The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt"

Escaping the Drift hosted by John Gafford delves deep into the entrepreneurial journey of Robert Eisenstadt, the proprietor of Property Pros—a thriving pressure washing business. Released on May 6, 2025, this episode offers a raw and insightful exploration of Robert's path from overcoming personal tragedies to building a successful business. Below is a comprehensive summary capturing the essence of their conversation.

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1. Introduction to Robert Eisenstadt

John Gafford introduces Robert Eisenstadt, highlighting his role as the owner of Property Pros, a pressure washing business. Contrary to what listeners might assume, Robert didn't start by cleaning driveways but aimed for larger commercial projects right from the onset.

Quote:

“You went right for the big stuff, right off the box.” [00:30]

2. Robert's Early Life and Personal Struggles

Robert shares his tumultuous upbringing, marked by significant loss and trauma. Moving from Chicago to Las Vegas at the age of eight due to his aunt's illness, Robert faced the heartbreaking demise of close family members and friends during his teenage years. These experiences profoundly impacted him, leading to deep-seated trauma and challenges in his personal life.

Quotes:

“When I was 17 years old, my best friend... committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.” [03:57]

“Less than a year later, my other closest friend died on a street bike...” [04:21]

3. Early Entrepreneurial Ventures

From a young age, Robert exhibited a keen interest in making money, starting with selling marijuana in his early teens. Despite his initial ventures being illegal, his drive for financial stability led him to various jobs, including working at Del Taco and serving as a tour guide for zip lines in Boulder City. His inability to conform to traditional employment structures pushed him further into entrepreneurship.

Quotes:

“I started selling weed at 14, 15 years old.” [07:07]

“My first job was at Del Taco.” [09:37]

4. Transition to Carpet Cleaning Business

Faced with financial pressures and lacking formal education, Robert ventured into the carpet cleaning industry. Although his initial efforts didn't yield immediate success, persistent door-to-door sales and targeting property management companies gradually stabilized his income.

Quotes:

“I called my ex who was at my house that night... and found out my dad passed away.” [11:36]

“I went broke paying him, and it was basically either shut down my business and go get a job...” [19:00]

5. Scaling and Diversification

Robert expanded his services beyond carpet cleaning by adding pressure washing, painting, drywall, and tile repairs. This diversification aimed to be a one-stop solution for property maintenance, catering primarily to commercial clients like gas stations, retail centers, and hospitals.

Quotes:

“I started learning, started learning... working myself to death.” [22:45]

“We added holiday lights... seasonal, ton of fun.” [29:03]

6. Financial Challenges and Lessons Learned

Despite revenue growth, Robert encountered significant financial mismanagement, leading to monthly losses of around $20,000. The lack of understanding in running a business efficiently, particularly in managing expenses and cash flow, underscored the importance of proper financial oversight.

Quotes:

“I lost $20,000 a month and I had absolutely no idea.” [23:42]

“A CPA, hiring a good CPA and a good bookkeeper to reconcile my books does wonders.” [25:49]

7. The Importance of Compartmentalization and Hiring

Recognizing the need for structured financial management, Robert compartmentalized his revenue streams, identifying profitable areas and eliminating unproductive ones. He emphasized the critical role of hiring the right people, utilizing platforms like HireBus to find suitable candidates, ensuring that every team member fit their designated roles perfectly.

Quotes:

“I'm failing forward, which I've done in quite a few businesses myself.” [26:10]

“Nothing will sink your business faster than having the wrong people in the wrong seat.” [35:21]

8. Embracing Technology and AI

Both hosts discuss the transformative role of AI, particularly ChatGPT, in personal and business life. John shares how he uses ChatGPT as a multi-functional assistant for nutrition and workout planning, while Robert highlights its utility in creating personal and business assistants to streamline operations.

Quotes:

“ChatGPT is my trainer. It is my nutritionist. It's everything.” [43:44]

“I built out two different personal assistants... a life personal assistant and a business assistant.” [45:53]

9. Overcoming Health Challenges with Resilience

John opens up about his struggle with trigeminal neuralgia, a debilitating neurological condition, while Robert shares his diagnosis of multiple sclerosis shortly after the birth of his son. Both emphasize resilience and the importance of maintaining focus despite health setbacks, turning adversity into motivation for personal and professional growth.

Quotes:

“I still went to the gym this morning. I still made it here this morning.” [38:24]

“It's happening again right now... I'm still gonna go work my ass off today.” [37:41]

10. Future Plans and Business Growth

Looking ahead, Robert discusses plans to further scale Property Pros by introducing tiered technician platforms, allowing for exponential growth through systematic training and expansion. He also mentions branching into residential markets with services like holiday lighting, aiming to diversify income streams while maintaining core services.

Quotes:

“We have different tiered technician platforms... it's literally just like multiplying.” [29:54]

“We've been building all these crazy different systems to help us scale.” [29:03]

11. Final Insights and Encouragement

The episode concludes with mutual encouragement between John and Robert, emphasizing the importance of perseverance, continual learning, and leveraging technology to overcome challenges. Robert's journey exemplifies the essence of Escaping the Drift, inspiring listeners to take proactive steps toward entrepreneurial success despite personal and professional obstacles.

Quotes:

“You can choose to be a depressed junkie... or you could choose to go make something in the world.” [16:14]

“You can never have success or excuses, but you can't have both.” [40:54]

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Key Takeaways

1. Resilience in Adversity: Personal tragedies and health challenges can either derail one’s progress or become catalysts for growth, depending on the individual's perspective.
2. Financial Acumen is Crucial: Understanding and managing finances is pivotal in scaling a business successfully.
3. Strategic Diversification: Expanding services can open new revenue streams but requires careful management to avoid financial pitfalls.
4. Leveraging Technology: Tools like ChatGPT can significantly enhance personal productivity and business operations when utilized effectively.
5. Importance of Right Personnel: Hiring the right people for the right roles ensures efficient business operations and prevents potential setbacks.
6. Continuous Learning: Embracing failures as learning opportunities fosters long-term success and adaptability in business ventures.

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For those inspired by Robert Eisenstadt’s journey and seeking actionable insights to transform their entrepreneurial dreams into reality, this episode of Escaping the Drift is a must-listen. Dive into the story of resilience, strategic growth, and the relentless pursuit of excellence.

Transcript

[Robert Einstein]

Chatgpt starting to be a game changer for me, bro. I like crazy.

[John Gafford]

I use it every day.

[Robert Einstein]

Have you built out? Well, you have a bunch, but have you built out, like your own personal assistants?

[John Gafford]

Oh, dude, I have nutritionists. I have my, my, my chat gbt. I have a nutritionist on there that knows my macros and everything I want to eat. It's like I used to track all my macros on my fitness pound stuff. Now I just take pictures of what I'm eating and it automatically tracks the macros. And then towards the end of the day, if I, like, need to hit a certain, like, level of stuff, I take a picture of what's in my fridge and I take a picture of my pantry and it tells me what to what. And now, escaping the Drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm John Gafford and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along, escape the drift. And it's time to start right now. Back again, back again for another episode of the podcast that gets you from where you are to where you want to go. And, man, you know, it's kind of in vogue right now and I keep hearing a lot of it. And it's thanks to people like Cody Sanchez that are talking about buying businesses and doing these things. And there is so much money in home based businesses. And I'm talking about not home based businesses necessarily. Home services business is what I meant to say. Home base would be like selling Amway home services businesses. Is there so much money? So I said to myself, I want to have somebody home services on. I've had some, some of the greats on through here. Tommy Mello's been through here. You know, just some of the greats have been through. But I wanted to get. It's kind of hard if you're starting out to listen to a dude like Tommy Mello that's banging out, you know, $200 million. And I said, let's get somebody that's doing extremely well, that's a little closer to the starting line than the finish line and get a little bit different perspective for you. If you're out there listening, thinking, I want to start a business. And even if it's not a home services business, if you're just getting started in business, I wanted to hear kind of some of the lessons because this dude's doing it well, man. He has gone really fast to something that you know, you would hear and say, that's a little silly. Into a real businessman that's doing well. So. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the program. This is Robert Einstein.

