March 5, 2024 • 28 mins
It can be tough to start a business. And if you’re a young family on the brink of the birth of your first child, it can be even tougher. Yet George and Margarita Rivera did it anyway. When George came home and told Margarita he quit his job to start his own electric company, she had apprehensions. Could they keep their family afloat while starting this new company?
Join Ben and Tanya as they chat with the founders of Doc Watts Electric about those first rocky months. Discover how they built a company as they built their family, learned the tools of the trade while learning how to run a successful business— and avoided their competitor’s mistakes by looking to the future. These are The Unshakeables.
The Unshakeables is brought to you by Chase for Business and Ruby Studio by iHeartMedia
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I told my boss, I said, I'm done with this.
I just couldn't do it no more.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Some businesses start from a great idea, some from a need.
But for Georgia and Margarita Rivera, their company, Dakwats Electric,
was founded in a moment of frustration.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
He came home to pretty much let me know that
he had quit his job and that he was going
to do this side thing full time. It was super
bad timing. I'm eight months pregnant. I was just like,
what are you thinking?
Speaker 1 (00:33):
The stakes are extremely hot. It's like do a die moment.
You know, either I'm going to put food on the
table or not.
Speaker 4 (00:41):
Welcome to the Unshakables from Chase for Business and Ruby
Studio from iHeartMedia. I'm Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
And I'm Tanya Nebo, a lawyer and consultant for business owners.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
On the Unshakables, we're sharing the daring stories of small
business owners facing their crisis points and telling the stories
of how they got through it.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Then we're back with another story.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Tell me all about it, Tanya.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Well, once upon a time, newlyweds George and Margarita decided
to leave behind everything they knew while raising an infant.
Though the first few months were hard, they finally got
a huge break and put everything on the line. Would
this moment make or break the couple and the business.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Was that a Hollywood movie or a small business story.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
I'll let you listen and then you can decide. On
today's episode, Doc Watts from Orlando, Florida. Growing up, a
lot of kids dream of being astronauts or ballerinas. Not
George Rivera. He only wanted to be one thing, an electrician.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
That was born for this. And you talked to my mom,
she tells, y'all was born with a wire out of
my hand.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
His dad was a handyman, and he tag along on
jobs and watch him build, shape, paint, and tear things down.
But nothing fascinated him quite like electricity.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
It's a mystery. You can do a thousand different things.
You can turn the light bulb with different ways. It's
no one way to do it.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
He went to an electrician training program, completed an apprenticeship,
and got a job at the Orlando Airport. Right away,
he was put on a multi million dollar electrical project.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
I was the youngest guy there with the license that
very had any mustache, or beard, and they tell me, George, man,
what are you doing here? I've been doing this since
you're in diapers, you know, pretty much.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Although he was a lot younger than most of his coworkers,
George wasn't shy about taking charge.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
They didn't like a young guy coming in a very aggressive,
very go get her. And there was one guy. I
told him, listen, man, one day, you're gonna be working
for me.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Before long, he was right. George quickly rose in the
ranks and soon was managing the same men that had
previously disrespected him.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
We had thirty two guys. The guy show up, lady
and I said, you know, I feel like a big
babysitting here.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
George got more and more frustrated. One day, after a
particularly infuriating moment, he marched straight in to his boss's office.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I told my boss, I said, I just couldn't do
it no more. I'm done with this. I'm going to
go out my own. And that's exactly what I did.
I didn't think about I knew I was going to
have a company one day, and I said now or never.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
George may have known that this was the moment, but
his wife, Margarita had no idea. The whole ride home,
George dreaded, telling her.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
I remember pulling up to the driveway and walking around
the van a thousand times, like in circles circle.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
I think I had to redo the driveway after that.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Margarita was eight months pregnant with their son. They had
only one thousand dollars in the bank and lived in
a house with the foundation issues that made it slanted.
With all that was going on, the timing wasn't great.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
He came home to pretty much let me know that
he had quit his job and that he was going
to do this side thing full time.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
That's Margarita, George's wife and a co owner of Doc Watts.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I was just like, what are you thinking? We're going
to have a baby in a month.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Let's pretend George isn't sitting next to you. Were you
cussing him out in your mind?
Speaker 3 (04:13):
You know? It was more like you really made the
decision without me. How is this going to happen? How
is this going to work? There was no plan.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Okay, Tanya, I have to stop you for a second.
Let me ask you honestly, Okay, if you were twenty
four years old, you're just married you're one month away
from having your first kid and your spouse comes out
and says, I've had it, I quit, I'm starting a
new business. Here we go, right, I mean.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Right, that sounds like you were cussing him out in
your mind.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
She had to be.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
She she deserves, she deserves an Olympic medal.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
I mean, come on, yeah, that's a lot to be
as calm as it sounds like she was, even though
she's pissed because he didn't say anything to her about it.
And then he makes such a major life decision when
she's about to give birth for God's sakes, Like what, yes, saint.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
Okay, let's go back to the story. What happens next?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
So then George had actually been preparing for this moment
months before he quit. He put ads in the local
paper for electrical work on the side. He even bought
a utility van.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I ain't had the customer base darting out nothing, just
really go out with faith, no money and no experience,
no business skills, one hundred percent of nothing. Still nothing.
It's like do a die moment. You know, either I'm
gonna put food on the table or not. We had
no room to fail.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
He knew that to stand out his business needed a
catchy name. And then one day he was talking to
a friend about it.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
I remember, man, what's the name gonna be? What's the
name gonna be? So he throws his phone book on
his table and landed in the doctor pages. You know,
and you know how about Doc Wats Electric. I said, Oh,
that's corny and catchy.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Doc Watts Electric. He even had someone sketch out what
the character Doc Wats would look like.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Yeah, he's the older guy and lives like little Einstein.
You know, I tell people that's me in twenty years
holding a light bulb.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
George even started wearing I used to.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Go with my Doc Watts like a lack hole, like.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
A doctor's coat.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah, and I used to pull up in the people houses.
