Rosco Graves, founder and CEO of Polaxis, shares his journey from corporate finance to entrepreneurship and explains how fractional CFO services can transform small business operations and profitability.
• Building trust with clients starts with understanding their unique needs and personalities
• The value of storytelling in financial services—translating numbers into meaningful narratives
• Why "you don't know what you don't know" can be the biggest threat to your business
• How fractional CFO services provide Fortune 500 financial expertise to small and medium businesses
• The importance of having finance professionals involved in business decisions before problems arise
• Common financial blind spots that cost business owners thousands
• The transition from corporate mindset to entrepreneurial thinking requires deliberate reprogramming
• Starting with a $50 client and growing to serve businesses across multiple industries and states
• The power of combining technical expertise with strong communication skills
• Financial professionals who can tell you things you need to hear, not just what you want to hear
• The realistic risks of entrepreneurship versus corporate employment
Check out Polaxis and connect with Rosco at polaxis.co or email info@polaxis.co to learn how his team can help your business make better financial decisions and achieve greater profitability.
From the Zoo to Wild is a book for entrepreneurs passionate about home services, looking to move away from corporate jobs. Chris Lalomia, a former executive, shares his path, discoveries, and tools to succeed as a small business owner in home improvement retail. The book provides the mindset, habits, leadership style, and customer-oriented processes necessary to succeed as a small business owner in home services.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I made a lot of mistakes, but learned a lot as
well.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
See, it ain't true, Roscoe.
That's not true.
I made mistakes.
We don't do those.
Welcome to the Small BusinessSafari, where I help guide you
to avoid those traps, pitfallsand dangers that lurk when
navigating the wild world ofsmall business ownership.
I'll share those gold nuggetsof information and invite guests
(00:25):
to help accelerate your ascentto that mountaintop of success.
It's a jungle out there and Iwant to help you traverse
through the levels of owningyour own business that can get
you bogged down and distract youfrom hitting your own personal
and professional goals.
So strap in Adventure Team andlet's take a ride through the
safari and get you to themountaintop.
(00:53):
Alan, we're ready to rock androll.
We got to get it going.
Man, I love that music.
I know I say it every time, butI was doing some editing of our
podcast.
I've got a new person helpingme out with editing and we keep
listening to it and she's likeboy, you really just like that
music.
I said you know I do, it's justcool.
So we're off.
We're rocking, we're ready toget back and going.
(01:13):
We're going to get into this.
But before we got started,roscoe and Alan and I were
talking.
We're going to introduce Roscoein just a second, but he
brought something up about haveyou ever made a mistake as a
business owner?
I'm like, well, you know, in 17years uh, no, no, never.
Or I'll give you this one.
I've made a lot of them, butone time my guy goes out and
does an estimate, it is off byhalf.
(01:33):
Customer says no way, you guysdid it, he wrote it.
He wrote it exactly like yousaid.
You guys got to honor it, I did, and I get done and I'm just
ready to just absolutely thisdude out right.
I'm like what the hell?
You know I, I stood up, I didthe right thing.
This is early on and he goes.
You know what, chris, sometimes, sometimes you eat the bear,
sometimes it eats you.
(01:54):
I'm like you know what I'mthinking right now.
This bear is about to beat you,buddy I said you're rude is
that really what you just wantedto tell me?
right now I'm like no, thatain't happening, big boy.
So when an employee tells youthat one, you can file that away
, but you can use that anytimeyou want.
But it's uh, it is, it isapropos, uh, out there.
You're out there just trying toeat bear all the time.
(02:15):
Sometimes it grabs you back andbeats the yeah, it's not out of
you, that is true, that is true.
All right, let's get into this.
We got rosco Graves on and he'sgoing to talk a lot about, I
think, business stuff.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Well, good yeah, you sound so erudite.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Roscoe, why don't you give us a quick lowdown?
Just tell everybody a littlebit more about what your
business is and what you do, andthen we'll backtrack on a
couple of things couple ofthings, sure, so I am the
founder and CEO.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Thank you guys for having me on.
Founder and CEO of Plaxis.
We're a professional servicesfirm.
We do tax preparation, taxconsulting, we do bookkeeping
and fractional CFO services.
So primarily we work with we dosome work with individuals, but
primarily with businesses smallto medium sized businesses.
We want to partner with ourclients.
We want to help them run theirbusiness better, make more money
, be happier, and so that's whatwe do.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
And that's why I wanted Roscoe to introduce
himself, because I could havedone that.
I could have just gone blah,blah, blah, blah, blah.
I never would have gone.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Listen, roscoe, you saidsomething right off the bat that
actually was going to be.
One of the themes is thatpeople don't switch to you
unless they know you, and I'mnot going to know you from one
podcast and you know that.
Guys, you're not going to getit.
I get it.
But you may get introduced tohim and there might come a time
(03:31):
where he says something you wenthuh, I might want to go pull
that thread and get to knowRoscoe a little bit more.
But when you talk about, youhave to know that business.
You got to know that person todo that business with them.
How have you found that trustto get built and continue it on?
I assume it's a lot of referralwork.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
A lot of referral work.
You know the best clients comefrom referrals.
It also helps because it's alittle bit of that tacit trust
is already started, and then yougot to know your client right,
and so you know, before Istarted this I was in corporate
America and you got to know yourboss.
You have to know how your bossthinks, you have to know how
your boss operates, what theylike, what they don't like, and
(04:10):
it's the same way with everysingle one of our clients.
So when I'm thinking about howto present something, I may have
the exact same advice, but Igot to present it to two
different owners because theyhave two different personalities
, two different life'sexperiences.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
And so it's the challenge but it's also a little
bit of what makes life fun.
Yeah, you hit on the well,we'll get to that in a minute,
but that's just it.
You know nobody's going to justcall you out of the blue.
Hey, I just ran into Roscoe.
Hey, roscoe, can I just giveyou all my tax information?
Hey, can you come do an audit?
Hey, can you be my CFO?
(04:49):
No, it doesn't work like that.
So when you talk about thattacit trust and building on it,
what do you do and how do yousee that being built to?
Speaker 1 (04:52):
the point where they go all right, I'm high enough on
that trust mountain.
I'm ready to work with you,yeah.
So a lot of those initialconversations we try to talk to
them, get to know their wants,their needs.
I like storytelling and so Itry to relate to things that
have been similar.
But even in those conversationseverybody gravitates to
something different.
They gravitate to maybe a placethat I used to work that they
(05:13):
feel very great about, and soyou know, I get credibility
based on that, or maybe it'ssomething I said.
I've been a business owner inother businesses before and I
think that really relates andresonates with a lot of
businesses, because I'm not theaccountant that's never tried to
run a business.
That's telling you how to runyours.
I've actually done it andthat's how I think of my
business.
So it kind of depends on everysingle individual situation, but
(05:38):
a lot of it is just talking tothem being honest and
transparent.
There's a lot of things I'mprobably going to tell you that
you don't like, but I'm going togive you the truth versus
buttering you up, telling youwhat you want to hear, and I
think over time those are thethings that people say hey, he
was fair to me.
He was transparent and theadvice he gave made sense.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
So I know, one of the ones that I saw on LinkedIn
because I was excited until itsaid he was a passive investor
is that he actually got into afranchise.
And I was like, oh good, I'mlike oh, so which franchise did
you get into and how much wereyou involved or not?
What does this mean?
Because I was like, oh, he gotbeaten just like I did.
I didn't start a franchise, Idid not do a franchise thing.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
He probably did really well, he probably made a
lot of good decisions.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Well, you know, he probably made a lot better than
I did and Alan, having been infranchising like you have, I saw
it and I wanted to talk aboutit.
I'm still going to talk aboutit because I just brought it up
you did, so let's do it, you'redown.
Come on, let's go.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
All right, so tell us about the franchise you either
invested in or how you did thatand what you did in that role.
Yeah, so I had a gym franchise.
Took about a year to look intovarious franchises, had a
franchise consultant help meChose a yoga-focused franchise.
I liked the aesthetics of it, Iliked helping people and if I
(07:14):
could make some money, great.
Unfortunately, I started thefranchise probably three months
before COVID and we were verymuch the brand was do it
together.
You know you got to be in thesame place.
You want to have a communityand obviously that doesn't work
very well when COVID so you know, financially it wasn't the
greatest thing, but it was Ilearned a tremendous amount.
(07:36):
You could never have writtenenough or read enough books to
get the knowledge that I youknow that I got.
I made a lot of mistakes whatno?
But learned a lot as well.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
See, it ain't true Roscoe, that's not true.
I made mistakes.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
We don't do those.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
So bottom line is you just picked a scab, I did Well
because I was excited about it,because I saw it Well, because
misery loves company.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Oh, shut up, that's what we're dealing with.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I started my business in the recession.
I had to live through COVID.
I'm getting my butt kicked leftand right.
I mean my God.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
When I saw that, I said, oh my God, you just had
this nasty little grin on yourface when you asked about it.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
I want to apologize on behalf of.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
So what was your franchise?
Speaker 2 (08:20):
So Alan's franchise Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
You tell me no, I don't remember.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
So Alan's franchise go ahead?
You tell me, no, I don'tremember.
All right, he doesn't like totalk about it.
It was something I opened rightbefore 2008,.
So kind of a similar thing.
Okay, yeah, but I lovefranchising.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Then he got in and helped other people franchise.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Yeah, I did work at a franchisor's office, which was
so much fun helping other peoplespend their money Right it's
always their money.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
But the Yoga 6, I saw that.
But you put passive investor.
I was like, oh, I wonder if.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
But now you just said it, you learned, yeah, it
wasn't passive at all, yeah itwasn't passive at all and that
was the thing I wanted to workfull-time and do this and you
know, thought it was kind of aside thing and it was a
full-time job.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Um and, I think, rusco.
I think we're gonna have tohave a signal today where I hit
chris under the table no, let'shave a safe word, let's do safe
word, let's do.
Let's do downward dog safe yeahI noticed you struck a little
bit of a yoga pose, Chris.
I don't ever need to see thatagain.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
So no, but you hit on .
But that's what makes you sorelatable.
When somebody says, hey, myfriend said I should talk to you
, roscoe, so you've got thetrust of the friend, that
relates.
But then you start talking hey,man, I'm not just some
beankeeper who went to the wrongconsulting firm, by the way,
because I worked at Accenture,but you were at Deloitte, you
(09:47):
were auditor, I was always inthe consulting firm.
I'm picking that.
You're a mess.
I'm excited.
This is bad ground.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
You know, roscoe his wife's been out of town for
quite a while, and this is whatI have to deal with.
You should see the way heparked his cars in his garage.
They're diagonal, hey, you knowwhat.
And I'm like is it because theywon't fit?
He's like no, because.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
I'm conformed to societal norms.
