Join us as we dive into the remarkable journey of Greg Muzzillo, the founder of Proforma, a global marketing solutions provider that has been an industry leader since 1978. From humble beginnings with just a $200 investment to leading a $650 million enterprise, Greg shares his insights on building a successful business while maintaining a deep commitment to family, faith, and continuous learning. Discover the secrets behind his million-dollar mindset and how he inspires others to pursue their dreams relentlessly.
[00:00:02] .
[00:00:03] Be an ass cold.
[00:00:04] You know, ask around.
[00:00:09] So many people are willing to give great advice.
[00:00:11] You know, I have friends.
[00:00:13] I'm in my 60s and I have a lot of friends from young presidents organization and other
[00:00:18] organizations and we say it's interesting how few people really reach out and ask for
[00:00:23] advice.
[00:00:26] But man, I was an ass cold when I wanted to start franchising.
[00:00:31] I'll never forget calling the largest franchise organization in Cleveland, Ohio.
[00:00:37] Fingers crossed.
[00:00:38] Oh, will this guy please see me?
[00:00:39] And he did the owner of it.
[00:00:42] Great guy.
[00:00:45] Come on in Greg.
[00:00:46] And you know, sometimes mentoring doesn't have to be something that goes on forever.
[00:00:51] Sometimes one great meeting can change your life.
[00:00:59] Welcome to the En Factor conversations with entrepreneurs who started stumbled and
[00:01:04] succeeded.
[00:01:06] I'm Rebecca White and I'm so excited today to have Tampa's Greg Mozzillo who is the
[00:01:12] founder of Proforma and also book author of a million dollar mindset.
[00:01:20] Greg, thank you so much for joining me today.
[00:01:23] Rebecca, thanks for having me.
[00:01:25] Excited to be visiting with you.
[00:01:27] Yeah.
[00:01:28] So I got the chance to meet you a few years ago when you moved to Tampa and
[00:01:32] I learned much more about your business then, but I'm really excited today to kind of dig
[00:01:38] in and learn a whole lot more about the backstory of Greg Mozzillo, the entrepreneur.
[00:01:44] So let's get started.
[00:01:46] Now, Greg, I think you grew up, did you grow up in Ohio?
[00:01:50] Did I remember that?
[00:01:51] I did.
[00:01:52] Great memory.
[00:01:53] Yeah.
[00:01:54] I remember that.
[00:01:55] Well, I lived in Cincinnati for a while.
[00:01:56] So you grew up in Ohio and you started Proforma shortly after you came out of
[00:02:02] college if I remember from Baldwin, I think maybe.
[00:02:06] Baldwin Wallace.
[00:02:07] It's a university now.
[00:02:09] Okay.
[00:02:10] I went there but now it's, I think it's still a small school about 2000, 3000 kids.
[00:02:16] But yeah.
[00:02:17] Yeah.
[00:02:18] I went to a small school as well and for me it was a great experience.
[00:02:21] So you started Proforma back shortly after college and because we're close to the same
[00:02:28] age.
[00:02:29] It wasn't quite as common back then to start a business at such a young age.
[00:02:34] So tell us how that all happened.
[00:02:37] Did you always want to be an entrepreneur and how did you start Proforma?
[00:02:42] I always did want to be an entrepreneur and in my own way was entrepreneurial, you know,
[00:02:50] in that we're the same age.
[00:02:52] The younger folks, I don't know if they can relate but back then I'd go door
[00:02:56] to door to mow lawns in the summer and door to door in the winter to shovel snow.
[00:03:01] And so I always sort of enjoyed that taste of making money but I had an experience in
[00:03:10] college that drove me to realize I wanted to start my own business as soon as possible.
[00:03:18] And I'll briefly share it.
[00:03:19] I was studying accounting.
[00:03:21] I was number one in my class and in fact eventually went to work for what is now Deloitte and Touche
[00:03:27] on the American Electric Power Audit and the General Motors Audit.
[00:03:35] And I had an internship my junior year in accounting and I was working in an outlying
[00:03:40] plant that made cardboard corrugated.
[00:03:44] And it was horrible and that was when I started to first realize I don't think
[00:03:48] I like doing accounting.
[00:03:49] I love studying accounting but I didn't like doing it.
[00:03:53] And so, but I did it and I worked hard all summer and then last week they gave me the
[00:03:58] intern an opportunity to meet with each of the leaders of the functional departments.
[00:04:04] And one of those days I was able to spend with really what seemed like the only two
[00:04:10] people in the company that had a heartbeat, which was the two leaders of the customer
[00:04:14] service team.
[00:04:16] And I couldn't wait to visit with them and I got with them and it didn't take me for half
[00:04:20] an hour to realize Dick and George hated the company.
[00:04:26] They hated their lives.
[00:04:27] I think they even hated cardboard and I said to them, you know, I'm old am I 21 or 22?
[00:04:34] I said to them what any young fellow was I said, I don't get it guys.
[00:04:38] You don't like it here.
[00:04:39] Why don't you leave?
[00:04:42] And the one gentleman I was seated across the desk from him and he was on the other side.
[00:04:47] He said, you don't get it at all.
[00:04:49] Do you Greg?
[00:04:50] And he pointed to his credenza.
[00:04:52] He pointed to the family pictures.
[00:04:55] We have families.
[00:04:56] We have children.
[00:04:57] We have house payments.
[00:04:58] We have car payments.
[00:04:59] We have school payments.
[00:05:01] We're not going anywhere.
[00:05:04] Now that's what somebody says on their way to San Quentin, I thought.
[00:05:08] And I thought to myself, good gravy.
[00:05:10] I'm going to own my own business and not end like these two men that just hated their lives.
[00:05:16] I need to start something before I have a family, before I have children, before I
[00:05:21] have house payments and all those other things.
[00:05:23] And so I was in a race to do anything that that I could to start my own business.
[00:05:30] And so I actually had a buddy that was in my fraternity that we shared an
[00:05:35] apartment after we graduated and we would go out on Friday nights to
[00:05:39] discos if you remember those things.
[00:05:41] Of course.
[00:05:43] Looking for dates for Saturday night.
[00:05:45] And we got to talking about our careers and he worked for a distributor of
[00:05:49] printing and promotional products.
[00:05:51] And he hated his boss.
[00:05:53] I hated accounting, but the more I listened to what he was doing and he
[00:05:58] would tell me about $20,000 orders with $5,000 in profit and
[00:06:02] $50,000 orders with $20,000 in profit.
[00:06:06] And I thought, what do you do?
[00:06:09] And he'd explained to me about being a distributor.
[00:06:12] They were distributors of printing, distributors of promotional products.
[00:06:16] And I got it like, oh, goodness, as a distributor, you don't need to own
[00:06:21] any manufacturing equipment, manufacturing employees, inventory.