I said, look at this guy. You know, I needed
some advertisement. I needed to be stand out. I was
trying to catch people's eyes, you know. I was trying
to attract the man, who is this guy walk in
this house or a lack hole?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
He built his business through word of mouth and by
saying yes to any type of job he could get.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
There was one time I was even doing flooring just
to get started.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
His hustle paid off. He started with smaller household job
to build his client base and then landed contracts with
larger companies.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
I worked day and night NonStop. There was times where
I needed to get something done the very next day.
He said, there's no way this guy's gonna get it done.
And I stayed there all night and the guy was
very impressed. So that's how you build client and tell
you you show them what you're made of.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
George was on his new path and Margarita was headed
back to work at the County court House after her
maternity lead. She'd found a sitter for their baby, but then.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Two weeks into me going back to work, I pick
my son up and she says to me, Margarita, I
can't watch him anymore. Oh no, I'm like, wait what?
And so I came home and I tell George. I'm like,
she just says she can't watch him anymore. We can't
afford daycare. Like what are we going to do? So
(07:26):
the conversation came up about me leaving my job and
doing this full time with him. George was like, well,
why don't we grow the business, why don't we do
this together? And so of course My thought process was like, Okay,
do I want to do that?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Margarita had earned a degree in psychology and dreamt of
actually working in the field full time.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
You know, it's very difficult to think about leaving your
career path, your dream to help fill your husband's. Do
you understand. Yeah, So that was a decision that I
had to make, and we decided that that's what we're
gonna do. There could have been because of that, a
(08:12):
little bit of resentment, even though that's what I thought
the best decision was.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
It was a tough decision, but it really was the
only decision we had in our hands. We didn't have
no family member. We can't go back to mom and
dad's house. We had no options.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
So Margarita would join Doc Wats as a co owner.
She'd start handling the administration and operation side of the business,
all while taking care of a newborn. They'd spend the
next few years learning on the job.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
There was a lot of stress in the beginning, just
trying to figure things out. Neither of us had any
business knowledge, any business experience.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Well, I mean a ton of mistakes. I can tell
you that, you know, I wish I was a little
more educated in all that stuff. But you know, sometimes
you just got to be naive. You don't need to
have everything figured out. You just had to have the wheel,
the gut to do it.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
While the company was taking off, Margarita had trouble letting
go of some resentment.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
For a little bit because George was out front and
he was meeting the customers and things like that. There
was also sort of like a feeling of being in
the shadow. He was like the face, and then I
was like behind the scenes, you know, doing all the
background work.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Besides, this was her husband's dream, not hers. George tried
to convince her otherwise.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Through the whole process. I told, babe, you're a owner.
This is your baby. I was playing I see from
day one.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
But all their efforts were working, clients were returning, and
referrals were coming in quickly. One of his clients ended
up recommending him for his biggest job yet.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
He said, this is a big job. I'm not sure
if you can do it. I was doing multimay lot
of jobs at the airport. I could do it for
somebody else, I can do it for myself.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
So even though he'd never done anything like this before,
he been on the job.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
There's like three or four other companies that I know
of were bidding, and they were well known, and I
just submitted a proposal. I wanted it so bad. I
talked to the owner, so listen, just give me a shot.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Doc Watts landed the gig and it was a big one.
But at first they felt like it was a little
out of their league.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
I have no tools, I had no employees, no credit,
I had nothing.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Georgie and Margarita would be doing all the electrical work
for two buildings, near Universal Studios or Landou. The project
budget was one million dollars.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
With this job landing on our desk, it stakes with
high again. This is either going to break us or
take us to the next level.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
To get the job done, George would need some help.
He even brought in some of the guys he used
to work with at the airport, the same ones he
joked would work for him. One day. That day had come, I.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Called everybody and their mother to come help.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
We recruited his brother, Jonah. He was working at a
restaurant at the time. George was just like, you know,
I need you to come help me. Mind you his
brotherhood no electrical experience.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
What was this like working this job? What did you
do to execute on this.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I pretty much lived there. I had no choice. Weekend, Saturday, Sunday,
sun up, some down. A group of ten people should
have done this job.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
The crew wasn't the only thing that was absolutely invaluable
to pulling off this job. There was also the copper wiring.
The cost of copper wire had gone way up and
they had spent seventy thousand dollars on it for this
project alone. Theft of copper wire was on the rise,
so George couldn't take any chances.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
At the time, gas was going up, the copper's going up.
We had this big delivery to the job. I said, man,
I had to stay here, and my wife said, what
do you mean to stay here? I said yeah, because
if I if somebody takes a foot two foot of
one of these cuts a wire, it was done. You Miles,
well pack your bags. I spent a night at the
job site. I don't think I slept. I mean I
was out there and keep my head on a swivel,
(11:57):
you know, I was looking around, looking around. I don't
remember sleeping.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Up until this point, Margarita had mostly been working in
the background at Dacwatts. But this job changed everything.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
I was super involved in that job, and so I
think the beginning of this job is when I took ownership.
I purposely tried to be out front to where like, Okay, yeah,
he's the doc, but I'm here too. There's certain things
that all of us bring to the table, and so
(12:29):
I kind of had to just realize those I may
not have all of this electrical knowledge, but I have
something to bring. I have something that is going to
help this business grow.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
That's when she became owner. And let me tell you,
Sky was a limit.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
The project was grueling, but George and Margherita small but
mighty team pulled it off. This million dollar contract changes
the game for Dock Watts.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Yes, absolutely, right in the middle of the recession and
we were thriving. That was doing the biggest job in
my life. And I had a brother with me and
my wife. Oh man, you can't write this if you
wanted to.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
With a million dollar project under their belt, Doc Wats
started beating on other large jobs and started hiring more employees.
They also decided to make another big bet.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
We end up buying a little small building.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
You know.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
We went from my house to a storage unit to
actually in twenty eleven, we end up buying a little
twenty one hundred square foot building lit a tiny little thing.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
For many, real estate is the business, but for Doc Watts,
real estate was the insurance policy.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
I was working for the other company. Remember that they
rented their spot for eighteen years and they went out
of business, and they had no assets and all, nothing
like that. And you know I would not be like them.
