Welcome to the The VICI Code, where we unlock real stories of small business owners who've battled chaos, crushed doubt, and conquered their challenges. Faith, family, and finances. No fluff, just raw, honest conversations that decode the path to victory, one story at a time. All right, all right. And thank you for joining us today as we explore legacy, systems, and soul, where we walk you through the ethical flip, scaling small businesses while preserving legacy and team. But before we jump in, I just want to remind our listeners of how excited I am to be part of the new AG1 Ambassador Program. AG1 has been a staple in my morning routine for several years. Every morning I wake up and start my day with AG1 mixed with water and fresh squeezed lemon. Just one scoop is packed with 75 high quality ingredients that combine a multivitamin, probiotic, and blend of superfoods. AG1 has been clinically shown to improve gut health and close common nutrient gaps. As a longtime customer, they have offered me a special deal for you. If you're interested in trying AG1 yourself, you can use my ambassador offer found in the show notes. With your first order, you'll receive one free year of supply of D3K2 drops, 10 free AG1 next-gen travel packs, and a free 30-day supply of Omega-3 peels. This is $130 value for free using my ambassador code I could imagine a day without it. I bring it on the road with me. I always have it. It's a big part of the morning routine I got. But let's shift back gears to today's guest who believes financial growth and ethical leadership are a single, repeatable system. David Hori is an investor and advisor who specializes in buying and scaling small local businesses. He scaled three startups to successful exits, building repeatable operational systems that enabled two to three time headcount growth with an emphasis on employee retention, which we love. David brings deep expertise in implementing enterprise infrastructure and managing post-acquisition integrations. He focuses on preserving business legacies, retaining teams, and creating long-term value rather than quick flips. Now, a little background between David and I, he is yet again another showstopper from Dan Martell's elite mastermind group. Through our chats, I realized his unique purpose of focusing on preserving business legacies, which you don't find often, and retaining teams and creating long-term values rather than quick flips would be a great topic for our audience. Because oftentimes we're talking about startups. What about that exit? How do you keep your legacy going? We also want to dive into how his personal principles of faith, family, and fitness integrate into a scaling philosophy. Dean, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And happy Thursday. I'm happy to be here. Yeah, man. Thursday's the new Friday, right? Let's get the party going. Let's go. All right, I love starting at the beginning. I want to hear about origins, the operational breakthrough. We talk about your focus on preserving business legacies and retaining teams after acquisition, which runs counter to your typical slash and burn M&A approach. What was the most significant challenge or failure you experienced in a post-acquisition integration that taught Yeah, so I think my approach is informed through a lot of real-world experience of realizing that the most important investment you can make in a business is in your team. And I think we are aligned on that. It is essential as you're going through any kind of transition, any kind of growth, any kind of chaotic phase in a business and an acquisition is absolutely all of those things in spades to ensure that you've got the best people on the team engaged, working on the right challenges and moving the company forward in a manner that doesn't create any kind of gaps or lapses in operation. So as far as a specific example, I've had the benefit of learning from a lot of great people that do this at a large scale and seen it done well and not so well. And I think churning your team, slashing people without really understanding what they do and not taking time to understand the current state is one of the first things that many like mistakes that people make when Was there a breakthrough you made that made you realize retaining the team was the most valuable asset, not just the balance sheet? Like, was there a specific moment where you just, and maybe it was a failure, and I don't even like the word failure, but it's like, cause we learn, right? It's a lesson. Was there a certain lesson that led to a breakthrough that made you realize the most valuable Yeah, so one of those experiences, you know, is when you look at an acquisition from a headcount perspective and you're just looking at the numbers. What do they cost? Where do we trim costs? They're a cost center. and you're not looking at the experience that not only is going to walk out your door, but then go to your competition and take all that context and everything else that's so critical to retain and nurture. There's a calculatable number that you can assign to those individuals that most people entirely overlook. And one of those things that is particularly, I think, critical are the individuals that have the context on your customers. And so going