The Code To Winning - HOW TO WIN IN BUSINESS 2025 || TRAVIS SNOWDER || EPISODE 014

Episode Date: January 26, 2025

HOW TO WIN IN BUSINESS 2025: Episode 014   In this amazing and first episode in Idaho Fall, none either than Travis Snowder. He is CEO and owner of Qal-Tek Associates, a leader in providing comprehensive solutions for the Construction/Engineering, Industrial/Safety, Emergency Response, and Security sectors. Qal-Tek offers services ranging from instrument sales and management to specialized training and operational consultation. For over 22 years, Qal-Tek has set the standard in building cornerstones for world-class organizations. Travis also owns: •WB Johnson Instruments: A pioneer in radiation detection instrumentation, with a rich legacy dating back to its work on the Manhattan Project. WB Johnson continues to lead in providing high-quality tools and solutions for radiation safety. •Venture Solution Group: A consulting and equity firm that helps businesses innovate, grow, and achieve sustainable success. •Heavy T: A real estate company specializing in smart investments and property management. •Heroes Defense: A nonprofit organization co-chaired by Travis, dedicated to supporting first responders, veterans, and military heroes through recognition, resources, and unwavering commitment. •TEK Services & Operations: Delivering technical expertise and solutions to enhance operational efficiency and ensure top-tier performance. In this conversation, Travis shares the strategies and mindset that have propelled him to the top:   ✅ How to scale multiple businesses in diverse industries ✅ Insights on leadership and creating a winning team culture ✅ How to innovate and stay ahead in 2025’s competitive business landscape ✅ Building a recession proof business   Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a seasoned business owner, or someone seeking inspiration to elevate your career, this episode is packed with actionable takeaways and game-changing advice.

I started building a supply company and was getting ready to start that up and then 9-11 happened. And my investors backed out, all my money and all my resources backed out. And even my supply chain backed out. So I said, well, I'm getting married. I got 80 bucks in my account. And I have no idea what I'm going to do. How to do things the right way after doing them the wrong way many, many times. And I just trial and error, right?

Trial and error, man. I think, you know, any entrepreneur that you see says it was a similar story as they went through that process of beating their head against the wall. We were right on age 20 and 21. I figured out that this was this was where to go and I started going that path and then just built one after another and you know kind of use those successes to apply my passions and then the real magic is when you can connect your passions to your businesses right then none of these it fun but it's also internally rewarding real passion pieces was and we landed a contract with New York City in the late 2000s to manage all their equipment so they had firefighters had all this equipment and gear to do threat detection now to make sure we had have it or 9-11 but no real way to keep track of it or maintain it or make sure that it was even and property measuring when they went on the field. The Great Recession in 2008 and 7, 8, and 9, you look at COVID. And now the question I want to ask you, especially with your experience, how can somebody

build a recession-proof business? I think there's a lot of people every day that ask themselves that question. And I will tell you, there are a lot of big money people. That is the key word for them. How do I buy and acquire recession-proof businesses? And especially right now with where we're at, you know, I think there's a lot of people think we're on that verge of a recession. I personally think we have more...

The Code 2 winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. Today we have an amazing guest, our very first guest in the state of Idaho. We are in Idaho Falls. I'm going to give you a brief introduction of who our guest is today. He goes by the name of Travis Snowder. He is a co-chair of the Heroes Defense Board of Directors and has a long history working with and supporting the United States' first respondent. emergency responder and military heroes.

He serves as the CEO and president of his companies. Qualtech Association, WB. Johnson, and also Venture Solution Group, which is a consulting and equity group helping small businesses in America. So ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, Travis Snoder. Thanks for having me, man. Good to see you. Awesome stuff. Just a brief introduction of how I met Travis, actually. So, Zach and I, one of our businesses that we run is a window cleaning business.

And when we were there, we knocked in a very, very wealthy area in Idaho Falls. And as we were knocking around that area, you know, he opened the door. We had a conversation. And the first thing, as soon as he opened his mouth, I'm like, oh my gosh, you know, figuring out what he was doing. I lost track of my entire pitch of why I was there. I actually pitched him about being on the podcast. Two weeks later.

on got our services we personally services home so yeah it's been a while since then eh yeah yeah good good been busy like you guys been keeping up but yeah great job on the house by the way thank you very much so um but yeah excited to be here i actually was checking out some of your podcast you've had some powerful people on here so i appreciate being amongst that group another powerful one boss yeah thank you awesome stuff i want a person you know um i mean i kind of got a brief introduction of yourself with your family if i've been to your house a few times pretty much your upbringing, like who is like Travis Stoddor, if you were like just describe him? Yeah, so I grew up in Rigby, just north of here, and small town,

really small town, but it was interesting actually. So I don't know what was in the water in those years, but my high school graduating class had like a hundred people in it, and we had like 24 people had become multi-millionaires and even bigger than that. So you know, percentage-wise, just an amazing group. So, you know, did, was there something of water in that group that raised her up ring. I don't know. We joke about some of the guys that were having been successful out of that group. So a group in a small town.

You know, nothing really amazing there. Just traditional, old country kind of grow up. And, you know, I think it's kind of interesting because I had somebody asked me one years ago. I actually won one of my first awards, and somebody from high school reached out to me and said, Travis Snoder, who thought you would have been this successful? And I laughed. I was like, well, I did.

I said, what do you mean? Like, I don't, I mean, get it. I did, I did mess around a lot. I played a lot of fun in high school, but in my mind it was always, you know, I knew, I knew what I wanted to do and what did I want to be. How I was going to get there is something that came later on life, you know, as you figure out the pathway and the mission and what you're aligned to. But I, how I got into where I'm at now is,

and tied to Hero's Defense is actually on 9-11. I was actually, I had actually gone to college and come back and I was, I knew I never, I never liked working for other people, right? I was a very quick learner and I always could see ways to improve the businesses and being in those ranks, you just never really, especially at 19 years old. 100%. We're hard to be able to be entrusted with that opportunity. I said, you know, if I'm going to go anywhere, I want to, I want to be in charge of

my own destiny. Awesome stuff. So I started building a supply company. And I was getting ready to start that up, and then 9-11 happened. And my investors backed out, all my money and all my resources backed out, and even my supply chain backed out. So I said, well, I'm getting married. I got 80 bucks in my account, and I have no idea what I'm going to do.

