Latest / Coffee, Chaos, & Cashflow / #9 Meet a Founder - Jyre Richardson

Transcript

#9 Meet a Founder - Jyre Richardson · Coffee, Chaos, & Cashflow

• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Jair Richardson, a native from Richmond, Kentucky, founded From here to there in February of 2020.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Starting from modest beginnings, the company has grown under Jair's leadership, consistently delivering a client-centric experience.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: This success is built on a strong foundation of hiring and nurturing top talent through a culture of integrity and continuous self-development.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Beyond his entrepreneurial pursuits, Jire is an active volunteer with Big Brothers, Big Sisters, and enjoys playing basketball in his free time.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Jire, welcome to the studio.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: How are you?
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: doing.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Welcome.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Good morning.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Good morning, aaron.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me, my friend, I'm so excited to be here.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: We are glad to have you.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: It's me and Eric today.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Eric is freshly returned from his North Carolina adventures, the weddings and all the good things.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: So we're back here to co-host and missing Yemi today, but excited to jump into this talk with Jair a little bit, get to learn about his experience in business and challenges and everything.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: So, starting off Jair, I got a couple of just quick questions to get things rolling here.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Tell me what might be your business pet peeve, what's something in the world of business that just irks you when it happens or you hear about it.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Is this what the whole podcast is about, right?
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Nope, just a quick snippet.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: If you want to dive into it more later, we can.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: My two big ones are going to be people with poor negotiation skills or people who don't negotiate at all.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Okay, and then my other one is people who are too focused on trivial things in business, such as money or manners.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: I think those would be trivial.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, nice, nice, I like it.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, there's a lot of conversation there there is.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: If you could instantly master any new skill, like just some skill, and all of a sudden you've got it on lockdown.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: What would that be?
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: That would 100% be communication.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, I think that's a skill that everybody thinks they have mastered, including myself, and then, when I look back at all the issues I've had in my life, it probably could be tied directly back to a lack of mastery of communication, at least in the way I think I have it mastered right.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: That's fair.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: I know how to communicate with myself.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: It doesn't matter how well you communicate with yourself.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: It's a and b.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: That's fair, that's good stuff.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Yep, all right.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Last question what's the number one thing you can't start the day without?
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: And that can be an item, it can be a habit, like just what.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: What do you have to do every day?
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: every morning, I'm at the loudon YMCA, 15-minute steam room stretch session every single morning.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Every single morning Okay.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: It tricks my body into thinking I've gone to the gym, it only takes 15 minutes.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: And then I've noticed like I get that mental head clarity, so that way I can start my day with that 15 minutes.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: If I get time to circle back to the gym at the end of the day, great.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: If not, at least I feel better.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's impressive.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you're doing it every day like that's yeah, that's good stuff, I love it.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: I love it, until you get your own steam room and house and like you don't have to, or would you still go to the Y just out of habit?
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: I don't know who's going to walk into the room.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: You gotta kind of look over your shoulder a little bit just in case that was more exciting.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: It's awesome.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: So before we jump into the main bulk of the conversation, I would like just a quick.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I read your bio just to give people a snapshot.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Can you expound on that just a little bit?
