Buy, Build & Scale Recurring Revenue w/ Gary Pudles | RevIntel [Archive]

1. Guys, welcome back. We have another episode. I think we're on our 300th episode now, and I'm privileged to have Gary Puddles. He's the president and CEO of a company called Gary Puddles. Uh, Gary Puddles. Okay, Gary Puddles. And so correct me for that, correct, Gary Puddles. And I've been chasing you down now for about 4 months Very busy man, owns an enormous contact center. I think a lot of people are off, are after you, uh, in terms of trying to get into a chat, but I'm going to hand it right over to you. I'm really, really privileged to have you on the show. Who are you, Gary? What do you do and why do you do it?

So I'm going to start with my why. Uh, the reason I do what I do is I love to help people and companies operate better. Uh, and, and what do I do? We are a, um, contact, an outsourced contact center. We're an outsourced message center, as they say in the UK, or an answering service, as well as a full-service BPO. And the what is everything from delivering technology solutions like AI and communication technologies all the way through full-service customer care, sales, marketing, support, etc.

Wow. Okay. So tell me a bit, a little bit about you. Let's start. Let's start at the beginning. What put possessed you to jump into the world of entrepreneurship? Was it a sales job first? Were you the type of person that sold chocolate bars at school in elementary school? How did the journey of Gary Puddles really start to emerge?

You know, that's a lot of big questions. So I'm going to start, I'm going to start by saying, you know, background-wise, I, uh, I went to university at Syracuse University. Studied, actually studied the data science around government policy, then went off to law school. And after a year and a half of law school, I got hired by a company called Muzak, which was one of the first and early companies that was able to bring licensed business music into businesses, restaurants, bars, office buildings, also known as elevator music back in the day. And I ran that business, the franchise for that business for 5 and a half years. Then I got lucky and I wound up as part of a team that won a pioneer preference from the FCC, and we built the first all-digital PCS network in the US. And I got recruited out of there to go to a specialty real estate company that that specialized in wireless infrastructure management for real estate owners. And I got fired. I could tell you the whole story, but ultimately I got fired. I wasn't happy there. They weren't happy with me. And I had been looking for a business. So I went on the internet. I had written down all the things that I liked and I didn't like in a business. And I found in, uh, I found 3 telephone answering services, 3 message centers within an hour of my house. Did the business plan, went out to raise the money, all of that great plan, except for the part that we didn't, uh, we didn't close any one of the three, but during the process, I was lucky enough to meet somebody who was already very large in the business. He offered to sell me one of his answering services, or at least half. And after a 9-month process, I wound up buying half of an answering service. So after being unemployed from January essentially to the end of July, we acquired our first answering service at the end of July and got into business that way. And in fact, what's really cool is that the contract was handwritten. I gave the guy my life savings and it still sits in my conference room at the office.

Wow. All right. We've got to unpack that because that's a— that's a lot of stuff. That's a lot of stuff. So, all right. So one thing that I find very, very interesting when I speak to a lot of entrepreneurs is the resilience that they hold. And more importantly, when they come up against an adverse situation, such as being fired or leaving a place, leaving on bad terms, maybe your manager wasn't good. A lot of people really crumble after these instances, but then you have people like us who it's sort of like pouring gasoline on a flame and you're able to kind of ignite something further. So walk me through the type of thought process you went through when you were unemployed and you knew that I've got to do something big.

So I didn't even think I needed to do something big. I needed to do something. I was a father with two children and a wife and a mortgage. So starting something completely new wasn't on the table for me. And I was in my mid-30s. So, you know, the responsibilities are starting to stack. So what really happened was I had already been looking for a business to buy. And because I wasn't happy with my job, I loved the work I did. I loved many of the people that I worked with, but I didn't really love the company and its culture. So I, that's when I moved to the internet. That's when I started thinking, What is my why? What is my purpose? What's going to make me happy? Now, when I ran Musa for 5 and a half years, I was in an environment where I was the number 2 guy in a 55-year-old company. And the owner of that company got sick 3 months after I got there. So I got a lot of experience, but it wasn't a huge business. It was a regional service provider. It's where I learned about recurring revenue. So one of my 4 primary things is I've always loved recurring revenue. I knew that that was my goal and my road to where I wanted to be. So, you know, that's where I learned how to be, to run a business. And then when I got to my business, when I bought my first company with a partner, he's really the one who taught me how to run a larger corporation and a larger entity. So we had a single location, you know, for 5 and a half years. I'm used to that. And now I'm in my 25th year here at AnswerNet.

