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. What is up? Thank you for joining us today as we explore our latest purpose-driven journey, Systems Over Stress, where we look at transitioning from corporate IT to trade leadership using a lean systems and executive support to scale. Many trade business owners get into the game because they are masters of their craft, but they often become prisoners of their own success. They hit that $1 million revenue wall and they realize they aren't running a business, they're running a 24-7 administrative fire drill. It's the worst. The core purpose of today's guest is to eliminate tech waste, build lean systems, and move from being the operator to the owner, all while still grounding in faith, family, and fitness. Rob Ladabouche is the owner of Stacked Systems, which helps blue-collar business owners scale past $1 million by implementing systems within their business. This allows the business owner to buy back their time and scale with ease. He has spent the last five to six years in corporate IT and really wanted to take those skills to help small business owners. Stacked systems build smart, scalable websites and lean IT systems that drive growth. They eliminate tech waste, simplify tech stacks, and turn digital tools into real business results without the stress. Like many of our guests, I met Rob in the trenches of Dan Martell's elite coaching group, and I'm excited to dive into his world today. Rob is a fascinating bridge between the high-level logic of corporate IT and the rugged, boots-on-the-ground world of blue-collar trades. His expertise isn't just about fixing websites. It's about architecting the internal plumbing of a business so the owner doesn't drown in Rob welcome to the show sweet. Well, thank you. I really appreciate just the time and I'm looking forward to Yeah, absolutely. And I, like I said before, a big part of our audience, they live in that blue collar world. I think the advice and the information we're going to go over today is going to really resonate with those, especially some of my clients where we're preaching them to really build the infrastructure so that they can scale and, you know, enjoy working again. So I do want to jump right into, you know, the system and scalability breakthrough. You know, so my question is around the million dollar wall, right? You've noted that once a business hits about a million, the owner has effectively tapped out their personal bandwidth and begins to sacrifice family time. From your perspective in corporate IT, what is the number one tech debt or system failure that keeps the owner stuck in the mud instead of scaling with So there's a lot of things that we look at when we start working with somebody, especially once they start getting up to that 500, $600,000 where they have a business model that works, they get jobs and jobs are starting to come in, but then they start running into the problem where they don't have enough time. They don't have enough time with their family. They don't have enough time to work on their business. They're just working in their business. So essentially once they get up to the 800,000 to a million dollar mark, and even a little bit past that, they start to realize that if they don't build systems below them as a solid foundation, that's where they start to get in trouble. So from zero to a million dollars, You can pretty easily go off your network, find out new leads and really drive people into your business. You can handle most of the stuff yourself, maybe one, two techs, but once you get to that million dollar mark, it's really hard to scale from there if you don't have the systems underneath. And we'll dive more into the tech stack and what that means because my whole goal is I don't want to overwhelm you with tech jargon and say a bunch of tech terms that you don't understand. I want to bridge the gap from tech to blue collar business owners, people that maybe don't like spending so much time on their phone, on their computer. And they actually like running the business because most of the time when, when people get into the business of, you know, electrician, HVAC, general construction, It's because they love that trade and they want to solve that problem for those people. And they don't realize that you're going to have to learn business. You're going to have to learn the game of business and build the systems up underneath of you. So having a clear way to give you the tech stack that you'll need clear and simple. So that way you can scale and still focus on the things that you love. That's essentially what we do. And I love helping people out with that because, like you said, the last five to six years, it has been corporate IT. And I see the bottlenecks within corporate IT when people start throwing money all over the board at different tech stacks, at different softwares. And they're just always hopping on the next best thing. And then you start to look back and you realize how much money you've spent on that, where you can spend that money elsewhere. Yeah. So that's kind of what we focus on. And and the big thing, once you get up to a million dollars is you got everything in an Excel document. You got everything on your phone. You got everything scattered around. Most likely, I'm one of our one of our clients had everything on a whiteboard. What happens if the whiteboard gets erased one by a cleaning staff? What happens if the building burns down, like your whole business is gone. So how do you clearly document this stuff in a way that you can access it from anywhere and you have that redundancy in And this, and this next piece, you mentioned the phone. It makes me cringe because I see it all the time. We see owners housing their entire business leads quotes history on a personal phone. Why is the personal phone