In episode 50 of The Kitchen Table, Ken Baden is joined by the CEO of Blue Sky Business Solutions, Paul Childers, to discuss the importance of prioritizing one's financial well-being. They also share their personal experience of not understanding how to pay themselves and neglecting their own financial stability.
Tune in to gain valuable business insights and learn financial self-care.
TIMESTAMPS
[00:01:00] Shifting to Business Personas.
[00:04:26] Working Towards a Huge Expansion.
[00:08:48] Business Credit and Financial Separation.
[00:13:02] Starting a Roofing Company.
[00:16:18] Paying Yourself and Financial Self-Care.
[00:19:10] Finding a Business Mentor.
[00:23:15] Business Partnerships and Growth.
[00:26:31] Weather and Construction Challenges.
In this episode, Ken Baden and Paul Childers give importance to prioritizing their own development and recognizing the importance of investing in themselves. They even encourage listeners to determine the minimum amount they need to pay themselves and ensure they prioritize their own financial stability.
Furthermore, Ken and Paul discuss the need to make wise financial decisions and avoid impulsive purchases that won't provide a return on investment. They highlight the importance of analyzing financial statements and considering whether a purchase will contribute to long-term financial success. By making informed decisions and focusing on financial stability, individuals can avoid situations where they haven't paid themselves even after investing in their business.
QUOTES
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Ken Baden
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialkenbaden/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheKenBaden
Paul Childers
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pachilders
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paul.childers.731
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-childers-a9bb64180/
WEBSITES:
The Kitchen Table Podcast: https://thekitchentablepodcast.net/
Blue Collar Ballers Union: https://bluecollarballersunion.com/
BlueSky Biz Solutions: https://blueskybizpro.com/
Welcome to the Kitchen Table, a podcast about where business is done. So pull up a chair and join your host, Ken Baden.
All right. Welcome back to another episode of the kitchen table podcast for business gets done. We're live in studio and here's my, uh, my cohost. I don't know if he's in the frame or not, but he may pop into frame later on. I've got my dog Duke in the house and it's a Saturday. Hence why I'm not in the boot and the suit suited and booted, but I've got my man, Paul Childress from the blue collar ballers community, by the way. So, uh, this is a special episode. Paul, how are you doing today, brother? I'm doing well. Thanks Kenneth.
Oh man, my government, dude. Wow. Going with the formal name here.
Wow. I didn't even want anybody to know that was actually my formal, my government name, but I prefer Ken these days. I went from Kenneth, Kenny, Ken, you know how we bounce around. I feel like Ken's the more You know, what I did was I went from Kenny with the boys to Ken and business, because that way when everybody called me and they were like, hey, Ken, I could do the business voice real quick, you know, like, oh, hey, how are you, sir? You know, but if it's Kenny, it's informal. So what's up, man? How are you doing this fine Saturday afternoon? Where are you calling from?
I'm from Minnesota, real rural Minnesota. So I live in a tiny town of about 1400 people.
I noticed the Midwest accent and I thought I saw something different on the, uh, but it was Midwest nonetheless. So I didn't, I didn't catch Minnesota, but that's cool, man. I've been watching Fargo, a lot of Fargo lately. I don't know. I don't watch a lot of TV. My wife was like, Oh, you should watch the first few seasons of this. Like what I do is pre bed. I waste a lot of time winding down and I'll watch stuff I've seen over and over, but Fargo I've watched a lot lately. You know, it's funny. I was on a call the other day, an interview, and on the interview, I caught myself, like, slipping into a Midwest, Minnesota-esque accent. Isn't that weird, dude? It happens. It's a little weird. I caught myself in a little Minnesota. It was weird. I don't know. I kept doing it. I was like, what am I doing? What am I doing? And the guy that was a good kid, too, is an Army Reservist. I was like, this guy probably thinks I'm the weirdest dude ever, slipping in and out of Midwest accents. That's an easy one to slide into. Well, yeah, and especially when you're binge watching Fargo, which is a great show, by the way. It's hard to believe you guys have that much action, but you know, who knows? So you're in you're in the Midwest, you're in, you're in Minnesota, which surprisingly, is kind of a hub for what we do when insurance restoration, you guys get a lot of hay on ever knew that you specialize, however, and not just dealing with folks in the roofing side, but, you know, sort of, well, I'll let you tell it. We were just talking about it, but what is it that exactly you specialize in?