[Robert Einstein]

Thanks for having me.

[John Gafford]

How are you, buddy?

[Robert Einstein]

I'm doing good.

[John Gafford]

He's Iron City in German. We just learned. That's what we learned. He is the proprietor of Property Pros, which is a pressure washing business. And I know you're thinking this dude's out doing people's driveways and is that where it started?

[Robert Einstein]

No, actually, no.

[John Gafford]

You went right for the big stuff, right of the box.

[Robert Einstein]

It kind of fell in my lap. I started with ch. Gas stations.

[John Gafford]

Okay.

[Robert Einstein]

But I started my business as a carpet cleaning business.

[John Gafford]

So you started that. Let's go back up a little bit because, you know, most great entrepreneurs are, I like to think, the nature versus nurture. And most of them are made, not born. It is what it is. So tell me about you growing up, dude.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah. So I was born in Chicago, Illinois, middle class household. Dad was always at work, mom stayed at home. When I was eight years old, we moved to Vegas because my aunt was starting to get sick, my dad's sister, so we moved out to Vegas. Both of my parents were. They sold shoes, so they worked at Nordstrom literally my entire life. We moved out to Vegas and it was just kind of like this crazy roller coaster of death since as soon as we moved here, his sister died, all my cousins started dying and then all of my friends started dying and this is like over like a.

[John Gafford]

How.

[Robert Einstein]

I don't really remember how my aunt passed away or my cousins passed away. Probably heart attacks or something.

[John Gafford]

How did your friends start dying?

[Robert Einstein]

So, yeah, so When I was 17 years old, my best friend growing up, it was the first person I met when I moved to Vegas. He committed suicide by a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head. I was with him three hours before and I found him two minutes after he shot himself. He did it in our neighborhood park.

[John Gafford]

Oh my gosh.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah, Me, my ex girlfriend, his mom and his sister found him. And at 17 years old, it was like extremely gory. It really messed me up for a long time. I mean, I couldn't walk in the dark alone for six months. I mean, I could still to this day like picture his shoes were set perfectly, what he was wearing. Like I could picture everything. It was very traumatic.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, it's terrible.

[Robert Einstein]

Less than a year later, my other closest friend died on a street bike. He hit a city of Henderson vehicle. A city Henderson vehicle pulled out, he hit the B or he hit, he t boned the car, went through the windshield, hit the B pillar, which. The B pillar is where like your seat belt comes out.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

Broke almost every single bone on his body. De gloved his arm. So basically his arm got skinned. By the time I got there, I saw his bike on the ground. I was like the second person there. His shoes, all that stuff. Went to the hospital. By the time I got to his to the hospital, his nose was completely flush with his face. It was crazy. There was like blood all over the hospital room. It was nuts.

[John Gafford]

Oh, God.

[Robert Einstein]

He. He died, I think twice on the way to the hospital. And then obviously, you know, there was.

[John Gafford]

It's a lot for a kid to take in.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah. And then I think a few months later, another good friend of mine overdosed. The other closest person I grew up with also overdosed. All these people were getting into drugs and doing all these crazy stuff and.

[John Gafford]

Is that never really your thing? No, never your thing.

[Robert Einstein]

Not really. I mean, everybody's tried stuff or whatever, you know, but I don't think I really have a super addictive personality. Yeah, so would you.

[John Gafford]

Were you a good student?

[Robert Einstein]

No, dude, I was horrible. I hated school. I. I hated school. I was getting in fights all the time because I was getting bullied, which is so funny too. Like, all the people that get bullied in school always end up doing well in life. And then all the bullies, like I got in a fight in my high school locker room or whatever. Some dude was drawing a swastika on my locker. I ran and tackled him or whatever, got in a fight, got suspended, got kicked out of school, whatever. And you know, he ended up passing away. I don't know from what. Probably a drug overdose.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, dude, I, I tell my kids all the time they don't have a lot. My kids don't have a lot of trouble at school, but every now and again you'll have somebody that does. You know, kids are terrible. All of your anti bullying stuff like school not working kids are still terrible. They will always be terrible. They're just terrible. And when my kids deal with something that's just dumb, I always tell them, like, here's the truest thing over here, the people that are giving you the most grief, this is the highlight of their life. They're like 17 years old and this is it. Like they're the ones 30 years from now. Are they, are they going to be going to every high school reunion? Reliving the glory days, baby. And it's going to be like, yeah, so don't worry about it. Right. Coming up. If that's something that's happening to your kids, just always remind them of that. I love that.

[Robert Einstein]

I mean, those people are just struggling so much internally.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

They don't know how to deal with their emotions.

[John Gafford]

What has nothing to do with. With you. It has to do with their shortcomings is what it is. No, Nobody ever tries to. Nobody ever hates down. You know what I mean? They always try to pull the people they perceive above them down. So that's how it works. What was the first hustle for Money, man.

[Robert Einstein]

Selling weed. But, dude, I wasn't smoking it. I was just selling it. I just. I've always wanted money. Like, I was the kid that, you know, like, again, we did okay.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

We had a roof over our head. We had food on our table, but.

[John Gafford]

If you wanted, you had to go get it.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah. Like, we didn't have extra money.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

And so, like, I see all my friends with bikes and, you know, all this stuff. Growing up, I didn't get that we had toys. It just wasn't always the best. And I've just always wanted the best. And so as soon as I could, dude, I probably started selling pot at 14, 15 years old. And then I turned into the guy that started paying for everybody to do everything because I wanted people around me and, you know, whatever, until I got too big for my bridges and learned a lot of lessons. So that was kind of like my first hustle.

[John Gafford]

Did you voluntarily leave the industry or was there an invitation? Was there intervention?

[Robert Einstein]

I learned a lot about finances at that point, too. Like, I was getting fronted, what it was called, you know?

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

And I spent some money on a street bike that I shouldn't have spent. And then there was threats and all this kind of stuff, and I had to, like, go to my pops and be like, hey, man, I need to borrow some money. This is, like, kind of serious. And so he lent me the money, and I was done.

[John Gafford]

Yeah. You know, see, I'm trying to teach my kids about credit a little bit different way than that. They. All my kids carry credit cards and, you know, they charge all the stuff that they want through the course of the month, but on the first of the month, they have to pay for it. And, yeah, if you're short, I'd use some 25% interest or whatever. They're short.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah, dude.

[John Gafford]

And they, you know, you only pay 25% interest a couple of times before, they're like, damn, this sucks.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah.

[John Gafford]

So now it's very much within their Means of what they earn.

