The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Blue Collar King’s Blueprint for Success: How to Create an Abundantly Fulfilled Lifestyle and Turn Your Service Business into an 8-Figure Cash Flow Machine by Matt Murray

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

The Blue Collar King's Blueprint for Success: How to Create an Abundantly Fulfilled Lifestyle and Turn Your Service Business into an 8-Figure Cash Flow Machine by Matt Murray https://amzn.to/3SxO0Y2 Bluecollarking.com Feeling stuck in a cycle of wanting more but not quite being able to grasp it? Not just profits and revenue, but something deeper, something more impactful? Matt Murray is bringing something to the table that’s designed to help you achieve that “something more” that you’ve been looking for: A new book with a fresh perspective on success. The Blue Collar King’s Blueprint for Success isn’t your average business book. Instead, Matt pulls back the curtain on the real, unfiltered challenges of running a service business in the blue-collar trades. He digs deep, going beyond the superficial advice of most business books to explore what it truly takes to create growth and success. Not just financially, but emotionally and holistically as well. And he does it all in clear language, without any of that academic or corporate-speak nonsense that makes so many business books difficult to follow and implement in your business. In The Blue Collar King’s Blueprint for Success, Matt walks you through his own tribulations and breakthroughs during his journey of running a commercial HVAC/R business. Most importantly, he shares the lessons learned as he grew this company from a side job to an 8-figure cash flow machine. Matt’s narrative is relatable and his realizations profound. He talks about hitting his limits and trying every possible method, strategy, system and advice out there to grow his business, often without success. Matt was stuck in a cycle of trial and error until he noticed the common denominator in all his endeavors: himself. It was a tough realization, but it set him on a path of personal and professional development that transformed everything. Through candid stories and clear, actionable advice, Matt helps you navigate through your own business journey. If you’ve found yourself stuck at a standstill, trying desperately to figure out what’s holding you back, this book is for you. When you think about it, you see that the popular metrics of success – more sales, more money and more financial stability – are just the outer layer of what you really want. That’s why The Blue Collar King's Blueprint for Success dives deeper so that you will also learn how to achieve the fulfillment, impact, freedom and enjoyment that we are all genuinely striving for. It’s time to finally enjoy true success on all levels Matt’s book is a blueprint, a systematic guide designed to help you create an environment where you, your team and your business can not only survive but truly flourish. This book promises to be not merely a good read, but a journey. It’s a transformative experience that stems from taking a systematic approach towards your personal and professional lives. Especially crafted for hard-working blue-collar mavericks, this book is for those unafraid to get their hands dirty, who are committed to impact-making and continuous self-improvement. If you see value in a structured, systematic approach and are prepared to change how you navigate through your business and life, you are the person this book seeks to assist. The questions now are: Are you ready to jump in? Are you willing to embark on this transformative journey? Every new day brings a choice to redefine your capabilities. You can stay where you’re at now, struggling to make your business a success and wondering why the things you really want always seem to be out of reach. Or you can choose to elevate from your status quo and dive into a change that could potentially reshape your world. The Blue Collar King’s Blueprint for Success is meant to be your guide to navigating this change, leading you to a path of enhanced capability and success. About the author More than 26 years ago,

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. There you go, ladies and gentlemen. There Iron Lady sings, and that makes it official. Welcome to the show.

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So go to goodreads.com, Fortress Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress Chris Voss, YouTube.com, Fortress Chris Voss. Subscribe to the big LinkedIn newsletter. I think it grows like a fucking weed. Subscribe to the 130,000 group over on LinkedIn. And I don't know what's going on. Everyone loves this show, at the beginning of the new year for 60 years we've been doing this stupid thing and I guess all the new year's resolution people decided they wanted to listen to the

Chris Voss show so the Chris Voss show so far in January is up 200 percent and it's already got millions of downloads it's just really stupid if you're listening to Chris Voss show thank you for being new because there's a lot of you holy crap you guys are breaking you guys every day you guys are breaking records so thank you whoever you are out there we certainly appreciate you guys being new today we had an amazing author on the show as always we have these brilliant minds on the show none of them are me of course that's why i guess we have matt murray on the show with us his newest book is called the blue collar king King's Blueprint for Success, How to Create an Abundantly Fulfilled Lifestyle and Turn Your Service Business

into an Eight-Figure Cash Flow Machine. Who the heck doesn't want that to happen? It just came out November 6, 2023, so it's hot off the presses. You can get a chance to pick it up wherever fine books are sold. Matt Murray is a seasoned veteran with a rich tapestry of over two decades of experience his journey much like yours was filled with the same trials tribulations and uncertainty that life throws at us but precisely these experiences helped forge him into the person he is today a true beacon of transformation and inspiration to others. Welcome to the show, Matt Murray.