So I actually went to work helping my father actually had started a small instrumentation company. Yeah. Where was that? He were not a false. Okay. So my dad was a brilliant, brilliant scientist. So he did some really cool stuff. Launch satellites with nuclear reactors into space. He wrote many of the national standards are still used today.

That was a brilliant guy. But he was having a struggle. He built this little company. It was just a two-man group at the time. They were doing like $180,000 in business and frankly not paying their bills. So I went to work for him and I had one condition. I said, I'll go to work and help you do this. But I kind of want to do things.

Let me have some control. Yeah. And, you know, we grew that business into the multi-million dollars within a few years. Wow. And then, and still today, that's one of my founding businesses. It's Qualtech Associates. We go by Qualtech. And we are really one of the leaders known in Radnuk expertise.

So we went from an interpretation company to, We do training for everyone from special operations to DHS to all the three-letter acronyms. When we run some special operations for them, we've managed our safety programs, as well as industry and construction too, one of the largest calibration providers for instrumentation in the construction market. So, you know, in that space, you know, I knew I wanted to be there that gave me an opportunity to really hone my skills. Made a lot of mistakes. I was 19, 20 years old. made a lot of mistakes and I learned, you know, how to, how to do things the right way after doing them the wrong way, many, many times.

Trial and error, right? Trial and error, man. I think, you know, any entrepreneur that you see, say, it was a similar story as they went through that process of beating their head against the wall. And so, so I learned, I learned those things and it kind of created me who I wanted to be. And I learned to use that in a lot of places. So I, you know, I have businesses, successful businesses, growing businesses. But I really believe that, you know, you have a lot of responsibilities in life, summer to you, build your own wealth and your own success. You have your responsibilities

to your family. You have your responsibilities to your community. And you have responsibility to your passions. So I love that. I spread my time across all those. Here's defense is part of my passion and part of my, you know, contribution to my community. And everything I do every day is to build a future for my family and build a future for the legacy of that family. And all that has to connect to what I love and what I have passion and doing. That's so powerful. I want to know then, I mean, did you always think that you'd follow the specific route of being an entrepreneur? And when did that start? Because I know you mentioned you didn't want to ever work for anybody, but did you always feel like you had that thing from the beginning? You know, I don't think, I think when you're young,

right? We don't really know entrepreneurial from a understanding perspective. I think it's something that is a characteristic that are in people and you refine it or you don't. I see a lot of people that have entrepreneurial capability, but they got into a business or went working for somebody and they're in a great position and they settled there. And they had a great life, but they just, you know, for whatever reason, certain life conditions didn't push them into making that decision. Exactly. So to answer that question, I think that I definitely have always had the characteristics. My parents would agree I was always a rebellious soul.

I like to do things the way I like to do them, and I like to pursue what I like to do. And so my first job, I would say this, when I was in college, I got a job working for an ice skating rink. And I loved it. It was super fun, great time. But, you know, it was run by a bunch of really wealthy guys. And so the ability to input and be part of that machine was frustrating, right? Yeah. Like I have all these things I think we can do and so forth.

And then you have, you know, just personal conflicts that great, great group of guys, nothing bad with them. But just that was when I realized, you know, I need to figure out what my path is, right? And I love the freedom that they had, right? And these guys have the ability to do chase their passions. Exactly. And so I said, I want that. And so I came out of college. Spent a little time bouncing around, try to sort that out.

And then after about a couple of years, I realized that the only way I was going to be that and be able to create what I wanted to create was by doing it myself. I couldn't agree more. So that was really true. Right on age 20 and 21, I figured out that this was where to go. And I started going that path and then just built one after another and, you know, kind of use those successes to apply my passions. and then the real magic is when you can connect your passions to your businesses, right?

Then not only is it fun, but it's also internally rewarding. Also. And then would you say from building your first business, does it get easy when you build the next business and the business after then? Or does it get harder as well? You know, I think that I've had some that yes. I've had some that you apply everything you learn and it works really, really well. And others have different challenges, right?

So different industries have different challenges. There's different markets have different challenges. So you get better at learning how to make right decisions. I'll put it that way. I like that. So the decisions you have to make are different, but you learn how to better analyze them. You learn how to collect better data.

You learn how to analyze that data better, and you learn how to build a better team. Awesome stuff. Now, I think you owned Qualtech for 27 years. So, yep, I slowly bought my way in piece by piece. Okay. Let's discuss Qualtex. What is Qualtech?

Yeah, so Qualtech, most people, the hardest thing to understand with Qualtech is we live in a very niche world and I love niche businesses. So, you know, most people that know raditions of technology, right? So it's used in a lot of different places that's used in oil and gas. It's used in paper and pulp. It's used in mining. It's using medical. Most people think nuclear weapons, right, or nuclear power. That's kind of what I thought when I, like, opened it up and I was doing a bit of my research.

Yeah. So that's what most people go to, right? But when you use nuclear as or radiation as a technology, there's a whole bunch of regulations to come with it. So what we do, what Qualtech starts to do is by making sure we provide all services that support those requirements. Excuse me. Whether that's writing the radiation safety programs, whether that's training their people,

whether that's making sure their equipment is operational. And so cool part about that business is we get to play in a lot of really cool places. Right. So one of our internal mottoes is we get to do cool shit, right? Because everything's new, everything's different, so it's fun and exciting. Application that's different.

