Transcript of The Power of Prayer in Business: How Seth & Mary Scaled, Sold & Found Peace

In my 20s, I was suicidal. I was going to do it. It was just a matter of time.

I had just doubled my medication on Prozac, depression pill. Somebody still over $200,000 in one of the companies. No one knew the black hole I was in.

If you're in a leadership role, you're going to be the hardest worker for that company. You want to show your employees, Hey, this is how we do this.

Lead by example. The Lord gave me a vision while I was driving that saved my life. He revealed himself to me in a way that made me understand God is real. Finally, I realized I'm going to work for myself. Our goals were to create a seven-figure cleaning company operating remotely. Either way, get some good books on sales and marketing and listen to your podcast.

Hey, guys, and welcome Back to the Level Podcast. Look, guys, we have a phenomenal, phenomenal interview for you guys. I'm here with Seth and Mary. They're going to be talking about marriage. They're going to be talking about faith. They're going to be talking about how you as a beginner, guys, even if you don't have an idea to start a business, they're going I can actually help you out with the ideas on this interview. And they're actually going to show you some basic steps on how you guys can go ahead and launch your own business in 2025. Seth and Mary, welcome to the show.

Thanks. Thank you.

So, guys, let's get right into it. You guys are married. You guys have kids. You guys have ran a total of five businesses, sold a business. Now you're getting into the online game. Okay, where do you guys get the mindset to do all this?

Well, Well, it comes from a lot of self-education, reading a lot of books over the years. I heard Dave Ramsey say a long time ago, if you want to get ahead and make money, learn sales, learn marketing. And so years ago, when I became a single mom with three kids, after my first marriage, I started reading books. And I just am an avid reader. I'm always reading about business and marketing and always learning.

I love that. And what exactly What exactly inspired you to actually start reading books about business?

Well, it was the Dave Ramsey quote that I took, literally. I have to say, the first marriage I was in was a bad marriage. It was an abusive marriage. I had to get out of it. I had to make enough money to get out of that situation with my three kids. And at the time, I was running a pet sitting business. I saw that the cleaners that came, they were getting $250 checks. And I was like, Man, I'm making less than $100. I should be doing the cleaning business. So I was like, You know what? I can do this. All I have to do is learn the SEO and the website, and then I'll be competing with the top competitors in Gainesville, Florida, which is where I was at the time. So I knew it was just read the right books, and then I could make more money. And so that's what I did. And that was started in, I think it was 2008 I started my first cleaning company. I was a single mom in that cleaning company right after I had divorced that ex-husband and ran it for about six years and just thought, if I'm going to get better and I'm going to make more money, I'm going to be reading these books on business and then make that like my part-time hobby.

I love that. My mom was a single mom. I was raised by a single mom. So mad respect to you. I know it's hard. I've seen it, right? My mom, she used to... I always tell people I was a latchkey kid. I I watch movies. If you guys don't know what a latchkey kid is, it's an old-school millennial saying. But basically, we didn't hire a babysitter. I was watching movies as a kid because my mom was at work, working as a maid at the Four Seasons, trying to make ends meet. And I totally respect her for it because she came to this country with literally $100. Insane, right? So she was able to live her Virgin American dream, helped me with my core values and faith and all that, and really pushed me, right? Pushed me to where I'm at today. So with that being said, Seth, how are you doing, man?

I'm doing good. Thanks for having us out today.

No, absolutely, brother. So I know Mary started a couple of businesses, but you did, too, right?

I did. I started when I was 15, I actually started Pushmo in neighbor's yards, Pushmo in my own yard at the time, and then push-mowing neighbors' yards. And I had a good hard work ethic, and I knew I wanted to I have my own business at some point because when I was 15, I started working for somebody else, and it wasn't the greatest experience. It wasn't bad. It taught me some things, but it mainly taught me that if I ever have employees, I would treat them a lot better.

No, absolutely. I think culture is everything in business, right? What do you guys think is your opinion on what makes a great leader, especially in any organization in 2025?

Well, I'll start From a service-based business, if you have employees or if you're in a leadership role, you got to at least show whoever works for you that you're going to be the hardest worker for that company because that is essentially your baby. I mean, when When you start a company, when I started my landscaping business, I was the only one. So for years, I was the only one. I was a teenager. But then when I brought on employees, I had to pretty much let them know that I'm going to do my best. Every Every single time I go, landscaping, lawn service, it seems like a menial task, but a lot of people don't want to do it. A lot of people can't do it. And I just made sure to put my best foot forward every single time. I was well-dressed, I was polite, and I did my very best every single time. So I think from a leader standpoint, so to say, you want to show your employees, hey, this is how we do this at our company. This is how we do. Lead by example.