[00:06:25] You could start this thing on a shoestring, which is all we had.
[00:06:29] So it didn't take us long, about six months from graduation to say,
[00:06:34] let's do this.
[00:06:35] So we each put in a hundred bucks.
[00:06:37] I told him, I know accounting, you know sales.
[00:06:39] Let's do this.
[00:06:40] We each put in a hundred bucks, bought a phone answering machine and some
[00:06:43] stationery and started knocking on doors in 1978.
[00:06:47] Wow.
[00:06:48] What a great story.
[00:06:50] So he worked for a while.
[00:06:52] You worked for a while, figured out that, what and what you wanted to do.
[00:06:55] And so you started it together.
[00:06:57] How long did you stay in business together?
[00:07:00] That's a great question, right?
[00:07:02] Because many, many partnerships are doomed to failure.
[00:07:06] And this one was eventually also.
[00:07:10] We got to the point where, and I think most partnerships fail when somebody
[00:07:14] feels they're pulling way more of the weight for 50% of the split of the
[00:07:20] earnings and really more important, I think the future potential of what I
[00:07:24] was building.
[00:07:25] So it got to the point in the early 90s.
[00:07:28] So we started in 78.
[00:07:29] We started franchising and that's a different story in mid 80s.
[00:07:34] But by about the early 90s, I just realized I don't want to make, he's
[00:07:39] not pulling his weight and I don't want to make him rich off of my hard
[00:07:43] work.
[00:07:43] And so I bought him out in the early 90s.
[00:07:47] Yeah.
[00:07:48] So for a while that worked and you built this company.
[00:07:52] Tell us a little bit more about for our listeners.
[00:07:54] What is Proforma?
[00:07:56] And how is it, you started it, has it evolved from, I know it's evolved
[00:08:03] because you've really grown the company.
[00:08:06] And as you already mentioned, you franchise it.
[00:08:11] So talk to us a little bit about the company, what it was like when you
[00:08:15] got it started and what it looks like today.
[00:08:19] So we started as a distributor of printing and eventually added promotional
[00:08:24] products.
[00:08:25] So commercial printing is all of that stuff, the marketing department,
[00:08:29] the human resources department, the sales department, et cetera need to
[00:08:35] communicate with either its customers or internal employees, brochures and
[00:08:40] tags and labels and stationery and all of that kind of stuff.
[00:08:44] And promotional products is all those about a million different kinds
[00:08:49] of giveaway branded items.
[00:08:51] And everybody has a whole bunch of the stuff on their desk, branded pens and
[00:08:57] backpacks and all kinds of that kind of stuff.
[00:09:00] And also logo to peril.
[00:09:04] And so that's what we sell.
[00:09:06] And so we just had no customers.
[00:09:07] We started knocking on doors and we worked hard and got some customers.
[00:09:13] And it's easy because you just go out and get a customer.
[00:09:16] Now that's not easy, but you get a customer, you send the order to
[00:09:19] the plant, they send it to the customer with your label on it.
[00:09:23] You build the customer.
[00:09:24] You hope the customer pays you before the manufacturer wants to get paid,
[00:09:29] which didn't always happen, but anyhow.
[00:09:31] So that was just working hard, knocking on doors when cold calling
[00:09:36] was a real thing, just going door to door and talking to the receptionist
[00:09:40] and finding out who the decision maker was.
[00:09:42] And through just sheer hard work by 1985, so six or seven years
[00:09:48] in the business, we made the Inc.
[00:09:51] Magazine 500, the Inc.
[00:09:53] 500 Inc. magazine publishes now the five Inc.
[00:09:56] 5000 companies that are fastest growing.
[00:09:59] But back then it was only 500 and we were at the Inc.
[00:10:02] 500 company for three years in a row for our fast growth.
[00:10:06] Wow.
[00:10:06] And and through a whole bunch of different series of events,
[00:10:11] it seemed like the right way for us to grow was through franchising.
[00:10:15] So that was in 1985, 1986.
[00:10:19] We were doing well as a distributorship, five or six million dollars a year,
[00:10:24] which is I mean, it's nice.
[00:10:26] But I thought we could accelerate our growth through franchising.
[00:10:30] Right, right.
[00:10:31] And I know and I want to get into franchising in a few minutes
[00:10:34] because I know you've been very involved in and, you know,
[00:10:39] I think you were president of the American American Franchising Association
[00:10:43] or I was on the board of the International Franchising Association.
[00:10:49] So I knew you were very active in leadership in that space.
[00:10:52] So I know you've got a lot you can share.
[00:10:54] But let's back up just a little bit.
[00:10:56] I'm guessing that the products that you sold in the late 70s and early 80s
[00:11:03] are those products still being purchased today?
[00:11:06] Everything's, you know, we got a lot of digital marketing now
[00:11:10] and things have changed a lot in the marketing space.
[00:11:13] So what have you seen during that 40s some year evolution?
[00:11:18] Some of what we sold has completely gone away, Rebecca.
[00:11:21] And some of your listeners won't even remember that back in the day before computers,
[00:11:27] the way to make multiple copies was to have carbon carbon interleaved in
[00:11:32] between sheets of paper that would either go into a typewriter or impact
[00:11:36] computer printer. Those things hardly even exist today.
[00:11:39] And so some of what we sold was business forms.
[00:11:42] Those don't exist anymore, but everything else exists.
[00:11:47] And in fact, is doing very well.
[00:11:49] The printing industry is growing.
[00:11:51] A lot of people, I think, may think it's not because they drive by
[00:11:56] a retail quick printer that looks like it's struggling and retail quick printing
[00:12:01] is in fact dying, but commercial printing is thriving.
[00:12:07] And I'll tell you why, even in this high tech days, people long for touch,
[00:12:14] high touch.
[00:12:15] And so, you know, when you go to your mailbox and if there's actually really
[00:12:20] a letter in there that's actually from somebody, we love opening it because
[00:12:25] who who treasures emails?
[00:12:27] Nobody who treasure text?
[00:12:29] Nobody. And in fact,
[00:12:31] I'll show you we're going to hang out on Thursday and talk to your class.
[00:12:35] I'm going to show you a brochure that probably ended up recruiting, helping
[00:12:42] recruit at least half.
[00:12:44] So today we're about a six hundred and fifty million dollar company.
[00:12:46] At least half of our sales came from this brochure that we would send
[00:12:51] to prospects that would inquire about pro forma they wanted to learn more.
[00:12:55] And maybe the time wasn't right.
[00:12:57] Rebecca, you know in sales,
[00:12:59] you got to be in the right place at the right time with the right opportunity.
[00:13:03] And many times in the world of franchising,
[00:13:05] we might be the right opportunity, but it might not be the right time.