model the ultimate bottleneck for growth? Well, how many times have you, you probably lost your phone at least once. I know everybody's lost their wallet at least once. So if you lose your phone, I don't back stuff up on iCloud as much as I should. And I know everyone that I talk to has the same problem. They just don't feel like doing it. They don't want to spend the time doing that. And then when it comes down to it, they lose all their photos, they lose all their notes. That's the same thing that happens if you have your whole business in your phone. it's going to happen. So it's how do we stretch out or place our all of our documents, SOPs, customer information? How do we place it in one in one place that we can always access it? So with the phone, yes, you can you can have everything in your notes, and you can upload it to the cloud. But what about when your team starts to grow? And you need other people communicating with people in your CRM or customer relationship management portal, where your leads are coming in to that application. If they're all on your phone, your team's not going to be able to know what's going on communication wise with that client. So you need to start implementing software, just like a CRM, we use go high level for just about everything that we do. Which is a great software, but having a central location that way once your team starts to grow. They can then dip into that and if you lose your phone, your whole business doesn't go sideways and you can kind of sleep at night when it comes to Yeah, it's definitely an enterprise risk having everything on your phone if you lose it. But also, like you said, those are the two biggest things. The second one is, how can you scale? Your team can't operate off your phone. You need some sort of enterprise-wide solution so that your team can operate without your phone and that there's some sort of backup there. How do you help non-tech owners overcome the fear that systems will replace the human touch of the trade? So that's where we have, and I talked about it in, um, in one of my videos that if you DM me the word systems, it automatically sends to you. But essentially there's three aspects. One leads, we need leads. We need people that are going to come into our space and potentially be clients. And then we need two aspects of automation and manual. So there needs to be, yes, some automation, but there really needs to be that manual touch because you don't want to ever automate so much that you lose the manual aspect. You lose that human to human communication or that touch because then your business kind of loses that sense of community. And that's what we focus on with our clients. So essentially, adding in automation to where you have redundant tasks, maybe a text that goes out to your new clients, just reminding them of an upcoming visit that you guys have, or an upcoming project, or a quote that you just sent out, just automated text that says, Hey, just FYI, we sent this to you, or we're looking forward to the meeting. And then manual follow up where you're actually calling the client to say, hey, real person, you know, you're still working with real people. I just wanted to check in to see how you're doing. So you can add in those different aspects to where you have different touch points with your potential client. And then it just, it comes all together and it builds your business to where you don't have to reach out to every single person every single time because the time starts to add up. You can add in automation, but then you can also keep those manual And Rob, I would argue, and I've had this conversation with other people, um, that with, the time that you get back from automating things, you have more time to spend having that more intimate conversation with the client. And that's more valuable. Sure, the client, basically they start figuring out, they're like, oh, okay, they're automating this piece, but I'm still getting more value, even more value on the backend phone calls or emails with the human side of things. So I always, I like to mention that because, you know, yeah, sure. Like you remove a little bit of the human touch, but you get more and you get more return on that. And your clients get to see that as well. They get to get the, they get the value out of that for Yep. It's just like if you're going to the gym every single day for 20 minutes, just because you have to do it every single day, or you have to have all these different touch points, you're not going to get as much out of it as if you were to go maybe three, four times a week, spend a little bit longer there, but really focus on the workout. So it's the same thing as in, if you were, reaching out to these people just for a quick one-minute, two-minute, three-minute phone call, it's not gonna be as good or as personal as if you were to say, okay, I won't reach out to them as much manually, but I'll reach out to them once a week and actually have a 10, 15-minute conversation that you hear what they need, they know that you're listening to them, and then it just builds that relationship even Yeah, I completely agree. And as you know, it's all about those relationships. A major breakthrough for your clients is the time and energy audit, which you and I are very familiar with. You found that many owners think they need another technician when they actually need an executive assistant. Can you walk us through how that single hiring pivot changes the financial and operational trajectory Yep, so one of our past clients, well, still our client, but Ron, who has an electrician, electrical company, he got to a million and he was like, okay, I need to start implementing some systems or else I just like don't have any more time for my family. I'm staying up late at night with quotes, invoices, and I really just can't