Dima Sobovoy – Eight Kids, Business, Kingdom Mission- from Welfare to Leadership

I remember the very first date I told her I probably would not

want to live here my whole life. I would probably want to go and

be a missionary somewhere. Are you still interested in

dating? Because I did receive some help

originally. We did receive some welfare and

stuff. I always had a position that

this is only for those who actually need it.

The thing is, I know people, my even my relatives even who have

been abusing the system. And, and because the system is

set up to be abused, you are offered money without working.

And then you're told to go work and you, you're, you're told to

make a choice. You can get money instead of

working or you can get money through working.

And it's a lot of times very similar amount of money.

Hey there and welcome to From the Ground Up Show, the show

where we encourage and inspire the next generation of free

thinking leaders by telling the stories of those that have been

there, done that, and are still getting it done.

Building a life that they love with their hearts, their hands

and their hustle. I'm your host Eric Loden.

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that download gets counted every week as soon as a new show comes

out. So today I am joined by Dima

Sabavoy. Dima is the founder of

Contractor SEO Academy. He's the founder of the Biblical

Contractor Group and host of the Biblical Contractor Show.

He is a husband, a father and a follower of Jesus.

So, Dima, thanks for joining us. Absolutely, Eric.

My pleasure. Looking forward to this

conversation. Yeah, yeah.

Well, I'm excited to have this conversation as well.

I know I've followed you on social media.

I've learned a little bit about you and all the things that

you're doing. You have a lot going on, so I'm

excited to learn more about it. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, we have. We have multiple businesses

here. We have a lot of kids in my

family. We have 88 kids that God gave

us. So always busy, always on the

go, always trying to not drown but also have a have a good

sailing too. Yeah, yeah.

So what? What are the ages of your kids?

Yeah, so the oldest one is turning 13 next Saturday.

So I'm going to be a first teenager in the house and all

the way down to, we have a four months old, so four months all

the way to 13 we have we have 5 girls and three boys.

So yeah, a big busy house for sure.

But God bless us with two oldest girls.

So that's that's some serious help right there.

You know, that's some serious help for my wife.

Even though the older one is 13 and the second one is 11.

They are, they're doing great. They're doing a lot of a lot of

help. And then my boy who's 10, who's

also very useful, helpful. So we're trying to teach him

hard work from the start, kind of ownership, kind of having

their own budgets and ability to earn some money for extra chores

and stuff like that. That's awesome, man 8, that is a

house full. We've got three ourselves from

4:00 to 11:00 and 3:00 is about all my wife and I can handle.

So man, respect for you for taking on 8.

That's a lot. Thank you.

That's all. My wife.

My job is easy. She's the one working.

Amen. You got that right.

Yeah. Well, we go ahead.

I was just going to say we like to start every show rolling back

kind of clear to the beginning. So do you mind telling us a

little about a little bit about your childhood and what it was

like growing up? Absolutely.

So wow. That makes me want to go to all

the all the back, all the way back to Ukraine.

So I grew up in Ukraine until I was 17, which is when we moved

to US. So all the way basically half my

life. Yeah, exactly.

Pretty much half of my life is, is spent in Ukraine, Kiev.

Grew up in the Christian family, you know, traditional Baptist

Church and, you know, being the rebel and living a double life

for for most of my life, you know, like, like typical a child

of a Christian family or Christian parents.

And and then until you know, until probably around 2015 is

when I, I distinctly remember my conscience being stirred more

and more and more that I am that I'm not who I, who I claim to

be. Because when you, when you grow

up in church, you always immediately involved in all the

ministries and camps and activities.

I was kind of like a almost like an informal youth leader at that

age. And the church was pretty large.

So, you know, as long as you're acting certain way, you're

considered, you're good. But hearing gospel again and

again and again at different places really, really made a

difference. I think it was 16 right right

before my senior year in high school.

That's when that's when God just changed my heart, my, my

conscience was, was stirred. The Holy Spirit just convicted

me of sin and I, I had to, I had to come clean and accept Jesus

as my Lord, submit to him and kind of give him blank slate of

my life, so to speak, and, and just offer myself to his service

as much as I can. Of course, after that, there's a

lot of growth that had to happen and still is happening.

But yeah, that's, that's where I'm, that's kind of my

background as kid of a fairly traditional Christian family.

My, my grandfather is a pastor and the other one was a

preacher. And you know, when you grow up

in a Christian family, you kind of feel like you're saved.

You know, you, you and you're, you're kind of grandfathered

into the faith, which, which of course we know it's not the

case. It's, it's, it has to be

personal. So it took, it took some time

before, before I came to realization that I am not going

where I'm where I'm think I'm going.

And I had to really humble myself and accept that new new

position of brokenness and just acknowledge I have nothing to

offer, even though I'm coming from a certain heritage of

Christian, Christian heritage, Christian family, that that's

nothing in the sight of God for sure.

And and I needed that righteousness of Jesus to to be

to cover me on on on my behalf so I can stand and be accepted

by him. And then at at 22,007 is when we

moved to US. And since then we lived in state

of Washington, so that's why I'm still still am at We moved a

couple of times. I met my wife in 2020 or No 2

thousand 2010 and then married 2011 and yeah, and since then

we've we like I said, we had eight kids, couple of businesses

and, you know, just trying to live a faithful life, nothing

fancy. You know, I'm not looking for

any big stages or anything like that.

I really my biggest goal in life is to to be found faithful at

the end of the day and both to my wife and to God.

Yeah, Amen. That's a that's a solid goal and

something to aspire to. So, yeah, I can imagine the the

transition, you know, as a high school student, a teenager,

moving is difficult, but moving to a new country had to be very

difficult. Can you tell us a little bit

about that? What kind of struggles did you

have? Yeah, Yeah.

I mean, you know, throughout my childhood, I was always

surrounded by American missionaries who would come and

visit us in Kiev. My uncle was a director of a

missionary kind of board. So I, I would, I would spend a

lot of time with Americans, with American missionaries.

I studied English at school. You know, it was, it was pretty

helpful. But also I was just, I was just

inspired by, by these Americans who would come from, you know,

from, from out there with, with popcorn and, you know, peanut

butter, like stuff that we didn't have.

And so that was exciting. So I, I was, I was already

around English language for, for some time.

But of course, when we came to USI quickly realized that my, my

British English that I studied in school was just not going to

cut it. So I had to pick up a lot of

slang, which, which is like it's own language.

You know, every part of US has its own thing.

So now you now you have to kind of figure out what to use and

what not to say. And but no, it was it was fun.

I was ambitious. I was young.

My parents had it harder. Of course, you know, they're,

they're a lot older. My dad had a business at in

Ukraine. So coming here and starting from

scratch was, was tough. He tried multiple times to start

at his own business again, but it never really worked out.

But you know, they're doing, they're doing their best at

providing. Yeah, but it was, I remember

when I came to because I was 17 and I'm like, maybe I should, I

finished school there because you finished school at 17 there.

It's 11 grades and I come here and, and technically I should be

still in high school till, you know, till 18.

So I'm like, maybe I should do another year of school here in

US just to get a high school diploma.

And I get in there and I spent there a week until they told me,

no, you can't do that. So you have to go to college.

But for that week, I was pretty blown away by how different the

school system is. And like these big dudes walking

around with mustaches at, you know, 818.

I'm not just like, what what is going on?

Are they eating a lot of McDonald's or what's like?

But I, I later I realized, you know, Latinos, you know,

obviously they, they grow bigger faster Jeans, hairy, hairy

jeans. They come out early.

So that's just not something you're used to seeing in

Ukraine. You know, all the guys there is

like skinny and still they'll kind of, they need a few few

years before they start shaving after just after high school.

OK, man, that's interesting. Those are some differences I

probably would not have thought of.

Yeah. What was the impetus for your

family to move to the US? Well.

It was technically under the refugee status.

So my parents beckoning USSR. That was a tough time for them.

Both my grandparents and my parents were persecuted for

their faith on both in school and at work.

My my mom lost some job opportunities.

If you're not part of the party, the Communist Party, you're

really you, you, you're going to really struggle to get a good

job, good education. Even though she was like the

best student in the, in the high school, she couldn't get a good

job because she wasn't, you know, part of the part of the

party, official part of the Communist Party.

And then just ridiculing and, you know, a lot of stuff that

happened to them. So that that gave him a basis to

apply for refugee status, even though even though Ukraine by

then was already, you know, free country or for some time, their

past was kind of something that it was still honored and they

gave him ability to move to US. Yeah.

And I just, I didn't actually want to go because I wanted to.

I wanted to serve God there. I was involved in church.

I was involved in evangelism very, very heavily.

Like we would go outside on the streets and talk and share the

gospel with people. And.

But they moved and I'm like, well, because I didn't have a

say. I wasn't 18 yet.

And I'm like, maybe I'll be here for a year or two and then come

back and just never happened. You know, we found when we came

here, I, we became part of a very, very, very good church,

very solid biblical church that made a major difference on my

upbringing. Moving on, my teenage and then

early 20s were very much shaped by the theology, by the

preaching of the of that church, the serious approach to, to the

Bible, to sanctification, to ecclesiology itself, you know,

church doctrine of the church. Moving back still I, I'm still

dreaming about moving back sometime.

I, I was there just three years ago and actually during the war,

I went there to teach with one of the seminaries and help

translate another professor. But you know, when you have 8

kids, you can have, you have to make sure that it's, it's

realistic to move back to a country like that, especially in

the middle of the war. Maybe one day we will, you know,

I still have a heart for Ukraine and maybe eventually we'll come

back, especially when, when the war is over.

And that's still in my heart. Yeah.

How does your wife feel about going back?

You know, she's the kind of person that likes to deal with

the questions as they come. So she's not she's not much of A

dreamer or a visionary. She's just like, well, I have a

bunch of kids right here, right now.

Let's make sure they survive. They have food, they are, you

know, they have clothes, they have friends that are good, but

like stuff like that. So, but the very first time we

actually dated, I remember the very first date, I told her I

probably would not want to live here my whole life.

I would probably want to go and be a missionary somewhere.

Are you still interested in dating?

Because because you know, if you picture your life here in a huge

house and unlimited budgets and everything, it's probably not

me. And obviously I don't know how

my life is going to go and there's so many conditions for

things to go the right way, but that's kind of my desire.

And it told her and she had some time to think so.

And here we are married. I think, I think she's open to

it when the time is right. Right now it's just not the

right time. But, but it's not, it's not

dead. We're I'm not dead set on

Ukraine either. You know, I've got wills and

we're going to go to Kyrgyzstan, which is that's her home

country, Kyrgyzstan. Maybe, maybe that's where we end

up. The point is right now it's it's

too early. We have a lot of little kids.

I'm still kind of taking classes at the seminary and we'll see

maybe in in the next 5 to probably 5 to 10 years.

I do see myself somewhere serving in some remote place.

We'll see. Yeah, great, great.

Well, you've kind of brought us up to the end of high school.

Do you have any secondary education?

Did you do any college education here in the US?

Yeah, I took a bunch of classes actually here and I quickly

realized that a lot of these classes are just, they're just

not for me or they're a waste of time.

I did come eventually to a realization that college

education, most of it is just not useful, to be honest.

And unless you're going to be an engineer or a doctor or

something like like very, very specific, very specialized, a

lot of it is not going to help you succeed in life.

So I've, I've wasted a lot of, you know, a lot of hours just

sitting and studying things that I don't know if I should have.

And eventually I'm like, I'm just going to open a business.

I'm just going to pick, pick. I'm just going to learn a

technical skill that I, I know has an very, very clear ROI

promise. And to me that was digital

marketing. You know, I picked, I paid for a

course in line, $5000. I would come every evening after

my job. I was working in a dental lab at

that point. So I did get some technical

education in a dental field to be a lab technician.

So that was good. But then also I'm like, okay,

I'm this lab technician doing these dentures, doing these

prosthetics, but I also want to have some kind of business that

I, that I can control. So I was studying digital

marketing in the evenings. And then that's kind of how I

became the kind of SCO guy in my industry and contractor world,

in the construction world, roofing in particular, that's

where it started. But so, and then throughout all

this time, I was taking some specific seminary classes.

