Dan verbos welcome to acquiring minds thanks happy to be here Dan you've been in your business for seven years and when you and I connected for the preall the biggest emotion I felt from you about this journey was frustration now you've doubled the business during your tenure so on the surface things look good but behind the scenes as I understand it this has been a slog fair is that way to describe it that's that's a fair statement okay well this is going to be an important and Illuminating story for the listeners Dan so let's get into it please start us off with some background on you okay I been an entrepreneur since I was a kid I mean just in terms of of having that vision of doing something I was the the uh proverbial kid with the IC tea stand or the the lemonade stand that was that was uh from age 10 or 11 I had a dump truck to haul gravel and school and went to the Marine Corps after I got out of high school I was there for six years uh after the Marine Corps College got a degree in entrepreneur entrepreneurial management and then worked for a grocery store called Aldi as a district manager for five years Lov that some of my my formative years in terms of how I manag and how I I thought of of how things should work worked for a couple years for Target as a store manager and then went to the state department I was in the state department for about two years a little over two years years and two and a half I was posted to Brazil and uh one tour in I had a really great tour I had a great time in the state but I it was I'm not a government worker I'm I'm an entrepreneur and it took that experience to help me figure that out so came back to Texas with my wife in 2017 and bought a business just had had set out to look for a business thought it would be in real estate because over the years I had bought rental properties and I thought hey property management is something that really a lot of people really struggle with so I thought we can do this better so I I had started calling a list of Brokers but at the same time Dan let me stop you because because there's a I want to slow you down a little bit and I want to ask some follow-up questions go for it so first of all uh how does somebody go from managing a Target to the state department did give us a little bit on that pivot so Target leaving Target was not my decision leaving Target was uh when everybody between me and the president was new and then the Third time I met my boss he let me go that was that came as a shock uh so I had suddenly went from 60 hours a week per of work to about four but I took that opportunity that year I bought five houses uh and I just took kind of a year to to figure things out and during that year I had applied for the state department position as Foreign Service Officer and I got in so I had uh I had had a plan in my head to buy continue to buy rental real estate and then retire young but what that year taught me was I actually I don't think I'll ever retire it was was for the first three or four months it was great for the next six it was really boring so I I decided that wasn't that really wasn't what I wanted I didn't want to sit around and collect rent for the rest of my life I wanted to add value contribute somehow instead of just being a rent collector so I I set out to do the next thing and state department was a really awesome opportunity uh very thankful would have had that opportunity it was it was amazing I met my wife in Brazil and so I mean it's it's really done a lot of great things uh fantastic group of peers I had but at the end of the day I'm I'm not a government worker so for me that wasn't that wasn't the final stop so after after my first tour despite it being a really good tour I said I I I just need to do my own thing I'm feeling you know that point I'm in my mid-30s and I'm I'm thinking if I don't do something soon then I'm not going to I'm not gonna have the energy maybe at 50 to take on a startup or or buy a business so I I pivoted at that point okay and going back to your real estate investing year so you accumulated five homes Five Doors single families yes uh I well so I had going into that year I had five properties which I had I had started investing in real estate around 2002 I mean I grew up I grew up super poor uh and I mean it was just money was always a worry so I grew up thinking man I I don't want to have to worry about money so after I I i' left the Marine Corps went back to college and had no money again and then 911 happened and I got activated along with a lot of other people so so I was back on active duty I said hey I I got a year maybe two to figure out something financially to do so I read some books and I decided I was a real estate investor so I bought three houses in 200 uh 2 three 4 that era and uh as it turned out one was a terrible investment ended up getting foreclosed on and and went through that whole process so I learn like to learn things the hard way and and that was how I learned the hard way in real estate uh but you know 20078 n start picking up more houses so I think I had five houses going into 2014 and then I bought five more in 2014 which I just uh figured out how to buy houses no money down and and basically Cash out refinance long-term hold and then when the market took off really around 20156 uh I started selling the houses and that formed the amount of money that I used to buy the business okay all right so you were at at one point thinking that you could be a real estate investor only or accumulate enough of a portfolio that you could re early um but then that became less appealing when you got a little taste of it and realized that you're just more of a doer than a sit on the Beacher okay um and but you also during this experience you have the Insight that real estate the property management is something that is not done well often people are often not pleased with their property management business um so that planted that seed so you're in in Brazil decid you can't be a oh by the way um how's your Portuguese these days it's actually it's not bad uh I have to brush up every every year pretty much we go down and visit her family and it always takes a little bit of a brush up session to to get me back into fluency but but I get along okay and you and your wife here back in Texas speak English I assume to each other yes okay all right unless we want no one to understand what we're talking about and then we switch to Portuguese yeah sure uh my wife speaks Spanish so that one doesn't quite work for us there too many Spanish speakers around Portuguese Portuguese a good one all right so having a great time really fulfilling as a diplomat essentially in Brazilia I assume yes yeah um but decide that being an entrepreneur is your true calling so you set your sites back on the states to do something entrepreneurial so do you so and how what does that look like do you start actually searching for a business to buy from Brazil yeah so I decided that real estate was was my thing so I started coming back I think the beginning of 2017 I came back to the States about once a month I think I attended the uh the naram conference in Vegas National Association of residential property managers and he just started networking I got a list of Brokers from the state of Texas and just started calling them one by one I rented a little office space just a little I don't know 10 foot by 10 foot little space to just have someplace to go to start making calls and really just just started started calling people and figuring out who's got a portfolio of properties that they could sell now during that process so we moved back I think May 2017 and I had I knew a lot of people in Fort Worth because I'd lived here for years before or lived there for years before and I started just mentioning in my network hey I'm looking to buy business probably property management but open to whatever and it came back around that somebody had a sign company for sale so I met the guy representing the seller and we talked and I think within a month and a half I had a handshake deal and in October we closed I think we had a handshake deal right around the 4th of July and we closed October one thing I've learned so I've been binge listening to your your podcast in the last couple months or last couple weeks and I can say that I knew breathtakingly not anybody who is listening Fe your podcast knows 10 times more about buying a business than I knew I mean I it just it seems like when I listen to these stories about these people that bought these businesses I feel like I just walked in off the off the street and flipflops eating a candy bar and so yeah I'll buy that I mean it just it seemed to go really really easy in retrospect or at least with with the benefit of how what other people have to deal with but now I mean listening to this and and being involved with ETA Circle and and just different things uh my wife got an MBA recently so we just kind of learning through the grapevine of how everybody else has does it wow that that really seems breathtakingly easy how I bought the business although that was uh didn't turn out to be that way later and and so we're getting ahead a little bit here but do you feel that your naive for lack of a better word is why on the back side of your trans transaction in other words your the years of operations have been harder because maybe you chose a business that if you had been more educated on buying a business you would not have bought is it that or not necessarily even I I would have bought this business I would have bought it different so one of the number one things I didn't do is I didn't buy the AR and this is a business with about a I don't know call it a 10 to 12 week cycle between the time you sell a job and the you you build a job and then of course you get typically another 30 days to to get that you know to collect on the money from the job that you bill so I within three months I drove it off a financial cliff that was that was a bad decision uh and I was I was uneducated on the market on what this industry is this is a very very small industry with a 100,000 people and I having more knowledge about what this what that meant to a business owner would have been very beneficial for me earlier in the game I I just would have benefited from from being you know going from being proactive instead of being basically completely reactive for probably my first year or two okay well let's um then let's go ahead and get into it so when you are kind of working your network back in Fort Worth to find a business putting out feelers saying property management but it open to anything sign business comes across your desk um what did you like about this business what did it give us some of the bullet points on on the business and tell us what you liked about it so at the time it was a 72 year old business this said it was owned by the third generation owner and her husband and they had they had owned it for about seven years they had reasons that that medical reasons that they wanted to step away and retire they didn't have any children the numbers look good uh this this was a business toing U 2.7 million a year with about uh 650,000 an SD so it said hey that seems like something I can work with yeah um so that was and really I mean aside from an entrepreneurial degree 10 years before this I didn't really have any experience looking at financials uh I did have a group of people so my CPA was involved in it the banker of course I had a consultant and then my attorney who all were were part of this team and I had them all looking at it and I mean throughout this whole process I'm thinking there's no way the bank's going to give me money to buy this thing but if they do sure looks like a great business I'll give it a shot uh so it was a little bit more kind of driven by if they'll give you the money it seems like a good business and the cost of the business did you have any sense for what something like this should cost in that kind of napkin math of paying for the I mean you were real estate investor so you probably understood this concept well but but High leverage and then paying down the loan out of the proceeds of the business and hopefully having some left over to pay yourself and reinvest in the business that kind of standard format you figured out on your own yeah I mean it was just back of the napkin math Google some things and I mean the number I had in my head was 600 some thousand like oh I'm gonna have $600 and some thousand do a year like to to do whatever I want with and and that's really not how it works and so yeah of course I I leveraged the the hell out of it so the seller took a note that was I think they took about a 600k note the