Lighting for Profits - Episode 146

This week on the show we welcome Neel Parekh who in 2013, amidst his corporate endeavors, chanced upon a Reddit post that ignited the inception of MaidThis - a groundbreaking cleaning service tailored for the digital era. Witnessing the constraints of traditional cleaning firms, Neel embarked on a quest to revolutionize the industry, introducing automated booking, online payments, and cutting-edge marketing strategies. As MaidThis progressed, they honed in on the burgeoning vacation rental market, leveraging technology for exponential growth. With their footprint expanding and operations refining, MaidThis emerged as a frontrunner in the cleaning domain. The journey solidified MaidThis' potential as a remotely managed venture, culminating in the 2020 launch of a franchise model - a new era of expansion and innovation.

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Lighting for profits. The number one landscape lighting show in the world. Oh, yeah. Welcome to lighting for profits. All Light. All Light. All Light. Powered by Emory Allen. Get rid of your excuses. Your number one source for all things, landscape lighting, that's where the magic can happen. Really scale a business. We really had to show up for each other from lighting design, install, sales and marketing. You're a scaredy cat salesman. We discuss everything you need to know to start and grow a successful landscape lighting business. What do you think a hippo has to do with your business?

Right? Usually it's some weird childhood thing, some bully kicks your butt. I think the key factor here is trust. Here is your host, Ryan Lee. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to the number one landscape lighting show in the world. Yes, we're claiming it and no one has fought us yet. So, uh yeah, we're still going strong and uh I'm excited to be here guys. I was just talking to our guest right before about how I usually mess up, mess up every show and uh literally I go to hit record and it's like some type of update thing flashes up or whatever and I'm like, yes, no cancel.

I don't know. I just hit a bunch of buttons and it still worked. But yeah, we're here. So uh I'm excited to be here guys. I love doing this show. Uh It's honestly something I look forward to every single week. And uh by the way, if you're looking to start or grow a landscape lighting business, you're definitely in the right place. And uh we are here to educate, to motivate and help you dominate. That is our purpose. And uh just want to help you guys out. So love talking shop, love talking about landscape lighting and of course, business.

I'm addicted to it. It's a real problem. And uh I'm excited to have our guest on we've got uh Neel, oh I forgot to ask Neel how to say his last name Parekh. Is that right? I don't know. He's gonna correct us say I did, OK. Uh But he is with uh made this, made this franchise and uh I'm so excited to have him on you guys. Um You know, they say to surround yourself with people like you're the average of the people you hang around with.

And if I could have five meals in my life, I'd be doing pretty good. So, um this is one you're gonna wanna definitely um sit back, relax and uh take some notes uh because this guy is doing things completely different than most other. Uh He's a visionary. He's a, um I don't even know if it's a word. I forgot to look it up. Revolutionary is, can someone be a revolutionary? I think he can because he's doing stuff that's like completely different and uh I'm just excited to have him on.

So make sure you stick around. We're gonna have him on in just a minute. And uh before we do, of course, I wanna thank uh Emery Allen as you know, performance matters, right? And uh this is a true performance for uh a true statement for a lot of things, including the kind of lighting you use. So don't sell yourself short with your customer by using budget level products. Emery Allen is at the top of their game when it comes to performance, take their va rating, for example, it's the lowest in the industry.

What does that even mean? Well, it means efficiency, which means you're gonna be able to put more lights on a transformer and save more money in the long run, right? Uh Emery Allen is a great company to work with the owners. They're family owned, it's just great, right? So make the switch today. It's a great time to do it. You won't be disappointed. Uh All you gotta do, by the way, if you want the hookup and most people want the hookup, just email Tom G at Emery allen.

com and get your discounted contractor pricing. Uh, get it set up just by emailing Tom G at Emery allen. com. By the way, don't go to their website. Some people go, wow, man, their product is a little bit more than I thought. Well, that's because you're not getting the hook up. Don't go to their website. Email Tom G at Emery allen. com. Mention. You heard about him here on lighting for profits and he will hook you up with that discounted contractor pricing. Uh Guys, by the way, did I forget if you want a free strategy session, you can meet with me or Jeffrey and this strategy session is amazing.

You'll walk away with clarity on what to do next in your business. It's a completely free thing. Just go to landscape lighting, secrets. com, by the way, check out my new website there. We've got a cool new website, but you can get a free case study there and then schedule an appointment to meet with one of us. And uh we promise that you'll walk away with a newfound clarity. If you want to find out about our coaching, we can go over that as well. But uh we definitely wanna make sure that we're adding value.

So if you're wondering like, what is the next step, what do I do in my business? Go check that out landscape lighting, secrets. com. So guys, it's time without further ado I want to get straight into our guest because he's got a lot of things to share and, uh he's opened up my eyes to a lot of different things and I'm just grateful to have his friendship. So if you're ready, let's get the music going so we can get our guest coming. There he is. There we go.

What is up? Thanks for being here, Neil, dude. I've never had walking music on a podcast. This is epic. Hold on. I feel like if I would have been ready for that, I could have done this. Yeah. You know, we try to go the extra mile here and if I would have just had that DJ air horn ready, that would have been epic. I should have keyed you up, just put the air horn signal. I know I need to do that because you're not the first person to say that we, you know, we try to do things different around here.

We want people to feel good and like, man, this is nil coming to the main stage coming up the walk up music about to hit one out of the park. Let's go. Let's go. Excited to be here, man. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Thanks a ton, man. I've uh and I, you know, I, I said kind of getting started. I really do look up to you. You've taught me a lot and uh some of it's just even just your mindset, right? But before we kind of jump into it, would you mind just introduce yourself real quick.

Like who is Neil? And how do you say your last name? Yeah, Neil Parek is my name. I kind of got it right. Ok. Although my seventh grade pe teacher always said parakeet, no matter what. So if you say that it's ok to parakeet. I like per say it again. Yeah. Ok. Yeah. Yeah, you're good. So, I run a company called Made This Franchise, which is a fully remote, uh, residential and airbnb Cleaning franchise in the US. Um, I originally started my home location in 2013. Uh, I used to work in private equity.

Did Zos for a couple of years and launched a cleaning company with the goal of traveling the world while running it, which is kind of counterintuitive because why would you start a local company to be able to do that? But I figured out how to do it and start Franchising it in mid 2020. And now we're at about 23 total territories in the US. That's freaking awesome. So, do you still have your original like location? Your, your main business still have it? I have a general manager in place over there.

