38: How to Build Systems to Scale to a Million Dollar Business

Behind Their Success: Ep 38

Paden Squires: [00:00:00] Welcome to Behind Their Success. This podcast is for people who are feeling stuck on their entrepreneur journey or in their careers. It's for people who want to scale and grow their businesses, learn about the power of mindset, or they just know there's more out there and they want to start making changes.

Paden Squires: I'm Peyton Squires, the host of the podcast. I was never cut out to be an employee, and when I was an employee, I was bored out of my mind. So I made a plan. I studied and passed the CPA exam in eight months while working, all with the end goal in mind of quitting my job and starting my own business. I did that in 2014, and it has been an amazing wild ride since.

Paden Squires: So now let's hear from other entrepreneurs, and what mindsets, and probably more important, what actions they have taken that have created and led to their success.

Paden Squires: Hello everybody. It is Paden Squires, the host of the podcast. I wanted to kind of introduce this episode before we jumped into it. I had a conversation with Dominic Rubino, it was a great conversation and I didn't realize [00:01:00] coming into that podcast that, um, the vast amount of experience that he has had in different business ventures, you know, for example, of having, getting, you know, getting a business to 120 million in annual sales.

Paden Squires: Also working with the likes of Brian Tracy, who's a huge figure in the self development space, but being business partners with him and helping grow one of those businesses. It was a really great conversation. Um, you know, Dominic is a guy that has tons of experience and, and really perspective to share, um, for other entrepreneurs.

Paden Squires: So I'm really excited to release this episode. I hope you guys enjoyed it.

Paden Squires: I am a business owner and I,I've just always had that angle. my first company ever, Payton, I installed Christmas lights. Yeah, but I'm in the Pacific Northwest. It's amazing. I'm even alive.

Dominic Rubino: Cause I had a staple gun. I had my dad's ladder and it's always raining here. I'm up there as a high school student. I'm like, yeah, I'll install your lights. I should have died 50 times doing that.

Dominic Rubino: and [00:02:00] then I went into house painting, which I think, you know, it's got a low barrier to entry, which has got some funny stories on its own. And, then I did a bunch of things. I had a chance to finish school, went to university, but I'll tell you, looking at what I do now, I'm an entrepreneur.

Dominic Rubino: It's taken me a long time to say the words I'm an entrepreneur, but I went to school for archeology. Yeah, that's the, see that look on your face is what my parents were doing for years. 

Dominic Rubino: but I've always had the entrepreneurial itch.

Paden Squires: So you've, uh, you know, you started, Christmas lights, got the house painting. what was next on the list? Where'd you go? It's funny 

Dominic Rubino: cause the house painting is what got me into other things. I did a lot of door knocking. I'm a fearless cold caller. I don't know where it came from.

Dominic Rubino: I just don't care. I walk up to anybody anywhere and start talking. As you can tell, I realized I was going up and asking people if they wanted painting, but they would say, Hey, can you do gutters? Can you do windows? And I'm like, sure. And you know, of course what happens next is if I do my windows, you know what, maybe you could do the fascia.

Dominic Rubino: Can you do the trim? So I ended up backing into it. So I'd walk up to homes and whatever they needed done, that was my pitch at the front door. Hey, I noticed your deck is falling apart. I'm standing on it and I'm [00:03:00] sinking as we're speaking, So I started fixing decks and doing a lot of outdoor stuff.

Dominic Rubino: And then. And then, you know, university and college caught back up with me, so I kind of left it, but I stayed in that industry in and out for a long time. Then I went to corporate, yeah. And corporate was good for me, but I should never be a, I'm not a corporate guy. 

You know, it's kind of interesting here where Dominic talks about how he had never felt like an entrepreneur and didn't call himself one for a long time. And, you know, it took me a while to get to that point too. You know, I started my business in 2014 and, um,  man, it was probably three or four years before I would say I'd started calling myself an entrepreneur.

and I would say calling myself like a professional entrepreneur, and really taking all of that seriously. it's something I definitely relate on here. and then also, you know, we both kind of had a shared experience here where the corporate jobs, um, just wasn't for us, you know, it certainly wasn't for me as, as being stuck in kind of a, a cubicle and, and being told and what to do all the time and kind of micromanaged as a [00:04:00] guy with, you know, You know, certain types of personality with it, with a guy, with an entrepreneur type personality, it was just something that I couldn't do for the longterm or certainly didn't envision my future there.

When I had my last real job, it was one that I actually got paid. I was getting paid the most money I'd ever had in my life, but I was absolutely miserable and bored out of my mind. I wasn't being challenged. And that is something that I've learned over the years that I need to be challenged, for me to.

get close to some sort of contentment and kind of happiness day to day. And I, and I'm finding that balance still today of, of being challenged, but then also making sure I'm content in the right areas too. 

Dominic Rubino: I was blue suit, white shirt, red tie guy at Sprint. I was selling corporate long distance, which for a lot of people listening, they're like, what do you mean selling long distance?

Dominic Rubino: It comes for free. What's long, long distance. Yeah. So in those days, long distance calling, like there were different rates, state to state, country to [00:05:00] country. I used to sell one 800 numbers. That was a thing. I'm old. Yeah. Toll free numbers with track back. Oh yeah. Yeah. But that, you know what?

Dominic Rubino: That's what actually, that's what got me into business coaching right there. because they, realized I had a knack for working with small businesses, so I became the regional manager for the middle of the country, small towns, Small towns with green silos or water towers. That was my specialty.

Dominic Rubino: That's where they send me. And I just learned to work with trades companies that usually were doing the, um, the low voltage electrical installations for the phone company. So I went in there as their sales manager, but I ended up being their business coach, trying to turn them around and get them to use Sprint.

Dominic Rubino: And that's how business coaching started. 

Dominic Rubino: so I was hating the corporate life.