I was like my buddy came overand I did, I parked, I parked
one, I parked one SUV, uh,diagonal, so I could pull my
truck in and out, cause I drivethe pickup and that's diagonal
too, and that's diagonal too.
And I was like you know what?
Speaker 1 (10:25):
I'm not conforming to lines, my friends, that's so I
will tell you this.
We're watching a movie.
My wife and I are watching amovie this past weekend and, um,
the uh character in the moviepulls in his car.
He's single and he pulls indiagonal.
And I told my wife, I said Ilove you, but you remember when
we were dating I had a house andI used to pull in diagonal
because I have one car and Ican't.
(10:45):
I simply can't.
I can do whatever I want, so Iused to park diagonal in my
garage.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
So this is how he bonds with clients.
Signs with entrepreneurs, right, I mean, he is an entrepreneur,
right, if he?
If he's working with a clientlisten, man, this guy knows how
to not have to work within thelines.
Hey, the tax code says not haveto work within the lines.
Hey, yeah, the tax code says Ihave to pay this.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Ah, those are just now you are in construction, so
the fact that you just on theair said you don't like straight
lines makes me really nervous.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
All right, hang on now in people's houses, and you
know this because we've done anumber of projects for not only
you but you're working on oneright now, yeah, and you know
that.
No, when it comes to my work,when I'm at somebody's house.
But when I pulled in, I waslike you know what, for the
first time in I think 28 years,I can do whatever I want in the
house because I am king of thecastle, I own my domain.
You're like, oh, is your wifegone?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
I'm like, oh, yeah, when did she come back?
When does all the fun stop?
Speaker 2 (11:38):
it all.
It all is coming to ascreeching halt.
Soon, my friends.
So the.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
I'm sure you're eating very healthy while she's
gone and uh dude that tv.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
He did just go to the liquor store.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
I did just go to the liquor store, that's why we're
drinking to replenish, by theway, because it's been 30 days,
uh, and I'm talking, I'mwatching sports.
I never even thought I would.
I was telling these guys beforeI said I watched the nba when
the playoffs get started.
Well, the playoffs weren'tstarted yet, but I was watching
them anyway, watching the Hawksgo down.
And then I'm from Detroit, sothe Pistons are really good this
(12:12):
year, yeah, but I don't watch.
But I'm like heck, I'm watchingit, you know.
And then I watched everything.
Draft day, draft night,thursday night, turned into
draft weekend for Chris.
Draft night, thursday night,turned into draft weekend for
Chris.
I watched all of it.
I mean, well, I had it on.
I wouldn't say I watched all ofit, but that was fun so can we
go back to Roscoe?
Speaker 3 (12:29):
You know I was wondering if we were going to do
that.
I want to say I love the wholefractional CFO thing and I know
it's been around a while,obviously, but I still think a
lot of people don't know aboutit.
Don't know about it, and whenyou're scaling up your business,
you you need that expert helpand yet you may not have the
(12:50):
money for it.
And I've I've seen a lot ofbusinesses make poor hiring
decisions just based on how muchthey can afford to get a
full-time person when they mightnot need that person full-time.
But they need that expertise.
It's just brilliant.
And and actually my wife infull time, but they need that
expertise.
It's just brilliant.
And actually my wife has asimilar background as you.
She started with Deloitte, yeahand uh, and so she um actually
(13:14):
ended up getting hired by abuddy of mine who just had that
exact same problem.
He goes I need the help, I justreally don't need it all the
time and hired her on as afractional and now she's
full-time CFO.
But I mean it was a brilliantsolution for him.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Most definitely.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Did you ask a question?
Speaker 3 (13:34):
I was, do I do, I have to.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Well, yeah, I want to hear.
So, all right, so you said it.
But I think you said hey, it'sbeen around a long time and I
disagree.
I don't think a lot of people,especially small business people
, understand what it is.
And I will tell you just theterm cfo scares everybody right
off like dude.
I can't even afford abookkeeper, much less a cpo cfo.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
So let's talk about how you guys get implemented
into there see I was having aconversation which doesn't mean
just endless berating questionslike like oh, tell me about your
hello tell me, tell me aboutthis painful experience you had
in franchising to start therewas a bass.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
I loosened them up.
That way it works.
You gotta soften them up alittle bit.
Roscoe, talk to us a little bitabout how a fractal cfo can
help and give us some examples.
I think that will help a lot ofpeople yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
So we try to be consultative really with
everything right.
So, even if it's just a verysmall organization, I, when I
was an accountant and I workedin corporate America I worked at
corporate America 20 years Alot of what I did was help
create the story of what'shappening with the numbers.
And so you know, in my mind, anaccountant shouldn't just pass
(14:46):
you P&Ls and balance sheets.
They should help you understandwhat's going on and the
narrative behind what's going on.
And so even on a simple, verysimple tax return, we're going
to like talk through.
I want to understand why yourW-2 wages went up or why they
went down, et cetera.
So the way we kind of thinkabout fractional CFO services is
first off, you need a team, andso that's what I learned when I
(15:11):
had the franchise.
I tried to do everything as anaccountant, of course, yeah, I
can do this on my own, I can dothat on my own, I can do
everything.
And I quickly realized I don'tknow what I don't know, and the
stuff I don't know is what'shurting me, and there's just not
enough time in the day, and soyou need to build a team around
you of trusted individuals thatyou can go to very quickly and
(15:31):
get stuff that you may not know,and so we try to help people
professionalize theirorganizations.
And so if you're a business andyou make $200,000, you have
three employees, what you needyou may be in that compliance
bucket.
You need tax returns, you needfinancials to maybe get a bank
loan.
That's kind of where you are.
(15:52):
If you're 25, 30 million, 40million, you're in a totally
different boat, and so some ofthat may be you need to get out
of just trying to say, hey, wedid our tax return and
everything's fine.
You need to be talking aboutinternal controls.
You need to make sure you'rehaving inventory observations.
You need to talk about riskmanagement.
(16:13):
Maybe you need to talk abouttreasury management.
You need to even consider well,let me think through.
I know I want to get a loan,but do I need to get a loan or
do I really need a line ofcredit?
And so it's all these otherfinancial decisions that are
outside of just complianceprofitability analysis, sales
analysis.
So these are all the thingsthat we want to really work with
our clients and help with,either as special projects or on
(16:35):
ongoing basis, but really allof the things that a Fortune 500
company would go to aaccounting or finance department
.
Those are the things that wetry to do.
Obviously, you don't need thaton a daily basis, but there's
certain periods of time whereyou may say, hey, something's
going on here and we need toinvestigate.
So that's what we try to do.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
That's so well said and I mean I think a great CFO
or business manager or whateverthe title is.
They've got your back, you know.
They've got the fiduciaryresponsibility.
They get a second set of eyes.
It's like having a second owner.
It's kind of nice to havesomebody who's got the power to
maybe say no, but they're goingto protect you from things you
(17:18):
don't even know that you neededprotection from.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, back to the you know what I didn't know was
hurting me.
I mean, that's just a huge goldnugget that that.
That alone is one of thosethings where you know, I'm
working with the Nary and thenonprofit.
So Nary is the NationalAssociation of Remodeling
Industry and I'm the presidenthere locally in Atlanta.
He casually drops Thank you.
I'll drop the book thing later,but here's one of the things
(17:42):
that happened to me, and so Iwas over the finance committee
before this because they broughtme in, because the books were
all messed up.
Well, covid hit rascal and Ijust talked about that.
Uh, we had to move out of ouroffices.
Well, we moved out of theoffices.
I'm on the financial committee,you know, and I'm doing the
whole thing.
We move our executive directorand leave the office, we exit
the office and disposition it,move her into her home.
(18:05):
Well, for the last.
So, covid's now, five years agoright, four years ago, whatever
you want to say we had anauditor come in not an auditor,
but a financial guy came in andsaid you guys never wrote off
your pictures and assets there.
So we had to take an $8,000 hitthis year because of that and
you're like you don't know thevalue of an auditor until
(18:27):
something like that happens,because we just went as a
nonprofit organization, we hadextra money to do things like
charitable events and we weregoing to give out more
scholarships, and now we'retrying to figure out how to
overcome that $8,000 through ourrevenue gain.
So you don't know what youdon't know, and what you don't
know is hurting you, and I meanmaybe you could have sold those.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
You could have maybe even sold it, so then maybe you
would have had a gain.
So, like these are the thingsthat that we can be a part of
and help give people advice onor suggestions.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
And I don't know what the, the, the sales numbers
have to be Um, but there's acertain point where hiring a
good CFO pays for itself.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Yes, do you have a number on that?
What's a revenue number that?
Have you seen where peopleenter it?
Or a good sweet spot for youand your company?
Speaker 1 (19:17):
So I would say for our services, I think really and
again, we're very comfortablewith just doing hourly work.
Charge me for an hour for me todownload my experience for an
hour.
As far as a good CFO, I thinkit depends on the industry and
how complex the end of businessis.
(19:38):
Complexity in the businesses, Iknow there's, there's not, you
know.
There's just not one answerbecause you got to think through
inventory vendors.
I think you have to.
I think it does depend on do youhave a business that has debt
and equity holders?
You know passive equity holdersor is this just owned by one
person or a couple?
(19:59):
Those?
The reporting requirements aredifferent.
Are you?
Do you have any regulatoryrequirements?
You know, if you're doingfertilizer, that's something
that you know you kind of haveto work through right, where a
really qualified CFO would bevery helpful.
If you're selling widgets thatyou don't have to worry about,
(20:19):
you don't have to worry aboutlabels completely different.
So I think it really, you knowit depends just on all of those
factors and you know I would saythe other thing is I don't
necessarily have to be there theentire time.
Maybe my job is to train yourstaff up to where they can
operate on their own, and then Ican sunset and move on to
(20:41):
something else, so I don't haveto be there all the whole time.
I'm just trying to get you tothe place where you need to be.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
All right, so let's talk about this for a minute.
In your company, your typicalengagements.
I'm not hiring you as afractional CFO for years.
I'm usually hiring you and yourcompany for months.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
It can be either way.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Either way, you and your company for months it can
be either way, yeah, either way,right in the stone.
Yeah, I, I just it's so funny.
Uh, so I've been married for ohgod, it's over 30 years.
Like like I'm freezing on airhopefully judy doesn't listen to
this one but um, anyway, over30 years.
And I can't tell you how manytimes she's come home and said,
oh, I just saved the company Xtoday, and one time it was 5
(21:27):
million, whoa, yeah, and thatwas when she was actually doing
a temp job filling in forsomebody who was on maternity
leave and and she went andworked for a big oil company for
a little while.