So we can rent it out to have other incomes
just in case, you know, something God forbid, something happens
to Dog Wats. We always had something to full bag on.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
While Georgia Marcurita made some strategic moves to expand, one
of the biggest growth areas for their business came from
a moment of just being human. In twenty seventeen, when
Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, Doc Wats donated two generators
to a charity helping to rebuild. This turned out to
be the first step in what would be a major
(14:19):
pivot for the company.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
We wasn't built to do generators. We were doing commercial
job service and all that stuff. As a man, what
a great opportunity to take advantage of this and we
capitalize that we do the maintenance, we do the programming,
we do all the warranty claims. It was a whole
different department. We have a generated department now because of
the Hurricane Maria and the hurricanes afterwards.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Today doc wats continues to grow their core business and
no one has to sleep on the work sites anymore.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
The business has grown significantly from us doing all the
tasks and now we have an office team, a field team,
and now just recently we finished our office expansion and
now it's twelve thousand, so one hundred square feet. So
it's a little surreal to think about it.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
And that twelve seven hundred square feet isn't just for
their doc wats business. It's also home to their dance
studio and an event space they rent out on the weekends.
Doc wats has been in business since two thousand and eight.
It's been a long time since Georgia and Margarita first
started learning how to run a company, but they're still
devoted to growing as entrepreneurs.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
We got to get better leaders, which means I'm looking
to leadership schooling, get mentors. I mean, we got to
this level from knowing no business skills or no education.
Now we gotta get smarter, we gotta get educated, because
we can't continue the way we're doing now.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
George wasn't the only one who had to develop as
a business owner. Margarita also had to go through an
evolution of her own as we've grown.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
There are things that I have taken on in the
business that have helped it grow, and so I have
to stand proud in those things to continue to not
let resentment in. I am proud of the fact that,
(16:11):
oh that for me to know that this could not
have been built alone, and for me to stand in
that pride to know that I was a part of
it and that I helped bring it here. I's just
(16:31):
seeing your value and that's where I've come to, and
I'm not backing down today.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Doc Watts is a seven figure company and they're moving
quickly toward eight figures. They now have twenty employees and
eleven electrical trucks on the road. George and Margarita hoped
to open another location in Fort Myers, Florida sometime soon.
They even plan to start selling DAC Watts merch in
an online store. What would you say was the smartest
(16:59):
thing that you want throughout this process.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
I think that us being able to build something together
really says a lot. And we were able to feed
off of our strengths and persevere through a lot of challenges,
and where we are today really shows that.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Every day I do like fifty first dates, I like
st every day. It's like, what a joy I get
to do this venture with my wife, you know, so
I think we get that right.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
What a story, right?
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (17:42):
You know what I really love about it. Part of
the reason that we wanted to do this podcast was
to talk to real businesses. You know, there's so much
out there that talks about the latest billion dollar VC
backed startup or you know, the household name that everyone
knows about, but those aren't the everyday businesses that you know,
sponsor your local little league and keep your community going
and employ local people in the same way. And we
(18:04):
really wanted to tell those stories. And I just George
and Margarita's story is so rich with that. They're real
people facing real business challenges and real family challenges every
day and making that work.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah, hustle right, and then doing things even when you
don't feel like you're qualified to do them. They didn't
know what they were doing. Yeah, it's amazing, right, and
yet they still you know, George is still not shock himself.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
But beyond that, oh yeah, he knew the electrical.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Part technical p Yeah. But you have Margarita who's psychology background,
and then suddenly she's running this business with her husband
and they are just freestyling doing what has to be
done in order to make it happen.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Right.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
I think that's really important. We hear from from our
clients all the time. You know, the first time I
ever did something was the first time I ever had
to do something. When you have a job and you
work for a company, sort of people tell you what
to do or there's a roadmap or there's an app
for that, and in small business there really is no app.
There's no playbook to follow. And so this, this is
classic necessity. Is the mother invention kind of stuff where
(19:03):
you see a challenge, you have to do something about it,
and so what do you do? You just figure it out.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
You just figured it out. Yeah, And that's what both
of them had to do at the same time, with
a brand new baby, with a house that's slanted, I mean,
just it was a number of things coming together all
at one time, yet they still made it happen.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
You know, Tanya. One of the things I hear from
business owners all the time is how hard it was
just to get started, you know, to win those very
first customers. And I hear stories about trial and error
and people try advertising, it doesn't work. People try all
different kinds of methods and it's hard. It's hard when
you first get started. So what have you heard from
your clients about that first kernel of success when they
win their first customers? How do they do it?
Speaker 2 (19:43):
A lot of it was its similar to how Doc
Wats did it, and that is that word of mouth
that referral business. I think one thing that Doc Wats
did really, really well was being able to differentiate themselves
in a sea of frankly non differentiated companies, right And
I think they found a way to be unique. They
found a way to be memorable. They found a way
(20:05):
to make an impression on the people that they were
doing their work for. That's huge. And the fact that
he was thinking about this very early on and established
this is how we're going to become memorable to people.
I think that's really important. I think more people starting
out should be aware of that.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
You know, Look, George says he's an introvert, but it's
clear that when he needs to be, he can turn
it on. And when you think about small business and
the fact that they don't have a whole marketing machine,
you know, they are the business. So he found his
own authentic way to turn it on when he needed to.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Absolutely. But then I want to transition a little bit
and talk about their use of commercial real estate as
part of their growth strategy. As you know, this is
a significant part of my practice, and I like seeing
how they use that as an opportunity to advance their business.
So what do you think about that?
Speaker 4 (20:51):
So, there's lots of ways to use property as a
tool to either balance your income out, to invest profits
for the business, or to make it more resilient. All
those are perfectly acceptable reasons to buy property, like anything else,
as long as you can get it at a reasonable
price for what you're buying.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Yeah, as long as it makes sense, right, So with
them to your point, for some small business owners, it's
really a risk management approach. And I think that's a
thing we've got on the show here, which is what
strategy makes the most sense for your business? Right, Like
is it a risk management type of thing, Is it
a diversification kind of play. What is it that is
going to help this particular business in the long term.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Yeah, And also I encourage people to think about you know,
when you get into anything, doesn't matter what it is,
you need to understand it completely. So just like I
would tell people who are renting buying their first home,
don't think that it's just like renting. It's yes you
live in it. Yes you live in it, but you're
now responsible for taking care of it and paying the
taxes and maintaining it and all those things. And the
same is true for a business that buys its property. Now,
(21:49):
that doesn't mean it's not a good thing to do.