So we cover in that space, we're one of the largest calibration providers for instrumentation in the construction market. Okay. We calibrate measurement of instrumentation for materials testing and for road and bridge construction. We're also, we manage large material management programs

disposal and maintenance and so forth of radiation in Fortune 100 companies and all the way down to little small mines and so forth. And then we have a military side that we do, we train a lot of first responders as well, military first responders in proper radiological material management, nuclear weapons, how to manage them, stabilize them, control them, store them, all those kind of things. and train people to respond to in case. So if we'd ever have an incident here or out of the country, that they're not, then how to respond to that? Okay. Do you contract with county government and stuff like at all?

How does that work? Yep. So, you know, we work with some of our largest customers or like New York City Fire Department. One of my, so again, connected my passion, right? So 9-11 and darn, our generation is a really big event, right? And it was world-changing for us. And everybody in the age of, you know, 15 to 35 wanted to grab a gun and go to war and, you know, make right.

There was no Republican, no Democrat. There was one United States for America. It was an amazing day in our history. I mean, 9-12, right? Yeah. 9-12 was amazing day. And so one of my, I couldn't. I was in the middle of a bunch of things.

I had contracts or I couldn't legally actually go do it. And so one of my real passion pieces was in. We landed a contract with New York City in the late 2000s to manage all their equipment. So they had firefighters that had all this equipment and gear to do threat detection now to make sure we didn't have it under 9-11. But no real way to keep track of it or maintain it or make sure that it was even property measuring when they went on field. So we landed in a contract with them and we still hold that contract to this day. To this day. Yeah.

Wow. So we have we managed 18,000 pieces of equipment between 250 firehouses. We do about 1,500 meter exchanges a day. between firefighters. So, and we do it perfectly. So, you know, we have a lot of friends in New York City, and we like to think we help make New York City a little safer. I love that.

I love that. I think New York has changed drastically over the years. I mean, I did my internship there. I think I told you that twice. I lived there also for a year. It's always been, when I first came to America for the very first time, I landed in JFK, I kissed the ground, I said, this is the American dream.

Because I think, you know, in the movies you watch as a young kid, like New York, New York. And over the years, it's changed, obviously, drastically. I still feel like it has a big part of American history, you know, like regardless of anybody's there. It's still a big apple, right? I mean, it's still, you know, I hire guys that come from other countries too. And it's funny because for them, it's still that glowing, you know, it's still that, it's the pinnacle of America, you know. So it is sad. New York's changing a lot.

They're doing a lot of challenges. but you've still got a lot of great people. A lot of great people fighting the cause out there. I'll tell you, New York City firefighters are some of the best guys on earth. It's funny because you know New York City and they're always like frash and it's like, yeah, whatever. And they do that. I'm walking over here. Walking over here.

But they're true, good people. And we're lucky to work with them. But it is changing a lot. And I think it's changing in the same direction our country is, which is a whole other conversation. I was very excited to actually touch on and talk a lot about, you know, venture solution group. Yeah. I've interviewed a lot of a variety of different entrepreneurs, a lot of small business owners. Like I said right now, we're also small business owning as well.

I want to figure out what is venture solution group and what do you guys actually do? Yeah. So, again, same thing, passion, right? So one of the things that it is me is I love to fix things. I love to create. I love to build, right? So, and more importantly, I love to align people to a mission. That is, in my opinion, it's one of the most amazing things to watch happen

is when you see a group of people, 9-12, or in a business, suddenly come together for a mission and a purpose and all work together towards that. It's an amazing thing to watch. And so we started, I started having some friends that were building businesses around town and just coming to me for advice on certain things. And they started saying, And I helped a couple of them be really successful.

I've got one that, you know, I was working with him. He was in a real mess between a partnership and trying to build the business. So he's helped him navigate through that. And, you know, he's getting ready to sell his business at, I think, close to 10 or 12x, four years down the road. He's built an amazing business. Got out of that, built an amazing business and really put the work in, and he's going to benefit. He's going to become a multi-millionaire overnight.

So, you know, so I started watching some of that. These guys were telling me, you know, we need to, we need more of this in our community. We need more, we need more people helping these small businesses. So, so I hired a team and we have been putting together what I call my, what I say VSG is, is the team of people every small business should have, I can't afford. Right. So if you could start a business with, you know, all the right accountants and lawyers and operators and all the executive. team and go here you go it's going to be successful right you look at the big big companies a world why they always succeed in everything they do it's because they

know how to do it they put the people to it and they can afford to people they got the right people but that's hard when you're starting a small business you know especially most small businesses start out with 85 cents in their pocket and a great idea so which you know compliments to them that's that that at loan takes bravery and and energy but so with VSG what we do is we created a team and the most important thing is helping them figure out what that business wants to be when it grows up, you know. So we sit with them, help them understand and create the true vision of what that company can and what they want it to be and connect them to what makes them hungry inside, right? And then we help apply the resources and help them, you know, these group of people have on the team, they're phenomenal.

They've been, they built businesses from dealerships to manufacturing to medical distribution to, you know, new. name it so and the rules are all generally the same so that's what vsg does we we sit down with them in its Venturesolution group and and it's been fun we've been we've met with dozens of small business owners around mostly southeast idle but even some as far as Arizona okay and struggling with that hey we've had a business it's great you know it it pays for my mortgage and it but I'm working 80 hours a week and I'm getting ready to retire and I don't have an exit strategy or I want to pass the business to my son

and I don't know how to do that. And that's where you guys come in, right? Yep. Okay. So we come in and a lot of times you find these, like small businesses, I think the difference between a small business and a business that's long-term successful is vision, right?