And she went and worked for abig oil company for a little
while, but yeah, I mean, it wasconstant, just always, you know,
and whether you know, gettingpeople out of bad pay plans
(21:49):
there's, I mean, there's so manydifferent ways that somebody
who's thinking in financiallystrategic ways can help your
business so much and honestly,this happens.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
We talk about small to medium-sized businesses, but
it also happens in very largebusinesses as well.
I've worked in organizations.
Thankfully, most of theorganizations I've worked in,
finance was always at the table.
So if we're going to go out andwe're going to get this great
new customer, we're going tobring a finance guy.
Sales guys are doing most ofthe work, but we're going to be
a finance guy just in casesomething comes up that we need
(22:22):
to talk through.
You know, and but there'splenty of large organizations
where, after everything is done,then we take it to accounting
and say go account for this.
And you know someone says, yeah, you know that this isn't
actually going to work the wayyou thought it was going to work
, right.
And then it becomes kind of abig deal work the way you
thought it was going to workRight, and then it becomes kind
(22:44):
of a big deal.
And so you know this isn't a,this is, I think sometimes we
think this just happens at thesmaller, you know, companies,
but almost every company I'vebeen in there's at least been
one conversation where a financeperson says you know, excuse me
, that's actually not how thisis going to work and it becomes
a big problem, a big, amultimillion dollar problem.
And it becomes a big problem, amulti-million dollar problem.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
That is a great one because I think again as small
business owners trying to scalea business or thinking about
getting into it and leaving thecorporate world, as you did and
Alan and I both did.
You're right, there's just morezeros behind our decisions when
we're in large corporate andwhen we went to a small business
.
A lot of less zeros, but thesame decisions and sometimes
some of the same outcomes wouldhappen from bad decisions.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Bad decisions hurt a lot worse when you're in
business for yourself.
Tell me about it, don't they?
Why does every lesson have to?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
cost me so much money Alan.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
And it's always my money.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Because you're supposed to learn from them,
Chris?
Oh, damn it.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
And that's what I try to tell people the difference
of working in an organizationwhere you're in a leadership
capacity and doing it on yourown.
You make a bad decision, youmaybe lose your job, you maybe
lose your 401k match, you maybelose some stock.
You lose all of that as abusiness owner.
(24:03):
Plus you lose your retirement,you lose your livelihood.
I mean it is, it can be big.
So that's why you need thatteam.
You need people that are goingto tell you some things that
maybe you don't want to hear butyou need to hear because
otherwise you can.
You can cause yourself some,some problems and I will say you
know I was trotting and beingthat.
You know, hey, I'm gonna makethis work when I own the
franchise and you know, somethings are just completely out
(24:29):
of your control.
And it was my wife that said,hey, you got to really start
thinking, even if you did makethis work, where are you?
And that advice was key for meto be able to kind of start
crunching numbers.
I'm a number cruncher and Icrunching numbers and and said,
hey, man, I can have two greatyears, but I still got these bad
years and I may end up stillbeing breakeven.
That's not what I wanted youknow.
(24:49):
So sometimes that independentsource, that independent
person's what you need to beable to push you in one
direction or the other.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Let's talk about your leap into starting your own
business.
Did you have clients ready torock and roll?
Did you have a ready setbusiness ready to go?
Portfolio.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Tell us how you started it?
I didn't have any of that, so Iwas working in corporate
America.
So my kind of initial was Inever wanted to work for
somebody when I went to college.
So I wanted to be anentrepreneur, go to college,
learn some stuff and then becomean entrepreneur.
(25:28):
While I was there, I worked fora small CPA firm in Houston and
that's really where I fell inlove, because I got to see the
personalities behind thebusinesses right, and why this
person is successful and whythis person is and this person's
not paying their people andthis person is and this person's
paying too much.
And I just loved all of thatlearning and so I said, hey, I
can probably extend this.
I can go to Deloitte and kindof do the same thing.
So I'm in there auditing, butsame time I'm asking about
revenue and why your tractorshave more equipment than someone
(25:50):
else's tractors, just becauseI'm learning business Right.
And so I woke up one day andsaid, hey, you've been kind of
in corporate America 20 years.
You're not getting any younger.
You need to kind of start liketrying to make a move if this is
still something that you wantto do.
So I worked and then and.
But I took a year to say I needto reprogram my mind.
(26:13):
I think like a business person,like a big business person, but
this is going to be me.
And so I started a t-shirtbusiness just to start getting
my mind focused around smallbusiness and making decisions
outside of being an accountant.
I'd never sold a shirt, but itwas just the creativity and I
got to think through colors andlogos and all this stuff that I
(26:37):
don't have to do when I'm incorporate America right, because
we've got teams for that andmade some mistakes in that.
And so then I made the leapinto franchising and I was doing
some consulting on the side,but it was really through that
and actually another person cameto me and said hey, I think you
can take all this stuff thatyou've been doing and you can do
this for small to medium-sizedbusinesses.
(27:00):
And so we started.
We didn't have a single client.
It was just all right.
We got to figure it out who arewe going to call?
That's how we started.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Our first client paid us $50.
Your first client paid how much$50.
That was 5-0.
5-0.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
That's not how you should do it, but that that's
what happened you were excitedto get it.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
I bet, yeah, you know all jokes aside about the
deloitte and accenture thing.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
You know, for a lot of us, if you're listening, if
one of your kids or ever have achance, I think that experience
not only formed a basis for whoI am, but it really molded me a
lot more.
I was pretty rough around theedges coming out of
manufacturing.
I was only in there for alittle bit.
Oh, so you're not anymore.
Fuck, no, come on man,seriously, what the fuck Jesus
(27:55):
Get with me.
Alan, I'm going to startslapping you around again, son.
All right, back to it.
I said I don't have any roughedges.
I'm I'm the calmer, softerchris, but no, back to the uh,
swimming with those sharks youlearned a lot, so you learned a
lot there.
You talked about the t-shirtbiz, which, uh, al and I, both
our eyebrows are.
I love that you didn't sell onet-shirt.
Did you make any?
Speaker 1 (28:17):
totally, I had at one point I had like these you know
you go to, uh, these big boxstores and buy these big totes.
You know they're like four feetlong or three feet.
Yeah, I had like four boxes of.
So I had shirts and actually sothe funny story was, um, I got
my, I had some designs, I hadthem made.
(28:37):
I was actually driving to pickup all the shirts that that I
just made and the day I receivedit, I got a cease and desist
letter from Europe saying thatmy brand, it was the same that
they were, and I needed to ceaseand desist.
So me, being a corporate person, I need to hire an attorney, I
need to trademark, I need to doall this stuff.
(29:00):
But before I did it, I said letme call a guy that I know that
has been an entrepreneur for 40years.
He said send that email to thedelete box and go pick up your
shirts.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
That's right.
You go sell those things.
That's what I did, and that wasagain.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
It was part of that mindset of me, though having to
go out of the box is this, andyou can only do this too.
And they never emailed me again.
It was, but it was, and after Ithought about it's like, what
are they going to do in you knowex-european country?
And it wasn't exactly the same,but scare tactic right it was.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
That's right.
One more thing you learned thatcan somehow help a customer
someday.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
I know exactly exactly right man, I love how
you started that.
You just put it out there.
But you, you actually hit onthe uh big thing.
I think a lot of people don'trealize if they're thinking
about making that leap.
Your risk of staying in yourbusiness is you lose your job.
Your risk, if you start yourown business and it doesn't work
out, is you drain a lot morethan just your job, man.
(30:03):
You're draining life savings.
You're doing a lot of stuff andI don't think a lot of people
realize the gravitas of that andthe gravity of what we're
saying, because they thinkeverybody's successful.
Well, we're on this podcast totell you man, it's not happening
.
Man, one out of ten make it.
We've heard that before overand over and over.
I just got done talking withsomebody else that says, man,
I'm gonna start my own business.
I'm like, before you do that, Ijust want to.
(30:25):
I want to scare the absolutehell out of you and tell you
that nine times out of tenyou're going to fail.
I know you're looking at megoing.
I'm the ace, I'm the superstar.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
I said I'm sure you're the quarterback there's
no way to get that through theirhead.
No, not a chance.
Nobody get it through my head.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Nobody got it through my head either, but I didn't
have somebody doing that and sothat's why I hit him right in
the.
I mean I said.
I said I'll be honest with you,man.
I said I'm going to split yourforehead.
I said, and after after you'redone, I'm done with you.
If you still want to do that, Isaid, then starts at three 30
(31:03):
in the morning, when you wake upand you can't go back to sleep
because you don't know what thehell you just did to yourself.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
You need to open your eyes in the morning going what
do I get to solve today?
That's right.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
So that's how business works and Roscoe
understands it, gets it, and nowhe can help you with the CFO
stuff.
So who are some of your clients?
You?
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Yeah, so I got a fun with and that's one of the
things I love about our clientbase is we're pretty much
industry agnostic, so we havenot for profits.
We have residential treatmentcenters, we have manufacturing
companies, we have apparelcompanies, we have restaurants,
we have a couple of franchisors,we have franchisees,
(31:52):
franchisors, we have franchisees, you name it.
We're kind of in the middle ofit.
We have some constructionrelated as well, and that's what
I love is every business isdifferent and how you make money
in those businesses isdifferent and what your risks
are different, and again, Ienjoy that.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
You know what's unique about Roscoe?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
I think he's an extrovert roscoe, would you put
yourself in an extrovert as anaccountant?
That's an odd, that's I meanokay.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
So my wife, big introvert every person that
she's ever worked with bigintrovert.
The worst christmas parties Iever went to were accounting
christmas parties.
So if you're not an introvertor if you're not an extrovert,
you're a very gregariousintrovert, which is kind of what
I am.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
So, honestly, if you probably met me 15 years ago,
you'd probably say I was acompletely different person.
And it's part of this and mywife has kind of said this, I
think I've always been anintrovert, but she says, like
you're changing, and I think Iam Part of it is I kind of work
in a much smaller organization.
You know, I kind of don't talkto as many people as I did in
(33:01):
corporate when I'm driving intoa job and there's everybody
there.
But I like talking to people,especially talking about
business, and so maybe I'mchanging.
I like talking to people,especially talking about
business and so maybe I'mchanging.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I like it, he's evolving, you guys are evolving,
you're coming to my side, myfriends, my introverted friends.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
Oh, I see, I thought you were suggesting that you
evolve.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
I haven't evolved a damn thing.
I've always been a talker andan extrovert and I went to get
an engineering degree andeverybody's like really, I'm
like, yeah, I'm doing it.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
But if you can be an extrovert in an introverted
industry, you get to own theworld.
I, you know, I think that's,you know, that's something we
should really debate.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
I think that's debatable, because just because
you're the loudest talkerdoesn't mean you're good.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
I don't mean obnoxious like you, I'm talking
about charming like roscoe, oh,and I mean the fact that he's
engaging and he wants let's sayhe wants to explain some sort of
you know, financial thing tothe rest of the team.
