how are we going to deal? And so things happen right now. What, like you could put your head in the sand, you could complain about it, you could scream about this party or that political party or whatever, or you could just actually deal with it and find some creative way.

Yeah. And the truth is, what you come up with might not work, but like, I'd much rather try to adjust and pivot than to panic one way or the other. Right? And. And that's hard to do, though. I. It's. It's hard. Especially, you know, especially when your livelihood's at stake or if, if other people's livelihood is also relying on whatever your idea is. But I think, you know, I think that's a Key trait of any entrepreneur, regardless, big, small, whatever. Like, you've got to be able to sit back, assess the situation. You can take your time to complain if you want because it sucked. Yeah, whatever. But like, but when it comes down to it, like from a business standpoint, you got to go, okay, like how do, what can we do? Like, what idea can we try? I think a lot of businesses, ours included, out of that, that terrible situation that the entire world was in, like, came out with some things that were actually, you know, if I can say Silver, I don't even like to say like positives because I don't because of the situation. But like, that they actually like, are now changed for the better. We now offer a whole nother tier of support and training to schools that used to not be able to even hire us because they didn't have the money, but now they can because we can do it virtually. We have the ability to, it's not weird. If weather impacts us and we can't get one of our trainers out to do a support visit or something, we can do it from, from Zoom if we need to. We've got literally pieces of our company, including the, a whole other vertical of supporting educational entrepreneurs and a mastermind that we run for, for school administrators and school leaders that all were born out of the need for connection during the pandemic. And so we could have just been pissed off about the situation, but instead we, we, I think we did a pretty good job of adapting and going, okay, well what is our community? What do our clients and, or potential clients need? And then what can we do with our limitations and non limitations and skills or skills we need to learn? How do we figure out how to do this? And there we go. I mean we went four years, we were doing 12 hour live events where we went live for 12 hours and we streamed. At one point we were streaming six days a week live every single morning just so that they knew we were there. And just things like that of just how do we adapt to it? And I think that is such a crucial piece and that never stops. That's from day one of entrepreneurship to your exit day, whatever that day is.

Well, you know, we're on the subject of, of the COVID pandemic in particular as a particular kind of a stress. And I think it's useful to, to note, like, it's just there are many different ones. Some are very local, some are global, some are regional, but. And some are personal. Like we, we through difficult, challenging times and really difficult. Like, you know, my mom was hospitalized for great periods of time, unconscious. She never was able to move back home. We had to sell her home. And she now is insisted living. And now she's older, but a much younger friend of mine got Covid and died in six days. You know, that's a beautiful human voice silenced, right? Like, and those are just a couple of the people that I know. I know a young woman who was in a coma. And there's all kinds of impacts like that, right? Those are real and terrible. But then there's also like how sweet it was to get quiet and still over the place and to learn to bake or to whatever the heck you did, or to learn to up your. Your virtual visual game, to get flexible, to move things online. Like, you know, any number of things, right. So life and growing our business is inevitably challenging, right. Like there's. There's profound difficult things and yet there can also, like in the middle of that, right. Like when, when a tree is burning down and a whole city is burning down somewhere else, you know, something's sprouting and growing and the birds are out and like there's this terror and beauty in any given moment. And as a human being, as an entrepreneur, our job is to dance with all of it. To allow the sadness, the suffering, the loss, the fear to pass through us, to not hang on to it. It's inevitable that there will be some pain. But the suffering, that's your, your choice, right? And about how you hold it. Right, Right.