uh I put maybe a 100,000 into it 150,000 which was mainly just working capital and then the bank financed the rest which I want to say I paid well then I had to real estate too so a million dollars in real estate plus uh it's called it 1.6 1.7 for the business and pretty much all of that was financed so then when I bought it so then of course I got to grow the business because I can keep my debt payments the same but increase the uh the amount of money coming in then that seems to work so it was it was buying a business in an industry that I didn't know with people that I never met which was also one of the lessons I would never buy a business again without meeting the employees and and that's that's a uh that'd be a red flag for for many reasons but uh so I had all these things working against me and then I needed to grow the business and you know make payroll and that sort of thing so very shortly I think my first year I sold another house or two and then my second year I sold another house or two until I got down to one house because I think I'd sold five in advance of this and then uh got all the way down to one because gotta keep the doors open I mean it's on that personal guarantee the the bankers are smart when they have you do that well what so I was going to say Dan then it seems like you got a pretty solid deal for a business doing 650,000 and and a million dollar piece of real estate for what did you say for two and yeah so 2.7 total call it 2.7 total yeah uh so on 650 in Revenue so that's what three and a half a three and a half multiple do I do I have that excuse me no no four and a half four and a half about I think it's three and a half three and a half thereabouts because it was basically as a multiple of you bit which was less than the SD but but that came out to I think it was about a three and a half multiple of you bit though okay okay all right uh and the the real estate aspect of this how did that factor into your thinking was it just part of the deal so you were like okay I'll I'll buy the real estate or did you did that appeal to you as a former real estate guy former former and current real estate guy um the real estate was okay I mean I didn't want to rent from somebody else I didn't want to have you know that variable to have to deal with uh that said this is not this is kind of the industrial part of town so I think most of the years I've had it I get a notice from the tax department every year that my value has gone down so I owe less taxes so there's there's that uh so maybe so I'm not GNA get gentrified out so that's that's the good side okay um all right well and but then of course what you paid for the business is not really what you paid for the business because subsequently it sounds like you had to put more and more money into the business as you sold down your real estate portfolio how much additional money do you think that you you do you think you put into the business well the time I bought it we didn't have a single truck under 10 years old and so my my first year I think we spent maybe close to $100,000 on vehicle repairs which I decided was crazy so I needed to recapitalize the business because they had not been doing that which I mean I get it you're trying to sell a business why why buy quar million dollar trucks left and right so I needed to do that so that's I probably bought a million and a half dollars with the trucks in the last six while expanding the fleet so you know some some of it's just replacement some of it's just a brand new truck that we we didn't have before so so trying to get the average age of the fleet down so that they're more reliable yeah that's that's been a big uh the big capex expense and then just just things along the way is I mean we've got the same amount of square footage we had but we need new offices we need new phones we need new computers and so just just doubling this the size from 17 employees to 32 or so that we have now I mean that that carried its own costs sure but I I'm trying to understand how much you came out of pocket for this because a lot you what you hope is that a lot of the the money that you have to put back into the business is coming from the profits of the business itself right um that's that's the the the design doesn't always work out that way but it sounds like you had to come out of pocket a number of times do you do you have any sense of how much additional did you put another 100 into the business over the years 250 or 300 which I which I put in as a loan and then I slowly paid myself back that loan over over several years okay so let's get in now to the operations so the is is kind of the first slap in the face this AR problem you didn't get the AR with the business and then so I think financial cliff was your was your term of choice talk to us about what happened there so yeah I mean just it by January I bought it in October by January was the the bank accounts running low I said man I put 150,000 into this you know me just very limited understanding of of this level of financials is like why where's my $650,000 like that's that's this thing supposed to be producing money where is it and then so that was the first Turtle which you know I had more money to put into it so I did it wasn't a game changer but culturally uh that was probably the biggest difficulty for for years uh this is a this is a business that had been doing things I mean so so 2.7 was say our sales year of 2017 the number hadn't changed since 2010 a lot of people had been here for a very long time so I discovered that you so I one of my values personal values is just growth I I want to I want to be better tomorrow than I was yesterday and and that is that is intrinsic to me organizations have values too and when I think their value was was more stability the way we did it yesterday is the day we're going to do it today and the day we're going to the way we're going to do it tomorrow and so this new guy coming in talking about change talking about growth I mean it was like a hey whoa this is this is too much slow down you know and so I I think that was that was never received well um and and when you're in a specialty trade I mean there's probably 50 people in my industry within 100 miles so you know if I have salesperson that's not working out or a fabricator or an installer it's not like I can just put an ad out and I get 50 60 applications from other installers no there's there's not so so that's that was probably a year in before I realized how hard it was going to be to grow a business in a smaller Market town of 100,000 people specialty trade that was uh a probably the hardest part of the business for me okay so so two things there the cultural resistance to change and then the related problem or recognition of a very thin pool of talent in your local market so I mean that just presents problems on its face that somebody quits or moves or whatever you're going to have to replace them it's going to be hard to replace them right but also I think kind of the way these two points are connected is that and you'll hear my guest some of my guests talk about it is um you know people get off the bus when when when the owner comes in and wants to introduce a new culture the people who don't like this new culture will leave they'll either be let go or they'll choose to leave right and you replace those people with people then you've chosen and so you cycle in a new cohort of employees basically um who are amenable to your culture your new culture and so that was not something that you were going to be able to do very easily maybe or all in a in one Fell Swoop maybe gradually which is I guess is indeed what's happened because right jumping ahead again a little bit you have one employee from that time that has remained and and the other 30 two or 33 are all people you hired subsequently yes so um so you've done it but it's taken seven years and would you say that today your culture the culture of Leon is the name of the business Leon signs is Dan's culture I wouldn't call it still no my culture it's it's the culture you want okay so when I got here it was their culture the employees that were here and for a while it was my culture because this is what I want and now I have a group of people that I would say it's our culture because I'm not the only contributor I'm not the only contributor to what I want this place to be there are other people who have that level to buy in who say I want this to be the kind of place that I enjoy working that's what I've said since I got here is like I want to have the kind of place where I would have wanted to work 10 or 15 years ago I want the kind of place where and I've said this to every employee I continually say it it's never not been true that if your ability ever outweighs your opportunity just raise your hand and we will delegate more to you so that's the kind of place I want other people contribute to that everybody that's on my administrative and sales side all started as a project assistant which for us is an entry-level position so everybody that's in those positions has stepped up volunteered and they've been able to to do more so I would say that now it's it is the culture I want it is not necessarily dance culture because I I think of how I would want there's not everything is how I want it but part of this journey is figuring out that maybe that's okay it doesn't have to be my culture because I'm not the only one that works here other people investing their lives and careers in this place and you know as long as it's a positive culture I mean we've got some we're an EOS run company so we're we're very specific on our values we we talk about the values we hire to them we hold accountable to them so since we're all aligned on those things I I'm okay with that and those values didn't just come from me I mean it was something that we in exercise we did as part of the EOS process to come up with those values I would chose a slightly different set but it's okay again it's not it's not my culture it's it's more our culture now okay okay well let's rewind back to the early days where the culture is definitely not your culture or a culture that you would like and it was a culture that needed to change can you give us a sense of what it was like what what did it feel like and and really try to communicate here to people who might be out there searching for their own business and what it can look like and feel feel like to get into a business that you've now Acquired and are responsible for and have a personal guarantee against and find uh oh this culture this culture this place doesn't feel right well for the first three months I had the owner so so the the husband wife owner which that's the other thing I replaced two people with Decades of combined experience in the sign industry and by the time they left three months after I'd gotten here that was I mean that was it was just me and those two positions the when you first come in there's a honeymoon stage oh yeah you know let's we'll follow you let's let's do this my first inclination that this might not be the culture that that I was envisioning was in I think it was December 2017 so I've been here maybe two months I'm having a meeting with all the employees and I'm talking about some upcoming changes and I said hey at the time we had an indoor smoking policy we're not we're outside City Limits so it was it's legal to smoke inside the building and I figured this is some blow hanging fruit so at this meeting I'm in front of all the employees I'm I'm kind of smirking a little bit to say hey guys this year we're we're going to uh on December 31st we're going to end the indoor smoking policy so effectively we're going straight from 1965 to 2018 which I thought was kind of a clever thing to say like I you know laugh at my own jokes or whatever but they didn't there was there was just I mean there wasn't a whole lot of smokers but it was just like just just dead pan faces you know and I said okay all right that wasn't that wasn't funny but we still did it and uh that was uh I think I maybe would have changed things slower I think I I looking back on it I I that was probably you know it's not like somebody was in my office blowing smoke in my face it probably wasn't it felt like lwh hanging fruit like hey I can come in and make an immediate Improvement and that will be you know get me some Buy in that sort of thing that's not how that worked it was that was the probably the first Gauntlet when they said okay yep this isn't our guy and and they just they resisted so hard uh and even though there weren't many smokers so it was really kind of resistence to the concept of change not this particular change the the idea of