He can do it in a way wherethey're going to listen
storytelling.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
He said that earlier.
Yep, I think, um, uh, heactually comes across and I
think that that's been.
That's telling is that numbersare numbers.
But if you can tell the storybehind the numbers for somebody
who's not a numbers guy becauseusually that's who you're
working for, right, it's the guywho's not the numbers guy and
if you can tell him the story orher, and then they can
understand it, digest it andthen react to it, that's
(34:24):
powerful.
I mean that's serious power,right, yeah, I mean that's
serious power, right?
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Yeah, and I have told people.
Somebody called me and theywere a college student and they
were going into finance, andwhat should they do?
I said, if you can take thetechnical and you can marry that
with the soft skills, I saidthe world's your oyster.
Your world is your oyster,because there, unfortunately,
are so many technical peoplethat just they don't want to do
(34:51):
any of the other stuff.
Just let me work the numbers,let me do the diagrams, let me
code.
I don't want to do anythingelse, but in order to be
successful, whether you're at aFortune 500 company or you're
leading your own business orhelping people out, you got to
be able to talk to people.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
So let's talk about your business a little bit more,
because we're coming towardsthe end.
But uh, where do you seeyourself in five years?
Where are you projectingyourself?
Where do you want to be?
Speaker 1 (35:18):
um.
So we've doubled over the lasttwo years.
I'm going to keep doubling umand um.
I don't know exactly.
You know like what that lookslike or maybe able to share, but
I want to just keep doubling.
We're still kind of Texas based.
We're always going to haveTexas roots, but I'd love to
have more clients outside of thestate.
We do have a couple of clientsin three or four states, but I'd
(35:41):
love to increase that andreally start working with
continue what we're doing, butreally get in deep with
organizations where we're trulyhelping.
It's not transactional.
We have some larger clients andwe're in there helping them
Again, maybe for a short periodof time, but we're actually
going in doing a lot more of theconsultative, getting out of
(36:01):
the compliance and getting intothe consultative.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
That's awesome.
All right, Roscoe, greatinformation.
We've got to go to our famousfour questions.
But before we do that, how caneverybody find you?
Besides LinkedIn, which iswhere I checked out all the
extra profile stuff, If you wantto get a hold of Roscoe Graves
and your company, how do we findyou?
Speaker 1 (36:19):
So email, that's the best way.
Info at Plexusco you can also.
We have all of our socials.
They're generally Plexus orPlexus LLC.
Or we have all of our socials.
They're generally Palaxis orPalaxis LLC.
Or you can go to our newlyredesigned website at palaxisco.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Yeah, those websites.
That's just a poster board, soI wouldn't worry about that.
That's just going to findpeople out.
But, Roscoe, I want to knowwhere Palaxis came from.
I do too.
Yeah, Before we go we got toknow.
Good question, thank you Alan.
That's worth two.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
One is to be two syllables or less, and one is
something that no one had everheard of.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Isn't that three syllables, plexus, or?
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Plaxus, plexus.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
I call it two, maybe it's three, maybe three
syllables or less.
Hey, who's the numbers guy here?
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Hey, who's telling the story?
Hi, Alan, Go with it.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
It's a story, Alright was it over with the Germans
about.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Pearl Harbor, let's go.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
There is a little bit of like North Star that kind of
thing, but that was the Like.
The big thing is not very long,something that is not out there
.
There is a language, apparently, that's called plexus really um
, it's in a whole nother country.
I guess my thing is, I'm alwaysdealing with stuff that's in
other countries.
Apparently maybe that's arunning thing, but uh, um yeah,
(37:42):
I just wanted something that waseasy and that no one had ever
heard of so, roscoe your taglinewe piss off other countries.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Come work with me, especially coming from texas,
because texas, I think mostpeople think the right, you are
real country, my son's going tobaylor right now and I figured
that out really quick when I wasdown there.
I'm like holy crap, these guysthink they're their own country,
man anyway, yeah yeah, yeah,you were born and raised there,
so that's solid man.
(38:10):
This has been awesome.
This has been great.
Check it out, man.
Fractional cfo plaques it'sroscoe graves, but before we let
him, go more he does a lot moreand more and more and more and
more and more, and he could pissoff other countries actually
just that line alone got me youknow what I would love to piss
off another country.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
Let's go figure out what should be the title of this
podcast piss it off othercountries.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
All right, let's get into this roscoe.
What's the favorite feature ofyour home?
Speaker 1 (38:41):
so I'm gonna go with.
Uh, we have a shower, it's not?
We have a fairly new home, soyou know standard track house.
You got the I don't know ifit's two by two or three by
three shower stall.
We have one that's a little bitlonger.
I don't hit my elbows on the onthe thing, so that's my
favorite feature of our housefirst shower answer you know
(39:01):
what I love?
Speaker 2 (39:02):
the shower, and my god, I can go on for hours
because that's.
We do a lot of bathroommodeling here.
The first thing I say, and Ican't tell if roscoe's a big guy
, but you know, you can't tellit on the podcast, everybody but
alan is six, six, uh, I like tocall myself six two, he's a,
he's a big guy, but I'm a, I'm abigger guy, uh, when it comes
to girth.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
That's right thank you, uh.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
So I tell people all the time just an extra foot in
the bathroom means yeah all theworld to us big guys.
I remember when I went on acruise and one of those little
cruise things and oh my gosh Iwent to get the soap boom hit my
head, then I fell back, then Ifell down and the next thing I
know I'm sitting next to thesoap or when you're sitting on
the pot and your feet are in theshower.
Oh my god, I mean you're likethis is not fun.
(39:45):
No, I'm just.
This is not built for big guys.
Yeah, yeah, you're speaking.
Yes, so that's a great answer.
You know what the shower isyour escape, it's your release,
it's where we do our bestthinking, not the pot.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
I don't want to think about you in the shower anymore
, so let's go to question numbertwo.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
All right, question number two what is a favorite
book that you'd recommend to?
Speaker 1 (40:03):
everybody is Fanatical.
Prospecting by Jeb Blount, oneof those two.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
That's good Fanatical .
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Prospecting.
Yeah, for me it was again.
I'm an accountant, I'm anumbers guy, and then I have
this business where I need tosell, and I underestimated how
much time and energy it wasgoing to take me to get up to
speed with selling, and so thisbook helped me do that.
So for all of the maybe theintroverts that that become
(40:35):
maybe extroverts, or the peoplethat are very technical, you got
to be able to sell.
You're either selling ideas,you're selling services, you're
selling the product, and so thiskind of helped me with that
getting comfortable with thesales process.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
Cool endorsement.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
I like that Love.
That that's a great one.
Yeah, cause I've never heard ofit.
That's, that's amazing.
All right, let's go to the nextone.
So Alan and I have talked a lotabout customer service.
We know that's how you buildbusinesses.
We're kind of customer servicefreaks.
Hello, let's go.
So what is a customer servicepet peeve of yours when you're
out there and you're thecustomer?
Speaker 1 (41:06):
I have.
Probably I could spend a wholepodcast on this.
My dad and I talk about thisall the time.
My dad kind of raised mecustomer service first, so but
the biggest one, the one that Idon't make, the that that I
don't understand the most, ismaking it difficult for me to
pay you.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Oh yeah, oh, that's a great one.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
That one will drive me insane.
So I want this product.
But now I got to sign up andthen you got to send me an email
and then I have to do this.
Yeah, that's going to stay inthe cart and.
I'm going to move on withsomething else.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Oh, that's a great one.
Wow, people don't talk aboutthat one Excellent man.
He is dynamite.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
I know Ross goes on it.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
I'm going to say three for three right now.
Let's see if he keeps it up.
Okay, you ready?
All right, give us a DIYnightmare story.
We actually, funny enough, Iwas at the national convention,
but we came back and it came upand they said, hey, give us some
DIY nightmare stories.
And people were telling stories.
I'm like no, no, no, no.
I want fire, I want floods, Iwant dismemberment, I want
impaling.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Give me something good that you did, yep so I
tried not to do as much diy um.
Can I give you a contractornightmare story?
Speaker 2 (42:18):
all right only if it's really bad yeah, but just
for the record, you're gonna bethree for four because you went
off, unless you, probably whatI've done is ask my wife that
question, because she canprobably tell you 50 DIY.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
I mean, I'm great at that.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
All my DIY projects are great, so there is no way
from my perspective.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
So he could sort of win by just saying I've never
made a mistake.
Well, he is still married.
Yeah, that is true.
Seems to be happy about it.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
Yeah, oh that's actually I should have said, and
it seems to be happily married.
That, oh, that's actually Ishould have said, and it seems
to be happily married.
That makes two of you Whoa.
All right, Okay, so continue on.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
I'm sure she won't listen this long.
Oh, she doesn't listen thislong, she doesn't listen to one
of them.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
It's 160-something episodes.
She doesn't listen to one.
No, it's 260.
Yeah, we're out there.
Yeah, all right, can we get thecontractor story?
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Yeah, I guess I have this coming, all right, so it's
not the greatest of stories.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
It's not the greatest of stories, but it is.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
Well then we shouldn't end on a dud, all
right.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
You know what Kill it Nope.
End on a house?
She did not.
She moved into the city.
She moved to Houston, where Iwas at.
We were going to sell our houseat a certain point.
We lived in our house for awhile, sell it to get the first
co-husband-wife house right.
So we hired a contractor tomake some improvements and I
(43:43):
have this mirror.
I'm a bachelor.
I have a mirror that's supposedto be above my dresser.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Oh my God, I thought I was going to say bed.
Oh my God, I was waiting.
I thought you were about to sayover my bed.
I hear you, cal, hey, hey.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
Suddenly he's like oh , this is going to be a good
story.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
I'm really excited.
It's over, it's over, it's overmy dresser excited it's over.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
It's over.
It's over my dresser.
So we need to just get thishung up to get in to beautify
the place, and so we hired thisguy that I had some boards in my
fence that I needed to just putin.
He did it.
So I was like he's good with ahammer so he can hang up this
mirror in my house, in my masterbedroom.
(44:30):
I don't know how he did itthere were probably 20 holes
where he tried to nail it in andit didn't work.
Actually, the head of thehammer is in the drywall, but he
did hang it up and so I waslike, yeah, that piece is great,
but all these other holes thatyou've created?
Speaker 3 (44:50):
there were holes outside of the mirror yes, I
guess you tried multiple spotsdid he have a seizure while he
was hanging in your room?
Speaker 2 (45:00):
that is, oh god, I could have.
Actually, I have a whole.
I started a podcast for that.
It's called the small businesssafari and that's where we're on
Roscoe Graves everybody that'sending on a high note.