[Robert Einstein]

I only use American Express now. Yeah, like the charge cards and that, like the platinum and the gold or whatever for the benefits. But it's a charge card, it's not a credit card. So I paid off at the end of every month.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, dude, if you're not paying your credit cards off every two weeks, you're doing it wrong. Okay, let's talk about this. So. So you obviously didn't excel in. In high school. So there was no college was not necessarily on. On the horizon for you. So what did you. So did you always go out and just write into the carpet cleaning, or do you have a couple terrible jobs where you're terrible?

[Robert Einstein]

I had quite a few jobs. So 11th grade, I got pulled out of school because of my anger problems. In high school, I tested out. I got my ged, my good enough diploma, and I wanted my diploma. I missed one question, didn't get it. So I had to go get a job. My first job was at Del Taco.

[John Gafford]

Okay.

[Robert Einstein]

Yep. And it lasted about a week. I just have. I've never been good with authority, and I. I find that with most entrepreneurs, but I've never been good with authority. Lasted about a week. I quit. I went back to selling weed again.

[John Gafford]

Tried and true.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah, it lasted like a little bit until I ended up getting a job as a photographer for some attractions like up on the stratosphere at the top, the zip lines. Then I became a tour guide for the zip lines. Like the flight lines out in Boulder City. They're closed now. I don't know if you ever got a chance to do it, but it's awesome.

[John Gafford]

The flight lines where? Oh, Boulder City. Yeah. No, I never. I never did.

[Robert Einstein]

It's closed now. But it was. It was really cool. It was a great job. And then I ended up becoming a lot porter at a Ford dealership. And from the lot Porter, I went to a. Like a lube tech pretty quickly. And then from there I went to a service advisor. And the service advisor was the last job I ever had. And by that time. So When I was 20 years old, my parents got divorced. My mom moved to Florida. When I was 21 years old, it was a Saturday, November 8, 2014. I was at work. And that's the day my dad died. So I was 21 years old. I was at work. I got a phone call from his boss. And my dad was always a hard worker. His boss calls me on my cell phone. I didn't even know she had my number. Calls me and goes, hey, your dad never showed up for work today. He's never missed a day in the 30 years. Whatever. Yeah, we're worried about him. I just want to make sure he's okay. And I'm like, that's weird. So I call my ex who was at my house that night because I had work super early, and I was like, hey, is my dad still there? And she goes, I don't know. I already left him. Like, hey, can you please go back to my house and see if my dad is, is still at the house? She pulls up to the house, walks into the house, walks into my dad's bedroom. And she goes, she calls me and she goes, rob, your dad's not waking up. And so it's kind of a blur.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

But Yeah, I called 91 1, didn't say anything to anybody. I left, went home. By the time I got to my house, my house is full of cops and paramedics. And so he suffered his third heart attack and, and passed away in his sleep. Thankfully. He was like, peaceful, you know?

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

And they gave me like four or five days off of work, but it wasn't enough. I mean, it was just me and my dad. He was upside down on his house. I was helping him cover bills and like, so I have all this stress of a funeral where I'm gonna live, like, all this stuff. I tried going back to work for like two days. All I could do is sit in my office and cry. And I'm like, dude, I'm useless here. And they're like, sorry, we need you here. Yeah, I'm like, well, I'm sorry. You could pound sand. I'm done. So I quit and went to Sedona, Arizona for a few days, cleared my head and just told myself, I'll never let anybody tell me what I can and can't do ever again.

[John Gafford]

Dude, it's so interesting because you hear that story, there's a lot of tragedy in that. From the time you were 17 and this terrible stuff you saw and now you're 21 and that so many people, man, would just have gone in the tank at that point. You hear these stories like, well, this is the reason. All of these reasons, all of these. The story is why I'm a complete screw up, Right. You hear this, this is the justification for my behavior in being a drug addict and being self sabotaging behavior that just gets me nowhere. So what is the difference in you? You think that made you take that and use it as fuel instead of as luggage?

[Robert Einstein]

It's just perspective, man. Life is just everything in life is just perspective, Right? Like, you can look at a situation and think, woe is me, or you could just be a victor out of that pain. Right? So it's like I've seen throughout the tragedy, I've realized the main thing is I know that I could die tomorrow. I could die. I could leave this podcast. I could die on the. On the way to my office. Like, I have a very clear understanding of that, right? So it's like, why wouldn't you try. Why wouldn't you try and do something great? Why wouldn't you try and benefit other people's lives? Why wouldn't you try and give your kids everything that you never had? Right? So it's like, yeah, I could sit there in my sorrows, but that does nothing for me. And the thing that I fall back into a lot of times is like, I look at like emotions. Anxiety, depression, and then presence, right? So, like, my perspective of depression is living in the past. Right. My perspective of anxiety is living in the future.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

So happiness comes from the present, and happiness is never a destination.

[John Gafford]

How Buddhist of you.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah, right. Well, I mean, seriously, that's Buddhist philosophy. Yeah. And that's great. You know, I've written some books. I don't. I don't pay attention too much of whatever it comes from or whatever.

[John Gafford]

No, dude, hey, man, whatever works. It's so funny. I say it all the time, but here, man, it's like, you know, you hear things in like, I'll say things even here in the podcast and I'll think, man, that was really profound. And then like, every now and again, I'll tell you a funny story. Every now and again, I'll run into the person that said it first, right? And I'll think like. Like I just. Because it's just if you're a student of life and other people and you listen to what people say and you try to get the most information that you can to better yourself and those around you, there's going to be bleed over of thought process and you can't remember where you heard everything. But I had Ari Meisel on here and a couple weeks ago. Ari's great, dude. He's. He is the master at efficiency. He's like the efficiency master, literally wrote the book on it. And apparently I'd read that book at some point because I was like, here's what I like to do, Ari. I like to, you know, I turned all of the notifications off on all of the apps on my cell phone, so I'm not distracted during the day. And he's like, oh, really? Where'd you hear that? And I'm like, I don't know. Maybe I thought I was about. He's like, or maybe it was chapter three of my book. And I was like, holy shit, that's funny. So. Yeah, dude, but it is, it's true. So listen, I say this. Never apologize for spreading good information, regardless if you don't, don't recall the source. Never apologize.

[Robert Einstein]

Always remain a student, man.

[John Gafford]

That's like, yeah, dude, never apologize for that. That's good stuff. So, yeah, but, but, but again, man, so many people, like, would have. You would have used your story and spiraled the wrong way and you chose to. To say, okay, look, I'm going to make something out of this.

[Robert Einstein]

And that's the key, though.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

Chose.

[John Gafford]

You chose.

[Robert Einstein]

But he has a choice. You could do whatever you want. Like, it's like that old like saying that your parents used to tell you, like, you could do anything you want as long as you put your mind to it. It's true.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

Just have to choose to do it. Like, I could choose to be a depressed junkie and sit on the couch all day and do drugs or I could choose to go make something in the world. Yeah, that's what I choose.

[John Gafford]

I. I'm gonna. Now that we're quoting other people. The movie Young Guns. Dude, as stupid as this is, I always remember there's a scene in Young Guns where Kiefer Sutherland's talking about talk to somebody. Your past is like a paper book novel. When you're done with it, you throw it away and buy a new one. And I think that philosophy of being able to choose what happens next and not wallow in what happened before is really a difference maker for a lot of people.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah.

[John Gafford]

Which is amazing. So back to your story. You decided not to stay in the job that gave you no bereavement time, which is a little crazy to me. Decided not to stay in the job. What was the first choice? Or what? What's your decision process now?

