Sam Gembel (2:59)

It's, it's. You know, I'll start by saying it is. We tried way too hard to make this episode happen. And I remember when we were texting last time to schedule this, you sent me the link and I literally pulled over in a. A big B coffee parking lot and, and got this on the schedule because I'm like, if I wait till I get home, I'm gonna get distracted. And so anyway, I. It is, it is an honor and a privilege to be on the other side of the screen with you. So. Yeah.

Josh Latimer (3:26)

Oh man. Tell us about your, your company, Atlas. It's a rather large company, eight figure company, well respected. I love your guys. Website, branding. Everything's so clean. You make it look easy. May tell us where you're at today and then take us back on where it started.

Sam Gembel (3:43)

Yeah, it's. Dude, it's so easy. Everybody can do it, right? No, it's a lot. Yeah. Thank you for the intro there. So yeah, the name Atlas derived from the road that me and my wife lived on in Davison, Michigan. Born and raised in Flint. And what they say is true, if the lead from the bullets doesn't kill you, the lead from the water will. So you know, that's sad but true. What you hear is a true thing, but you know it. We were both. Me and my wife were born in Flint. We met at Flint Central High School and lived in her grandma's house. Met her, moved in with her, you know, played house. Not, not proud of that part of it. But thankfully, you know, we have a forgiving God. But so we moved in together when I was 17. Moved out of my parents house, dropped out of high school because she is, you would never know looking at her, but she's two years older than me. So she, you know, graduated from Flint Central, went on to college. And when she graduated I'm like, why am I going to stay here and keep going to school? This is stupid. And so I dropped out and you know, not something I'm proud of, but it happened. And we moved in with her. City of Flint, Eastside. And in 2005, so I had started, I worked for the Flint Journal back when there was a newspaper. I worked for the Journal For a couple of years, kind of typed my way into the job. Like, I didn't have the education that they wanted, but I could type. Because that was back when AOL was like, you know, the instant messenger and all that mail. You got mail. I could type, you know, quick. So I got a job at the Journal. And. And it was. It was crazy because at 20 years old, I was already making more money than both of my parents combined. Like, they're, they're. You know, my mom was a. My dad called her a professional butt cleaner. She was a CNA for a nursing home. She probably made, you know, at her peak, before she passed away, she probably made $13 an hour. And. Which is sad because of the horrible hard job that these nurses have to do. And ironically, my dad was a jack of all trades, window cleaner, cut grass. Like he. He did just enough to. To. To provide. Like, there was never if. If he made enough by 2pm to put food on the table that night, he was. He was good for the day. Like, he was. I refer to him as a. Just enough. And so, you know, when. When I. I remember, you know, the bill collectors call in and I was a Kmart kid and like, we, you know, one pair of shoes a year. And I remembered, like, when the unavailable call would hit the caller id, that my parents would be like, don't answer. Don't answer. And I just remembered, you know, it's been said that you become who you become because of your. Your parents, whether that's good or bad. And like, my example was, I don't want to be like them. And so the second I could start making money like I was, I was gone. And so got that job from the Journal. One of my good friends worked for, like, a local lawn care company, so started cutting grass in 2001 and did pretty good once I got the taste and the smell of mowing lawns professionally. I remember cutting grass with my dad as a kid over on the Court street area there in college, cultural for you Flintstones that know that area. And I remember when I got to do it professionally, I fell in love with it. Just everything about it and the instant gratification seeing your results really, really quick. I loved it. And so with that, you know, we started doing pretty well for ourselves. I was making 40, 50 grand a year. My wife was. Was going to college still, but she had a pretty good thing going at, I believe then when she was at Sam's Club at the time. No, she's at King Par Golf in Flushing for you golfers.

Josh Latimer (7:36)

Remember that?

Sam Gembel (7:37)

Yeah, at King Par. And I remember one morning in 2005, living in the city of Flint, she almost got robbed in front of our house. And it was at that time that we're like, we probably need to move. We were making like 70 grand a year between the two of us. And we're like, we're a house. We were hood rich as it gets. No bills, you know, no car payments, no nothing. So we moved to Davison, onto Atlas Road and just living on a true in a two acre lot. I started cutting grass up and down Atlas Road for neighbors. And that turned into buying a little trailer and cutting lawns a mile away, two miles away. And I didn't know it at the time that you know, it was building that was the foundation of what would be Atlas Outdoor. And I still worked for the, the local smaller lawn care company, but I would just cut grass on the side and no kids, you know, nothing really, nothing really going on there. And in 2010, my, my side hustle had, it was, it was becoming more than a side hustle. Like it was getting to the point to where now. I mean it was try to get out of work a little early because I couldn't get all my, my work done by dark. And I had actually hired a guy to go run the, the, the mowing during the day a little bit. And that was kind of a conflict of interest at the job I had because I'm like cutting grass working for a lawn care company, but building Atlas kind of, you know, out in the suburbs on the side. And in 2010 we had our, my wife graduated. You know, early on she started working for the hospital as an HR manager. She had a good corporate job. And in 2010 we had our daughter in August and you know, she did her FMLA leave. I'm, you know, running, running, working during the day, doing landscaping at night. And in 2010 she, she did her 12 weeks leave for our daughter. And I remember her telling me, you know, she didn't want to go back to work and so she just wanted to be a stay at home mom. And I'm thinking like, how many more lawns do I need to pick up to like replace that salary? You know. And so, so I did and just selling hustle and selling hustling. And a friend of mine had like probably 25 or so recurring customers and he lived kind of in our area and he was wanting to move. This was back when like the legal pot thing was kind of getting big in Michigan and he wanted to move over to the west side of the state to pursue his dreams of a patrepreneur, whatever you call those guys. And so he wants to move, and he goes, hey, you know, do you want to take over my customers? And I knew then with that, like, there's no way I could still work 40 hours at a day job and still cut those lawns. And through lots of prayer. Super supportive wife. She's like, this is. You know, we're in 2011 now. And she's like, I think we need to. I think you just. You need to go for it. You need to just quit your job and just go all in. And so, you know, went and got our. Got our LLC for Atlas Outdoor and literally just named it Atlas because of the road we lived on and never, ever thought it would be, you know, really an internationally recognized brand that it's become today. But, you know, God had way, way bigger plans for this thing than I did. I literally just wanted to cut grass and make enough to provide for us. But, you know, I talk a lot about being institutionalized, and anybody who's seen the movie Shawshank Redemption will understand. You know, that scene where. I take it you've seen the movie, but, you know, Brooks gets out of prison, and, you know, he didn't know what it was like to be on the other side. You know, I. I depressed, right? Got depressed. He ended up killing himself. And so when we moved, I get goosebumps talking about this example, but, you know, coming from nothing, Moving to Davison was our first glimpse of being uninstitutionalized, of, you know, living like we could live like kings with 60 grand a year in the city of Flint, but just moving to Davison. Like, I remember our friends coming over with their loud stereos in their cars, and I'd be like, hey, guys, can you guys. Can you guys kind of turn that down? Like, my neighbors, and they're like, dude, you're, like, becoming one of these suburban dudes. Dude, I was from the hood, bro. Like, I was pumped. Like, I grew up on the north End, man. Like, if you look at my driving record, I have, like, two pages of noise ordinance violation tickets, like, as a real ticket. And so. But, you know, we wanted to be different. We. We wanted it to change. And so when we started the company, I didn't know what it was like to make any real money. I didn't. I had no idea. And so there's so many things to unpack there. But, you know, that's the beginning. That's June of 2011 the company starts. We're 14 years in this year. And without getting too much of the story in the beginning of this podcast, fast forward to today. Two locations. We opened a second location last year in Novi, Michigan, and we have got about 110 employees. Ramps up to about 125 at our peak. And yeah, between the two locations, we'll, you know, just over 10 mil revenue. But we're, we're, we're climbing. Like, that's, you know, we hit plateaus. We learned a lot, hit plateaus, went broke, hit plateaus, did more. And now, like, I really do feel like we're, we're at. There's a lot of momentum there, and things are, Are kicking some butt and taking names right now. So. Wow.