It's often a very good thing to do. But business
owners need to appreciate that when they're buying a property,
whether they're going to use it for their business or
they're going to rent it out, it comes with a
new set of obligations that they need to be prepared
to handle.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
It does. But I don't want us to discourage people
who may not understand commercial real estate, right, So I
get your point. Yes, it's important to understand anything that
you're getting into completely. At the same time, though, don't
be afraid because you don't know what it's about. If
it's a great play or potentially good play for your business,
it's incumbent upon you to become aware or educate yourself.
(22:25):
So what do you suggest people do or think about
when they're trying to figure out that next step?
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Or run the numbers, run the numbers, really understand it's
what is it going to cost to own this piece
of property? What's it going to cost to service the debt?
And when I say service this piece of property, I
mean everything to maintain it properly. If you don't maintain
it properly, you're not going to hold the value. If
you can't pay the taxes, it's not going to hold
its value. So what is it really going to take
to service this property properly, to really do it right?
(22:52):
And how does that work within the numbers that your
business generates? And if you run the numbers and it works,
then it's a great investment in many cases, And if
it doesn't, then you're not ready.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Yeah. True.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
The other lesson I took away from the story is
that you just never know where a great idea will
come from, and it's important to pay attention to the
world around you, and you know, sometimes even a great
business idea can come from the way that you give
back to the world. Think about what happened in Puerto Rico, right,
I mean, he donated some generators to Puerto Rico after
the storm when they were without power, and of course
that was a tragedy for the people who live there
(23:24):
and he was able to help. But out of that
grew a new business idea.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Yeah. I thought that was awesome. You know, came from
a great place of just wanting to help others who
were in a really, really tough situation, and then from
that his ability to see that there was a need
there that he could serve. He found something that complimented
his core business. And I think that that's great, just
being aware of the potential opportunities to grow without it
being detrimental to the business.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
Yeah, and it helped him see around the corner, right,
so he could see that what had happened in Puerto
Rico could happen in Florida and that people were starting
to wake up to that reality, and it gave him
an opportunity for the business.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yeah. It's just a testament to being open and being
aware that business is dynamic. You don't continue to do
the same thing over and over again for years and
years without being willing to adjust.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
Yeah. I know very few entrepreneurs who say, my business
is exactly in every way what I envisioned when I start.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
And you have to know when to kind of cut
some things loose or when to expand and try some
new things.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
I want to give George real credit for one other thing.
I want to give him credit for his growth mindset.
And what I mean by that is he's not static,
he's not satisfied. He and Marguerite have been enormously successful,
but they don't take that as a reason to sit
back and enjoy the spoils. They know that to get
to the next level, they're going to have to continue
to learn and grow because every day they run a
(24:41):
bigger business than they've ever run. Because it's important that
people understand that as long as you own a business,
there's never a moment at which you spike the football
into Claar victory. It doesn't work that way. As long
as you own that business, competitors are coming for you.
Things you can't control are going to impact it. Whatever
it is. There's always the issues. As long as you
own a business, and if you're not getting smarter and
(25:03):
learning and growing and developing with that business, you're going
to fall behind. As long as you own that business,
you cannot declare victory.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
And look, one of the things he's struggling with is
growing as a leader means finding other leaders to be
part of his organization. You know, people who work in
big companies naturally understand that. It's a big part of
what they do is help grow generations of leaders and
lead leaders. It's not something that helps you build the
business from zero. So there's always a pivot that comes
for small businesses when they get to a certain size
where suddenly the business owner can't know everything and has
(25:35):
to have people that they trust who can lead others
on their behalf. And that's a big leap for a
lot of people.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
It is a big lead, and I want to say
it's a huge challenge for a lot of small business owners.
They've been so entrenched in their business, they know how
to do it, they're developing themselves, they've become great leaders.
But finding those people who will kind of step into
their shoes and do what they used to do or
who will even perhaps to see them later. Is a
widespread challenge, and I'm hearing from a lot of different
(26:03):
small business owners and the question is how do you
do it when you're not big business.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
As a business gets bigger, one of the most important
things it can do is hire people who have worked
in bigger businesses, who understand how leadership at scale can
look and feel. By definition, if you started your business
from zero, if you've never worked in corporate you don't
know what that looks like. So you don't necessarily want
to turn your business into a large corporation overnight. That's
not a good thing. But you do want to bring
(26:30):
in people who can teach you how to do those
things and show others what good looks like when it
comes to that leadership. Now, there's a catch, which is
you have to be open to someone who wants to
do things in a different way. Yeah, and you have
to find a way to do that in a way
that's authentic to you. But you have to bring in
people who've seen it done at scale. If you want
to operate at scale.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Well, Ben, I'm excited to see what doc Lots is
going to do. They've taken some big risks and have
had some big wins as a result. So it's cool
to see what they're doing and I look forward to
seeing more from them.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
I expect a lot, Tanya. I want to go back
to your chat with Rivera's. They had some words of
advice that really highlight the spirit and determination of all
small business owners that we should share.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Let's hear it.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
It's real simple for me, it's just take action. You
don't have to be the smartest guy. You don't have
to have everything figured out. You can get educated later on.
The thing is how many books you're going to read,
how many seminars and all that stuff you can read.
But if you don't take no action, that's my advice.
Just take the action as a matter what positions you are,
where you are in light, start somewhere, fail forward, just
do something.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
I would say, write up plan, write your goals, write
your vision, and then kind of write down like how
you're going to get there and then remembering why you started.
For us, I had to quit my job to do this.
There is no looking back, there is no giving up.
Keep going and make it happen.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Thanks for listening to the unshakables. If you like the show.