[Robert Einstein]

I was trying to open up a restaurant I wanted to open up. I started with the Capriotti's, but there was no allocation for any locations here in Las Vegas left at that time. So I went to try to open up a Buffalo Wild Wings. You had to have 750k liquid. I didn't have that as a 21 year old kid. I did get $80,000 for life insurance. Most of that went to, like, bills. I ended up getting tattoo done of his Portrait and stuff. And I bought myself a truck. And then I went to a party one night, and I was talking to my buddy, and he goes, dude, you should just start a carpet cleaning business. I work for this guy that does carpet cleaning, and he makes pretty good money. And I was like, absolutely not. I'm not doing that. A week went by, and I was like, I just. I have to start something.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

And so I called him.

[John Gafford]

You felt the wheels starting to kind of sink into the sand.

[Robert Einstein]

I had to do something.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, right. I got to get some. Got to get some forward motion.

[Robert Einstein]

And I tell everybody. I'm like, dude, whatever you start doing, it's probably not going to be what you end up doing. You just got to start. Learn some lessons.

[John Gafford]

You'll.

[Robert Einstein]

You know, you'll adapt and transition.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

And so I called him back up. I said, hey, give me your boss's phone number. Got a hold of him, went and bought, like, a whole truck and truck mount box truck, no air conditioning. And I told my buddy, I said, hey, quit your job. Come. Come teach me how to clean carpet. I'll guarantee you a paycheck of 800 bucks a week, and we'll try and figure this out. That lasted, I don't know, maybe like, seven or eight months until I went broken, because I had no.

[John Gafford]

How'd you go broke?

[Robert Einstein]

I had no money coming in. I didn't know how to run a business. I had no idea what I was doing. So I had, you know, my friends or whatever would pay us to do their house, you know, just to kind of help us out or whatever. But, I mean, I'm knocking doors left and right. Nobody's doing anything. You know, I'm trying to get into apartments, all this stuff. And so it got to a point where it was like, I either need to shut down my business and go get a job.

[John Gafford]

Okay, well, hang on. Let's back up. So let's learn. Let's learn a lesson from this as we go along. So you hired your buddy to teach you how to clean carpets.

[Robert Einstein]

Yep.

[John Gafford]

But cleaning carpets had nothing to do with running a business.

[Robert Einstein]

Right.

[John Gafford]

So you'd have been better off hiring his boss to teach you how to run a business.

[Robert Einstein]

For sure.

[John Gafford]

Because, honestly, the cleaning carpets, you could probably watch a YouTube video, figure that part of it.

[Robert Einstein]

But again, you know, young, dumb, naive.

[John Gafford]

Here's the thing, though. People don't understand that. They think the process or the service or the product is so important, and they don't understand that understanding how to market it, understanding how to run A P. L and run and understanding how to actually make money and cash flow business. That's the value of. Of the knowledge, the product or process can be applied to anything.

[Robert Einstein]

It took me a long time to learn that. Yeah, thankfully I did, by hiring coaches and mentors and all that stuff. But, yeah, so I went broke paying him, and it was basically either shut down my business and go get a job or I have to let him go. Either way, he was. He was losing his job. Yeah, thankfully, he was super cool with it. We're still friends. He just went back to his job that he had previously, and I just started knocking doors as hard as I could.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, because he can always just clean carpets.

[Robert Einstein]

I probably knocked the door here at some point because I was going to real estate and property management companies. My thought process was, how can I get the most amount of work with the least amount of visits as possible? Sure, right. So property management companies, apartment complexes, those kind of things. And so I went, got on with a couple property management companies, started cleaning carpets until I got to like a thousand bucks a day. And I was like, all right, like, I'm doing now. I'm feeling better, I'm doing okay. Like, my bills are paid, whatever. But then, you know, life happens. I had a baby, and then I started going broke again. It wasn't that I was losing business. It's just my, you know, my lifestyle increased. I had a child I had to care for and all this stuff. And so I went to the property, one of the property management companies, and I said, hey, I literally can't pay my rent this month. Do you have any. Anything I could do? And the license, the business license that I had was an R25, which is a handyman license. And it was like, right place, right time. The property management company had a work order sitting on their desk. It was 2200 bucks. And she goes, well, if you have a handyman license, you can go do this job. Our handyman just flaked. I was like, yep, took the work order, went and maxed out my credit card at home depot, got all the materials, worked in that house all night, and made the 2,200 bucks. And I was like, maybe I have something here, you know? So we started working on properties, getting them ready to rent again, you know, you know a lot about.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, sure.

[Robert Einstein]

So going in paint.

[John Gafford]

Property preservation is what your dad's called business is what you're doing.

[Robert Einstein]

So paint, drywall, tile repairs, carpet cleaning. Then we added on maid services. That was a joke. Just anything I can get My hands on, right?

[John Gafford]

And. All right, well, stop for a second because this is another good lesson, right? When you're trying to scale a business, you can go deeper, you can go wide, right? And what that means is to go, let's say you have one thing that you do, you do, let's just call it painting. You're a painter, right? You can either go out and find five, you know, if you're doing a thousand jobs a year painting, the only way to scale is to go out and find 2,000 jobs a year painting. Or you can find out what your customers that you're doing paint for what they also need. And then you can add other trades and other and you can start doing bolt ons that can help them, your existing customer base become a one stop shop. For me, the best way to do that, I don't know what you did, but for me the best way to do that is to find other people that are already doing that business and then say, hey, look, I'll bring business to you, we'll split the fee, we'll split the cost, I'll become the marketing arm. And then when you take over and you become 50% of their total business, well then you say, hey, look, let's become partners. How'd you do it?

[Robert Einstein]

The lesson comes.

[John Gafford]

The lesson comes.

[Robert Einstein]

You gotta trust me. The lesson comes.

[John Gafford]

So we're taking the lumps first, okay? Trust me.

[Robert Einstein]

The lesson comes. All right. My buddy calls me one day and he goes, hey, we fired our pressure washing contractor. Do you want the contract?

[John Gafford]

Sure.

[Robert Einstein]

I went out and bought a $15,000 pressure washer. No idea what I'm doing again. And started cleaning these gas stations. Just started learning. YouTube University definitely helped me that time. Started learning, started learning. So I'm cleaning carpets during the day, working on houses during the day, and then I'm out pressure washing gas stations all night. I'm working myself to death. And fast forward quite a few years this went on a few years. My wife again, I'm so busy, I have no time to pay attention to anything. I'm trying to run all this stuff I have at this time I have probably eight or nine trucks out on the road. We're doing bathroom remodels, all this kind of stuff. My wife goes through my books without me knowing. I was losing $20,000 a month and I had absolutely no idea.

[John Gafford]

Whoa.

[Robert Einstein]

There was so much money coming in and so much money going out. I didn't even know how to read a pnl. Where were you leaking money, materials, fuel. I just, I Just I wasn't running a business efficiently. I was overpaying on labor. Insurance was crazy. There was not just one thing. Right. And so she's like, you need to figure this out fast. But it was. It was like a constant game of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

Credit cards. Right. So, like, everything that I was doing was pretty much on net 30 or net 45. So I'd get paid from those jobs, go pay off my credit card, and then use that credit card to go fund the next job.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

And so it was just that constant game. But there was money coming in, going out all the time. It felt like I had money.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

I didn't. Right. And so just in 2020, end of 2021, we shut everything down to just focus on pressure washing. And this is where that go deep or go wide thing kind of funnels in. Right. I only had that one account, which was, at that time, eight stores, because they had acquired two more. And so it was, like, probably close to $7,000 a month. I was like, okay, I could live off this. Like, I'll figure it out. And so that was three, four years ago. And now.

