0:12 good afternoon and welcome to people making money one of the way to wow shows I'm your host Kevin bemel and we are here every Wednesday at 12 30 p.m Pacific time which is right now uh 3 30 p.m eastern time for those of you on the other side of the of this of the country and an hour in of course for mountain and central time and I'm excited today to have you meet my guest uh Paul makowitz who's whose name I've been mingling all week um on my previous two shows um but we'll
0:48 we'll talk about those a little bit later um I I do want to get straight to talking to Paul we've been we were chatting for a little while um before uh starting the show and uh um he's he's got a a pretty fascinating uh background going on here and you you might be able to tell by the fact that he has a an Army flag just opposed with uh a Spider-Man comic book cover that there's something going on here that is uh you know not in the sort of typical vein of things and and and that that always bodes for for a great show so so
1:24 Paul welcome to people making money how are you doing this how are you doing this afternoon I I'm doing awesome we got uh all those awesome problems of being way too busy you know the best possible ways yeah absolutely absolutely well yeah you know always better to be too busy than not busy enough right so so um Paul you know Paul you and I were talking like I said uh before the show started and and um sort of I was giving you the lowdown on on how things work here and so uh you know if you're willing to I want to take you back as far as you'll as you're
1:59 willing to go I already I already told Paul is this is going to be my first question and that is you know when you were a kid growing up in I don't well you're living in North Carolina right now right uh I'm in South Carolina but I originally grew up in Buffalo New York oh Buffalo New wow okay so when you were freezing in Buffalo New York as a kid right I mean did you dream of you know becoming a a digital marketing professional what was what was going on in your mind about what you wanted to do you know when you grew up yeah when I was a kid really the only
2:34 thing I want to do is play professional basketball actually so I I was an avid athlete I'm one of six kids so oh wow we yeah we could like feel the whole team it was great the only downfall to that is my family's not the most athletic family um a lot of good musicians a lot of uh a lot of Engineers smart people uh but I got the athletic Gene and so you know I I still like to tell my brothers and sisters even to this day even though we're all in our 30s 40s 50s that uh I'm the favorite because obviously my parents were coming to all of my sporting events it was a lot more
3:09 exciting than dance recitals and things like that but um no growing up I truly I wish I had more Direction growing up but I think that that's kind of a pretty standard thing here for uh like I guess I'm a millennial I'm 40. so I'm right right in that kind of borderline I got to grow up with a little bit of the analog world you know I remember talking with people on the phone you know having to pull the chord three rooms away uh to get on a phone call uh I did build websites though which is kind of interesting I never really thought about that but I was you know when we had like
3:45 Geo sites and Angel Fire and uh the old dial-up internet you know building initial sites I had built a few um which which is kind of funny because I'm still building websites to this day it's one of my favorite parts of what I do but it was never uh it's not really a career option um because I always wanted to be in athletics in some way that dream kind of died when I stopped growing at five nine and you know I played volleyball and basketball all the way up through college and uh you know just there's you
4:20 reach limitations physically at some point uh and so when I went to college it um this is actually for early childhood education and then switch to Communications and then switch to journalism and then switch to uh liberal arts because I truly obviously at that point had zero idea what I wanted to do um I got actually got injured playing volleyball well in college and uh I was going to college Fredonia which is up outside Buffalo New York and uh you know snowstorms were rolling through and everything like that and I was on
4:55 crutches and you know I did not do very well my second semester uh between changing Majors having no idea what I wanted to do and I was working at Dick's Sporting Goods I've seen their golf Department um and happened to be selling a guy golf clubs who said have you ever thought about the military and uh I never really had honestly even though my father was an Air Force National Guard my grandfather was a tanker in World War II and my uh my family on my mother's side can be traced all the way back to the American Revolution you know and we've had multiple yeah multiple military uh
5:33 veterans throughout my entire lineage so it wasn't something I've really thought of all that much and what's kind of funny is growing up I was very close with my grandfather he never talked about World War II you know I was also pretty young at the time but he's the guy that taught me how to golf you know um taught me a lot of life lessons out on the course which I still impart to people when I play with them I'm a big fan of sports psychology and uh you know so if anybody needs any sports psychology book recommendations I've probably read dozens and dozens of them because I think they're also very applicable to to the business world even
6:09 to just being a good human um it's a little bit of stoicism you know kind of rolled in there too but so uh so I did my time in the military I spent three years as a computer operator for field artillery I scored in the top one percent on the ASVAB so it was kind of like my choice of what to do and then they said well you know this is what we got for two years you know I could be infantry guy basically and I was like well what do you got for three years and his computer operator for field artillery and so I jumped at it um did basic in AIT in Fort Sill uh
6:45 Oklahoma and let me interrupt you for just a minute did you end up completing college or did you decide to leave college and join the military what was the decision the decision point there well between uh not getting super great grades uh because I didn't go to classes often on crutches and through snowstorms um and uh just really the only thing I knew at that time was that I had no idea what I wanted to do um so I only did one year of college and then joined the military so so I went in enlisted um uh when I finished basement it uh I
7:21 went to Fort Polk Louisiana there for two months before I got shipped out to Iraq spent a little over a year in Iraq wow yeah we're the very first artillery unit in there so I spent uh about the first three four months rolling from Kuwait up into Baghdad blowing up a lot of stuff you know being sure that so I was the smart guy in artillery basically so you would have infantry Ford observers out there they would need something blown up they would take say uh they were taking taking fire you know they would give me a direction give me a distance I'd put into a computer system and judge for the drift of the round or um you know precipitation knocked down
