Navigating Expectations as a Business Owner | SOURCE

Hi everybody, welcome to the Source Podcast, Everything Working Dogs. Today we have a very good episode for those that own businesses or are thinking about owning a K9 business. Yes, it's crazy, uh, to, to really think about, as I saw the prep for this podcast, the questions and the direction we were going with this. And this is an idea that we came up with last week after talking to another business owner. It was just kind of, uh, I guess a real kind of going back in time a little bit and thinking about where we've come from and kind of even our humble beginnings. Yeah. And, uh, reflecting on that a little bit mentally as I prepare for this podcast. So I'm happy to share this, and I like to tell everybody listening right now, stay tuned to the end because I'm going to give you 3 points that you can take home and use. Uh, I said take home, but take with you and use it and, uh, hopefully apply it. As I always say, if we can help one person that listens to this podcast each week we've done what we've sought out to do. So I'm happy, excited to get this rolling. I have voice of reason with me today, Maya, and I have a camera on this time, camera, so you guys get to see her live on camera. She, uh, spent 30 minutes with the makeup people today getting ready for this, getting her hair done, and you know, I did mine.

Simon's not here, so we gave him, we gave him the week off.

Well, we, we kind of gave him his marching papers. We even told him he had to leave the state until we decided he can come back, maybe a week or so. So we're happy about that. You guys stay tuned, listen, got some very good points to give you. So remember, stay tuned to the end to get that, uh, those 3 points I think that are going to help you. So let's jump right in, Lon.

All right. So I'm ready.

All right, let's do this.

One of the biggest things when we have our trainer students graduate, they're so excited. They're very like just eager to get started. Now that they have this training, they're ready to go. But I know you've mentioned before, this is not built for everybody. It's not something that everybody can do or is going to want to do even if they could do it because of the stress and the expectations.

Just so we're clear, we're talking about owning a business. Yes. I like being a trainer, but yeah, yeah, just specifically owning a business.

It's our trainer students, you know, they're excited. And then one of the number one questions I know you get is, how do I do XYZ? And it's always pertaining to owning or running a business. It's never about training because they know what to do, but there's no crash course in business. I think you say it best when you say like you got your, uh, how do you phrase it, Street knocks, is that it? Is that how it is?

You know, you get your street knowledge.

Street knowledge. Yeah.

You know, getting out here and doing it. Yeah. Been fortunate to meet a lot of people. Obviously I network a lot and I attend various meetings pertaining to business and meeting a lot of business owners.

Yeah.

And I think the surreal thing to me is talking to people with MBAs Yeah. And realizing that they were going or are going through the same struggles that I went through. And I thought I was kind of unique in that sense because I didn't have the education. I didn't, you know, go to business school, but I got that street knowledge.

Yeah.

You know, that, but It's not for everybody.

It's not.

Streets are rough.

I couldn't do it. But the whole idea behind this, and you actually brought it up when we're on our way back from a business trip the other week, are just those expectations that people set on themselves, but also that others have set on them. So that's kind of what I wanted to touch on in this one because I know that's something that people struggle with. My dad owned a small business and I saw him pouring over the papers. Day and night, all the time. But I also saw how he struggled when he wouldn't get a certain deal or if he wasn't able to meet an expectation he had set. So, you know, when you first— when CCU first came to creation, you know, what were those goals like for you? I know we've mentioned you really weren't planning on CCU to turn into what it has become today. So what did those expectations look like?

You know, I had the, um, the Field of Dreams mentality, right?

Yeah.

If I build it, they will come. And so we officially opened like in July because I knew that was the government's fiscal year. And so we, you know, kind of prepared leading up to that. I said we— I did, and I had a couple of friends that helped me. Obviously, you guys know all heard me talking about Cran. Cran's still part of this, but, um, so the plan was we would open in July officially and to meet the government's fiscal year. And again, this is a lot of things I'm going to talk about is really to reveal to everybody like how naive I was in starting this. And I, and I often say that if I know knew then what I know now, I would have never done it. Yeah, but I knew enough to be dangerous and I wanted to do it, but didn't know enough to like really analyze like, this probably needs to— I probably need to stay in my nice comfy job, make the money I'm making now, and, and all that. But that wasn't the Lord's plan for me. I know that 100%. And, uh, it's funny to think back, and which I'll cover some of that in this podcast, to see like some milestones that I met. And I often would think about why didn't I come up with this before? But I always say, and a lot of things and a lot of contracts and a lot of things that we got given to us At that time, we were ready for it. Yeah. And we weren't ready for the other things that I aspired to get and thought that we should get and thought we were deserving of. Because looking back, we would have miserably failed on those contracts.

Yeah.

But, you know, you always aim to be the best. You always aim to be at the top and to do all this and make a name. But I'm thankful that we didn't get those, even though I'm disappointed at times. It, it prepared me for what was to come. It kind of laid the foundation for that. Yeah.

So, but at the time you thought you need— you were ready.

I knew. Yeah, I already knew it.

Like, that's crazy what perspective will do for you.

Yeah, that's right. Um, and even some of the things that we lost or some of the, the bad things that came about— I said bad things that came about they were still good. They taught us so much on how to deal with adversity and things of that nature. So, uh, a whole different perspective now than what it was back then. So the goals that I had was, if I build it, they will come, and that would— that's it. Yeah, I'm just gonna be this great trainer and, uh, everybody will just show up. They'll be lined up out there and life is good. I remember thinking, and again, it's how crazy it was, if I could just make $10,000 a month consistently, I'll be good. Now if I make $10,000 a week, I can just see the touch, right? What we have to do to do what we do. So my goal was just to have consistent business. And really just let everybody knock down my door to get in and buy dogs for their training. That was it.

Yeah.

And it was only law enforcement. I had this chip on my shoulder that that's all we were going to do was just do law enforcement dogs and that's it. So sometimes you get smacked in the face.

That's one expectation I guess you had to pivot on.

Yeah. You humble yourself and realize that you've been given skills and you need to use those skills. Appropriate.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Now then, coming off of that, we know that you've discussed before— I think it was the episode with Crin, if I'm not mistaken— how, you know, we weren't doing civilian dogs, we're only doing law enforcement. And then there came a point where you realized, like, I had these skills, we need to be taking care of our civilian clients as well. And that kind of, you, you know, saw an in CCU from that. Is there any similar sort of like a pivotal moment where you were kind of, we either have to do this or we're not going to be able to flourish?

Well, it wasn't even about flourishing, it was about survival.

Yeah.