[John Gafford]

Well, let's take. Well, let's take a look. So you were doing all this stuff because you went. You started going wide with everything that you could do. And did you start. Here's a problem. A lot of people. A lot of people have is they like to take all of their income and dump it in one big bucket and then all of their expenses and dump them one big bucket when they do this. So they don't understand what's actually working and where they're actually getting their money. They don't understand, like, every facet of your business has got to make money, and if it doesn't, you got to get rid of it. And so the problem is people, you know, start dumping all of. All of the revenue from all these different little services into one bucket, and then they don't realize that they're losing money because of this, this, this. And you could cut back, get rid of three of these things, save all of this time, and still be as profitable or more profitable with less headaches. Yeah, that's what I'm doing.

[Robert Einstein]

Cpa. Hiring a good CPA and, like, a good bookkeeper to reconcile my books does wonders. Because now everything is, like, broken out.

[John Gafford]

They started compartmental. Yeah, they started compartmentalizing revenue, didn't they?

[Robert Einstein]

I'm like, oh, yeah, well, yeah. And we have other services now. And I'm like, okay, like, this is what's doing super well. This is what we can adjust.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

So again, just massive learning lessons. But I don't regret any of those.

[John Gafford]

Right.

[Robert Einstein]

Like, I'm super happy that I had all of those fails, all of those lessons, because now I know.

[John Gafford]

Well, you were, you were, you were failing successfully, as I like to say. Forward. Failing forward. Yeah. Like, yeah, I'm failing successfully, which I've done in quite a few business myself. So I get that. That's cool. So when you really drill down now on pressure washing is this is the big, the best bang for the buck of everything you were doing. Which obviously having a good accountant and compartmentalizing these things helped you see that.

[Robert Einstein]

Yep.

[John Gafford]

So you had, you started just with gas stations and now you're like, I need to grow this.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah. How do you grow relationships?

[John Gafford]

Okay.

[Robert Einstein]

Everything is just relationships.

[John Gafford]

Shaking hands and kissing babies.

[Robert Einstein]

Yep. So again, same thing. I didn't want, I don't want to be doing driveways and stuff. So we're a commercial pressure washing business. So we service large industrial complexes, retail shopping centers, grocery stores, gas stations, hospitals, those kinds of areas that need to have that service done on a consistent basis regardless, for two main reasons. Right. So there's cams. You know what cams are? Common area maintenance fees. They're paying that money regardless, somebody is going to do it. It might as well be me. And then there's ADA reasons, you know, coefficient of friction. If, you know, let's say somebody walks outside and slips and falls, there's a thing actually called a tripometer that they can measure the coefficient of friction of your surface outside. And if it's above a 0.8, then you can get sued. You're liable.

[John Gafford]

See, does everyone know that, that it's commercial property?

[Robert Einstein]

No, no, no. We're working on the. Lunch and learns are a big thing. I don't know if people ever try and do lunch and learn to hear for you, but lunch learns are a big thing. That's your time to be able to educate the client. Right. So we're working on framing all this out now and building out the educational portion of our business to where we start educating the client on a deeper level.

[John Gafford]

And dude, I would make my marketing pieces for you just, just brainstorming. Seriously, my marketing pieces would look exactly like the service of a lawsuit. Yeah, that's exactly what it would look like. And it would say like someone slip and fell. Your coefficient or whatever it is on your sidewalks is X or whatever you said it was. And now here's a lawsuit. They're suing you for a million dollars at the bottom of it, I just say. Or you could avoid all of this by having us pressure washer, because literally that'd be like, holy. And now they're reading it and then they get. They might be mad at you, I don't know. But it would definitely get me to read. Read whatever you sent me in the mail.

[Robert Einstein]

It's not the only reason, though. Look at your car.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

Do you want to go to a gas station and step out in some nasty shit, or do you want to, like, you don't have to detail your car after you go to a gas station. Right. Like, you want it to be clean. So again, everything is marketing, and marketing is everything. So it's like you want to be able to attract good clients to your store so they can pump fuel at your store and make you money.

[John Gafford]

Yeah. So now. So, But. But now in that small time, right, Just since you. Since you zeroed in on pressure washing, now it's been four years. You guys are north of seven figures in sales every year. Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah.

[John Gafford]

And relatively still small crew.

[Robert Einstein]

Yep.

[John Gafford]

So what's the plan going forward? How do you scale it? How do you scale from here?

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah. So it's. It's. It's so interesting. I love it. So. Well, number one, we've added holiday lights, which is just fun. Right. That was my way to tap into a residential market. Seasonal, ton of fun. But as far as the pressure washing goes, we've been building all these crazy different systems to help us scale, which we've been building them by hand. Right. So basically we have different tiered technician platforms. Once you get to, like, the third tier, you're able to go out on your own and train another person. So we have two man crews. Once that other person is trained to that third tier, they can go out on their own and add another person. So it's literally just like multiplying. Right. So just separating, adding, separating, adding. Does that make sense?

[John Gafford]

Yeah, separating, adding. Here's the qu. Like, I'm just trying to think of all the ways that if it was me, how do I market my. How do I market my pressure?

[Robert Einstein]

The commercial industry is so much different than the residential industry, man.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, well, I'm saying, but the commercial, like, I. Like, I would maybe have a dude. I would maybe have the name of my company with a stencil, with my phone number, and I'd find a really dirty, like, parking lot or sidewalks in a shopping center, and I would just lay the stencil down the sidewalk and just.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah. We've done that.

[John Gafford]

Just pressure wash and leak by clean out a thing. How, how, how expensive is the equipment to test if that's. If the sidewalks are slippery?

[Robert Einstein]

The tripometer is about 10 grand. I mean, but insurance adjusters are usually the ones that have it.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, but I'm saying. I know, but what if you had it and you could like, hey man, here's a serious risk. If somebody falls out here, you're gonna get sued because here's your numbers. Like I'll give you a free test. Yeah, the free test of the tripometer.

[Robert Einstein]

It's definitely been a thought process. I just haven't pulled the trigger on.

[John Gafford]

All right, no, dude, this is what we do in here, man. I'm just sitting here trying to.

[Robert Einstein]

It's definitely been a thought process, see.

[John Gafford]

Because now I'm thinking I'll get a tripometer, I'll send out there and I'll start sending you leads. And then when my leads become 50% of your business. Oh, Trib. Tribometer. Yeah, sounds better. Tribometer.

[Robert Einstein]

Well, that's why I say.

[John Gafford]

I mean that's really what it should be. I know. So now I'm thinking, see, this is my problem. This conversation right here asked me the other day, they said because I've made a commitment to myself to not go to any of my mastermind groups between now and when my book comes out.

[Robert Einstein]

Why?

[John Gafford]

Because conversations just like this. Because now I'm sitting here thinking about buying a tripometer and going out just generating leads for pressure washing business instead of what I would need to be doing.

[Robert Einstein]

All right, here's what we'll do because.

[John Gafford]

This is how my brain works.

[Robert Einstein]

Here's what we'll do. Go ahead, you do that. Okay, Go generate revenue and then become 50% of my business will become.

[John Gafford]

Need to do that because I need to focus on what I'm doing here. See, this is just so distracting. This is how my brain works. I'm just like, dude, there's a lot of money in this.

