June 13, 2025 • 33 mins
Let’s end this week with more business growth strategies with today’s guest, John Marienau of Valey, sharing his real industry experience!
John highlights the challenges and successes of entrepreneurship in freight, the importance of consistent daily effort and sustainable work practices, Valey’s comprehensive staffing solutions, and his goal to promote a supportive entrepreneurial community!
About John Marienau
John Marienau blends over a decade of logistics and project leadership with a love for smart systems and great teams. At Valey, he’s on a mission to help founders do their best work by helping teams move faster, smoother, and with more intention.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Came back with a bank window down yelling now money in a day hey oh Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when I'm getting to the back hey Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when the lane moving fast hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them made them make a bigger ball hey.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
What is up, ladies and gentlemen?
We are back.
We are live.
It is the Freight Coach Podcast, the top podcast in transportation coming to you guys every single weekday, 8:30am Pacific, 10:30 Central, to break down some industry headlines.
But most importantly, you guys provide some actual insight into what you can do with all of this information.
If this is your first time tuning in, welcome.
This is the real side of freight, ladies and gentlemen.
(00:47):
And I say that before every single show.
And what I mean by that is I only speak with transportation professionals because at the end of the day, you guys, I want to talk to the right individuals who have done what you're looking to do or who are currently doing what you're trying to achieve, so you can take that information, apply it, utilize it, and see a meaningful difference in your business and your life.
Happy Friday, everybody.
I got a very special guest for you guys, and I'm going to bring him up in just a second because my team tells me I got to do this at the beginning of the show as well as at the end.
(01:12):
If you get value in what you hear here today, subscribe to the show, you guys.
And if you're already subscribed and you want to really get it out there to the network, rank it on itunes and Spotify.
Even if you hate everything I say, review it and everything because that helps into the algorithm as well to get it out there, guys.
Because at the end of the day, if you saw value, your network's going to see value as well.
Again, like I said, I got a very special guest for you guys on.
(01:34):
I've known him for a few years now.
We broke bread together in Vegas a few years ago.
I was on his podcast and, you know, he's been in the transportation industry for a long time and he's got a really cool new venture that he's going down and building up here.
So I have my man John Mariano with valet on the show.
John, thank you so much for taking the time to join me.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Chris, it's so good to see you, man.
I appreciate you having me on.
It's.
It's been a while since we did break bread.
Hopefully we can do it again soon.
But, yeah, thanks for having me Man.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Dude, absolutely.
Next time in, I'm in Vegas, I'll.
I'll hit you up.
I just like most people, man.
Like when you go to Vegas, I mean, I haven't even been to Vegas, I think since you and I were together last there.
And you know, it's.
What's crazy is because like my brother lives there, you know, but he's never around him and my, him and my sister in law, they go camping every single weekend.
(02:24):
They're up in Utah all the time, so.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Well, you know, that can be a good thing depending on what part of Vegas you're in.
If you're here all the time on the Strip, it can be a little bit hectic.
The only time I go to the Strip is when, you know, folks like yourself come town and I'll go down and visit you guys.
But other than that, man, I stay away from, from the Strip as much as I can.
No, no offense to the Strip, but it's just what it is.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Dude.
Everybody I know who lives in Vegas, including my family, are like, dude, nobody goes to the Strip.
And that's what's crazy though, man, is.
It's like, I mean, but I get it.
Living in Reno for as long as I did.
John, you don't go to like the casinos unless people from like out of town are in town and you like go and hang out with them down there.
And dude, I'm right there with you, man.
And I'm like, Vegas is cool.
(03:10):
On the outskirts of Vegas, like, but if, like if you're downtown, near the Strip and stuff like that on the Strip is cool, but just a couple of blocks off the Strip, not so much, man.
Like, I want to avoid that at all costs.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, for sure.
Vegas is a town that you don't read the news in, or at least I don't.
Right?
You read the news like you'd be out of here in three seconds.
But it's, you know, it's a great town.
I love the suburbs of Vegas.
It's really, you know, has kind of that Utah vibe without the greenery.
Unless it's man made, of course.
But yeah, it's a great town, man.
I love it.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Dude.
So actually, hold on, I'm booking a load, you guys.
Ladies and gentlemen, because your boy here.
All right.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I love, I love this about you, Chris though, because were just talking before we started that you're on episode 1219, you said which huge shout out to you.
That's not easy.
And you're booking loads at the same time.
So, I mean, come on, man.
That's.
You know, that deserves a round of applause.
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
I appreciate it, man.
And, dude, but it is like, I.
But, you know, I just want to show people, like, the reality of what it takes to build something, you know, because social media just put.
It puts such a false sense of what actual entrepreneurship entails, and bootstrapping it from nothing.
And starting from nothing is nowhere near as easy as some people like to make it out.
(04:26):
And this is why it's like, from my seat, man.
I just want to show people the reality of it, because at one point, John, in five years, 10 years from now, we're.
When my business is way more established and we have all of that stuff, people are going to remember it.
And then mainly I want to remember it too, man, because there's a lot of stuff throughout this journey that I want to have documented and to continue to document so we can, like.
(04:50):
I can look back on it, because just like with anything, man, like, the older you get in life, you tend to forget stuff, and then you forget how memorable some of those things were until something pops up and you're like, damn, you remember that one time when we, like, we didn't know if were going to make it?
And then like a week later, we had the biggest win of our entire career.
And now it's like, that's all documented in this, right?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Well, yeah.
And you're putting your.
You know, I was chatting with a friend a couple weeks back about the whole hustle culture thing, and it's really, you know, no one on social media, right, that you're seeing the Lamborghini, the rented Lamborghinis, and making money is this easy and whatnot.
I think it.
There needs to be people like yourself actually exposing that's not the case.
That it takes a lot more than that, because I feel hustle culture has actually invoked a sense of burnout in people because they think, well, I should just be hustle, hustle.
(05:40):
Everything should be good.
Everything should be great, and it's not.
Right.
The reality is it's not always great.
There are peaks and valleys, and you have to be in those valleys just as much as you're on those peaks, because those valleys tend to stand out a little bit more.
Sometimes when you're in the rut of it all, you start asking, why am I even doing this in the first place?
And then you have to yourself, step back, get perspective.
(06:00):
So I love what you're doing though, man, it shows consistency.
You, you've, ever since I've known, you've always talked about consistency.
And you know, that's easy to do to talk about consistency.
It's hard to show.
And you're showing it, man.
Again, 12, 19 episodes alone is, I don't know, a better example of consistency than that shows to a public facing.
So you're doing a service there.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Oh, dude.
And I appreciate that, man.
And it's like to me is, I just feel like I'm getting started, you know, like I'm not.
I don't feel like I've accomplished much.
And you know, like, I feel like there's a lot more to do out there.
And you know, like speaking of hustle culture, like there's fake hustle culture and actual hustle culture because, you know, some of the hardest working people I know out there, they're not talking about how they're working 24 7, 365, because anybody with half a brain knows that is not sustainable at all.
(06:52):
But, but they are working every single day, most days, sun up till sundown, they are putting in the reps.
But they also know how to separate that stuff, you know, because it's like as much as, and you know, this is gonna be a good segue into what you guys are building here now as well is like you need an off switch at some point.
