Vision Pros Live Podcast
Original podcast
Owning your revenue with Rion Westfall and Jackson Calame
10,555 words · 2 speakers
To Brazil and in addition, um, yeah, so you served in Argentina, your son served in Brazil. I served in New Uruguay. And since then, uh, I'm, I'm twice divorced, actually. Um, not, not a, a collection of trophies I want in my life, but a reality that happens sometimes. And, uh, learned some really important leadership things there, but my second, um, my second ex is from Mexico. Um, and I speak Spanish. So I learned a lot more Spanish through that relationship. And most of my team members are from Colombia. And I've got a couple in Peru, Panama, Mexico, um, and then other places throughout the world, but those, those are, I probably spend
three to five hours per day speaking in Spanish and my little one, my littlest daughter, she speaks predominantly Spanish as well. So, um, yeah, good thing the English is now hard.
I, I, I could definitely tell by the, by the lengua that, you know, yeah, you're definitely a, a, a more speaker. You, you haven't Americanized the Spanish that you once learned.
Right. Yes. It's a, it's such a dangerous reality too. And the guy's vision, vision, vision, vision. All of this is about vision, connecting with cultures, understanding how the world's connecting. Learning that, you know, and by the way, none of our clients know when they start with us that almost all of our team only speaks Spanish. And they're like, what? Like you, you, they do everything in English and like how? And I'm like, chat GPT is an amazing tool, all the cycles and they can, they can interact with you. They can build relationships with you, everything. And so it's opened a whole new door of opportunity for people who are looking to grow revenues, for people who are looking to build visions. We just have to get out of our comfort zone and not fear the unknown.
And if we can do that, we can open so many possibilities for ourselves. We've got Ryan Westfall on today. He's also a business guru. He's got this, uh, this concept rev, revolutionizing businesses. Making sure that we're looking at the opportunities that exist with revenue, getting the right type of support that we want in business. We're both Texans, so we're automatically family, just so y'all know that's how this Texan thing works. We both happen to serve missions, like the, the stars aligned for this one. So, um, returning to that topic. Ryan, you, you got international experience too. Am I wrong? Am I right? Um, would you like to to double down on that and share your thoughts?
How do we, how do we maximize our abundant opportunities and open our doors to maybe insecurity and doubt? And fears that really are the, are the gateways to unlocking more full potential?
No, I, I, absolutely. There was a book, book I just read, another gentleman, which we share a lot of similarities with Ben Ward. He's actually in California and he wrote a book called Pluck the FUD, F U D. And at first you're like, wait, wait, what? Though, you know, and you're reading it and but yeah, it stands for fear, uncertainty and doubt. And, and his whole mindset, he, he does a lot of, uh, sales coaching and things like that. And, and that, that, that, that theme is, is absolutely 100% correct. Uh, you know, those fears and those uncertainties and doubts that we have and entrepreneurs, I mean, if you're a business owner, you, you know what this is like. I mean, you, you have this extreme fear, maybe when you wake up
or maybe when you went to bed and then you had this amazing success moment at 11 o'clock. And then you had this other, put out the fire at three o'clock and, and we, we just call it Monday, you know? That's just, you know, that, that, that's what leaders, uh, especially SMB world is. I mean, my grandfather was an entrepreneur. My father was a serial entrepreneur, still is. I mean, you know, so, so I just grew up in that. I didn't know anything different. I didn't know what corporate world or anything like that was, but, uh, but yeah, you're, you're right. I've, I've had the privilege of working in about 15 different countries. So I've had a chance to, you know, fly out to different places. And like you said, languages I don't understand, cultures I don't understand.
But when you're kind of just thrown into it and you see the people, you know, a smile is a smile. A handshake is a handshake, a hug is a hug and, and, and those, those things don't change just because. Skin color or language, you know, those things just don't change.
Those are universal languages.
They really are. They really are. And so, so you're, you're, you're spot on, Jackson. I mean, when, when we talk about the business aspects, I mean, tho- those pieces shouldn't be fierce. They, you know, of course, there's going to be some uncertainties just because.
Here's where I lean into this too. For all you listening in, this is not about my ego at all. All right. I'm just Jackson. All right. At the end of the day, I'm just Jackson. I see myself in the mirror every day. I've, I've been the same guy since, you know, a little kid. Stephen Bartlett believes the same thing. Patrick Lencioni believes the same thing. Simon Sinek believes the same thing. John Maxwell believes the same thing. Right. I'm trying to help visionaries get in front of people who they can say, you know what? Maybe I want a track record like them. And that's what I see in Ryan Westphal, Westphal as well. So I'm looking, I'm like, okay, I like, here's a guy who's got that experience. Ryan, I'm gonna put you on the hot seat. 15 countries. Um, and I'll name some of them. What are some of these countries? Because
that again, that gets these visionary centered around, oh, wait, maybe I can relate a little bit more to where he's been and what he's done. Maybe he hasn't just lived in, um, you know, Texas his whole life and doesn't know anything outside that box. Like a lot of Texans, right? So where you been?
Uh, well, I actually born and raised in Arizona, so I'm a transplant to Texas. Uh, so, but, but given my, my mission in, in Argentina and speaking Spanish, that opened up my first international projects where it was right across the border in Mexico. And so I was running EPCM, Engineering Procurement Construction Management for mining operations. So my first project, it was a $50 million project and we were building, you know, this new stuff and they looked around, well, who can do the best job? And hey, you speak. And so that, that was, that was literally two, two weeks after my second child, my daughter was born, I had to, you know, I was quote, deployed down to Mexico to. You know, manage an army of Mexican ants in, in, you know, building concrete and structures.
