Dorsey Ross Show
Hello, my name is Dorsey Ross, and I am the host of the Dorsey Ross Show. I am a minister and itinerant speaker. I started the Dorsey Ross Show to interview people of faith who have stories of faith and overcoming trials and difficulties. In this podcast, you will hear stories of all kinds. Some will make you laugh, cry, and even say I can connect with that story or that person. I would love to encourage you to check out these stories of faith, encouragement, and inspiration my guests share on the show. I hope these stories give you hope, to get you through your week and your life. Please share them with your family, friends, co-workers, and anyone who needs a little touch of encouragement today.
Dorsey Ross Show
Navigating Economic Challenges with Faith and Strategy
Richard Walsh, a former Marine and boxer turned business coach, shares his compelling journey of overcoming the 2008 financial crash. With the responsibility of supporting a wife and six young children, Richard transformed his life lessons into a toolkit for success, helping entrepreneurs build resilient businesses. His approach focuses on the five pillars of life—faith, family, finances, fitness, and friendship—challenging the misconceptions about business coaching and highlighting the power of genuine experience and accountability.
Imagine your business as an apple orchard; Richard emphasizes the importance of cultivating diverse income streams, rather than depending on a single tree for survival. By drawing parallels to natural growth processes, he warns against the dangers of overexpansion and price wars. Richard shares valuable insights on how businesses can thrive even in challenging times, like the economic downturns of 2008 and COVID-19, by delivering real value to customers and focusing on building lasting relationships.
Our conversation also touches on breaking free from the "owner prison" by effectively automating, delegating, and eliminating tasks to achieve balance and growth. Richard's transformative journey integrates faith and business, underscoring the importance of focusing on profit over gross revenue. He highlights the necessity of targeting the right market and working on the core 5% of your business to achieve both personal freedom and the ability to make a positive impact in the community. Join us as we explore these dynamic strategies and more, aiming to inspire entrepreneurs to not just survive, but thrive.
Here is Richard’s Website,
https://sharpenthespearcoaching.com/
Richard’s Book,
https://www.amazon.com/Escape-Owner-Prison-Contractors-control/dp/1089318901/ref=sr_1_2?crid=18TBISDQEDSZO&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ULyxesDh-PwJ0RNB9i6Fjh89vRuiLWsvoeYY2_haYNlJMB1mMpQIeeYW06QJFkeehZqPBfEz4RcLBhOhltqWTLybq7Yx4xw3Jcy5-7ZD7MHgw-jdTCQhDMcCWxZfkQ4Yp9xPHl6sRcOufks3FIo6P0i2gTtz_tePjxlqjV0N0tCFOokj8xlBxGJuKrNBO-gZCMRNl2GE1K0vwp51NgYk_QQjAR5llqITat0OpBEmab8.barrv3_1lt12AU-wAGJNlc4zMfbDK6vYLb6QOFX4Jl4&dib_tag=se&keywords=Richard+Walsh&qid=1728237740&sprefix=richard+walsh%2Caps%2C131&sr=8-2
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Hello everyone, thank you again for joining me on another episode of the Joshua Show. Today we have Richard Walsh, who has had 20 years in business and at the top of his game in 2008-2009, and he took a hit with the craft and he lost everything, including his own home. At this time, he had a wife and six children under the age of four, as a marine champion, boxer hard work of determining why he had fallen or failed. He had connected all the dots and there were a lot of them and started to rebuild and regain success. At this time, other entrepreneurs were watching him and asking him questions how he was doing what he was doing. Next thing he knows he's helping them create their business to not only withstand hardship but begin to thrive and create a life with balance in the five most important areas of life faith, family, finances, fitness and friendship. Richard, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
Speaker 2:Oh, great to be here, Dorsey. Appreciate you having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. Well, I usually start off the show with an icebreaker question, and this week's icebreaker question is if money wasn't a factor, what would you do with your time?
Speaker 2:I would do exactly what I'm doing now. I wouldn't change a thing. I love what I do, I love what I've created, I love my family, uh yeah there's a lot of balance, a lot of good things. So I and the thing also, thank dorsey. I've never been driven by money, so that you know, because I've had all that, I don't want all that. I it's. It's all about purpose for me and not money. Money is a good thing. I don't not like money. I'm not driven by it, I'm driven by purpose.
Speaker 1:Okay, what is the biggest misconception that people have about your field of expertise?