And that off switch, when you're in the building stages of a business might come where you get your daily couple hours going to the gym in the morning.
(07:17):
In fact, that peace and quiet, that might be all you need to reset in that moment.
But you're going to hit that point where you build and scale your operation, where you know what, you might not have the money yet to hire somebody that needs a six figure salary or a VP or something.
You might not have those resources.
Contrary again to what you see on the Internet.
(07:38):
It's very expensive to build something and then on top of it, you need the cash.
Because I could sit here and want and hope and dream all day long, but that doesn't put more money in my bank account to invest strategically inside of my operation.
But the beautiful part about where we are today, there are resources now at your disposal that were not there a couple of years ago.
(08:02):
And some of the most talented people out there that you can hire don't need to be within 15 minutes or 20 minutes of your office anymore.
You have a literal global footprint that you can go and take advantage of.
So, you know, kind of to segue in, man.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
What.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
What are you guys building at?
Valet?
What is valet?
And how are we running with that?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Yeah, so, I mean, Just a quick intro, Chris.
You know, I'm a logistics guy at heart.
I've.
I've been in logistics for most of my life.
I've had my CDL since I was 21.
Like, the day I turned 21, actually, I got my CDL 40 now, which is crazy to even say, but, you know, basically, long story short, I tell people I completely burnt out.
(08:43):
I am one of those.
I am one of the people that burn out.
I found myself in a position.
I was the guy that kind of disposed burnout, right?
I looked at it kind of as a mythical creature.
Like, that's not a real thing.
You know, I talked a lot of smack about it, and I ended up eating my words pretty heavily, right?
And the truth of it is, so I built a trucking company seven years ago with a partner and then a freight brokerage back in 2020, at the end of 2021.
(09:11):
And the absolute truth of the matter is, if it wouldn't have been for my partners, those companies would have sank because I hit a wall.
And it was so fast and so hard that it shook me.
And it took about a year after that of just trying to find myself and being like, wow, what happened?
That wall hit me hard enough that I was like.
I lost myself, right?
(09:31):
And then for, like, the back last year, I actually started working on this idea with valet, and I'm actually working out with our mutual friend Cam.
And it really came from the idea of, well, how are people doing it?
How are people scaling teams effectively and actually making this happen?
Because we know it happens.
(09:52):
We know people can scale.
We see it every day.
But how are they doing it?
Where did I go wrong?
And there was a lot of areas I went wrong, but valet, essentially, in short, is operations as a service.
it's something that I found value in at my previous trucking company and freight brokerage.
My.
My wife, been married for almost 15 years now.
(10:12):
She's from the Philippines.
And I love the Philippine culture.
I love the Philippine people.
I love everything about the Philippines.
And so we decided to try and hire some people from there to help us expand and scale our team.
You know, this started.
Geez.
Now about five years ago when we started doing that.
And I just went all in.
Like, I do most things.
And we, you know, my partner and I agreed, let's try it.
(10:33):
Let's do this.
And so Vale, essentially, we're building a tool for companies and founders to be able to scale.
And I'm building something that I always dreamed I had when I was doing what I was doing.
So you know, it's just, it's how can we help people work smarter and faster, lightweight and just do it the right way?
Speaker 2 (10:53):
No.
And that, you know, I was just talking about this on the show yesterday with Mike, asked Kyle Lintner.
He's been on the show a few times and the hardest part in business, you know, from if we're, if I'm looking at it, is when you develop a system and you don't know if it's going to work for like 90 days or 120 days and you might not have the capital to sustain if you're wrong in that regard.
(11:20):
You know what I mean?
And from my perspective, it's one of the hardest things to really go through because again, you might know the business right?
Like you've been, You've had your CDL for, you know, since you were 21, John.
You've been in the industry just as long as I've been in the industry.
And no matter what, you don't know if you're going to have it work, right?
Like I could sit here and say all the positive affirmations and do all the work every single day, but the harsh reality is, and this is why most people don't make it past a couple of no's in certain business development and stuff like that is because they don't actually know.
(11:58):
You don't actually know if it's going to make it.
I work like hell.
Just like you work really hard.
Cam, Sunny, all these guys who tune into the show every single day, they work their asses off every single day.
But when we go home at night, do we actually know if it's going to make it or not?
I don't know.
We all hope the best and we work to make it work, but we don't.
(12:18):
And that's just the reality of what most people don't want to talk about.
But with that being said, there are so many tools at your disposal now by people who have built systems and processes and everything out there that you can lean on in the moment.
And you know Christian for my team, he's from the Philippines.
He's one of the hardest working people I've ever met.
(12:38):
Like the dude is non stop.
Even when he's not on the clock, he's responding to me.
If I hit him up about certain things, he doesn't have to, you know, but he is so meticulous and he has a lot.
From my perspective, he.
He's brought a different level to my content game because he's just built a system around some of this stuff.
And again, I married up.
I am not like an individual where I'm like an ops like person.
(13:02):
Like, I talk a lot of shit and that's my strength, right?
Like, I'm out there.
I'm a sales.
I'm.
I thrive in sales.
I thrive in identifying problems and identifying systems.
But the implementation of the system itself is not my strong suit at all.
And I'm very fortunate to have somebody like Christian on my team and then my business partner Angelo in the brokerage.
(13:23):
That's his strength.
He is a former mechanical engineer.
You know, like, he loves to write processes, he loves Excel spreadsheets, and again, it's that balance that comes along with it.
But again, you need people that might have a different background than you do to get in to your daily life.
And you can, you know, like, and you can invest in that now where, you know, what if you don't have the money to bring, you know, to hire somebody here in the States for a job that's $150,000 a year or something like that.
(13:55):
You get C level talent out there in the real world now.
And I say the real world, I mean the global economy, right?
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Yeah, I know you're.
You're exactly right.
And that's why, you know, really speaking with founders and then realizing our.
My past experiences and our experience as a whole together today, we really wanted to develop something that wasn't just here, Chris, here's an employee for you to learn to delegate with.
When I first brought on a team out of the Philippines, for whatever reason, I decided it was a good idea to bring in five immediately.
(14:26):
And I realized quickly, well, that just gave me five additional tasks that I already did not have time to manage.
And so it was a bit of a throw to the fire and learning how to handle it.
So with VALET and speaking with founders, what we realized is we can't just create a service that's just like, how many people do you need?
And we're going to place them.
That would be the definition of a staffing agency, right?
(14:48):
Where we're just saying, here's some people.
Good luck.
We really have invested a lot in some technology and tools and systems with our people to develop a white glove approach to where we're coming to you as like, say you, Chris.
And we're saying, hey, we're going to dive in.
In a discovery, usually the discovery starts 30 days before you even start fully to learn what it is you do.
(15:11):
The cool thing about business that I've noticed is if you're in a trucking business, an insurance business, a freight brokerage, a podcast business, at the core level is generally very similar.
There's things that have to get done.
There's shallow tasks or shallow work that as Cal Newport from Deep Work talks about, that have to get done.
(15:32):
The people that we have in the Philippines, Chris, and you've seen this with Christian, by the way, shout out to Christian.