I think I find that incredible. And for someone who was married, has two kids, you've been in a career where probably quite secure, you're probably earning quite well. There's another group of people right now that are really trying to make the decision of, do I want to go and be my own boss? I'm hearing all these new things on social media. I'm hearing how this is— entrepreneur gives you freedom. They don't know about all the shit that comes with it. But what I find interesting is that leap of faith. You didn't have to do anything big, but you knew you had to do something. What other kind of thoughts about risk, mitigating risk, calculating that risk? What if it doesn't work out? How did you kind of overcome that? And like, what conversation, if you're able to share, what kind of conversations did you have with your wife to say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go start a business versus I'm gonna go jump into another role? Two very, very different minds.

So we, that's a great question. And so there were two parts of my journey. One is that, um, my, my ex-wife and I agreed that if I didn't have a job, if I didn't have a company by August 1st, that I was going to go take a job. And I'll tell you a quick aside that was really interesting. So our wedding anniversary was at the end of May. And at that time, I got, I got an interview with a company that wanted me to run their telecom company in California. So over our anniversary weekend, they flew us out for an all-expense-paid trip to, to Los Angeles, which we hadn't been to yet. So, you know, you had no money coming in. I was, I I was a solid 5 months into the process and I, and I, they offered me the site visit. I said, well, you know, I might as well bring my wife because if I'm going to do this and move all the way across the country from, from Philadelphia area, she's going to need to see it. So that's how I paid for my, my anniversary trip that, you know, during our 10th anniversary, but the, the, the reality is this, the reality was that I knew that I wanted— I really enjoyed the independence of being that number 2 guy in that company. And I had a mentor, but as I said, he was sick and we built through, worked through the sales process for his business. So my goal was to, you know, was to just build a business. And in fact, The first business plan that I did, I went out to raise money and the investors that I was seeking were like, this isn't a big enough thing for me. Your goal, my original goal, you know, was not big enough for an investment, you know, an outside investor. So what was really funny is during COVID we got lucky and our monthly revenue for a few months during COVID equaled my original annual goal for this business. So it was a scenario in which, you know, it's not about thinking I had to do something big. So there is a common denominator of all successful people. And I'm gonna challenge you because you talk to a lot of successful people and I'm gonna challenge you to ever prove me wrong, but the common denominator of all successful people is that they make a habit of doing what unsuccessful people don't like to do. Now, they're not smarter than anybody else. They're not harder working because we both know many very hardworking people who don't have success. But for example, ever since I started my company, I've done a lot of acquisitions. Well, acquisitions. Are a lot of work. They're emotional, they're detailed. So, you know, doing that kind of work, I also got my name out there and, you know, I went out and I got my name out there into an industry so that people would know me when they were ready to sell. So I was really well known for being, a lot of the acquisitions we did were underperforming companies. Companies that were, you know, struggling, et cetera. So I went out and I wanted to get my name known in the first in the answering service industry, then in the broader call center industry. And what was really interesting, and I'll tell you a little story I've never done on a podcast, but I think you'll— I get your— I got your enthusiasm. So I think you'll like this. So back in the early days, there was a broker that used to do a fax newsletter. And it was mostly by hand. Okay, I, you know, I'm over 60 now. So I'll tell you that I did this and, and I was about 5 or 6 years into the business. And this all of a sudden, I was getting phone calls and faxes from people who had gotten this, this thing from the industry. And he wrote, I had a nightmare on the bottom of this crappy little newsletter. I I had a nightmare. I woke up and I called my answering service and Gary Puddles answered. And I happened to be talking to my friend Ron that day. And I was mad. I mean, I wasn't just mad. I couldn't talk without spitting back. You know, I'm not a violent guy because, you know, I'm, I'm, you know, short, fat, and I'm not strong. But if I was a violent guy, I would have been really violent that day anyway. I'm talking to my friend Ron, and Ron goes, you know, you're an idiot, right? I'm like, Ron, I called you to feel better. And he said, all right, years ago, you told me that you wanted to be known in the industry and you wanted people to call you when they were ready to sell. Do you notice that he never mentioned who you are or described who you are? He just used your name and assumed that everybody everybody who he was sending this newsletter to would know who you are. And that was the day that I realized that the first leg of my journey in the industry was actually achieved, right? I wanted people to know who I was. I wanted them to be thinking about me when they sold. And I became actually in that industry, particularly somebody that when people had problems, whether it was family problems, because a lot of those businesses were family-owned, they would call me for advice. And, you know, I always joke that my fee was a vodka martini with blue cheese stuffed olives. So that was, you know, because so many people, when I got into the call center industry, so many people were willing to help. And so many people were willing to teach. And so, you know, teaching and educating is one of my passions. I used to teach at a university here in Philadelphia and helping people who sort of the same way, people who had jobs because, you know, Shane, you said something earlier that I think is very important for your listeners to consider. Everybody thinks they have to start something from scratch. Everybody has to, you know, go down that path. Well, the first— and you also mentioned the words big. Well, let me tell you, going back to my definition of success, success is defined by yourself. Not everybody wants to be Jeff Bezos. Not everybody wants to be my friend Jamie Siminoff. Not everybody wants to be on TV. Many of my friends wanted to be professionals in law firms. They wanted to be business owners that could make it to the to the golf course on Friday, that could have a family life balance. So the definition of success comes into play. So it was never to do something big, but it was to do something that would provide the security that my family needed. In addition, I was at a point in my life where I didn't— I ultimately risked it all many times. In fact, the story was that I mortgage my house more times to buy companies and run my business than most people, you know, will, will, will mortgage in a lifetime. You know, that is a very true statement for me. However, it wasn't about in the beginning being big. It was about having security for my family. A lot of people don't realize that you can be an entrepreneur for the purpose of having a lifestyle or a family-style business that allows you to do your work, have a life. You know, for example, even though my company's gotten much larger, I still play drums and rock and roll, you know, rock and roll in bars for fun, you know, which gives me the time to relax and the time to unwind, etc. So, you know, what I will say to you is, first of all, people have to define success themselves. I have a younger brother who will never be economically as successful as his two older brothers, but his purpose is to help kids with special needs. That's his why. Okay? That's— so this is a man who was also in special classes as a kid before ADD was a big thing and everybody knew about it. He was— that's where he was diagnosed and they put him in special classes. Well, that guy, my hero, became the governor of an organization called the Optimist International, which helps kids with learning disabilities and kids with, you know, they call it the 3-2-1, you know, world. And he became the governor, a guy who never spoke in public, was doing speeches, was running conferences, was doing this. And with the support of his wife, who's also majorly engaged. So in my opinion, he's as successful or maybe more successful than either of his brothers who have— and he doesn't have a college degree. His brothers have advanced degrees. Me and my older brother, we've had success in business. We've had all of those larger successes. So it's really important for everybody to realize that Success doesn't get measured against what everybody else's definition is. Then there is the question of being an entrepreneur. Buying an existing business is a completely appropriate way to start an entrepreneurial journey.