Lead by example, man. Exactly. Exactly. You took the words out of my mouth, Seth. Lead by example. I love that. I always say I have very high standards, and I don't sugarcoat it whenever I hire people. I always tell people it's going to be hard because I want to see if they're going to stay. And it is hard. Entreprene is one of the hardest things you ever do in life. Do you guys agree?

I do. It's pretty tough. Yeah.

What do you guys think is tougher? Parenthood or entrepreneurship?

That's a great question. I think It depends on your children also. Parenthood, man, I would say it's almost equal because it's a mindset thing on both. I love that. With entrepreneurship, you've got to be overcoming adversity because You're going to face challenges no matter what the business is. A hundred %. At some point, you'll face challenges. And you have to have that inner resolved determination that no matter what, this is happening, and I'm going to make this work. I'll find a way around it. And with kids, Kids, you have to be so consistent, and they learn how to push your emotional buttons. They know what to say to you to try to get you to react. They have to be getting attention. If you don't give them the right attention, they will act out to get attention. And you've got to be consistent with discipline, and you have to model by example as well, because you can't teach them, Do what I say, but not what I do. You have to show them the right way to act for them to follow the a guide example. So I would say, honestly, in my opinion, they're equal in difficulty.

Yeah, no, absolutely. But you guys have been able to juggle both, which is phenomenal. We have.

Sometimes it's tough because we want to... I mean, especially from a business perspective, you want to do your very best in business. You want to make sure that you're taking care of the business. But your children are so important to you, and they're more important at the time because they're only young for a little while. But at the same point, I think... I know my wife's done an excellent job, and I tried to do my best as well. But it's definitely similar. Like she said, it's very similar because you're dealing with different personalities. All three of our kids have completely different personalities from each other.

Oh, yeah. How old are they?

14, 13, and 11. Thirteen, and 11.

Wow, that's amazing. They're getting up into the teenage years now. Yes. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Love that. So guys, what would you tell to someone who is trying to take the first initial steps to starting a cleaning business? Because you guys specifically started a remote cleaning business. So what would be the first couple steps that a beginner could go ahead and take to start inquiring about that. I've spoken to hundreds of entrepreneurs, and one thing I consistently see them struggle with is their sales process. It's a total mess. A bunch of scattered information spread across tools and systems with no clear view of what's moving. That's where today's sponsor, Pipedrive, comes in. The number one CRM tool for small to medium businesses. Pipedrive brings your entire sales process in one simple centralized space, giving you guys a crystal clear, complete view of the sales process and customer information, so you stay in control and close more deals faster, guys. Teams are using Pipedrive to close an average of three times more deals per month. Every team does things a little differently, and I love that you can fully customize Pipedrive to fit my team's unique sales process and strategy, and we can all work from one platform.

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I would say self-educate. Get some great books that are going to allow you to compete against the competition. And it depends on your goals, too. Our goals were to create a seven-figure cleaning company operating remotely. So for some people, their goals are just... They just want to have just themselves as a cleaner. We were not the cleaners in our company. We always had staff. So it depends on the goals of the person, what revenue goals they have. Do they want to manage staff or do they want to just be a solopreneur? But either way, I would say, get some good books on sales and marketing, because if you get that down pat, you can essentially write your own check in almost any market. As long as there's a market and you know sales and marketing, that's more important than knowing how to clean a house, because even in the first cleaning company, I just knew I'll hire someone who knows how to clean a house so that I could stay home with my babies because it was two toddlers and a baby on my first company. So just having that mindset of like, I'm going to do this.

What do I need to learn to do this? And then I would start reading books and maybe listen to your podcast.

Yeah. I mean, this episode is already going off to a great start, Mary. I mean, you guys are saying so many things that resonate with me. I'm a big delegator. With me, I didn't go into business to go ahead and work 18, 20 hours a day, so I'm not able to see my family like I was in law enforcement, right? I was working 80 to 100 work weeks. I did that for five out of the seven years I was in law enforcement. Most people are like, Are you insane? I was just like, Yeah, a little bit. I was. Because, hey, guess what? I got to go ahead and take care of I got to go ahead and be the provider, right? So at the end of the day, you have to do what you have to do. But as we get older, we get a little bit of experience, right? We go ahead and we use leverage. So did you guys leverage the knowledge from the books that you guys read in order to have this type of mindset of being an operator, delegating, and not being in the business, but working on the business?

