Noob School - Avionics to Entrepreneurship: How John McDonald Built a Thriving Business & a Dream Home

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

In this episode of Noob School, I sit down with John McDonald—Navy veteran, entrepreneur, and the mastermind behind Fabtech Solutions. John’s story is one of discipline, adaptability, and a relentless drive to build something bigger than himself.We kick things off with a deep dive into John's journey—from his college days to his time in the Navy, where he specialized in avionics. His military experience shaped his work ethic and problem-solving skills, which later became the foundation for his success in business.John and I swap stories about the ups and downs of entrepreneurship—what it really takes to build a company from the ground up, the hard lessons learned, and the key sales strategies that separate the great from the average. He also shares valuable insights on hiring the right people in sales, a must-listen for any business leader looking to build a strong, revenue-generating team.We also talk about his company, Fabtech Solutions, a veteran-owned full-service metal fabrication machinery dealer serving the Southeast. John explains how Fabtech’s mission goes beyond selling equipment—they’re in the business of building long-term partnerships by providing expert service, fast response times, and industry-leading consultation to metal fabrication shops.And if that’s not enough, we get into something really unique—John’s latest passion project: building a barndominium on his 52-acre property in Greenville, SC. He’s been documenting the entire process on social media, and let’s just say—people love it. From construction tips to lifestyle inspiration, his journey of turning raw land into a dream home is captivating an audience far beyond the world of metal fabrication.This episode is packed with wisdom, humor, and real-world lessons. Whether you’re a business owner, a sales leader, or just someone who loves a good entrepreneurial story—this one’s for you.Get your sales in rhythm with The Sterling Method: https://SterlingSales.coI'm going to be sharing my secrets on all my social channels, but if you want them all at your fingertips, start with my book, Sales for Noobs: https://amzn.to/3tiaxsLSubscribe to our newsletter today: https://bit.ly/3Ned5kL#SalesTraining #B2BSales #SalesExcellence #SalesStrategy #BusinessGrowth #SalesLeadership #SalesSuccess #SalesCoaching #SalesSkills #SalesInnovation #SalesTips #SalesPerformance #SalesTransformation #SalesTeamDevelopment #SalesMotivation #SalesEnablement #SalesGoals #SalesExpertise #SalesInsights #SalesTrends

New School. All right, welcome back to Noob School, episode 140, with my good friend John McDonald. Welcome back, John. Thank you for having me. You were here a year ago? I would say it was at least a year ago. A year ago. John and I met in sales training class probably four or five years ago.

John's probably 10. 10 years ago? 10 years ago. And John was just not. not too long out of the Navy then and was really getting both barrels of sales

training and we got to be friends and he got to be friends with a lot of people in that class. We used to go and walks and talk about life. I miss the walks. Yeah, walks are good. Warks are good. But today John's been here once before and answered all the standards

deal stuff. I thought today we delve into kind of his kind of how he has built his life. on purpose. I would say John, we'll talk more about it, but he could easily, like all of us could, he could find something to complain about or, you know, I wish this, I wish that. But John just figured, here I am, what can I do from here to get to there? And he's just done that over and over again in his life. And at this very moment, he's in a pretty darn good place, I would say. I feel like it. That's good. So tell us where.

You started? Where did you grow up? I grew up outside of Tampa, Florida. Yeah. And I went to high school, and immediately after graduating, I joined the Navy. Why did you do that? I needed direction. I didn't want to stay home, and the crowd was not great. And I didn't know what college was about.

I didn't have great grades. I didn't take it seriously. But I knew I didn't want to live in that trailer anymore in that little. So you knew, you knew, hey, you know. didn't want to stay there, it'd be you just had a intuition that it wasn't going to go well. There's something better. Yeah. There's something better.

So the Navy, it's certainly something completely different, right? I mean, you're poop, you're out. Yeah, yeah. It's a big world of difference. Did you go to Great Lakes? I went to Great Lakes. Yeah. Nine weeks.

And that's where everyone goes to get in the Navy as a non-officer, right? to get boot camp yeah my son jack went through there seal right there is yeah yeah um and so tell us about some of the places you saw in the navy uh well first i'll tell you that i went to boot camp and i went to avionic school about nine months uh that was a petcola florida um that was nice and fun but it was actual uh intense learning for me because i didn't take high school seriously so now i'm having tests on a weekly basis. I have to pass. And I did pass. And then I went to Oceana in Virginia, Norfolk. I mean, that was about another year. And then I ended up on an aircraft carrier that Dwight D. Eisenhower and worked on avionics. What are those? What's that avionic?

Avionics is electronics on an aircraft. So F-18s, S-H-60s, radar jamming is what I specialized in. to do with air? Is that what that means? Avionics. Avionics? Yeah, I would say aviation electronics. Hey, I imagine political science, man. I didn't get any actual training like you did. It's so funny. I went to a college, a good college. Yeah. I learned a damn thing.