Josh Latimer (13:07)

So basically, over the last. It sounds like 13 years or so, you went from zero to that, right? And. And have you ever seen that graphic on the Internet? It says what people think success looks like, and it's just a straight line. It's like what it actually looks like. And it's like a rat's nest of twists and turns and all. I'm sure there's a lot in there. I mean, it sounds like when you grew up with like a poverty mindset or a just enougher mindset, what. What was the catalyst for you to break out of that? Was it a person? Was it just the way you were hardwired? You just wanted to run out of there? Was it seeing a nice house? Was it a certain customer? Was there a moment you can remember? You know, you saw a car, some material thing. We're like, you know, what is.

Sam Gembel (13:49)

How.

Josh Latimer (13:50)

How do you even buy something like that? What even gave you a glimpse that it was possible to change your life financially?

Sam Gembel (13:58)

Such a good question. And we could probably spend the whole episode talking about that. But there is a moment, there is a moment that stands out. I already mentioned the, the uninstitutionalized. Uninstitutionalized. Institutionalizing ourselves from the city of Flit. So just changing the size of the pond, right? Taking the fish, this one pond where we were the. We were the big fish, you know, in the east side of Flint. I probably made Humbly said, like, was making more money than our whole block combined because everybody was. No jobs. It was very, very depressed. And. But there is a story, like I mentioned being into, like, the cool car thing and all that. I loved vehicles. Like, I had this Chevy Blazer that had like, the wall of subs in the back. I was that guy that shook the bejesus Out. And I was just, you know, I was just young and dumb, right? But anyway, my neighbor, couple houses down from me, he pulled in my driveway one day. I was out mowing the lawn, and he pulled in my driveway and he was driving like a red Z71 off road pickup truck, and he had a toolbox in the back. And he pulled in my driveway and he goes, hey, my name's Justin and live a couple houses down. Would you be interested in. I see you cut grass. Would you want to mow my lawn? And I'm like, yeah, of course. I'd love to. You know, 30 bucks. I don't even know what his lawn. It's like, 30 bucks. I'll cut it for you. And from. From going down there, we became buddies and just, you know, drinking a beer. After I cut his lawn, we'd start talking. And one day I drove my. I drove my Blazer to his house. Like, I drove in his driveway and. And like, I got out and the door was open or something, and he goes, he says, hey, what's all that? I don't know if we could swear on your podcast. What's all that shit in the back? And it was all my subs and stuff. And, like, the people I always hung around was like, dude, that's sick, bruh. And this one guy goes, what is all that stuff? And I. I felt stupid. I literally felt. I remember the conviction. And I was like, I don't even know what that stuff is. I don't like it either.

Josh Latimer (16:02)

And how'd they get in there?

Sam Gembel (16:03)

I don't even know. What did that do? Somebody must have put that. And I remember I felt so weird because this guy's clearly wealthy. He's got a great business, and he was an electrician, and he had this nice pickup truck with the toolbox. And I remember going back home and telling Brandy, I said, hey, I think I'm going to sell the Blazer. And she's like, what? Why? I said, you know, we wanted to renovate our kitchen at the time and said, you know, we could get some good money out of it. I think we're just going to get rid of it. And she said, what are you going to. What are you going to buy? And so I'm just going to get up, like a pickup truck, something. I can, like, pull the, you know, trailer to go cut some grass. And she's like, that's weird. Ironically, those that know me then, that know me now, like, I have a problem with keeping stuff factory. Like, I have a Denali HD bat. It's lifted 37 stereo system. It's. You could take the, the custom stuff out the, the dude, but you ain't taking it out.

Josh Latimer (16:55)

You want to take the kid out of the trailer park. Can't take the trailer park out of the kit.

