From the comfort of a predictable accounting job to the rollercoaster world of entrepreneurship, Greg Muzzillo's tale is nothing short of extraordinary. This episode peels back the layers of his audacious shift to founding Proforma, revealing the trials and triumphs that have shaped his business acumen. Discover how Greg transformed a straightforward business model into a thriving empire, and how the adoption of a present-focused philosophy has been instrumental in both his personal and professional life.
Pointing the spotlight on growth and leadership, we get an intimate look at Greg's strategic approach to expanding Proforma and transitioning from hands-on roles to visionary leadership. The narrative is enriched by the candid discussion of family dynamics within the business, as Greg and his wife share the delicate balance of partnership and delegation. For entrepreneurs grappling with similar challenges, this is a masterclass in team empowerment and the art of letting go.
Rounding off our enriching dialogue, Greg shares the importance of mentorship, the decision-making behind relocating to Tampa for its dynamic lifestyle, and the creative journey of transforming his written insights into published wisdom. Join us for a deep dive into the mantra of living each day as a business owner, not just an employee, and how such a mindset can forge a path to legacy and success. If Greg's story has ignited your curiosity, he leaves us with ways to keep the conversation alive and connect with him online.
How to Reach Greg: Proforma: https://www.proforma.com/greg-muzzillo.html Proforma Franchise: https://proformafranchise.com/ How to Reach Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-muzzillo-ba51ba2/
From the comfort of a predictable accounting job to the rollercoaster world of entrepreneurship, Greg Muzzillo's tale is nothing short of extraordinary. This episode peels back the layers of his audacious shift to founding Proforma, revealing the trials and triumphs that have shaped his business acumen. Discover how Greg transformed a straightforward business model into a thriving empire, and how the adoption of a present-focused philosophy has been instrumental in both his personal and professional life.
Pointing the spotlight on growth and leadership, we get an intimate look at Greg's strategic approach to expanding Proforma and transitioning from hands-on roles to visionary leadership. The narrative is enriched by the candid discussion of family dynamics within the business, as Greg and his wife share the delicate balance of partnership and delegation. For entrepreneurs grappling with similar challenges, this is a masterclass in team empowerment and the art of letting go.
Rounding off our enriching dialogue, Greg shares the importance of mentorship, the decision-making behind relocating to Tampa for its dynamic lifestyle, and the creative journey of transforming his written insights into published wisdom. Join us for a deep dive into the mantra of living each day as a business owner, not just an employee, and how such a mindset can forge a path to legacy and success. If Greg's story has ignited your curiosity, he leaves us with ways to keep the conversation alive and connect with him online.
How to Reach Greg: Proforma: https://www.proforma.com/greg-muzzillo.html Proforma Franchise: https://proformafranchise.com/ How to Reach Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-muzzillo-ba51ba2/
Hey, what's going on, guys? We've got a special guest here today. We have Greg Muzzillo. He founded Proforma in 1978, and he has more than 500 franchise offices worldwide with over $650 million in sales. He's involved in philanthropy and has a huge family at home. Greg, I wanted to ask you first of all, so grateful to have you here.
Speaker 2:
Thanks for having me Jordan.
Speaker 2:
Thanks for having me, jordan, absolutely, we're excited to have you on the Clocked In podcast Now in 1978, why did you quit that accounting job? I feel most people go through the progression they go through, get the degrees and they're like, yes, I'm an accountant now. I loved studying accounting. However, when you study accounting in college, you go to class for an hour and then you go have lunch with your fraternity, brothers and friends, right, and then maybe you go to another class. Then you come back and play wall ball or whatever. You know what I mean. It's an hour here and an hour there.
Speaker 2:
And I had the Ernst Young Award, Accounting Award. I had won all of the accounting awards and so I decided I mean, it didn't take me long to realize I love studying and hated doing it. So my professors, when I'd be back on campus and I'd be speaking about entrepreneurship, my professors say, Greg, what happened to you? And I said you know you guys need to have a class in accounting that starts at seven in the morning, it goes to eight o'clock at night and it's called sit down and shut up. Because I can't do that, Right, I didn't, I didn't know. Those first early years in accounting are head down and I was an auditor on, like General Motors and American Electric Power, et cetera. It's horrible. It was at least for me. I kind of like MBWA management by walking around, and so yeah, I couldn't sit still at a desk for 15 minutes, much less 12 hours.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, I was actually on the phone with my brother and he was telling me about his experience, because he's a CPA as well and it's just so challenging. It never ends. But for you doing so well, how do you think about Proforma? Like what were the thoughts going on there? Because it's kind of a transition from accounting, Like it's definitely a little transition.