catch up. And he wants to scale even more. So he's running out of hours in the day, but he left his, He left his job two years ago because he wanted to scale this business. And, um, just like I mentioned before, he's now falling into the pit of, okay, I love the trade. I love the business, but now I have to learn these business skills and actually build systems on top. So he's running around and, uh, trying to, trying to fill out all the quotes, the estimates late at night. And he came to me and he said, look, I don't have any more time for my family. I feel like I'm running around everywhere. Everything's in my phone notes. Like, I don't know what to do. And that's where we started. We took a step back and we said, okay, what systems can we implement now? Who do we actually need to hire? Because he was going based on feelings of, I feel like I need to hire a tech. And that's what everybody says. I need to hire another tech. That way I could take a step out of the trade or fulfill all the jobs that I have. But really, he had no data, that was based off feelings. And if you don't make decisions based off data in your business, it's not gonna scale well. So what we did for him was implement systems that starts tracking, okay, how many leads are coming in? How many leads have you contacted? Sent out the quotes, sent out the invoices, completed the job. Where is the bottleneck in your business? And we found out that the bottleneck in the business right now is not jobs in progress or jobs that need to be complete. It's leads that are coming in. He's got so many leads that he can't even reach out to. So instead of hiring a new tech, he wants to hire an admin person now. That way they can start knocking out those leads and they solve Yeah, that's huge. The one thing you said was, if you're not making decisions on data, you're not gonna scale well. That's something that we say here. All my clients have heard me say that. If you're not making a decision based off of data, you gotta go with gut. You gotta go with your instinct. If it don't feel right, then you gotta trust your gut. But if you're not adding in some data to help you with that decision, you're just leaving some competitive advantage. on the table, to be honest with you. And that's why we work with a lot of small businesses, especially early stage startups. And a lot of them think like, oh, I don't really need bookkeeping yet. And some of them don't. But I say, at some point, you really got to make that jump and get in early because, A, the sooner you know it, the better. It's going to feel less unfamiliar, but you're going to now have the power of actual data. You may not understand, and I can help you read the language of numbers and accounting, but you'll be able to make decisions. You may feel a certain way. The numbers may say something different, and you may be able to come up with a solution that ties in both of those. It's great to hear other high-performing business owners with the same ideology. How does the clean CRM directly lead to more sellable and Well, it goes back to data. If you don't know your data and you don't know how much you can spend on paid ads to get leads in the door to then convert them to clients, then how are you gonna make decisions based on that? How are you going to have leads come in the door and then do you have a clear system on reaching out to those leads, then qualifying them? Okay, maybe it's general contracting. kitchen remodels, you're getting a whole bunch of leads and say, yeah, I want to kitchen remodel. But you haven't asked them what their budget is, what their timeframe is, are they actually finding out if they're actually serious about it? Because the amount of time that's been wasted for clients of mine, before we started implementing these systems, is they're just hopping on phone calls for leads and They're, they're just wasting their time because they're not serious people that are looking to get their kitchen remodels or, or getting their, um, peer lighting, um, for the electricians. So there's, um, there's systems out there that we really need to implement in every single business. I mean, my business, I have a CRM. I'm sure you have a CRM. It's every business needs to have a way, have a clear. I guess, infrastructure to, to know what's going on in their business. That way they can then make decisions to Yeah. No, you need, you need that infrastructure again. Like you said, it all goes back to data and, um, analyzing, you know, is this a good client? Is this a good ideal client profile? Um, and really refining that because at some point you want to be able to, you know, if you want to really, you know, cause sales is a whole other ball game, right? You know, some people can bring in, you know, someone to handle sales. And if you don't have that data, if you don't have that information, there's So that definitely helps a lot in the sales area too. And one thing that I learned, I'm still learning myself is, you need to get out of the weeds. You need to get out of the weeds of, yes, you love the trade, but if you wanna become a business owner and you want a successful business, you're going to need to get out of the weeds, that way you can work on the business rather than in the business, and you can start to see patterns, you can figure out your ideal customer, your ideal client, because there's a lot of people that we work with where from zero to a million, You're kind of just trying to figure out what works and you're just taking in all the jobs. But then you get to a million, you have all these clients and half of them you don't even really want to work with. They just, they drive you insane and it takes more energy to serve them than you would. You would like to give the ones that actually make you happy and energize you to want to help even more