Dima Sobovoy – Eight Kids, Multiple Businesses & a Kingdom Mission | A Journey 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?

I did receive some help originally.

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 relatives even, who have been abusing the system.

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'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 a 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, Erick Loden.

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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, Erick.

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.

uh

we have multiple businesses here.

We have a lot of kids in my family.

We have eight kids that God gave us.

always busy, always on the go, always trying to not drown, but also have a good sailing too.

Yeah, so what are the ages of your kids?

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

So I'm to be 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 five girls and three boys.

So, yeah, a busy house for sure.

But God bless us with two oldest girls.

So that's some serious help right there.

That's some serious help for my wife.

Even though the older one is 13 and the second one is 11, they're doing great.

They're doing a lot of help.

And then my boy who's 10, who's also very useful and helpful.

So we try 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, eight, that is a house full.

We've got three ourselves from four to 11, and three is about all my wife and I can handle.

man, respect for you for taking on eight.

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.

Well, we.

Oh, I was just going say we like to start every show uh 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 way back to Ukraine.

So I grew up in Ukraine until I was 17, which is when we moved to U.S.

So all the way, basically half my life.

Yeah, exactly pretty much half of my life is spent in Ukraine.

Kiev.

Grew up in a Christian family.

know, traditional Baptist church and, you know, being the rebel and living a double life for most of my life, you know, like a typical child of a Christian family or Christian

parents.

And then until, you know, until probably around 2015 is when I distinctly remember my conscience being stirred more and more and more that I am

that I'm not who I claim to be.

Because when you grew up in church, you always immediately involved in all the ministries and camps and activities.

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

And the church was pretty large.

So, you know, as long as you're acting a certain way, you're considered, you're good.

But hearing gospel again and again and again at different places really made a difference.

think it was 16, right before my senior year in high school.

That's when God just changed my heart.

My conscience was stirred.

The Holy Spirit just convicted me of sin and 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 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 where I'm, that's kind of my background as a kid of a fairly traditional Christian family.

My grandfather is a pastor.

The other one was a preacher.

And when you grow up in a Christian family, you kind of feel like you're saved, you're safe.

And you're kind of grandfathered into the faith, which of course we know it's not the case.

It has to be personal.

So it took some time before I came to realization that I am not going where I think I'm going.

And I had to really humble myself and accept that 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's nothing in the sight of God for sure.

And I needed that righteousness of Jesus to cover me on my behalf so I can stand and be accepted by Him.

And then 2007 is when we moved to U.S.

and since then we lived in state of Washington, so that's where I still am at.

We moved a couple of times, I met my wife.

and 2020 or no, 2010 and then married 2011 and yeah and since then we've, like I said, we have 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.

really, my biggest goal in life is to be found faithful at the end of the day.

and both to my wife and to God.

Yeah, amen.

That's a solid goal and something to aspire to.

So I can imagine the transition 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.

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 would, I would spend a lot of time with Americans, with American missionaries.

uh 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 peanut butter, stuff that we didn't have.

So that was exciting.

I was already around English language for some time.

But of course, when we came to US, I quickly realized that my British English that I studied in school was just not gonna cut it.

So I had to pick up a lot of slang, which is like its own language.

Every part of the US has its own thing.

So now you have to kind of figure out what to use and what not to say.

But no, it was fun.

I was ambitious.

I was young.

My parents had it harder, of course.

They're a lot older.

My dad had a business in Ukraine.

So coming here and starting from scratch was tough.

He tried multiple times to start his own business again, but it never really...

worked out.

But you know, 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 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, 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.

like these big dudes walking around with mustaches at 818.

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

Are they eating a lot of McDonald's?

But later I realized, Latinos, obviously they grow bigger, faster.

jeans, hairy jeans, come out early.

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

All the guys there are skinny and still kind of, they need a few years before they start shaving after high school.

That was fun.

Okay, man, that's interesting.

Those are some differences I probably would not have thought of.

What was the impetus for your family to move to the U.S.?

Well, it was technically under the refugee status.

So my parents back in USSR, that was a tough time for them.

both my grandparents and my parents were persecuted for their faith, both in school and at work.

My mom lost some job opportunities.

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

you're going to really struggle to get a good job, good education.

Even though she was like the best student in the high school, she couldn't get a good job because she wasn't, you know, 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 gave them a basis to apply for refugee status, even though Ukraine by then was already, you know, a free country.

for some time, their past was kind of something that was still honored and they gave them ability to move to the U.S.

I didn't actually want to go because I wanted to serve God there.

I was involved in church.

I was involved in evangelism very heavily.

We would go outside on the streets and talk and share the gospel with people.

But they moved and I'm like, well, because I didn't have a say, I was an 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, 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 that church, the serious approach to the Bible, to sanctification, to ecclesiology itself, know, doctrine of the church.

moving back, I'm still dreaming about moving back sometime.

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

I went there to teach with one of the seminaries and help translate another professor, but

When you have eight kids, have to make sure that it's realistic to move back to a country like that, especially in the middle of the war.

Maybe one day we will.

I still have a heart for Ukraine and maybe eventually we'll come back, especially when the war is over.

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 questions as they come.

So she's not she's not much of a dreamer or 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 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 are so many conditions for things to go the right way.

But that's kind of my desire.

And I 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 it's not, it's not dead, 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 too early.

We have a lot of little kids.

I'm still kind of taking classes at the seminary and...

ah

We'll see maybe in the next five to probably five to 10 years.

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 gonna be an engineer or a doctor or something like very, very specific, very specialized.

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

So I've wasted 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 learn a technical skill that I know has a very clear ROI promise.

And to me that was digital marketing.

I paid for a course online, $5,000.

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 can control.

So I was studying digital marketing on the evenings.

And then that's kind of how I became the kind of SEO guy in my industry and contractor world and 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 I can be.

So I can cut out all the potential errors as much as I can from my words.

But also, when it comes to ministry, a lot of it is just time and character and maturity also.

It's not just oh a degree.

