April 8, 2025 • 39 mins
Mike Weber is the founder of Slow Burn Entrepreneur. Mike shares his journey from dropping out of college to becoming a successful entrepreneur in roofing and solar sales. He emphasizes sustainable business growth, the importance of empowering employees, and lessons learned from his mentors. Mike discusses strategies such as hiring virtual assistants, utilizing EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System), and personal development practices including meditation and reflective running. The episode offers valuable advice on building a slow and steady business, focusing on long-term success, and adopting efficient work routines.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Stop worrying about what peoplethink of you.
(00:03):
'cause no one's really thinkingof you.
You know, most people areobsessed with themselves
thinking about themselves, andthey're really not thinking
about you.
So don't worry about what theythink of you.
(00:30):
Welcome to the Wayfinder Showwith Louis Hernandez, where
guests discuss the why and howof making changes that led them
down a more authentic path orallow them to level up in some
areas of their life.
Our goal is to dig deep andprovide not only knowledge, but
actionable advice to help youget from where you are to where
you want to be.
(00:51):
Come join us and find a way toyour dream life.
Mike Weber (01:07):
Welcome back to the Wayfinder Show.
I'm your host Louis Hernandez,and today I'm excited to have
Mike Weber on the show.
Mike is the force behind slowburn entrepreneur.
His approach is all aboutsustainable growth and embracing
the journey rather than chasingovernight success.
He's here to share his insightson building a business slowly
(01:28):
and steadily.
Please join me in welcoming MikeWeber.
Mike, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, Luis.
Appreciate it.
Yeah.
So Michael, let's let's leteverybody know a little bit more
about yourself.
What's your origin story?
Where what, got you to where youare now?
Yeah, sure.
From Cincinnati, Ohio, went tothe Ohio State University,
(01:50):
current national champions.
Yeah.
You saw that beat Notre Damepretty handily.
Yeah.
And kinda went back and forthbetween wanting to be a doctor
and, wanting to get outta schoolas quick as possible.
So I did, four years at OhioState and then I, moved out to
(02:11):
Hawaii to teach scuba diving andI was gonna finish my degree out
there, but I made a good,responsible decision as a
23-year-old young man to dropout after another semester and a
half.
So I had five and a half yearsof school and no degree to show
for it.
Dropped out, became a beach bum.
(02:32):
On the north shore of Oahu.
Learned to surf a little bit,taught some surfing lessons with
my buddies out there.
Was actually working as a lunchlady at a preschool at one point
in order to pay the bills.
So I was working three jobs outthere just to remain as of each
bum on the island.
(02:53):
And I was recruited, one of mybuddies taught a surf lesson to.
These guys that were recruitingout there at BYU Laier, they
were recruiting returnmissionaries from the Mormon
church to come sell door todoor.
And they decided it was a goodidea to, to recruit me and my
friend who were teaching thesurf lesson.
And so they, brought us to adinner at the nicest resort out
(03:15):
there at Turtle Bay Resort,which is in a bunch of movies,
and recruited us to come out toDetroit, Michigan to sell door
to door the summer of 2008.
And I took, the bait.
I thought it sounded great.
And, my buddy actually stayed inHawaii and still is there to, to
(03:35):
this day.
But I ended up starting my kindof jump into sales and
entrepreneurship back then,2008.
So this will be my 18th year insales and now it's it's my
company and we train our guys tosell door to door roofing and
solar.
(03:56):
In California and in Colorado.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Wait, so that, it's the samecompany you went out to Detroit
for?
Oh, no, sorry.
So I sold, alarm systems aroundthe country for five years.
Oh.
In 40 different cities in 13different states.
Sold in across the Midwest andthen the East Coast and down
(04:19):
across Florida, Texas.
Wound up in Colorado.
And built offices in, San Jose,California, Houston, Texas, and
Denver for a DT security.
And then one of my buddiesstarted a roofing company in
2013 and I sold roofs for himfor two years, 2013, 14.
(04:40):
Kinda learned the roofing game.
2015, got into solar, sobasically realized out in
Colorado the roofing game wasgetting a little crowded.
And figured out how to get intosolar.
Me and a buddy moved out toCalifornia.
We started a solar marketingbusiness in 2015.
(05:02):
Went through a couple businesspartners, but basically just all
hardcore door to door sales,selling solar.
And then in 2019 I partnered upwith my current business
partner.
He brought the roofingknowledge.
I brought the solar knowledge.
We got our contractor'slicenses, and we have a roofing
and solar company now.
(05:22):
Name, summit Solar and Roofingsince 2019.
And we have locations here inSouthern California and in
Denver, Colorado.
Where you're at?
Yeah.
Oh, so you guys must haveknocked on my door at least
once, twice.
Oh, I hear me.
Yeah, it happens all the time.
That's great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a great, I've donedoor-to-door sales in past lives
(05:44):
as well.
It, you really, it's a reallygood skillset.
You really learn quite a bit.
Absolutely.
But I've never really thoughtabout it in the sense like, like
you have for, I guess this is asegue to be like a slow and
steady business, right?
You, knock on doors to getbusiness for that day, right?
(06:07):
Yeah.
So, how did you start thinkingabout this as like a, a slow and
steady type of business?
Yeah, so I guess I talk aboutthis in the book.
I had two mentors over the last10 years.
One was a guy, he was my boss,one of my good friends at the
roofing company that I worked atfor two years in 2013 and 14.
(06:31):
And his motto was the, speedmethod, the go as fast as you
can, recruit, as fast as you canbuild it.
And who cares if it collapseskind of thing.
And then do it all again thenext year, right?
And so he would have this turnand burn mentality where it was
just this constant revolvingdoor.
(06:52):
If the guys didn't stick around,he wouldn't pay'em.
He would suck all the profitsout of the business, basically
just use people and spit'em out,and then have to do it all again
the next year, which to me wasjust exhausting and didn't seem
like a great business model.
So I had another mentor that metout in Hawaii.
I sold some pest control for him12, 12, 13 years ago.
(07:16):
And he's been mentoring me since2020.
He's now built the largest pestcontrol business in Hawaii, and
his method is more empowerpeople, pay people well, and
create kind of loyalty, createlike a family almost amongst
your employees, your staff.
(07:37):
And me and my business partnerDave, have adopted that approach
where we do empower people.
We do pay people really well.
We, do profit sharing.
We save a lot of our profits togive back to our employees at
the, end of the year, and alsoas quarterly bonuses.
And so we've created a lot moreloyalty and a lot more retention
(07:58):
among our staff that is justmuch more sustainable, much less
stressful.
I think it's the right way tobuild a business these days.
Yeah, I agree.
That how what, so when you'redoing a, business like that,
though, initially it's hard,right?
You, oftentimes when you're notgiving, when you're giving the
(08:22):
profits back to the team, itmeans that's less for you,
right?
And, at the beginning whenthere's just not as many profits
to be had, you're building itright.
How, did you go about gettingthrough that phase?
I think there, there were, Iguess tight months in the first
(08:43):
few months especially since mostof what we do now is insurance
restoration Roofing.
So insurance is pretty slow payat times.
Sometimes you have to wait sixmonths to a year to get paid.
And I think we just.
We had been in it for so longthat we trusted in our ability
(09:04):
to go print money essentiallywhen we knock on doors.