The life cycle of a law enforcement contract is 45 to 90 days before you get paid. Wow. Yeah. So either you have good backing to float that, because you're going to do the job before you ever see a dime of it. So you either have reserves to do that— I didn't come from money, I didn't come from— and I mentioned a business background, so I didn't know how to raise funding. I, you know, I was drug tailing this thing, you know, off of a $50,000 retirement that I cashed out on just to help me to, to seek this. Some help from some great people that have faith in what we were doing, what we were building. But I mean, it was the little things that helped us to get there. We didn't have much, but we had enough to, to do what we wanted to do to get started, and then we could invest in ourselves. But yeah, with that being said, you know, realizing that, that life cycle— and that was my first exposure, because I look back now to a lot of that. And I mean, right now I focus on acronyms and terms of business that I never knew existed, right? P&Es and KPIs and, uh, you know, reports, weekly data reports that like I would have never imagined. Hey man, get that dog out, that's from Success. That's what I was worried about, right? So, you know, making those transitions and seeing those and, you know, talking about pivotal moments, it really wasn't a pivotal moment on flourishing. It was a pivotal moment on what am I going to do next? Because I got to, you know, I got to get out of this corner. Yeah. And if I don't get out of this corner, I don't know what I'm going to do. I have a feeling going from a government job where really all I had to do was show up. That's it. And I got paid, I got a paycheck every week or every 2 weeks that got deposited in my account, and that was it. Yeah, but to realize everything on flipping clients, making sure we had clients in the door, you know, that cycle, that entire cycle it takes to run a business from acquisition performance to payment was something I didn't even realize existed until I look at my account and I got $137 to my name. My house is in foreclosure, I've lost a car, and I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do to feed my family because I didn't have that check coming in every week. And, you know, it takes, it takes some revelations and it takes, um, you know, you got to dig deep and realize, like, what am I going to do? Am I going to lay down and quit? Or— because I could always go back to law enforcement.

Yeah, that's what I was going to say, you know. Was there ever a moment where you wondered maybe this isn't worth it?

To be brutally honest, nope. Like, uh, you know, you make decisions in your life and I always say that we live by those decisions, good or bad. And I made a lot of bad decisions in my life. I continue to.

You're human.

We're all human, right? And I don't say, you know, I say maybe decisions that are not the best decisions, right? Um, but I've also made a lot of good decisions. And I always try to, even with our employees, I say do what's in your heart. Like, we can write all the policies we want, we could perform a job to the specs, but if it doesn't feel right in your heart, you're not really doing the right thing.

Yeah.

And training a dog is very similar. We live by that. We try to hire people from that perspective. Yeah, you check all the boxes, but something's just not right. You don't fit into the team. You know, you don't have that, that heart to take care of dogs or to take care of clients beyond, well, I gotta leave at 5 o'clock, right? You know, because oftentimes we get stuck with, hey, I gotta take care of this dog, or I got a client coming in, I'm gonna have to wait 30 minutes or an hour or 2 hours for this client to get in, or I get a call at 2 o'clock in the morning that a client's dog needs to be picked up. There's never been a time that I haven't called the team and said, hey, we got to do this, who can go? And somebody just say, hey, I got this.

Yeah.

So, you know, that's a, a perspective that you don't get with everybody. And I read a book one time that said, look at hiring people that want to get on the bus and ride it. So that's a thing that I live by now. Don't hire people for that job. Hire people that wanna get on the bus and ride it because at any given moment we gotta pivot sometimes.

Yes, we do.

Yep. You think about COVID you think about all these things that have happened over the last 3 or 4 years, and there was times where we pivoted. Mm-hmm. There's times where we, from a training perspective, step in and help with the kennel, or, you know, we need the kennel to step in and help with training. Well, you can have those people that go, well, you know, that's not what I get paid to do. As a small business, that hurts you because now you're wasting that salary on someone that you're locked into. And it's not to say we make a practice of it, uh, at all, but sometimes it just happens. And sometimes we're going to pivot to go in another direction because that's what we need to do. And it's the best for the team. So it's very important that even from my perspective, going way back to the beginning, that I had to come to the realization that I can't be so prideful that that's all I'm going to do is do this because that's what I want to do. I got to be able to pivot. I got to be able to be— I say light on my feet and make that cut when I need to make that cut, right? And it's just a feeling sometimes you get to be able to do that.

But, and now look at all of our wonderful civilian clients. I mean, we have several, several regulars who, you know, they come in, you know them by name. I feel like, you know, pretty much all of our clients.

Well, I try to make a point of it, you know, just because I think that's what we should do. We should take time to, you know, even though I'm not involved in training every day, take time to meet people. Because really, if you think about it, This is not just a business, it's a ministry. It's an opportunity to meet new people. I would have never met you if it wasn't for this. I would have never met Hunter or any of my— of these great people that I get a chance to work around every single day, including our clients, the good and the bad. But at the end of the day, it's important to me to try to make— be purposeful about having a relationship with those that trust us to take care of their dogs or to help them with training, that's— I think that will never lose its value to me. Yeah. And making points, um, to shake hands and kiss babies. And yeah, I say that, you know, in a joking way, but that's important to, to be intentional about that instead of being caught up in you know, just right there.

Yeah. I think that's one thing that you have a very good perspective of is the big picture, which you have to, you know, running a business. But I see it every day, like when I'm talking about one decision for one thing, you're like, well, how's that gonna impact XYZ? And oh, I didn't think about that. And same thing in training. Simon will bring something up. You're like, yeah, but what's that gonna mean for kennel, um, just that big picture, you know, ideology, I guess.

Well, you can't stifle people's ideas. You can't stifle people from growing. When you do that, I feel like they will do one or two things. One, they won't enjoy what they do, because you want people enjoying and loving what they do.

Yeah.

But at the same time, think about— and I mentioned this a couple weeks ago— about all the good ideas that came about because we've allowed people to share those ideas or explore those ideas or feel part of the team. It's not my decisions, it's our decisions.

Yeah.

And I never want to be the one that says, no, you can't do that, and then you just shut somebody down that potentially could have been the next CEO of custom canine. Because, you know, you, you shut them down and say, no, you can't do that, or no, it's never a no, it's a, well, let's see. Yeah, see what we got, let's analyze, and if that's the best thing for us to do, let's do it. Uh, you know, yeah, there's a couple things I have to analyze from a bigger picture, but that's just because I'm involved in that. That's my role. We can have titles here. What do you want to be? Does it really matter? Yeah, sometimes that makes people feel good. Oh, I'm the president. Got president on my business card. Okay, but what does that really mean, right? And okay, my title is CEO, but is that what I do? I don't mind going to clean the kennels. I don't mind being involved in training. I don't mind being involved in marketing. I don't mind coming in late or coming in on a Sunday afternoon to help with whatever, going and pick up a dog. Went pick up a dog for—

I was about to say, right, just this morning.

But my point behind that is, is I'm on the bus riding with everybody else. I just have a different function that I serve, uh, just like we have expectations that so-and-so will fill that function of the team. But I'm okay with pitching too. I need to pick up the slack, and I would expect everybody else is on that same picture. Yeah, which we have a great team, 100%. I feel everybody on the team now will 100% pick up that and make that turn if they have to. Or like I said, I need you to come in and work Saturday in the kennels. I don't hear any complaints. Uh, I need you to cut grass. I don't hear any complaints. Yeah, I need you to do this. I don't hear any complaints because everybody knows it's necessary, but there's no one barking orders saying that you have to do this, that they wouldn't do it themselves. The only reason why they're not doing it is because they're tasked with something else. Yeah, so, uh, it's, it's great to see that. Yeah, from my perspective.