change was just completely foreign I might as well come and speak in Portuguese I think it was just it was that different that you know no this works why would we change this well because you know like anything else any any institution any organization you're growing dying or dead we're not growing and we're not dead so what does that make us so I mean and there was a obviously a personal motive because if I don't grow the business I mean I didn't take a salary for gosh probably I mean I I took maybe let's call it 25,000 a year I took for maybe the first two years it was n until the fall of 2020 when I said hey you know I can finally afford to pay myself more so three years in I gave myself a salary and I think at that point I bump myself up to 50 or 75 uh and I don't make a whole lot more than that or in terms of what I pull out is not a whole lot more than that now because every time we make money I'm thinking okay let's get another truck let's get you know we need a we need a new printer we need a new you know what is what is the thing that we need because in my mind I'm running a marathon not a not a Sprint so I'm more interested in what our profits will be in 2030 than I am in 2025 which is probably probably a little too forward thinking but but yeah and Dan now let's bring back your point that if you were to buy an a business today you would meet the employees right so um which of course is not always possible indeed it's often not possible uh obviously for the reasons that the the owner doesn't want to SC SC the employees or and and often the buyer doesn't want to scare the employees but um there there's all kinds of pretty clear reasons there but if you had met the employees or in your future Acquisitions what will you be looking for an openness to change or just good chemistry or what yeah so of the values that we have one of our values is growth-minded and and when we sit down new employees or we're talking in during reviews that's my number one value because all the others if you if you can grow if you can learn than anything else we could do together but if your immediate reaction to change is no that's not that's not for me then then we're really kind of stuck because even if we run perfect today which we do not the world out there is changing I mean we just got aluminum and uh metal tariffs announced two weeks ago that that will affect our business how's that going to affect our business we you know can we can we pre- by metal can we you know what can we do so I mean all that stuff's always changing so even if we're perfect we still have to change and we're growing so what works at a A5 and $6 million Revenue company doesn't work at a $10 million company and in turn that won't work at a 15 million Revenue company so it's it's the number one value I search for so I guess I would if I couldn't meet the employees if we go later to acquire something new another location or whatever and I can't meet them I at least need some measure of way of measuring that is this your value are you going to be excited about new career opportunities are you going to be excited about hey wow we've got you know we've got a few new people we get to train them or is that going to be you know oh wait we don't we we don't want new people and a lot of I mean this is a this is a industry with 100,000 people spread across 30,000 businesses so the average average business has three people so I mean we're it's hard to find a culture that is actively thriving and growing without bringing people in from outside the industry couple thoughts here Dan one is that one thing I kind of feel like I've gotten from guests is that in the trade specifically there the idea you know the kind of the growth mindset thing is maybe less present than in you know white collar land I hate to make the blue collar White Collar stereotypes but um just kind of care big career ambition do big things growth growth grow growth mindset like you've said um maybe just isn't as as as commonplace as it is in a in a in an office with people who are all trying to have Capital C careers um I'm I'm treading very lightly here but can you react to that do do you think it was just the culture of Leon signs or do you think that this might be a little bit more endemic to this type of work across the industry or across trades I I think you can certainly enforce or go against a culture in your industry I think that I mean I I spend enough time around enough Sign Company owners and in another sign another visit their shops to know that growth-minded in in our trade specifically is not you know it's not maybe it's not rare maybe not every company has hey let's change grow get better but it's not unheard of M now if we separate and say okay the people that work in my office are sell the signs and the people that build and hang my signs I would say most people who build and hang signs are doing that because they like to make things with their hands or they like to work outside and have the independence of being on their own truck with their own helper or they they like to just take metal and make cool things and so maybe that guy doesn't want to be the president of the company maybe that's you know that's maybe I wouldn't say ambition is uncommon in my in my billable team but I think it's uh I think it's not why they come to the sign company I I don't think they somebody somebody seeks out a job here and say hey can I start a a fabricator and one day be the president whereas the person who's selling and the person that's you know coming to the office maybe they do think that now yeah I I I I struggle to say say that the people don't want to change just trades people in general because I I see the guys walking around and you know they have pride in where they work and and one of the things we we talk about one of our values always do the right thing and sometimes I get push back from our our guys oh why we giving the customer this you know it's their fault and I said well because it's $200 and you can take your your shirt where you walk around your logo on anywhere in town and if people know who you are they say oh yeah y'all do good work you know and so we have that reputation so you have that pride and so it's it's just one of those things where I think that's important to them I think it's important to me and and I think it it carries for a lot fantastic thanks Dan you had another story about dealing with employee challenges um there was a toxic employee in the business you care to share kind of what happened there just to give people you know a picture of what can happen yeah so so maybe if I can't meet every employee I wouldn't meet meet the employee that's going to be the person running the operation so we had I would absolutely call this a a bad culture when I bought it maybe the first first few years but when you have an employee who's who holds your electrical license because I mean we're we're electrical sign manufacturer so we have to have a master electrician on staff so if that person uh has different ideas than you do and mine did have different ideas than me and we locked horns at the end of the day I mean yeah that quote unquote the person needs a job but I mean I don't have an electrical sign manufacturing division without a master sign electrician so first of all I'm in a situation where somebody's got power over me yeah and I I've said it more than once my first year or two is is it it dawned to me for several months in it's like I'm just the monkey signing the checks like I I don't you know I say something and then I leave the room and it changes and it it just it very blatantly changes and so I got this this person who by the way had two family members in the business who is actively working against me and it was just it was unhealthy it was it was uh the relationship over over years you know I finally got to the point where I I got a coach at one point and it was it was so it was wearing on me so much and I know it was wearing on on him a lot too is that that we just weren't getting along and this was toxic and I I he he did something very blatantly you know I had had a whole group of employees standing in front of me and I'm talking about how how important our employees are to us and how important our business is and and you know how much we care and he's I didn't find out about the time but he's standing behind me rolling his eyes you know scoffing and and in front of everybody and so I find out about this afterwards and at that moment uh it was pretty much our come to Jesus moment and said okay one one of us is one of us ain't staying and I own the thing so we got to figure this out uh and over the course of the next few months we uh I I basically held him accountable which the specialty trades that's a whole another topic about holding people account about accountable in an industry like this but I held him accountable uh and and he left and he he's doing his own thing and and uh I I think it that was really the best thing for everybody but I mean it was that was the when he left that we started to change in a positive way as a company and that's where uh I probably did it a year or two too late but you know I fear fear of of what happens if I you know I'm trying to run a run a$ three million dollar business trying to be a $4 million business and what happens if I lose the guy that's you know that holds our electrical license well now I'm suddenly goingon to be running a$2 million business but my bills ain't going to go down so so how do we handle that and so I I was just I felt stuck for years and it and it took a toll well let's really get into this Dan this because this is uh the the pattern here is probably one that happens a lot to people and they don't know how to get out of it and maybe there isn't a clean answer but if you were now coaching somebody who finds himself in a similar situation where they feel like an employee hasn't by the you know what because of a license or some other power Dynamic and there's a toxic relationship that person obviously needs to go um but there's a big big big cost and risk to letting that person go what do you advise what should you have done differently because it sounds like other than let him go a year earlier maybe that maybe that's the answer like I don't know that that me personally in that in that time and that head space I could have done anything different um but but after that I mean I made I made the decision that nobody was going to hold me over a barrel and so I've I mean I'm I've had I've locked horns of employees now that that are absolutely key to the organization and I just no this is this is how we're going to do it you know this is you if it has to be I'll push as hard as I have to to get what I want but this is this is just how it has to be um if I had if I lost if I lost a key employee tomorrow I've got enough network of other Sign Company owners now that I could I could muddle through until I found somebody I've been willing before to pay people to move from different markets to here I've I've hired some sign professionals from outside of our Market it's very hard to do it's expensive but it's doable you know and and really it's really hard to manage this size business in a small market so so in the long term what will insulate us from this is is if you can be a part of a bigger company or for us acquire another company our size are bigger and so that we've got a bigger pool of people I mean that that is probably the only right answer because I mean I I I think it's just hard to for somebody like me who who didn't know anything about sign industry to hold accountable somebody who knows 20 20 or 30 years more about this industry than me and a very technical knowledge and then hold that person accountable and and but if I I think if I had been able to do that I can't say the relationship would have been salvaged but I said I would have said it would not have gotten as far as it did it would not have gotten as toxic as it did and and as as blatantly um going against me as it did it would have been it have been nipped in the bud or or we dep parted way sooner yeah and so when you did let him go what how did you deal with this problem of the license and and his 20 years of experience walking out the door well fortunately Leon's little brother uh is still alive uh we have a good relationship over the years uh Leon himself founder of the company pass 20 years ago but his uh had a younger half brother and he had worked in the company for over 50 years maintained his electrical license so there for a year or two he was our electrical Electrical uh licensee of record uh which allowed us to to keep going and then uh we just have been able to hire we got really