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Give me like a quick story of your journey from like you came from Richmond to here.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Give me like, fill that out a little bit so we can give listeners a better idea of what you've done.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I say humble origins.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Obviously.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: I was blessed enough to be born in America, so went to University of Kentucky, graduated UK, I picked the highest paying job while I worked there, which was a local moving company, I noticed that they were incredibly successful and were lacking in ethics so they treated their employees in compliance.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: So at that time I was working for the moving company.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: I was working for an estate sale company.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: I bought a pickup truck for $1,000.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: I started doing deliveries for $35.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: Eventually an estate sale client gave us a box truck for free.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Wow Okay.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: It didn't run, but they gave it to us for free.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: At this point in my life, I was probably three months from graduating college.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: My plan was to go to law school because I had told myself if I'm going to go to school and get into debt, then I need to be a doctor or a lawyer.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: I hated math Lawyer.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Here I come right and I wasn't.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: You know, I like to argue, I like to think I'm better than people, so being a lawyer might have been a good career for me.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Um, I think that I was probably doing it for the wrong reasons.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Definitely just wanted my name on the building.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: You know lots of stuff with the legal government, stuff which we won't get into, given the election was just yesterday.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: We'll leave all that on the table.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: This is fresh after election day.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: About that time happened.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: I graduated college, kind of did a little bit of soul searching.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: I went on a trip to the East Coast and I expected God to come to me on this mountaintop and be like you are to go to law school and help the empire, blah, blah, blah.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: And when I got back I realized I didn't have that huge profound moment.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: The moment I had was God just saying hey, just keep doing what you've been doing, keep locking on what you've been doing.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: It doesn't have to be magic and diamonds and everything.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: It can make a difference with what you're doing.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: So I locked in on that.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: It's been about five years now and I would say the universe, the market, the Lord all work out.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: I would say the universe, the market the world all work out.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: That's awesome, Awesome, okay.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: So, as you know, the podcast is entitled Coffee Chaos and Cashflow, and a feature thing we like to do with the guests that we speak to is kind of talk about each one of those three elements and how it's pertained to your business journey in particular.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to explain each one of those a little bit as we introduce them.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: So we're going to start with coffee.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Obviously, coffee is kind of like the go-to caffeinated source of energy for us in the business community.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: If you're thinking about getting your business up and running, getting through difficult points, what is the go-to thing?
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: It might be caffeine, right.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: It might be something else, it might be a relationship, I don't know, might be a combination of things, but what is something that has kept you going through the highs and the lows of business and the journey there?
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: yeah, talking about coffee, the first thing I think of is addiction to coffee.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: I think more of an addiction to coffee.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: I have an addiction to chaos, probably, but you know, I actually just got on the coffee bandwagon in the last year.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: I was a never coffee kind of person, really Okay.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Just discovered this new drug that everybody's all crazy about.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: It's a good thing you converted right before we got you off.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: I didn't really notice it until just recently.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: I started my company with my best friend.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: He exited Six months ago and in the meantime, you know I think when he left, I was like, oh, that's fine, no problem, I can do it myself.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: But recently I found a new head of operations and it has made me realize how much I electrify Relationships Just being around somebody who's like-minded.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: I think you know the idea of having a team as opposed to just being around somebody who's like-minded.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: I think you know the idea of having a team as opposed to just being me pushing this boulder for all the guys it's me and a couple other people kind of in on it together.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: That makes sense Yep, awesome, alright.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: So let's jump into chaos.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: You sound like you've got some exciting stuff there.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Tell us about some of the craziest things that's happened since you started the business.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: You obviously got started with the moving company in February 2020.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: So, as most of us can remember, those days of the pandemic and all the unsettling, all just the unknowns that were happening then, did that when you got launched?
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Was that a major factor in how you were running your business from the moving side?
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Did it deter anything at all?
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Was it potentially helpful?
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Just give me an idea of that and maybe some other chaotic elements that you witnessed.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Definitely, so we started February 2020.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: As you guys remember, I think the world went into lockdown like March 7th, 7th, 13th.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: So we started there, in two or three weeks of the pandemic, we started our company.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: That was a huge blessing for me, because when everybody was losing their money, articles of federation, all that, all that fun stuff, um, you know, I always say we've never had a normal season with covid happening.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: So I still agree with that.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: I don't think we've ever had a normal.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't think normal even mean anything.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: So you know, and um, the other part of that too is that I don't come from entrepreneurs, I don't come from a military background.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: I don't really have any expectations of how this is supposed to go.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: So, even if the combination of COVID and lack of experience means that every day I feel like a kid in a candy store and I'm just kind of enjoying trying to provide value, so you said you don't come from a family of entrepreneurs, so it's not like you were necessarily around business ownership your whole life.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: So what got you?
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: What was that switch over?
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Because you said you worked for a moving company in college, right?
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: So was it just being aware of some of the problems in the market and the things that weren't being serviced?
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Did you have a particular drive to entrepreneurship personally?
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: What got you to be like hey, because you said you switched from legal right, which I get that, but why didn't you just go work for another moving company or try to improve operations somewhere?