And the initial leadership teamwas me, my business partner,
Dave, and a guy named Thomas.
And we had all been in, I hadbeen in door to door at that
point for 11 years, Dave for sixyears, and Thomas for six or
seven years.
So we trusted in our ability togo out and just.
(09:27):
Print money, knock a door andget a deal.
And, we were able to feedourselves while building the
business and still saving inprofits to, to build the
business and to give back to theemployees.
So Excellent.
You get to a point, you're sogood at it, you can have the
confidence to do it, yeah.
And yeah.
(09:47):
And then you go about gettingothers and teaching them how to
become as good, if not betterthan yourself.
Correct.
So you can replicate that.
Excellent.
Huh?
Absolutely.
So what else do you mean by, byslow Burn Show.
Tell me.
Another, did it require, that,that requires a big mindset
(10:11):
shift, right?
So do you have like examples ofsome of those, like where you
went from the traditional way,like the other mentor you had,
always recreating the wheel to,the slow burn method.
And, what were tips to developthose mindset shifts?
(10:35):
One of the biggest ones was my,first mentor was he thought he
could do everything on his own.
Very, he ego driven.
It's all on my shoulders.
I gotta stay constantly on thephone, constant meetings.
I gotta micromanage everythingbecause everybody,'cause I'm
(10:55):
smarter than everyone and Ican't trust anybody to do it.
And I think part of that is justlearning to let go.
'cause I'm very type A myselfand I, can at times be
micromanaging and be tough onpeople and.
Learning to let go.
Number one is, the big thing.
(11:17):
Not be ego driven and always besearching out other like coaches
and mentors who can help youwith your decision making and
your strategy and all thatstuff.
Yeah, one of it is just I hireda coach.
I sought out a coach, and thisis something that he never did.
(11:39):
My current mentor always does islooking for new coaches, looking
for new people to get advicefrom, whether it be Vistage
groups or EO groups.
And I, sought out a coach fromJohn Maxwell Group.
2018 they partnered me with thisguy that had a big accounting
(12:00):
background and it just wasn't,it wasn't a good fit.
So I told him like, okay let'stry to find somebody else.
I found a guy that he had builtand sold a business, and now
he's just a coach.
And he's, been great.
His name's Mark based outtaOrange County here in Southern
California, and I've had himsince, 2000, I think.
(12:23):
End of 2018, so going on sevenor eight years now.
Wow.
Yeah.
And so having a coach, we, hebrought us to EOS.
Dunno if you're familiar with eos.
Yeah.
We've had a, I forget what it'scalled, when somebody who
installs a program.
(12:44):
Implementer.
Implementer, yeah.
On the show in the past.
It was one of our best episodesactually.
Yeah.
Okay, cool.
So we had an implementer for allof 2019.
You pay him the equivalent of anadmin salary,$25,000 basically
to be an A fractional CEO.
Yeah.
Is how I describe it.
(13:04):
And we, have stuck with thatsince 2020.
We've self-implemented EOS.
We attribute EOS to a lot of oursuccess on keeping the processes
and keeping the rhythm of themeetings and the business going.
Oh, neat.
Yeah, that's good.
(13:25):
So you've been able to keep itgoing.
Do you check back in with themevery once in a while, like once
a year or something like thatto, or is it totally
self-managing that process now?
We actually brought in anotherimplementer this summer and we
weren't very impressed becausehe he did a lot of the beginner
stuff and we were we're sixyears into it, using us and he
(13:50):
was trying to bring us back tothe beginning, the beginner
stuff.
And we've already done all that,so we kinda decided to keep self
implementing.
Interesting.
Oh wow.
Okay.
Sounds like you guys can startan EOS implementation business
you sell, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Very good.
(14:13):
Yeah you've learned some of thatprocess meant learning to let go
getting coaches.
Any other big mindset shiftsyou've had to, take on to, to
reach this level of success or,I think, I, would say.
(14:41):
Slowing down and I, meditate nowand I, I try to meditate twice a
day as much as possible.
And I think that's a big partof,'cause I'm very a DD I'm very
distractible.
Yeah.
And I would always try to startside businesses and try to,
chase squirrels, I guess you'dsay.
(15:03):
And the meditation has allowedme to be able to focus on things
for longer periods of time andbe able to think more long term.
I think when you're not thinkinglong term, you make a lot of
wrong moves that are based onshort term trying to capitalize
on the profit as fast aspossible which is what my buddy
(15:24):
unfortunately tried to do allthe time.
So it's, more thinking, longterm thinking okay, can I
sustain this for five years andif I can, great.
That's, it's a good routine and.
It's a way that I can build abusiness for five years now.
(15:44):
So instead of thinking out justfor a season or a year out,
yeah.
That's great.
Going into, when you mentionedmeditation, that's a, like a
personal development tool,right?
And before the show we weretalking about running a little
bit and clearly these are boththings that I think go well with
(16:06):
slow burn entrepreneur.
Mindset.
It's absolutely, especiallyrunning it's your classic slow
and steady as a race.
I know you're a, long distancerunner.
Are there other regularpractices like that or can you
talk a little bit just about howrunning has helped you with,
(16:27):
slow running entrepreneurship?
Yeah.
I talk about this in the book alittle bit.
And I always, when I'm running,I carry a voice recorder with
me.
Nice voice recorder, and I'm,constantly reflecting on the,
previous two or three daysmostly thinking about the
(16:47):
business, thinking about how to,move people around or what,
where could we go next with thisperson?
What are the resources that wehave in order to take on this
project, et cetera, et cetera.
So constantly just reflecting.
On the business while running,and a lot of times I'll
re-listen to my coaching calls.
(17:10):
I'll record our, level 10meetings that we do through with
EOS and listen to those callsduring my long my long run on
the Sunday, on that Sunday.
I get to reflect on a lot ofthings.
So it's just a lot of, it's likea snowball effect of.
(17:32):
Wisdom and experience thatbuilds up a lot faster if you're
constantly reflecting on, whatyou're doing throughout the week
versus just trying to put outfires throughout the week and
not digesting and reflecting onwhat's happened that week.
So I think it's, it soundscheesy, but it's kinda like a
superpower that I've alreadythought out a lot of the
(17:56):
interactions that I'm gonnahave.
The coming week through myreflections, through my voice
recordings that I do on mySunday long runs.
So yeah.
That's a great tip, man.
Just keeping it, is it's I'vetried to do that with my phone,
but it feels, it's so big andbulky and I don't like to carry
a Oh, yeah.
(18:17):
A phone when I'm running.
So is that just.
You showed it to us, is thatit's really small digital voice
recorder.
Yeah, it's pretty small.
I, actually carry two of'em, soI carry one for last quarter's
ideas and recordings.
And then I carry this new onefor new, recordings.
(18:37):
I'm sorry, say that part.
So you, you carry two, one forlast years and one for the new.
One each quarter.
One new one each quarter.
Oh, okay.
And the one is from the previousquarter.
And I'm listening to recordings,ideas, thoughts, reflections
that I had the previous quarter.
I see.
(18:57):
Or coaching calls seminars,everything.
I record everything.
And then, I have the other one,which is the new one for new
ideas, new thoughts, new to-dos,et cetera.
In my other hand.
If I don't have anything toreflect on and record, I'm gonna
jog my memory by listening toold recordings.
