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Kevin Jacobs · Calm Under Fire

• Col. John Boggs: Hi, welcome to Calm Under Fire. I'm Colonel John Boggs and I am the president of Fortitude Consulting. Fortitude Consulting is an executive leadership development firm and coaching firm. Today we have with us Kevin Jacobs. Kevin spent two decades leading projects and implementing strategy inside large organizations before making a significant mid-career shift into entrepreneurship. Since then, He has served as a fractional COO, helped small businesses strengthen operations, and acquired companies of his own. His journey offers a practical look at what leadership requires when you move from managing within an organization to carrying full ownership responsibility. Today, we're going to talk about leadership under pressure, especially when the decisions are yours and the outcomes are personal. So Kevin, thank you very much for being here. greatly appreciate it. Kevin Jacobs: Yeah, happy to be here, John. Col. John Boggs: Thanks, Kevin. Kevin, after 20 years in large organizations, you made a major transition into entrepreneurship. So what was the hardest part of that shift? Kevin Jacobs: So. That is a really interesting question. So I had been in my previous organization for 12 years and eight years of that I've been fighting for a promotion, which a lot of your teams are going to understand and incorporate and spend a lot of time looking for that next big step up. And after eight years of doing that, leadership came to me in the same week and they said, you're not getting the promotion you're fighting for, at least for the next four years. And probably never. You're just not really what we're looking for. You're okay as an individual contributor, but you're not what we're looking but by the way, COVID just hit and we'd pay you nine months to walk away. I was like, well, you know, in nine months, I bet I could find something else. So I left and it was really interesting because you asked me, what is it like to make that transition? I think so many entrepreneurs fall into this boat that it was not a conscious decision. Like the universe just pushed me into that because what I was I was working as a project. I was the PMO manager at the time. I was looking for a PMO director position. And before I left my company, I already had my first coaching company. customer. somebody in the company said, there's somebody who needs help. Would you be willing to help them while you're looking for something else? Absolutely. Sorry. I'm an efforts coaching customer. And then every PMO director position I would apply for whatever reason it would fall through, something would happen and it wouldn't happen and it wouldn't come through. I got it kind of got pushed into the coaching and over the next three years, I just watched as the coaching clients would be the small clients would have something go wrong and I would lose that client. And the next client would be there paying more. as the last one left, like just each step of the way I had what I needed. So as I look at entrepreneurs, you see so many entrepreneurs who are rooted in some kind of a faith. And I feel like there's a reason for that. Often we have a feeling that we're being guided, we're being directed, like something else is helping us out. And so Col. John Boggs: huh. Kevin Jacobs: it was a very difficult transition. I didn't make that transition consciously. It was kind of pushed on me. And Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Kevin Jacobs: probably the hardest part of that transition was for my wife. Like we had money coming in, we had that huge lump sum that the company gave me when I left, which kind of gave me the starting point that we always had what we needed. But just not having that check every week from the company, that security of knowing that you have something coming in was the hardest part. And I think when we work for a company, we feel like we have that security, but the truth is is that as an employee, you're just like an entrepreneur, you just have one client. and that one client can fire you at any time. And when that Col. John Boggs: Hmm. Kevin Jacobs: one client fires you, you don't have any other options. As an entrepreneur, I often had three or four coaching clients. And so if one coaching client left, I didn't lose all my income. I lost a portion of my income and it was easy Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Kevin Jacobs: to find somebody else. So when people are thinking about making that move from having one client as a job to having multiple clients as an entrepreneur, it's important you frame that as it's just a client and you're still a job. You know, you're still an owner working for yourself. It's just who does that client look for and then how much does that client pay you because entrepreneur clients? Your your individual clients pay you a lot more than when you're paying working as a salaried employee you make more per hour And so you're able to diversify that risk for yourself Col. John Boggs: Wow, so it's safe to say then that you are happy with the change that's been made. Kevin Jacobs: Yes, it hasn't been easy. So there is a quote, and I don't remember who the quote was from, that you haven't really made this entrepreneur until you've set up at night, staying awake, wondering where you're going to make payroll, or when you're going to make the mortgage, or how