Speaker 2:
Well, it was some serendipity, surely. I clearly I always do. Since I was a young person I'm probably one of those stories you hear about mowed lawn, shoveled snow. You know relatively independent-minded person and I always wanted to own my own business, really. But it became very clear to me very quickly that I didn't like accounting. But I didn't know what I would do. But I had a roommate after I graduated from college that worked for a small little printing distributorship and he hated his boss. I hated accounting, and so we'd go out on Friday nights looking for dates for Saturday night and he'd be talking a little bit about what he did and the more I listened I thought wait a minute you sell all this printing and promotional product stuff huge industry, $300 billion in the United States alone.
Speaker 2:
all custom printed and you don't have to have any manufacturing or distributors. You don't have to have any manufacturing inventory employees. It was something that we could start very humbly, which is all we had right with virtually nothing, and so it didn't take me long to say to my former partner I bought him out many, many decades ago now. I said you know what, you know sales, I know accounting, we can do this. And we agreed within six months of graduating from college that we'd each put in $100, buy a phone answering machine, some stationery and a used file cabinet and started knocking on doors.
Speaker 1:
Really that's fantastic. I mean just because the way I really enjoy what you do is because you simplify everything to the most. It's just do this and it's like take the action, um, and there's so many times where we try to over complex everything and it's not that difficult. So how were those early years?
Speaker 2:
you know I I recently spoke to a group and I and to people that are where I were in those early years and I said to them enjoy where you are. I know they're all sitting there, probably either aspiring to start their own business or maybe sales up to a half million dollars a year Kind of an organization Young Entrepreneurs of America, I think it was and I said enjoy where you are, because I didn't enjoy where I was then. I was in such a hurry to grow a bigger business and a lot of other things that happened because I knew I wasn't going to be able to eat Campbell's soup or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches forever, so I was just in a. I was in such a hurry to get to tomorrow, to get to the next level of success. I don't I know I didn't slow down and just enjoy the fact that I own my own business. I didn't work for the CPA firm anymore. I was figuring out how to get going and growing and so, on one hand, how were those early years? On one hand, it was very hard. It was filled with rejection.
Speaker 2:
We call on businesses. So the method back then was to do something called field calling. That's kind of dead now after COVID. But field calling is where you just pull into maybe a large high-rise or you go into a business park where there's lots of businesses and you go door to door and you'd ask the receptionist. You'd give the person your business card, you'd ask who buys your printing and promotional products. Maybe that person would see you, maybe you would just get a name for somebody to call later for an appointment. Right and well, the truth is nine out of 10 people are happy with who they're buying that stuff from.
Speaker 2:
So there's a lot of rejection. I had one person when I made a field call. You know they sometimes those offices have that little sliding glass door. There's this little sliding window, actually a little sliding window they had. And this lady I wouldn't. You know I don't take no easily for an answer. But I said well, she. She said well, so and so wouldn't be interested. But I said, well then, who's the director of marketing or who's the? Anyhow, she got so frustrated with me she said I told you we're not interested and she slammed that little glass window and the window, that little glass window, broke and I thought that's rejection. So there was a lot of rejection in those early days. However, there was a lot to celebrate and enjoy was on my own. I was growing my wings and developing something that would uh become what it is today yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:
I think it's important because I actually have a group that I coach and they're all 20 something, 30 or something, and a lot of the times we're always in that quest for the next. And it's like, how do you slow down? And like, one of the ways I really found that was gratitude. I felt like when you get, when you're grateful for a situation, even if it's not the situation you like, but you have food, shelter, clothing you're like, yes, I am grateful for where I'm at right now. You just show up better.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. I'm big into the law of attraction and I believe with all my heart that gratitude's the attitude that gets us more of what we want. Gratitude's the attitude.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely. It's really one of the distinguishing things. So when you're in early years and you're transitioning to going from a little company to a little bit bigger company and then eventually a big company, what was the difference there? Financial growth, principles about getting new customers, selling the current customers more, hiring and managing salespeople, learning how to buy out the competition how was that process for you? And then, where did those four principles kind of come into play? Because, honestly, when I heard them the first time, I sat down and I was like I just started calling people. I go Jordan get more customers.