And so, uh, you know, whether it's Mexico, I've done Panama, I've done a host of countries in South America, uh, Africa, so Zambia, South Africa, Liberia, um, uh, the name is escaping me. Uh, there's a couple of other countries there. I've been to Mongolia. I've been to Armenia, uh, Australia. So, so there's, there's a number.
Wow.
I mean, Mongolia was pretty neat because it was right there in the Gobi Desert. And, and when you talk desert, I mean, I'm from Arizona, Southern Arizona, so there's not much there. But at least we have the saguaro cactus. But in the Gobi Desert, there ain't nothing.
Whoa.
And the, uh, the facility we put up, they actually put up signs. They, they initially, they put up like a, you know, you think of a stop sign with a wooden post. Well, people came and took the wooden post because they could use it as fuel. Cause there, there's nothing out there.
Oh my gosh. Wow. Those, and those perspectives, right? The, the opportunities to be in those places, exchange, you know, really break bread, right? With people in, in those environments, there's so many intangibles that we learn from those opportunities. Um, that are, are priceless. There are things that, that teach us again, how we can connect with others. And at the end of the day, visionaries, learning to connect your vision in a way that is clear and effective for others to be able to know where you're going, what you're doing. That's going to be one of the greatest gifts that I believe Ryan and I can, can give you is learning how to continue to do just that. So you mentioned one resource already, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna cheat on that.
Um, normally I ask people for three resources. So Ben Ward, uh, take, take number one, um, pluck the fud. And, um, what other, what are two other resources, Ryan, that have helped you get to where you are? I'm building out your vision and helping others.
Oh, one, I'm actually just started here just recently was, uh, Chris Voss.
Never Split the Difference.
Never Split the Difference. You're absolutely right. It's been one of those. It was on the back burner for a while and but I actually started going through it and as I'm thinking about it, if you're familiar with it, you already know FBI scenario hostage and you can't you can't lose, right? I mean, you have to win the negotiation, otherwise people die. And so as he's going through it, he does a really great job at painting that picture of just how to negotiate, how to how to mirror, how to get to the no, not the yes, and just various topics. Definitely, that's that's another one.
I love that. I'll interject. Those of you who are visionaries at the next level, right? You're really starting to get after it. You're starting to crush it. You're starting to understand your infrastructure is built out. You got the right types of teams. I'm not saying if you're a beginner, you can't read the Never Split the Difference book. All I'm saying is that is a very, very powerful book for and I hope you do have a very strong foundation as you use it, because it's gonna it's gonna be like drinking from a fire hydrant of opportunity, and you only get a cup of water in your hand, you know, if you're brand new. So that's a huge book. If you're new, blaze through it and then read it again in five years, because that book is exceptional when it comes to understanding how to relate
to people in the world. And that's one of the biggest things we have to do when we're talking about a future that doesn't exist. It's like, how do you relate to somebody? If you're constantly talking about something that you want to build that people can't tangibly hang on to. So glad you mentioned that book. That's a huge resource. What's the what's another one? What's the last one?
Another one that I've been going through, Travis Perry. He's actually out of Utah. He has his second book out. It's marry and grow rich. But really, his whole his whole aspect is entrepreneurs in building their relationship and how the you know, that combination with your spouse is so important to the to the success and or failure of of your business, of your entrepreneurship.
That is a book I wish I had read long before I got married. The first time and long before I got married the second time. That is a book that will go right on my list. You, you want to prepare before you get into those scenarios, my friends. At least I, I wish I had. Um, I wish I had had all the right research for those, those experiences. So I'm glad we range the spectrum. We got some stuff in the here and now that's helping you grow into your, your future and your current vision. And we got some that also apply to those of you who might be at the beginning stages. We're going to come back. We're going to talk about Ryan's depth, the vision, where he's going, what he's up to. We're going to continue to interlace revenue into this. I want to put a caveat there because as y'all know, I'm more touchy feely.
I'm more driven around the purpose aspect, but what I'm not driven towards is what I used to say. I used to say, I don't care about the money. Guess what? The money didn't care about me either. Um, when we don't pay attention to being wise stewards of the resources that God gives us, y'all know I'm Christian. I speak about God. If I tell God, hey, God, I don't care about your money, but please give me some. Um, that's not a really good way to inspire God to say, yeah, let me trust you with these resources. You're not going to care about. So it's super important that as visionaries, we don't shy away from the value of resources that will build the vehicles to help us move our visions forward. We got to dive right into that. So we've got an expert to help us in that today. And Ryan, we'll be right back and we'll dive into Ryan's vision.
All right. Welcome into Vision Pros Live with Jackson Callum. I'm your show host. We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic visions out there.
What's up everybody? And welcome into another episode of Vision Pros Live. I'm your show host, Jackson Callum, founder and CEO of First Class Business. And I'm super excited to dive in today about growing your revenues with your visions. And we've got an expert named Ryan Westphal on today, who is all set and ready to help you renaissanceize your business. I really like the twist and the play on that. I'm a big fan of puns. I'm a big fan of dad jokes. It goes right in there. It's a little bit squirrely, but. But I love it. We need to have gamified processes to help inspire us to move the things forward that matter for bringing our vision to life. Before I bring Ryan back on board, I want to give you some other resources to look at and to keep in mind as you move your lives forward.