That's my son's name.
Love it.
So, but, you know, there's that deep work that has to get done and these people are exceptional at it.
I mean, beyond, you know, comprehension of what we think is possible.
And usually it's like, what happened to you, Chris?
You bring somebody in and there's two things that happen.
(15:56):
Generally speaking, people don't give them enough work to do.
They're coming and saying, what else can I do?
What else can I do?
What else can I do?
And you start realizing, like, wow, this person's really good.
I might not be good at operations, but this person's a king at it or a queen.
Right.
They're excellent at what they do.
Or, you know, sometimes they get in and they just don't realize it's like chaos in that direction.
(16:17):
Like they give them too much or it's too unorganized, or the expectations aren't set right.
Or they don't have standard operating procedures in place.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
You know, fun fact, when I first started with the Filipinos back, you know, five years ago, whatever, I didn't know what an SOP was, you know, so it probably makes me look like a fool, but it's the truth.
You know, I learned that afterwards.
My Philippine team actually taught me creating those.
And what I'm finding now, and the reason I speak so clearly about, and I'm open about the fact that I burnt out, Chris, is the more founders and the more creators and high level operators and people that strive for more I speak to, the more I realize this is the rule for founders.
(16:59):
This isn't the exception.
There's a reason why 97% of businesses fail in flame out.
It's again, it's the rule, it's not the exception.
I can see it now because I lived it.
I can look at a founder and I can see like he's on that edge, he's on that glass blade of whether he's going to make it or not, our hope is to give people back their time and let that wall of scale actually happen for the founder.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah.
No, I mean, dude, you're describing every founder's struggles that they all go through, you know, and.
And when you're out there building your business up, it's one of those situations, man, where you.
You do.
You hit those inevitable walls.
We're like, what can I do differently here?
How do I.
You know?
And you think you're doing stuff that is right, but, you know, again, if you don't document anything, if you don't have any systems or processes in place, and, you know, when it comes to the SOP acronym that you're talking about there, John, I had no idea what that shit was like five years ago either, man.
(18:00):
There's a lot of fucking acronyms that are thrown out all over social media that.
Hell, man, most of the stuff that I see online, I'm like, I have to Google it.
I'm like, what are these guys talking about?
And you know, it is, man, but that's one of my things.
I'm not afraid to look like the dumbest person in the room, in any room that I'm in, because if I have a question about something, I am going to ask it.
I am not afraid.
If you think I'm ignorant for asking you a question, I think the roles are reversed.
(18:23):
You're the ignorant one out there because you need to ask those questions.
And.
But again, like, you know, you're talking about buying back your time.
There's a really good book out there by Dan Martell about buying back your time and building a system and a team around that stuff.
And you know that is because, like, what a lot of founders go through, at least I know I've gone through this.
When you don't have any money, all right?
(18:46):
And you have to teach yourself how to do everything right.
Like, I had to teach myself what is a podcast back when I started doing this.
I had to teach myself how do I edit a podcast?
What is content distribution?
What is a marketing strategy?
I taught myself all of that shit on YouTube University, ladies and gentlemen.
Taught myself how to edit everything.
I'm not a sound engineer at all, but I'm pretty damn good at messing with audio and making it sound a lot cooler than it really is.
(19:11):
And cameras and stuff like that.
That.
That's one blind spot in.
In my game out there is, like, live interviews and stuff like that.
Like, the lighting and stuff is.
That's a challenge for me still to this day, but you know, again, there's a lot of stuff out there where you identify it.
And when you're in that bootstrap or you're in that startup journey, you're like, I can't afford to bring anybody on.
(19:34):
I got to just figure it out on my own.
And what that does is it just causes an endless loop of busy.
You're not effective.
You're just busy all day long.
And then you're looking up and you're like, why isn't my business growing?
Why aren't we doing this?
And then you go back to the comfort of busy and you're not adding revenue, you're not growing, you're not doing anything.
(19:54):
You're actually stuck idle.
And then you hit a wall where you're like, fuck it, I'm done.
I can't.
I'm not growing.
There's just too much stress.
And again, when you're in that bubble, you're in that, just that echo chamber of talking to yourself day in and day out about this stuff.
You don't realize that there's tools at your disposal.
(20:15):
And this is why it's like, hey, I love talking to guys like you and other founders who are out there and there's other resources now where people who are in that air quote rut, you don't need to think you're alone here.
Like, there are tools that are at your disposal.
And especially when it's guys like you, John, who've built trucking companies, you've built brokerages, you've done the work that we talk about every single day so you can resonate with those founders and be like, hey, this is where I messed up.
(20:43):
This is what I went through.
Like you said, you can identify those spots out there when you're talking to people.
And that's what I love about doing this show the most, man, is because it's like, dude, I hope a bunch of people are going to listen this be like, I got to go talk to John.
Because like, everything he's describing here is what I'm going through every single day.
Because everything you described there, man, and everything I just said, those are very real thoughts and emotions and feelings that I've gone through in these first five plus years that I've been doing this.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Yeah, it, you know, it's an awesome opportunity.
Chris.
I, you know, the fact that you get to talk to so many people, you get to see this on a one to one basis every day probably.
And I, I mean, if I Could help one person just be able to step back.
I tell a lot of people, you know, when they say, you know, they might say, I just don't really know what to do.
(21:31):
I feel like this is going wrong, and this is going wrong.
It's like the.
If I could go back and tell myself one piece of advice, you know, four years ago or whatever, three years ago, I would say, step back and gain perspective.
Just step back away from it.
Everything's going to be fine.
Like, in your mind, though, as a founder, when you're surrounding yourself with all this busy work and, you know, you got the taxes and the accounting and you got employee issues and people issues and things that you didn't really, you didn't start the business to do those things, right?
(22:03):
I doubt when Chris started the brokerage and when you and your partner started the brokerage and you started the podcast, you didn't go into it saying, I can't wait to deal with all these.
This busy work.
You started it because you say, said, I want to elevate logistics.
I want to make something that helps change and elevate companies and do something for them.
So our job at Valet is let's try to take away that busy work.
(22:26):
Let's try to pull it away from people, because it doesn't need to be handled, nor can it be handled successfully by the founder, no matter how good somebody thinks they are.
And you have to have a little bit of that spunk to be a founder in the first place.
I mean, we both know this, Chris, right?
You got to be a little bit crazy, a little bit wild in the head to decide I'm going to start a company.
It's not.
(22:46):
It's.
You have to be a little bit different.
So, you know, if you can, if we can help people just get over.
Get, you know, step back, gain perspective and get over that glass wall of scaling and realize they don't have to do everything on their own.
I feel like it's a win because there's so many great ideas, there's so many amazing, awesome, inspiring businesses, like you said, too.
(23:08):
I mean, we live in an amazing, like, one of the best times ever, right?
We got AI and all this tech and all this stuff at our disposal, which is good, but it's also a little bit noisy, too.
But for the most part, it's like, hey, let's.
We can do this.
Like, we have the tools right now to make some pretty amazing things, but let's just try to get some of the stuff off our plates as founders.
(23:29):
So founders can go and complete what they originally started to do.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Yeah.
