Tell me about your vision.
Well, I've always, I always wanted to own my own company or run a company.
And I got into my early forties and realized I was not going to run somebody
else's company or a public company.
I didn't have the political skills for it.
Uh, I'm unwilling to do the necessary things in corporate world to succeed.
I'm unwilling to stab people in the back and toss them off the ladder.
So being unwilling to play those games, I had to chart my own path.
So I started my own business.
My father had his own business.
I grew up in it.
You know, we all, all of us kids worked in it, doing clerical stuff and sorting
and filing and this kind of thing.
Uh, when I became a professional, I realized I, I, my father and I would
not work well together.
So I, I, I decided to, I'd gone to corporate world.
I'd gone to corporate world for 15 years after my degrees.
And then I decided to start my own business.
So the wife and I started this, uh, a third of a century ago in 1991 and
have grown it ever since it's going to continue because I'm going to give it to
or sell it to my employees as I retire.
And so, uh, it will continue on hopefully.
And hopefully they'll be able to, uh, uh, garner as, as much out of it, uh, both
financially and in terms of, uh, satisfaction as I have over the last.
30 some odd years.
Awesome.
Let's talk about that.
Cause that's, uh, you did a great job of telling me about the story, uh, you
know, which is part of the vision, right?
Our vision can be, are we looking at our past or are we looking at our future?
Um, right.
And you can look at both.
I think I look fondly on a lot of the things of my past.
I also look at the past, the world to learn from history, my own mistakes
included, but I want to hear more about that front end, where are you going with
this?
You mentioned something cool.
You talked about selling your company to your employees.
Talk to me a little bit further about that.
And also if you'd like to, where's get payroll headed?
What are you doing with this?
Well, I could not have done this myself.
Okay.
It required my staff.
Um, most of them been with me quite a while.
I don't think we've hired anybody in four or five years.
Uh, so our turnover is very low and they've made it possible.
So why shouldn't they get the opportunity to profit from it even more so after I've
ceased to, uh, I'm not going to live forever.
Uh, nobody in my family is interested.
And I wouldn't really want somebody in my family taking over anyway.
Uh, I've seen too many businesses fail, uh, you know, shirt sleeves to shirt
sleeves in three generations.
Uh, I've, I've worked for two that have been owned by successive generations
and have destroyed the company, uh, at least two.
So I've been working with the staff for a number of years, uh, bringing
them up to speed on things.
Um, we're, we're almost there and, uh, we're moving the company virtual.
Uh, as we speak, uh, to cut down on overhead and to allow us to be, uh,
both more profitable and keep our prices down for our clients, which lends
itself to profitability, of course.
So, uh, they're going to get their chance over the next couple of years to take
ownership of the company, pay me out of the profits over the rest of my life.
Uh, if I live five years, they make a hell of a deal.
If I live 50, I make a good deal.
So I suspect they'll get the better deal in the end, but I won't care.
At that point, I won't care.
So
nice.
Well, I, I appreciate you talking about it.
It's something that's very important to us.
Visionaries listening in, you have the opportunity to look at that from
the get-go on your businesses.
I love the quote, begin with the end and mind.
Um, we do this first-class business as well.
Um, several of my employees are already one and 2% owners of the company.
And, and we build that based on a, uh, a vestment period.
They vest, um, new, um, we vest in two ways.
We vest based on tenure, how long people have been with us.
And we also vest opportunities based on results achieved.
Um, and so if somebody can achieve results exceptionally fast, I have no
problem, um, giving them a greater portion of, of, uh, what it is we're able to.
You know, to create together profitability.
Um, it's, there's a lot of ways to go into it.
So,
my right, my right-hand girl, I say girl, that's how I grew up.
If somebody takes that the wrong way, I'm sorry.
I love that.
Yeah.
You meant it completely endearing.
Um, so I love that.
I do.
That's, I learned that from my father.
He had the girls in the office.
I mean, that was just the way I grew up.
Anyway, she, uh, she's been with me 25 years and she already
owns 10% of the company.
So, yeah, that's awesome.
I mean, I, I couldn't do it without her.
She's just been, she'd been here forever.
Absolutely.
My, my, my wife, when she was still alive, referred to Debra as my workwife.
So,
that's good.
That's good.
I've, I've heard that as the,
and we went through all the stages of that.
We used to argue and now we, we no longer do.
Uh, she'd been known to walk out of the office on me and I've been known to walk
out of the office on her, but we haven't done that probably in 15 years.
So it was, it was a matter of learning, learning each other and learning the
compromises, uh, that needed to be to make our relationship work, just
like you do with a spouse.
It's huge.
Well, and, and I would say just like a lot of people used to do with, uh,
people used to do with spouses, you know, it's, I mean, we, we live in a,
in a society in a time where it's harder for people to appreciate conflict,
um, than ever before.
You know, conflict is not a bad thing, right?