lucky in 2020 with uh The Way co changed things for one of our biggest competitors they a lot of their people left and we picked them up so we we ended up hiring I think half a dozen experienced signed people in 2020 which was kind of a once in a generation opportunity so that's that's been uh that's been beneficial for us so we have we have an employee now who carries our master electrician license but uh we have we're actively investing other people to let's let's get our journeyman licenses let's let's move up and get master licenses as we're able we pay them more for it but even if they're not our our record holder license like license record holder but uh we encourage people and we try to try to train and develop to the uh to the extent that we can well it sounds like what in that moment or with that that relationship of that employee and how you've kind of changed is what you decided what the kind of before and after was afterwards no matter what pain there might be of let having to let an employee go it's less pain than insubordination this guy was being openly insubordinate yes and you were absorbing it absorbing it absorbing it because you needed him and then you decided at some point you couldn't take it anymore and decid it no more and and it sounds like that's now your orientation going for you forward you will not tolerate subordination even when an employee has you know this or that you know leverage over you or or has some sort of you know there's some sort of risk to letting them them go yeah first of all yeah say thing I want to add to that um yeah you know when when you've when you've taken everything that you have your entire life savings you you've sold or leverag everything you have and you put it you know going to you put it all on black and you say I'm gonna let it ride I'm tied up in this thing so either I'm going to succeed or I'm going to be bankrupt in my 30s with milon and some dollars in personal debt hanging over me and have to go rebuild that so the fear of that was had I been in a stronger financial position where I I you maybe didn't have a personal guarantee or or had my own money that I used to buy it or something like that where I could have just said hey okay I'm willing to go down to 2 million for a couple years to to get this figured out um but but it just it really felt like I was trapped I couldn't shrink the company I couldn't get rid of him I couldn't it was very I mean and just figuring that out I would I would I would talk to people I would talk to you know business coaches and that sort of thing and i' tell them the story and it was always like huh yeah that sucks I mean yeah it does and but I don't know what to do about it so I think uh never getting myself in a position of of Leverage where I must take course of action a I can't take course of action B or C because I can't afford it I have to take coures so I I limited myself in how I bought the business and uh I should have I won't do that again if I buy another so one of the things we talked about on the preall too is that like there's going to be some level of kind of um misbehavior or people are you know employees are going to do things that you don't like and this really kind of goes for all small business ownership and if you're coming into small business ownership being the leader owner of a business for the first time part of what's difficult is that of course you have to let some of the misbehavior just go and then other misbehavior not you have to discipline it and figuring out where that line is is really really difficult and maybe there is no clear line that just is you you arrive at the line and therefore it's clear going forward it's every case you're kind of deciding not deciding deciding not deciding parents will recognize this this is the this is the same thing not to sound paternalistic about employees but this is the same thing with children like your kid's not going to act perfectly but you can't just walk around correcting them and disciplining them for every that they do wrong all the time you have to choose when it makes sense right um and so open insubordination was a pretty clear violation that couldn't go unpunished and and that was a wakeup call to you um but talk more about this theme do you feel like you found uh do you still feel like you're looking for that line all the time have you gotten used to have you built a muscle there how do you deal with it today or how have you evolved and gotten better at it well it's funny that the further you go in in the Journey of leadership I can look back seven years ago and say see what all my gaps as a leader because my gaps as a leader become the gaps as us as an organization but during this process of trying to figure this out I mean I I worked so hard I mean I I completely burned myself out like 20 I mean 20 and Co hit and 21 I mean I it was probably 20 and 21 were probably two of the hardest years of my life because I I burned completely out and I I still had to come to work I mean there was days I just didn't feel like coming to work but it was it was just I don't care if the place burns down kind of thing so when when you go through that it's you know it's do you catch me on a bad day you know do you catch me on a bad day then it's it's you know I'm G to be a lot more rough on somebody than maybe if it's a good day uh but there's a lot it's almost like having having gone through that I can tell you that it's it's almost like a raw nerve that you know you almost lose control of your emotions like I didn't want to get so angry but I got so angry you know I didn't want to get you know and and it's just you lose that resilience of of maybe saying hey let me this this seems like a bad situation let's step back and and look at this for a minute and it just you become very reactive and very harshly reactive and I think that's that under undermind my own progress because it was it was um it was very hard to deal with you know when you're when you're trying to recover from burnout but you can't just take a month off like I mean I I've been essential in this business for seven years I mean there's very very small periods of time that I've been able to pull out take a week or two off or whatever but I've never been able to work myself out of the business so go back to your original question about figuring out where that line is I think I'm a lot better at it now and I worked very hard at being consistent and now that I've got a regime of of being you know I I invest in my physical health my mental health I work out almost every day I've got a a 10 minutes of meditation most days uh do walks with my wife where we just kind of talk things out my wife was in the business which was a complicating Factor because she was kind of a fly in the wall to see all this stuff for the first couple years and then she ended up leaving to to do her uh MBA or leaving leaving the business to do her her MBA so now we can talk about the business and she's not emotionally invested so I've got somebody that I can kind of just vent to um I've had a couple different coaches over the years that's been uh very beneficial uh through associations through the Texas sign Association and the world sign Associates I've got groups of people that I know that I can call and say hey this sucks what what would you do about this and so just I kind I think a combination of all those things has allowed me to be a better leader and then just practice I mean I have done everything wrong in this place that you could have done wrong I mean I've I've made some serious screw-ups maybe not everything you you could do wrong because we're in business we're making money yeah uh but it's just it's been a really I'd say this is in addition to being the hardest experience in my life which up until now was learning Portuguese in six months that was that was previously the hardest experience the contrast of running a business and being successful is that you cannot simply put your head down and work harder everything else I've done in life aside from learning a language Marine Corps just put your head down yes or no sir and work harder uh retail you all the target just just work harder that's all you have to do is just work harder and you get to a point in language learning like business where just working harder isn't enough you have to work smarter you have you can't just be active you have to be productive you have to be working on the right things and so so just learning all that and figuring out having enough time in my day to step back and be the Visionary and not just the sales guy not just the whatever it is that they you know have to do around here today sign something or make a decision or you know it's it's hard to hard to get in that perspective but but when I have been able to that's been one of the the things that has allowed me to grow and and to stay with this business without completely just burning out and selling it years ago and the that burnout period how did you get through it did you just kind of M muddle through and therapy and meditation habit and start going to the gym kind of like little by little or was there was there something more dramatic that you did to really pull yourself up it was I mean it was there was a period of a couple years I was just I mean I think for the most part I I maintained positivity at work as much as I could I don't think I was a black cloud around here every day but it took a lot of energy to not be a black cloud around here every day and my leadership team got to see some some ugly moments where I just was not happy but by and large I mean I would just I would just go home and just collapse I would just lay around I'd fall asleep at you know 4 5 six o'clock whatever time I got home and I would just sleep till the next day and then drag myself out of to bed and go do it again and I think just I mean I don't think my friends and family enjoyed being around me very much because I just it took all my energy to be positive here I knew I couldn't come in and just start throwing things and jump up and down I mean that's you know people gonna think I'm crazy and then they're gonna quit then where will we be so I was doing my best to be positive here uh but but outside of here just just not I didn't really have anything go on yeah I was just depleted and so so over time you know I I I could logically step back and say this isn't the person I want to be this is the life I dreamed of I mean I own a business I mean as of a couple years ago I own an airplane and this is like I'm why am I not happy you know like it's it's me you know it's it's I have all these things that I said I wanted I spent my whole life dreaming about now I have them I need to be a little bit more positive and it just but but you can't just flip a switch and say oh okay I was negative oh now I'll smile be positive that's not how that works so it just it took a lot of effort a lot of uh just I mean my wife was absolutely pivotal and going through this with me and kind of helping me you know reason through it and think through it and you know she's she's always planning vacation so we would you know on a Friday afternoon we' we' Punch Out we'd go to you go to the beach or or you know rent Airbnb somewhere or go somewhere do something and so that was that was helpful and then and then last summer I just I finally made a decision where I I was mentally healthy enough to say hey I'm I'm just gonna I'm just going to be the most positive person I know I just I just really have to invest in that so I got back into running I had been you I hated running when in the Marine Corps now it's like hey I get to run uh I don't say I love it but it's it's something that gives me health and it makes me feel good so I run I work out um just I just invest in myself I spend quality time with my wife I do the meditation and it's it's I'm 90% back to the mental health that I think I was at in the peak of my you know 15 16 17 that era but I'm not I'm not 100% there but I can see it from here so that's been uh man that is something it's been quite a journey and it's it's been it's taken a toll on me I mean but I think it's it's something coming having come through it and and I'm still here and the business is still here and we're doing okay and and I you know it feels like I'm not out of it maybe like there's still days that just like oh God this you know something happens it really sucks you know now what but by and large it's it's taken to a different place and a different level as a person where when I came into this thing I kind of had this maybe not I wouldn't call it entitlement that's too strong of a word but it you know you bought a business you bought a multi-million