Education with Jeff Makey

0:02Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast where we are all about helping business owners just like you achieve success. So we don't do fancy smancy. We don't do flashing lights. We don't do a lot of things that a lot of podcasts will do. These are just real stories about real people and their entrepreneurial and business experiences. We go into their wins, their challenges, and their learnings. So we hope you enjoy it. Hey there, welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs, brought to you by Action Coach Growth Partners. I'm your host, Bill Gilliland, and in this podcast, you'll find three things.

0:46You're going to hear real stories from real entrepreneurs that will help you along your entrepreneurial journey. You're also going to get business tips to help you scale up faster, and you're going to get actual coaching to help you get better real world results to be the best entrepreneur you can be. Hey, and if you like the podcast, remember to subscribe. And now, enjoy the show. Hey there, I'm Bill Gilliland and we're here with Jeff Makey from CLEARN. And Jeff and I, just one of my buddies, we've known each other for a while and we're going to talk all things education, all things Asheville Business Summit and all things CLEARN.

1:30So Jeff, why don't you tell us a little bit about CLEARN and how it came to be and all those sort of things. You know Bill, you and I have talked in the past with some of the collaborative work we've done about a job versus a career versus a calling and education training design is my calling. I learned that early on, you know graduated high school, didn't go to college right away for a variety of reasons, landed a job in construction framing houses. I did that for a number of years, advanced in the construction industry fairly quickly, and I, every day I was getting up, I was like, you know, this is, this is okay, but I'm not excited to go to work.

2:15You know, it's a job. I was getting a paycheck, and I'm struggling around in my early 20s, 21, 22, and not real happy with things, you know, not real happy with where I was or going to work every day. And again, my job was advancing. I'm not going to call it a career, but I was moving up. I was getting job offers. It was going really well. I just wasn't happy doing it. It just wasn't something that I really enjoyed. Some days I dreaded going to work, and that's a terrible place to be. So through a variety of other life experiences, I was really heavily involved in fire and rescue at the time. And I started dabbling in teaching and training some fire and rescue techniques and I just loved it man it's like this is great how do I get a career in training in creating training programs in teaching in working with people so I explored around and really started to look into things at the time I was living in Raleigh but coming up here to the Asheville area quite a bit to work as a whitewater guide so I was already familiar with our area and just by chance just by luck Western Carolina University had an ability for me to create my own degree.

3:27And they had all the schools that I loved, all the fields of studies that I loved, and what I wanted to do. So I sat down, got in contact with Western Carolina University, started talking to the deans. It was a lengthy process to get my own degree created. I had to throw all the package together, exactly what I wanted, why I wanted, why it was justified, why I couldn't find it anywhere else and that had to be presented to all of the deans of the university and of course then they vote and they said yep absolutely so I actually created my own degree in designing professional training and education programs quite a bit different from traditional education that we think of with primary secondary schools and even university in fact it's a lot different but I was able to do it and long story short that's what's landed me here today, creating training programs from onboarding, continuing education, professional development, certifications, and we niche in the construction industry.

4:30I love that. I love that. And so, I mean, this, I mean, your company's blowing up. So let's talk a little bit about sort of maybe some of the lessons you've gotten along the way in, you know, in building the business. Yeah, Bill, you know, I feel like the lessons never end. Well, that's why we're in education, right? I mean, it's life. It's a lifelong learning. I mean, that's what we're about. So maybe, maybe just pick one or two that like really stick out that are like, hey, you know, this is something that would have been cool to know. You know, the timing of that question is perfect. I was just hanging out with Beth, one of the action coach representatives last night.

5:09We were socially hanging out chatting and she was specifically asking me why we don't do training programs outside of the construction industry. And I have in the past, you know, we've written the Swift Water Rescue certification that was accepted by the federal government. So really I can do anything education, anything training and do it very, very well. But it's an interesting question. Why am I only doing the construction industry. And that kind of goes back full circle to not just advice I'm getting from marketing folks, but also from you with Action Coach. Niche. You need to niche. And one of the ways you can build your business is by niching and being specialized in one particular area.

5:56So we talk about other training companies and there's other training companies here in Asheville and they do anything training and a lot of times I asked them I asked myself why am I not opening this up to anything training why why am I not advertising to everybody that needs a training program I can do it my team can do it we can produce it but instead we niche and I feel like niching is allowing our company to make better contacts stronger contacts with a better reputation so we're specializing in one particular industry and bill that's the lessons that i again beth is sitting down and we're talking last night and there's like i said another company here in ashville that does training programs and by appearances they seem much more successful i don't really know right appearances can be very different than reality but it redirected me once again to take that advice to niche like let's specialize here because specializing here is going to offer me better long-term growth and better stability with less price competition.