So God's been working in our life, in my life, and teaching me lot of lessons, humbling me.

teaching me 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 awesome.

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

uh Did you have any other jobs before starting your digital marketing career?

man, yeah, mean, so I got married when I was 21, fairly young,

and we had a kid pretty much next year.

So I was working, my first job before that, was like a preschool teacher assistant.

When I got married, I was AT &T sales rep for a couple of years doing sales at AT &T.

It was good experience.

was very, very instrumental.

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

And I would say it depended on what manager I was under, obviously.

And then oh I'm like, at one point I couldn't, I can't do it anymore just because it was just too much pressure to pick numbers and stuff like that.

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

need to get a technical education.

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 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 lab 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 you have these cool skills to build prosthetics for people, 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 eight months.

And then, yeah, I basically graduated.

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

They offered me a job here in Spokane, Washington.

So I moved six hours from Vancouver, Washington and became a of a lab manager here at a new Aspen Dental.

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 get started.

So I loved that job.

It was very independent, very kind of...

Mendley, I would say, like you have your own thing, you have your own schedule.

And it was very satisfying in terms of like, you 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, you know, we had more kids, more kids, we had a third kid at that point.

And I'm like, I need to better control my time because I don't want to always exchange money for time or time for money.

I want to be able to offer value that's, and be paid by value, based on value, not necessarily hours.

So I started researching and that's where I came to digital marketing as the bridge 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.

uh I tell 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

work that you bring.

We might measure it in time, but you don't get paid for your time, you get paid for the work that you produce.

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

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And the more value you bring, the more you can set that number that you need or that you want.

And the more you need, the more specialized you are in 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 think it's this number.

But if you offer significant value,

Now that number can be 10 times more and you have no market rules at that point really because 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 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 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, it's like, 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...

maybe upfront set up or a major work upfront, but not necessarily at the same time or same amount of effort.

And digital marketing was that, especially specifically SEO.

And the way that I was thinking about it is there was a system, there was a school or program that was called, actually it's a funny name, but it was called Job Killing.

So the idea was to create these websites.

you know, like digital marketing or not, like uh basically digital real estate properties that generate leads organically.

So you put a lot of effort upfront, you put some money, you build these websites, they rank and they start generating leads and then you rent them out.

Then you rent out these websites to local companies.

So that's kind of the first time I'm like, interesting concept.

I love it.

So one of the kind of...

The task for any new student was to build one right there, right then, while you're in the school.

So I had to put some money towards that also.

So I built a towing website here in Spokane.

I didn't have any towing skills or knowledge.

I didn't have any trust, but I had to like pretend like I'm a towing company and build a towing website called Spokane Towing Services.

Use my home address as the business.

then open any LLC, just build their website.

within, what was it, like three 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, okay, 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 trials, multiple tests, I ended up working with one guy and he would just pay me per lead, know, per lead.

And at that point, once you're at the top organically, you don't necessarily need to put the same effort every time.

You've put it up front.

So that was exactly what I was looking for.

It's like, oh, I like that.

So now I just need to repeat that.

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 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 one 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 other guys who maybe do similar stuff.

So after some research and this and that, I'm like, one thing I'm not going to do, one industry I'm not going to do is roofing.

because it's just too tough.

I had someone who paid me before to do SEO for their roofing company.

It didn't work very well at all.

And I'm like, ah, that's one thing I will never do.

I'm gonna do tree service.

I'm gonna do landscaping.

And then I've done some of that already by then, know, towing, tree service, landscaping.

And again, every new industry is new challenge, learning new things about what do they do?

What do they not do?

What their pricing?

It's like, no, I'm gonna pick one and specialize, but it's not gonna be roofing.

And the funny thing is my friend here was a roofer who was like, can you help me?

And I'm like, it's hard.

Roofing is hard.

Are you sure you have the desire?

Do you have the commitment?

have the money?

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

You need to pay me $2,000 per month.

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

Like, don't bug me.

Don't call me.

Just pay me two grand a month.

That's my condition, you know?

And if it works, works.

Great.

And surprisingly, he's like, okay.

I'm like, all right, I guess you have some extra cash for anything or something.

I don't know.

And at that time, two grand was a big number, a bigger number at least.

It was almost 10 years ago.

And again, in six months, that website was at the top.

So I'm like, okay.

So really, it's just more about budget, the bigger budget.

So I'm like, okay, 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, and 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.

I'm like, Hmm, okay.

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 a specialist.

So that's what I did.

You know, in 2019, we decided, OK, that's going to be our thing.

So we opened company and then 2021 we actually made a pivot.

We opened a roofing SEO school.

where we decided, we're not just gonna offer services, we're actually gonna teach SEO.

We're gonna teach how to do it in-house, which nobody else would ever do because everyone's trying to protect their knowledge.

And we decided, again, we're gonna 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.

yeah, and then we created a school.

Yeah.

it with that.

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 exactly what happened.

And we built a

roofing SEO school and a lot of companies went through that school, learned SEO.

A lot of their managers did.

We've had probably over 400 companies by now who've been through the roofing SEO school.

And then just half a year ago, we decided to make another pivot and uh 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 want to also make it available for everyone else, electricians, HVAC, anyone who's a contractor, because the process and theory is the same.

But my language was always almost exclusive to roofing.

Now we're like, okay, let's rebuild this school 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 our money is where our

mouth is and prove live on the camera that it can be done for anyone, whether you're a roofer, electrician, HVAC, anyone else, gutter company, gutter replacement, siting.

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 where it could be a good case study, good

example.

And it actually can become very profitable company.

So we just opened that officially January 7th of 2026.

Well man, just jumped ahead to one of my questions was what was the impetus for pivoting from SEO to contracting, you're kind of just taking your own philosophy and putting it to

work is what you're up to, huh?

exactly.

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 teachers on this front, it's very important to make sure we're based in reality.

We're grounded in reality, not in theory.

So for me, 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 our students.

Like we actually have to do these things ourselves and test them thoroughly from inside out.