So especially your visions, home studio mastery, huge shout out to the MVP of building out studios. Junaid Ahmed himself, that's his studio. It looks like a Lamborghini compared to mine. Oh, I love how he builds these state of the art podcast studios out. The video you're about to see, I got to go, I was taking this video, by the way, get a little bit of credit. Um, he did this studio for the hair restoration clinic and we built the studio out for um, three PG advisors as well. That's the studio that he's, he was building out for them. And it is so awesome to create these studio environments where these individuals are ready to become next level industry leaders. You want to say in modern world that you're an industry leader? Have a studio like this available to showcase to the industry, to the PR and media professionals who are looking for people like you.
And the show to the world that you know what you're talking about and start hammering out videos related to the frequently asked questions about your industry, about your product, about your service, and you can build a legacy where people will say, dang, these people are super committed, they know what they're doing, they're taking things to the next site. Well, that, that's the definition of an industry leader. It's a very, very easy way to get on the map in a bigger way. And Junaid does all the details necessary to pull that together for his clients. I'm super impressed with them. If you're looking for a bigger studio, great distribution. He also has a podcast in the top 2% globally. So yes, he is one of my business partners now at First Class Business. In addition to Junaid, we're going to move on to Dr. Danny Brussel.
Dr. Danny Brussel is a worldwide speaker. He's hilarious. He's awesome. He has that insane ability to motivate you quickly. What he does though, he inspires parents. He teaches parents how to inspire their kids to love and have a passion for reading. Reading and education are two of the most powerful resources to move this world forward. He's taught all over the world how to do this. The reading habit is his homegrown program. I've been working with Danny on launching the reading habit. Just as a cheap resource, right? One that everybody can afford. But we've now moved Danny's program, The Reading Habit, to a freemium business model. Why? Because the more he distributes this process to the world, one, the more lives that it touches.
But I have found in my life, the more we give, the more we get. And if you want to see the truth of that as a visionary, look no further than Google, Snapchat, TikTok, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook. I can keep going. They're all billion dollar companies. There's something magical and powerful about empowering the world. And Danny's just done that. So if you've got kids that don't have a passion for reading, maybe they like to, but they don't love to. I highly recommend checking this out because I don't think there's more, that there's too many more things in life that have done more for my children. Than helping them understand the value of education, understand a reading. And Danny has a superpower that I believe very much that it takes a tribe to build up a child, not just one single parent. We need resources and help. He's loving. He's awesome. Check it out if you're a parent.
As you know, I'm super passionate about parent subjects. So I'm gonna move into the water project now. The water project, right before I bring Ryan back on, this is something that is near and dear to my heart. Not because I've experienced it, but because I meditated on it. My hope is that you will do the same. When I find out, when I found out, there's millions of people who actually live without knowing where they're gonna get their next source of clean water for their family. Or for themselves. And I started to think through the reality, these kids often have to leave school to get water. The parents have to leave work and perhaps even lose their job just to provide the most basic resource. For their families to survive. And I meditate on, wow, what would that feel like as a dad? Right? Uh-uh. I couldn't take that. You know, I, I went ahead and I, I picked out one of these projects. Where you actually get to choose the project you're contributing to.
It tells you how much it's gonna cost to complete it. And they show transparently exactly what they're building. And they show you, once you've contributed to it, they send you email updates of where they're at with the project and pulling it to fruition. I absolutely love the transparency that they live with. This picture always strikes my heart. These kids are celebrating water. The way my kids celebrate Christmas Day and you have the opportunity to work with me to empower these individuals even further. If you're not in a financial position to contribute to this, that's okay. My hope is that you will follow that feeling of inspiration and say, who can I tell about this? Who can I talk about this with over dinner? Or who could I tell, who could I send or tag in a social media post about the water project and spread the word? You never know
how many people you'll touch, but I do know we've got about eight billion people in this world that really need our help. And if I'm going to rock this microphone for a living, then I'm going to use it to also try and inspire others to do the same. So let's jump into that. It's going to bring to you more than you even bring to them. And it'll make a generational impact on a society that that very much will make an impact to change the world. So with that said, Ryan Westfall, welcome back to Vision Pros Live.
Well, thanks, Jackson. I'm not sure you need me back anymore. Just keep going with those commercials. I was like, oh, I didn't know about that. Well, let me write that down. Let me.
Oh, man. I love it, man. I'm excited about it. And we do, we don't need you back, right? It's that abundance factor. You don't need me either, guys. You need God. You know, beyond that, everything's a bonus and a blessing. Ryan is so ready to bless us with a bonus. And we're going to dive in very simply with what his vision is. And so, Ryan, you've built a lot, you've done a lot with your life. You've lived very purposely. Tell me about your vision. What do you see ahead?
Uh, my vision, what I see ahead is as I was going through these different countries, and I did this for probably the better part of almost a decade, and I'd go in cold turkey. I mean, you know, I'd communicate maybe with the with the with HQ or something like that, but I would go into these facilities and they'd range anywhere from a $50 million facility to a $6 billion facility. And so, very massive, very large scale. Some of them might have, you know, 40, 50, 60 people. Some of them had thousands of people.
I'm going to put a tiny bit of context for those of us who've lived in a very real, like, non-multi-billion Million Dollar World, right? I worked at Lifetime Fitness, guys. The Lifetime Fitness Platinum facilities are thirty-six million dollar facilities. So if you know what a Lifetime Fitness is, you have a decent idea of the big infrastructure we're talking about. And you took that up by fourteen million and then jumped to billions. Like, I, my mind can't even fathom that, to be honest.