Uh, I probably work on that location maybe five hours a week, five hours a week traveling the world. You figured out how to have a local service business and not be local. Yes. Exactly. On the counter intuitive way. I don't think I asked you, where is that main? Where is your your location. It's in Los Angeles. So my home base is Los Angeles. Um So I now have an apartment over here and now I've stopped full time nomad. And so I posted over here part time and kind of traveling part time.

You stopped full time nomad. Yeah, I traveled for seven years. Um kind of in and out but like a lot of just backpacking, traveling, things like that and pandemic hit and decided to kind of come back and settle up and I got an apartment, got furniture, got a lease, got, I got the whole shebang and you got married and I got married that that would do it. You have really transformed your life over the last few years. That's awesome, man. Well, so how many and how many houses have, have you personally cleaned?

Uh Sure, between zero and one, I'd probably say I, I'm not a good cleaner. I would get a terrible review if I was to do it myself. So, uh from day one, it was, I never cleaned, it was always outsourced from day one. This just like blows my mind because I, I come from this like background and mentality. That's like you, you do something in life doesn't matter what the thing is. In this case, it would be cleaning. Maybe you work for someone or you have this idea because you like cleaning toilets or something that you're gonna launch this business.

And I feel like like, I don't know what the percentage, but a high percentage of businesses are started because they're already good at the thing and then they launch it because they want to do their own thing. But you look at it from a completely different approach. It's like you didn't start a cleaning business because you like cleaning or you want to clean. Like, you just wanted a business that you could operate remotely. Yeah, that's exactly right. And it's, um, yeah, II, I started a lot of different things to try to have the end result.

So the end result in my mind is working the cubicle in the 9 to 5. I was in private equity. I desperately wanted to escape and I tried all the traditional things to go remote and that would be like e-commerce or drop shipping or marketing or whatever and every single thing flopped did not work at all. Really? Like, finally give, give me an idea like, what, what were some of the things that you tried to sell online? Did my first thing, like back then this was like over a decade ago, microblogs or a thing where you, like, you'd make a website, try to rank it and get some money from Google, adsense and stuff like that.

So, yeah. Right. Like everyone tried to, everyone kind of did. I tried like a vacuum micro blog and then tried to do drop shipping for it. I started looking at the Ecommerce like, you know, bringing things in from China and selling it online, all that kind of stuff and, like, it, it kind of worked but kind of didn't. And then finally I was just, like, frustrated and I was on Reddit at work Ryan. You ever go on Reddit? No, I, like, people have told me about it and I've clicked a link and it's like, go to Reddit or just stay on Google.

I'm like, just stay on Google. I don't even know. Yeah, it's, it's a good place to, like, procrastinate, waste time when you have a voice of God. So that's what I was doing. So I came across a post of a guy who started a cleaning company. I thought, look, let me just give this a shot. Everything else is not really working and it started to work and Ryan, you know, this in the local business space. The reason things work is that the competition just really doesn't know what they're doing, right?

Like, people don't know how to market. Most people don't even pick up their phones. They pick up the phone. They're like, oh, I'll call you back in like, two days. So the bar is very low. And once I kind of realized that while the bar is really low, I just got to pick up the phone. Then my mind started buzzing and the truth is right. I just had different constraints. Like, I physically couldn't go out and do the cleaning because I was at a job. So for me, it was just like that wasn't an option.

Therefore, I automatically went to, ok, what's the solution? Let me find somebody to do it. I, the first time I met them at a Starbucks just to vet them and hire them and then sent them out to the job. And how did you train them? Yeah, I just found people who experienced already and I thought, let's give this a shot and go ahead. Um, dude, I didn't know what I was doing at the beginning. I was like, they wanted to get paid. I'd be like, all right, come on my corporate building and I'd hand them cash in the car and, like, in my building could see me.

So they all thought I was a drug dealer, uh, all those rookie mistakes at the beginning. But kind of to your point, like I never did the cleaning because I couldn't. And, um, because of that, a lot of within those constraints, you kind of figure out solutions. Same as when I wanted to go travel because I wanted to eventually leave my job and go travel. I couldn't have an office, space, vehicles, raf and equipment. So I just had to figure out how to make it remote. So I think those life constraints that I, I wanted or was forced to have caused the way the business was formed.

I, I think it's, it's so crazy. Talking to you because in your mind that's just like, so natural. But I, and maybe, maybe for everyone else, but I feel like I'm like the average person and for the average person, they put the constraints on the wrong thing. It's like, well, I can't travel the world because I have this cleaning business and you're like, no, like what, why would you not travel the world like that? That is, that is happening. And because that's happening, if this, if this is going to be successful, what has to be true?

And you go about it just completely different, which I completely admire and it makes, it makes me rethink everything I'm doing. I'm like, why am I doing it? And, and you start questioning and putting those intentional constraints, even if you don't really have them, it really forces you to like come up with solutions that are abnormal that are better than most. So I don't, I don't know, like, how do you, that's just natural for you or like, where, where is this? Where does that come from? You know, I, I think I was always like, look back then I, I knew I wanted to quit my job and travel, right?

So for me, I had a goal in mind which is lifestyle driven. And when I, when I figured out like, ok, here's the go I know what I want to do and let me just find a way to get this done and like I thought it was gonna be temporary. I thought to leave my job and travel. I have some money coming in from my side business. If it flopped, I'll go back to my normal job. Right. I don't, I don't think I had this grand plan of, like, it's going to scale to seven figures.

I'm going to franchise it. Like it was none of that. It was just, I, my, my problem is I'm young and I want to go travel. How do I solve that? Let me make money on the side. That was kind of it. And I think since I had that one win, that's kind of then trained my brain to think. Ok, well, if it's possible based off these constraints, what else do I want out of my life? And why don't I put those pins down first and then I'm gonna map everything else out first.

So I guess it was kind of like the first thing I did along that vein worked. So it kind of gave me the confidence of like, let me just keep on mapping out my ideal life first. Then I'm gonna wrap my business around that as opposed to the other way and look, I don't, I, I do think, um, there's pros and cons of doing that, right. I, I do think if someone said, hey, Neil, what if you didn't travel? And you just stayed in L A and you worked with your business be bigger. Absolutely.

Like for sure. Like, you know, there's a lot of distractions and things and I didn't move as fast, but I think it kind of goes back to, what are you actually in business for? And for me, I'm in business to support my family, my lifestyle. That's what I want. It's not to get the max amount of profits and revenue as I can. That's not the reason I'm doing this. So I think once I started to get success with putting those pin downs and catering the business around it, I kind of found, well, I could still grow and have all the things in life I want and maybe it's not as fast as it would be as if I'm sacrificing everything, but it's still moving at the pace I feel comfortable with and that's OK. Uh And then do it long enough and all of a sudden you just keep on growing and it keeps working freaking.