Do not put a mirror over yourbed.
I don't care who the hell youare or what you're thinking
about doing.
What you learn on this podcastis something that's a lot more
reflective.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
So look, back in yourself Objects may be small
and may appear.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Let's go.
Hey everybody, this is a greattime.
Hope you had a great time, man,Everybody.
Let's get back after it.
We'll see you next week.
Thank you, Roscoe Graves, BlackCisco, check it out.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
Thank you for listening to this episode of the
Small Business Safari.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
Remember your positive attitude will help you
achieve that higher altitudeyou're looking for in the wild
world of small businessownership.
And until next time, make it agreat day.
We'll see you next time.
I made a lot of mistakes, but learned a lot as
well.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
See, it ain't true, Roscoe.
That's not true.
I made mistakes.
We don't do those.
Welcome to the Small BusinessSafari, where I help guide you
to avoid those traps, pitfallsand dangers that lurk when
navigating the wild world ofsmall business ownership.
I'll share those gold nuggetsof information and invite guests
(00:25):
to help accelerate your ascentto that mountaintop of success.
It's a jungle out there and Iwant to help you traverse
through the levels of owningyour own business that can get
you bogged down and distract youfrom hitting your own personal
and professional goals.
So strap in Adventure Team andlet's take a ride through the
safari and get you to themountaintop.
(00:53):
Alan, we're ready to rock androll.
We got to get it going.
Man, I love that music.
I know I say it every time, butI was doing some editing of our
podcast.
I've got a new person helpingme out with editing and we keep
listening to it and she's likeboy, you really just like that
music.
I said you know I do, it's justcool.
So we're off.
We're rocking, we're ready toget back and going.
(01:13):
We're going to get into this.
But before we got started,roscoe and Alan and I were
talking.
We're going to introduce Roscoein just a second, but he
brought something up about haveyou ever made a mistake as a
business owner?
I'm like, well, you know, in 17years uh, no, no, never.
Or I'll give you this one.
I've made a lot of them, butone time my guy goes out and
does an estimate, it is off byhalf.
(01:33):
Customer says no way, you guysdid it, he wrote it.
He wrote it exactly like yousaid.
You guys got to honor it, I did, and I get done and I'm just
ready to just absolutely thisdude out right.
I'm like what the hell?
You know I, I stood up, I didthe right thing.
This is early on and he goes.
You know what, chris, sometimes, sometimes you eat the bear,
sometimes it eats you.
(01:54):
I'm like you know what I'mthinking right now.
This bear is about to beat you,buddy I said you're rude is
that really what you just wantedto tell me?
right now I'm like no, thatain't happening, big boy.
So when an employee tells youthat one, you can file that away
, but you can use that anytimeyou want.
But it's uh, it is, it isapropos, uh, out there.
You're out there just trying toeat bear all the time.
(02:15):
Sometimes it grabs you back andbeats the yeah, it's not out of
you, that is true, that is true.
All right, let's get into this.
We got rosco Graves on and he'sgoing to talk a lot about, I
think, business stuff.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Well, good yeah, you sound so erudite.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Roscoe, why don't you give us a quick lowdown?
Just tell everybody a littlebit more about what your
business is and what you do, andthen we'll backtrack on a
couple of things couple ofthings, sure, so I am the
founder and CEO.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Thank you guys for having me on.
Founder and CEO of Plaxis.
We're a professional servicesfirm.
We do tax preparation, taxconsulting, we do bookkeeping
and fractional CFO services.
So primarily we work with we dosome work with individuals, but
primarily with businesses smallto medium sized businesses.
We want to partner with ourclients.
We want to help them run theirbusiness better, make more money
, be happier, and so that's whatwe do.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
And that's why I wanted Roscoe to introduce
himself, because I could havedone that.
I could have just gone blah,blah, blah, blah, blah.
I never would have gone.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Listen, roscoe, you saidsomething right off the bat that
actually was going to be.
One of the themes is thatpeople don't switch to you
unless they know you, and I'mnot going to know you from one
podcast and you know that.
Guys, you're not going to getit.
I get it.
But you may get introduced tohim and there might come a time
(03:31):
where he says something you wenthuh, I might want to go pull
that thread and get to knowRoscoe a little bit more.
But when you talk about, youhave to know that business.
You got to know that person todo that business with them.
How have you found that trustto get built and continue it on?
I assume it's a lot of referralwork.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
A lot of referral work.
You know the best clients comefrom referrals.
It also helps because it's alittle bit of that tacit trust
is already started, and then yougot to know your client right,
and so you know, before Istarted this I was in corporate
America and you got to know yourboss.
You have to know how your bossthinks, you have to know how
your boss operates, what theylike, what they don't like, and
(04:10):
it's the same way with everysingle one of our clients.
So when I'm thinking about howto present something, I may have
the exact same advice, but Igot to present it to two
different owners because theyhave two different personalities
, two different life'sexperiences.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
And so it's the challenge but it's also a little
bit of what makes life fun.
Yeah, you hit on the well,we'll get to that in a minute,
but that's just it.
You know nobody's going to justcall you out of the blue.
Hey, I just ran into Roscoe.
Hey, roscoe, can I just giveyou all my tax information?
Hey, can you come do an audit?
Hey, can you be my CFO?
(04:49):
No, it doesn't work like that.
So when you talk about thattacit trust and building on it,
what do you do and how do yousee that being built to?
Speaker 1 (04:52):
the point where they go all right, I'm high enough on
that trust mountain.
I'm ready to work with you,yeah.
So a lot of those initialconversations we try to talk to
them, get to know their wants,their needs.
I like storytelling and so Itry to relate to things that
have been similar.
But even in those conversationseverybody gravitates to
something different.
They gravitate to maybe a placethat I used to work that they
(05:13):
feel very great about, and soyou know, I get credibility
based on that, or maybe it'ssomething I said.
I've been a business owner inother businesses before and I
think that really relates andresonates with a lot of
businesses, because I'm not theaccountant that's never tried to
run a business.
That's telling you how to runyours.
I've actually done it andthat's how I think of my
business.
So it kind of depends on everysingle individual situation, but
(05:38):
a lot of it is just talking tothem being honest and
transparent.
There's a lot of things I'mprobably going to tell you that
you don't like, but I'm going togive you the truth versus
buttering you up, telling youwhat you want to hear, and I
think over time those are thethings that people say hey, he
was fair to me.
He was transparent and theadvice he gave made sense.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
So I know, one of the ones that I saw on LinkedIn
because I was excited until itsaid he was a passive investor
is that he actually got into afranchise.
And I was like, oh good, I'mlike oh, so which franchise did
you get into and how much wereyou involved or not?
What does this mean?
Because I was like, oh, he gotbeaten just like I did.
I didn't start a franchise, Idid not do a franchise thing.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
He probably did really well, he probably made a
lot of good decisions.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Well, you know, he probably made a lot better than
I did and Alan, having been infranchising like you have, I saw
it and I wanted to talk aboutit.
I'm still going to talk aboutit because I just brought it up
you did, so let's do it, you'redown.
Come on, let's go.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
All right, so tell us about the franchise you either
invested in or how you did thatand what you did in that role.
Yeah, so I had a gym franchise.
Took about a year to look intovarious franchises, had a
franchise consultant help meChose a yoga-focused franchise.
I liked the aesthetics of it, Iliked helping people and if I
(07:14):
could make some money, great.
Unfortunately, I started thefranchise probably three months
before COVID and we were verymuch the brand was do it
together.
You know you got to be in thesame place.
You want to have a communityand obviously that doesn't work
very well when COVID so you know, financially it wasn't the
greatest thing, but it was Ilearned a tremendous amount.
(07:36):
You could never have writtenenough or read enough books to
get the knowledge that I youknow that I got.
I made a lot of mistakes whatno?
But learned a lot as well.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
See, it ain't true Roscoe, that's not true.
I made mistakes.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
We don't do those.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
So bottom line is you just picked a scab, I did Well
because I was excited about it,because I saw it Well, because
misery loves company.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Oh, shut up, that's what we're dealing with.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I started my business in the recession.
I had to live through COVID.
I'm getting my butt kicked leftand right.
I mean my God.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
When I saw that, I said, oh my God, you just had
this nasty little grin on yourface when you asked about it.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
I want to apologize on behalf of.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
So what was your franchise?
Speaker 2 (08:20):
So Alan's franchise Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
You tell me no, I don't remember.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
So Alan's franchise go ahead?
You tell me, no, I don'tremember.
All right, he doesn't like totalk about it.
It was something I opened rightbefore 2008,.
So kind of a similar thing.
Okay, yeah, but I lovefranchising.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Then he got in and helped other people franchise.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Yeah, I did work at a franchisor's office, which was
so much fun helping other peoplespend their money Right it's
always their money.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
But the Yoga 6, I saw that.
But you put passive investor.
I was like, oh, I wonder if.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
But now you just said it, you learned, yeah, it
wasn't passive at all, yeah itwasn't passive at all and that
was the thing I wanted to workfull-time and do this and you
know, thought it was kind of aside thing and it was a
full-time job.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Um and, I think, rusco.
I think we're gonna have tohave a signal today where I hit
chris under the table no, let'shave a safe word, let's do safe
word, let's do.
Let's do downward dog safe yeahI noticed you struck a little
bit of a yoga pose, Chris.
I don't ever need to see thatagain.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
So no, but you hit on .
But that's what makes you sorelatable.
When somebody says, hey, myfriend said I should talk to you
, roscoe, so you've got thetrust of the friend, that
relates.
But then you start talking hey,man, I'm not just some
beankeeper who went to the wrongconsulting firm, by the way,
because I worked at Accenture,but you were at Deloitte, you
(09:47):
were auditor, I was always inthe consulting firm.
I'm picking that.
You're a mess.
I'm excited.
This is bad ground.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
You know, roscoe his wife's been out of town for
quite a while, and this is whatI have to deal with.
You should see the way heparked his cars in his garage.
They're diagonal, hey, you knowwhat.
And I'm like is it because theywon't fit?
He's like no, because.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
I'm conformed to societal norms.
I was like my buddy came overand I did, I parked, I parked
one, I parked one SUV, uh,diagonal, so I could pull my
truck in and out, cause I drivethe pickup and that's diagonal
too, and that's diagonal too.
And I was like you know what?
Speaker 1 (10:25):
I'm not conforming to lines, my friends, that's so I
will tell you this.
We're watching a movie.
My wife and I are watching amovie this past weekend and, um,
the uh character in the moviepulls in his car.
He's single and he pulls indiagonal.
And I told my wife, I said Ilove you, but you remember when
we were dating I had a house andI used to pull in diagonal
because I have one car and Ican't.
(10:45):
I simply can't.