Speaker 2:From the business coach standpoint it's relatively new really. I've been in business 35 plus years and there was no such thing when I started. I mean, you might find some high level Fortune 500 coach kind of thing that works with people, but you are not finding it for the guy who's doing a million a year, or 5 million or 10 million, a real small business. That just didn't exist. So I think even today well, okay, dorsey, I'm going to let it go two ways here. Okay, two misconceptions. One is that every business coach is a good coach, or that they've done business or run a business. That's a misconception, because most have not. So there's something to be aware of. The other misconception is the really good business coaches that have run businesses, scaled, failed, scaled again, whatever's just in my situation. They can bring a different element to the business and they're usually very, very results focusedfocused and there's a high accountability aspect. So it's a very different.
Speaker 2:I think the best way to describe it is there's teachers and trainers, dorsey. Teachers are going to talk. They're going to talk in front of the class. They're going to tell you to do things and then have you go do them A trainer. I'm going to tell you to do push-ups, but I'm going to get in my face and do them with you. You're going to do more than I am. I'm going to make sure the form is right and that you're on pace. I'm going to stay there until you finish. That's the difference, right? So that's probably the biggest misconception.
Speaker 1:What does a business coach do If, here I come to you I'm like, hey, I need help with my business. I'm not making the money I need, I'm not getting the people in to the business you know that I want. I'm not reaching the people that I want, you know I'm not getting the numbers, whatever it is. You know, what would you do to help me to reach the potential or, like you're saying, the purpose that I need or that I want?
Speaker 2:Right. So first thing I do is I give them an assessment of their business and the 12 areas of their business. It's an extensive assessment, but it's just yes or no answers, okay, and they go through that and then it scores them so they get a score. There's there's four different levels you can score on. Now, most people, especially in that situation described, are going to score very low, and that's okay. I tell them don't be concerned about the low score. Most people are going to score low. But what it does is it gives us a roadmap to start working with what really needs to be fixed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're not making enough money. Okay, that could be for 10 different reasons. Could be because you're bad at sales, but also could be a lot of other aspects of your business are not dialed in, right. You're not bringing value. You have poor customer service. There could be a lot of reasons why you're not making money and we have to determine where those are so we can focus on those first. That's what's key, and that assessment is a critical aspect of finding where to start. It doesn't do any good to travel somewhere if you don't know where you're going.
Speaker 1:Give us a little bit more background. I know I read a little bit about it in your bio, but give us a little bit more background about what happened with your business and how did you come back from that crash of 08 and 09?.
Speaker 2:Sure. So I came out of the Marine Corps and I started working. I decided I want to work for myself because working for someone else was not my thing anymore. So I decided I want to work for myself and I started the business Up from there. A landscaping business that turned into a custom water feature business. I built big waterfalls, ponds, streams, stuff like that for people at their homes. I was kind of in the early stages of that whole industry around 89, 90. And that grew and was great. I became nationally recognized. I won tons of awards, was published, became an internationally recognized steel sculptor. I started doing steel sculpture, adding it to it. So a lot of success there.
Speaker 2:And then 08 comes along. Things crash, right, the economy's crashing and it started to take my business down with it. November 5th of 2008. I mean that day I lost a half a million dollars in one day and they just kept going off the cliff from there and I knew I wasn't going to make it.
Speaker 2:And the one caveat I always put in Dorsey is the economy didn't wreck my business, I wrecked my business, the things I didn't do. Making money for me is really easy. It's the easiest thing you can do in business actually, if you think about it, I tell people all the time they don't kind of believe that at first, but I'm like it's the easiest thing you do. It's everything else. That's hard Because if it was the economy that wrecked my business, there'd be no businesses that survived. It would have wrecked everybody's right. But it's because of the things I didn't do that I kept putting off for literally 20 years, right To short my business, make it strong so I could get through. That is those things that I didn't do. That's what really caused the collapse. Now, again, like you said, I had six kids at the time under four years old. My wife lost the home, had to relocate. Do all that, sell what little I had, and then decide what I'm going to do next.
Speaker 2:Now here's the really critical part, torsey. In the beginning of 2009, I woke up one morning. I'm thinking, wow, like everything is kind of crashing down around me and I'm thinking about my children. I'm like you know, when I come home they just run and they attack me. And I'm leaving one day in my truck and one of my sons is chasing me down the driveway crying because I'm leaving. I'm like man, what am I doing?
Speaker 2:And I realized right then, dorsey, is my kids didn't care what I drove. They didn't care what kind of house he lived in. They don't care what I did for a living. All they wanted was me to be around a little bit because I wasn't right and I said you know, if I stay on this trajectory of being the best, business comes first, got to win, got to be number one, got to get the awards, build my ego.