It's really what does this want to be? You know, and nothing wrong with the lifestyle businesses where you go, I want to be an electrician and I'm going to start an electrical company and I'm going to work in it and build that up and slowly every time grow. And nothing wrong with that. that. But when you reach an exit strategy, or you reach a point where you want to capitalize

on your long-term investment, that takes planning. And it takes having a vision for the people that want to come in and pay for that business and pay big money for that business because you've built something. That's powerful. Right. So that's what we do. We help create the plan for them. We help them see and understand what that takes and what looks like. And then we work with their team. We insert experts in the in the business to help them make the right decisions the first time. And it's it's more like consulting. And do you guys, is it a contract that the small business ends up like, you know, signing up with you guys? Or if you kind of trying to specify, let's say like a small business comes to you, you explain it perfectly. But if you were to like

break down the steps, like how does somebody get in contact with you? Right. Yeah. So we do most of the stuff word of mouth, right? So one thing for us is, is there's a lot of businesses that come to consultants and they go, hey, I want to be a billion. there cool be willing to put in the work to do it right and and and it does take work and it takes energy and it takes it takes dedication and having the right team with you makes that a lot easier but it's still a lot of work right so we we do we do pick people that that we feel have that have that capability okay and so we don't have thousands and thousands of people we work with in a small group and our objective

is so we do charge a like a small consulting fee but it's less than like a lower lower wage employee okay and that's not where we make our money so we really do that to cover our costs and make sure that you know they're invested as much as we are okay but the real energy comes in is what we do is once we get them in most small businesses they make an automatic assumption they're gonna be worth like a 4x usually not true right so one usually a 4x is when you get to a larger money space so you got to be of like a million dollar EBITDA or north of that. Mostly businesses are doing two, three, four hundred thousand dollars in

EBITDA. They could have the potential to do five, ten times that. But they haven't put a vision in place. They haven't put a plan in place and they're not growing according to a strategy. Oh, okay. So as they come in during that process, they're usually a one to two, three, four X. And we don't want to buy them at that point in time because, frankly, they can make more value themselves with a little coaching.

So what we do is we help them get up to that valuation, just through a consulting, helping them get there. And then as they start to need capital in their plan, we invest in them and help them get the fuel in the tank for them to get where they want to go. And then most importantly is, and I think every business owner that's been in business a long time, at some point goes, I haven't really thought of my exit strategy. Right. If you're thinking of your extra strategy when you start a business, it's a lot easier. Right. You know what you're building. Exactly.

So that's what we do is help to figure out what does that extra strategy look like and how do we build the business towards that? Because that's where you get most business owners make their money when they leave the business, not when they're in the business. I love that. And speaking about that, I read a book of Robert Kisak. He spoke about the cash flow quadrant like E for employee S for small business. And then from small business to big business and then invest. So you want to be in the B-I thing. And from what I'm taking from you helping the S has become the B's and find their way out of it.

Exactly. Right. And, you know, I've had the opportunity I work with really wealthy people. And I've had the fortunate mentors, right, are a very important thing as you reach certain levels in business. And as you, and there's different types of mentors. Some of them are just passive where you get to have the opportunity be in the seat next to them and watch the decisions they make and watch how they plan. And there's other people that are literally working with you on a day-to-day helping explain things. And I've had both, fortunately. And so being able to be able to. to take that information and apply it to people in their business when they're trying to figure out, you know, how do I, how do I get the business ready for somebody that's going to come in and give me the end state purchase? And so building it that way and helping them understand how to think and how to create and how to, I mean, I sold shares in my businesses, the cheapest I ever sold shares in my business was 9x. So, and that was at, you know, low valuations. Wow.

So, you know, because I build businesses a certain way, you build them where you build protection for the person buying the businesses in a way where they're comfortable with the investment. And so how you structure those businesses and how you, like Qualtech, for example, we start every year knowing 94% of our work for the next year. So most businesses are, like, we have it locked in. We know 94% of our business next year and then we just worry about how we're going to grow it. And speaking about that, I recently attended an event, a Heroes Defense event, which you pretty much the co-chair as well. And so one of the things I came across in that specific event, I networked like crazy, by the way. A lot of young business owners, a lot of small businesses that were there, there was like from furniture to like horses. I was just talking to the amount of people that you were connected with.

And I was so fascinated because in my perception, I was like there's a small market over here. My eyes opened by that event because there's such a big market. And like they're all super successful. They were all talking about the relationship they had with you. They were all talking about like how they've been growing and how this is like their fourth of, I'm like, I thought this was the second action. I thought it was second. No, we're a 10th.

Yeah, that was like they were 10. Yeah. So. I want to stick on that as well. Actually, I want to read this one word for word. It says, what are the most common mistakes or challenges that you see small business owners? and how does FSG help them avoid and address these issues? Yeah, so, again, back to one of the first things you see across the board.

So every small business has different levels of problems, right, and different things they need to solve. And I think businesses quite often get stuck in that. And so holistically, when most businesses we find are dealing with, I can't find a good guy to run operations. Or I can't get my guys to make these sort of a situation. decisions or I can't get this issue solved and those are all issues that have to be dealt with But we peel them back and say well do they know what you're trying to do right? Do they know what your vision for this business is? Are they just trying to

You know stay employed there's a big difference and so I think the first thing that most businesses don't do And myself included I think you know as we get businesses the first time the first thing I do when I when I look to buy a business or invest into a business is is do they have a plan or do I need to create one? Right? And if you're coming into a business and you go, I'm just going to open this up, hang a shingle out and start working, a lot of businesses are fine with that. So something I talk a lot about is defining your own level of success.

Right. So that's all connected for me. So it's not a symbol of saying this is how you define the problem. It's connected to two primary things is what is your level of success that you want to achieve? Because there are a lot of people. know that they're super happy fairly wealthy because they they decided this is where I want to be in life and I'm happy with that right and they create a balance and I talk about a lot about balance balance for me is one of the most important things so you

know balancing your life priorities and your own passions and your own you know wealth are all part of that equation so when we with business owners not everyone wants to be a multi-billion dollar business you know I was about to say that you get some more power that's want to remain more power for like a long time They're happy with just running the business with the husband and the wife and just pass it over to the kids. And that's their vision. They're happy with that. You know, not everybody wants to become like a multi-millionaire, you know, right?

