20: Letting Go Of The Reins: Working With Spouses and Building Teams

We all will hit a point in our business where in order to scale, succeed, and push past the ceiling we need to learn to lean on others and delegate. In today's episode, we have on Dave Forster from Dave's Bike Shop, a company that he runs with his wife and a full brick and mortar team. Dave is a serial entrepreneur and has created six business in multiple industries over the post 20 years, sold two, and currently own 2 bicycle shop locations near the KC area, where they host weekly events to connect and build community around a purpose of freedom and mental wellness.

In this episode we will be covering:

• What it's like to run a business with your spouse ( the pros and challenges)
• How a brick and mortar retail business is out of Dave's comfort zone.He grew up  on a farm and did landscaping for years.
• The importance of setting expectations, holding people accountable especially in hiring employees and creating a network and team around you..
• How you can’t do it all and you need a team in the long run.

Connect with Dave:
Dave's Bike Shop Facebook
Instagram: @bikeitout
Website
Linkedin

Instagram
Facebook
Tiktok
Website

Chapters

• 0:51 From Farm Work to Brick and Mortar Retail: Dave's Journey
• 4:52 How Exercise Plays an Integral Role in Your Business Success
• 10:42 Dave's Best Skill
• 12:11 What's Like To Build a Business With Your Spouse
• 14:07 Best Decision Dave Has Ever Made
• 15:21 Learning To Delegate

Transcript

 [00:00:00] 

Paden Squires: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to behind their success podcast. I am PadenSquires, the host. And today we've got a special guest on for you, Dave Forster. Dave is the owner of [00:01:00] Dave's bike shop in both Raymoor and Pleasant Hill, Missouri. Biking is much more than a form of physical exercise to him. It's a mental one as well.

Paden Squires: It's a great way to relieve stress and to grow physically and mentally. And Dave is trying to spread his love of biking. through his bike shops to all his customers and out, to everybody in the world. Dave, welcome on the podcast, man. Thanks for having me, man. This is great. Yeah, heck yeah. So Dave, we know you got the couple bike shops up in the greater Kansas City area.

Paden Squires: Tell us a little bit about your entrepreneur journey from the beginning to running these two shops in Kansas City. 

Dave Forster: Yeah, I will start by saying that this is like the farthest outreach of the edge of my comfort zone is the retail industry of any kind.

Dave Forster: That's right. because I grew up on a farm and I can do about anything with my hands and I'm used to using,all the hard way of doing things growing up on a farm. started doing landscaping jobs for, [00:02:00] neighboring. properties and farms when I was like 10, clearing trees out of pastures or pulling weeds out of gardens or whatever.

Dave Forster: And, that just carried through into a lot of guys doing a little mowing business when I was old enough to drive, and then went to school, did some stone masonry stuff while I was in school in the summers and weekends, loved the construction side and just the creation side of that. So as soon as I was done with school, I started a landscape business.

Dave Forster: and, moved to Kansas city, knew nobody and decided, you know what? I'm just gonna, I'm gonna start a business where I know no one. And right as we were getting married too. So my father in law was super thrilled about that idea. pick the winner. 

Paden Squires: How are you going to take care of it?

Dave Forster: Yeah, there's a lot of guys that do this landscape thing. Are you sure this is like, Hey, trust me, I'm going, and, for about 15 years or so we did, I've done that but, got to a point where we just, you know, body's not getting any younger and, I hadn't really developed my leadership skills to develop [00:03:00] teams, as well at that point, we'll just say that still working on that, and decided during one summer, it was burned out and took a week off and just.

Dave Forster: Prayed and thought about, okay, what else is out there? I went for a bike ride and it blew my mind. So we decided we got to share this, just the stress melted off of me. I mean, it was just the most amazing experience. I had ridden bikes my whole life. So this was, this one was just different. And, went back, told my wife that I was going to start looking into what it would look like to start a bike shop.

Dave Forster: Where do we get stuff? Who do we buy from? How does that look? What investment do we need? Started knocking on some doors. They kind of just kept opening and it just kind of kept going. And what we thought was going to be three years later, it was three months later. We were having a grand opening, and handed over the landscape business to another young guy that was just getting started.

Dave Forster: And, we're seven years in now with our second location and, having a ball, still a lot to learn, man. I tell you what, 

Paden Squires: That's, so that's a really cool story. So, you know, you were stressed out at work and took this bike [00:04:00] ride. had a dramatic effect on you. The cool thing is, you know, when you take that time and separate yourself from me, I go into a little bit of isolation, separate yourself, it actually gives your brain the time to think about and figure out, what do I actually want to be doing?