7:57 um anything along those lines and I call the we call them gun bunnies you know the the people up on the howitzers and I haven't heard that term yeah yeah they're the gun bunnies so you know it's like put this around in there put this much gunpowder that you know one white bag two red bags turn crank 10 times this way 12 times this way pull string go boom um so I was kind of the guy that was controlling that system um so I did uh that rolling up there and then I performed uh mostly training the uh the Iraqi military force in the Iraqi police and providing security for uh
8:33 elections and in the markets and um you know even up on guard towers and everything around our base up there Camp Marlborough up in uh solder city which is just outside it's kind of like the ghetto of Baghdad um post 911 or yeah I uh there's another big reason why I enlisted I enlisted in I guess it would have been June 2002. so it was just a few months after 9 11. a lot of you know talking talking with my dad about joining the military and you know a lot of uh you know I don't feel super great about it now now
9:08 that I kind of see uh the reasons that we invade a lot of countries is not as altruistic as I hoped we'd say um but you know I did feel that I was serving my country and going and doing the right thing at the time um so I I spent that time in Iraq came back and did oppositional forces so I played laser tag basically for the last year I was in the military uh training people that were going over to uh going over to the Middle East and using whatever airbag I remembered and growing whatever beard I could at the time at you know 20 21 years old
9:43 um but and then also my unit was getting moved uh to a different state and because I told him very upfront I'm not re-enlisting um I they left me in Fort Polk when my entire unit left so uh so I did that for a while and got out and moved to Atlanta uh in Atlanta I you know well I guess I'll backtrack here well I was in the the last few months I was in the military I got a hernia I actually had a hernia while I was in Iraq and I just was dealing with it dealing with it had to have surgery and so I couldn't really do pt and another Soldier uh that got left
10:20 behind we consider ourselves the Left Behind crew here uh he also was going through some some physical injuries and so our PT uh we got to play Speed golf was rpt where you take your three wood your seven iron and your Putter and it's not yeah it's not how many strokes it takes to get in the hotel fast you get in the hole right something you're basically hitting the ball and you're running you're taking off um I don't know why that was that was considered light PT as opposed to you know some of the more difficult stuff but uh I always loved golf I you know I worked in the golf department at Dick's
10:55 I played a little bit in high school um and at that time I was actually getting really really quite good um so I got out of the military I went back and started working for Dick's Sporting Goods started going to to college to spend that that GI money uh in the army college funny fund money uh I have a bit of a love hate relationship with this time in my life because this is also the time that I found out that uh my government contract was not as clear as I initially had thought we'll say okay it took me took me five years of cussing out the VA cussing out DFAS
11:34 passing out everybody that I could because they were giving me literally like half the amount of college money that my contract said I should bought it for five years and eventually they said okay yeah we were wrong and they sent me a check for like 30 grand and an apology you know which at that time I dropped out of the college I was going to start going to a tech school you know so I don't have a real great track record with like traditional education we'll say um but so I worked for Dick's Sporting Goods when I got out and I was taking night classes and uh the pro that I was working with was like man you're good you should why don't you uh think about a career in
12:09 golf and so I did I went and took the PGA playability test I got a qualifying score so I was able to become a teaching professional yeah and so I was giving golf lessons I was running Junior camps and giving golf lessons running tournaments um really like the greatest job in the world honestly I've played like 180 rounds one year I think 175 the second year so I was playing basically every other day um yes this is when I was in Atlanta and um the downfall of that industry is like you know unless you're good enough to be
12:44 playing on Sundays and in tournaments it's really not that financially lucrative a career uh so well I loved it I just couldn't really make money um I went back to Dick's Sporting Goods um luck as a good employee and had a good hat on my shoulders I got promoted pretty quickly became like a team lead then a manager um that unfortunately my grandfather passed away and uh I went up to Buffalo to for the the services and things like that and just being up there with family and you know I just spent the last basically like eight years out on my own um doing my own thing
13:20 I decided I want to be by my family for a little bit and so I I worked in a relocation with Dick's Sporting Goods and they sent me up to Rochester New York and so I bounced around like Buffalo and Rochester for a while still with dicks um and then anybody that's worked retail you know probably knows us you get burnt out yeah so but before we continue I want to go back to when you were working as a golf pro because I think a lot of people both coming out of the military coming out of college whatever um they they have kind of a dream of of working in sports in some way I know in
13:55 the work that I've done with transitioning people like nowadays you can get these sports management degrees and such and and they all you know dream of I don't you know managing a team or all these different things and and you kind of drop something that I want to pick up on a little bit as you said it you don't really make a whole lot of money unless you're playing on Sundays so so kind of unpack that if you would a little bit I mean you know golf we think when we think of golf we think of you know tens of millions of dollars in
14:31 prize money for these tournaments right especially now with the Saudis coming in with I think it's live if I'm if I remember correctly right so what golf is looked at as being a very very lucrative sport but of course that's what you're seeing you know on the PGA tour like you see on a Sunday or whatever for the mainstream person who's pursuing golf as a career you know what are the kind of things that that you can do and what can you expect in terms of compensation lifestyle that that sort of thing yeah I think the lifestyle is probably
15:06 like the biggest draw um I have a few I'm lucky enough at this point in my career I have a few friends um acquaintances that play professional golf um I'm still you know I'm playing charity tournaments quite a bit I play uh you know a lot of uh I get called in as kind of like the ringer for scrambles and things like that people that want to win um so I so I get to I still get to play an awful lot um and I'm still pretty good I'm still the best of people that I play with um but in in that industry I think the most
15:41 important thing is to really find where you can provide value I mean I looking back on it I think I probably would have been a really great caddy because my mentally um I have a pretty strong game I don't get too flustered um pretty we're just like we were talking about earlier I'm pretty boring to play with hit the ball straight and I keep myself out of trouble uh you know so um that type of mental attitude is probably very beneficial to a lot of players that you know tend to you know be a little bit more aggressive out there I'm also very analytical so I you