Please rate and review it to help other listeners find it.
In the next episode, after a severe allergic reaction shakes
her family, Denise Woodard is inspired to create a line
of allergen free snacks to protect her daughter and others.
I'm Tanya Nebo and this is The Unshakables from Chase
for Business and Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
The Unshakables is a production of Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia.
And We'll have
I told my boss, I said, I'm done with this.
I just couldn't do it no more.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Some businesses start from a great idea, some from a need.
But for Georgia and Margarita Rivera, their company, Dakwats Electric,
was founded in a moment of frustration.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
He came home to pretty much let me know that
he had quit his job and that he was going
to do this side thing full time. It was super
bad timing. I'm eight months pregnant. I was just like,
what are you thinking?
Speaker 1 (00:33):
The stakes are extremely hot. It's like do a die moment.
You know, either I'm going to put food on the
table or not.
Speaker 4 (00:41):
Welcome to the Unshakables from Chase for Business and Ruby
Studio from iHeartMedia. I'm Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
And I'm Tanya Nebo, a lawyer and consultant for business owners.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
On the Unshakables, we're sharing the daring stories of small
business owners facing their crisis points and telling the stories
of how they got through it.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Then we're back with another story.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Tell me all about it, Tanya.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Well, once upon a time, newlyweds George and Margarita decided
to leave behind everything they knew while raising an infant.
Though the first few months were hard, they finally got
a huge break and put everything on the line. Would
this moment make or break the couple and the business.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Was that a Hollywood movie or a small business story.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
I'll let you listen and then you can decide. On
today's episode, Doc Watts from Orlando, Florida. Growing up, a
lot of kids dream of being astronauts or ballerinas. Not
George Rivera. He only wanted to be one thing, an electrician.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
That was born for this. And you talked to my mom,
she tells, y'all was born with a wire out of
my hand.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
His dad was a handyman, and he tag along on
jobs and watch him build, shape, paint, and tear things down.
But nothing fascinated him quite like electricity.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
It's a mystery. You can do a thousand different things.
You can turn the light bulb with different ways. It's
no one way to do it.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
He went to an electrician training program, completed an apprenticeship,
and got a job at the Orlando Airport. Right away,
he was put on a multi million dollar electrical project.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
I was the youngest guy there with the license that
very had any mustache, or beard, and they tell me, George, man,
what are you doing here? I've been doing this since
you're in diapers, you know, pretty much.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Although he was a lot younger than most of his coworkers,
George wasn't shy about taking charge.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
They didn't like a young guy coming in a very aggressive,
very go get her. And there was one guy. I
told him, listen, man, one day, you're gonna be working
for me.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Before long, he was right. George quickly rose in the
ranks and soon was managing the same men that had
previously disrespected him.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
We had thirty two guys. The guy show up, lady
and I said, you know, I feel like a big
babysitting here.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
George got more and more frustrated. One day, after a
particularly infuriating moment, he marched straight in to his boss's office.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I told my boss, I said, I just couldn't do
it no more. I'm done with this. I'm going to
go out my own. And that's exactly what I did.
I didn't think about I knew I was going to
have a company one day, and I said now or never.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
George may have known that this was the moment, but
his wife, Margarita had no idea. The whole ride home,
George dreaded, telling her.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
I remember pulling up to the driveway and walking around
the van a thousand times, like in circles circle.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
I think I had to redo the driveway after that.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Margarita was eight months pregnant with their son. They had
only one thousand dollars in the bank and lived in
a house with the foundation issues that made it slanted.
With all that was going on, the timing wasn't great.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
He came home to pretty much let me know that
he had quit his job and that he was going
to do this side thing full time.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
That's Margarita, George's wife and a co owner of Doc Watts.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I was just like, what are you thinking? We're going
to have a baby in a month.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Let's pretend George isn't sitting next to you. Were you
cussing him out in your mind?
Speaker 3 (04:13):
You know? It was more like you really made the
decision without me. How is this going to happen? How
is this going to work? There was no plan.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Okay, Tanya, I have to stop you for a second.
Let me ask you honestly, Okay, if you were twenty
four years old, you're just married you're one month away
from having your first kid and your spouse comes out
and says, I've had it, I quit, I'm starting a
new business. Here we go, right, I mean.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Right, that sounds like you were cussing him out in
your mind.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
She had to be.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
She she deserves, she deserves an Olympic medal.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
I mean, come on, yeah, that's a lot to be
as calm as it sounds like she was, even though
she's pissed because he didn't say anything to her about it.
And then he makes such a major life decision when
she's about to give birth for God's sakes, Like what, yes, saint.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
Okay, let's go back to the story. What happens next?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
So then George had actually been preparing for this moment
months before he quit. He put ads in the local
paper for electrical work on the side. He even bought
a utility van.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I ain't had the customer base darting out nothing, just
really go out with faith, no money and no experience,
no business skills, one hundred percent of nothing. Still nothing.
It's like do a die moment. You know, either I'm
gonna put food on the table or not. We had
no room to fail.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
He knew that to stand out his business needed a
catchy name. And then one day he was talking to
a friend about it.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
I remember, man, what's the name gonna be? What's the
name gonna be? So he throws his phone book on
his table and landed in the doctor pages. You know,
and you know how about Doc Wats Electric. I said, Oh,
that's corny and catchy.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Doc Watts Electric. He even had someone sketch out what
the character Doc Wats would look like.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Yeah, he's the older guy and lives like little Einstein.
You know, I tell people that's me in twenty years
holding a light bulb.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
George even started wearing I used to.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Go with my Doc Watts like a lack hole, like.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
A doctor's coat.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah, and I used to pull up in the people houses.
I said, look at this guy. You know, I needed
some advertisement. I needed to be stand out. I was
trying to catch people's eyes, you know. I was trying
to attract the man, who is this guy walk in
this house or a lack hole?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
He built his business through word of mouth and by
saying yes to any type of job he could get.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
There was one time I was even doing flooring just
to get started.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
His hustle paid off. He started with smaller household job
to build his client base and then landed contracts with
larger companies.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
I worked day and night NonStop. There was times where
I needed to get something done the very next day.