I want to jump on that point right there. All right. On that point right there, because it's, it's, it's, I feel it's like a life hack that I've just discovered. I think it was a year and a half ago. So let me walk you through a quick story. So in 2019, I had finished my 6th, 7th year of being an employee, a business development manager at a publishing company selling demand generation, basically leads to oil and gas service companies who then wanted to penetrate EPC, EPC oil and exploration companies. So your Shells, your, um, all of those, all of the big names. And, um, after a few years of just figuring out that I'm putting all this effort in and I'm able to generate half a million to a million in revenue annually for this company here, and they're only paying me 10% of that revenue, and then they're going to— there's a huge amount of money that they're keeping themselves that I'm weighing up the odds, right, this doesn't add up. So I decided to, well, a situation happened where the head of marketing screwed up one of my campaigns. One of my clients called me. He told me, you're a liar, which I wasn't. I sold the database and the numbers on the database. Little did I know that the marketing team were actually having a team in India call up registrants of webinars and saying, hey, can you just register for the webinar? You don't have to watch it. We just want to sign your name up. And the guy knew some of the people. So when he called and said, oh, thanks for registering for my webinar, they were like, we don't know what you're talking about. So he called me and then I had an argument with the head of marketing. I said, you don't know what you're doing. I quit, went and started my own agency. Right now, fast forward 2 to 3 years into the agency service business. I started to seek investment. I wanted to raise capital, right? I wanted more revenue, I wanted to grow. And every time I met with an investor, they said, you've got a service business, this isn't scalable. You need more money, you need more profit. All these, all those typical objections that would come up or just really valid reasons to help you understand where you are and where you want to go. So I looked at the business and after some time I had a chat with my business partner. I said, hey, look, you can see how much it's costing to hire people is one, but before hiring to interview, recruit, and then go through the whole process. That's an absolute nightmare. Then managing them, then when they want more money, then all this other stuff comes into play and it just becomes like a complete nightmare. So only then is when I started to— actually, one of my buddies said, hey, go look at Roland Fraser. I don't know if you know who Roland Fraser is, but he does, uh, he does the same thing in, in sense of buying distressed companies and then flipping them and then taking cash flow and then obviously going. And I said, holy shit, this is, this is, this is so much quicker. You just go buy a company that the founder wants to get out or the CEOs want to exit and then go take that business, do some work on it, and then hopefully either sell it, grow it, or keep it. And I didn't realize that this was even possible. And again, leaving high school, now back a little bit all over the place. Hopefully you can still follow me, but in high school and then going into college and then going into the workforce, You never know this other realm of business acquisition until somebody tells you. You always think you have to start from scratch. All of the narrative online is telling you grind hard, work 15 hours a day. I figured out a way to do my entire job in a couple of hours a day. I figured out how to be a CEO of my own company and have the entire business— not gloating, but have the business run to a point where I could focus on helping people grow instead of actually being in the business.. And that was an amazing, amazing time in my life because now I'm at the same point. I've left my agency. I'm now working with an AI company. I want to help these guys grow from, let's say, $10 million to $100 million because I don't have that blueprint yet. I don't know how to do that. I've not been part of that type of company. And then again, after I finish and exit this company, I'd hope to do the same, but have enough capital to then start buying, acquiring, merging, and selling companies. So I'm, I'm really interested to know what kind of learnings were they giving decades ago when you were in school, in college, to know that business acquisition is an avenue to explore versus starting from scratch? Because starting from scratch is an absolute headfuck.