(19:19):
I see.
Interesting.
So they don't have a, it's atechnical question, but those
don't have an op something whereyou can just download'em into
something else and save'em forthe future?
Yeah, you do.
But the process of transcribingthem is powerful as well.
So take either 10 minutes eachday, or.
(19:42):
30 minutes twice a week to justgo through'em and transcribe'em
and decide does this go on theissues list?
Does this go into my Asana forlong-term projects that I need
to remember?
Do I need to shoot an email offfor this idea?
You know what, and it's for eachthing.
What do I need to do?
(20:02):
So I, the act of listening to'emand transcribing'em is powerful
in itself instead of just filingthem away, oh, this is fa So
you, you've got some interestingroutines here, all right.
We got those at the, I gottaknow, I gotta know more.
Like what else what, are thatwhat else do you do in your day
(20:25):
besides meditating and running,recording, transcribing, what
goes on?
These are, yeah, great routines.
Those are the, ones that I doconstantly, I have to do, or
else I feel like I'm not, in mysuccess routine is the running,
(20:48):
the meditation, and therecording of ideas.
I guess listening to audio booksconstantly is one thing that
when I'm driving around, ifdriving to appointments or
whatever else, I have, kinda aroutine that I stick to, which
is Jim Rohn, Earl Nightingale,and Wayne Dyer.
(21:08):
So those are my three fallbacks.
Okay.
The Legends.
The Legends and Wayne Dyer.
So yeah, classics.
And each of'em are like 10 hourslong, so 30 hours of just
classic personal developmentstuff that I fall back on.
And if I have a new book I wannalisten to.
Great.
I'll, jump to that, but thenI'll come back to those three.
(21:32):
Just to have.
A fallback when you have toughconversations with trouble
employees or trouble difficultcustomers.
Those are the fallbackprinciples that can guide you,
huh.
(21:52):
Okay.
Wow.
So I'm guessing you've heard amillions of times by now, huh?
Yeah.
Probably listen to each onetwice a year at least, okay.
Interesting.
Great.
(22:14):
Is, there anything else that weshould from the book, that we
should get be aware of that arethere like quizzes or,
actionable steps in there tobecome more of a slow burn
entrepreneur?
Yeah, I guess I, I do talk aboutaffirmations, one of the things
(22:38):
is, staying away from the news.
'cause there's a lot of negativenews out there.
Yeah.
It's just constant bombarding uswith negative news right now.
And that's, a big one.
And then the other one is Idealt a lot, I dealt with
anxiety in high school andcollege a little bit.
Or not a lot, a little bit, alot.
(22:58):
It was paralyzing for me attimes.
And I think doing theaffirmations, which I think I, I
got from a book what to say whenyou talk to yourself.
Way back in the day, I createdaffirmations and I would read'em
to myself every day.
I think it was twice, a day whenI started.
And just, pumping yourself upand creating that confidence.
(23:23):
Even when you're feeling down isa big way.
You can kinda conquer yourdemons and practice gratitude
and pump yourself up versussuccumbing to the negativity
that is all around us all thetime, and which causes I think,
a lot of the anxiety that a lotof people are experiencing right
now.
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
(23:44):
Yeah, the I think taking off thenews.
Is a great heck, I gotta say I'mguilty.
I, shut off the TV many yearsago and now I, I, watch a little
bit more like shows with my wifeat night before we go to bed.
But, news and all of that stuff,I just shut it off.
(24:07):
I don't, maybe 15, 20 years ago.
And it immediately made a bigdifference.
But what I've noticed over timeis as the, phone became more,
prevalent in my life.
Like now I've, just been,become, been becoming conscious
of this.
The, feed, the news feeds thatcome in through the phone are, I
(24:28):
guess I never thought of it.
'cause I wouldn't sit and watchtv to, get news.
But it, yeah it's, in my lifeall the time.
Probably more worse than before.
And, just hadn't realized ittill, recently.
And it is creating a greaterlevel of anxiety and less
productivity too.
Yep.
And it's something I'm trying toget back to.
(24:50):
It's not as easy to cut off asit was when it was just on tv.
You could just walk away and itwas good.
Now it's, you have to have yourphone.
Yeah.
Almost.
It's a necessary tool, but Iallow myself.
A little bit of time.
I read the Wall Street Journalin, during lunchtime a little
bit.
(25:10):
And then, I'll get my news fromlike the Daily Show, John
Stewart which is com commonyeah.
Yeah.
But other than, that, I avoidit.
That's good.
That's good.
Yeah, it's been hard.
I know.
It's crazy how that just creepedback up in my life.
(25:30):
And only now I becoming soconscious of it, I gotta.
Do things like, yeah, just maybeset a time limit or something.
Done.
Good.
Yeah, I don't know.
Was there anything else youwanna leave the listeners with
about slow burn entrepreneurshipor at this point?
(25:56):
I think there's, a lot to besaid about empowering people and
just giving people.
This is what you gotta do, youdecide how to do it.
And then also allowing people tocreate their own jobs, almost
give'em the guidelines, butthen, having them build out,
(26:20):
this is your, this is my job andthis is my bonus structure.
And I think giving people thepower to build their own job
description and bonusstructures.
We've done a lot more often.
Is a powerful way to build that,loyalty and create a, company
(26:40):
where people like to work thereinstead of dreading to come to
work, yeah.
Something we've been doinglately.
Trying to think what else.
If you're not using an operatingsystem, EOS is great.
I'm sure there's ones, but I'veheard so many success stories
with the os.
Yeah, same.
That's, something we weremissing before for sure.
(27:03):
Yeah.
Yeah, I agree.
EOSI think what was it, GinoWickman, who was it came up with
Traction Yeah.
Attraction.
It's, and then it led to, it's,a very good program.
Absolutely.
On that note, maybe we shouldswitch over to our world famous
Wayfinder four.
(27:25):
So you've already given us quitea few, but I'm going to ask you
for one more, and that is ahack.
You use like just a life hack.
Yeah.
Kinda gave it away.
I know.
Now you gotta come up with a newone.
Hire, hire an assistant.
Get an assistant.
(27:45):
I read, the book by Dan Martel.
I think it was buy Back YourTime.
Oh.
Never Break Down.
And we.
I had an assistant in Nicaraguafor a while that I actually
found my wife's from Nicaragua,so we go down there quite a bit.
I found her and her husband inperson actually went down there
(28:06):
and, she's still with us today.
And a very cheap salary forfirst world standards is very,
is great money for them.
Yeah.
And she's transitioned to be aan assistant, an admin assistant
for the whole company.
So now I, hired my own personalassistant in the Dominican
(28:26):
Republic.
Wow.
And she is great.
She speaks four languages andmaybe five languages, and she's
just very technology savvy.
And so she helps me withtechnology and helps me do a lot
of things like create trainings,create training manuals, go
through my email.
(28:46):
She sorts, my email, makes phonecalls for me plan.
She's, right now she's planningour company trip for Jamaica
this year and, so there's just alot of stuff, and by the way, it
looks like she's gonna save uslike$15,000 because she's
booking it from the DominicanRepublic instead of booking it
from the United States.
So that's a huge Oh,interesting.
(29:08):
Huge deal right there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so she's just, she'sawesome.
I would recommend finding, I hadto interview a few people before
finding someone I was happywith.