Speaker 2:
Keep it simple. Keep it simple. I don't know. I have to be candid. Sometimes I think everybody sees the world the way I see the world. But my wife keeps reminding me Greg, you see the world very differently than many people see the world. But I try to reduce things down to their sort of simplest and try to major in the majors. I think a lot of people do so many things that are going to make them crazy that they're never going to make themselves wealthy. We might get to that, we might not. But it occurred to me that there were only four things that I could do that were majoring in the majors, and they were number one sell more to my current customers. Number two go get new customers. Number three, hire and manage salespeople. And number four, buy out the competition and, short of robbing a bank, there was nothing else I could do to create wealth I could do to create wealth, and so I chose early on to focus on those four things and try to delegate everything else.
Speaker 1:
Okay, yeah, because it's very difficult in the beginning when, like you said, there's only two people and you're like, who's going to do the invoicing? I'm the accounting guy. And then you got to transition to the sales role and it's like do we trust the accounting guy? And then you got to transition to the sales role and it's like, do we trust the accounting guy? Do we trust? Like? So how do you develop those people and really figure out those places and know when it's really time to make that leap? Because I feel like that's one of the most difficult portions.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so in the early days, which are different than today. Today there's a lot of pressure. I don't run the business anymore. My wife does. She's brilliant. She was one of the first women to go to the University of Notre Dame and yet she came out of investment banking and commercial banking. She ran half billion dollar portfolios.
Speaker 2:
Oh wow, yeah, yeah, yeah and larger. But back in the early days my attitude was listen first of all. People would say, hey, what are the benefits here? And I'd say, listen, if you benefit pro forma, then we'll figure out how to benefit you. And I'd say, listen, success here and opportunity is here just like a bowl of cherries. I'm looking for people that want to put their hands in the bowl and grab some opportunities and run with them. That's kind of what I told just about everybody. And some people got it and got after it, some people didn't, and the key is to either reposition or invite people to exit that don't get it and know how to get after it. And fortunately we found a lot of people that believed in the dream, saw the vision and we were having fun. You know, we were young, we were growing, and it's a lot of fun being on an elevator when it's going up, you know.
Speaker 2:
Sadly, I know of many companies that the elevator's going down and that's not as much fun, but we were having fun and we were all in and around the same age group. You know, I was in my later twenties when we started franchising and my mid thirties when we were getting going, and so we're all within 10 years of each other. It's different today, right? I mean, we have people that I'm 40 years different from, yes, so it's a significantly different environment.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, I speak with a lot of podcast guests and just people in my network where it's really difficult to go from that startup because that's a completely different skill set to the business size that you're at now, completely different skill set to running those and just being the business owner and all those intangibles, because it's just different. It's just different. And so you mentioned about your wife. How did you guys see that opportunity? Was it business first? Was it marriage, Like how did that kind of work out where she became the CEO? And also my other question is for you is that, was that like an ego thing? Cause I know like was it hard to give up like control? Cause I know so many times people are founders and they just can't give up the control but it's better for them in the long run.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, well, we got married 22 years ago 23 years ago, something like that and I said to her why don't you come in and check out the company? She was still in her banking career and in fact she was in some kind of training program where they were getting her ready for the C-suite at Comerica Bank I mean a substantial bank. Well, when the leaders at Proforma had an opportunity to meet her and get to know her, they said, greg, we got to get her to come work here. She really is brilliant and it comes across very quickly when you meet her and she really didn't want to do that. She that Greg, I'm happy to come in and meet the people, as long as I never have to work there.
Speaker 2:
Well, anyhow, somehow we talked her into coming and working there and it was hard. I think if you talk to anybody that works with their spouse, it's hard to figure out whose lane is whose and for me to slowly give up because everything was in my lane. And then, yes, give up the pieces parts. It was easy to give up the pieces parts I wasn't good at. It was a lot harder to give up the pieces parts I thought I was good at.