Yep, yep. Nobody wants to do that, you know, and that's fine. You know, you have to define your own level of success and define success. What is success to you? And when you do that, then when you achieve that, you're successful, right? So I think a lot of people, we get caught up in the world of people going, well, he's a multimillionaire and he's successful. Well, I know a lot of people that would say that he's not, right? Maybe he doesn't have balance in family.

Maybe he's stressed out all the time. Maybe his health is failing him. You know, whatever those things are. And then you see people that are, you know, really put together. They have a good work. They have a good balance. I don't like the work-like balance because I don't think there is such a thing. But there is a balance of life of priorities and passions.

And so at the same time, the most successful people I know that I really look up to are the people that have built multi-million or multi-billion dollar businesses that are extremely balanced. Right? And so I think that's a real skill. So we sit down with them the first thing that we help them do. And the biggest problem we find is usually find a business that can't keep people. As we start to look through that, this big problem right now is finding good people, right? And I will say one of the things I think I love the most about our companies is everybody in all

my business and know exactly what we're doing okay structure right not even just the structure actually literally um if they all know what you're trying to build okay right so if you take it like the metaphor of like building a house right if you walk in and say oh guys we're going to build a house you hammer you nail you get the wood what are we building right you have to have a set of plans right and if you have that set of plans a really good group of people, and I would say even just give it to people in general, they know what they're doing, right? I'm the framer. Cool. Here's the plans. You know what needs to work. And they're going to build and create and modify. No set of building plans has every nail and every board and every

hand, every nail tells you where to put it, right? But if you give them a set of plans and you go, this is what it's supposed to look like and you give them the freedom to create, you get a beautiful house, right? And you also get to go build more houses, right? and go design the plans and go give instruction on what we're trying to build and create. I want to stick on something you said. I think that just put a nail on the coffee. You said the freedom to create.

Coming from South Africa into America, I've seen so many young entrepreneurs, but it's not only the freedom to create, it's the fact that the economy and structure allows people to bring their own talents that they can build something as well. Rather than being micro-moder manage and told a certain way, build your way up.

Like, I feel like the entrepreneurial market is amazing because people use their own form of, like, freedom of thinking to try and build something as well. Why do you think it's mostly common in the United States rather than other countries as well? I think, you know, comes with that. We have a historical balance or basis in capitalistic idealism, right? So the reality is that, and I think this is connected to a lot. lot of other, you know, cultural problems, but, but that we're dealing with and dealing with some change in that, because we're moving into more of a digital age. And so some of those,

those skills are becoming rare and more difficult to find. But, you know, I think here, every person in this country hears it a lot. You know, you can be anything you want to be. And I think that's still true. But that doesn't mean you have to be an entrepreneur. That doesn't mean you have to be a, you know, business owner or whatever. If you want to be electrician and you want to go work for somebody and be phenomenal, finding a company lets you have some freedom in how you do that work and add your own talent and level of skill to that. I think that's what you find in every business.

In fact, I would say most people that leave businesses are based on that one thing, you know, either they didn't feel like they'd fit the mission or they didn't know the mission. So I think that's the first thing is you talk to a business owner and you say, okay, you're going to start a business. What do you want to do with it? We know you want to build houses. You want to be a contractor. Cool. That's your passion.

Great. What do you want to do? Right? So how big do you want to get and how complex do you want to be and what type of homes? What feeds your passion? And then you get a team on board and people, the cool thing I think about our culture, especially I think is one thing that's gotten more that way is that people recognize the value of, intrinsic value, right? So you get people on your team and they go, I love that, man. I want to be part of that. And then you, and then you, cool, here's, what are you good at? I'm good at this.

I need that. And then you let them create, let them build. And pretty soon you step back in and you go, wow, you built some really cool stuff, man. That's awesome. Right? That's great. You're doing a great job. And by the way, you brought on three new elements that we can add to the business. And the business becomes a living, breathing organism that, uh, that is aligned with your mission and your passion. So that's how you scale. Love that. Love that so much. Somebody right now starting with your experience, you know, being in the entrepreneurial field, if somebody were to start a small business today, what advice would you give

them in order to try maybe secure funding and also make it profitable in terms of cash flow effectively? Yep. So the same kind of thing, a little different, but you see businesses that start a business and they don't think through their margins. They don't think through, you know, how do I feed? How do I grow this thing? And they use it bring in accountants when there's a problem.

Like, oh, shoot, I'm not paying my bills. And then you're already in the problem, right? So I think part of that is the same thing, that plan. I say the first thing you do before you start any business is you have to give it a full analytical process. And that is connected to your passion. Like, this is the business I want to create. I'm a firm believer that you can make any business idea profitable with the right plan. Right.

I've seen a lot of businesses, great businesses pursuing the wrong market, pursuing the wrong type of customers, right? I've seen other businesses that have great, pursuing the right markets, pursuing the right structure, but their margins are horrible because they don't want to manage their people, right? So I've seen all across the board those problems, but all of those come down to is saying, what market do I want to pursue? What problem am I solving for that market or that solution? And reality is that's all businesses are, is just there. solving a need, right? So what is the need? What is the gap you're filling? What makes you different and better and more marketable? And how do you utilize that? How do you build a team beneath you? And I think that's, so, you know, when you start a business, a lot of people

just go, I'm going to start this business and they do like a basic, like there's not a, you know, there's not this type of company in this market. So I'm going to go after that. Okay, how you can make money and what kind of money you're going to make and how much money you're going to need, right? And I think a lot of entrepreneurs, and that's where the, that's where the, that's where the balzy attitude comes in. It's just like, I don't care. I'm going to figure it out. And, and they do. And that's a great thing about entrepreneurs. They're brilliant people. I mean, they're, I think entrepreneurs are the core problem solvers. That's, that's the fundamental synonym to entrepreneurs is that there's a gap in the market. I'm going to build it and I'll

figure out how to make it work along the way. The most successful entrepreneurs I've seen are the people that go, this is how I'm going to do it. And so they actually sit down and put a plan in place of, this is what my cash flow is going to look like. And look, you don't have to know cash flow. There's lots of people out there that can help you do that. Exactly.