But definitely hiring anassistant in order to take some
of the low value tasks off yourplate.
Did you, did you use a serviceto find her or did you, like you
(29:31):
said the first one, you wentdown to Nicaragua.
Yeah, the other one.
When you went to DominicanRepublic did you do the same
thing or, did you use a service?
I did use a service.
Okay.
For, to find her I think calledGo Live.
I wanna say I met him at IrieInternational Roofing Expo.
Okay.
He was called Go Live VirtualAssistance.
(29:52):
Okay.
And they have Columbia,Dominican Republic, and maybe,
yeah.
One other place.
Excellent.
Philippines, maybe.
Yeah.
When you found the one on yourown I'm interested in that.
How did I know plenty of greatservices and, we've actually had
a couple of owners of, vaplacement companies and global
(30:16):
talent companies they'll,correct me.
But the, but I've also worked ona, with a couple of companies
that had VAs from othercompanies they found on their
own.
I happen to be Colombian, a lotof friends go and go to Columbia
and just find people.
I'm curious how you, went aboutthat.
How do you set up thearrangement to pay them and the,
(30:41):
do you do any kind of contract?
Is it all on a handshake or howdoes that work?
So to find them first, there is,there's a place by a hotel that
we always stay at down therethat is a big call center.
It's called Tel.
And I was just.
(31:01):
Cold calling people, talking topeople on the sidewalk coming
outta the building like, Hey, doyou guys, do you wanna take on a
little more work?
Do you wanna work part-time onthe side?
Doing some admin stuff on thecomputer, taking some calls and
didn't, I actually struck outdoing it that way and I was,
running on a trail that likegoes up to the top of a volcano
(31:23):
down there and I met this guythat was mountain biking.
I kinda just we were at the topof the volcano, like looking at
the view and stuff and I waslike, Hey man we're actually, we
got to talking.
And I was like, do you knowanybody that's looking for, or
anybody that has call centerexperience that's looking for
(31:44):
some side work as an assistant,as a va?
And he was like my wife hasworked at call centers and we
got a baby on the way, so we'relooking for something she can do
from home.
And and she turned out to beperfect and so it was, I kinda,
I set up an interview with her acouple days later'cause I think
(32:05):
I was flying out and she turnedout to be, it was, she could
speak really good English andgood Spanish obviously, and, had
all the necessary, like she hada computer set up in her house
and she had all the technologyshe needed the wifi.
She was able to start rightaway, I think at 30 or 40 hours
(32:29):
a week.
And it just worked out.
So I think I maybe got luckythere, but I did, try a few
different ways before I ran intoher husband and then found her,
that's cool.
Yeah.
How about a, favorite, thiscould be book activity show,
(32:50):
whatever.
You've already mentioned a fewhere as well, that would make
you think about it again, huh?
Yeah.
So the one that we always pointour sales guys to as like the
first one that you need to readif, you haven't read any of
these type of books, is themagic of Thinking Big.
(33:12):
Oh, yeah.
I think that's just a great mindopener to the whole personal
development world or kind of.
Introducing you how to think alittle bit better.
How to think bigger.
Yep.
Yeah, that's a classic too.
Yeah.
It's How about, a piece ofadvice for your younger self?
(33:39):
Yeah.
I would say stop worrying aboutwhat people think of you.
'cause no one's really thinkingof you.
Most people are obsessed withthemselves thinking about
themselves, and they're reallynot thinking about you, so don't
worry about what they think ofyou.
(34:02):
That's a good mental healthadvice for people under four
years old, yeah.
That's really good.
And it I think especially whenwe're young, we think all we do
is think about whys, think aboutus, right?
And as we get older we shed thata little bit and we're like,
God, how foolish are we to givea rat's ass what others were
(34:26):
thinking?
Yeah.
Yeah.
How about a big opportunity thatyou see out there that maybe
you're pursuing big opportunityor, I think the question was big
opportunity or limiting belief,right?
It is.
You're absolutely right.
Yeah.
You caught me.
Okay.
If you wanna focus on a limitingbelief or a, big opportunity, I
(34:48):
think this is just another,maxim or another quote Yeah.
Would be in the beginning whenyou're younger, what you make up
in, in skill or what you, lackin skill.
You make up with extra effortand extra energy.
(35:09):
And so don't be willing or don'tbe afraid to work a little bit
harder to turn the cream intobutter when you're younger.
And then as you get older, youknow what you lack in the
ability to expend extra effortand energy you should have,
gained in the extra knowledgeand experience.
(35:30):
Yeah, totally.
So that's really good.
Yeah.
For all the young people outthere who don't wanna work more
than 30 or 40 hours a week, stepup and work.
You put in your time work the 50or 60 hours a week that some of
us have all have put in, stilldo, Yeah.
(35:50):
Can't really imagine that.
I don't know.
Before we move on, I wanna goback to your hack about an
assistant.
I'm wondering if you guys areusing AI and how that affects
the work with an assistant.
(36:11):
So we're not using it as much aswe should be.
I know that we're, helping anindustry friend build a new CRM.
Where it's gonna have some AIbuilt into it.
Which is gonna help with likechat box and ta talking to
(36:32):
customers, and also figuring outhow to deal with certain
insurance companies a certainway.
Different communications thatare just repeatable.
So I think some of that stuffis, yeah, we're definitely not
using it enough, but I thinkwe're trying to build it into
our, a new CRM that's gonna beready in about six months.
Got it.
So any of that, low dollar tasksthat you hand off to a, va, are
(36:59):
you seeing that?
Is any of that going to AI atall yet?
She's, definitely using AI and Iencourage her to use ai.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
To help her build out thesetrainings that I have her do.
And, oh, what else did I haveher do, like communications
with?
(37:22):
Just emails, that she respondsto people that are asking for a
response from me.
She'll definitely use AI tospruce up the response.
And I can tell when she uses AIand it's fine.
It, makes it look moreprofessional a lot of times.
Totally.
And I know Google, Google has anew feature, that I've just
started trying called Gemini.
(37:42):
Yeah.
Where it can help you writeemails.
Yeah.
That's pretty cool.
I've used that a few times.
But we're not using it as muchas we should.
There's, yeah.
I've joked about, buying robotsto do our roofing work.
'cause the workman's comp andthe insurance is pretty
expensive for people.
(38:04):
Yeah.
Doing work.
So it would be cool to get,robots doing it eventually.
That day.
It's coming.
It's gonna come.
It is coming.
I know.
It's, really crazy when you seewhat's out there.
Yeah.
That's wild.
All right, cool.
If people wanna know a littlebit more about you, you know how
(38:26):
they can pick up the book ormaybe even Yeah.
Pick up the book.
Slow Burn Entrepreneur, succeedon your own terms.
Oops.
Can't see it there.
Yep.
Your own terms with the relaxedmethod.
And then there's slow burnentrepreneur.com.
You can respond to me talk to methere on the blog.
And I believe my email's on thewebsite, so reach out directly
(38:49):
via email.
Excellent.
Thank you very much, Mike.
This has been fun and I think wegot a lot of great hacks from
you.
You you, got a great mindsetman, and I think we can all
learn from you.
Look forward to sharing thiswith our listeners.
Cool.
Thank you, Luis.
I appreciate your time.
Yeah, likewise.
(39:10):
Thank you.