that money was going to come in. And so... there is a cost to being an entrepreneur. There's an uncertainty of not knowing where the money is gonna come from, of money being a lot more variable. And it's that risk reward you see in investment where you buy US treasuries, you know exactly how much, percentage you're making, it's a stable investment, you know what you got. But if you want Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Kevin Jacobs: a better percentage than that, you take a higher risk investment. And so I feel like as an entrepreneur, it's a little bit more risk involved in it, but the reward Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Kevin Jacobs: is a lot greater as well. So I would tell you that there is no way that I could ever go back to working for somebody. And I Col. John Boggs: So, wow. Kevin Jacobs: think that's one of the biggest things that you see in entrepreneurs is that there's this underlying feeling that if I didn't do this, I don't know what I would do because there's no way I could go back and work for somebody for a fraction of the money that I make today, even though that there's more risk involved and the money is more variable at the end of the day. It pays a lot better. And then the long term, like I've got one of my companies that I manage or that I own, I manage eight hours a week. That company brings in over $100,000 a year. Talk about a retirement plan. Like you talk about, well, what's my 401k and what's my investment? That one company and that company pays me over $100,000 a year after the loan. I've got seven years left on the loan. At the end of that loan, the income will more than double. And so that one company, right, to make over $200,000 a year retired, I'm Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Kevin Jacobs: done. Right. My future is taken care of and that is one company in my portfolio. And so there's an ability also that as you think about people working longer, you hit 65 and you're like, I'm going to retire at 60 or 65 or whatever your plans are. And then do what? You're going to travel for a couple of months. You're going to watch TV. You're going to read, right? Like at some Col. John Boggs: huh. Kevin Jacobs: point in time, work is what gives us purpose, right? When we change people's lives for the better, it gives us a purpose in life. And so this entrepreneurship also gives you ability to say later on when I retire, retirement looks different. Like I'm just going to work part time and I'm going to choose what I do and when I do it how I do it, both now and later. So there's Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Kevin Jacobs: a lot of freedom. You change the way you work completely as an entrepreneur. Col. John Boggs: Wow, I love what you're saying. This is fantastic. And I really hope everyone's paying attention. Could you talk a little bit more about purpose? Because when you're working at a place and you're not happy, but yet you stay there. But when you're working for you, how happy are you? Kevin Jacobs: What? and the lives that you change. So as I come in and buy a company, it Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Kevin Jacobs: was funny. So my first company that I had bought, there's a great story around that, it's a pest control company. I don't know anything about pest control. I know nothing about pest control. I'm an IT project manager. And my wife's like, the company was $875,000 that we bought. My wife was like, you're investing almost a million dollars in pest control and what do you know about pest control? But it was the wrong question. The right question was, was what does that bug guy know about business? What does he know about marketing and leadership and analytics and all the other pieces that I picked up in corporate that we just take for granted that everybody knows that. He's an old bug guy. And this old bug guy had his son running the company. He's putting around the world in a mobile home that, or a camper that the company's paying the gas for, collecting his $200,000 year. He was happy, right? he was he was very very good to his customers and that's what you see the smallest owners there they're the best guy you never want to work with but they're often very difficult on their employees and the reason why is that they're naturally great at what they do. They walk in and they see a problem, they just know what the answer is. And so if you walk in and you don't know the answer, either you're lazy or you're stupid or both. And so they can be very difficult to walk in. And so when I come in and I appreciate the employees and what they're doing. And I appreciate the work they're doing and I tell them what they're doing. We change the lives of the people that they do. Col. John Boggs: Okay. Kevin Jacobs: have, between the two businesses, I have 13 employees. I've got a startup that I've got that's got another almost 20 employees. That's a lot of people whose lives depend on me and whose lives I'm working to make better. I'm helping them to think about what they do with their careers, help them perform better, help them grow, make sure they have the money to take care of their families. So there's a lot of purpose in that. But then I want to make sure they have purpose. I don't care what you do. You change people's lives. Your job changes somebody's life. And it changes somebody's life so much that they're willing to give you money for it. We