So I knew that I knew I needed that.

I knew I needed some technical theological training so that I

could be as useful as as I can be, so I can cut out all the

potential errors as much as I can from from my words.

But also when it comes to ministry, a lot of it is, is

just time and character and, and maturity.

Also, it's not just a degree. So God's been working in our

life, in my life, and teaching me a lot of lessons, humbling me

and teaching you repentance and stuff like that.

That's even, I would say, way more important than theological

formal education. But that other part is also

important, I believe. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a little bit of both and in

that field specifically so, yeah, awesome.

Well, you mentioned working at a dental lab before starting your

business. Yeah.

Did you have any other jobs before starting your digital

marketing career? Man, yeah.

I mean, so I got married when I was 21, fairly young and we had

a kid pretty much next year. So I was, I was working my first

job before that. I was like a preschool teacher

assistant. When I got married, I was AT&T

sales Rep for a couple years doing sales in AT&T.

It was good experience. It was very, very instrumental.

I didn't like it just because it was just high, high pressure

sales and it, and I would say it depended on what manager I was

under obviously. And then I'm like at one point

I'm like, I couldn't, I can't do it anymore just because it was

just too, too much pressure to pick numbers and stuff like

that. So I went and like I need to, I

need to study, I need to get a technical education.

So I became a dental assistant. So in the evenings I would go

and do classes to become a dental assistant.

Pretty female dominant space. So I'm like one, one guy and 30

girls in that class. That was funny.

But I got into dental assisting, worked there for a year, maybe

less. And I immediately saw an

opportunity for dental lap technicians because that's where

a lot of guys would work. And it was like this perfect,

like quiet place where you can just listen to music or whatever

you want to listen and, and you have these cool skills to, to

build prosthetics for people, you know, dentures.

And I'm like, I want to do that. And my company had an internal

training for that role. So I immediately applied.

I went through that training and it took me something like 8

months and then, yeah, I basically graduated.

I'm like, OK, I'm ready to start.

They offered me a job here in Spokane, WA.

So I moved six hours from Vancouver, WA and became a kind

of a lab manager here at a new Aspen Dental.

And that's the company. And then since then I helped

open another four locations here to train their technicians, to

open them, to help them, you know, get started.

So I, I love that job. It was very independent, very

kind of mentally, I would say like you have your own thing,

you have your own schedule and it was very satisfying in terms

of like you make things with your own hands and you can.

So I was pretty successful at that.

And then at some point I'm like, we had more kids, more kids.

We had a third kid at that point and I'm like, I need, I need to

better control my time because I don't want to always exchange

money for, for, for, for time or time for money.

I want to be able to offer value that's that's, and be paid by

value on, based on value, not necessarily ours.

So I started researching and that's where I, that's where I

came to digital marketing as, as the, as the bridge to that.

To that goal. That's great.

That's a realization I think a lot of people don't always get.

They don't make that switch. And yeah, I tell the guys that

have worked for me in the past, even those that are hourly

employees, I tell them all the time, I don't pay you for your

time. I pay you for your value for the

the work that you bring. But we might measure it in time.

But you don't get paid for your time.

You get paid for the work that you produce.

So you figured that out early and made a change because of it.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And the the more value you

bring, the more you can set that number that, that, that you need

or that you want. And the more you need, the more

specialized you are and what you do, the less ceiling you have,

the more freedom you can have at setting that value number,

attaching that number to that value.

Because a lot of times, you know, we we think it's, you

know, it's this number. But if you offer significant

value now that that number can be 10 times more and and you

have no market rules at that point really because you're,

you're might, you may be the only one or one of the few who

is specialized to do something like that.

Yeah, that's awesome. Good for you.

So, yeah, thank you. Can you tell me a little bit

about starting that business? Where did you get the idea to go

into digital marketing? Yeah.

So like I said, I was, I was looking for ways to make money.

Really my thought process was not necessarily passive income

because I don't think it's ever really passive, but something

that would be working for me, creating a system that would

generate revenue for me even when I'm sleeping and something

that would work for me when I'm not at the desk.

So not again, exactly exchanging money for hours directly, but

maybe indirectly still. So I started researching like

what, what is, what is out there that I can really get good at

and set up and create a system that would provide continuous

revenue in exchange maybe for, you know, maybe upfront set up

or a major work upfront, but not necessarily at the same time or

same, same amount of effort. And digital marketing was, was

that especially specifically SEO?

And, and the way that I was thinking about it is there was

a, there was a system, there was a school or program that was

called actually, it's funny name, but it was called job

killing. So the idea was to create these

websites, you know, like digital marketing or not, like basically

digital real estate properties that generate leads organically.

So you put a lot of effort up front, you put some money, you

build these websites, they rank and they start generating,

generating leads. And then you rent them out.

Then you rent out these websites to local companies.

So that's, that's kind of the first time I'm like, oh,

interesting concept. I love it.

So one of the one of the tasks for any new student was to build

one right there, right then and while you're in the school.

So I had to put some money towards that also.

So I build a towing website here in Spokane.

I didn't have any towing skills or knowledge.

I didn't have any truck. But I had to like pretend like

I'm a towing company and build a towing website, called it

Spokane towing services use my home address as the as the then

open any LLC. Just build a website within

within what was it like 3 months?

It started generating calls. So I would work for three

months, many, many hours. It started generating calls at

three months and then at six months it was top three on

Google organically. So at that point I'm like, OK, I

have all these calls coming in, I have no clue what to do with

them. So I started sending those leads

to local towing guys. And then eventually after

multiple, you know, multiple trials, multiple tests, I ended

up working with one guy and he would just pay me per lead, you

know, per lead. And at that point, once you're

at the top organically, you, you don't necessarily need to put

the same effort every time you've, you've put it up front.

So that was exactly what I was looking for.

It's like, I like that. So now I just need to repeat

that, you know, So I'm like, maybe I should build more and

more and more of these. Now, obviously the more you do,

the more, the more money you need to invest, the more time

you need. And there's more to it than

just, you know, collecting checks.

So, and also the hardest part was finding that partner,

finding that true, an honest business owner who would

actually pay you per lead and not like, you know, trick you

and lie to you and stuff like that.

So at that point, I'm like, I think, I think I need to really

specialize in one thing and one thing only and really build my

brand around 1 industry in particular so that I can become

the person to go to and really understand the industry enough

that I would separate myself from, from other guys would do

maybe do similar stuff. So after some research and this

and that, I'm, I'm like, one thing I'm not going to do 111

industry, I'm not going to do is, is roofing because it's just

too tough. I had someone who paid me before

to do SEO for the roofing company.

It didn't work very well at all. And I'm like, that's one thing I

will never do. I'm going to do tree service,

I'm going to do landscaping. And then I've done some of that

already by then, you know, towing, tree service,

landscaping. And again, every, every new

industry is new challenge learning new things about what

do they do? What do they not do with their

pricing? It's like, no, I'm going to pick

one and specialize, but it's not going to be roofing.

And The funny thing is, my friend here was a roofer who is

like, Hey, can you help me? And I'm like, it's hard.

Everything is hard. Are you sure you have the, the

desire, you have the commitment, you have the money.

I'm like, if you want, I can try.

You need to pay me $2000 per month.

And for the next 6 months, I don't want to hear from you.

Like don't, don't bug me, don't call me, just pay me two grand a

month. That's that's my condition, you

know, and if it works, works great.

And surprisingly he's like, OK, I'm like, all right, I guess you

have some extra cash bringing or something, I don't know.

And at that time, 2 grand was, was a big number, you know,

bigger number. At least, you know, it was

almost 10 years ago. And again, in six months that

website was at the top. So I'm like, OK, so really it's

just more about budget, the bigger budget.

So I'm, I'm like, OK, maybe I should do roofing because I

started going to these conferences, roofing conference

with him and these people, they have a lot of resources

available, but they don't have anyone they trust.

You know, they've been burned so many times.

So they have resources to spend. They don't have trust and

they're just going from one to another to another to another

being burned by everyone. And all of those people are

generalists. They're not specializing in

roofing SEO. So I'm like, OK, maybe maybe

I'll specialize in roofing SEO. Now it's like it's exactly what

I didn't want to do. But because there's such a

demand and because there is, there is a high ticket value

there, maybe I should just take that bullet, you know, and and

actually become the specialist. So that's what I did.

You know, when 20/20/19 we decided, OK, that's going to be

our thing. So we open company and then 2021

we actually made a pivot. We opened a roofing SEO school

where we decided, hey, we, we're not just going to offer

services, we're actually going to teach SEO.

We're going to teach how to do it in house, which nobody else

would ever do because everyone's trying to protect their

knowledge. And we decided we're going to,

again, we're going to do something different because I've

learned by then that you do the hard things, you do things that

others don't do. And that's how you separate

yourself. And yeah, I know that's a match.

Full right there. You nailed it with that.

That's that's how you succeed in an industry is doing the things

that others won't do. Yeah, exactly.

So, yeah, I mean, that's that's exactly what happened.

And we built a roofing SEO school and a lot of companies

went through that school learn SCOA, lot of their managers did.

We've had probably over 400 companies by now who've been

through the, the roofing SEO school.

And then just half a year ago we decided to make another pivot

and kind of evolve into contractor SEO Academy.

So now we're moving, not moving away from roofing, but we're

adding to it. Now we, we want to also make it

available for everyone else, electricians, HVAC, anyone who,

who, who's a contractor because the process and, and theory is

the same. But my language was always

almost exclusive to roofing. Now we're like, OK, let's let's

rebuild this school and and make it open to anyone.

And for that reason, we're actually going to open a brand

new contractor company locally and record the whole process

live so that we can kind of show that, you know, our money is

where our mouth is and prove live on on the camera that it

can be done for anyone. And whether you're roofer,

electrician, beach vac, anyone else.

Gutter company got a replacement siding.

So we picked Epoxy coatings company as the kind of example

that we're going to use. It's simple enough that it's not

going to take all of my time in the world, but it's also

challenging enough and profit margins are nice and where where

it could be a good good case study, good example and and it's

actually can become very profitable company.

So we just open that officially January 7th, 2026.

Oh, man, You just, yeah, you jumped ahead to one of my

questions was what was the impetus for pivoting from to

contracting that you're kind of just taking your own philosophy

and putting it to work is what you're up to, Yeah.

Exactly. I believe the marketing is

changing so rapidly right now, the AI and everything.

There's so many new things coming out every single day that

even for us as, as teachers on this front, it's very important

to make sure we're we're based in reality.

We're grounded in reality, not in theory.

So for me it was like, listen, there's so many things coming

out. The only way we can effectively

really offer value, continual value is if we are in the same

boat with, with our students, like we're actually have to do

these things ourselves and test them, test them thoroughly from

inside out. And, and that was the biggest

motivation to provide value that's been tested, especially

again, because there's so many new things coming out, AI, new

new engines, new opportunities, new ways of doing things.

And I don't want to be just the guy who's teaching theory.

At the end of the day, we want to teach stuff that works, stuff

that we tried, stuff that we know works and, and, and also

test things that don't work, that maybe others will say do

this and it's actually not a good idea, which, which a lot of

markers do these days. It's like when this new shiny

toy came out. Do it.

Maybe you shouldn't do it. You know, maybe it's going to

distract you and you're going to waste a lot of, you know, hours

and hours is everything. That time is your biggest asset.

So don't do it. Do this instead.

We decided to kind of take it head on and and and build their

own company and use it as a true example and record the whole

process for our students. That's awesome, I love that as a

a former contractor myself. Like you said, there's the

markets just flooded with people that want to fix your website,

do your SEO, take your calls. The marketing options are just

overwhelming sometimes and very few of them ever deliver.

I personally got to a spot where I just like Nope, anything I

need to know I'll learn how to do it myself in house.

Cuz like you said that the trust level just wasn't there the

couple times I ventured out and tried something they over

promised and under delivered. And it sounds like you guys are

really committed to doing just the opposite.