dollar business there's kind of this feeling like hey I made it like I'm yeah you know I'm good enough in life that I did this thing yeah and that's why I think the last seven years have been the most humbling of my life it's like just when you get there just when you get to the what you think is the Finish Line like hey man I made it in life that's actually the start line yeah you know and so now I'm I'm self-aware enough to know that hey if if something good happens tomorrow okay let's let's take that with a grain of salt because the backside of that might be something different that follows it so I think that journey of of kind of the the investment in myself and and going through that and and being here to speak about it is transformational for me and it's helped me become a better person and hopefully a better leader Dan let we just I I think we need to understand are how you're doing in and with respect to the business because you yourself said uh you know you're you're quote living the dream we all recognize that's naive but you know if you on paper it looks great you've doubled the business you have a plane uh but then I also just heard you say we're still here we'll we're still standing as if the business is barely holding on so so give us if you can a cleare eyed sense of how healthy the business is um yeah and then tell us about this plane so when I say we're still healthy we're still here there were there were months or maybe even years at a time in the worst part of this thing that if somebody had just walked up with a check that made any kind of sense i' have been like here here's the keys take it I hate this place I mean I I did not like being here I did not like this company I did not like my life I mean it was very very visceral feeling that I felt negatively about this place I would have given it up in a heartbeat so going through that it's like okay well that didn't happen I I didn't didn't want to be bankrupt in my 30s and just shut it down and you know no no magic buyer appeared at the door with a multi-million dollar check so you know just one step in front of the other I kept going last year was was fantastic for us uh we sold just under six million uh I think SD was about 1.4 million so uh I bought two new trucks cash because we needed two new trucks so now we're position for more growth now there's some key things we need to do before we can grow but but in terms of of what we've been able to do financially yes that is um you know money money is not something that makes you happy but the lack of money certainly is something that makes you unhappy so so we're past that point where where hopefully mostly past that point where where money is going to be an issue of of something we have to worry about I mean I haven't wored worried about making payroll in years I mean so that's that's helpful um but the plane yeah I always wanted to be a pilot so 12 15 years ago I went not got my pilot's license I flew for a few years but but then didn't have the money and uh in the fall of uh 21 I decided to get back into it so I have a small four-person airplane I take my my flying quite seriously I'm not an idle person so when I'm not here if I don't have an active activity I I tend to just end up working because I want to do something so flying is hard it's it's difficult I've been working on my instrument license for about two years I still haven't gotten it uh that's been its own frustration but it's flying is something that allows me to apply myself to that is difficult which my mind needs but isn't this place so even though it's hard I go do that and that recharges me because I take my mind off of this whereas if I just go back and try to watch television or or something that's that's idle then I I tend to just my brain continues to work on on this place so I need something active so for me that's been that's been great plus it's hey I get to fly places that's kind of cool yeah for sure uh it's a it's a really cool hobby the $6 million understanding that revenue and money is not the core of the story here but still 6 million bucks do you think that you're that last year is sustainable or do you think that that was kind of a fluke and it'll come back down I think I had to Pivot this year to be the sales manager again to make that sustainable uh because I think it it takes work I mean and one of the things one of the the great things about having a almost an 80y old business that's I mean we we're we're not the the we're the the biggest company in the doing business in the market so we're not the biggest company in the market but we're we're we're doing more business in the market than than uh than any other company the reputation I mean people whether we did their sign 20 30 years ago or or I mean it's just the phone just rings so we don't advertise uh I've never spent any advertising money I mean I I tried Google when I first bought the business I spent $500 a month on Google for two or three months then I turned it off and nothing ever changed in the business so that was my one experiment with advertising we have a big sign that we have out front here on a on a road of 20 some, cars a day so that's that's our advertising and people people know us uh people know us by reputation we we never let customers down uh if we if we screw up and and it happens then hey what does it take to make this right if it takes $1,000 dollar we spend,000 if it takes $5,000 from time to time it has we have spent the $5,000 we never leave the customer hanging so I think that that the reputation there has kept us going now in this market let's say let's say within 100 miles a here's $1 million $1 14 million sign Market we got five million of it but we got the most of the top of the five million or five to six million of it um I think I think it's going to be sustainable because our goal is I mean our next next Milestone really is to get to 10 million but we're gonna have to operate in other markets uh and I want to operate in other markets because I mean there's if I can get an office or or buy you buy something in Dallas Houston something like that then we this business isn't about equipment and trucks and buildings it's it's about the people can I get the right amount of talented people in the business and if I can have a branch somewhere else I get access to a whole new group of talented people in addition to the ones that we've already hired and brought on in our training here yeah Dan where is Tyler exactly so we are halfway between Dallas and streetport so East Texas okay okay and how long from Dallas how many hours uh about 90 minutes from Dallas about uh three and a half hours from Houston about an hour and a half from shreport which we already operate in Louisiana we we have we're licensed over there now so we send trucks in Louisiana but we don't have an office there okay and just to be clear on getting from 2.7 million to five and six million without advertising it's just the reputation and but if you I mean the reputation was strong before you got to the business I mean it's an 80-year old business and so it was a 73 year old business at the time when you bought it so how I still don't quite see how it's just grown so much uh if you're not doing anything different from a marketing perspective so one thing I've noticed about the sign world and it's not just this Market but it's other sign companies is it's very much like if you need a plumber you might call five plumers and two or three of them might call you back but I mean this is again a business of Industry of 100,000 people spread across 30,000 businesses so if they're too busy they just don't return your call i' we've me and my sales team have probably heard a 100 200 times over the years oh thank God you called us back we called three sign companies y were the only ones that called us back we call people back we you know you call us you're going to get a call back you email us you're going to get a email back or a call back and so I think that has been a big part of it the growth of Texas has been a big part of it so people are coming here uh we really only have one big competitor and we're after completely different parts of the market they want big chains with hundreds of locations and we we totally want the one-off church the one-off restaurant the one-off local business I mean that's our that's our bread and butter we're happy to have I mean we did a a 40 b 40 branch Bank rebranding last year we're happy to have that business but you know that you Rebrand them once that's they're done for another 10 or 20 years so so I mean we we want all the people that are opening new businesses or the churches or the government office or the nonprofits I mean that's that's been our bread and butter and they're you know that the other smaller companies are not calling them back as often as they should the bigger companies want bigger fish so we're we're kind of in a sweet spot in the market where if we just execute at a high level and price appropriately which is what we're doing uh then we we capture more of the market we've also stopped doing things we used to have a a we used to do a lot more or I guess Banner work like smaller you know $700 banners we we rarely do that now unless it's it's a long-term customer we used to rent our crane out we we stopped doing that uh we don't do vehicle wraps anymore so we've really kind of focused on what's what's the highest and best use of our time and it's Custom Signs so somebody's opening a business or opening something we go out we meet with them we figure out okay we got a sign we going to put in your wall what kind of sign we going to put a poll out out front uh service you know obviously we we uh we got service signs after they're they're out in the world we backed everything up with a 5-year parts and labor warranty parts and labor which means if they're 75 miles away from me and we did their sign 40 years ago and they have a problem I'm G send in the truck 75 miles out and we're g to fix it at no cost so I mean it's just I I think that we're executing well on enough things that that's getting us traction and again I mean I can't can't UND overstate that there's hundreds of people moving I think number H 12200 families per day or something moving to Texas and we're we're not the biggest city in Texas but we're you know we're we're one of the fastest growing cities in Texas so every well East Tyler Texas is is your town is one of the fastest growing yes Oh I thought you kind of meant the Dallas Metro wow yeah we're we're we're far enough away from Dallas that we don't really do business in Dallas we do business kind of up to Dallas but it's uh I mean there's there's enough people that that move out to East Texas because not everybody moves from where ever to to want to live in a big city some people want to live someplace a little bit more calm Tyler's 100,000 people 250,000 in the county I mean it's it's really really calm and tranquil I mean I think a lot of people um a lot of people want to come here and raise families start businesses all that and I think we we've been we've certainly been a beneficiary of that if our Market wasn't growing I'd say I can't remember the number now maybe four or five per per year then you know we wouldn't be but also it's it's we're also taking a lot of a lot of market share from other companies that that don't want it or can't do it and as long as we keep executing at a high level I think we we can continue to to at least maintain the market share we have if not gain more that's great Dan well um I want to hear a little bit more about just this get an education from you on the sign business the way we'll approach this is when I hear you describe the Dynamics of the sign business where uh people you know there's enough demand and not enough Supply so the the mom and pop businesses are call and sign providers and not getting calls back right and so um you you wonder and then squaring that with your experience buying an existing business and all the cultural problems you had to deal with and so on you wonder if starting a signed business almost um would would have been easier would be easier for some enterprising small business owner out there um now that entrepreneur is not going to Let's assume like you they have no sign experience but maybe if they can find three or four people uh and maybe offer Equity or something you know and they're calling people back and just overd delivering on service if they couldn't do really well without the SBA loan the PG the toxic culture that they're going to have to spend years fixing um this is actually not a question I I often ask but I I should uh react to that the the signed companies that I've seen become