Yeah, when it, when it takes, uh, you know, that six billion dollar project, you can look it up, it was in Panama. And it was a copper facility. But the thing is, they had to build the entire infrastructure and ports and everything associated with that. So it wasn't just the, the facility and equipment itself. You had to build all of the infrastructure to it, the port, the transports. And so there was so much more involved than, than typical. And so-
There's a quick analogy here. I'm gonna, I'm sorry. Keep your train of thought. Don't lose, don't, don't follow me. But visionaries, I'm thinking of you. All you people who think it's just a book that you're ready to launch, right? It's, it's just the book. You just need to, no, no, no, no, no. There's a whole infrastructure behind making sure that book launch is successful, or that website, or that landing page, or that Facebook ad, or that group that you want to run. There's so much opportunity for infrastructure, not to overwhelm you, but to help you see that, okay, you, you want to build the foundation and infrastructure if you want these resources to last. So thank you for that. Again, let's, let's keep going. You got this.
No, absolutely. So, so I would go into these facilities, uh, solely for the purpose of performing an audit and evaluation. People didn't know I was there until I got there. And then they were introduced, hey, here's Ryan. He's going to be looking at some things. And that was literally all I was given. And so I'd spend days, weeks, sometimes almost a month, just at any given facility. And when I started doing this-
I felt like my responsibility back to quote unquote management to ownership, leadership was to say, hey, here's the things that I noticed and this happened bad or this was wrong. But the more and more I did it, the more I realized those were one offs.
And my responsibility lied more so in finding the patterns, the things that were repeatedly happening. Not just the, hey, this was a one off situation or this thing happened, but actually finding the patterns that were both good as well as the ones that were not good. And the better I got at finding those patterns, that always ended in a better result. I mean, at the, at the end of it, sometimes, you know, I was paid 20,000, 40,000, $60,000 just for that audit, just for that evaluation. And then to say, okay, well, here's how we're going to change that over the next 12, 18 months. And, you know, here's the millions of dollars of work, work that need to be done for this and that.
And so I'd come up with this big old giant proposals and things of like that. But I realized over and over and over again, when I started doing these, regardless, like we said earlier, regardless of where I was, whether I was in Mongolia, whether I was in Africa, whether I was in South America or even here in the States or Canada, the patterns I saw repeated very, very similar patterns. Regardless of who, regardless of what, regardless of skill level, there were just patterns that I kept seeing repeated over and over and over and over again. And so doing this for a number of years, and then I ended up leaving that and I, and I came to Texas actually for an oil and gas venture.
And my partners that I partnered up with up in Oklahoma City, I brought in a private equity. We were launching some new technology and building some stuff. And that was all about eight months right before COVID. So you can see how that future kind of went. But what kind of led me now as to where I am now is, is last year I finally made the decision. And I always had this kind of nagging feeling like, hey, I need to write a book. I mean, that's how the thought started, but okay, write a book about what, what am I doing? What am I promoting? What am I talking about? And then you're asking me, what is this vision?
What is near and dear to me is the SMB, right? I told you my grandfather was an entrepreneur. My father's a serial entrepreneur. I've got 10 uncles and nine of them are entrepreneurs. And I, you know, it's just always been about entrepreneurship and what that does to a community. I mean, capitalism is by far the biggest benefit to any community. And if you know-
We share a massive bias on this, by the way. Those of you, those of you who are listening in and I got a second. You know, I gotta really say what Ryan mentions means so much to me because my mom's an entrepreneur. My dad's an entrepreneur. My stepdad's an entrepreneur. My stepmom's an entrepreneur. My grandparents on both sides were entrepreneurs. Same thing. And the pros and the cons that exist always, there's always going to be them in life. But the amount of freedoms that we had, the amount of time that we had to be able to be with family, the amount of opportunities that we had to learn and to live and to do things so many other people didn't get the chance to do, right? When you grow up in that and that's kind of your bubble, you may not realize it growing up. But then when you see the rest of the world and how corporate America works and jobs,
you know, I was, I remember telling my mom, Ryan, I said, I came home from school in middle school. She was so mad at me. I said, Mom, being an employee, having a job is the same definition of indentured slavery.
We were, I was, it's literally the definition.
How old were you?
I was like 12. And, and Joe, she was so mad. And she's like, no, that's not right. I was like, okay, so I was, I just didn't talk to her about it anymore. But I was like-
Push the button.
So she wanted me to go that safe route, right? We tend to see things that grass is greener on the other side, right? But no, I would say the grass is much greener on the entrepreneur's side if you do it the right way. So please continue on this SMBs, helping SMBs right there with you.
So, so with that, I mean-
We get into trouble as countries as you know, you can go to the political spectrum. Anytime there's a lack of leadership and ability of SMBs to exist, you're always going to run into other trickle down ripple effect issues. So knowing that and seeing that amongst all these different cultures, I thought, well, what can I do to help SMBs? I mean, I've been in it. I've sweated. I've, I've, I've lost, you know, my bank account's been depleted multiple times, you know, and, and any true entrepreneur is going to tell you the same. I mean, it's a rough road.
Yes.
But when you're, when you know those things, okay, how do we help others?
You know, move away from that. So, so that's, that's where I started saying, okay, that's where I'm going to write, and I call it the own your revenue process or, or program. And that's where revenue should eyes and PEP Slim and all of these different acronyms that I've built come into play. Because I realized it's taking way too long for SMBs to be successful.
Yeah. A hundred years running and we're still at 96% failure rates.
Exactly. I mean, 96% failure rate. Why?