Yeah. I, I guess a couple of things is, you know, I've got a partnership with a roofing and solar company, um, worked in agriculture, a sales guy for egg tire company, we did OTM tires. And so I've been around blue, blue collar blue service, you know, businesses pretty much my entire career, right. Um, from when I was selling cars, everything. And so, I just enjoy that community. So when I started branching off on my own going, how can I help? And what can I do to help business owners, it was kind of just a natural shift for me to go and start working with, you know, home service guys, HVAC, plumbing, roughers, general contractors, excavation, all that kind of stuff, and an easy shift. And those guys that are just between that 500,000 and 3 million mark, that's kind of that that range that work because there's a gap of people that I think service that level and are willing to get in and work with them and help understand the financial aspect of their business.
I think that's such a cool niche, man, because ironically, at least currently, certainly in the last six months, that's where I've been focusing. And I'll tell you why. I'm a big believer in focusing on the coaching world as I've come to learn is just there is no barrier for entry. There's no qualification. There's no required resume. I believe you should have it, obviously, the receipts, so to speak. For myself, we're working towards a huge expansion this year. We're working towards a private equity. We just built an awesome, what would you call it? It's a board, but I don't know if I'd call it a board of directors. I have to be careful because I'm married to an attorney, so words matter. It's a board nonetheless, and they help us, assist us in our goals and exiting. And one of those members is Adam. Well, I don't know, even if I'm supposed to be talking about this, actually. But I've got some really very cool, exciting members on the board that I wouldn't have otherwise had if I didn't have the connections that I had. However, a few of those folks last year introduced me to some speakers at a really cool conference in the beginning of the year where Ed Milet was at and Bradley. And I got to meet all them. I got to hang out with them at a party afterwards and just kind of be one of the guys and the host of the, the whole thing, the MC and I got to talking and he's like, you know, what I really don't like about this whole coaching stuff is just, there's no barrier friend. It's just so low, right? Anybody could do it. Anybody could say or rent a car or whatever. And So I appreciate staying in the lane of either what you know, or, or, you know, what you want to support. And in my case, I've built several five to $7 million, even $10 million businesses in this industry, specifically the home service, roofing, solar, door to door, even retail. So I'm very comfortable. asking for an investment, knowing that I will return on that investment, hopefully tenfold. I've proven to myself that I can do it and that my formula works. I've proven through my consulting company that I can take a solar company in 90 days and turn them into a roofing company, insurance restoration, turnkey. I've done these things, so I feel comfortable. go comfortable delivering services to those people. But I also wouldn't then say, Hey, look, I'm going to take your $50 million a year company to 100 this year. And I know that for a fact. So give me 150k. Because frankly, I've not done that yet. Right? I would be very candid, if nothing else, like, hey, I do think I can help you here and here, if I thought so, if I did an audit of their stuff. But I also wouldn't claim to have done something I didn't. So I've been focusing a lot on that five to seven. You know, that's the first level. We were just talking about the Blue Collar Ballers Union. That's that's kind of that level one. It tends to be anyhow, because It's no coincidence. That's my demographic that I'm sort of appealing to. I like it. I enjoy working with them. I know I can. I know what I've done that's worked across multiple companies. And so I really appreciate you bringing something to that group, because frankly, you're absolutely right. There's not a lot of options there. I mean, you might be the first person I've ever even met that does, to be honest with you. I think you are.