When you say good college, I mean, it's just a, it was, the Citadel's a good college. I mean, it's supposed to be a good college. You know, you have professors and they teach you things and all. But I studied something that had nothing to do with you. anything like political science, right? I didn't study avionics. Do you know what it means? Yeah. Something you can actually do and be helpful. I love this topic. I hope we can tangent a little bit because my daughter is graduating in about a month. Yeah. We've visited 13 colleges. Yeah. I've got a spreadsheet pie chart, you know, just, you know, what she likes, what she doesn't.

And I'm so ignorant to college. I didn't go. And so what in college will help you with your sales career? What in the Citadel helped you with your sales career? People could certainly argue, that if you want to go into sales, that just, you know, four years of being kind of on your own and dealing with life and, you know, trying to get into this class versus that class and talking your professor into it and, you know, trying to worm your way into a certain sorority. I mean, there's stuff I'm sure you have to do to persuade people to do things. But having said that, I wouldn't go to college for sales, right? If I really wanted to learn sales, I would go to specific schools to learn sales.

You would. You would. Yeah. Whatever it is you want to learn to do in your future life, I would go to that school. Now, if you want to be a doctor, I think you've got to go to college. An attorney. A doctor. A doctor.

Specialized. You have to check that box. That's 1% of 18 miles that know this. You have to major in law or biology or. or engineering or whatever. Those are specific things you're learning for your profession. That makes sense to me. Right. Architecture, right?

Sure. But not sales, not entrepreneurialism. Not at all. But there's not a lot of 18-year-olds that say, hey, I want to be in sales. And so when I'm looking at the price of these colleges and what my daughter wants to specialize in psychology and whatnot, I'm looking at this group of, all right, what are the stats? Is it 80% of folks don't use their college degree?

But I think psychology is one of those where you get a good. It really is. Yeah. And then in this whole process, I'm thinking to myself, all right, I didn't go to college, but I've got discipline. Now, did the Navy? I get this a lot because I'm also a bodybuilder. A lot of what I do is based on discipline. They say, oh, well, that's easy for you because you were in the military.

Yeah. And I'm going to say something that might be a little controversial, and that is if you graduate college from a tough college, that takes more discipline than being in the military. Hmm. Here's why. Yeah, no. It blows my mind when I say it because if I don't show up to muster in the morning, my consequence is brig, trouble, captain's mass. If I don't show up for class the next day, eh, okay.

But you have to show up. You have to wake up hungover. You have to wake up not wanting to. And so if you've got through those four years or whatever it takes, that tells me a lot about a person now. And so when I look at somebody who's graduated college when I'm employing people, somebody was in the military, that college holds a little bit of weight because of what you had to do, not because of why you took it. I mean, I can follow that reasoning that, you know, if you or I went

to, you know, say a big fun party school, South Carolina or something, I don't think I'd be very disciplined, but I went to the senator, so people think I'm disciplined. I went somewhere that made me, I had to be up at six every day and you had to. You had to. Yeah, or you get kicked out. So military college, I didn't take that into effect when I was thinking about that. But for every other college, I feel like you better have some discipline. I guess the consequence there would be your parents get upset with you. No, you don't. I mean, you eventually get kicked out.

You'll get kicked out. They have punishments you have to do and restrictions and it escalates up to getting kicked out. They also have a thing now, which I think is good, which is you have to maintain a certain standard of physical fitness. your whole time there or you don't graduate. I did not know that. Yeah, I like that. That's great. Yeah.

That's great. So anyway, your daughter, I would say if she wants to go into psychology, then I would try to go to the best psychology school. Yes. You know, not like, well, this is a school I like and it's got a psychology major. No, that's not good enough. Like, what are the top schools for psychology that I can get into and go there? Yeah, that's where we're at.

And to further the college conversation, it's AI, AI has made knowledge worth about zero. Right. Because it's all right here on the phone. So when I think about, you know, if I need this formula for something, I speak into the app. And boom, there it is. I don't have to call the resource of knowledge, John, that we used to have to have a source. Right. You used to get paid for knowing things.

Now it's here. So there's a lot of folks, you know, hey, I need the tax code for this. Hey, I need to figure out how much concrete I need for this. It's all here. So when I think about the knowledge thing, I'm like, oh, oh, this is going to be interesting. Yeah, yeah. That's interesting. I suppose in psychology, I mean, that is a, that's a field that is, you know,

there's a lot of room for interpretation. Gray. You get a lot of experience by seeing different people. So it's not like being an engineer or something. Even I was talking to a lady the other day who is like the top nurse assistant for this guy who does knees and hips. That's all he does. It does hundreds and hundreds of them every year. And it is, he's just, he does all of them with the robot.

So, you know, he's looking at the screen. Yeah. And the thing is in there, the camera, and he's just doing it. And the robot's actually doing the cutting and the sewing and all that. Yeah. And they're not far away from no surgeon. Because they'll see the knee and they'll say, okay, this is what has to happen, right? They'll just make the decisions.