And that was the biggest motivation is to provide value that's been tested, especially again, because there's so many new things coming out, AI, 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 also test things that don't work, that maybe others will say, do this,

and it's actually not a good idea, which a lot of marketers do these days.

It's like, oh, this new shiny toy came out, do it.

Maybe you shouldn't do it.

Maybe it's going to distract you, and you're going to waste a lot of hours, and hours is everything.

Time is your biggest asset, so don't do it.

Do this instead.

We decided to kind of take it head on and build our 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 former contractor myself.

Like you said, the market's 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 because like you said, 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 pretty cool.

That seems like a great approach.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's the most honest approach right now.

I encourage every marketer who is out there to do the same.

Some have already followed our example and opened their contractor company, um which is, believe, what they need to do, 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 theory actually works, that your method actually works.

you know, just too, there's too many, the risk is too high to misguide your clients and your students.

So we just decided we cannot in good faith continue just teaching theory.

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

You know, it was like just.

Pretty slow, but right now SEO is changing.

Digital marketing is changing.

Social media is changing.

Everything is being mixed together.

It's all one big melting pot.

It's no longer very neatly separated.

AI changed the game and you have to recognize that.

You have to respect that change 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 put up the website, started building

out kind of a faux 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 forwarded to some local towing company and at that point I was just looking who would handle those calls.

So I would forward it to one company, then another company, then 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 soon enough I realized that most of the companies who are established, they have horrible customer service.

So it's like, I'm not gonna work with anyone who's already there.

I went to Craigslist at that point.

Craigslist was a big deal, not anymore.

I 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 some leads?

But be ready, your phone's gonna blow up.

And he's like, sure.

Next day he was the number one towing guy in the city because he would get 15, 20, 30 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 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 wasn't a towing guy at that point.

He was doing snow removal.

I'm like, listen.

And I also had her snow removal 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 wanna 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.

He's like, okay.

So he started, he bought a first truck, second truck in it.

And then last year I sold the website to him for like $30,000.

So he owns it now, it's all his, hundreds of reviews online already.

And at that point I'm like, good, I don't wanna just kinda hold his ambitions also.

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

That's awesome.

That's kind of a cool model.

yeah, you're not only making an income for yourself and building a business for yourself, but you're really helping someone build their business.

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 part of SEO, like actual branding, actual social media presence, actual videos and

photos.

And like, you know, just it's harder now to just get to the top where before it's like you you do the right thing to do the ABCD and then you'll be at the top or you just do them

consistently.

where now you actually need to build a serious brand that has views, that has traffic, that has likes and posts and reshares and all of that stuff.

it's, I don't know if I would continue with that model anymore, but it's always 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 its head.

What are you seeing change?

Yeah, I think the biggest change is that, kind of like I already alluded to, the lines that were before very clear between SEO, 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 Google, to be ranking on Google organic results.

You just set up the right website, you put the right title tags and H1s and content, you know, and uh get backlinks and boom, you're at the top.

Same 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 content that's being produced right now is thousands of times more than before.

So 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.

So now it's a big, big factor, whether or not you actually have these trust signals that you send and they are very much related to your social media presence activity.

But 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 SEO 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.

Where 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 it's not that you don't do SEO.

Now you translate SEO techniques into these other platforms like YouTube, like Facebook, like, you Instagram.

and being active, maybe even do some additional smart optimizations and maybe additional listings on the map for multiple locations.

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

But yeah, it's interesting.

It's evolving still very much.

It's hard to be like, that's exactly what is different.

What's different is people started using AI as a search engine now too.

Yeah.

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 make sure that you're in Reddit, you want to make sure you're mentioned.

You have a Yelp account now, where before it's like, Yelp garbage.

Nobody cares about it.

Well, now at least have some accounts there because some AI engines, use that as a reference.

And same goes for Angie and 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 judge who is showing up at the top.

The biggest thing is also, I would say, is differentiating factors.

How do you differentiate yourself?

What makes you better than your competition?

You have to be very explicit.

For example, your warranties.

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 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 you know like

stuff like that is actually impacting your rankings these days because that'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 in his journey building DT roofing.

So it seems like the good contractors list is 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 SEO Academy versus Roofing SEO School is because we are their exclusive SEO partner, which means they recommend us to

their contractors as the school to get education on their SEO.

And then we recommend them, but not because

We don't believe in it.

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

I do believe it makes a big difference when you're SEO and you're having a lot more arguments 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 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.

He's a, 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 one of those things you, you 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, you know, 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 in 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.

Okay.

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.

Okay, so like if my epoxy company is called Maginix epoxy coatings, right?

As soon as people start typing in Maginix epoxy coatings on Google, that is a very strong signal that this is legitimate brand.

And how I get there is a different question.

I can do radio, video, commercials, car wraps and all of that.

But that's how you establish your brand.

But as soon as you have people searching you by your name, that is, you know, half, you're already half winning.

That's like you got your foot in the door big time, and maybe even a foot and a 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 opened just Instagram and Facebook, two profiles, and did these wraps.

And I don't have a website yet.

So I'm not expecting people to search for epoxy coatings 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 when we're ready for that, when the website is being built and all of that.

Because we want to come in strong, we want to come in with trust right away, versus 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 GMBs, your other things that you might be doing, but that's kind of outside of

SEO at that point.

But yeah, mean, that's where you start is just claiming and declaring.

that you are there, you are a real company and people see you, eyeballs, maybe it's online, maybe it's in our local Facebook groups, but just you want people being like, oh,

interesting, this is a new company, I wanna see it, I wanna search for it.

And we've seen that happen already.

I had a funny story just two days ago, I was in Walmart and I was using FSD, full self-driving, on my Cybertruck.

And apparently, because I didn't pay attention, because when it's full set of driving, it allows for like distraction on my phone.

And apparently it got close to somebody, it got too close to somebody and the guy got upset about it.

So I don't have a website.

I don't have a GMB.

I don't have Google listing yet.

The only thing I have is Instagram and Facebook.