Sam Gembel (16:59)

It's still in there, baby. It's still in there. Now I just like quality. But that, but meeting him, and honestly, it's so funny because he was a big influence in saying, why don't you just start your own business? And he claims that he helped me name the company Atlas Outdoor. And I don't think he did, but he says he would. But he cracks up because I wanted him to give me money. I wanted him to invest. Like when I was about a year into Atlas, we were like, we were broke, dude. We were growing. But like, I needed money for, for growth. And I remember talking to him and I said, hey, would you be willing to, to help me buy another truck and trailer? I got customers like bugging us, you know, we have no credit to, to, to get, you know, a credit line. And, and I remember him telling me, he said, Sammy, like, I love you, dude. You're like a little brother to me. He said, but I never want money to like, come between our friendship. And he said, if you are so tapped out that like Brandy can't and Isabella can't eat, I will help you. But he goes, I don't want to be part of the business. And honestly, dude, I probably would have given him half my business if he would have gave me 50 grand. And we joke because I'll hang out with them now. And he'll go, every time I see One of your 70 trucks that are on the road, he's like, I'm an idiot. I could have like own half that business. And I was like, thank God I never went through with that. But he was such.

Josh Latimer (18:27)

It's easy to give away equity when it's not worth anything.

Sam Gembel (18:30)

Amen.

Josh Latimer (18:31)

I mean, that's just a good side quest lesson to throw out there. Because I think the other thing too, if we can pause on that point for a second, is poor mindsetted people. I call it an orphan mindset. When you have an orphan mindset and everything you do is based on short term thinking and you just have lack of understanding. What we think the solution is is a partner. It's money. It's these things, these external things. Not understanding that all the success is really internal, not external. Not that money doesn't help, but you wouldn't have known what to do with it anyway. You would have spent it wrong anyway. You know, it would have lasted for two seconds and you give away half your company. It's an important lesson for people. Listening to this, I think what do you hear it?

Sam Gembel (19:14)

I hear it on mentoring calls all the time. Cause obviously I love to help people through the school of hard knock and it's people I get asked that all the time about people saying hey, I'm thinking about taking on a partner.

Josh Latimer (19:28)

Right.

Sam Gembel (19:28)

And I like I really do credit a little bit of our success to never, never giving any of it away. I mean honestly, we don't know where it's going to stop. It's worth humbly said it's worth probably a pretty good amount of money now. And you know, think about that. Like I said, had that guy became a partner or even if you're thinking about a strategic partner, this guy was just going to give me money hopefully. But think about bringing on the strategic partner. You see this all the time in failed partnerships where the values don't align or one person seems like they're outworking the other one and it ends up breaking apart. So man, if partnerships can be a great thing if the, the values and what the the I do for you, you do for me is aligned. We see this a lot in couple preneurships and husband wife teams when like the wife we we'll just use for the the sake of this story where the wife is going to join the husband's business and let's just say because it's pretty rare the husband joins the wife business. But it happens. But we're for the sake of this story but when the wife joins the husband's business and she's doing it to help him not fulfill her God given purpose, mission and and vision. And you know there's always a well I'm doing this for you and and in the beginning it might have been for them. Like I'm honestly Brandy came to Atlas because I needed help. But little did we know that you know, she's bachelor's in business, HR manager, worked for the local hospital. She brought a lot of passion and purpose to this unorthodox landscape company and it just worked. And so as much as like yeah we're a couple preneur dude. Like she does her thing and I do mine. Like she's not at Atlas to help Sammy out. She is here because she loves people, she loves recruiting, she loves I it's not uncommon for me to like she's in an interview and I've, I'VE opened the door to like, grab my lunch out of her office and she's freaking praying over an applicant. I'm like, hey, I'm just trying to grab my turkey sandwich out of here. I will see my way out. You know, like she's. But that it's the same thing in partnerships where if there's value, if there's a value proposition. Yeah. Like that situation there.

Josh Latimer (21:50)

Oh, yeah.

Sam Gembel (21:51)

Wanted nothing to do with my business. And it could have been, could have been bad.

Josh Latimer (21:56)

Some people say the only ship that don't float is a partnership that is, that is. You know, I've had really good partnerships, but it's very risky. And it's similar to marriage in the sense that they're easy to get into and they're hard to get out of. You know, it's like gluing two pieces of paper together. It's really simple to do that. But you can't take them back apart without messing everything up. You can go to Vegas and have Elvis marry you. Right. So you can get, you can get a partnership in a five minute conversation. The guy writes you the check. But another thing I like is that all money has personality. So if you get an investor or a partner, you're not just getting money from the investor. You're getting like their thoughts, opinions, good, bad or ugly. You're getting a marriage, you're getting yourself yoked with them, which is like this old biblical reference or like the thing around your neck and around their neck. And I think it's awesome, man. God is protecting you. And let's talk about that for a second. So you mentioned your wife praying for applicants. We're Jesus people. I'm the least religious Christian you'll ever meet. I'm a kingdom guy. And, you know, all Jesus did was walk around, help people and talk about the kingdom literally the whole time. The Kingdom of God. Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God. And so in business, like, I view our business literally as a ministry externally and internally. What's that been like for you? Because you had like a whole faith journey too. And then Christians are really weird about money stuff and they have all this programming of like, you're a bad person. Did you ever wrestle with any of that? I mean, when you started making real money? I don't know. Run with that for a second if you don't mind.

Sam Gembel (23:24)