Toxic conflict is, um, it's like negotiation.
People think that word means terroristic negotiations or, or hostile situations.
No negotiation means dialogue.
Um, right.
If we have the ability to engage in healthy dialogue and healthy conflict,
we can produce better results.
And you guys, you know, learned, uh, I just see a lot of companies that have
mastered the art of swiping right, right.
Or swiping left or well, I'll just hire somebody else on Fiverr or
Upwork for real cheap.
Um, you know, I don't have to overcome this with said individual.
And that is, that is a recipe for disaster for, if you want to create
stability, if you want to create loyalty.
So I love hearing about that.
That's really cool.
It is.
The institutional knowledge that my employees have is irreplaceable.
You know, you go through situations, you go through problems, you go
through crisis as you go through, uh, putting out fires, you learn from
those experience wisdom.
If you, if, if you wish.
Ah, you came full circle Charles.
Thank you.
And so that, that knowledge and that wisdom to let it go easily is so
detrimental to the firm and, and why would you do that?
For instance, uh, two to the number of years ago, a bereavement policy.
For our, for everybody.
Um, and it's whatever you need to, to say to somebody, you can only have
three days when they need two weeks and they're a valued employee.
Why would you do that?
You, you're going to let them go because they need an extra five or seven days
off because they had a tragedy in their life.
My, my person who handles all the HR and, and accounts payable and other
things, uh, when her father died, um, she was the one in the family that
had to do everything and it took her several weeks, but the cost of
replacing her as opposed to giving her two weeks of pay and I paid her.
It makes no sense.
So arbitrary things like that to, to terminate people over arbitrary minutia
and to waste all that institutional knowledge and wisdom is stupid.
Yeah, it is.
It is bad management.
And I've, I've been a critic.
I've, I've been a critic of American business management most of my life.
And properly so, cause most of it sucks.
So yeah, that's just one more, one more thing.
Don't, don't, don't do stupid things like that.
Good people are hard to find and good people with, with experience
are even harder to find and, and harder to build and expensive and valuable.
There's something you should clutch to your breast.
It's huge.
And you lived to the tell the tale.
Oh, that's exciting.
You've got this, you've got this, you've got this, you've got this, you've got
this business that's been around for more than a decade.
Visionary is listening in.
I talk about this a lot.
And it's not because of doom and gloom.
It's because if you want to overcome the odds, you have to do things that.
You have to do things that the people who are being subject to
the odds aren't willing to do.
96% of businesses lose within 10 years.
4% survive.
I've met so many business owners that have been at business
for longer than 10 years.
And most of them just have a higher threshold or tolerance for debt.
Most of them are still struggling to move things forward.
Most of them still haven't figured out the infrastructure that they need.
They're usually just a little bit more resilient than the rest.
So that doesn't down, doesn't downplay the importance of the 4%
who at least made it that far.
There's still virtues that we can learn from in that regard.
And why can't we look for more?
Why can't we see how we can make it better?
Why can't we see how we put that together as visionary leaders?
It's super important.
So it's Charles Reed and individuals like him that represent,
to me, the type of mentors that we need to be looking at and to
and realize, man, this guy's got a depth that we can learn from,
whether it's just participating with the services
and utilizing the services or it's diving in deeper that relationship
and seeing what else can you learn from somebody like this?
So take advantage of that opportunity.
Let's ask the question I want to.
We're out of time today.
So I won't ask it to be answered right now, Charles,
but all of us that don't like
the corporate mindset of backstabbing, right?
The political games that have to get played there.
I imagine there's a lot of people in corporate
who don't want to be associated with that either.
Well, one, where are we still falling short, right?
As leaders, what can we do to be better leaders?
Two, how do we change the system?
What types of things can we do as individuals in order to
adjust those realities and circumstances
so that people don't feel the need to do that anymore?
As leaders, we can solve problems like that,
but we have to be able to address them.
We have to be willing to mastermind together and figure it out.
So, Charles, again, thanks for inspiring me so much today on these.
You said a lot of things that were just helpful
because they resonate and they remind me of what I do and why I do it.
And sometimes just that enforcement of principles
gives us the courage to just do it another day, right?
And to keep going.
But sometimes we also learn nuances or like,
you know what, I can visit my HR department and think about
how do we make sure we make that we make sure our place
doesn't become one where we start to lose sight of what matters most.
So thank you for this.
Any final thoughts you want to share as we wrap up today?
It comes down to a very simple adage.
There's there's never a traffic jam on the extra mile.
Go the extra mile for your clients, go the extra mile for your employees.
And you'll be amazed because your competitors won't.
Whoa. I've never heard that adage.
And that is an awesome adage.
I'm definitely going to be borrowing that from you, Charles.
So there's never a traffic jam on the extra mile.
That principle again, rings super close to the heart
of what first class business stands for.
And we will see you guys on the next episode of Vision Pros Live.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes
continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.