VIP Café Show – Youngstown, Ohio – Local Guests with Amazing Impact to Our Community

E55: The VIP Café Show with Tim Petrey - Unlocking the Power of Generosity in Business

• Debbie Larson and Greg Smith • Season 3 • Episode 55

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What happens when you mix an entrepreneurial spirit with a penchant for processes and systems? Join us in the cozy back room of Havana House for an insightful chat with Tim Petrey, CEO of HD Growth Partners, as he shares his journey from his family business to washing semi-trucks in college. Discover how these formative experiences laid the groundwork for his understanding of business systems and the importance of transferable skills like accounting. Tim's story highlights how these skills have been pivotal in his career, offering valuable insights for aspiring business owners and investors.

Unravel the transformative power of generosity and gratitude in building a resilient company culture. Through the story of an ambitious individual who turned setbacks into stepping stones, we delve into how mentorship and a strong sense of purpose can lead to unexpected success, even amid challenging times like the pandemic. The conversation underscores the significance of creating a contagious company culture that not only withstands adversity but thrives because of it, ultimately driving growth and fostering resilience in individuals and the organization.

We also explore the profound impact of meaningful client relationships. By working with clients who value openness and change, businesses can create a positive cycle of mutual success. Tim shares insights into how personal motivations, especially for second-generation entrepreneurs, can propel one toward success by overcoming adversities and pushing beyond boundaries. Finally, we wrap up practical networking tips for LinkedIn, emphasizing its role as a powerful tool to connect with Tim and the HD Growth Partners team while expressing heartfelt gratitude to our listeners and participants for their unwavering support.

Speaker 1:

hey, hey, hey. It's the vip cafe show here in beautiful back lodge or room.

Speaker 2:

I should say of the havana house and they're.

Speaker 1:

We're having a wonderful cigar here and we are just enjoying the weather that we still have. It's beautiful, yes, and it helps because the Guardian's gone and they'll be back next year.

Speaker 3:

They will, they will. What do you think about the Browns new stadium?

Speaker 1:

I think it's wonderful. I really honestly I'm a Pittsburgh fan.

Speaker 3:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

And when you have good competition it's always more fun, it's more exciting being dominant's great but then it gets old.

Speaker 2:

I think the Browns' new stadium would be great if somebody else played there.

Speaker 3:

That would make it even better. What would?

Speaker 1:

they do with a beautiful stadium. We'd get our Baltimore team back and ship the Browns over to Baltimore Right. Well, since our guests already started talking, let's introduce them all right.

Speaker 3:

Today we have tim petri. He is the ceo at hd growth partners. That affects so many companies, not only locally but across the state and maybe the nation. I'm not sure we're about to find out, so welcome, tim thanks for having me, guys, happy to be here, you're welcome, you're welcome, so tell us, tell us about AC Growth Partners. What do you do? Let's do this first. Okay, yes, I like doing this first.

Speaker 1:

So what got you inspired to do what you do? I mean, you know, when you were young, something got you inspired to be into entrepreneurialism and helping people and really getting excited about making a difference.

Speaker 2:

So what was your spark? Yeah, so there was a combination of things. As I was independent at a pretty young age, I knew I needed to learn a set of skills that would be transferable in just about any business.

Speaker 1:

Is this Liam Neeson talking? If we ever get in trouble, we're calling you. I wonder where he got that line. We're calling you. I will find you and I will kill you it's tagline for hd red partners I couldn't hold myself back go ahead.

Speaker 2:

yeah, I needed something that was going to allow for me to be independent and figure out my own path. But ultimately my aunt and uncle that raised me for many years owned a family business. They owned Youngstown Cycle Supply here for about 50 years in town and I watched the struggles that they went through as a locally owned family business, especially in that smaller category where they didn't have access to, you know, a full blown legal team. They didn't have access to a full blown accounting team.