Yeah. So, oh my gosh, isn't that crazy? Right. Would you be comfortable with that? A hip replacement? Eventually. Eventually, because what will happen is they'll say, statistically, you're safer with the robot. Human variable.

Yeah, then a guy who forgets to cuts off the wrong leg. Yeah. That happens sometime, right? We don't want that to happen. Or he's shaking too much. Oh, yeah, maybe you don't have to be genitonex. I don't know. But the school, now, how far away is she looking?

Far away is distance? Yeah. She's really open, but I think we've applied for early decision and regular decision. I think we already hit all the deadlines. So everything that she's looked at is within five hours, six hours. I was just going to say, I mean, it is another consideration if the best school was, let's say,

in Portland or something. That's just so far away. You know, you really end up with this big divide with your child that you don't see them that often. And if they're within five hours, you know, they can come home for the weekend or you can go, you know. For her, the further, the better. You're in negotiation, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah.

And I'm, you know, there's got to be, I think, an hour and a half, two hours is a good, you know, I can hurry up and get there. Furman's got psychology. Furman does that. Right in the backyard. Anyway, that was the way, that's a tangent off of that. That's very cool. Yeah, it's fun to talk about that kind of stuff. I offered, this was, let's see, how long ago it was, it was roughly, roughly 20 years ago when my kids were,

going through college, or the first one was, I offered all three of them, I said, I'll take the money that your school would cost, roughly, okay? It's a lot of money, right? A couple hundred grand or 300 grand, whatever, to go to school there, and we will create together the dad planned. Love it. Yeah, I love it. Yeah. There'll be no, like, four-year college. We're going to say, what is it you'd like to learn over the next four years? Do you want to learn how to surf? Do you want to learn how to speak in other language? Do you want to cook?

Do you want to learn anything about selling or business, entrepreneurism, whatever it is? We'll find the spot to go. You offered. Oh, yeah. 20 years ago, you offered this. Oh, yeah, yeah. I said, we will create this thing where, like I said,

they said, well, what about having a good time at college? I'm like, how about first semester? We sent them to Alabama for one. semester, you know, for the football season. Just don't even go to class. Great idea. Just party, drink all day, hit the ball. I don't care what you do. You'll have a good time, right? But don't think that's for four years we're going to do that. Let's learn something while we're out there. Who took it? Well, my daughter is, oh, kind of took it. She, uh, she said, I want a little of both.

She said, let me do one year before I start college of the dad plan. Yeah. And then I'll, I'll, go to college afterwards. And I thought somewhere during that first year she would decide to take it for four years, but she didn't. She went to college afterwards. Where did she go? She went to SMU, which was a great, she had a great experience. She got a

degree in three years and math, you know, really did great in school. But for her year she took, she spent half the year in Salamanca, Spain, and lived there and just focused on Spanish. So she learned how to speak Spanish, and she had a ball with all those kids that were there to learn Spanish from all over the world. It's like that's the mecca for learning Spanish.

And then for the second half, she went to on outward bound, and she was on a ship with like 40 other outward bound people down somewhere in South America. Oh, my gosh. They lived on this ship for three months. How's dad dealing with this? Because that sounds important. Listen, I think it's great. I think I want to push the kids out and challenge them early as much as possible. Because when we're not around, I want to be ready.

John, that is what I define as success nowadays as a 40-year-old father. I can leave this earth when I know she's self-sustainable and take care of herself. Exactly. That's what I want. Exactly. She's also going to Spain here in a couple weeks. That's when you say that. Good.

She's a high school trip. Great. I'm trying not to be apprehensive, but. Well, South America. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we, you know, to prepare, we did some self-defense training. You know, we had someone do that.

Did self-defense training. We did some driving training, elusive evasive driving training. Taught by Liam Nelson. Yeah. And just try to teach her all along about, you know, head on a swivel, being aware. But, yeah. You know, and now I don't ever worry about her because she got out there and did stuff. So I think it's great to get them to do more.

But the dad plan. Dad plan. I want to go on it. I'm kind of on it, really. You are kind of on it. I like it. I think that it would be, you know, as a young adult, you want to go doing your own thing. Yeah.

And as parents, we try to mitigate that for them. and also we steal their struggle. And I catch myself, like, wanting to fix this. Let me handle this. I'll pay for that. I'll beat them up. I'll do this. You know, let me drive you there.

I'm like, it's hard, but it's something. Go to Spain. Go to college 10 hours away. Go. And I think that'll shape her better and get her more prepared for life. Yeah. So my phrase I use, and again, I'm not putting myself up as parent of the year, but I think I might have learned this from sales.

but I'll say, listen, I know you've got an important decision to make coming up. And I wonder, do you want me to give you just some ideas for you to consider? Yeah. And decide what you want. They're like, okay, okay, okay, I'll listen, you know. But if I say, listen, John, here's what I think you want to do. They're like, you know, shut you down. That's absolutely right.