Speaker 2:If I continue down that path, I'm going to destroy my children's future because they're going to have broken marriages, broken relationships. They might succeed in business, but they're going to be really lonely. It's going to be expense of everything else. They'll have no balance. Their faith will be out of whack. Their family will be out of whack. They're fine. Everything, everything will be whack. That's why I was living. I'm like and kids don't do what you tell them, they do what you do. More is caught than taught. So my kids were watching, even at two, three and four years old. So I decided I will never do what I was doing. So I left complete water feature sculpture. Haven't touched it in 15 years. Okay, just completely left.
Speaker 2:What I had done for 20 years Restarted. I want to build a business now that I have time to leave. If my wife needs me to come home, I can come home. I don't say, okay, I'll be home at seven tonight and it's noon, I'll be around. We're going to homeschool our children all the way through high school. I want to be around for that. Now, I'm not the Mr Teacher, that's my wife. I do art and PE. Okay, that's what I come home for, those two things. But everything else I just want to be available, right? I want to go on the trips with them, and when they're competing in athletics, I want to be there for those games and things.
Speaker 2:So that's how I had to design my life. So I had to create new businesses that would allow me to live that model. So what that meant was I can't do everything in my business like I'd done for 20 years. Yeah, I had crews and I had office managers, but it still was me, me, me. Everything was about me in that first business, and now I wanted it to not be about me at all. I wanted to empower other people. I want to put them in position, I want to give them lanes to operate in, I want to give them authority and then grow from there, make something that's scalable.
Speaker 2:And I did that. I did it twice. I did it with the gym, I did it with a contracting business and, like I said, as you mentioned in my bio, people started asking me how I did it. And that's when coaching was kind of born for me, because I am an excellent trainer, I'm very good at making things simple and understandable, and I just started helping these guys from a mentor position and then I'm like, well, hey, I could coach. People wanted to pay me for it.
Speaker 2:So what does an entrepreneur do? Well, you turn it into a business. So for years and years now, I've been doing this and helping tons of businesses and it's just so rewarding giving them the free profit and impact in their business that they get into business, for we don't get in the business for it to be a slave to it. We want a business that serves us. We don't want to serve it right. I want an opportunity to make impact. How do I help my community? How do I raise up my family? How do I help the people in my business who are working with me? How do I make them better as people? That became my goal, and you can't do that if you're doing everything else in the business, so you're really not helping out the people working for you or the people around you. So that became the big focus of how I did it and what I wanted to do with other businesses.
Speaker 1:Now, what do you focus on now? I mean, obviously you have the coaching business but, do you have other businesses as well that you?
Speaker 2:I am 100% coaching now and I'm scaling that business because our mission, our vision, is to help 10,000 business owners create profit, freedom, profit and impact in their business. So that's a lot of people to help 10,000 business owners create profit, freedom, profit and impact in their business. So that's a lot of people to help. So we're focused solely on that. As my business, I scaled out the other two and now I focus solely on this and growing this.
Speaker 2:I want to be a leader in this industry because, dorsey, the key is when you build freedom, profit and impact in your business, and part of our strategy is to make them all vision-driven businesses. So when we do that, that means inside your team, all the people that work with you or for you and for you. You want to elevate them as people as well as competent employees. And when you're able to do that, they take that home and they take it home to their families. That changes their families. Their families operate in the community. That affects the community. So if I help 10,000 business owners, I literally can affect millions of people's lives. If we can get people to get onto this, which they do, they love it because it changes their whole culture of their business. So that's really what I see. That's what drives me and that's why I want to scale this and help this many people.
Speaker 1:Now, this may not be the exact topic or the exact you know scope of what you do, but we've seen a lot of you know businesses, and especially it's the big businesses that have multiple you know, like Target, walmart. You know those businesses that we've seen that just fail or they go out of business. Do you have any idea of maybe what are they doing wrong that they're going out of business?
Speaker 2:Well, there becomes a size. So let me give you an analogy. Okay, so pretend my business is an apple tree, okay, so I got this apple tree, I planted it. It's growing now, right, and it's get to about 15, 20 feet. It's going to produce these beautiful apples, right. Okay, and go pick low apples I can get. Maybe go a little higher, get the, get the nice ones on top and get that.
Speaker 2:Now the question is do I want my one apple tree to grow to 800 feet? Do I want an 800-foot apple tree that just keeps growing and growing and growing? Because the comparison is what else grows constantly and that's cancer, right, that grows continuously. And what does it do? It kills its host, right? That's what happens. So when they put everything in that one tree, me, I'd rather plant another tree, which means another business, right, I'd rather have an orchard. I'd rather plant another tree, which means another business, right, I'd rather have an orchard, I'd rather have an apple orchard, right, that each business can run itself. Right, it can produce, it has great fruit, it's cultivated properly and it's all run, it's under control, and then we can make more and more apple trees.