Speaker 2:

They didn't have some of the professional resources that they needed to adapt to the world, the changing world around them, and I saw the impact that it left on them. So as I got in a school at YSU and started to think about what I wanted to do next, I went in as a business general major and thought I'd learn business and that'd be a great place for me to start. And then it clicked with me with one of the professors and he explained to me. He said accounting is the neurological system of any business.

Speaker 2:

So whatever it is that you want to do. If you have a fundamental understanding of the math and the accounting behind it, you can do anything. I wanted to be Jerry Maguire. I wanted to be a sports agent I wanted to be. I love sports.

Speaker 3:

I think you would have been very good at that.

Speaker 2:

You have the look you know, like the contract stuff and making sure that people don't screw up that giant opportunity that they get, and so that's really what kind of pointed me in that direction was this is a skill that I can apply to just about any business. And then, coming out of school during the peak of the financial crisis in Youngstown, ohio, I just wanted a job. I washed semi-trucks to put myself through high school and college. I just wanted something that I knew I would be safe and I'd be able to provide for myself and my wife and eventual family at the time.

Speaker 3:

So around what year? Wait a minute, that's huge.

Speaker 1:

You didn't wash cars, you washed semi-trucks. That's right. That's probably a niche that you had.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know what? I learned a lot about business during that period of time, oddly enough, and the Blue Beacon Truck Wash is a really interesting study on an entity that has their market completely captured.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

There is like no other competitor in the semi-truck space.

Speaker 1:

So they're the best, other than Blue.

Speaker 2:

Beacon. They're the best. So like just watching how they processed everything and how they made every single thing, when you start working there, you sit in the back room for a couple of weeks and watch a computer on how to do everything. They don't leave anything to chance. There is an exact process and science to every single thing that they do and it was fascinating.

Speaker 1:

I really fell in love with that whole theory of creating processes behind businesses, from washing trucks, systems, systems.

Speaker 2:

That's what John Maxwell always pounds in.

Speaker 1:

He said successful people have systems. Yep Period Wow, you can only go so far without them. No, absolutely, absolutely true. Wow, absolutely true. That's awesome. You can only go so far without them. No, yeah, absolutely, absolutely true.

Speaker 3:

Wow, that's awesome. You guys just keep talking. I'm learning, I'm learning.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like I said, there was a couple of sparks there. Spark one was seeing my family and just what it took to run a small business and wanting to be a part of that, and then just wanting that safety net of having something that I knew that I was going to be able to eat.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but you're on the right side of the equation. The left side of the equation is employee or self-employed. The right side is business owner and investor and you can't make money on the left side. You can make money on the right side.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean you can't necessarily make the same amount of money if you're only selling your time because you only have so much to sell, right? When you can start making money selling things that are not simply your time, then you got something.

Speaker 1:

It's funny I said that once and somebody goes that's not true. I had a friend that only made $30,000 a year but died a millionaire. I said that's because they invested. Yeah, interesting.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, interesting. Wow, that's deep.

Speaker 1:

It's deep. Honestly, you know everybody says, oh, it's the rich, it's the rich. No, the founding people that founded our country wanted everyone to be like that. They wanted 90% of this country owned by the citizens Wow. And we've allowed that to get slipped through our fingers.

Speaker 3:

Wow.

Speaker 1:

We got to get back to that. We control our own destiny. We own the land, we own the businesses.

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

That's where we need to be.

Speaker 2:

And the opportunity still exists. Yeah, now listen, I have my advantages. I'm a 6'3 white guy, so like I get, that gives me a different level of advantage in a lot of different scenarios. I put myself through college washing semi trucks. There was a period of time where I could only take classes at a certain time frame, so I was working midnights, I was sleeping in my car from 9 o'clock in the morning until class started at 2. Wow, and then was taking classes in the afternoon. So, listen, I didn't have the financial resources.

Speaker 1:

I started with less than zero, so I have to ask did you do the stale bread and peanut butter sandwiches too? It is a common thing with people, literally. They go to the store and they buy the day old bread and they get a jar of peanut butter. They live in their car down by the river.