people. So yes, zero to a million. It's good. Try to figure out what works, get in as many people as you can, but you'll start to see, and this goes back to data is you'll see which clients you love working with the best. And then you could start taking that. of okay, they're in this type of area. They're in this city rather than this city. They want these types of projects that are above this price point. And you know your ideal client now. to where now you put that in front of the sales process, and you filter out, so you're not getting all of those leads, you're getting a little bit less leads, but these are the actual ideal clients that you wanna work with. And this is exactly why systems are just extremely important in these types of businesses, is because once you figure out your ideal client, you start filtering out who it is in the front of your sales system, then you start working with your ideal clients that you really love to just give all your energy to talk to on the phone, just serve in general. And then you're more happy. Your team's more happy. You're more energized coming to work every single day and actually building your business. And it doesn't feel like a drag. Like you have to send out these quotes or these estimates or talk to this client like you get to. And that's the big difference that I've learned over the past few years. It's like just the mindset is I don't have to, I get to, I don't have to, I don't have to send out these invoices or I don't have to set up this system or be on the sales call. Like I get to, I get to serve people. And that's my main thing is just like, I want to serve as many people as possible, especially in the local area. Um, but really nationwide, it's, If I can serve you to, to where you can then support your employees, you can then support your family. Like that's the main goal. It's getting away from big business because the corporate it stuff, it it's great stuff, but you're just. you're a number at that point, where my goal with Stacked Systems is helping real people get real results. And that's the main goal. We don't have to, we get to help people. We get to help people every single day, support Yeah, and I think the trap door a lot of people in the service industry get into is like, we're in it to help people. And what happens is if you do a good job, Word spreads, you get referrals. And before you know it, you got ideal clients and not ideal clients that want your time. And if you're going to stay true to your purpose and your core values and help the right people, it's hard to do that when you just don't have the information and the infrastructure set up to do that. and you end up running yourself ragged. You're not a good leader for your team. So, you know, I think that's just one trap door that a lot of guys, if you really want to truly help people and that's why you're in it, you got to invest in your systems and in your team so that you can work on the business. Cause eventually you can still work in the business. You can spend a day, you know, in the trenches with your guys. It's good. It's good for morale. But you also have to run the business and that's something you don't have to really address so much. But as you grow and as you scale, it really starts knocking on the door and it will demand your attention because otherwise you get into trouble if you ignore your bookkeeping or you ignore other things. that stuff starts catching up to you. And then all of a sudden you've got fires drills all over the place. So, um, yeah, I like that. You really teach that, uh, build infrastructure on Um, and a lot of the, a lot of the problems in business, we try to think 20 steps out when really we need to solve the problem that we're facing right now. So from zero to a million, your number one problem is getting people in the door. Your marketing or your sales of getting leads from interested to paying clients because you need that revenue coming in to where you can actually grow your business. But then you're going to run into the, you have too many leads and too many, uh, too many clients. Now your fulfillment is going to go down. So then you start working on your fulfillment and it's kind of just this like teeter totter of, What problem do I need to focus on right now? Not what problem I need to focus on 20 steps ahead. What do I need to focus on right now? And a lot of people, I see this all the time, where they don't really know what a system is. Like yeah, I say systems, you need to implement systems. Okay, what is a system? What's an example of a system? General overview is with a blue collar business, you need people to be able to find you. So we focus on two things. You focus on, do you have a website that's a clear digital presence for you on the web where people can come and they can contact you from there? Do you have a Google business profile? All of the home services that we talk to are local. So if you don't have a Google business profile that people, when they search you up on Google, can they find you? Do you have good reviews? Those are two main things that we need to focus on going from zero to a million, zero to 500. You can get away with just word of mouth, but once you start to scale from there, you want a clear way of getting people into that sales pipeline. So you want to have a website that clearly funnels. A lot of people have websites that look really good and it's nice, but then you get, the visitor gets overwhelmed with all the tabs. They get overwhelmed with all the wording on the website. The main goal of a website, people can find you, they funnel down into calling you, and then they turn from a lead into an engaged lead, and then you can go from there. So a website that clearly funnels people down shows that you're a real person in a real business that can actually give them the