We hope you've enjoyed theWayfinder Show.
If you've got value from thisepisode, please take a few
seconds to leave us a five starrating and review.
This will allow us to help morepeople find their way to live
more authentic and excitinglives.
We'll catch you on the nextepisode.
Stop worrying about what peoplethink of you.
(00:03):
'cause no one's really thinkingof you.
You know, most people areobsessed with themselves
thinking about themselves, andthey're really not thinking
about you.
So don't worry about what theythink of you.
(00:30):
Welcome to the Wayfinder Showwith Louis Hernandez, where
guests discuss the why and howof making changes that led them
down a more authentic path orallow them to level up in some
areas of their life.
Our goal is to dig deep andprovide not only knowledge, but
actionable advice to help youget from where you are to where
you want to be.
(00:51):
Come join us and find a way toyour dream life.
Mike Weber (01:07):
Welcome back to the Wayfinder Show.
I'm your host Louis Hernandez,and today I'm excited to have
Mike Weber on the show.
Mike is the force behind slowburn entrepreneur.
His approach is all aboutsustainable growth and embracing
the journey rather than chasingovernight success.
He's here to share his insightson building a business slowly
(01:28):
and steadily.
Please join me in welcoming MikeWeber.
Mike, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, Luis.
Appreciate it.
Yeah.
So Michael, let's let's leteverybody know a little bit more
about yourself.
What's your origin story?
Where what, got you to where youare now?
Yeah, sure.
From Cincinnati, Ohio, went tothe Ohio State University,
(01:50):
current national champions.
Yeah.
You saw that beat Notre Damepretty handily.
Yeah.
And kinda went back and forthbetween wanting to be a doctor
and, wanting to get outta schoolas quick as possible.
So I did, four years at OhioState and then I, moved out to
(02:11):
Hawaii to teach scuba diving andI was gonna finish my degree out
there, but I made a good,responsible decision as a
23-year-old young man to dropout after another semester and a
half.
So I had five and a half yearsof school and no degree to show
for it.
Dropped out, became a beach bum.
(02:32):
On the north shore of Oahu.
Learned to surf a little bit,taught some surfing lessons with
my buddies out there.
Was actually working as a lunchlady at a preschool at one point
in order to pay the bills.
So I was working three jobs outthere just to remain as of each
bum on the island.
(02:53):
And I was recruited, one of mybuddies taught a surf lesson to.
These guys that were recruitingout there at BYU Laier, they
were recruiting returnmissionaries from the Mormon
church to come sell door todoor.
And they decided it was a goodidea to, to recruit me and my
friend who were teaching thesurf lesson.
And so they, brought us to adinner at the nicest resort out
(03:15):
there at Turtle Bay Resort,which is in a bunch of movies,
and recruited us to come out toDetroit, Michigan to sell door
to door the summer of 2008.
And I took, the bait.
I thought it sounded great.
And, my buddy actually stayed inHawaii and still is there to, to
(03:35):
this day.
But I ended up starting my kindof jump into sales and
entrepreneurship back then,2008.
So this will be my 18th year insales and now it's it's my
company and we train our guys tosell door to door roofing and
solar.
(03:56):
In California and in Colorado.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Wait, so that, it's the samecompany you went out to Detroit
for?
Oh, no, sorry.
So I sold, alarm systems aroundthe country for five years.
Oh.
In 40 different cities in 13different states.
Sold in across the Midwest andthen the East Coast and down
(04:19):
across Florida, Texas.
Wound up in Colorado.
And built offices in, San Jose,California, Houston, Texas, and
Denver for a DT security.
And then one of my buddiesstarted a roofing company in
2013 and I sold roofs for himfor two years, 2013, 14.
(04:40):
Kinda learned the roofing game.
2015, got into solar, sobasically realized out in
Colorado the roofing game wasgetting a little crowded.
And figured out how to get intosolar.
Me and a buddy moved out toCalifornia.
We started a solar marketingbusiness in 2015.
(05:02):
Went through a couple businesspartners, but basically just all
hardcore door to door sales,selling solar.
And then in 2019 I partnered upwith my current business
partner.
He brought the roofingknowledge.
I brought the solar knowledge.
We got our contractor'slicenses, and we have a roofing
and solar company now.
(05:22):
Name, summit Solar and Roofingsince 2019.
And we have locations here inSouthern California and in
Denver, Colorado.
Where you're at?
Yeah.
Oh, so you guys must haveknocked on my door at least
once, twice.
Oh, I hear me.
Yeah, it happens all the time.
That's great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a great, I've donedoor-to-door sales in past lives
(05:44):
as well.
It, you really, it's a reallygood skillset.
You really learn quite a bit.
Absolutely.
But I've never really thoughtabout it in the sense like, like
you have for, I guess this is asegue to be like a slow and
steady business, right?
You, knock on doors to getbusiness for that day, right?
(06:07):
Yeah.
So, how did you start thinkingabout this as like a, a slow and
steady type of business?
Yeah, so I guess I talk aboutthis in the book.
I had two mentors over the last10 years.
One was a guy, he was my boss,one of my good friends at the
roofing company that I worked atfor two years in 2013 and 14.
(06:31):
And his motto was the, speedmethod, the go as fast as you
can, recruit, as fast as you canbuild it.
And who cares if it collapseskind of thing.
And then do it all again thenext year, right?
And so he would have this turnand burn mentality where it was
just this constant revolvingdoor.
(06:52):
If the guys didn't stick around,he wouldn't pay'em.
He would suck all the profitsout of the business, basically
just use people and spit'em out,and then have to do it all again
the next year, which to me wasjust exhausting and didn't seem
like a great business model.
So I had another mentor that metout in Hawaii.
I sold some pest control for him12, 12, 13 years ago.
(07:16):
And he's been mentoring me since2020.
He's now built the largest pestcontrol business in Hawaii, and
his method is more empowerpeople, pay people well, and
create kind of loyalty, createlike a family almost amongst
your employees, your staff.
(07:37):
And me and my business partnerDave, have adopted that approach
where we do empower people.
We do pay people really well.
We, do profit sharing.
We save a lot of our profits togive back to our employees at
the, end of the year, and alsoas quarterly bonuses.
And so we've created a lot moreloyalty and a lot more retention
(07:58):
among our staff that is justmuch more sustainable, much less
stressful.
I think it's the right way tobuild a business these days.
Yeah, I agree.
That how what, so when you'redoing a, business like that,
though, initially it's hard,right?
You, oftentimes when you're notgiving, when you're giving the
(08:22):
profits back to the team, itmeans that's less for you,
right?
And, at the beginning whenthere's just not as many profits
to be had, you're building itright.
How, did you go about gettingthrough that phase?
I think there, there were, Iguess tight months in the first
(08:43):
few months especially since mostof what we do now is insurance
restoration Roofing.
So insurance is pretty slow payat times.
Sometimes you have to wait sixmonths to a year to get paid.
And I think we just.
We had been in it for so longthat we trusted in our ability
(09:04):
to go print money essentiallywhen we knock on doors.
And the initial leadership teamwas me, my business partner,
Dave, and a guy named Thomas.
And we had all been in, I hadbeen in door to door at that
point for 11 years, Dave for sixyears, and Thomas for six or
seven years.
So we trusted in our ability togo out and just.