Paden Squires: Cause so many of us run at a hundred miles per hour, like, especially as entrepreneurs, that we never slow down enough to even have that conversation with ourselves. 

Dave Forster: Yeah. I'd tell my wife. Quite a bit. We, and we work together, we have almost the entire time we've been married. so over 16 years now, either like 50, 000 foot view, like looking at the whole thing from all the moving parts to just dive bombing into the weeds and just like going in gunning.

Dave Forster: And so there's really no rest in between, like I said, was it? It was me, and the road, And it was amazing 

Paden Squires: And, the whole physical exercise piece is something that's been a big part of my journey, especially in the last, three or four years of, man, I don't know if I could do half the [00:05:00] stuff I do without the exercise piece, because, and it's not even a physical thing at all anymore.

Paden Squires: It's so much more of a mental thing. The ability to go into the gym and just put my headphones on. And I really feel like it's like the one time of the day where I can just shut my brain off. And I'm just in there just with myself. it's really cool experience. And I assume you're, you know, your bike ride was some kind of experience like that.

Paden Squires: Yeah. 

Dave Forster: yeah, like you said, you just shut off all of the outside noise, all of the processes and all of the stuff that you need to do on your, your busyness and, just your body just knows what to do at that point cause you've been doing this long enough. It's a routine and your body just goes into that.

Dave Forster: And so your mind just, just sits there and has the ability. 

Paden Squires: Yeah. It's amazing when your mind is just sitting there, and it's not, it's almost like a form of meditation, right? Where you're not necessarily trying to think about anything, but just noticing what comes in your mind. It's amazing what will pop up or what like moments of inspiration or even like a problem [00:06:00] you've been thinking on, like the solution comes to you when you get quiet enough to hear it.

Dave Forster: And this sounds crazy, but right behind me here is my indoor bike. And I spend so much time on that now, it's amazing, just the time frame of when you can get there and when you can get out and,everybody knows that roads are a little less fun to be on and not be fully aware of what's around you.

Dave Forster: So, I love the, putting the headphones on this thing and just doing it, 

Paden Squires: Cool. So, when did you start the bike shops? What year? 

Dave Forster: 2017. 

Paden Squires: Cool. take us on that journey from 2017 to now, just kind of tell us some of the experiences you've been through.

Dave Forster: Yeah. I just started digging in to see what that even looked like. I had worked at a bike shop part time in between. and part of the story I skipped over was, my wife and I have started and, either closed and or sold like seven businesses since we've been married.

Dave Forster: A lot of them were just small, small little startups. 

Dave Forster: We did in and out of some small stuff, just, Creating cash flow for ourselves to pay a bunch of debt off when we first got married. and so [00:07:00] this whole digging process was a little bit different from this one and sat down with a, one of the distributors, one of the suppliers for coffee, like three days after I called him, gave him a business plan.

Dave Forster: He was blown away that I had a business plan and right in the line of, he's like, yeah, all of these numbers are pretty accurate for the industry. It looks like you've done your homework. you know what? What are the next steps? All that just snowballed into starting in this little 1500 square foot shop that has actually about 700 was the shop and then there was a bathroom and an office and like an upstairs utility thing.

Dave Forster: Like it was tiny, but it was great for the start and got the question pretty consistently for the first year. Is there enough people in Raymore, Missouri to support a bike shop? Are there enough cycles in Raymoor? I said, no, I'm here to make that. we're going to build that community.

Dave Forster: I'm not trying to steal customers from other bike shops. There's 3 million people in Kansas City. There's more people that need bikes. That was the whole purpose behind it was [00:08:00] to create an environment and an atmosphere that built more draw to the sport or we decided to just take that normal model and flip it over. And instead of walking into a bunch of concrete and metal and rubber tires, we had dark wood fixtures, making it feel like a family room. it looks more like you're walking into your friend's living room that really likes bikes, right?

Dave Forster: Like something like a living room or something. and just started building community and, watching people go from, you to like leading little rides during the week with their friends, people that were marathon runners that their knees and backs were telling them to stop and their doctor was to start something lower impact.

Dave Forster: And now there's some of the long distance riders that do tons of miles with us and stay fit and easing the pain on their joints. Now we've grown into a 3, 500 square foot shop, which isn't huge. We need much more space cause bikes are not small.but, yeah, 

Paden Squires: [00:09:00] it's been, that's awesome, man.