Well, so first of all, I'm going to just ignore the decades ago comment. Thank you for that. But let me tell you, that first company that we talked about. So I went to work for that Muzak business in Washington during law school. And he was acquiring his competitors. And so I was involved in acquisitions even before I graduated law school. And I watched him not buying underperforming companies, but I watched him essentially buy 90% market share for what was called functional music in the Washington, D.C. area. So I watched him do that. I was part of those transactions. Then I went to, you know, I became a lawyer and I was doing some transactional work and I then got into real estate law and as part of that was doing transactional work. So when I went to the company that won the pioneer preference from the FCC, I was actually a real estate manager. So we did, I wanna say probably 100 and I think we did 300 leases in 18 or 19 months. So 300 transactions for the— Wow. For the towers and for the antenna on top of buildings and things like that. So I was always involved in acquisitions. I was always involved in transactions. You know, I often say that I'm the slumdog of call centers. And I don't like to use the word millionaire, but I'm the slumdog of call centers because it was all of these little pieces that came together to allow me to do what I did. Remember, I started I started with data analysis in college. Then I was, so I learned about that. I then learned about the delivery of communication signals by radio, by phone line, and ultimately by satellite and the delivery of data. So through those while at Music, then I learned about wireless and wireless networking at the at what is now Sprint, which is a large US wireless.

Oh no, wait, are you serious?