And I think it also, like, frees you up to do the work that you love to do because, like, you're not going to be jack of all trades, you know, like, you're not going to be good at everything you need to hire around your skill set.
Right.
Like, again, I am not a process guy at all.
Like, I am not an operations style guy out there.
I'm like, there's another really good book out there, talks about visionaries and integrators, and I am that visionary guy.
(24:00):
Right.
Like, I'm the idea.
Like, that's just what I thrive in.
I hate meetings.
Like, full transparency.
I hate meetings.
And if we're not.
If we're going to meet up and talk and you don't have, like, if we don't have an agenda to follow, I'm like, off, because I'm like, why are we sitting here and spinning our wheels in this situation?
Everybody has strengths and weaknesses, and you.
(24:22):
And I feel like a lot of founders because again, man, you're right.
When I started this 99 of the stuff that I've had to solve and come up with a solution to, I had no idea I was even gonna come up with.
You know, and there's a lot of stuff that I was faced with.
I am like, I.
And I've said this numerous times.
I am very fortunate to have found the attorney that I found in the CPA that I found because they helped me build out a lot of the infrastructure of my companies, plural companies.
(24:53):
And like, dude, my bookkeeper that I have, she's a gangster.
She keeps me on lock with that stuff.
And.
And again, it's like, it's those little things like that where you can outsource that.
There's contract labor, there's near.
There's a bunch of tools at your disposal where you don't have to sit there and bog yourself down with work that you hate doing.
And I feel like I want most founders to know it is okay to say I hate accounting in my business.
(25:18):
I don't want to invoice people.
I don't want to review contracts.
I don't want to do that.
It is okay to admit that, but what's not okay is you can't let that stuff go to the wayside.
You need to have people that are monitoring that stuff to make sure your financials are healthy inside of your business, to make sure your contracts are legit.
(25:38):
Because again, you can't not operate off of a contract.
Not everybody's your friend.
You have to protect your business.
What you have invested all of your sweat, tears, blood, whatever you want to throw out there.
Because again, like I've said before, man, like, I don't have a 401k, John.
I emptied that.
I got this.
I got this working.
I have my entire future leveraged on this.
(26:00):
And I will make this work because I know the tools that are at my disposal now.
I know my strengths, but most importantly, I know what my weaknesses are.
I've identified that.
And I'm sure there's way more weaknesses that I have in my game that I'm not aware of yet.
But I am not afraid to admit that I have those weaknesses, and I am not afraid to hire people to fill those weaknesses who excel in those roles.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
And I, and I hope everyone listening that is building a company or plans or desires to build a company.
Listen to what you said there, Chris, is the self awareness, understanding that and understanding just because you hate accounting or something does not mean somebody else doesn't love it.
And that's the thing, is there are people that absolutely love accounting and they're phenomenal at it.
(26:43):
Those are usually the people that love it, right?
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
So there's people out there.
And a lot of these tools are free too, you know, anymore.
It's like, you can learn a lot online and there's a lot of people like myself, I get on calls all the time, all week, you know, all week long that just to help people, you know, for nothing.
Just because I desire to be like, hey, if I can help somebody, just maybe gain a little perspective on this area, or if not, maybe I can lead them in the direction to someone who can.
(27:09):
That, to me, is a win because it's just like, you know, I don't know.
I believe in karma in that sense of like, if I can help people not face what I faced a couple of years ago, then game on, you know, I love it, dude.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Maybe this is.
This is the journey that you're supposed to be on.
You're supposed to go through all of that to create this service to help other founders out there.
Like, you walk the walk, man.
Like you.
You know that.
And, you know, I think that what kills a lot of people's dreams is their ego, you know, and they're.
They're afraid to wave the white flag and say, I need help.
And it's from what, from judgment, from people who aren't even doing with their lives, because that's really who are the loudest critics out there, man, because any real founder, any real entrepreneur knows what you're going through and they don't like, they will support you and help you and point you in that right direction.
(27:57):
The people, the loudest critics out there, guys, and I say this all the time, this is why I want more people to start podcasts, more people to start creating social media content, doing all of that.
The only people who are critics, you guys are losers.
All right?
Harsh reality.
There are people who aren't doing with their lives, because the people who are really doing it out there, they're supporting you.
They want to see you win.
Because I know that somebody else's success does not cause a detriment to myself or my business.
(28:20):
I actually, when you cheer for other people's success, ironically, like I said, I believe in karma, too.
The universe.
I'm a man of faith.
I, unapologetically a man of faith.
You get rewarded for that stuff.
When you help others and you put that out there and you help elevate others around you, that is what brings in a benefit to your business.
And it is.
You are no less of an entrepreneur or a founder to wave that white flag and be like, I need help.
(28:42):
I.
I am lost.
I am against a brick wall.
Money's running out.
Because again, most small businesses are 30 days from going out of business every single month.
And you need to find the.
That solution out there.
That's what you signed up for when you decided to go out there and start your own company, right?
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Yeah.
No, no truer words have ever been spoken, Chris.
Everything you said there is totally true.
And that was one of my issues is I failed from that ego.
I fail, like, in part of my brain, there was somewhere saying, I can't ask for help because I'm going to cause this person anguish.
Right?
That is so not true.
People want to help you.
And the more transparent you can be in your struggles, the more people are going to want to help you.
(29:22):
And you know, the successful people like yourself, they want you to elevate because in truth, it's going to make them elevate too.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Dude, I love it, man.
I just love hustle.
I love people who hustle, you know?
Like, I love people who just want to, who are just like, trying to build stuff.
And that's one thing that I've fallen in love with is the build, man.
It's the process.
It's like, hey, look at where were a couple of years ago and look at where we are now.
I love that shit.
Man, And I like in knowing that, like, I'm creating something that I hope the next six generation of jollies gets to work in and execute in.
(29:56):
I.
That.
That's what gets me going most days, man, is I'm like, dude, this is for, like, this isn't for me.
It's for like the next six generations of my family and all the other people that could hopefully get a really good job out of working for my company and go out there and positively change the world, man.
That's what it's all about.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Yeah, you've.
You found your passion, Chris, and you're good at it, man.
And I love to see you.
I love to see what you're doing and excelling and where you are, dude.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
I appreciate that, John.
And then as I always just flew by and.
But, dude, how does anybody reach out to you guys to find out more about what you guys got going on at Valet?
Speaker 3 (30:28):
The best place to go is just Valet, which is spelled V a l e y.IO that's our website.
And actually, if any of your listeners want to do Valet, V a l e y.IO freightcoach, you can go there.
And we actually have a special offering for any one of your listeners as well.
If they just want to jump on and this isn't a sales pitch by any means, so they could just jump on, book a discovery call, we can chat, and hopefully make a good connection.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Dude, I love it, man.
Check that out, you guys.
We'll put the links to all of that stuff out there in the show notes for you guys to hit up again.
You guys, I got a special offer for any of those listeners out there.
Hit them up.
If you guys can't find any of that information, if you can't find John or Valet, hit me up.
I will gladly put you guys in direct contact with them.
But that will be it for today, ladies and gentlemen, as always, if you got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show.
(31:15):
You guys, if you're feeling really ambitious after this one, rank the show on itunes and Spotify.