Paden Squires: So, yeah, and that would be like. Say I didn't know you whatsoever and you brought me this business plan. That would have been my first question. It's like, how many people want bikes in this, you know, in this town? but the important thing is you'd already thought about that and realize, no, my whole business plan is to create this community and create this environment that actually encourages that.

Paden Squires: And almost I would assume it's almost like something like a bike CrossFit gym, right? Where they create this community, where you've really,it's this team, right? And everybody feels like they're a part of this community. And, it seems like that's something that you've definitely created there.

Dave Forster: Yeah. we're still, like I said, we're seven years in, we're still learning a lot. One of the things that has taken me a few years to really slow down and think about is, like you were saying, you like putting on the headphones and just going into your zone. Yeah. And that's how it started.

Dave Forster: And so we have to really balance with our new clients. Do they want the community and we invite them all the time? Come be with us. Or are they like, I just want the [00:10:00] alone time, man. I just want the isolated and out on my own. I don't want to, that's what this is for. And making sure that we don't, alienate that, that desire and really Empower it and support it.

Dave Forster: But from like, you go do your thing. We're here for you when you need it. 

Paden Squires: Yeah. And I, I get that. And you know, as the guy that leans towards more of the isolation, while working out, I think I lean that way because, man, all day long, I'm with people, if I'm working like during the weekday, I, no joke, I touch base with probably a hundred plus people a day through a text message, email call, what have you.

Paden Squires: That's why, for me, it's such that, it's such a refuge and a place to hide out, That's why I like the isolation. Yeah. Dave, you've had some level of success with the bike shops and stuff. What would you say is your top skill?

Paden Squires: what has allowed you to get to where you're at this point? 

Dave Forster: I'm great at building vision. if you've read rocket fuel, I know a lot of entrepreneurs have, and if they haven't, they should, um, visionary integrator, [00:11:00] I'm. Very much a visionary. I love systems and putting them in place and making things work the way they should.

Dave Forster: So I can do the integrator thing. My wife is much more organized at it. So we do it. We have a great pairing on that. but casting the vision and, as Patrick Linceoni would say, galvanizing, it falls kind of low in my working geniuses, but, but I'm. I've just been good at casting that vision and inviting people to come along with it.

Paden Squires: And, you know, another thing for me,I interview all these different entrepreneurs and we only have pretty successful ones on here that every single one of them comes on here and talks about different personalities, tests and things they've gone through. It's a realization that becoming self aware is one of the best things you can do because you know how to show up, you know what you're good at, you know what you're bad at.

Paden Squires: you talked about working geniuses there. you talked about visionary versus integrator. I'm a little bit in between. I'm both a visionary and an integrator. Like I can do both. I learn to be more visionary. That's probably what allowed me [00:12:00] to run my own basically solo practice for eight years or whatever, because I could do both, even though the visionary stuff gives me a lot more energy versus the integrator stuff.

Paden Squires: But, I was capable of doing both, but the big picture is self awareness, And,knowing your personality and knowing your wife's personality, can you speak to, I'm sure some entrepreneurs that you said you and your wife have worked together with. basically speak to that. I'm sure there's entrepreneurs listening.

Paden Squires: They're like, there is no way me and my spouse could work. 

Dave Forster: And we have that conversation a lot. People will wonder how we spend so much time together and just don't want to just slap the living daylights out of each other. And,I don't know the exact answer to that other than, we just, we do really well together.

Dave Forster: we, Balance each other's skill sets really well, but communication. it wasn't always amazing. there was plenty of struggles and frustrations and arguments and just bad moments along the way. But we just learned don't harbor anything inside. Don't hold anything in.[00:13:00] 

Dave Forster: Don't blow up like, you know, type A people like myself can do, but, just communicate along the way. And be very open with everything. Hey, this is how I'm feeling about this. This is what I need from you today or whatever. And, it's been amazing. Like you said, the self awareness part of it for both of us has been really powerful.

Dave Forster: seeing the difference either personality tests or whatever, working genius and the EOS system. What are you on the Culture Index? 

Paden Squires: architect. Okay. My wife's an architect. how high is your, we're getting a little wheeze for some of the listeners. No, but like, how high is your B like on the architect?

Paden Squires: Are you a friendly architect? 

Dave Forster: I'm like just on the left side. So I'm an introvert, but I'm very close to the line. So I can, you can make it happen, right? 

Paden Squires: Yeah. Okay. you're almost the same profile as my wife. 

Dave Forster: Yeah. And I do, but I, I know like at the end of the day though, it's just put me in a closet.

Dave Forster: I just want to recharge and some silence and this and that, but I do really enjoy the [00:14:00] community and people side of what we do. 