[00:13:09] But nonetheless, even in today's day and age with emails and all that,
[00:13:13] we insist on sending not only email and we have great digital online stuff,
[00:13:19] but we still send that brochure.
[00:13:21] And you know what happens with it?
[00:13:23] People take it.
[00:13:24] Obviously, something's not right at work.
[00:13:26] When somebody's thinking about owning their own business,
[00:13:28] something wasn't quite right.
[00:13:30] They weren't quite happy.
[00:13:31] And I can't tell you how many people would tell me because I always love to hear
[00:13:35] their stories and franchise trading about their journey.
[00:13:38] How did they end up coming to us?
[00:13:40] And they would always say, you know that not always, but many times,
[00:13:43] you know, that brochure, I got that brochure and I just wasn't quite ready.
[00:13:47] But one day my boss, Phil in the blank, did something stupid, right?
[00:13:51] And I had had enough and I looked at my desk
[00:13:54] and I remembered that brochure was there and I pulled out that brochure
[00:13:57] and I called you.
[00:13:59] So, yeah, the value of printing and in high touch
[00:14:06] products in a high tech world are more valuable than ever.
[00:14:11] And some of the products that we sell like labels,
[00:14:14] labels are growing
[00:14:17] probably the fastest growing segment in our industry because in today's world,
[00:14:22] you've got to put labels like on lawn mowers that say, don't put your arm in here.
[00:14:26] Like all kinds of insane stuff.
[00:14:30] And that's growing wildly.
[00:14:32] And then promotional products, yeah,
[00:14:35] there's digital marketing and lots of other stuff.
[00:14:38] But the number one thing that gets remembered is a promotional product,
[00:14:42] a branded pen, a branded desk accessory, a branded shirt.
[00:14:48] And the number of views that those
[00:14:51] kind of items get when somebody wears that shirt around or when somebody
[00:14:56] uses that pen is unmistakably one of the most
[00:15:02] significant, significant tools in the wealth of tools that people should be using
[00:15:07] in marketing and sales.
[00:15:09] Yeah, I can see that.
[00:15:10] You know, and it's kind of I'm looking at you right now
[00:15:13] and you've got your shirt on your pro forma branded shirt.
[00:15:17] And it's it's it's a reminder of what you're just saying.
[00:15:22] But it's also when that name pro forma, did that come
[00:15:26] from the fact that you did a lot of forms early on?
[00:15:31] Only you and I could have that discussion.
[00:15:33] Well, it came from the fact that I was going to we're going to start a company.
[00:15:36] And we said, well, what should it be?
[00:15:39] And of course, pro forma is a word in the accounting world.
[00:15:42] Yes, that ends up serendipitably that
[00:15:48] everybody knows that word because it's the most commonly used word in the third
[00:15:52] section of Wall Street Journal, but nobody can define it unless you're an
[00:15:55] accountant or a lawyer.
[00:15:57] And so when we said, well, what should we call it?
[00:16:00] Yes, forms were some of what we sell, but I just like that word.
[00:16:03] And so we said pro forma.
[00:16:06] And even in those early days in the 1980s, when we were flying around
[00:16:11] the country, starting to sell franchises, people would say, oh,
[00:16:14] I've heard of you.
[00:16:15] They never heard of us.
[00:16:17] They heard the word pro forma, but they couldn't really define what it was.
[00:16:21] Yeah, yeah, it's a great name.
[00:16:23] It's a great name.
[00:16:24] And you you emphasize the pro part of it, which I think is is impressive too,
[00:16:29] in the way that you the way that you brand it.
[00:16:33] So very cool.
[00:16:34] So I love your story.
[00:16:36] So turning this into a franchise, I'm sure was was there was a lot for you
[00:16:43] to learn about that.
[00:16:45] And I've had some conversations with individuals who tried franchising
[00:16:50] and it didn't work.
[00:16:51] They had not proven their concept.
[00:16:53] So let's talk a little bit about you made that choice about what did you say
[00:16:59] about 10, 15 years in, I guess or so?
[00:17:03] About seven or eight years.
[00:17:04] OK, under 10 years.
[00:17:06] Yeah, right.
[00:17:07] Yeah.
[00:17:08] But we but you said something very wise, Rebecca,
[00:17:11] we had a proven business model.
[00:17:12] Our model was had successful sales, had successful means of getting sales.
[00:17:20] And so we had a proven business model.
[00:17:24] And it was well, sure, it needed a lot of cleaning up and a lot of growing over
[00:17:29] the years, but but I think we had the minimum essential ingredients to start
[00:17:34] franchising.
[00:17:36] Did so tell us about that process.
[00:17:39] How did you go about figuring out how to how to franchise your business?
[00:17:45] Yeah, well, I believe in immersion.
[00:17:47] I think if you're going to do something or for me, if I want to do something,
[00:17:51] I want to immerse myself.
[00:17:52] So when I started this printing company,
[00:17:56] we got very involved in the printing association and the promotional products
[00:18:01] association and just immersed myself in learning.
[00:18:04] And I learned a lot, networked a lot with people.
[00:18:07] But when it was time to franchise,
[00:18:09] it was time to join the International Franchise Association and to go to
[00:18:12] their meetings and go to their conventions and just immerse myself
[00:18:15] in that world.
[00:18:18] I learned a great deal from the International Franchise Association.
[00:18:21] And I think if anybody even wants to think about learning how to
[00:18:24] franchise their business, that that group has a wealth of information.
[00:18:30] You know, about is franchising right for the business that you have and
[00:18:36] how to go about starting and growing a franchise?
[00:18:39] If in fact that's something you want to do.
[00:18:41] You know, let me ask you what what makes a business right for franchising?
[00:18:47] Like what were the variables that you looked at and how you I know you had a
[00:18:51] proven concept, but it sounds like there are other elements of a business
[00:18:56] that someone would need to evaluate before they made that decision.
[00:19:02] Yeah, that's a great question.
[00:19:04] Really, there are two key elements in addition to a proven concept.
[00:19:10] Is this concept something that you could easily train somebody to do?
[00:19:17] Like brain surgery is not franchisable, right?
[00:19:20] You couldn't easily train somebody to do brain surgery.
[00:19:23] But this is something that you could easily train somebody to do in a classroom setting
[00:19:29] back in Cleveland, Ohio at our then called our headquarters there
[00:19:35] and then get them out in the field and have some in the field learning.
[00:19:39] That's number one.
[00:19:41] When somebody buys a franchise, they're a sponge in the beginning.
[00:19:46] They're in the teach me, teach me, teach me mode.
[00:19:48] And so number one, a franchise or to be successful has to have a proven concept
[00:19:54] that's teachable for the average kind of person to sort of learn that business,
[00:19:59] learn it quickly, take it home, get out in the field and start practicing
[00:20:03] it and then learning it sort of as they go.