It's no one's actually asked me that question. But I think that's kind of how it originated. I love it, dude. I love the way you break it down because even I find myself in, in, I don't know if you go through like different phases but like we all want, we all want money like as a business. Like I remember being younger, like it was like, if I could just make 103 grand, you know, and then when you make 100 grand, you want 200 like, it kind of never stopped. But money is just a means to an end.

Like you said, like, it's really just about lifestyle. Like, what, what are you gonna do when you get that money? Well, you wanna, you wanted to travel the world, you wanted that freedom to do what you wanted. And it's like, why not make that work if you, if you stayed home and stayed in LAL A and made $50 million cool. But you were working your ass off and you weren't enjoying that and you've, you've been able to do both. I mean, you don't have 50 million sitting in the bank yet.

But like you, you've built an awesome uh an awesome business of your own just that supported your lifestyle. But now you're Franchising it out and helping others live your same lifestyle, which is freaking amazing. Yeah. Thanks, man. And yeah, I think it's something I've realized that it's not a linear path and I still can, I still get my head around this. I'm trying to believe this internally as well, but I've realized it's not when I make a lot of money, then I will be able to enjoy life.

That's the old way. That's like, let me wait until I'm 65 and retire with my pension. Like, ok. Yeah, sure. You're gonna have arthritis, dude. Like it's not, it doesn't work like that, right? The whole generations proven that So I think a lot of times we're still stuck in the mentality of when I achieved this, then I could have this. I think the truth when it comes to entrepreneurship and business is you can do both. At the same time, you don't need to wait for one to be complete before you could do the other.

You could literally have a dope lifestyle and have profitable business at the same time. And there's certain constraints, right? Like if you're trying to do that from day one, ok, maybe you got to put a little bit of sweat equity into it, but it's not like you have to wait till you exit or wait till you're fully systemized because the truth is unfortunately, the goalpost always moves as well, right? Like when I make $100,000 I'm gonna feel financially secure. When you do that. Guess what? You're gonna want 200 grand, you're gonna want 250 you're gonna want 33 it keeps on going.

Um But yeah, that's, that's kind of like the ethos of why I started and made this as well. I think a lot of people want to have the best of both worlds and I think my ethos is you can have it if you pick the right business model and if you approach it in the correct way and you, and if you have realistic expectations about what you want out of life as well as money uh, I think there's a lot of ways of achieving it and that's what we set up and made this for the franchisees.

That's amazing. I, I wanna try to pick your brain a little bit because I think a lot of people struggle being there. Like, even if they're there at their location, like any home service business, uh is they struggle with and then you're able to dominate and you're not even there. Uh How did, how long did it take you to, to, I guess, get your first location that you were doing for yourself there in L A? Like how long did that take to get off the ground and have enough money coming in to where you felt like?

Cool. This is a business that can operate without me there all the time. Yeah, I think in hindsight, it kind of comes back to what is your freedom number now, a freedom number is kind of for me to find is what is the amount of money I could have coming in that's going to cover all of my base level bills. And, you know, my approach is a little bit different because I was never truly boots on the ground. Always. I was doing stuff for every weekend. I'd go out to meet cleaners to interview them to on board them, maybe check a house or two things like that.

But we got to around as soon as a side house. So I think we got to around 30,000 per month in revenue. And dude, I didn't know what I was doing. Our gross margins were out of whack. I think I was probably pulling in 3000 a month for like 10% profit before paying myself even. So, like, just terrible business model in terms of how I was setting it up because I didn't know what I was doing. But that number was in my mind, like, cool, that's enough to pay my bills if I quit my job.

And that's when I decided to quit. And I already knew the pin in my life was like, I wanna go travel, like I will figure out what happens, but I want to go travel. So I booked a one day flight down to South America when I was there. I was like, ok, well, I can't interview people anymore. How do I solve this problem? And it's like, well, what if I just pay someone to interview someone? So I found someone kind of give them some virtual training. They would start to meet people live and it wasn't as easy as it when I was doing it, but it worked kind of worked, it worked 80% of the amount I did it.

And I kind of figured out like I could just keep on outsourcing and if it's 80% as good as I could do it, that's ok. So the next hire after that was something to help manage sales because phone calls were coming to me and I can still take a phone call from Colombia. However, sometimes the connection was bad. Sometimes I was out and about doing stuff. So then I found a remote team member in South Africa and South Africans have really cool accents. It's kind of like British sounding accent.

So I realized, oh, this guy is actually better than me at doing this and he was part of the Jehovah Witness community in South Africa. So really good at sales and stuff like that. Uh So I was like, oh, that kind of worked out. Let me just got all the calls to route over to that person for phone sales and it just started compounding from there. Like every time I had a problem which required me to be in person, I just say I'm not going to be there in person either.

I just don't go after that market or I'll hire someone to do it. Gosh, I freaking love it. II I told you this the other day that if I would have met you five years ago. Yeah, actually about five years ago because that was when I was selling my business and like, OK, what am I gonna do now? I would have not started my coaching business. I would have just joined your program, which you didn't have the program then. But if you did have the program available, I would have just joined that and done the lifestyle business because it's, it's freaking epic, man.

I, it's crazy. Like, I love how you think you, you just put these constraints. Like, if, if I want to be able to travel and be gone. Well, it would have to be true. Well, I'd have to have somebody there. I'd have to delegate it. I have to. And like, none of us do that. I'm telling you, like, 99% of the entrepreneurs don't do that. We just do the work that we think we have to do. Like, well, if I'm not there, like, who's gonna do it? I gotta be there.

I gotta do the interviews. So I can't be in South America and it's like, you're like, no, I'm in South America. I can't do the interview. I just, it's so genius. I freaking love it. Um, but I'm, I'm definitely taking this video clip and putting on a made this franchise website, like Ryan Lee five years ago would have bought into, made this franchise. Exactly. And I'm not saying, I mean, I'm so focused right now on what I'm doing and by the way, I love what I'm doing.

And so, you know, I think life happens for a reason and stuff like that. And so, like, who knows? Maybe I wouldn't have loved it as much as I thought. But, and the grass is always greener and all that stuff. So I love what I'm doing. But once I, if I, if I get, if I get this business on cruise control, because I'm so focused on it, there's a lot of stuff that I still want to accomplish in it. Then it's like, why would I not just still sign up for his program and have like, multiple franchises with them?