That's cool. You know, I did it because, you know, fact of the matter is, is I've been a W2 most of my life, right? So I was a general manager, general sales manager for OEM Chevrolet dealership. So like you learn profit loss statements when you do the financing and the financing department, you start to learn underwriting, you start to learn what they're looking for in these businesses. You accumulate a lot of knowledge. Then you go over to, when I was sales director for the agricultural tire company, I was on the leadership team there too. And over a year and a half, we grew from about 20 million up to about 29, 30-ish million dollars. So I was part of a company that grew in a significant way from 25 employees up to 58 employees. So I've been a part of larger growth. I was on a team that led that. And it may not have been my own business, but I go, OK, I did this here with these guys. I built out an entire outside sales team that was able to bring an additional $6 million from a dead customer base that we weren't touching and servicing. But I also was helping the owners with stuff that I learned from when I was an automotive, which was like, hey, look, check this out. There's stuff out there right now called business credit that gets you off of your personal guarantees on a lot of stuff, your vehicle, especially credit cards. stuff that you got outside sales reps running around with a credit card that's got your personal guarantee on it. We don't, you don't need that at this size, right? So how do we get you off of this stuff? So when I decided to step away and go out on my own, that was a niche that I wanted to kind of fill into with these, with these guys and help get them started on this like financial separation right away. And then as I started doing this and getting connected more with like the lending side, I was like, there's a gap that's missing here of helping these guys understand how to not emotionally buy things that aren't going to return an investment for them, right? Because they're just, you've probably experienced this with somebody you're talking to is like, hey, I think I need to get three new trucks and this new excavator and I need to get this. And it's like, well, okay, what does your number say? What does your financial statement say? Is there going to be a return here? Or are we going to get the end of the next year and you're going to go, man, I still haven't paid myself. So helping them just think through that stuff, even at that little level, And I know that I, you know, it's a learning experience for me. So the guys that I'm working with right now, we're going in with the mindset of like, we're, we're learning together as we do this. And I just want to get a couple up and running and scale it and prove it and then go from there.
I love it, man. And you're right. The needs and the, and the things that we experienced early on that first year. So when you're buying the first few trucks or few excavators, or you know, I can give a couple of experiences, you know, of my own where, you know, it's the end of the year and you find yourself, if you have a decent enough CPA, and would you be assisting, would you assist with anything like that? I mean, like financial advisement on like, hey, why don't you consider buying a couple? Do you work with CPAs? Would you work with someone CPA team? I mean, I know that small, they probably don't have a team, but they may have it. Hopefully they at least have a CPA they're working with that's halfway decent. For me, that was something, the way I didn't skimp on, if you're listening and you're new, good CPA, good attorneys, but go ahead, Paul, would you answer?
That's a tough one right now too, finding good CPAs, especially in some of these like smaller communities. And that's not trying to bash CPAs as a whole, but it's hard. And I've got a lot of guys who have gotten some bad advice. I'm not licensed, I'm not a CPA, but you can still sniff it out when you come across it. Yeah, that's what I do. We'll help, we'll put their P&L together, if they're bookkeeper. I personally don't like doing the bookkeeping side, but if they give me the reports on their loans and all that, we'll look at short-term debt, we'll look at their long-term debt. I partner and have worked with more of a higher level fractional CFO like Byron Wolf and partner and have referred guys to Keith Gauss and those guys for the more robust, let's get the personal side dialed in. It's that business side that is so important to educationally to dial that in from a standpoint of here, just a brief overview. We'll take a couple of minutes and I will help you learn the numbers in a way that matters to you. Because a lot of these guys don't like their numbers. They want to sell. They want to work. They want to do their job. So let's make the numbers make sense to them and interpret them in a way that connects with what they're driving to do. so that they start to care about them.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, I know I'm the same way, man. I mean, I talk a lot about EOS just because it's what we have implemented, but if you're familiar with it, EOS, Entrepreneur Operating System, and then they talk about the visionary. The visionary just is typically the owner and the visionary is typically exactly what it says i mean we're big picture uh lots of ideas probably not really going to be the best not probably not definitely not going to be the best suited for the day to day it doesn't want to do the day to day and so um you're probably working with a lot of those that may not even know that's what they are because early on they don't even know I didn't know what EOS was, you know what I mean? I just knew a lot of them probably are past sales guys. In the last six months, I've probably seen four or five companies just like this, especially in the roofing side, man, like insurance restoration, not retail. you're not gonna just pop out there and decide I wanna start up a company because there are very real consequences and very real money and very real. The insurance restoration side, you need a truck, a ladder, and you gotta go past this test that's open book in the state of Maryland. And so the barrier for insurance, again, seemingly like coaching almost, like I've watched probably six pop up, two or three under me, not one of them was qualified, in my opinion, to run their own business. And now they've got people on their team that are working with them. A couple of them were folks that are no longer here with me. But again, none of them were folks I was looking to retain anyhow. But that's kind of my point. Now they're out there doing business with people. You know what I mean? And expanding this market. And so it's just, I can only imagine how many others are out there like that. You can really see the disparity in one or two actual companies and just this mess of what's wrong with the market. And so you probably have to weed through that too, but having guidance there would be so important, man. I think what you're doing is great. I had a good question for you and I wanted to circle back to it. It was about sort of that year one, end of the year thing. That's what it was. So you mentioned that you would work with, you prefer not to do the books, but more advisory. You know, for me at the end of last, my first year, one time, I don't know, we had to spend some some money and we bought some equipment and we never ended up using that equipment. Right. And like there are things like that that happen. That's a perfect example of like having someone like yourself who could sort of guide you or advise you on the moves to make early on. I don't know what your price point is or what, but I'm sure you can save a lot of people a lot of time, a lot of money and a lot of headache.