How are you? I am amazing. Thanks for having me. So you definitely cleared the air for me on if we're cussing on the show today or not. You know, I go, I go on some shows and I'm like, okay, I got to turn the potty mouth off for this show, which is hard to do for a blue collar guy you know what i mean i'm like like biting my tongue when an f-bomb's ready to slip out or something like that so i'm like yeah all right cool i can be unfiltered like full authentic matt murray today

so there you go there you go totally unfiltered the unfiltered show maybe they should call it that so matt welcome to the show give us your dotcom so people can find you on the universe please yeah so it's easy bluecollarking.com is my website there's some information there and if you guys want to chat with me text me check me out another easy place to find me is instagram at the real blue collar king so two easy ways to get a hold of me there you go where can we snapchat you no i'm just kidding we don't do things anyways i do have a myspace though you do you really i know i do too somewhere it's probably an aol account so give us a 30 000 overview of what the blue collar king's blueprint blueprint for success is about yeah so yeah so my journey as a blue collar guy started young. I was born into the blue collar, you know, generation and era and stuff, if you will. My parents worked at the grocery store.

Dad was a meat cutter. Mom was a checker. Dad was always, you know, had side job projects in the, in the garage, in the driveway, wrenching on stuff, doing stuff to make extra money. And then I kind of grew up working on things too. I got a job doing car stereo alarm systems and stuff like that. And I worked on jet skis and I became a four by four mechanic. And then in 1997, I got introduced to the trades and I got into HVAC, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. I got in the union out of LA in 97 and then did that for six years, which was amazing. And then unfortunately the company got in financial trouble and we all got laid off in 2003 and I was off on my own and I had a side job, a family friend had referred me to do some work at their home and I started doing side jobs in 2003 and that just kind of grew one thing led to the next and the side job

just kept coming and 20 years later i'm still on my summer side job with you know over 40 employees and consulting i started another hvac refrigeration company in 2015 and yeah the rest is history it's amazing short 20 years you know and you dub yourself the blue collar king tell us what tell us why you use that moniker and and how you earned it yeah so i don't really remember where the name came up it was about a year year and a half ago and i decided to launch into like having a personal brand and going off and doing consulting and coaching to help other people. And I don't really remember where the name came from, but I remember when it was first suggested by whoever it was, I was, I remember saying, that's a really stupid name, blue collar King. And I'm like, I don't, I don't really why. And they're like, I don't know. You just kind of like, you like built a kingdom

and you kind of doing this and that, and it just kind of sticks. So it kind of had to grow on me. And I'm like, all right, you know what? It kind of does. I've kind of built a little bit of a kingdom where I created some businesses. And so I kind of played with it for a while. And I'm like, you know what? Actually it kind of grew on me. And I'm like, yeah, I'm, I can, I've kind of become a King in my own world, if you will. And my mission now is to help other blue collar you know business owners and entrepreneurs become kings or queens and and build their their eight finger eight figure kingdom excuse me there you go there you go yeah so i i i've been i i tripped over your when i was reading your your book title and i think i called it what was it what did i call it i said something like what did

i say i said yeah blue blue lint or blue friend or something like that. Blue friend. Yeah. It's probably a seizure that's coming on or it's probably a stroke. It's the weather. Probably a stroke. Yeah, it might be Biden. It's probably Biden's fault. It's Thursdays, so it's probably a stroke. No, you give me a really good idea.

Maybe I should use the king moniker on my stuff. Let's see. It would have to be fashion after my life, lifestyle, and mentality. Let's see. White trash trailer park king fashioned after my life lifestyle and mentality let's see white trash trailer park king yeah there you go there you go i think that works i like it the jerry springer of podcasting anyway it's not that people jesus christ please don't don't put that on me um you know a lot of blue so espouse and, and promote and talk to people that there's, there's still great money that can be made in blue collar. Blue collar has kind of gotten this,

this bad perception of taint from, I think, recent generations. Of course, a lot of these generations lately are like, I just want to be a youthful influencer and, and I don't know, lick Kim Kardashian's ankles. And, but, but there seems to be, you know, I even see that in the dating markets where women are like, I want a guy who has a college degree and works in some executive building. And you're like, do you know how much blue-collar guys make? Like welders and tradesmen and different things. These guys make some serious freaking money, and it's not getting any.