Speaker 2:

You can find me in a van down by the river. There we go. Yeah, I mean, I would tell people that I would take I don't know the appropriate language here, but I would take what I would refer to as a whore bath at the Blue Beacon before I left there, what I would refer to as a whore bath at the Blue Beacon before I left there. I would go into the sink and I would wash my feet with the Gojo soap Wow, and so I didn't smell like a truck wash, because that is a very specific kind of smell when you're around the rest of the world.

Speaker 2:

And that's how I had to clean myself up. It was either that or go take a shower with truckers and I'll wash myself in the sink.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you don't want to be in the queen movie? Yeah, some people will get that.

Speaker 3:

Oh man, yeah, that's crazy. So what year around was that you said financial crisis?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I started washing trucks in the early 2000s, 2002, okay, 2001, 2002. I was a sophomore in high school. Okay, wash semi trucks. I left high school a year early and started at ysu oh, nice okay and then continued to wash semi trucks full-time, 56 yards a week, while I went to college wow. Wow, graduated in 2009.

Speaker 3:

Okay, yeah, you're right. So 2008 was that big financial crisis type.

Speaker 1:

Yep, oh yeah.

Speaker 3:

So where did you graduate from?

Speaker 2:

I graduated from Youngstown State High school, high school Western Reserve, western Reserve.

Speaker 3:

Okay, Blue Devils class of 2005.

Speaker 2:

We had maybe 68 people in our class. We were a super small school out there and then it was time to go out and get a real job at that point in 2009. And not a lot of the accounting firms around here were hiring. I had interviewed with all of them. Didn't get a job offer. I interned at Hill Barth and King Great firm here in town. Didn't get a full-time job offer. Got another offer to come back and intern and decided I wanted something else. I wanted a real job. I went to school, I put in all the effort and so I got connected with my former partner and mentor, Harold Davis. He was looking for somebody to just help out, so it was supposed to be a temporary thing. I took a job with him answering the phones at the front desk for eight, nine bucks an hour something like that and I was supposed to leave for a job in DC.

Speaker 2:

I had a job offer at one of the big firms in DC and worked six months with Harold and he and I just hit it off. I loved what we were doing there. I loved working with him and learning from him. And I sat down with him after that six months and said, listen, man, I got to go, I got to go get this real job. And he looked at me and said I want you to stay, I'm having too much fun. And I said the same thing. He was thinking about selling his practice and he said he would teach me everything he knew. And I went all in on him. He went all in on me and I bought into our firm when I was 23 years old.

Speaker 2:

Wow I took over as our managing partner at 25. And over that period of time, from 25 until today, at 37 years old, we grew our firm from about four employees doing about $300,000, $400,000 in revenue to about 75 people doing about $7.5 million in revenue. We do business in about 42 different states in our payroll business and we recently just joined some founding partner in a platform-based concept that is backed by a private equity company in San Francisco for accounting firms. So we joined that private equity-backed platform in January of this year.

Speaker 1:

Oh, awesome, that's wonderful. Now, from everything you just said, there's a theme here. It's called generosity. You had generous people in your life and you're a very generous person. Talk about that a little bit if you wouldn't mind.

Speaker 3:

How has?

Speaker 1:

generosity shaped your life.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I have always lived with the mentality of having a tremendous amount of gratitude because I didn't have much, I didn't have anything. Growing up, I didn't have the traditional family, I didn't have the traditional household, and when people were generous to me, that meant something different, maybe, to me than it meant to anybody else. Harold was someone that was extremely generous with his time and with his expertise and his wisdom that he imparted upon me, and I viewed that now as my obligation, moving forward, to do the same for any and everybody around me, not out of any sense other than the fact that I feel that I owe it back to the world. I was given an opportunity that essentially changed my zip code.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And now I try to do my best to be just as generous with my time to help others, because what else is there? There isn't.

Speaker 1:

We are born and put on this earth to serve and help others. We all have a purpose and a reason and we don't do that if we're so critical of ourselves that we're afraid we're robbing the world of what we have to offer.