through that and saying, oh, you know, like there's there's some blow or, you know, there's the ability to reduce our overhead by trimming this team, but then losing that customer history, losing the context on the connections and how things have been delivered over time. I think was one of the experiences that really shaped and solidified that from being theoretical of like, nobody's going to tell you that your team doesn't matter, but there's an actual dollar figure you can assign to Yeah, you're right, you know, retention. I mean, like you said, it's a big part of what we do is like, you know, making sure that we focus on culture here. And, you know, I don't know if I'm going to see Vichy through to the end, but I know that I want to make sure that, you know, I'm team first here at Vichy and I want to make sure that they're protected the most. And it makes a lot of sense that you mentioned, like, that those legacy relationships are really important for the company to survive with those clients. So, I totally agree. Now, let's talk a little bit about ops, right? You focus on building repeatable operational systems. For a local business owner looking to sell or grow, what's the most common operational mess you encounter? And what's the first system you build to bring immediate clarity and You know, I don't know if there's a silver bullet in kind of, you know, one answer for all operational challenges. But one of the first things that I look at is how is the owner spending their time? And is there any opportunity to create systems and process around what they're working on delivering? It is not the most valuable thing to their company. It is not leveraging their expertise in a meaningful manner. And so there's a lot that we can document around what they're doing in their day-to-day to free up and give them leverage in their day. And then the second piece is looking holistically at their end-to-end process of, you know, attracting potential prospects, the sales process, and then all the way through delivery and understanding like mapping that out. That's often something that's not done in a systematic way. It's always kind of haphazard and bespoke and really understanding like what is our average customer experience look like? How can we improve on that? Where are the bottlenecks? You know, applying the theory of constraints to that. And then again, documenting those discrete areas first before I just started the goal. My man, it's ruining my morning. Cause I don't want to put it down. Like I'm just like flying through the chapters. I'm looking at the time. I'm like, ah, cause I, I mean, I ain't reading it when I get home. I put everything out on the field when I'm out. Uh, when I get home, it's family. And then I'm just struggling to stay awake before I go to sleep. But like in the mornings, you know, that's when I get my reading in and such a great book. I'm in chapter six and I can't put it down. I'm excited to see, see how he turns the factory around. Who we are is what we do if we're living life right. So I want to get into a little bit about your faith and personal system. Your approach suggests a strong ethical and purpose-driven foundation. How does your faith or personal value system guide your decisions when you are advising on or executing a high-stakes transaction? Yeah, absolutely. So my faith is foundational to everything I do. Every morning I wake up with gifts and talents that I've been given and entrusted with by God. And I offer those up to him. Like I've got some dreams, I've got some ideas about what I want to do, but take these, you've given me these experiences, you've given me this opportunity, these skills, and use it for your kingdom. So that's absolutely foundational. Beyond that, there is then an elevated, I think, standard for delivery, for how I engage and for the agendas that I support. And one of the biggest stakes deals that I've been a part of was actually a massive acquisition for a private equity backed company. And we took them, their portfolio company from 500 employees to 1500 employees in nine months. And we got down to the wire on this deal where everything to that point pointed at us closing before the end of the year. And the implication of closing before the end of the year was that there was gonna be the tiniest gap in insurance coverage. The smallest, we're talking a day or two between Christmas and New Year's, but for 1100 people. And that was really concerning to me because I was over the strategy for how do we get these people in the door, get them in benefits, integrate all the teams and everything like that. And that was not insignificant to me. And so it literally got down to the wire where I had to call the head of the deal team for this massive private equity group. and have a heart to heart and say, like, I cannot go with you if this goes down. And I know everybody has the best of intentions. But when there's this many dollar signs attached to a deal and this much effort invested in it, I understand how this could go. And if it goes there, I can't go with you. I can't. And I have to be on record in this forum and every other saying that that we have to do the right thing and make sure that this closes after you pretty much answered my next question. I