Right now, you have, well well i'll say this data for ladder because i can't remember but why why why is it important for the blue collar business to be promoted and espoused and and also taught to you know amplify its figures and they figure out as you talk about yeah so i i agree with what you're saying so the newer generations they don't really want to come into the blue collar stuff it It's like it's not sexy, right? So if anything, I could say maybe I'm making blue collar sexy again by showing people, especially this younger generation, that they do want to be these YouTube influencers and they want to be programmers and gamers and write code and stuff.

But blue collar is an amazing thing to become a trades worker you can absolutely make a lot of money 100k 150k 200k plus all day long in the trades you can bypass that whole college degree thing and go right into making a lot of money very very quickly so it you know and at the whole the whole country everything's built on the backbone our whole infrastructure of this country is built on the backbone of blue collar trades workers yeah yeah i mean people don't realize that either yeah like i'll talk to people even in dating and they're just like i just i just want a man who's doing the thing and and working in a big building and i'm like i don't know they get laid off lot. I don't know if you've seen that lately, but you know, the people who keep this world,

your air conditioning running in those big, tall buildings, the executives are in are, are the blue collar people. They're the people who maintain the internet and through out the ground or, you know, wherever it's working these this week, the sewer systems, the garbage systems, you know, all these bricklayers, building houses, contractors, constructors, you know, you couldn't have any of these fine, you know, white collar things without the blue collar base. Correct. And one statistic that really caught my eye recently was right now you have out of every seven boomers that are retiring and they're retiring fast. Like I can't remember, there's a statistic, but it's a huge number every day that they're retiring out of

seven of those that are high quality tradesmen life tradesmen you know they they're the ultra i don't know what you call them in trade but they're they're the ultra experience right they know everything for every seven of those guys that are retiring there's only one of those that are coming into the business to replace them and they're novices like they don't have you know they don't know how to do all the welds stuff yet and so there's a real glut coming or a lack coming i should say of of quality skill blue collar thing of people and that just means the price for those folks are going to go up like i'm i'm going to go start learning plumbing because i'm not going to be able

to afford a plumber i mean i'm going to it's going to be cheaper for me to go to the doctor than it's for me to call a plumber and that says so we're headed yeah it's definitely a thing and people people you know the great thing about having a trade is if you have a trade you can go anywhere with it you don't have to worry about it. I don't think AI is going to replace contractors anytime soon. Not happening. I don't think AI is going to be down in the sewers walking around checking internet lines and power lines. Probably not.

And doing that anytime soon. I think I saw there was a meme that was going around where someone had a contractor building. They were building for a commercial thing. And they're like, yeah, I ain't replacing this man. Nope. And job security is a strong to quite strong as a,

as a blue collar trades worker for sure. Yeah. I mean, right now we're in this huge layoff season of people and they're, they're high tech workers, you know, high paid workers. They're getting laid off because of AI and it's probably,

it's probably not going to change. So in your book, what are some of the things that we can tease out from your book that you talk to people about and helping them kind of build to that next level? My first company was a subcontracting stucco business that I learned from my father. So that's where I started in Blue Collar. What are some of the things that you do tell people to kind of take their thinking to the next level? Yeah, kind of high level on that in my book, what I talk about, and this is what I learned as I was growing my business, I would grow the business and I would kind of like hit the ceiling, right? Like I would max out and I would like hit this growth ceiling and then there would be some retraction and then we would make money and lose money.

And I kept I kept hitting what I came to find out as my Peter principle. And what I realize is that growing a business is not just a business tactical thing. It's also a mindset and personal development thing. And what I had found is that there is a connection between the personal development side of things and the business development side of things. And when you marry personal development together with business development, that's when you can really start to get traction and break through and bust through some of the limiting beliefs. So what I talk about is I give a framework in my book. I give a strategy, a conceptual strategy for people to understand these five pillars of life

and how they're all interconnected. There you go. Do you want to tease some of the five pillars out to us? Yeah, absolutely. So I have a five pillars framework. I call it the five S or core five. The first pillar is faith and mindset. The second pillar is family and relationships. The third pillar is fitness and health. The third pillar is fitness and health. The fourth pillar is finance and serving. And the fifth pillar is the foundation that kind of holds up. So if you can imagine having these four pillars of faith, family, fitness, and finance sitting on a flat foundation, foundation is truth and integrity.