Speaker 2:

And some of us are lucky enough to find our purpose at the right time. I think that's the biggest difference is that most of the people that I see that are like quote unquote, lost in the world, just haven't found their purpose yet. And I was lucky in that sense to find my purpose early on in my life and early on in my career, and that was the advantage was that I coupled that purpose with the sheer willingness to just work and run through a wall when somebody told me to, and that led to something different.

Speaker 2:

But in a sense that, yes, I think that if more people understood and knew their purpose earlier, people would have more fulfilling lives.

Speaker 1:

Well, you know, you could take Amadeus Mozart Everybody goes oh, he was so talented. No, he started when he was two. If we all started our career when we were two, we'd be the best in the world If we worked hard with our purpose. Now you can be 90 and figure out your purpose. There are some examples of people that are crushing it and they started in their 80s and 90s, so it doesn't. I don't want anybody on this listening to this program going oh, I'm 60 and I don't have a purpose Great yeah.

Speaker 2:

Go.

Speaker 3:

Your life is good for you to begin. Oh yeah, you're right, you don't?

Speaker 1:

have to it is.

Speaker 3:

So you have a very so. I've been to your place of office and you have a very specific company culture that's very purposeful and you could feel it. It's contagious when you walk in. So talk to us a little bit about the purposely created company culture that you've created.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so we got to an interesting point in 2019, 2020 at our company, we were growing like like crazy. We had a bunch of great stuff going for us and the pandemic happened, oh, and it really threw a wrench into our entire operating model, because think about the idea of a place like Planet Fitness. They're about 10,000 percent oversubscribed. So if everybody showed up at once. That has a membership at Planet Fitness. They go out of business because they don't have enough facility to manage all those people.

Speaker 2:

So we realized relatively quickly that we were a little bit oversubscribed because of the fact that everybody wanted their PPP loans all at the same time. Everybody wanted their government program backed loans right now. So we had all of our clients were calling us all at the exact same time. So we thought about that. We put in a lot of time. During that period of time I think I worked at least 18 months straight.

Speaker 1:

No days off, seven days a week, just to get through that and figure it all out.

Speaker 2:

And so the next step was where do we go from here? I'm of the mindset that you don't waste a good crisis, and we did what we needed to do to stand up for our community and make sure that everybody had the resources that they needed. Our team members had everything that they needed, and we went around and we talked to everybody and we said, hey, what do you guys want next? We're out of space at our building. We need to expand. Where do you want to go? How do you want to do this?

Speaker 2:

I had some friends that had launched some virtual accounting practices across the country and we thought about doing that. We thought about going fully remote, and I talked to all of our people and they're like we really don't want that. We love it here. We want to be a part of something together. That's part of what we have fun doing. So we did a lot of soul searching. We did a lot of research. I went around the country and I checked out a lot of other accounting firms and how they had done it and asked them what would you have done differently? And then, ultimately, we got to work. We found a piece of property that had been largely abandoned for the last few years.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And we decided we were going to go absolutely all in on this place. So we have 30,000 square feet facility and just down to the studs everywhere New roof, new electrical, new internet, new literally everything within the facility. But when it came time to do like the finer details at the end, the whole theory was we want this place to be somewhere where people want to come. So we have some beautiful mural work in there from our friend Pat McGlone at Overall Painting. We've got great technology in there so it's easy for people to get in and have their meetings. We have various different rooms for people to bring their kids for nap time, and their kids come along to the office with them. There are dog treats all around the office.

Speaker 3:

It's dog friendly.

Speaker 2:

All the stuff that we did the flooring to the wall colors, to everything was so that it could do all of those things. It would be a place where we could create this community. And when you create a community, something different happens when you create a business. It's one thing.