[00:20:07] That's number one.
[00:20:08] But number two is far more critical
[00:20:10] because many franchise oars and if you study the world of franchising,
[00:20:15] you'll find so many franchise oars with only 12 franchises or 20 franchises.
[00:20:20] And they've been franchising for 30 years and you think what happened?
[00:20:23] Well, what happened was.
[00:20:27] Here's the key question you've got to be able to answer for stage two.
[00:20:31] Stage one is teach me, teach me, teach me.
[00:20:33] But stage two is I'm in Cleveland, Ohio.
[00:20:36] I got a franchise owner that's in California.
[00:20:41] They don't need teach me, teach me, teach me anymore.
[00:20:44] Now they're saying to me, hey, Greg, I'm in California and you're in Cleveland.
[00:20:49] What are you doing for me?
[00:20:52] You don't even understand my market.
[00:20:53] What are you doing for me that I'm supposed to still be sending you money?
[00:20:57] And if you can't answer that question well enough, quickly enough,
[00:21:02] a franchise organization is going to die because in the world of franchising,
[00:21:08] we're required as a franchise or being heavily regulated by the FTC,
[00:21:13] the Federal Trade Commission, very similar to the way the SEC
[00:21:19] governs going public.
[00:21:22] We're required to tell prospective franchise owners
[00:21:26] it through a disclosure document,
[00:21:29] which is a very legal and expensive document, who are all of our franchises
[00:21:35] current and past, even if they had a terrible experience with us.
[00:21:39] And we're also required to disclose all of the litigation.
[00:21:44] So if people are flying out the doors and suing us and wanting to leave,
[00:21:48] I'm not saying that they didn't for sure.
[00:21:51] But I'm saying I see a lot of franchisors that don't get to stage two,
[00:21:55] having all of the things that it takes,
[00:21:58] the marketing programs and the other business development programs,
[00:22:03] the technology that in today's world people need and more that people say,
[00:22:07] I'm still getting more value now that I still know this business
[00:22:11] and I don't need you to teach me anymore.
[00:22:14] But now I'm getting enough value from all of the other services that you
[00:22:18] provide that it's still worth my paying.
[00:22:21] We don't call them royalties,
[00:22:22] Rebecca, because that's what caused the Boston Tea Party.
[00:22:26] So we call them service fees.
[00:22:29] But but it's the same thing.
[00:22:30] Why am I still sending you money when I know this business as well as you do?
[00:22:35] And I know my market better than you do.
[00:22:37] Right, right.
[00:22:38] So there's so much in there and so much to kind of pull out and talk about.
[00:22:43] But let's go back a little bit to the legal side of this.
[00:22:48] So I'm assuming you had to find a good
[00:22:51] attorney that understood how to help you
[00:22:54] create those documents and set up your
[00:22:58] set up your business.
[00:22:59] Would you talk a little or your franchise side of your business?
[00:23:02] Would you talk a little bit about advice you might give someone who's thinking
[00:23:07] about franchising?
[00:23:09] I mean, you mentioned the International Franchise Association is a great place
[00:23:15] to to to get information.
[00:23:19] Can somebody join that if they're just thinking about it or do they already have
[00:23:23] to have a franchise organization?
[00:23:25] And number two, where do you find where do you find a good attorney to help with
[00:23:30] that kind of work?
[00:23:31] Yeah, two good questions.
[00:23:34] Yeah, you as a prospective franchisor and in fact,
[00:23:37] franchisees can join the association.
[00:23:40] So franchisors and franchisees can join the association because the mission
[00:23:45] is to make franchising better for everybody, franchisees and franchisees.
[00:23:49] And so all of that information is available to prospective franchise oars.
[00:23:55] Be selecting attorney.
[00:23:57] Great question, Rebecca, is you got to be careful because you could talk to a
[00:24:01] lot of Frank, a lot of attorneys that say, oh, I know franchising,
[00:24:06] but they don't understand the franchise or side of the world.
[00:24:10] Maybe they've helped a couple of people buy a Taco Bell or a subway or
[00:24:14] some other franchise.
[00:24:16] And so they maybe understand things from a franchisee perspective,
[00:24:19] but that's very different from understanding things from the franchise or
[00:24:24] perspective and we invested heavily in finding the right.
[00:24:28] And there wasn't one in Cleveland at the time.
[00:24:31] Quite candidly, we found our first
[00:24:33] franchise or attorney was in Atlanta.
[00:24:37] And but in the International Franchise
[00:24:39] Association, like many associations do, they also have
[00:24:44] what the like trade members, members that aren't franchising,
[00:24:48] but their service providers to the franchising industry.
[00:24:51] And that would include consultants and attorneys, etc.
[00:24:55] Yeah, that's so it sounds like for anybody who's who's thinking about this,
[00:25:00] that International Franchise Association is a good place to make connections
[00:25:05] and get started and learn some things.
[00:25:07] Are there any other resources you recommend for the franchisor?
[00:25:11] And then we'll talk a little about the franchisee side.
[00:25:15] You know, be an asshole, you know, ask around.
[00:25:24] So many people are willing to give great advice.
[00:25:27] I have friends, I'm in my 60s and I have a lot of friends from young presidents,
[00:25:33] organization and other organizations.
[00:25:35] And we say it's interesting how few people really reach out and ask for advice.
[00:25:42] But man, I was an asshole when I wanted to start franchising.
[00:25:47] And I'll never forget calling the largest
[00:25:49] franchise organization in Cleveland, Ohio.
[00:25:52] Fingers crossed, oh, will this guy please see me?
[00:25:55] And he did the owner of it.
[00:25:57] Great guy.
[00:26:00] Come on in, Greg.
[00:26:01] And you know, sometimes mentoring doesn't have to be something that goes on forever.
[00:26:06] Sometimes one great meeting can change your life.
[00:26:10] I met with this man and we had a great conversation.
[00:26:14] He couldn't have been more encouraging.
[00:26:15] He couldn't have been more giving with his time.
[00:26:17] And of course, people who are now where,
[00:26:20] who were where he was then, where I am now understand people gave him when he
[00:26:27] was trying to get going and growing.
[00:26:29] People gave me when I was trying to get going, growing great advice.
[00:26:32] And it's wonderful to give back to the next generation the way we were given so much.
[00:26:38] Well, anyhow, I met with this guy.
[00:26:39] Great was only about an hour.
[00:26:42] And at the end, he says, Greg, you have any more questions for me?
[00:26:46] I said no, but I really appreciate your time.
[00:26:50] And he says, I got one more piece of advice for you.
[00:26:52] I said, oh yeah, please, what is it?
[00:26:54] And he said, don't sell dirt.
[00:26:57] But what does that mean?
[00:27:00] And he explained.