And what I've come to find is living an objective life of constantly working on all these five pillars what i do is i assess myself every day first thing in the morning i write down five things that i'm grateful for and then i score myself where i'm at on these five pillars and then i know how to go to work today on what i need to focus on and improve some days i'm doing really good in the finance pillar and not so good in my fitness. So I'm like, all right,

I got a simple scoring system and I just attack the day one day at a time. And I score myself on these, in this pillar system. And I know how to measure myself and where I need to improve. There you go. I love this mindset because gratefulness is so important. It keeps you grounded. It keeps you from having FOMO if you're missing out or, you know,

worried about what everybody else is doing when no one cares. But I wish I'd had this sort of thinking when I was younger. When I started my first companies, we were working 18-hour days. I didn't take care of my fitness. I didn't take care of my health. And I had this attitude that like, well, all right, I'm putting on some weight, but I'll work it out later. I'm going to get rich and then I'll have plenty of money and time to work it out later. And when I got rich, it didn't work that way.

In fact, trying to play catch up is a nightmare. And your fitness and your health, you know, all the things you described are a balancing system that, that keep everything going to keep you in the healthy mindset, to keep you in, in the work that you're doing, to keep you on the purpose that you're serving for. And, and, and without them, you really can't have them. I mean, I'm, I'm 55 now. I can't not have fitness. Like that can't when when i work out my brain is sharper it's clear and everything else and if i don't work out then i don't know it just turns the mud which it's already mud as it is so there you go so i love that you put these

balance in there now one of the one of the challenges i think a lot of people have and i i take this from my own toll of being in the, starting my company when I was blue collar was, you know, the mindset of you kind of, okay, I do the work and then, and then, you know, I'm the guy. Right. And so I think what you help people do is scale, right. Is move beyond that sort of limiting thing you know how do you get to be the HVAC guy who's just one guy to you know have 15 trucks and you know multi multi offices and things of that nature so yeah the first thing I do when I go to work with people is I first look at a where they're at on their journey and in terms of their revenue size and that tells me a lot about their mindset

so I can tell you know if a guy's like 500k to a million, or if he's 2 million to three, I know at that entry point of those lower level revenue size entrepreneurs, that we got to work on the basics. And my first program is called Foundations. And at that level, I'm working with people on just a couple of things, just their discipline and their execution, because right there, we're learning like the basics of how to, how to make just basic decisions, how to execute, work on time management, prioritize, and these little types of things. So it's right off the bat,

I give them some tools and tactics because when people come to me, they always think, you know, they need like another strategy or the next, what I the magic pill right so i i give them i give them what they think they need but then i go or want rather but then i go to work on what they actually need to help them get to the next level and that's immediately working on their mindset and how they like you know their their limiting beliefs their eq and all these types of things there you go i i love that and i espoused that somewhere in my youth i picked it up from john wooden coach john wooden the infamous coach infamous famous their name what sure one of the same yeah depends on if you lost to him i suppose his team then he was infamous but he had the quote about i believe in the basics

attention to and perfection of tiny details that can be commonly overlooked. And, you know, he would, he, you know, he'd have some basketball player who would, you know, play, do the Michael Jordan, run down the court and, you know, hit the three pointers, do this, you know, artful slam dunk. He's like, well, that's great, but I want to see you work the, the, the, the keys. I want to see you, you know, do your free throws. Let's see how you do on free throws and working. Those basics are so important. You know, we saw that kind of in football during the playoffs. I think it was one or two times where somebody stepped over the semi stepped over the scrimmage line or whatever it's the line and that simple play, uh, screw them. I think it's screw one team basically at the end. I mean, there's, there's a whole lot of factors that go into a game, but it was, it was one of the factors at

the end of losing it down. It was important. And so the basics are so important. And then you, you espouse discipline and discipline is everything because it's all about your ability to execute. Absolutely. Yeah. If we, if we have a problem like prioritizing and if we have a problem with time management, I could give somebody a hundred million dollar playbook, but if we, if we can't even, you know, make simple decisions and we, if we can't, you know, set up focus blocks and prioritize, like it doesn't matter how many tactics or strategies or marketing I give them and I could whip them up. I can install some business development stuff very quickly in terms of sales and marketing.