Speaker 1:
I really wasn't necessarily that good at them, so it was a process yeah, I could imagine, and so how long has she been the CEO there? And how is that relationship? Because it's so hard to not bring the business home Like is everything the business or it's like it can be a challenging relationship well we love what we do, of course, and uh or we wouldn't be doing it because we don't need to do it anymore and
Speaker 2:
yeah, and we have four of our 10 children are in the business and three of their spouses are in the business. So we talk about. We talk about business a lot. We also talk about a lot of other things. We have 11 grandchildren going on, 12 grandchildren, so we have many other things in our lives that keep us busy. But, yeah, there's no doubt that the talk at the dinner table is about business and I'm glad for that, even when the children were younger most of them are older now, our youngest is a freshman in college but I think it's good for children to hear business talk at the dinner table. Yes, it's important to hear how are you doing in school, how are you doing in sports? It's important. But it's important for them to hear business talk because eventually they're all going to work for something that feels like a business, even if it's a not-for-profit or a church, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, there's a lot of things that are business about every place you work.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely, and I think it's. Also it gives such an advantage to the children, because if they're getting exposed to that type of mindset because it's not just the conversations, it's how you think through problems, it's problems, it's all of it and if they're getting exposure to that, it's like whoa, and then you get your 10 year old or 12 year old to give you advice and you're like new perspective. Never thought about it that way. I might bring that to the meeting. It becomes really interesting. I see you smiling there.
Speaker 2:
Well, I'm not sure we got as much advice as we got. To ask good questions, yes, but I hear what you're saying. Sometimes they would ask really good questions that were like oh good question, gets you thinking about it a little differently.
Speaker 1:
And then also Good question Gets you thinking about it a little differently. And then also, so you guys started to grow and get into franchising. What was the wake-up moment there where you're like we could franchise this. There might be a potential here, because I feel like as business owners, sometimes you want to just bring everything in-house, and it's not always the thought of let's build out other people's business. It's just an interesting model, right, right, right right.
Speaker 2:
So it was actually failure. We had a failure in our business and so in 1978, we started the company. By 1985, we were doing $5 million $6 million in 1985 dollars. We were ranked by Inc Magazine INC Magazine for small businesses on the Inc 500 list of fastest growing companies. That's when they're only 500. Inc Magazine is the 5,000 fastest growing business. So we were on the Inc 500 list three years in a row and it was time to expand from Cleveland Ohio.
Speaker 2:
I started the business in Cleveland Ohio where I had grown up, and so I thought well, it's time for us to try to expand and I wanted to open up a sales office in Columbus.
Speaker 2:
It's about two hours from Cleveland. So went through a process of putting ads in newspaper there was no internet back then and interviewed, found some people, drove down to Columbus, interviewed some people, came back and thought about it, went back down and interviewed a final few candidates, came back to Cleveland, then finally decided on the person we were going to invite to be the first sales manager of our first sales office, remote sales office. So we made an appointment. We went down to give him his job offer, get him hired and talk about onboarding and growing, and got there and talked with him and he didn't seem right and he said you know, I just got to tell you I can't do this. Like two hour drive. You could have called me and told me and I can't do this. The more I think about this, I want to own my own business like you do. That's what he said. Ouch, right, that really hurts. I mean, probably had two months worth of work in yeah placing ads, interviewing people driving there.
Speaker 2:
Now for the third time, that seemed like failure yeah what I thought about it.
Speaker 2:
I thought well, what, what could have gone differently there?
Speaker 2:
Because I think a lot about things.
Speaker 2:
I thought, you know it's interesting, here's some young fellow that really wants to own his own business, just like we did at the time, just like I did at the time, and I thought to myself huh, maybe there's a lot of people that would rather own their own business than open up sales offices for us. So then I thought how could we have used our infrastructure not that much, but nonetheless some $5 million businesses of infrastructure to have empowered him to own his own business rather than be a sales manager for us own his own business rather than be a sales manager for us? And I thought a lot. I talked to a lot of people, probably for about a year, just thinking it through, talking it through, not wanting to hurry up and put another ad in a newspaper and came up with the idea of franchising the business as an opportunity to really give other people the opportunity to own a business like I wanted to own, and yet leverage off of our infrastructure and our experience to do that more successfully than they could on their own.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, honestly, when you tell the story and you know the answer, it makes total sense. But there are so many times in our life where we might not get the job we want. We might not get. We face rejection constantly and it's that thinking that we need to do for the audience. You got to think through those issues that come up, because the thing is, if you don't think about those failures, then they stay as failures, they don't become learnings and they don't become opportunities which come down the line. So I think the way you explain that and like really seeing that, it makes a lot of sense. And so how did the franchising start out? Because, again, you're getting the first couple people in, like how does that journey go? And then you want to get winners early. How does that look?