Yes, yeah, absolutely. It's, um, Like you don't ever want to work anywhere that has, you know, that says, oh, we're a family here. But this is one of those places where it doesn't have that negative connotation. Like we're truly a family in the sense of personally, professionally, like, you know, we spend time together, we know each other, but we also know what the other's capable of and we have expectations that we hold each other to. And I think that's what helps CCU function the way that it does.

You know, there's pros and cons that you can read, which I've read both sides of the coin, right? I've read, I've heard stories, horror stories, you know, where emotions get in the way of decisions.

Yeah.

Which can be right. You do. I think from a perspective of being a family, we do have certain obligations to each other. Do have a certain expectation. It does hurt a little bit more when your family lets you down to some degree, but it shouldn't hinder your decision-making to what's the best for the family as a dad, as a mom. You make the decisions that are best for the family. Yeah, or what you perceive to be the best for the family at the time based on the information you have. When your decision-making is influenced by your emotions, even as a father or a mother, that is not good either. So you have to learn that when I'm in that role of making that decision then you make the best decision for that and don't allow your emotions to get involved in that. And over the years, we learned to do that and learn to make those decisions for what's best for the team versus— because that's truly looking out for the rest of the family.

Yeah, absolutely.

But It's not when someone's out sick or, you know, I think when you keep it strictly business, that's what it will be. That means that when you're out sick, I don't check on you. That means when you're traveling, I don't check to make sure you made it there okay. I could never see myself doing that. I just, I can't. Hey, you make it good, all right. What does that take? Does that take a lot of effort? Does that take a lot of— does that take away from my decision to discipline someone if I have to? No, no. It just— on both sides of the coin, it shows that you care, for one. But I'm more of a vested interest type of person. When I have a vested interest in you because it's about your development overall.

Yeah.

And there's a season to that as well. And if I can't— or CCU can't— give you the best development possible for your— and for you, then hey, maybe you can find that somewhere else. And I'm happy about that because there's nothing worse than staying in that relationship when not beneficial to everybody.

Yeah.

So, um, but those are things you learn though through experience, right? You learn. But that, that's what works for us. May not work for anybody. It doesn't work for every business. I get that too. But for us, I have found it— tried it both ways, tried to merit it— and it works best with us being committed. And I tell our supervisors this all the time. Care about the people that work for you. Yeah, care about them, show that you care, spend time with them, because they could have stuff going on in their personal lives that would affect them, their attitude, and you need to know that.

Absolutely.

So that management style to me is, is, um, not just expected, but that's our culture here.

Yeah, it absolutely is.

I, I look at that and then look at that team, no matter who's in the reins, who's in charge, what supervisor's in charge, they should have that. It's very evident when you don't have that in somebody. It sticks out like a sore thumb.

Yeah.

And those changes come around pretty rapidly after that's recognized.

Yep.

Yep.

And speaking of family, talking about business family, but in your personal life with CCU, you know, in the early days, what expectations? I know you have 3 daughters, you're married, you have mouths to feed, you know, obviously stepping out from, like you said, a secure paycheck and you knew exactly when that check was going in and you had retirement, you had life insurance, I'm sure, through your company. through your agency and then moving from that to being fully self-employed, you know, were there expectations that maybe Mrs. Vargas had or that your kids had for you?

You know, the kids, I have an older daughter, so she was old enough to understand. My youngest girls were not, you know, they were very young at the time when we first started. And, uh, and then my wife, right? So this, this is the crazy thing, and, and I tell people this all the time because this is the probably the most important aspect of how we got to where we were and where we are today, is I had 100% support. From my wife, my kids, you know, uh, they never worried anytime. And you know, as a parent, you do this anyway. I'm sure if you think back, you probably find out a lot of things that you're older that your parents did and you had no idea how they protected you. So you shield, yeah, your kids. I grew up in a family that, uh, very young with them arguing and fighting all the time. No. And hearing that as a kid, I knew that when I got to the point where I had my own family, that I would never do that. Yeah. So we don't even argue around the kids. The kids have never heard us yell at each other. We do that behind closed doors. Not that that ever— like, it's just unique in that sense.

Yeah.

Uh, we don't fight. We just don't talk to each other. To combat. Again, that's— I'm just giving our listeners a little bit of perspective, because when I made the decision to leave government to start this, there was no, well, what about this, what about that, how are we going to eat? It was 100% from my wife, all right, make it happen.

Yeah.

And I said, man, that's, that's easy. But then, you know, the gravity of that support also weighs on me, at least as from my perspective, that they have that much faith in you that you're going to provide for them without hesitation. They support that. Oh, you know, that, that, that's a lot. And then to get in those moments where you're not particularly performing the way that you should, um, with revenue and all those other things, I never got any pushback. And I think that was the— because I went through a lot of struggles with those types of things, like worry, weariness, and like just I was looking back, forms of depression on, you know, what I should do, you know, what, how, what I should turn to. Like, it was, I say, terrible in a lot of, a lot of regards. But I never got pressure from my wife or my kids. Like, when I told them, hey, we can't, can't do that.

Yeah.

Oh, you know, it's because you want to shut this business, or we don't have any money. Or this or that because you wanted to do this. I told you not to do that. I never got any of that, and I never got pressure from them, which I think is why we're able to sit here and have this podcast now, because of that. Yeah, I didn't have those pressures, and I tell people that all the time. Like, you got to have 100% buy-in from your family, especially your wife. Not so much your kids, but your wife. Because if you're getting pressure from the business side and her, there's no way you can do this. There, there's absolutely no way, because one is— one dam is going to break, you know, just a matter of time. It's just a matter of time. So I'm— I thank God every day that I had that, and I tell my wife that, probably not as often as I should, but I give her those accolades all the time. I never had that pressure put on me from her. Yeah, my own pressure. She already knew I was gonna put enough pressure on myself. The clients, you know, like she already knew we were gonna get that pressure, so she didn't add to that by, you know, just adding, you know, pouring her little bit into it too. So I say if it wasn't for that, there would— I would, I would be back in government again because of— I couldn't take that pressure, or I wouldn't have a wife. But I didn't have that pressure, so I'm, I'm so thankful for that. Yeah, that was one area I never had to worry about when I traveled. I never had to worry about the kids being taken care of. It was the perfect mixture. That was handled, and I could focus on the things I needed to focus on to, to really build this.

Yeah, man, that's amazing though, actually. I mean, I know it's not easy for— especially like you said, you know, for a spouse to be like, okay, you know, not they don't have faith in their partner, but it's not always easy for a spouse to say, okay, leave.

I mean, I wouldn't blame her though.

Right.

When we have no money, I mean, I don't have a check coming in, so what— how are we going to buy food this week? How are we going to pay the water bill or the light bill? Like, those would be normal. That's substance, right? And then for that spouse to be looking out for the kids too, because they're a part of it, they got to be fed, right? So you would expect that. Yeah, but in that sense, I think she also saw the grind. Like, I'm gonna do whatever it takes. I'm gonna, you know, I didn't have any habits. I didn't have anything that was taken away from that. It was all pouring into 100%. I'm gonna figure this thing out one way or another. Like, I'm not stopping. I'm not a quitter. Yes, like, it's hard. But I'm not going to take any other step but forward.

Yeah.