But if we do that, if I don't have the entrepreneur's mindset right in terms of the infrastructure of the business and supporting the operational things around the growth, then we're going to build it up and it's just going to crumble. We're going to go back. And that's what I did. I learned that it was like, you know, I call it stacking floors on top of a one story house or building that's never designed to be a multi-story structure. We're adding floors, adding floors, AKA more sales, more sales, more sales. And we haven't built up that infrastructure, that framework, that foundation of not just the business operations and tactics, but the mindset of the leader to be able to support all of this additional revenue.

There you go. You know, what do they always say about success? 90% of it is showing up. Yep, there you go. If you can't be disciplined to show up, you know, get out of bed, get there, get on site, rock and roll it. It doesn't matter what plan you have. You're the greatest business model in the world and it's not going to, it's not going to execute. Really

important factors that go into it. Now let's talk a little bit about your website. Tell us what sort of services and offerings you do over there for people. Yeah. So that's a good place to look at the few different programs that I have. I have, i have different programs that i offer and it's it's aligned to where people are at on their journey again in terms of their revenue size so i have different programs that are larger and more robust that include more things for larger companies and then we have smaller programs too that are that are designed for people that are you know kind of just getting started off in that, that smaller scale. There you go. And so they can basically coach with you. Is that correct? Yes. I do coaching. I do training. We have a mastermind program where we put people into an ecosystem where we're doing, you know, doing business operating systems, doing life operating

systems, doing workshops. It's all, I don't do public stuff where I, you know, whip up a bunch of advertising and throw a bunch of people into a rah, rah, rah, you know, show or seminar. The stuff I do is more hands-on, it's more intimate, and it's more exclusive type, very tactical, more one-on-one work with business owners. There you go. And people can even get a toolkit, I think, access to a toolkit off your website where they can put in their email and get a toolkit resources of different things that you use there. Absolutely. Yeah. You can go to the website and there's some resources there for you that have some business tactics that you can grab. There you go. And you talk about some of this on your social channels as well. I do. Yeah. On Facebook, I think, and Instagram and YouTube. Yeah. So Instagram,

YouTube, and Facebook are kind of the three platforms where I drop most of my content. There you go. So you can get a little bit of freemium content there. You know, what do you see most? We had somebody on recently who was also a blue collar person and their story was, is they started becoming successful in blue collar and they were scaling their business the problem is i think they forgot the taxes part or they forgot something but i oh i they were low bidding jobs they were getting all these jobs but they weren't making a profit and they didn't understand that you know if you're just because you're doing a lot of business doesn't mean you're making a lot of

money. And they ended up, I think it was $300,000 in debt or a few hundred thousand dollars in debt at the end of the day. And, and, and then they had to figure out how to get out of it. So their story is how to get out of it. But what do you, what do you see a lot of blue collar people struggling that are trying to scale? Yeah. Well, for one, I can beat that, that $300,000 in tax debt. I whipped it up to about 600,000 more. Yeah. Yeah. So it turns out that the IRS is not the best institution to borrow money from. Their fees are very high. Yeah. It's important to learn when you're scaling a business that you have to pay payroll taxes to the feds and to the state then after you pay that to the income you're making you're gonna have to pay you're gonna have to pay income tax on that stuff as well too yeah yeah very important to know that when you're

estimating projects this is where this is what bites contractors in the booty most guys don't know what i call fully loaded labor burden. That's actually what the cost of your labor is with the taxes, with the workers comp, all the crapola that you have to pay for having an employee. And a simple rule of thumb for any business, but for contractors specifically, is just doubled. If you want to cover your costs, whatever a guy makes in his hourly pay, this is a good rule of thumb. If he makes 20 bucks an hour, he's probably costing you 40.

If he makes 40 bucks an hour, he's probably costing you 80. So when you're estimating your project and looking at your pricing, you need to make sure that you're allocating for the burdens that go on top of labor. There you go. That's so important because taxes are out, death and taxes. Yeah.