[00:27:01] He said, Greg, don't sell territories.
[00:27:04] And this is exactly the road we were going down.
[00:27:06] I was thinking because, you know, when you're 27, 28 year old, not making all that
[00:27:12] much money, we were doing OK, but not making that much money.
[00:27:14] How much would you sell the rights to San Francisco for a franchise?
[00:27:19] Who cares, right?
[00:27:20] So don't sell dirt.
[00:27:23] Well, what had happened in their organization and they were a recruiting
[00:27:26] company, management recruiters, international MRI.
[00:27:31] In their early days, they had sold substantial territories to people
[00:27:36] who never really optimized those territories.
[00:27:40] And in life, there are a lot of people who
[00:27:44] who they get to a point where they're not going to work another marginal hour
[00:27:49] for another marginal dollar of income and some people get satiated with pretty
[00:27:54] low expectations.
[00:27:56] And so he had given territories and sold territories to people that weren't
[00:28:01] willing to give them up, but it really hindered their growth.
[00:28:05] And it hindered the value of their business.
[00:28:08] And his advice was don't ever sell a territory.
[00:28:12] It was great advice.
[00:28:14] I don't think pro forma would be who we are today if I hadn't had that visit
[00:28:18] with him and he hadn't explained what he meant by don't sell dirt.
[00:28:22] Yeah, that's that's pretty cool.
[00:28:24] And did you ever get the chance to go back and let him know what that meant
[00:28:27] to you?
[00:28:29] You know, I didn't.
[00:28:31] And I'm kind of embarrassed to say I didn't.
[00:28:33] Now, I would see him at Convention International
[00:28:36] Friends Association conventions and some of his people.
[00:28:39] And but I never I never took the time to go buy him a cup of coffee.
[00:28:43] And maybe I should have.
[00:28:45] But he knew.
[00:28:46] I mean, I would when I would see him at trade shows or whatever he do,
[00:28:49] we're doing well and he do.
[00:28:50] I appreciated his.
[00:28:51] Yeah, yeah, it's it's meaningful.
[00:28:54] I think, you know, to sometimes hear back, you know, when you've made a
[00:28:58] difference and I know you make a difference in a lot of lives actually through this
[00:29:02] franchise model.
[00:29:04] So tell us a little bit about, you know, if I'm somebody, you know, like some of our
[00:29:10] students, young people that listen to this podcast, they may be thinking that
[00:29:16] their way into entrepreneurship and being a business owner is by being a franchisee.
[00:29:23] But they don't know what to look for.
[00:29:25] There's a lot out there.
[00:29:27] There's a lot of opportunity out there
[00:29:30] to buy into a wide variety of franchise options.
[00:29:34] So what should someone be looking for?
[00:29:37] You know, what are the key things that they should be looking for?
[00:29:45] I think they should try to figure out what do they want to be when they're a lot
[00:29:49] older and there are a lot of things that are just terrible opportunities.
[00:29:56] But people don't know that
[00:30:00] because things sound can sound good, but like there's no money in most
[00:30:07] fast food franchises unless you own what's called multiple units and that several
[00:30:12] multiple units. But do you really want to be in a business where
[00:30:16] people could steal from you through the cash register?
[00:30:20] People could steal from you through, you know, inventory control.
[00:30:27] You know, I think if I were a younger person,
[00:30:30] you can reach out to the International
[00:30:32] Franchise Association, they have a list of all of their members.
[00:30:34] I think first and foremost, if somebody, if a franchisor was not a member
[00:30:39] of the International Franchise Association, which is truly almost like the
[00:30:43] good housekeeping seal of approval, if your listeners even remember what that was.
[00:30:48] I think if somebody really isn't a member of that,
[00:30:50] I don't know that they're really committed to being the best franchise or possible.
[00:30:54] So first, I'd want to look for
[00:30:57] somebody that's a member of the International Franchise Association.
[00:31:00] Then I'd want to understand what is your current skill set?
[00:31:03] Are you an accountant because there's accounting franchises?
[00:31:06] I mean, there's all kinds of and there's absentee older kinds of franchises.
[00:31:13] But I think the more you learn about the different kinds of franchises
[00:31:18] and you start investigating that world and then you start talking maybe
[00:31:21] to some franchise owners, not just the franchise or if you call the
[00:31:25] franchise or they'll gladly have an initial conversation with you, gladly send you
[00:31:30] email or like a brochure or like what we have, etc.
[00:31:33] And then talk to some of the franchisee.
[00:31:35] What's what's a day in the life look like?
[00:31:39] Yeah, that's I think that's great advice.
[00:31:41] It's really going out and getting references from people who have experienced it.
[00:31:46] Are there you mentioned earlier that, you know, after it's about learning
[00:31:50] the business, the franchisee is then looking at, you know, the services that
[00:31:56] the franchise or provides.
[00:31:57] So are there any key services that you would absolutely say someone should look for?
[00:32:06] Technology first and foremost, I don't know who said this was that IBM or
[00:32:12] somebody said first and foremost, every business in today's world is a technology
[00:32:18] company. Now tell me what else you do.
[00:32:21] It doesn't matter what business you're in.
[00:32:22] We have in the last seven or eight years
[00:32:25] invested almost 30 million dollars in our technology platform, which positions
[00:32:32] our franchise owners to be very different and much better than their
[00:32:37] competition in the field.
[00:32:38] And I'll give you a small example.
[00:32:40] So a small example would would be number one, operational efficiencies.
[00:32:44] You'd expect that.
[00:32:45] But but number two would be going to market in today's world, the younger buyer
[00:32:50] really wants to be able to buy online.
[00:32:52] They don't necessarily want to see salespeople like people did back in my day.
[00:32:57] And so they want what's called a company store where a business can create
[00:33:02] a store of all of the items they use, all the printing, all the promotional
[00:33:06] products, especially in if they have multiple locations or in today's world
[00:33:11] with the distributed workforce because so many people are now working from
[00:33:14] home, how can they communicate either to their own internal teams?
[00:33:20] What are all of the resources that we have in printing and promotional products?
[00:33:24] But also some of them want to have B2C stores, business to customer stores
[00:33:30] where sometimes like in the craft brewery business, we have a number of craft
[00:33:34] brewers that are customers.
[00:33:37] They want to be able to sell their branded item to raving fans.
[00:33:40] You know, the the mugs or the branded beer boxes or the wearables, etc.
[00:33:48] And so our technology, so we have a technology platform called Provision.
[00:33:53] That's the business management and operating system.
[00:33:57] And then we have ProStores, which is the company store program.
[00:34:03] And today we have almost 10,000 stores and growing rapidly because that's
[00:34:08] how businesses want to do business.
[00:34:10] So does the business have the technology to empower efficiencies?
[00:34:15] Number two, what's their brand like in the marketplace?