You're walking it yourself, you're doing case studies,

you're willing to prove it before you ask for payment.

That's that's pretty cool. That seems like a great

approach. Yeah, Yeah, I think that's the

most honest approach right now. I, I encourage every marketer

who is out there to to do the same.

Some, some have already followed our example and open their

contractor company, which is which is I believe what they

need to do what what all of them need to do.

It doesn't have to be the hardest possible niche or

industry, but something that you can really use as a real world

example that your actually works and that your method actually

works where you know, it's just too, there's too many, their

risk is too high to misguide your, your clients and your

students. And so we just decided we cannot

in good faith continue just teaching theory.

Or before it was fine because it wasn't changing that fast.

You know, it was like just pretty, pretty slow.

But right now SEO is changing or digital marketing is changing

and social media is changing. Everything is being mixed

together. It's all one big a melting pot.

It's no longer very neatly separated.

AI changed the game and you have to recognize that.

You have to. You have to respect that the

change and and treat it differently.

Yeah, so I got a couple questions, but I want to roll

back quite a ways. You said, you know when you

first started this, even when you were going through your

school, you started the Spokane Towing Services and yeah, put up

the website, started building out kind of a pho business or a

business online with really no business behind it.

What do you do with that first call when it comes in?

So I just, I just forwarded to some local towing company and I

was that point, I was just looking who would, who would

handle those calls. So I would forward it to one

company and then another company and another.

And I would listen through the calls and I'm like, do they even

pick up the phone? Do they even talk?

Do they have customer service? And then and then soon enough, I

realized that most of the companies who are established,

they have horrible customer service.

So it's like I'm not going to work with anyone who's already

there. I went to Craigslist at that

point, you know, Craigslist was a big deal.

And that not anymore. That would probably go to

marketplace or something right now.

Facebook. And I found a guy who just

graduated from high school. He was like 18 and he had one

arm and he was doing towing. He was offering towing services.

And I'm like, listen, dude, I have this thing.

Do you want, do you want some leads?

But be ready, your phone's going to blow up.

And he's like, sure, next day He was, he was the number one

towing guy in the country, or I mean in the city, because he

would get, you know, a 1520 thirty calls a day.

So now he had to immediately become a business owner and

start thinking about buying, selling, how to manage it.

And he was, he was struggling with that, obviously a new guy,

but that's how I found eventually the guy who I ended

up selling this website to, he was he, he wasn't a towing guy

at that point. He was doing snow removal.

I'm like, listen, and I also had her snow removal Legion lead

generation website too. So I had snow removal leads

coming in too. So the same guy who would do

snow removal. I'm like, listen, I have this

towing thing going. Do you want to maybe just start

a business because the leads are here?

I mean, that's the most important thing.

You have the blood flow coming in all the time.

She's like, OK, so he started, he bought a first drug, second

truck in it. And then last year I sold the,

the website to him for like $30,000.

So he owns it now. It's all his hundreds of reviews

online already. And that, you know, at that

point I'm like, good. You know, I, I don't want to, I

don't want to just kind of hold his ambitions also.

So I sold it to him so he can he can own the whole thing now.

That's awesome. That's kind of a cool model.

And yeah, you're, you're not only making an income for

yourself and building a business for yourself, but you're really

helping someone build their business.

And yeah, you're serving other leaders, serving other business

owners and serving your community.

Well, that's a cool model. That's interesting.

Yeah. I mean, at that point it worked

very well. I don't know if I would do it

now just again, because branding now is so important as part of

SCO, like actual branding, actual social media presence,

actual videos and photos. And just it's harder now to just

get to the top where before it's like you do the right things,

you do the ABCD and then you'll be at the top.

You just do them consistently. We're now you actually need to

build a serious brand that has views, that has traffic, that

has likes and posts and re shares and all of that stuff.

So it's I don't know if I would continue with that model

anymore, but it's it's always every, every, every time period

provides its own opportunities. So there's other opportunities

now. Yeah.

So that was where I was headed. Next is what are the major

differences you see or the big shifts in kind of digital

marketing with the proliferation of AI?

And like you said, it seems like things were kind of the same for

many years and just in the last year or two it's gotten flipped

on it's head. What are you seeing change?

Yeah. I think the biggest changes that

kind of like I already alluded to, the lines that were before

very clear between SCO, between social media, between branding

are now completely either blurred or destroyed, completely

removed. Before you didn't need to have

YouTube activity or social media Facebook activity to be ranking

in YouTube or sorry, on the Google to be ranking on Google

organic results. You just set up the right

website, you put the right title tags and H ones and content, you

know, and get backlinks and boom, you're at the top.

I'm saying for maps, you know, you just set up the maps

correctly. You put maybe the service or

city in the name itself, you add it to your descriptions and you

know, stuff like that and you optimize it properly and you're

at the top where now there's a lot more additional signals that

these engines look at. And primarily because AI opened

the door to a lot of unverified information.

So now anyone can claim whatever and the content, the amount of

continents being produced right now is thousands of times more

than before. So there, there has to be a grid

through which these engines evaluate what's real and what's

not. And one of the biggest ways that

they do it is by looking at your social media activity because

fake accounts or fake businesses or even real businesses, but

those that are not, they're not active, they're not reliable

anymore, you know, so, so now it's a big, big factor whether

or not you actually have these trust signals that you send and,

and they are very much related to your social media presence

activity. But it's not just, it's not to

say that social media is everything.

It's a combination of both social media and optimization.

That's why to me, SCO is no longer just website

optimization. It's search everywhere

optimization. Now you have to be everywhere.

You have to optimize everything. And you want to make sure you're

sending these signals from different angles so that your

brand now is recognized as its own entity.

And then once that's done, then you will be able to rank

organically and rank inside AI or before it was a lot more kind

of wooden, you know, it was like a lot more pragmatic.

It was just very, very basic type of SEO that worked.

Yeah. So now, now it's it's not that

you don't do SEO now that now is you translate SEO techniques

into these other platforms like YouTube, like Facebook, like you

know, Instagram and being active, maybe even do some

additional smart optimizations and maybe additional listings on

Maplet on the map for multiple locations.

That's something we do also as a service, but also we teach that.

But yeah, it's, it's it's interesting.

It's evolving still very much. It's hard to be like, that's

exactly what it is different. What's different is people

started using AI as a search engine now too.

Yeah. And now it's important to make

sure that you do what needs to be done.

So you show up in there. So sometimes it's like you want

to, you want to make sure that you are in in Reddit, you want

to make sure you mention, you know, you have a Yelp account

now where before it's like Yelp garbage.

Right, nobody cares about, well, now at least have some accounts

there because some AI engines, they use that as a, as a

reference and same goes for Angie.

And then other things, things that I would not say are

necessary before now I'm saying do it just because now it's part

of the algorithm and that's how they, that's how they judge who

is showing up at the top. The biggest thing is also, I

would say is a differentiating factors.

What, how do you differentiate yourself?

You know, what makes you better than than, than your

competition? You have to be very explicit.

For example, your warranties, you know, you have to be very

explicit about them. Basically anything that will

increase your trust score you want to be very, very specific

about. So that's why I'm, I'm

encouraging people to sign up for, you know, any kind of third

party warranty, you know, systems out there like good

contractors list, for example, stuff like that is actually

impacting your rankings these days because it's another layer

of trust that AI is looking at and makes you different, makes

you stand out, makes you real in the eyes of these engines

compared to companies that are very generic and saying the same

thing. Yeah, yeah, that's great.

We had Randy Hurtado on the show a couple months ago talking

about good contractors list and and his journey building DT

Roofing. So it seems like the good

contractors list has really taken off even just in the last

month and a half, two months since I chatted with him.

I'm seeing that pop up. You know, it was kind of a Texas

Dallas market thing and now it's it's almost nationwide just

overnight. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. They're doing great things.

I'm proud of them and we're actually partners with them too.

That's one of the reasons we decided to open a contractor SCO

Academy versus Roofing SCO School is because we are their

exclusive SCO partner, which means they recommend us to their

contractors as, as the school to, to get education on their

SCO. And then we recommend them, but

not because we don't believe in it.

Obviously that's the only reason we, we, we even started that

conversation. I do believe it makes a big

difference on your SCO and you being, you're having a lot more

arguments in the, in the online world that you are the person or

you are the company that people are going to work with and that

AI is going to pick and these engines will pick.

And and then we have worked with DT Roofing directly as a company

and they have seen impact from that as well.

Yeah, Randy's a great guy, and DT Roofing seems to be doing

awesome. Yeah, he's man.

I don't know. Wow.

I guess you're in the same boat with eight kids and multiple

businesses, but I don't know where you guys get the energy.

I don't think I have the bandwidth or the capacity to do

all the things that you guys are doing with multiple businesses

and lots of kids. And you and him are kind of in

that same category there. Yeah, no, it's, it's one of

those things you, you know, you just, you do one thing and then

naturally it's another thing and naturally it's another thing.

And I don't think I want to do too many businesses that are

unrelated for sure. So it's like just one flows out

of another. Yeah.

So with all the changes kind of in SEO and digital marketing,

who are things getting easier for and who is things getting

harder for? What kind of what contractors,

what patterns, is it getting easy for the people that stay

right on the cutting edge and are way on top of everything or

is it kind of looping in maybe some of the businesses that

weren't as involved in digital marketing before?

Do you see a trend either direction?

Yeah, I think the easiest is for companies who have been

investing. The easiest is for companies who

have been investing in branding. So if they've been investing

their branding, and what I mean by branding, because branding is

like everyone thinks everything when it comes to branding.

Branding is when people recognize your name and they

actually search you by your name online.

OK, that's my definition of branding.

People know what your name represents and they actually

search you by that name online, which sends a very clear signal

to online world that your brand is legit.

OK, so like if if my epoxy company is called Magenix Epoxy

coatings, right. As soon as people start typing

in Magenix epoxy Coatings on Google, that is a very strong

signal that this is legitimate brand.

And how I get there is is a different question.

You know, I can do radio, video and commercials, car wraps and

all of that. But that's how you establish a

brand. But as soon as you have people

searching you by your name, that is, you know, half you're

already half, half winning. That's like you, you got, you

got, you got your foot in the door big time and maybe even the

foot and the hand in the door. Now it's all about being extra

clear and being extra smart about optimization.

So that's why like for us, when we started this epoxy company, I

don't even have a website yet, but our wraps are done and my

car is driving. We got a cyber truck, we wrapped

a cyber truck, we got a trailer all wrapped like I'm driving

everywhere. I, I open just Instagram and

Facebook to profiles and did these wraps and I don't have a

website yet. And so I'm not expecting people

to, to search for epoxy coatings and then they find me because I

need to get there still. That's what SEO is.

But I do want people to start Googling and searching my name,

my brand, because they've seen it, because that will provide us

a lot easier time to rank for these money keywords.

And when we're ready for that, you know, when the website is

being built and all of that, because we want to come in

strong. We want to come in with, with

trust right away versus, you know, we're going to build this

website, we're going to claim we're the best, but nobody's

searching for my name. And that's a much harder path to

the top. So the biggest thing you can do

is start people, make people search you by your name soon,

immediately, and then kind of ride that wave with your

optimization, with your city pages, service pages, your GM

BS, you know, your other things that you might be doing, but

that's kind of outside of SEO at that point.

But but yeah, I mean, that's where you start.

It's just claiming and declaring that you are there.

You are a real company and people see you eyeballs.

Mayweather. Maybe it's maybe it's online,

maybe it's a local Facebook groups, but just you want people

being like, oh, interesting. This is a new company.

I want to see it. I want to search for it.

And and we've we've seen that happen already.

We had AI had a funny story. And just two days ago I was in a

Walmart and I was using FSD full self driving on on on on my

cyber truck. And apparently because I didn't

pay attention because when it's full self driving, it allows for

like distraction on my phone. And apparently it got close to

somebody or got too close to somebody and the guy got upset

about it. So I don't have a website, I

don't have a G MB, I don't have Google listing yet.

