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Tell me about your vision.

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Well, I've always, I always wanted to own my own company or run a company.

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And I got into my early forties and realized I was not going to run somebody

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else's company or a public company.

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I didn't have the political skills for it.

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Uh, I'm unwilling to do the necessary things in corporate world to succeed.

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I'm unwilling to stab people in the back and toss them off the ladder.

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So being unwilling to play those games, I had to chart my own path.

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So I started my own business.

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My father had his own business.

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I grew up in it.

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You know, we all, all of us kids worked in it, doing clerical stuff and sorting

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and filing and this kind of thing.

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Uh, when I became a professional, I realized I, I, my father and I would

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not work well together.

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So I, I, I decided to, I'd gone to corporate world.

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I'd gone to corporate world for 15 years after my degrees.

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And then I decided to start my own business.

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So the wife and I started this, uh, a third of a century ago in 1991 and

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have grown it ever since it's going to continue because I'm going to give it to

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or sell it to my employees as I retire.

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And so, uh, it will continue on hopefully.

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And hopefully they'll be able to, uh, uh, garner as, as much out of it, uh, both

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financially and in terms of, uh, satisfaction as I have over the last.

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30 some odd years.

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Awesome.

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Let's talk about that.

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Cause that's, uh, you did a great job of telling me about the story, uh, you

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know, which is part of the vision, right?

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Our vision can be, are we looking at our past or are we looking at our future?

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Um, right.

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And you can look at both.

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I think I look fondly on a lot of the things of my past.

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I also look at the past, the world to learn from history, my own mistakes

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included, but I want to hear more about that front end, where are you going with

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this?

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You mentioned something cool.

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You talked about selling your company to your employees.

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Talk to me a little bit further about that.

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And also if you'd like to, where's get payroll headed?

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What are you doing with this?

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Well, I could not have done this myself.

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Okay.

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It required my staff.

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Um, most of them been with me quite a while.

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I don't think we've hired anybody in four or five years.

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Uh, so our turnover is very low and they've made it possible.

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So why shouldn't they get the opportunity to profit from it even more so after I've

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ceased to, uh, I'm not going to live forever.

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Uh, nobody in my family is interested.

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And I wouldn't really want somebody in my family taking over anyway.

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Uh, I've seen too many businesses fail, uh, you know, shirt sleeves to shirt

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sleeves in three generations.

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Uh, I've, I've worked for two that have been owned by successive generations

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and have destroyed the company, uh, at least two.

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So I've been working with the staff for a number of years, uh, bringing

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them up to speed on things.

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Um, we're, we're almost there and, uh, we're moving the company virtual.

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Uh, as we speak, uh, to cut down on overhead and to allow us to be, uh,

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both more profitable and keep our prices down for our clients, which lends

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itself to profitability, of course.

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So, uh, they're going to get their chance over the next couple of years to take

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ownership of the company, pay me out of the profits over the rest of my life.

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Uh, if I live five years, they make a hell of a deal.

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If I live 50, I make a good deal.

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So I suspect they'll get the better deal in the end, but I won't care.

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At that point, I won't care.

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So

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nice.

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Well, I, I appreciate you talking about it.

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It's something that's very important to us.

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Visionaries listening in, you have the opportunity to look at that from

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the get-go on your businesses.

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I love the quote, begin with the end and mind.

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Um, we do this first-class business as well.

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Um, several of my employees are already one and 2% owners of the company.

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And, and we build that based on a, uh, a vestment period.

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They vest, um, new, um, we vest in two ways.

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We vest based on tenure, how long people have been with us.

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And we also vest opportunities based on results achieved.

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Um, and so if somebody can achieve results exceptionally fast, I have no

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problem, um, giving them a greater portion of, of, uh, what it is we're able to.

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You know, to create together profitability.

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Um, it's, there's a lot of ways to go into it.

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So,

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my right, my right-hand girl, I say girl, that's how I grew up.

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If somebody takes that the wrong way, I'm sorry.

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I love that.

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Yeah.

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You meant it completely endearing.

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Um, so I love that.

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I do.

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That's, I learned that from my father.

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He had the girls in the office.

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I mean, that was just the way I grew up.

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Anyway, she, uh, she's been with me 25 years and she already

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owns 10% of the company.

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So, yeah, that's awesome.

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I mean, I, I couldn't do it without her.

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She's just been, she'd been here forever.

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Absolutely.

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My, my, my wife, when she was still alive, referred to Debra as my workwife.

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So,

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that's good.

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That's good.

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I've, I've heard that as the,

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and we went through all the stages of that.

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We used to argue and now we, we no longer do.

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Uh, she'd been known to walk out of the office on me and I've been known to walk

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out of the office on her, but we haven't done that probably in 15 years.

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So it was, it was a matter of learning, learning each other and learning the

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compromises, uh, that needed to be to make our relationship work, just

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like you do with a spouse.

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It's huge.

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Well, and, and I would say just like a lot of people used to do with, uh,

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people used to do with spouses, you know, it's, I mean, we, we live in a,

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in a society in a time where it's harder for people to appreciate conflict,

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um, than ever before.

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You know, conflict is not a bad thing, right?

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Toxic conflict is, um, it's like negotiation.

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People think that word means terroristic negotiations or, or hostile situations.

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No negotiation means dialogue.