He said, there's no way this guy's gonna get it done.
And I stayed there all night and the guy was
very impressed. So that's how you build client and tell
you you show them what you're made of.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
George was on his new path and Margarita was headed
back to work at the County court House after her
maternity lead. She'd found a sitter for their baby, but then.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Two weeks into me going back to work, I pick
my son up and she says to me, Margarita, I
can't watch him anymore. Oh no, I'm like, wait what?
And so I came home and I tell George. I'm like,
she just says she can't watch him anymore. We can't
afford daycare. Like what are we going to do? So
(07:26):
the conversation came up about me leaving my job and
doing this full time with him. George was like, well,
why don't we grow the business, why don't we do
this together? And so of course My thought process was like, Okay,
do I want to do that?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Margarita had earned a degree in psychology and dreamt of
actually working in the field full time.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
You know, it's very difficult to think about leaving your
career path, your dream to help fill your husband's. Do
you understand. Yeah, So that was a decision that I
had to make, and we decided that that's what we're
gonna do. There could have been because of that, a
(08:12):
little bit of resentment, even though that's what I thought
the best decision was.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
It was a tough decision, but it really was the
only decision we had in our hands. We didn't have
no family member. We can't go back to mom and
dad's house. We had no options.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
So Margarita would join Doc Wats as a co owner.
She'd start handling the administration and operation side of the business,
all while taking care of a newborn. They'd spend the
next few years learning on the job.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
There was a lot of stress in the beginning, just
trying to figure things out. Neither of us had any
business knowledge, any business experience.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Well, I mean a ton of mistakes. I can tell
you that, you know, I wish I was a little
more educated in all that stuff. But you know, sometimes
you just got to be naive. You don't need to
have everything figured out. You just had to have the wheel,
the gut to do it.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
While the company was taking off, Margarita had trouble letting
go of some resentment.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
For a little bit because George was out front and
he was meeting the customers and things like that. There
was also sort of like a feeling of being in
the shadow. He was like the face, and then I
was like behind the scenes, you know, doing all the
background work.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Besides, this was her husband's dream, not hers. George tried
to convince her otherwise.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Through the whole process. I told, babe, you're a owner.
This is your baby. I was playing I see from
day one.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
But all their efforts were working, clients were returning, and
referrals were coming in quickly. One of his clients ended
up recommending him for his biggest job yet.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
He said, this is a big job. I'm not sure
if you can do it. I was doing multimay lot
of jobs at the airport. I could do it for
somebody else, I can do it for myself.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
So even though he'd never done anything like this before,
he been on the job.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
There's like three or four other companies that I know
of were bidding, and they were well known, and I
just submitted a proposal. I wanted it so bad. I
talked to the owner, so listen, just give me a shot.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Doc Watts landed the gig and it was a big one.
But at first they felt like it was a little
out of their league.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
I have no tools, I had no employees, no credit,
I had nothing.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Georgie and Margarita would be doing all the electrical work
for two buildings, near Universal Studios or Landou. The project
budget was one million dollars.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
With this job landing on our desk, it stakes with
high again. This is either going to break us or
take us to the next level.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
To get the job done, George would need some help.
He even brought in some of the guys he used
to work with at the airport, the same ones he
joked would work for him. One day. That day had come, I.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Called everybody and their mother to come help.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
We recruited his brother, Jonah. He was working at a
restaurant at the time. George was just like, you know,
I need you to come help me. Mind you his
brotherhood no electrical experience.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
What was this like working this job? What did you
do to execute on this.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I pretty much lived there. I had no choice. Weekend, Saturday, Sunday,
sun up, some down. A group of ten people should
have done this job.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
The crew wasn't the only thing that was absolutely invaluable
to pulling off this job. There was also the copper wiring.
The cost of copper wire had gone way up and
they had spent seventy thousand dollars on it for this
project alone. Theft of copper wire was on the rise,
so George couldn't take any chances.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
At the time, gas was going up, the copper's going up.
We had this big delivery to the job. I said, man,
I had to stay here, and my wife said, what
do you mean to stay here? I said yeah, because
if I if somebody takes a foot two foot of
one of these cuts a wire, it was done. You Miles,
well pack your bags. I spent a night at the
job site. I don't think I slept. I mean I
was out there and keep my head on a swivel,
(11:57):
you know, I was looking around, looking around. I don't
remember sleeping.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Up until this point, Margarita had mostly been working in
the background at Dacwatts. But this job changed everything.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
I was super involved in that job, and so I
think the beginning of this job is when I took ownership.
I purposely tried to be out front to where like, Okay, yeah,
he's the doc, but I'm here too. There's certain things
that all of us bring to the table, and so
(12:29):
I kind of had to just realize those I may
not have all of this electrical knowledge, but I have
something to bring. I have something that is going to
help this business grow.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
That's when she became owner. And let me tell you,
Sky was a limit.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
The project was grueling, but George and Margherita small but
mighty team pulled it off. This million dollar contract changes
the game for Dock Watts.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Yes, absolutely, right in the middle of the recession and
we were thriving. That was doing the biggest job in
my life. And I had a brother with me and
my wife. Oh man, you can't write this if you
wanted to.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
With a million dollar project under their belt, Doc Wats
started beating on other large jobs and started hiring more employees.
They also decided to make another big bet.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
We end up buying a little small building.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
You know.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
We went from my house to a storage unit to
actually in twenty eleven, we end up buying a little
twenty one hundred square foot building lit a tiny little thing.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
For many, real estate is the business, but for Doc Watts,
real estate was the insurance policy.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
I was working for the other company. Remember that they
rented their spot for eighteen years and they went out
of business, and they had no assets and all, nothing
like that. And you know I would not be like them.