Dominic Rubino: It just wasn't me. Like it really burned. Like my stomach wasn't good the whole time. And so I started selling used junk on eBay. junk with a QUE at the end, I was selling like used led calculators, Coleco vision, head to head football, the one with the little led lights, but I'd buy them at a [00:06:00] garage sale for a buck and sell them on eBay for 40.

Dominic Rubino: So it was good money. I just couldn't find enough product. because I was a business coach and I'd been studying a lot of business coaching, business improvement, I love learning about the business of business. So long story short, but I turned that into an online bookseller and then I turned land into a mail order pharmacy and that mail order pharmacy, I eventually sold, I had a number in my head and when we hit that number, I sold the company.

Dominic Rubino: Because you're going to ask when we hit 120 million in sales, I sold the company. 

Paden Squires: So 120 million in a lifetime. No annual sales annual sales. Yeah, 

Dominic Rubino: it was great. 

Paden Squires: Yeah. So was it uh kind of the business model like a low margin high volume?

Paden Squires: Oh my 

Dominic Rubino: gosh No, when we did it the margins were redonkulous ridiculous margins. 

Paden Squires: Yeah, the only reason I asked that is because I got, I have a client that's in that space. that,they're that real low margin volume. 

Dominic Rubino: they're trying, they can undercut anybody. Oh, were they nutraceuticals?

Dominic Rubino: Were they doing more, nutritional supplements and things like [00:07:00] that? 

Paden Squires: no, 

Dominic Rubino: they're like a traditional pharmacy, but they can get, they're basically They're probably making the money on the prescription or the service charge. no. Yeah. No, we were in the, definitely in the heyday of that.

Dominic Rubino: The industry has changed a lot. we were a legitimate pharmacy for anybody wondering. Yes. We tried to sell, Peyton. I'm going to call it lifestyle medication. 

Paden Squires: but 

Dominic Rubino: we had to get out of that business because our employees were robbing us blind.

Dominic Rubino: At that time, one pill was like 50 bucks at a concierge at a hotel. And so our employees, I would literally invoice stuff at the back door. We'd walk it upstairs to the cage and recount. And there was stuff missing. we had call center employees that were MOAs, pharmacy techs, and just people working in a call center.

Dominic Rubino: And then we had pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. And these people have, by their dress, you could tell they were from a conservative faith. I'm just going to say very ultra conservative, right? Hijabs and things like robbing me blind. And so I just stopped carrying the product. And, what was interesting there though, is that I learned the hard way.

Dominic Rubino: To [00:08:00] concentrate on recurring revenue items because you could buy let's say quote unquote lifestyle medications once and never buy it for me again But if you buy for me for high blood pressure or diabetes reasons or any sort of aging things Cholesterol you're gonna buy for me forever. And so we started to view the prescription as a pre purchase order And that way we began to, and I want to say this respectfully because I believe it to be respectful, but we started to farm our database and that's what allowed us to get so large.

Paden Squires: When you say farm your database,tell me a little bit. Let's 

Dominic Rubino: say that you bought a blood pressure medications. unless you leave this earth, you're going to be buying high blood pressure medications for a long time. So we would find ways to create relationships with you. Long term so one of the things we did is our call center agents had no time restrictions on their call not at all They were there to develop rapport We also had our call center set up that somebody could call in and request a certain agent 

Dominic Rubino:  and we tried to be respectful of their situation. you have to be very respectful because people were calling because their union had shut down. They had [00:09:00] no more benefits.

Dominic Rubino: They were on social security, had no money left and they're trying to buy medications to, really to stay alive. They were in a horrible, high stress situation. So we have to really align ourselves with their needs. 

Paden Squires: just looking at like the whole pharmacy thing from a business model perspective, right?

Paden Squires: it's basically like a subscription time 

Dominic Rubino: off, right? Or, but we've, we viewed it as a subscription model. Our competitors didn't, our competitors tended to have more of a smash and grab approach where we had a develop relate. Can I tell you one of the greatest marketing things we ever did totally by accident was actually two.

Dominic Rubino: One of them is if you ordered from us, we sent you those, those pill containers that say Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. So we started to send those to people with every order and we just bought them from like the promo company. 

Dominic Rubino: Ridiculously low for the returns. as so happens, we ran out one day and our phone started lighting up, where's my pill box?

Dominic Rubino: like, okay, well, we can't forget that. so that was really good. And then the second thing we did, which was by accident is I had playing cards made with our logo on it. Oh my goodness. What I didn't [00:10:00] realize is that seniors at seniors homes or camping, we're sitting there for hours, playing rummy across from each other, looking at the logo of our company.

Dominic Rubino: and what would happen is after any major holiday, our sales would spike and you could see it. Cause if you had, let's say a unique last name, Squires, let's say is a unique last name. So we have one Squires in the database before Thanksgiving, within a week after Thanksgiving, we'd have seven. You're like, well, something's working.

Dominic Rubino: They must play cards. So that was one of our tracking. So we, and you'll like this as a CPA. We relied heavily on data to make those decisions. 

Paden Squires: Yeah. that's really interesting. You say, you made the comment that your competitors didn't see it as a subscription type model and you're right there, they were seeing, especially online, Or, a disc pharmacy. They're seeing it as just a transactional relationship where you guys 

Dominic Rubino: tried to build a brand. Yeah, we worked real hard at that. And, we could have done better for sure. but I got it to 120 million in sales before I rung the bell and sold it. [00:11:00] 

Paden Squires: That's, that's not nothing.

You know, here at this section, we were talking about the power of subscriptions type models, retainer tops models, recurring type business models. You may just call this a subscription model, but, um, from a business perspective, that model as an entrepreneur can be extremely powerful for several reasons.