[00:34:20] Do they have a brand and a name that's going to help pay some of those service
[00:34:25] fees that's going to help drive you business?
[00:34:28] But then more importantly, do they have an operating system
[00:34:33] that really helps get rid of the speed bumps?
[00:34:36] Because starting a business on your own and all alone,
[00:34:39] you set it right up front about all of the ups and downs.
[00:34:43] I don't remember the words you use, but I like it.
[00:34:46] There's just a whole lot of mistakes you're going to make.
[00:34:48] And it's worth a lot of money to avoid those mistakes.
[00:34:51] So so does a business really offer a proven operating system and management
[00:34:56] system to maximize efficiencies and profits?
[00:34:59] That makes a whole lot of sense.
[00:35:01] Now, you brought up the issue of competition.
[00:35:04] I'd love to talk about that a little because it seems to me you're in a
[00:35:07] space where there is a lot of competition and that's probably grown a lot over the years.
[00:35:14] So how do you think about competition?
[00:35:16] And what do you do at what are some of the lessons you've learned at Proforma
[00:35:22] about setting your gaining a competitive advantage in a highly competitive marketplace?
[00:35:30] Yeah, so
[00:35:32] in our industry, there's zero barriers to entry.
[00:35:35] Anybody, well, I proved it right for $200.
[00:35:39] We could become a distributor, right?
[00:35:41] So now we're ready for the world to close the doors.
[00:35:45] But in today's world, really, if a distributor wants to sell to medium
[00:35:51] size and large businesses, they really can't survive and thrive on their own and all alone.
[00:35:58] They need a proven technology platform because those businesses, like I said,
[00:36:03] they want that technology in their own business.
[00:36:08] And some of those require some of those businesses require
[00:36:13] security levels that require hundreds of thousands of dollars of investment a year
[00:36:18] just for us to maintain the licenses that we have for the security levels.
[00:36:23] I know you guys have a technology security cyber tech.
[00:36:27] Yes. Yeah, yeah, there.
[00:36:29] So
[00:36:31] yeah, but but there'll always be that small distributor that's part time that's happy
[00:36:37] to get reorder notices from salons, hair salons or something that, you know,
[00:36:41] they'll never go away.
[00:36:42] But for for people that want to really get larger,
[00:36:47] our competition is quickly gravitating towards one of a handful of companies like
[00:36:52] Proforma that aggregate, if you will.
[00:36:54] Today, Proforma really isn't even a startup or a green field
[00:36:59] or a franchise or what when people think of franchising, they typically think of,
[00:37:03] OK, I don't know the business.
[00:37:05] I want to go find a business so I can buy the business and they'll teach me the
[00:37:09] business. That's who we were in the beginning.
[00:37:11] And we still have an opportunity for people that want that, but it's not a
[00:37:14] franchise. They have to start out as what's called an affiliate.
[00:37:18] The only franchises we recruit today are our competition that are doing a
[00:37:22] thousand a billion, excuse me, a million dollars a year or more
[00:37:26] that want to join us because they need to go from a million dollars a year to
[00:37:32] three to five million dollars a year.
[00:37:35] And so that's called a conversion
[00:37:37] franchisor and conversion franchising was invented by or developed by the
[00:37:44] like Century 21 in the real estate franchises where you needed to be in
[00:37:49] the real estate business to become a franchisee of the real estate franchises.
[00:37:53] And that's who we are today.
[00:37:54] We're a conversion franchise.
[00:37:56] So our competition actually are our prospects.
[00:38:00] So we have to be a little careful in that we always like to win in the marketplace.
[00:38:05] And in fact, sometimes we'll get inquiries from prospects.
[00:38:09] So say I just lost an account to one of your people.
[00:38:12] I need to talk about joining you.
[00:38:14] Yeah. But they'll always be competition.
[00:38:18] And I think it helps keep us on our toes.
[00:38:20] It helps keep us keen.
[00:38:21] It helps keep us mostly helping our franchise owners win the battle with the
[00:38:27] competition in their market.
[00:38:29] That's that's, you know, I think that's good advice.
[00:38:31] I mean, you have to know your competition, right?
[00:38:33] You have to understand.
[00:38:35] But I think it's really fascinating to see the transition that your company has
[00:38:39] taken over the years from being independent, taking on in a certain type
[00:38:45] of franchise or training and bringing a lot of people into the industry.
[00:38:50] And now as a leader in the industry, being the kind of company that a lot of other,
[00:38:56] a lot of your competitors would like to become a part of.
[00:39:00] So I have to ask you a couple of questions about the way you built your company.
[00:39:05] You know, a lot of startups are big on energy, but like you in the early years
[00:39:12] didn't have a whole lot of money to invest.
[00:39:14] Have you funded your business primarily through growth and customers?
[00:39:19] Or have you have you taken on investors over the over time?
[00:39:24] Have you used bank loans?
[00:39:27] I mean, what have you learned about financing and funding that you could share?
[00:39:31] Yeah, I'm big on bootstrapping now.
[00:39:34] We're not a technology company.
[00:39:36] We're not trying to compete with Facebook.
[00:39:37] So I think raising money early on has its place, but it didn't have its place
[00:39:43] for us, at least I didn't think so.
[00:39:46] When I talk with aspiring entrepreneurs,
[00:39:48] I try to get them to hold on to as much of the pieces of the pie as they can.
[00:39:53] And I think in today's world, I talk to people that are in the technology world.
[00:39:57] And even in the technology world, the money people really aren't chasing great ideas.
[00:40:02] They're really chasing proven concepts that have cash flow.
[00:40:06] The days of buying things for multiples of sales, I think are dead at least for a while.
[00:40:12] Now, yeah, we got a bank loan pretty easily because it was an asset based loan,
[00:40:18] meaning a bank would say, OK, so you have a receivable.
[00:40:23] You went and sold something to a customer.
[00:40:26] The customer owes you $1,000.
[00:40:28] Let's use a thousand dollars and you owe the supplier
[00:40:32] sixty five hundred dollars or six hundred and fifty dollars in our world.
[00:40:38] Right.
[00:40:39] So and customers typically pay us a little slower than our suppliers want to get paid,
[00:40:46] especially if they're offering a prepay discount like two, ten, two percent off
[00:40:52] the invoice if you pay in 10 days, three percent, etc.
[00:40:57] So we found a bank in the early days that would do something called asset based
[00:41:01] and they would loan 80 percent.
[00:41:03] I think it was 80 percent of the accounts receivable that we had.
[00:41:06] And that's pretty easy for a B to B business to go get.
[00:41:09] An asset based loan.
[00:41:12] As long as you have other good operating
[00:41:15] efficiencies in your business and profitability.