(09:27):
Print money, knock a door andget a deal.
And, we were able to feedourselves while building the
business and still saving inprofits to, to build the
business and to give back to theemployees.
So Excellent.
You get to a point, you're sogood at it, you can have the
confidence to do it, yeah.
And yeah.
(09:47):
And then you go about gettingothers and teaching them how to
become as good, if not betterthan yourself.
Correct.
So you can replicate that.
Excellent.
Huh?
Absolutely.
So what else do you mean by, byslow Burn Show.
Tell me.
Another, did it require, that,that requires a big mindset
(10:11):
shift, right?
So do you have like examples ofsome of those, like where you
went from the traditional way,like the other mentor you had,
always recreating the wheel to,the slow burn method.
And, what were tips to developthose mindset shifts?
(10:35):
One of the biggest ones was my,first mentor was he thought he
could do everything on his own.
Very, he ego driven.
It's all on my shoulders.
I gotta stay constantly on thephone, constant meetings.
I gotta micromanage everythingbecause everybody,'cause I'm
(10:55):
smarter than everyone and Ican't trust anybody to do it.
And I think part of that is justlearning to let go.
'cause I'm very type A myselfand I, can at times be
micromanaging and be tough onpeople and.
Learning to let go.
Number one is, the big thing.
(11:17):
Not be ego driven and always besearching out other like coaches
and mentors who can help youwith your decision making and
your strategy and all thatstuff.
Yeah, one of it is just I hireda coach.
I sought out a coach, and thisis something that he never did.
(11:39):
My current mentor always does islooking for new coaches, looking
for new people to get advicefrom, whether it be Vistage
groups or EO groups.
And I, sought out a coach fromJohn Maxwell Group.
2018 they partnered me with thisguy that had a big accounting
(12:00):
background and it just wasn't,it wasn't a good fit.
So I told him like, okay let'stry to find somebody else.
I found a guy that he had builtand sold a business, and now
he's just a coach.
And he's, been great.
His name's Mark based outtaOrange County here in Southern
California, and I've had himsince, 2000, I think.
(12:23):
End of 2018, so going on sevenor eight years now.
Wow.
Yeah.
And so having a coach, we, hebrought us to EOS.
Dunno if you're familiar with eos.
Yeah.
We've had a, I forget what it'scalled, when somebody who
installs a program.
(12:44):
Implementer.
Implementer, yeah.
On the show in the past.
It was one of our best episodesactually.
Yeah.
Okay, cool.
So we had an implementer for allof 2019.
You pay him the equivalent of anadmin salary,$25,000 basically
to be an A fractional CEO.
Yeah.
Is how I describe it.
(13:04):
And we, have stuck with thatsince 2020.
We've self-implemented EOS.
We attribute EOS to a lot of oursuccess on keeping the processes
and keeping the rhythm of themeetings and the business going.
Oh, neat.
Yeah, that's good.
(13:25):
So you've been able to keep itgoing.
Do you check back in with themevery once in a while, like once
a year or something like thatto, or is it totally
self-managing that process now?
We actually brought in anotherimplementer this summer and we
weren't very impressed becausehe he did a lot of the beginner
stuff and we were we're sixyears into it, using us and he
(13:50):
was trying to bring us back tothe beginning, the beginner
stuff.
And we've already done all that,so we kinda decided to keep self
implementing.
Interesting.
Oh wow.
Okay.
Sounds like you guys can startan EOS implementation business
you sell, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Very good.
(14:13):
Yeah you've learned some of thatprocess meant learning to let go
getting coaches.
Any other big mindset shiftsyou've had to, take on to, to
reach this level of success or,I think, I, would say.
(14:41):
Slowing down and I, meditate nowand I, I try to meditate twice a
day as much as possible.
And I think that's a big partof,'cause I'm very a DD I'm very
distractible.
Yeah.
And I would always try to startside businesses and try to,
chase squirrels, I guess you'dsay.
(15:03):
And the meditation has allowedme to be able to focus on things
for longer periods of time andbe able to think more long term.
I think when you're not thinkinglong term, you make a lot of
wrong moves that are based onshort term trying to capitalize
on the profit as fast aspossible which is what my buddy
(15:24):
unfortunately tried to do allthe time.
So it's, more thinking, longterm thinking okay, can I
sustain this for five years andif I can, great.
That's, it's a good routine and.
It's a way that I can build abusiness for five years now.
(15:44):
So instead of thinking out justfor a season or a year out,
yeah.
That's great.
Going into, when you mentionedmeditation, that's a, like a
personal development tool,right?
And before the show we weretalking about running a little
bit and clearly these are boththings that I think go well with
(16:06):
slow burn entrepreneur.
Mindset.
It's absolutely, especiallyrunning it's your classic slow
and steady as a race.
I know you're a, long distancerunner.
Are there other regularpractices like that or can you
talk a little bit just about howrunning has helped you with,
(16:27):
slow running entrepreneurship?
Yeah.
I talk about this in the book alittle bit.
And I always, when I'm running,I carry a voice recorder with
me.
Nice voice recorder, and I'm,constantly reflecting on the,
previous two or three daysmostly thinking about the
(16:47):
business, thinking about how to,move people around or what,
where could we go next with thisperson?
What are the resources that wehave in order to take on this
project, et cetera, et cetera.
So constantly just reflecting.
On the business while running,and a lot of times I'll
re-listen to my coaching calls.
(17:10):
I'll record our, level 10meetings that we do through with
EOS and listen to those callsduring my long my long run on
the Sunday, on that Sunday.
I get to reflect on a lot ofthings.
So it's just a lot of, it's likea snowball effect of.
(17:32):
Wisdom and experience thatbuilds up a lot faster if you're
constantly reflecting on, whatyou're doing throughout the week
versus just trying to put outfires throughout the week and
not digesting and reflecting onwhat's happened that week.
So I think it's, it soundscheesy, but it's kinda like a
superpower that I've alreadythought out a lot of the
(17:56):
interactions that I'm gonnahave.
The coming week through myreflections, through my voice
recordings that I do on mySunday long runs.
So yeah.
That's a great tip, man.
Just keeping it, is it's I'vetried to do that with my phone,
but it feels, it's so big andbulky and I don't like to carry
a Oh, yeah.
(18:17):
A phone when I'm running.
So is that just.
You showed it to us, is thatit's really small digital voice
recorder.
Yeah, it's pretty small.
I, actually carry two of'em, soI carry one for last quarter's
ideas and recordings.
And then I carry this new onefor new, recordings.
(18:37):
I'm sorry, say that part.
So you, you carry two, one forlast years and one for the new.
One each quarter.
One new one each quarter.
Oh, okay.
And the one is from the previousquarter.
And I'm listening to recordings,ideas, thoughts, reflections
that I had the previous quarter.
I see.
(18:57):
Or coaching calls seminars,everything.
I record everything.
And then, I have the other one,which is the new one for new
ideas, new thoughts, new to-dos,et cetera.
In my other hand.
If I don't have anything toreflect on and record, I'm gonna
jog my memory by listening toold recordings.
(19:19):
I see.
Interesting.
So they don't have a, it's atechnical question, but those
don't have an op something whereyou can just download'em into
something else and save'em forthe future?
Yeah, you do.
But the process of transcribingthem is powerful as well.