Speaker 2:But when you go with that, got to be the biggest, got to be the lowest bidder, got to compete on price all the time, like there's a, I'll say there's a place for it and there's people who are driven to do that and that's the Walmarts and the targets and things like that. The Lowe's and the Home Depot's Just a different mindset. They fail because a lot of reasons. Dorsey, it's overexpansion, right, itflation hurts them a lot. Because they're low bid right, they're low bidders. You go in. It's always about the lowest price. Lowest price, lowest price. We have the best prices. Well, when you play that game, it's a race to the bottom. You always have to be the low price guy, always. Otherwise, oh, I can't go there anymore because this guy's lower over here. So it's a horrible way to do business. Now they'll do it and they'll work on little tiny margins and they'll go high volume. But imagine trying to keep that engine fed with fuel, how difficult it is.
Speaker 2:And when you get a big economic collapse, like we saw in 08, 09, things like that, when they like saying the dumbest thing ever, that too big to fail, and they're bailing them out, all those businesses should have failed. It's just like mine. No one came to my rescue, right, but no one's too big to fail. If you're that big, you need to fail. Okay, you need to be broken down, split up. You're not going to evaporate. People are going to pick it up for pennies on the dollar An airline. It goes out of business that jets don't disappear. Someone else picks them up for 30ies on the dollar an airline. It goes out of business that jets don't disappear. Someone else picks them up for 30 cents on the dollar and puts them in their functioning airline. Right now they can expand because they were prepared for this. They had put in the right precautions, but they're proactive on what they were doing. They weren't reckless and that's so. I think that was kind of the path that makes sense. Yeah, I don't want to come directions there, but yeah.
Speaker 1:So how did COVID affect your business, or did it?
Speaker 2:It really didn't affect my business we're remote, right, because I train business all over the country but it affected in the way that, like we had to shift gears. We went from doing business and working on things to like, okay, we have to combat this. Like, how do we combat this? How do we weather that? We've already been building things, shoring up the business, doing all the right things in the business, but now it's a different approach because if you have a brick and mortar, well, some people aren't letting you come to business. Some states are shutting down businesses and only letting the big guys open. And now you've got to deal with that because I think they thought COVID only was safe in the big places and not in the little places. You could manage it.
Speaker 2:So it was a very odd thing going on, but we had to fight back in our own way and really again shore them up and understand no, we can market through this. This is just going to cause a little bit of a pivot or we're not going to go under, we're going to weather this because what we have is worth having right. So it was just a redirection which was kind of I hate to use the F word but it was fun. Okay, it was just fun, so we had a good time doing it. It's a challenge and we got through it. And you know, you know what happens when you get through adversity. You're just so much stronger after that.
Speaker 1:That was a biggie. The other question I came up with, you know, on top of that was if you know, there are people listening, you know, to this podcast and maybe they're still struggling somehow coming out I mean, we've been out of it for a little while but still struggling from the, you know, from the hard times of COVID what advice would you give to them? To you know, you know, come out of it and be you know and be thriving with that business.
Speaker 2:I think it's going to be a very simple thing. Look at your business and think of one word value. Okay, how much value are you bringing to your customer base? What are you doing? Have you changed that? Are you giving them far more value than they're paying for? And what does that look like? That doesn't mean you give away money. It doesn't mean you're giving away more expensive product you're getting less money for. It means that you're giving them the intangibles, right, the perceived value. What does this really mean? Really understand what you are? Because a lot of businesses, even though they weathered it, they really don't understand who what we call our ICP ideal client profile who that person is and how to serve them at the highest level. So if you're still struggling with that, you've got to really dial in who specifically you're serving. Don't ever be all things to all people. That's Walmart, they think I try never to go in there. So they're not all things to me. They're the last choice. Okay, Everything else is closed and it's whatever, and I got to have something.
Speaker 2:But but I'm just saying that, like, look at the value that you're bringing to the marketplace, focus on that, improve that. And if you think you can't improve it, well, you can call me and I'll help you because I will show you all kinds of ways to improve what you haven't thought of because it's so critical. That's what separates small business from the low bidders, the big guys. Right, they're just volume, volume, volume. You know there's nothing special about that place. Do you get a warm, fuzzy feeling when you go in a Home Depot? I don't, okay, I mean, I just, you know Walmart, I don't get a warm, fuzzy feeling. I wanted to, like, take a bath when I come out of there. Okay, I just want to get what I get. You go there, dorsey, and they have like 37 self-checkout lanes now and three work. Three are open. And I'm like even the self-checkout doesn't show up to work. Okay, I'm like what are you kidding me? I'm standing in line at the self-checkout and there's it's unbelievable. I could just go down this rabbit trail. But I mean that's what you get. Oh, look, they got 30, literally, they got 30 self-help checkouts and there's three open and one person standing there looking at you and you're behind 10 other people. I'm like this is unbelievable. Okay, I mean so. Like, don't be that.