I can do whatever I want, so Iused to park diagonal in my
garage.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
So this is how he bonds with clients.
Signs with entrepreneurs, right, I mean, he is an entrepreneur,
right, if he?
If he's working with a clientlisten, man, this guy knows how
to not have to work within thelines.
Hey, the tax code says not haveto work within the lines.
Hey, yeah, the tax code says Ihave to pay this.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Ah, those are just now you are in construction, so
the fact that you just on theair said you don't like straight
lines makes me really nervous.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
All right, hang on now in people's houses, and you
know this because we've done anumber of projects for not only
you but you're working on oneright now, yeah, and you know
that.
No, when it comes to my work,when I'm at somebody's house.
But when I pulled in, I waslike you know what, for the
first time in I think 28 years,I can do whatever I want in the
house because I am king of thecastle, I own my domain.
You're like, oh, is your wifegone?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
I'm like, oh, yeah, when did she come back?
When does all the fun stop?
Speaker 2 (11:38):
it all.
It all is coming to ascreeching halt.
Soon, my friends.
So the.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
I'm sure you're eating very healthy while she's
gone and uh dude that tv.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
He did just go to the liquor store.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
I did just go to the liquor store, that's why we're
drinking to replenish, by theway, because it's been 30 days,
uh, and I'm talking, I'mwatching sports.
I never even thought I would.
I was telling these guys beforeI said I watched the nba when
the playoffs get started.
Well, the playoffs weren'tstarted yet, but I was watching
them anyway, watching the Hawksgo down.
And then I'm from Detroit, sothe Pistons are really good this
(12:12):
year, yeah, but I don't watch.
But I'm like heck, I'm watchingit, you know.
And then I watched everything.
Draft day, draft night,thursday night, turned into
draft weekend for Chris.
Draft night, thursday night,turned into draft weekend for
Chris.
I watched all of it.
I mean, well, I had it on.
I wouldn't say I watched all ofit, but that was fun so can we
go back to Roscoe?
Speaker 3 (12:29):
You know I was wondering if we were going to do
that.
I want to say I love the wholefractional CFO thing and I know
it's been around a while,obviously, but I still think a
lot of people don't know aboutit.
Don't know about it, and whenyou're scaling up your business,
you you need that expert helpand yet you may not have the
(12:50):
money for it.
And I've I've seen a lot ofbusinesses make poor hiring
decisions just based on how muchthey can afford to get a
full-time person when they mightnot need that person full-time.
But they need that expertise.
It's just brilliant.
And and actually my wife infull time, but they need that
expertise.
It's just brilliant.
And actually my wife has asimilar background as you.
She started with Deloitte, yeahand uh, and so she um actually
(13:14):
ended up getting hired by abuddy of mine who just had that
exact same problem.
He goes I need the help, I justreally don't need it all the
time and hired her on as afractional and now she's
full-time CFO.
But I mean it was a brilliantsolution for him.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Most definitely.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Did you ask a question?
Speaker 3 (13:34):
I was, do I do, I have to.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Well, yeah, I want to hear.
So, all right, so you said it.
But I think you said hey, it'sbeen around a long time and I
disagree.
I don't think a lot of people,especially small business people
, understand what it is.
And I will tell you just theterm cfo scares everybody right
off like dude.
I can't even afford abookkeeper, much less a cpo cfo.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
So let's talk about how you guys get implemented
into there see I was having aconversation which doesn't mean
just endless berating questionslike like oh, tell me about your
hello tell me, tell me aboutthis painful experience you had
in franchising to start therewas a bass.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
I loosened them up.
That way it works.
You gotta soften them up alittle bit.
Roscoe, talk to us a little bitabout how a fractal cfo can
help and give us some examples.
I think that will help a lot ofpeople yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
So we try to be consultative really with
everything right.
So, even if it's just a verysmall organization, I, when I
was an accountant and I workedin corporate America I worked at
corporate America 20 years Alot of what I did was help
create the story of what'shappening with the numbers.
And so you know, in my mind, anaccountant shouldn't just pass
(14:46):
you P&Ls and balance sheets.
They should help you understandwhat's going on and the
narrative behind what's going on.
And so even on a simple, verysimple tax return, we're going
to like talk through.
I want to understand why yourW-2 wages went up or why they
went down, et cetera.
So the way we kind of thinkabout fractional CFO services is
first off, you need a team, andso that's what I learned when I
(15:11):
had the franchise.
I tried to do everything as anaccountant, of course, yeah, I
can do this on my own, I can dothat on my own, I can do
everything.
And I quickly realized I don'tknow what I don't know, and the
stuff I don't know is what'shurting me, and there's just not
enough time in the day, and soyou need to build a team around
you of trusted individuals thatyou can go to very quickly and
(15:31):
get stuff that you may not know,and so we try to help people
professionalize theirorganizations.
And so if you're a business andyou make $200,000, you have
three employees, what you needyou may be in that compliance
bucket.
You need tax returns, you needfinancials to maybe get a bank
loan.
That's kind of where you are.
(15:52):
If you're 25, 30 million, 40million, you're in a totally
different boat, and so some ofthat may be you need to get out
of just trying to say, hey, wedid our tax return and
everything's fine.
You need to be talking aboutinternal controls.
You need to make sure you'rehaving inventory observations.
You need to talk about riskmanagement.
(16:13):
Maybe you need to talk abouttreasury management.
You need to even consider well,let me think through.
I know I want to get a loan,but do I need to get a loan or
do I really need a line ofcredit?
And so it's all these otherfinancial decisions that are
outside of just complianceprofitability analysis, sales
analysis.
So these are all the thingsthat we want to really work with
our clients and help with,either as special projects or on
(16:35):
ongoing basis, but really allof the things that a Fortune 500
company would go to aaccounting or finance department
.
Those are the things that wetry to do.
Obviously, you don't need thaton a daily basis, but there's
certain periods of time whereyou may say, hey, something's
going on here and we need toinvestigate.
So that's what we try to do.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
That's so well said and I mean I think a great CFO
or business manager or whateverthe title is.
They've got your back, you know.
They've got the fiduciaryresponsibility.
They get a second set of eyes.
It's like having a second owner.
It's kind of nice to havesomebody who's got the power to
maybe say no, but they're goingto protect you from things you
(17:18):
don't even know that you neededprotection from.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, back to the you know what I didn't know was
hurting me.
I mean, that's just a huge goldnugget that that.
That alone is one of thosethings where you know, I'm
working with the Nary and thenonprofit.
So Nary is the NationalAssociation of Remodeling
Industry and I'm the presidenthere locally in Atlanta.
He casually drops Thank you.
I'll drop the book thing later,but here's one of the things
(17:42):
that happened to me, and so Iwas over the finance committee
before this because they broughtme in, because the books were
all messed up.
Well, covid hit rascal and Ijust talked about that.
Uh, we had to move out of ouroffices.
Well, we moved out of theoffices.
I'm on the financial committee,you know, and I'm doing the
whole thing.
We move our executive directorand leave the office, we exit
the office and disposition it,move her into her home.
(18:05):
Well, for the last.
So, covid's now, five years agoright, four years ago, whatever
you want to say we had anauditor come in not an auditor,
but a financial guy came in andsaid you guys never wrote off
your pictures and assets there.
So we had to take an $8,000 hitthis year because of that and
you're like you don't know thevalue of an auditor until
(18:27):
something like that happens,because we just went as a
nonprofit organization, we hadextra money to do things like
charitable events and we weregoing to give out more
scholarships, and now we'retrying to figure out how to
overcome that $8,000 through ourrevenue gain.
So you don't know what youdon't know, and what you don't
know is hurting you, and I meanmaybe you could have sold those.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
You could have maybe even sold it, so then maybe you
would have had a gain.
So, like these are the thingsthat that we can be a part of
and help give people advice onor suggestions.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
And I don't know what the, the, the sales numbers
have to be Um, but there's acertain point where hiring a
good CFO pays for itself.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Yes, do you have a number on that?
What's a revenue number that?
Have you seen where peopleenter it?
Or a good sweet spot for youand your company?
Speaker 1 (19:17):
So I would say for our services, I think really and
again, we're very comfortablewith just doing hourly work.
Charge me for an hour for me todownload my experience for an
hour.
As far as a good CFO, I thinkit depends on the industry and
how complex the end of businessis.
(19:38):
Complexity in the businesses, Iknow there's, there's not, you
know.
There's just not one answerbecause you got to think through
inventory vendors.
I think you have to.
I think it does depend on do youhave a business that has debt
and equity holders?
You know passive equity holdersor is this just owned by one
person or a couple?
(19:59):
Those?
The reporting requirements aredifferent.
Are you?
Do you have any regulatoryrequirements?
You know, if you're doingfertilizer, that's something
that you know you kind of haveto work through right, where a
really qualified CFO would bevery helpful.
If you're selling widgets thatyou don't have to worry about,
(20:19):
you don't have to worry aboutlabels completely different.
So I think it really, you knowit depends just on all of those
factors and you know I would saythe other thing is I don't
necessarily have to be there theentire time.
Maybe my job is to train yourstaff up to where they can
operate on their own, and then Ican sunset and move on to
(20:41):
something else, so I don't haveto be there all the whole time.
I'm just trying to get you tothe place where you need to be.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
All right, so let's talk about this for a minute.
In your company, your typicalengagements.
I'm not hiring you as afractional CFO for years.
I'm usually hiring you and yourcompany for months.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
It can be either way.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Either way, you and your company for months it can
be either way, yeah, either way,right in the stone.
Yeah, I, I just it's so funny.
Uh, so I've been married for ohgod, it's over 30 years.
Like like I'm freezing on airhopefully judy doesn't listen to
this one but um, anyway, over30 years.
And I can't tell you how manytimes she's come home and said,
oh, I just saved the company Xtoday, and one time it was 5
(21:27):
million, whoa, yeah, and thatwas when she was actually doing
a temp job filling in forsomebody who was on maternity
leave and and she went andworked for a big oil company for
a little while.
And she went and worked for abig oil company for a little
while, but yeah, I mean, it wasconstant, just always, you know,
and whether you know, gettingpeople out of bad pay plans
(21:49):
there's, I mean, there's so manydifferent ways that somebody
who's thinking in financiallystrategic ways can help your
business so much and honestly,this happens.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
We talk about small to medium-sized businesses, but
it also happens in very largebusinesses as well.
I've worked in organizations.
Thankfully, most of theorganizations I've worked in,
finance was always at the table.
So if we're going to go out andwe're going to get this great
new customer, we're going tobring a finance guy.
Sales guys are doing most ofthe work, but we're going to be
a finance guy just in casesomething comes up that we need
(22:22):
to talk through.
You know, and but there'splenty of large organizations
where, after everything is done,then we take it to accounting
and say go account for this.