Would we, would we ever accept that of a school for our children? No, we wouldn't accept like a 10% failure rate. Like that's not okay. That's, and we're, we're eating that all day, every day as a society. And so, thank you. Thank you for championing this because we're, we're not getting going visionaries. We're not pessimistic. There's a big difference. We're talking about optimistic realism. The reality is this is a stat that has continued to dominate our country. And we're one of the most successful countries in the world, and that is our rate of failure. We can fix that. That's the optimism is we can find the solutions. And whether it's your acronyms, Ryan, or, or other people building gaps too as well.
Like those are opportunities for all of us to step up and say, let's stop ignoring this. Let's stop pretending all entrepreneurs are successful. And let's start looking at what are the real variables that are going to actually move the needle? And the principles and you were alluding to that with your process of seeing you're seeing all these universal principles. But you also have your past with SMBs. You're able to pull it together. I'm going to give one small snippet. For those of you who feel completely lost right now, like Jackson and Ryan are nuts. They're they're way on a totally different level. So we're not. No, no, no. Let me help you. Go to chat GPT and and just confirm what we're talking about. Ask it. How does a society get affected by not having SMBs? What proof exists out there in different countries? What is it like for Mexico?
I saw this firsthand in Puerto Rico and I am still traumatized by the few weeks that I saw. Yes, the beaches are lovely. Yes, the food was. People were lovely too. I am so traumatized by how horrific my experience was with people trying to send me to Amazon, Walmart and Marshalls to get close. Nobody wanted to admit or talk about the local stores that existed and the local stores that existed were suffering so badly. And the disconnect between those who are wealthy and those who don't have anything. The wealthy people there said, everybody speaks English here. I talked to over a hundred people about this. But I went into the, I went 20 minutes outside the city.
Nobody spoke English, not a single one of them. They might have had a few words here and there, but not to the point where they could be on a cost on a call center team. Not to the point where they could get a legitimate work opportunity. The divide was so devastating. In a country that is so close to ours, made me realize like, oh my gosh, how many other countries are suffering from this type of division? So I'm trying to bring it back to the real world I can relate to a little bit. But Ryan, keep going, man, because you are on to something that we need to hear.
Yep. So, so with that.
I mean, those facilities that I was helping, we were really, I, I, I've always used the term, and I use it with my kids all the time, aim small, miss small.
Hmm.
Right?
Patriots.
And, and, and the purpose being, hey, i- i- if, if I aim for a very specific target, even though I may not achieve the whole thing, I'm going to move that needle. And I'm, you know, if I, if I do miss, I'm going to be, I'm, I'm still going to be on the target.
Right.
You know, I, I'm not going to be off the target, so to speak. And so with that, a- a- as I look at those patterns, and I saw repeating patterns over and over and over again, different cultures, but they were the same. And so I started to, I started to see those, and this is probably the, the mechanical engineer in me, right? Where I come back like, hey, where's the process? Where's the detail? I mean, my, my first, uh, not to get off the topic, but my first, uh, uh, job out of college was Raytheon Missile Systems, you know, and so we were building these cool things to just blow things up. And so that's a cool job, by the way. But taking, taking that approach and saying, okay, let's compartmentalize. Let's break things down. Let's analyze and see this.
How can we put this into a system? Into a flow so it doesn't take 12, 18, 24 months to start capitalizing on our resources that we have internally? Cause every SMB, whoever you are, you're, you're going to be limited on resources. And those resources might be cash, resources might be your inventory. It might be your leadership skills, your people. I mean, you're, you're going to see.
You can repeat the leadership skills one.
Yeah, you're, you're going to see those. And, and so, so that PEPSLIM, it's a, it's an acronym. It's a seven-part acronym. And every company can fit into those seven parts. You have people, you have equipment, you have process, you have strategy, leadership, inventory, and money. And everything you do will fit somewhere in there.
I love that.
And every exercise, I mean, I, I, I've created this kind of process as we start going through it. It takes me on average about four months to get completely through it with any SMB. And as we do it, I mean, I was one month into it here just last month. This was a financial advisory group. The guy is on his second agency, 17 years running. And he said, Ryan, what I'm learning here probably would have taken me 12 to 14 months to learn on my own.
Yeah.
Right? And, and, and we did it in about two weeks. And so, you know, the whole purpose is to expedite and speed everything up because when you find patterns in your own company, when you realize what those patterns are and you intentionally develop the patterns that you want, patterns are the key to scalability.
Well, I want to tie that to something. You tied patterns to principles. Um, right. Ray Dalio style, right? He's got the book on principles, but you tied the patterns to the principles. And you've created this acronym that because of where I'm at in business, right? And what I'm able to know, like as much as when I saw Pepsi, I'm like, huh? Um, but now that you've broken down what the each letter is, it's like, okay. Um, I can see how each one of those mechanisms is something where you have to put your business in a position of strength. And you have an opportunity to do that. If you do that across that board, you're talking about making sure the pillars are good, the suspension cables are good, the road is good, the maintenance process is good. Like I, I can see that with what you did with that acronym and most entrepreneurs
that I, that I meet are in the entrepreneur stage where they don't even know what they don't know. And they're, they're accidentally, you know, it's a process of, of ignorance that stops feeling blissful within a few months, you know, of, of going down that route. And it's like, okay, well, um, they told me that I need to work on my people skills. And so I better focus my entire next year on just that or the six months on just that. And no, you, you know, the, the human body and people like, well, you know, we do, we can't, we can't do complicated. Oh, no. The human body is simple enough that my child can draw it. But it's complex enough that I still have to be disciplined to understand whether I need water,
food, whether I have allergies, whether I need vitamins, et cetera. There's a lot that goes in to making sure that great things are successful. So I love that you've done that because that gives me a clear map. Where I can, I can use that to self-assess and make some room. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna stop myself right there, visionaries. I would be an idiot to attempt to do that on my own without the person who invented that way of thinking. Ryan, I'm like all in. I'm like, okay, like I've seen this. So I'm gonna switch questions here. What is your vision for those that you serve? What's the outcome look like for them?