Even if something bad happens and it knocks me down or knocks me back, that's still a step forward because now I can learn from that and I can use that to, to continue to build because of what I learned from that bad instance or not seeing the big picture and focusing only right here. And that's very important.

I mean, you always, you always say there's no problems, only solutions.

Yeah.

And I mean, that is— sometimes I'll be in here and be like, oh, I got to get this fixed and this. I'm like, no, no problems. What are the solutions for it and how do we knock that out?

But, you know, most of that's mind frame. If you talk to any high-performing person, if you study any high performance, athlete, business person, um, anything. It's about monitoring.

Absolutely it is.

And I also had to learn that I can focus on all the bad stuff. I can focus on this one bad thing, which may be the money in my bank account, or I can focus on all the stuff ahead of me to keep us pushing that way, or I can stop and look at this. Think about driving, right? As law enforcement, we're taught in EVOT, uh, in defensive driving, they have these cones set up. And one thing that we're taught is, is don't look at the cone because you will hit it. Look past the cone even though it's there in your peripheral. If you look at it, you're going to naturally steer towards it and hit it. But if you look forward, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna move that way. So in business, it's the same thing. Yeah, you look over here and start focusing on all the bad stuff, that's where you're gonna head, and it's going to distract you from going towards all the other stuff. Absolutely. So we got to stay focused ahead at what we're doing. All the other stuff will take care of itself one way or another.

That's good, I like that.

It's good, but it's not as easy as you said, right? It takes practice.

Absolutely.

And there's a lot of books I can refer back to that in some form or fashion point to that same analogy in pushing forward. But obviously I go back to my experience, which is law enforcement. So that makes sense to me because that's absolutely true. I remember driving through things at high speeds and like making sure that I kept the blinders on and stayed here versus looking over to my right or to my left because I would clip the other car. And then getting through that and going, how did I make that? I must have made that by the skin of my teeth, making it through there without hitting anything. Yeah, but it's absolutely true. It stands true and I see it in a lot of things that go on around me. And hey, stay focused.

Dang, I like that. That's very good. Speaking of, you know, staying focused, I don't even want to think about how many things are on your to-do list from the point where you wake up. But obviously that's evolved, you know, as CCU evolved, more and more things got put on your plate, more people joined the team, but as they did, more things came up as well. Were there ever, you know, are there any significant moments that really shaped CCU, how you manage the company, or just life in general even?

You know, I like to say there's some of this, this profound things that happen, right? I think it's everything that contributes to the involvement Nadine, which is my wife— most people know that. Yeah, she used to always say, man, you got— you're doing good, why do you create more work for yourself? But my belief is, if we're standing still, we're dying. So we got to keep moving, we got to keep looking at new research, we got innovative ways to do things, the use of technology, the other things that really guide us in how our industry is changing, how business is changing. You know, I don't have all the answers, and I never want to be— just like what we talked about earlier about stifling people's ideas and things of that nature— I don't want to contribute to the death of anything in, in, in regards to CCU. I want to give it full opportunity.

Yeah.

With that being said, I can't say there's any defining moments per se. There are things that have happened that do shape how we do things. Some of that is bad things. Some of that is lack of preparation where I didn't prepare enough, uh, to prevent something from happening. Or to help something grow. Yeah, so maybe I didn't put the water on, I didn't eat it. Um, and so I take all those things and I use those to shape. But sometimes it's— and I'm a firm believer in this— sometimes it's the Lord bringing you things at the right time. And revealing things to you. When, when we read the Bible and read scripture, at times we don't know what the, the meaning of this is, and then, and then the Lord reveals it to you. Yeah, at a later time. But it's also the growth as well. And so as a company, we may have had that opportunity before, but because we were young and in our adolescence, or maybe because I didn't understand the value of allowing somebody to take that and help it to grow. I wanted to do it all myself because I thought that was the only way and the best way. Then as you grow, you begin to become wiser, and you know, you get wise counsel, you seek out other forms of education, whether it be through books or studying or research, and then you begin to learn and grow as well. And that's very much the way that I approach things, is if I don't know, I'm going to research it. If not, I'm going to try to meet somebody that knows what they're doing or has done it before and learn from them. I can't do that, and sometimes, is it worth the risk for me to jump in with both feet and do it? Well, what's the consequences to that financially? And, um, time is money. So do I need to be spending my time doing that? So there's a lot of things that analyze now that I didn't analyze before. So there's not one defining moment. I think it's the evolution of growth.

Yeah.

And allowing that growth to take place. A lot of times a lot of business owners don't allow that to happen. The first hint of them not having money in their bank account or the pressure their wife or spouse is giving them, they shut it down and quit. They never give it that time to mature. Think about training dogs. You never give that training plan time to evolve and changes to take place. You never see it. So then you quit and say, well, that's not the best method to use or the best training to use, so I quit. And you never see a full evolution. Well, when What, what you get, you continue to just try things and never see them all the way through. And so I've learned that we got to see things through and give them a chance to, to work or not work before we totally cut them off. Because if not, you're just a ping pong, ping pong, ping pong ball bouncing around. Yeah, you can leave that in there. And we're just bouncing from one idea to another, chasing shiny things.

Yeah.

Staying focused.

So how many real or how much real overlap is there between owning a business and training dogs? Because I feel like—

I make a lot of analogies behind that.

I feel like there's a lot.

There's a lot.

Just the time, the effort, the dedication, the heart. The heart.

Right. But I think there's a lot of overlap because it comes down to behavior. And it comes down to how do you create consistency? How do you create reliability in a dog? Well, how do you create reliability in a business? How do you create habits that point towards being reliable or sustainable in business? Listen, if you're lazy as a hammer, you're going to get the same results. You're lazy as a business owner, you're going to get the same results.

Yeah, right.

If you're a delegator, there's nothing wrong with that, right? Some people flourish that way, and there's a lot of business built on that. But I also believe, yeah, you can delegate all you want to. However, you're still putting forth the effort to do that, which means that there's never a time when I'm just sitting on the couch not doing anything. We're always— even if I'm delegating, I'm delegating to the best of our, you know, I'm making that pass like a point guard to the best open person to make that happen. I'm not sitting down there just waiting on the pass to come to me. I'm still moving, trying to get open. So even in that sense, there is a lot of analogies and correlations between training, training dogs, training people. And run business. Absolutely.

Yeah.

Um, but some of that also depends on the type of person you are. And even with a lot of changes, I'm still the same type of person I was. What I mean by that is I have the same habits that I've always had, which is organization. I don't do well with chaos. I'm very organized and I always try to think on how we can advance. Yeah, I was in law enforcement. I thought about ways that I can advance my career in law enforcement as well. So reading policy, and I try to analyze what's the best way for me to do that. I need to be better and more versed in case law, criminal procedures, in policy. Those things lend it to me being successful. As a dog handler, how can I be successful? And I started analyzing, these are the key elements it takes for me to be successful as a dog handler. So then I go back to business and policies, procedures, analyzing certain elements of what we do every day and building out consistency, because we need to have consistent products and services. We need to also have consistency in people.

Yeah.