So you went from parenting to actual leadership mode. Yeah. And I love that. If you come down parenting, I just feel like it's not as receptive. Do you want to know what I would do in that situation? Yeah. Yeah. Do you think that's the Socratic method also asking questions?

Absolutely. I'd love to put my foot down a lot and say, you're not doing that. You know, they've got these dumbass ideas sometimes and you've got to stop them somehow. Sometimes, yeah. That's true. So we got stuck there on college for a second, but you skipped college and you went into the Navy and you thought that was your best option. You learned something about avionics, which is electrical stuff for aviation stuff, right? Specifically radar jamming.

Okay, yeah. Radar jamming. That's to keep the ship from getting hit with something. It's for an F-18 that's in a fight or getting shot at and he needs to throw off some chaff and flare, heat so that the missile or gunfire will hit that. Those are the systems that I worked on. So you were in the Navy, how long? Five years.

Five years. And you got out and you started working for a company that had something to do with what you learned in the Navy, right? No. Absolutely not. That was in my mind. That made such good sense. Well, here's what happened.

I was Sailor of the Year on the Dwight Yisenhower. And how do you get to be the salary? What'd you do? Well, there's a series of boards that you would go on. You would go and answer questions about history or chain of command, things like that. Some opinion-based questions that you have a high evaluation constantly. And there's, you know, the politics in it of, you know, folks have got to like you. You've got to look good.

You've got to look the part. haircut every week, have your ironed uniform boot shined, and I did that. I wasn't the smartest, and I'm still not the smartest, and the same thing with the business. And I just tell folks, it's just I'm so far from being the most highly educated business person. It's just that I'm dumb enough to keep persevering. Yeah. Well, you're certainly not dumb, but I think it's, I call it, you know, being smart enough to stay focused on the important metrics in your business, you know, versus like getting all spread out and trying to do too much. It's like, we need to make sure everyone does this.

Everyone's got to make five calls a day. Everyone's got to follow, you know, whatever it is we're supposed to do. Managing the metrics. Yeah. But I think that's because my mind is on Mount Everest, not the hike. Right. And if I thought about, if I knew what it took to be in business, I don't think I'd be in business. I don't think I would have started a business.

I'd have been a high-paid salesperson somewhere. That's not a bad idea. There's been times in my life as an entrepreneur. I swear, I'm like, I wonder if I could still go to work for the post office. You still think that? Yeah. And not today, unfortunately not today, but not too long ago, I'm like, you know, because you have to sometimes you have to like borrow money for payroll and, you know,

it just just the things that you never thought of if I knew what it took to climb out Everest I never would have tried to hike it and that's where I'm thinking to myself I'm like okay I just need to hire the smart people yeah I went to college yeah well you have a strong

you have a strong constitution so it takes that to keep trudging along and with all that said I know why I'm in business now so I wouldn't take I wouldn't do it over I mean maybe but I

know why and it's because not many people can weather that stress that it takes to make payroll, deal with the headaches that happen every day. And there are all, there's always a wreck truck, somebody with a ticket, somebody's sick, somebody's giving, there's always an issue. And there's a select few that are able to deal with that and also have that responsibility of many families on your shoulders. And so I feel very blessed to be able to do that. And I feel like this was my purpose. And so tell us exactly what the business does. So FabTech Solutions was created about 10 years ago.

And we sell and service metal fabricating machinery. Okay. So we are a distributor. We are business to business. And we sell equipment that will bend and form and cut metal. Okay. Manufacturers, fabricators. Okay.

So you think of anything that's metal. there's a machine that makes it we sell and service it okay and what geography we are becoming nationwide and we are currently

southeast we're getting into the Midwest but as we continue to grow we're gonna take the nation so you have you would have salespeople and service people in all those geographies So that's an interesting question because we've tried models of having service technicians in certain areas. And I think our best model so far is having them home-based here in South Carolina and being able to go from here.

And why do you ask? Well, when I have somebody in Florida, somebody in Pennsylvania, somebody in Ohio, I'm not saying we won't do it. It is super hard to build a culture. It is super hard to have your thumb on what they're doing. And I don't want to micromanage. I don't want my team to micromanage. And so it has been easier to grow from here on out. So somebody wants to buy equipment in Texas, California,

and we've flown all over the place. If they're willing to pay those rates, if they're willing to buy that equipment, it's because they trust us as a company. And I like this model. So you'll send the rep out there the Dallas, they sell the thing, and then the person needs servicing or help.

Do you fly someone out there for that? We'll fly or we will drive. Some of our technicians. They might see a few other people on the way kind of thing. We'll do that. We'll try to make it worth it. But the technicians like having their certain tools. Personally, I like to drive everywhere.

Interesting. I'll drive. Yeah, there's... They got their own stuff with them. Yeah, give them a truck, and they got their tools. And that's sometimes an easier way to, it depends on what we're working on. Yeah. You know, some guys like to carry one toolbox and others like to carry their entire truck.