Speaker 2:
Yeah. So 1985, 1986, we decided to start franchising and there's no internet, it's a very different world. Back then I joined a group called the International Franchise Association. I'm a big believer in immersion. If I decide to do something, I want to immerse myself in learning as much as I possibly can about it. I learned a lot from that trade association. I learned a lot from networking, going to their initial meetings, et cetera.
Speaker 2:
But we would go to these own your own business shows Most every town larger town has one of these own your own business shows probably a couple of times a year, maybe a couple of different promoters, and we would just put up a booth and no clue what we were doing. We had designed a beautiful brochure that explained the story. Um, we, I know we went to the first on your own business show and we just handed out oh, I don't know how many hundreds of these ten dollar brochures and I was getting sick to my stomach handing out like ten dollar bills to everybody and nothing happened. We, we, we didn't get any deals. But fortunately, at the second business show I happened to go across the hallway when there was a little lull in the show and I asked the fellow in the booth across. I said, how are you doing at these shows? Because we just did terrible.
Speaker 2:
And I happened to recognize him from the town that we were in prior. He says, oh, we sell to three to five deals per show. I said, how do you do that? Can I buy you dinner after? And he said, sure, let's go. And he charged us an embarrassingly small amount of money to consult with us and he taught us everything we needed to do at those shows to find prospects, tell our story, sell the story, and he even came to Cleveland a couple of times and help us put together a training program. So just being humble enough to say to somebody across the aisle how are you doing at this? Because we're doing terrible, how are you?
Speaker 1:
doing at this Cause? We're doing terrible, yeah, I. I think that's so valuable because there's so many times in our life where you, where we're all going through that moment where we're handing out the brochures, it's our first time. We don't know if it works. And then obviously it doesn't, because you haven't done enough reps, you don't know what to say. Like you, you just it's expected failure. Like and then we, you could go back and be like I suck, this is terrible, have that negative mindset, or it's like someone is doing well in this. How are they doing well? Can I speak with them? And it's just so valuable to find resources and ask for help, because most people are willing to help you and if you pay them, then they're incentivized to help you and most of the rates aren't nearly as high as you would think for what they're providing.
Speaker 2:
And it was obvious. What he said was really obvious. He says well, Greg, you're a printing and promotional products distributorship franchise, so we had all these samples on a table with a sign behind us. And if you go buy a yogurt stand franchise, you just see a picture of yogurt and you know what they do. If you go buy a submarine sandwich shop, you see a picture of a submarine sandwich and you know what they do. Then you come to our booth and it's like you see all this stuff on the table and it's like people say what do you guys even do?
Speaker 2:
Right, it wasn't clear, it wasn't obvious. And so he said you know what you need to do, Greg. You need to go get talk to the promoter and get an end, get a booth that's at the end where, at the end of the convention hall, because usually it's not the end of the convention hall but there's a curtain there and there's just no more booths and then you need to ask if you could set up like 10 chairs behind your booth and tell people come on in. If people would say, well, what do you do? Just say, come on in and listen and we do little mini five, 10 minute seminars behind the booth.
Speaker 2:
And you know, you know, at some point most people are walking around those shows, get tired enough that they'll sit down. Even. They'll sit down, even if they don't want to learn what you have. So he showed us how to. It doesn't sound complicated when I tell you that does it, but but if we hadn't figured that out, if he hadn't showed us how to figure that out, we might not have any franchise owners today. How to better tell and sell our story.
Speaker 1:
And the crazy thing is that most people would sit there and go how did you not figure it out? It's easy, and it's only easy once you know and you get it right. Before that, it is a blind path and you are just guessing and trying again. So most of the business advice becomes very simple, but it's like when you're really applying you're like whoa, slow down, let's make this really make sense, because it's sometimes you need to get another perspective because you're right, it is a little thing, but it's everything is the little thing. And two minutes at a time we're just like no, it's fine, just keep going, it's fine, you figure it out, spend the money.