We were a Pioneer preference winner and we sold to Sprint. And in fact, what was really interesting was that the original plan for our minority partner, which was Sprint, which were some big telecommunications companies, Sprint, Cox, Comcast, TCI, originally the the consortium that was our minority partner. And so I was originally— after we launched, I was supposed to go and be to Kansas City because the original plan was that cable partners were going to use this frequency, this wireless technology, to deliver home phone service. But instead, they figured out how to do it on the cable wires themselves. So all of the lawyers that they had hired to do all the lawyers that they had hired to do local service work, local government service work, all turned into real estate lawyers. And I had no job. That's why I went to the other side and moved up. And I was doing all these transactions, all these leases. We had become one of the largest property management firms in the wireless space. And then off we went to off we went. And when that company and I decided to part ways, which was code for that when the CEO was annoyed with me enough and he terminated my employment, or it's like one of my coworkers likes to say, you know, he pivoted to a new person. The, you know, that was when I committed myself to finding a business to buy because as we talked about, And this is something, you know, you talked about this and how your journey came. So I didn't want to buy and sell. I've been in the same company for 26 years. I fell in love. The core message center answering service business in both the UK and in the US is a great business. People tend to be much smaller. We then moved into COVID, was my friend too. COVID, we got a whole bunch of work and changed everything about the company. We were pushing 3,000 employees and it was a great time. And then because I enjoyed the size, we did 17 acquisitions in 24 months. But to go back to the point, the point being that I set my goals. So there's franchises where you, if you don't have, you talk about the learning and the education. In the US, most call it, many of the business schools have what are called small business development companies. Where they give education. I used to teach at the Small Business Development Corporation here for Wharton, for University of Pennsylvania Business School. And, you know, so I always joked I couldn't get into the school if I tried, but they let me teach there because once you have experience, you can start something new. So, so this is really important. You know, Shane, I don't know how old you are. You look in your mid-30s, mid- Yeah. So I'm going to tell you, let's fast forward 10 to 15 years. You're in your late 40s, early 50s. You're staring at university bills or college bills, and you've just been terminated from your company. And you're, you're, you're completely risk-averse because you have real requirements. So But what most people don't realize is it takes about 1 month for every $10,000 of salary that you want to achieve. And what happens is when you're a higher-paid employee, and that's one of the things that I tell people when you're thinking about business ownership, that you're not going to start because you have a problem the world needs to have solved. And I'm very active in the startup realm. There's the International Startup Festival happens every year in July in Montreal. If you've never been there, it's called startupfest.com. And I've been an investor judge in that business for, for a whole bunch of years. That's a great place if you want to be in the startup world, but I had a family. And so I had business acumen because I was lucky that I had a guy who taught me how to run a company. Then when I ultimately met that guy who sold me half of one of his companies, I had a mentor who taught me how to run a business. So I was very lucky in that realm. Now I could tell you how that partnership crashed and burned, but I'd rather tell you if the guy didn't believe in me originally, I wouldn't be where I am. Right.

So I One thing on that. One thing on that. What do you— So I had a business partner that I fell out with and I was really beyond.

Yeah, believe me, I thought the man loved me. He kept— even when we were in lawsuits with each other, he was telling me how much he loved me. So.

Yeah, right. May I say the exact same thing? Me and my— me and my ex-business partner, we went through it like he went through a divorce. He sold his house. He used the proceeds of the house to help start a business. Like I was in the same situation, just getting married. COVID was there, we both teamed up, and then it crashed and burned in a way where, put it this way, there was a number of mistakes on both sides. Visions changed, and then it got to a point of like, we just didn't see eye to eye, and it was better to part ways, which is absolutely fine. But one thing I, I, I do find that is interesting is the search or the identification of certain traits in somebody you believe in. So people want to look for the right people to follow. Definitely not people that you see online flashing all this bollocks all around. But if you could pinpoint one thing that drew your attention to either your co-founder, your business partner, or the man you looked up to, or any one of those mentors, what's one common denominator that you used across those profiles, across those individuals that you really looked up to, that you really admired, and that you thought, I can learn from this guy because of this? Or because he has this?

Well, wow, that's a, that's a big question. So, so I've been lucky to have a bunch of mentors in my life. All right. Starting with, starting really starting with the, with the senior partner that I reported up to in my first law firm. And he was smart. He was charming. He was everything I was— tall, good-looking, blond hair. Like he was everything I was. Um, and I watched him, I watched him maneuver clients in very difficult situations. And quite frankly, I, I, I considered him a friend and I still do. Uh, although we haven't spoken in many years, I, I consider him a friend. I, I, I think that to your point, I'm a very trusting guy. So I can't tell you what, what do I look for? I look for intelligence. I've always been attracted to people with great intelligence. In fact, I have a group of people in my life that I consider to be the smartest people on the planet. And I'm not always, I won't say emotionally connected, I'm not always able to communicate with them because I have a style and they have a style and people who are sometimes really, really intelligent and I don't, 'cause I have a filter problem, but that's neither here nor there. No, actually, yeah, then there's the shock saying, but, but what do I do? I look at people like this guy who was my original business partner, could look at a set of financials and understand them viscerally in an instant. Okay. He was that smart. He was, um, what I didn't see was that when he was an older guy, and I say he's an older guy. I'll be the age he was when I met him in 8 years, in 7 and a half years, right? Which really messes with my head. Okay. That's a line to act. Let me tell you. So, um, but you know, he understood he under— he had a, and I didn't know this at the time, he had an industrial psychologist on retainer because what he knew how to do was, and I want to choose my words carefully because when you say words like manipulate, Yeah, that has a negative connotation. What he had the ability to do was make you feel like you were being your best self while getting what he wanted. And what I think happened, and I'll never know, okay, he never told me why he blew us up, never, never. But my instincts were I was a little too independent. And a little too off the beaten path for him sometimes. And again, whatever it was, it caused it. But even in the middle of the rift, at a time where I was mad at him as I was at any other human being I'd ever been mad at, he's calling me up telling me how wonderful I am. Like the guy— and when many entrepreneurs, me included, have either a chip on our shoulder they feel, we feel like we have something to prove. We've come from nothing. You know, my father declared bankruptcy quite a few times as a kid. You know, we didn't, you know, I was telling one of my employees recently, I remember when I finally got my own room and I was in, you know, probably about 10 or 11 years old. You know, my first 10, 11 years, I shared a room first with my older brother when my younger brother was a baby. Then my older brother got his own room. My younger brother moved in, you know. So I remember those big milestones, but when you have that chip on your shoulder and you believe, you know, at some point he believed in me enough to sell me a company. Now, in hindsight, I later learned that he did that to screw with somebody else. Okay, he sold me that company because he had another partner who was partners with him in a bunch of businesses in my first company. They were the managers, not partners. And they basically tried to strong-arm him into selling him, selling them the company they were managing. And instead he cut their legs from under them and sold it to me. So, well, because he was an older guy, he didn't play golf, he didn't play cards, he didn't have real— his hobby was the game of business. So his hobby was moving the chess pieces around the board to keep him feeling alive. He had a group of people who surrounded him. And again, this is, I'm going to tell you, Shane, this is the first real conversation I've had on any kind of thing. So this was his life. This was what he did for, you know, for education. He maneuvered his life to— he was always talking to me about what he called the monthly report card, which is your monthly income statement, right? Every entrepreneur gets a report card every month, and that's your income statement.