The only thing I have is Instagram and Facebook.

So I, I get, and I have like 4-4 posts on my Instagram because we

just started and I get this message on my Instagram saying,

Hey, your driver just almost hit me and he was looking at his

phone and he was, he's the guy with a beard, you know, and I'm

like, I think that's me. So I write to him, I like, I

apologize, I'm really sorry. I was, I was using FSD and a

full self driving and that allows for some distractions.

But I will be more careful next time because I guess, I guess I

missed something and my apologies.

Here's 15% discount if you want to do a, you know, epoxy floor

with us. And and she's like, Oh yeah,

thank you for owning it. I'm the realtor.

I'm gonna recommend you to my clients.

Great, great. So I kind of recovered from

that, but the point is he found me right away now.

He found me right there right then and my rap was out for a

week. I was not even I don't have a

website, I don't have GMB, I don't have reviews.

But he he googled, he found my Instagram, he wrote to me and

that is brand right there immediately that's branding.

Now it's a different story that it's it was not the best kind of

example of of the great review and stuff.

But the point is, you don't need to even have a phone number and

people will find you if you're very clear with your, with your

brand, with with your name and service that you provide.

Yeah, that's great. I I saw you posted a little bit

about that on social media and yeah, to, to take a, a near

traffic accident and turn it into a referral.

That's, that's some successful marketing right there.

Oh man. So in your opinion, all of these

changes with AI and all the changes to the digital marketing

environment for the consumer, the the person that is looking

for services, the average Joe that wants to find the best

company providing the best services, are things getting

better or worse? For the consumer, I think it's

been getting better because they're skipping some major

steps that before were kind of archaic, meaning when you search

for I need a roofer, then you have a list of these websites

and now you have to yourself kind of go through and vet the

roofer. It is, it is an extra step of

having to type in the search for money keyword and then you have

this list and now you have to go through and analyze each one

individually. It could could be, you know,

it's a lot of extra time. So the user experience is

definitely getting better and, and I for that reason, I cannot

blame the way that the, the speed at which AI is moving,

because even my wife is no longer using Google.

It's like it's all, it's all tragic.

BT now, you know, like anything, she needs a tragic BT she, she

just needs an answer. She doesn't need a list of

websites where she can find an answer, right?

So for user, it's definitely easier, which which which means

for the for the companies, for local companies, it is harder.

But again, it's like one of those things that I said, the

harder it gets, the more opportunity you get to stand out

if you capitalize it, right? Because now the kind of the

level, the playing field is leveled and everyone is the same

now. So now those who know how to

capitalize on this opportunity will be the ones, it's like the

age of Internet. You know, everyone just

overnight had to switch to, to Internet from their newspapers.

And those who did it early and who did it effectively, they,

they became very, very successful.

So same thing here. You just need to realize that

yes, it's getting harder, but it that's exactly what gives you a

chance of being the, the best being being the best at it in

your area. Yeah.

Yeah, that's good information. Both.

It's good news as a consumer and good information for contractors

out there. Well, we just took a pretty good

foray into a digital marketing and kind of dove into the weeds

there. Let's get back to more your

story in building your business, either digital marketing or your

new epoxy business, What was the most difficult challenge that

you faced? We're pretty early at the epoxy

business right now, so I'm sure I'll face a lot of challenges

with that. So I'll maybe, yeah, I'll get

back to you on that later. But as far as my digital

marketing business, I would say the hardest and then probably

the most important is choosing the right people that that I

work with. You know, choosing the right

team, team members. I was, I was always very picking

careful with who I align myself and who I work with now.

And having my business partner was, was a very, very important

element for me, I think because for a while I was just doing it

myself and we, I had success. But I quickly realized that I am

not good at certain, certain things.

And rather than trying to be good at everything, I, I, I

really need to pass on the things that I'm not good at to

somebody who's good at them. And realizing that early, I

think was very, very helpful. I see a lot of roofing owners or

company or contractor owners who don't, who don't understand the

fact that they cannot be everything that their business

needs. They're very limited at what

they can do and really what they need to be as visionaries.

They need to be the leaders. And if you're a leader, that

means you cannot be stuck in the stuff that will take you away

from strategic planning. And you have to outsource that.

You have to give it up. You have to give it to somebody

who is better than you. Otherwise you will always be the

company that's, that's struggling.

I see that a lot. I see I talk to a lot of owners

who, who don't grow who just because they, they, they are not

needed to, to delegate. And the biggest thing for me was

to start delegating and removing myself from, from things that I,

that I'm not great at or that I don't like to do or that would

slow me down as a, as a strategic visionary for the

business. So I think that that was really

the most important part, the most kind of strategic move that

I had to make. Yeah, my, my business partner,

he's also my, he's also co-owner.

I, I needed to, to make sure that he stays, stays with me and

we're together and giving him, you know, a major stake or not

major, but a, a good stake, minor, but still a very, very

substantial stake in my company was a very, very, I think

correct move. Looking back again, because that

really brought him and it, it, it made him want to develop this

company into something that it is right now versus just working

for me. So I do encourage every owner

to, to put the greed aside to but be, be be strategic, be

thinking about if I'm going to grow this thing, I need people

around me who are trustworthy, who are going to be with me, who

are not going to just take off when, when I need them the most.

And I would need to rebuild everything from from zero.

I need someone who can, who can wake up and do some hard things

on the weekends and, you know, respond to to issues.

And for that they need to have a motivation.

And that motivation ultimately is ownership.

Yeah, I think, I think sharing that ownership responsibility

for any man, I think it's, it's a very, very good feeling that

you, you own something. And that's really what makes us

do things that we would not do otherwise.

So I, I do look forward to even in, in, in our epoxy business

right now, I'm working with a guy who is going to be my proper

project manager. I do hope that one day he's

going to be part owner, you know, and, and I want him to,

to, to, to own that responsibility and wait and, and

really be invested into business.

And eventually, once everything is going, once the money is

there, the next big step is, OK, I own this thing.

We're building something bigger than than just, you know,

monthly income. Yeah, Yeah.

That's cool. So at what point in your

business did you bring him in? And did you bring him in as a

partner right away or did you have him as an employee for a

while, kind of vetting him before you brought him in as a

partner? Yeah, I think so.

At first, no, I was just by myself.

I had a bunch of clients and he was just doing some sub, you

know, subcontractor work for me. Do this, do that, you know, do

this project, do that thing. And very quickly I burned out.

Like I just couldn't handle it. I just too many, like people

would pay me, but I would just be bad at managing their money.

Yes, at that point I was making more than than a little later,

not compared to right now, but I had to sacrifice some some

profit. But when I brought my friend to

be a co-owner with me, but but that's really what allowed us to

take it to the next level to be able to handle 3/4 times more

clientele. At first.

No, he was, he was just a guy who who would work for me, even

though we I knew him from like 12 from the same church from

Ukraine and everything, but still I wanted to test him to

make sure they were, you know, that we're on the same page that

he's able to follow. He's is somebody here I can

trust and he really compliments me and I'm I'm helping him like

we're we're not the same in that sense.

That's a good thing. And then after I believe it was

a year, a year and a half when he stuck with us and he was

doing so I'm like, OK, well, let's, let's, let's make you,

let's make you a co-owner. So now he is and yeah, I think

it was one of the best decisions and now we're able to do a lot

more volume because the the way that he is, he's just a very

good, very good operator, like operations guy.

He he knows details, he follows the numbers.

I hate numbers. I hate like nitty gritty stuff

of the business and he just thrives in that operational

diligence and operational, the ability to just see the details,

create systems, you know, using the CRM for every little thing.

It's just not my my strong suit. And I needed someone like that.

But he also needs me to to drive and push this company and get

more clients and get new vision, get new products going and stuff

like that. So it's, it's a really good

commination. I think.

I think it's the biggest, it's the biggest blessing in my

company is the fact that we're able to have this harmony.

I don't see it very often in companies, but when I do see two

guys working together or three as a team that really

complements each other, that's beautiful because you can do so

much better, so much more together.

Yeah. Yeah, that's good to hear.

When were you most afraid in your business journey?

Was there a point in time that you were really scared to take

the next step or didn't know what was coming next?

I think probably the closest to being afraid.

I think that's one of the characteristics of the visionary

of the CEO of the kind of the, the lead guy in the business is

he is less afraid than others. Like he has to be more risk

tolerant than others. Like otherwise you just not cut

out for this. But but still, I, I think you

know, when, when I completely switch from my dental business

or dental work industry, it's not a business.

I worked for somebody to completely doing business on my

own and 100% switch. When was when we had our child

number? Let's see.

It was, I believe it was Mark. So that was #4 So after the 4th

kid, I, I had a FM LA in Washington, you get 3 months of

FMLA. So he was born and maybe it was

#5 I think it was #5 Danica. I'm kind of I, I think I lost

track there. I think I was #5 but.

Any of them. That's understandable, yeah.

So I had three months and I'm like, OK, I have three months

and I have and I wanted to switch to make the switch from

because it's obviously not ideal for you to work at two things at

the same time. You have to make the jump at

certain points. So now this baby is born of

three months and I'm like, I don't want to be back to my job

anymore. And I have three months because

I have this check coming in from, from the state to help us

and I have three months to make it happen.

So that was probably the most kind of stressful time because I

never, I never wanted to go back to that job.

And I really wanted to build within these three months enough

of clientele, enough of both clientele, but also the kind of

the structure around the business and hire enough of

people and make sure everything is solid.

And like, I just needed to make it happen.

And that's the time when I decided to go all in into

roofing in particular, because I was working with this and this

and this and all these industries.

And as soon as the baby's born, I spent a week with my wife, you

know, to help out. And then I'm like, OK, we need

to make this happen. We have three months here.

And, and if we're going to, if this is going to work, it's

going to be great for us long term.

So for the next three months, I was just.

Working, I was just working, getting clients, training and

the employees, you know, working with my partner, setting up the

new business, everything. And God blessed our efforts.

And I didn't come back to, to my work in three months.

It was enough of businesses and in the pipeline.

I, I, yeah, since then I was just kind of on my own.

And still, you know, it's still frightening.

Like to even wake up every morning and be like, Oh my

goodness, I have 8:00 kids and I have these.

I have now two guys with their families here in my office and I

have what, around 10 families in Ukraine then depend on us

because we outsource. Some of the not outsource.

We have our teams in Ukraine that we train that work

exclusively with us. There's probably close to 15

people in Ukraine that do web design, that content creation,

social media marketing, like all of those guys are in Ukraine.

And then there are families, especially some of them.

Those designers are 50 miles from the front lines.

That's where they live. So like sometimes they have to

go underground because they'll, you know, the, the sirens are on

and they need to do some edits on the websites for our clients

and, you know, the air siren is on.

So they go underground to, to do some edits.

Like that's, that's who we work with.

That's our guys, it's our people and their families.

So, and it's like it's, it's, it's a scary thought to, to

think that, you know, they depend on, on me and, and to a

large degree in their income. So every, every time it's, it's

humbling to realize that I have responsibility.

I have, I need to, I need to be discipline, I need to be

faithful. I need to provide enough work

for them, but also for guys here for my own family and stuff like

that. So I know it's a realization for

any business owner. It's like, Oh, my goodness, are

we? Am I really all on my own?

Like, once in a while you think that?

My goodness. OK, Yeah, no, it's working,

working, working, working. But that's what entrepreneurs

are. Yeah, yeah.

That's a big part of what we try to do here with the show is

being an entrepreneur, being the boss.

It can be lonely. It can be scary, yeah.

Like you say, you have a a business partner you can kind of

share that load with. But sometimes it's nice to hear

that you're not alone or that you're not the only one that has

felt that or dealt with that. And you know, that's what we're

doing here, so. Exactly.

And not the last thing up on this, not the last thing is the

faith that plays a big, big role in this.

You know, it's, it could be stress, stressful to realize

that weight on you, but at the end of the day, you always

remind yourself, you know, it's not an it's not an accident,

it's not on you. It's not, you know, I'm, I'm not

meant to carry this load on my own.