7:00And again, that's a lot of stuff that I've learned through Action Coach. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, the nice thing about niching is you know where to market. The target is clear. The nice thing about the construction industry is they do have continuing education. So they have requirements for contractors to be able to continue to keep their licenses. And so there's also requirements, but it's just good business to continue to get better. And frankly, you know, you're developing a lot of training programs for contracting companies because frankly, they're contractors and they don't want to build training programs.

7:38So, I mean, you've got multiple things going on here and it's still in the niche. That's what I like. You can go deep in an area and build those relationships. It's also allowed us to build some financial stability in with the company, our bread and butter is still continued education for general contractors. We knew that would be the case when we opened the company five years ago. We knew continued education because that's when it became law for general contractors to have it. But when we opened the company, we always considered the continued education to be a marketing branch, a marketing service of CLEAR.

8:14And it's worked. Like it's keeping the lights on, but it's bringing us the exposure to other clients that offer us the opportunity to do the work that we're really passionate about. So we're working with another one of your clients, Semper Fi. Semper Fi wants to start to open up multiple geographical locations. And they need consistent onboarding training programs that can reach across state lines. They need to be the exact same everywhere. So their systems are the exact same everywhere and that's key to success. So if I hadn't been doing the continued education, I wouldn't have met Jay Cope and had the opportunity to work on the projects with Semper Fi.

8:59So once again, niching and having that clear plan to move through and constantly remembering to stay focused on that niche has really been beneficial. And now we're getting more and more clients coming in asking us. In fact, we've got a waiting list. So it's been real successful. Yeah, I love that. I mean, and you know what I think, you know, I heard all that. I heard all the strategies. I heard like, like, okay, we've got the continuing education and that leads us to meet some people who really want to grow their business and understand that they need consistent systems and training programs.

9:34But the word that stuck out to me was passionate. Like this is what we're passionate about. And I think that's the key to your success. I mean, you're just driven and your team is just driven to build these training programs that really make all these businesses in the construction industry better. It makes them more professional. It makes them better. And I think that's the key to your success has been the passion. I mean, okay, yeah, okay, we've learned some stuff. We've done some stuff well. But without the passion, nothing's there. I think I got it up here. Yeah, in motion, energy in motion.

10:08Yeah. Yeah, you put the energy in motion to make it all happen. So, I mean, is this something that you've just kind of always had? Or, I mean, you know, I think when you were early days, you said you were in construction. You just weren't passionate about doing the work. It doesn't mean you weren't passionate about the industry. But what you found was your passion to teach and to train. You know, that's a great point, Bill. We are collectively as a team within CLEARN, we are, I mean, our biggest passion is creating the training programs. any type of training program, but we're also passionate about changing the construction industry.

10:43And what better opportunity than to be able to create continuing education that people have. So we take that opportunity to combine both passions. We want to see a greener building ethics, you know, bigger building, green building standards to be accepted by builders. And builders Builders are getting old and we all know that it's a common problem, self included, that you become upset in your ways as you get older. So we're combining our passion for training along with our desires to see the building industry advance into greener technologies. And we constantly talk about what can we do to start to introduce and encourage builders to first learn about these techniques and to start to adopt and experiment with these techniques.

11:37So yeah, I am. It's a great point. I am still passionate about building, not as much as I am about training designs, but this is a great opportunity to start to bring everything together. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's kind of, I think that's why we've always sort of meshed in that, you know, we make no bones about it. We're out to change business here in Western North Carolina. I mean, we're bringing world-class, life-changing business education and coaching to Western North Carolina. That's what we do. And so, you know, I think that, you know, we want to change the way business owners look at business, you know, as a, as a, you know, you talk about niche and that's our niche.

12:14We work with business owners, you know, in the profession of business ownership. There's not a lot of, unlike construction, there's no continuing, I mean, you have to get your own continuing education. There's no, you know there's there's no it's not like accounting where you have to have a certain number of credits every year to keep your license we don't we don't have that and has been business there's nothing that says that you have to go get a certain number of continuing education credits now you'd be stupid not to go get education which is one of the reasons we're bringing the summit here and you've taken on a big role in that and decided to sponsor it and we really appreciate that what what prompted that was it just the fact that we're on the same wavelength or you know what What were you thinking?