And then, you know, you've got to, if you have health insurance you're offering and things like that, and then their state, their state money as well, you know, they want their thing. And then usually you have workman's comp. Workman's comp is a big deal. That can break you. I mean, I've had companies where you know we had a very blue collar sort of business the workman's comp was the workman's comp difference between blue collar and white collar was like astoundingly different absolutely and you know

there's a lot more injuries but you got a factor for all this stuff business insurance i wonder how many contractors and people in blue collar these days have have business insurance i always should have gotten that what about like you know one of the things that people have in blue collar is is a lot of times you are the center of the universe do you teach people on how to get insurance to cover yourself if you end up going down or or things like that or i think you remember the different insurance they have for that yeah key man insurance is definitely something that if you have a you know if you're growing a company and scaling that that would be a good insurance, you know, policy to have and carry. Because if you, if you are the CEO of the company and everything still kind of

runs through you, that's, that's high risk, right? So keyman insurance is, is really important. But what I, when I work with business owners and entrepreneurs, the first thing that we start working on is, as I teach them, and this is hard for a lot of smaller companies to understand this mindset because they want to have control, right? And they don't want to let go of the volume, but we immediately start working on replacing you in every role that you are working in, in the business. So we can build an actual leadership team underneath you so you can fly the airplane, not working in the weeds and, and all that stuff. So yeah, it's super important to understand all these different dynamics and moving pieces.

There you go. And that's one of the things that people probably need a lot of help from people like you on is how to scale and delegate. Because that's the biggest challenge a lot of entrepreneurs have is learning to delegate, learning to exponent yourself into other employees and do that scaling because you just kind of when you're first starting out, you kind of do everything. But sometimes it's hard to let

that go and turn that over to other people and of course hire right, find the right people who do the job you can trust with your work and your business and your contractors. Contracting, of course, your business model, whether you want to do a C-corp and S-corp partnership or sole proprietorship, however you're set up, you know, it's really so

important. And then probably prepping, you know, for an exit, right? To sell, if you want to sell your business, you know, a lot of prepping for exiting your business, you need to do from the very start, from the moment you decide what sort of setup you're going to have whether it's an LLC and all those things exactly yeah delegation and leadership is an art in itself I think a lot of us that started off as technicians that worked under a good supervisor or manager or owner we took that leadership for granted we just kind of expected that to be right but not really realizing behind the scenes that there's a whole art going on there with leading and managing people that's a completely different skill set than working on stuff and fixing stuff and that was

that was one of my big weaknesses I was a big time hothead for a while because I was raised under a hothead dad and some hothead construction workers when I got into the trade. So I thought that was normal. And I couldn't figure out for a while, like, why do all the employees keep leaving? You know what I mean? I'm like, what's going on here? Are we not paying them enough or what? And then I finally realized, like, someone told me, like, dude, you're a freaking asshole. Like, so I was, I had to work on my EQ. And I talk about that in my book. Like, I had to learn how to get control of my emotions and that's just one of the leadership, you know, characteristics.

And then, so yeah, delegation, leadership, EQ, communication are all super important for growing a business because to grow a business, we need to attract people. And then once we attract them, we got to keep them working here by having good leadership and strong culture. And then, and then looking to the future of, yeah, what are we, what's the, what's, what are we doing with this business? Are we going to grow this and pass it on? Are we going to ESOP it to the employees?

Are we going to sell this and do an exit strategy? So I like to build businesses that are always ready to, to sell, whether we're going to sell them or not. That way, everything is systematic. We have playbooks. We have metrics. We have an entire operating system. And we're functioning and running always like a business that would demand a high value if it was to be sold. There you go.

Get those exponentials. It's so important. And, you know, a lot of people don't realize is you've got to make sure you're out of the, you're out of the sequence of, of strong people that are working for you. Because if you're still the business, the center core of the business, and someone wants to buy you, you know, you can't leave. They can't buy it, the business, because if you step out, there's no business there or support. So people have to think about that.

And you touched on the things that are important that we talk about on the show a lot about leadership. People stay with a company that has good leadership and they leave a company that has bad leadership. And that's just a fact of data. And so if you're a poor leader, you can't just be the best guy on welding and then expect to be successful at scaling your business in the welding business. You've got to be a good leader. You got to be a good teacher. You got to be a servant leader who can, who can get people the next level. And you've got to find your replacements that can build out in your business, you know, and leadership is, is so much of that and what goes into it.