One, is if you have a recurring revenue type model, you're not constantly looking for new clients, right? You're not always having to hunt down new clients because you have clients that you've acquired in the past that continue to pay. The other huge benefit of it is, well, one of the other huge benefits is the predictable revenue.

It's a whole lot easier to run and manage and grow a business if If you know exactly how much revenue is going to come in on a monthly basis. And, and when you get into the subscription type model, you can get really accurate, um, on revenue forecasting and, and knowing when and how you can expand. [00:12:00] And the final big benefit is, you know, these businesses are just worth more money.

You know, a subscription type revenue model is, um, an attractive acquisition for other companies, right? They're looking for cashflow and a subscription type model is perfect. So, so there's a whole lot of benefits of getting your, um, business to a subscription type model. I mean, think IE, any streaming TV streaming, you know, Netflix or Hulu or whatever.

Those are really massive businesses that are run purely on a subscription model.

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Paden Squires: So,that's not your only success in business, right? didn't you move on to a, another business? Yeah, that's right. 

Dominic Rubino: So I was looking for a company to buy after I sold that. And you know,there's an underlying thing here. I sold that because it was a family business. And so my cousin and I weren't seeing eye to eye anymore.

Dominic Rubino: I had the confidence cause I'd been a business coach. I was a business guy. I'm like, I'll just go reinvent myself again. So I ended up buying,there's a gentleman named Brian Tracy, who's a very famous author. He's a little bit older now, but still wise and people quote him all the, yeah, really solid stuff.

Dominic Rubino: Right.some people would recognize his books, like eat that [00:14:00] frog,the psychology of selling the psychology of achievement, a lot of really important mindset. Yeah. stuff is holding us back in this world. And so he would be like the Tony Robbins of the serious business people, Really serious business people.

Dominic Rubino: And so,he had started a franchise, but it wasn't doing very well because he traveled a lot and he couldn't support the franchisees. So I bought that from him. He had six franchisees. And by the time I sold that, it took about 13 years, I got it up to 230, 237 franchises around the world.

Dominic Rubino: Yeah. Fun. It was a business coaching company. which is crazy. I'm a business coach. I started training people to be business coaches at one point. My title in the company is I was the coaches, coach. So that was my official title 

Dominic Rubino: but 

Paden Squires: that's really where I learned about, business and strategic planning. That's really where I got traction on that Yeah, that's kind of interesting You know, that's That's a really high level interesting experience of not a lot of people really have like when you say franchises You know usually cap out at i'm sure the [00:15:00] vast majority can cap out a very few what do you think made you guys difference?

Paden Squires: Different on that growth path.yeah. What made us different tenacity Brian Tracy's name, I would say this to Brian as well. His name was good, he wasn't the hotshot anymore. He had been, on kind of a decline brand wise. so we weren't getting a lot of magnetism, if that makes sense, like it just wasn't attracting a bunch of people, but I'll tell you what, made the difference for us was the power of strategic planning.

Paden Squires: I've got a number of books behind me, but one of them is called scaling up, which is written by really smart guy named Vern Harnish. And I use that actually at the pharmacy. That's a strategic planning system. It's really a way for an owner to put their plan on paper and then imagine cutting that piece of paper up into a bunch of little bits and handing one to each department head.

Paden Squires: But we all have the same piece of paper, right? So that would be a good way to say scaling up, scaling up is right for that size of company around 120 million, not that we started at one 20, cause we started at zero, but that was the only one that was around at the time. And then the other one is traction.

Paden Squires: [00:16:00] And if you can see my screen, that one's written by Gino Wickman and that's the EOS model. It goes by a couple of different names. people might be doing their VTO, which is their vision traction organizer or having L10 meetings. there's a bunch of keywords there. I had two L10 meetings this morning.

Paden Squires:  Yeah. listen, as a business coach, I have about 15 a week, right? Because that's what business coaching is. It's just, I'm so glad you did that. And you know what? You're a CPA. You're a business professional. You understand putting systems in place, right? Both of those are systems for a business owner to get in control or ahead of their business.

Paden Squires: And I, I wouldn't start a company or run a company without them 

In this clip, we're talking about the book traction by Gino Wickman. that whole book is about. called EOS, the Entrepreneur Operating System. It's a book that was written with small businesses in mind and realizing that small businesses don't necessarily have a process of how they go about running their business, having their meetings and conducting [00:17:00] organizational charts and having accountability.

So as a small business and that one that is growing. This book is a must read of, okay, how do we actually implement, how do we hold people accountable? How do we all get on the same page and moving in the right direction as a business? Which, you know, isn't super difficult when you're just a couple people, but as you start to grow, you know, to five to 10 plus employees, this type of stuff becomes very important into just the day to day running your business.

So, there's a whole model built around inside this book. You'll learn a lot about, and, And ultimately you can hire outside consultants that come in and help you implement this model. Um, so something as a business owner, um, if that's something to struggle with, definitely something to check out.

Paden Squires:  That's kind of interesting. I think, I've ran my own practice and in various stages and grown in, and I'm 10 years in, the first, Eight years or something like that. I didn't treat my business as a business.

Paden Squires: I treated my business [00:18:00] as a something that was my job that I made money at that. I didn't went and did other things, you know, why I'm a CPA to see if I used it to then. Go do other investments, build other businesses, or I've even built other businesses and sold them. but, it's pretty wild that my main business, the one that probably gives me the main point of leverage, that I didn't do that many systems, Bill.

Paden Squires: Yeah, it's the plumber story, right? The plumber with the leaky toilet. Yeah. The roofer with the leaky roof. don't want to be the business coach without a business plan. 

Paden Squires:  and I think that was just me. It just never was like, Hey. It wasn't the vehicle I saw or wanted to necessarily like, I even had a hard time calling myself an accountant for some reason, right?