service that they need. And then Google Business Profile is, you need to build up that reputation. Going from zero to a million, you're building up that reputation and you need a way to show that you can do the job that you say you can do. A lot of people, they promise the world and then they just can't fulfill on it. And a good way of making sure that people, building that reputation, is getting Google reviews. So a clear, simple way, once you have the website, once you have the Google business profile, a nice way to have this whole loop come back in for the complete system is after the job's complete, what happens? Do they just, you just stop talking to them and you know, they, uh, they come back when they need it. Like it's probably not the best way to go. How about once a job is complete, you automatically have a review request that's sent to them, just a text or an email saying, Hey, we really appreciate the opportunity to help you guys out. Could you submit a review for us? You know, I mean the world to us and you can have this automated to where now it then loops back into your Google business profile and you don't have to worry about that anymore. But then. Once the client's done, they submit that review. Now your marketing is getting even better because Google reviews are getting better. And then the whole system just continues to go in a circle. And that's how you build brand awareness. That's how you build a reputation in your area. So it's like one simple system for your website, for your Google business profile, and then collecting reviews on the back end is essentially all you need up to a million. And then you can start to get into the weeds of that and go further down the rabbit hole because it never ends. But that's just one simple system where it's like focus on digital presence. Can people find you on the internet? And Yeah. And then those, those reviews can be testimonials that you can plop right there on the website too. And people love testimonials. I always like to read those. Uh, but thanks for that, for that free advice, uh, for our audience, that's something simple someone can do, you know, today if they're in that, uh, zero to 500 range, um, and they want to, you know, bolster their presence and, and visibility for sure. Um, Let's talk about caught not taught culture. The VICI Code is all about leading with integrity. You often say culture is caught not taught. How does an owner's personal discipline, specifically in the fitness and faith area, translate into the way their technicians respect the systems and I think every day we're looking up to people, and whether it's at work or at home, we need to step up. And most of the business owners in the trade space are men, and I think being a man, it's, okay, how do I become a godly man? How do I become a man that my kids would be proud of, that God would be proud of? So it's keeping myself disciplined in the gym, in his word, Just all around how to become the absolute best version of myself that way when people look up to me they're like okay I wanna I wanna go after that and I think with business it's the same exact thing where we need to have a big enough vision a big enough goal. to go after that way our employees can fit underneath of that and their visions and goals can fit underneath of that because if they cannot, then they're just going to leave and they're going to go find another company. So yes, building employees up underneath of you, but I think a lot of people, they just, they don't stay rooted in who they are and who they want to become. And they're focused on the mundane tasks like of every day and, They don't get their employees fired up. They don't want to actually focus on building them up as people rather than they just expect them to be employees, do a certain job, go home and be happy. It's like, no, we need to invest in our people. That's first and foremost. Systems, cool. Those will come down the road. But if you have one employee right now, if you have two, three, whatever it is, and you're not investing in them, I mean, that's the biggest return. It's maybe not you might not be able to gather the exact data for it. But I guarantee you all the business owners that I mean, you and I talked to every single day, it's investing in your people is probably the greatest reward and the greatest ROI. So it's, it's extremely important. And I mean, for me, it's I focus on a few areas. It's family, faith, fitness and finance. If I knock out a task, every single day for those specific categories, I'm heading in the right direction. And it's not always gonna be, there's no balance in this game. There's really none. So if you can focus on, did I move the needle forward? And maybe not all of those categories today, but did I move the needle forward in one, two, or three of those categories? If I did, success, and then we move on to the next day. And we figure out, okay, how can I get better today than I was yesterday? And if you continue to hold that standard for yourself, And for the people around you, everybody will rise to that and just get better from it. So I absolutely love that culture. I love just the self, the focusing on yourself and really becoming the best version of yourself. Because if you can't become the best version of yourself, how No one's going to follow that, right? You got to, you got to walk the walk and Yeah. Have you ever had a boss where you're just like, you don't respect them at all. And they try to tell you to do something and you're like, I'm not doing that. It's, it's, it's culture. It's. being a person that people can respect. And it all starts with your daily actions. What do you do? A lot of people, it's actions versus words. It's, are you doing the say, are you doing the stuff that you say you're going to do? Or are you just talking? Because people