I'm not doing it.

You will, you will. You know, I, I had the honor of interviewing, and if you go online, you can find it, I had the honor of interviewing John Sculley, the former CEO of Apple and Coke, the VP at Coke, and at the IT Expo a whole bunch of years ago. And what he said was, and this goes back to what you said, the best sign of an entrepreneur isn't how you do when things are good, it's how you recover. He said in this interview that it took him 10 years to get over getting fired from Apple. Um, right, right. Okay, now we're talking about, we're talking about CEO royalty, business royalty. This guy, you know, and it was interesting because what one of the tenors of that interview was, and I know we're all over the board, but I'm really enjoying the conversation, was there's no, there's no filters, no guidelines. What, what what we were talking about was that the real true measure of an entrepreneur is how you come up from the ashes. So that's a really important thing to most people. You can walk in, we all know the type, good hair, good chin, good resume, and they walk in and they take over a company and they do well. They do reasonably well or they don't. Okay, we all know that type, but it's when your company is struggling, like the current CEO of McDonald's turned that whole company around, right? Most people don't realize it, but the fast food industry got the crap kicked out of it here in the US, and this new CEO has maneuvered it all the way around. It is one of the big motivating things for guys like you and me. You know, so if you're dealing with a situation where you're not where you were, where you're not at the place you were, you know, one of the things for me was I'm much more of a security guy now. People who know me today think that's insane because that statement from the guy who did 17 acquisitions in 24 months. Okay. But I made a commitment to my employees. To reinvest profits in the company. And that's what I did. We took all the COVID profits and we reinvested it back into the company for growth and for, you know, to get back or stay where we were. So it was a promise I made because, you know, I'm at a point in my life where, while I may not have a lot of liquidity, I get to live an incredible life of happiness. I work with people I love. I'm surrounded by people who love me. I have a great family. You know, I have 5 kids, I like 4 of them. So that's a pretty good, you know, that works, you know. Um, and, and those are important functions, those are important things, you know, to all of us. And, and knowing that you're doing a CEO leadership podcast, okay, you know, I'm sure as well as anybody, the 4 stories that every CEO tells, right? There's your origin story, how I found it on the internet. There is your rise from the ashes. I had a fight with my partner and we, we, um, we split, ultimately split the company. And I, um, and I am now, and I tripled in size from the time we split the company. And I, I'm more than I'm almost double the size that I was when we split the company for the entire company, right? I needed to do that. Number 3 is how you build culture in your organization. And I'm an acolyte of Verne Harnish and Cameron Herald, who are 2 really strong thinkers. You know, Verne Harnish, who wrote Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, and Cameron Herald, who wrote Double Double. And I have the pleasure to know them both and respect them both. And then there is your customer stories, how you help customers, how when Deloitte won a big contract at the beginning of COVID with the state of California, we walked in and helped them staff that contract and were able to do that. So those are the stories. And a great CEO not only gets lucky and works hard and does what they do, but they also have the ability to tell the stories that people need to hear so that people will respect them. Because what's the old sales thing? People buy from people they like and people they trust. And if you can tell those 4 stories, that's how you build trust in yourself. And then you just have to convert it to your brand.