So, you know, you take that down and you build that plan. And then the plans always, plans always change. Plans are always evolving and changing. We're not getting the margin that we should get here. But the cool part about this is if you built the plan and you're not performing the plan, you have half your analytics to figure out why not because this is how it's supposed to work and it's not. So now you're the analytical process to figure out why is that plan not working and what do I need to do to change it so that it can. Do that make sense?

100%. So I want to look at various components just to add on what you just mentioned as well. You know, you look at the dot-com bubble. You look at the great recession in 2008 and 7, 8 and 9. You look at COVID. And now the question I want to ask you, especially with your experience, how can somebody build a recession-proof business? It's scary right now because COVID just many people went down and under.

Even the financial crisis, like the big investment firms in New York, some of them went down and under, you know. Warren Buffett are to like take money out like his, you know, mattress. because how golden and sex, you know. That was a crazy period of time. It was a really crazy period of time. We had to do a lot of shifting and movement and changing of the plans because, you know, the market was affected in a lot of different ways

in pretty much every market. And it's funny how, you know, we're so connected as an economy that, you know, one thing goes down and it takes everything else with it, right? And the real estate market's a big bubble. So it had connections to every financial institution. So I think there's a lot of people every day that ask themselves that question. And I will tell you, there are a lot of big money people that that is the key word for them. How do I buy and acquire recession-proof businesses?

And especially right now with where we're at, you know, I think there's a lot of people think we're on the verge of recession. I personally think we have more stability than we think we do. you look at some key indicators, you know, yes, inflation's up, but people are still spending money, right? Concerningly, that people's debt ratios are going up, but people's pay is going up. So it's an interesting set of dynamics, and I don't think we've ever seen, at least I've certainly haven't seen it in my lifetime with these cross-competing dynamics in our economics, and nobody knows what they mean. So, and I'd say even if you talk to some really, really experienced people that have seen, this, you know, from day to day, they're going, we are, we are in that boat, we're not in that boat.

Maybe we are in that boat. Maybe we're not in that boat, because there's just a lot of conflicting information. And that's what happens in a recession. Every time it's new, we're like, oh, we should have seen that coming. Yes, that's true. So I think, you know, when you look at recession, when we look at our businesses, for example, because we always do the same thing. Every year, we reanalyze what the economy is doing, what the markets are.

doing you know we have an end-of-year meeting where I bring in the entire team and I want to hear from ground up to the executives that understand financial markets to the guys that are actually doing the work on the grounds here and what are you hearing what are you seeing from our customers and and we connect those dots but so I think that's the true way to do it is you got to get information from all sources but finding a niche market where or or creating your I think there's two ways to do it in a general sense right every business has a different recession for roofing strategy exactly but I think if you're looking

to buy a business or start a business I think that there are definitely some competitive advantages or disadvantages that you can analyze when you start that business okay so for example you know if you're gonna go into I'll just pick one auto repair because I was actually having a similar conversation this morning And a lot of people think that auto repair is recession proof. So I was talking to him about this conversation. And he says, a lot of people think that.

It's truly not. And I said, well, why is that? And he said, well, when you get paid from your insurance company for a wreck, if you're not paying your bills, what do you do with that money? Do you get your car paid or do you pay your mortgage? You're going to pay your mortgage. Exactly. Right?

So he says, there's lots of business. What we see is actually the money. close rate during a recession, the bottom falls out. We still have work coming in, but our close rate disappears because people are using that money differently. So, you know, there's a lot of services, service businesses that when you're in those businesses, understand that. So now, if you market those auto repair services to recession-proof supply chains and

customer chains, like more going into governmental type of markets where they don't spend the money on their mortgage. They're going to spend the money on repairing the vehicles, right? So when you build it, when you build it, I'd say there's a lot of businesses that people automatically assume that a recession proof. The reality is a recession-proof business is based on business, based on consumer dynamics. Okay. Right. So you have to look at the services you're selling, and a lot of people automatically assume certain services are recession-proof. I don't think the market drives the recession-proofing. I think the I think the dynamic of the market that you pursue and the customers you pursue

define your recession proof. I love that. And I also agree with what you're saying because every single industry is different to how you'd build a recession-proof thing, sales, marketing, you know, repair shop as well because it just depends on that as well. So I like that. And then one last thing before I want to go into Heroes' Defense and so forth, I want to ask, would you recommend in the advice portion, would you recommend somebody start or buy a small business, in your opinion?

You know, interesting right now, and then that change is based on the economy, right? So if you look right now, there's a lot of transition in business that's happening. We had one of the biggest generations in the American history, the boomers, right, that are all, they delayed. The recession delayed a lot of them, right? And so they've carried on and built the businesses back up and stabilized. And the last five years, we're seeing a lot of those people re-approach how to I exit the business. And it's interesting. I actually talked to a guy the other day.

He literally bought a million-dollar business for the price of the building. So we got a loan for the building and ended up with a very successful business as part of it because they had no one to hand it to. Exactly. So I think that comes with different problems, right? So now you have to figure out how do you take that business that's been this for so long and turn it into a growth culture. So back to what I say, what type of business do you want to create? If you want to buy a business, it's going to be a lifestyle business,

and you want to be able to work that, that's great. There's lots of businesses to buy, and you can buy them. for a good value and you can get sweat equity out of those. If you're an investor that's more like me that likes to buy businesses that are needing a lot of change there, yet be very selective. So it starts back to what kind of business do you want to create? What kind of business and what's your goals? How do you want to define success?