Like, I don't know why I'm not doing that now. It only takes five hours a week. Ryan. I'm curious that I'm gonna, I'm gonna flip it on you and I talked about the life pins of what you do and then you build a business around those constraints. I'm curious what that would be for you. Mine is um man, we, we, we don't homeschool our kids and so our kids have this constraint of school and we've talked like my son is like, heck yeah, he's ready. He's like he's asking like, can you homeschool me mom?

Like he, he hates school the other, the other girls. They, they have like, you know, friends and, and they, it's like we're like too late. We've already committed to that. So I don't think as much as I would love to travel. I don't think that's a realistic constraint, at least right now. But for me, my goal is to work 10 to 2:43 a.m. to 2 p.m. I like working. I'm addicted to it, but I don't want to feel like, oh man, I, I've got a little bit of open time on Friday let me squeeze that person in, you know, like I, I definitely grind way more than I should.

And, uh, that's for me is like the constraint that I want it. Like, no, I'm only available Monday through Thursday. 10 to 2. Yeah. Yeah, I hear you. And one of the wealthiest people I've ever met, I think he's a good friend's uncle that actually met life. Probably worth easily 50 60 million. He's never worked past 3 p.m. since he got into business. Never. That's, that's his constraint. Uh, you know, travel, do anything like that and he probably get up pretty early. But his constraints, my kids are off at three.

I don't want to work past three. I'm not going to and he's still able to build, you know, a lot of wealth. Now, could you move faster if you work later? Probably. But again, his constraint was like, I don't really care. I'm just gonna stop at three and I thought that's really cool. I'm not quite there yet. My calendar is still like booked up to the max and I'm trying to get a better handle on this. Uh But it's, it's aspirational for me. I think, I think that's a, it's a good constraint ending by a certain time.

Well, iii I, I've questioned myself this after meeting you and then I'm doing it now. Like, why don't I just do that now? Like, why don't I just say that's my schedule? Like, because it's so true. Like we, we, someone told us that we have seven days in a week. Like someone came up with the calendar and then someone told us that we work Monday through Friday and we get weekends off. Like this is all just made up fantasy stuff. Like we can make our own rules and you've done that, you made your own schedule, you made your own constraints.

And I'm like, why, why am I? I'm such a slow learner. It's like I know what I can do. If, if, if, if you gave the average entrepreneur eight days a week, they would work eight, like they're gonna fill the time that's given to them. And I tell myself, well, I'm, I've, I've got this much time, but if I told myself I only had four hours a day for four days a week, I think I could probably get everything done. Like, why am I not doing it?

Yeah, I wonder how much more productive we would be within those hours as well, right? We probably say, look, our best time is spent on content production and your podcast, maybe sales, maybe coaching and everything else. It's got to go, it doesn't fit in there. It's, and it's crazy because I'm going through this phase right now where I, I canceled an event. I, I mean, I'm, I'm trying to turn a lot of this stuff off to get more focus in that. And I'm, I'm just like thinking out loud because you asked me that.

I'm like, I wonder if I should just put more constraints on it because it really is the way, it's just hard to, like, accept. That's the hard part. Especially when the calendar's already exploded, raining it back in it. It's tough. But I do like it. I mean, the book I read, um, one of the books I read most recently is 10 X is easier than two X and it doesn't speak in the same language that we're using, like, with constraints and things like that. But it does basically say, like, if you wanna like, double what you're doing, like, just change 20%.

Like you're, if, if you have 8020 just change 103% and you'll do better. Like, that's kind of obvious, you know. But if you wanna like 10 X, you have to change 80% of what you're doing and most of it's gotta go and if you really wanted to, like, it's the same, same type of constraint. Like if you wanted to do, if you, let's say you're doing a million dollars this year and you want to do 10 million next year, what would have to be true. Well, certain things you couldn't do and certain things you'd have to do, you'd have to get this and this and this and that's the, that's the way.

But if you wanted to go from a million to like, you know, 2 million, like, there's a lot of different ways to get there. And so you end up wasting your time and energy on a lot of different things. Whereas the 10 X route is, like, there's really only like, one or two ways to do that. You'd have to have this, you'd have to have this, you'd have to have a solid marketing plan. You'd have to have a big sale, you know, stuff like that. So, it, it, it reminds me of your philosophy and your ethos of like, yeah, just put constraints on it.

And like if it was, if it was, if you only were available from 10 to 2, what would have to be true? Yeah, that, I think that's a great way of saying what would have to be true if this constraint existed and then just plan around that. Damn it. I hate having to change Neil. Why is this about me? This is supposed to be about you? Um, ok, so let's do this, let's talk about what you've done now because you, you proved it on your own. Um, you traveled, how many countries have you been to?

Is around 55? 55? That's cool. I don't think I've seen 1003 cities. So, um, you've been to 55 countries, which is freaking amazing. I love it. Um, you, you really have made your own rules, like you just said, screw it. There's no schedule, there's no week, there's no day like, um, but now you're teaching others to do it and it's called Made This. Right. Yeah, I made this franchise. Tell us a little bit about that program. Yeah. So it's pretty much copy and pasting what I've done in Los Angeles into different cities. Right.

So, it's a, it's kind of a franchise in the traditional realm. But what's unique about us is the way I created my business is low cost, low overhead, low equipment able to run it remotely. And that's why a lot of people are buying in because you don't need vehicles and wraps. You don't need a ton of cap acts and take on a lot of risk. You don't need to get like massive bank loans. It's kind of like run in a lean way. We use global talent to help service that local location and just dominate the local competition.

So we figured out how to kind of crack the code in L A been running that for like 10 years. So we focus on residential and Air BNB and we're the only Air BNB cleaning franchise which exists funny enough. So first and only so just expanding and a lot of people who want to get in are um some people are second time entrepreneurs, but a lot of them are first time entrepreneurs. People who want to get into the game, want to do it in the dearest way, don't want to invest a crazy amount of money into it.

Uh, and so we do allow people to keep their day job for a bit just like I did before going full time as well. Um, so it's pretty much how do you start what I call a remote local business, a local business you could run remotely. That's the model. That's what we do, remote local business and it's just amazing. So, how do you get, like, you, you, you set these people up, you have the blueprint. Let's talk about some of the, the questions that come up. I'm sure.

Well, what are some of the questions that these franchise s are like asking you? How do I get customers? How do I get cleaners? That's probably the most common. Um Yeah, let me answer that one. I think on customers and Ryan, you know, this like every city varies. Um And the tactics vary depending on what's going on with Google algorithm and stuff every any given year, like three years ago for cleaning companies, Google LS A crushed it. You could just flip on Google LS A get a bunch of leads and that's it nowadays, it's different nowadays.