signed companies like sign manufacturers I've I've never seen or heard of somebody coming in and becoming a signed manufacturer overnight what I have seen is somebody that's that's maybe a print shop or a banner shop maybe they added a truck and now they're doing some face changes which is just you know changing out the plastic face on a sign and then they do that for a couple years and now they've they hired an electrician so now they now they're starting to manufacture signs and then they don't start building they'll buy from a wholesaler and then they'll you know buy those signs and then go hang them up as as though they built them themselves and that's that's kind of a a shoe into the market or if they've already got you know if they've got sign experience maybe they go buy a truck and then they they run that truck around they buy their signs from a wholesaler and and then maybe they add a second truck later on I mean that's that's kind of the the natural way uh but from outside the industry yeah I think buying buying a print shop Banner shop you know something like that and then kind of ramping up to a sign company uh sign manufacturers is probably the most common route but of all the people I've met and talked to I've never heard of anybody ever just showing up and opening up a the people are the key I me if if you don't have the right people if somebody decided tomorrow they they wanted to come to Tyler Texas and open a sign manufacturer they would have to take our people to to do it and so it's possible yeah you could probably pay these people a few dollars more an hour and probably a lot of them would leave I mean we wouldn't right so um but then you're you're in a position of well now you're gonna be the highest person in the market because you're you've got the most to pay for labor so how how does that make sense you know so then um yeah I've just never heard of it and be a big risk for somebody coming in from outside the industry which which actually benefits us because you know we we've got there's some barriers to entry to competing with us so we kind of the the plus minus of a specialty trade it's harder for you to get in and compete with us uh but you know the same time our we better treat our people like gold and make sure that this is a good place to work or the first person that comes sniffing around with the new business they'll leave and I don't want them to leave because we don't have a business without them so so something you said a minute ago you know equity you know give people equity in the business yeah I'd love to figure out a way to do that you know we still we still carry debt we still are are are growing so growth eats cash but i' I'd love to find a way that we can take the the benefits of what we're doing as a business and eventually get get the employees more in invested in that and I've tried different things over the years of he let's do a bonus for this or hey let's put an incentive for that and various degrees of success but I think that's aot with training I think if we can execute on those like somehow get get a financial model that makes sense and rewards people for what they're contributing to the business uh more directly than than maybe a yearly raise uh and an excellent training that that aables us to to scale maybe not quickly but but more quickly than we could otherwise because we're able to take people outside the industry and inside to to inside the industry and develop them really quickly I think I think those would be key success factors for for us and for really any business I mean if probably any business outside the sign business I mean you know I think that's probably success factors for all of us well let's have a minute just on the sign business Dan so if somebody listening is looking at buying a sign business um what would you tell them to watch out for what kind of G give us some bullet points on quick education on on the sign business on the sign industry you've you've made it very clear that it's a thin talent pool so that's going to be problem number one right um I've only ever looked at one other Sign Company someone randomly uh had a sign business for sale that they approached us with and um I I didn't see the margins in there that I thought I should see that that that we have so I mean that was that was the number one thing is I mean are we making money um a lot of businesses are not very sophisticated we have we have one good software in our industry Erp software that runs um to to run your business on I think theyd look at profitability I'd look at who who the people are I mean I want to see you see a lot of businesses in the sign industry that are second third fourth generation you know how involved is the family is the family you know is is it just are they just here to collect a paycheck or they contributing what's the tenure of the employees I want to see 20 and 30y year employees but I don't want to see only 20 and 30-y year employees if they if their junior employee has seven eight 10 years in the company that means they don't know anything about training they don't know I mean they they've never trained anybody or they're training people and they're leaving so why are younger people leaving and the younger generation is I mean they're they're more fickle than we were uh you know when we were coming up in the business or in any business you know 20 years ago it was it was a different time and I think that younger people they get kind of a bad rap of you know they don't want to work they're they're not you know they're they're too uh snowflakey or they're too you know they're too sensitive then um I think that that's that's true to a point but at the same time the old school way that that sign businesses are a lot of doing you know yelling at people and you know throwing things and you know that kind of that kind of managerial behavior that mainly went away in the 80s I mean none of us that were growing up during that time ever walked away from a butt chewing from a guy like that and said man I'm GNA work harder for that guy so I mean you know in that in that way they've got it right like hey let's let's have a a positively reinforcing environment so and I think that's hard for for indry like this I mean when your average employee count is three you don't send people off to Dale Carnegie training very often you don't you don't invest in the professional leadership development of people so a lot of these people I mean have have had bad habits that have never been corrected for years they've just been allowed to get away well he's got our Master electrition license I guess we got to put up with it you know it's it's just and they never they've never had the coaching they've never had the the accountability and I I don't certainly not everybody but it's more common in this industry than I have noticed in other Industries I've been in so that that would be if I were looking at a company that would be something I'd be looking at okay that was great and uh and is there kind of a threshold then on on how big or small like do you need a certain critical mass of Revenue or size of employees I I I would I would think that you maybe number of employees would be the key indicator there because too few employees in an industry with already a really thin talent pool and not a lot of young people coming into the industry um that would be something be too scared to touch uh react to that yeah so I think that one reason one of the reasons I wanted to get from from 17 to 30 or 40 as quick as I could was I wanted redundancy you know it's this is as 17 people you know you're you're we're doing all the same stuff well actually more stuff at 17 than we're doing now there were fewer things with more people uh but I mean if you got one person that can do vehicle wraps then you have one person if that person's out you committed to a customer to wrap your vehicle today well you can't that person's out uh I mean youve got 17 people you've just got one people maybe two that can do each of your jobs so everybody is is is an essential employee at 30 we're almost we're at the point where we've got several of our jobs are done by multiple people okay this person's out this person's sick this person's uh you know on jury today what can we adjust and we we're able to adjust I think our ideal headcount would be north of 50 like at 50 uh that for for me would be a a a good Target number because now we've got economies of scale because a lot of things will you know we don't have to get I mean payroll for example I mean payroll we run weekly here uh having more people doesn't necessarily need mean I need to add another payroll clerk so I can you know I can get some economies of scale and then you've got redundancy and when you've got redundancy then we've got the ability to train I still think that that big big goal of mine is to have the best training in the industry so but we've got to have enough people to do the training but we've got to train the people to get there so I think that the critical mass is probably north of 50 I think there are a handful of signed companies that have hundreds of people the big National companies uh and I think you can I mean that that's certainly has its own benefits I'm sure but but I think being just big enough to not be too small for me is probably probably at least 40 more more probably in the 50s okay and this Pro so essentially what I'm hearing is that you're going to try to solve the thin talent pool problem Yourself by basically building a training function within your organization as opposed to what I don't know what the alternatives to that would be just hoping that the market serves you people uh that's clearly you've decided is not going to happen so you're going to need to train them up yourself well and and there's good professional development opportunities uh this past every year we have a sign show it's either Vegas or Orlando called the international sign Association and they have a a trade show and this past year it was uh they they looked like they really ramped up their game for training so we spent four or five people out there to just go to all these different courses that they had and learn different things and that is you know other industry Professionals in a specific competency whether it's project management or sales or or rapping or or whatever that is going out and giving classes and I found that very value added so I think that'll be one way that we continue to invest in our people uh if we can get more professional training professional leadership training professional the hard and soft skills um we we as a company have a subscription to the Fred prior seminars so that we're able to get people trained on whatever we need to train them on soft skill wise uh we've got to come up with a better way of doing the hard skills thing I think it's an industry problem that the associations that we're a part of are all talking about it so there there are resources out there but at the end of the day the person spending all day every day in the shop or in on the trucks or you know in the office we still have to have the the infrastructure and the plan there to adequately train them and I think if if if and when we can add we we can master that skill then we'll be able to take what typically takes you know a five-e signed person we'll be able to do in three or four you I think that's that's a that's a key thing that I want to be able to do uh our mission is is to build success with employees and customers so so to back way up to the beginning about why I bought a business yeah I want to build something and grow something but I didn't it had to be something thing it was pretty broad I wanted to morally agree with it and I wanted to do something good in the world sign company I like to tell people when they're interviewing hey we're not flying things into space and we're not curing cancer but if you're a small business Church nonprofit government agency you can't be found you're not in Business Without A Sign so we can do a little bit of good there but my real passion is to develop people to their potential I want to take somebody that's got the right motivation the right attitude and just wants to just invest themselves in something then hey let's let's make that available for you which is goes back to my thing where I tell people raise your hand if your ability outweighs your opportunity we will put more responsibility on you and we have and we will and we continue to do it and I think that's the combination of of the attitude of the person who wants to invest themselves combined with the right resources to be able to hand to them when they're ready to take that more responsibility