Yes. It started a long time ago when Before I ever was married the first time or had kids, I started reading entrepreneur articles in things I would find online because I wanted to be in business for myself. I had been working since 15, working hard jobs for other people, making next to nothing, working at- What type of jobs? I worked at... Man, for a short time, I was a private investigator, believe it or not. Really?

I can see that.

I worked for the Florida Park Service. I worked for Publix. I pulled trash in the Florida Park Service, and we used chainsaws, and it was hard. I was a cook at a couple of restaurants. I worked at Outback Steakhouse. You did it all. Man, I worked. And that's why... Because I was like, I'm not dealing with this anymore. I moved to this job. And finally, I realized I'm an entrepreneur. I'm going to work for myself. I'm going to work hard, sure. But I'm going to work something that no one can fire me from, and I'm going to produce an income higher than what these people want to pay me.

Yeah. No, absolutely. So what would you say is the hardest aspect of starting up a company like you guys did? I mean, you guys started the company, the remote cleaning company, and then you grew it. How many employees did you have?

I want to say we had 14 at the end.

So have 14 employees. Most people don't even have two or one. They're usually solopreneurs. So you guys grew it to about 14 employees And then you sold the company. So what was the hardest aspect of, I guess, the journey from starting a cleaning company remotely to then selling it? What would you guys say?

For me, pretty much We knew that we wanted to start a cleaning company. We knew that we wanted to do remote. Those were easy ideas or those were easy steps for us. But I guess for somebody else is knowing which company to start, knowing a lot of people want to do something that are going to be great at. And sometimes that's not always the best business model because, and as you mentioned in another podcast, sometimes there's a lot of competition in that specific field. So for a lot of people, I think it's going to be narrowing down which field they want to specifically start a business in and then take them the first steps. One thing you said before is that you're big on mindset, and so am I. If you have a positive mindset, and I say this in our podcast as well. I guess I'm not supposed to name drop, but-You can name drop.

Go ahead, man. They got a podcast. It's phenomenal. They just launched it, guys. Tune in. Thank you.

Thank you. But big thing for me, specifically, is mindset. If you know that you can do something, if you have the idea, and you know you can do it, and you follow through with it, to me, that's the hardest thing is every single day putting another foot forward, because you know you can do it, but there's going to be setbacks. So if you just Just push through the setbacks. That, I think, for me, is the hardest thing, just because I'm so focused on getting that thing done. When setbacks hit, you're like, oh. So I guess that was my hardest step. It was not after Basically, you get the idea, you start taking the steps, and then the hardships hit.

So how do you guys work through that? Because I feel like everybody goes through that. I went through that in 2024. Let me paint the scenario right here for you guys, okay? So in 2024, I was about 50 pounds heavier than I am now. I'm weighing about 203, okay? I was about 255 back in the beginning of 2024. I went on my health journey in the beginning of this year in 2025. But during in 2024, I had just doubled my medication on Prozac, which is a depression pill. So I was a zombie. On top of that, I had three companies that was running at the same time. I lost two COOs. I had somebody still over $200,000 in one of the companies. And then I had another CEO damage one of the other companies, and people were leaving left to right. So that means I had to work inside the business, not on the business. So I had all this pressure. And I just got married. But that was a beautiful thing right there. But on top of that, no one knew the black hole I was in, as far as just depression. It was the best financial year of my life, but that doesn't matter.

When you lost yourself. So what would you guys say right now? Because there's a lot of people struggling out there, right? Now everything's all painted nice on social media. Entrepreneurship is hard. So what do you What do you guys say that you guys do that works for you guys to get you guys out of those bad times in entrepreneurship?

Okay, I'm going to take this one.

You want to take this one? I have an answer.

So in my 20s, I was suicidal. Yeah. I was determined I was going to do it. I was every day having those thoughts, and it was just a matter of time. So I'm going to get deep for a minute. Of course. It's my faith in Jesus Christ is what helps me through those times. Actually, the Lord gave me a vision while I was driving that saved my life, and he literally spoke to me and said, The heart is beating and it doesn't know why. That's exactly the truth of my of life at that time. I had zero purpose. I didn't understand why I was even going. But he revealed himself to me in a way that made me understand God is real. And if I'm going to live this life, I'm going to live my life for the one who died for me, which is Jesus Christ. And so anytime we face adversity, we pray, and we pray every day. Every day. We prayed this morning. That was beautiful. We pray over the business, and we watch new clients come in. We watched God move things out of the way, bring the right people in, expose things going on in the business we didn't even know was happening.