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: I think me as a person I'm either going to be the person who's either going to be fighting against the rules or creating my own rules.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: I think that, as a person, I'm either going to be the person who's either going to be fighting against the rules or creating my own rules.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: So I think that's where entrepreneurship comes in for me.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: You know, with the moving industry as a whole, I don't think I need to tell you guys or the viewers the kind of reputation the moving industry has.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: I always say that if we just show up and you know kind of sort of care and we're not being bad actors, then we're already the top percent of the moving industry.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: The fact that we show up and actually care and treat it like it's life or death, you know that really puts us in the top 1%.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: I hate to kind of put it like this, but you know it's kind of it's almost a low hanging fruit, because clients, moving clients are just so used to getting taken advantage of.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: We have a client the other day.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: We moved her like three months ago and all of us last I said, and they had issues with their move.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: I said, well, why didn't you call me before now?
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: And they said well, I'm just so used to calling companies and they just hang up or act like it's my fault that they had a bad experience or whatever I'm like.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Well, that's so frustrating that you've been beaten into the mission that you won't even call to let the guy have a bad experience.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: How do you foster caring into your employees as a leader?
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: How do you do that?
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: For me, the touchpoint, the interface of a moving company is my guys.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: So just in the last three months we've opened a 24-7 gym for all of our guys.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: We threw our first ever annual extravaganza so we gave away 12 cruises to our top performing employees based on hours worked.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Hours worked, reviews received, jobs, books, stuff like that.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Um, so that's our philosophy.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Right is, if we just really pour into our guys, then they'll pour into the customer and everything's good from there.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: A lot of other companies try to throw money at the customer and try to kind of like put money on things that don't matter as much.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: It's like if you just take care of your guys, they provide an excellent experience and everything.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: It's kind of a bottom-up approach instead of top down how do you um source them?
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: like where?
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: How do you find good people?
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: The basketball course, if you're a basketball coach in lexington, kentucky.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: You either work for me, will work for me, or you turn down an option to work for me.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: If you, if you have good hustle and you can say yes, sir, and you can move your body, then I will come up to you and offer you a job we got a great crew.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: We got a great.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: It's like a college scout, except you're just, you're a moving company.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: So I am I'll go a step further.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: I have been almost 100 accurate with my predictions.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Every guy who I watch on the court and I say he can make it here, he makes it here.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: And every guy who I watch and says, oh, he's not a team player, oh, he's a crybaby, oh he's this, that or the other, and then I'm like please let my friend have a chance.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: He comes in.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: He doesn't make it for more than a week or two.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: Are you serious?
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it it's not about basketball, it's just catching people in their passion, right.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: Catching people.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I see, it's like you guys put your shoes on and your shorts on and came out here.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Why are you going to act?
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Too pretty or too cool, you know?
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: what I mean.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: If you do that at basketball, you're going to do the same thing at work.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Sure, okay.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: So I had heard that.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: I think you mentioned that at a business group we were part of a while back and like just I heard that in passing but I didn't realize like how much this is actually what you're doing.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Like this is your.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Your labor pool is like you just go to the court and you know people watch.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: That is that's really cool.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: I'm curious.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: So you said, like teamwork right, that's obviously a good element.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: What's maybe another like good sign or maybe a red flag, just in that basketball arena where you're like, oh, this is, this is a bad marker good.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: There's always the girl that wants to play, there's always the little kid that wants to play, there's always the old man that wants to play, so you can watch how he interacts with that person, right?
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Do they ignore them?
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Do they let them play?
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: do they treat them nicely.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Um, to watch them win, you get to watch them lose, and then you get to watch them when that crazy guy who's always at the basketball court tries to fight them and throws the ball at them.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Right, you get to see how they win, lose, de-escalate situations, deal with people who they perceive as less than you know.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: What I mean.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: It's just like.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: It's like the game of monopoly for hiring, essentially, you know, like that's fantastic.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: This is so cool.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: You can write a few.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping you put a book together and all this down the road like like um lessons on hiring yeah from the court.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Oh, that is so cool.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: That's so cool.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: We might need to try that, eric, when we start.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: I would bring people on clean space.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: We should, we'll, we'll have you come on as like an hr consultant and you can like build out.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: The thing runs up and down the court.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: That's awesome, swipe right awesome, awesome.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: There was another stuff.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: There was a moving guy.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: I went to a conference recently and they're up in boston and for every new hire he's got this huge company and this is this older gentleman and he goes and runs the stairs of the stadium of harvard with every new hire.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Just as kind of like a really okay yeah, like this is where we're at.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: This is what we do.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Oh, and I love like cheesy dopey initiation rituals like hello next.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Do you have any yet?