It's— you look, you hit the nail on the head. And one thing about this entire thing is the importance of a story. And if you watch the most famous podcasts, the most popular podcasts on the planet, no matter whether it's CEOs, CFOs, addicts, this person, jailhouse rehab, whatever the case may be, it's all a story. And it is very, very interesting how much or how many similarities there are across the guests that I've had from— again, we're talking companies that are single, single-owned, then you've got major big, big cats like yourself, but you guys all have this very smooth, free-flowing narrative. And I use the word decades— I can't believe I had to say two decades ago I finished high school.

I can't believe I even said that, right?

But it's so interesting just to see how many similarities there are with CEOs, their stories, the hardships I found. You know, one thing about this podcast that really, really helped me, I started it in the, in the midst of a separation, a massive separation I went through with my partner. I had a kid. It was an absolute nightmare. It went up in shambles. And the only thing that— the only thought that came into my head is how can I recover and bounce back from this? Because it was separation, broke up with my business partner. I fired my entire team because I didn't want to do it anymore. And it was what can I do? I felt like, all right, so here you could probably help me with this, but I came to a point where running the company, it came to a point where everybody was saying yes, and I didn't know if they were saying yes because they agreed with me or because they didn't want to lose their job. And I felt out of place at a point where it's nice to be at the top. I always wanted to be CEO, always wanted to be the boss. I always wanted to be the man. I always wanted to put CEO on my job title. But then it was quite lonely and I was really, really I think the only way to say it was it was quite lonely. And when I would seek just a little bit of solace or just a little bit of information, a little bit of guidance from some of my teammates, even my co-founder, I would never get that information that would say, oh, that's a new thought. That's quite interesting. And it came to that point where how can I actually excel or accelerate my knowledge base? How can I accelerate how fast I learn? And it was, let me go speak to people, let me go speak to people again. And it got to a point where first it was people I knew who are business owners at agencies, and then it became, how can I get bigger guests, bigger companies, bigger revenues? And the conversations elevate. So the conversation with you is massively elevated in this. And I think one point that I really want to touch upon, even though we've gone through a few things, is how do you maintain such a, a strong amount of speed to acquire 17? Or what is the trick to acquire 17 companies in 24 months, have that much speed, all the things that can go wrong, all the legal implications, all the compliance, all the regulations, all the 'I don't want this, I need this removed'? How does that all come into play of doing that right, fast, and in the correct—

First of all, I can't say I did them all right, but I can say we did them all quickly. So what I'll say to you is this, your brain, your decision-making ability is like any other muscle in your body. The more you do it, and in fact, that was something taught to me by the daughter of that first, my co-founder, right? So, you know, she was actually the owner. And that was something that I've taken with me from the very early stages of my business. The more you make fast decisions, the better you're at it, the better, you know, look, you know, you're not gonna, you know, you're not gonna see me run to the gym, but you certainly will see me do mind puzzles every morning when I start my day, right? So I wake up every day, I do the New York Times KenKen puzzle. It gets my mind working. It gets my mind, and I do all but the, what, the 8x8? Because that's gonna take me too long.. And I do that every morning. And, and, you know, to your point, where do you find— where does a CEO find out? And where does the CEO— so I'll tell you what happened. 2008, I bought a company that had a client that had a vendor meeting down in Florida, a vendor meeting down in Florida that I was invited to. And I went there and I met the president of the company and she and I Became immediate friends, and we met every month for 45 minutes to an hour every month since 2008 until she retired. Then we don't talk as much anymore, but we did that for many, many years. And her company was bigger than mine, and she and I became fast friends. We did that. For those people who are joiners, I'm not a joiner. There's things like Vistage and CEO groups and Inc. Magazine now has a CEO council and there are all of these organizations. My challenge with many of those, like there's YEO and I, when I, when I, we were 21st one year on the Inc. 500. Again, we're talking decades of stuff, but the reality is, is that I met the founders of YEO and I went to one meeting and the guys who were in that particular subgroup were just posers. Half of them had acquired the businesses they owned from their family and wouldn't know what it meant to make a payroll if it hit them in the head. So, but the point is you can find your education, your people. And then every year in January, I make it a point to go or do something which will require me to learn something new. So that's how I met John, and that's how I met Vern Harnish and Cameron Herold. My, my, my, my friend Betty Porter, which means nothing to anybody, but I wanted to give her a shout out anyway, funded a vision that I had to create an owner's education forum for the small business owners of the traditional message center telephone answering service business. And the idea was many of these people didn't have business degrees. They didn't, they went in different directions and they wound up in the family business. And I wanted them to learn from the best and the brightest. And my friend John had all of these relationships and that's really how I— you have to force yourself to learn, right? So there's an old saying, knowledge crowns those who seek her. But if you don't seek it, you— if you don't seek it, then you're SOL, right? You're— you're certain you're out of luck.