Yeah. If I can tie it back to music again, I think about. Louis Armstrong used to say, it's only a wrong note. Depending on the next note, it's the next note that makes it a wrong note. Or right now, right. And so. Right. Like something might have forced that wrong note, but it's how we react to it, how we pivot or don't pivot, that actually makes it whether it was an actual wrong note or not. And I'm saying that with the asterisk that obviously there's some things that are completely out of control and we don't get to choose, you know, and catastrophe and stuff like that. But most of the stuff on our business, it's exactly what you're saying. Like it's. We can choose to wallow and be upset about it. That's fine. Take the time to do that. You're. You can do that. But like, you gotta. When it comes to your business, you have to figure out how do you adapt next, what's the next note that I take from here and is that the right one or not? And I, you know, I think a lot of us get paralyzed and don't out of fear or worry that we're gonna make the wrong one. But, like, you can make another wrong one. The third one might be the thing that makes it right, you know, and you just keep going that way. So. So easier said than done.

I'm glad. Somehow, like, you mentioned that. And I. And I'm. I'm reminded years ago, I gave a workshop in Asia, and I was told to expect about 30 people, and they knew that I was an English speaker. And. But I'm in a foreign country, but I figure, well, everybody speaks English in this particular crowd or enough, you know, because I'm planning to give my talk in English. And. And I showed up and there's like 150 people, not 30 people. And. And they're like. And like, most of don't speak English, but it's okay. We have a translator for you. So I got to give a workshop via a translator in a different language. And, and. And. And the biggest impact on that is, like, time, right? It takes time to say something, have it be translated, have them say to you. And the. All the interaction and then all the lost cultural stuff, right? And then with 150 person, the mics wouldn't work or. Or died or something like that. So I'm like, all right, so look, I. I'm like, here we are. Here I am. I'm from halfway around the world. I'm just gonna share what I got with you and appreciate you and love you, you know, like. And so I didn't say I'm gonna appreciate you, love you. I'm just. I'm like, here. I'm to share with you, right? But in my mind, like, what there is to do is to appreciate these people in this moment, in this thing. Like this, right? I give this thing with the translator that we adjust as we best fly with the timing. It was a highly, highly successful workshop, and in all results and measures of what was expected, was really, really successful. And it really, like, deeply empowered me to just lean into the circumstance, the crisis of the moment, and. And not. Not get upset and be like, throw a tantrum because the PA doesn't work, right? Like, but, like, all right, here we are. Well, I guess I'm going to talk loud today, right? Yeah, yeah, but you expect that from an American, right? Like, so.

But. Yeah, but what. What is. What is getting upset about the PA not working going to do for you or for those people?

Not at all. Yeah. Well, that's where we should probably leave it. Tom's company, Teach Better.com has lessons not just if you're in education, but for like in business in general. There's like a transference. Right. If everything's a remix. Teachbetter.com and he's got a boatload of different podcasts there, Teach Better Talk, which you'll find. And he's doing some stuff for small business as well. But that's a really interesting conversation. Thanks for being in the moment with me and going back.

I appreciate it, Bill. This is the type of stuff I like. Man, I hope they get something out of it. I really do.

Yes. Well, listen, that's our show, that's our conversation. If you want to know more about our stuff, not just stuff, but our stuff. Scalycoach.com that's our website and that's where we've got, we got a workshop every month to dive into scaling up and figure out how to apply it, how to use the latest tools with the age old tools of scaling and now accelerate them with AI. So you'll find all that and more@scalingcoach.com so go there and check us out. Find all the best or just like subscribe, turn on notifications wherever you are right now. You know we're like everywhere, LinkedIn, YouTube, et cetera. So find us there. And thanks everyone for watching, for listening. Thanks again to my team at store on who get our show prepared produced every week. To my friend and mentor Verne Harnish, who created the whole scaling up framework in the first place. And to all of you for watching, for listening, keep scaling. We'll talk to you next time. Are you thinking about how to grow your business with near and offshore staffing, but you're also wanting to make sure that it's reliable, cost effective and really well done? I think doxa talent is the way to go. Here's why they don't just fill your jobs. They bring integrity, top talent and a people first approach that's hard to find. I've known the people at Doxatalant for over 20 years now and I say that you can count on them. I have talk to Doxatalant and you won't be disappointed. Go to doxatant.com Bill Gates again, that's doxatant.com Bill G one more time. Doxatalent.com Bill G check it out today.