don't give our money to anybody. We don't give somebody money unless they're providing value. And so if you're the trash collector at a large corporation, what you do is you make sure that the place is clean so engineers can focus on helping their customers. There's a famous story of Kennedy asking a custodian at NASA what he did. And he said, I'm helping to put him out on the moon. And it's truth, right? My pest control guys are making sure that families can grow up knowing that there's not cockroaches in the kitchen and the kids on the floor are... playing with cockroaches and getting sick. They're making sure that there's not scorpions in houses and somebody's baby doesn't get stung by a scorpion. The people can live with peace of mind. In my automotive shop, we have people who don't have a lot of money. We help their cars last longer. We help them save money. We help them take care of their investment so that it goes farther. We change people's lives. And then the automotive company is really interesting because our average customer is probably 80. We have customers who are over 90 who are still driving their cars. That card to them is freedom. It means Col. John Boggs: I'm Kevin Jacobs: that I can go to the grocery store without asking my child to help me or having to call an Uber. I can go somewhere, I can go to the library and go see my friends. can drive, and the US driving is so important to us. And so it gives them that freedom for a little bit longer. And Col. John Boggs: discussion. Kevin Jacobs: so my purpose as an entrepreneur, I'm connected to helping the employees and the customers that I have. But also I'm trying to connect everybody I work with to purpose because we change people's lives and if you don't know that you make somebody's lives for the better, it's empty. And it shouldn't be. You should know that you make a difference to other people. Col. John Boggs: Wow. Wow. Wow. What, anything, has surprised you about the new pressures you have? The new, I mean, what surprised you about that? Kevin Jacobs: Okay, so this one's really interesting. When I first bought my company, I will tell you that, so my path just briefly is that I went from an employee to a fractional, and it was a fractional COO, so I'm helping small companies run, so I'm kind of like the assistant to the CEO, like the arms and legs, I'm making sure everything runs smoothly, but I wasn't the CEO. And when I bought a company, it means that now I'm the CEO, and now I understand that. And so for your individuals who are fractional, so I'd encourage them to get to look into business Purchases especially because with the SBA you can do it for not a lot of money It will be your best client and it gives you a different perspective What I thought I would learn is that the CEO Gets all the pressure right like when things go wrong when there's not enough sales when they're not enough money It falls on the CEO shoulders. That's true. It does What surprised me though was the opposite? Was I have a lot of employees who treat my company as if they were an owner? They treat my customers like they're their customers. They protect my company to make sure we have the right money we need, that we're not spending it wrong, that we're taking really good care of the customers. it's like somebody taking care of your child and treating them like a parent. Right, like it meant so much to me that my employees would put my company first even though they weren't an owner, like they didn't get a bonus from it, this wasn't their retirement plan, this wasn't their company, but the fact that they would do that meant so much to me and I appreciate them so much for it and it surprises me that more owners don't recognize that you have really great employees who protect your company better than you do. We've got a customer and you're like, all right, well, let me give him something. And they're like, no, no, no, we've got to make money. You have to make money. We've got to make sure we charge them enough money. Well, yeah, I'll take care of the customer. But I take care of you too. And so I really, I so much appreciate the people who do that and the people who work for me. Col. John Boggs: Okay, well going down that same road, what leadership habits have created the most stability for your organizations? Kevin Jacobs: So one of the biggest things I see that small business owners do is that they don't let go. Like I said, you've got these owners who are really brilliant at what they do. And so they have this feeling that I am the only person that can do it right and nobody else can do it like I can. And you're right, nobody else can do it like you can. But when you're the only person doing everything, you really put a limit on your company. And what you do is you say, I'm the only person who can do that. You probably can get to a million, maybe up to three, but at about $3 million your cap because you can't do everything. And the problem is that the reason why you are successful is that there's a way that you treat customers and a way that you solve problems that are different than anybody else in the world. and you're limiting it because you're not passing it on. The value you bring is not what you do, it's what you teach. And so when you create a system that says, all right, as a mechanic, here's how I look at a car and here's how I find the problem and solve the problem and make sure the customer is taken care of. As a