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Are you still working on crafting those for from here to there?
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: I mean the last, the last, the last line in our interview is you are chosen, not hired.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: Those who are chosen are the ones who answer.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean it's free, it's good, that's awesome.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: You said you went to a moving conference.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Was it so particular to the moving industry or what?
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: It's a funny atmosphere to be in.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Everybody in the moving industry is self-made macho guys who got up off the truck and did it themselves, just like you're truly here.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of steroids, there's a lot of ozinfant, there's a lot I mean, you know, there's a lot of.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: There's a lot I mean, you know it's, there's a, you know it's all self-development, but it depends on how they package it Right.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: This is, in a way, it was funny, cause I read the Mary Kay book and the Mary Kay book and the self-development they're teaching, they're exactly the same it, pink and white.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: That's hilarious.
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: What books would you recommend to our listeners that really helped you?
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: in your development.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: I got them written down here.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Books I've read recently have nothing to do with business.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: They just have to do with life.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: The first one I read was Trauma.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: The Body Keeps Four.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I just heard of that fairly recently.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: If you're not in a place to read that, wait until you're in a place to read that.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: I know those words are a little bit triggering If you're not ready for it.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: It can kind of almost set you back a little bit.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: And then the other one is called Falling Upward.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: It's kind of the second extent.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Well, they're not directly related, but kind of the second extent.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Well, they're not directly related, but kind of once you got an idea of trauma, then you can go on to falling upward and it's all about the second half of life is essentially what it's about.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: What are your plans for your future?
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: Where are you going?
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: hopefully back to the basketball court to get some more employees.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the immediate goals for me as a leader.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: I struggle with long-term goals.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: We doubled in revenue last year.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: We could double revenue this year.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: That'd be great.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: My main goals are to become the hometown local dominator here in Lexington and to get into some storage.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: So those are my three most pressing goals.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Right, double revenue again, get into some storage and become the go-to hometown guy, because we've got some pretty large-sized companies here.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, lexington.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: When you say get into storage, what do you mean?
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: Like storage units or?
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, or warehouse.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Probably mini storage units would be personal self-storage type of deal.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: So would you buy someone out or would you build it from scratch?
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: What would you do?
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Building from scratch is the way that I see it.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: But, you know, ready for any opportunity that comes up.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm sure, that opportunities happen every day, but they're few and far between right.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Find your work and heart, I guess you got to be ready to catch them.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: So, on the cash flow topic, tell us a little bit about, just give us a quick snap on your business model right now, with from here to there for people that aren't familiar with how that works, and then maybe some challenges in terms of creating cash flow either early or midway through things that you've had like problems you've had to solve as you were developing your business.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: yeah, um, for sure.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: So what is that guy?
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: The peter guy say culture eats tact for breakfast, or whatever so is that peter the old?
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, uh, culture eats tact for breakfast or whatever, so is that, peter Thiel?
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Yes, culture eats, yeah, what is it?
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Culture eats strategy for lunch every day, or something like that?
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't even compete.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: So that is certain.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: When I heard that quote I was like, oh, that's me, like I don't look at my numbers, I just pour into my guys Um so, um, um so, um.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Really, even having the, it's been a it's been a struggle with a cashflow.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: One has definitely been a struggle for us.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: Just again, lack of experience.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: My big project for the end of this year is to do a total restructure and I'm hoping to be entirely out of the office by Christmas and running my company on reports.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: And the first step of that um cause I've been working with a lot of personal business coaches, stuff like that first step of that is getting our books back to where they were, back back to starting ground.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: They're not terrible, but for the first three years we were doing it all in in paper.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: So you know, all of our business practices are good but, as every business does, you just got to get it back to that square one so we can really have an idea.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: So all that to tell you we have been a feelings-informed business and not a numbers-informed business.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: You know we serve people, not numbers, and we're trying to get more into the numbers to just have a better idea of everything.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: But I'm not going to sit here and be one of those guys who's like, oh, I've got my thumb on the numbers, I know where everything is.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: I go as hard as I can every day and I let God take care of the rest.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's not bad, that's not a bad way to go.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Well and like.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: That's cool too, because one of the features of this podcast is we want to talk to people and we're sharing, as co-hosts, experiences in the here and now, like in real time.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: So we didn't even want this podcast to be something where it's like, oh, we're only going to talk to people, that exited million-dollar companies and above.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Tell us you know, like, where's the yacht parked today?