I need to trust God with everything.

And if this business is successful, praise God.

If it's not, and I did everything that's in my power,

praise God, you know, and I need to accept that as as his will,

the end of the day. So I don't like to accept only

good from God and not the bad like the job is talking about,

right? But but even the bad is not

really the bad. It it just looks like bad, you

know, Romans 828 Everything serves for good to those who

love him in a cold cold according to his purpose.

So any challenge, anything that's that's painful and, or,

or easy and sweet, it's all from, from from your father if,

if you know him as such. Yeah, yeah.

That's good stuff. And that can be difficult to do

sometimes. I struggle with that a lot.

But I know there's a few times where I had a big scary thing in

front of me. And it helps to remember this is

not the first big scary thing that I've faced.

And even before, when I didn't know how it was going to go or,

or what I was supposed to do or how things are going to turn it

out, God was faithful and carrying me through it and

seeing me through it. And this is just the next one of

those, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, our job it's just to be faithful.

And I think that's a lot of times we mix faithfulness with

effectiveness or with numbers. That's not the same thing.

And sometimes you, you might have all the numbers and, and it

looks like you're successful, but you actually don't, you're

actually unfaithful, like you're, you're doing some wrong

things. God's actually not blessing,

even though you have numbers, It's actually a bad thing that

maybe you have these, this wealth and maybe God has

abandoned you for that reason, you know, because you've been,

you've been unfaithful or dishonest or ungrateful like we

read in Romans 1, you know, where because of their

ungratefulness, he has abandoned them to their own sins and not

the least of which is greed and desire for money and stuff like

that. So to me, money in numbers is

not the ultimate measure of blessing.

I know for some people it is. To me, it's just an opportunity

to, to worship, you know, an opportunity to serve.

It's a test at the end of the day.

And what, what I do with it and what my heart is, the state of

my heart heart is, is the real measure, is a real, is a real

test that God looks at. Yeah.

I think a lot of the times money just makes you more of what you

already were. It doesn't necessarily change

you, but a generous person that gets a lot of money will be

extraordinarily generous, and a greedy person that starts making

a lot of money gets more greedy. Yeah.

Yeah, somebody that wants to take advantage of people and

starts making money doing it takes more advantage of more

people. And somebody that loves to serve

their their community, serve their customers, provide value,

they start making money, they're going to be of more service and

greater value. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree.

I mean, I just think there's a lot of misunderstanding about

money equaled blessing. Like if you make money,

therefore you're blessed. And it's just not the case.

You see young rich ruler, right? Rich guy who who is trying to

follow Jesus is just like, no, you love your money more than

me. He's rich, but he's not blessed.

He's not where he should be. He's actually opposite of

blessed. He's cursed by his riches

because he cannot, he cannot choose with the bigger treasure,

which is Jesus. So I try to kind of push, push

the idea, push the away, the idea that money equals blessing.

It is definitely an opportunity and a test to expose our own

hearts for sure. Yeah.

Yeah, I agree with that. I think, you know, there's also

the people that swing the other direction and, you know, in

order to be godly, you have to be poor.

And I don't think that's true either.

You know, I love what you said. The goal is to be faithful, to

live the life that God has put in front of us with the

blessings that he has given us, the situation he has put us in,

no matter what that is, you know, the whether it's poor or

wealthy or somewhere in between, that is not a measure of your

blessing or your holiness. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And one of one of the, one of

the most godly people I've met. We're we're never rich.

Most of the world is not rich. It's abnormal for people to be

rich in this world. But, but, but I also met people

who are rich and who are very godly, you know, in US,

especially those, those are the ones that we need to celebrate

and be like, Hey, you can, you can be rich and you can still be

faithful and you can still be all about God's Kingdom.

You can still about be about spread of the gospel and church

planting and service and all of those Kingdom mindset elements.

Yeah, yeah. Good stuff, great conversation.

So you have a pretty unique background, a growing up in

Ukraine, moving to the US as a teenager, getting married early,

having such a large family. How have the unique things about

you or your unique personality shaped you as an entrepreneur or

shaped your business? Well, I think part of it is

growing up around my father. He was an entrepreneur too, in

Ukraine. He owned a window tinting

business. So I was around him in Ukraine.

It was very tough to do business actually because the country,

let's let's put it this way, the corruption is a lot more blatant

there versus here. So everyone is corrupt.

You know, every country is a just a matter of to what degree

and how blatantly it is. So I think there was just too

blatant. It was just so obvious.

And I would always watch him do business and I would feel bad

because he had to, in order to survive, he had to like pay

money to this and this guy and this guy and has nothing to do

with business. You know, to get to get some

paper to get it going, you need to pay, you know, money to like

all of these inspections so that the tax police there was like a

tax police that would come and also would extort the money.

So there's so many things there that I looked and I'm like, I

don't think I want to do business.

This is this is a losing battle in Ukraine.

Otherwise, you become one of them and you become the part of

the problem. But I don't know, maybe it's

part of part of my personality. When the opportunity came in US,

it's like, wow, in US, the corruption is not as blatant.

And like in terms of the regular running of the business, it's

pretty, pretty black and white. No, there's, there's clear

rules. You can just do this and you

will do this and that's how you get it done, you know, So it's

like, wow, interesting. OK, maybe maybe I should do some

of this. Maybe I should kind of be the

boss and kind of of my time and create something that that's

could be valuable. And I think naturally Slavic

people from from especially Ukraine, but like that Eastern

Europe, they're very intrapreneurial and just

naturally they have a lot of vision and desire and ambition.

What they're not good at is discipline.

So that's that's what I see a lot of Times Now where, you

know, new guys come in from, from Ukraine, refugees or what

not, they would like switch 10 different jobs and you know, in

a matter of couple years because it doesn't align with their big

vision for themselves. And it's like, I mean, I like

the vision, but I have to remind them guys, you have to also be

disciplined. You have to be consistent with

something. You have to just hit in the same

spot many, many times before you can have an opportunity to, to,

to be on boss. You cannot demand things you

cannot expect. So I have to, I have to, I have

to remind them. But but yeah, I, I don't know.

I mean, I think the way that I grew up watching my dad bringing

bread that he earned, you know, kind of eat what you kill type

of lifestyle was always appealing to me.

And when I was now in USI saw that, hey, I think it's

possible. So I give it a shot.

And basically from the first try, it worked for for for me.

Not that I didn't fail inside the business.

We had some ideas that didn't work out and we had to pay back

to some clients that that, you know, that we weren't able to

deliver, but we found the money, we pay them back.

We made it, we made it, you know, we made it right with them

and we lost some money. But at the end of the day, I

think it's, it's all about how God has wired you, You know who

you are. And some people are great at

just doing one thing and some people are just great at running

bigger companies and maybe more complex.

So for me, I do like the idea of owning my own time and deciding

what I do with it, especially because I have so many kids.

And that gives me that flexibility that I that I want

to be able to be available for my wife, for my kids.

And I think also to teach them the value of, of work, value of

creativity, the value of responsibility, because those

are all the things that you learn as a, as a, an

entrepreneur. Yeah, well, with your kids, you

know, you mentioned you didn't think the college courses you

were taking were very applicable, was kind of a waste

of time and waste of money and have gone the entrepreneurial

route. Do you have any thoughts about

what you hope for your kids future as far as education or?

Yeah, definitely. I'm not a traditional college

and, and it might sound wild to some, some people I know, even

people in my own church, they're like, I want to, you know, I'm

saving this amount of money every day for my 2 year old so

that one day I can send him to college to experience this

college life and dorm life. And like, why, why would you do

that to your child? There's so many other ways to

get to the success and there's so much more predictable ways

now. They're they're just better way.

They're more predictable actually than college.

We, we've seen how college failed so many millennials, you

know, who came out and they couldn't do anything with, with

their degrees or they're, they're so much in debt.

They can, they will never get out and and their jobs are just

not going to provide. So I'm not against college,

especially if you, if you want to become a doctor and engineer

something special special like specialty that do you want to

pick? Obviously, I don't want an

entrepreneur, a brain surgeon doing some surgery on my brain,

like I want him to have a formal education, right, Or a pilot

who's flying. I don't want him to pick a

course on YouTube and be my pilot, But that's, that's just

One Direction. You know, if your child, if my

child wants to be a doctor, by all means, it's an expensive

route, but I'll have to test them to make sure they're fit

for that. I but I honestly think most of

my kids will not need a college education.

They'll just need to pick up, you know, maybe a technical

education or a technical kind of degree and become very

successful at other things. Being an electrician right now,

you can be very, very, very successful.

You can, you can make some real money being, you know, you know,

plumber, you can be any like those are The Dirty jobs, but

they're so they're so useful. So that's why we're doing

homeschooling. You know, we're not, we're

pretty careful with who we let influence our kids.

So the main way that we try to raise them is through guided

influence. If we do use homeschool, it's

it's something that we approve and we're involved in.

We use the Becca, we use BJU, we use different, you know,

different programs. We do also have a two days a

week, there is a technical school that they're attending

and two days a week that's like a technical classes that they

take. So like music, like ukulele.

For example, today they have a concert with their with with

with their classmates. That's a ukulele, a musical

concert. So they're all going to be

playing ukulele. That's something that I won't

teach them, although I play guitar I could or like like

building robotics, for example, right?

Or stuff like that or building something from Lego, something

that's cool. Like they go there, they they

get those extra skills that they wouldn't get from just

homeschooling. But for the most part,

homeschooling is I think it's perfect.

And for that reason, I, I'm strong advocate and believer of

providing enough of income so that your wife can stay in and

guide, guide your kids with that.

I know there's different opinions, but if you can, I

think that's the best route. You know, we've tried multiple,

we've tried public school because at some point it was

just a little too hard. Like we had at some point we had

a lot of kids at the same same age level and not a lot of help

like when our oldest were like 8 and they're not very useful at

that point. So we're like, OK, I need to, I

need to take some load from my wife.

So I send my my two of my kids to public school and halfway

through the year I'm like, I'm ready to pull them out.

It's just a losing battle. It's just too much trying to

offset the negative influence. And primarily it's the peers

that are influencing. And it's not like they're

learning so much that it's that it's really a battle.

No, it's like the, the negative influence is just too much and I

have to work extra hard to try to bring them back to the

family, try to remind them who they are in the family and their

value and their biblical, you know, values that that God wants

them to have. So as soon as we could, we

pulled them out and they're they're in, they're in

homeschool. Now.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be exposed to outside world, but

not at the age where they're not able to adequately oppose or or

or at least discern on what's what's good and what's bad.

So that's our job as parents is to help them with that first.

Yeah, yeah, that's a great discussion.

And in my house anyway, we kind of reassess every year, each kid

individually, where are they at? Where are they developing?

Where are they at socially, educationally, and what do they

need in this next season? And we've tried public school,

home school. Right now we have our kids in a

small Christian private school that's working well for us.

But every year or even sometimes every semester is kind of that

conversation of is where we're at, where we want to be.

And, and just trying to give our kids the, the resources that

they need for the stage of life that they're at.

And it's tough. There's, it's tough to find the

perfect answer. I know for us anyway, that's a

moving target. Yeah, yeah, yeah, No,

absolutely. I mean, every kid is different

and you know, we, we do notice that this child, for example, is

a lot more influenced by by by his friends, where this one is

just like, you know, a tank just less influenced.

It doesn't mean that he's not influenced, but like she's just

less impacted by the peer pressure or the conversations

that they have. But but it also could be because

of the age, you know, and then next year she could be at a

different stage where now, you know, the all the dating talk is

just so unhelpful a lot of times.

And it just starts so early in the in the school.

I don't want, I don't want them thinking about dating.

I don't want them thinking about boys.

Like they need to grow, they need to mature, they need to

become beautiful in their character before they even

allowed to think about any of this.

So now the 13 year old is like, OK, dad, I'm turning 13, maybe

maybe I can get a phone. You know, I'm like, well, not

iPhone for sure, but maybe a gap phone, right?