Speaker 1:
And the other thing I want to commend you on is being the front lines on the new idea, like going out there and learning about these things, because otherwise you don't know like it can become so challenging and difficult, so it takes that mindset. So so where do you develop your mindset of really just continuous growth, continuous learning? Because I feel like that's some of the biggest challenges we have. It's not that people are like actually broke, like yes, there's some people who are struggling, but like it's a lot of like inside our brain that we're not allowing ourselves to see these opportunities and see this success. So what, what's really allowed you to have I mean, 46 years, like it's impressive stuff. What's really allowed that to happen?
Speaker 2:
mindset wise well, well, I'd say I am creatively curious, right, like there's got to be a better way. I'd say I'm always relentlessly in the pursuit of a better way. I believe in immersion, like joining that International Franchise Association, attending the meetings, doing the networking. Attending the meetings, doing the networking. Because if you take a look at the market and you say to yourself, now wait a minute. Business has spent $300 billion on what we sell and at the time we didn't have meaningful measurable market share. In all candor, at 650 million we don't really have meaningful measurable market share of the industry even today. So it just made sense that there had to be a better way. But sometimes that better way is taking a left-hand turn or a right-hand turn and I don't know where all the turns are. But if you find somebody that can be your navigational pilot and take in what they have to say, sometimes light bulbs will go off.
Speaker 1:
Yes, so it's finding people who have been there before and they can kind of show you along the way. So it's not you're not finding out every mistake for yourself, but you're having people help. Yeah, Cause there's a lot of the time there's a lot of ego or ignorance or not willing to learn from others, and it's like do the complete opposite of that, Like learn from everybody.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and I think and I said this to the group the other day and I say it a lot be an ask A-S-K. Be an ask, whole Like ask and ask some more and if you don't understand, ask again. And so there was a guy in town, cleveland, ohio, that owned the largest franchisor at the time in Cleveland, and so I called him up. What can I lose? The worst thing that's going to happen is he says no, and then I'm right back to where I was before. I had an opportunity to meet him and he said come on in, greg. It was very nice. I think a lot of times you can be mentored by somebody in one meeting. You don't have to go on for months or years, sometimes just a meeting. And at the end he said hey, you know, do you have any other questions for me? And I said no. I said but I really appreciate your time. I said do you have any other advice for me? He said yeah, one more thing. He said one more word of advice Don't sell dirt. I thought what does that mean? Don't sell dirt? We sell printing and promotional products. He says well, no, don't sell territories. Now I'm 28 years old.
Speaker 2:
I think at that time I had three kids. I'm in Cleveland Ohio. I think I would have sold the rights to San Francisco for a cup of coffee, do you know what I mean? And in my mind we were going to do territories. But he explained to me that they had a territorial business model. They had many of their franchise owners that owned territories that had maxed out in their income and had. No, they did not, they had not optimized their life, they didn't optimize their territories and so, but those territories sat there with lots of opportunity and it really limited the value of his business. So fortunately he gave me that advice Don't sell dirt.
Speaker 2:
I went back and I completely changed the business model before we were going to run it out. Had I not, we wouldn't be about one-tenth the size of who we are today, because we have more of an account model, not a territorial model. Because in my business somebody might be selling today to the CMO of a nice-sized company. The CMO leaves their company in Cleveland Ohio and goes to work for somebody in some company in San Francisco and they want to take their supplier and their relationship with them. So I mean that's just a small example of just be an ask hole, because you can just never ask enough questions enough questions.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, my big takeaway from that was you at the end of the meeting going hey, is there any other advice you'd give me? I have no more question, because sometimes it's just in our head, and the amount of times that we don't, we think we have to know it all. But the best thing is actually the curiosity, and that's what led me to this podcast, because I wanted to build a system where I could ask people about their stories and it not be hey, let's do another intro call, Because most people don't want to do that. So you make it a win-win scenario for all parties.