12:56And what are you hoping that the summit will do? How'd you like to learn from the best? How'd you like to network with the best? How'd you like to be the best? Well, the key to being the best is to hang around with the best and to learn from the best. And we're going to make that possible for you this August in Asheville at the Asheville Business Summit. I want you to stay tuned. We're bringing in speakers from outside. We've got a lot of good events planned. It's going to be amazing. We got more information coming, but if you'd like more info on how you can be involved, how you can attend, or how you can be a sponsor for this event, it's going to be over 350 entrepreneurs in one place right here in Western North Carolina in Asheville.

13:42For more info or to be a sponsor, I want you to reach out directly to Beth Limmel. That's L-E-M-M-E-L at actioncoach.com. That's BethLimmel at ActionCoach.com. We look forward to seeing you there. It's going to be amazing. It's funny, Bill, you keep asking me these questions, and there's never a simple answer to some of these. In fact, I wish we could have more time to talk, but to keep it a little more concise, you and I, folks listening may not know this, but you and I have worked collaboratively on several different continuing education products, and you've been great to work with. That said, with the Summit, we saw a great opportunity to not only show the support and what I've learned from you directly, but to also get the exposure to the same types of clientele.

14:34The people that believe in growing their business, the people that believe that I need the training, I need the education, I need the consulting, even if it's not required. Really, those are our mutual clients. You guys talk about the big picture of running businesses and those steps and those strategies. And we focus on a narrow piece of that. We get hyper-focused on a narrow piece of that. So not only am I learning from Action Coach and learning from you, once again, every time I play one of your classes, like, oh, yeah, don't forget that. You know, like niching we were speaking of earlier. But we have the opportunity to now work very closely with the same interested entrepreneurs that choose to work with Action Coach.

15:21So we marry very nicely with Action Coach. And we're already sharing the same clients, again, such as Semper Fi, right? Yeah. Jay's really excited about growing his business and he's really open to getting that advice. He's really open to learning about things. In fact, just recently, we're working in a second training module for him. And he said, Jeff, I've hired you for a second time because I knew you were going to turn over every single stone and find all the inconsistencies within our departments. So that's what we like to do. We like to have that trust. We like to build that. And I truly believe that if I can build successful programs for Semper Fi that my company will grow just as we help his company grow and it's the same thing with Action Coach if we can help Action Coach grow then I have no doubt that Action Coach is going to help us grow.

16:14Yeah yeah I think they yeah just the co-op we call it cooperation you know or the or strategic partnerships or whatever you want to call it you know that you can't I have this saying I mean if somebody asked me you know what i wish somebody told me early days is you can't do this stuff by yourself you got to have i mean even if you're a solopreneur even if you're a one-man contractor in your truck you're not building that house by yourself you got to have you know you got to have subs you got to have um an accountant you got to have a lawyer you got to have hopefully an action coach you got to have you to help and once they grow up to to create training programs maybe for their subs maybe even if they're one person you know just so you can't do this stuff by yourself so yeah i i love that the other thing i mean the the stick the cool thing about i mean you get to do these training programs and every time you do one you do these interviews with people you have kind of a great style of doing it that's a little different than some of the ones where you just somebody in a classroom with a board doing something i think that i think they're they're they're super valuable but you always get you but i'm guessing that you learn something every time you film one of those things from you know from the people you're filming it of it's sort of the stick here on the on the podcast we you know it's the secret nobody talks about i learn something every time i do one of these things you know every time i get to interview somebody in business i'm going to learn something i can i can apply and take to other business owners so it's it's pretty cool so anyway we appreciate all that um okay so what's next for c-learn i mean you guys are growing, you're big, you're I mean, you're sticking to your niche.

17:50But I mean, obviously, you could, you could do this. I mean, you could go international really with this thing if you wanted to. So one of the as I was coming along working for folks, there was a very successful businessman here in the Asheville area. He's retired now. He just he made millions. There's that's not an exaggeration. He owned publishing companies, plural, everything he did, he is still a leader in the art world today. He focused mostly in the art world, Rob Pauline. And I was sitting out after work one day having a couple of beers with Rob. He was, he's the kind of guy that you, you did want to have beer, even if he was your boss, like you really wanted to hang out with him, right?