So we can rent it out to have other incomes
just in case, you know, something God forbid, something happens
to Dog Wats. We always had something to full bag on.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
While Georgia Marcurita made some strategic moves to expand, one
of the biggest growth areas for their business came from
a moment of just being human. In twenty seventeen, when
Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, Doc Wats donated two generators
to a charity helping to rebuild. This turned out to
be the first step in what would be a major
(14:19):
pivot for the company.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
We wasn't built to do generators. We were doing commercial
job service and all that stuff. As a man, what
a great opportunity to take advantage of this and we
capitalize that we do the maintenance, we do the programming,
we do all the warranty claims. It was a whole
different department. We have a generated department now because of
the Hurricane Maria and the hurricanes afterwards.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Today doc wats continues to grow their core business and
no one has to sleep on the work sites anymore.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
The business has grown significantly from us doing all the
tasks and now we have an office team, a field team,
and now just recently we finished our office expansion and
now it's twelve thousand, so one hundred square feet. So
it's a little surreal to think about it.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
And that twelve seven hundred square feet isn't just for
their doc wats business. It's also home to their dance
studio and an event space they rent out on the weekends.
Doc wats has been in business since two thousand and eight.
It's been a long time since Georgia and Margarita first
started learning how to run a company, but they're still
devoted to growing as entrepreneurs.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
We got to get better leaders, which means I'm looking
to leadership schooling, get mentors. I mean, we got to
this level from knowing no business skills or no education.
Now we gotta get smarter, we gotta get educated, because
we can't continue the way we're doing now.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
George wasn't the only one who had to develop as
a business owner. Margarita also had to go through an
evolution of her own as we've grown.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
There are things that I have taken on in the
business that have helped it grow, and so I have
to stand proud in those things to continue to not
let resentment in. I am proud of the fact that,
(16:11):
oh that for me to know that this could not
have been built alone, and for me to stand in
that pride to know that I was a part of
it and that I helped bring it here. I's just
(16:31):
seeing your value and that's where I've come to, and
I'm not backing down today.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Doc Watts is a seven figure company and they're moving
quickly toward eight figures. They now have twenty employees and
eleven electrical trucks on the road. George and Margarita hoped
to open another location in Fort Myers, Florida sometime soon.
They even plan to start selling DAC Watts merch in
an online store. What would you say was the smartest
(16:59):
thing that you want throughout this process.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
I think that us being able to build something together
really says a lot. And we were able to feed
off of our strengths and persevere through a lot of challenges,
and where we are today really shows that.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Every day I do like fifty first dates, I like
st every day. It's like, what a joy I get
to do this venture with my wife, you know, so
I think we get that right.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
What a story, right?
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (17:42):
You know what I really love about it. Part of
the reason that we wanted to do this podcast was
to talk to real businesses. You know, there's so much
out there that talks about the latest billion dollar VC
backed startup or you know, the household name that everyone
knows about, but those aren't the everyday businesses that you know,
sponsor your local little league and keep your community going
and employ local people in the same way. And we
(18:04):
really wanted to tell those stories. And I just George
and Margarita's story is so rich with that. They're real
people facing real business challenges and real family challenges every
day and making that work.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah, hustle right, and then doing things even when you
don't feel like you're qualified to do them. They didn't
know what they were doing. Yeah, it's amazing, right, and
yet they still you know, George is still not shock himself.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
But beyond that, oh yeah, he knew the electrical.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Part technical p Yeah. But you have Margarita who's psychology background,
and then suddenly she's running this business with her husband
and they are just freestyling doing what has to be
done in order to make it happen.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Right.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
I think that's really important. We hear from from our
clients all the time. You know, the first time I
ever did something was the first time I ever had
to do something. When you have a job and you
work for a company, sort of people tell you what
to do or there's a roadmap or there's an app
for that, and in small business there really is no app.
There's no playbook to follow. And so this, this is
classic necessity. Is the mother invention kind of stuff where
(19:03):
you see a challenge, you have to do something about it,
and so what do you do? You just figure it out.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
You just figured it out. Yeah, And that's what both
of them had to do at the same time, with
a brand new baby, with a house that's slanted, I mean,
just it was a number of things coming together all
at one time, yet they still made it happen.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
You know, Tanya. One of the things I hear from
business owners all the time is how hard it was
just to get started, you know, to win those very
first customers. And I hear stories about trial and error
and people try advertising, it doesn't work. People try all
different kinds of methods and it's hard. It's hard when
you first get started. So what have you heard from
your clients about that first kernel of success when they
win their first customers? How do they do it?
Speaker 2 (19:43):
A lot of it was its similar to how Doc
Wats did it, and that is that word of mouth
that referral business. I think one thing that Doc Wats
did really, really well was being able to differentiate themselves
in a sea of frankly non differentiated companies, right And
I think they found a way to be unique. They
found a way to be memorable. They found a way
(20:05):
to make an impression on the people that they were
doing their work for. That's huge. And the fact that
he was thinking about this very early on and established
this is how we're going to become memorable to people.
I think that's really important. I think more people starting
out should be aware of that.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
You know, Look, George says he's an introvert, but it's
clear that when he needs to be, he can turn
it on. And when you think about small business and
the fact that they don't have a whole marketing machine,
you know, they are the business. So he found his
own authentic way to turn it on when he needed to.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Absolutely. But then I want to transition a little bit
and talk about their use of commercial real estate as
part of their growth strategy. As you know, this is
a significant part of my practice, and I like seeing
how they use that as an opportunity to advance their business.
So what do you think about that?
Speaker 4 (20:51):
So, there's lots of ways to use property as a
tool to either balance your income out, to invest profits
for the business, or to make it more resilient. All
those are perfectly acceptable reasons to buy property, like anything else,
as long as you can get it at a reasonable
price for what you're buying.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Yeah, as long as it makes sense, right, So with
them to your point, for some small business owners, it's
really a risk management approach. And I think that's a
thing we've got on the show here, which is what
strategy makes the most sense for your business? Right, Like
is it a risk management type of thing, Is it
a diversification kind of play. What is it that is
going to help this particular business in the long term.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Yeah, And also I encourage people to think about you know,
when you get into anything, doesn't matter what it is,
you need to understand it completely. So just like I
would tell people who are renting buying their first home,
don't think that it's just like renting. It's yes you
live in it. Yes you live in it, but you're
now responsible for taking care of it and paying the
taxes and maintaining it and all those things. And the
same is true for a business that buys its property. Now,
(21:49):
that doesn't mean it's not a good thing to do.