[00:41:18] But somewhere along the way, when I bought out my partner,
[00:41:23] Rebecca, the bank said, Greg, you're using our asset based loan to pay your
[00:41:30] partner out and we don't like that.
[00:41:33] Really, I didn't I didn't realize at a time because I don't know if I've ever
[00:41:36] read a bank agreement.
[00:41:37] I'm sales and marketing, but anyhow,
[00:41:41] they said you need to go you really need to go find an investor and or we're going
[00:41:45] to kick you out of the bank.
[00:41:47] And and and they say it nicely at first,
[00:41:50] but when a bank kicks you out, it's never pretty.
[00:41:53] The workout department is never nice.
[00:41:55] They just don't tell you about that.
[00:41:57] They don't teach that in college.
[00:41:59] Anyhow, so a friend of mine from the International Franchise
[00:42:04] Association and the board of directors was Fred DeLuca.
[00:42:08] Now, most people don't know who he is or was.
[00:42:11] He was the founder of Subway and he and I became good friends.
[00:42:15] And
[00:42:17] we would hang out after board meetings and he'd always say, hey, Greg,
[00:42:21] you need an investor?
[00:42:22] And I'd always say no.
[00:42:25] And then I found out I needed an investor.
[00:42:28] So I called up Fred and I said, hey, Fred, remember when you used to want
[00:42:31] to be an investor?
[00:42:33] I said, I think we needed an investor.
[00:42:34] And so yeah, many, many years ago, Fred, who also had a partner,
[00:42:40] they're both past a family friend called Pete Buck and I won't get into the whole
[00:42:44] story, but the whole history of Subway is fascinating.
[00:42:47] But Fred and Pete both have passed now.
[00:42:50] But so there was a period of time where Fred had an investment in in pro forma.
[00:42:55] Yeah.
[00:42:56] Well, that's that is a very cool story.
[00:42:59] And it's a reminder of the importance of networking, right?
[00:43:02] You just never know.
[00:43:03] You never know.
[00:43:04] You never know.
[00:43:05] And I'm a fan too, like you, of bootstrapping.
[00:43:09] I think it's especially in the early years,
[00:43:12] you know, because once you bring in a partner, it totally changes the dynamic
[00:43:17] of everything, an investor changes the dynamic.
[00:43:20] But again, just a great lesson in there, I think about how things can
[00:43:24] change quickly and the importance of networking.
[00:43:29] And sometimes I think there's a saying your network is your net worth or something
[00:43:35] like that, so it can be really, really powerful and helpful.
[00:43:39] So you've had, I'm sure, some failures along the way.
[00:43:45] You've been tremendously successful.
[00:43:47] But most successful people I talked to, perhaps all of them,
[00:43:52] have had something along the way that didn't work out the way they expected.
[00:43:56] And so I'm really curious, you know, resilience, I think, and perseverance is
[00:44:02] a big part of the entrepreneurial stories that I hear.
[00:44:07] And so I'm curious about your own experiences along the way.
[00:44:11] Do you have any stories or anything you would share?
[00:44:14] Any words of wisdom about dealing with
[00:44:17] those kinds of situations where you basically things didn't work out,
[00:44:23] are you out and out failed at something?
[00:44:25] Yeah.
[00:44:27] The first significant failure was when it was time for us to try to expand beyond
[00:44:33] Cleveland, Ohio, and at the time I thought, well, let's go get open up
[00:44:39] other sales offices in other towns.
[00:44:42] And Columbus, Ohio is probably the nearest significant
[00:44:47] size town that we would want to be in.
[00:44:51] So in 1984, we invested some time and money
[00:44:57] placing ads or whatever, however we did it and driving to Columbus and interviewing
[00:45:02] candidates and on our third visit to Columbus, Ohio, to hire the person that
[00:45:08] we finally decided was the perfect person to open up our first sales office,
[00:45:14] remote sales office.
[00:45:16] And we got down there and
[00:45:20] sat down with him and he said, you know, guys, I know you're here because you want
[00:45:25] to talk about making me this job offer, but I thought about it and thought about it.
[00:45:28] And the more I thought about it, the more I want to be like you.
[00:45:31] And I want to start my own distributorship.
[00:45:35] I thought, well, that's terrible.
[00:45:37] That's failure.
[00:45:39] That sounded like failure to me.
[00:45:40] And I thought, good gravy, this big we're going to open up our first sales
[00:45:46] office and this is the first of who knows what because I've always had big dreams,
[00:45:50] Rebecca, you know me.
[00:45:53] And yet I reflected on, well, that's interesting.
[00:45:57] Now, this young man, he's about our age, but he wants to be like us.
[00:46:02] He wants to own his own business.
[00:46:03] And that caused me to think,
[00:46:06] hmm, how could we have used our infrastructure?
[00:46:10] Wasn't that much of it.
[00:46:12] But how could we have used our infrastructure to have offered him the
[00:46:15] opportunity to own his own business with us instead of becoming a salesperson?
[00:46:21] And the more I remaned it on that,
[00:46:24] the more I thought about that, the more the thought of franchising came to me.
[00:46:29] And so it was actually from that failure, if you want to call it that,
[00:46:34] that the concept of franchising was given birth.
[00:46:38] So sometimes good things can come from failures.
[00:46:41] If we think about, hmm,
[00:46:45] what am I learning from that?
[00:46:47] Because of everything's really in our own best interest.
[00:46:50] And I do think that it doesn't have to even be a spiritual thing.
[00:46:53] I just think that everything that happens to us happens for us to learn
[00:46:57] something from.
[00:46:58] So I learned from that.
[00:46:59] Now there are other failures surely along the way.
[00:47:02] We tried to start an internet company and like everybody was in the dot com craze.
[00:47:07] And we lost a couple of million dollars doing that along the way.
[00:47:11] We've, you know, we've lost to some competitors in some big accounts or
[00:47:17] people have chosen to join some of our competitors instead of us.
[00:47:22] But yeah, I listen, my parents used to,
[00:47:25] my parents, they were pretty disciplinary and they used to spank me.
[00:47:29] And that was a different day in age too.
[00:47:32] You know, that and my mom and dad used to say, you know,
[00:47:35] spanking don't mean anything to you.
[00:47:37] Spankings go off, you like water goes off a duck's ass.
[00:47:42] And
[00:47:43] it came a day many years later where I thanked my parents for the spankings
[00:47:48] because I said, you know something
[00:47:51] they taught me, they just taught me to not let anything affect me like so much
[00:47:57] the water off a duck's ass.
[00:47:59] Like bad things happen, shake it off, move on.
[00:48:03] And I think that resiliency sort of, I'm not an advocate for spanking children.
[00:48:09] I'm not saying that, but I'm just saying I learned some resiliency from that.
[00:48:13] Yeah.
[00:48:14] So I think you know what I totally agree.