So prayer is the engine that drives us forward, our faith in Jesus and prayer. That's what has helped us.

I love that. That's very powerful. And I'm a big believer. I'm a big believer in faith. Ever since I've met my beautiful wife, she's pushed me even more to really go and spend more time in my faith. I think it's needed. I think you need it because people need fulfillment. I always tell people, if you're just doing it for the money because you're in a bad situation out of scarcity, no, you won't last. Not in business. It's a longevity game. It really is. I think for a lot of people, you get to a point in your business where you plateau. You guys ever plateau? Where you guys hit a certain revenue in a month, and you guys are like, We made it. We made it, Sam. And you're like, Yeah. And then you're like, All right, what's next? Sometimes we lose ourselves. And you're like, Okay, what's next? We went through the journey. We've made it. We're okay. But what now? So I think having that fulfillment, having that intent to go ahead and want more. I always say I'm chasing the greater version of myself because Because I like to help people. And I feel like podcasts like this, having this type of platform, we're able to help a lot of people.

So, Seth, what do you got to say, man?

Well, how do you follow that? The answer is one thing, but I definitely... My faith in the Lord pulls me through because as a Christian, as a believer, when you solidify your faith with Jesus, you have to have the faith to know he's going to get you through any situation. So she brought the faith side of things. But one thing that I've been trying to do, especially recently, is learn something new, business-related every single day.

Smart.

Because it's like a bucket. Every single day you add a drop to it. And one little drop at a time doesn't seem like it's much, but at some point you're going to need that specific drop that you learned six months ago or three days ago. So I've been going through and just trying to learn something new about business-specific, about our business, specifically, what others have done, some mistakes they've made, and how they've fixed those mistakes every single day.

No, I love that. And that's inspiring, dude, because I'm going to tell you, dude, ever since I've been in full-time entrepreneurship, since I think it was right before full-time, I quit PD right before fourth of July in 2021. So I'm coming up now. It's four and a half. Yeah, it's four and a half years now, dude. So almost five years, right? Full-time. But I was always doing a side hustle or something like that while I was still in law enforcement. But being full-time, it just time flies. Time flies, man. But to go back to what you were saying, it's very hard to stay consistent once you've built it up to a certain point, right? So going ahead and learning something that challenges you, I think it's very important because it's new. It keeps you entertained, right? True. So you guys are now going into the online space, okay? Where Where you guys are building a community, or you guys have built a community. And now you're going to teach other people on how to do what you guys did, correct? Right. So let's talk about that, okay? Because I'm I'm a big visionary guy when it comes to ideas, doing startups.

So what made you guys, okay, want to take that approach now? I mean, besides working remote, I mean, working remote, like I was telling you guys earlier, it's the new American dream, guys, N-A-D, right? It's being able to work anywhere in the world, right? And I think that's why a lot of people flock to the online space. I mean, it just makes sense. If you guys have the experience and the knowledge, why wouldn't you do that? I always get people saying, If you're already successful, why do you have to go ahead and build a program? Why not? Why not? Why not? If you have the knowledge. So what got you guys into that?

Well, I have 18 years of business experience. And when I was first starting out as a single mom, people were so ready to take my money for marketing, and it didn't bring results. So you got burned? Yeah. And I don't like that. I don't like it when people... No one does. It sucks. They want to take your money, but they don't want to give you the right result. So I spent a lot of money as a single mom with three kids to support. I wasn't getting any support financially. It was just me. So every dollar counted. I want to be able to help people learn how to do marketing the right way for themselves, business owners that want to learn really SEO paid ads, how to do it for themselves, because knowing that is what allowed us to flip a switch in that cleaning business, it started off making 25 to 30 grand a month because we could implement these things, set it up. And then anytime we were able to handle the hiring more people, we could just bump that ad spend up a little bit, and we'd bring in more accounts, and then we'd hire to keep up with the growth.

And if we were like, okay, we got to handle these new hires now, we could tune it down just a notch. So we could turn it up and turn it down, and we knew how to do it. No one was controlling it anymore. But us. And I think that's a valuable, powerful skillset for business owners, because once you know how to do it, you're not at the mercy anymore of an ad agency doing it for you. You don't know what's happening with your money, and you just are going off what they're telling you. And there are some good companies out there, but there's also a lot of scammers out there.