And, you know, learning to be empathetic, you know. And the interesting thing about the blue-collar business, it's a tough business. The people in it are pretty tough. And I remember when I was young going out to contractors and there were some, they're pretty brawly sort of, you know, they're tough, dirty, and mean guys. Like, I wouldn't want to take any of them in a fight and going out to meet with them, you know, and then sometimes getting paid by them is another thing too, or at least it used to be, I don't know how it is now, but I imagine there's still games being played, but you know, you've got to be able to, you've got, because the business is kind of that way, I think you, you have to learn to refine yourself and to get to that next level of scalability where you can become, you know, a big corporation and

you can run a lot of employees at that smaller level. Yeah. I mean, you can just be, I don't know, you can just be that dude who's gruff and rough, but eventually you've got to refine yourself to the point of, of, of being able to manage lots of people and keep them around. Yeah, exactly. And that's with the, like we talked about earlier, with the baby boomers retiring, and like you said, seven boomers exiting for everyone coming back in, there is a massive shortage of qualified talent pool available. So one of the things to think about

is, you know, you really have to hone in your leadership. You're really going to have to dial in your culture because it's going to become more and more competitive to get people to fill these roles, to grow companies. So why you have to understand like, you know, what's your secret sauce? And as a contractor, as an owner, you have to be able to explain this with a lot of confidence to people that are coming to apply and work for you. You have to paint the vision of why your company is different, what you're doing different. Talk to them about culture and leadership and vision and building something bigger and more impactful than we're just doing plumbing work and installing piping or working on HVAC equipment. A players are what you want to have on a, on your, in your company to grow and scale. You need a players. And what a players want is first, they want a good relationship with, with their boss. Like you said, people quit. People don't usually quit their company. They

quit their boss, right? A players want an awesome relationship with their boss. They want what I call a flight path or a career path. They want to know that they're going somewhere and they want to do meaningful work and they want good feedback. So you as a leader, everyone deserves to work for a good leader and you as a leader have to be able to paint that vision and have a strong culture and give those things to people that they want in terms of feeling like they're building something important and they have a future. Yes, most definitely. And you, you bring up a strong point because right now there is a lack of enough employees in the employment market. That's why the, you know, you're seeing the power of unions rise again. You're seeing the striking. You're seeing people paying more per hour. And it's partially because a lot of the boomers and some of the Gen Xers left early the workplace market. And we've been expecting them to leave for 40 years, I've been hearing. You know, the boomers, when they leave, there's going to be a lack of employees.

There's going to be a lack of everything. And somebody's got to support them too in retirement. And they left early with COVID. They're like, hey, COVID? Ah, fuck it, we're out of here, man. We're out. We're done. Good enough. Yeah.

And there's a huge lack. In fact, I think I saw a figure. I'm going to kick this out. So please don't quote me. Google it. But I think I tripped across a figure the other day. We're five to seven million workers short in this country for the jobs that are available. And it's not going to get any better because people aren't

marrying and having kids as much anymore. So it's going to get worse. And there's kind of a spiral effect. You see that effect that's in Japan right now. And so right now companies are fighting for employees. I mean, every company I know here locally is hiring, you know, offering, Hey, if you refer an employee, we'll give you a gift certificate. And it's like you said, you know, being able to keep the employees that you have that are high quality and being able to attract those high quality employees are going to make all the difference. You know, those are going to be the companies that are going to succeed in the future. Correct. Yeah, and it is.

It's getting nasty out there right now, too, because there's a shortage. You've got this pirating going on now, especially with LinkedIn. So your employees, they're getting plucked at all day long. So if you don't have a good culture, and if you don't have a good system to keep your employees happy and show them their flight path, they're getting plucked out all day long by these recruiters that have the best sales pitch that can paint vision, whether the vision is real or not is a topic for another day. Right. But they, people get lured into this bait and that's why there's a lot of churn going on right now too, is because of this, this pirating that's happening because of the shortage. Yeah. And you know, I talk about that in my book, Beacon's Leadership.

You have to be a leader who can, who can give people a vision, an aspiring vision to motivate them to feel like they're working towards something bigger than themselves. Even especially this Gen Z and some of the millennials, they just didn't want to punch in and out. They wanted to have something that seems like it matters, that feel like they're contributing and they're doing all that part. And so you really have to start thinking, even though blue collar is that sort of sometimes gritty sort of business, you really have to think of it from almost a white collar executive type scale, a CEO type scale where you have to think about, you know, the big picture and the big vision and leadership.