pest control guy, here's how we serve customers. Here's the steps we go through to make sure that we take better care of making sure the pests are gone than any other company out there. When you create that system, and train employees and make sure they follow that system. Now instead of you being one person solving the world or you having a few employees that are solving the world, you can grow and you can help a lot more people. And so, I mean, as small business owner, one to three million dollars, you're going to be extremely successful, you're gonna make a lot of money, you will take good care of your family. It's not bad, right? Like I don't wanna say that that's a bad way to live, but... When you create a system that other people can follow the recipe and the way you solve problems, now you have an unlimited reach on the people you help in the world. Col. John Boggs: You've got the experience of being a COO, being an operator, being in big organizations. And now you're looking at the small organizations and clearly you've invested in quite a few. So what are the small businesses most often struggle with when growth starts to strain the execution? What are the things that they struggle with that you come in and you help them figure it out? Kevin Jacobs: So this one's really, there's a couple things that are really interesting. So when you look at small blue-collar businesses, and when you talk about large organizations and small businesses, there's important aspects that we don't think about. We've been taught in society that you go to school, you get a good education, you go work for a big company, and then you're successful, right? You move up in the company, you'll have a good living, you'll have a good retirement. And to a degree, that's true, right? We see a lot of people who do that and are making a good life out of it. But... I will tell you that you go to a big company to learn and you go to a small company to earn. So the larger companies like the Fortune 50, you work with some of the smartest minds in the world. They hire really brilliant people and then those brilliant people move up in the company and they get smarter and smarter. And so you really go spend five, 10, 15 years in a big organization, Chase, Wells Fargo, know, a large mining firm company, a consulting company you can get into. Get those business foundations. underneath you because you're gonna learn how a business should look. And you're gonna think that you have a lot of problems, but you're gonna find out that they're nothing compared to what you're gonna find. Then when you go to smaller companies, what happens is that, yes, the frontline employees may not make as much, but the owners are doing much better than directors and managers and VPs and large organizations. I just told you, there's a bug guy who is making $240,000 a year retired working eight hours a month. I mean, who would not want to be retired eight hours a week, right? Who would not want to be retired with that kind of an income? And the eight hours he was working, it was because he wanted to be involved in his company still, right? So there is such an opportunity in the smaller companies. And the reason Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Kevin Jacobs: why is that the people who start a small company are an operator. They're a bug guy. They're an auto mechanic. They're an HVAC guy. They don't have your experience in the bigger companies seeing what these other aspects of business are. So when I walk into a company, they're taking really good care of their customers, they're marketing. But they aren't tracking how marketing is the first one that's really interesting. They're not tracking how well that marketing is working at all. They're growing. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Kevin Jacobs: And so I think, well, I'm investing in marketing. So that must be it. The Pest Control Company was using the white and yellow pages for their marketing. Remember those things? Uh-huh. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. I remember. Yes. Kevin Jacobs: Still, they were spending $18,000 a year. and white and yellow page ads, including in towns they didn't even serve. Nobody looks at the yellow pages anymore. You go to Google, you go to Yelp, you go to, like, you don't go to the yellow pages. But again, things were working. They're making good money, right? It's not broken. Why fix it? And so there was a huge opportunity. The automotive shop were spending $3,500 a month on a retirement magazine. We put a coupon in the magazine to see if it would work. After five months, we got one coupon back from an existing customer. So they're investing $40,000 a year in marketing that is not doing them. anything at all. They're growing, but they're growing because they're doing good business, they're taking care of customers, and customers tell each other they've got good referrals. So the number one thing I will tell you is that tracking and analytics, they're not doing anything at all. They're not looking at their financials, they don't know whether they're spending their money, they don't know what money is doing well, they don't know what money is doing poorly. They're often not taking as good care of their employees or appreciating their employees as much as, like I mentioned before, these people are often very hard to work with because they're brilliant. And it's not always easy to work for somebody