So people will say, you know, oh, you're a religious person or you're a Christian. And I say, no, actually I'm not. And if you look at me weird and I Say honestly, I just love Jesus. Like, that's, that's where I'm at. I love Jesus. Call it whatever you want to put, but that's what I do. And, but anyway, yeah, like, so obviously I grew up, like, my mom took me to the Catholic church across the street from her house, but I didn't know anything about, you know, what, what that looked like or what that meant. And it's kind of crazy. When we had our daughter in 2010, we're living in Davison, and my wife said, I think it'd be really important for us to raise her going to church. And I'm like, okay, all right, maybe we find a church to go to. And mind you, only church I ever been to was like a Catholic, full blown, St. Michael's style, prayer ritual kind of stuff, and never understood it. And so For Easter in 2011, we went to this little free Methodist church in Davison. And not to, you know, too much about it, but I've been a, I've been a drummer since I was a kid, so I was like, you know, played in rock bands, toured all over the state. And so we go to this little free Methodist church for Easter and they, and they had a drum set. And I'm like, I've never seen a drum set in a church before. And so we, you know, we, we go to this church for service, for Easter service. And we, we saw a couple people there that we knew. So I felt comfortable, right, you know, right away, like, okay, there's people here. We know it's not, must not be too weird. And we got our daughter there and went to service, and it was a good service. I'm like thinking about what we're going to eat afterwards and get out of there. And my wife's like, hey, I really, I really like that service. We should come back again and sure, what the heck, we'll come back again. So we go back again, we saw a couple more people that we knew, and you know, fast forward to a couple months of consistently going to service. I'll never forget the worship pastor in the fellowship area. One day we make eye contact and he says to me, he says, hey, I heard you're a drummer. And I'm like, how did I think worship pastors just like, have a way of knowing that there's a musician in the congregation. Maybe the way I tap my head during the worship or something. But, but he knew I was a drummer. I was actually, I am. And he goes, would you ever, like, want to, like, play, like, here at church? And like, hey, bro, I'm a rock star drummer. Like, I'm not going to do the. No, no, no, no, no. You got the wrong guy. And he at me with conviction, and he goes, okay, right in the eyes. And I was like, what, dude? He, like, looked right into my soul that day, and I'm like, it's. It didn't sit right with me. I'm like, what was that look for? He was coming for me, dude. He was coming for me. He knew. He knew I was a mess. And, like, you know, when I say a mess, like, I was the guy. 4:00am, you know, getting home from the bar, from a gig, taking a whiz in the driveway, thankful I didn't get pulled over or even worse, kill somebody. And not nothing to say. And I'm. But I was. I was. I was pretty messed up. Like, at least in that I didn't think I was doing anything wrong. But I. I wasn't living a very good life. And it got to the point to where, like, we were going to church every Sunday, but I'd play a gig on Saturday night, and I knew what I was doing. I started to get that conviction, like, it wasn't right. And a couple months later, our God is greater. No. So, like, you know, so I end up somewhere in there, like, friend of mine is on the worship team, and I end up becoming the worship drummer there. And we would play gigs on Saturday night at, like, a rock fest, and there's, you know, all kinds of promiscuous stuff going on. And then I'm going to church on Sunday as the worship drummer. So I was not the same guy on Saturday night as Sunday morning. And so I'll never forget, you know, drumming there all one day during the message the pastor gave, it was like, about that. It was about being the same guy, being the leader in your household, being a dad and all this. And I'm not joking, Josh. I thought my wife sent the pastor an email and said, talk about this at church. I was so convicted. And so, dude, I'm like, I didn't want to come back. I'm like, that. That is church. This place is messed up. And we'll go back to the next week. And it. And it happened again. I'm like, oh, crap, you know, And I knew there was something wrong there. But one night, I'm playing a gig. I'm playing. I'm playing a show and. Big rock show. And what was your.

Josh Latimer (28:08)

What was your band? Because I was in a band. We used to play at the Machine Shop all the time.

Sam Gembel (28:12)

Oh, I played at the machine shop multiple times.

Josh Latimer (28:14)

I wonder if we're around each other and didn't even know it because, you know, service company was in Fenton years ago. But that's crazy.

Sam Gembel (28:23)