I see community marketing working a lot better. So I'd say for marketing and how to get customers, it's kind of a combo of digital marketing and community marketing. Community marketing means like uh door hangers offline marketing kind of, that's what it is and we kind of teach both. So we have a lot of like sops of how to run digital marketing vendors who do it for you. We have all the playbooks for like one click buy for all the marketing cloud you need for uh offline marketing as well.

So it depends on the market and it depends on what you actually like doing. But that's kind of the combo. We use both digital as well as I find marketing to actually find customers in the area. Very cool. So you get customers, you get, you get, you get a lead, uh who and then they're not answering the phone. So who's answering the phones? So we help all our franchisees remote, uh recruit a remote team member, someone from around the world. Um So my team, for example, in L A, we have, I think three team members in Venezuela, two from Honduras, one from South Africa and my counting from India.

So everyone's global. Like every country you go to, you're like, I got to hire somebody, I got to write the trip again. That's great. So, so Ryan, let's pretend you signed up. Uh and we have a franchise in Salt Lake City by the way. So, you know, somewhat close to you. Uh But let's say you signed up and you're in Lehigh, I think. Right? Cool. So you'd probably not want to pick up the phone calls yourself. You learn how to do it in the first month or two.

Then you finally say like, let me just give this to somebody else to do. I got more important things to do. We'll help you hire someone globally. That person probably cost between 900 to like 1400 full time for that person. And that person is going to pick up the phone per month, full time. Uh, which is a fantastic salary in most of these countries. That's like 23 times about the average salary in most of these countries. So you're, you're, it's not costing you a lot in overhead, but you're also blessing someone's life by giving them a great job.

And look, if you think about it this way and I didn't even think about this, but like a place like Venezuela, their inflation is insane through the roof every day, every month. It's really, really hard to buy groceries over there. Now, when you go to these people and you pay them in US dollars, a very stable currency, relatively. It's beautiful. Like you, you're helping them out a ton, uh they're helping you out, they're really bought in because they really want to make this work as well. And the truth is a lot of things we're doing right now can be done virtually.

You and I are talking at a computer. I could be anywhere, you and I are talking a phone, I could be anywhere. Why does someone need to be in the US to do this kind of stuff? Unless you're doing a lot of in-person estimates now for our job types, it's cleaning, you know, our average tickets, 202 50 maybe going up to like 700. All of this could be done on phone calls. No one really needs you to come out in person anymore. So anything which can be done on the phone, there's almost no need to have someone in the US and do it.

It makes no sense. Um, so let's say you had made this location, Leigh hire someone in South Africa. That person calls your number, it routes there. They pick up the call through the phone script that we teach them. Put the booking in the system, boom, that's set up for you. And then you on your end would be recruiting cleaners. And then on the online portal, you simply match the cleaners to the customers and that's it. Love it. Then do you guys help with the hiring of the cleaners?

So we have all of the automations and funnels for franchisees. The franchisee would still need to like that. The cleaner because they don't know if they actually like them or not. Uh But we have the job descriptions, all the Trello automations funnels, send out the documents, all that kind of stuff set up nice. And this is the local part of the remote, local business. The local part is the labor. That's the beat on the ground. That's the part you can't take out of country yet. Well, I loved it, we were, uh, I guess it was a couple of weeks ago we were together in Texas and you were asking me questions about my business and you're like, so where's your, your sales guy is?

Uh, I can't remember how it came up. We were talking and, and you go, oh, so he's, he's from here and I'm like, oh, no, he's not from here. He's in, uh, Tennessee. And you're like, no, but he's from here, like the United States. And I'm like, well, yeah, but that's in Tennessee, not Texas. And, like, your, your mentality is just like, why would you hire someone in America? Like that doesn't even make sense. And I'm just like, gosh, that's such a good question. Like, I don't know, it's because I have a small mind and I don't think big.

So, um, I think it's just, it's just the way it's been done, right? Like you, you do what you're exposed to and I just happened to be exposed to, like, I didn't come up with global talent. I just happened to be exposed to that when I was starting my business. Um, so, yeah, that's what I gravitated towards. That's so cool. Yeah, I mean, I think everybody just, you don't know what you don't know. And, and then when you're given that opportunity, given that, that knowledge, that information, it's like, what are you going to do with it?

Right. And that's the phase I'm in, I'm like, ok, I got, I gotta kind of change my philosophies here and my thought process because I, some of these things, I just, you just don't know what you don't know. Um, so you, you help them get it started and then what do they got to do as, like the, the owner, how, how much time and effort is required to, to manage this thing? Yeah. Well. Right. It's kind of like, uh, what you probably always hear is like if someone says, how much time do I have to devote to this in the beginning to get it growing fast?

And the answer is always going to be, well, the more time you put in at the beginning, the faster it's gonna grow. And that's totally true over here as well. This is not a passive business. Um, so I always say you need a minimum of 20 hours a week to get it going and look over time. Um, you can automate it and, um, get it to a certain point where leads are coming in. Naturally, sales are happening without you. You just manage the managers. And at that point, you could work with five hours a week if you, like, just like, I've been doing for a while, but at the beginning, I'd probably say minimum of 0003 hours a week and most of that time is spent on, um, kind of the chicken and egg problem.

You have cleaners, you don't have customers you have customers, you don't have cleaners, how do you grow? Uh When you get customers you're like, hey, this is not from a reliable source. Let me just try to find another marketing avenue, another marketing lever. It's a lot of experimentation which the owners are going to do better than anyone. But once you get to a kind of a stable point, um then you could start to put control systems and automations in the place where you don't actually have to be there.

Yeah, I think, uh unfortunately, and I'm, I'm probably guilty of this too, but like most people have a higher expectation of like how easy it is to start a business. And of course, you know, if you get with your support and stuff like that, it's gonna be 10 times easier, but it still takes time, it still takes effort. And like you start a brand, let's say you start a brand new landscape lighting business, cleaning business doesn't matter. You don't have the luxury of repeat business yet. You don't have the luxury of momentum that you start to get in years, 234 and five.

And most people don't make it that far. And so they quit and give their hands up. It's like, man, if you can push through that pain and, and work those 20 to 40 hours, whatever, like it takes time, there's not really a get rich quick scheme out there. I mean, if it is it's a scheme, you know. And uh man, I just see so many businesses struggle with that. I'm like, man, get to that point where you know, you put in the time you put in the effort, years four and five are awesome, man, especially in uh landscape lighting where like maybe you did their front yard and then two years later they did their backyard.