18:33And I asked Rob, I was like, Rob, how did you get this successful? Like, how did you get here? Like, dude, your success is absolutely incredible. And Rob said some of the best business advice I've ever gotten. Rob said, Jeff, I know what I do really well and I know what I don't do well and I hire people to do the things I don't do well. So when you ask me what's next on our growth pattern, it's building a team of passionate individuals that do things better than I do in the areas I don't do well in. A clear example, we've just moved into a new studio space like this is it. This is great, right?

19:14We've got professional cameras set up, professional lights. But Bill, I don't know how to work the camera. I don't have time to learn it. I don't have time to learn it because I'm not passionate about it. I don't care about it that much. But it's critical to some of our productions. So we've hired a new videographer, Adam, who is running the setup now for us. I can't even see him. He's back there behind the monitors and systems running the webinar, handling all of that. So what's next for us is we have we've just hired two new people in the past year and a half, moved into new studio space. I am already planning on hiring a third person or excuse me a fourth person if you include myself because I am you know company employee but we're already planning on hiring another person within the next 12 to 16 months.

20:02So growth patterns is alright this is what I do really well but I'm still doing things that I don't do well bill. And once again, you and I've talked about that with Action Coach, right? So if I'm worth $150 to$200 an hour, what we typically charge our clients, I don't mind sharing that. I don't always get it, but that's what we try to base it on. But if that's what I'm paying myself, and I'm doing work that I'm not good at, that's a waste of money. Like I'm not getting anywhere with it. So I need to hire people that can do those things better than me and are passionate about both our vision and our mission and that fit our culture to come in and take those things away from me so I can work on the business instead of in the business.

20:47We're saying these things and it sounds so cheesy, but really, man, it's absolutely true, right? I mean, it really is true. So would it be okay if I just gave you a little bit of, maybe we'd call it coaching here, on that and how to do it. Maybe you're already doing it. So would that be okay? Would that be, yeah. Yeah, okay. All right, I just want to make sure. I like to ask permission, you know, I like to ask permission for these things. You know, I was the Pareto principle, the 80-20 rule, or I call it the 20-80 rule because, you know, stands out to me because, you know, 20 % of our actions get 80 % of our results in the 80 % of our time.

21:32So those things that you don't enjoy doing, or you're not good at, or don't want to be good at, are in those 80%, right? I mean, when you and I first met, I think it was just you. And, you know, it's just you, maybe you had some, some contract labor or something that you would get to do some editing or something, but it wasn't, it was just you. I mean, you know, we sat down and I think in a brewery and made a video. And so, you know, I think that may have been the second one. But anyway, yeah. So the idea is that if you look at what you're doing, if you get everything and write it down, and every single year you get rid of the 80%, because then the 20 will become 100, and then you've got another 80%, then, I mean, the amazing thing is that that will change your life.

22:22I've found that to be true. Like, how do we, like, if you sit down every year and say, These are the 80 % things that I can get rid of this year. Maybe you don't get rid of all 80%, but you get rid of a couple of those items in the 80 % that are eating up all your time and only producing 20 % of your results. I think that 20-80 rule is the Pareto principle that's been life-changing for me and a lot of our clients. So maybe that'll help. That's great advice. I think the biggest challenge I have right now with following that is trying not to grow too fast. Like I need to manage the growth. You know, I would love to be able to go out and hire more people, but can I train them to the capacity that I want them?

23:05Can I buy them into our vision and mission? If I hire too fast, I may lose control of it. So that's probably the biggest challenge I'm having right now is trying to balance that growth so that I can keep the culture intact. Yeah, there's interim measures you can take. I mean, you know, there's obviously outsourcing and you've done some of that and, you know, some things that are interim to actually hiring somebody full-time, you know, it's part-time help. You can hire somebody, you know, there's all kinds of things out there with that. I mean, it is an interesting move, but maybe I'll get your take on this.

23:43Like, When do you, like I had to be a big deal to hire somebody the first time. You know, let's be honest. This is, I'm in my 50s when I opened this company. And it was a big financial risk for me to do so. And then we, you know, I got to a point, Bill, where it's like I can keep this size and not grow anymore. And I'm making good money now, right? I could stay at this size or I can hire people and take it to the next level. What do I want? Well, eventually I want a business that runs without me. I'm not content with being that one or two man show. That's not who I am. I wanted something that would run without me one day that I could either sell or step back out of, have something, you know, generational wealth building for my family, my daughter.