Paden Squires: It was more of like, I'm the entrepreneur and I'm the,more of the, investor and that but I've had a real shift in that in the last two years of really like, wow, how about I spend some time building this and building it properly. So I can't even step [00:19:00] further away and, build a machine that doesn't necessarily need, asthma.

Paden Squires: That's right. And that takes, doesn't that take a certain amount of ego? Yeah. And here's what I mean. You have to have enough ego to set your ego aside and say other people in my company can handle that. 

Dominic Rubino: Yeah, 

Paden Squires: and I've got to have faith that they can do it. They might get it wrong. 

Dominic Rubino: Okay, 

Paden Squires: or they might get it so wrong.

Paden Squires: They do it better than me. How about that? Yeah. And some of the best piece of advice I've ever gotten around that. It's as soon as somebody can do something like as 80%, as well as you can, let them do it. Let them run. I couldn't agree with you more. That's the hard part though, is trusting that, you know, and you have to verify, you can't just delegate to somebody and let them go.

Paden Squires: Cause then you're setting them up for failure, but that like easy transition, handoff, lots of meetings, which people don't want to hear. They don't do that. And yet, yeah. People don't want to hear it and yet guys like you and I keep saying it. So there must be some truth in that. And imagine if people could get meetings figured out short, punchy, effective meetings for making [00:20:00] decisions, meetings to hold each other accountable back to that piece of paper.

Paden Squires: Right back to the strategic plan. What are we doing here? We're working on the strategic plan. Yeah. it's a, it's amazing. I've had several things shifting in the last of man, even the last two months, I would say in my business. And it's really come back to that. So where it's me. My team and like we had a fantastic L10 meeting this morning where it's what are we doing?

Paden Squires: Vision casting setting, it's like this is what we want to happen this quarter We're going to hold each other accountable and really just making sure We're all on the same page and we know where we're going and we have dates to hold each other accountable On where they need to be so can I translate that the way I hear it from other business owners?

Paden Squires: So the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. 

Dominic Rubino: Yeah. 

Paden Squires: and, it comes back to Dominic where it's almost every human problem is just like miscommunication, right? I, as a business owner have some vision for my business and where it's going and, I [00:21:00] have great members on my team, but I don't communicate it or cast that vision or even set expectations, me bring us back for a second because people listening right now, my audience is contractors, right?

Paden Squires: Yeah. And so like, Hey, I could tell you my vision. That retaining wall has got to go up in three days. what are you talking about vision? You guys are all like up in the air, but that's not what we're talking about. Our vision is, it might be as simple as, this is called Rubino Landscape Construction Design.

Paden Squires: My name is on this and it's going to be the best. That's our vision is that we're going to do great work or we're going to do civil corporate work. Or if you're a cabinet maker, our vision is that we're going to build affordable homes for great families. So guys, that's what we're working on here today.

Paden Squires: So when we've got a problem with the HOA, cause they won't give us access, we're trying to build affordable homes for fantastic families. That's the vision. It doesn't have to be fancy. It just has to be like a rallying cry that everybody knows. And as the owner, I'm the one who has to, I have to write it on the flag.

Paden Squires: I have to find a flagpole. I got to raise up the flag and I got to [00:22:00] point at the flag. That's really my job all the time. yeah, that's good. That's good stuff for sure.

In this clip, we're talking about the book traction by Gino Wickman. Um, that whole book is about. called EOS, the Entrepreneur Operating System. It's a book that was written with small businesses in mind and realizing that small businesses don't necessarily have a process of how they go about running their business, having their meetings and conducting organizational charts and having accountability.

So as a small business and that one that is growing. This book is a must read of, okay, how do we actually implement, how do we hold people accountable? How do we all get on the same page and moving in the right direction as a business? Which, you know, isn't super difficult when you're just a couple people, but as you start to grow, you know, to five to 10 plus employees, this type of stuff becomes very important into just the day to day running your [00:23:00] business.

So, there's a whole model built around inside this book. You'll learn a lot about, and, And ultimately you can hire outside consultants that come in and help you implement this model. Um, so something as a business owner, um, if that's something to struggle with, definitely something to check out.

Paden Squires: so let me ask you when you look at a company And they're going through some sort of transition. Let's say it's the normal Parents want to sell it to the kids kind of business. It doesn't matter whether it's mother to daughter, father to son, aunt to uncle.

Paden Squires: it doesn't matter. Do you see a difference in the companies that are run on systems versus the companies that are run on random and the kind of valuations and stresses on the people? because when we talk about entrepreneurship, it's not about creating chaos.

Paden Squires: It's about taking chaos and turning it into systems. Yeah, 

Dominic Rubino: absolutely. 

Paden Squires: and that's the issue is that,many entrepreneurs are the people that go out there and take the chances and move things around, but they're not necessarily the system. I mean, like those things can go hand in hand, but often they don't.

Paden Squires: is it often the entrepreneur is the chaos maker to some degree. And often they need that integrator [00:24:00] or whatever right upside them to try to make some order out of it. I think that is a struggle. And often, often the entrepreneur is that, Almost anxious, get after it, get things done type person.

Paden Squires: Generally, no, that's not everybody, but like, 

Paden Squires: So that's an empire builder that, that to me would be a great empire builder. And you mentioned the word integrator. that's what we do as business coaches is we help that entrepreneur filter through that, that whole like splatter everything against the wall and say, well, let's put some systems in place, 

Paden Squires: So for instance, they'll say, look, I'm trying to grow this business, but I can't hire anybody good to help. How many times have you and I heard that? No, I mean, that's constant, especially in the last few years. And yet there are great people out there.

Paden Squires: So why can some companies find them and others can't, I actually learned this. I was speaking at a trade show and there's a gentleman who is a first generation immigrant and oh my God, he has built himself an empire. And so he was talking about people and recruiting and then, and I was talking about, operational stuff in my breakout room, this was at a conference.