So I get, and I have like four, four 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 oh I think that's me so I write to him I like apologize

I'm really sorry I was I was using FSD you know 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 you know epoxy floor with us and

And she's like, yeah, thank you for owning it.

I'm the realtor.

I'm going to recommend you to my clients.

great, great.

So I kind of recovered from that.

But the point is he found me right away.

He found me right there, right then.

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 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 was not the best kind of example 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 brand, with your name and service that you provide.

Yeah, that's great.

I saw you posted a little bit about that on social media.

And yeah, to take a near traffic accident and turn it into a referral, that's some successful marketing right there.

man.

So in your opinion, all of these changes with AI and all the changes to the digital marketing environment for the consumer, 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, 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 an extra step of having to type in the search for money keywords.

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

could be, you know, it's a lot of extra time.

the user experience is definitely getting better.

And for that reason, I cannot blame the way that 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 chat GPT now, you know, like anything she needs a chat GPT, she just needs an answer.

She doesn't need a list of websites where she can find an answer.

Right.

So.

For users, it's definitely easier, which means 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.

Because now 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, know, everyone just overnight had to switch to internet from their newspapers.

And those who did it early and who did it effectively, they became very, very successful.

So same thing here.

You just need to realize that, yes, it's getting harder, but that's exactly what gives you a chance of being the best, 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 uh 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?

Hmm, we're pretty early at the epoxy business right now, so I'm sure I'll face a lot of challenges with that.

So maybe 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 I work with, know, choosing the right

team members.

I was always very...

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

And having my business partner was a very, important element for me, I think, because for a while I was just doing it myself.

And I had success, but I quickly realized that I am not good at certain things.

And rather than trying to be good at everything, I really need to pass on the things that I'm not good at to somebody who's good at.

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 understand the fact that they cannot be everything that their business needs.

They're very limited in what they can do.

And really what they need to be is visionaries.

They need to be the leaders.

And if you're a leader, that means you cannot be stuck in the...

and 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 a company that's struggling.

I see that a lot.

I talk to lot of owners who don't grow, who just because they are too afraid to delegate.

And the biggest thing for me was to start delegating and removing myself from things that I'm not great at or that I don't like to do or that would slow me down as a strategic

visionary for the business.

So I think that was really the most important part, the most kind of strategic move that I had to make.

yeah, my business partner, he's also co-owner.

I needed to...

To make sure that he stays with me and we're together and giving him a major stake, or not major, but 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 in, 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 put the greed aside, but be strategic, be thinking about, if I'm gonna grow this thing, I need people around me who are trustworthy, who are gonna

be with me, who are not gonna just take off when I need them the most and I would need to rebuild everything from zero.

I need someone who can...

who can wake up and do some hard things on the weekends and respond to issues.

And for that, they need to have a motivation.

And that motivation, ultimately, is ownership.

yeah, I think sharing that ownership responsibility for any men, I think it's a very, very good feeling that you own something and that's really what makes us do things that we

would not do otherwise.

So I do look...

forward to even in our epoxy business.

Right now I'm working with a guy who is going to be my project manager.

I do hope that one day he's going to be part owner, you know, and I want him to own that responsibility and wait and really be invested into business.

And eventually once everything is going, once the money is there, the next big step is, okay, I own this thing.

We're building something bigger than just 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, think so at first, no, I was just by myself.

I had a bunch of clients and he was just doing some subcontractor work from you.

Do this, do that, do this project, do that thing.

And very quickly I burned out.

I just couldn't handle it.

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 a little leader.

Not compared to right now, but I had to sacrifice some profit when I brought my friend uh to be a co-owner with me.

But that really what allowed us to take it to the next level, to be able to handle three, four times more clientele.

At first, no, he was just a guy who would work for me, even though I knew him from like 12, from the same church, from Ukraine and everything.

But still I wanted to test him to make sure that we're on the same page, that he's able to follow, he's somebody I can trust and he really complements me and I'm helping him.

We're not the same in that sense, that's a good thing.

And then after, I believe it was a year and a half when he stuck with us and he was doing...

So I'm like, okay, well let's make you a co-owner.

So now he is.

I think it was one of the best decisions.

And now we're able to do a lot more volume because the way that he is, he's just a very good, very good operator, like operations guy.

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, using the CRM for every little thing.

It's just not my strong suit.

And I needed someone like that.

But he also needs me 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 a really good combination.

I think 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?

Hmm

I think probably the closest.

being afraid.

that's one of the characteristics of the visionary of the CEO of the kind of 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 still I think, you know, when I completely switched from my dental business or dental work oh 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 number four.

So after the fourth kid, I had an FMLA in Washington.

You get three months of FMLA.

So he was born and maybe it was number five.

I think it was number five Danica.

I'm kind of, I think I lost track there.

I think it was number five, but regardless.

Yeah.

So I had three months and I'm like, okay, I have three months and I wanted to switch to make the switch from, cause

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's born, I have 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 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 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.

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,

uh I spent a week with my wife to help out and then I'm like, we need to make this happen.

We have three months here and if this is gonna work, it's gonna be great for us long term.

for the next three months, I was just working.

I was just working, getting clients, training the employees, working with my partner, setting up the new business, everything.

And God blessed.

our efforts and I didn't come back to my work in three months.

uh It was enough of businesses in a pipeline.

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

it's still frightening to even wake up every morning and be like, my goodness, I have eight 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 that 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 is probably close to 15 people in Ukraine that do web design, content creation, social media marketing.

All of those guys are in Ukraine and 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 sirens are on and they need to do some edits on the websites for our clients and they know the air siren

is on.

So they go underground to do some edits.

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

That's our guys.

That'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 to a large degree in their income.

Um, so every, every time it's, humbling to realize that I have responsibility.

I have, uh, I need to, I need to be, uh, disciplined.

need to be faithful.

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.

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.

uh Like you said, you have 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.

Mm-hmm.

Exactly.

And not the last thing on this, not the last thing is faith that plays a big, big role in this.

You know, it's, it could be stressful to realize that weight on you, but at the end of the day, you always remind yourself, you know, it's not an accident, it's not on you, it's

not, you know, 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.