OK. That's repeat. But then what happens is these people get richer, the rich always get richer. And so they get a promotion at work, they start another business, they sell a business and they go from a 5000 square foot house to a 10,000 square foot house. And now instead of doing a $10,000 lighting project, it's a $453,000 lighting project that you had because you put in the time, you know, and a lot of people just don't, they're not willing to do that. Unfortunately, you know, they just expect it to be a lot easier.

So, and I wonder how much of a problem is it from like just social media expectations? We get rich quick of like I started my cleaning company and I make 10,000 a month and it's been two months like unrealistic. And if, if, if that's the case, it's not sustainable, but you're totally right. And the way I always describe it, um, there's the grind phase where you're trying to figure out the chicken to neck problem. Do you have enough cleaners, do you have enough customers? And in lighting, it's probably like different thresholds.

But for us it's like 0 to 10,000 per month grind phase. Right. Then there's another gap what I call no man's land phase. That's usually like 10,000 to maybe like 20 013,000 per month in revenue. That's where you're like, hey, things are kind of stable, but I don't feel like I'm making that much money yet, like what's going on? And I feel like I just worked for a year. Why am I not seeing the fruits of this yet? And that's the hardest phase. That's where most people stop. And that's because, you know, you have fixed costs and your revenue hasn't quite caught up to it yet.

But once you get past that hurdle, that's probably when your Google reviews are doing well. When you have repeat business. When you have enough money to be able to pay yourself a little bit, you'll be able to hire better uh team members, then it starts clicking, right. But like you said, man, that might take 18 months. That might take two years. And it really depends on how much time you put in at the beginning, which is how much yield you're gonna have as fast or slower. So, yeah, man, you, you said it, well, just people don't want to wait.

Uh And that's the tough part. I know it is tough and you know, it, it's like if I go to a video most of the like, online or whatever, I'm usually not going to be like, share like this depressing video. Like, man, being an entrepreneur sucks, whatever. Like, because I, I don't, I don't like, what's that gonna do is that gonna help someone? You know, I don't like to complain. I like to give solutions and stuff like that. So hopefully people don't take it the wrong way that like life is easy and like, oh man, everything you do just works.

It's like it works. But there's like 90% of the stuff you didn't see that didn't work. You talked about businesses that you started uh trying to make money remotely and you know, we all have these failures that happen that help us help guide us to actually what does work. So uh we have uh one of our coaches, Dan Plata, he talks about the purgatories of scaling is what he calls it. And I remember getting to that point where we, we were doing just a little over a million a year in revenue.

And I was like, why am I making less money right now? Like what's happening? Like this was the goal it was to get to that million dollars. And we were like 23 and it was like, well, that's because we just paid everyone to do all this stuff and it was cool because I didn't have to do as much work, but also I didn't have as much money. And so then we had, we noticed that gap, you know, from about, from about a million to 24 that is all like profit.

When you get to the higher end of it, at the low end, you're not making that much money because you're so invested in the, in the actual overhead in the machine. But that's why you gotta figure out what those levels are. So, it's true. You've, you gotta kind of, I don't know. And I haven't found for a lighting company that there's exact numbers because it depends on how many people they have on their team. And if they've got a salesperson in South Africa or one in Tennessee, you know, uh, it depends on their overhead.

Yeah, it's, I, I found that, um, from my own business where 210 we did really well, we got to 2100 million in revenue but our margins were awful. I, I wasn't making nearly as much and there's way more headache than when we were at like 2000 245 which is crazy. Um, so we actually then COVID hit downsized a little bit and now we're kind of hovering between that from my L A location alone, one point to 203 just on any given year. So much easier. Like, I almost don't, unless there's a, maybe I've learned a lot more but to get to two, you're investing in a whole another set of internal team members, a whole another set of processes.

Like there's just a lot that goes into it to get to the next level. So some, at some point, like for us, if you do that, you might as well go for 220 or three because you're not making that much money at two because you almost make an equal amount as you're making like 22016. So why are you investing in all those extra people? So, yeah, it's, it's, it's very interesting how those, there's different staircases. I agree. And I'm sure different industries are different revenue numbers because like in the landscape lighting world for us, what I found the happy place was, was, it's like if you just have one install team and one salesperson and one office person, it feels good at first because again, you're not doing everything.

But then if the office manager wants to take two weeks off, like who's answering the phones? It was like, well, I was or the salesperson quits who's doing the sales, I was the install team doesn't show up like I was right. So I found that if you went the next level up where you get redundancy and you have two sales people, one it, they, they kind of compete against each other and they know that it's like we had some people that like even in the office, they would get attitude of like what are you gonna do?

Fire me? And you're kind of like, probably not, like, I don't know what I would do, you know? But when there's two people like that, those attitudes go out, you know, and, and everyone knows that they're replaceable, including yourself type thing. So there are those happy places in business where it can get pretty easy, you know? And it, and it doesn't have to be that hard. The hardest part is that phase you mentioned right after the honeymoon phase, like after you start making some money and it feels good, then it's like it gets to that grind.

And if, if people can get through that there is that like happy place where you can decide to kind of stay a little while or you can scale up to the next level. Yeah, definitely. We have a, a franchisee. Um our first one, Denver, they started in mid 2300 the first like COVID and everything. It was very slow rolling and they kind of just stuck with it. Like, didn't do crazy numbers. Year one, not even crazy numbers, year two, but year three, they have 100 Google reviews. Sco starts hitting repeat customers, start hitting hockey stick growth, scaled up massively.

Now they're going to expand over to Austin because now they know like, yeah, I understand. It's like one or two years of not much, but then it comes, it's just an investment period, but that's the hardest part to know when you're in the thick of it and you need that outcome fast is how do you get that? How do you get that return as fast as possible? And for some people like the Denver franchisees, they both work full time. This is not the main thing they're doing, but they're still growing well and they understood that it would be slower because they're not investing as much time into place.

I do think people could probably get to that payoff period faster if they just devoted a lot of time at the beginning to hustle and the right type of hustle. And that's one we like maybe your constraints, like you can't have, you can't go to Colombia in your first six months. Right? Because you're like, hey, look, I'm, I'm just gonna put this over here and I'm gonna focus on it for six months and then I'll go afterwards. Right? Uh I think a lot of people maybe stick to that for way too long.