Yeah. The nice part with me, especially as I'm kind of just, you know, I'm being real with myself as well going, okay, there's still a lot for me to learn even. And I come across new stuff all the time. And I have, I have great people that I can lean on that will teach me and help me and So my price point, you know, I'm really kind of work with the business owner on that kind of for where they're at. You know, I've got a baseline of typically $1,000 a month, you know, kind of fee, but from there it's, let's see where you're at. Right. Most guys can afford that. If some can't, then we're going to do like a, we'll just do like a trial basis and we'll get you spun up to making money until you can afford to use me. And then we'll go from there. Right. So I've got a lot of free services. I'm developing some free courses. I've got a digital course that I'm putting together right now for those that can't afford my initial time, so that they can at least start learning that stuff, right? And are you familiar with the book, Profit First?
No, I'm not. I've got about 70 books at my house.
That's one of the books that I really like to teach off of. Between that one and Buy Back Your Time. Yeah.
I'm reading that one right now.
That's such a good book. Would you say it was profit first? Profit first, yep.
Anytime I get a book recommendation, I don't know. I always jot it down and then I buy it and I overload myself with another book that I can't read for like four months.
My goal this year is 60 books in a year. I've got a lofty goal. I got to fill my bookcase up behind me. You can see it's empty there. It's about getting these guys to understand that it's okay to pay yourself. It's okay to take care of yourself financially before everything else, because what tends to happen is we take care of everything else first, and then there's nothing left for us, and then guess what happens? All of a sudden, you're in this place of anxiety, you're in this place of stress, you're going home telling your wife that we don't have any money in the bank account. Let's at least figure out what that bare minimum is that we can do and figure out how to do that right away so that you learn that right away, So that as you expand and you grow and you get bigger, that money just expands and grows and, you know, it gets bigger with you so that that stress doesn't follow you along. Right. Cause I've worked with so many guys that are doing 5 million plus that are broke and it's like, why are we broke?