[00:48:17] And what I think I'm hearing is in all of your stories is this common theme
[00:48:22] of what can I learn from this and sort of reframing it in a way that and an
[00:48:29] acceptance of it, that there is something I can learn from this.
[00:48:33] And there's some value there.
[00:48:34] And maybe even I'm better off because things turned out this way than the way
[00:48:39] that I had originally wanted.
[00:48:41] So I think that's absolutely.
[00:48:42] Yeah, that's all great advice.
[00:48:44] It's really hard when we're going through it.
[00:48:47] But it's all also retrospectively.
[00:48:50] I think we can see it.
[00:48:51] I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, hopefully that's comforting as they're
[00:48:56] dealing with some of the challenges they deal with.
[00:48:59] So you know, you've hired and managed and led a lot of people through your years.
[00:49:07] So what's your take on people and people management?
[00:49:15] And how do you think about about how do you find the best people and how do you?
[00:49:21] You know, what advice would you give for someone who wants to be maybe
[00:49:25] recognized or hired or maybe the chosen one in a situation when they're
[00:49:33] selling a product?
[00:49:36] Well, we are what we were trying to hire salespeople.
[00:49:39] We're always looking for people with a book of business that didn't like
[00:49:41] where they were working at.
[00:49:43] But I have to be honest with you.
[00:49:45] I'm not a good manager.
[00:49:46] Now, that might come as a surprise to some people.
[00:49:49] I'm an entrepreneur.
[00:49:51] I'm a startup guy.
[00:49:53] I'm brave.
[00:49:54] I'll do things other people would never even dream of thinking about doing.
[00:49:59] But somewhere along the way, I have to tell you,
[00:50:02] I went through a terrible divorce and
[00:50:06] in, I guess it was about the late 90s or I don't really,
[00:50:12] I get there years and about 25 years ago.
[00:50:15] I met my now wife, who's very smart.
[00:50:19] She comes out of the world of investment banking and
[00:50:23] she ran half billion dollar portfolios for the bank at the time.
[00:50:28] Comeric, if you remember that name, and also investment banking.
[00:50:31] And eventually we convinced her to come to Proforma.
[00:50:34] And I always say I created a critical mess and she turned it into a critical mass.
[00:50:41] And so somewhere along the way, I was lucky enough
[00:50:44] to have my wife, who's a great manager, come to the company and help manage the company.
[00:50:51] I'm not a manager.
[00:50:52] I'm not a process person.
[00:50:54] I'm not this one reports to that one.
[00:50:57] Then they report to that one.
[00:50:58] Hey, whatever you need done, call them up and get it done.
[00:51:00] And that worked when we were smaller
[00:51:03] and entrepreneurial. It doesn't work in today's world.
[00:51:05] So sometimes people need to look at themselves and say, am I a manager?
[00:51:10] Because if I'm not, maybe I need to go hire a manager and do what I do best.
[00:51:14] What I do best is sales.
[00:51:16] I love to this day, I still love, I still deal from time to time with some
[00:51:21] of our prospects and I love that piece of the business.
[00:51:24] So I don't know.
[00:51:25] I guess people just have to look in the mirror and say, what am I good at
[00:51:30] themselves about trying to be a manager?
[00:51:33] And then for employees, I don't have a lot of advice because I don't.
[00:51:38] I don't deal in that world anymore.
[00:51:40] I'm so removed from it that I don't, I really don't need.
[00:51:43] I don't understand today's people coming into the workforce.
[00:51:47] I hear some of the stories.
[00:51:49] I hear some of the stories from our managers.
[00:51:51] I kind of like the remote workforce.
[00:51:54] I read things in the Wall Street Journal where people don't like it.
[00:51:57] I like it for our people and it seems to be working.
[00:52:00] But in general, I don't have a lot of advice about around hiring people
[00:52:04] because I don't do it.
[00:52:05] That's I think there's so much wisdom in that.
[00:52:07] And you're right, figuring out what we're good at and then
[00:52:11] surrounding ourselves with people that are do
[00:52:16] you know that and I think, you know, that that can fill in the gaps.
[00:52:20] So that's that's great advice, I think.
[00:52:23] Well, Greg, this has been a delight.
[00:52:25] I'm sure we could talk for hours, but I know I want to respect your time.
[00:52:30] And, you know, I always end these
[00:52:32] episodes by asking my guests what would be there.
[00:52:36] You've already given us a lot of great advice, but what would be one piece of advice
[00:52:40] that you would give someone who's in the early stages of starting a company
[00:52:47] or an aspiring entrepreneur?
[00:52:49] What would what's that one piece of advice?
[00:52:51] Maybe something you would have liked to have known before you got you got started.
[00:52:56] Yeah, I think I knew it, but I didn't know the words.
[00:52:59] But I know this thoughts become things,
[00:53:04] thoughts become things.
[00:53:05] And it's not something we learn when we're in school, but the power of positive
[00:53:09] thinking, the power of the law of attraction, the power of vibration.
[00:53:14] And we attract and that we attract to ourselves.
[00:53:18] Those things that we think about
[00:53:21] is I see it happen every day in my life and in life of so many people.
[00:53:26] And if I had any advice to share, it would be take a little time to study
[00:53:30] the law of attraction, take a little bit of time to study the law of positive
[00:53:35] thinking and those books, Rebecca, as you know so well, go back to the early 1900s.
[00:53:42] So take some time to understand the power of what goes on up here.
[00:53:46] Because if we have 60,000 thoughts a day,
[00:53:49] we want to try to make sure that those thoughts are working as hard for us
[00:53:54] as we're working for ourselves.
[00:53:56] That is fantastic advice.
[00:53:58] I love it and you're right.
[00:54:00] It's it's it's wisdom that's been around forever,
[00:54:03] but it's wisdom that we need reminded of on a regular basis.
[00:54:07] So thank you for sharing that, Greg.
[00:54:09] Where can our listeners find out more about you or connect with you and find
[00:54:15] out about pro forma?
[00:54:17] I'm on LinkedIn and there aren't a whole lot of Mozzello's.
[00:54:22] I will they you could put up my if you want, you could put up my my name and my email.
[00:54:28] Greg, gregat pro forma dot com and we are at pro forma dot com.
[00:54:35] And if there's anything I could ever do in the world of helping people with a
[00:54:40] little bit of feedback or advice as you well know, Rebecca, I enjoy doing.
[00:54:45] Yes, yes, you are definitely paying it forward.
[00:54:47] So thank you, Greg.
[00:54:48] Appreciate your time today and looking forward to as we were talking before
[00:54:54] we started to having you on campus soon.
[00:54:56] So thank you again and appreciate you joining me today.
[00:55:00] Thank you.
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[00:55:10] Thank you so much for listening to this episode of In Factor.