who's brilliant. They expect everybody to be brilliant. And so, and they're micromanaging the heck out of everything, right? Everything has to go through them. So. Col. John Boggs: Of course, yes, yes. Kevin Jacobs: And so when I come in, the first thing I'm doing is that before I even buy the business, I have to look at their numbers. So I know more about their business before I buy it than they do, having run it for 20 years. Because I know Col. John Boggs: my. Kevin Jacobs: every dollar they're spending and everywhere it's going, I've done a deep dive into their financials. And then the next thing we'll do is the first thing we do is start tracking marketing. Because marketing is the lifeblood of a company. If you're taking good care of customers, you're going to get referrals. But you need new customers coming in. You're going to lose customers every year. People move. They pass away. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Kevin Jacobs: Whatever happens, you're going to lose some customers every year. So you need new customers coming in. The faster you're able to get new customers and the better you're able to serve them, the faster your business is going to grow. And so marketing is often leadership to make sure the employees are happy. The first thing I do is because the employees are scared to death somebody's going to buy the company and they're going to fire us all. We're all going lose our job. I come in and tell employees, look, I need you. I didn't buy the company for the customer. I need buy you. I don't know how to do your job. I need you to do it. And so I'm letting them, taking care of them to let them know how much I appreciate them. Looking at salaries and if they need raises or if we need to adjust that to come a little bit closer to market. It's a little bit of investment. But and then looking at the people who don't fit So 90 % of the people are gonna be put the company first there put the customer first. They're great people I'm gonna have 10 % of the people who were just rotten people like nobody wants to work with them customers hate them people that employees work with Col. John Boggs: Move. Kevin Jacobs: them made them right the boss for whatever reason hasn't let them go and it's time to have those conversations I never loved to have those conversations, but Col. John Boggs: and Kevin Jacobs: They're usually not the right fit somewhere else are gonna fit better and and we got to take care of the company So so making sure I have a really good team in place. I've got good marketing in place. We're serving the customers well and then they just run the companies run themselves and When the companies run themselves everybody's happier The manager has all kinds of ideas that the previous boss said now. Let's not do that Pest Control Company, his son who was running the company wanted to buy more trucks. We don't need more trucks. He wanted to do marketing so we could get more customers. I'm making $20,000, Why do we need more customers? Why do we need more people? It's a good company, leave it alone. So he had all kinds of great ideas and when I came in and said, yes, buy another truck, hire another guy, do more marketing, grow, like yes, please, he was so much happier. We just aligned with what we wanted to do. He served the company really well. I was very grateful for him serving the company really well. Everybody's happy. Col. John Boggs: Wow, what a story. And as you pointed out, you walked in and you don't know anything about bugs. You don't know anything about that. And yet you're coming in and you run the company. Kevin Jacobs: Yeah and part of the thing that I need to know is I need to know people. When I'm interviewing people and so as a project manager, I would have to hire for positions I didn't understand. In IT, I would go find an IT project manager, an IT security project manager. I don't know anything about security. I'd have to go find an infrastructure project manager. I don't know anything about infrastructure, but I got to hire somebody that knows about security and knows about infrastructure. And so I would go to the teams and say, give me a couple of questions that I can ask that somebody who has the technical knowledge they need will know. Right. So because that's the bar. Like you have to meet a bar. They have to have some technical knowledge before you can hire them. So OK, we've we've hit the technical bar and you should all have somebody in the company who has a little bit deeper knowledge that will interview for that. But that's not what I'm really looking for. I'm looking for that personality, that culture fit. I'm looking for somebody who loves people, who love customers, who loves the company, who's going to put the company before themselves. And when I find that right, like we can train a lot of the other pieces. But when you've got a good person, then you just get great teams in place and and they run themselves. Col. John Boggs: Wow, wow, this has been truly amazing. This has been truly amazing. So. What helps leaders? Well, let me do this, because you've talked about it. You've talked about when you're coming in, I imagine there's a lot of emotions that are up. There's a lot of, as you've already pointed out, am I going to get fired? There's a new owner. What is the, is there a Delta? there a, and what I'm saying is this, is there a lag between I'm going to drag my feet before I see what this new owner is up