Starting a business in today's economy is a little more difficult because there's not as much capital available as there was two, three, years ago there's a lot more businesses doing seller financing right now because of that issue so they need to exit they want to exit for whatever reasons so I don't know that there's a start a business or buy a business every situation is different every market so even starting a business some businesses right now in certain markets are going to be really valuable to to go and start you know there's a lot of like even out of falls right now we're growing economy growing massively so you know the number of businesses that have

started here in Idaho Falls when this building here there's four alone that I know of and I know I know I know some of their stories to be honest and they found an inch and they found a growing market and it's an easy in easy you know startup. Others a little bit more difficult market entry. So I don't know that it's a simple buy versus start question. It's going to be what is the business you're looking to buy? What kind of business do you want to become? And then analyzing that business you're looking at buying and say it's easier to convert that business to a growth culture if you want to grow right if you're looking at a growth business converting an existing stagnant culture to a growth culture is one of the most risky things an inexperienced person can

take on love that love that now I want to quickly shift on heroes defense before we kind of like conclude as well. I recently attended your 9-11 annual event. I want to I know I kept talking about how what an amazing event is but I want to tell you why I say it was amazing. First of all the price I don't know why it's so cheap but I'm not complaining right so as a I'm a financially economist I graduate in that so everything I look I look at like value that you gain out of that so out of all the the networking events I've attended in the last five years it was the most valuable and I'll tell you why say that first of all black tie event when we were on the right people billionaires

multi-millionaires small business owners and a lot of like young entrepreneurs are on tropeanians around there as well yeah to the food was all like it was amazing one the food was all the ticket price that's number two so it's cheaper than going in the restaurant down the road it was way better it was really good so and then three I'm already like you on the pod and you know Elena Johnson and a few others that are connected as well and so what my take away from that was, I call it the most bargaining ticket was getting that

ticket that I got over there because it was way more valuable than any other event. Of course I go to events and I meet entrepreneur like I find ways to get the right people. But in terms of value, it was the most valuable, the most connecting, good environment, the auction, it was like I gave that one an 11 out of 10.

Is that fair? That's great. I love it. I believe the same thing. I think it comes back to everyone in that room has the same beliefs. You know what I mean? the same and that's why that's why it's such a good network everyone and there has been through a lot of those things together they They've they built businesses. They failed in businesses. They they they they all align behind

A single idea and so you know networking events are great, but you get also different people and all sorts of different markets Pursuing all sorts of different solutions and problems which sounds good on the front but when you get a lot of people in the same room that all have a same perspective of a singular you know issue, you're automatic, it's like if we walk in, you meet somebody, right? And the first, you know this in sales. The whole point of a sales approach is to find some common ground. Exactly. Right? That's the first thing you got to find. You're walking in a room where you have 500, 500 people, all of them on common ground. Exactly. And so a lot of our events are built around that same way because it doesn't. You're automatically there. You're already, you know, you already have a footing in the door to build that relationship because you already know we have this in

common. Can you talk a bit about heroes defense like what inspired the tradition of aligning your company with the mission at giving back to the community and you talk about like the entire purpose of like heroes defense as well? Yep so New York City one of my biggest customers right and so I sure work with them not long after 9-11 a few years and and so we got we got really I started watching and I learned a whole lot about 9-11 working with them like stuff that I don't think 80% of the population knows and really comprehends. And so I started watching this.

I became really intrigued by it and I started learning a lot of things that are still going on because of 9-11. And within the department, within the people themselves, the responders. And I started watching a lot of the, like anything in history, you know, the memory kind of does this, right? It peaks and then it slowly starts to kind of die off. And right around 2013, I started to start. started watching this kind of once they'd be forgotten, but be devalued a little bit. New generation's coming in. It's hard to translate that to the new generation.

And so I said, yeah, I'm not okay with that. And this is where I say my business is connected to my passion. That's what keeps me fueled. So I said, we're going to fix that. We got to do something. And so I met with Garrett, who had started Paul Davis Cares, which is his nonprofit group, and they were doing a little of run thing. But it was kind of having trouble keeping up with that.

the growth as well or with the decline as well right so I just asked him I said hey I got an idea I have some connections to bring here and help educate the public and I think I think our community will catch on to what we're what we're trying to explain here and and we can use this as a as a platform for us to bring more resources to our growing community what do you think and he went and Garrett's like the best guy in the world he goes you know what I love it let's do it and I was that was easy okay cool let's go so um so we put on the first event that year and and it was you know like anything it took a little time it took us some time to refine it but now for a few years in a row we've done just under half million dollars every year and all that money has gone in the community

we've done some really cool things you know a small a small community is is a tough thing when they're growing because taxes are a year behind right so even when you do tax planning look population happen now. Taxes happen here. So I need more equipment. I need more gear. I need more people. That happens now, right? So we started working with them and figuring out what your gaps are and what are you missing. And it's been really fun to watch them start to lean on the community. By leaning on the community, I mean heroes defense. And so, you know, now we're getting ready to build a training center, Fredo Falls. We did the two nine of the memorials. We helped get a piece of steel from FDNY. Now we have two. We built three.

We've built one memorial. Have you seen the new memorial? No. It's beautiful. It's right down in front of station one. It's just around the corner from you here. Okay. Check it out.

It's beautiful. It's two 15-foot towers, waterfall reflecting pond. I mean, it's not a small monument. It turned out great. We bought AEDs for them. We've supplied training. We rebuilt some of their aging facilities while they're waiting for the new ones to get built. Wow.