And you know someone says, yeah, you know that this isn't
actually going to work the wayyou thought it was going to work
, right.
And then it becomes kind of abig deal work the way you
thought it was going to workRight, and then it becomes kind
(22:44):
of a big deal.
And so you know this isn't a,this is, I think sometimes we
think this just happens at thesmaller, you know, companies,
but almost every company I'vebeen in there's at least been
one conversation where a financeperson says you know, excuse me
, that's actually not how thisis going to work and it becomes
a big problem, a big, amultimillion dollar problem.
And it becomes a big problem, amulti-million dollar problem.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
That is a great one because I think again as small
business owners trying to scalea business or thinking about
getting into it and leaving thecorporate world, as you did and
Alan and I both did.
You're right, there's just morezeros behind our decisions when
we're in large corporate andwhen we went to a small business
.
A lot of less zeros, but thesame decisions and sometimes
some of the same outcomes wouldhappen from bad decisions.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Bad decisions hurt a lot worse when you're in
business for yourself.
Tell me about it, don't they?
Why does every lesson have to?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
cost me so much money Alan.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
And it's always my money.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Because you're supposed to learn from them,
Chris?
Oh, damn it.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
And that's what I try to tell people the difference
of working in an organizationwhere you're in a leadership
capacity and doing it on yourown.
You make a bad decision, youmaybe lose your job, you maybe
lose your 401k match, you maybelose some stock.
You lose all of that as abusiness owner.
(24:03):
Plus you lose your retirement,you lose your livelihood.
I mean it is, it can be big.
So that's why you need thatteam.
You need people that are goingto tell you some things that
maybe you don't want to hear butyou need to hear because
otherwise you can.
You can cause yourself some,some problems and I will say you
know I was trotting and beingthat.
You know, hey, I'm gonna makethis work when I own the
franchise and you know, somethings are just completely out
(24:29):
of your control.
And it was my wife that said,hey, you got to really start
thinking, even if you did makethis work, where are you?
And that advice was key for meto be able to kind of start
crunching numbers.
I'm a number cruncher and Icrunching numbers and and said,
hey, man, I can have two greatyears, but I still got these bad
years and I may end up stillbeing breakeven.
That's not what I wanted youknow.
(24:49):
So sometimes that independentsource, that independent
person's what you need to beable to push you in one
direction or the other.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Let's talk about your leap into starting your own
business.
Did you have clients ready torock and roll?
Did you have a ready setbusiness ready to go?
Portfolio.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Tell us how you started it?
I didn't have any of that, so Iwas working in corporate
America.
So my kind of initial was Inever wanted to work for
somebody when I went to college.
So I wanted to be anentrepreneur, go to college,
learn some stuff and then becomean entrepreneur.
(25:28):
While I was there, I worked fora small CPA firm in Houston and
that's really where I fell inlove, because I got to see the
personalities behind thebusinesses right, and why this
person is successful and whythis person is and this person's
not paying their people andthis person is and this person's
paying too much.
And I just loved all of thatlearning and so I said, hey, I
can probably extend this.
I can go to Deloitte and kindof do the same thing.
So I'm in there auditing, butsame time I'm asking about
revenue and why your tractorshave more equipment than someone
(25:50):
else's tractors, just becauseI'm learning business Right.
And so I woke up one day andsaid, hey, you've been kind of
in corporate America 20 years.
You're not getting any younger.
You need to kind of start liketrying to make a move if this is
still something that you wantto do.
So I worked and then and.
But I took a year to say I needto reprogram my mind.
(26:13):
I think like a business person,like a big business person, but
this is going to be me.
And so I started a t-shirtbusiness just to start getting
my mind focused around smallbusiness and making decisions
outside of being an accountant.
I'd never sold a shirt, but itwas just the creativity and I
got to think through colors andlogos and all this stuff that I
(26:37):
don't have to do when I'm incorporate America right, because
we've got teams for that andmade some mistakes in that.
And so then I made the leapinto franchising and I was doing
some consulting on the side,but it was really through that
and actually another person cameto me and said hey, I think you
can take all this stuff thatyou've been doing and you can do
this for small to medium-sizedbusinesses.
(27:00):
And so we started.
We didn't have a single client.
It was just all right.
We got to figure it out who arewe going to call?
That's how we started.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Our first client paid us $50.
Your first client paid how much$50.
That was 5-0.
5-0.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
That's not how you should do it, but that that's
what happened you were excitedto get it.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
I bet, yeah, you know all jokes aside about the
deloitte and accenture thing.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
You know, for a lot of us, if you're listening, if
one of your kids or ever have achance, I think that experience
not only formed a basis for whoI am, but it really molded me a
lot more.
I was pretty rough around theedges coming out of
manufacturing.
I was only in there for alittle bit.
Oh, so you're not anymore.
Fuck, no, come on man,seriously, what the fuck Jesus
(27:55):
Get with me.
Alan, I'm going to startslapping you around again, son.
All right, back to it.
I said I don't have any roughedges.
I'm I'm the calmer, softerchris, but no, back to the uh,
swimming with those sharks youlearned a lot, so you learned a
lot there.
You talked about the t-shirtbiz, which, uh, al and I, both
our eyebrows are.
I love that you didn't sell onet-shirt.
Did you make any?
Speaker 1 (28:17):
totally, I had at one point I had like these you know
you go to, uh, these big boxstores and buy these big totes.
You know they're like four feetlong or three feet.
Yeah, I had like four boxes of.
So I had shirts and actually sothe funny story was, um, I got
my, I had some designs, I hadthem made.
(28:37):
I was actually driving to pickup all the shirts that that I
just made and the day I receivedit, I got a cease and desist
letter from Europe saying thatmy brand, it was the same that
they were, and I needed to ceaseand desist.
So me, being a corporate person, I need to hire an attorney, I
need to trademark, I need to doall this stuff.
(29:00):
But before I did it, I said letme call a guy that I know that
has been an entrepreneur for 40years.
He said send that email to thedelete box and go pick up your
shirts.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
That's right.
You go sell those things.
That's what I did, and that wasagain.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
It was part of that mindset of me, though having to
go out of the box is this, andyou can only do this too.
And they never emailed me again.
It was, but it was, and after Ithought about it's like, what
are they going to do in you knowex-european country?
And it wasn't exactly the same,but scare tactic right it was.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
That's right.
One more thing you learned thatcan somehow help a customer
someday.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
I know exactly exactly right man, I love how
you started that.
You just put it out there.
But you, you actually hit onthe uh big thing.
I think a lot of people don'trealize if they're thinking
about making that leap.
Your risk of staying in yourbusiness is you lose your job.
Your risk, if you start yourown business and it doesn't work
out, is you drain a lot morethan just your job, man.
(30:03):
You're draining life savings.
You're doing a lot of stuff andI don't think a lot of people
realize the gravitas of that andthe gravity of what we're
saying, because they thinkeverybody's successful.
Well, we're on this podcast totell you man, it's not happening
.
Man, one out of ten make it.
We've heard that before overand over and over.
I just got done talking withsomebody else that says, man,
I'm gonna start my own business.
I'm like, before you do that, Ijust want to.
(30:25):
I want to scare the absolutehell out of you and tell you
that nine times out of tenyou're going to fail.
I know you're looking at megoing.
I'm the ace, I'm the superstar.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
I said I'm sure you're the quarterback there's
no way to get that through theirhead.
No, not a chance.
Nobody get it through my head.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Nobody got it through my head either, but I didn't
have somebody doing that and sothat's why I hit him right in
the.
I mean I said.
I said I'll be honest with you,man.
I said I'm going to split yourforehead.
I said, and after after you'redone, I'm done with you.
If you still want to do that, Isaid, then starts at three 30
(31:03):
in the morning, when you wake upand you can't go back to sleep
because you don't know what thehell you just did to yourself.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
You need to open your eyes in the morning going what
do I get to solve today?
That's right.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
So that's how business works and Roscoe
understands it, gets it, and nowhe can help you with the CFO
stuff.
So who are some of your clients?
You?
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Yeah, so I got a fun with and that's one of the
things I love about our clientbase is we're pretty much
industry agnostic, so we havenot for profits.
We have residential treatmentcenters, we have manufacturing
companies, we have apparelcompanies, we have restaurants,
we have a couple of franchisors,we have franchisees,
(31:52):
franchisors, we have franchisees, you name it.
We're kind of in the middle ofit.
We have some constructionrelated as well, and that's what
I love is every business isdifferent and how you make money
in those businesses isdifferent and what your risks
are different, and again, Ienjoy that.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
You know what's unique about Roscoe?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
I think he's an extrovert roscoe, would you put
yourself in an extrovert as anaccountant?
That's an odd, that's I meanokay.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
So my wife, big introvert every person that
she's ever worked with bigintrovert.
The worst christmas parties Iever went to were accounting
christmas parties.
So if you're not an introvertor if you're not an extrovert,
you're a very gregariousintrovert, which is kind of what
I am.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
So, honestly, if you probably met me 15 years ago,
you'd probably say I was acompletely different person.
And it's part of this and mywife has kind of said this, I
think I've always been anintrovert, but she says, like
you're changing, and I think Iam Part of it is I kind of work
in a much smaller organization.
You know, I kind of don't talkto as many people as I did in
(33:01):
corporate when I'm driving intoa job and there's everybody
there.
But I like talking to people,especially talking about
business, and so maybe I'mchanging.
I like talking to people,especially talking about
business and so maybe I'mchanging.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I like it, he's evolving, you guys are evolving,
you're coming to my side, myfriends, my introverted friends.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
Oh, I see, I thought you were suggesting that you
evolve.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
I haven't evolved a damn thing.
I've always been a talker andan extrovert and I went to get
an engineering degree andeverybody's like really, I'm
like, yeah, I'm doing it.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
But if you can be an extrovert in an introverted
industry, you get to own theworld.
I, you know, I think that's,you know, that's something we
should really debate.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
I think that's debatable, because just because
you're the loudest talkerdoesn't mean you're good.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
I don't mean obnoxious like you, I'm talking
about charming like roscoe, oh,and I mean the fact that he's
engaging and he wants let's sayhe wants to explain some sort of
you know, financial thing tothe rest of the team.
He can do it in a way wherethey're going to listen
storytelling.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
He said that earlier.
Yep, I think, um, uh, heactually comes across and I
think that that's been.
That's telling is that numbersare numbers.
But if you can tell the storybehind the numbers for somebody
who's not a numbers guy becauseusually that's who you're
working for, right, it's the guywho's not the numbers guy and
if you can tell him the story orher, and then they can
understand it, digest it andthen react to it, that's
(34:24):
powerful.
I mean that's serious power,right, yeah, I mean that's
serious power, right?