So no matter what position I'm working, I know exactly procedurally what should be happening at this location. And I learned that. Yeah. So then anybody can do that job. Doesn't matter. You need someone to go work in the kennels, they know the processes and procedures. You need someone to come to training, we have lesson plans built out, written out. Yeah, that took a long time to do. It takes a lot of effort, but it really saves us time in the long run. We're investing in the long run versus short term. Yep.

I mean, I think that's the— no one starts a business with the dreams of it not succeeding.

Yeah.

But I really think that a lot of times, I don't have the exact stats, but I know, like, what is it, 70% of small businesses fail in their first year, maybe more. I just think maybe that's, that could have something to do with it. They're not looking at the long term. It's the, let me get this storefront open and then I'm gonna have my first sale and then everyone's gonna be coming in all the time. And you mentioned like the field of dreams, that's just not reality. You know, there are things that you had to do to open up your company to a greater clientele list. There are things that you've had to do that maybe you didn't see for yourself or see for CCU at the time that now you're grateful for. But I mean, if you hadn't done civilian dogs, we never would've met because that's how I ended up here. So that's, you know, just one of those things. You mentioned before, like that field of dreams idea quickly vanished, basically, you know, How were those around you? Were they excited? What expectations did you feel they were putting on you? Your family, I know we talked about, but even your friends, like Crim has been along, along for the ride to this point, you know, and continuing on, of course. But, you know, how did those around you, your friends, your law enforcement buddies react?

Well, you know, most people only see what, what's good. Yeah, from social media, right?

Yes.

So for those that are listening that don't know that, you know, the internet's not real.

Yeah, we don't post the bad stuff, right?

I'm not going to post that I'm laying on my couch struggling with depression right now. All the great things that I told everybody I was going to do, I'm not doing, right? Like, I only got $137 in my bank account right now. A car getting repossessed and a house in foreclosure. Like, you don't post that.

No.

But, you know, unfortunately, you have to make decisions, and I, and I said that before. You know, decisions are made on where you spend your time, what you do, and that lends to not everybody sticking with family, my friends. I say my true friends, and those are people I can call no matter what. Even if I hadn't talked to them in 10 years, I can call them and we pick up. Yeah, lucky it's yesterday. But there's some people that think that there's an expectation, like I need to hang out with them, or I need to do this and do that. When I say, well, man, I can't do that because I work at 90 hours this week. Yeah, easily. Um, or, you know, they're looking out for something for themselves. And again, some decisions happen. I mean, even to as recently as this month, people have expectations for you. And knowing where to draw the line Unfortunately, I will take care of anybody that I can, and that's a statement where 'can' is underlined and capitalized. But it will never be to the detriment of this team, because ultimately this team not just is part of what we do, but I care for very deeply. And I understand also that each— if this team ceases to exist, so do I, and so does everybody else on the team, because we all affect each other.

Yeah.

And so if it comes to the detriment of that team, I can't do that. I got to make sure that— because everything costs money. Yeah, right. So if it's not in the budget, or the budget has already been spent for this. It doesn't magically appear like it does in government. It's coming out of somebody's pocket. Yeah, and usually that's not in the form of profits, it's a form of expenditures and other obligations. So if I give you free training, I'm still paying that employee to do that. And I can't go, well, we gave it to you free, so we're going to decrease the amount of services we do because we have standards. And so that trainer will not understand that. They'll be like, no, we don't do that. You're right, but you're doing it this— but no, we don't do that. So we would still have to give the same level of service, whether boarding or training or any other service we provide, no matter what cost. And when we analyze cost, again, another term that I've, you know, learned over the years. Uh, a lot of people use the term time is money, but in reality it is, because the amount that you pay for that employee per hour that they're spending doing a project that they're not get— that we're not getting paid for affects many things down the line.

Yeah.

And usually it comes to a head when a big bill comes in, you don't have the finances for that.

Yep.

And so the discounts that we have set up— and I had a guy tell me this, uh, not too long ago— when you're the boss, you can do whatever you want to. Is that the case? That's not the case. Yeah, I am— I play a role. That doesn't mean that I get to break all the rules and show everybody else around me that I do what I want, but I expect you to do according to policy, and that's not a good way to run things. So I don't do that. The policy is this: XYZ discounts are set, everybody falls in their discount, and that's just the way it is. But that also keeps me from doing what I want to and keeps everybody else from doing what they want to. It keeps us grounded.

Yeah.

And it ensures that the team is taken care of. So it's not that I don't want to I can't.

Same thing you went back to before though, about what's best for everyone, what's best for the whole team.

That's right. So it's, uh, you know, it's, it's just one of those things that you learn to cope with and be as professional as you can. Yeah, you're a good buddy of mine. I've known you for a long time. I will do whatever I can to take care of you, 100%. But at the same time, I just can't do whatever I want to. Yeah, if I work for someone that does that, that's because the first thing that I would say is, oh, he gets to do whatever he wants to, but I can't help my mom out, needs to do a dog training. And it makes my decisions a lot easier. Yeah, right. Yeah, that's true, because I don't have to see who I owe something to, or who owes me, or what I'm covering up from this employee or not. No, it's consistent. It's in policy. Yeah, my decisions are, what should we charge them? What's our policy? What discounts do we already have? Give them that discount. That's the simple one. Yeah, but that's your friend. I get that. I understand that. I appreciate—

support businesses by paying, you know.

But, you know, more often than not, you don't see that. People don't have a problem paying full service for someone they don't know, but their friends and family that make a living and feed families off of this, for some reason people have an expectation, right? And I, I also try to encourage people, my friends that own businesses, oh man, don't— I'm good, man. I want to support you. Yeah, charging full price, or I'm want to go to your business and use your business because I understand. I want to support small businesses. I want to support our community because we want you to be successful. You start giving all your stuff away, believe me, you'll learn quick. Yeah. Uh, which, which I did. I thought that was a great way to go, great perspective, right? Give everything away for free and then what?

Exactly.

And then what? Then what? Uh, it doesn't work. No, I assure you of that. Well, you know, it's no different than a conversation that I had yesterday with a, with a handler, right? And I'll give the, the light story of this. Like I told them, I'm going to put my focuses on our clients. If you're a client of ours I want to give you as much as I can. I want to focus everything we have to you. I think a lot of people take a different perspective where they want to focus on getting new clients versus focusing on the people they have. So our warranties, our discounts, are the things that we do. I try to make it in the perspective of how do we take care of people that believe in us and have invested in us. I want to give them as much as I can in warranties, in support, in answering their phone calls. When I'm cluttered with a bunch of people that don't support us and they're calling me and doing this and that, but they never spent a dime in supporting us— sorry, bro, I'm gonna spend my time over here.

Yeah.

And it's something that I had to come to the realization of because they deserve my time. Yeah, they deserve our trainer's time. They deserve our kennel master's personal cell phone number so they can call her when they need her. That's where we want to spend that time. And I'm sorry, that's maybe not the right perspective.

I mean, from an analytical perspective, even though it's always gonna be— should I say cheaper? I don't, I don't know if I should say cheaper.

Well, acquisition-wise. Yeah, absolutely.

It's always gonna be cheaper to bring in a returning client than it is to bring in a new client. So it's—

that's right.

