Announcer: 0:00

The following programming is sponsored by Marc J Bernstein. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of this station, its management or Beasley Media Group. Entrepreneur, author and financial consultant, Marc Bernstein helps high-performing entrepreneurial business owners create a vision for the future and follow through on their goals and intentions. Ang Onorato is a business growth strategist who blends psychology and business together to create conscious leaders and business owners who impact the world. Founders Forum is a radio show podcast sharing the real stories behind entrepreneurship as founders discover more about themselves, while providing valuable lessons and some fun and entertainment for you. Now here's Mar and Ang.

Marc Bernstein: 0:43

Good morning America. How are you Now? I say that and I try to be cheerful about it, but there's a lot of people who aren't okay this morning We've been talking about. On our last show we also talked about this. I mean, there's things going on in the world. There's a big war in the middle of the world, in the Middle East. There is a very contentious, potentially divisive election going on in America, and we've had a lot of natural disasters going on around the world and particularly in the southeast of America right now, and Angela's had personal experience with that. And that's leading us to our topic of the day, which we discussed on our last show, but it's worth revisiting again with today's guest. Let's introduce that question and move forward.

Ang Onorato: 1:28

Yeah, absolutely Well. You know, unfortunately, Marc, I think the way you're talking, there's a lot of people that aren't okay, and I think that's also another message that it's okay to not be okay and it's okay to ask for help, and I think for many of us that are also struggling, looking for purpose, sometimes reaching out to help is something that can make us feel a little bit okay. But you're right, I'm like millions of people, I'm personally affected. My sister is still stuck in North Carolina and we don't have a lot of contact. I do know she's okay from the original storm, but this topic we're carrying through because it's about how to be prepared for the unexpected, whether it's personal health, running a business. You know just all of that and so, yeah, I would love to hear from our guest, Chris, in terms of you know how he thinks about that. You know, Chris, we'll introduce you formally, but how do you in your business, in your life, how do you prepare for the unexpected?

Chris Lawson: 2:23

Well, I think mindset, in terms of preparing for the unexpected, is really what is. It sets everything apart and you by its, by its very definition, it's unexpected. So I think having the mindset that is positive. Having a mindset that you can get through it. Having a mindset my personal mindset is you can learn whatever you need to get through any problem. So as long as you have that mindset, then I think that can carry you through.

Chris Lawson: 2:51

And the other part is, whenever there's tragedy or adversity, I think the biggest thing that we can do is to get ourselves out of our own head, because when we are in our own head, that's when we spiral. If we can get out of our own head by just seeing what we can do to get is to get ourselves out of our own head, Because when we are in our own head, that's when we spiral. If we can get out of our own head by just seeing what we can do to help, there's always something that you can do to help, whether it's just making a donation, whether it's reaching out to people in the area. I have a lot of very dear friends that are in the Atlanta area and when this first hit they were just deluged by rain. So I just reached out and made sure they were okay, just getting yourself out of your own head, I think takes you very far.

Marc Bernstein: 3:31

Yeah, chris, I love that you struggled with the word tragedy, because you're a positive guy and I think you had a hard time saying it, but it was coming out like strategy, which is I don't think, which I think is kind of interesting.

Chris Lawson: 3:41

Isn't that funny? Yeah, maybe it's a Freudian slip. Yeah, maybe it's a.

Marc Bernstein: 3:43

Freudian slip. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.

Marc Bernstein: 3:44

So, let me introduce Chris. Chris is Chris Lawson, founder and owner of Technician Find and also CEO of Astute Social Media LLC, and I love his bio. He is a lifelong, voracious learner. Think about how he's describing himself. You're not going to learn much about his business, but you're going to learn everything about his business. Voracious, lifelong voracious learner, entrepreneur, mentor, passionate about personal personal growth, financial independence and health. Founder and co-founder of a founder and co-founder of various companies. He's a daily cold shower enthusiast and he is transforming lives through applied wisdom.

Marc Bernstein: 4:28

I just want to say a couple things. So, before the show and our prep, I got a little bit educated from Chris and Ang about the value of cold showers, so I appreciate it. I'm a cold guy cold plunge and cryotherapy, but not necessarily cold shower so I am going to try it, starting today. And, in addition, you know the other things obviously we talked before about we're both we're all very much into personal growth. Financial independence is like my middle name in terms of what I do for people, so love to talk about that and I love the idea of a lifelong learner, which is the way both Ang and I describe ourselves as well. So it's going to be a fun conversation. So, chris, tell us about your I like to say in quotes, humble beginnings where you came from and how you got to where you are today and what you're doing.