16:17 know if I'm on an uphill slope I know the ball is going to go uphill a little bit it's going to probably reduce my the distance I hit it by three to five yards or so like I I do all those calculations in my head um and so I think that that type of value could have been significant if I were to maybe have like found somebody to to be a caddy for also uh yeah I think like developing golf products I think what it really comes down to is finding what you're good at and pairing it with the passion that you have that's uh I'm actually in the process right now building a website for
16:52 a golf professional who wants to get some more sponsorships and things like that you know I happen to be a great website builder so uh finding cool ways to to show off his personality and why you know he would be a good face of a brand for other brands you know I I'm still involved in the industry in a way but you know unfortunately I'm not swinging the clubs uh that would probably be the biggest thing I could say about a lot of sports management people that want to be in the in the sports industry one of my good friends is data analytics for uh professional sports teams you know he he loves spreadsheets but he also is a huge huge
17:29 football fan and so he found a way to kind of you know partner those things of doing data analytics for a team so I I think that's maybe taking a step back and realizing you know I'm maybe I'm not the star for this even though I wish I could but how can I be a star in my own little Avenue of it my own lane uh that'd be my biggest recommendation because I'm sure I mean I can think about half dozen people that I just know personally people that wish that they were doing something different um in a passion you know they they pursued it slightly but you know maybe
18:04 never found their own lane in it um and it's it's kind of interesting that that's true like why I have a marketing company right now because I I love buying psychology I love thinking about how people think I I love you know digging into why people do what they do and especially when it comes to money because this is you know we're all working to make this money how we're going to spend that you know uh because most of my clients are law firms and doctors so that's that's not exactly like a small decision you know so these people are making a a big Financial commitment here to something
18:40 and you know how they're going to make that decision is going to come down to the likability of the person that they they find out there and you know anybody here that's ever needed a lawyer or or a doctor knows that if they've gone to their websites probably one of the most boring things I've ever seen or or if it's a law firm a lot of times you're like uh like you get that sleazy feeling from them you know uh that's that's the fun of what I do is I come in and I figure out how to make this guy not sleazy how to make this doctor look less clinical more friendly you know more more reasons uh to build that emotional
19:15 connection um and I again I think probably all comes around a little bit to the that mental side that I enjoy in golf which is you know problem solving that's really what I do is I'm a digital problem solver for people so let's let's Okay so let's go back you're you're in um you're back in the Buffalo area you're working back working for Dick's Sporting is and and you know I think a lot of people have the perception that working for a big retailer like that is is not a worthwhile thing to do and I'm
19:51 curious about you you obviously you are working for dicks at several times in your life you you in essence would go back so what was that experience like basically working for you know dixes I think I think they're the biggest Sporting Goods retailer in a country now right they're probably bigger than big five which used to be yeah I'm I'm quite sure that Dick's Sporting Goods is the biggest uh in the US they um if anybody remembers galleons they bought out galleons and that's when they became uh the biggest in the US
20:26 scallions was a really really cool sports store that had rock walls inside of them and yeah and so uh Dick's Sporting Goods used to be like they had single floor stores kind of similar to big fiber Sports Authority or or things like that and then they bought out galleons which was this kind of uh you know different version of a sporting goods store usually two stories and a rock wall had you know uh a little bit more kind of like a Bass Pro like experiential uh type buying which I again I always found interesting because that's you know this is how people are are spending money you know you're trying to capitalize on that
21:02 uh working for Dick's Sporting Goods was honestly it's great it was I don't really have a whole lot of bad things to say about it because they recognized that I cared which I think is another kind of pretty steady um attribute that I've provided to most businesses and and what I think I provide to my clients now is that you know if I'm I'm gonna do something I'm gonna do it well and so when it came down to you know managing a retail store uh I was always heavily heavily focused on ensuring that every single person gets greeted every single person you know feels appreciated every single
21:38 person that you're asking the right questions to guide them in their buying process um in the golf Department uh that probably used to that convinced me to go take the player ability test uh he used to always give me a hard time because he would say well you get married over there but it's because I was over there like you know be on us yes with a guy you know talking about calls talking about you know courses in the area they play talking about their best round you know things like that like I I feel like that relationship building that emotional connection that you build with people is very important and you know obviously when they looked at average ticket for like sales rep mine would always be
22:13 really really high because not only was I selling them a driver but I was also you know being sure that they were getting a head cover with it that they had this accessory you know that they had a brush for it that they you know why don't you if you get a new driver get a new bag I mean you might as well color coordinate man make sure make sure you look good at that you know but it's it's in having that conversation that I'm able to you know upsell helps upsell and so um that's probably one of the reasons that you know uh Dick's always kind of recognized me um as a good employee I'm also very organized I like I like order and systems and things like that and so when it came to management um I've always been a pretty good manager of people because
22:48 I I like giving them guide posts you know I I'm not a good micromanager uh that's probably the first thing my team would say is like at least he doesn't bother me when it comes to it yeah I give an outcome I give some guideposts to get to that outcome um and then outside of that I'm trusting you to to care about your job as much as I do you know so um but with that which one because it's awesome where do you think that ability to manage people to you know it's interesting what you're saying to digress for just a minute yesterday on
23:24 my show business lessons from the military I was talking about decision making and uh because I'm I'm going through Marine Corps War fighting Doctrine and the Marine Corps philosophy on decision making is push the authority to make decisions is low down the chain of command as you can because you know the Marine on the battlefield looking to take that tactical objective is in a much better place to be able to make the decisions that are necessary to achieve the objective than the guy sitting back at the command post who doesn't have the