Because if you saw value, your network's going to see value as well.
I appreciate you guys.
I love you guys and we'll be talking to you soon.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Came back with a bank.
Hey, let them all cross.
If they hate them, let them hate them.
Make a bigger ball.
(31:51):
Hey.
Came back with a bank window down yelling now money in a day hey oh Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when I'm getting to the back hey Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when the lane moving fast hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them made them make a bigger ball hey.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
What is up, ladies and gentlemen?
We are back.
We are live.
It is the Freight Coach Podcast, the top podcast in transportation coming to you guys every single weekday, 8:30am Pacific, 10:30 Central, to break down some industry headlines.
But most importantly, you guys provide some actual insight into what you can do with all of this information.
If this is your first time tuning in, welcome.
This is the real side of freight, ladies and gentlemen.
(00:47):
And I say that before every single show.
And what I mean by that is I only speak with transportation professionals because at the end of the day, you guys, I want to talk to the right individuals who have done what you're looking to do or who are currently doing what you're trying to achieve, so you can take that information, apply it, utilize it, and see a meaningful difference in your business and your life.
Happy Friday, everybody.
I got a very special guest for you guys, and I'm going to bring him up in just a second because my team tells me I got to do this at the beginning of the show as well as at the end.
(01:12):
If you get value in what you hear here today, subscribe to the show, you guys.
And if you're already subscribed and you want to really get it out there to the network, rank it on itunes and Spotify.
Even if you hate everything I say, review it and everything because that helps into the algorithm as well to get it out there, guys.
Because at the end of the day, if you saw value, your network's going to see value as well.
Again, like I said, I got a very special guest for you guys on.
(01:34):
I've known him for a few years now.
We broke bread together in Vegas a few years ago.
I was on his podcast and, you know, he's been in the transportation industry for a long time and he's got a really cool new venture that he's going down and building up here.
So I have my man John Mariano with valet on the show.
John, thank you so much for taking the time to join me.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Chris, it's so good to see you, man.
I appreciate you having me on.
It's.
It's been a while since we did break bread.
Hopefully we can do it again soon.
But, yeah, thanks for having me Man.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Dude, absolutely.
Next time in, I'm in Vegas, I'll.
I'll hit you up.
I just like most people, man.
Like when you go to Vegas, I mean, I haven't even been to Vegas, I think since you and I were together last there.
And you know, it's.
What's crazy is because like my brother lives there, you know, but he's never around him and my, him and my sister in law, they go camping every single weekend.
(02:24):
They're up in Utah all the time, so.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Well, you know, that can be a good thing depending on what part of Vegas you're in.
If you're here all the time on the Strip, it can be a little bit hectic.
The only time I go to the Strip is when, you know, folks like yourself come town and I'll go down and visit you guys.
But other than that, man, I stay away from, from the Strip as much as I can.
No, no offense to the Strip, but it's just what it is.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Dude.
Everybody I know who lives in Vegas, including my family, are like, dude, nobody goes to the Strip.
And that's what's crazy though, man, is.
It's like, I mean, but I get it.
Living in Reno for as long as I did.
John, you don't go to like the casinos unless people from like out of town are in town and you like go and hang out with them down there.
And dude, I'm right there with you, man.
And I'm like, Vegas is cool.
(03:10):
On the outskirts of Vegas, like, but if, like if you're downtown, near the Strip and stuff like that on the Strip is cool, but just a couple of blocks off the Strip, not so much, man.
Like, I want to avoid that at all costs.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, for sure.
Vegas is a town that you don't read the news in, or at least I don't.
Right?
You read the news like you'd be out of here in three seconds.
But it's, you know, it's a great town.
I love the suburbs of Vegas.
It's really, you know, has kind of that Utah vibe without the greenery.
Unless it's man made, of course.
But yeah, it's a great town, man.
I love it.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Dude.
So actually, hold on, I'm booking a load, you guys.
Ladies and gentlemen, because your boy here.
All right.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I love, I love this about you, Chris though, because were just talking before we started that you're on episode 1219, you said which huge shout out to you.
That's not easy.
And you're booking loads at the same time.
So, I mean, come on, man.
That's.
You know, that deserves a round of applause.
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
I appreciate it, man.
And, dude, but it is like, I.
But, you know, I just want to show people, like, the reality of what it takes to build something, you know, because social media just put.
It puts such a false sense of what actual entrepreneurship entails, and bootstrapping it from nothing.
And starting from nothing is nowhere near as easy as some people like to make it out.
(04:26):
And this is why it's like, from my seat, man.
I just want to show people the reality of it, because at one point, John, in five years, 10 years from now, we're.
When my business is way more established and we have all of that stuff, people are going to remember it.
And then mainly I want to remember it too, man, because there's a lot of stuff throughout this journey that I want to have documented and to continue to document so we can, like.
(04:50):
I can look back on it, because just like with anything, man, like, the older you get in life, you tend to forget stuff, and then you forget how memorable some of those things were until something pops up and you're like, damn, you remember that one time when we, like, we didn't know if were going to make it?
And then like a week later, we had the biggest win of our entire career.
And now it's like, that's all documented in this, right?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Well, yeah.
And you're putting your.
You know, I was chatting with a friend a couple weeks back about the whole hustle culture thing, and it's really, you know, no one on social media, right, that you're seeing the Lamborghini, the rented Lamborghinis, and making money is this easy and whatnot.
I think it.
There needs to be people like yourself actually exposing that's not the case.
That it takes a lot more than that, because I feel hustle culture has actually invoked a sense of burnout in people because they think, well, I should just be hustle, hustle.
(05:40):
Everything should be good.
Everything should be great, and it's not.
Right.
The reality is it's not always great.
There are peaks and valleys, and you have to be in those valleys just as much as you're on those peaks, because those valleys tend to stand out a little bit more.
Sometimes when you're in the rut of it all, you start asking, why am I even doing this in the first place?
And then you have to yourself, step back, get perspective.
(06:00):
So I love what you're doing though, man, it shows consistency.
You, you've, ever since I've known, you've always talked about consistency.
And you know, that's easy to do to talk about consistency.
It's hard to show.
And you're showing it, man.
Again, 12, 19 episodes alone is, I don't know, a better example of consistency than that shows to a public facing.
So you're doing a service there.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Oh, dude.
And I appreciate that, man.
And it's like to me is, I just feel like I'm getting started, you know, like I'm not.
I don't feel like I've accomplished much.
And you know, like, I feel like there's a lot more to do out there.
And you know, like speaking of hustle culture, like there's fake hustle culture and actual hustle culture because, you know, some of the hardest working people I know out there, they're not talking about how they're working 24 7, 365, because anybody with half a brain knows that is not sustainable at all.
(06:52):
But, but they are working every single day, most days, sun up till sundown, they are putting in the reps.
But they also know how to separate that stuff, you know, because it's like as much as, and you know, this is gonna be a good segue into what you guys are building here now as well is like you need an off switch at some point.
And that off switch, when you're in the building stages of a business might come where you get your daily couple hours going to the gym in the morning.
(07:17):
In fact, that peace and quiet, that might be all you need to reset in that moment.