[Robert Einstein]

Honestly though, like all jokes aside, service business is. It's never going away. Yeah, it's. I truly enjoy it. I love being able to serve people, serve our clients, right? And it's so easy to just at least now add businesses to it.

[John Gafford]

Well, it is something that like, okay, for example, a friend of mine, buddy, my Todd Haskell. Todd, if you're listening, how you doing? Old friend of mine from back in the day from the restaura recently. And this dude was a lifer in the restaurant business. And I was so happy to See that he had quit, finally got out of it. He was a lifer at, like, managing restaurants. I knew him a million years ago when I worked in corporate restaurants. And he finally got out of the business and started a pressure washing business. And he's just doing residential. And I thought to myself, man, that's great. And how, how rewarding that must be for him after having to deal with a boss his whole life to now he gets to take care of and do whatever he wants to do. And I guarantee just from watching him online, he's making more money than he was making running restaurants. Guaranteed. Probably just doing residential. So, you know, it's. So AI will never replace what you do.

[Robert Einstein]

Nope.

[John Gafford]

Just won't happen. You don't have to worry about Chat GBT taking over the old power washing space, which is awesome.

[Robert Einstein]

Someday. And there's also a big difference between owner, operator.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

Having a business. But I mean, I'm sure you can relate to this. Some days you just want to throw in the towel. You're like this dude. This is a lot.

[John Gafford]

Well, I always say if. If you don't want to quit at least once a week and go work at McDonald's, you're not entrepreneuring hard enough. But here's the thing. But. But okay, I'm gonna hit you with the. Can't clothe the aism. Here it comes. Ready? What would happen to your business if you went out? If you just left for. Walked out the door for six months and didn't call, didn't do anything, just left for six months, what would happen to your business?

[Robert Einstein]

Continue to operate.

[John Gafford]

That's what I'm talking about.

[Robert Einstein]

Absolutely.

[John Gafford]

So you have a company, not a job. A lot of people that own businesses think they own companies when really all they're doing is they're their own boss on a job.

[Robert Einstein]

And you want to know what? Now, for the first time in my life, it would continue to grow as well.

[John Gafford]

It would continue to grow.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah.

[John Gafford]

So you, you made some key hires over the last little bit. Who are the key hires you make?

[Robert Einstein]

Business development managers.

[John Gafford]

Okay.

[Robert Einstein]

Yep. Sales operation managers. Somewhat of an HR spot, I guess.

[John Gafford]

Yeah. How'd you make those hires? How'd you find them?

[Robert Einstein]

I actually, for the operations manager, I went through a platform called Hire Bus. Have you heard of it? So have you ever done, like a personality test?

[John Gafford]

Of course.

[Robert Einstein]

So it's basically a platform. The operations manager cost me 5.5grand. So I pay $5,000. It does all of the ad funnels and hiring for me, basically. So that's included. With my ad spend on like Indeed and ziprecruiter. You put out the job ads, they do all of the pre screening for you, so you only get the finalists. So they do like phone interviews, zoom interviews, all these kind of different questionnaires. They have to do a personality test. It's called a right seat score. So you have to test certain and.

[John Gafford]

They help you come up with what those tests are. Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

And so I get the finalists and then I interview the finalists and that's it.

[John Gafford]

It was five grand to get this done?

[Robert Einstein]

Yep.

[John Gafford]

And the amount of time that you say, dude, the amount of time you would have spent with that is insane. And getting the right person in the right seat is so important.

[Robert Einstein]

So important.

[John Gafford]

Nothing will sink your business faster than having the wrong people in the wrong seat. But let me say I want to shift gears a little bit now because you and I have a similar kind of issue that we deal with. Very different, but the same and both challenging in itself. Which is, for those of you guys that don't know this about me, I suffer from something called trimogenion neuralgia. It is a neurolog disease where for periods of, give or take, six weeks, don't know when they start, don't know when they stop, just shows up, takes off effectively. If the wind blows on the left side of my face, it feels like a taser is touching me. I literally am getting electrocuted on the left side of my face. They call it. I have the suicide ailment is what they call it, is the nickname for it. So yeah, it sucks. And recently, Robert, I know last year we talked about it, but you got diagnosed with a neurological disorder order as well.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah, yeah. So in 2023, end of July of 2023 actually, because my son was born July of 2023. So two weeks after my son was born, I got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

[John Gafford]

Yeah. Because we were on the boat. Yeah, yeah, I remember that. Yeah, yeah, Right before that happened.

[Robert Einstein]

That was actually, I think the day before.

[John Gafford]

Day before.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah. Or no, no, no, the. The day. It was like the day before.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, it was right before.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah, that's crazy. I forgot about that.

[John Gafford]

That was right before.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah, we went surfing on your boat. That was awesome. But yeah, so July of 2023, my son was born. And basically two weeks after he was born, I started losing vision in my right eye. Not losing, but it just went super blurry. And you know, I got diagnosed. Yeah, there's a. There's a long story to that. I don't know if you're trying to get in?

[John Gafford]

No, no, no. Well, no, I mean, the point being is this is. Is, you know, again, it's about what you choose and having this stuff that pops up, you know, you can use it as fuel or you can use it as. As luggage. And it just depends on what you. It's going to go in the trunk or the tank.

[Robert Einstein]

Dude, check this out. So I was in the hospital for six days, right? Spinal taps. They pumped me full of steroids, solumedral. That was the worst part of it. Two days after I got out, I was on a plane to Nashville for a business convention.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, because you just got to keep going.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah.

[John Gafford]

I mean, life's gonna hand you a bunch of weird things, man. You just gotta keep pushing through it.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah. I mean, and, you know, we were just talking before this. It's happening again right now. Like, today's like day two or three where my vision's starting to get super blurry and I have a bunch of pressure in my eye and I'm sure the headaches are on the horizon. You know they're coming. But, dude, like, I still went to the gym this morning. I still made it here this morning. I'm still gonna go work my ass off today. It's just like little speed bumps. They slow you down. They don't stop you. You know what I mean? I don't know. I don't. I don't. I mean, it's a little bit different, right? Like, I deal with fatigue, loss of vision. Sometimes the fatigue is probably the worst for me. You deal with feeling like you have 100 volts in your face.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, it's definitely an interesting thing. But at the same time, I don't. Like, even when it's going on, I don't call in. Like, I'm. I'm still here.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah.

[John Gafford]

I'm still working. I write down. I've. Now I have a note on my phone that explains what's going on. So when I'm out in public and it hits me and I just have to stop for a second and I just show people the note.

[Robert Einstein]

Do you not talk?

[John Gafford]

Oh, do. When it hits me, like. Like, for that 45 seconds, you can't do anything. You're being electrocuted.

[Robert Einstein]

That's crazy.

[John Gafford]

Yeah. So the fact. I mean, I can barely get my phone out of my head. It hurts, like, really bad.

[Robert Einstein]

What were you doing when. Like this. Were you.

[John Gafford]

The first time it happened, Were you.

[Robert Einstein]

In a meeting or.

[John Gafford]

Oh, no, dude, I woke up. And I woke up. I rubbed my Left eye and got shot out of the bed like. Like I just licked. Like I ripped the cord out of the lamp and licked it.

[Robert Einstein]

What?

[John Gafford]

Yeah, I thought I had a stroke. I'm like, did I just have a stroke like this? You don't know, right? It's just so weird. So I immediately googled, touched my face, got electrocuted and it came right up. I knew what I had before I got diagnosed in 15 seconds.