Right. Yeah. That's a really good point, man. I mean, I didn't, uh, Up until one of my first mentors, I had no idea how to even, you know, like, do what everybody did, which is pay myself a nominal, well, to the letter of the law, a, what is the word that they use? Distribution, employee payout. Well, the distribution, yeah, I wasn't doing that yet, but I was paying myself like not a nominal salary, but it was like a, it's the words like realistic or I don't know, it's, it's reasonable paying myself a reasonable salary, which, you know, at the time I really couldn't pay my bills on. So I had to take distributions, but I wasn't sure. you know how to take them you know I wasn't sure was I doing the right thing like you know I had a certain amount that I wanted to have in there but that was my math and until you know there's a blog that I look at every morning by Larry Janeski it's called Think not thinking grow rich obviously, but it's it's a daily Something for business people like daily positivity. I can't remember I should know it because I see it every morning But the bottom line is one week. He did a week the three-week series on The spread and it's specifically targeting like hey as long as you've got here's how you figure out the spread and ultimately here's how you know like what to keep you know, I mean or what to what to basically what's okay to take, you know what I mean? As long as this spread's covered, then I can take this amount, you know what I mean? And I thought that was a really cool way to look at it. And obviously, since I've gotten a fractional CFO, and I can now have a team, a CPA team, we meet every Friday, we get reports every Friday, but at the very beginning, and this is two companies ago, you know, this is my second remodeling firm, whatever you wanna call it, roofing company, GC, whatever, I don't care. But it can be really difficult in the beginning, to your point, because you've got so many people that you're talking to. If you're if you're doing this and you just jumped out there and you have no idea what you're doing, good luck, right? I suggest you find somebody, a mentor, a network, a group. I'm a little biased, but the ball is perhaps just the same fundamental. I don't care if you find a free mentor in your community that's doing what you want. That's what I did. Right. You don't have to go to a paid group, but you better find somebody who knows what they're doing, because. What I preach a lot, man, is once you go from just being you and you get a couple people on your team, you're responsible to those folks, man. You know, like I said, I watched a few guys start up from here that I don't believe should have any business being business owners at all. They are now, you know what I mean? And I guess if the guys are foolish enough to jump out there and do business with them, then that's their business. But I just I know what it feels like to do that myself. And I suppose I did the same thing, but I paid some serious consequences for that, man. It's an ugly feeling to not know that your paycheck's going to be there on Friday. I had never experienced anything like that. You know what I mean? Like I've always worked, got paid, you know, it was just, what do you mean? There's a chance that that may not happen. So, uh, that's a cool part.
So from my side is like, look, it's my first, full year off and doing this my own way, right? And on my own. And so I tell the guys I work with, I'm like, you look like I've made some of the similar mistakes where I've messed up my cashflow cycle because I wasn't paying close enough attention to it. Because it's kind of like, you know, you see people that are house cleaners and all that kind of stuff. And it's like, they go clean other people's houses all day. And then you get home and you're like, I don't want to do this. But like, I have to force myself to do the same thing. Otherwise, I end up in the same spot where it's like gets to Friday over a weekend. It's like, crap, like I didn't manage this great. Now we're kind of sitting in a crappy spot. Right. So I'm really open and honest about some of the same stuff. And I just share that with them as we're all going through it at the same time. Right. Because it's it's nice to come from a point of empathy and understanding as well and share that. And I'm an open book with my with my clients. And I'm like, here, look, like I've done the same stuff. Like, let's here's what I did. Here's who I talked to. Here's how I fix this. And I like to bring those big resources. I'm a big collaborator, a big networker. So I've got, you know, I pull on as many people as I can for as much knowledge as I can, because here at the end of the day, you know, when you're talking about, you know, helping these guys get to a larger size, right? Like I haven't personally scaled a company. So I love to pull on and refer people to groups like yours, Apex, Jesse Bounds has a great group for like farmers and that kind of stuff. So like get guys into those groups to who then can learn from business owners like yourselves that have it scaled, because that's you've got to be around that mindset. You can't just stay in your little community and expect that you're going to grow to be a huge company unless you get somebody that's done it before and talks like it and brings that experience to you. So I love that collaboration piece. And that's why I'm in those groups, too, because that's what I want to do. Right. And I want to be a part of that. growth and, and, uh, new levels and see where it goes. Eventually I'd like to buy some home service businesses for myself, right? That's my, that's a five-year out plan. So that's awesome.
It's a hell of a goal, man. It's a hell of a goal. Um, five years.
So this is what year one, two, I'll be closing out on year one here, February.