Speaker 2:
Well, the real key to success and you know this is understanding that you don't know it all. And in the beginning I remember thinking I need to know it all, I need to go in the sales call and I need to spew off all of the advantages of pro forma what advantages? We got an answering machine and we're operating out of our apartment. So I would tell people we're a small, emerging company and we have very little overhead and we pass the savings along to you. Yaka, yaka, yaka. Nobody cares. People care about what they care about. But if you don't ask good questions, you're never going to find out what the sales opportunity really is. And so it took me a while to sort of understand that sales isn't something that happens with the mouth but rather with the ears. But it's a wonderful journey, just learning every day.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely, absolutely. So one of the big reasons and one of the things that we overalign about is Tampa Florida. One of the big reasons and one of the things that we overalign about is Tampa Florida. So what caused you guys to light up from like kind of move one of your headquarters from Cleveland to Tampa or build out the second one? What caused that? What would you see in Tampa and when did that occur?
Speaker 2:
That would be called sunny, warm weather. Clearly, you haven't spent much time in Cleveland Ohio and for a stint I lived in Detroit, which is about the same as Cleveland Ohio. That's a long story, we don't need to get into it, but that's where my wife was from when I married her, and I can do cold, I can do snow, I can't do gray skies and because of the lakes up there the great lakes, and they are great in the summer you could go for a week, 10 days, without seeing the sun. It's not healthy, that's not. It wasn't good and it wasn't healthy for me. And anyhow, my wife was born and spent some time in Jacksonville and we actually had some land in Jacksonville and we were going to build in Ponte Vedra and finally it got to be the time and I said to her you know I'm not even awake for a sunrise, I need a sunset. And so she basically said well, go find a sunset. And I went looking up and down the coast of florida and I found tampa and we love it here yeah, it's incredible.
Speaker 1:
This city is just it's. It's going like proforma's going just up yeah we need them to shut the door.
Speaker 2:
Now that we're here, we need them to shut the door no one else is allowed, no one else in tampa.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, um, no, because it is it. It's such a vibrant space, but it's becoming more and more difficult, just with pricing and all that, those factors. So the other thing you did was you wrote, you wrote a book. The million dollar mindset, what caused you to even take the time to write a book. Well, well, it's not a book yet. It's not Okay.
Speaker 2:
It's a. I write a blog for uh industry magazine called million dollar mindset and I'll bet you I've written 400 blogs about having a million dollar mindset, a mindset for success, and I want to turn it into a book. And I want to turn it into a book. I need to turn it into a book. In fact, I called a friend of mine, jack Canfield. You know he's the guy that wrote Chicken Soup for the Soul. I said, jack, will you co-author this with me, because everybody knows Jack? Well, he said, well, greg, I'm too busy and I can't do it. But he told me how to do it and it's one of those things on my to-do list that you know. You got some of those things on your to-do list that you get to next month and you carry it forward. But I do want to write that book. And really it's as simple as kind of organizing the thoughts of those 400 or so blogs into chapters.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, absolutely. It sounds very similar to when I had the founder of Reebok on. He's actually in his 80s now and what happened with him? Because I was like, why did you write this book? And he goes well, it took me seven years. I was trying to do the origin and he's like, basically, dude, I just had some time and I was just like I wanted people know the story of, like what actually happened with his business.
Speaker 1:
But I think books are way more meaningful when they're actually thought out and like you're saying with the blog and it's not just, hey, grab a ghostwriter and write this up for me, like it becomes more meaningful that way because much more challenging. Oh, everyone's trying to put out a book in 10 minutes and it's like that's not the way to do it. I agree, yeah, I think that's much more valuable. So for you, 10 children, how do you even I feel like scheduling? I feel it sounds like you're a little bit past that now with the, the one kid in college or the last one in college, but it's like with that and the grandchildren. How do you think about scale? How do you think about size? Because it seems like everywhere in your life like pro forma, massive 500 plus, like franchisee, like it's just so many 10 person fan, like these are just big, big uh numbers that most people are like I only take care of myself. So how do you think about that differently? Because you have.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, they're spread out. So the oldest is 42, maybe 40. Don't tell her, I don't remember and our youngest is 19. So they were spread out and fortunately they were able to. Some of the older ones were sort of able to help with some of the younger ones with driving them to school or helping watch them if we were going to somebody else's sporting events.