It's often a very good thing to do. But business
owners need to appreciate that when they're buying a property,
whether they're going to use it for their business or
they're going to rent it out, it comes with a
new set of obligations that they need to be prepared
to handle.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
It does. But I don't want us to discourage people
who may not understand commercial real estate, right, So I
get your point. Yes, it's important to understand anything that
you're getting into completely. At the same time, though, don't
be afraid because you don't know what it's about. If
it's a great play or potentially good play for your business,
it's incumbent upon you to become aware or educate yourself.
(22:25):
So what do you suggest people do or think about
when they're trying to figure out that next step?
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Or run the numbers, run the numbers, really understand it's
what is it going to cost to own this piece
of property? What's it going to cost to service the debt?
And when I say service this piece of property, I
mean everything to maintain it properly. If you don't maintain
it properly, you're not going to hold the value. If
you can't pay the taxes, it's not going to hold
its value. So what is it really going to take
to service this property properly, to really do it right?
(22:52):
And how does that work within the numbers that your
business generates? And if you run the numbers and it works,
then it's a great investment in many cases, And if
it doesn't, then you're not ready.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Yeah. True.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
The other lesson I took away from the story is
that you just never know where a great idea will
come from, and it's important to pay attention to the
world around you, and you know, sometimes even a great
business idea can come from the way that you give
back to the world. Think about what happened in Puerto Rico, right,
I mean, he donated some generators to Puerto Rico after
the storm when they were without power, and of course
that was a tragedy for the people who live there
(23:24):
and he was able to help. But out of that
grew a new business idea.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Yeah. I thought that was awesome. You know, came from
a great place of just wanting to help others who
were in a really, really tough situation, and then from
that his ability to see that there was a need
there that he could serve. He found something that complimented
his core business. And I think that that's great, just
being aware of the potential opportunities to grow without it
being detrimental to the business.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
Yeah, and it helped him see around the corner, right,
so he could see that what had happened in Puerto
Rico could happen in Florida and that people were starting
to wake up to that reality, and it gave him
an opportunity for the business.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yeah. It's just a testament to being open and being
aware that business is dynamic. You don't continue to do
the same thing over and over again for years and
years without being willing to adjust.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
Yeah. I know very few entrepreneurs who say, my business
is exactly in every way what I envisioned when I start.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
And you have to know when to kind of cut
some things loose or when to expand and try some
new things.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
I want to give George real credit for one other thing.
I want to give him credit for his growth mindset.
And what I mean by that is he's not static,
he's not satisfied. He and Marguerite have been enormously successful,
but they don't take that as a reason to sit
back and enjoy the spoils. They know that to get
to the next level, they're going to have to continue
to learn and grow because every day they run a
(24:41):
bigger business than they've ever run. Because it's important that
people understand that as long as you own a business,
there's never a moment at which you spike the football
into Claar victory. It doesn't work that way. As long
as you own that business, competitors are coming for you.
Things you can't control are going to impact it. Whatever
it is. There's always the issues. As long as you
own a business, and if you're not getting smarter and
(25:03):
learning and growing and developing with that business, you're going
to fall behind. As long as you own that business,
you cannot declare victory.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
And look, one of the things he's struggling with is
growing as a leader means finding other leaders to be
part of his organization. You know, people who work in
big companies naturally understand that. It's a big part of
what they do is help grow generations of leaders and
lead leaders. It's not something that helps you build the
business from zero. So there's always a pivot that comes
for small businesses when they get to a certain size
where suddenly the business owner can't know everything and has
(25:35):
to have people that they trust who can lead others
on their behalf. And that's a big leap for a
lot of people.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
It is a big lead, and I want to say
it's a huge challenge for a lot of small business owners.
They've been so entrenched in their business, they know how
to do it, they're developing themselves, they've become great leaders.
But finding those people who will kind of step into
their shoes and do what they used to do or
who will even perhaps to see them later. Is a
widespread challenge, and I'm hearing from a lot of different
(26:03):
small business owners and the question is how do you
do it when you're not big business.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
As a business gets bigger, one of the most important
things it can do is hire people who have worked
in bigger businesses, who understand how leadership at scale can
look and feel. By definition, if you started your business
from zero, if you've never worked in corporate you don't
know what that looks like. So you don't necessarily want
to turn your business into a large corporation overnight. That's
not a good thing. But you do want to bring
(26:30):
in people who can teach you how to do those
things and show others what good looks like when it
comes to that leadership. Now, there's a catch, which is
you have to be open to someone who wants to
do things in a different way. Yeah, and you have
to find a way to do that in a way
that's authentic to you. But you have to bring in
people who've seen it done at scale. If you want
to operate at scale.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Well, Ben, I'm excited to see what doc Lots is
going to do. They've taken some big risks and have
had some big wins as a result. So it's cool
to see what they're doing and I look forward to
seeing more from them.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
I expect a lot, Tanya. I want to go back
to your chat with Rivera's. They had some words of
advice that really highlight the spirit and determination of all
small business owners that we should share.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Let's hear it.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
It's real simple for me, it's just take action. You
don't have to be the smartest guy. You don't have
to have everything figured out. You can get educated later on.
The thing is how many books you're going to read,
how many seminars and all that stuff you can read.
But if you don't take no action, that's my advice.
Just take the action as a matter what positions you are,
where you are in light, start somewhere, fail forward, just
do something.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
I would say, write up plan, write your goals, write
your vision, and then kind of write down like how
you're going to get there and then remembering why you started.
For us, I had to quit my job to do this.
There is no looking back, there is no giving up.
Keep going and make it happen.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Thanks for listening to the unshakables. If you like the show.
Please rate and review it to help other listeners find it.
In the next episode, after a severe allergic reaction shakes
her family, Denise Woodard is inspired to create a line
of allergen free snacks to protect her daughter and others.
I'm Tanya Nebo and this is The Unshakables from Chase
for Business and Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
The Unshakables is a production of Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia.
And We'll have
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