They're like, well, let me grind for 23 years, four years, five years and then I'll enjoy it. That's where it's like, ok, I like maybe you're not being efficient with your time. Maybe there's, there's a higher value stuff you could be doing for your time to be able to condense those years of work of hard work into a smaller time frame. Well, said, yeah, I like that. So when you guys are, you know, you've got how many locations now? We have 20 franchisees in a total of 23 territories? 23 locations?

Man. That's so cool. Congrats so far. I mean, I know you've got bigger plans but um most people don't make it as far as you've made it. So that's freaking awesome. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Who, who is kind of your ideal client avatar? Is it somebody that has, you know, never, they've never had experience as an entrepreneur or they have a corporate job or would you prefer some experience like who's, who's your ideal? I'll be honest, it's a little bit of a mix. But oftentimes people who are not, don't have too much business experience are kind of our ideal fit, right?

Because we have a ton of training systems, protocols, ways of thinking. So it's kind of like some of the blank canvas just pushing straight through it. I think that's incredible. And we often oftentimes see those people grow fast, I think a number one characteristic would be someone who has the time capacity at the beginning, right? And it's always tough, especially if you're working another job and you're like, hey, I have a handful of hours to devote to this. You might not hit that freedom number fast enough or you get to like write what you and I were talking about where you're no man's land phase for way too long.

It's demotivating things like that. So, ideal candidate would be someone who maybe has some business experience but not, doesn't necessarily need to have too much um who wants that time and location freedom and wants to build their schedule around uh schedule first business second and probably has the um the time capacity to invest in the business and is willing to do in person sales if needed. Sometimes we see the fastest growth happening by someone picking up the phone and doing a cold call to a property manager or going to an apartment complex in person.

They're saying, hey, I just want to drop off this candy, right? Things like that. It for some people like Ryan, I'm, I'm sure you're gonna feel comfortable doing that for some people. It's really scary to do. But those are things which kind of move the needle really fast. So as long as someone is willing to do kind of some in person stuff and has the time capacity, uh it, it'll work for almost everyone. All right, I got the time and I got the ability. Send me the link.

There we go. No, I got, I gotta stay focused. What am I doing? Where's my therapist? Oh jeez, I'm falling off the wagon. What are we doing? Why did we mastermind two weeks ago. Uh Let's talk about maybe some of the struggles like, is there, is there something that you struggled with in the past that you feel like you conquered or anything you're going through now where you're just like, man, this is, this is the hard part of being an entrepreneur. It's kind of, I guess a couple things that come to mind.

One of them is where kind of what you're alluding to is like, it's hard number one not to get shiny object syndrome. Like I see someone with a business model, like that's a better business model. I want to do that. Like that seems so much easier. Let me just do that like, wow, that's quick cash. Let me do that. And like Ryan, it's, you can only see it externally, right? Like, for example, you're telling me about your podcasting. I'm like, dude, I should be focused on that or like it's, there's, it's constantly there, right?

And there's like the comparison game and I don't think it's novel to entrepreneurship. That's just like human nature, but it's really tough not to play the comparison game in entrepreneurship because people post stuff on social media all the time. You're gonna get targeted with that, you're gonna see it. Uh You meet a lot of other entrepreneurs and it's just, it's really tough not to fall into that trap. So I constantly battle with that. Um One thing I've done, which I don't think this is the best solution, but so far for me is instead of me like mulling over a business idea, I'm going to do, I just throw it on like a note and I'll, I have a calendar reminder saying I'm allowed to check this once a quarter at the end of the quarter, I could look through all the business opportunities I've looked at and decide.

Is this something I actually want to do most of the time I end up like being like, oh, no, that was like, it was a good high when I learned about it, but like, I'm not actually doing this anymore. It kind of lets me cool down on it. Like, in the moment you would have said yes in a heartbeat. Now it's sat for a quarter and you're like, I don't even care about that. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. There's still some things where, like, I forget to put it in there and like, I spend a day being like, hey, I'm going to start this newsletter for like this thing because I heard someone do it.

So I don't know, we'll see how that goes, but I probably struggle with that. The most is Shiny object syndrome. Uh The second one would be just managing team members. Um For me, it's something I'm trying to get a lot better at in terms of like, how to be a leader, how to be CEO, how to hold one on one meetings, how to motivate team members. Um Something where I don't know if that's my forte. Exactly. But something I definitely want to get better at. Yeah. Thanks for sharing, man.

Those both of those are really good. The, uh, you know, the shiny object I didn't realize, I thought I had, like, conquered that. But I find, I find myself having shiny object within my business. It's like there's so many, there's so many good options I could do to, like, offer value to the marketplace, get, get money, get clients. And I was like, II, I got side, what do you call it? Side? Blindsided. Yeah, I got blindsided with that blindsided. I don't know, I got hit, sidetracked something, whatever the word is.

And I was like, wait, I've, I've been chasing shiny object within my own business model. You know, I thought, like, I thought that meant like me starting a maid service business or whatever. It's like, no, no, it, it could happen within your business too. So, um, that's a great point that you shared and I like the idea. Just write it down on a list and let it cool off. If in three months it's still a hot thing, then maybe it's worth doing. But most of the time they, it never is, like by then the world's changed and you're like, I can't believe I was thinking that was cool.

It kind of reminds me when you say that, like, I wonder what things I'm doing in my business which are shiny object related or not really moving the needle. And it makes me want to read that book 10 X is better than two X which I keep hearing about but I feel like I would clarify if it's not something you can 20163 X your business with. I'm guessing that's the premise of it. Don't do it then just get rid of it. Yeah. No, you, you would love it. It's, it's right up your alley.

Um I'm not saying I've mastered it clearly. I haven't but uh it's helped change my trajectory. And, uh, you know, I, I shared at our, at our meeting is like my shawny object was like getting invited to go speak at events or even do my own events and stuff like that. And again, these are all like really good things. You know, there are things that like doubled my business and they, they would continue to double, like most people would like kill for these things like they're, they're really good things.

But I know the potential. I know what that it's not a 10 X activity. And so now it's me going, ok, you're a slow learner, Ryan, you can do this, just say no, just say no. If it's not a 10 X activity, you don't need to do it. So, um easier said than done for sure. How do you consider you getting on people's podcasts instead? Because that's also kind of like a speaking gig. You're still to me that is a 10 X activity. Me, me going and flying to another location and spending 3 to 4 days there to speak once or twice.