Chris Lawson: 5:17

Sure, yeah, I'm happy to tell you about my beginnings and where I came from. I also just wanted to thank you, Marc and Ang, because you've created something really amazing here. As a recovering financial advisor, I know that you are disrupting the industry and you're creating value above and beyond your core services. So thank you. This is amazing. I was telling you before we went live that I just binged about a dozen of the episodes, one after another, and they're amazing. So thank you for that. Thanks so much for saying that, chris. Appreciate it From my perspective.

Chris Lawson: 5:53

Way back, I didn't really know anybody with money. I didn't know anybody that was successful. I didn't know anybody that owned a business. It was just you go and then you, you go to school and then you get a job and then you just plug away, and that was always the way that it was for me. So when I finally went the direction of becoming an entrepreneur, I had to learn a lot of things the hard way Adversity, mindset. I talked about mindset before. Mindset is always the biggest thing and I realized that it's what I thought and what I believed that really are going to create what happens outside for me. So I just I did work hard, always had jobs and always, later on, realized that it was about providing value. And when I started providing value and using my key strengths and my superpowers to solve problems and add value, that's when things really started to take off for me.

Marc Bernstein: 6:52

I love that. So, and what company was that? Was that Astute Social Media when that began to?

Chris Lawson: 6:56

happen I actually the way that it happened for me was I did some corporate stuff. I actually was in the financial services industry for 25 years and towards the end of my career in financial services I started adopting social media because I left the big firms. I was always with big firms and what I found was that my personality style didn't really mesh with the big firms. I wanted to do a lot of creative stuff. I wanted to do presentations and it was taking me two months to get my presentations through compliance. It's like compliance.

Announcer: 7:33

Oh, my goodness.

Chris Lawson: 7:34

I, you know, I, you know, bless you for you know having the patience to deal with that, but for me it was like compliance. Their favorite three words were stop, no and don't. And me, as an entrepreneur, is like I want to go, I want to go, I want to go. So I ended up starting a boutique planning practice and I had to figure out how to get clients outside of the big marketing names, because I was with a lot of big firms and so I was an early adopter of social media. So I figured out how to use LinkedIn to get clients. I figured out how to use Facebook to get clients. I figured out a lot of these things, and then I've always been a big networker. So all the people in my network started looking at me and saying how are you doing that? Can you do that for me? And then started a side hustle. Side hustle overtook my planning practice and I sold my planning practice to my partner, and then I started what became Astute Social Media in 2012.

Chris Lawson: 8:26

And then, when you fast forward that along to 2017, I was asked to do a presentation for 10 automotive repair shop owners, and I ended up getting nine of those 10 shop owners as clients over the next six months, and that changed things again. So, coming back to hey, what you really need to do is use your superpowers and your resources to solve problems. One of the things I figured out really quickly was that these shop owners needed help finding technicians a lot more than they needed help posting on Facebook. So we used all of the skills, the talents and the expertise of my team. We directed it towards that one specific problem and we had a very brave group of guinea pigs that I said hey look, I don't know if this is going to work or not, but if you pay for my team's time, I will dedicate my talents to this project and see if we can find you some techs. And that's where Technician Find came out, and to be.

Marc Bernstein: 9:21

Ang, I know you're first thing to say something.

Ang Onorato: 9:23

Yes, I get. So. I'm just kind of so enamored by it when I hear these kinds of stories that it gives me pause for a minute.

Ang Onorato: 9:30

But because, Chris, we talked offline about that, where the old adage of necessity is the mother of invention, offline about that where you know the old adage of necessity is the mother of invention, but I think for entrepreneurs, it's a, it's mindset and it's your bias of action, bias for action, which are two things that you mentioned, which is, hearing and understanding where the problem is.

Ang Onorato: 9:47

And you know, I have a business coach as well who always says you know, sometimes we have to create the problem for the client so we can solve it. And what he means by that is doing exactly what you did is going in on one angle and and and asking the right questions and doing the things and uncovering what's the real pain, right? So I'm fascinated by that and I think the fact that it has spawned um you know a whole company is amazing. So tell us a little bit about um, and I know you shared it. So you've got kind of a team of folks, maybe independent contractors, but I'm curious, with independent contractors, we don't talk about that as often as I think it actually exists. How do you build cohesiveness culture? How do you get them fully bought into your why for the business if they're not W2 employees?