Yeah. So we're, so we're, I'm playing a gig one night we were at Dryden Days and good old Dren, Michigan and there was a guy sitting in the, the front part of the stage, like looking, looking up. And I remember we made eye contact and something about this guy, dude, I felt like he was Jesus. And he's looking at me and he's like, Jesus going, I, I'm giving you this life. And you know, our business was kind of starting to take off and we're making some traction and he's like, I'm giving you these God given talents and this is what you're, you're doing with it. And I went back to our band practice like the next week and I remember telling the guys, I said, hey, I can't, I can't do this anymore. Like I can't. And everybody in the band, they all felt the same way. They all like somebody just needed to say it. They all went like, they all felt convicted. And so we end up being like. Without going down to too much in the story, we ended up forming like a Christian rock, like, like this, a Christian rock band. And, and that band we would go play at like men's festivals and we were all like, you know, skillet covers and stuff. And it was amazing because I still got to drum but like we still had fun with it. And I'm still a worship drummer today for, for Grumlaw Church. Shout out to Grumlaw Heartland Michigan, another campus in Graham Lake, Michigan. And I'm the worship drummer there and I love it. But as far as in our business, you know, God continued to reveal himself over and over and over again through adversity after adversity after, you know, bank account, no money in it. We got to make payroll. And then we get just enough to be able to make payroll. And when we went, we were about nine months into our business journey when we ran, when we ran out of money, like we start the business, we had about $22,000 in the bank. And you know, my wife's staying at home now and cut the cable. We got rid of every frill you can think of. And we're about eight to nine months in. And I remember coming home one day and my wife never wanted to put the burden on me of business. You know, hey, we don't have any money, all that. And I got home one day and she goes, hey, I mean, I know, honey, I know you're working hard. I know you're out there, you're coming home, you stink. And. But she's like, we don't, we don't have any, we don't have any money. And I'm like, okay, what is, what do you, like, what does that mean? Like, what do you mean no money? She's like, well, like our personal savings account, we don't, we don't have any money. And so we're looking at it and we're, we're trying to like figure out what we're going to do. And our mortgage at the time was like 13, 1400 bucks a month, something like that. And I said, well, I wonder if, what if we went to the bank and asked of them, asked them to like furlough our mortgage for a couple months, you know, like that could let us get back on our feet and build this business into something. And she's like, okay, let's do it. So we go to Chase bank and like, mind you, we had grade a credit, like 800-900-credit score, never had a late payment in our life. And we go to Chase bank and this is remind you, we're in late 2011. We're probably more like spring 2012. We're actually in the winter because remember, it was cold. So we're not far into the business. And mind you, we're just coming out of the housing crash, so we're 2011. So banks are very, very skeptical on loans and, and money. And we, we go to Chase and the guy says, hey, well in order for us to help you, all you have to do is miss a couple of house payments. And, and what we'll do is we'll put you into like this kind of like a charity case kind of thing. And then, you know, we don't want to, we don't want to foreclose your home, but we gotta see that it's real. I'm like, well, you can look at my bank account and there's no money in it. That's how, that's all you need to see. And he's like, I know, but you gotta miss a couple payments. Okay, got it. So we leave the bank, got our daughter in her car seat and my wife's like, so what do you think? We're doing it. No payment, we're going to miss it. This is going to help us. This business is going to make it. If we Got to move to an apartment. We're going to make it work. And so my office at the time was over, was a Starbucks in Burton and Burton, Michigan. And there was a lady there. Her name was Jenna. Jenna plays a big part in my faith journey here. Jenna was a barista. Her and her husband used to. They used to be custom home builders. And during the housing market crash, they lost everything. And so she saw Atlas starting. You know, I'm always in there. I got my laptop. I'm always on the phone. I'm always hustling. And, like, we got. I got to know her because I would literally go out, estimate, go mow some lawns, meet some customers, go back to Starbucks, send a quote. I'd interview people at Starbucks. Everything happened at Starbucks. That was my office. And so I got to know Jenna really well. And she. Wait. Like, I go in there one day after this all goes down, and I'm telling her, she's always like, how's business going? I see you out there, and, you know, you're always on the phone. And I said, yeah. I said, actually, really well. Like, really well. I said, actually, we're not paying our mortgage anymore. And she's like, wow. Like, what does that mean? I'm like, well, we're. You know, I talked to the bank, and they're going to furlough, like, a couple years of payments for us to help us get this business off the ground. And she's like, that's. That's wild. Like, you're doing it. I was like, oh, yeah, we're doing it. This business is going to be something when we grow up. And so she's cool, here's your coffee. And I go sit down, and she comes over and sits at my table hour later, and she says, hey, like, I ain't trying to get in your business, like. And I'm like, no, what's up, Jenna? We're cool. You know, she said, don't. Don't not pay your mortgage. And I was like, what? No, man. Like, we got a plan. Like, we not. We're all in. You're. You're messing up the program right now. Jenna, how about you go back, make more coffee and let me do the business? And she's like, I'm just telling you, Sam, the bank is going to own you. And she said, if you don't pay your mortgage, you're what? If you ever need credit for your business? And I'm like, dave Ramsey, cash only. We ain't buying nothing on credit in this business. And she's like, I'm just saying you could. And I was like, nope, Dave Ramsey. No. No credit, no nothing. But, hey, I appreciate it. Somebody needs a latte. Have a good day. And I get home from work, and I'm like, brandy. And I'm just like, got the win because we had this plan, right? That's going to work. This is what we're going to do. We had convinced ourselves that that's what we needed to do to make something with this business. And I get home, and Brandy's like, what's up? You just don't seem like yourself. And I said, hey, I'm talking to Jenna today. And, you know, blah, blah, blah. And she's like, first off, who's. Who's Jenna? I was like, oh, the barista at Starbucks. And. And I was like, she's saying we should not. Not pay our mortgage because it could. What if we needed credit one day? She's like, well, I thought we agreed. No, no credit. I was like, I agree. You're right. So she's like, but what if she is right? And I'm like, I don't know. And Brandi says, you know, I never did have peace about not paying the mortgage. And so I'm like, well, how much do we need? So we did our little napkin budget, and. And she's like, man, if we made 52 grand a year, we could. We could live. We can survive on 52 grand a year. And so I'm like, how do we. How do we make 52 grand a year? Like, every dollar this company makes, we're paying it back out every, you know, materials, labor, and got a. We had a couple of trucks. And, like, I don't know how we're going to do that, but we're going to figure it out. We're. We're. We're. We're going to pay our mortgage now. So we made that decision. And I get a call from somebody that knew somebody that said, hey, Best Buy is looking for somebody to do, like, outdoor garbage pickup two nights a week. They want it done at night. And I had called the business Atlas Outdoor because we didn't want to just limit ourselves to cutting grass. We'll do anything outdoor. We'll pressure wash whatever you want. We'll wash your windows. You name it, we'll do it. And so when I heard this, I'm like, I could kind of fit the model. It's got to fit the model. We pick up some garbage. And so, you know, I call this person up, and, you know, what do you what are you looking for? And they're like, well, we need garbage picked up at these 11 best buys from Fort Gratiot, Michigan, pretty much over to Okamus and everything south of that. And, you know, so I'm looking at it. I put it in the. The Google Maps and. Or whatever, MapQuest, whatever we use then. And it said that I could make the whole run in about three hours. So I was like, okay, three hours. If I spend 20 minutes at each one, I could be. If I left at 1 in the morning, I could be back in time to start the day. Okay, I'll do it. And they're like, well, what would you charge? And I went 4200amonth. That would cover gas and pay my mortgage, pay my bills. This happened right after we agreed to. We're going to pay our mortgage. And so I land this deal with Best Buy. And two nights a week I'd be out. Brandy would come with me. Sometimes, daughter in the car seat, we pick up cigarette butts, diapers, empty the trash, pick gum off the sidewalk, you name it. And do. We did that for probably about a year and a half just to kind of get things going and, you know, to not jump too far ahead. You know, that. That turned into like a 30 grand a month relationship. Cutting all the grass, plowing all the snow, and it turned into a hu. Unbelievable relationship. And, you know, dude, but like, I paid myself 52 grand a year for probably three to four years. Like, I just was so thankful to just have that little bit of money that we like. That was good. It was good enough. It was good enough. And, you know, we ended up losing the contract. They, you know, they. That all went away. But, you know, to. To bring it back to how God played a role in the journey. Jenna, dude, our business today, we have millions of dollars in credit lines. Millions. Like, I mean, literally. We took delivery, as we're recording this, we took delivery of four trucks today, $230,000 for these four new trucks. I didn't pay cash for those. Had we not paid our mortgage, had Jenna not told me to not do that, to go back to spring of 2012, we landed a condominium complex in Fenton, not far from where good old Birds Beware. Right around the corner from Birds Beware, nice little complex called Whisperwood right around the corner. He probably washed the windows. In Whisperwood, we land that contract. Way out of our league, dude. Way out of our league. It's hilly. You need all these special walk behind mowers to do it. I sold the Contract. We had no money to buy this stuff to do it, but I convinced that customer that we were the poop, that we needed toilet paper. We can handle your account. And so I took. I remember going into the credit union and trying to get a business loan to buy a couple mowers, and they wouldn't even look at me. The guy's name was Elmond Elman. If you ever listen to this podcast, Elman would never. But Elman, after about six times of like begging, sending an email begging, Elman calls me and he says, sam, we pulled your, we pulled your personal credit. I know you have no business credit. We pulled your personal credit and you have like an eight something credit score. He said, I talked to our underwriters and we're going to take a chance with you, get goosebumps again. Had we not paid the mortgage, had Jenna not said, sam, don't, you know, not pay your mortgage, we never would have got that first loan. We never. I mean, who we. We would not be where we're at today if it wasn't for that. So when I talk about faith in my business, all these dots, dude, like, looking forward, sometimes faith in our business doesn't make sense. But when you, when you're living the life where you're at and you connect the dots backwards, you're like, wow, had that not happened. Well, had that not happened. And we do some business with a couple higher ups from Starbucks now, and some of them know Miss Jenna. And I always tell them like, hey, do you ever see Jenna anymore? And they're like, yeah, I run into every now and then. I said, well, if you ever do, just tell her. Sam said, thank you. And they're like, for what? And I said, she'll. She'll know. She'll know what, she'll know what she did. And she, I mean, who knows if she even remembers the name Atlas Outdoor, who knows? But when you talk about, you know, honoring God and connecting all those dots and fast forward to today as we talked about, I mean, like, our, our business has ran. I'm actually doing a talk in October about how to honor God in your business without offending your employees and your customers to get to tell that story on a national stage. I'm actually a little nervous. I will be brutally honest. I've talked to thousands of people. I'm a little scared for that one. But I'm like, God will give me the words to speak. But yeah, I mean, like, so, you know, to, to see how everything unfolded, how all those times, you know, 14 years I've never had to tell my employees to hold their paychecks. We've gotten really close, Very, very close. But the more we leaned in, the more, I mean I could, I could tell stories about how I used to take cash. That was my owner's perk. And we used to have cash flow problems all the time. Quit taking cash because a mentor of mine said, sam, it's not your money, it's God's money. And you're stealing when you take. It's your business, but that's not your money, it's God's money. And I was so like as a whole story we could talk about just that. But ironically our cash flow issues started to not be as bad. And not saying I was taking hundreds of thousands of dollars, but God's like, if I can trust you, if you're not going to be faithful with the little I'm about to give you this abundance that you're seeking. And the more and more we've been faithful, the more and more we give, the more and more we get. And so there you go.