wanted to know what the toughest financial challenge you had to face when you had to prioritize integrity or the team than maximizing immediate profit, like that you put people first, you put your values first. And honestly, you know, sometimes you miss out on grand slams once in a while, if that happens, which I'm not saying that's what happened with you, but like, it all comes back around. Right? You do the right thing, good things happen. And I love that example. Now, more on purpose and systems, you know, scaling headcount by two to three times while retaining the team is extremely difficult. What's the single biggest people and culture challenge that threatens this growth? And what repeatable system My answer to that is going to kind of, I think, bring both of those questions together in that when I'm talking to business owners, and I see this a lot in the trades, but there's many other industries that struggle across the boards with good talent. I hear this complaint all the time. I can't find anybody that wants to work, work hard, all that. And often when I dig into it, I find that I'm talking to somebody who hasn't positioned themselves as an employer of choice. People can go work wherever they want, and people will drop and leave for a dollar an hour more if you're not keeping them front and center, if you're not investing in them, if you're not giving them consistency. Who wants to show up to a chaotic workplace where they don't know what to expect? They don't know if they're going to get paid on time. Every project's different. So it starts with being an employer of choice. And when you approach your business as, I'm going to take care of my people, I'm going to invest in them, I'm going to hold them to high standards, set and hold them to high standards, people will show up and amaze you. and they'll attract others who are like that. And if the opposite happens, where you're kind of taking whoever comes up to you or, you know, making the easy hire, whether it's a family member or, you know, whoever happens to apply, and then you're relying on them to train and motivate, you know, it just is a downhill spiral, downward spiral from there. And so I generally find when you want and are serious about engaging A players, the elites and retention, you've got to be an employer of choice. And that doesn't mean paying them the most. No, and I was just gonna say, sometimes you can't pay people enough to stay in a shit show, right? People wanna feel like they're winning. There's this, yeah, people wanna feel valued, but even if they feel valued and they're being paid, if they don't feel like they're winning, right? So there's a lot that goes into, and that's why we put our culture first here at Veche. It's a team first culture, even before clients, believe it or not. My clients may be, surprised to hear that, but the reality is, is like, we got nothing to give you if we don't have a good team. So we, you know, it's our team first. And, uh, we want to make sure usually when we have our, our, our skip level meetings or our one-on-ones internally, it's like, do you feel like you're winning if you don't what can we do better? We shift work off of people's plates and move it around to make sure that we're optimizing the talent that we have and making sure that people feel like they're winning. And ultimately you can't pay certain people enough to deal with that. And I encourage no one to stick around for money because ultimately Absolutely. You know, I just onboarded a new employee and on their first day, I wanted them to know where they stood. And I told them, I will absolutely back you first. And there are absolutely clients that I would fire. If they're not treating my team the way that they should be treated. And, and so just setting the groundwork and the expectation from day one of like, I'm committed to you, your development, you take care of the business. I'm going to have your back. You're doing what you think is best for the business. I'm going to support you. I'm going to go to bat for you. I will fire a client for you. Um, I think is, is Yeah, we fire clients all the time. Because you know what? It's not worth the chaos at home, right? The power of saying no, the power of firing a client, doors will open up, tomorrow will come. Don't put up with toxic clients that will seep into your culture. I completely agree. I want to jump into your YouTube channel, man. You've been active on your YouTube channel, Topline Ops. That's T-O-P-L-I-N-E Ops. You're sharing insight on there. What's one actionable insight you consistently share with business owners to help them streamline processes I think it starts with understanding where is your time going? And a helpful framework for that is the time audit of how are you spending your time, you know, in 15-minute increments over a week, over two weeks, and really getting a glimpse from a bird's eye view, then looking at that in aggregate and into buckets of like, oh, wow, I didn't realize I was spending that much time chained to my inbox. Or I didn't realize I was, you know, spending this much time answering questions for anybody that popped their head into my office door. And so being able to then have a data-driven approach to where is there space to get leverage