Yeah. And, you know, how you work is, I don't want to mess with that. Yeah, that's cool. That's cool. Well, I think that's pretty interesting. I mean, I don't think anybody listening today or very few people would say, I knew he was going to say everyone stays here in services like Dallas and St. Louis from here. It seems so far.

But, you know, at least for a while, you know, it's easier than running this national grid organization and what's Charlie doing in St. Louis today. We had all of our people at our first company, you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, salespeople, service people. They're all in Greenville. So we recruited them, we trained them, we were with them every day, and we had this great culture. And as soon as we said, let's open up an office in California. trouble. Yeah. Just a revolving door of people coming and going and leaving and it's like, nobody wanted to go out there and see them. I mean, so. Tell me why. Tell me why we didn't want to go? No, why was it a revolving door?

Biggest reason. The biggest reason is because they, they lost the culture of Greenville. We would send some of our best people out there. And they just, it's almost like they disappeared. For training or for? No, to go out, just to move out there. Oh, to move out there and kind of service that area. I'm sure some of them did a good job, but a lot of them left after a while because, you know, I wasn't talking to them every day. I might not talk to them

for six months. So it's kind of just kind of wandered off somewhere else or saw another opportunity or something. So they lost that because they were in a different spot. They lost your leadership. They lost the leadership and I wasn't a very good leader to them really because I was kind of out of sight, out of mind.

And I would always say, you know, I need to go out there and see those four people. or stay here with these hundred. You know, what should I do? And so we didn't go out there very much. I'm glad you're telling me because I've been toying with this idea of incentivizing our good technicians to, hey, do you want to move to Texas? Would you like, we'll pay for that?

And I felt like that would be a, you know, easier transition than to hire somebody down there. Yeah. And you're telling me that kind of worries me now. Yeah. Yeah. Well, could you, can you get anybody in these, other big markets to be contractors? You lose control of your reputation.

And I'm not a big fan of that. And I think our mantra is service and sales. I make sure that our guys have tucked in shirts, nice uniforms, and they're to our standards. And they show up clean and they leave clean and they speak well. And I feel like the industry has not been that. So that is something that I, obviously, I've thought about. I don't think it is feasible.

I don't want to say never, but I don't think it's feasible. Did that kind of discipline or attention to detail and uniforms and all that comes from the Navy, you think? A lot of it did. A lot of it did. And then I realized how, let me tell you something, salespeople can be looked at two different ways. And one is very knowledgeable or I like this guy. And I've been, I have sold or people have bought for me, let me tell you that because that's different. People have bought for me because they trusted them.

I would handle their solution, not because I knew about all this stuff. I didn't have the knowledge. So I think you have to look the part before you know the stuff. And if I look good, if I carry myself well and speak nice, I feel like you would trust me. But if I came in here sloppy and still had the knowledge, you might question subconsciously. It doesn't help. It doesn't help. I'm not a good example because I think I'm a lazy dresser,

but I know the difference, and I can tell you some stories. One time we had a plumber come to our house, and this guy looked like one of your guys, shirt tucked in, shoulders back, you know, looked clean. Got it. And he put the footy thing, socks on. And he said, I don't want to. I was like, holy cow,

I love this guy. Best plumber I've ever seen. Now guess what? I don't even know what the hell he did. Didn't care. I just feel like that was the guy. So that's who we use now. You know, he's the same people.

And it's just that presentation. And another time, a guy was selling me, we had mold in the basement, in the cross space. Like in the crawl space. And I asked my wife, I said, call whoever, get him to come over here. Let's take a look. and so when I got home from work

this gentleman was sitting in my living room I mean he was a gentleman he had like nice pants and shoes on he had a blazer and a little tie on Jordan Peterson looking yeah I was like what is he doing here who's this man

this is Mr. So-and-so he's here to talk about the basement and I said okay okay Mr. So-and-so nice to meet you let's go on down to the and he's like well just hold on a minute John because I like to learn some more about you and about the house before we go down there.

So he slowed me down. Okay. And we just had a nice talk. You know, might even have a little glass of tea or something, you know. But it just made me feel like this guy, first of all, the way he dressed as a mold removal guy, right? And that he took it so seriously. And so when it was all over when they'd gone, he had a guy with him who was actually going to look around down there. when it was all over and he gave me a proposal

it was just like you know for this amount of money would make it all go away I'm like done you know I trusted him trusting him yeah he but what if he just said you know

that I'm gonna go down there right now take a look and whatever I mean he part of it was his dress to your point the way he dressed and looked and I demand that with my salespeople was I just want him to look crisp you know not necessarily dressing better than the prospect, but just that they would look good.

Clean. And I think you've asked me this before, and you said, what do you look for in salespeople? It's not technical knowledge. It's behavior and attitude. And then we'll figure out the technical knowledge. I want you to show up right. I want you to do what you're supposed to. This we can teach you. Right. You're right. All right. So you started this business, and you decided to go to sales training. And that's the where we met under the great Walker McKay, our leader. The legend, huh? How did you find that class?