Paden Squires: So we met up at the bar as you do afterwards. And we're [00:25:00] talking and he had such a great way of saying it goes, Dominic, when it comes to people,you know, the owner, you've either hired the wrong people or you've hired the right people and you trained them wrong. Like just straight cut to the point. I like that bluntness.

Paden Squires: Right. So I'll ask anybody here who's saying it's hard to find good people. Let me ask you, do you have an onboarding system? Once you find somebody good, let's say just five out of 10 good. Can you onboard them? Right? So there are seven or eight out of 10, or are you just going to suffer the consequences of a mediocre hire who just comes and punches the clock and doesn't really know what's going on.

Paden Squires: Yeah. And you don't have to live that way. Yeah. And I think the overarching point to all of that is It's your responsibility. no one else is going to fix it. It's no one else's business. It's not ultimately, if things aren't going away in your business and going how you want them to go, it's nobody else's responsibility, but yours.

Paden Squires: It's some deficiency in your business that you have the control and the lever to change something. To make that not be the case. That's when we [00:26:00] like place that blame on the economy or, you know,say through COVID or whatever, there were jobs every, you know, labor demand and all that stuff. We give away the power, right?

Paden Squires: You give away all the power to outside forces and then you just throw up your hand and say, well, can't do it. It's about the mindset of success. And what you just said there is so true. The cavalry is not coming. I'm it, the strongest leaders have always sought wise counsel. Yeah. Hands down strong leaders. Don't just exist on their own. Even a self, if you talk about what a self made man is. There's people in the background that they rely on for information, right? And so if you're an owner right now and you're wanting to grow, if you're serious about growing the business, who do you call when you need the unfair advantage, when you want somebody who's only concern is you and your wellbeing and your company's output.

Paden Squires:  And that's, that's either coaching or living in community. Like for me, it's, I'm a member of a mastermind group and man, that [00:27:00] sucker's grown significantly. And at this point, there's 40, I don't know what, it's 40 ish guys.

Paden Squires: And they're all successful business owners around the country. And I tell you what, I could call any one of those guys and they would pick up the phone and talk to me about my business with zero, like there's nothing in it, Other than they're a part of this group and this group all helps each other get where we want to go.

Paden Squires: And so that comes back to intent. Yeah. Intent. Yeah. we run masterminds for the same reason you have to have people that you could call. And just say, it's not a normal conversation when you sit down at the dinner table tonight. So he's Hey, how's your day at work? You just can't say to your kids.

Paden Squires: we're having trouble making payment, right? what you're not going to sleep that night. Cause you and your wife are going to have a very long and painful talk. But you and I could call each other. I go, Peyton, dude, I am having trouble making payroll. And you go, Hey, Kate, Dom, hang on backup.

Paden Squires: What about this? What about that? What about 

Dominic Rubino: this? 

Paden Squires: And you and I, because we're both business guys, we just have, it's just a conversation and I [00:28:00] would welcome the call from you to say, Hey, Dom, I got this HR thing a lot. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, or an operational thing, just whatever the question is, but I don't leave the call and go that Peyton's a dummy.

Paden Squires: I'm like, oh my God, I can't wait to return the favor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's intent. That's pure, And again,you talked about you're in a mastermind group, people that have like a servant leadership type of mentality. I think I understand that more than others. Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure.

Paden Squires: this isn't, my mastermind group, I didn't start it or really run it, but we've done a really good job of filtering out. Or, you know, being very specific about the type of people that come into that community. and sometimes people get in there and they wash out because,It all plays out over time. but it's that pure intent that the people that are there on purpose. Oh my. What a great thing. So what I talk about is running your business on purpose. 'cause it took me a long time to get there as well. I mean, when I was a kid, stapling Christmas lights to roofs, I wasn't, I was just, I don't know, try to get another gig, trying to make a buck.

Paden Squires: Right. , try to make a buck, get another gig. This [00:29:00] might be fun, but when I decided to stop playing at being a business owner is when I started studying business. And that's actually, that took me down the path of becoming a business coach. I wasn't born a business coach. 

 Now in the conversation here between me and Dominic talking about seeking counsel and, and, and outside, um, outside help. Um, that's, that's so key and so key in my growth. I've seen that as an entrepreneur over the years, the more and more money I've invested in coaching and mastermind groups and, uh, reading books and listening to podcasts, um, the more and more I've done that, the more and more skilled I've become and able to grow my business.

Cause it's truly like the, the biggest. bottleneck in your business is the leader of the business. It always is. Um, and if, if something isn't happening, you know, ultimately you as the entrepreneur are responsible and you as the entrepreneur have the responsibility to figure out how to make that difference.[00:30:00] 

And so the only way I know how to do that is to continue to add skills, to be continually learning and surrounding myself with people that have done all the things that. I want to do or I aspire to do, um, once you get around those type of people and you talk to them and they'll share with you how they do things, um, you can make massive jumps ahead in a quick amount of time, um, by surrounding yourself with other winners.

Paden Squires: you know, Steven Pressfield, he's an author. He's one of my favorite authors. He has a book, called turning pro. and that's exactly what the book's about. This guy was, I don't know, 50 or something before he released his first book.

Paden Squires: And now he's a well run out. He wrote, uh, the legend of bagger bank. Oh my gosh. We were just talking about that. I was in Denver this weekend and my son goes, I'm going to watch the legend of bagger. Yeah, but he's like an amazing,author, really all in all kinds of facts. It's, but turning pro is one of my favorite books.

Paden Squires: Wow. [00:31:00] Okay. Thank you. All about, okay. we're professionals. We are professional accountants. We're professional, doctors will stop playing around things, right? What would a professional do? And you just sit. And he says this, frankly, in the book, he's you set your ass in the you do the work and you stop playing around.