can see right through that and Yeah. And that's why they say the tone is set at the top, right? You know, practice what you preach. You're passionate about helping owners serve their families better by stepping out of the admin weeds, right? How do you personally balance the always-on nature of the IT and consulting world with your own family and faith commitments? I'll be completely honest. I don't have it all figured out. It's a learning. It's in progress all the time. I know for the last two, three years, I focused on I will become as successful as I can or build this business at, you know, the best that I can. So that way, once family down the road, I can support them and we'll be good to go. But then I started seeing that I was spending so much time on that and I wasn't actually giving time to my family right now. And Nothing is better than the present moment. So it's okay. How do I plan for the future but still be present in the moment? And that's something that I've just gone down the rabbit hole this past year ever since January. It's how do I just focus on being present with my family, but then also making sure that I'm being diligent in my work and preparing for the future. And it's a balancing act that I don't know if we'll ever master on this side of glory, but it's worth going after. And I think a few just key tips is Sabbath every Sunday. I started doing this a few months ago now, and just taking that Sunday, or whether it's Saturday, Sunday, one day a week, and just doing no work. And at first, it's so hard, because it's like, we wanna get ahead. But then you find out, you never really get ahead. You never really get to the point where you feel ahead. So it's like, okay, well, if that doesn't work, what do we need to do? Well, let's try it. Let's try it God's way, how he sets it out in the very beginning, takes a rest day on the seventh day. But rather than just like taking a rest day and not doing anything, actively being in the word, going to church, spending time with your family, stuff that actually gives you energy. So that way you're prepared for the work week. Because we were, we were created in the beginning to work. Created for three things and work was one of them work to enjoy. So, he gave us that 7th day or the 1st day to rest up for the work week because we're created to work. So, let's rest up now doing the things that we love. So, that way we can better serve people during that work week and it's. I'd say it's one of the most life-changing things that I've done is taking one day to rest. And it's always a work in progress. I'm not perfect at it. I answer email on that day too. And, um, and we'll just continue to get better and better, but actionable item, I would say, start taking one day off and see what changes in your business, what changes in your, in your mindset, in your life. And, uh, and then just start I love your candid honesty in that answer because from smaller businesses in the early stages like you and I, to some of the bigger, more established guests that I've had, it's consistent. They don't have it figured out. And I feel like I challenge anybody who says they have it figured out. They may have a system, they may have a process, but it's not perfect in God. Once we feel like we've got to figure it out, God will come over and say, you're too comfortable. We need to make you more uncomfortable, you know, cause we're building you up for, you know, a higher calling. Right. So, um, I like that, that you constantly got to reevaluate, uh, you know, there's different seasons and different times. So what might work today may not work in a couple months or next year. So it is a constant, um, awareness to be present with family and don't let work dominate you and have that rest day. I've also practiced the Sabbath and it's not sitting on my ass watching football all day. Maybe it's on in the background, but it's usually like, let's play a board game, let's read, let's go for a hike, you know, it's all like, how can I get the most out of the day, but, but I'm not working, you know, I'm not on the clock. I'm not looking at my email. Sometimes, you know, a fire drill may come in, but it's very rare that I really need to do anything on a, on a Sunday when I'm really trying to be present. So I And it comes with, um, with a lot of, I mean, everybody that owns a business, I would say at least the majority, extremely driven people. And they want to they want to win the game of business. They want to be successful in the world's eyes. And it's that balancing act of why am I actually doing this? Am I doing it for myself, for my family, or am I doing it for the kingdom? And it's having that kingdom perspective of playing the long game and doing it. It's so much, we find it so much easier when we do it God's way, how he intended us to do it, spending time with our family, the Sabbath, or just diligently. Like one of the things is, diligently working like an ant, preparing during the good times and being able to weather the bad times. It's being really motivated. A lot of times we'll try to get ahead. And if we don't play by his rules, we definitely, the I agree. What's one purpose-driven question every owner should ask their employees to ensure their personal dreams That's a good question. I Why? Like a lot of people. A lot of people never ask themselves why three times. They they might go surface level. Why? Why did I do this? That's because this. Why did I? Why did I think that? Why did I react this way? why not ask yourself why three times once you start to get down to the bone of what's the root reason that I did this? And a lot of it comes back to the Bible. It's, it's in the very beginning we sinned and that brought sin into the world. And at the end of the day, we're all faulty people. So we need to go back to the real reason, the