24:00 same level of situational awareness Etc right so you know when when I talk to Marine Corps veterans right and they talk about leadership and how they exercise it you can see a clear connection between their military service and how they exercise leadership in the civilian world so you had a a relatively short time in the Army just a few years um you didn't talk about whether you you know in the three years you became a sergeant or anything like that so I don't know that you know I'm curious to know how you know your military time
24:38 affected your leadership and management ability and and if it didn't where did it come you know where did that ability come from how did you develop that because I think you're right the ability to develop relationships and lead people is a crucial skill right in in any kind of endeavor yeah I'd say from the military uh and this is just kind of something I've found in my career in multiple times is with people you often can't learn from them but even when you can't learn from them you can learn what not to do from them
25:14 and uh my sergeant he's super nice guy I really liked him he's great uh great as a person not the best sergeant not the best leader not the you know most buttoned up Soldier uh so being kind of Who I Am Naturally and also I think Athletics probably had a lot to do with it too you know um being captains of teams and uh you know being willing to to be in a leadership position you know it is something you have to be willing to do uh a lot of it kind of came down on me to pick up the slack for somebody that above me wasn't that great
25:51 um and I also believe that it's if you make the person above you look great you're always going to move up you're always going to be rewarded so even when I was you know working as just an associate uh for Dick's Sporting Goods you know I always took pride in what I was doing and you know covered for my managers if they if they were dropping the ball somewhere if I saw something that had to be done I just did it uh I think that that's one of the big things you learned in the military is like action matters like if you don't know what to do do something right uh it's 100 a core uh core value of my
26:29 current company honorable marketing is a lot of the reason that people come to us is because you know they went to school for eight years to be a lawyer or a doctor and they didn't take a single marketing class they didn't take a single you know some don't even take a business class and yet now they're running a business and you know having to decide what to do on the marketing side and I'm fine with telling some multi-million dollar Law Firm hey you're you're not doing the right thing this is stupid uh you should be doing this like this is and I'm not saying it to be mean I'm just you know we both want you to succeed we're both here for your success I'm
27:06 telling you what you're doing is not working this doesn't work better and I think they appreciate that too and again it kind of comes down to like if I make them look great if I'm making my clients money I'm making money um and it if you have that mindset and and just about anything that you do that you know you go you want to make sure that the people above you are looking great if there aren't people above you like you know I'm the CEO and founder of my company I don't have anybody above me but I substitute in there the clients you know my clients are above me right if I make them look great you know I look great and the people below me you
27:42 know I'm at kind of a fun time in the business right now where I'm removing myself from just about every aspect of running the business outside of being you know the witty Charming face that gets to go on podcasts and and promote my business and go talk and you know do webinars and do trade shows and do things like that you know I I stick more on the sales side now um but one of the things that I'm telling them all the time is you're basically my lead blocker it's your job to protect my time that's how you can help me you know that's how you are managing up is because if a client's getting to me at this point you know
28:18 it's it's taking away from me selling more and growing the business and things like that and so my employees don't want a client to get to me they want to really handle everything that they can at at their level uh and it makes you know luckily this has been like a pretty smooth transition all in all like I can't say it's been too too bad you know but when you have something you've been working with for three four years and you're like hey so you're not going to talk to me that much anymore now you're gonna talk to this guy uh it's not an easy conversation certainly but if you have the systems and the right people in place they can handle it um and you know they care that's that's probably one of the biggest things I
28:53 look for when I hire people is like do you care um because I think that that's the biggest differentiator uh between like good employees and bad employees like technical knowledge I can teach you you know uh best tactics strategies uh even like mindsets and psychology around it like a lot of that could be taught but if you don't care then you're not you know you're not the type of person that we want uh and with Dick's Sporting Goods I think uh they they always took an interest in me because I took an interest in them too I'd say you know uh my first
29:29 promotion I told them I wanted it but I mean after that most of my other promotions came saying like hey you you deserve this you know take this you deserve this which you know in hindsight I'm like hey maybe six months earlier I should have said like hey I wanna right so um so I guess it's a bit of a double-edged sword but um if you're if you have that mindset I think you know you're gonna go you're gonna move in the right right direction but with uh and so like I really wouldn't have done any of it differently than I have done it either because obviously I've made tons and tons of mistakes I mean
30:05 countless mistakes uh so it's it but it brought me to where I am today and a lot of it uh and I really like I really enjoy what I do now because I you know I don't work for sleazy lawyers if they're sleazy lawyer I just fired a client the other day because you know I I gave him six months you know I kept asking what charities he's going to donate to this quarter I can you know kind of like let's see if you're a good human in a few different ways and he just he never was kind of coming around to it and in fact he's getting like verbally abusive towards one of my employees and I was like nope
30:41 you're done and I just called him up and I said yeah uh good luck you know tell me tell me where you need me to ever transfer everything because you're no longer a client of ours um and with this actually since since the pandemic I actually started working with a lot more naturopathic doctors because I saw you know I'm not a big fan of the medical system here in our country as it is especially the va's because uh you know I I've gone through some health issues you know I've spent a year in either in Iraq a little messed up in the head in some some cases and the answer was always like throw pills at him and I was like I'm not doing that like what