Speaker 2:How do you serve your customer? How do you make it easy? What's the ease of compliance of getting whatever you offer? How easy is to get it be served? Feel great about it, have the warm and fuzzy. I want to go to the cool coffee place. We can sit down. The ambiance is great when they bring a coffee out to you, you sit down. I'm happy to pay the five bucks for that. I'm getting an experience with it. You know I like that. That's good, not a 25-minute drive-through lane, you know, I mean so. It's those kind of things, george, that change a business and you look what's immediately around you. How do you serve that? And that'll change the face of your business.
Speaker 1:I can relate to the Walmart experience only because I work for their competition. I work for Target. And not only do I work for Target, I work the self-checkout line.
Speaker 2:Sure, sure, yeah, well, you know them. Most of us can check out our own stuff, but then there's people that can't even do that. So it's bad on both sides. Dorsey, and you know, you live it firsthand. So it is interesting to watch, let's put it that way. And so it is interesting to watch.
Speaker 1:Let's just put it that way you wrote a book called Escaping the Owned Prisoner. And why did you write that book? And what is?
Speaker 2:that book about. So Escape the Owned Prison was. It's both my story and how not to do what I did. Okay, so it's a how-to manual. Okay, I tell my kids, don't do what I did that first, 20 years. Do what I do now, okay.
Speaker 2:So Escape the Owner Prison is the contractor's new way to scale, regain control and fast track growth while loving life. So it's about again how do you get in business? Because here's what happens, torsey, people get in the business, say I'm a really good carpenter and I think I can do it better than the guy I'm working for. Matter of fact, I know I can, so I'm going to go get my own clients. I'm going to start a business. Well, I'm doing the work right, and you have to do that in the beginning. You have to go do the carpentry work. You have to office work. You have to go get materials. You have to do all that First couple of years. You're building, building, building. You're making money. Okay, it's good.
Speaker 2:But here's the catch. Next thing, you know it's 10 years and you've repeated the first two years five times, so you've never been able to scale. You're making money, but not like the money of your dreams. You don't have everything you want. You can't take a vacation because if you don't open the door, no business starts right. You're in charge, you're doing all this stuff. So you haven't delegated property, you haven't automated properly, you haven't eliminated property. Automate, delegate, eliminate are the three things that we look for and you're trapped.
Speaker 2:That's the prison and there's patterns to that that I saw over time because I lived there for 20 years and I thought it was awesome because I was single and I didn't care and I'm like business is everything and I love it, right, I was totally obsessed. So to me it didn't seem abnormal. But you look back and go, wow, you were an idiot, like, you were just like just going and you just had blinders on. You know like I did great things and I made great money and all that stuff, but the rest of the life was out of balance. So escape the underpinnings is how to correct all that. It gives you the actionable steps to do that. It takes you through a lot of fundamentals that guys lose or actually never knew Again. They were good at what they do and it could be a tech guy, it could be a tradesman, it could be a service guy, it doesn't matter. A realtor, it doesn't matter. But they get into it and then they don't learn the business side. I don't mean go to college and get an MBA. I mean what I learned was hire the right business people. Figure out how you can put the right people in place to take care of it, because I'm never going to be a great accountant Never happening. I took four years to get out of general math in high school. So you don't want me working the numbers. I need four years to get out of general math high school, okay. So you don't want me working the numbers? Okay, I need a professional for that. So that's really what the book is about. It really shows you how to create that freedom, how to get.
Speaker 2:We talk about the five F's, so faith, family, finances, fitness and friendships. That's the balance. When you hear about work-life balance, that's what my book talks about as well. Because people say you need work-life balance. That's what my book talks about as well. Because people say you need work-life balance and they walk away from you. No one tells you how, because you still have a business to run, you still want to be successful in business, because that's your income, that's how you make a living. But what is that. So that's why the five Fs kind of come up.
Speaker 2:Well, faith, it needs to be strong, right. Faith is continual. It's every day, all day. That's what for me, you know, it starts at 4 am. When I get up, you know, it's water, it's coffee, it's time in the Word. I praise God. Off to the gym at 5.30, I work out, come back, make my breakfast, have a great day, go to work, right, so I understand. But I'm continuously, you know, focused on my faith throughout the day. Family comes next, right, that's the right order. It's God, then family, now it's family.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, what am I doing? I'm able to see them, go them, take them here, do this, help out my wife, go to the games, do all that kind of stuff. Have that balance, great Finances. What am I doing with this money I'm making? Am I just buying things? Oh, look, a cool four-wheeler. I'll buy a new four-wheeler, you know, because I got lots of money. No, I have a plan for it. I'm building passive income, I'm acquiring assets to be able to replace my active business income. So when I leave the business or sell the business, I still have that same amount coming in. Right, I don't lose that Very wise with that.