24:34So then I started looking, okay, well, I need to hire somebody, but I can't afford to hire somebody. The money wasn't there, Bill, like, but I'm looking at the books and I'm exploring this and I found a great match, an old friend of mine, and she actually created her own degree creating training programs too from Appalachian State. So we had all these things in common. And when I hired her, Chloe, I couldn't afford her. The money wasn't there. But after her first year, we made enough money. She took me to the next level. So it's the same thing when we've brought Adam on board, our new videographer.

25:14It's like, I couldn't afford, Adam's listening to this right now, it's like, I can't afford to hire Adam, but I couldn't afford to hire Chloe. Chloe and I now have too much work. We can't get it up, we're turning work away. So it's the same risk. And every time it's very scary, Bill. I mean, it is, right? But if I don't do that, I won't ever move up. Like if I let fear run me instead of business sense from me, then we don't grow. I know full well that Adam is going to earn more than what I'm paying him this first year, right? I could not afford to hire him. When we budgeted it, we budgeted it as a part-time position because it's what we could afford.

25:56And then Chloe and I were looking at it. And that's another thing. I bring my team in to make these decisions. I don't make them by myself. I think it's foolish not to utilize the experts on your team. And we talked about it and Chloe says we can afford this this year part-time and I looked at Chloe and I said first of all it's gonna be hard to find somebody that we like part-time because people need to work they need a paycheck right and secondly if we risk it and bring him on just like me bringing you on it's gonna work out it will I couldn't afford you and now we can afford and we can afford another part-time person if we bring somebody on full-time it's gonna work out we'll grow and we'll go to the next step and then we can look at doing it again and it falls right in line it's parallel with that 80 i can't get rid of the entire 80 but i am i'm chunking it away i'm systematically taking that 80 and passing it on planned growth planned opportunities yeah i have this saying that if you can afford half of someone they'll make up the other half if they're any good.

27:03So that's what you just said, which was a great example. You gave us a great story on there. So let me wrap this up with one question. What do you wish somebody had told you that they did it, that you wish you knew before you got into this business? It's okay to take that risk. If you can afford them halftime, they'll make up the full time. And that's probably been one of the biggest things that's held me back is risking things. I'm a single parent, you know, bill and this is all financed out of my pocket and that's the one thing that's probably held me up the most throughout my life is like go ahead and take that risk.

27:43If you're calculated with it, if you're planned about it, if you think it through, you can't afford not to and that's the one piece of advice that I've heard before but it wasn't until recently that I really started to season. It doesn't make it less stressful, it doesn't make it less scary, but that's why we're entrepreneurs. You don't become an entrepreneur unless you work really well for yourself, you love your passion, you've got a clear vision, and you're not afraid to take a risk. And all entrepreneurs have that in common. Great vision, great mission, and thriving on taking that risk. Thriving and being a leader in the industry.

28:29Yeah, I love that. So if people want to get a hold of Jeff or CLEARN, what's the best way? Of course, we've got a phone number, 828-407-0038. Feel free to give us a call. We've got a website, clearntraining.com. Check that out. We're revamping that to encompass more of our duties. Everything's slow and planned, but still needs to be revamped, Bill. I'm not going to might as well be honest, right? And of course, shoot us an email, my personal email, which you can talk to my team. I love to talk to our clients, future perspective and current, absolutely thoroughly enjoy it. Always learn something from them.

29:10Drop me an email and it's jeffatclearn.training. Kind of an unusual email, but we're kind of an unusual company. So jeffat clearn.training, reach out to me. Once again, I love to chat. We do free consultations for folks. We love to do it. It's just, it is our passion. We love it. Yeah, thanks, Jeff. Well, we're going to have you back. We got a lot to talk about. I just realized we don't talk enough. And so it's a good way we'll just get it on video instead of just doing it, you know, over a beer or something a little bit later. So thanks for being on. Really appreciate your time. Hey, we're looking forward to the Asheville Business Summit.

29:48If you're coming in town or planning to attend, which you should plan to attend, And make sure you drop by our booth. Once again, I love to chat. I'm definitely a talker. So we look forward to seeing as many people there as possible. Yeah, and if you're not registered yet, you want to go out to WNCSummit.com, get yourself registered. Not only will Jeff be there, but also we got Brad Sugars coming in to talk about management versus leadership. We've just got all kinds of stuff. Check out the full menu of events. There's actually events on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday that you can sign up for. We look forward to seeing you there.

30:24Hey, and until next time, all the best.