So we're like gap phone. Gap phone is something I can

really control and see all their text messages and there's no

access to Internet. So like very controlled, like

some will say 13. What?

Like my kid had a iPhone at 9:00 and to me it's like throwing

them to the wolves. Why would you do that to your?

Kids, I forget where it originated.

I've heard it repeated by a few different people, but they say

giving a smartphone to your kids is not only giving your kids

access to the world, but it's giving the world access to your

kids. And yeah, we're, we're on the

same boat. We do the Gab phone.

My, my oldest 2 have a phone that they kind of share.

Neither one of them gets to take it everywhere all the time.

They don't get to have it in their room, but they have access

to a phone. We get to control the contacts

that are in there. We know who they're talking to.

They can't talk to somebody that we haven't approved, and we'll

get to review the content and kind of control what they have

access to. And at least for this stage of

life, that's been a good solution.

You can give them a way to contact you, a way to keep in

touch when they're outside of your your home or outside of

your control, but yet limit the exposure there.

Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely.

I mean, they, they have enough of things that we need to help

them deal with internally on their own, like they all have

sinful hearts and we all do. And, and they, that's enough of

fight for them. A lot of times to have is to, is

to fight against their own sinful desires or habits.

And why would we add more fuel to this with and, and sometimes

it's so destructive. It we, I've seen it, I've seen

it first hand. You know, I've served a youth

ministry for for a while and. Now these guys or girls who used

to be under my care, some of them committing suicides, you

know, overdoses and it's, it's no, it's no random, it's, it's

not a, it's not just, oh, well, whatever it, there's a clear

pattern of what happened, you know, of how it came to that.

And it has to everything to do with their, with influence of

peers, with with their access to Internet, everything.

Yeah, yeah. I just think back to the not

just dumb thing, not harmful or malicious, but just the dumb

things that me and my friends did from, you know, 8 to 18.

And you know, we, we got into enough trouble and did enough

dumb things without a smartphone.

And when it, you know, it wasn't recorded and shared with the

rest of the world and it wasn't recorded and preserved for all

time on the Internet. It was just something stupid we

did in front of your friends and they laughed at you.

And I, I can't imagine man, if you have the whole world at your

fingertips and, and the consequences that go with that.

Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, that's, no, it's so dangerous.

It's super dangerous. And we're, we're, we're trying

to be very strict about it. And some, sometimes they don't

like it, but they understand it most of the time, you know, the

end, You know when, when you don't tease them with, with

this, they don't necessarily even know what they're missing

out on. Because, because they trust you,

you know, as your parent, as, as your father, as your mother, if

you love them, they'll obey. And you want, you want to

nurture that you, you want them to.

I don't know. To me, it's just a very big

deal. I I'm pretty some might call me

controlling, you know, or like what is it called?

What is it like the guy who is in charge, not tyrant, but like

trying to trying to find the word where just one guy rules in

in the country. Dictator.

Dictator. Yes, yes, yes.

And, and when it comes to, when it comes to protecting your

children, I think, yeah, you don't want to be a dictator in

the, in the, in the full sense of the word, But I would rather

error on this side than the other side, especially right

now. And of course, we're trying to

be trying to be balanced as much as we can.

But I also, I also wouldn't want to say the church influence is

huge. So as parents, we were, we're

never enough for our kids. God obviously gives the biggest

responsibility to us, but he also gives church a unique

responsibility for for their members, for their people and

mutual care, the influence of godly people in their life,

their leaders at their youth group, their pastors, teachers,

examples that they see from other kids whose parents are

influencing them. All that together is a big kind

of, you know, big package of, of how we raise our kids in in

godliness and admonition of the Lord.

You know, like, like Paul is talking about and Ephesians and

Peter, Peter's also talking about.

Yeah. Yeah, I have that conversation

or I, I did when I was running my company with employees and I

have it with my kids frequently, is that this company or this

family is not a democracy, it's a benevolent dictatorship.

And so I, I want your feedback. I want your information.

I want to have clear or open communication so that I can

emphasize that Benevent part I I want to serve you, love you, do

well. But just because I ask your

opinion doesn't mean I'm asking for your vote.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I will make the final decision

based on the information that I gather.

I'm asking you for information. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

No, I, I'm with you there 100%, you know, and as long, as long,

of course, as, as long as wife, your wife is on the same page.

Obviously, you know, I'm, I don't want to overrule my wife

publicly, like in front of kids, but if there is some

disagreement, we want to make sure we're on the same page with

her. But sometimes, you know, I'll

tell you also that there is a bigger responsibility on me than

on my wife to be the leader. So sometimes even if she doesn't

like something, I can respectfully decline, you know,

something that she, she would prefer.

And if I think this is detrimental, this is tier one

type of decision. And then I will be be the one

to, to take that on myself and then say, no, we, we should do

this. I understand.

But I am the leader and God gave me that not just privilege, but

also weight, right Like there there's a weight that there is

actual accountability. You know, that that we have in

front of before God as as madness as leaders that our

wives don't. And at the end of the day, we

we're the ones who are going to be responsible way more kind of

like, you know, we're reading about the structure of the

church where pastors are the ones that are accountable.

And James is saying don't be don't become teachers too soon

because teachers will experience a harsher accountability.

They're going to be accountable. So don't rush to be the teacher

if you're not ready to also take that accountability or

responsibility that's going to come with it because they will

be judged more stricter. Yeah, yeah.

And they're calling to be a sacrificial leader.

Yeah. You know, in our family, we, we

joke around whenever we're making kind of minor decisions

about preferences, dinner or activities for the day.

I tell my kids that I have 3 kids.

And so I say you guys all get one vote, I get 4 votes and your

mom gets 8 votes. And the the older ones are good

enough at math. Now they figure it out that that

doesn't really work. They don't actually have a say.

So like, you know, your, your mom is the queen of the house

and whatever she wants, that's what I'm going to do because

it's my job to serve and love her.

So yeah, I can overrule you guys and she can overrule all of us

when it comes to preferences. So.

Yeah, Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

I, I, yeah, I, I think my, my philosophy has always been

especially finances, right? For the wife or for my wife,

because that's where a lot of tension can happen in the

family. It's like the budgeting and

everything. And I respect people who try to

budget and, you know, at home and, and have limits.

But my goal has always been to not have a budget for my wife to

not have limits as much as I can.

My goal is to, to make sure that she is spiritually healthy and

then if she's spiritually healthy and she has access to,

to the money and she'll be wise enough to know what's enough and

what's, what's too much, you know, and, and I can trust her

with that. So my job is just to provide as

much as I can for her and make sure that she's spiritually

healthy and then let let it play out the way it plays out.

Yeah, yeah. Good for you guys.

No, but some people like like budgets and that's fine too.

I am not against it. I just think sometimes it prove

it causes more conflicts than than than help.

And especially if you're not intrapreneur, if you're not in

in charge of your if how much you earn, then you need

something you know you need something in stone maybe, or

maybe at least in pencil. If if you can, you know if you

can have, if you can earn more and avoid conflict or avoid

pressure, financial pressure, I would rather go and earn more

than try to save on every little thing that just.

It worked pretty well for us though this way.

Yeah, my, my wife is naturally very frugal and is a very godly

woman that's very discerning and and trustworthy and that kind of

thing. And we used to joke a little bit

that, you know, she gets whatever she wants, and then I

can spend what's leftover. Yeah.

Yeah, and more, more recently, we've kind of moved to a budget

where, you know, we both sit down and discuss it and she has

as much or more of a voice than I do in, in where things go and

how things go. But then at least we have kind

of a framework to work off of and we we have a plan and we

know where we're headed. But yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's kind of been my goal too, is to, yeah, my goal has been

to, to give her what she wants and what she needs and, and then

to earn a little bit extra so that I can enjoy life on top of

that as well. And I think that's a a great

place to aspire to. Yeah, no, absolutely.

Is there a lesson that you've learned in your business journey

that you wish you would have learned earlier?

In my business. I guess we could go with life.

Yeah, maybe specifically your business.

Let's see if I have basically any regrets.

I think, you know, I'm the kind of guy who, who, who, who

doesn't have that many regrets about business just because I if

I see something needs fixing, I fix it right away.

Like I am not going to put it on the, you know, on hold for a

long time. I think maybe one of the things

that I I think, yeah, I think one of the things that I wish I

could maybe learn even sooner would be to have a clear

separation in my mind between friendship and and work There

there is, you know, we all want to be friends with our employees

or with our Co workers or even our partners.

But friendship assumes lack of clarity, friendship assumes

freedom of expression or friendship assumes equality,

right. Where in business it's

impossible to have equality. You, you have to understand that

you have, you need structure and you need, you need subordination

and you need a certain hierarchy and you need to discuss some

hard things. That's why a lot of times

friendship could be hard or maybe even incompatible with

business. Like I want to be friendly, but

I doesn't necessarily mean that I can be friends with all of my

employees or even with my business partner.

Like we we were friends before the business, but as soon as we

started working in the business, I had to learn fairly quickly

that I need to be the leader in having hard conversations.

Yeah, not necessarily he did something wrong.

It just, we need to be on the same page on things and we need

to talk through some hard topics about expectations, about the,

the earnings, about the income. It's about the time, right?

How much who spends and how, how many, how many hours and what's

fair, what's not like all those questions about being fair in

business, they're they're very hard to have if you're just

dealing with a friend. So having clear understanding,

hey, yeah, we can be friends outside of work or I can be

friendly with you, but at work we have clear roles and

responsibilities. Doesn't mean that I'm better

than you in any way, right? But we just have different

roles. If I'm the COO or if I'm the CEO

and you're COO, then you follow me, right?

Because because that's the role and doesn't mean that I'm better

than you. It just means kind of like a

marriage, you know, almost my wife is not better than me or

I'm not better than her, but I'm a leader and she's a follower

and we have different roles. And to understand that it is

very, very important for, for any, I think, business owner or

for any husband and wife just to be on the same page that her

value is in the things that I that I'm not competing with her

values and things that I am bad at.

And my values is in things that she might not be best at.

If she is a follower and I'm a leader doesn't mean that she's

less important than me. You know that just the design

that God made and her being a follower means that I cannot do

so many things that I need. I really need to help her.

I cannot just be on my own. I would fail and her respecting

me as as a as a leader and following.

And the same goes with business. So I think there's a lot of

parallels. So it would be family dynamic

and I'll work dynamic. There is there is that

friendship element that I think is important for business owners

to to understand that you cannot truly be friends with your Co

workers in the full sense of the word.

And first and foremost, you are are a team with a structure

where there's leader and there is there is followers.

Again, it's not impossible to be friends.

Just like with my wife, I, I am friends with her and and I want

to be the best friend with her. But we are more than friends.

We're more than friends. We're also husband and wife.

We're also a leader and and a helper.

We're also lovers. Like there is more to the

family. Obviously that doesn't translate

into the business world into the work, but but having that clear

roles established early and maybe even written out,

especially at work, like this is who you are.

This is who I am at where who I am.

And outside of work, outside of work, we can hang out, we can do

things, but in at work, we have different roles and

responsibilities. So I think that's, that's the

thing that I, I wished I learned it even sooner, but I think I

picked it up early enough to save me some headaches because I

already started seeing, hey, I need to, I need to toughen up

like I need to really mature to have those conversations.

Otherwise this business is going to, it's going to be a mess.

If I'm not going to take the stand, if I'm not going to

initiate these harder conversations, nobody will.

So I need to be the one. Yeah, yeah, that's good.

I think I didn't come up with this myself.

I stole it from somebody else. But I like to at the beginning

of the conversation, kind of state what role I'm, you know,

when I have someone that is both friend and employee, I'll say,

hey, for this conversation, you know, you are my friend and in

that friendship we're equals. But this conversation is a boss

employee conversation. And so that that's the role I'm

going to take and that's what this conversation is going to

look like. And then conversely, I've even

had some employees that, you know, I was, I was close with

considered friends. And I'd say, hey, I want to have

a conversation, but I'm going to take off my boss hat.