Paden Squires: And that it's, and he talks about it, he names it almost, it's like this, he calls it the resistance, right? Like for him as a writer is this resistance to setting down and, like writing the book, Every single day. And they put it in the time. The discipline. Yes. And that's, there's a whole level of tension, a whole nother level of tensionality, discipline we go from amateurism to professional.

Paden Squires: So I don't want this to sound like, a glad handed view of business coaching, but do you know what a business coach does? Councils, they just don't let you get away with it. Yeah. If you said your goal is to build, I'm just going to say, build a pool in your backyard because it has nothing to do with anything.

Paden Squires: Right.your business coach is going to [00:32:00] say, let's have a meeting every two weeks and talk about how you come with the plan. And you're like, yeah, okay, whatever. Sounds good. that's the goal and your coach is going to hold you to that. Did you get a permit? Do you have the plan? Did you talk to whoever else is important?

Paden Squires: Where are you going to put the pool? What does it look like? And you think to yourself, I can put a pool in my backyard. I'm using a very dumb example because I don't want it to be business specific. But the fact that you have a meeting with your coach at whatever, maybe weekly or every two weeks or your mastermind group, they're going to say to you at some point, Hey Payton, how's that?

Paden Squires: Oh yeah, I know I'm not doing that anymore. why? Why would you have a goal in the first place? What changed? And so business coaches or mastermind group, however you look for outside perspective helps you shorten timeframes. Yeah. Oh yeah. No, exactly. Yeah, absolutely. from either, either outside people or outside information, like a book can save you three years, from, one paragraph.

 Just to follow up on that comment there about Steven Pressfield's book, Turning Pro, he also wrote the book War of Arts. You know, it's really become one of my [00:33:00] favorite authors over the year. They're both short books. I really highly, highly encourage you read, read them. Um, they'll give you a lot of perspective change around your work and how you go about it.

But I thought there was, this is cool. A little overview summed up, I read about turning pro, um, that kind of does a good job of summing up the whole book was what we get when we turn pro is we find our power. We find our will and our voice and we find our self respect. We become who we always were, but had until then been afraid to embrace that and live that out.

And that's really what that book's really all about, Turning Pro. It's about becoming a professional. And what comes along with that is a whole lot of intentionality and discipline. But becoming a professional in every area of our life that we want to have success in. 

Paden Squires: I consider myself really a lifeline learner. I got to read tons of books, podcasting, you know, all those types of things. And I can remember pointing to specific books, [00:34:00] 7, 8 years ago of like, I remember reading that book and I implemented X, Y, Z out of it and it changed things.

Paden Squires: What one early in my process I think was, The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. Oh, okay. this was, man, this was probably eight, nine years ago. but it, The whole concept of that book, if you know anything about it, it's like, Hey, okay, let's say you have, let's say you have four hours and that's it.

Paden Squires: Okay. You don't have any more. What do you do? What do you work on? And then the whole concept is we'll just do that and delegate and eliminate everything else. Everything else. Yeah. And it's not that you only work four hours. it's the focus The intentionality of like, ifif you only had four hours, you're working on these things.

Paden Squires: That's what you should work, work on the first things first. you've heard the analogy, I'm sure. And some people have heard it in different places, right? About there's a professor at the front of the room. It's a first year class and in front of him is a table. And there's those big, ridiculous mayonnaise jars in front of him.

Paden Squires: Or let's say pickle jar. You're down in Missouri. It's a big [00:35:00] pickle jar next to the pickle jar. He's got a, a pile of rocks. It's got a pile of pebbles. It's got a pile of gravel, a pile of sand and a big pitcher of water. Have you ever heard this story? I have an idea where it's going. Yeah. let's do this.

Paden Squires: and it relates right back to strategic planning, but the challenge he puts to this first year university class, it's okay. I want somebody to come down here and get all of these items inside this big pickle jar, massive pickle jar, right? The first kid comes down, he's like, well, here's what I'm going to put in the water and the sand at the same time.

Paden Squires: And then I'll put in the gravel and the pebbles. And what happens of course, is. Suddenly the jar is full and he goes backwards, right? He goes, I'm going to put in the water first and then the sand and then the gravel and then the pebbles start to overflow. He's okay, fail. Call somebody else. Call somebody else.

Paden Squires: Call somebody else. Nobody can get it. And the professor says, this is how to make this work. He takes an empty pickle jar and first he puts in the rocks, the big rocks. And then he puts in the pebbles and he shakes it and the pebbles fill in the spaces in between looks full. How can you possibly get any more in there?

Paden Squires: And he goes, hold on now, [00:36:00] let's put in the gravel. And he does the same thing. He puts in the gravel and he shakes it. And the gravel fills in the spaces between the rocks and the pebbles. And then he does the same thing with the sand. And then he says to the class, is it possible to get anything else in there?

Paden Squires: And the class is like, there's no way you can get anything else in there. He says, well, now I'm going to put in the water. And the water fills the spaces between the sand, the gravel, the pebbles and the rocks. And the point of that story is from the wisdom of forever or a business coaching is you have to work on the priorities first.

Paden Squires: What comes first is the rocks, those big rocks. And for a lot of it's family, it's faith, fitness, finance. There you go. You just wrapped up everything you and I live for. Yeah, and we talk about it, you know talk about on this podcast because it you know We call it living healthy wealthy and wise right?

Paden Squires: That's what we're trying to create a healthy wealthy I love that, especially the more you go into go into business like it's so easy to get distracted right and every day Alex Ramos, I always talk about Alex [00:37:00] Ramos because I listen to a lot of stuff, but he talks about the woman in red dress, right?

Paden Squires: The attractive, like, as a business owner, there's all these other opportunities that are always around you. And they look attractive, right? Because, you're doing your thing and you're like, oh, I could go over here and do this thing and make as much money with less effort. But often we find out that attractive girl in the red dress is Problems.