31:16 other options do I have um and I found with naturopathic medicine um and homeopathic medicine that I always had much better results you know good for the body good for good for my mind and what's nice is law firms pay the bills like I charge a law firm a lot more than I charge a naturopathic doctor for similar services but it's because that's what the market demands uh but what I really enjoy doing right now is getting people out of the sick care system and the more attention I can bring towards naturopathic medicine the the better and you know I I maybe I wouldn't have known that had I not been a veteran and gone through the va's and you know I've lived
31:53 in six seven maybe eight different cities at this point so you know I've been to a lot of them and I it's pretty clear to me what state-run medical care looks like right um and so now I feel like very personally rewarded too to not only you know use my skills but to use them in a way that I feel like I'm you know doing God's work I'm I'm providing value for lots more people than I individually could just by helping these other businesses Market Market what they do so outside is a bit of a tangent there no no and it was a tangent that I that I
32:28 you know I encourage you to go down so take us from you know you're getting bored with retail to whatever the next step was so we can we'll take that we'll take the thread you know get back on the thread of your professional Journey yeah this um this was uh it's kind of like rapid fire or decision making and jumping at crazy opportunities we'll say um more decision making always a good thing to hear from a former artillery guy it's very true
33:04 um but I guess that's that's also kind of an attribute of of me as I I truly believe God puts opportunities in your path constantly and it's it's our free will it's our opportunity to take them or not take them and I always felt like why would I not take it you know like what what's what's the down what I'm gonna sit in the snow in Buffalo longer so um so I have a friend whose philosophy is just say yes you know I'm getting to the point in my career right now where I'm like I gotta say no a lot more so that that's actually been I'm working on the
33:39 opposite right now I'm working on saying no more um but yeah so when I was uh when I was burnt out on retail and I mean I was at the Dexter probably like five six years so I did it a while um I had a guy used to play a lot of golf with and I'd go to his bar and drink and he had indoor golf simulators and a driving range and a bar restaurant and uh I've been a patron and I'd run some events there um and he was like man like if you don't want to do that anymore I would love you to come and run this place for me so I I went I ran his business for about two years
34:14 um I nearly nearly tripled the amount of Revenue that he was doing in the three years I was there uh through you know and this is just when I mean Facebook had been around a little bit but this is one like really you could really promote a business using Facebook ads you could really um you know a lot of people didn't really know how to run even like Google ads yet and things like that and so I jumped in there and you know helped this guy's business explode um to the point where he was like thinking about closing down three years later I guess two and a half years later so he is like extremely upset that I was
34:49 like I don't want to be in Buffalo anymore he's like how much money do I have to give you I was like I don't think there's a number I was like I don't think that's it so um so I saved up some money my sister was living out in New Mexico and I was just like I'm out of here like I'm just gonna go do something now I'm gonna go figure it out and I was uh I was not like super young I think it was 28 ish 28. um and she she needed a roommate and I was like let's do this and so I just I jumped in my car and I sold everything I had uh drove to New Mexico uh no job no
35:25 anything uh and I was out there playing golf because that's what I do when I go places um and this guy had an idea for a scooter rental company and I was like well I bought like eight grand or so that I could put towards a you know a little side hustle startup business see what I can do and so together we bought a bunch of scooters and uh in a year I opened up five locations these like little pop-up shops I'd find a like a business that I could rent out to the front of their business and put a pop-up shop and show up with you know eight scooters and hire somebody that just um I ran the entire company off iPads and uh you know had a
36:02 digital contract where they just fill out the information on it and email them the contract email us one put some GPS trackers on the scooters uh and so we had five locations throughout New Mexico um I was busting my ass I was working uh I mean we're talking about like 70 80 hour Weeks driving non-stop like wow ooh I was sleeping in shops uh I sometimes I'd like get to a motel at you know 10 o'clock at night be waking up at four o'clock in the morning to drive four hours to a different location to check on that one it was insane it was crazy it's craziest year of of my uh we'll say
36:39 professional career but it was also my first I guess Venture into entrepreneurship it was my first company and uh the guy that I partnered with uh you know I I also found that like a lot of entrepreneurs are pretty slimy themselves you know some of them just really aren't aren't in it for the right reasons um and I wasn't in it for the right reasons I was open to a company because I want to make money right like that was that was my goal at that point like I can buy a scooter for 600 bucks and then rent it out for 80 bucks a day and this thing's paid for in a week and everything's profit after like the
37:14 numbers made a lot of sense um I probably grew too quick and you know burnt myself out uh but also like New Mexico is a weird place like I'm I uh you know I it was fine living there it was cool uh my sister and I got to got to hang out a lot and you know grow closer but uh one day A buddy of mine uh he's a friend of mine I've had since we were in kindergarten we literally know each other since kindergarten so five years old and now I was uh getting close to 30 I'd say probably like 29 somewhere in there and he called me and said hey my
37:49 roommate's leaving interested in coming to New York City you've always talked about it you know do you want to do it so I said well let me let me put some feelers out there um and I I found a job with a brand new marketing company well they weren't brand brand new but this is a new office they were opening in New York City and they're called Main Street hub and some people probably have heard of them they used to be uh about two three years after I got there they became the largest online presence management company in the US they're they're bought by GoDaddy eventually but when I got there in New York City our office was two blocks
38:25 south of the Times Square so I was walking through Times Square every day a very different world than driving around New Mexico in the deserts yeah and um it was awesome I literally like put my desk together I think it was a 15th 16th employee at that office and uh I did very well in phone sales you know getting people to let us build the mobile websites and run their social media and run their reputation management um and I saw a lot of value in what we were doing so working for a lot of like Mountain pop shops you know um I was the golf course guy I had like