And I need to accept that as His will at end of the day.

So I don't like to only good from God and not the bad like the job is talking about, But even the bad is not really the bad.

It just looks like bad.

Romans 8.28, everything serves for good to those who love Him in a cold, cold according to His purpose.

any challenge, anything that's painful or easy and sweet.

It's all from your father if you know him as such.

Yeah, yeah, that's good stuff and that can be difficult to do sometimes.

uh 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 gonna go or what I was supposed to do or how things were gonna turn it out, God was faithful in 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 is 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 might have all the numbers and it looks like you're successful, but you actually don't.

You're actually unfaithful.

Like you're doing some wrong things.

God's actually not blessing even though you have numbers.

It's a bad thing that maybe you have this wealth and maybe God has abandoned you for that reason.

Because you've been unfaithful or dishonest or ungrateful like we read in Romans 1, 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 and numbers is not the ultimate measure of blessing.

I know for some people it is.

To me it's just an opportunity to worship.

know, an opportunity to serve.

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

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

um 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 gonna be of more service and greater value.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree.

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 is trying to follow Jesus.

And Jesus is 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 choose the bigger treasure, which is Jesus.

So I try to kind of push the idea, push 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.

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, whether it's...

Poor or wealthy or somewhere in between, that is not a measure of your blessing or your holiness.

Absolutely.

One of the most godly people I've met were never rich.

Most of the world is not rich.

It's abnormal for people to be rich in this world.

But I also met people who are rich and who are very godly.

In the especially, those are the ones that we need to celebrate and be like,

You can be rich and you can still be faithful.

You can still be all about God's kingdom.

You can still 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 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?

Hmm.

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 put it this way.

The corruption is a lot more blatant there versus here.

So...

Everyone is corrupt.

Every country is.

It's just a matter of to what degree and how blatantly it is.

So I think uh 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, had to pay money to this and this guy and this guy and has nothing to do with

business.

To get some paper to get it going, you need to pay a...

money to like all of these inspections to the 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 at 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 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 in terms of the regular running of the business.

It's pretty black and white.

There's clear rules.

You can just do this and you will do this and that's how you get it done.

So it's like, wow, interesting.

Okay, 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 could be valuable.

I think naturally Slavic people, from, especially Ukraine, like that Eastern Europe, they're very entrepreneurial, just naturally.

They have a lot of vision and desire and ambition.

What they're not good at is discipline.

So that's what I see a lot of times now where new guys come in from Ukraine, refugees or whatnot, they would like switch.

10 different jobs in a matter of a couple years because it doesn't align with their big vision for themselves.

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 be your own boss.

You cannot demand things, you cannot expect.

So I have to remind them, but...

But yeah, I don't know.

I mean, 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 US, I saw that, I think it's possible.

So I give it a shot.

And basically from the first try, worked for me.

not that I didn't fail inside the business.

We had some ideas that didn't work out.

We had to pay back to some clients that we weren't able to deliver, but we found the money, we paid them back.

We made it right with them.

We lost some money, but at the end of the day, I think it's all about how God has wired you, who you are.

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, do like the idea of owning my own time and deciding what I do with it, especially because I have so many kids.

That gives me that flexibility 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 work, value of creativity, the value of responsibility.

because those are all the things that you learn as an entrepreneur.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, well with your kids, you 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 had gone

the entrepreneurial route.

Do you have any thoughts about what you hope for your kids' future as far as education or career?

Yeah, definitely not a traditional college.

And it might sound wild to some people.

I know even people in my own church, they're like, wanna, you I'm saving this amount of money every day for my two 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.

There are just better ways.

They're more predictable actually than college.

We've seen how college failed so many millennials who came out and they couldn't do anything with their degrees or they're so much in debt that they will never get out.

And their jobs are just not gonna provide.

So.

I'm not against college, especially if you want to become a doctor and engineer something special, like specialty that you want to pick.

Obviously, I don't want an entrepreneur brain surgeon doing some surgery on my brain.

Like I want him to have a formal education, right, or pilot who's flying.

I don't want him to pick a course on YouTube and be my pilot.

But that's just one direction.

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.

But I honestly think most of my kids will not need a college education.

They'll just need to pick up 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.

can make some real money being, you know, know, a 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 something that we approve and we're involved in.

We use the Becca, use BGAU, we use different programs.

We do also have two days a week, there is a technical school that they're attending.

Two days a week, it's like technical classes that they take.

like music, like ukulele, for example, today they have a concert with their classmates, it's a ukulele and musical concert.

So they're all gonna be playing ukuleles.

That's something that I won't teach them.

Although I play guitar, could.

uh or like building robotics, for example, right?

Or stuff like that, or building something from Legos, something that's cool.

Like they go there, they get those extra skills that they wouldn't get from just homeschooling.

But for the most part, homeschooling is, I think, is perfect.

And for that reason, I'm strong advocate and believer of providing enough of income so that your wife can stay and guide your kids with that.

I know there's different opinions, but if you can, I think that's the best route.

know, we've tried multiple.

We've tried public school because at some point it was just a little too hard.

we had, at some point we had a lot of kids at the same age level and not a lot of help.

Like when our oldest were like eight, they're not very useful at that point.

So we're like, okay, I need to take some load from my wife.

So I send 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 the 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 really a battle.

No, it's like 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

values that God wants them to have.

as soon as we could, we pulled them out and then 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 at least discern 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.

in my house anyway, we kind of reassess every year, uh each kid individually, know, 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.

uh...

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 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.

mean, every kid is different.

you know, we do notice that this child, for example, is a lot more influenced 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.

it also could be a...

because of the age, you know, and then next year she could be at a different stage where now, you know, all the dating talk is just so unhelpful a lot of times and it just starts

so early in the school.

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 allow to think about any of this.

So now the 13 year old is like, okay.

Dad, I'm turning 13, maybe I can get a phone.

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 is no access to internet.

So like very controlled.

Like some will say, 13, what?