Speaker 1:

But if you can create a community and you can get people excited about coming to work and being part of something, no, what you? There's a couple things I just want to unmask here that were. Number one a culture is what you allow and disallow within a given community. Right, okay, and once you set those rules, that's your culture, that's your community. If you allow an outside agent to come in and disturb, that, you destroy or can destroy your community. So when people hear about all this stuff that's going on with America, that's what a lot of people are very concerned about. Are we allowing people to come in here now and I know this is going to cause some controversy but are we allowing people to come in here that want to assimilate to our community?

Speaker 3:

or do they want?

Speaker 1:

to change our community. And there's the rep you. There's certain people you would not allow into your culture because they're going to disrupt it. Right, and it would destroy everything, but it's important again, as a person that wants to start a business or is in a business, you should know what you allow and disallow within that business and also have the story behind why that exists, because that's stories or how you transfer culture.

Speaker 2:

Yep Wow.

Speaker 2:

So, you'll see things. It's funny the way that you describe this, because you would immediately understand our facility. Like throughout our building, we have what's called our brand compass, and our brand compass, as most people refer to as their core values. To me it's our brand compass because it helps you find alignment when you're out in the world and you're doing difficult things. You look back to those things and you say, does it fit? This helps us find our center at all times. So there's reminders throughout our entire facility about not only our brand compass, but our agreements and our contracts and the things that we have agreed upon together that we're going to do to ensure that people don't come in and change and or disrupt that culture. And then not only that, but you can't just put it on the walls.

Speaker 3:

Right.

Speaker 2:

So that same brand compass and the things that we put all over the place within our facility is integrated into how we operate our business. Our incentive compensation plan for our employees are all tied back to that brand compass. Our review of our customers at the end of the year are all tied back to that brand compass. How we hire employees, how we decide to take on clients, what we decide to support in our community, all come back to that. What we decide to support in our community, all come back to that. So we all have agreed upon hey, if it comes back to the compass and that's what gets us back on that same path that we agreed upon, then that fits so what's?

Speaker 2:

your ideal avatar.

Speaker 1:

What's your ideal client?

Speaker 2:

so that's something that Over the years, we've really tried to refine, and at the beginning that was different than what it is today, and the ideal client for us is someone that values our opinions, and the client that wants to work with us throughout the year that we're talking to on an ongoing basis it's not just someone that needs compliance work, not somebody that needs a tax return or needs an audit or needs a payroll work. It's that they want us to be ingrained in their business, they want our input, they want how we feel about things and they will actually listen to what they tell us.

Speaker 1:

You mean you want to help them create systems that create success?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because our purpose is to make a better contribution to the world and a better contribution to our community. Because if we're working with clients that value what we do, if we're working with clients that want to listen to us and we can help and we can make a positive impact in their life, what does that do for our team? Our team goes to work every day knowing that what they're doing is making a positive impact in someone else's life. As a result, they love coming to work. When they love coming to work, they provide a better service to the clients. When they provide a better service to the clients, they're happier. When the clients are happier, everyone is winning.

Speaker 1:

And this all came tie back from him seeing people he loved and cared about suffer because they didn't have this type of service and, because of that strife, instead of sitting there going victimhood he took responsibility, skilled himself, and now he's in a position to make sure nobody after that has to go through what their friends went through Yep.

Speaker 3:

Man, talk about making the most of your pain or pain. Even I read a Malcolm Gladwell book and it's called the Outliers, and he talked about how so many second generation entrepreneurs are the ones that just explode because they watch the work that it took, but now, with the renewed passion, energy and ideas, they take it to the next level, often superseding the original, like parents or, in your case, aunt and uncle. That's fascinating how that happens, because you know and understand the work it's going to take going into it.

Speaker 1:

But then you see the gaps I'm gonna go to barnes and noble after we're done here, I'm gonna go buy you the new book, revenge of the tipping point, which is his newest book and it is off the chart really, I'm gonna go get you a copy.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, thank you, greg I had to plug Malcolm's book. Okay, be generous here. Oh yeah, look at that how he all ties it all. He just tied the she-lace, he took all the why Youngstown?

Speaker 1:

The one thing about this is this is focusing on Youngstown, success in Youngstown. Why stay in Youngstown?