Paden Squires: The architects, they can turn it on when, they need to, it takes some energy from them, but they can turn it on and we got several architects that work with me and different employees and stuff, and they're great at, but yeah, they need to recharge from people every once in a while.

Paden Squires: So Dave, tell me what's the best decision you've made, on this entrepreneur journey since you started in, would you say 16 or 17? What is the best decision you've made? 

Dave Forster: I'll tell you what, I'll rewind a little over 16 years and say it was asking my wife to marry me. That has been the glue that has even, I've done some entrepreneurial things before, but the main reason we're still doing it and still able to do it is just, our partnership and the power that she brings to our partnership.

Dave Forster: So that's definitely the best decision overall, for sure. In this business, Choosing the right partners as far as suppliers and outsourced services, things like that. Learning very quickly when it's not a good fit, and [00:15:00] trying to drag it out, matching, whether it's team members or outsourced things or suppliers, making sure that their goal is aligned with ours, a win-win situation.

Dave Forster: And it's not just a transaction. 

Paden Squires: Yeah, I think that's a lesson a lot of people got to learn in a lot of different ways in business and you know Especially you run a retail shop. I mean you have vendors galore. You got employees, you know this you got to deal with and then I think it all comes down to like you said earlier. It's just You know, massive communication, right?

Paden Squires: Massive setting of expectations, right? They say, all like human disappointment comes from not meeting some level of expectations and as leaders in our business and whatnot, it's so important for us to set those expectations. So then we can have some objective measurement. Are we hitting that or not?

Paden Squires: And then you can hold people accountable. 

Dave Forster: That's something I'm still learning. Every day I sit here and talk and I don't know if I sound like I'm just a veteran [00:16:00] expert, whatever. No, it's, I mean, it doesn't matter how long I've been doing it, every day you're learning something new and trying to grow and be better at it.

Dave Forster: And even just hearing you say those things, I'm like, man, I got a lot of 

Paden Squires: work to do. Yeah, and you know, and it is, it's easy for people to listen to a conversation like this and be like, oh, these guys know what they're talking about. And, sure we, we do have a certain level of experience because we've, we've smashed our head against the wall,enough times.

Paden Squires: but at the same time, like it's, yeah, it's important for everybody listening to realize that nobody's got it completely figured out. And these are all topics. There's no end point, right? communication can always be better, right? Leadership can always be better and people like us when you're trying to constantly be self aware, constantly self developing You're always gonna see those flaws and areas that you can get better at.

Paden Squires: so on the flip side Dave Tell me a big old mistake you've made

Dave Forster: Thinking that I am the best at everything and I can do it myself better than anybody else and just get out of my way. That's the architect in you a little bit. Yeah, I think [00:17:00] so. Especially in the landscape. I grew up on a farm, like I said, and I'm not the biggest guy. So maybe I have a little bit of small man syndrome.

Dave Forster: I don't know. But, it just, when it came to being on job sites and doing stuff,there was a lot of that, just get out of the way. Let me move this 400 pound tree into the hole that you're taking forever. Just get out. Just let me do this. And,there were moments that, you know, it makes you feel like, big man and everybody's like, wow, how'd you do that?

Dave Forster: Well, you know, and, just like that gets you so far, it just, but you hit that ceiling. And that was where we struggled in that industry, we could hit that, 700 to a million, you Range of me just pounding the daylights at everything and just drive, drive, drive,drive.

Dave Forster: And then, we just, we couldn't make that switch over to having leaders leading teams that I was leading her and that kind of thing. And so that's been the biggest. 

Paden Squires: Yeah. That's, yeah, that's a really interesting point. And I think,a plateau, a lot of entrepreneurs go through and one, I'm no, even today just finally breaking [00:18:00] through a lot to where it's,my business has always been, mostly solo me.

Paden Squires: And it's not until the last year or two where I'm actually, finally, I did the same thing. It's like, Oh, I can beat my head against the wall, run, run, run, run, and generate revenue. Once, once you start generating some revenue and what have you, you're like, this kind of sucks. I'm working all the time.

Paden Squires: And like the whole point was to have my freedom. and then you're like, we need to take a couple steps back and try to rebuild this thing to rebuild it in the mold, that we want of like making that transition as we talk about our group, making that transition from like a warrior where you're fighting all the time to a king to where you're.

Paden Squires: you're setting above the battle and pulling the levers, And moving people around. yeah, that's certainly a transition I'm still going through. 

Dave Forster: definitely. Likewise. It's, learning to, step into that role and support the warriors rather than be the lead 

Paden Squires: warrior.