39:01 right around 50 golf courses across the US that I was managing all their social media and things like that um yeah not that site that I was managing it but I sold them you know uh and I think that's a probably one of the biggest things in sales is like if you can find something to relate to these people on calling them and telling them hey I used to be a golf pro this company is really great they're going to manage the online presence you guys are going to look awesome online you know they're going to bleep me over you know just some random person so you know because I knew their industry I could talk to talk with them and uh uh I did really well there I was a top
39:36 three percent sales guy in all of New York City and they started sending me around to trade shows and so I was you know it's usually like two weekends a month I was in a different city um spent a lot of time in Las Vegas a lot of time in Chicago uh Miami so it was about as awesome a life as someone you know living in New York City and traveling every other weekend to a different city across the US and doing trade shows and um it was fun it was a lot of fun it's great uh I learned a lot you know I think that there's no bigger skill that you can have than good salesmanship and
40:12 I I kind of took what I had from Dick's Sporting Goods which was you know really uh asking probing questions getting people to under to really open up as far as what their needs were um and now now I was transitioning that from you know golf clubs and baseball bats to marketing and uh what's what's funny is my I have a degree in marketing I I did finish those night classes eventually and got my dick got my degree in marketing but um it was it was great it was a wonderful time in my life and then I met the uh the future wife you know she was living up in Harlem I was living up on the
40:47 Upper East Side uh we met in about six months later um we decided to move to Miami and so I was looking for a marketing company down there to go and work with and I found this one company um they're great they're still really good friends to this day but uh I applied for a sales manager position and they didn't call me back in like two days and I was like come on Miami like my top three sales their top three percent sales guy in New York City and I'm looking to come to Miami and you guys aren't hitting me up right away uh and so after like three or
41:24 four days uh I just called the CEO and I was like dude come on like and the exact type of person that you you want at your business I've I was I'm coming from as a marketing executive from an Inc 500 back-to-back company so I kind of tuted my own horn and then I also ripped into him a bit which if if there's anything I would say like it's okay to be a little aggressive sometimes like I I was like you you manage the online presence for businesses you're a 3.2 on Google you don't have enough reviews nobody's answering your reviews you guys haven't posted on your social in six months sorry like tore into a little bit here
42:01 and he's like you make very good points when can you start and I was like awesome um so yeah I ended up uh trans transition from being a marketing executive to a Director of Business Development and I got there and this company like I said they're they're still good friends of mine today but I was blown away at how inefficient all of their systems were I mean I got there they didn't have a CRM and at this point they had over 200 clients and they didn't have a CRM they're basically working off like spreadsheets and smile and dial which you know I love some good
42:36 smile and dial but I'd like to you know some systems behind it uh so I went over there and I I built a CRM for them I built their email campaigns I you know managed their social I started uh you know running webinars I started like really expanding out what they were doing uh and then my wife got the dream job offer in Los Angeles California so she works in high-end luxury hotels so in yeah in New York she was at the St Regis uh in in Miami she did some property management for some brand new luxury
43:12 complexes that were put up and then in uh she got the phone call for the Waldorf Astoria in Beverly Hills to come and be the director of guest relations wow yeah that's that that was the dream job for her literally like her ideal job um so at that time uh about two weeks before she got that job offer on the map the CEO came to me and said hey you're doing an amazing job we'd like to promote you to the VP of client success you know we we don't think we're handling our clients well enough we want you to build out some systems over there and so I had to come back to him and say awesome here's my plan here's what I'm
43:47 going to do here's how I'm going to fix this I'm just gonna do it from LA and the uh he was a little shocked he was not super happy about my decision but uh kudos to this guy he took it in stride and said awesome um how about you open an office out there hire some sales people we'll build a West Coast office and so I went out there and and opened a West Coast office for uh for that company um and it was great uh went out there it it became um we'll say it became like Troublesome
44:22 after about a year year and a half mostly because when you're an executive member of a company kind of like the c-suite but working on the other side of the country and you know I was flying back and forth a lot and uh you know it's just really difficult to to excel we'll say I think that the job could be done but I think it's difficult to excel when you're not seeing those people's faces every day and and doing what you do so um I I slipped I'll be out I mean I talk about mistakes I make all the time but um I slipped and I had this guy come to me and say hey you're we are running his
44:58 marketing actually and he said I think I could build a marketing agency I think you're the perfect guy to run it will you come over be my CEO and he threw her I mean I don't know if I can swear on here or not but he threw a ton of money at me this guy he threw a big chunk of money and said come on over and I took it uh I I grew that business pretty quick you know we were we were profitable and uh and five and a half months we have profitability so um I was doing great things really uh I
45:33 had the experience I'd already kind of done a lot of it um and then about about you know obviously you start seeing cracks in the facade every once in a while um the CEO who is also running sales kind of stopped showing up uh the sales guys kind of stopped doing their job and I was I was running sales I was running operations so um and also the the financial backers the technically owners of the company uh they were becoming a bit less responsive and on stuff and and I never touched the financials outside of just tracking numbers you know making
46:10 sure we were making money it was really all I but I you know I submit payroll to them and they would take care of and things like that and then suddenly had a web developer come to me one day and say like hey uh my check balanced and I said shut up and then my check bounced and then uh need to say like things went downhill quite quickly to the point where the owner got um I I found out that one of the owners there's two of them um got sent to prison for 25 years or some some pretty nasty stuff and suddenly I'm sitting here and the