How did I find that class? I, that's a good question. I thought they were very professional. I felt like personally I was nowhere near. I had the imposter syndrome, right? I was in a group full of salespeople who were doing. No, no, no. How did you physically find it?

How did you find it? Oh. Yeah. How did I physically find it? I was recommended by somebody who took that class and said, hey, you should probably do this. So Walker was pushing them for referrals and got your name. Yeah, and I think it was even deeper than that. I think Walker, somebody that worked with Walker, knew somebody that I knew and, hey, you need to do this.

Yeah. And, you know, the franchise. has a big name. Yeah. So, yeah, you went to that sales class, and that was a really good one. I'm so glad I went to it 10 years ago. I learned a lot about sales. And one good thing about going to a class in whatever you're working on

is you meet other like-minded people. John, I think that's even more important. Yeah. And I've got my technicians that want to go to service training and at the factories and whatnot. and I'm like, these guys know everything. They know more about than the factory does. But they need to have a relationship with the factory. And they need to be able to get somebody on the phone.

And if they know who you are, it's relationship. Same thing. Yeah, totally. Yeah, so we met John and I became friends. And then Patrick Garner, we both became good friends with Patrick. Heck, there's a lot of people that we met at that class. But it's just such a good example. when people are sitting around, you know, maybe not super happy, you know, join a club,

join a nonprofit, go to a class, you know, do something to get you out around people, like-minded people. The camaraderie came from all of us trying to solve the same problem. Right. How could we sell more? How could we sell more? We all have the same problems, you know, gatekeepers and all that. I just think about the relationships meant more to me.

me than the actual training did because I can call any of them and they probably understood, you know, hey, John, you know, what would you do in this situation? Yeah. And I, I just, it's invaluable to be able to, you know, contact everybody who's gone through the same thing. Yeah, it is great. Okay, so we went to that class and since then your business has gotten a lot better. I mean, how many, because you were very small then when we started, I think. I started that class and then I started my business. And then I started my, business. What that did was that class showed me I didn't get to see my peers when I was in my industry. I didn't speak to competitors. When I got in front of other salespeople, oh, you guys

deal with this too and oh, you own this and you, well, how did you do that? And then it made me believe that I was capable of these things. And so I was inspired by every individual that was in there that I got to know and that things were possible. Oh, you're selling that much. Wow, there's 10,000 fridges getting pumped out of Electrolux every week. That's crazy. Just all these things that you're in your box and you don't get to see. And so when I was able to see this, I was able to be inspired enough to say, you know what? I could definitely make this work, start of the business.

Yeah. And the business has gotten a lot bigger since then. How many people do you have? I think we're only at seven right now. Seven people. So that's great. When we started working together, there wasn't even a business, right? It was an idea.

It was a, what do they call it, an entrepreneurial hiccup or an entrepreneurial. I know there's a term for it. We have so many. We have a lot of, we have a lot. Oh, oh, so there's a couple of things you've done also, and I don't know exactly when they started, but you got into after the Navy competitive bodybuilding. Yeah. Was that right after the Navy?

No, no. It was actually when I started my business. I started my business. The very day I joined the gym again, right? And it became part of my routine. And then I just got really good at, you know, growing muscle. And then got into the competitions because I seen folks doing that. And, of course, I can do that too.

And I realized, well, it was a challenge, right? It was like, all right, well, you got to do this, this and this. You can't do it. Oh, yeah? Watch me, you know? And so I got good at that because that took a lot of discipline and I enjoyed that challenge. And, you know, I'd be honest with you, I don't even like bodybuilders. You know what I mean?

I love the structure that it gives me. I'm not hanging out with bodybuilders. I enjoy or I'm very much, I'm impressed and it, you know, hats off to you if you do bodybuilding very much. I know what it takes. But it gives me the structure I need to lead a better life, whether it's being a better father, business, a person, even my spiritual world, but it gives me that discipline. If I don't have that discipline, I'm sleeping in, I'm drinking, I'm doing all these things I'm not supposed to.

Yeah. That's really... I agree with you. I think, not that I'm a bodybuilder, but sports in general or that kind of thing, you know, if you learn that if I do these things, this is what's going to happen eventually. Yeah. And you're able to do your bodybuilding and win competitions like you have, and then subsequently influence other people that are trying to do the same thing,

you apply that same lesson to your business, right? Absolutely. If I make these calls, you know, this many a day, and keep doing my sales training and keep making my product better, this is going to happen. Everything's consistent. Yeah. I know that if I lift this weights, I eat this food, I do this, I sleep right,

if this will happen. I know if I make these calls, I make my visits, this will happen. Right. And you're still on, like, strictly a pound a day, a pound of burger a day? Ground beef or ground deer rather? Ground deer. Right now I'm probably around 25, 2,600 calories. I can get real technical about it, but I'm eating six ounces of cod, six ounces of ground beef, six ounces of ground turkey. My carbs are usually sweet potatoes and quinoa. I like quinoa. My breakfast is eggs and tortilla shells and that's kind of my cheap thing.