real why of we need to spread the gospel and we need to, our main goal is to please God and serve people. That's what I say every single day is, how do I please God and how do I serve the people that are right in front of me? And if you're asking your employees why three times, what is their vision? Okay, they tell you their vision. Well, why do you have that vision? Well, why do you think about it that way? You're starting to get down to the root and then everybody has the same foundation or the same root of why do we need this? Well, because the kingdom. So it all comes back to the same thing. And I just think everybody's so surface level these days. Yeah. And if we actually ask ourselves why or our employees, I think Yeah. I mean, I drifted for years and I just, I just had no purpose. I didn't know who I was. And, uh, I read a book, um, fathered by God that really walked me through, um, those exercises. What is this all for? And I just, you know, you learn that when it's for something else, it just means a lot more and you're doing it for, for, for, for better reasons. And I think asking your, I think asking that why question, even when things are tough, why, why, I think it really gets you down to, it helps you answer like what's actually important too. And is this problem really that bad? Are money problems as bad as we make them out to be? Is status really the problem? Because I think when we're drifting, we really fool ourselves into believing that anybody else matters than him, right? It's got to be him, and then your family, and then everything else, helping community, but worrying about what other people think of you. doesn't get you where you wanna go. You start making the wrong decisions for the wrong reasons. So I challenge our audience to also ask that why, not just to figure out what your purpose and your reasons are, but also, why are you sad? Why are you upset? Why are you angry? And get down to the real core of it. And then you'll realize that it's really probably not something that deserves that energy. So Yeah. And there's two, there, there's two things that I want to mention. Um, I see a lot of people, especially where, where I, you know, was working is people get so frustrated on the small things. Someone cuts you over, you know, in traffic and they start blowing up and it's their whole day's gone. Their whole day's ruined. And it's, um, you start to look into that. And you realize, well, they don't have big enough problems. And what I mean by that is their goal, their vision is not big enough to where the small things just kind of float off because they're focused on the bigger picture. So it's that. And one thing that I, I dealt with for a long time and, you know, still working on it is, um, and I kind of really went down deep into it this past year is, Well, I was always taught growing up, you have enough money. You don't, you don't need to go after it. You don't need to be like this driven to go make money. And I was like, there's, God wants us to make money. God wants us to be rich. And maybe some people more rich than others, but wealth is created in the world. It's what you do with the wealth. It's, do you do it for his kingdom or do you not? And I was looking at it for a long time. And one of the guys that, that really helped me out during this and learning about it is Myron Golden. I watched so many of his YouTube videos and he does a really good job at explaining business in relation to the kingdom and the gospel. So one of the things that he mentioned was gold is mentioned in the garden. And why would we need gold in the garden if there's no shops, if there's nothing to pay for? That shows that God already planned gold or riches as, it's just abundance. It's already there in his world, the world that he created before sin entered it. Gold and wealth is good. It's why are we doing it in the first place? Are we doing it for him and to spread that even more? Or are we doing it for our selfish reasons and status with other people around us? And it's something that I need to check every single day and I'm continuing to go down the rabbit hole of what was God's original intention for wealth? Uh, because it just helps me even more because I don't want to be that salesperson that's just trying to get money from you or just trying to sell you. And this can go in the same thing with blue collar business owners is you want to provide a service because one, you know that you can help. And two, yeah, you still need to make money if you want your business to grow. It's the ROI. It's got to be positive. You got to be in the green. So making sure that, yes, you don't have to sell somebody to get the highest, you know, the highest profit, but make sure that your numbers are right. So that way you can stay in business and then you can continue to serve and help people Absolutely, because if you can't, I mean, if you're doing a good job and you're doing it for all the right reasons, like a big part of my why is to serve him. And the way I can do that is by helping my clients. And by helping my clients, I charge what I charge so that I can hire more people to continue to help more people. It's a cycle, right? And ultimately, with whatever wealth I'm able to aggregate, I have a higher calling. Child trafficking is at the very top of my list. I feel like there's nothing I can do about it, and I feel so helpless. If I think about it too much, like I get down in the dumps, I tell myself, I'm like, I have to crush it at my job so that I can get to a point where I can have a voice and I can do something about it and have some sort of power behind it. So what, whatever Tim Tebow is doing right now is, is, is an organization that I'd love to, uh, uh, you know, give money to because God bless him. I wouldn't want to actually have to see what he has to see, but