Like my kid had a iPhone at nine.

And to me, it's like throwing them to the wolves.

Why would you do that to your kid?

uh 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 on the same boat.

We do the Gab phone.

My oldest two 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.

ah 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 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 home or outside of your control, but yet limit the exposure there.

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.

mean, 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 that's enough of fight for them a lot of times to have is to fight against their own sinful desires or habits.

And why would we add more fuel to this with and sometimes that's so destructive.

I've seen it.

I've seen it firsthand, I've served in a youth ministry for a while and now these guys or girls who used to be under my care, some of them committing suicides, overdoses, it's no

random.

It's not just, oh, well, whatever.

There's a clear pattern of what happened, of how it came to that.

And it has everything to do with influence of peers, with their access to internet.

everything.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, I just think back to the just dumb thing, not harmful or malicious, but just the dumb things that me and my friends did from, you know, eight to 18.

And, you know, we got into enough trouble and did enough dumb things without a smartphone.

And when, 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 can't imagine, man, if you have the whole world at your fingertips and the consequences that go with that.

um Man, yeah, it's a tough situation.

It's super dangerous and we're trying to be very strict about it and sometimes they don't like it but they understand it most of the time.

And when you don't tease them 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 your father, as your mother, if you love them, they'll obey.

And you want to nurture that.

You want them to, I don't know, to me, it's just a very big deal.

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 find a word where just one guy rules in the country.

Dictator, yes, yes, yes.

And when it comes to protecting your children, think, yeah, you don't wanna be a dictator in the full sense of the word, but I would rather err on this side than the other side,

especially right now.

And of course, we're trying to be balanced as much as we can.

But I also would wanna say,

The church influence is huge.

So as parents, we're never enough for our kids.

God obviously gives the biggest responsibility to us, but he also gives church a unique responsibility for their members, for their people.

mutual care, the influence of godly people in their life, their leaders, their youth group, their pastors, teachers.

examples that they see from other kids whose parents are influencing them.

All that together is a big package of how we raise our kids in godliness and admonition of the Lord, like Paul is talking about and Ephesians and Peter.

Peter is also talking about it,

Yeah, I have that conversation or I did when I was running my company with uh 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 want your feedback.

I want your information.

I want to have a clear or open communication so that I can emphasize that benevolent part.

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.

I will make the final decision based on the information that I gather.

I'm asking you for information.

uh

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 would prefer.

And if I think this is detrimental, this is tier one type of decision, and then I will be the one to take that on myself and say, no, 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's a weight, there is actual accountability that we have in front of, before God as men, as leaders that our wives don't.

And at the end of the day, we're the ones who are gonna be responsible way more.

Kind of like, we're reading about the structure of the church, where pastors are the ones that are accountable and...

James is saying 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 and responsibility that's going to come with it because they will be judged more stricter.

Yeah, yeah, and the calling to be a sacrificial leader.

You know, in our family, 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 three kids.

And so I say, you guys all get one vote.

I get four votes and your mom gets eight votes.

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 gonna do because it's my job to serve and love her

so I can overrule you guys and she can overrule all of us when it comes to preferences so

Yeah, yeah,

exactly.

Yeah, yeah, I think 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 at home 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 make sure that she is spiritually healthy.

And then if she's spiritually healthy and she has access to the money, then she'll be wise enough to know what's enough and what's too much.

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 it play out the way it plays out.

Yeah, good for you guys.

No, but some people like budgets and that's fine too.

I'm not against it.

I just think sometimes it causes more conflicts than help.

And especially if you're not an entrepreneur, if you're not in charge of how much you earn, then you need something.

You need something in stone maybe, or maybe at least in pencil.

But 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 wife is naturally very frugal and is a very godly woman that's very discerning 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 left over.

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 where things go and how

things go.

But then at least we have kind of a framework to work off of and we have a plan and we know where we're headed.

But um yeah, that's kind of been my goal too is to, yeah, my goal has been to give her what she wants and what she needs and then to earn a little bit extra so that I can enjoy

life on top of that as well.

ah I think that's 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 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 gonna put it on you know, on hold for a long time.

I think maybe one of the things that, I think, yeah, I think one of the things that I wish I could maybe learn even sooner would be to.

to have a clear separation in my mind between friendship and work.

There is, you know, we all want to be friends with our employees or with our coworkers 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 have to understand that you need structure and 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 it doesn't necessarily mean that I can be friends with all of my employees or even with my business partner.

Like 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 earnings, about

the income, it's about the time, right?

How much who spends and how many hours and what's fair, what's not?

Like all those questions about being fair in business.

Mm-hmm.

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 responsibility.

It 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 a COO, then you follow me, right?

Because that's the role.

And doesn't mean that I'm better than you.

It just means kind of like in 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 is very, important 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'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's 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 a leader and following

And the same goes with business.

So I think there's a lot of parallels.

So would be family dynamic and work dynamic.

There is that friendship element that I think is important for business owners to understand that you cannot truly be friends with your coworkers in the full sense of the

word.

And first and foremost, you are a team with a structure where there's leader and there is followers.

Again, it's not impossible to be friends just like with my wife.

I uh am friends with her 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 leader 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 by having that clear rules established early and maybe even written out,

especially at work, like this is who you are, this is who I am at, or who I am.

And outside of work, outside of work, we can hang out, we can do things.

But at work, we have different roles and responsibilities.

So I think that's the thing that I wish I learned 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 toughen up, like I need to really...

mature to have those conversations, otherwise this business is gonna be a mess.

If I'm not gonna take the stand, I'm not gonna 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 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 five 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 taking off my boss hat, we're gonna be friends now, know, nothing in this conversation is gonna come back to work.

I just wanna check in with you as a friend, how are you doing?

And calling that out early on helps a lot and helps kind of delineate those relationships.

Yeah, yeah, no, that's good.

That's good.

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, you know, with clarity.

like, so they can, you know, know what to expect.

Who are they talking to right now?

Their friend or their boss?

Because they're not the same, yeah.