So take either 10 minutes eachday, or.
(19:42):
30 minutes twice a week to justgo through'em and transcribe'em
and decide does this go on theissues list?
Does this go into my Asana forlong-term projects that I need
to remember?
Do I need to shoot an email offfor this idea?
You know what, and it's for eachthing.
What do I need to do?
(20:02):
So I, the act of listening to'emand transcribing'em is powerful
in itself instead of just filingthem away, oh, this is fa So
you, you've got some interestingroutines here, all right.
We got those at the, I gottaknow, I gotta know more.
Like what else what, are thatwhat else do you do in your day
(20:25):
besides meditating and running,recording, transcribing, what
goes on?
These are, yeah, great routines.
Those are the, ones that I doconstantly, I have to do, or
else I feel like I'm not, in mysuccess routine is the running,
(20:48):
the meditation, and therecording of ideas.
I guess listening to audio booksconstantly is one thing that
when I'm driving around, ifdriving to appointments or
whatever else, I have, kinda aroutine that I stick to, which
is Jim Rohn, Earl Nightingale,and Wayne Dyer.
(21:08):
So those are my three fallbacks.
Okay.
The Legends.
The Legends and Wayne Dyer.
So yeah, classics.
And each of'em are like 10 hourslong, so 30 hours of just
classic personal developmentstuff that I fall back on.
And if I have a new book I wannalisten to.
Great.
I'll, jump to that, but thenI'll come back to those three.
(21:32):
Just to have.
A fallback when you have toughconversations with trouble
employees or trouble difficultcustomers.
Those are the fallbackprinciples that can guide you,
huh.
(21:52):
Okay.
Wow.
So I'm guessing you've heard amillions of times by now, huh?
Yeah.
Probably listen to each onetwice a year at least, okay.
Interesting.
Great.
(22:14):
Is, there anything else that weshould from the book, that we
should get be aware of that arethere like quizzes or,
actionable steps in there tobecome more of a slow burn
entrepreneur?
Yeah, I guess I, I do talk aboutaffirmations, one of the things
(22:38):
is, staying away from the news.
'cause there's a lot of negativenews out there.
Yeah.
It's just constant bombarding uswith negative news right now.
And that's, a big one.
And then the other one is Idealt a lot, I dealt with
anxiety in high school andcollege a little bit.
Or not a lot, a little bit, alot.
(22:58):
It was paralyzing for me attimes.
And I think doing theaffirmations, which I think I, I
got from a book what to say whenyou talk to yourself.
Way back in the day, I createdaffirmations and I would read'em
to myself every day.
I think it was twice, a day whenI started.
And just, pumping yourself upand creating that confidence.
(23:23):
Even when you're feeling down isa big way.
You can kinda conquer yourdemons and practice gratitude
and pump yourself up versussuccumbing to the negativity
that is all around us all thetime, and which causes I think,
a lot of the anxiety that a lotof people are experiencing right
now.
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
(23:44):
Yeah, the I think taking off thenews.
Is a great heck, I gotta say I'mguilty.
I, shut off the TV many yearsago and now I, I, watch a little
bit more like shows with my wifeat night before we go to bed.
But, news and all of that stuff,I just shut it off.
(24:07):
I don't, maybe 15, 20 years ago.
And it immediately made a bigdifference.
But what I've noticed over timeis as the, phone became more,
prevalent in my life.
Like now I've, just been,become, been becoming conscious
of this.
The, feed, the news feeds thatcome in through the phone are, I
(24:28):
guess I never thought of it.
'cause I wouldn't sit and watchtv to, get news.
But it, yeah it's, in my lifeall the time.
Probably more worse than before.
And, just hadn't realized ittill, recently.
And it is creating a greaterlevel of anxiety and less
productivity too.
Yep.
And it's something I'm trying toget back to.
(24:50):
It's not as easy to cut off asit was when it was just on tv.
You could just walk away and itwas good.
Now it's, you have to have yourphone.
Yeah.
Almost.
It's a necessary tool, but Iallow myself.
A little bit of time.
I read the Wall Street Journalin, during lunchtime a little
bit.
(25:10):
And then, I'll get my news fromlike the Daily Show, John
Stewart which is com commonyeah.
Yeah.
But other than, that, I avoidit.
That's good.
That's good.
Yeah, it's been hard.
I know.
It's crazy how that just creepedback up in my life.
(25:30):
And only now I becoming soconscious of it, I gotta.
Do things like, yeah, just maybeset a time limit or something.
Done.
Good.
Yeah, I don't know.
Was there anything else youwanna leave the listeners with
about slow burn entrepreneurshipor at this point?
(25:56):
I think there's, a lot to besaid about empowering people and
just giving people.
This is what you gotta do, youdecide how to do it.
And then also allowing people tocreate their own jobs, almost
give'em the guidelines, butthen, having them build out,
(26:20):
this is your, this is my job andthis is my bonus structure.
And I think giving people thepower to build their own job
description and bonusstructures.
We've done a lot more often.
Is a powerful way to build that,loyalty and create a, company
(26:40):
where people like to work thereinstead of dreading to come to
work, yeah.
Something we've been doinglately.
Trying to think what else.
If you're not using an operatingsystem, EOS is great.
I'm sure there's ones, but I'veheard so many success stories
with the os.
Yeah, same.
That's, something we weremissing before for sure.
(27:03):
Yeah.
Yeah, I agree.
EOSI think what was it, GinoWickman, who was it came up with
Traction Yeah.
Attraction.
It's, and then it led to, it's,a very good program.
Absolutely.
On that note, maybe we shouldswitch over to our world famous
Wayfinder four.
(27:25):
So you've already given us quitea few, but I'm going to ask you
for one more, and that is ahack.
You use like just a life hack.
Yeah.
Kinda gave it away.
I know.
Now you gotta come up with a newone.
Hire, hire an assistant.
Get an assistant.
(27:45):
I read, the book by Dan Martel.
I think it was buy Back YourTime.
Oh.
Never Break Down.
And we.
I had an assistant in Nicaraguafor a while that I actually
found my wife's from Nicaragua,so we go down there quite a bit.
I found her and her husband inperson actually went down there
(28:06):
and, she's still with us today.
And a very cheap salary forfirst world standards is very,
is great money for them.
Yeah.
And she's transitioned to be aan assistant, an admin assistant
for the whole company.
So now I, hired my own personalassistant in the Dominican
(28:26):
Republic.
Wow.
And she is great.
She speaks four languages andmaybe five languages, and she's
just very technology savvy.
And so she helps me withtechnology and helps me do a lot
of things like create trainings,create training manuals, go
through my email.
(28:46):
She sorts, my email, makes phonecalls for me plan.
She's, right now she's planningour company trip for Jamaica
this year and, so there's just alot of stuff, and by the way, it
looks like she's gonna save uslike$15,000 because she's
booking it from the DominicanRepublic instead of booking it
from the United States.
So that's a huge Oh,interesting.
(29:08):
Huge deal right there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so she's just, she'sawesome.
I would recommend finding, I hadto interview a few people before
finding someone I was happywith.
But definitely hiring anassistant in order to take some
of the low value tasks off yourplate.
Did you, did you use a serviceto find her or did you, like you
(29:31):
said the first one, you wentdown to Nicaragua.
Yeah, the other one.