46:46 other owner is like that was the dude of the money like I don't know what to tell you and I'm looking at a team with 10 people saying like guys I don't I truly like don't know what to tell you and it was extremely hard I actually have a picture of myself it's the only only panic attack I've ever had in my life but I took a picture of myself of I'm literally crying I'm bawling I'm like I'm so stressed because I've got 10 people that I'm really responsible for their well-being and their lives and I don't have answers suddenly you know these people they still owe me like 10 grand which obviously I'll never get you know to this day
47:21 um but I was literally forced into a position where I was like I had no idea what to do um I had just signed a law firm as a client for that company and then uh basically found out that that guy had gone to prison and went to back to him and said like so this is what I got for you I'm Gonna Leave This company and here's the reasons why and I think the only option that I have is I'm going to start my own agency I got me and one other guy I'm gonna bust my ass I'm gonna build you a really great website I know this is not like how you wanted to start a marketing relationship but I'm just
47:57 going to be open and upfront and honest with you I'm going to do a great job I've got all the skills I've got all the experience to do this trust me we'll get there and that guy is still a client to say he's been a client Wayne for over four years so he's my very first client um I started my my own company um kind of out of out of frustration out of desperation out of all of it and it's my chief production officer he's a great guy uh I call him my Renee Zellweger because at that time I was like guys I think the ship is going down
48:34 I'm gonna go do my own thing once come with me and he's like I'm in let's go and so is me and him sitting on my couch in West Hollywood going so what do we call this company what do we do like should I do all the work should you do like what should we do here I was like I can't really pay you um that in four years you know it's been four years now um at that time we were hashtag smart marketing uh and now we are honorable marketing and now we have uh you know I I've relocated the company from California to South Carolina now but I have
49:09 two employees to California one in Texas one in North Carolina uh two in Kenya one in Venezuela one in Indonesia one in Pakistan and a development team in Canada and so uh pretty cohesive team we've been growing uh steadily we've doubled in size just about every year so uh things are things are good it's like um we're at the point right now where I don't have to be doing everything you know I still really enjoy building websites I I do all the strategy calls I still do most of our sales um but now I have the kind of systems in
49:44 place a lot of LinkedIn messaging sequences and email campaigns and run a lot of paid ads myself and things like that so it's we have a pretty good system in place and um we've got a look about my board 38 clients so um and growing steadily and and uh you know I I think that we're we're really at like an inflection point right now too I think we're gonna so we're going to take off even more here over the next uh over the next few months with with a lot of what we've done so very exciting things over here but as you can tell uh I didn't plan this I certainly didn't plan this that's
50:20 right so you know here you are um you mentioned you're 40 years old right and and you when we were talking before the show started you were saying you have a very Meandering path and indeed a lot of um sort of back and forth and yet um there seems to be some consistent aspects to it um and when I first heard your company name honorable marketing I thought it must have something to do with military service right because a lot of people
50:56 from the military you know honorable service and all that kind of but but it seems to me that it's really honorable marketing like marketing done in an honorable way right instead of like BS marketing so well uh no I I think you are 100 right I think that the the military side definitely plays into it um our you know my my entire company knows the uh Army core values you know leadership loyalty Duty respect yeah I remember now selfless service uh honor integrity personal courage yeah yeah so uh we we talk about them during
51:33 during company meetings but um yeah I think that I think that's true I think it's honorable because we're uh definitely a veteran owned business even my my CEO uh which I brought on in January she's also a veteran um so I'm and I'm about to hire a veteran who's a sales guy so we're I'm trying to really stick to that side but uh when we were hashtag smart marketing I had a little side hustle in Miami where I would go to people's houses and help them set up their Smart Homes you know Google home Alexa you know the lights the speakers and is that stuff's
52:10 not the most uh intuitive design sometimes but having somebody come in there kind of do it uh I could do a job in like 30 minutes and you know make a couple hundred bucks it was pretty great so I had this LLC from it which was hashtag Smart Life and when uh Christian and I my my uh Chief production officer were sitting on that couch I was like well we got this LLC um let's just let's just use it let's put it to work and so we became hashtag smart marketing I liked it because one um I'm definitely a work smarter not harder guy like I guess I work very hard but I find
52:45 the most efficient ways to do things certainly like if there's a programming or tool I mean I love Chad GPT you want to talk about efficiency and finding finding ways to do things smart right um but with that uh when we look when I was relocating um I couldn't take California anymore it was a little much for me I had my first kid and I didn't want to raise him out there so um when we moved out here to South Carolina I was like well I also don't want to pay that California tax anymore um so let's let's do full relocation here and Rebrand and I was talking with my my group of friends I've had the same
53:21 Core group of like eight friends for you know nearly 30 years I guess some of them over 30 years and uh I was asking I said guys I need a top five list of words that you would associate with me and I'll tell you smart didn't come up once let's say you know integrity and honor and you know you bust your ass you work hard you know you're uh and honor kind of uh it showed up on a few of them and I said you know what I think I think that makes sense for me um I I'm not the smartest guy in the world and uh I'm okay with that but uh I
54:00 am certainly honorable um you know I had to fire a client the other day because he didn't fit uh what I feel you know it's hard to promote somebody when you look on their glass door and you see you know they have a 21 CEO approval waiting or rating with women because they all think he's sexist and listening right yeah that's like that's not a guy I want to I don't want to help his Law Firm grow you know um I actually took that as kind of a little motivation to go find a few other law firms in the area and help them right right uh but I I think that's sticking to that I also think there were I mean I don't know what the word is for
54:36 it but like an Awakening a revelation uh a change in how businesses are operating like I would rather make less money and feel good about what I do and you know I work with naturopathic doctors they don't have that much money so like I can't charge them what I charge a lawyer but I like working with them because I know that they're positively impacting their community and they're uh they actually care about whole body health and they don't want to just throw some pills at you and things like that um and I think that that kind of like speaks to why we are honorable and also like we're really good at what we do and so if we if we're you know that's why