[Robert Einstein]

So did you go see a neurologist?

[John Gafford]

Oh, dude, so many neurologists. So many. Yeah, so many. And now for me, luckily there's a surgery they can do. So if it sparks up again, they're going to cut a. They're going to cut a quarter size hole out of my skull behind my ear and then go in and essentially just kind of wrap duct tape around that nerve is an easy way to say it. So it doesn't happen anymore. And I've already met with the surgeon and he was very calm about it. He's done it many times. But yeah, that's just. It's no way to kind of to live because it's the. I mean, it's not like you smack your face. It's like if the breeze gets on it really like the. Dude, the first time this happened two years ago now, the nights were going. We're in the playoffs. Walking from valet at park to the arena when it was windy.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah.

[John Gafford]

Was almost impossible. What? Yeah, I'd had a hoodie. I had to wear a hoodie to every game. And I'd hold it down trying to keep the wind off my face. I had to hold it down over my face trying to keep the wind off me. Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

I'm glad you're doing better now.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, I'm good right now. Life is good now. I was. Well, yeah, but no but, dude, the messages, you know, I think the reason I wanted to talk about that is so many people again, man. You're either looking for an excuse to succeed or excuse to fail. And I think through the course of your life, you've always found a reason to succeed and nothing is going to stop you, no matter what it is. And I think there's some magic in that. And I think if more people had that, there'd be a lot happier people on this earth.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah, I mean, I think, I forget who says it, but I mean, you can have success or you can have excuses, but you can't have both.

[John Gafford]

Yeah. You know, I think it's every father on the planet.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah, probably. But I. I don't know, man. It's like, I don't. I don't focus on anything besides, like, where I'm going, you know, like, my ship is headed north. You can get on the ship. I'm not trying to pull you. It's just like, it's. It's going to happen. It's not. It's not if. It's when.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

You know.

[John Gafford]

Are you somebody that has written goals? Do you write your goals out? Do you do that?

[Robert Einstein]

No, I don't. I just. I don't feel like I need to write them down because I just visualize them so heavy.

[John Gafford]

Okay.

[Robert Einstein]

Like, I could. I could. I believe in manifestation. Like, do you know the red car theory?

[John Gafford]

Yeah. Yeah, sure. So say it for those of you somebody might not have heard car theory.

[Robert Einstein]

It's like, if you drive a red car, you're gonna drive around, you're gonna see red cars everywhere. Like, I drive a lifted F350 dually. I see them everywhere. I don't know if you see your cars everywhere.

[John Gafford]

I don't see a lot of my cars everywhere, but when I do, I notice.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah, right. Yeah, but that's because it's what's your folk. It's what you're focused on, right? So it's like, I try not to let these little things affect my day. Like any Frisella says, your bitch voice, it'll pop in my head for a minute. I'm like, no, I don't need that. This is what I'm focused on. So I just focus on where I'm going, what I want. I could visualize. I could see myself being in the house on the vacations with the, you know, vacation houses and the cars and, you know, the perfect family and all that stuff. Nothing's ever perfect now, but the visualization is there, bro.

[John Gafford]

I'll give you a freebie. It's one of my favorite uses for chat gbt. I have everybody on my team do this. You know, people used to make vision boards where they get all these magazines and they cut. Bullshit. Yeah. That ain't exact enough, dude. You can tell Chat GBT to create an image of exactly what you want. Like, exactly what you want. The right color, the right this, the right this. You can put you in it, can do whatever. And then you have those images. If you go to the gym at my house, I've got a whole wall of visualizations of things that I want to come true. And a bunch of, like, I take them off because a lot of them do, Right? Because every morning as I'm on the Treadmill. I'm looking at those things and I'm feeling like what it's like if they're actually have already happened. Right? But that is like one of my favorite uses. Even if you're not like a big goal writer outer dude, use that, bro. Especially if you're visual and you like to visualize that. Use Chat GPT and it's like, hey, this is what I'm trying to achieve.

[Robert Einstein]

Chat GPT starting to be a game changer for me, bro. I like crazy.

[John Gafford]

I use it every day.

[Robert Einstein]

Have you built out? Well, you have a bunch, but have you built out like your own personal assistants?

[John Gafford]

Oh dude, I have nutritionists. I have my, my, my Chat GPT. I have a nutritionist on there that knows my macros and everything I want to eat. It's like I used to track all my macros on my fitness balance stuff. Now I just take pictures of what I'm eating and it automatically tracks the macros. And then towards the end of the day if I like need to hit a certain like level stuff, I take a picture of what's in my fridge and I take a picture of my pantry and it tells me what to eat.

[Robert Einstein]

Eat what?

[John Gafford]

Yes, dude. It's magic. And then like so in that nutritious thing is also does my workout. So I'll take like progress pictures of myself in the mirror from the front side say based on my progress pictures, alter my workout to improve the areas I need to work. Do that. So Chat GBT is my trainer. It is my nutritionist. It's everything.

[Robert Einstein]

That is crazy.

[John Gafford]

It's wild.

[Robert Einstein]

Did you have to do a bunch of prompts for that?

[John Gafford]

No, I just told it, you're my nutritionist. And like literally the first time I said like, you know, I've like, I'd like to scale with like all of the stuff on it, like BMI and fat percentage, all that stuff that shows you the visualizations of everything in your body with the scale. And I just put all of that data into it. I said, you know, I'm 53 year old, dude, I'm 6 4. And here you go, here's my weight, here's all this, here's my bmi, here's my fat. And I want to, this is where I want to go. Give me a diet that'll get this and a workout plan to get there and give.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah, but okay, that is a key though. Like you have to give it all of the details.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, dude, yeah. You can't just say but dude, you can take a picture of yourself and say, I want to have a perfect physique based on what you see. What do I need to do?

[Robert Einstein]

That's crazy.

[John Gafford]

People, people don't see. That's the thing that people aren't using enough with is they're not uploading images into it, they're not turning the camera on. That's where the magic is to. We were a carbone and I took a picture of a half eaten plate of spicy rigatoni and I was like, oh, I forgot to track this. And it was like, oh, you're at Carbone. Yes, dude. It knew where I was. I think that's off my phone knowing where I was, but it knew where I was. It knew that was spicy rigatoni. It looked on their website, found the nutritional content for it and then logged it.

[Robert Einstein]

It. Wow. The, the easiest thing that I found as far as like the business side of using chat GPT for me is like basically just asking a bunch of questions on what I want. So like I built out two different personal assistants, a life personal assistant to make sure I'm more present and you know, just being the best father I can present with my family, all that kind of stuff. And then a business assistant. And I basically just said, these are the two assistants I want. I want you to help me with this, this and this. What prompts do you need to know in order to help me curate this? And then it just listed a bunch of questions. I copy the question and then I just paste the question and answer it. Paste the question, answer it. And I have like two personal assistants.

[John Gafford]

That I. I did, I did something similar with life coach thing. I said, ask me 200. I said, I want to find blind spots in my life of where I can improve.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah.

[John Gafford]

Ask me 200 questions in every aspect of my life, like 50 in each, in four different aspects of my life and figure out where I can improve. And dude, it asked me 200 questions about family, fitness, faith and business. And it spit out a manual of what I need to work on.

[Robert Einstein]

Wow.

[John Gafford]

Like an 80 page PDF. If you need to work on all this stuff, dude, I have loaded data from our company into it. Like all of our sales data, everything into it. I load our P. Ls in where, you know, analyze this. Your job is COO. Tell me where I'm leaking. Tell me I'm doing this. I mean, if you're not using that for everything you do, you're nuts. If I have a difficult situation with an employee, I'll say, here's my situation. What should I do.