And I don't want to be your boss for the next 5 minutes because

this conversation might be a little bit inappropriate for a

boss employee relationship. But as a friend, there's

something in your life that I see that I want to talk about or

address or just ask you about. And, you know, so I'm, I'm

taking off my boss hat. We're going to be friends now.

You know, nothing in this conversation is going to come

back to work. I just want to check in with you

as a friend. How are you doing?

And calling that out early on helps a lot and and helps kind

of delineate those relationships.

Yeah, yeah. No, that's good.

That's good. I like that.

I like that yeah, we've had to do that.

I've had to do that a couple of times.

But I think it definitely helps with clarity so they can know

what to expect. Who are they talking to right

now? Their friend or their boss?

Cuz they're not the same, yeah. Yeah.

Is there a particular opinion or a mindset that you felt strongly

about early in your business journey that has shifted or

changed as you've matured as a leader?

No, I think, I think as far as the offering services to more

than just one industry, I think that that was a shift for us

recently. You know, before, like I said, I

was focused primarily working with the roofing companies and

roofing owners. And last year we decided, hey,

OK, maybe we should switch and, and start talking to a wider

range of professionals. Before, I was kind of against

that because roofing world is it's huge.

There's always going to be a need in what we have to offer.

But at the same time, I also needed to realize that I will

not be able to be as effective at reaching this world if I

don't travel as much. And I, and I don't want to

travel or can I travel as much because I have 8 children.

So to me it was important to realize, OK, well, this is my

bottleneck. It's a real bottleneck.

And I'm not going to be willing to sacrifice my family because I

have to grow my business in that way.

I, I do see a lot of people do that and I don't judge them.

Everyone has their own, you know, life and, and, and

priorities. But for me, it's a very costly

decision to take off and be gone for a week, you know, for my

wife and for my kids. I'm pretty, I'm pretty, they

rely on me, you know, on, on regular basis.

And, and I like that, you know, it's actually a problem if, if I

take off and nothing changes, you know, it's, and it's like

everything is the same. It's like, are you even there to

begin with? Like, so I knew that I cannot

grow my business as effectively because of that reason.

So my choice was either to hire a marketer marketing manager to

do that type of stuff, type of work to travel and then

represent us, which which is a legitimate option.

We thought about it. Or at that right time good

contractors list came up to us and they're like, hey, we want

you to start offering services to all the contractors because

that's who we work with. And to me that that immediately

kind of at least partially closed that gap of the reach

because now they would do that, they would help us with that.

They would help U.S. market because that's what they do.

They have a dedicated people, they have a marketing manager,

Randy's kind of the guy to do that.

So that was that was an important shift for me to

realize that you don't have to necessarily always fix it

yourself. You can partner, you can partner

up with strategic partners who would, who would not just kind

of solve your bottleneck, but I wish maybe they will expand your

reach more. So we're, we're, we're very

early in that conversation with them, though.

It's, it's still kind of very the ink, the ink is still wet,

but that's kind of the, the idea is, is for them to it, it's,

it's a natural transition for them and they're already

marketing for, for what they're doing and for us to, to be

mentioned as one of their partners is, is a natural thing.

So that kind of provides a source of leads for us that

we're able to serve. That also negates the need for

me to travel as much. But yeah, I, I also the one of

the biggest shifts that I had, another one would be to and, and

I started talking about it more and more and more and more.

But specifically two years ago, I do think I did come to

realization that JV partnerships is probably one of the best ways

to have a true lasting long term relationship with, with with

your client or with your student or our student.

So what I mean is you can, you can help them, you can serve

them, you can do everything you can as, as a digital marketing

company, but there is a natural limit as to how much you can,

you can actually make a difference for them.

And that ceiling, the next stage after that ceiling, many people

get to that ceiling, many digital marketing companies get

to that ceiling and and that's it, you know, OK, that's all we

can do for you guys, me as being the guy who is analyzing and

thinking, OK, is this the limit of our value that we can offer?

The natural answer was no, because actually there is

another model that could be even more valuable if it's a very

correct setup. And that model is JV joint

venture model where where digital marketing company would

work at cost for a roofing company and they would both

split the profit together or at least there's going to be a

percentage of from revenue that is paid to this digital

marketing company. From the revenue that was

generated by this marketing company.

Now there's many risks associated with this model, But

assuming that both the marketing company is solid and trustworthy

and the roofing company or a contractor company is solid and

trustworthy and there is a previous relationship and we

reached that ceiling. That could be a very much of the

next step in that relationship. Natural relationship of where we

can do a lot more for the same money or can do the same amount

of work for a lot less money because it's at cost work And

we're working for for a common goal.

Now our goal is not just to get you ranking or not to educate

you or not to get you started, but for you to start collecting

high quality leads that we can track and those leads to not

just not just to collect leads, but actually to close those

leads and turn them into clients.

And that's a lot of times not something that marketing

companies are good at. You know, they're good at maybe

getting you the visibility or getting you some leads, but you

don't know their quality or not. Or, but now it's like, let's get

you #1 high quality leads, but also let's make sure you they're

converting. And then we, once they do, we

both benefit from this together. So that was a major breakthrough

for us when we started offering that to select few companies.

So we have about 5 partnerships like this right now with the,

with specific roofing companies where we work at cost.

So it's essentially for free. And we only getting paid on, on

the revenue that we generate. And I, I do think this is the

most kind of the highest level of relationship that can be had

between a roofing or contractor company and, and the marketing

company. And I do encourage more, more,

more or both marketers and contractors bring up those

conversations because at the end of the day, you want to

marketers to have the skin in the game because that's, that's

how you can make sure that they're, they're fully invested.

They're, they're, they're, they're absolutely and fully

have your best interest in mind because their own interest is

tied to your success. Yeah.

Yeah, that's interesting. I'll be curious to see how that

all plays out. That's a, that's a really

interesting model and I think I would have some hesitancy to

signing on for that, but it sounds like you guys are working

out all the bugs and it could be a very profitable model for both

of you. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And so the most important thing

is to have a clear, very clear benchmarks and very clear, very

clear starting point. Like what are we comparing

against? So that would definitely not be

involving any current revenue. So there needs to be a very

clear distinction of what's added and what's not.

So a lot of times it would involve building additional

assets, digital, digital assets that could be tracked very

clearly per call and then measured against the CRM, right,

where all of everything is, is trapped.

So you want to have a clear separation between what's

already yours and what's additional.

And that's really where, where the pressure kind of is most of

the time and then making sure that the percentage is fair for

both, for both you and the marketing company.

But yeah, we, we've done it. We, we've opened a separate

company just for that. It's called Roofing SEO Lab.

And we have a full time person actually right now next door

who, who's working just on that alone all the time.

OK. Cool, cool.

That's pretty exciting and interesting, yeah.

If you could go back and start all over, would you choose to do

it again? Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, I think so. I mean, sometimes I feel like

I'm not doing anything in digital marketing is an

interesting industry where everything is kind of in the

air. It's very abstract, right?

It's clicks, it's views and this and that.

It's not something tangible really, although websites and

rankings kind of could be, but it's, it's still very much

conceptual. So sometimes you feel like, you

know, you want to touch your, your, your work.

So sometimes I actually envy contractors because they can

touch that roof, right? They can touch that building,

they can touch that thing and you can see it and make a

difference right away. Where here it's very much

largely conceptual. It's it's it's idea that can or

may or may not materialized. So sometimes, yeah, I, I do feel

like I wish, I wish my work was more tangible as I would say.

But that's partly why we opened also Magentics epoxy coatings,

because it's a legit local business that we can actually

touch and do and, and feel and talk to customers and clients.

And so, and that will again bring that proof of concept to

what we're talking about in the theoretical world of digital

marketing, so to speak. But it, what would I do

differently? I would probably, I would

probably start my own, I would probably start my own

contracting company even sooner. That's what I would do

differently. I would probably start even

sooner. It would not be a roofing.

I think I just hate I hate heights.

So from from from roofing down to epoxy coatings, it's all the

way dynamically opposed, right? It's the floors.

But still, you know, something that's local, something that's

actual local company I would probably start at a couple years

earlier and just to be able to test these things even earlier.

We didn't have to just because what we taught and showed worked

very well. But for my own kind of

satisfaction, for my own kind of feeling of accomplishment, I

would probably want something more tangible.

Yeah. That's probably what I would do

differently if I had to. Yeah.

Start a little bit, yeah. Yeah, I can relate to that.

There's there's something different about producing a a

digital product versus a a physical good that you can touch

and feel. Yeah, yeah.

What has been your biggest win so far?

That's pretty open-ended, all right.

You mean it to be that that open-ended?

Yeah, absolutely. Biggest win so far that I'm

still married, OK, you know that I have, that I have people who

pray for me, that I have people who care for me, that are

committed to me. That God is God is for some

reason, I don't know if it's my win, it's definitely not my win,

but God is keeping me, you know, giving me grace, giving me

forgiveness. That I don't deserve God's favor

in my life is definitely my biggest win.

It's hard for me to claim anything for myself and I don't

think that's my place. Maybe some someone else would do

that. But yeah, I think at the end of

the day, if I have all the money in the world, if I have my

business growing and I'm a millionaire, but my, my

integrity is not there and my family is in shambles, that's a

loss. So I want to do everything I can

to make sure that I am faithful to my to my wife, both

emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and to my kids to

raise them with a desire for them to know the Lord, to love

God, to know his word. And business for me is an

opportunity to to provide that. But also business is an

opportunity to help provide that ability to other people, to my

Co workers, to my, to the people that are involved with me and my

business, and also to my own clients, to my students in the

school who were able to build businesses that don't depend on

unpaid advertisement. That that is legitimately what

brings me joyous to help companies and owners break free

from this slavery. I would say to, to the paid

advertisement world where you have to exchange leads for money

all the time. I've, I've talked to so many

companies who are in bondage, you know, they are slaves of the

system where they, where they have very little profit and they

have to continually dump very high percentages to feed the

machine of lead generation. And they they don't have the

time or freedom to spend time with their wives and kids and go

to church and be effective and serving a church, be the church,

you know, those things. So I don't directly impact their

decisions, although I have been a little more vocal lately about

it. But I can feel like I can help

them with that at least choice that they can make.

But also for myself, of course. You know.

Yeah. Yeah, that's great.

Well, this is my favorite question.

We've talked about it quite a bit already.

I know that you are an outspoken follower of Jesus.

Can you tell us a little bit about how that affects your

career, your job, how you lead people, how you serve your

customers? Yeah, that's a big question.

So feel free to direct me anywhere you want me to go with

this. To me, my faith is not a part of

me. It's who I am.

You know, when, when God saves you, he creates a new person.

It's a new creation. You know, John 3, Jesus saying

you must be born again to inherit the Kingdom, to see the,

to see heaven, to see God, to see father.

And that means a new life completely.

That's that's like new desires, new person, new person, new, new

you. So to, to me, I, I, I want to.

And then obviously we need to live up to that calling like

Paul is talking about in Ephesians, like live, live in a

manner worthy of your calling. So there is definitely that

responsibility. Even though you have a new, hard

new, new, you know, new person in you doesn't mean that you're

immediately living in conformity with that new person.

You're still fighting with your old flesh and your desires.

So yeah, I guess I want to start with the fact that this is not

just part of me. That's who I am and it impacts

everything that I do or, or think.

I think that's that's what God calls every believer to, to to

think, like to renew your mind, you know, to put on, put, put on

the new self and, and put off the old self and to be always

kind of crucifying your old self and living according to the new,

new desires that are pleasing and that are happy that are that

will make you truly joyful and bring you joy.

If you continually live in the spirit, meaning you are feeding

yourself with the truth. And you, you remember, like

Jesus saying in John 17, you know, to his disciples, sanctify

them in the truth, like separate them, protect them in the truth.

And then he says your word is truth, like so to me, that's,

that's crucial is to make sure that me and my family, my kids,

we're always saturating our minds and the truth as far as

word goes. I, I, you know, I've struggled a

bit with how much I should kind of make, make faith take a

specific shape at my work, like expression.