to or? Am I just going to walk out the door? Is there that get to know you period where you're not really making money, you're not really doing anything, people are leery of you. How do you handle that? Kevin Jacobs: So that's a really good question and it's the reason why I buy businesses and not franchises. So because I get asked all the time, hey are you interested in this franchise? So when you buy a franchise you invest $50,000 or $100,000 or $300,000 or whatever it is today and you build for the next couple of years hoping that that company will eventually make money. When you buy an existing business on day one the employees do what they've always been doing and you collect the money from day one. On day one, there is cash flow coming in. So now as you talk about that lag, yes, employees are tentative at the beginning, absolutely. But I don't know you, I know the previous owner, I don't know what's gonna happen, there's a lot of uncertainty. I'm having those conversations, but it's gonna take a couple months to create that trust. Most people don't wanna leave a job. The whole thing of a body at rest tends to stay at rest, a body at work tends to stay at work, right? And Nurture just keeps them there. I don't wanna go find a new job, I don't wanna go look at my resume, I don't wanna go look. I'm happy with my job if you'll just leave me alone and give me my money, right? Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Kevin Jacobs: And so you get a little bit, month or two of kind of lag of if it doesn't suck, at least I'll stay here while I'm looking. And then as the job improves from what they were before, you get people who start to be happy. Like hey, like this is different and I like this different. My auto body shop, the mechanics, the boss would come in and if he didn't like the way they were doing it, they might have been doing a repair and the car might have been just fine, but if they didn't do it the way he would have done it, they'd get screamed at, he might not pay him for it, like he was really hard on them. When I walked in and said, how are you fixing the car? I'm fixing it like that. You got 20 years experience, that sounds great. You're not going to yell at me? No, no, you're doing a great job. You're not going to Col. John Boggs: Ha Kevin Jacobs: not pay me? No, thank you for taking good care of the customer. And there's a little bit of an period, as they adjust to that. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Kevin Jacobs: And then they get comfortable with it. They kind of get like, all right, well, what are you giving me next? But you improve the employment form. So the truth is that I don't feel like there's a lag on income. Now, I learned a lot between the first company and the second company. The first company, the boss's son was running the company. His stepmom sold the company. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Kevin Jacobs: And so the manager did not change. The employees did not change. Nothing changed. And customers called and said, hey. you know, is anything going to change? No, I'm still running the company. Your PES guy is still the same. OK. And we kept the customers. Nothing changed. Everything was what I expected to be. There was a little bit of extra money from the marketing dollars that we cut. There was a little bit less money from giving people a little bit of a wage raise that they needed. It turned out about what we thought it would be. On Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Kevin Jacobs: the automotive shop, the husband and wife were the face of the company. When you walked in and got your car fixed, they were who you talked to. They were the person you had a relationship with. And I lost between 15 and 20 percent of my customers because it would just walk in and be like, the owner left. I'm leaving. But like, I don't care. You have the same management, the same. I don't care. Right. Like I had a relationship with them. I trusted them. You're just another shop. And so Col. John Boggs: Thank Kevin Jacobs: when we built our income expectations on what that revenue would be, that 20 percent was was more than my profit margin. so fortunately the bank gave me operating cash that more than covered what we lost. The first year we made our payments and I think we lost $15,000 and the bank had given us $120,000 in operating cash. So I didn't have money to pay my bills that had to come from other places, but we were okay. And then as we figured out the marketing we're starting to get to a spot where the shop is good. So there was over a year lag on that one. It wasn't because of employees, it was because of the relationship with the customer. And if you're buying a company, it's very important that you understand that relationship with the customer. Now, there's another question I think you were about to ask, John, and I think it's a good question, that how do leaders get ready for that sale? Or how do you kind of think about that sales that's coming so you get it ready for the next buyer? Col. John Boggs: Yes. Kevin Jacobs: whether you're planning on selling your company or not. Running your company as if you were going to sell it makes you make better decisions. So I'm in a startup and When we started we started with the idea that we're gonna get a VC and we build up to a certain amount and then we'd have to sell the company because the VC would force it to go public and so we were kind