I think that's one thing we we're we're executing at a fraction of what I think we can and should be doing uh and that's that's where I want to spend more of my time focusing well that seems to fire you Dan that seems like a yeah pretty motivating for the future cuz because I'm just I I'm just had the sense maybe a little bit that you it was it's been such a hard last few years emotionally for you that it might be hard to ever refall in love with the business even if it's going well yeah I mean I think there was certainly a period of time that I could not see feeling energized like on a daily basis I mean certainly that when you're burned out like I mean even the the good things in your life you still you you you have a negative sour disposition about them and and I I certainly did um but you know it's one foot in front of your other one foot in front of the other and I'm still here and I've made it through that time so for me it's like what what I want to do you know if somebody walked up and handed me an insane amount of money for the business tomorrow and I was I was out of here I'd probably just go buy another sign company I mean it's it's it's what I know it's it's where I think I could contribute I mean it's it's uh you know it's it's fun you know and it's and it's it feels like a place I can make a difference because I think that there are gaps in our industry I think uh I think customer service is one of them even companies that I consider to be really good companies and I know the owners sometimes fall flat in their face on on customer service and and I think it's I think there's a maybe not it's not as rare as it should be an attitude in this industry where it's like I mean who else you're G to call I mean it's just you know like if you own a building and you need your elevator service I imagine there's probably not a whole lot of elevator service companies out there it's it's kind of the same in in signs so I think that uh I think that we can do better as an industry and and yeah I want to be a part of that I'm in now I'm at this point I'm a signed guy so it's uh it's going forward and and yeah continuing to to figure out um what I can do different one of my favorite uh examples of this so there's there's a guy John Wooden coach of UCLA uh 1960s until the 60s and 70s his team I'm going to butcher this but it was it was 10 of 12 NCAA basketball champions out of 10 10 to 12 years they won 10 they won Championship the NCAA Championship and he's got wooden on leadership a few books out there that I've read over the years and the thing that I think is understated is that John Wooden coached UCLA from 1948 and it wasn't until the 60s that he that he really started winning championships so 20 years and of course he'd been he'd been a coach even before UCLA so so let's call it 30 years of coaching before the man wins his first championship and so that's one of those things I take I I take strength from and say hey this is this is a guy that did it for decades before he won his first championship you know we're having winning seasons we're making money and you know we're able to carry on move forward buy you know more equipment you hire more people uh and so the you know it's it's and I'm only seven years in so yeah if I just pull out a little bit and give myself a little little perspective it's not that bad so it kind of it's one of those things that help me stay in a positive mental head space is that hey yeah I'm still making missteps every day I'll probably walk out of this office after this interview and go do or say something wrong but you know it's it's just learn from it and grow and and keep moving forward yeah well Dan I'm I'm reminded of something you said earlier which about your how much you have grown as a leader and as a manager and looking back at year one and year two and and some of your gaps as a leader you now see very clearly because you can see the the after effects of of those or or maybe youve just matured enough that you just see even in the moment looking back reflecting On A Moment Like That was not the right decision there um a lot of people who want to buy businesses now are don't have any small business ownership or leadership experience um they come from corporate wherever and so they're going to go through a trial to become leaders in this context and so I just wonder if if there's anything more you can share with us about gaps in your in your own leadership ability that you've filled um you we already spent um some time at the top talking about some of these episodes the you know you're not going to let anybody have you know have you over a barrel things like that anything else anything else that you would tell to people who haven't been in your shoes about what you've learned along the way on leadership okay so one thing that that my team continually the the members of spe specifically my leadership team who are are comfortable given me feedback and I I try to be open to feedback for everybody but but nobody's going to tell you that you're too much of a private person except for my leadership team they they will say hey you're you're you need to you need to open up a little bit and let people know who you are I'm very I mean my my Marine Corps time is is uh you know and I'm just I'm just naturally a private person I just I I like to have my personal life personal and my professional life professional and and that's just my personality that's you know and it's I'm I'm not I'm not an out there person I I barely have a a social media anything and uh I'm just a quiet person that keeps to himself except for I I have a business and so even stuff like this this podcast six months ago I wouldn't have done this this is just this is not my this is not my Lane like I'm out here you people gonna watch this hear me that's I'm I'm I'm a very much a private person so what my I have a person in my organization who's who's very good at the people component and I have her helped me do interviews because I I don't read people that well and I'm just I'm very much an internal process and she's an external processor and she's she's telling hey you got to be out there you've got to you've got to let people to get to know you more and you know let them see you're real person and it's like I mean that that for me is just it's it's out of my comfort zone but it's also a place that that uh I think you do have to be real with people and you know um I'm very I'm very proper and you know I don't swear a lot and that sort of stuff so it's so you're cuss more is what you're telling us we should all cuss more hey you know what for my installers that carries weight if I don't get their attention I I can drop a cuss word say oh okay now he's serious uh so just I mean just meeting people where that speaking the language uh and I think just just so so what you think you came off or come off sometimes as as guarded as as as aloof sort of be even though I say so at least it's a feedback I've gotten okay because I mean you're you're scaring the introverts in the audience of which I you know I consider myself that and um do you is it that you know are introverts going to need to pretend a little bit is it is it that or is it something maybe subtly different you know the latest in in leadership literature says that you know introverts are actually they make great leaders even if they're not the you know they don't call attention to themselves and they're not gladh handers or whatever turns out they they can be great leaders is it that or is it something else okay so you hit on a good point that I want to I want to talk about so let's pull into the personality profiles for a minute if uh anybody that knows culture index I'm an architect I'm I'm a high a low B low C high D very very wide pattern and so I am I'm very much a a structural introvert I don't recharge from being out here talking to people now when you're the business owner consistency and positivity are key so I I bring that energy to the table because that's what my employees need now my employees but but I'm also a big believer that all personality types can be a leader I've got other people in the organization who are who are low A's that are still leaders in the company it doesn't make because a autonomy you know you don't you think that you need a big strong leader kick the door open you know hey let's we're get all together we're gonna do this that's a different that's a leadership style it's one potential leadership style and it works for some people but other people who aren't wired that way don't need to be that person okay I am still an introvert and I'm very transparent with my team that I am an introvert but I also I do things um so we've had four people in the business business who are still employed with us who at one point had leadership positions I promoted them didn't work out we demoted them uh took took the responsibility back away so after the fourth one I said huh this probably everybody else is noticing something that I'm not saying so I got my team together and say hey guys I got a confession I'm terrible at picking people for positions and then when we put people in positions I don't support them as well as I should and that's kind of a big step for me because I don't you know who wants to be the boss and go out in front of people saying hey everybody I screwed up but now I own it like sometimes I I mess up on a yeah I still sell so if I sell something I make a mistake on it it's like yep I I mess that up let's let's figure out to fix it so I think just that kind of transparency and I tell people like yeah I'm not y'all AR going to see me at the bar in a weekend at happy hour I mean it's just it's not my that's not my scene uh and I think that the people I've let people kind of get to know me a little bit you know employees want to know hey you know what's your wife still down in Houston getting that NBA and you know I I'll talk about that stuff but a few years ago that would have been I would not have done that so so even being an introvert and and fully recognizing because culture index is a part of our business which probably switch to predictive index but that's different story but but everybody understands we've read all our profiles I've read my profile to the entire company I've read their profiles to the entire to each of them and and the whole teams we've looked at each other's profiles so I'm very transparent hey this is you know where I get my energy I go home I read a book I do something you know I don't I don't go to happy hour I don't meet people that's not what I do for fun and to get energy but that's you know that that's just where I get my energy that doesn't make me any different of a person than than somebody who loves the other human beings uh and loves to go out and meet new people that's that's just a different trait and because of that this is this is how I receive information this is how I process information I'm a low SE which means I I like to process I like to process now I like to make a decision now uh I'm urgent uh so so understanding yeah and I'm very transparent when everybody show my profile and read it to them and and I think helping helping do that from time to time helps them understand a little bit more about me but yeah you you could be an introvert but still be a little bit vulnerable with your team and a little bit open and say hey I'm I'm you know I'm I'm a human being just like you and you know it's it's a sign for me that when I can walk around and joke with my employees like hey I'm not I'm not that aloof guy that they're afraid of and you know they they get nervous when I'm around I don't want that I want to be you know I just hey man what you doing over here you know and just have those conversations that that for me is fun and rewarding and and it seems as though The more I've been able to give that of myself the more I I get of that I know people I know their personal stories I mean I I know what's going on in their in many cases in their personal lives not everybody not everybody wants to share and I'm not going to pry but but I think just getting to know people on a little bit different level other than just I'm the guy that signs the paychecks and sells some signs I think is is helpful and I would I guess you're asking me what other business owners would who are introverts want to do I'd be comfortable with the uncomfortable be a little bit outside your comfort zone and and be a little bit vulnerable with your team don't be so closed off because I mean they're they're all looking at me or or whoever the business owner is they're all looking to you and and they take their cues from you and they want to know that you know you care about them