The outcome is, I, I wrote this note right before our call. Um, I keep kind of a running tab and, and there's, business is full of feelings and numbers. And we, we have both of them, right? I mean, SMBs are emotion based. That's usually, I mean, if you look at any SMB, hey, why'd you start that? It's because there was a passion about something. They were, they loved what they did. They were good at a certain skill or whatever it is.
Overcoming a pain or a pleasure they uncovered or a purpose.
Yep. Yeah. Something that resonated with them. And then they said, hey, I'm gonna run that and be an entrepreneur. And then you all of a sudden realize, oh, I got legal, I got tax, I got leadership, I got, I mean, you start running into all the inventory and money and well, crap, this, I, I wasn't ready for all this. And so that there's so much more to it. So really my vision for those that I serve is to say, let's holistically look at the entire, you know, recognize, we, we all know it's there. We all know it's important. Let's don't ignore it. Let's just.
You're saying face the fear of the unknown.
Face, face that fear. And oh, by the way. Let's use mechanisms to leverage our ability to overcome all of those uncertainties.
So there's going to be, hey, you might be really good with people, but your equipment or your process or your inventory or your money sucks. Okay, well, how are we going to address it? Let's stop running away from it and let's address it and let's overcome it so that your SMB doesn't fall into the 96 percentile and fails out, you know, after two, three years or whatever it is, but it actually becomes one of the now fifth percentile that survives. Right?
And I love, I love where you're going with this because you, you have a certain skill set. I can see your weaknesses too, by the way. I'll put that out there, my friends, and I'm gonna, I'm actually gonna take a little break to pull from this book. This is my mousepad, favorite mousepad of all time, The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker. And what would be really scary is if Ryan doesn't have weaknesses. Because this book says, strong people always have strong weaknesses too. Where there are peaks, there are valleys. And he goes on to say, if you want somebody who doesn't appear to have weaknesses, you will work with people who are mediocre in nature. I do not see Ryan as a mediocre individual.
Um, so I know because of those strengths, he's got weaknesses. On the flip side, let me flip the camera. I have lots of weaknesses and I have lots of extreme strengths too, because I have extreme strengths, I have extreme weaknesses, those things really exist. The reason why this is relevant to all of you visionaries, especially the ones that typically follow the show. Most of us have non-product based businesses. We have services. We don't have inventory at the same types of degree or levels as somebody who sells a physical product. Um, we don't have manufacturing and products to worry about because of that either, um, to an, to a certain extent. But, well, once again, I would be so short sighted, naive, undisciplined and unwise to say, wait a second.
Um, do I have gaps related to that lack of knowledge? Um, and if I do have gaps, what types of people can I consult with to figure out where those are? Because they might be glaring red flag holes that I'm not used to looking at because I've never had to pay attention to those elements for the digital businesses that I serve. So I'm seeing this opportunity and saying, okay, there's, and you guys know, I don't, I don't think all of you know. So I'll share it, our vision and our plan, we have the same type of acronym, which is an acronym for it. Vision, culture, leadership, marketing.
Sales and support. Alright, so we've got our areas where we do our analysis. But again, it would be so incomplete of me to say, well, I've already got a skateboard. Why do I need a car? I've already got a car. Why do I need a, why do I need an airplane or a boat? Um, right, it's such a scarcity mindset. So you are seeing me, guys, you all see me bromance this and fall head over heels into, oh, my gosh. Ryan's got systems that can open my eyes to how to be more universally valuable to all the different business owners out there and to know that I can turn to this guy to do assessments for clients that I would never touch. And I would say, you know, I can get in, but I'm going to have to do a bunch of research.
And like your, like your client said, probably take me, not 12 months anymore. Chat GPT is amazing. It would probably take me a matter of six weeks, but I would be discovering something in six weeks that Ryan has already solved and he doesn't need to spend six minutes on. Now he can dive right into implementation. And when it comes to entrepreneurs and businesses, uh, seconds matter. Minutes matter, hours matter. They're almost always on the brink of some type of collapse. And we can move people from surviving to thriving by combining these types of formulas and making sure that we don't overlook the potential variables that can disrupt it. So I love the vision for those that you serve. This helps me tremendously. We're almost out of time, but I've got three big questions that I want to hit. So I'm going to be brief on my responses.
I'm not going to interrupt on these and you're going to have to be a little bit more concise in them too. But we're going to dive into worst leadership, best leadership and a powerful lesson. I want a lot of time for that powerful lesson one. So Ryan, to start with, what's the worst, what's your worst leadership experience ever? Um, that you've had, doesn't have to be yours. It can be something that you've observed. What we want is we want to learn from the depths of how do we avoid that?