Wow. Okay. Yeah. This is, uh, for this particular company, it's year three this year or this month, uh, January. So five years, you will not only be, are you looking to exit or
What's kind of unique is I have, I actually have some business partners, guys, a guy that I met when I was an automotive, that's kind of was a mentor to me and automotive that when I started my own business, he saw what I was doing. He goes, Hey, he goes, me and my partner, Rob, who owns a Pinnacle Mortgage out of Las Vegas. He's got seven locations. He's like, we want to start doing some private equity stuff on some smaller businesses. He's like, do you mind, we'll buy 20% of your company and then you'll have access to our money. And I was like, all right, cool. So we already did a connection here earlier this year. So I've got, I've got, we can, I can actually talk about this now because we just finalized this, but I've got 5% ownership now in a roofing and solar company in Texas, working with Andrew Kloster. and independence roofing. So we've got that spun up and running all because of connections, right? He had a big, he had a big vision of what he wanted to do. I connected him with my business partners and had the money there. So like, I'm learning to do it on a real small scale. We're working with a couple other guys across the country right now that are kind of in that they're smaller, right? They're that 500,000 to like a $2 million range right now, but they want to grow. And so we're talking about what does that partnership look like? And and how do we do this together so that we all kind of have a piece? My mentality is I'd rather have a share the watermelon versus hoarding my grapes, right? So. So that's kind of what I'm doing, so I'm kind of breaking into that a little bit, but my ultimate goal is to have ownership for myself and scale it and then exit it after I've been I've been learning so much and get around it and just have that knowledge to do it myself and build up that base so that I can do things on a larger scale.
Sure, that makes sense, man. Yeah, I know Andrew went out and met him in Texas a couple of times just to kind of see if there was something maybe we could shake out. We were looking to explore the, of course, the Texas market, which is so nuanced and heavily saturated, considerably so, versus what we're seeing here, which is still saturated. But man, the Dallas-Fort Worth area alone is just... The Wild West down there, literally. It's the same man, but I mean, you know, there's a reason because they get the hail they get but brother, Minnesota Tony flat on that in Minnesota. I mean, I believe Kurt's headed out there. I mean, I wouldn't mind Minnesota myself, man I mean, you just gotta pack it in for half the year, I guess but uh The winter time gets a little
Little intense.
You're not doing a whole lot of roofing in the wintertime there.
No. So the guys have been getting creative. Some of the some of the guys I've talked to, I've talked to a couple of guys that are, you know, two years into the business. I just asked them, like, how does that work? Right. You know, like, how do you what are your cycles? What do you do in the wintertime? And they're just starting to get creative with learning how to do some internal projects for people as well. And some of them do some snow plowing if there's snow. So, yeah, it's a it's find ways to stay busy and keep cash coming in.
Yeah, there's a couple things, you know, it does prohibit some of the normal things we do like exteriors, because but I mean, even windows, technically, you could sell you install them on the inside. And you could definitely like, hey, it's gonna keep the heat in. But there's a few other things that you could you could definitely lump into roofing, insulation, stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah, man, it's no plow. Damn right. Why not? So there's a lot of things we can say guys can get creative. Some guys just straight up pack it in, man. And like shut down, which, hey, more power to him, man.
So they've got that stuff stashed away to do it comfortably.
Good for them. Right. Absolutely. Right. I would definitely start getting antsy. But we have dude, it's so weird here. And that like, quite literally, the last few weeks, it's going to be like 20 degrees next week, it's going to be so cold that our installers like, look, can we just take the week? We didn't take a week off in this Christmas. And it was warmer. Yeah, that's kind of what the game we play in the winter. It's like, It could be really mild in Maryland of all places. It could be mild to where we don't have to slow down or stop, or it could be freezing in which point. So like we just literally either convince everybody to stop or we do what we're doing now, which is next week. It's too cold, right? Like it's just too cold. Do a cold weather install. That's a total pain in the butt. Spacing each freaking shingle an eighth of an inch. You got to seal each freaking shingle. It's a mess, right? Like no one's going to do that. Um, So we just take that week off. But we also had a random storm yesterday and two days ago, like wind, crazy rain, 50 degrees. It's just bizarre, man. I don't know the weather's up here. It's not what it used to be when I was a kid, man. It seems like Minnesota, you're still getting snow and stuff left and right, but like up here, I don't know, man. It's weird.
This winter was weird. This winter was weird. We had 50 degree temps all the way through Christmas. And we just, this was our, this is actually our first week of like negative weather, which is not a typical winter for us either. But then last year we had our snowiest It was almost our snowiest record, like winter on record for the history of our state. So it's kind of, it's been a weird couple, like back to back years for us.