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: You know all that type of stuff Like we actually.
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: Holds ones every morning.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's like we didn't want some of those guests for sure.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's like we do want some of those guests for sure, and like we're planning to get there right, like we're all working that direction.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: But you also get a snapshot.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Today is Thursday, so exactly a week ago today we have camera systems up at the office.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: But I checked my camera when I woke up and I noticed one of the chops was where it wasn't supposed to be.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: So I got up to the office at like 630 and a homeless person had joy ridden my 26 foot box truck.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: Um, all of a hundred and hundred feet exactly.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: No, um, there's a hill and then here's the truck and they parked it up on the hill and they got it bottomed out on a hill.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: So my huge box truck kind of just looked like a big ship that was beached so I was just like what I was.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Like I wish I would have just stolen the truck so I could have gotten the insurance payout.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: I was like now I have to lose a whole day dealing with this, trying to get into the mind of a homeless person, like because it was honestly impressive that they were able to do what they did.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: And it was like it was just wild.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Because it's like if you're that, if your mindset is to just beach, to crash a, it's like you'd think they would have crashed it.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: It was impressive.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: Into South Theater it was impressive and confusing, so we needed a tow truck to get it out.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: It ended up being not a huge deal, just a little bit of chaos.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: That's crazy.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: That is just a prime example of stuff you just will not see happening when you get started.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: There's just no way you're going to put that on your bingo card.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: It's just going to happen and then I just have to go to networking the rest of the day and act like it was normal.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: I was just like, yeah, I'm doing a lot of good right now Jire, how's business?
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's great.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Fantastic, our cash flow is great.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: That's so cool, good stuff.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: So, jair, when we met for coffee a few months back, you were telling me about how, from here to there, featured their dementia friendly certification, and I was really intrigued by that.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: I want you to tell the listeners a little bit about that, how that's kind of a differentiating value to your company and what that means for your audience as well.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: That's the great question.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: New Engine Friendly Certified is a non-profit organization out of Lexington.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: I'm sure most big cities have something into that.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: So the way it came up for us.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: We do a lot of senior moves, so a lot of times we'll move seniors into their children's house and then from their children's house into independent living, from independent living into assisted living and then from assisted living into memory care and then when their time comes, we'll go return all their things to their kid's house or take it to Salvation Army or whatever needs to be done with it.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: So we were already found ourselves in that ecosystem.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: And then someone had just mentioned the adventure.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Friendly certification and anything we can do to further.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: Our guys continue to train our guys is great.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: So we were already doing some internal stuff, but it's always nice to have an external organization Put that stamp of approval, make sure that there's another organization making sure all your standards are up to practice.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, it was a very simple process.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: They came in, I got my entire team certified.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: I think it was a three-step process and the third step was them bringing a cake and throwing a party for us.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: So if you're an organization in Lexington or in any mid-major city.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: I would certainly see about that, because whether your business is oriented towards senior folks or not, you're going to be dealing with that clientele.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: And the other thing I always advertise is that if we can come into a move that has a dementia patient and rock that move, I promise you we can rock every single other move that you throw at it there you go.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: That's awesome, I love it.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: This might kind of tie into chaos in a good way, like in terms of something new.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: I recently heard you were sharing about how you had an interstate move.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Was it somebody in Texas?
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: And it was kind of like a last minute thing.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: They reached out to you and you ended up doing a move.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: I don't remember it's texas specifically, but can you, if you know what I'm talking about I'm not being very clear can you dive into that a little bit and tell me what happened there?
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: yeah, um, check us out on instagram.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: We got some good videos from it.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: We recently moved a emergency medical airlift facility.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: So they they do medical helicopters, um, we moved them from Lexington down to Texas, their new headquarters, um.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: And then we brought a family back.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: It was actually a dementia friendly certification, it was a.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: It was a family with a with a loved one who had dementia.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: Um, we brought that mom back to Lexington and put them in a home here, um, so that that was an eventful day.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: So that was an eventful day.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: We had, you know, 10 guys go out of state and probably had 140 foot of truck unload.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: So you know, Wow, so do you do a lot in interstate?