Speaker 2:And then fitness, again what do I eat? When do I work out? How do I keep my body healthy? So I'm strong, because if you're not fit, you're not fit to lead. So I want to be fit, I want to lead, I want to have the energy to do that, both my family and my teams at work. I want to be able to do that well.
Speaker 2:And lastly is friendships. Now, friendships for me is a pretty small. I tell people, if I lost three fingers on one hand, my friends would still fit on my hand. Okay, it's pretty small, but because I'm very selective, I call them trench buddies. These guys will have my six. I go to war with these guys. We'll give our lives for each other.
Speaker 2:Now there's other circles of acquaintances and friends and they're in different places. But I really focus on quality friendships so that when we do get together it's meaningful, it's incredible discussions, right, insight we share with each other and stuff. And you know we're like-minded. So to me, I'd rather have two of those than 10 goofs who are around me and shallow and they just, you know, all they want to talk about is whatever the last football game or the girls they saw. You know, I don't want any of that. You know I don't want any of that. You know I want to talk about things that matter. You know I want to move things forward. I want to move the ball down the field, you know. So that's really where all that comes from.
Speaker 1:How did your faith play a part in your business, and especially during the time of the crash?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it's kind of an interesting evolution with that Dorsey, because at the time, in 08-09, I was I call myself a CINO, c-i-n-o. Christian in name only. Okay, okay, which is a lot of Christians out there. They don't really know what they believe in, that a lot of them are not even truly saved, Like I wasn't. But I'm going to church, I go to church and all this stuff's collapsing around me, so all I know is I failed, okay, everything I did I couldn't do it. Now I'm failing, now I'm losing everything. I didn't turn to God, okay, because I didn't know I could. All I knew is I went to this big church on Sunday and they never and I'm just being honest here never once was there an altar call, never once did they ever tell you you need to be saved, never once did they tell you you need to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, never once. 2,000 people in this church. Okay, I'm like what do I know? Right? So I'm going in.
Speaker 2:So, after we lost everything, we relocated, started over again, I went to a different or some a different state. Now I'm like, oh, and I started hearing about this. People have a date and they've been saved. I'm like, what is this? So I'm typing to my pastor one day on the computer, right, I'm sending him an email, and my wife goes to me. She goes what are you doing? I go, I'm sending an email to Pastor Tammy. I go about what? I go about being saved. She goes what do you mean? I go, well, that's it. What does it mean? She goes what are you talking about? I go well, everyone's got a date. And all of a sudden I don't have a date. I go do again. That's playing the Christian game. Everyone thinks you're all that. But like I didn't accept the Lord, I mean, if I checked out that day, I'm in hell, right, like I am not saved from my sin, I didn't know, but I go to church, that doesn't count. No, it doesn't right. So it was such a big revelation. And then I started doing that like, oh, now I understand. Oh, it's a relationship. Oh, it's about relationship. It's not about checking with the church box. Oh, I gave tithing and all that, so it's not that, it's about a relationship.
Speaker 2:And that changed everything and I started spending a lot of time in the work getting around the right people who could really influence me in a godly way. And that's what changed the business? Because I'm out of the old business now I'm in the new stuff. Oh, there's a way to do this with a kingdom mindset. Oh, biblical principles. Oh look, god actually has principles to do business. He has principles to do everything.
Speaker 2:And the cool thing is I tell people I go well, you're in luck if you're not a believer, because they work for nonbelievers too. So if you just apply God's principles in your business, you're going to be successful. How about that? Hopefully you're going to come to Jesus and know him. But really, the fact is, what God gives us works. His blessings are in the boundaries that he gives us. If we can operate inside those, it's amazing. So that changed everything for me. That's really how I mean my children. We homeschool them all the way through high school, right. So we got to raise them with a biblical worldview and really got them close to the Lord and everything else, and it's just been awesome. So you could say it was kind of pivotal.
Speaker 1:Now, we talked about it earlier and I'm not sure if this is the same thing that you were referring to, but why is being the low bidder the worst thing you can do for your business?
Speaker 2:So, like we talked about Walmart and all that stuff too, right. But if you're out there and you're a contractor, anything that you're doing if you want to compete on price, like I said, it's a race to the bottom. You're going to have to be the low bidder all the time. And here's what happens when you're low bidder You're never going to have enough. You're never going to have enough money. You're never going to do enough volume. You're going to feel like I'm getting a lot of work, my gross revenue is very high, right, and you're like, oh, that's exciting, I'm doing $5 million a year. But then how much are you taking home? You're doing $5 million, but you're not taking home even $100,000 a year.