There's a lot of people that took a program, and they haven't got their feet wet, and they're painting this grand picture of, Hey, we're going to get your results. We're going to do this. But realistically, it's probably a one man team or one woman team or whatever it is. And they don't know what they're doing. And you're taking that risk. You're taking that risk. So at the end of the day, I'm a big believer in going ahead and doing every aspect of your business in the very beginning. I'm a big believer in what you guys are about because I've done it. I've learned the ads. I've learned how to build funnels. I've learned how to do customer service. I've learned how to do sales. Absolutely everything. So when you hire, you know exactly what you're talking about.

And you know what to look for. If you already know what the basics of SEO is already, and you already know how to run your own paid ads, then when someone else and you hire them to do it, you know what to look for. You understand how to analyze the results based on what they're doing if you are going to do that. Versus if you don't know, let me give you one quick story, just really quick. Of course. I was doing the SEO on my own website When I was on my first cleaning company, back when I had the two toddlers and a baby. I set that website up, and it ranked in the top three position for Gainesville, Florida. So I was competing against some bigger companies, and I thought, I felt I'm great about that. Well, one guy called me up and I guess his wife wanted some cleaning, so he decided that he was going to offer to trade me SEO in exchange for providing cleaning. And he promised he could get me to the number one position. And at that time I thought, well, yeah, okay. Number one is better than number two or three, right?

So I'll go ahead and we'll let this guy take a shot. He took his shot. And my business tanked because he read the website with his version of SEO, and it was crickets for months until I took it back over. I was like, We can't do this anymore. As soon as I fixed it, we were right back in the two and three position again with the SEO. And that's why it's so powerful and important to know how to do it for yourself, because somebody comes along and offers you that great offer It's so tempting. You take it, you can fix it pretty quick if you know what you're doing.

I love that. It's almost like a security blanket. You know exactly where you're looking at. You hire someone once you You're going to start delegating, if you ever want to delegate it, and you're able to vet their actual work. Super important. No, I like that. So do you guys specifically use just SEO, or are you guys using different social media platforms to do the marketing for your business right now?

In the beginning of this last cleaning company, we just grew and sold after three years. We started, well, SEO basic on the website, and then we started with Facebook ads. And I think we, I want to say we started like 10 bucks a day back then in the very beginning. It just boomed. I mean, because of the way we set it up, we do this combination thing with the SEO, not just on the website, but weaved into the paid ads. So we do that, and then it just cranked it And we were just booming. And like I said, we started with 25, 30 grand a month in the beginning of that cleaning company because we did both.

Wow. Wow. That's amazing. I love that. So what exactly are you going to be offering for people that would want to learn, join your guys's community in the online space?

We're going to be offering a lot, actually, from startup to the steps to essentially take your business off the ground. So obviously everyone's going to have an idea, so you have to have an idea of what you would like to do. But we can even assist in doing some idea gifting, basically. But basically just taking the business that you currently have to the next level, and then the next level after that. And then if we can work with somebody long enough the next level after that, basically see what their goals are and get them to that level.

Do they already have to have the business already going? Does it have to be an established business, or can it be somebody that's just like, Dude, I just want to break into the online space, possibly, and I'm still looking for an idea? What would you say?

It can definitely be both because We actually have some free material on how to even start an LLC, how to get into the business space, and then from there, grow your business. You could start from just an idea and then take that idea to reality Or you could start from already having an existing business and you want to get to that next level, whatever the person's goal is. Or we could start with a business that already has an existing level. They're hitting a plateau. They're just not sure how to to finetune their business to get to the next level or that plateau, that glass ceiling that they're seeing.

Yeah, absolutely. What's your guys' vision for the next two years? What are some milestones and goals that you guys are trying to accomplish now?

We want to work closely with about 500 entrepreneurs per year. We don't want to do huge, massive volume because we did that with the cleaning business, and we want to keep it tight, and we really want to deliver high-quality service. So we want to work with 500 entrepreneurs per year, closely, doing our exclusive events, teaching them how to do the paid ads and the SEO for themselves in a powerful way where we combine it, and how to work remotely and some higher-level staffing strategies that really freed our time and allowed us to weed the wrong people out. So we want to work with that number per year and do some high-ticket events like private yacht parties, conferences, where we teach people some valuable things for business. And we'll still be doing the webinars for people who just want to learn on a lower price point. I think we're going to do it. It's either going to be seven dollars or even free, maybe, to help people just learn some basics. And then if some people want to do a VIP day with us, we'll come in to their business for the day and actually set everything up for them.