Yeah.

Is there a particular opinion or uh mindset that you felt strongly about early in your business journey that has shifted or changed as you've matured as a leader?

Hmm.

No, I think,

I think as far as the offering services to more than just one industry, think that was a shift for us recently.

Before, like I said, I was focused primarily working with roofing companies and roofing owners.

And last year we decided, hey, okay, maybe we should switch 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 don't want to travel or can I travel as much because I have eight children.

So to me, it was important to realize, okay, 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 do see a lot of people do that and I don't judge them.

Everyone has their own life and priorities.

But for me, it's a very costly decision to take off and be gone for a week.

For my wife and for my kids, they rely on me on regular basis.

And I like that, you it's actually a problem if I take off and nothing changes, you know, it's like everything is the same.

It's like, 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 marketing manager to do that type of stuff, type of work, to travel and represent us.

which is a legitimate option, we thought about it.

Or at that right time, a 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 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 us market.

because that's what they do.

have dedicated people.

They have a marketing manager.

Randy is kind of the guy to do that.

So 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 not just kind of solve your bottleneck, but maybe they will expand your reach more.

Still, we're very early.

in that conversation with them.

it's still kind of very, the ink is still wet, but that's kind of the idea is for them to, it's a natural transition for them and they're already marketing for what they're doing.

And for us to be mentioned as one of their partners 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, also, one of the biggest shifts that I had, another one would be to, and I started talking about it more more and more and more, but specifically two years ago, I do

think I did come to a realization that JV partnerships is probably one of the best ways to have a true lasting long-term relationship with your client.

or with your student or our student.

So what I mean is you can help them, you can serve them, you can do everything you can as a digital marketing company, but there's a natural limit as to how much 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 that's it.

Okay, that's all we can do for you guys.

Me as being the guy who is analyzing and thinking, okay, 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 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 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 contractor company is solid and trustworthy and there is a previous relationship and we reach 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 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.

those leads to 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.

They're good at maybe getting you the visibility or getting you some leads, but you don't know their quality or not.

But now it's like, let's get you number one, high quality leads, but also let's make sure they're converting.

And then once they do, we both benefit from this together.

So that was a major breakthrough for us when we started offering that to select a few companies.

So we have about five partnerships like this right now with specific roofing companies where we work at cost.

So it's essentially for free.

And we're only getting paid on the revenue that we generate.

And 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 uh a marketing company.

And I do encourage more both marketers and contractors bring up those conversations.

Because at the end of the day, you want your marketers to have the skin in the game because that's how you can make sure that they're

They're fully invested.

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 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 that could be a very profitable model for both of you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So the most important thing is to have a clear, very clear benchmarks and very clear, uh 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 assets that could be tracked very clearly.

per call and then measured against the CRM, right, where everything is tracked.

So you want to have a clear separation between what's already yours and what's additional.

And that's really where the pressure kind of is most of the time.

And then making sure that the percentage is fair for both you and the marketing company.

But yeah, we've done it.

We 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's working just on that alone all the time.

Okay, 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?

Hmm.

Yeah, think so.

Yeah, I think so.

mean, sometimes I feel like I'm not doing anything.

Digital marketing is an interesting uh 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 still very much conceptual.

So sometimes you feel like

You you want to touch 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 make a difference right away.

Where here it's very much largely conceptual.

It's idea that can or may or may not materialize.

So...

Sometimes, yeah, I do feel like I wish my work was more tangible, I would say.

But that's partly why we opened also Magenix Epoxy Coding, because it's a legit local business that we can actually touch and do 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 what would I do differently?

I would probably start my own contracting company even sooner.

That's what I would do differently.

I would probably start it even sooner.

It would not be a roofing, I think.

I just hate heights.

So from roofing down to epoxy coatings, it's all the way diametrically opposed, right?

It's the floors.

But still, something that's local, something that's...

actual local company, I would probably start at a couple of years earlier, 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 all over.

Yeah.

Yeah, I can relate to that.

There's something different about producing a digital product versus a physical good that you can touch and feel.

Yeah.

What has been your biggest win so far?

Hmm, that's pretty open-ended.

Do you mean it to be that open-ended?

Yeah, absolutely.

Biggest win so far that I'm still married.

Okay.

you know, that I have.

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 someone else would do that.

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 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 wife, both emotionally, mentally, spiritually.

And to my kids, to raise them with uh desire for them to know the Lord, to love God, to know His Word.

And business for me is an opportunity to provide that.

But also business is an opportunity to help provide that ability to other people, to my coworkers, 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 is legitimately what brings me joy is to help companies and owners break free from this slavery, I would say, to the paid advertisement world where you have to exchange

leads for money all the time.

I've talked to so many

Companies who are in bondage, know, they are slaves of the system, where they have very little profit and they have to continually dump very high percentages to feed the machine

of lead generation.

And they don't have the time or freedom to spend time with their wives and kids and go to church and be effective in serving at church, be the church, you 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 part of me, it's who I am.

You know, 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 heaven, see God, to see Father.

And that means a new life completely.

That's like new desires, new person, new you.

So to me, I want to, and then obviously we need to live up to that calling like Paul is talking about in Ephesians, like live in a manner worthy of your calling.

So there is definitely that responsibility.

Even though you have a new heart, 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, your desires.

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 think.

I think that's what God calls every believer to.

to think like, to renew your mind, know, to put on the new self and put off the old self and to be always kind of crucifying your old self and living according to the new desires

that are pleasing and that are happy, 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.

you remember, like Jesus is saying in John 17 to his disciples, sanctify them in the truth, like separate them, protect them in the truth, and then he says, your word is

truth.

So to me, 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 work goes 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 making enough money where they can have that freedom and desire and gratitude to give, right?

To give to his work, to God's work.

So I don't take money from their account to give to something or I don't use it.

To me, it's more of I wanna give them the opportunity.

to do it the way that they want to do it.

But also, you know, serving people in Ukraine who are struggling and giving them the ability to work and earn, provide for their families.