Chris Lawson: 10:34

That's a great question. So how do we develop culture for team members who are in? You know all the corners of the globe mostly you know different areas of United States and get on the same page. Well, the first thing we do is we always have a weekly team meeting and I did create something and this is a great resource. If anybody is thinking about this right now, donald Miller's book Business Made Simple is amazing.

Chris Lawson: 11:02

We created a one-page guiding principles document and that guiding principles document I just did it all on one page and it has the mission, key characteristics of good team members, critical daily actions, the story pitch and the theme. And we go over that. Members, critical daily actions, the story pitch and the theme, and we go over that. And that's what keeps us all on the same page. I think hiring is the most important part, because you know, being in recruiting, being in sourcing, what we know is that there's a difference between the skill sets that someone needs in order to perform the job and then their values, their vision, their personality. That's going to have them be cohesive and fit in with your overall structure. And as long as you have that clearly defined, then it makes it easier to hire and then you just keep mentioning it and you reward people for doing the things that are important to the company, and that's how we do it.

Marc Bernstein: 11:57

Chris, I just want to say something about that. I know that what you're doing is really important because the world at least the United States I know is moving to an independent contractor type mentality. There are whole companies In fact we've had a friend of Ang's who I've become friendly with, Vik ashok, who's on with graphite who are really dedicated to bringing independent contractors to fill needs for companies all over the world and there are people that believe that's the employee of the future and there's a lot of reasons for that to make sense. It's becoming the good news is becoming more of an entrepreneurial world. So the fact that the ability to do what you're doing and to create culture around that, I think is gonna be a desperately needed skill going forward. This is a perfect time to take a break, because it's unbelievable how quickly time flies on this show. But we're there, so we're gonna take a quick 60 second commercial break and ask you a little bit more about some of the challenges you faced and the strengths you've used which I know are plenty to deal with those.

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Marc Bernstein: 14:03

We're back on Founders Forum with our guest today, Chris Lawson and Chris, so I already asked you the question, but obviously it's not a smooth ride to entrepreneurship or through entrepreneurship. So let's talk about some of the challenges you've had and how you've yes.

Chris Lawson: 14:22

So the challenges I've had and how I've dealt with them, boy, where do we begin? The biggest challenges are whenever anything unexpected happens. It always kind of throws you for a loop. I think it's just by the nature because of the nature of it. But I can think of a couple that really were defining, and one of those that was really defining was I made a rookie mistake and when I started my agency and I let one of my clients get up to about 30% of my revenue and you know everybody, I could see people you know nodding their head. Whenever that happens, you take on an enormous amount of risk and, sure enough, one day, after five years with this client, they decided they were going to pull everything in-house and then, overnight, 30% of my top-line revenue was gone. So you know, after I spent some time at the beach, we're looking at each other Hands can speak to that one exactly.

Marc Bernstein: 15:24

So go ahead.

Chris Lawson: 15:26

You know, after I spent a long afternoon at the beach and said you know what, maybe I need to go back and sit in a cubicle, calmer heads prevailed and again I just came back to mindset. Whatever it is that you can do to preserve your mindset, you can always get out of it. And the other thing is listening to stories from other people. So I'm in a lot of different business masterminds and business groups and you know what, if you ask anybody what their story is, any business owner and I know you two know this better than anybody they all have stories that are just heartrending about what happened. And so when you hear that and you hear that they got through it, then it helps you get through it as well.

Marc Bernstein: 16:05

And so when you hear that, and you hear that they got through it, then it helps you get through it as well. Pretty, pretty, pretty amazing. Just one thing occurs to me. I'll just share this.

Marc Bernstein: 16:17

Early on in my business, I went through a disastrous partnership situation. I mean, we talked about heart wrenching story for another day and I swore I would never have a partner again, and today I've got three of them and we recently, but again, you know. You know challenges builds character, character builds strengths and we just are going through a partnership change now in our company. That could have been heart wrenching but because of the strengths that we've acquired and the work that we've done, it's actually becoming a great opportunity for everybody and ability to move forward with friendships and with you know, business alliances in a new form, and that's a great. And with you know, business alliances in a new form, and that's a great example of you know.