The tortilla shell. Yeah, a little tortilla, 11 grams of carbs and so gets me going. Well, but again, one of the things we talked about before is just that you're so consistent with it, that you know, that's only like seven foods there, right? That's what I'm going to eat. Some combination of these that equals about 2,500. John, I have been, I have become obsessed with data. Yeah. And when you don't improve on what you don't measure, right? So I measure everything.

And whether I'm drinking water or I'm measuring my food or even when I have my tequila, I put it on my scale and have two ounces. and that's all I have. You weigh your tequila? I do, two ounces. Two ounces of tequila, two ounces of pomegranate juice and two ounces of water. You know what? There you go, folks. If you're drinking alcohol, you know, without weighing it, you might have a little heavy pour.

That's about two. The Martha Stewart pour, the vodka pour. I've done that before. But the obsession on the data has only gotten me better, and it's just, you know, we don't improve on what we don't measure. And so metrics in my business, I'm obsessed with measuring all the, these KPI's and it only improves. Let me tell you something. I'm real proud of. I've seen this a couple weeks ago. I'm doing my reports for last year. Percentage-wise, we were within 2% of our revenue from

last year. I didn't hire anybody. I didn't hire anybody more. I didn't take any more vendors. We didn't do anything other than improve on our processes and our systems. Okay. So we made more calls. We did more marketing. We did more things. We were in 2% of our gross revenue. We improved EBITA. Double. Nice. Double to EBITA by just doing that. Nice. And I'm real proud of that, and I just feel like we're getting more out of less because of systems and processes.

So I'm doing that, and we're going to go on a big recruitment thing here this year because we've dialed in our phone plan, as I call it. So we just start adding phones to the phone plan. Anyway, the bodybuilding is the data. It's all about data, data and data out. Man. You can't do it? yet? No.

John's going to do a show with me one of these days. He's going to get into Speedo and, you know, look at that. There's a six-pack in there. Yeah, it's in there. Let's still talk about it. It's going to get better. I'm sorry. Okay.

So another thing you've done in terms of building your life the way you want to is you decided you weren't going to have a traditional, let's call it a dwelling, right? Dwelling. A dwelling. You weren't going to, like, live out. A box full of memories. Simpsonville, you know, subdivision or whatever. Yeah.

And you went out to the kind of the country, not too far away and bought, what, 50 acres? 52 acres. 52 acres. And it's only 10 minutes from downtown. Yeah. Right? Because I went out there. 15, 20.

Yeah. So 52 acres. And you can hunt on that land? Yeah, we do. Yeah. Is there a pond? Not yet. Not yet.

Not yet. It's a creek, though. Yeah. But you built and had become quite. famous for building a wonderful barn dominium, right? Yeah, it's gotten some traction. So if somebody wanted to follow you about the barn dominium, where would they go? Is it Instagram?

Instagram and TikTok. Facebook seems to be the big. Facebook. Yeah, even Facebook. I woke up one day and there's a million new followers or whatever, and I'm like, this is nuts. I just decided to do a 60-second video on what I was doing, and people tend to like that. They want to. So is it John McDonald's?

John McDonald, JR 99. John McDonald, JR 99, yeah. It's really cool. And the way you do it is very, very entertaining. But he documented the whole Barnumian build from beginning to now. And it's been awesome. I guess I was there, what, I don't know how many months ago I came to see it. Eight, nine, ten minutes ago, yeah.

But you also, so he's got a Barnumium, which has got his dwelling in it. He's got a place for his daughter when she's there. when she's home from college or whatever. He's got his office downstairs. Podcast room. Podcast room. He's got a gym. Full gym.

And then a little warehouse connected for the trucks and the business stuff, right? Yeah, we've got 4,500 square foot of warehousing. Yeah. And we've got 3,000 square foot of two studio apartments, one for me, one for Victoria. And then I've got the full gym and the podcast room where you're going to be one of my first guests, actually, once we get that back ramped up. I love it. I want to be first. You want to be first? Yeah, you're thinking about Patrick, aren't you? There's a list. There's a list. I was going to, you know, I was thinking Trump and you, and it's just kind of stuck between you too. I'll go right after Trump. Okay. So tell

us more about the Barnuminium. The Barnumum was really about being outside the box thinking. Yeah. And what that did was give me the freedom that I really struggled with having, growing my business and having what I want and what I think my, me and my daughter deserve. And so we had 10 acres. A subdivision was moving in. We sold it. We had to sell it. We loved the 10 acres.

That was the before the place. Yep, the McDonald Hunt Lodge. We moved into one of my rental houses for a couple of years. I said, no big deal. We'll find something else. Can I go buy, you know, the million dollar house? I'm like, yeah, we can. But then I would, I needed a building for my business.