I love that. If you would like that.

I love that. That's very cool. So almost like a done with you, done for you concept. A lot of people are going to buy into that. I know that for a fact. People just don't have time. They just don't have time. That's the biggest objection nowadays because everybody's working. I always tell this story, but essentially, when I started in digital marketing, the first ad that I saw was from two marketers, Russell Brunson and Dan Henry. I ended up getting both their books. I read their books for hours, hours. I was just astonished with what I was reading. And then I ended up buying a $10,000 program. And I didn't know what I bought, but I was just like, I'm going to try it. And I sat in the car, put it on two credit cards. And I was just like, if I don't make this $10,000 back, it's on me. I just took extreme ownership. It was going to work or it was going to work. Well, then I call it six months of trial and error. And by the fourth month, I made my first $1,000. And I was like, this is pretty cool.

And then I made $3,000. And then just kept going up and up until finally, on the day of my mother's birthday, January 15th in 2021, I was still a detective. I would go home, do the marketing, do the prospecting, do the logistics, copywriting, everything. Go to the gym for one hour, sleep three to five for six months straight. But because I was so excited of this opportunity. I was so excited. I was pumped to wake up. You guys ever get that feeling? Yeah. Absolutely. I feel like almost every single entrepreneur, as you're building it, you get that feeling, right? You're so excited, you can't even sleep. But on my mother's birthday, January 15, 2021, I remember I put my first high ticket offer and I sold it right on the spot. It was a 15-minute conversation. I didn't even have anything written down. I remember I was talking to a military veteran from the Navy. And at that time, I wanted to teach people how to start their own automated teller machine business, ATMs. That was my first side hustle. That made me financially free. So two days ago, I had talked to two different vendors.

One vendor that was going to provide me with the actual machines and the network. And the second vendor was source locations. But I didn't put a package together yet. But on the spot, I go ahead and he's like, So what do you got? This is not just going to be a course, right? I don't need information. I need a business. So on the spot, I don't know what it was, guys, but I go, Okay, this is what I got for you. I'm going to provide you the machine. I'm going to provide you the location. I'm going to provide you the network, and I'm going to train you to install it. And the guy said, Everything? The machine, too? I was like, Yes. Okay, how much? At that time, my overhead expenses was around $2,500 for all of that. I go, I didn't even know the price. And I was just like, 6,500? And then the guy goes, Okay, what next? I didn't even know what to do at that point. I was like, What card do you have? It was like, Visa. So then I took the payment. And I knew at that moment, my life was dramatically going to change.

And I had that gut feeling. When you have that feeling, it just feels right. You're like, This is going to work out. I don't know if it was just my faith. I don't know if it was my intuition. I don't know. But I knew it was going to work out. I had the level of confidence where I called those two vendors and I told them, next month, guys, I guarantee you 30 clients. And we surpassed that. We had 60 clients. And then it just grew and grew. And then within three months from that day, I left because I couldn't do both. I couldn't do both as much as I tried. Because law enforcement fulfilled me. I loved law enforcement. I still do. I back to blue. But at the end of the day, everybody has their journey. I love your guys' story. I think it's phenomenal. So if we have people here that wanted to ask you guys, unless we have a lot of married power couples, what would be some suggestions and word of advice from a married power couple like your guys yourself that you would give to other power couples about starting their first business together?

What are some be Basically, some advice, things to avoid, good and bad.

Okay. Well, on the positive side, I'm going to say, Keep God first. Put the Lord first in everything, and he will make your path straight. We start our day in prayer, or at least we try to every day. If we forget, we go in the afternoon and pray together at some point. And then figure out what are your strengths and your partner's strengths. So I'm really good at sales, I'm on the phone. I'm very transactional. I close those people like 90% close rate, boom, boom, boom. But I'm also... I tend to be introverted. I'm very analytical. Seth, on the other hand, is very relational with people. He is better to manage staff because he is not going to be as intolerant, impatient or fast-paced. I hate to say that there's some flaws or weaknesses in me, but I'm a human being.

I think that's good. I think a lot of great leaders, you're able to be very transparent with yourself and know what your weaknesses are and know what your strengths are. My strength, like I said, I'm a visionary guy. I'm a marketing guy. But I know that I can delegate sales. I know I could delegate the finances. I know I could delegate operations, fulfillment, because I'm not good at that. Exactly.