Worst leadership experience. One that comes to mind is I was working for that EPCM group shortly after the birth of my second child, as you've mentioned, and I'd taken those roles and one client we had. When you're working globally, you have different time zones and so I was handling all of the capital cost estimating and everything associated with the project. It was about a $248 million project, so it's kind of important that you get those things right. And so I would literally get calls direct to my cellphone at 4:00 AM from this project manager. And so as this happened day after day after day and week after week after week, I just
adjusted my schedule, so I just started work earlier. But then I would leave work at 1:00, 2:00 in the afternoon. And a certain manager in the office noticed that I was quote, "leaving early" and didn't say anything about it to me. I mean, I filled out my time card just like anybody else so that we could build a client. And two months go by or so and we're sitting in the office. He brings the owner in and he's holding this piece of paper and I'm like, "What's going on?" And he hands me this piece of paper, says, "I'm really concerned that you're not being truthful about your time that you're charging the client." And he says, "Now is your opportunity to correct your time card and I'm going to give
it to you here with this red pen and I want you to initial at the bottom with the corrected changes." And I didn't even look at it. I initialed it, I shoved it right back in his face. I said, "Every hour is accurate. It's all accounted for." Lo and behold, I was only with that company for about another two more months. But it's one of those things when you put yourself in a box and you believe everybody should be in the same box. Uh, he didn't know I was supporting the client in early hours because that's what the client wanted. That's what they were used to. I wasn't making them fit in my box. So that would be definitely a, a, a, a not so good leadership experience.
Well, and, and the powerful lesson on that for us as entrepreneurs, where do we accidentally represent that paper leader? And it's oftentimes with our virtual assistants where we're looking for the five star perfect leader. And we're looking for them to put in, you know, the, the work that we're asking for. Well, most of those people are putting in far more than they're capable of. And we're taking advantage of that situation rather than looking at how to create balance. So had that leader come to you with praise and with the opportunity to understand, you know, like, hey, um, can you teach me? You know what, you know, what you're doing and how you're doing it? How can we support you best? Then you probably wouldn't have been inspired to leave within two months. You probably would have been that type of rock star to say, I love it here, but they completely strangled you instead of.
Two months, two months later, when I submitted my resignation, that owner came to me and said, we'll give you a $15,000 raise. We want you to stay. Don't go anywhere. You don't have to deal with him ever again. I was like, at that point, it's too late, guys. Like, I mean, you know, uh, there, there's principles surrounding the culture of a leadership. And when you abandon the trust of the people that you work with because of, you know, accountability differences, that i- i- it destroys a culture and that culture ultimately will destroy your, your, your business.
Well, and you, again, I, I, I have never heard a story in business or I've overlooked it. As I, I've only been paying attention to this for the last three or four years where somebody was that resolute about their healthy boundaries. And I know that most entrepreneurs would hose you for that. Most entrepreneurs would say, oh, he's stuck up. Oh, you know, he's not willing to be a team player. Oh, he's not willing to, you know, he, he expects perfection. No, you didn't. Um, and so I love that you share that with such strong conviction because I think a lot of us, those of us who are people pleasers, right? Those of us who are, you know, we have good intentions to, to help make things right.
We oftentimes take responsibility for the actions of others, justify and stick around hoping things will change. But what you're helping me see, and I think a lot of other visionaries see is if you've got a great leader. You've got to be in that high-quality position of knowing how to respect healthy boundaries, knowing how to live with it. They are just going to move on. And it's not because they're a bad person, it's because they see the writing on the wall and they know what their value is. And so as entrepreneurs, we've got to step even further into that leadership component of saying, how do we really honor and respect the great people who are around us and never jeopardize losing them? So let's dive right into the best, because that's like
one of the best leadership experiences I've ever heard too. But we're going to double down. What's the best leadership experience that you've ever had?
Oh, best leadership that I've ever had. Um, there's a lot of good ones that come to mind. I would say one of them was actually around a very bad situation, right? I mean, when you get around situations where partnerships, this one's always hard. Whenever you develop partnerships, expectations are-
Root of all heartache.
Yeah, I mean, exactly. Expectations are the root of all disappointments or heartaches. You're 100% correct.
Shakespeare. Shakespeare said it. One of my favorite quotes.
And I've actually been actually using that with my kids and my wife, like, hey, if you're disappointed and sad about something, it's because you would probably expect it more than what should have been expected, right? But setting our boundaries for expectations, in this case, sadly enough, yes, there was a, a, a partner of mine that had certain thoughts and certain dreams and started taking the business. He was actually the CEO and I was the other C. And as he started going one way, it went against myself as well as our private
equity backer. And the moment that started to change and the moment his own desires started, started taking us a different route, you started seeing the kind of an uncrumbling of things. And so when you ask me, well, Ryan, how's this lead into the best leadership experience? The best leaders recognize when those issues are happening.
And instead of letting them fester, you know, mold, right? Mold is best killed when we first see it. And, and when we address it, I told you, I'm from Southern Arizona. I told my kids, we got rattlesnakes and we lived on a, you know, a ranch and you can have them at any point in time. You can open the door and there it is sitting right at the, you know, it's right there. And so I told my kids, I said, whatever you do, do not, you know, keep your distance, but do not take your eye off of that snake. And you just keep yelling until somebody comes, because sure enough, the moment you take your eye off of, you're going to come back around and where'd it go? Where'd it go? It's, it's not there anymore. And so very similarly, in
this case, sadly, we had to address the snake, you know, we had to address the issue. And it meant a lot of heartache. It meant, you know, removing people, it meant readjusting, but ultimately, the organization was better as a result. So, you know, there's this phrase, I see it in my mind with the picture of a lion, everybody wants to be boss until it's time to make boss decisions. And, and that's, that's very true of leadership. There's, I, I'd say, eat your frog first. Whatever that hard decision that you're facing and that thing that is just nagging at you, that's not meeting expectations, whatever it is,
address it first would be the, the moral of the story.