When you went to DominicanRepublic did you do the same
thing or, did you use a service?
I did use a service.
Okay.
For, to find her I think calledGo Live.
I wanna say I met him at IrieInternational Roofing Expo.
Okay.
He was called Go Live VirtualAssistance.
(29:52):
Okay.
And they have Columbia,Dominican Republic, and maybe,
yeah.
One other place.
Excellent.
Philippines, maybe.
Yeah.
When you found the one on yourown I'm interested in that.
How did I know plenty of greatservices and, we've actually had
a couple of owners of, vaplacement companies and global
(30:16):
talent companies they'll,correct me.
But the, but I've also worked ona, with a couple of companies
that had VAs from othercompanies they found on their
own.
I happen to be Colombian, a lotof friends go and go to Columbia
and just find people.
I'm curious how you, went aboutthat.
How do you set up thearrangement to pay them and the,
(30:41):
do you do any kind of contract?
Is it all on a handshake or howdoes that work?
So to find them first, there is,there's a place by a hotel that
we always stay at down therethat is a big call center.
It's called Tel.
And I was just.
(31:01):
Cold calling people, talking topeople on the sidewalk coming
outta the building like, Hey, doyou guys, do you wanna take on a
little more work?
Do you wanna work part-time onthe side?
Doing some admin stuff on thecomputer, taking some calls and
didn't, I actually struck outdoing it that way and I was,
running on a trail that likegoes up to the top of a volcano
(31:23):
down there and I met this guythat was mountain biking.
I kinda just we were at the topof the volcano, like looking at
the view and stuff and I waslike, Hey man we're actually, we
got to talking.
And I was like, do you knowanybody that's looking for, or
anybody that has call centerexperience that's looking for
(31:44):
some side work as an assistant,as a va?
And he was like my wife hasworked at call centers and we
got a baby on the way, so we'relooking for something she can do
from home.
And and she turned out to beperfect and so it was, I kinda,
I set up an interview with her acouple days later'cause I think
(32:05):
I was flying out and she turnedout to be, it was, she could
speak really good English andgood Spanish obviously, and, had
all the necessary, like she hada computer set up in her house
and she had all the technologyshe needed the wifi.
She was able to start rightaway, I think at 30 or 40 hours
(32:29):
a week.
And it just worked out.
So I think I maybe got luckythere, but I did, try a few
different ways before I ran intoher husband and then found her,
that's cool.
Yeah.
How about a, favorite, thiscould be book activity show,
(32:50):
whatever.
You've already mentioned a fewhere as well, that would make
you think about it again, huh?
Yeah.
So the one that we always pointour sales guys to as like the
first one that you need to readif, you haven't read any of
these type of books, is themagic of Thinking Big.
(33:12):
Oh, yeah.
I think that's just a great mindopener to the whole personal
development world or kind of.
Introducing you how to think alittle bit better.
How to think bigger.
Yep.
Yeah, that's a classic too.
Yeah.
It's How about, a piece ofadvice for your younger self?
(33:39):
Yeah.
I would say stop worrying aboutwhat people think of you.
'cause no one's really thinkingof you.
Most people are obsessed withthemselves thinking about
themselves, and they're reallynot thinking about you, so don't
worry about what they think ofyou.
(34:02):
That's a good mental healthadvice for people under four
years old, yeah.
That's really good.
And it I think especially whenwe're young, we think all we do
is think about whys, think aboutus, right?
And as we get older we shed thata little bit and we're like,
God, how foolish are we to givea rat's ass what others were
(34:26):
thinking?
Yeah.
Yeah.
How about a big opportunity thatyou see out there that maybe
you're pursuing big opportunityor, I think the question was big
opportunity or limiting belief,right?
It is.
You're absolutely right.
Yeah.
You caught me.
Okay.
If you wanna focus on a limitingbelief or a, big opportunity, I
(34:48):
think this is just another,maxim or another quote Yeah.
Would be in the beginning whenyou're younger, what you make up
in, in skill or what you, lackin skill.
You make up with extra effortand extra energy.
(35:09):
And so don't be willing or don'tbe afraid to work a little bit
harder to turn the cream intobutter when you're younger.
And then as you get older, youknow what you lack in the
ability to expend extra effortand energy you should have,
gained in the extra knowledgeand experience.
(35:30):
Yeah, totally.
So that's really good.
Yeah.
For all the young people outthere who don't wanna work more
than 30 or 40 hours a week, stepup and work.
You put in your time work the 50or 60 hours a week that some of
us have all have put in, stilldo, Yeah.
(35:50):
Can't really imagine that.
I don't know.
Before we move on, I wanna goback to your hack about an
assistant.
I'm wondering if you guys areusing AI and how that affects
the work with an assistant.
(36:11):
So we're not using it as much aswe should be.
I know that we're, helping anindustry friend build a new CRM.
Where it's gonna have some AIbuilt into it.
Which is gonna help with likechat box and ta talking to
(36:32):
customers, and also figuring outhow to deal with certain
insurance companies a certainway.
Different communications thatare just repeatable.
So I think some of that stuffis, yeah, we're definitely not
using it enough, but I thinkwe're trying to build it into
our, a new CRM that's gonna beready in about six months.
Got it.
So any of that, low dollar tasksthat you hand off to a, va, are
(36:59):
you seeing that?
Is any of that going to AI atall yet?
She's, definitely using AI and Iencourage her to use ai.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
To help her build out thesetrainings that I have her do.
And, oh, what else did I haveher do, like communications
with?
(37:22):
Just emails, that she respondsto people that are asking for a
response from me.
She'll definitely use AI tospruce up the response.
And I can tell when she uses AIand it's fine.
It, makes it look moreprofessional a lot of times.
Totally.
And I know Google, Google has anew feature, that I've just
started trying called Gemini.
(37:42):
Yeah.
Where it can help you writeemails.
Yeah.
That's pretty cool.
I've used that a few times.
But we're not using it as muchas we should.
There's, yeah.
I've joked about, buying robotsto do our roofing work.
'cause the workman's comp andthe insurance is pretty
expensive for people.
(38:04):
Yeah.
Doing work.
So it would be cool to get,robots doing it eventually.
That day.
It's coming.
It's gonna come.
It is coming.
I know.
It's, really crazy when you seewhat's out there.
Yeah.
That's wild.
All right, cool.
If people wanna know a littlebit more about you, you know how
(38:26):
they can pick up the book ormaybe even Yeah.
Pick up the book.
Slow Burn Entrepreneur, succeedon your own terms.
Oops.
Can't see it there.
Yep.
Your own terms with the relaxedmethod.
And then there's slow burnentrepreneur.com.
You can respond to me talk to methere on the blog.
And I believe my email's on thewebsite, so reach out directly
(38:49):
via email.
Excellent.
Thank you very much, Mike.
This has been fun and I think wegot a lot of great hacks from
you.
You you, got a great mindsetman, and I think we can all
learn from you.
Look forward to sharing thiswith our listeners.
Cool.
Thank you, Luis.
I appreciate your time.
Yeah, likewise.
(39:10):
Thank you.
We hope you've enjoyed theWayfinder Show.
If you've got value from thisepisode, please take a few
seconds to leave us a five starrating and review.
This will allow us to help morepeople find their way to live
more authentic and excitinglives.
We'll catch you on the nextepisode.
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