Yeah. I, uh, who knows, man, I'm not going to get off. Come here, Bob, get on camera touch. So. All right, homies, get Nancy and I think we're right up on it anyhow. But just in case our viewers or listeners want to find you, Paul, and they do want to take advantage of your services, or perhaps they just want to see what you're up to, where they find you at, where you at on Insta, Facebook, all the play.
Yeah, so Facebook's just my name, Paul Childers. And Facebook, you can find me. Instagram is just PA Childers. LinkedIn, it's also Paul Childers. I keep things simple, right? Because I want people to be able to find me across all the platforms. TikTok, same story, Paul Childers. So otherwise, I got a website, blueskybizsolutions.com. I've got some e-books on there that get people started. And like I said, I'm getting some digital content spun up here and some courses that I can provide based off of the needs that I've been seeing.
Those are the easiest is solutions. B.I.Z. Blue Sky. Yep. Awesome, man. And check him out, too. He's active in the Blue Collar Ballers Facebook group to free group, just a community of folks like we just talked about. But and then we also mentioned the Blue Collar Ballers Union, which you may also see Paul in. But that's that's where we. That's where we get down to the nitty-gritty and we do the actual work to make sure that those goals he's talking about and the ones I was talking about actually happen on a weekly basis. Accountability and doing the work and getting the numbers done. So if that's something that you guys need help with, check us out in the Blue Collar Ballers Union. DM me. Hell, DM Paul. I don't care, right? But we'll hopefully see you guys in there and Paul, you got any final thoughts, brother? Anything you want to drop off that I haven't, that I can't, that doesn't come to mind for me? That's the weirdest way to say that, that doesn't come to mind for me. Do you have any final thoughts, Paul?
There we go. Final thoughts are, don't be uncomfortable. Ask questions, right? Don't be the typical entrepreneur who suffers in silence and can't figure stuff out because you're scared because you think you're gonna get judged. You're not, right? We've all gone through it. We're all going through it. Ask, get resources. Don't be the quiet guy that just kind of goes and silently fades away.
That is awesome advice. And I'll piggyback on that. He's absolutely right. And remember, you're accountable if you are a business owner or even prospective, you're accountable to your family, to the people at your business, you're accountable to other people. So ego is a mofo. And I've seen it take out some of the some of the biggest Everybody can learn even as I continue to learn there's more to learn so you know our coaching community as I said you're in that 10 million And you're trying to get to 30 or you're in that one trying to get to five or five trying to get to seven We can help you But you gotta you got to do the work right no one's gonna do it for you it sounds like you and you want to take some action jump in there and do it but No one's going to do it for you, man. But if you don't ask, you won't get the help. I guess that's really what I'm driving at. And I think that that's one thing for me that's been the biggest, probably the single biggest. And best tool that I've utilized over the last few years is not not being adverse to asking for help, period. I don't know if that's something that, you know, you would echo, Paul, but, you know, just like a mentor. Hey, so-and-so, you seem like you're doing amazing, right? I'd love to know how. Would you, would you get a cup of coffee with me? I'll treat. You would be surprised how many people say yes. I'm almost all actually for myself and they're all competitors. So that's the other thing. the competitor mindset is to me the quickest way to find yourself on an island. And that gets real lonely. I look at everybody as an ally, man, until you show me otherwise, right? Like how can we work together? How can we make some, some, uh, I think that was the first thing we started talking about is like, Oh, cool. And that's a similar market. Maybe, maybe there's something there and maybe not, but to just go in and all of a sudden, Oh, we're, we're on opposite ends here. That's a very lonely place to be. And I don't think that that really is an entrepreneurial mindset at all. I agree. I love what you're doing, man. Remember, what was it again? Blue Sky Biz. Blue Sky Biz Solutions. Blue Sky Biz Solutions. Check him out, Paul Childress. He's in the group all the time. He's got his own website. He's got his own content coming out, his own course content. If you're in that 500 to 1 to 5. Yeah, right in that range. And again, check us out in the Blue Collar Ballers Union if that's something that you guys are looking for some help in 24, man. This is a year to do it. I really believe that, by the way, because things are getting... They're getting a little dicey. We got to get going. We got to get going right now, I believe, and I'll leave it at that. But we love you guys, and we will see you next time at the kitchen table.
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