and um really good book uh radical cander uh challenge directly but care personally you know and I I no no problem challenge directly although I've certainly struggled with it at points in my in my time here uh but care personally yeah that's that that does not come I mean I care but but demonstrating that is not something that that comes naturally and it's something that I've I've been working on myself and you anybody can care I mean you don't have to be an introvert or extrovert to care I mean but demonstrating it is going to take a little bit more work right for people like me who who might be a little bit more closed off yeah fantastic Dan thank you for that really and thank you for coming on the podcast for somebody who uh this isn't their their uh natural comfort zone I really appreciate it uh this is going to be really valuable for people Dan just before I let you go I want to ask just a couple more questions here about your growth as a leader we I know from the preall you had kind of self-diagnosed as being a slow firer we've already heard a couple of examples of that but is is there any more to say about that is that is that kind of like a you know conflict avoidance that you've had to get over or or what if there's more to say please yeah I I think that especially during the early years when I was or or say the worst years when I was going through burnout that that line that we talked about like where do you draw the line and and beyond that you you you hold accountable I didn't draw that line as often as I should have I mean it wasn't necessarily conflict avoidance it was maybe more self-preservation you I mean when you're burned out when there's nothing left to lay on the table it's like okay I I can tackle this thing today or I can just go home and sleep you know I I probably made that decision too often to just go home to go home and sleep and then not deal with the problem so 2020 21 kind of going through that that that toxic phase I think I've been better at it but not as quick as I want to be uh now we had an operations manager I hired a few months ago uh and it was clear by six weeks in that he wasn't going to make it I gave him feedback for two weeks and by eight weeks he hadn't been able to improve on that feedback I I terminated him I mean that's just hey this isn't going to get any better let's just let's just move on now and so I think that's that's something that I've been actively working on and it's it's better because I have energy I have time to to think about it and say hey this this isn't working uh my my team's comfortable giving me feedback on what they're seeing so all the things kind of add up to to make it it better now but yeah certainly certainly the the burnout was a big part of that and and just not being not being urgent and strategic enough on on the personal decisions I needed to make you'd also mentioned to me that uh you've been really isolated through this journey you've gotten involved in the industry you know some people now but um not having kind of peers or at least not in the early days is taking you a while to build out a pier network uh was detrimental say more about that well I think it it comes down to being an introvert I mean we we tend to We tend to be an island on ourselves and yeah I mean I think people people who are naturally extroverts are going to be a little bit better at building those relationships and those relationships are there I mean I have I have uh people that I I know talk to in respect and that consider friends and and the wsa the TSA and just you know other other Sign Company owners and people in those organizations and I think that I now am am better utilizing those those relationships both for what I get out of them and what I give to them uh I think I'm I'm a better I'm a better support for my friends as as uh as I am in as I'm getting in return and I think that that just that took me some time to get to where I'm I'm comfortable telling people hey I'm I'm really screwing up and I don't know if I'm going have a business in six months I mean that's a tough conversation to have with people that you don't know well and and you know then you tie up the fact you're 70 80 week hours a week in your business well when do you have time to go out and make those those friendships and build those relationships and and I mean it's not my natural tendency anyway when I'm 80 hours a week in this place like I'm certainly not going to go out and and try to you know talk to other Sign Company owners I'm I'm too tied up here but you know ironically once I make those relationships and I have a couple good people now that I can pick up the phone and say hey man I'm having something going on let's talk about this both inside design industry and out I think that's been very beneficial to have uh I tried joining EO my first year it didn't work out I wasn't I wasn't really in the right forum for me and I and it was it's a long way from here distance-wise and so I it didn't work out I think something like that or a vistage or one of those groups that have have Forum groups uh I'm in a forum now in one of my sign associations and that's that's a helpful group for me and I think that that's that's been help that that's that's been something that's helped me get through that better than otherwise should otherwise would have and I should have done it a few years ago get got more invested some some years back well you hear uh about the value of peer groups now a lot in our world and in a number of kind of startups if you will around giving entrepreneurs who have recently acquired a business a place to go to to lean on peers uh is something you're seeing more and more and and um the value of it is recognized more and more so um actually I'll I'll tie that to my last question Dan given that you are only now listening to acquiring minds just kind of to acquaint yourself with with me and who you're going to be talking to for 90 minutes um but you're kind of realizing how much education there is out there today for all this stuff not just acquiring minds all kind books and other podcasts Etc um anything that when you're consuming this content or that you have felt is really really valuable that people who do know that you didn't are you like man if I had known that oh boy they're they're so lucky they know this sort of thing I gosh I've listened to about six of these lately of yours which yeah took 12 hours by because these These are long podcasts but I can I mean just just knowing that just hearing the questions that they've asked and the the diligence process they went through uh because most of the people that come on here seem to talk about you know what what it's like to acquire now mine's mine's been seven years but just hearing what they've gone through and the steps they've taken is mind blown I didn't know that was a thing I did oh wow you're supposed to check this and do that I mean just just I'm listening to these things I'm thinking man that is that is I didn't know that I didn't know you should should even think about that so so so the podcast that ETA Circle which is a group in Houston that uh is kind of a bunch of Searchers getting together like and and networking and talking to business owners that sort of thing I think that's that kind of stuff's really neat I I wish I'd gotten more involved in this years I mean I don't think your your podcast actually existed in that time but but go getting involved in and educating myself and and realizing that that buying a business is a job just like getting a job is a job I don't know why I didn't equate it to you know there's a lot I didn't know I had people around me that that I thought knew nobody recommended actually my CBA actively recommended that I didn't buy the AR uh so you there there stuff that that he said well it's only worth a dollar if you you know why pay a dollar for it okay true but let's pay 90 cents for it you know like let's but let's buy the AR because I don't have but x amount of dollars and I'm going to drive this thing off cliff let's let's do a let's do a cash flow analysis and see if I should be buying the AR I mean just stuff that you know seems painfully obvious now but after listening to a handful of your episodes most people listening to your stuff know way more than I did coming in buying a multi-million dollar business so I'm glad it worked out well Dan Roski this has been uh really a fantastic look into what's been a really hard journey but I'm optimistic for you seems like you you're the worst is behind you and you got a foundation now for hitting that 50 employee uh number and Beyond $10 million and Beyond um expanding to a second location second Market um we all hope all of that for you uh but especially thank you for you know as I said a minute ago for getting out of your comfort zone and coming on a podcast something that if we if Reed had introduced Reed of ETA Circle had introduced us six months ago you would have said no to um I guess you'll be on stage at ETA Circle uh so now you're you're getting sucked in man you're going to be on on all kinds of stages going forward here um well it's it's like I said number one number one value grow mindset this is not my this is not my normal thing but hey you know like I'm I'm the first to admit especially after seven years of of seeing everything that I'm doing wrong to say that hey just because I haven't tried this doesn't mean it's not a good thing so yeah I'll give it a shot I like to meet new people and and yeah you know I've been through enough bad stuff now and done enough stuff wrong that hey maybe somebody learns from this I mean I I i' I've got to where I was one thing I didn't talk about enough was that the people that have helped me along the way those five houses and I bought no money down in 2014 led to me buying a business was from my college Mentor uh that that you know he he he chose to be the second lean holder and made that possible for me so I mean there there's been enough people along the ways along the way that have allowed me and given me a handup that really you know I'm kind of at that point now where where yeah I need to be doing that in Reverse I need to be I need to be helping the next person up and I think that's that's important for me so this is you know if if I stay inside these four walls that that's never really going to happen I've got to get out there and and say hey I I I would like to be resource I would like to help people and answer questions and and be some value to to other people that are uh maybe considering or walking the same track that that I've walked yeah yeah well Dan I think you really are in a position to to help a lot of people coming up behind you on this journey um so if time permitting I encourage you to do that uh and I also think that you're a great communicator so you should uh be in front of the camera or on the other side of the microphone or whatever it is on stage uh you um really surprised to hear that this is so uncomfortable for you because it feels very natural so um do more really really great performance here appreciate the opportunity to to be on here and talk with you and and you know to just even be exposed to this and and listen to sever of your podcasts recently I mean this is this is a really good thing you're doing and I'm I'm just happy to be a part of it I appreciate it cool cool well I appreciate that then and if people want to reach out to you how uh do you like to be reached out to uh LinkedIn Dan Veri that's that's the the one social media that I actually I wouldn't say I maintain it that well but but I'm on there and and message me through Linkedin is is probably the best way to to get a hold of me good deal and when is the ETA Circle uh that Reed is putting together way you'll be there I I don't remember I want I want to say this 10th of July but I think he's uh I think he's still solidifying that but I want to say it's the 10th of July okay okay well I think it's in July as well I think that much I know and Houston yes right so ETA circles great ETA Club run by Reed pennebaker I guess is how you pronounce pener oh pener okay but run by Reed pener and uh Reed put us together Reed's put me together with a couple other guests um and he's going to bring you live to to tell more about your story uh at that event so Google ETA Circle if you're going to be in Houston in July everybody and go meet Dan in person Dan verbos thank you very much sir all right thank you very much I hope you enjoy that interview make sure you subscribe to the acquiring minds Channel below we are now publishing twice a week so tons of new interviews and stories to come stories that will help you along your own path to acquiring a business