But you're going to hit that point where you build and scale your operation, where you know what, you might not have the money yet to hire somebody that needs a six figure salary or a VP or something.
You might not have those resources.
Contrary again to what you see on the Internet.
(07:38):
It's very expensive to build something and then on top of it, you need the cash.
Because I could sit here and want and hope and dream all day long, but that doesn't put more money in my bank account to invest strategically inside of my operation.
But the beautiful part about where we are today, there are resources now at your disposal that were not there a couple of years ago.
(08:02):
And some of the most talented people out there that you can hire don't need to be within 15 minutes or 20 minutes of your office anymore.
You have a literal global footprint that you can go and take advantage of.
So, you know, kind of to segue in, man.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
What.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
What are you guys building at?
Valet?
What is valet?
And how are we running with that?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Yeah, so, I mean, Just a quick intro, Chris.
You know, I'm a logistics guy at heart.
I've.
I've been in logistics for most of my life.
I've had my CDL since I was 21.
Like, the day I turned 21, actually, I got my CDL 40 now, which is crazy to even say, but, you know, basically, long story short, I tell people I completely burnt out.
(08:43):
I am one of those.
I am one of the people that burn out.
I found myself in a position.
I was the guy that kind of disposed burnout, right?
I looked at it kind of as a mythical creature.
Like, that's not a real thing.
You know, I talked a lot of smack about it, and I ended up eating my words pretty heavily, right?
And the truth of it is, so I built a trucking company seven years ago with a partner and then a freight brokerage back in 2020, at the end of 2021.
(09:11):
And the absolute truth of the matter is, if it wouldn't have been for my partners, those companies would have sank because I hit a wall.
And it was so fast and so hard that it shook me.
And it took about a year after that of just trying to find myself and being like, wow, what happened?
That wall hit me hard enough that I was like.
I lost myself, right?
(09:31):
And then for, like, the back last year, I actually started working on this idea with valet, and I'm actually working out with our mutual friend Cam.
And it really came from the idea of, well, how are people doing it?
How are people scaling teams effectively and actually making this happen?
Because we know it happens.
(09:52):
We know people can scale.
We see it every day.
But how are they doing it?
Where did I go wrong?
And there was a lot of areas I went wrong, but valet, essentially, in short, is operations as a service.
it's something that I found value in at my previous trucking company and freight brokerage.
My.
My wife, been married for almost 15 years now.
(10:12):
She's from the Philippines.
And I love the Philippine culture.
I love the Philippine people.
I love everything about the Philippines.
And so we decided to try and hire some people from there to help us expand and scale our team.
You know, this started.
Geez.
Now about five years ago when we started doing that.
And I just went all in.
Like, I do most things.
And we, you know, my partner and I agreed, let's try it.
(10:33):
Let's do this.
And so Vale, essentially, we're building a tool for companies and founders to be able to scale.
And I'm building something that I always dreamed I had when I was doing what I was doing.
So you know, it's just, it's how can we help people work smarter and faster, lightweight and just do it the right way?
Speaker 2 (10:53):
No.
And that, you know, I was just talking about this on the show yesterday with Mike, asked Kyle Lintner.
He's been on the show a few times and the hardest part in business, you know, from if we're, if I'm looking at it, is when you develop a system and you don't know if it's going to work for like 90 days or 120 days and you might not have the capital to sustain if you're wrong in that regard.
(11:20):
You know what I mean?
And from my perspective, it's one of the hardest things to really go through because again, you might know the business right?
Like you've been, You've had your CDL for, you know, since you were 21, John.
You've been in the industry just as long as I've been in the industry.
And no matter what, you don't know if you're going to have it work, right?
Like I could sit here and say all the positive affirmations and do all the work every single day, but the harsh reality is, and this is why most people don't make it past a couple of no's in certain business development and stuff like that is because they don't actually know.
(11:58):
You don't actually know if it's going to make it.
I work like hell.
Just like you work really hard.
Cam, Sunny, all these guys who tune into the show every single day, they work their asses off every single day.
But when we go home at night, do we actually know if it's going to make it or not?
I don't know.
We all hope the best and we work to make it work, but we don't.
(12:18):
And that's just the reality of what most people don't want to talk about.
But with that being said, there are so many tools at your disposal now by people who have built systems and processes and everything out there that you can lean on in the moment.
And you know Christian for my team, he's from the Philippines.
He's one of the hardest working people I've ever met.
(12:38):
Like the dude is non stop.
Even when he's not on the clock, he's responding to me.
If I hit him up about certain things, he doesn't have to, you know, but he is so meticulous and he has a lot.
From my perspective, he.
He's brought a different level to my content game because he's just built a system around some of this stuff.
And again, I married up.
I am not like an individual where I'm like an ops like person.
(13:02):
Like, I talk a lot of shit and that's my strength, right?
Like, I'm out there.
I'm a sales.
I'm.
I thrive in sales.
I thrive in identifying problems and identifying systems.
But the implementation of the system itself is not my strong suit at all.
And I'm very fortunate to have somebody like Christian on my team and then my business partner Angelo in the brokerage.
(13:23):
That's his strength.
He is a former mechanical engineer.
You know, like, he loves to write processes, he loves Excel spreadsheets, and again, it's that balance that comes along with it.
But again, you need people that might have a different background than you do to get in to your daily life.
And you can, you know, like, and you can invest in that now where, you know, what if you don't have the money to bring, you know, to hire somebody here in the States for a job that's $150,000 a year or something like that.
(13:55):
You get C level talent out there in the real world now.
And I say the real world, I mean the global economy, right?
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Yeah, I know you're.
You're exactly right.
And that's why, you know, really speaking with founders and then realizing our.
My past experiences and our experience as a whole together today, we really wanted to develop something that wasn't just here, Chris, here's an employee for you to learn to delegate with.
When I first brought on a team out of the Philippines, for whatever reason, I decided it was a good idea to bring in five immediately.
(14:26):
And I realized quickly, well, that just gave me five additional tasks that I already did not have time to manage.
And so it was a bit of a throw to the fire and learning how to handle it.
So with VALET and speaking with founders, what we realized is we can't just create a service that's just like, how many people do you need?
And we're going to place them.
That would be the definition of a staffing agency, right?
(14:48):
Where we're just saying, here's some people.
Good luck.
We really have invested a lot in some technology and tools and systems with our people to develop a white glove approach to where we're coming to you as like, say you, Chris.
And we're saying, hey, we're going to dive in.
In a discovery, usually the discovery starts 30 days before you even start fully to learn what it is you do.
(15:11):
The cool thing about business that I've noticed is if you're in a trucking business, an insurance business, a freight brokerage, a podcast business, at the core level is generally very similar.
There's things that have to get done.
There's shallow tasks or shallow work that as Cal Newport from Deep Work talks about, that have to get done.
(15:32):
The people that we have in the Philippines, Chris, and you've seen this with Christian, by the way, shout out to Christian.
That's my son's name.
Love it.
So, but, you know, there's that deep work that has to get done and these people are exceptional at it.
I mean, beyond, you know, comprehension of what we think is possible.
And usually it's like, what happened to you, Chris?
You bring somebody in and there's two things that happen.