on your day, to start elevating the trajectory of your outputs and elevate your focus to more strategic initiatives is usually where I start. And it's the place where, you know, everybody kind of like thinks that they're average and or above average in that like, oh, I'm not that chained to my inbox and I'm pretty strategic and I, you know, I'm good at delegation. And when you bring the data and they have to face that front and center, they can be a little bit more honest and Absolutely. It all starts with mindset and perspective. Sometimes you can teach somebody, but unless you teach them how to think, then it's just not going to make sense. You and I, we have EAs, we have managers. I don't even look at my calendar anymore. I don't even look at my inbox because I've gained more time back to spend time with my clients and my team. We all have it in our budget. You just need to talk to the right people. I can show you how to do it. David can show you how to do it. Go buy the Buy Back Your Time book. Dan Martell will show you how to do it in detail. There you go, right there. The phone will suck your soul throughout the day, the calendar, the emails. Get that off your plate. Get an EA, even if it's a part-time EA and that's all they do. You'll thank us later for it. Absolutely. Let's see here. As someone who deals with high stakes financial transactions and operational clarity, how do you manage your own time and focus? How do you ensure your family and fitness goals are This is a place that I am constantly auditing to make sure because there is, I think, a lot of scope creep and work, especially when you're an entrepreneur. The first thing I had to realize is that while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and the life to come. And I was out of whack. I was waking up early and going straight to the gym to get my sweat on. Often I would get done and be kind of cramming in a little bit of spiritual fitness, so to speak, prior to rushing off into my day. And then often that was easy to skip. And I had to really reorganize my day, so I started with spiritual fitness. then went to physical fitness. And if anything gets a little bit truncated, it's that. I can cut the last set of my workout and run and go be present with my daughter, get her ready for school, take her to school. Those are two things that are really sacred in my calendar, taking her to school, and picking her up at the end of the day. And it's in the middle of my workday, so it's not convenient. But those are just two really important times that I'm making sure I'm prioritizing time with her. And then dinner is another non-negotiable. So it's just about thinking about like, If I say family is important, or if I say spiritual fitness is important, my calendar better reflect that. How I'm spending my time, money, resources better reflect that, and I need to be auditing regularly to make sure that those Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I forget, I think it was Tim Ferriss, and I'm sure a lot of other people have said it, but time blocking. Time blocking is so important. It literally says on my business calendar, morning routine. My team knows that I'm not available during that time. And it used to be fitness. Sometimes I'll get in some gym, but The second I wake up, it's prayer. It's gratitude. I brush my teeth. I go, I do my AG1, right? Do my AG1, but then it's scripture, dude. I got a couple pages of scripture and I leave it to only a couple pages because It's not a race. I'm not trying to get through it to get through it. I'm reading it and I'm rereading it. So I'm making sure that those two pages are intentional and I'm actually steeping in what the scriptures are saying. And then I get to move on to my nonfiction right now. The Goal right now is awesome. I'm weeding. I try to hit that 10 page a day. I'm well over that every day just because I'm just running through this book. Um, but I find my fitness in the middle of the day to be the best because I feel like I can be more mindful. Um, and I, in the morning, I feel like that's, it just works for me, my chemistry, just being more mindful and reading and just a little bit more relaxed. And we homeschool the younger kids. So I'm there in the morning and I'm, I'm present. But in the gym in the middle of the day, I do CrossFit Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then usually on a weekend, I'll do it on a Saturday. But that splits up the day. I get a bunch accomplished before the morning or before the afternoon. I go do my workout. I'm usually fasting until then. I seem to have a better workout when I fast. I don't know why. But then I finish my workout. I feel great. I crush the second part of my day. I've been playing around with this. Like you said, you audit it frequently. I've been playing around with it for a very long time, and this really works out really well for me. So I encourage everyone to audit your own schedule, time block. You've got to get the fitness in, definitely have the intentional gratitude in. And if family is not a priority, then I don't know what we're doing this for, right? What advice would you give to a visionary founder who is brilliant at their craft but overwhelmed by the operations of their business I've had the