Never gonna hurt to really put that attention and focus onto your current clients and make sure they feel appreciated and, and welcomed within your company.

Yeah. I just, and, and, and by all means, I understand that. That's just in my simple thinking, that wasn't the reason why.

Yeah.

And you know me, if I invest $10 with this company— and I say invest, I purchase a service from them— and they go beyond that, that's what I would expect. Okay, you haven't spent anything. I'm looking at a friend of mine that hasn't supported this company, but yet he's getting all this free stuff to try to get him to buy. That's just an analogy.

Yeah.

I'm looking like, but I've already invested why are you not taking care of me? So in my simple thinking, that's how I feel. Hey man, you want what CCU has, you know, this exclusive club and, and all that. I want you to be here training. I want you to be able to call and say, hey man, I'm having this problem, how can you help me? Or, um, I have this going on, we're good, will you come support me? Absolutely. I'm getting married, 'Will you come and come to the wedding?' 'Absolutely, I'm there.' These are all things that I want to be able to do, but when I'm, when I'm distracted by other things, I think I can't focus on those things. I wanted to be getting calls from our clients, not from everybody else.

Yeah.

And it's not to say I don't value that at all, because I do, but I want you to realize when you come into and invest in this, I want you to get the best possible. At least I'm going to try my best to be able to do that, you know, invest back into you and give you well beyond what you expected. Yeah, and that's where I want to spend in our time. And, uh, but not everybody sees it that way, and it's unfortunate, but again, it's my simple-minded thinking behind things. It's nothing malicious. It's not that I don't like you, but I'm sorry I don't answer your phone call every time you call me and ask me for advice.

Free advice.

Free advice is that. But yet you go and spend your money somewhere else. Yeah, because it's shiny, you know.

Yeah, absolutely.

Call them. Oh, you can't?

Why is that?

Why is that? So anyway, Again, not to digress off anything other than this is how I deal with some of the things that I have to deal with on a day-to-day basis and the perspective of where I always come when I make those decisions. I mean, you can think about the number of decisions that are made. So those that are starting a business, you know, it's estimated— and I read an article off of, um Uh, was the Inc. magazine, uh, and they released an article back when it just happens to be my sister's birthday, December 9th, 2021. So it kind of resonated. But it says the title of the article was, uh, How Founders Can Make Tough Decisions, right? Because really what we do on a day-to-day basis is make decisions. We have a lot of stuff coming at us and I've conditioned myself to get up very early in the morning. I'm usually up by 5 and I stay up very late.

Yeah.

Um, but it's not a chore to do that. It's easy because I love doing what I do. Mm-hmm. But I do that because I have a lot of decisions to make and I feel like I make my best decisions first thing in the morning. I get my cup of coffee, I read a little bit, maybe do a devotional or something like that, something that kind of pours into me and kind of focuses me. And then I start hammering out decisions that I need to make, and I try to— I always say like priority one decisions. What are the, the number one decision I need to make? I try to make those first thing in the morning because as the day goes on, there's a lot of other stuff that are coming. And as we know, the day changes like rapidly here. Our plans get changed very quickly. I was supposed to be here by noon yesterday. Okay, 3:30, 4:00 4 o'clock, I'm rolling back in because training happened. Yeah, which I'm not complaining about, but that's how it happens. So I try to make my decisions very early on, that way those priority decisions get dealt with first thing, right? But with that being said, it's estimated that most people on a day-to-day make basis makes about 35,000 decisions each day on average. But as a business owner, remember, the decisions that we make affect more than just us.

Yeah.

So, uh, one example they gave in the article, like, most of those decisions for most people are like, should I take a bigger bite of this hamburger or this sandwich or whatever? Where I'm thinking about, well, should we hire another employee? Should we put this money into this marketing? Should we Uh, you know, do you go to this event or not go to this event? What's the magnitude of that? What's the— what's the return on that investment for going to that event? It's cool to hang out, but what I've learned is everything that I do is analyzed by data.

Yeah.

And I try to make all those decisions based on data, because when I start making decisions on feelings it's usually not the right decision.

No, but your banker doesn't care how you feel. He doesn't care.

Yeah. So again, it's analyzing and, uh, making those tough decisions that affect more than just me is important.

Yeah.

And I don't think that I should take those things lightly. And as a business owner or a potential business owner, go into it thinking you're thinking of it that way. Every decision affects more than just you. Utilize data to make those decisions because the data does a lot. It's right there in front of you. Utilize it. And most people have those, have those data points available to them in one form of fashion. If you don't begin to obtain things that feed that data to you.

Yeah.

Or get people on your team that, that are able to feed you the right data. Feelings don't get you anywhere. No, I promise you.

Hey, but I mean, you can marry the two up too, though. Like, I know you've mentioned CCU has a lot of heart.

Yeah.

But there's— it's still a business, and a business still has to be run properly, or else those people that you love so much, now they're out of a job.

Well, when you have the right people on the team, they understand that. When you communicate that to them, uh, in one form or fashion— yeah, do I give everybody the finances? No. Um, but I would like people to understand that it's not just the $100 that we got paid for that service, but then to realize what else goes into that $100— salaries, gas. Sometimes it's a revelation, and it's pretty funny to see somebody realize that when you're like, hey, why did we not charge this client travel? Well, you know, I said, okay, well, let's look at it from this perspective. Can we pay— this is what it costs us an average salary. This trainer's gone for 2 hours, but we only charge $99. They had an hour's worth of time in the vehicle. We paid the gas, we paid the insurance, we paid the wear and tear of the car. Where do you think that $100 went?

It's gone.

It's gone. Probably we paid them to go do training for them. Uh, you don't survive very long when you do that.

No.

And, uh, it's not that we want to nickel and dime anything, but we also want to make sure that part of that job is to be stable in that, in budgets and other things. To look at that data and make those decisions on should I donate to this. My donation budget is gone for the year. I would love to help you, but I can't.

Yeah.

And being able to say no is a hard thing, especially with your friend that maybe has helped you out in the past. But I always say my friend will understand that I am doing it for the betterment so that CCU is here next year. Yeah, to be able to help you, maybe. And maybe I'll put away a budget for you next year so that I can help you in the future. But because I didn't know that until right now in the middle of the year, I'm sorry, I can't pull any money from anywhere else right now. Yeah, but in the years past, I would have just been like, here you go. Guess what? $100 is 10 times— that's $1,000. So all those other things— well, all those little things that add up.

Yeah.

And that's what people don't understand. I don't have one power bill or one water bill, you know. I have a water bill, a power bill, insurance, taxes, uh, you know, the list goes on.

Yeah.

It's not just that one isolated thing on a monthly service that we pay $29 for. Well, I got 300 of those that I'm looking at on a financial report that I'm like, where are all— you know, $29 times 10, $290. It's not just $29 now.

Yep.

So we have to pay attention to those small things in order to— those are things I didn't understand in the past. I just did it because I wanted to help everybody But unfortunately, there's a lot more that goes into it that I have to analyze that and make those tough decisions, if you will, that sometimes requires me to say no. Not that I want to say no, it's just that I have to. Yeah, for the betterment of the team. Very important.