So 100%, 100% that my journey of any type of learnings when it came to the number one question was how do I generate more income? How do I generate more money? I was working as a pizza delivery guy, then moved on to other things. Those things didn't work out. And then I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, went through 3 or 4 of those series. Then I went to Stephen Covey. That really helped with my relationship at the point. And then I just went on and on and on. And it was a constant iteration of learnings because every company I was at, I don't know how the culture is at Ontonet, but every company that I went to, They were always just, here's the type of people that you want, we want you to speak to. Here's the type of companies, go out and call them. No script. No, nothing about how to cold call and then think about emotions. Nothing about tonality. Nothing about finding the problem. Being empathetic, charismatic, charming, being curious, vulnerable. None of these things were ever taught at any of these companies. Companies. So I had to learn them on the job and on the fly. And then it was only until I started my own agency, the first thing I said is— I'm pretty sure you're familiar with the Sandler training.

I had a friend who had a Sandler thing, but I wasn't part of it.

It's apparently what it was. It was a fantastic training. And even just something as simple as, um, I would sell demand generation webinars, and the first thing I would do is discount the entire package because I knew the product was garbage and I would discount it 50%. So the second they say, oh, it's $10,500, I wouldn't even wait for any type of reaction or anything. I just say it's 50%, $5,500. How about that? Would you take it? And it would still end up being no versus what's your budget? What kind of numbers are you thinking this will cost you? Right. And reversing that and letting them give you the type of answers that you're looking for. So approaching the top of the hour.

I was going to say, I have a hard stop coming up, but I didn't think this, this podcast would take us to Ted Lasso. Be curious. Well, you know, because I'm somebody who people have underestimated my whole career. So I, you know, I'm sitting there throwing darts with you.

Okay, so I love it. Well, look, like I said, I think the last thing that I want to touch on, we want— I want to speak to you about AI kind of. Some of the things you've learned along the way. What are the biggest kind of changes you've had to experience? How did you navigate through COVID? And now we're just— I think I'm— well, this is the thing. I think I'm going to have to message— I think I'm going to have to message your secretary and book another hour. But let's leave it on this. I think that will be another episode to touch on is operational excellence. How do you create those efficiencies? How do you reduce labor costs? How do you increase operational speed? These are the types of things I'm really, really interested in. But getting to know you, just a deep dive into who Gary Puddles is, is quite interesting. So I'm going to leave you on this. If you were to name or identify one consistent habit you would advise people to inherit to become successful, remain successful, or take their journey towards success, what is the one consistent, consistent habit you've lived by and you'd advise others to inherit to go on that journey towards success or remain successful?

And you can only say your goals. And don't let the pain and, and obstacles of reaching your goals get in the way of you reaching your goals. So if you want to be successful, you have to be a big goal setter. And then you have to ignore how hard it is to reach your goals. And do what— do the hard thing and reach your goals.

And now do it in one word.

Gritty. Gritty or hustle? Hustle. I often say there are a lot of people smarter than me, but nobody out-hustles me.

I love that. I absolutely love that. So, Gary, look, it has been an absolute, absolute pleasure speaking with you. I'm definitely going to get episode 2 on the way. I want to get it done. Well, let's see if you're going to listen to episode 1, but Oh, trust me, we've got— look, we've got what, in the past year, over 11,000 people. We've done, I think, 100,000 listens across YouTube and a few other platforms. Just starting too. So I can— what, again, the hustle behind it. I can't imagine what 5 years down the line is going to look like as long as I remain or keep my consistency. So look, any last words before we wrap up?

Having me, and I look forward to chatting with you again sometime.

Absolutely. Look, bye for now. Thank you again, Gary. You too.

Bye.