Paden Squires: It's problems. This is ignorance. we have like Irrational optimism because we don't understand the problems. We think we do. Right.As you go up and grow your business even more, there becomes even more attractive opportunities, right?

Paden Squires: at first you see this 5, 000 a month opportunity and like, that's attractive, but as you grow up and grow your business more and more, like you start to get 50, 000 opportunities and like those other opportunities become more and more attractive and it becomes more and more important to stay focused. brutally focused. And that's the hard part that the real hard part here is saying, no, you have [00:38:00] to say no. Or I have to say no to about 99 percent of the things that cross my desk. And then that other 1 percent is no, not now. one of them is emails.

Paden Squires: If you send me an email, I view that as a 15 minute work order. And so now I've hired, I have an assistant. Who handles my emails. second thing I did after I hired my assistant is I hired her an assistant. Wow. Because I want a dollar cost average her up. the assistant I've got right now is probably the best EA I've ever had in my life.

Paden Squires: It's like having a grizzly bear in your corner fighting over the last salmon in the stream. She's awesome. And when I got her, I thought, okay, she's so good. I have to get her an assistant. Cause I can't have her digging through the sand. using the rocks and sand and pebbles. I need her high level with me and she's fantastic.

Paden Squires: and i'm still learning by the way, but i'm building this to be another this is a business podcast I'm, not ashamed to say it This is going to be another multi million dollar business through helping other people I view my role in the world is I want to throw enough value at the world that i'm happy with the overspray You That my [00:39:00] family is happy with the fine mist that comes off my effort, think about that challenge.

Paden Squires: So every day I get up and I've got to throw enough value at the world that I just get the overspray. is all about serving them, but giving value.

Paden Squires: Like you can do whatever you want. You can get whatever you want, as long as you are serving people in creating access value. so if you were to go back to the beginning, go back to that guy, stapling, Christmas lights. Yeah. And could give him one piece of advice.

Paden Squires: What would it be? the funny one would be find a way to say, to stay in size 32 pants. That would be, that'd be the first one. We can get you there. I don't want to be there anymore. I do. I do lots of power lifting. So anyways, okay. So, that's the first thing that came to my mind. You know what? I should have stayed in a couple of other businesses longer.

Paden Squires: I only gave you a smattering of the companies I was in. One of the ones that I gave up that I shouldn't have was a vending machine business. Those are silent soldiers just making you money everywhere. The other thing I should have done [00:40:00] is invested in every single piece of real estate I saw.

Paden Squires: My gosh, what a, I'm a dummy. And I'm a dummy right now for not doing one today, to doing a real estate transaction today.and, you know, you go look at really successful people. It doesn't matter the most successful CPA, lawyer, stockbroker, entrepreneur like us. What do they do when they make a whack of cash?

Paden Squires: They go invested in real estate. Why didn't I start there? Yeah. Yeah. And I tell you what, my only regrets in real estate is a guy that's done, I haven't done a ton of it. I've definitely, it's been a significant. Path of mine, but like my only regrets in real estate is all the properties I sold. You know what I mean?

Paden Squires: Like every property I have seen in my life, I look back and I'm like, man, I wish I still, I know they're doing a land assembly. You know, I bought a house, bought a threeplex, a house with three suites in it because that's all I could afford at the time. And I thought, Oh, I'm going to, there's only four houses, the way the block was organized.

Paden Squires: I'm going to buy the neighbors as they come up. And I did it and I ended up selling that So they did something called a land [00:41:00] assembly. Yeah, which is like somebody went to buy build a tower on that light on that land. huh. And you get a premium when somebody else is in the tower. Yeah. sorry, let me rephrase that.

Paden Squires: Somebody else got a premium for that. And it could have been your premium. It was not my premium. Yeah. So I'm still learning, but I tell you, I also, that this is going to sound so self serving, but I don't care because you asked me the question. And my answer is I would have hired a business coach or a mentor, somebody I trusted sooner and earlier at the level I could afford it.

Paden Squires: since I have put my ego aside enough and done things like that, like coaching and mentoring and being willing to learn from, podcasts and books and whatever, it's been a rocket ship. and especially as I got into the community, you know, a community of like minded people having these types of conversations, what type of conversation I'm having with you right now is the type of conversation we have.

Paden Squires: All the time. And so that rare, you can't have this conversation with your father in law because he's still not sure you're the right guy for his daughter. [00:42:00] And he can't relate. He has no idea what you're going through. Even if he is the best CPA in the city, or he's a contractor, the intent isn't there.

Paden Squires: You need somebody who's got that intent of, like, I'm just here to help you in the business. I don't care about all your drama. You said you were going to get that done. It didn't get done. Now, you didn't get it done. Okay. How are you going to get it done? Or what did, what did you miss in this little piece of education I'm giving you to get it done?

Paden Squires: And by the way, is it still important to you? But we're going to get it done. Yeah, that's good. That's how, that's what it sounds like coaching with me or my team. A Yeah, absolutely. It's is this a goal? Okay. Is it still a goal?okay. Well, we'll do that.

Paden Squires: You're going to think about it. You're going to do it by the way, your kids are watching you. How do you want this to go? Oh, man, you want to get me say that, rightAnd you know, that goes back to something we talked about earlier. If you were to buy, my, my daughter's 18, my son's 15. So my daughter's already bought her first car, which is great.

Paden Squires: I had, uh, I love to fish and hunt. So I have a [00:43:00] Suzuki Vitara that I made all ridiculous just for going off road. And that's why she doesn't want to drive it because she's a young girl, butdo I want to give my daughter a broken down jalopy with no airbags, brakes that don't really work and if the ignition system might not start, could stall on the highway at any time, do I want to give my little girl that car?