Well, Dave, we got a little off topic, but this is This is, uh, not really off topic, but we went a little bit deeper than I had anticipated with our topics that were here.

But, um, what I wanted to really help, you know, because looking back, Maya, who did we have? I say we, Nate. Who did I have to turn to when I'm dealing with stress or I don't know how to do this or I'm not getting clients? I had nobody. Yeah, because everybody thinks you're going to take from them. And so when, when we do these podcasts, I think about it from a perspective of, if I'm going to spend my time listening to a podcast, what can people get out of that? So although you may digress a little bit or get a little bit off topic, uh, or dive a little bit deeper than you anticipated, uh, in all preparation I do those things because I think it's important for them to see the full scope of it, not just get this little nugget of information and go, oh, okay, but that doesn't really tell me anything. It doesn't give me clear understanding.

Yeah.

And so from that perspective, you know, in our show notes we talked about stress and how we deal with stress.

Yeah.

Because that's a major facet of what I have to cope with on the sideline. I can't run and talk to— let's say you as an example. What if I came to you and told you all my problems, all the stress I'm going through? How would you look at me as a boss or as a leader? I don't think you would have that perspective. So even— I made the analogy with our kids. We give our kids the best picture possible as a leader per se, I also have to give that best image. If I— if we're going to step into war and I'm scared to death, what's that going to make everybody else behind me? They're going to be scared to death too. I want them going into this with confidence.

Yeah.

So we're dealing with stress. I had a lot of stress coming up and dealing with worry, being worried about things and Where's our next client going to come from? And I used a couple things to help me. For one was perspective, how I thought about things, not focusing on the little things, focusing on the things that we had ahead of us, not focusing on the— one reason I don't have social media, one reason I don't spend time reading everybody's blog post, things of that nature, because what I realized was because that doesn't contribute to well ahead. Yeah, I can get off in the weeds. Not everybody likes what I do. Not everybody likes how I speak or who I am. I'm okay with that. When you stop and focus on those things, it takes you away from your mission at hand.

You're going to veer off and hit it.

You're gonna veer off and hit it. You're gonna get caught up in wasting time. I'd rather spend my time and helping everybody else on the team, because that's what you guys pay me for, and that's my obligation to you guys, is to stay focused. I don't worry about all that stuff. Yeah, doesn't mean it doesn't contribute to what I do every day, so I don't get off in the weeds with those kind of things. And I learned that when I do that and stay focused, it takes a lot of that other stuff out of the equation. It doesn't contribute to my worry. It doesn't contribute to my stress. And so I really don't have it anymore because I've learned to not focus on those things and not put those things— inject them into my life. If somebody's giving me problems, as far as something in my life that's giving me problems, I get rid of it. Yeah, because it's not worth the time or the stress. So if it's a friend of mine, if it's a— I don't know— a habit that I have, I get rid of it because it doesn't contribute to me moving forward. That's not the answer for everybody, but for me, I have found that that is the answer that keeps me focused on the things that I need to be focused on, contribute to the team, versus taking away from it.

Is that something you just kind of naturally have always done, or is that something that, you know, at the early stages of CCU you kind of realize, like, if I don't get a handle on this now, this is going to ruin me?

You're at, you're at 100% right. I realize that if I don't get a handle on it, that it will. Worriedness, being worried, I'm naturally like, I naturally have a heart for people, you ask my mom, my dad, like, out of all the kids, my siblings, I'm the one that was the most concerned. I'm the oldest, and I always worried about things. I, I remember distinctly in 4th grade in Panama hearing that the world— that, uh, global warming was going to destroy the world. And I remember running home so worried about when the world was going to come to the end because of global warming. So worried about it. So I naturally had that, like, that's me.

Yeah.

But with the help of my wife giving me different things— I remember she giving me a bracelet one time, a leather bracelet, which I still have— and she always told me, well, when you get to worrying, just rub on your bracelet, you know. Take your mind and distract your mind on that. So I used that for a while, and I, you know, did research. And then I started figuring out, like, why do I let those things into my life when they don't have to be? Yeah, but I let them in, and then it causes me to worry about other things. If I worried about what everybody else said about me, if I worried about what was posted online, or what somebody that doesn't even know me writes about CCU, I would be 100% consumed with that.

And then you're not focused on growing the business, right?

Exactly right. That's a minute that I could have spent doing something better for everybody else.

But that minute, just like that $29, that minute turns into 2 hours, 3 hours a week.

Yeah. How many— how much time do you spend flipping through stuff? For what? That doesn't contribute to what we do. It takes away from the time with my family, or it takes away from the time here. That's the only two things I have in reality. That's it. So spend my time flipping through Facebook or any, any other medium, or reading articles that help me to be a better leader, be a better CEO, read financial reports better to get the cutting-edge technology that's out there to help us grow, or spend time reading worthless posts that, you know, I just— I don't have time for that. I let other people do that because sometimes that's someone else's job function, to put out content that helps our industry to be a better place. But that's not my job function, so I'll stay And I know that contributes. Or like I said, if it's a friend of mine that's causing me grief or, you know, making me worry about something, sorry, I've got to get away from that. I can't focus on that.

Yeah. So would you say then that sort of how you've come to manage stress, do you think that's applied at all to your business? How you manage your business. Do you think it applies as well with like your employees, with, you know, clients, for example?

Well, yeah, you know, look at it from a, from another perspective, right? You can escalate things or you can de-escalate things.

Yeah, absolutely.

So you yelling and screaming at a client or them yelling and screaming at you never accomplishes anything.

Absolutely.

So would you rather spend your time doing that or de-escalating everything, thinking about things, processing things, getting all that stress out of the way, and then focusing on the issue at hand? We are emotional people at times. On top of that, we, we want to be winners. I'm a type A person. I want to win everything. As you know, right, we'll get into an argument about nothing just so that we can win, right? You've seen that.

I have.

So with that being said, if that consumes us though in a way that is negative and puts stress into— injects stress into the equation, then it makes things worse rather than helps it to be better. So I've just learned that the best way to deal with that is take a step back, analyze what we have, and then make a decision from that point of, point of view versus the emotional point of view.

Yeah, absolutely. All right, I mean, we covered a lot in this one, but now the most important thing that I want to know, just because I'm, I'm curious, um, you know, you mentioned like you stay up with CEOs a celebrities, athletes, sort of how they maintain this level of success. And, you know, I look at you a lot in the decisions you make, marketing, and then also in other areas of business. And I just, I just like to observe it just so I can understand it, because I'm young, I'm pretty new out of college, I don't know how to run a business, I don't know necessarily that it's something I want to do, but I'd like to learn, I like to research, you know. So this one's a little bit because I'm curious too, but what expectations do you have either for yourself or for CCU in the coming years, you know, 5 years out?

Yeah, so the expectation I have is to provide— I say trifold— opportunities for others in this industry. Yeah, that's through our training, that's through our mentorship, uh, and I say opportunity opportunities, because some of those opportunities are within this industry, and some of them are through us contributing monetarily or through mentorship and other programs to help those around us succeed as well. So, you know, those expectations are to have a bigger influence from what we've been entrusted with, which is people, some finances, So whether it's in our community here locally where we're at or where our facility is, or those that we have an opportunity to come across. Yeah, I want us to have a bigger influence on that. Um, so those expectations are for us to be more refined in that, to be more purposeful, and then obviously the growth that we've already been planning, things that we put in place over building blocks, if you will, to open up more facilities. And so that's where I really see us, is that expansion, both from a physical site perspective but also the reach on training and influencing our own communities as well.