And now they're coming to us going, hey, we need help with the next thing. And so big a bigger programs now. So now we're working on acquiring a piece of property and actually building a veterans home for veterans to get counseling and support and therapy and find jobs and get skills and training. That's the Heroes House project. And then we have the training center we're building for first responders here locally. And then we're actually doing something that a lot of cities are trying to put together right now. We're pretty excited because we have, I think, the best plan. So it's actually getting co-counseling for,

first responders post-incident. So keeping our first responders mentally healthy, it's a big thing right now. In a growing community, we're seeing things that our community has never seen before. Officers are dealing with things that they've not ever seen before. And dealing with the trauma of those is wears on you over time. So we want to, you know, recruiting police officers is tough enough, making sure they're healthy so they stay on and become good assets to our community.

is what that's all about. So those are the three big initiatives. And now it's really cool because now we've got people in New York City. We've connected with tunnels and towers. They become really good friends of ours. We brought out the museum this last year. They want us to look at doing that again. They absolutely loved it.

And I think one of the most important things for me is when we bring out the guys from New York City and they come here and they do what happened this last year, I've gotten email after email after phone call, after phone call from those guys going, your guys' community is the best thing I've ever seen. the support that we were able to build I mean we had the museum open I think we pushed with very little advertising we tried but it was kind of you know in the middle of

you know July and September and so we had 7,000 people go through that museum in four days wow and literally the last day it was they had to get up moving and one that the lead guy the last five minutes of the day a football team comes run across the field like a bunch of 12 year old kids and I was like guys they just shut it down man and he He's like, and you can see the coach was like, oh, we couldn't get them all over here. We missed it. These guys really want to see it. I was like, hang on.

So I walked into the museum and I talked to the eye and said, hey, the whole football team just showed up. Can we push them through? It's up to you, man. You guys got a long drive ahead of you. What do you want to do? He goes, we're not turn away kids. I love that. Open the doors back up.

They push those kids through. And I tell you what, I've never seen more kids be more enthralled with the history of 9-11. Yeah, you don't get that, especially when they're. 12 years old because they won't even born at that time you know because that's like 20 years ago 20 no it's like us reading about Pearl Harbor you know I mean it's it's very different but I think that this had a 9-11 had a larger impact on their lives so correlating like why is the traveling at the airport the way that it is right what do first responders deal with now that they didn't deal with in on you know 2,000 exactly

so they were very it was cool so see that so now heroes defense is actually getting to go national we have people that want us to to help them stand up a a branch in their in their communities and excited about it. It's just like a business, right? So the first year is me and me and Garrett were hammering the nails and designing the platform. It was the first time ever built one.

So it was the first time I've ever built a nonprofit. It's a very different structure, very different, you know, organization. And we built it very successfully. Now we have a full team. And it's its own machine. They're running and it's expanding and growing. So yeah, it's fun.

Awesome stuff. Last and final question. We had like a few that we went through, but for the sake of time and to respect yours as well. We always ask this because it's code winning, the insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. All Entroping is a different answer to this. In your definition, what does it mean to win or winning? So I talked about this before. You know, for me, everyone defines their own level of success, right?

You define what that is for you. And then you build a strategy to do that. And that is winning, right? If you say, this is what I'm going to do and you implement a strategy and you achieve that strategy, that's how you win. I think a lot of people think that businesses is a competitive sport. And it is in individual markets. I mean, you're competing with the market and the competitors. But to win, that's a personal sport.

that's something that happens in your head and in your body and your mind and you have to fight every day to stay motivated and stay focused and and maintain perspective you know I talk a lot about one of my favorite things I I try to use my time all the time is or say to myself all the time and it's one of the things that I think has carried me through a lot of stressful and and tough situations is you know if you control your perspective you control your world powerful if I had a mic drop I'd drop out drop it right so so you know sometimes you get lost in I'm not winning at this or I'm not winning at that or we lost this battle we lost that contract those are those are battles or not the war right so if you want to win

in my opinion that's where you get a peel back from that little loss and go okay all right I lost there how do I learn from that because this is what I'm actually doing right so I need to use that to win the war so I can win long term and I'm going to win by taking my strategy and continually applying it and maintaining perspective what's important powerful all right boss if you could look in the camera maybe perhaps let people know where they could get a hold of you either for your businesses for consulting heroes defense any events what's the best for contact people get a hold of you yeah so best way to get in touch with with VSG which is where we're

doing a lot of this type of work it's just VsG dash online.com has information on there it's a very very simple but place get in touch with us and then of course you can look us up on on Facebook or any of the social media sites as well. Awesome stuff. Thanks man. Great to see you again buddy. Appreciate it. Awesome time. We came here with two pieces of luggage and 300 bucks in our pocket and that was it. So I didn't speak a lick of English. The funny thing is my brother took English as a second language. He's three years older and by the time it was time for me to take it. My mom was like, oh, you're never going to need to know English. We're not going to pay for that class.

So surprise. So I came to the country. I knew two things. I don't understand. I'm sorry, I guess three. Don't understand, speak slower and where's the bathroom? When I was in high school, I took my one and only art class, and my art teacher told me I didn't have an artistic bone in my body. Being able to survive in any environment was just crucial. I mean, I've been very well off, and I've been dirt poor looking for change on my floor in college to go to the McDonald's

and buy something for a dollar. So I know that I can survive in any environment. And so when it came transitioning from working a pretty stable job in medicine to being up on my own, I knew that no matter what I could make it work. You die tomorrow, your employer will probably relist your job within 24 hours. But your son or your family is going to notice. And so where do you want to be?

Right? And this gave me an opportunity to, one, really figure out if I'm made differently, to be able to spend time with my family and place my emphasis on where I want to be and the people I want to be with. A gentleman who ordered a portrait of his wife's grandmother was very close with them. But unfortunately, she passed away before meeting her grandchild. So a picture of the grandma holding the grandchild does not exist until we drew it. So we took a picture of the grandma, we took a picture of the child, we put the two together.

And the husband ordered it for his wife for as a gift. And the video, so the video that she opens it up and looks at it and just instant reaction, I mean, I'm telling you, this is what I live for.