Josh Latimer (43:07)

Oh yeah, generosity is, that's a whole conversation too, you know, reaping and sowing the fact that the economy is like a garden. You know, I don't know. There's a lot of directions we could take. I think what would be really cool maybe to get ready to land the plane would be to let's do some either leadership system marketing, tactical lightning round style tips, hacks, insights for the person listening to this that you know, they want to have an eight figure business. They want to have. And by the way, revenue is one thing, but it's also about lifestyle, you know, and you have the leadership structure and team in place in your business where you have a lot of freedom and flexibility, you have a lot of elasticity with your time. They want that. So maybe we can shift into that. And so because you've coached people, you've been doing this a long time. Maybe let's rapid fire a couple things out of your brain. What are some of the biggest mistakes you see people make that keep them stuck? What comes to mind? It could be anything from finance to mindset to leadership wherever you want to take it. But let's, let's try to get 3 to 5 of those knocked down.

Sam Gembel (44:17)

Because you mentioned finance, I'll start with that right out of the gate. Save your, save your cash. I remember what it was like to be at 5 million in revenue and barely making payroll. And so to now humbly said to be at a place where we don't, you know, we, things get tight, but not like it used to be. And so I would start with that right there. If you're thinking about buying that, that 10, 15, 20, $30,000 van or truck, and you're like, well, I got the cash, I'm just gonna buy it, finance it. Dude, that 6 or 7 or 8% interest rate. But having money in the bank, I sleep better at night with that probably because I remember what it was like to not have it. So since you mentioned finance from a leadership principle, many. It's a question I get asked a lot. And whether it's a lightning round or from a stage and somebody says, what's the one? If you could just give one nugget, Mr. Sam. And like I remember for years, dude, it was, you know, know your, know your customer avatar, know the kind of customer you want to service, know the area that you want to work in. Like, that's like that. I would, I would give those for the answers. And I remember just feeling convicted. Like that's like low hanging fruit answers. Like you should, you should know that you should have read something that's like, that gives you that. So I'm gonna tell you what mine is. Made the mistake. I made it a few times actually. And it's as your business is growing and you know, you've got all these systems that are by default, not by intent, they're just the way things were created because at the time it worked. And what happens is when you're in, you're burning a candle at four or six ends, you look for the best thing at the time to help you just relieve some pressure. And what we end up doing is we promote people into quote unquote, managerial roles because they were good at the work, because they were a good technician, because they were good at cutting grass, because they were good at putting brick in the ground, because they were good at running a pressure washer. We say this guy's got operations manager written all over him and they might have not even ever wanted that. So leadership principle number one. Do not put people into positions just because they're good at the work. And we've all done it, We've all made that mistake. That's number one. You know what the second one is? Keeping them there, thinking that over time they'll get better one more time by just because they suck. Well, they'll, they'll, they'll grow into it. They won't, they won't, they won't. And if you're listening to this and in your mind, you're. Because we. We always want to have a promote from within culture. I actually do not have a success story I can share. Myron's probably got. Myron Golden's probably got hundreds. I do not have a success story I can share in a small service business, call it 10 million and under. I do not have a success story where I can share of somebody bringing in an ops manager or a general manager and that employee, that new employee, took their business to the next level. I don't have one. Maybe somebody else has got one. You got a home. Grow them. But the problem is we're too quick to toss them the keys to the leadership van and say, run with it. So if you're listening to this and you're like, I just. My next right thing, which I always want from every episode I record, I always want people to think, like, to know what their next right thing is to do in their business. And this is a popular one. There's people in their business with 6, 5, 6, 7, 8 technicians, and they're doing everything themselves. And they're like, I need to get an ops manager in place. If, for one, you got a homegrown. Two, if you can't think of that person's name or within 8 to 10 seconds from right now, they don't work for you. They don't work for you. If that person's not already on your staff and you're like, man, there's something different about John. There's something different about Stephanie. There's something different about Josh. If that person's name doesn't come to your mind, he doesn't work for you. If you have to dig deep and go, yeah, he could. He could be an ops manager. It's not the guy. Not the guy yet. Yet. So if you know that you want to move somebody into that, you know, if you. I know you've got. You've got kids that can drive now. When they were learning to drive, you didn't just toss them the keys to the Corvette. Like, you took time to make sure they knew how to drive before you give them the keys. But how often in business do we give somebody, you know, the keys to a van or a truck or. Or to the leadership family van and say, do you know, do with it. What makes sense to you. So from a leadership perspective, that would be like my biggest nugget. Don't do it.