privilege of working with some amazing founders over the years. And again, each one is different. Some people would really benefit from seeking out a mentor who has successfully traversed being that solopreneur and building a team around them and scaling. They can talk to the benefits, the challenges, the trust that you have to have in handing over your baby to somebody. There's other people that, I don't know if they're capable of it unless they're forced into it. And so one of the things that I've seen is somebody that really struggled. They knew in their head that they needed to trust the team. We built a brilliant team around them. And it literally took scaling the operations and revenue and everything to a point where they couldn't hold it all in their hand. And it was just like, coming exploding out of their grip before they were like, okay, fine, everybody, you know, like do what you were hired to do. And so I don't, again, have a single approach. There are many paths to it, but either way, you're going to have to trust your team, the people you've hired around you. There is not a single billion dollar company out there that was built around a founder that's still doing $25 an hour tasks. And they haven't hired hundreds of people who weren't probably as smart or talented as they were, but they trusted them and they hired them to do a specific task and to do it reasonably well. So those are some Yeah, that's important, man. You got to realize when you get to a point where You need a CEO and you're just not a CEO, right? And if you, if you truly care about your business enough, you gotta, you know, look yourself in the mirror and realize there's other people that could do this better. You can still be the heart and soul of, of the business, but you know, Scaling's tough, you know, managing people is tough. And if you're trying to do it all, you're gonna burn yourself out and you're not gonna be good for yourself, for your family, for your team. Yeah, Absolutely. I worked for this incredible visionary who was literally decades ahead of his industry, his times, and had a monopoly uh, in, in the market. And the worst thing about the company was that he was still working in it and he didn't just hire somebody to, to take it and run with it. And slowly, like, you know, like it was reflected in every aspect of the business where like, if there was a one-star review on Yelp, it was because the people were complaining about how they were treated by the owner. Uh, and all these things and, and the best thing that he could have done was set the vision, build it, and then hire the right person to take it into the next, uh, the next phase of growth and then move on to dreaming and building the next thing. Um, so Absolutely. Well, as we conclude things, I want to kind of go over some takeaways, you know, the ethical advantage of prioritizing legacy and retention, you know, small businesses are the backbone of this country. That's a fact, you know. Scaling these businesses is good, but keeping that culture, keeping that soul in the business is incredibly important. If you're in that situation, I definitely recommend you reach out to David and we'll get into how you can get in touch with him soon. Also, the necessity of repeatable systems for non-chaotic growth. If you're a true leader, you're looking out for your team and the business. You've got to document stuff. You've got to have SOPs. It's not only good for you and your team, but it's also great for your clients and it creates a sustainability Joe Schmo wins the lottery, bye-bye. He ain't coming into work possibly. Hopefully, you don't have a type of culture where someone would do that to you. But unfortunate things happen like that in business. But you want to have that sustainability with SOPs and documented systems. Also, the power of integrating strong personal values into high-level financial strategy. Your business is an extension of you. You got to make sure that you have integrity, your business will have integrity, your team will have integrity, and then you'll rise to the top as the company who's known for that. Dave, thank you so much for sharing your unique expertise and commitment to purpose-driven investment. We have a couple of ways to get ahold of you to learn more about you and Topline Ops. They can find you on LinkedIn. If you go onto LinkedIn and you search I am David Ori or David Hori, H-O-R-I. I did it, man. I did the Ori. We were talking about Robert Ori before we got on, but Instagram, you're on at Top Line Ops at Top Line Ops, and then also the YouTube channel at Top Line Ops. Man, thank you so much for coming on. No, I still appreciate you using your platform for, you know, the message, for helping people. And I'm so excited to see what you build along the way, and I'm grateful for this opportunity. So thank you, Joe. Appreciate you. Absolutely, David. You know, I'm here to, we're here to help other businesses grow, right? You and I. So thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate you. We'll see you online and the elite group, my friend. Absolutely. Be well. Cheers. Thanks for tuning in to the Vici Code, where the underdogs rise and the numbers finally make sense. If today's story hit home, share it. And remember, faith fuels