And even if I landed a few clients, again, that's good. Like that, that would be a good activity, but it's not a 10 X activity. Me going on uh a Landscapers podcast who has 100,000 followers of people that potentially might want to add lighting on to their business to me. And again, I haven't done that yet, but like, I don't have to leave my house. I can do it in 45 minutes sitting right here. Uh, why would I, why would I not do that? It's such a better use of my time.

And I've even had, I've had, I've had invites and opportunities. I'm like, oh, I don't have time. I'm out of town. Like, are you kidding me? Like, 01 day, one day people will figure out that I don't know what I'm doing. Yeah. That's why I have a coach though. I mean, you know, like that's why we're in a mastermind. Like you, even if you are coaching people, if you're helping others, you're, you're, you're the, you're the, the savior for your people, you 20 plus people, you know, you don't know everything.

You're just, you know, that one chapter ahead, you're just further along. You've just experienced all the crappy stuff and know what not to do, but you still need that. You need that help, you need that support group and stuff like that. So it's so critical. Like I, when I started, when I joined my first coaching program was like 2016. I remember distinctly because I was living in Budapest and I was like, oh, yeah, let me just start the Jones Cleaning Company coaching group. And I, I was super skeptical about anything coaching related.

Uh, but when I joined my business Doubled. And, you know, I don't think it was only because of the coach, but I think it has to do with, I was in the right place. I decided I was betting it myself to kind of change my mentality around investing in me investing in the business. So even like the mastermind we joined, right? It's expensive. Very expensive, right? But I think the fact that I just joined for me was like, oh, I'm, I'm playing the Big Boys game now, right?

Like it, it kind of changes your self identity whether you need to just spend a bunch of money to have that identity shift or not. Who knows? But for me, that's what it did. Um So I think it just joining programs changed the game a lot. Yeah, I'm glad you said that because sometimes it is something you learn from the group or the coach or whatever. But a lot of it is that identity shift is like you committing a specific amount of dollars in time to something where you're like, I gotta be different.

I gotta get, I gotta, I gotta think differently, act differently, do different than what I did in the past and it's usually when you spend a shit ton of money, you're like, oh, gosh, this is a lot. Yeah. It should make you feel uncomfortable. That's how, you know, like, yeah. Ok. It's probably a good idea. Yeah. That's how I felt. That's the most I've ever spent, you know, and think about it if, if it would have been, like, 300 bucks we would have probably never showed up to anything.

No. No, it's, yeah, it's so interesting how it's just psychology at work, right? So, the last question I've got for you as we wrap up and I know you got another meeting after this. Um, how are you? So chill. Like, do you, do you have a daily, a weekly? Like, what are you doing to stay in this Zen State or whatever you want to call it? I'm glad you think I'm chill. That's, that's cool. Yeah, like you are, I'm just like, how I know, I don't know, you just don't have stress or you don't show it. Yeah.

Maybe I don't enjoy it. I'll be honest, like, sometimes I do get stressed, especially if I'm getting frustrated with things. I don't like doing, like, you know, sometimes it would manage meeting people. I'm like, dude, I handle that poorly. I should have been a lot better. Very stressful. Why did I, why did I stab them with a pencil? I mean, I should, I shouldn't have done that second time doing it not good. Uh Or honestly I get most stressed. If I'm playing the comparison game, right, then I'm like, shit, I should be doing better.

It's more of like beating myself up. But besides, I'll be honest, like, like III, I don't know, like I'll talk about it a lot because I've actually never thought about this, Ryan. Thanks for the question. But if I look at my schedule, maybe I get stressed because I have too many meetings. But most of the stuff is like, like there's nothing like super critical and nothing is like urgent and on fire and like, if I don't do it, my whole world is gonna burn. Like, if you look at most things we do nothing is that critical?

Whether I get it done today or in two days from now, it's not going to change anything. Um So there's some things which do stress me out a lot, especially, you know, minor things happen here and like certain things happen here and there, but it's on like maybe monthly or quarterly basis. It's not really a weekly basis and I, I don't think I'm doing anything unique, Ryan. I just kind of look at my schedule. I'm like, well, if I don't get it done now, I'll just get it done next week and that's probably not the best way of doing it.

But for me, it's like, I think it has to be urgent. It kind of goes back to the ethos of business of like this business to support my lifestyle. I'm still internally motivated. So I'm actually gonna get this stuff done because I want to. But if I don't, if I happen to have to push it tomorrow, there's no freaking way, I'm going to pull all night to get this done. There's no way. Um I remember like, so like, I think it was at our event, one person was saying like, oh, I probably need to pull on out just to get this presentation done.

And in my mind, I'm like, what? Like there's zero chance I would do that. Like I'd rather just again, like I'm saying, like, I don't know if this mindset is the best way of doing it because I'm probably not pushing the envelope as far as I could, but it might, it might just be my refusal to do things which I think are highly stressful. Uh It's just an adverse reaction to that, which caused me not to even put them on my plate in the first place. Honestly, that that's a great answer is like, you, it kind of brings us back to the very beginning because we were talking about constraints and it's like you just don't allow yourself to do the like, why would you stay up all night to do something?

Just do it the next day or the day after? Which is crazy because if you, if you think about what the world teaches is like, hustle grind, like sacrifice, do what others aren't willing to do. And it's like, yeah. But why, and if, and if you, why is because you want to support your lifestyle, then you wouldn't do that. Like you, you're, you can't do that. You're in another country. You can't interview that person there locally. Somebody else has to like, I just love it, man. I think it really comes down to you.

Just, you put the constraints in you. You've told yourself you're not gonna do stressful activities. And there's a lot, there's a lot of gold that you shared today. I appreciate you being vulnerable with us. I'm sure I, I think it's a great question. So it also made me think a little bit more about how I'm operating. Uh So it's like a therapy session, Ryan. Thank you. That's good. Well, like when people ask me like, well, how do you do this? I'm like, I don't know, like I should have like, well, here's my four step framework.

Like I feel like that's some of your stuff is you're like, I don't know, I just do it, but as we talk through it, it's like you do have, you do have like steps and things that you do that put you in this, this is end state. So I hope people are taking notes. Yeah, it's fun episode, man. Awesome, man. Well, hey, thanks again. I really appreciate you. Doing this. Uh It's a lighting for profits podcast. So I don't know how excited you were to come on and talk about.

Made this. But uh I truly believe that you helped a lot of people today. You helped me and uh as a selfish person, it felt good. So, thank you. Now, there we go. I appreciate it, Ryan. Thanks for having me, man. All right, man. Have an awesome week. OK. All right. Take care. All right guys have an awesome week. Don't forget, take notes, keep moving forward, but not too fast. Don't stay up all night working on those presentations.