(15:56):
Generally speaking, people don't give them enough work to do.
They're coming and saying, what else can I do?
What else can I do?
What else can I do?
And you start realizing, like, wow, this person's really good.
I might not be good at operations, but this person's a king at it or a queen.
Right.
They're excellent at what they do.
Or, you know, sometimes they get in and they just don't realize it's like chaos in that direction.
(16:17):
Like they give them too much or it's too unorganized, or the expectations aren't set right.
Or they don't have standard operating procedures in place.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
You know, fun fact, when I first started with the Filipinos back, you know, five years ago, whatever, I didn't know what an SOP was, you know, so it probably makes me look like a fool, but it's the truth.
You know, I learned that afterwards.
My Philippine team actually taught me creating those.
And what I'm finding now, and the reason I speak so clearly about, and I'm open about the fact that I burnt out, Chris, is the more founders and the more creators and high level operators and people that strive for more I speak to, the more I realize this is the rule for founders.
(16:59):
This isn't the exception.
There's a reason why 97% of businesses fail in flame out.
It's again, it's the rule, it's not the exception.
I can see it now because I lived it.
I can look at a founder and I can see like he's on that edge, he's on that glass blade of whether he's going to make it or not, our hope is to give people back their time and let that wall of scale actually happen for the founder.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah.
No, I mean, dude, you're describing every founder's struggles that they all go through, you know, and.
And when you're out there building your business up, it's one of those situations, man, where you.
You do.
You hit those inevitable walls.
We're like, what can I do differently here?
How do I.
You know?
And you think you're doing stuff that is right, but, you know, again, if you don't document anything, if you don't have any systems or processes in place, and, you know, when it comes to the SOP acronym that you're talking about there, John, I had no idea what that shit was like five years ago either, man.
(18:00):
There's a lot of fucking acronyms that are thrown out all over social media that.
Hell, man, most of the stuff that I see online, I'm like, I have to Google it.
I'm like, what are these guys talking about?
And you know, it is, man, but that's one of my things.
I'm not afraid to look like the dumbest person in the room, in any room that I'm in, because if I have a question about something, I am going to ask it.
I am not afraid.
If you think I'm ignorant for asking you a question, I think the roles are reversed.
(18:23):
You're the ignorant one out there because you need to ask those questions.
And.
But again, like, you know, you're talking about buying back your time.
There's a really good book out there by Dan Martell about buying back your time and building a system and a team around that stuff.
And you know that is because, like, what a lot of founders go through, at least I know I've gone through this.
When you don't have any money, all right?
(18:46):
And you have to teach yourself how to do everything right.
Like, I had to teach myself what is a podcast back when I started doing this.
I had to teach myself how do I edit a podcast?
What is content distribution?
What is a marketing strategy?
I taught myself all of that shit on YouTube University, ladies and gentlemen.
Taught myself how to edit everything.
I'm not a sound engineer at all, but I'm pretty damn good at messing with audio and making it sound a lot cooler than it really is.
(19:11):
And cameras and stuff like that.
That.
That's one blind spot in.
In my game out there is, like, live interviews and stuff like that.
Like, the lighting and stuff is.
That's a challenge for me still to this day, but you know, again, there's a lot of stuff out there where you identify it.
And when you're in that bootstrap or you're in that startup journey, you're like, I can't afford to bring anybody on.
(19:34):
I got to just figure it out on my own.
And what that does is it just causes an endless loop of busy.
You're not effective.
You're just busy all day long.
And then you're looking up and you're like, why isn't my business growing?
Why aren't we doing this?
And then you go back to the comfort of busy and you're not adding revenue, you're not growing, you're not doing anything.
(19:54):
You're actually stuck idle.
And then you hit a wall where you're like, fuck it, I'm done.
I can't.
I'm not growing.
There's just too much stress.
And again, when you're in that bubble, you're in that, just that echo chamber of talking to yourself day in and day out about this stuff.
You don't realize that there's tools at your disposal.
(20:15):
And this is why it's like, hey, I love talking to guys like you and other founders who are out there and there's other resources now where people who are in that air quote rut, you don't need to think you're alone here.
Like, there are tools that are at your disposal.
And especially when it's guys like you, John, who've built trucking companies, you've built brokerages, you've done the work that we talk about every single day so you can resonate with those founders and be like, hey, this is where I messed up.
(20:43):
This is what I went through.
Like you said, you can identify those spots out there when you're talking to people.
And that's what I love about doing this show the most, man, is because it's like, dude, I hope a bunch of people are going to listen this be like, I got to go talk to John.
Because like, everything he's describing here is what I'm going through every single day.
Because everything you described there, man, and everything I just said, those are very real thoughts and emotions and feelings that I've gone through in these first five plus years that I've been doing this.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Yeah, it, you know, it's an awesome opportunity.
Chris.
I, you know, the fact that you get to talk to so many people, you get to see this on a one to one basis every day probably.
And I, I mean, if I Could help one person just be able to step back.
I tell a lot of people, you know, when they say, you know, they might say, I just don't really know what to do.
(21:31):
I feel like this is going wrong, and this is going wrong.
It's like the.
If I could go back and tell myself one piece of advice, you know, four years ago or whatever, three years ago, I would say, step back and gain perspective.
Just step back away from it.
Everything's going to be fine.
Like, in your mind, though, as a founder, when you're surrounding yourself with all this busy work and, you know, you got the taxes and the accounting and you got employee issues and people issues and things that you didn't really, you didn't start the business to do those things, right?
(22:03):
I doubt when Chris started the brokerage and when you and your partner started the brokerage and you started the podcast, you didn't go into it saying, I can't wait to deal with all these.
This busy work.
You started it because you say, said, I want to elevate logistics.
I want to make something that helps change and elevate companies and do something for them.
So our job at Valet is let's try to take away that busy work.
(22:26):
Let's try to pull it away from people, because it doesn't need to be handled, nor can it be handled successfully by the founder, no matter how good somebody thinks they are.
And you have to have a little bit of that spunk to be a founder in the first place.
I mean, we both know this, Chris, right?
You got to be a little bit crazy, a little bit wild in the head to decide I'm going to start a company.
It's not.
(22:46):
It's.
You have to be a little bit different.
So, you know, if you can, if we can help people just get over.
Get, you know, step back, gain perspective and get over that glass wall of scaling and realize they don't have to do everything on their own.
I feel like it's a win because there's so many great ideas, there's so many amazing, awesome, inspiring businesses, like you said, too.
(23:08):
I mean, we live in an amazing, like, one of the best times ever, right?
We got AI and all this tech and all this stuff at our disposal, which is good, but it's also a little bit noisy, too.
But for the most part, it's like, hey, let's.
We can do this.
Like, we have the tools right now to make some pretty amazing things, but let's just try to get some of the stuff off our plates as founders.
(23:29):
So founders can go and complete what they originally started to do.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Yeah.
And I think it also, like, frees you up to do the work that you love to do because, like, you're not going to be jack of all trades, you know, like, you're not going to be good at everything you need to hire around your skill set.
Right.
Like, again, I am not a process guy at all.
Like, I am not an operations style guy out there.
I'm like, there's another really good book out there, talks about visionaries and integrators, and I am that visionary guy.