55:12 Spider-Man's there you know with great power comes great responsibility you know you it's it's not um I think the days of just like hustle for the sake of making money like I yeah I love to hustle I love to be busy I love to keep keep going and doing stuff but it's not because I'm I'm making money like I got this um one of my favorite things to to get and I tell all my clients this is like if you get really good feedback from one of your clients or one of your patients I want to hear about it because I almost feel like they're saying that about about us because you know we are freeing up the time for that client to provide that service we are
55:49 you know the reason that somebody even knew that they existed and so they tried them out and and so uh I'm very blessed very lucky very fortunate that that I I'm in a position where I can fire a client if I don't feel like they fit um but it also leaves me you know when I bring on somebody when I'm having a sales conversation with somebody I think they know pretty quickly that I care and uh and I think it just goes a long way so it's so interesting what you're saying about firing a client because it took me a good 10 years into the business I had
56:25 before I joined the Navy to realize that sometimes one of the best things you can do in a business is fire a client who doesn't fit with your ethical moral Outlook who is you know abusing either you know my staff or or you know was refusing to honor her obligations to she was a landlord to her tenants those kind and and it was incredibly it was a an incredibly corrosive situation
57:00 um and So eventually I did fire her and the person who I was talking to the person who had referred her to me um many years before and um and I was feeling kind of guilty because like you know this guy he went out of his way to refer him and all this kind of stuff and and I and and I said well you know by the way I you know I I had to you know dump such and such as a client he said when did you do that I said well just last week he's like last week he said ah I dumped her five years ago
57:35 oh gosh I wish you had told me you know but but you know it goes back to what you were saying that you can't necessarily learn from other people you know you you a lot of times I think we have to learn these lessons by going through them right we have to experience them so yeah but please please I was just gonna say my mine was a little bit similar that I had um it was a a good business associate of mine who he refers me out a lot and I had to call I wanted to call him
58:11 first and I was like dude I don't know if you have problems with this guy but if you heard what he just said to one of my employees like I was like and then I looked him up and I you know I was like I see the type of person he is and I just gotta let you know he doesn't fit with what we do and so I'm gonna let him go and he goes what do you mean you're gonna let him go he's like he pays you like a lot of money I was like it doesn't really matter like he's just not a not a good fit I go but I feel like I have to tell you first I want to be respectful to you like I really appreciate that you send me people and obviously we do really good works you keep doing it but you know this guy's
58:46 got to go and uh he his response is basically like I totally understand this really sucks because now I gotta go find somebody else for him but he goes so if there's anything you can do to help me on this he even he was even like um kind of like uh will you just do the work and and like I'll I'll kind of you know play play lead Blocker on this and I was like I'm sorry but I don't think that's gonna work because on all honestly like you re-put yourself in this world and you know he's
59:21 he's not not I don't think he'll be successful long term like he you could grow really fast you could do things but at some point you get found out you know everybody always gets found out yep yep well gosh the hour zoomed by I don't know if you realize we're already we're already up for our hour and and as is so often the case uh we could probably easily talk for another two or three hours um I'm gonna have to have you come on uh uh one of my other shows and and talk just about the marketing side of things and and and that that whole side of it um so we'll we'll we'll get you on again
59:57 soon I hope um and we we can talk again it's it's it's from my perspective it's been a great conversation especially since I did not have to talk very much there's uh my wife can tell you I'm definitely a good a good talker she said she knew I was the one when she took me to a party and she didn't see me for an hour and a half and she's like you didn't know anybody there like it was your party you'd go do your thing I'll do mine you're cool she's a good one absolutely well I'm if you'll if you'll
60:32 just kind of hang tight for a couple minutes I'm gonna wrap things up and then uh we can go offline and and uh and say our goodbyes um but I first of all I want to thank you Paul mcowicz for honorable marketing and by the way I'll put a a link in the show notes um to to your website and and whatever other links you want me to put in there so people know where they can get in touch with you um I I mean what what you're doing is is is fantastic and um so much so much of marketing is is so sleazy clickbaity kind of stuff these
61:07 days my my daughter talks about it you know fairly often and uh you know it's it's good to know that there are people in that business who are honest reputable people um who can help us Market in an honorable and reputable way because I think most people do want to do that but they've either they don't know how or they get sort of sucked into ways of doing things that don't necessarily fit with who they really want to be so um so thank you thank you very much for coming on the show thank you all very much for joining us if you have
61:43 questions comments good bad feel free to drop them into our social media send send me an email all those contacts will be in the show notes as well always would love to hear from you and anything that you want to pass on to Paul I have no doubt that um he will he will respond but being a nice person it doesn't matter by being a nasty viewer I don't know that's how I got a job in Miami by being a little nasty so you were tough not nasty okay
62:19 [Laughter] well that wraps it up for us today I just want to mention we we we do it all again next week so Monday at 10 A.M Pacific time we'll be doing trust in Estates weekly Tuesday at 11 A.M Pacific time we'll be doing business lessons from the military and then on Wednesday of next week uh just about seven days from today we will be will be the next edition of people making money at 12 30 p.m Pacific so I hope you will join me for all of those One Last Thing Before I
62:54 Let You Go um please do consider subscribing to our YouTube channel that way you will get notified of all the shows that we do if you can't watch them live and would uh would would love to have you as a regular viewer of the show here so again thank you very much for joining us today Paul thanks again for being a guest on the show a fantastic guest on the show and that just leaves me with you know my sign off which which those of you who watch the show know it's uh to my dear friend Marie up in heaven just want to say to you darling you are and ever will
63:29 be my bell so thank you all very much have a wonderful rest of the day and week and we'll see you next week