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Yeah, and I have told people.
Somebody called me and theywere a college student and they
were going into finance, andwhat should they do?
I said, if you can take thetechnical and you can marry that
with the soft skills, I saidthe world's your oyster.
Your world is your oyster,because there, unfortunately,
are so many technical peoplethat just they don't want to do
(34:51):
any of the other stuff.
Just let me work the numbers,let me do the diagrams, let me
code.
I don't want to do anythingelse, but in order to be
successful, whether you're at aFortune 500 company or you're
leading your own business orhelping people out, you got to
be able to talk to people.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
So let's talk about your business a little bit more,
because we're coming towardsthe end.
But uh, where do you seeyourself in five years?
Where are you projectingyourself?
Where do you want to be?
Speaker 1 (35:18):
um.
So we've doubled over the lasttwo years.
I'm going to keep doubling umand um.
I don't know exactly.
You know like what that lookslike or maybe able to share, but
I want to just keep doubling.
We're still kind of Texas based.
We're always going to haveTexas roots, but I'd love to
have more clients outside of thestate.
We do have a couple of clientsin three or four states, but I'd
(35:41):
love to increase that andreally start working with
continue what we're doing, butreally get in deep with
organizations where we're trulyhelping.
It's not transactional.
We have some larger clients andwe're in there helping them
Again, maybe for a short periodof time, but we're actually
going in doing a lot more of theconsultative, getting out of
(36:01):
the compliance and getting intothe consultative.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
That's awesome.
All right, Roscoe, greatinformation.
We've got to go to our famousfour questions.
But before we do that, how caneverybody find you?
Besides LinkedIn, which iswhere I checked out all the
extra profile stuff, If you wantto get a hold of Roscoe Graves
and your company, how do we findyou?
Speaker 1 (36:19):
So email, that's the best way.
Info at Plexusco you can also.
We have all of our socials.
They're generally Plexus orPlexus LLC.
Or we have all of our socials.
They're generally Palaxis orPalaxis LLC.
Or you can go to our newlyredesigned website at palaxisco.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Yeah, those websites.
That's just a poster board, soI wouldn't worry about that.
That's just going to findpeople out.
But, Roscoe, I want to knowwhere Palaxis came from.
I do too.
Yeah, Before we go we got toknow.
Good question, thank you Alan.
That's worth two.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
One is to be two syllables or less, and one is
something that no one had everheard of.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Isn't that three syllables, plexus, or?
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Plaxus, plexus.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
I call it two, maybe it's three, maybe three
syllables or less.
Hey, who's the numbers guy here?
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Hey, who's telling the story?
Hi, Alan, Go with it.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
It's a story, Alright was it over with the Germans
about.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Pearl Harbor, let's go.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
There is a little bit of like North Star that kind of
thing, but that was the Like.
The big thing is not very long,something that is not out there
.
There is a language, apparently, that's called plexus really um
, it's in a whole nother country.
I guess my thing is, I'm alwaysdealing with stuff that's in
other countries.
Apparently maybe that's arunning thing, but uh, um yeah,
(37:42):
I just wanted something that waseasy and that no one had ever
heard of so, roscoe your taglinewe piss off other countries.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Come work with me, especially coming from texas,
because texas, I think mostpeople think the right, you are
real country, my son's going tobaylor right now and I figured
that out really quick when I wasdown there.
I'm like holy crap, these guysthink they're their own country,
man anyway, yeah yeah, yeah,you were born and raised there,
so that's solid man.
(38:10):
This has been awesome.
This has been great.
Check it out, man.
Fractional cfo plaques it'sroscoe graves, but before we let
him, go more he does a lot moreand more and more and more and
more and more, and he could pissoff other countries actually
just that line alone got me youknow what I would love to piss
off another country.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
Let's go figure out what should be the title of this
podcast piss it off othercountries.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
All right, let's get into this roscoe.
What's the favorite feature ofyour home?
Speaker 1 (38:41):
so I'm gonna go with.
Uh, we have a shower, it's not?
We have a fairly new home, soyou know standard track house.
You got the I don't know ifit's two by two or three by
three shower stall.
We have one that's a little bitlonger.
I don't hit my elbows on the onthe thing, so that's my
favorite feature of our housefirst shower answer you know
(39:01):
what I love?
Speaker 2 (39:02):
the shower, and my god, I can go on for hours
because that's.
We do a lot of bathroommodeling here.
The first thing I say, and Ican't tell if roscoe's a big guy
, but you know, you can't tellit on the podcast, everybody but
alan is six, six, uh, I like tocall myself six two, he's a,
he's a big guy, but I'm a, I'm abigger guy, uh, when it comes
to girth.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
That's right thank you, uh.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
So I tell people all the time just an extra foot in
the bathroom means yeah all theworld to us big guys.
I remember when I went on acruise and one of those little
cruise things and oh my gosh Iwent to get the soap boom hit my
head, then I fell back, then Ifell down and the next thing I
know I'm sitting next to thesoap or when you're sitting on
the pot and your feet are in theshower.
Oh my god, I mean you're likethis is not fun.
(39:45):
No, I'm just.
This is not built for big guys.
Yeah, yeah, you're speaking.
Yes, so that's a great answer.
You know what the shower isyour escape, it's your release,
it's where we do our bestthinking, not the pot.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
I don't want to think about you in the shower anymore
, so let's go to question numbertwo.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
All right, question number two what is a favorite
book that you'd recommend to?
Speaker 1 (40:03):
everybody is Fanatical.
Prospecting by Jeb Blount, oneof those two.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
That's good Fanatical .
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Prospecting.
Yeah, for me it was again.
I'm an accountant, I'm anumbers guy, and then I have
this business where I need tosell, and I underestimated how
much time and energy it wasgoing to take me to get up to
speed with selling, and so thisbook helped me do that.
So for all of the maybe theintroverts that that become
(40:35):
maybe extroverts, or the peoplethat are very technical, you got
to be able to sell.
You're either selling ideas,you're selling services, you're
selling the product, and so thiskind of helped me with that
getting comfortable with thesales process.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
Cool endorsement.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
I like that Love.
That that's a great one.
Yeah, cause I've never heard ofit.
That's, that's amazing.
All right, let's go to the nextone.
So Alan and I have talked a lotabout customer service.
We know that's how you buildbusinesses.
We're kind of customer servicefreaks.
Hello, let's go.
So what is a customer servicepet peeve of yours when you're
out there and you're thecustomer?
Speaker 1 (41:06):
I have.
Probably I could spend a wholepodcast on this.
My dad and I talk about thisall the time.
My dad kind of raised mecustomer service first, so but
the biggest one, the one that Idon't make, the that that I
don't understand the most, ismaking it difficult for me to
pay you.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Oh yeah, oh, that's a great one.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
That one will drive me insane.
So I want this product.
But now I got to sign up andthen you got to send me an email
and then I have to do this.
Yeah, that's going to stay inthe cart and.
I'm going to move on withsomething else.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Oh, that's a great one.
Wow, people don't talk aboutthat one Excellent man.
He is dynamite.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
I know Ross goes on it.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
I'm going to say three for three right now.
Let's see if he keeps it up.
Okay, you ready?
All right, give us a DIYnightmare story.
We actually, funny enough, Iwas at the national convention,
but we came back and it came upand they said, hey, give us some
DIY nightmare stories.
And people were telling stories.
I'm like no, no, no, no.
I want fire, I want floods, Iwant dismemberment, I want
impaling.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Give me something good that you did, yep so I
tried not to do as much diy um.
Can I give you a contractornightmare story?
Speaker 2 (42:18):
all right only if it's really bad yeah, but just
for the record, you're gonna bethree for four because you went
off, unless you, probably whatI've done is ask my wife that
question, because she canprobably tell you 50 DIY.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
I mean, I'm great at that.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
All my DIY projects are great, so there is no way
from my perspective.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
So he could sort of win by just saying I've never
made a mistake.
Well, he is still married.
Yeah, that is true.
Seems to be happy about it.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
Yeah, oh that's actually I should have said, and
it seems to be happily married.
That, oh, that's actually Ishould have said, and it seems
to be happily married.
That makes two of you Whoa.
All right, Okay, so continue on.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
I'm sure she won't listen this long.
Oh, she doesn't listen thislong, she doesn't listen to one
of them.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
It's 160-something episodes.
She doesn't listen to one.
No, it's 260.
Yeah, we're out there.
Yeah, all right, can we get thecontractor story?
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Yeah, I guess I have this coming, all right, so it's
not the greatest of stories.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
It's not the greatest of stories, but it is.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
Well then we shouldn't end on a dud, all
right.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
You know what Kill it Nope.
End on a house?
She did not.
She moved into the city.
She moved to Houston, where Iwas at.
We were going to sell our houseat a certain point.
We lived in our house for awhile, sell it to get the first
co-husband-wife house right.
So we hired a contractor tomake some improvements and I
(43:43):
have this mirror.
I'm a bachelor.
I have a mirror that's supposedto be above my dresser.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Oh my God, I thought I was going to say bed.
Oh my God, I was waiting.
I thought you were about to sayover my bed.
I hear you, cal, hey, hey.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
Suddenly he's like oh , this is going to be a good
story.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
I'm really excited.
It's over, it's over, it's overmy dresser excited it's over.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
It's over.
It's over my dresser.
So we need to just get thishung up to get in to beautify
the place, and so we hired thisguy that I had some boards in my
fence that I needed to just putin.
He did it.
So I was like he's good with ahammer so he can hang up this
mirror in my house, in my masterbedroom.
(44:30):
I don't know how he did itthere were probably 20 holes
where he tried to nail it in andit didn't work.
Actually, the head of thehammer is in the drywall, but he
did hang it up and so I waslike, yeah, that piece is great,
but all these other holes thatyou've created?
Speaker 3 (44:50):
there were holes outside of the mirror yes, I
guess you tried multiple spotsdid he have a seizure while he
was hanging in your room?
Speaker 2 (45:00):
that is, oh god, I could have.
Actually, I have a whole.
I started a podcast for that.
It's called the small businesssafari and that's where we're on
Roscoe Graves everybody that'sending on a high note.
Do not put a mirror over yourbed.
I don't care who the hell youare or what you're thinking
about doing.
What you learn on this podcastis something that's a lot more
reflective.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
So look, back in yourself Objects may be small
and may appear.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Let's go.
Hey everybody, this is a greattime.
Hope you had a great time, man,Everybody.
Let's get back after it.
We'll see you next week.
Thank you, Roscoe Graves, BlackCisco, check it out.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
Thank you for listening to this episode of the
Small Business Safari.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
Remember your positive attitude will help you
achieve that higher altitudeyou're looking for in the wild
world of small businessownership.
And until next time, make it agreat day.
We'll see you next time.
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