Yeah. So Seth is great at staff engagement. I mean, he was able to really get our staff to perform at a level I was never able to get. Previously, when I did it on my own, my first cleaning company, oh, man, from a staffing perspective, it was a train wreck because I did not have high tolerance for people. Because if I'm a single mom managing two toddlers a kid and the clients and all their whims and requests and everything, I do not have tolerance for someone who doesn't show up to work, calls in. Because remember, I've been working since 15 also. So I did not have the same level of grace or tolerance or patience for people in that respect. But Seth, on the other hand, he's an extrovert. He's a nurtureer. Yeah, he's very good at engaging. He wants to engage with people in a different type of way. And so he He was able to keep the staff growing, to keep up with the growth of the business and really engage and get those workers to care because they gave their best. They were so loyal to us. Even when they were offered jobs by our clients, they wouldn't take it.

The clients would call and be like, Hey, I don't know, you must be great bosses because your worker won't even take money from me income because Seth always made them feel valued and important. So knowing what your partner's strengths are and then leaning into whatever your strength is and letting them lean into and keeping that balance. That's what I would say.

It's key. It's key. You got to learn as a leader of an organization or leaders as an organization to really value your employees. And I think it goes back to your story, dude, of your first job, right? True. They didn't have you feel valued, and now you take that and you're like, Dude, I don't want to have my employees feel this way, right? Exactly. Yeah. So how do you build up that value where they're like, dude, we don't want to leave. They're great leaders.

To be honest with you, a lot of it, I think, is just treating people how you want to be treated and knowing how you've... If you've worked for somebody in the past, if they didn't treat you great, knowing that you don't ever want to devalue somebody like that, you really place an emphasis on it, but more so than just connecting with the person, maybe even a text message or a call. What I noticed that I really would do is especially to raise the baby bird so they could fly, I would ask them questions. I'm like, Hey, how was your first day? How did this go? You were training with so and so. How did that day of training go? Is there anything that basically you would change? And then every single time that somebody gave me any type of feedback, if it was... Obviously, positive feedback is great, but almost negative feedback is better when you're trying to train somebody because you want to know how you can make that experience better for the next person, especially in a service-based in a business where the client, the customer, you're trying to gain 110 % with them.

Not 85, not 75, not even 95. You want them to have an excellent experience. If you're hiring staff that doesn't have a high enough expectation, they're not going to do a good enough job. So from a perspective of valuing the person individually and then just getting feedback from them. I thought that was pretty simple. And when I had my My previous business, my landscaping, law service business, I learned a bunch. I mean, I learned a ton. I had that business for about nine years from start to finish, and I ended up selling the company. But I made sure when I sold that company, that each one of my staff members either had another job or were going to stay with the company because I valued them. I put that value into them, and I believe that I've kept that throughout the rest of my life. Even as Mary was saying, we had We had staff members that people would directly try to contact them and say, Hey, come work for me? I'll pay this amount. They'd be like, No, you can contact Mary and Seth. I think that was like a testament or a testimony to what we would build into our staff members, just that value that we would try to put into their lives so that they did their best, they had a great solid job, and they liked it.

If they had anything to say that was negative or anything, I would openly have conversation with them about it, and I would take their advice.

I feel trying to go ahead and keep people by paying them more doesn't work. It's a short term gain because people, they want to work with people that they like, and they see the vision, and they see long term, right? So the reason why I see that in your guys' situation is because you had somebody offer money to your guys' employees, and they denied it because they have that loyalty to you guys, right? Somebody who's just looking for a quick buck, they would have easily taken it, right? I think it's key. What do you guys think about that?

Well, we also did pay much higher than industry standard. Whenever we would post our jobs, we would do interviews, and we paid at least 50 % or more higher. I looked pretty constantly. I looked at what the other companies were paying. Some of the companies We actually were paying double what our competition was paying their staff members. But another thing that we did also is we paid higher, but we did more thorough interviews than I think a lot of other companies do. A lot of other companies They want a body to fill a spot. We would actually ask questions. And then for the first two weeks, sorry, I'm taking the spotlight here. Oh, you're fine. For the first two weeks, we would show up on some of the job sites, especially with the new hires, or I would get one of our seasoned staff members that was a solid trainer to show up, check everything, answer any questions they had. We wanted to make sure that experience was the best experience for them. I do think paying high buyer in the combination of several other things worked really well for us.

Oh, for sure. Mary, what do you think about that?