Paden Squires: Absolutely not. No. why would I do that with my business? If I'm going to, if I want, my son's going to take over this business one day. Yeah. It runs just like a broken jalopy. There's no brakes. There's no ignition. There's no starter. The windows are broken. The seats are torn. But it's okay because I'm here to put the fire out.

Paden Squires: Yeah. Superhero. But you're not going to be there. Yeah. Exactly. You don't want to be there. And your son doesn't want you there or your daughter or whoever's buying it from you. They don't want you there. They want you to go fish or golf or fly a plane or do whatever you want to do.

Paden Squires: Go on mission work. Go do mission work. Go help somebody else somewhere else knowing that now your son or your daughter has your business. You've And so there's a lot more to this, you know, you and I talked about it from a business perspective, but we're solving personal goals. Yeah. [00:44:00] And in the future, the next 10, 15 years, especially as baby boomers retire, like the opportunity and all these different businesses, the opportunity to go in and buy businesses, especially some of these businesses owned by, you know, 65 year old people that are got no succession plan and or mass, but they could be a mess or they could be established, but they're I guess the bigger point is there's a whole lot of these businesses that are exchanging arms over the next dozen years or so massive. I'm sure you have the same stories that I do and the stories are from heartbreak of other people. So I'm not, I want to be cautious here. These are things that I hear that I get called me or my team gets called in to solve. But just today, this is the call before you, a 52 year old father died running a cabinet shop and his son now went from being a guy on the floor to owner of the company.

Paden Squires: And this poor kid is just tearing his hair out. That was today's phone call. How can I not help him? How can I not find a way to help that kid who suddenly the [00:45:00] president and owner of a company that he used to just eat in the lunchroom and now he's the guy. His dad died at 52. And I don't want to give some fantastic story here, but that's those are the things we hear and I have to help.

Paden Squires: And you would do the same, right? No. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And I tell you, As a guy that, has ran a business for a long time, worked with foul, literally thousands of entrepreneurs. I give away 40, 50 percent of my time. I don't know. I may not be that high, but no joke. Like for real, like I, but for good reason and for good reason.

Paden Squires: Yeah, for good reason. and there's ways I need to get better at protecting some of that stuff and what have you, but like you, and my whole team is made up of people like this. It's we have to be very cautious about, Protecting our time because we are very much trying to be that servant. 

Paden Squires: Well, Dominic, this has been a fantastic conversation. It feels like emotionally we've gone high and low. Sorry. Yeah. And I love it. I love it. I love it. It's a deep, good conversation. people can hear that, really two business guys really, getting after it, which was [00:46:00] just good. Loving what we do.

Paden Squires: I can tell you love what you do. Yeah, absolutely. There's a difference. when I'm looking for a lawyer or a CPA, I want somebody who's, Who likes what they do, and they want to play around in the edges and try to help me out. Oh yeah, get creative. You know, don't want a book learning guy who's I know what we need to do and want to be conservative.

Paden Squires: Yeah, that's good. That's good. So what's a dominant, what's the best way people can connect with you? They like what they hear. You know, obviously you're a very accomplished guy. I can't imagine your business coaching is extremely valuable. what's the best way people can 

Dominic Rubino: connect?

Paden Squires: I've got two podcasts, so it's a great way. And you and I were joking about this beforehand. one of my podcasts is very specific. So maybe two of your listeners even care or two, maybe. So one of the podcasts is called cabinet maker profit system. So just people that do cabinetry and architectural millwork.

Paden Squires: And some of you are laughing and shaking your head and I, please continue to do so. But the cabinet business is full of just fantastic people building massive wealth in one generation and nobody pays [00:47:00] any attention to it. and we talk about the business of the cabinetry business. And then the second one, I guess I'm wearing the today is profit tool belt.

Paden Squires: So this is the podcast and the. the community just around all contractors really GC and under general contractor and under So sub trades in a lot of cases and it's again. It's the business of the contracting business Oh, and you know what, we're doing a training, a free training. It's called time, team, and money for contractors.

Paden Squires: can I just give people my cell phone? They just text me. Okay. so if anybody wants to come to that, just say, wait list, cause you have to be on the waitlist to get onto the free training, the professional development training. And my cell is a 3 1 5 9 0 3 7 8 5 3, and just say wait list. And then you'll make it on the wait list.

Paden Squires: Cause usually it's already taken up with the people in our community. So if you want to. jump in. You've got to get on a waitlist first. That's awesome. anything else you want to leave the listeners with? Any piece of advice? I said something, you asked the question and I said something that I think is probably the [00:48:00] most important thing today.

Paden Squires: is your kids watching. Yeah. and if you don't have kids, there's somebody watching, right? Yeah. And you're a leader to somebody, your family, some member of your family, co workers, somebody's watching, be a leader. 

Paden Squires: listeners appreciate you listening to this awesome conversation and we will catch you next time. 

Hey, guys. I really hope you enjoyed that conversation there with Dominic. He was one of the more impressive people I've met and interviewed since I've been doing this podcast. so, if you enjoyed it, got any value from it, love to get a like or share out there. It really helps me grow the podcast and kind of reach more people and also reach, you know, guests to bring to you guys.

other than that, you know, I'm really in growth mode over on my, my tax business as you know, you've kind of maybe heard in one of the commercials here, um, we're really looking to expand our tax planning offering and talking to, business owners and people out there as you know, we're, we're not typical CPAs, we're not preparers, tax preparers, we are tax [00:49:00] planners and really where we specialize in is coming in to.

people's businesses and personal situations and finding proactive strategies to massively help you reduce your income tax liabilities and in a legal and ethical way. Um, but, but actually doing this proactive planning with you and not just being a tax preparer. So if any of that interests you, uh, head over to www.padesquires.com, fill out the contact form, and I'd love to get on a call with you about that.