[Robert Einstein]

Oh yeah, you know because I've negotiated contracts with it everything.

[John Gafford]

It's wild.

[Robert Einstein]

Do you have any kind of fear?

[John Gafford]

No, I, I don't in the space that, I mean I don't, I, I in real estate in general I do.

[Robert Einstein]

Not have it, I mean with, with.

[John Gafford]

With chat GPT like it taken over the world.

[Robert Einstein]

Well just like uploading all of your information like I've, I mean I've uploaded like P L sheets in there like no analyze this. Where can I improve?

[John Gafford]

Because here's the thing. What, what could somebody really, really do with that data? What could they really do with the data? You know I think if anything the fear should be from. I think you're already seeing if I was India I'd be very worried. Pakistan I'd be very worried because all the outsourcers are done. Oh yeah, I mean they're just data entry outsourcers. You're cooked.

[Robert Einstein]

I wonder how VAs are doing.

[John Gafford]

You're cooked. They're all cooked. I have old VAs that I use for years like constantly emailing me sir, please do you have any work? Because now I've just automated so much of what they used to do with GPTs or with the automations you can run within Google that network within Google Sheets and everything else I've just automated so much of it that I don't need, I don't need them anymore. I mean dude, my, my brother in law is, is in the software business and full systems that it used to take him months to spin up for people he can spin up now in a matter of a couple weeks with no help. It's crazy because he's just telling it, it's just spitting the code out like, like and out it comes. It's wild.

[Robert Einstein]

What, what, what businesses, like top five businesses do you think that AI is.

[John Gafford]

Not going to affect, not going to affect? Well like I tell my kids all the time, right? Like the number one thing I try to teach my kids is by the time they are adults and I'm talking about 30, right. My kids are 17 and 15 by the time they're in their 30s. The skill set that will be most in, most in demand in this world is the ability to look and another human being in the eye and connect with them on a visceral level if you can do that because their whole generation is heads and they're all like this, right? The, the ability to communicate with another person and reach them is still going to be in very high demand but like real estate like what we do. And this is not a shot at the people that are listening to this to say, well that's not true, blah, blah. Why? You know, like you look at what Orbitz did to the travel industry. Like people kind of stop going to travel agents as much I still love a good travel agent, especially if I'm planning an elaborate trip, I love a good travel agent. So they just can't be replaced. But that industry as a whole got, got, got condensed because of orbits and those, those, those, you know, travel websites. The reason that I don't think real estate will ever get replaced like that, like Zillow trying to create an end, to end seamlessly agentless transaction. It'll never happen. And here's why. Because the majority of people on this earth, when they're making the largest single financial transaction of their lives, they still need somebody there to tell them it's okay. Most people, they want somebody to say this is the right move. Yes. There's a hint there's a certain fraction of the population that can do this without realtors. I understand that. But a lot of people still like somebody to say this is the right move. Like I don't know about crypto, but I know a handful of dudes that know everything about it and if I'm going to trade some crypto, I want them to tell me it's okay.

[Robert Einstein]

Would you argue asking AI if this is the right move would be a more beneficial thing? And the only reason I'm saying that is because it was on a commercial side, but I had it. I had ChatGPT negotiate my commercial lease.

[John Gafford]

No, which is fine, but here's what you have to understand. CHAT GBT again at this current iteration and it may become cyborgs, I don't know. But it does not have the ability to look another human in the eye and connect on a visceral level.

[Robert Einstein]

True.

[John Gafford]

Whereas I can look across the table at a first time homebuyer that's scared to death, am I doing the right thing? And because of my heart, I know it's the right thing because I've done this 5,000 times. I can tell them, guys, this is what you need to do. And they believe me at their core. And everything is okay until a computer can replace that interaction. I'm not worried about it. I think it makes good people better at their jobs and it will eliminate the people that suck.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah. Okay, so real estate.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

What else?

[John Gafford]

I think as much as it can do for law, I think as much as it can do for contracts and everything else. I still think a good lawyer is worth his weight and salt. I think medicine, you're always going to need people to say this is okay. Even though I think, I think you're gonna, I think you're gonna watch the advancements in medicine go nuclear in the next couple of years. Dude. My good buddy Nick sent me a thing yesterday and it was a company where now it's full genetic testing and they can create an AI replicant of you in cyberspace from your genetic testing. And then based on, they'll do your blood work every six weeks. And then they can say this perfect version of you should be aging at this rate versus the real you. And then they can make changes in your genomes with peptides based on what's going on. And it's like five or six grand a year. And my response, no, I think the full service is like 12 grand a year. And my response back to them was in three years this is going to be 49 bucks a month. Yeah, like that's how fast this is going. It's quantum leaps, you know. You see, I think you're going to see, I think you'll see cures for some of this stuff. Hopefully things like als, hopefully things like Ms. Will get cured because the computer can just compound and interact the data so much faster than we can.

[Robert Einstein]

Have you dove into, what is it called? Worms. What is it what? Little worms inside your brain.

[John Gafford]

Little worms in your brain.

[Robert Einstein]

Not maggots.

[John Gafford]

Nope. You're losing me here, buddy. Talking about the neuralink.

[Robert Einstein]

No, no, no. Medicine as far as like you eat sushi or whatever there could be.

[John Gafford]

Oh yeah, yeah, sure.

[Robert Einstein]

I'm drawing a blank.

[John Gafford]

Parasites.

[Robert Einstein]

Parasites, yeah, of course.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.

[Robert Einstein]

There's a bunch of new studies coming out saying that like Ms. And other neurological issues by parasites. Wow. So I actually need to go down there today. But do you like a parasite cleanse? Yeah, dude, I, I have friends that have had all of these crazy issues. They go on this huge parasite cleanse and they feel better than they ever have in their entire life and they're liter urinating out parasites.

[John Gafford]

Oh my God. Dude, I, I can tell you I'll try anything like that. Like I'm, I'm game. I'm your huckleberry friend. No, because dude, I believe that all of the things that we've been putting in our body and the environment is trying to kill us every day.

[Robert Einstein]

Oh yeah.

[John Gafford]

Firmly believe that. Right?

[Robert Einstein]

Well, look at testosterone.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

What was the average of testosterone back in the 60s? Probably like 1200.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Robert Einstein]

Now it's 400.

[John Gafford]

300.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah, yeah. You know, and like. But what does that come from?

[John Gafford]

Diet.

[Robert Einstein]

Diet. You know, a lot of the women back then weren't on birth control, so the pheromones that they're releasing aren't as often or frequent or strong. All of these things are like. I mean, I'm not even going to get into the whole because quite frankly.

[John Gafford]

Neither one of us is qualified to talk about it. But that's okay. Well, dude, look, man, I appreciate you coming on, telling your story. I hope it's inspirational to somebody that's out there that's trying to start a business, man. You can just do it, man. Just try. Especially when you're young. Right. Because even if you fail, you got plenty of time to figure it out and try again.

[Robert Einstein]

Yeah. I mean, what's the worst that happens? You end up where you are.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, exactly. What's the worst that can happen? You stay exactly where you are. And with that note, we'll see you next week. What's up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it, or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escapingthedrift.com you can join our mailing list. But do me a favor, if you wouldn't mind, throw up that five star review. Give us a share. Do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.