Josh Latimer (49:10)

Don't do it so good. So I did the same thing. The best technician will often make the worst manager, because those are Totally different skill sets. They are completely unrelated things, but we all do it. So that's good advice. I got kind of three questions to wind it down with, but just, just for fun, I haven't done it like this before. I'm gonna ask you three pointed, put you on the spot questions and then you give me your best answer in like less than 60 seconds for each one. So it's a rapid fire thing. And here, here's what I'm thinking. I'll tell you what, all three of them are first so you can prime the pump. First one is like, what's the single biggest. What's the single greatest piece of advice you'd have for a small business owner that wants to be a great father? That's the first one. Second one is, what's the single greatest piece of advice you have for a small business owner who wants to get way better at sales? That's the second one. The third one is what's the single greatest piece of advice you'd have for a small business owner when it comes to mindset or personal development? So I'll go back to the beginning with the father one, but Sam, eight figure entrepreneur Sam Gembel. What's the single greatest thing a small business owner can do if they want to be a great father?

Sam Gembel (50:24)

To be a great father. As a small business owner, it starts with having a supportive mother, a supportive spouse, if she is not for you wanting to be that supportive father and not encouraging you to do that. You know, we do what we do. We're, we're cavemen deep down inside and to, so we do what we do for our wives, for the mother of our children. So if you want to, if you, if you don't have that support system at home, you can do it. But it's going to be really, really, really, really, really hard. I, I don't have, I don't have a success story with that one either. So with that said, you know that for me we worked eight days a week. And when my wife sent me a video of our daughter taking her first steps, I knew that that's not why I went into business. And we adopted the first four day work week. So that would be my advice for it. You work a four day work week. Because that way when it's busy, when it's spring, when you get rain days, you can't work. You've got Friday to make up for it. Think chick fil a six days a week, they outsell the highest revenue generating McDonald's by almost double.

Josh Latimer (51:30)

By almost double. Amen to that. Yeah, reminds me, four day work week, is it Parkinson's law? It's like all tasks expand to the time allotted them. So you'll, you'll do the same revenue in less time if you put that constraint in place. That's really good. Okay, second question is Sam Gamble, Mr. Eight Figure Genius Billionaire Philanthropist, Eight Figure Entrepreneur Guy, what should a small business owner do? Or what would you say to them? To the small business owner who wants to get way better at selling.

Sam Gembel (51:57)

They want to get better at selling. And that's probably one of the hardest things to train people on. But learn, I would say learn to connect with people. You got to get out from behind that desk. And if so I mentioned earlier about my Starbucks story, I think I got better at sales just being out in the environment and people talking to me and hearing me on the phone. And I do think there's a lot of God gifted talent to be in, in the sales world. But anything you can do to build confidence in your product and sad truth, what happens in our small businesses is we get so beat down by the day to day, by the employee not showing up, by the callbacks that you get for something happening. That insecurity shows in our sales and I call it a doom loop. Because now when you go to a sale and you're at this really, really picky chance to be the customer of a lifetime and in your mind you're thinking, if I'm not the one that's going to come here and do this, then we're going to screw it up. So we almost find ourselves talking ourselves out of the sale with the customer. So you got to believe in your product, dude. You gotta sell. My boy Josh Latimer says you should show up and sell like you got a million dollars in the bank.

Josh Latimer (53:12)

That confidence, right?

Sam Gembel (53:13)

And so when people, a lot of times the reason they can't sell is because customers can sniff out that insecurity. I love to fish. I'm not obsessed with fishing, but I love to fish. And I learned this in fishing that if a, if you're, you throw your, your live bait in the water and a fish bites the bait, tastes the hook and spits the bait back out, even though, even though that bait's still alive, you recast it, right? Other fish know that that bait has been tasted and spit back out. So it's actually you take, get rid of the bait, put a new one on because the other fish are going to know that there's something fishy about that bait. Customers are the Same way, custom merch, the same way. If they sense sales desperation, they will. So you should sell with confidence, like you got a million dollars in the bank. And I'm telling you, when I was trying to cultivate a sales team, this is off my one minute. So this is more of a story. When I was trying to grow a sales team, I had this ability to go meet with customers and they would give me a 10, 20, $30,000 deposit check because I was so passionate about what I was selling. But I needed that money to make payroll and wasn't the right way to run my business. But I could sell. And I tried training my salespeople to redo that and they can't. They can sell. They sell millions of dollars worth of work, but their style of selling is completely different than mine. And so my end was always just that ability to be like, we're selling you time. And I remember a customer bought a swimming pool space for me and when, when she wrote the deposit check, she said, I think you're more excited about this pool than I am. How do I not let you install this thing? That passion will sell.