Yeah. And so it was like, I can't do both. Yeah. And so the barn dominium gave me both. And so I built a beautiful place for my daughter and myself to live that I was able to house my gym and do all these things and hunt. And, you know, it just and grow the business. So it was the best decision that I could have done at the time, right? And so if you're if you got a business and you're trying to grow it and you're trying to have fun too, like it just everything's very efficient.

Everything's very efficient. And how did you come up with that decision? You know, honestly, it was how do I do both? And then I was like, well, if I can only have, you know, a building in my house here. And I'm like, wait a second, you know, as you're scrolling and you see these buildings. And then, you know, the other question is, why did I, why did I build it myself with help? Right? And that's kind of a crazy question. But, you know, there's people who build buildings. There's contractors, right? And try to get a hold of them and come out and quote. And I couldn't even get quotes. So, I'm very impatient. I'm a eternal optimist. We'll figure this thing out. We've got Everest. We'll figure out how to get there somehow. And that's where I started. We're almost done. You know, I'm going to put the wrap around porch on, but I've got five machines in there now. I'm training in there. I've been living in there for a while. And it's, you know, paid for too. So paying as I go, that's really cool. And being able to have a building where I know a lot of my competitors have big leases and industrial parks.

have that. So it's become a win-win. I mean, it's amazing. I mean, I think about, you know, traditional, kind of what we've morphed into is society. You would have your house. Yeah. You'd have a house for Victoria. Right. You'd help her get a house or something. You'd have your hunt club. Right. You'd have your gym you go to. Yep. You'd have a studio you go to for the podcast. Yep. And a place for your business. That's six places. And all your toys. You have a storage unit. Right. Seven. places. Seven places.

And I know people who have all those things. John, I know a lot of people that do. And I was like, I don't know how you do that. It's just a pain in the ass going around to all of them anyway. How much time do you waste? Drive into the gym, drive into the storage unit, drive into the business. Right. And I've really condensed it.

I do have to get out after a few days, you know? Yeah. After hitting the gym here, I've got to go out somewhere else and see people, right? But incredible efficiency where I could wake up and go right to work, go to the gym, go out to the business. I love it. I'm so much more efficient. That's good. And so how is that morphing into?

I mean, how many followers do you have now following this process? I think Facebook, you're probably somewhere around 80,000. TikTok or probably around 90,000, Instagram, around 20,000. It's not crazy, but look, they're paying me, you know, to get on there and do these things. and what I've learned is that it's been a season of my life and people jumped on. I just hope that they want to follow me for the rest of my journey because building a barn dominium is not who I am. I'm a business owner.

I'm a bodybuilder. I'm a father. I'm a Christian. I'm these things. And people have latched on to this to a point of every day I get a phone call from somebody random across the country, hey, where did you get those trusses? Or I'm grinding up coffee at the local grocery store. Hey, you know what you can do with that toilet?

you can move it. I'm sorry. I didn't know who you. But it is very, it feels really good that I'm able to inspire folks to try and live outside the box. And not a lot of folks can make that decision, you know, of like, all right, one, I've been fortunate enough to be able to build this cash. And two, you know, a lot of guys have a family that they can't go, you know, just go start building something to start living in it, throw a mattress down on the concrete and start living. I've been blessed enough to be able to do that. And, you know, it's inspiring folks. So if I can help them, that's what I thought.

I was like, there's a lot of frustrations. You know, let me turn on the camera and show folks how I did this. Right. Here we are. Right. Well, it's magical and it's hard to explain. I encourage people to go check it out. You know, go to your one of the social media platform, John McDonnell Jr.

Right? John McDonald-June. 99. 99. 99. Yeah, you'll find me. You'll find me. All right.

Well, is there anything we're at the end here is there anything that you want to promote anything you want to you know I would promote my my social media I would just say that that's probably the best thing I can promote right now there's there's a lot of goals and things I'm trying to do I'm going to grow this business and I'm going to do cool things you know me and my daughter do a lot of cool things and John and I actually do a lot of cool things and you know I like to inspire folks and at this point my life I feel like when I'm trying to put out on social media is a lot to help folks, a little bit to entertain,

but a lot to help folks. Yeah. So if folks want to follow me there, they can see what I'm doing in my life. Well, that's great because I love the whole story from where you started and decisions you've made along the way to get to where you are. I think the Barnuminium kind of represents kind of how you think, right? That you're thinking, what can I make happen here? I don't have to do it the old-fashioned way.

I'm going to do it the John McDonald way. You know, John, when you say it and when people look at it that way, I think to myself, like, this is the most efficient way we should do this. And then I think to myself, so why are my friends buying the house in the cul-de-sac with a mini van in two and a half kids? And this is society. This is what they think they should do, what their parents told them to do, what all these things.

And it's ego. It's a lot of things where people try to fit in this box. And I would just, you know, I would tell folks to think outside the box and it's okay. to be a little different. Yeah. You know? Well, I think we both got that cover. I think we do.