I would like to help. And then the other thing is, you know, just rampant corruption, honestly, kind of just sick of living in corruption at a local level, at a national level. I'll probably get assassinated for saying that, but, you know, like I want to be able to have, you know, enough wealth to make a difference, right? And it never ends. I'm making a difference in my home. I'm making a difference in my community. I'm making a difference with my team, with my clients, and I want to continue to help make a positive difference. So always checking in on that why and doing it for a greater purpose always yields a And just like what you were saying is you're trying to focus on what you can do every single day. Pastor Joby Martin, he talks about it all the time of A lot of us said to be men are sitting on our couches watching TV, complaining about that, thinking that's going to change the world when really we need to focus on what we're doing each and every day. Are we taking care of our family? Are we focusing on business owners? Are we focusing on our business and helping out our employees? Are we, are we holding that door open for the lady that's walking into the store? going down to each and every single action? Are we taking them, are we taking those actions and becoming better from them and providing more to the world to where once we show that we can do these small things right, that God will then give us a bigger stage. That way we can, we can then expand the kingdom from there. Or are we just sitting here thinking that we know everything and Yeah. The couch quarterback, right? Yep. Um, I just want to go over, we're at the end. I want to go over some, just some, some closing key takeaways, you know, uh, the importance of moving your business off your phone. I mean, that's, that's rookie level. Like if you're, if you really take your business serious and you really care about helping people, you care about your team and you care about spending more time with family. you gotta grow the business away from the phone. So if that's something that you do now, you gotta move it. Unless you're just really comfortable and you wanna stay there, and that's fair, that's fair. But if you genuinely wanna continue to grow and scale and do more, you gotta get the business off the phone. And also the power of an executive assistant to buy back your time. You may think your next purchase or your next need is a technician, where the executive assistant can not only help you address a lot of the things as far as the infrastructure, but that will free you up to spend more time hiring the right technician. An EA has got to be one of your very first hires, I think. Maybe you need a technician at first, but once you get to a certain point, you really need that executive assistant to buy back that time and you know, reinvest into your business and start running your business and not let the business run you. And then, you know, remember, systems are the foundation of family freedom, right? So, you know, you stack an executive assistant with a good set of systems, you know, now you're buying back, you know, your freedom to spend with family. And at the end of the day, It's undefeated. Time is undefeated. We all have a limited amount of time and anybody that are closing in on the final days just wish they had more time with family and people. And ultimately that's just the most important. Rob, thank you so much for your candor and for being able to bridge the gap between IT logic and blue collar grit. Can we talk a little bit about how our listeners can get in touch with you? And I believe you're working on this, this bottleneck quiz that people can take. Can you tell us a little bit about some of your social handles and this quiz? Yep. So mostly I spend, I spend most of my time on Instagram. So Rob Ladabush, I'm sure that'll be in the description. Cause that's a, that's a tough one to spell, but Rob Ladabush on Instagram. Yeah. Yep. And, um, my website stack systems.com, it just shows you kind of overall what we do and what we focus on. And if you want, you can always DM me on Instagram cause I love having these conversations. I love seeing out, seeing where I can help out. And that quiz where we're just about wrapped up on it. But this quiz is going to show you what do you need to focus on right now? We talked about earlier how you have marketing problems. You're going to have fulfillment problems. You're going to have customer service problems. And it can all kind of get overwhelming, especially in the very beginning, because you don't know what you need to spend time on, because you might not have these systems in place and the data to make these decisions. So this quiz kind of helps you out. figure out what problem do i have and what system do i need to start implementing to solve that problem and then you move on to the next one but where am i at right now in my business and what can i do to move forward and then if you have any questions on it. I answer all my DMs and I just love talking to people, especially business owners about how to grow their business. Yes, with systems, but culture and all the stuff that we talked about today is how can I serve you the best? That's my goal. So just DM me with any questions, but if you do DM me the word Vici, it'll send you the quiz and you can kind of figure out where you guys are. There Keyword, send Rob a DM and Vici, get your free bottleneck quiz and he can see where he can help you free some time up. We will have all of your socials, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and the website in the show notes. Rob, thank you so much for your time, and to our audience, thank you for listening to The Vici Code. Join us next time as we continue to help lead with purpose. 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