(24:00):
Right.
Like, I'm the idea.
Like, that's just what I thrive in.
I hate meetings.
Like, full transparency.
I hate meetings.
And if we're not.
If we're going to meet up and talk and you don't have, like, if we don't have an agenda to follow, I'm like, off, because I'm like, why are we sitting here and spinning our wheels in this situation?
Everybody has strengths and weaknesses, and you.
(24:22):
And I feel like a lot of founders because again, man, you're right.
When I started this 99 of the stuff that I've had to solve and come up with a solution to, I had no idea I was even gonna come up with.
You know, and there's a lot of stuff that I was faced with.
I am like, I.
And I've said this numerous times.
I am very fortunate to have found the attorney that I found in the CPA that I found because they helped me build out a lot of the infrastructure of my companies, plural companies.
(24:53):
And like, dude, my bookkeeper that I have, she's a gangster.
She keeps me on lock with that stuff.
And.
And again, it's like, it's those little things like that where you can outsource that.
There's contract labor, there's near.
There's a bunch of tools at your disposal where you don't have to sit there and bog yourself down with work that you hate doing.
And I feel like I want most founders to know it is okay to say I hate accounting in my business.
(25:18):
I don't want to invoice people.
I don't want to review contracts.
I don't want to do that.
It is okay to admit that, but what's not okay is you can't let that stuff go to the wayside.
You need to have people that are monitoring that stuff to make sure your financials are healthy inside of your business, to make sure your contracts are legit.
(25:38):
Because again, you can't not operate off of a contract.
Not everybody's your friend.
You have to protect your business.
What you have invested all of your sweat, tears, blood, whatever you want to throw out there.
Because again, like I've said before, man, like, I don't have a 401k, John.
I emptied that.
I got this.
I got this working.
I have my entire future leveraged on this.
(26:00):
And I will make this work because I know the tools that are at my disposal now.
I know my strengths, but most importantly, I know what my weaknesses are.
I've identified that.
And I'm sure there's way more weaknesses that I have in my game that I'm not aware of yet.
But I am not afraid to admit that I have those weaknesses, and I am not afraid to hire people to fill those weaknesses who excel in those roles.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
And I, and I hope everyone listening that is building a company or plans or desires to build a company.
Listen to what you said there, Chris, is the self awareness, understanding that and understanding just because you hate accounting or something does not mean somebody else doesn't love it.
And that's the thing, is there are people that absolutely love accounting and they're phenomenal at it.
(26:43):
Those are usually the people that love it, right?
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
So there's people out there.
And a lot of these tools are free too, you know, anymore.
It's like, you can learn a lot online and there's a lot of people like myself, I get on calls all the time, all week, you know, all week long that just to help people, you know, for nothing.
Just because I desire to be like, hey, if I can help somebody, just maybe gain a little perspective on this area, or if not, maybe I can lead them in the direction to someone who can.
(27:09):
That, to me, is a win because it's just like, you know, I don't know.
I believe in karma in that sense of like, if I can help people not face what I faced a couple of years ago, then game on, you know, I love it, dude.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Maybe this is.
This is the journey that you're supposed to be on.
You're supposed to go through all of that to create this service to help other founders out there.
Like, you walk the walk, man.
Like you.
You know that.
And, you know, I think that what kills a lot of people's dreams is their ego, you know, and they're.
They're afraid to wave the white flag and say, I need help.
And it's from what, from judgment, from people who aren't even doing with their lives, because that's really who are the loudest critics out there, man, because any real founder, any real entrepreneur knows what you're going through and they don't like, they will support you and help you and point you in that right direction.
(27:57):
The people, the loudest critics out there, guys, and I say this all the time, this is why I want more people to start podcasts, more people to start creating social media content, doing all of that.
The only people who are critics, you guys are losers.
All right?
Harsh reality.
There are people who aren't doing with their lives, because the people who are really doing it out there, they're supporting you.
They want to see you win.
Because I know that somebody else's success does not cause a detriment to myself or my business.
(28:20):
I actually, when you cheer for other people's success, ironically, like I said, I believe in karma, too.
The universe.
I'm a man of faith.
I, unapologetically a man of faith.
You get rewarded for that stuff.
When you help others and you put that out there and you help elevate others around you, that is what brings in a benefit to your business.
And it is.
You are no less of an entrepreneur or a founder to wave that white flag and be like, I need help.
(28:42):
I.
I am lost.
I am against a brick wall.
Money's running out.
Because again, most small businesses are 30 days from going out of business every single month.
And you need to find the.
That solution out there.
That's what you signed up for when you decided to go out there and start your own company, right?
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Yeah.
No, no truer words have ever been spoken, Chris.
Everything you said there is totally true.
And that was one of my issues is I failed from that ego.
I fail, like, in part of my brain, there was somewhere saying, I can't ask for help because I'm going to cause this person anguish.
Right?
That is so not true.
People want to help you.
And the more transparent you can be in your struggles, the more people are going to want to help you.
(29:22):
And you know, the successful people like yourself, they want you to elevate because in truth, it's going to make them elevate too.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Dude, I love it, man.
I just love hustle.
I love people who hustle, you know?
Like, I love people who just want to, who are just like, trying to build stuff.
And that's one thing that I've fallen in love with is the build, man.
It's the process.
It's like, hey, look at where were a couple of years ago and look at where we are now.
I love that shit.
Man, And I like in knowing that, like, I'm creating something that I hope the next six generation of jollies gets to work in and execute in.
(29:56):
I.
That.
That's what gets me going most days, man, is I'm like, dude, this is for, like, this isn't for me.
It's for like the next six generations of my family and all the other people that could hopefully get a really good job out of working for my company and go out there and positively change the world, man.
That's what it's all about.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Yeah, you've.
You found your passion, Chris, and you're good at it, man.
And I love to see you.
I love to see what you're doing and excelling and where you are, dude.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
I appreciate that, John.
And then as I always just flew by and.
But, dude, how does anybody reach out to you guys to find out more about what you guys got going on at Valet?
Speaker 3 (30:28):
The best place to go is just Valet, which is spelled V a l e y.IO that's our website.
And actually, if any of your listeners want to do Valet, V a l e y.IO freightcoach, you can go there.
And we actually have a special offering for any one of your listeners as well.
If they just want to jump on and this isn't a sales pitch by any means, so they could just jump on, book a discovery call, we can chat, and hopefully make a good connection.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Dude, I love it, man.
Check that out, you guys.
We'll put the links to all of that stuff out there in the show notes for you guys to hit up again.
You guys, I got a special offer for any of those listeners out there.
Hit them up.
If you guys can't find any of that information, if you can't find John or Valet, hit me up.
I will gladly put you guys in direct contact with them.
But that will be it for today, ladies and gentlemen, as always, if you got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show.
(31:15):
You guys, if you're feeling really ambitious after this one, rank the show on itunes and Spotify.
Because if you saw value, your network's going to see value as well.
I appreciate you guys.
I love you guys and we'll be talking to you soon.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Came back with a bank.
Hey, let them all cross.
If they hate them, let them hate them.
Make a bigger ball.
(31:51):
Hey.
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