Speaker 2:

That's a good question. There's a positive reason and there's a negative reason. Go ahead, okay. And the positive reason from my perspective is that I love it here. This is the place that created the opportunity for me. This is the place that made me who I am. This is the place that gave me the resources that provided me with that jumping off point to start something special. And the negative reason is twofold. Is that? Number one, everybody told, told me I couldn't. I don't love that and and there are people that gave up on me. There are people that said that I wasn't good enough. There are people that didn't want to take a chance on me. There was my. My father left when I was very young. There were other firms that didn't hire me. There's a list of people that I, at the beginning, was. There were other firms that didn't hire me. There's a list of people that, at the beginning, was. That was the motivation that when you listen to somebody like Michael Jordan talk about what motivated him to win games and Michael Jordan is a full blown psychopath.

Speaker 1:

I've literally been in the locker room when he's playing cards.

Speaker 2:

And, yeah, he's a different person. The way that he motivated himself to win, oh yeah, he tricked himself and and and taught himself that this person was coming after him, or this person said that, or whatever it was. But at the beginning, when you're getting started, you have to find something that pushes beyond money. You have to find something that pushes you beyond anything else that is going to fire you up and wake you up early in the morning or push you through that 18th month in a row of working 12 hour days, seven days a week, and sometimes it's the darker motivation that does that and I'm going to say something, and it wasn't about you is about not letting the people you serve down.

Speaker 1:

That's right. Listen to that. That's huge. We all get. I need to do this for me. No, you need to do it for somebody else. If you, I'm telling you, next time you go to the gym anybody on this thing you go to the gym and you're starting to get tired, look at somebody else and say I can't quit. Because I don't want to quit, because if I quit, I won't be backing that person, I won't be helping that person. Energy you have. We are built to help people. Human beings absolutely are, and when we start to look at somebody else and have each other's back, that's when a team goes to the roof.

Speaker 2:

That's why, selfishly, it doesn't last that long.

Speaker 1:

One plow horse can do 5,000 pounds. Two plow horses can do 25,000 pounds.

Speaker 3:

That's incredible, that's incredible.

Speaker 1:

You don't want to fail because of the other person, right, and it just pushes you beyond your limits, because that's how we're wired, that's why we're the dominant species on the planet.

Speaker 3:

Man. It takes unselfishness to actually go further.

Speaker 2:

So how does somebody, if they want to work with you, how do they do it? So we give you a chance to plug your business and how they? How do they reach out to you? And our websites are wwwhdgrowthpartnerscom. We're pretty active on all social media platforms. Our payroll company, White Glove Payroll, is as well Instagram, LinkedIn.

Speaker 3:

Those are two separate accounts, yeah, so.

Speaker 2:

White Glove Payroll is our payroll processing and human capital management company, so we do payroll processing, hr services, consulting services related to people, and then the HD Growth Partners are accounting and advisory business. Got it Okay and hit us up on the website. There's plenty of information there. The best way to start, ultimately, is come to our website and sign up for our newsletter. I write the vast majority of our newsletters myself. No chat GPT-esque newsletters.

Speaker 2:

They are written by myself based on whatever relevant content that's going on in the world at that point in time and my personal opinion on that and that tends to ultimately be the first way that people get to know us either hearing something on a podcast or hearing something that we're producing we're very education forward. So our goal is we're trying to educate our clients to be better and to get bigger and to get stronger and to get smarter. We don't focus on the compliance side of things. We want to be an educational resource for our folks.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that's awesome. You know what, debbie? You know what's time for?

Speaker 3:

Oh, rapid fire. Oh yeah, and you've got a new set, so go for it the latest book you read, or the most memorable, the most impactful book?

Speaker 2:

So I think the most impactful book that I read was Presence by Amy Cuddy.

Speaker 3:

Have you read that one, Greg?

Speaker 1:

Yes, I have, and I watched her TEDx spot with her huge godly necklace.