Good points. Huge. I gotta ask Ryan, we're right at the top of the hour and I want to respect the fact that you may have a hard stop. You got a hard stop?
Nope, I'm good.
Okay. Well, we'll expand for a few more minutes because this has just been absolute gold. We've been honored. I don't want to push this off to the next, to the next show. I'd love to have you back for sure. I do want to make sure that we dive into my absolute favorite question. And that is, if this were the last time for you to speak and share something with the world, what powerful lesson can other visionaries learn from your experience?
Other visionaries. Well, as it relates to, to business and life.
In business, I, I say revenue first. And I, I learned this from a gentleman of mine, Rick McPartland, many, many, many years ago. When CRO was just becoming a new thing. And so I went and got my CRO, Chief Revenue Officer, certification and all this other stuff. And it really drove home to me. The aspect and the mindset of revenue first. Everything you can do in business. And I had a call yesterday. I had a lady that called me and she's stressing out about her business. She's launching some things and she's worried about how she's going to pay this and how she's going to do this. I asked her a few questions, but then I said, okay, let's go through your prospects.
What do you got? What's the low hanging fruit? What, when can you get now, you know, next week? For, forget about the expenses that are coming two, three months and the agreements and the contracts that you have. If you don't do this, none of that's going to matter. You've got to be revenue first minded. So everything you're doing when you're, when you're looking at your customers and how to best serve them. What is going to bring in revenue? Revenue is the lifeblood for any SMB. And if you're not filling your veins, your, your business veins with that blood, you're, you're going to go into rigor mortis. You're, you're going to pass out. You're not going to survive. You're going to be one of those 96 percenters.
And now in a, in a life lesson, as, as a leader, as a visionary, I like the acronym MIRN, M I R N. Most, most important right now.
So every day we have the choice when we wake up, hey, I can do this, I can do that, I can spend time with the family, I can do my work here, I can, and it's going to vary. You know, like I said, I'm, I'm shipping my son off to Brazil for two years on Tuesday. So absolutely what's more, most important right now for me is probably not that I'm spending so much time working, but maybe that I take off a little bit of time just to be with him. And, you know, so there's, there's things in life as a leader. We are all stewards of a variety of things, not just our businesses. But we have spouses, we have children, we have parents, we have neighbors, we have, you know,
we have all of this. So, Mern, what is most important right now? And if you kind of ask yourself that question, I, I, I do it not just in the morning, but I do it multiple times through the day, you know, and especially right after lunch is a great time. What's important right now? What's the next one, two, three hours? Regardless of what's on the calendar, what is most important? Do I need to, so, so anyways, that, that would be my lesson.
I'm going to be the angels advocate on this one, my friends. Some of you are not ready for that. And I think it's very important to recognize, um, those of you who are listening in for the sake of I'm a visionary and I'm moving, I think you are. Um, but I grew up in a family where what people were deciding to do as the most important thing right now was usually alcohol, drugs, pornography, uh, things that were self-destructive and awful habits. And so I, I would caution that those of you who hear that, if you have destructive habits, right? If you don't quite have your internal compass aligned, then maybe start looking for first who, who is the person, who are the people, where are the tribes?
Where are the people who can help me start to reprioritize what is truly most important? We saw this throughout the scriptures with Christ, coming across people who did not understand almost ever what their most important right now mission was, whether it was Peter, who would go back to fishing, um, you know, who had been with him all the time, or somebody who, um, you know, was, uh, running around and doing things while he's trying to teach, uh, you know, and trying to provide the most important lessons. So, uh, that is an internal compass that Ryan and I, um, almost have a second nature.
Because of the dedication that we've put into understanding where our source of wisdom, where our source of light comes from, I don't share that in arrogance, I share that in sacredness. Uh, my hope is that all of you as visionaries lean into that. I'm not here to tell you what to do. Ryan's not here to tell you what to do. Neither one of us, um, are leading well if we ever tell you what you should do. And he didn't say that. He gave this as a perfect opportunity to say, if you're at that level, then of course, start leaning into what's most important right now with that spiritual discernment. My addition to that opportunity is to remember that the whole reason why Vision Pros Life exists is because my goal is to honor you as a visionary to make your own decisions,
to make sure that you are turning towards that source, whether you call it, uh, the universe, whether you call it God, that doesn't matter to me. It's your personal decision where you're at. But if you follow your heart and your mind on your things, uh, on things as Ryan's talking about, and those actions or those efforts are driven towards serving and helping others, I do not see how you could go wrong in this life. So Ryan, thank you so much for all the wisdom that you shared, you facilitated, and, uh, you know, this, this environment, um, you know, with me to be able to explore things at a deeper level. I got a whole page full of amazing notes that I'm going to be excited to go back through, resources that you've given. Those of you who want to connect with Ryan, I'm sure you can Google him. Google is a very good resource.
Um, but we'll also have the links below this, um, below this video on the landing page. We'll also have the resources that we talked out, mapped out, because again, those are the wells of wisdom that have gotten us to where, where we're at today. And while I'm not the poster child, and I don't think we're the poster child for where you ultimately want to go, we do hope to be the friends that you can turn to and help you along your way throughout your journey. So you guys have a phenomenal time building out your vision and we'll see you all on the next episode of Vision Pros Life. Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is going to get more and more fun and we'll have more and more.
Alright, I gotta own something. I'm gonna own this. Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is gonna get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to participate in the show. And thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a vision pro yourself.
Page updated November 13, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