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Um, right.

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If we have the ability to engage in healthy dialogue and healthy conflict,

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we can produce better results.

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And you guys, you know, learned, uh, I just see a lot of companies that have

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mastered the art of swiping right, right.

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Or swiping left or well, I'll just hire somebody else on Fiverr or

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Upwork for real cheap.

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Um, you know, I don't have to overcome this with said individual.

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And that is, that is a recipe for disaster for, if you want to create

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stability, if you want to create loyalty.

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So I love hearing about that.

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That's really cool.

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It is.

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The institutional knowledge that my employees have is irreplaceable.

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You know, you go through situations, you go through problems, you go

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through crisis as you go through, uh, putting out fires, you learn from

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those experience wisdom.

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If you, if, if you wish.

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Ah, you came full circle Charles.

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Thank you.

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And so that, that knowledge and that wisdom to let it go easily is so

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detrimental to the firm and, and why would you do that?

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For instance, uh, two to the number of years ago, a bereavement policy.

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For our, for everybody.

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Um, and it's whatever you need to, to say to somebody, you can only have

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three days when they need two weeks and they're a valued employee.

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Why would you do that?

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You, you're going to let them go because they need an extra five or seven days

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off because they had a tragedy in their life.

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My, my person who handles all the HR and, and accounts payable and other

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things, uh, when her father died, um, she was the one in the family that

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had to do everything and it took her several weeks, but the cost of

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replacing her as opposed to giving her two weeks of pay and I paid her.

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It makes no sense.

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So arbitrary things like that to, to terminate people over arbitrary minutia

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and to waste all that institutional knowledge and wisdom is stupid.

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Yeah, it is.

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It is bad management.

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And I've, I've been a critic.

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I've, I've been a critic of American business management most of my life.

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And properly so, cause most of it sucks.

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So yeah, that's just one more, one more thing.

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Don't, don't, don't do stupid things like that.

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Good people are hard to find and good people with, with experience

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are even harder to find and, and harder to build and expensive and valuable.

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There's something you should clutch to your breast.

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It's huge.

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And you lived to the tell the tale.

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Oh, that's exciting.

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You've got this, you've got this, you've got this, you've got this, you've got

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this business that's been around for more than a decade.

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Visionary is listening in.

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I talk about this a lot.

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And it's not because of doom and gloom.

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It's because if you want to overcome the odds, you have to do things that.

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You have to do things that the people who are being subject to

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the odds aren't willing to do.

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96% of businesses lose within 10 years.

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4% survive.

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I've met so many business owners that have been at business

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for longer than 10 years.

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And most of them just have a higher threshold or tolerance for debt.

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Most of them are still struggling to move things forward.

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Most of them still haven't figured out the infrastructure that they need.

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They're usually just a little bit more resilient than the rest.

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So that doesn't down, doesn't downplay the importance of the 4%

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who at least made it that far.

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There's still virtues that we can learn from in that regard.

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And why can't we look for more?

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Why can't we see how we can make it better?

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Why can't we see how we put that together as visionary leaders?

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It's super important.

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So it's Charles Reed and individuals like him that represent,

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to me, the type of mentors that we need to be looking at and to

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and realize, man, this guy's got a depth that we can learn from,

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whether it's just participating with the services

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and utilizing the services or it's diving in deeper that relationship

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and seeing what else can you learn from somebody like this?

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So take advantage of that opportunity.

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Let's ask the question I want to.

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We're out of time today.

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So I won't ask it to be answered right now, Charles,

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but all of us that don't like

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the corporate mindset of backstabbing, right?

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The political games that have to get played there.

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I imagine there's a lot of people in corporate

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who don't want to be associated with that either.

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Well, one, where are we still falling short, right?

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As leaders, what can we do to be better leaders?

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Two, how do we change the system?

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What types of things can we do as individuals in order to

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adjust those realities and circumstances

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so that people don't feel the need to do that anymore?

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As leaders, we can solve problems like that,

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but we have to be able to address them.

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We have to be willing to mastermind together and figure it out.

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So, Charles, again, thanks for inspiring me so much today on these.

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You said a lot of things that were just helpful

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because they resonate and they remind me of what I do and why I do it.

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And sometimes just that enforcement of principles

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gives us the courage to just do it another day, right?

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And to keep going.

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But sometimes we also learn nuances or like,

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you know what, I can visit my HR department and think about

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how do we make sure we make that we make sure our place

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doesn't become one where we start to lose sight of what matters most.

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So thank you for this.

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Any final thoughts you want to share as we wrap up today?

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It comes down to a very simple adage.

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There's there's never a traffic jam on the extra mile.

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Go the extra mile for your clients, go the extra mile for your employees.

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And you'll be amazed because your competitors won't.

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Whoa. I've never heard that adage.

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And that is an awesome adage.

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I'm definitely going to be borrowing that from you, Charles.

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So there's never a traffic jam on the extra mile.

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That principle again, rings super close to the heart

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of what first class business stands for.

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And we will see you guys on the next episode of Vision Pros Live.

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Thank you for being here today.

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I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.

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I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes

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continue to move forward.

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This is going to get more and more fun.

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We'll have more and more engagement as well.

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We'll invite people to participate in the show.

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And thank you for giving us your time and attention.

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Have an excellent time building out your vision

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and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.