Speaker 2:

But yes, I had a professor that did this exercise before a big test and he'd make us stand up and do the Superman pose before a test. And then I saw it again on a TV show as like Grey's Anatomy later on. And then I was going to, I was working with a coach and they gave me a few books to read. And they gave me that one to read and it quickly rose to the top. Especially in the small to medium-sized business world is just teaching people how important how you carry yourself and how you communicate is so really great book.

Speaker 3:

That's good. It's awesome. Okay, shout out or just the name of someone in quick 30 seconds about somebody who has had major impact in your life. I know you already mentioned one guy who believed in you.

Speaker 2:

My brother. My brother has been Curtis.

Speaker 1:

Okay, my brother.

Speaker 2:

Curtis.

Speaker 3:

There's only one. Okay, they wouldn't have had to guess which brother he's talking about me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So my brother had a really difficult childhood, In addition to the fact that we lost our parents. Really young he was born missing a bone in his leg. They replaced it with his rib and he made it all the way to sophomore year with a rib in his leg and it grew with him along the way and then it broke. Playing basketball he got staph infection, had to get it cut off. So he's been a below-the-knee amputee since sophomore year of high school.

Speaker 2:

He is 46 years old now. He has two wonderful children. One of them works with me at our NIL collective. But watching my brother go through that and deal with all the challenges that were thrown at him and all the opportunities that he had to go down a terrible path and ultimately became an amazing father, an amazing member of the community and it was just somebody that I always had a tremendous amount of respect for and he was always my rock when I was going through something difficult and I didn't think I could get through that challenge or that difficult thing I pick up the phone, I call my brother and we found a way to work through it. That's beautiful.

Speaker 3:

I'm sure he'll appreciate it, so shout out to you, curtis, if you're listening. Okay, and then what has been the biggest lesson learned so far in business?

Speaker 2:

Time is the most valuable commodity that you have Early on. When I bought my first house, I was really excited about it. It was the first thing that I had ever owned right. I was so proud of the fact that I had bought my first house and I didn't even have enough money to put the down payment on my $80,000 house. I had to borrow that from Harold and I get about a month in and I go and I want to cut my grass and I'm super excited to cut my own grass because it's my grass.

Speaker 1:

It's nobody else's grass, right?

Speaker 2:

I go buy a lawnmower, I cut the grass. I get in and I put the lawnmower away and I'm cleaning it up. And I get in the house and I'm a disaster. I'm like I find out that I'm allergic to cut grass. I knew that I had allergies but I didn't know to what extent and so I'm completely just obliterated. So two days go by, I get back in the office Monday and Harold's talking to me. He's like hey, what'd you do this weekend? I said I cut my grass. I was excited about it. And he said what else did you do? I said no, no, I cut my grass. And then I was a mess the rest of the weekend because I'm allergic to grass. I had hives all over me and stuff.

Speaker 2:

You can't cut your own grass. I said what do you mean? I can't cut my own grass. Harold, I make $36,000 a year. I can't afford to pay somebody else to cut my grass. He said Timmy, the sooner you learn that your time is the most valuable thing you got, the better off you're going to be. What could you have done? You could have studied for the CPA exam. You could have learned a new skill. You could have done something. Hour take and say if we're charging $200 an hour and you took two days to cut your grass and recover from it. How much did that cost you Now? Can you afford to pay somebody to cut your own grass? Now that you do the math that way? It was pretty early on that I learned the value of my time and learned how to deploy that in the most effective way.

Speaker 3:

Powerful. And again, how do people work with you?

Speaker 1:

again, where do they go Plug it one more time.

Speaker 2:

HDGrowthPartnerscom. Come find me on LinkedIn. It's the only social media that I still pay any attention to is LinkedIn.

Speaker 1:

Well, that's it Okay.

Speaker 3:

There we go, there we go.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome everybody. Thank you very much for your time. Appreciate it.

Speaker 3:

Yes, yes, thank you Tim, thank you Tim, thank you. Greg, thank you everybody for listening to the VIP Cafe Show.