Yes, absolutely. Definitely. I couldn't agree more. And you help get there with your book and the trainings that you do. What maybe haven't we touched on that we should talk about that you have in the book and or some of the services you offer i would just you know if i could say anything is just be open like people that want to grow whether you're an employee or whether you're a leader within a company or a business owner that's there's i know there's a lot of information out there and there's youtube and there's a lot

of fake gurus and stuff but but be open like but be open, like, you know, do your, do your research. If you're going to hire a coach or a company to go get trained by, you know, but be open to the possibility. A lot of people think they have it figured out. And I work with a lot of companies and especially my, my clients that are kind of on the ramp up path. they still have this technician mindset, right? And they're like, well, I'll just figure it out. I'll, I'll just, I'll look on YouTube or I'll read the book and I, you know, and that's awesome mindset to have as a technician, but having an all figured out mindset as an entrepreneur is really, really bad. And it's going to be really painful and cost you a lot of money. So we have to be open to getting help. We have to be open to the possibility too

that you can grow and expand your mindset. You can grow your leadership. You can become a better person, a better leader holistically if you decide to like jump into the journey and the journey is amazing, but you know, it's going to take some work. It's not easy.

It's not easy to grow and change as a human. It's not. And it takes time and it's, you have to master so much. I mean, and, but, but there's, there's a lot of money on it. We've had a lot of people like yourself on the show that teach blue collar success. Uh, there's, there's so much money. I mean, if you ever had to have your HVAC worked on. He's taking a second mortgage, you know, furnaces, sewer pipe, any sort of stuff now. And with all the permitting and stuff that has to be done and things like that, and licensing is so important, you know, it's, it's, it's a heck of a business. And then of course, protection from lawsuits and things like that. You know, it's, it's really become a, you know, not just like, hey, I'm just going to do some

work here and, you know, handyman sort of thinking. And so taking it to the next level, scaling it, really thinking about going to that next level is so important because, you know, when I was young, I said to my business partner, I'm like, you know, we're young and we can kind of take the hit for how hard we're working these 18 hour days, but I don't think I'm going to want to do this when I'm 40 or 50. No. And at 56, I turn tomorrow, I can't. Yeah, there's no way I could have done those 18-hour days.

Yeah, absolutely not. I like sitting in my chair in the air conditioning or the warmth and telling everybody else what to do. So there you go. And if you build it right, you can make it to happen. So give us your final pitch out for people to order the book and on board with you, how they can get to reach out to you, handshake, get involved with what you're doing. Yeah. If you'd like to get a free copy of my book, go to my Instagram page.

Again, it's the real blue collar King. Shoot me a direct message and I'll send you a free copy of my book. I love to chat. Also, if you're a blue collar person and you just have some questions, I love helping people. I love sharing, you know, what I've learned in my 27 year journey. Feel free to reach out, say hi, ask me some questions and, and just stop by. I would, I would love to, I'd love to interact with you guys. There he goes. Take it to the next level guys guys. I'm serious. If you're in the blue-collar business, there is a lack of employees coming in skilled tradesmen, which means you guys are probably going to double or triple your money. You guys are going to become richer than doctors.

And doctors aren't that rich anymore, really. I've seen the balance sheets on attorneys and doctors being in the mortgage business for 20 years. It's kind of funny how you... I mean, they've taken a lot of revenue in their accounts receivable, but the collection part of it's really low. Especially if you're an attorney, you put some guy away, he owes you like $20,000.

He's going to be paying a dollar a month out of his prison account. It's going to become, I seriously believe this, it's going to become a really high-paying thing. To that point, I'm going to go learn plumbing. I don't want to pay a plumber or anything else. I'm going to have to start learning shit around the house, but I think it's, I think it's, there's going to be a corner on this market that's coming up the next 10 to

20 years. That's going to be huge. And, and, and there's going to be so much money. It's going to be insane because there's going to be very few skilled people that can do it. I think it's,

you think cornering the market is a really smart game here and play. So thank you very much, Matt, for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Give us your dot coms as we go out. Yeah, so it's bluecollarking.com. Super easy. There you go. Thanks to my audience for tuning in.

Go to goodreads.com, 4chesschristmas, linkedin.com, 4chesschristmas. Subscribe to the big LinkedIn newsletter, the LinkedIn 130,000 group over there, TikTok, chrisfast1, and all those crazy places we're on the internet. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. And we'll see you guys next time.