Speaker 2:
But you know one wise person once said to me you know, greg, people are going to ask you, you've got. I think it's when I had five kids, how do you do it? And this person said I think it's when I had five kids how do you do it? And this person said I have the perfect answer. He says, well, how many? He said. He said ask people how many kids do they have? And they'll say two or three or whatever their answer is. And he says so. If somebody says, if you say, well, how many kids do you have? And they'll say like two or three, and then you say to them, well, I'll bet they take up all of your time, right? And inevitably people say, well, that's right. And I said, well, I've got however many kids. Fill in the blank. And they take up all of my time.
Speaker 1:
So it's all, it's all I got. So, yeah, no, it makes a lot of sense because it's just the thing I've seen is when people grow, it's really a benefit of the community and building better people. So I think it's super beneficial. And then the final thing for you and then we'll kind of close this out is how did you get to the business owner mindset? Because I feel like when I say business owner, I mean you talk about it a little bit where it's, you're in the business or you're working on the business. So how'd you get that transition? Because I feel like so many people struggle with that and can't fully remove themselves in a not remove themselves but like empower others to run the company. How do you think about that?
Speaker 2:
How do you think about that? It doesn't take long to realize that there are only two activities in business Activities that will make you crazy and activities that will make you rich. And in fact, I developed a success system to try to teach this to our. I actually won an award in the printing industry. I don't know if you see that or not. I actually won. Oh yeah, I won a ben franklin, you know, in the printing industry for developing that system. Oh wow, it's, it's.
Speaker 2:
Everybody has a to-do list and everybody has a calendar right and everybody has appointments on the calendar to do list, on their to-do list. But I teach people when teach, because I teach in our industry a lot I say there's a lot of do-do on your to-do list and you need to get rid of the do-do, and the do-do is the stuff you should never do. You should delegate it. And so in the success system, on the to-do list and on the calendar, people are forced to evaluate. Is this an A activity it will make me wealthy or is this a B activity? This will make me crazy. And to evaluate every day, because without evaluation, we wake up and repeat. But if we, before we go to bed, we evaluate. We look at our day or we look at our week and we evaluate how did things go Then we're a continuously learning machine and so if people just look at their calendar and say, good night, I spent the whole day working on activities that are going to make me crazy, my to-do list is full of stuff that's going to make me crazy, not make me wealthy.
Speaker 2:
Identify what those things are, find a way to get them off of your desk and onto somebody else's desk, to focus on the wealth building activities and it's really that simple. It isn't any more complicated than that. Then just identifying what's going to make you crazy, get rid of it and then find the stuff that's going to make you wealthy. It's a mindset that's probably the best way to put it. It's a mindset, but it's also a tool and a resource so that people can continuously measure every day. In the success system that I built, people could add up how many hours did I spend on A activities and how many hours did I spend on B activities? I think many hours did I spend on B activities.
Speaker 1:
I think that's so powerful because there's so many of us that will spend so much time watching TV on our phones, on the social media and in reality, we're not moving the needle. And people are like I had such a busy day and it's like you just went through three different apps and didn't call anyone and said you had a busy day. Like that's not a busy day. A busy day, yeah.
Speaker 2:
You can go home exhausted and you can tell your spouse I'm so exhausted, I had a busy day.
Speaker 2:
But you could have had a busy day and not have done one thing to create wealth for yourself, your family or your legacy. And that's a shame, because when your spouse is at home or maybe working another job and counting on you to be spending your time to advance the family and to be able to put the children in the best of schools and have the best of homes and the best of opportunities, you're not just letting yourself down, wasting your time, you're wasting. You're letting your family and your legacy down. There are a lot of people. There are a lot of people in this world. I know because I probably talked to at least 10,000 distributors in our industry in the recruiting process. That's about all I do today is just on the recruiting side and there's a lot of people that just make bad decisions and, as a result, will never live the life they could have and will never leave the legacy for their family or for the world they could have if they just made different decisions each day.
Speaker 1:
Wow, that's profound, that's profound so.
Speaker 2:
Greg, where can people find you? Wwwproformacom. There's wwwproformafranchisecom, and you can go to linkedin and find my profile too. There's not a whole lot of greg mazzellos in the world, so absolutely.
Speaker 1:
I'll put that all in the show notes and I want to really thank you. I think that was awesome. Thank you for the time.
Speaker 2:
Well, thank you for having me and thank you for letting me share a little bit of my stories, and good luck to you on your continued success and growth. Thank you.