Speaker 2:So you know, there's a saying, doris, and it goes gross revenue feeds the ego, profit feeds the family. Okay, it's always about what you keep. You know, if your scorecard is gross revenue, you're going to, it's going to be a disaster. It's always about what you keep. If your scorecard is gross revenue, it's going to be a disaster. It's going to look good on the outside, but your family is going to struggle. You're going to struggle because you don't have that money.
Speaker 2:So if you want to live that life and always going deeper and deeper and deeper in debt and competition and everything else. You never get to rise above. You'll never be known as the best. Like to me. I couldn't live with that.
Speaker 2:I am driven, and God put this in me. He wants us to be the best. We represent Him. Do all things as unto Christ. I mean that's how we live. So I want to be the best, right, I mean I'm not going to do it in a bad way, but I'm going to be the best I can be. And I can't be that at low bidding. And now there are people who low bid and they jack up their prices after they get in and do all that nonsense. But the reality is, if you're going to go that route, there's going to be an end. It's going to be bad. You're never going to be an end. It's going to be bad. You're never going to profit. You're never going to get the things you truly want. You'll never be able to help the people you truly want to help, because you just don't have the income, because you're always racing towards the bottom.
Speaker 1:So what advice would you give to people that are in that type of business where you have to beg for the place? What advice would you give to them?
Speaker 2:You're going to have to start to transition out of it, not out of the business, but how you do business. So think of this If that's like, your whole business, is that low bid, low bid, low bid. Okay, well, you're going to for lack of a better term say you're going to create a division. Maybe it's a different offering, or it's the same thing offered differently right, you're going to go for a different customer base. So you're going to have to start out slow, but all of a sudden, instead of charging $5,000 for what you do, you're going to charge $6,500 and then $7,000. And you're going to make it better and better. Right, you're going to bring more value. And you're going to make it better and better. Right, you can bring more value and you're going to creep it up to see what the market's going to bear. You're going to go for a different client base, right? So instead of you know again, there's.
Speaker 2:There's a market for everybody. Let's use landscaping. There's a guy with a beat up pickup truck and a push mower in the back. Right, he'll cut your grass for 15 bucks. Okay, there's a market for that. There's people that just want the grass cut. $15 is great. The other guy has the beautiful covered trailer. It's all wrapped. He's got the beautiful new truck. He's got rider mowers, blowers, edgers. He'll come and that yard will look like the White House. Okay, I mean, it'll be perfect and you'll pay $200 a week instead of $15. Right, and you'll be happy. Right, the same thing, and you'll be happy, you'll love it and you'll love to see him every week. You'll come home and you'd be proud of that thing and happy to pay it. They both get to work right. But I guarantee you the guy getting the 200 a week is going to do a lot better than the guy getting 15. Right, he's gonna. He's not gonna be able to replace his truck when the time comes. So it's like that, right.
Speaker 2:So now you have to shift and change your customers. Who do you truly want to serve? Who are your favorite customers and how do you? Who are they? How do I serve them at the highest level. That's what you begin to do. So really is it's time. It's going to take you one, two, three years to get there, but pretty soon you can do one job and that'll equal three or four jobs over here on the low bid side. I do it with my customers all the time. I have guys in remodeling and construction. They went from doing $43,000 average kitchens to $93,000, right Now they're doing $150,000 kitchens. They were doing 12 jobs, 12 to 15 jobs at a time. Now they're doing three and they're making even more money.
Speaker 2:Double and triple the money that's a good life, you know, but it is because you have time, right, think about spinning 12 plates at a time. Keep those going, right? That's? It was crazy, right, but that's, and that's kind of the transition you have to make.
Speaker 1:Why must you create freedom, profit and impact in your business?
Speaker 2:So freedom, profit and impact go together, okay. So first, no one got into business to be a slave. We talked about that before. So what do you need? You need to what we call working on your 5%. Okay, there's 5% of your business that only you can do, dorsey, right, that's vision. That's maybe growth strategies, things like that. Right, reeling in the big clients, that's going to take you as the owner. Everything else is delegated and automated, right. So once you get to that 5% working on that, you go from 60, 70 hours a week to 10 or 12 in your business. That's freedom. Now you bought all your time back. All that stuff's been delegated. Now you have time. That's your freedom. Right, now you can do the things you want.