Paden Squires: Have some side warriors. Yeah. [00:19:00] Yeah. Oh man. Yeah. That's, that's something I've. And I think, like I said, I think some of that has to do with our personality types, right? Where we've, we, knowing your profile and my profile on Culture Index, we have a hard time delegating to others unless we think they're as competent or better than us.

Paden Squires: So, something that I don't know, I've heard recently, or I don't know if I heard in our group or heard it from different people on the podcast or some other podcast, but, people talking about if someone could do it 80 percent as well as you can, just let them do it. Right? 80 percent is good enough.

Dave Forster: 80 percent of one thing is way better than 10 percent of eight things, right? 

Paden Squires: Yeah. Yeah. And exactly. And it's they're never going to get as good as you, if you don't give them the opportunity to learn,in the mess or in, you know, it's not like you just let them, you throw them in the deep end and let them sink, but they're also not going to learn without you letting them have the leash to, to do that.

Dave Forster: hearing you say that reminds me of,one of my struggles in growing into being that leader was I've heard it called delegate and vacate.like you said, [00:20:00] roaming the deep end and I've struggled. I've had that where it's like, all right, here's what it is. It's very simple. Go do it. I'm going to go do my thing. so just setting people up for failure isn't fair to them. And it doesn't help them. It doesn't help you, it doesn't help the team, it doesn't help the business, it doesn't help the customer. being clear 

Paden Squires: about what that plan 

Dave Forster: is for sure. Yeah, 

Paden Squires: absolutely man.

Paden Squires: So Dave, looking back at, starting out in the beginning, man, what is a piece of advice you would give to your younger self? 

Dave Forster: I think the, probably the biggest thing is to slow down, to speed up, let those people focus on the delegation and the onboarding, the proper training. the proper empowering, like building the team, they say you can go fast, go alone, but go far, go together. And, you hear things and they make sense, but then you hear them again and they make sense, right?

Dave Forster: And because you've learned enough, you've gone through enough to really apply the knowledge, really similar to you read a book, but if you've never done what they're talking about, you just, you're reading information that you're going to try to [00:21:00] apply later. But once you've done it. Then you can read it again and just take a whole new perspective on all of it.

Dave Forster: And so looking back, knowing how important it would be to not be the guy. Yeah. 

Paden Squires: you never step in the same river twice, right? Because the river is always different and the person stepping in it, is different as well.

Paden Squires: And yeah, it's, it's like, you know, that's why there's, It's always a great idea to go back and read great books that you read before, right? And, because when you go back there, there's gonna be messages in there that, you know, it kind of hit with you, but like Now that you know, a little bit more experience, a little more, it really means, you know, means more to you, even, even at a deeper level.

Paden Squires: Dave, how can people connect with you, man? what's the best way for people to interact with you or the bike shop or, man, want to check out some of the exercise stuff you guys got going on. 

Dave Forster: Yeah. If they want to, check out more of the bike shop, the cycling community, all of that stuff, either Facebook or Instagram, just look up Dave's bike shop, and look for the flag in the background [00:22:00] logo.

Dave Forster: There's a couple of Dave's bike shops in the U S where none of us are connected except for our team. You're the best. Yeah. yeah, check those out. bike it out. Is also on Instagram and Facebook. so bike it out and, that's our slogan, whatever it may be, go bike it out. So stress, anxiety, anger, and then professionally linked in, I share some. that's more of my like, development and connection side for the professional networking and leadership side. So if they, if more interested in that connection, then, LinkedIn, David Forster.

Dave Forster: Awesome. 

Paden Squires: Dave, I appreciate you buddy for coming on, man. Thank you for sharing a bit of your journey and what you've learned along the way. Anything else you want to leave with us before we go? 

Dave Forster: don't just let it all bottle up. Stay active. There's so much value in movement. It doesn't have to be a bike, but there's something special about a bike, 

Paden Squires: I 100 percent agree with that.

Paden Squires: So much, entrepreneurship is like a mental gain, right? and physical exercise, whatever [00:23:00] form that is, a great form is going to let you go so much further, so much faster. It's great stuff. guys, thank you for listening to the episode. check us out again next time on Behind Their Success.

Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. If you found it valuable, please rate, review, and share it. That is the best way to help us build this and reach more people as we're trying to accomplish our goal of helping create more healthy, wealthy, and wise entrepreneurs. You can follow us on social media by searching for me, Paden Squires, or going to www.padensquires.com. On the website and social media, we're always sharing tips of personal growth, and there we can actually interact. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks guys.