Josh Latimer (55:09)

Her Mosey always says, you know, conviction is the cheat code for sales. It's not saying the right sentence to overcome their spouse. Objection. All that stuff is nonsense. It's like certainty and conviction, enthusiasm, magnetism. It covers a multitude of sin and sales. And I agree. That's why it's so hard, because when you're small, especially you know, how flawed you are, that something could happen, you know, or if the ball gets dropped. And so you kind of, you're the customer service and the sales department at the same time. And that's a problem. Large companies, they keep those people away from each other, right? You don't want your sales team to ever hear a negative story of anything ever. Right? Because their conviction goes down. So, okay, that's awesome. Let's, let's end on this note then I'm going to ask you one more of these questions and it's a big one. You can take more than a minute if you want to. I just did that for added drama. But what would you say to a good hearted small business owner? They need more profit, they need to level up. They got a lot more in the tank, but there's things going on between their ears that are holding them back. Maybe they don't even know it. You know, they think it's an external problem. We know it's an internal problem. Regarding mindset, personal development, what would you say to that person?

Sam Gembel (56:26)

Get over the fact that you think nobody will ever do it better than you. 80% of something done by somebody else is 100% awesome. And I'll never forget when I got off the lawnmower, when I was. That's. That's always the dream to get off the truck. And I'll never forget I had got done mowing this lawn, and it was one of my best works. Stripes were checkerboarded out, like, lawn dudes got nothing on me, bro. I laid down this lawn, and it was beautiful. And the homeowner came out, and I thought she was going to give me a compliment. And she came out to say something along the lines of like, hey, how come when you mow it, the grass looks like it's, like, folded over? And it was on that day that I said, I care more about those stripes than the homeowners do. They just want the grass cut. They just want it to look good. And it almost kind of took away, like, that passion to do, like, those extra little. Here I am going the extra mile, right? But I learned that, you know, I remember when I got off the lawnmower. Actually, I have a great story with. Even today, probably one of our best commercial clients. And in the beginning days, this person, they only wanted me to do their work. They would only allow Sam at their home. We did their business. I won't mention the business, but we did their business, and we did their homes cut the grass twice a week, like, very, very particular customer. And they only wanted me to do the work. And as time went on and I had this mindset like, only I can go there. Only I can go there. Only I can go there. And I had hired. I had, you know, starting to hire. People were starting to grow. And one week, I set one of my crews to go do the work, because I'm like, hey, I was busy. It wasn't by, like, I was trying to be lazy. I just legit couldn't go. And we're cutting the grass twice a week, so you gotta hit these two days. And he didn't say anything. And did it again. Did it again. And then, you know, eventually, someday, something got said. He got home and he goes, hey, your guy Chris was out here today. Where? Is everything okay? And I was like, oh, it's fine, man. We're just growing. And he's all right. Well, he's like. He did. He did a pretty good job. And he's like, maybe if you could have him do this. And I'm like, man, I don't. I don't have to be the guy. And so what I learned was, like, people will screw stuff up, but as long as it's close to where you would want it to be at, you can focus that time to work on the business, not in the business. Here's the irony of the same customer. If I were to go out there to do the work now, he would think something was wrong. Now he doesn't want me at his house like he wants my crew, because they have a great rapport. He says, jump, they say, how high? I'm like, man, let me get back to you. I got like, 10 texts to return from customer today where I'm like, I got this podcast I'm shooting, I suck at that customer thing. Now I have customers that'll tell me today. Like, I remember you used to stop by and drop lunch off. And like, you never do that anymore. I'm like, yeah, that's my bad. You to get better at that. But get over that mindset that, you know you've got to be the only one to do the work. Like, 80% of something by somebody else is 100% awesome. And the second thing I'll add on to that is don't do things because it's just the way you've always done it, because you've always. You gotta remember, man, there's technology. There's somebody out there that can do the work better than you, and you gotta. You have to get over that. So if you're that guy on the truck, I could. There's a million things with that. Pay yourself first. Pay yourself first. So many small business owners, they just take what's left at the end of the week. No. If you need to make a thousand bucks a week, I. When I told that story about the best buy, I should have put myself on payroll, then figured out a way to make it work. But instead, here I was not paying myself till we ran our savings account dry. Pay yourself what you need to make as an. To pay your bills. Pay yourself what you would make for whatever that role is that you own in the business. If you're the sales guy and you're doing 500 grand in revenue, good salesperson makes 8 to 12% of sales. That's 50 grand a year. You should at least pay yourself. Quit. Quit thinking. Because the problem with not paying yourself first is when it does come time to pay yourself or to hire somebody to take over said role, you don't know what you can afford to pay because you've never given yourself the money you need to make right. So hope that makes sense. I could, I could. That's a very. For the next episode. That'll be our whole episode.

Josh Latimer (60:52)

No, man, I appreciate your time, sharing your story, all the gold. I can feel your passion, your heart. I know how much you care about regular good hearted people, man, and, and that's why I think we vibe so well. It's been a while since we've connected, but it's like we picked right off where we were last time. So how, how could people connect with you? You have your own podcast, There's a Facebook group. It has a really cool stuff in it. I don't know where you want to send people. Sign us off. Sam.

Sam Gembel (61:14)

You can, I mean it feels weird to say, but you can just go to SamGimble.com and branch off to everything from that. The Culture Proof podcast is really, really just gaining some traction. There's thousands of subscribers already and we're only eight episodes in. So like there's a lot of cool stuff going on with that. There's the Culture Proof Facebook group. That's what Josh, what you're talking about. A lot of good leadership stuff in there. There's a daily lesson, all stuff that's just applicable to what you know, we're all dealing with and you know, and it comes from a place of experience. It's. It's been a long time since I heard of something that's went on or happened that we haven't made the mistake on it, you know, at least once. And so to be able to give that back and help people hopefully skip a few steps in their journey is. It's truly a God gifted honor of mine to be able to do so.

Josh Latimer (62:05)

So awesome. Sam Gembel everybody. That's G E M b e l samgembel.com Sam, take care. God bless my friend.

Sam Gembel (62:13)

Same to you brother. Take care my man.

Podcast Host (62:18)

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