Well, in the first cleaning company I had, I did both sides. I first paid them whatever where the average pay rate was. And then I tried testing paying them a little more. But because at that time, as a single parent with three young children, and I had the staff at that cleaning company, and I had the clients to manage, I was spread too thin. So I would try like, oh, I'm going to try to pay them a little more and see. But at the end of the day, me being somewhat introverted, however many conversations I had in that day, at the end, I was done. So I was I didn't have the energy to put into staff at the end of the day and do these phone calls and texts that Seth would do. So just paying them only is not the ticket because it has to be a comprehensive approach. They have to both We wanted to be the top cleaning company that anyone would come to work for because we want to be number one, and we were number one in that area. But at the end of the day, you've got to both treat them right and pay them well.

So your actions and your words both have to match up Otherwise, there's a disconnect there. Oh, they're paying me good, but they're not talking to me. It has to be both, I think. And that's where you're going to get the cream of the crop of staff for your company.

I love that. I mean, that's so much knowledge from experienced operators like you guys yourself. So here at the LevelUp, we love to help our audience with self-help, leveling up their mindset. So coming from two experienced entrepreneurs that now have exited their own companies. Now you guys are married, have kids, you guys are into your faith. I mean, you guys are living life by design.

I like it. Amen. Thank you.

I like it. So what would be some words of advice you would like to give the audience or someone who right now, wants to start a company, and they just don't know how, right? What would be some words of advice to level up their mindset to help them start?

Well, I would say my first is always going to be, make the Lord your God, make him God over your life. That's going to be my number one for everything, okay? And then I'm going to say, what are the dreams deep in your heart that you think are unachievable or you just buried away because you just thought, there's no way. Somebody said, the richest place in the world is the graveyard because that's where so many dreams die. You have a dream in your heart somewhere. Figure out, really, what is that? I mean, I have a dream that's huge, and that's our massive Our purpose for business is we want to see stadium revivals in America, and I want to fund them ourselves and never ask people for donations. That's going to cost millions of dollars. That's the why behind this business now. And to get to the level we want to be at to maintain that level is because we want to do these massive crusades in America that we want to pay for. So we want to have the freedom to say what we want to say and not be at the dime-whim of anyone else.

So if you're You're listening right now and you have a dream, I would say, figure out what is that dream you buried somewhere deep down. Figure out what that is and get crystal clear and don't listen to the conversation in your head of, You will never do that or you can't do that. No, that's a lie. You can do whatever you think you can do, because even Henry Ford said, Whether you think you can or you think you can, either way, you're right. So figure out what is that dream you have. And then just honestly, I would ask God, help me to get what are the steps I need to take? What is the plan of action to get to this goal and align my life with your plan to prosper me? Because it's there. And God is real. I will say this one more thing. I know this is a business podcast, but I've seen Jesus Christ four times in my life. He has appeared to me starting as a child. And all those times I was sober and awake. So I know God is real, and he has a plan for all of our lives.

So we just have to realign with his plan and then figure out what are the steps. Is Every day you take a step towards that, whether it's read a book on business, learn SEO, learn paid ads, learn website, or hire someone off Fiverr for 100 bucks to make a website for you. I mean, there are steps you can always take. It's Dan Kennedy said, there's always something you can do in business. There's always something you can do. That's what I would say.

Love that. Seth, what do you got?

Man, how do you follow that one? Well, let's see. As As you talked about before, the biggest thing that I would say is the mindset. If you have the positive mindset that you can do something, then you can actually do it. If you think you can't, if you listen to the naysayers, if you listen to... I hate to say this on the air, but I had family members who told me, Oh, that's a crazy idea. You shouldn't do that. When I was, I want to say it was what would have been my first year of college, I was making five times what somebody graduating from college was making, and I was 18 years old. And so a lot of that is a lot of people want the security and the safety of having a 9: 00 to 5: 00 job. And although that is good, if you can imagine a better life for yourself. And if you can take control over that, you can achieve it. Knowing that you can achieve it, I think, is the basic step that everybody has to take first, is knowing that you can do something that you put your mind to.

So my My advice, I guess, without going into Mary's answer, would just be, just do it. Just know you can do it and accomplish it. So if you want to basically be successful in business, you have to take that first step in mindset. So that would be my advice.

Boom. And that is the Level Up with Seth and Mary. Guys, where can my audience find you?

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Grow My Biz. Check it out, guys. Let's get it to number one. All right, guys. It's Paul Alex, The Level Up. We'll catch you on the next one. Peace.