I want to give enough freedom to my Co workers to do that in

their, in their own way, in their own, you know, with their

own conscience. So my job has always been to

make sure they're they're making enough money where they can, can

have that freedom and desire and gratitude to give right to, to,

to give to, to, to, to his work, to God's work.

So I, I don't take money from their account to give to

something or I don't use like it.

To me, it's more of I want to give them the opportunity to do

it the way that they want to do it, but also, you know, serving

people at in Ukraine who are struggling and be giving them

ability to work and earn, provide for their families.

It so happened and it's not that I, I have a policy for that, but

it so happened that every person who works for me is a believer.

So and if there isn't going to be a qualified non believer,

I'll, I'll hire him too. But so happens that I know a lot

of qualified believers. So to me, that's just the way to

love love believers, you know, with a special love to to help

them provide for them. Like especially guys who came

here to Spokane, where I'm at from Ukraine, fleeing the war

and found themselves in this very foreign country without

really plans to be here. Like they came to my church and

I was like translating for them for two years and to be to be

able to understand that the preaching.

So I took that and I was trying to serve them in that way.

So I would go there first service I am and there by

myself. Second service, I'm there to

translate and for two years I would like translate live.

But then also a few of them I, I did hire, you know, to, to

bring, I brought them on my team.

Give him some opportunity to, to learn SCO taught them SCO.

Now this new epoxy business, I'm starting with one of those guys

too. He's going to be there.

Like I said, the operations manager, his English is so so,

but he's a a quality guy. So I want him to run the

operations. So I do see it as an opportunity

to kind of serve them in that way as long as they're doing

what they need to do. That's great.

Well, I know with your unique situation coming from Ukraine,

being an immigrant, do you have any thoughts you'd like to share

about any current events with Ukraine, the war there, the

debate about immigration in the US?

Do you have any thoughts that you might have a unique

perspective on just because of your background and the things

that you've experienced? I mean, that's a hard question.

I think I'm an American citizen to begin with, right?

So I am not, I'm not a Ukraine first advocate.

By no means. I, I'm, I'm proud American

citizen and I'm happy and I'm blessed and I'm grateful for

what this country has given me and my family.

The opportunities I think are just amazing.

Nothing like that in the rest of the world really.

And at the end of the day, it's, it has to make sense for the US

to be involved in anything that they're that they're involved

in. I don't don't want to be

presumptuous or demand anything. Demand is not good.

We always have to be coming from the place of gratitude and and,

and even if we need something, you know, so I do know that you

Ukraine needs help and they they do need support.

How long for how much? To a degree, that's a hard

questions. You know, it's a hard question.

As a as as a former Ukrainian citizen, I totally understand

them and be like, give me as much as you can, you know, I'm

going to keep fighting because I don't want to be a slave to this

ungodly demonic system that that Russia has been in.

Is that not clear to everyone? It's I think it's pretty clear

that Putin is, is absolutely, you know, tyrant who, who, who

has to be stopped, But at what cost?

That's the question, right. And that's been the history of

Ukraine for for generations. It's not new.

I mean, it's thousand years ago it was the case.

So Ukraine is much older than US, but as a country, it's

pretty new culture and people even always fighting with with

Russia for their independence. Soviet Union times before that.

It's it's always been the case. So is it going to end right here

right now? I don't know.

I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't think so probably.

But can we help as much as we can?

I think it's, it's really the question of for individual

person to answer, like if you want to help, then help and if

you feel like your resources are better spent here locally, do

that. But I, I do think that forcing

taxpayer money without consent of the taxpayers is probably not

the best thing. I don't, I don't think there is

a legal obligation for US to help for US to help Ukraine.

I don't there is no such, there's no such argument that

can be made. So yeah, I mean, I think

whatever we do is definitely it's not out of like

requirement, but out of just abundance when I only think that

we should see what's going on be open to kind of follow what's

happening. And and and that alone will

dictate and prayerful consideration will will help us

know what our role in this is. Some are called to fight, some

are called to give, some are called to send, some are called

to, to none of that and just take care of your family here in

US. And then you don't worry about

what's in front of you because that's all you can afford.

But I am a patriot of, of US as as a citizen, That's that's what

I signed up for. So I do think in general, Trump

is doing very good things for you, for the US and for the

world. As a person who has a lot of

relatives in Ukraine and I and I went there three years ago, I

absolutely understand the dangers and then the pressures

that totally different lifestyle that they're in right now.

Any moment can be their last. Air sirens are non-stop.

People are dying by thousands. And it's not the first rodeo.

You know, they've been there. So it's not like if they stop

today and they shake the hands with Putin, everything's going

to be great. It will it will be back.

You know, it's going to be again back to the back to the square

1, so to speak, because that's the that's the ideology of

communism. That's the ideology of Russian

domination. It's been there forever.

So do we stop now to help them only to resume later?

I don't know. I think I think US has helped a

lot more than more than they should have.

Maybe on some in some, but in other ways.

Again, I think personal choices are more important this point

for each person, each individual, if they want to

help, do it. But I think US has a lot of

their own problems, especially after the rule of the liberals

who destroyed it, the borders, but also the deaths from drugs

crazy high. To me, one of the biggest, the

biggest pains of my life is to watch how this country is

treating the unborn. To me, that's that's a very,

very sad scenario. I don't for a second think US is

a Christian nation as, as a true Christian, you know, like a true

Israel nation of God. Like it's, it's just not the

case there. The country is, is very split,

very split internally. There's there's people, there's

a lot of freedoms, but there's also a lot of sin that's going

on and celebrated. So I think there's a lot of

local stuff to be, to be dealt with also.

So yeah, that's kind of my general thoughts.

Yeah. And so as an an immigrant who's

now an American citizen, do you have any thoughts or

perspectives that maybe someone who hasn't been through that

process, been through that system, but wouldn't know about

as far as securing our borders or immigration legal, illegal?

Do you have any input to share with your unique perspective and

background? I mean, I think borders is a

good thing. I think borders is a biblical

thing. You know, if you want to become

American, go through the process.

It's been the case forever. It's a biblical process.

There's never just, you know, invasion is never the way to

become a citizen. It was never the way in the

Bible. If you want to become, you know,

Israelite, you go through a process.

You know, you go and you, you publicly declare there's steps

to take, there's taxes to be paid, like there is everything

that involves. So I, I am absolutely clear that

this is biblical to expect to expect the process when it comes

to welcoming the refugees. I think there's more to it, of

course. I think that's, I think it's

manufactured. It looks like it's definitely

enough intentional effort to to politicize like it's intentional

effort to overthrow the. Electoral College, so to speak,

it seems likely to bring the unfair advantages to the one

side versus the other by providing benefits to, to the

it's not benefits because one thing I can say from from

personal experience, you know, as a person who came here as a

refugee, I did receive some help originally.

We did receive some welfare and stuff.

But I, I, I went and start working pretty early.

Like I went stop receiving those benefits fairly quickly and I

always had a position that this is only for those who actually

need it. The thing is, know by I, I, I

know people, my, even my relatives even who've been

abusing the system. And, and because the system is

set up to be abused, there is, is a weird thing that happens to

your mind when you are offered money without working and then

you're told to go work and you, you're, you're told to make a

choice. You can get money instead of

working or you can get money through working.

And it's a lot of times very similar amount of money.

It's not helpful, you know, it's not helpful.

And people who set up that system thinking maybe having

good motives sometimes, you know, like we're just helping.

And when they're grow up, they want to go and do it themselves.

Well, no, they, they assume that every person is just, you know,

white clean heart. Not quite.

You know, we all are going to take the path of least

resistance every time almost. You know, we're pretty, we're

pretty greedy deep and deep inside.

We're not going to work if we don't have to work.

It's just not in our nature. So I think biblical approach

understands that people are sinners and that's part of the

equation. It's like you don't you don't

provide opportunity for sinners to sin, right?

The more if you create a system that encourages laziness, it's

going to be abused. Nobody's going to in their

sinful right mind is going to go and be like, I can have this

money, but instead I'm going to go work and have the same money.

It's just not going to happen. So you have to, you have to be a

lot better with the system, with the welfare system, a lot more

fair system. So I'm, I'm for capitalism in

that sense. I think capitalism is really the

best system out there to to bring that balance capitalism

with compassion. So let's throw that compassion

in there for those who are truly hurting and the truly desperate,

but not to make it into something that destroys their

families a lot of times, something that prevents them

from growing so. Yeah, yeah.

Well, thank you. That's just I don't get the

opportunity to talk to someone with your background very often.

So whenever I get to speak with somebody that has a different

background than my own, I like to hear their perspective and

try to learn something. So I appreciate that.

Yeah, my pleasure, of course. Is there anybody you know or

that you could think of or maybe make an introduction that you

think would be really good on this show?

Somebody that has a unique experience, a unique business, a

great story to tell. Maybe Jonathan?

Jonathan Bros. Have you talked to him?

I have not, no. That's a new name to me.

I don't think I know of him. Really, he's a great guy.

So Jonathan, OK Bros, he's he had some, he had some history,

you know, he had I think 4 marriages.

He he went through some valleys. God had to teach him some hard

lessons. And I think he could be a great

And he he also just recently exited from selling his company

to private equity. So I think there's going to be a

lot in common. Now he's a offering coaching to

roofers, but he is a fellow believer.

And I would also say, are you familiar with Juan?

Curling. No, I don't think so.

No Juan Curling, owner of a company and I think it's New

Mexico or no Texas, Texas. And he is, he's got a pretty

crazy story himself. So he's a pastor.

He's a pastor who is also a roofing company owner.

So very, very unique combination there.

And he is also very solid on the Bible.

He loves the word, he studies the word, but he is, he's a,

he's a contractor too. So he he can share a lot how he

evangelizes at work and how he preaches the gospel to his.

I know he, he mentioned to me there is multiple people who

came to the Lord through, through his work, through just

working with him and his wife. So Juan Curling is the is the,

you know, the hidden gem, I would say in the contracting

world. Yeah.

That's great. Well I might ask you to make an

introduction here offline cuz I'd love to chat with both of

them. I just love hearing great

stories and learning about new businesses and new industry so.

Yeah, awesome. Yeah, absolutely.

I'll do that. What as we wrap up here, our

last question to either settle or fuel the debate.

If you have a job to do and you have to use a cordless tool,

which brands do you prefer? If I have a job to do and I have

to use a cordless tool. Yeah.

Are we talking which like Milwaukee type of stuff?

Yeah, Milwaukee. DeWalt.

DeWalt. What's your favorite brand?

I'm so new in this. I've never like I had, I didn't

have to use any of those until now.

You know, we're now just buying stuff.

And a lot of times it comes down to I just give my guy a freedom

to buy what he wants. And I think most of what she got

was, is it rigid? Rigid I think is the brand.

Yeah. So it's, it's pretty good

quality, but it's not as expensive as as DeWalt or or

those other ones. It's a Home Depot, I think.

So, so far, so far we've been using that, but we're using,

we're using some expensive equipment from like Bulgaria

for, for concrete grinder grinding.

So it's like a expensive machine with a, with a vac, it's like 20

grand just to grind the concrete.

So those are the ones that I've researched heavily.

The other ones, The other ones is like whatever you want dude,

or whatever you feel. Like yeah, the $100 impact is

not a big deal compared to the $20,000 grinder.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Now we're trying to figure

out how to connect the European, you know, plug in every

transitions and everything. Oh, yeah, Yep.

Awesome. Well, Dima, thank you so much

for joining us. It has been a pleasure getting

to know you and hearing your story.

I really appreciate you taking the time and sharing your

perspective and your story. I think this is going to be very

beneficial to a lot of people, so thank you.

My pleasure, my pleasure, pleasure, Eric and thank you for

thoughtful questions. And yeah, you kind of you went

deep in some of those and just ask them and wouldn't, wouldn't

back down just like let's let's keep digging.

No, that's awesome. Thank you.

Thank you for your for the opportunity.

Thank you for your time too. Good stuff and thank you guys

for joining us here on from the Ground Up Show.

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