Marc Bernstein: 17:09

So I can speak to myself. You know I had to develop a whole new mindset about partnerships and what they can be as an example. And anyone will tell you it's one of the hardest things in business and but I now know it can be navigated successfully and that changes in partnerships can be navigated successfully and it's, you know it's so. So mindset's everything. I couldn't agree with you more mindset and working on your skills and your personal growth about that, you know. Yeah, I think you have to add that to it. It it just doesn't happen in a vacuum, right.

Chris Lawson: 17:47

And I know you know that too. Oh, absolutely. And skills and developing part of the mindset is developing that mindset that you can learn it. Whatever you need to know, whatever you need to do, whatever you need to accomplish, you can learn it. You just apply yourself to it and do it. It's internal versus external locus of control right.

Ang Onorato: 18:09

I think it's those two or three things you both mentioned, but I would even add also, chris, based on your story, that it's also learning from those mistakes right and embedding them into and I don't think that I think entrepreneurs are really good about that right. We get burned once and that fire is really hot where I think other people tend to kind of keep trudging through and say, well, it's just, you know, so applying the lessons of the 30% of the revenue customer those kinds of things.

Ang Onorato: 18:39

They make strong pillars. I think of how you move the business forward.

Chris Lawson: 18:42

So true, I have two sayings about that that I think are very applicable. One is you haven't learned until your behavior changes. So, yeah, having intellectual knowledge or being able to regurgitate certain facts, that doesn't matter, it's until your behavior changes and you know. And the other thing about this is, when you really want to change, then you find out. You find out how to change. That's that's the big part about it. And then having that why, and having the focus on the future and what you want to create, I think that's what pulls you out of it. That's what pulls me out of it as I go. Oh, my gosh, I've got all this stuff to do, but this is where I'm going and this is why it's cool, so I'm going to keep moving.

Ang Onorato: 19:28

Yeah, love it.

Marc Bernstein: 19:30

It's great. So, speaking about looking forward, we always talk about future vision on the show and you've elected to talk about your one-year vision. Tell us about that.

Chris Lawson: 19:41

Yeah, it's really close and it's really exciting for me. So I believe that good techs do their best work when they link up with great shops and we all benefit from safe and reliable vehicles. So that's really one of our guiding principles at Technician Find, and I also believe that when the pain is taken out of attracting, developing and retaining high quality staff, independent auto repair shops or set owners are set free to chase their dreams, independent auto repair shops, owners are set free to chase their dreams. So that's really what guides me, what guides my team and what we're creating.

Chris Lawson: 20:10

And there's three things that need to happen in order for these shops to be able to function optimally, and one is they have to be able to attract good employees, top talent, they have to be able to develop top talent and they have to be able to retain that talent. They have to be able to develop top talent and they have to be able to retain that talent. And so my one-year vision is I want to support my clients in all three of those areas. So we're building a platform to do that. As you might imagine, technician find is the front end. That's how we help them attract. Then we're going to have modules for helping them develop and also helping them to retain. So those are in development right now.

Marc Bernstein: 20:47

Interesting. Have you branded them yet?

Chris Lawson: 20:51

We've branded yeah, we have branded the retention. It's called Life Calibration. So a very dear friend of mine, his name is Eddie Lawrence. He is an individual who is he owns a diesel repair shop in Colorado Springs, colorado repair shop in Colorado Springs, colorado, and Life Calibration is a simple tool to help overextended shop owners and their employees gain more fulfillment, clarity and perspective.

Marc Bernstein: 21:18

Interesting. So you're working with Eddie on that project.

Chris Lawson: 21:21

I'm working with Eddie on that project.

Marc Bernstein: 21:24

We've spoken about Eddie before I'm aware of Eddie. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Lawson: 21:28

Eddie is just he's got an amazing life story and if you go to our website, his life story is on there and Life Calibration was born from his basically his near-death experience and now we're helping shops and their employees to get out of that rut and to find more purpose and clarity.

Marc Bernstein: 21:48

Let's talk after the show about getting Eddie on the show, because I think we've talked about it, it's come up a few times He'd be a fantastic guest, absolutely yeah, yeah, in building this platform and your one-year vision. What challenges lie ahead with that? There are always those.