It so happened, and it's not that I have a policy for that, but it so happened that every person who works for me is a believer.

So...

uh

And if there is going to be a qualified non-believer, I'll hire him too.

But so happens that I know a lot of qualified believers.

So to me, that's just a way to love believers, know, with a special love 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 translating for them for two years to be able to understand the preaching.

So I took that and was trying to serve them in that way.

So I would go there, first service, am there by myself.

Second service, I'm there to translate.

And for two years, I would translate live.

But then also a few of them, I did hire to bring, I brought them on my team.

gave him some opportunity to learn SEO, taught them SEO.

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 quality guy.

So I want him to like 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, you know, coming from Ukraine, being an immigrant, do you have any thoughts you'd like to share about any current uh 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 high.

That's a hard question.

think, you know, I'm an American citizen to begin with, right?

So I am not a Ukraine first advocate by no means.

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 uh at the end of the day, it has to make sense for the US to be involved in anything that they're involved in.

I 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 even if we need something.

So I do know that Ukraine needs help.

They do need support.

How long, for how much, to what degree?

Those are hard questions.

know, it's a hard question.

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 Russia has been in.

Is that not clear to everyone?

I think it's pretty clear that Putin is absolutely a tyrant who has to be stopped.

But at what cost?

That's the question, right?

And that's been the history of Ukraine for generations.

It's not new.

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 Russia for their independence.

Soviet Union times before that, it's always been the case.

So is it gonna end right here right now?

I don't know.

I don't think so probably, but can we help as much as we can?

I think it's really the question 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 do think that forcing taxpayer money without consent of the taxpayers is probably not the best thing.

I don't think there is a legal obligation for us to help Ukraine.

There is 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 that alone will dictate and prayerful consideration 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 none of that and just take care of your family here in the US and worry about

what's in front of you because that's all you can afford.

But I am a patriot of US as a citizen, that's what I signed up for.

So I do think in general Trump is doing very good things for the US and for the world.

As a person who has a lot of relatives in Ukraine and I went there three years ago, I absolutely understand the dangers and the pressures, the 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 gonna be great.

It will be back.

It's going to be again back to the square one, so to speak, because 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 the US has helped a lot, more than they should have maybe in some ways.

But uh in other ways, again, think personal choices are more important at 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 a very, very sad scenario.

don't, for a second, think the US is a Christian nation, as a true Christian, you know, like a true Israel nation of God.

Like it's just not the case.

The country is very split, very split internally.

There's people, there's a lot of freedoms, but there's also lot of...

sin that's going on and celebrated.

So I think there's a lot of local stuff to be dealt with also.

So yeah, that's kind of my general thoughts.

Yeah.

And so as 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, 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 border is a good thing.

think border 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.

is 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 am absolutely clear that this is biblical to expect, to expect a 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 kind of intentional effort.

to politicize, like it's intentional effort to overthrow the electoral college, so to speak, it seems like, to bring the unfair advantages to one side versus the other by

providing benefits to the, it's not benefits, because one thing I can say from personal experience, as a person who came here as a refugee,

I did receive some help originally.

did receive some welfare and stuff.

But I went and started working pretty early.

Like I stopped 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 personally,

I know people, my relatives even, who have been abusing the system.

And because the system is set up to be abused, there 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'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 a 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 grow up they want to go

and do it themselves Well, no, they assume that every person is just you know, white clean heart Not quite, you know, we all are gonna 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 gonna 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 provide opportunity for sinners to sin, right?

The more, if you create a system that encourages laziness, it's gonna be abused.

Nobody's gonna in their...

sinful right mind is gonna go and be like, oh, I can have this money, but instead I'm gonna go work and have the same money.

It's just not gonna happen.

So you have to be a lot better with the system, with the welfare system, a lot more fair system.

So I'm for capitalism in that sense.

I capitalism is really the best system out there to bring that balance.

Capitalism with compassion.

Let's throw that compassion in there for those who are truly hurting and 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 Broce, 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 Bros, he had some history.

He had, I think, four marriages.

He went through some valleys.

God had to teach him some hard lessons.

I think he could be a great, and he also just recently exited from selling his company to private equity.

ah So I think there's gonna be a lot in common.

Now he's offering coaching to roofers, but he is a fellow believer.

I would also say, are you familiar with Juan curling?

No, I don't think so.

No, Kerling, owner of a company in, I think it's New Mexico, or no, Texas, Texas.

And he's got a pretty crazy story himself.

So he's a pastor.

He's a pastor who's 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's a contractor too.

He can share a lot how he evangelizes at work, how he preaches the gospel to his...

I know he mentioned to me, there's multiple people who came to the Lord through his work, through just working with him and his wife.

So who on curling is the of the hidden gem, I would say, in a contracting world.

Yeah.

That's great.

Well, I might ask you to make an introduction here offline because I'd love to chat with both of them.

I just love hearing great stories and learning about new businesses and new industry.

So awesome.

absolutely.

I'll do that.

What as we wrap up here our last question to either uh 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, which

like Milwaukee type of stuff?

Yeah.

I'm so new in this.

I didn't have to use any of those until like now.

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 he got was...

Is it rigid?

Rigid I think is the brand.

Yeah, so it's pretty good quality, but it's not as expensive as Dewalt or those other ones.

It's a Home Depot, I think.

So far we've been using that, but we're using some expensive equipment from like Bulgaria for concrete grinding.

So it's like an expensive machine with a vac.

It's like 20 grand.

just to grind the concrete.

So those are the ones that I've researched heavily.

And the other ones, the other ones is like, whatever you want, dude, and whatever you feel like.

the

hundred dollar 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, know, plug-in everywhere, transitions and everything.

yeah, yep.

Awesome.

Well Dima, thank you so much for joining us.

uh 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 gonna be very beneficial to a lot of people.

So thank you.

My pleasure, pleasure, pleasure Erick.

Thank you for thoughtful questions and yeah, you kind of uh you went deep in some of those and just ask them and wouldn't back down.

Just like let's keep digging.

No, that's awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you 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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