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: Because obviously you're a local company that's founded here, but now it sounds like you're doing stuff even outside of that offer a boutique white glove service.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: Once we get our numbers back and relook at all of our numbers, we might be making some adjustments to our structure.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: However, um, most of the time when you're doing an interstate job, you're either going to go with a move broker or a van line, so a broker literally has no employees.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: They just buy the job and sell it to the sketchiest, cheapest person they can.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: It's a race to the bottom.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: So if you're ever dealing with a broker, hang up the phone immediately.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Don't know where a van line, a van line is.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Your normal, you know, is how most things get moved across state lines.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: It's a conglomerate of a bunch of moving companies working underneath one umbrella allied or united van lines one of those big players you've heard of, um.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Generally speaking, this is a fine route to go.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: It's the most economical route to go.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: However, when you got four or five different companies dealing with it, you know that's a lot of cooks in the kitchen and a lot of times they're going to show up on a small truck, load it onto the small truck, take it to a warehouse, unload it, put it on a semi truck when other people stop.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: Take it across the country, repeat the process, take it at the warehouse, unload it, it um, you know.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: And then on top of that, they also.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: They'll be like we'll be there between monday and thursday.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: You're like, oh, that's just my entire life in the back, so he's be home for the entire week?
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: yeah, all right.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: So it's like a cable guy.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: So so our service it's a boutique white glove service.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: Um, so we got designated truck.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Um, we only load and unload one time.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: We don't do unload windows.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: You tell us what day and time to show up.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: We'll be there.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: That includes five days of free storage.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: And then the most important part of our interstate package is all of our employees are w2 background checked from here to their full-time employees.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: So there'll be none.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: No fly by nighters or unscrupulous players like you would get in these other gotcha.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: Yes, sir, that's good like wow being short and everything too right up to a million dollars yes, sir, good stuff important that's where the chaos yes, eric, we can.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: We can get your lambo shipped out from florida now we know that.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Yep, be happy to do it.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: That's awesome, that's awesome good stuff.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: So, wrapping up, uh, I'd love to hear you gave some book recommendations earlier.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Tell us about on the recommendation front.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Is there anything a tool, an app, something that's made your life easier or productive that you would also like to share for everyone listening?
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Yes, sir.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: So I'm very old fashioned, not a big tool app guy, definitely not on the AI wave.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: So the technology I found actually is to take away capability from my phone.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: Or I'm doing no good.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: This is called demified and this is not a sponsored plug or anything like that.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: This app for $5, it's one time fee.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: That's my entire lap app library and that's the rest of my phone.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: So it's one time fee.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: That's my entire app library and that's the rest of my phone.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: So it's literally all I've got on here is the bare basics and it cut my screen time from.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: I think I was doing 8 hours a day to 4 hours a day.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: So if I can, cut that up.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: That's good.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: You don't realize how much of your phone is like.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: Maybe colors get you all decided and stuff it's true, it's a little drug man.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: She said dumbify.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: That's why.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: That's why I wear these yeah, blue light glasses well, yeah, that's cool, worth it for sure.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: If you're the kind of person who's like, why am I strolling all the time, buy that five dollars, that for $5.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Nice, love it.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Good stuff.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Well, jair, tell us how listeners can follow your journey, how we can connect with you and maybe some good ways to support you.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Obviously, if we have moving jobs, we know who to reach out to.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: But maybe even beyond that in terms of just getting your name out there and making those recommendations to our friends and family.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: Yes, so our website is fromheretotherecom.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: You can find us on Instagram at fromheretotherecom as well.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: I just recently joined LinkedIn.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: Me and Aram are connected on there now, so if you guys are on the LinkedIn, that's great.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Well, jai, it's been a lot of fun getting to talk with you today, hearing about your journey, and excited to see where things go from here, and we look forward to catching you down the road, gentlemen.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you guys.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: It's been a blast and I will take the breeze with you guys next time.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: I see y'all Sounds good, all right, cheers Ciao.