Chris Lawson: 22:06

Staff, my eyes being bigger than my stomach. Yeah, there's a lot of work that needs to be done, and we want to do this the right way, and what we're doing is putting people in place that are going to be able to handle those things. So I know you're a big fan of Dan Sullivan, as am I. I'm trying to stay in my zone of genius, and we're hiring people to come in and be able to be in their zone of genius and play in those games. So that's going to be the biggest part of the about this and um, just making sure everything flows smoothly and our existing businesses don't suffer because we're growing.

Marc Bernstein: 22:46

So it's the old who, not how, and you got it and getting people their unique ability. Having a conversation with someone about that yesterday, it really is about like everything else takes care of itself. You have the right people in the right positions, so do you know anyone that can help you find people? Do you have a company? I'm kidding.

Chris Lawson: 23:05

That's what you do. Yeah, it is. Yeah, absolutely yeah, and that is what we do. And the other big thing is for your listeners who aren't familiar with it the book Buy Back your Time by Dan Martell is phenomenal. I just was introduced to that through my mastermind group and his concepts on how to hire, when to hire, why to hire all those things. They're life transformative. So I highly recommend that. I'm getting a lot out of that book, right now he's the best.

Ang Onorato: 23:35

I'm in his elite group.

Chris Lawson: 23:37

I'm in his elite mastermind.

Ang Onorato: 23:37

So Dan is yes, he's changing everything Fabulous call out, and it's a great book for anybody, even if you're not an entrepreneur. And just the busyness of life how to buy back your time is life-changing, so I'm so glad you brought that up.

Marc Bernstein: 23:53

Yes, very interesting.

Ang Onorato: 23:55

By the way, our time has flown by as predicted and, Ang, I know you have a closing question for Chris, so I think that'd be a good way to finish up so based on all of this that you've shared with us today, Chris, you've got so much perspective and mindset and lessons learned, but if you were to look back at your younger self, what, what would you? What would you tell young Chris?

Chris Lawson: 24:16

Oh boy, what would I tell young Chris Um? Would he listen? Is the question. Um I I got to tell you when I was 17, I knew everything. Um. I had two jobs, so I had money. Um, I'd just been accepted to college an amazing girlfriend that I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with. Um.

Marc Bernstein: 24:33

I. I'd just been accepted to college, had an amazing girlfriend that I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with. Sounds just like me. That's me. You just described me at 17. That's crazy.

Chris Lawson: 24:37

I had it all figured out right. We knew everything. And it is funny because every year since then I know less. I feel like I know less. I feel like I should go back to being 17 again, when I had everything figured out. But if I could?

Marc Bernstein: 24:50

grab that why do you get to be my age? You'll know nothing. Keep going, keep going.

Chris Lawson: 24:56

No, I just. That's why I have to keep learning right. So if I could get him and sit him down and say, hey look, chris, listen to me. There's really four things that I'd like you to know, and just believe me on this. One is you don't have to try so hard to get people to like you People. Most people are going to like you anyway because you're honest, because you really care about them and you're compassionate. So don't worry about that. And the people that don't like you, that's okay too. It's okay if people don't like you. So that's the big one.

Chris Lawson: 25:26

The second one is figure out what you're good at and then stay in that lane. I could have saved shaved decades off of my learning curve. Of course, I learned a lot from going down rabbit holes, but I spent so much time following gurus and get rich quick schemes and all these other things that just weren't aligned with who I am. So I would say, hey, take the Myers-Briggs right now, today, instead of when you're in your late 20s, like I ended up doing it, and just follow what you're really good at. And then the third thing is find ways to use your superpower to solve problems for people, and I was trying to tell my nephew this. My nephew's a funny kid. I took him out for his birthday to shop for school clothes and I said, hey, do you ever think about being a business owner? Because I shop for school clothes? And I said, hey, do you ever think about being a business owner? Cause I'm trying to nudge him in that direction and he says no, that sounds scary to me.

Chris Lawson: 26:23

And so we had this conversation about you know, I said find out what you're good at and just solve problems for people. That's a big thing. And then the fourth one I'd say is build a team around yourself, because you're not going to be able to do everything.

Marc Bernstein: 26:39

So have help, get people that are good at what you're not good at, and just keep solving problems. Great words of wisdom from Chris Lawson. It was great having you here today, chris. We could talk about a lot more, but we're out of time. Thank you all for listening. Thank you, Ang, for being here, and we'll see you next week on founders forum. Thank you, Marc and Ang.