Speaker 2:The five F's right, you can start working on those Profit. When you do that, when you get to your 5%, everything you had to do to get there gives you a smooth running business, a self-running business. People are delegated, they're given authority, they can run it without you. You can leave for a month, come back and it's like you never left. Everything is good, right, you're more profitable, that kind of thing. And then you start making more money that way because you have efficiencies, you're streamlined. You're collecting your receivables when you need them. You're not chasing money right. Everything is handled, everything has a system and a place to go. That increases your profit. Now you're making more money without doing more work. That's the beauty. You didn't increase the workload. You increased the efficiencies and the streamline and the systemization of the business, and that naturally increases profit. Okay, now you can make the impact.
Speaker 2:Who do you want to help? Do you have a favorite charity? You know? Do you have? You know, is the Better Woman Shelter? Is an adoption facility someplace? Where do you want to take that extra money you're making and use it for good? You can create and you can do that wherever.
Speaker 2:Again, as a small business, I do like the right hand does know what the left hand is doing. In that way, I'm not out to brag what I'm doing with my charity. I just want to go help people. I don't need the recognition, I just need to know that I'm doing that. It's like when you tithe right as a believing Christian, people go. Oh, you know, the church just absconds with the money. I just go. I don't care, I'm not giving to the church, I'm giving to the Lord. There's a difference. You need to get this in your head If I'm giving 10% or 15% or whatever I'm giving, I go yes, it's at a church and I'm putting it in the envelope right, the proverbial envelope. If they abscond with it, if they misappropriate it, you know they're not going to answer to me, they're answering to God.
Speaker 2:We could have a way worse. My heart is for the Lord and that's where the money went. If you can understand that, you will freely give, because God loves a cheerful giver, and you become that. You're just I'm doing what I'm asked. Okay, I'm not going to worry about all the other stuff Again. We don't want that to happen.
Speaker 2:But it's the same thing in the business. Can I just give? Can I help? I just give it to them and watch them flourish as well. So that's the impact portion, just like improving your people them flourish as well. So that's the impact portion. Just like improving your people. Let them go home when they're coming and working for a purpose and not just a paycheck, so they work for a purpose. They want quality, feedback and recognition. Then it's about the money. Everyone wants to make good money, but that's not what drives people. Working for vision, working for purpose, that's what drives people. You can give them and elevate them. As people make them better Again. They go home happy. They're going to stay with you longer. You create a great culture at your business. That's what freedom, profit and impact does. It changes everything.
Speaker 2:By getting your business style then properly, the impact that you can have is almost immeasurable. It really is because you're an influencer, you're a business owner in the town you live in. Let's say, right, maybe you have 10 employees, maybe you have 100. Maybe you have 1,000. Whatever that is, that's influence, and not in the way of like politics and all that. I'm talking about the influence of the people who are under your care. You're a steward, after all. You raise them up, you make them better. They're happy, their lives become better. I mean, what more could you want? You know, it's just so awesome. So that's the opportunity you have as a business owner.
Speaker 1:As we get really close here. How can people reach you if they feel you know that they need a business coach or they just want to, you know, bounce some ideas off of you?
Speaker 2:Sure, just go to sharpenthespiritcoachingcom. Go to sharpenthespiritcoachingcom. So sharpenthespiritcoachingcom, you'll see the contact. You'll say call me, book a call, reach out, whatever you want to do, click the button. We'll get a call to a discovery. We'll call a discovery call, chat about your business, find out what's going on, give you some great advice if you need it. And if we want to work together, we'll work together. It's awesome, I'd love to help you. Yeah, that's sharpenthespiritcoachingcom One-stop shop.
Speaker 1:And what is one last encouragement that you would give to my listeners, because I think it's not too sharp at Walmart?
Speaker 2:Right, right, right, yeah, don't go there. But if you're in business or you're thinking of starting a business, here's what I need you to understand that perseverance is what it's about. There's suffering, there's perseverance, there's grit all that you have to persevere. You have to be in for the long haul. There's no quick fix. There's no short. You know short term high gains. None of that exists in business. You know every anyway. You know the old saying, every overnight success only took 10 years. Okay, so it's, nothing happens overnight. Be persistent. You have a great idea, stick with it. But find help. Get a good coach. It can be me, it can be someone else, but I just want to encourage you to push through, because we need small business. So if that's really what you're looking to get into, talk to me, talk to somebody who can guide you, who's been where you want to go, and they'll help you get there.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Richard, for coming on the show today. We greatly appreciate having you.
Speaker 2:Dorsey, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. It was an honor.
Speaker 1:Yes, definitely. Well, guys and girls, thank you so much for coming on and listening. Please go and check out Richard's website and even his book. I'll have it in the show notes. And please go check out my new podcast website at wwwdorseyrosshowcom podcast website at wwwdorseyrossocom. And please like, share and be encouraged by these podcasts. Have a great day. Bye-bye.
