Overcoming Stagnation Through Holistic Strategy and Life-Changing Business Guidance

Christopher Phipps (00:03) I can remember, feel like, I feel like as an entrepreneur, ⁓ you know, I feel like a lot of your journey can feel very lonely ⁓ because there are a lot of things that you are alone with and dealing with, even as spouses working together, when we first started getting involved with Aaron and, you know, kind of, it really felt like such a weight off of our shoulders, feeling like we had somebody else. inner corner Hello, my name is Christopher Phipps and I live in Charlotte, North Carolina and we are in the masonry and concrete industry. And my name is Sarah Lynn Phipps and we are the owners of Phipps Masonry. ⁓ Yeah, I feel like we were at a place for a couple of years where we hadn't... had any like maybe like decent size growth in the company. So we really wanted to find somebody to kind of help us like grow, ⁓ you know, the company from like a, you could talk in numbers, you could talk in maturity, ⁓ you could talk in ⁓ taking on bigger projects and how to manage those. So just helping someone to kind of like guide us through certain situations that we were going through. looking back, I feel like we were kind of spinning our wheels of trying to grow in certain ways and maybe not knowing exactly the fastest way to get from A to B. And ultimately, seeing the company grow was our ultimate goal together. Oh man. I felt like from the initial phone call that we had with Darren, which I think was maybe only like 20 minutes, 30 minutes, we just had such a great feeling about it. I think that I remember specifically telling him about our style of business. So I think from the initial phone call, just the way that he presented himself and truly showed his knowledge. from like I said, not just a large company, but also like a smaller company as well. letting somebody new in and trusting somebody new was very hard for us. And I feel like when we met there, we just felt like he was somebody that we could trust immediately. Business-wise, think that whenever I first met Darren, I had some things that I really wanted to accomplish. But I just remember Darren, me presenting this model and this stuff that I wanted to do. he was like, sure. He was like, let's talk about it. He was like, let's talk about what this is going to cost. Not financially, but mentally. I felt like he was like, why exactly are you wanting this? What's your reasoning for it? ⁓ And I don't think that that would have been possible, you know, if we would have stuck with that route, you know, a couple years ago. If I were to recommend him to ⁓ a family member or a friend, which I would, ⁓ I think I would just say... Buckle up. ⁓ I think I would say, you you would be surprised at the life-changing advice that Darren would give you in the most unexpected ways. Yeah, I mean he's life-changing. I stand by that 100%. I think that it's important to go into it with an open mind. you know, we would sit down and every once in I would say something like, you know, I don't really know if this is too much information or if this is, you know, ⁓ really appropriate or not. And he would just say to lay it out, you know, he was like, I cannot help you. He was like, I cannot give you like the best advice possible if you don't tell me everything. And I thought that was such a cool thing instead of somebody saying, I don't want to hear about your personal life. Tell me strictly about the business. How were your numbers this week? although it's amazing because Darren did get us to such a great place, like an amazing place. Yeah, I mean it's life changing, know, what he was able to do for us. ⁓ like, you know, if you're interviewing people or if you're on the fence of like, should I go with him or should I go with someone else? this person wouldn't even be close to there. ⁓ You know, what they can offer and yeah. His perspective is so unique. think, you know, One of the things that we really liked about Darren is that not only is he great with looking at the reports and the numbers and things that we've shown him, ⁓ he also has a history of, he was previously a lawyer, and I think from that perspective as well, because he can look at things from several different perspectives. So I think that is a very unique aspect of Darren's history that makes him stand out from other people. And I think also a lot of his perspective and advice comes from a psychological approach. to look at your business and say, you can grow from A to B in this way is totally different from looking at it from a completely holistic viewpoint