Yeah, absolutely.

I always get anxious when I get my mind set on something.

You've told me this one before.

For you. Yep. So I— when something gets in my head and then I start looking at things more deeply, because some things you look at, you braise through things, right? Uh, I looked at this room, but then I focus on that piece of dust over there, and then I focus on that. And I'm the type of person that goes, that needs to be cleaned. Why is that dirty? But I, I've looked past it 5 times.

Yeah.

But then I hyperfocus on that, and so Even with some of the things that we're focusing on now, we can be more intentional on some of those things in order to do better. And some of that is our influence that we have on others and training them and helping them to be successful, i.e., our business suites that we're in the latter stages of development with to help those that are trainers that that maybe don't want to run a business but want to be a trainer. And so we handle all those things for them because that's one thing coming up, a problem for me was I had 25 hours in a day to develop lesson plans, to develop procedures, to call clients, to do all these things.

You have 25 hours a day?

Yeah, back then, but now I don't. I mean, you know, uh, I work tirelessly, but not everybody has that, right? So when we offer services to help somebody with that that doesn't want to spend 25 hours in a day working, they want to train dogs, have their clients come in the door, they train them, they put them out. They don't have time to be on the phone getting new clients. Heads, or doing all those things. So these business suits that we're putting together help with that. So when I have those things that I focus on, it's because it's the— I feel in my heart it's the right time to do those things, and we have the right people in place to do them, to give exceptionally, uh, to that product or service.

Yeah.

And I never want to do things half, half built. I want to give it our all in those things. So it's the right time for that. So those expectations that I have is for those things to come full circle and to begin to dive more into that, um, in giving back to our communities, local or in the community of canine dog training and those types of things.

Yeah, man, it's gonna be a good few years. Okay, well, a good few months.

With any success comes a little bit of failure and a little bit of turmoil and, you know, hardship. You change behavior in a dog, you're gonna have a little bit of that. Um, and so the same thing goes for these types of things too. It's not gonna be all roses. We're gonna go through some bumps in the road. We will figure it out and we will prevail and overcome it. I'm assured of that. I never have a worry that we can't.

Mhm.

We just have to figure it out. No problems, solutions. That's it.

Yes, absolutely. Now you mentioned you have 3 points.

Are we at that point already?

I don't know how long.

All right. I'm happy to be able to give these 3 points because that's important. And, uh, so I just want to give 3 points to business owners, those that may be thinking about opening up a business. Um, and these are things I've learned over the years that help me. The first thing is to set goals, but don't set big goals. I don't want a million dollars this year. I want to make $100,000 each month. Guess what that puts me? $1.2 million for the year. Yeah, right.

But it seems more manageable.

But it seems more manageable. When I set big goals, then I have trouble figuring out how I'm going to reach that goal. Yeah. So start small. It's always good to have the big goals, but what I work on for very small goals, because it's It's easier to change habits when you start with something small. Okay, I want to lose 30 pounds. Gotta lose 1 pound first though. So I'm gonna lose 30 pounds 30 times, uh, or 1 pound 30 times to get my goal. So start small, set those goals small so that you can chip away at those goals. And I always say, people always ask me, hey man, how you doing? Good, man, I'm just chipping away. Because in my mind, that's what I do on a day-to-day basis. I'm chipping away at the goals that I'm working on every single day. All right, the second thing is, is really watch your numbers. I didn't learn this until years into my business. I actually, to be honest with everybody, is I avoided the numbers because they were so dismal. Like I told you, Certain things you bring into your life will cause you stress. And that was one thing. So I purposely would avoid looking at the bank account or any of that. Like, just literally, I refused to plan, which looking back now, that's an issue. And I learned that watching the numbers and picking out key numbers that totally point towards success for CCU I've learned to pull out, and those are the ones I focus on. Yeah, it's going to take some business owners some time to focus in on those numbers, because I can tell you, watch your P&L, watch your profit levels, do this, watch your balance sheet, but that means nothing to anybody. And every business is a little bit different. So for some businesses, I would say, you know, pick out 3 to 5 to start, key numbers that translate to your success, and watch those numbers and work on those numbers. Once you get well-versed in your— obviously that's going to expand. And really, I have different numbers for different divisions with CCU now that I watch, that I monitor, that I work on in order to get ultimate success.

Yeah.

But I know that watching the numbers makes a difference. Because you're going to use those numbers to make your decisions. Put those things in place. And then the very last one, and probably the most important one, which we've mentioned towards the end here, is stay out of the weeds. You know what that means. Absolutely said that to you several times, and I echo that around here. Stay out of the weeds. Yep. Stay focused on where we're going. All this stuff can happen around you. Doesn't matter. Stay here. That stuff will pass, but you're still aimed at your goals. So again, stay out of the weeds. I'm gonna repeat these 3 most important: set your goals, set your goals small, achieve those goals. Because there's nothing like success, right?

Yeah.

30 pounds, or did I lose 1 pound? Man, that's a winner.

Yep.

All right, set those goals, watch the numbers. Pick out some key numbers and watch those and work towards those numbers or work on those numbers, improving them. And then lastly, stay out of the weeds. Don't get caught up in all this other mess. Doesn't matter. Yeah, anybody can say what they want to, anybody can do what they want to over there, or former employee quits or whatever. Who cares? Don't care. Don't even care. Don't look at the codes.

Don't look at that. Stay focused.

Yeah. Hey, I appreciate the time today. I hope that somebody learned one thing from this. Obviously, that's why we do it. Yeah. Uh, I'm excited about it, and, uh, I would ask that you maybe put that article, How Founders Can Make Tough Decisions, in our show notes. Okay. Put a link to that. It's a great article. He has some great points.

It'll be in the show notes.

Show notes. And then we'll put those 3 goals, or those 3 things to focus on that I put out when I really digest what kind of pushes me every day. And so make a lot of decisions. We should make those decisions on data.

Absolutely. And we will have a link below to a guide for choosing your ideal training facility. So this will kind of help from the civilian side, help you as a business owner see what they're looking for. This is based off of research that we've done, both conducted with our own clientele and just online research that we have accessed and looked into. So that's always going to be a help you want to use. From the client side or business owners. So, and next week we're going— next Saturday the 11th, we will be in Michigan for the Army Military Working Dog Symposium. So it's not too late to— might be too late to register. It's not too late to register. So we'll put a link to that as well if you'd like to register and attend that. It's open to military working dog handlers, obviously, but also all of our law enforcement for horsemen handlers. Yeah, it is also free. So it is, it's gonna be a week-long symposium. Saturday and Sunday is going to be an expo, so you can come and network, uh, you know, spend those valuable minutes networking with some important people in the industry instead of getting in the weeds. Stay out of the weeds.

Stay out of the weeds.

All right, we'll see you Tuesday for our short set.