of planning for it so we ran the company and we would ask company questions like When the new owner comes in, what would they want us to do when the new owner comes in? How would they want us to do this? And I think there's times that you will make stupid decision as an owner. But if you Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Kevin Jacobs: ask yourself what a new owner would do, they would not make the stupid decision. They would not have your emotions involved. There's a very famous story with Intel when they switched over from doing RAM memory over to doing processing Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Kevin Jacobs: chips. But the RAM memory was losing money and they kept holding on and holding on. And the CEO asked the CEO, what would the new owner do? They said, rid of the RAM. It's losing his money. Well, then why don't we do that before they fire us? Col. John Boggs: my. Kevin Jacobs: So, but the thing about it is that when you think about running the company as a new owner, a new owner is not gonna micromanage your guys. A new owner's gonna need a manager there that's gonna run your guys. Well, if you put a manager in place who will run your company, you can run a company on, like I said, the best control company's eight hours a month. And I'm not kidding. When I buy these companies, owners who are working 50 to 60 hours a week, just look at me and like, you're gonna fail. There's no way you can run this company on eight hours a month. There's no way. this for 20 years and I can't do that so how would you do that? And they don't know what they don't know right? They know so much about being a great mechanic or being a great pest control guy that they don't know that there's something else out there about how to run a great company. And so the number one thing I will tell you is that start building the systems in place that runs your company without you because all of sudden you can take a week vacation and not worry about is payroll run or did somebody break something or did my company go under? I could go on vacation for a change. I could go to my child's graduation. I could be there for different things to happen, the emergencies in my life. Business owners run this country. They're the ones who create the services that we need. They're the ones that create the jobs that people rely on. They're Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Kevin Jacobs: the ones who create the money that are going to investments, that people have investment opportunities. Business owners are what drive our economy. And Col. John Boggs: Wow. Kevin Jacobs: they give their lives up for it. And it's not fair. You should not have to give your life up to be a business owner, and you don't. Oftentimes you're gonna need help from your people to figure out how you do it. Like a business owner who just looks at a problem and says, this is the answer. How did you get it? Well, I just looked at the problem. You're not the right person. But when you train somebody and you walk them through the steps, they will write down the process and they can give it to the next person and they will give you what you need to train. Because they will be like, all right, well, how did you do this? I don't know, let me think about that. Let's talk about that together. And when you find the answer, they'll write it down. And so you can create those processes step by step, but you need to, you owe it to your family, you owe it to your company, you owe it to yourself, because you shouldn't be working 50 to 60 hours a week. You shouldn't, you're changing the world, you're the hero in our economy, that's not right. Col. John Boggs: Kevin, you're remarkable. Let me get one more question, and you're absolutely right, that's where I was going. What has this journey taught you about leadership? Kevin Jacobs: I am a nerd, John. I'm broke and my wife, people ask me what my hobby is. My hobby is learning. I read way too much. As I'm reading, one of the ways that you absorb all of that knowledge is you start to teach. So I'm writing a book. And when I go to write that book, it's overwhelming. All the information that's out there. All the knowledge that's out there. And I think as your leaders go out there and look and say, I don't have time to read 50 books a year or 100 books a year. Right, I struggle to read one or two books a year. Right, I don't have the time to get the deep knowledge that I need in business. What do I do? And the answer is that one, you should start reading. Find a few good business books and start building that knowledge that you need. But two, go to fundamentals, go to essentials. When we talk about a business, the reason a business exists is to solve problems. Marketing goes out and finds the people who have those problems. Sales has a conversation to say, here's how we solve the problem. Is that right for you? And then operations delivers a solution. But everything is about solving problems. And when you go to the root of that, it helps you as a business owner to understand. So as you talk to somebody, how do I need to do in marketing? Well, I need to know, are we finding the right people who have our problem? Yes or no? If we're not, what do we need to do that's different? AI has become an incredible gift. It used to be you had to go pay a coach and pay them thousands of dollars to do coaching. You've got AI for free. You've got Claude. You've got JPT. You've got Jim and I sit down. You can tell any of them, look, I want you to act like a business coach and we're going to have a conversation. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Kevin Jacobs: Ask me questions about my business. Or here's the problems I'm having. Give me some suggestions. Col. John Boggs: Mmm. Kevin Jacobs: That's really complicated. Can you make that simpler? If I went to the root of the problem, what do I need to do differently? Who do I need to look for? AI is a wonderful tool to be able to help business owners do that. But the other thing I would tell business owners is that you need to learn what you don't know. The fact that you're an expert in your field, that you know the technical knowledge, that is only half of running a business. The other half is business. And each of those businesses has a different field. There's a field of marketing, and people get PhDs and spend their whole lives dedicated to marketing, to sales, to operations, to project management, to analytics. You don't have to know as much as they do, but you do need to realize that there's stuff out there that you don't know. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Kevin Jacobs: and that a little bit of knowledge in those areas will change your life, will change your business, and will change the way that you serve customers. Because at the end of the day, our job is to solve problems for people. That's what our customers pay us. And Col. John Boggs: Yeah? Kevin Jacobs: none of us should go to bed at night not knowing that the world is better because we solved somebody's problems. Col. John Boggs: Wow. Kevin, this has been wonderful. What advice would you give someone who is considering to make that jump from employee to owner? Kevin Jacobs: So the biggest thing I would tell you is get a second gig. The hardest part about being an entrepreneur is paying your bills day to day. That Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Kevin Jacobs: is the toughest part. And so if you can start to dip your toe in the water and start to say, could I do this part time? Could I go and find one client? How would I do that? What would that look like? How can I adjust my schedule to do that? One client may pay you 50 % of what you're making today, right? And you will learn along the way. But the thing about doing things that while you already have a job in place. is that you have the time to make mistakes. What kills businesses is not a good idea. You have good ideas. What kills businesses is the time that you need to learn of who are the customers that they solve, what are the right problems I'm gonna fix for them, what message is gonna resonate for them, what am I gonna do differently that's gonna serve them. And if you can do that part-time while you already have a job that you can dip your toe in the water and kind of learn and grow, you'll have the time you need. And as an entrepreneur, time is the most valuable resource you have. Col. John Boggs: Thank you. Kevin, for leaders out there who would like to be like you, leaders who want to learn about entrepreneurship or preparing one, I'd love to get a hold of your book when you're done with it. my gosh, I would like to read that. But how do they reach you or can they reach you? Can they reach out to you? Does one of your businesses help people who want to become entrepreneurs? If so, please tell us about it and... How do they reach you? Kevin Jacobs: Yeah, so this is interesting. You usually go on a podcast because you're a coach, right? Or you got a book, you want to sell something. I don't have anything to sell, but I'm very happy to help people to point them in the right direction. The best way to reach me is LinkedIn, and I will send you my LinkedIn link that you can post on there. I'm Kevin Jacobs DBA, and if you search for Kevin Jacobs DBA, they'll find it, but I'll give you the link to that. and that's the best way to find me. If they do that, I've got a list of some of my favorite books. There's probably 30 or 40 books out there, and it has on there a way that people can get audio books. You can get them for free through the library. You can kind of work reading into your life. I think that's important. If they have questions on becoming a coach, I've got good resources I could point them to. I write them right direction, and they're interested in buying a business or selling their business, happy to give them some great resources out there that'll help them. know more about them. Col. John Boggs: Thanks, Kevin. So that's Kevin Jacobs, DBA, find you on LinkedIn. That's the best way to get a hold of And Kevin, I can't thank you enough. This has been remarkably eye-opening. I mean, just remarkable. Thank you so much for doing this today. Kevin Jacobs: Well, John, thank you for the opportunity. I mean, my purpose in life is to help others. I've been so guided on this journey and so just blessed as I've gone through it. There's some debts you can't pay back, but you can pay forward. Col. John Boggs: Kevin, thank you very much. And for those of you that are listening out there, remember leadership is too important to screw it up. It's just too important to get wrong. And if you want to learn something and learn about running a business, being an entrepreneur, Kevin's the guy. Kevin is the guy. So you want to reach out. All right, everyone, hey, good luck out there. I'll speak to you later. That's it on this end. Out here.