Ep. 09 - Efficient With Things. Effective With People. w/ David Geiger

Sheri Horvath: I'm thrilled to welcome David Geiger to the podcast today. David and I first connected when he and his lovely wife Carla volunteered for a fundraising event that I was hosting and also joined a nonprofit service-based group that I was leading at the time. From the moment I met David, it was very apparent that he is a man of integrity and genuinely loves being in service of others. So I learned a little bit more about him and explored the work he's doing with. Information technology and cybersecurity, and that makes me even more impressed to welcome him today. Thanks for being on the show, David.
David Geiger: Oh it's my pleasure.
Sheri Horvath: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you are currently building?
David Geiger: Yeah, so we're building a managed service IT business. It's the kind where you're I hate to say the S word, but it's basically a subscription that businesses get paid per user, per computer, per location. The idea is you don't have to worry, right? Like you it's like your car payment and then you stop thinking about it. You know, you know you're paying your Lexus every month. So so you don't think about it. And then when you your team goes to pick up the phone or something bad happens or you get something funky in your mailbox. There's people to answer the phone, local US based people, to help you through that. And and that's what I'm working on. Who I am. I'm I'm a dad, I'm a father of two. My oldest just went off to the Coast Guard, and my wife is amazing. She's my chief operating officer. In fact, I can hear her on the phone right now yelling at somebody. I'm only kidding. She's she's not a yeller like that. She's she's about the most persuasive person I ever met, which is part of why I married her.
Sheri Horvath: I can attest to all of that, absolutely.
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: Thank your family and your son for his service and all that you do for the community. And I'm really excited to dig in a little bit more today on all of the topics you just mentioned. I love how you threw in a little bit of those things like sprinkled the cherry on top, the US-based people, and all of that. So
David Geiger: Yeah, yeah.
Sheri Horvath: I read between your lines, David, and I'm excited
David Geiger: Ha ha ha
Sheri Horvath: to talk about it more today. so you spent more than what a decade in enterprise IT, learned the technical side incredibly well, and then decided to build something of your own. Was there ever a moment that made you realize that being really good at IT and being really good at running an IT company were two completely different skill sets?
David Geiger: it's a I'm slow, so it took me a while to sort of recognize that like building realization that yeah, it it's not the same skill set at all. Clicking, I was telling somebody yesterday, clicking the clicks is not the same thing as as talking to people and making the terms understandable for business people because it's just not their language, right? It's the language that me and my geek friends and coworkers can talk about, but Business people don't speak that language at all. So their primary concern, and as a business person, mine is the same, is what do I need to do? What's it going to cost? And you know, how soon do I need to do it or whatever? So it was it took a while. I was actually on a motorcycle when I discovered this. Not that I was terrible, but that that I wanted to go out on my own.
Sheri Horvath: Yeah, tell us a little bit about that origin story. I happen to know that it involves a motorcycle and a nose piercing, but I'll let you tell it yourself.
David Geiger: Yeah, that's right. so for my fortieth birthday, me and my buddies, we took the Auto Train which is from Amtrak. We it only goes between Sanford, Florida and Lorton, Virginia. So you can put your car or your motorcycle in this case on it. We put our white motorcycles on it and we rode it to Virginia, which is you know, Lorton is just south of DC. And and then we rode down on the Blue Ridge Parkway. So we hit all the great riding roads and While we're in the mountains, I'm thinking, I'm going to quit my job. So I've been doing it for for ten years and I realized that there is a real demand for for service and for the people who can talk to executives and sort of speak their same language. So I figured, man, I got I could do this. I already had some stuff brewing for a few years, you know, some side clients and that kind of thing, but but I'm like, life's too short. We only have today, so let's let's do something here. So I've been yapping about it for a couple of years and I came home and my wife had a nose piercing suddenly and I said I'd quit my job.
Sheri Horvath: We're both making life changes.
David Geiger: Mm. Yeah, hers is cuter though. Like ours was a little uglier, like the business change, but
Sheri Horvath: So yeah, I guess talk me through a little bit about you you mentioned it earlier, kind of not speaking over at anyone's head. You want them to know to know just enough to understand how you can help them. However, there's a fine line between overselling, over convincing, over I guess undersimplifying.
David Geiger: Right. I'm dealing with this exact thing right now. So we're dealing with it's a senior living facility. They've got a bunch of locations across the southeast, and we're hoping to get all their business, but we're just working with the one in New Port Richey and they found me on Chat GPT, by the way. so it's pretty crazy. so I'm dealing with the chief operating officer of this place, and they've got a real big network issue at this New Port Richey location. And we didn't do it, it was it was there before us, but her sentences are a single sentence. And mine have to be bullets or paragraphs. But I also understand that when she sends me a single sentence, all I can do is as I have to write out what I'm going to write out and make the terms understandable for a business person and then shorten it like as much as possible. Because I mean if you send her if I send her this wall of text, very technical, sh her eyes are going to glaze over and it's going to be another nine emails before we get that sorted. So so it's it's super important. to be able to put it in in in you're right, just enough for them to understand what they're getting, what they're paying for, and understand the implications of for instance, in this case not doing it and just sort of struggling along, you know, with with with c they're currently experiencing.
Sheri Horvath: I can imagine there's a lot of business owners out there who also find themselves having to simplify their services, their value for the better understanding of the customer. How are you able to actually communicate the value of something that is more or less invisible work?
David Geiger: That is the hardest part of what we do is because when everything's working, they're like, Why are we even paying you people? And when one thing breaks, they're like, Why are we even paying you people? You know, it's we when we try to be invisible, but I learned from another managed service provider provider locally, he's great guy. he said that even if there's no problems, we go in once a month just to s so everyone sees us to remember that we're doing things and our invoices sort of They communicate you know the the work that's been done and my guys put some impressive language on there so you know they they can be long or whatever, but we also are starting to do this report, it's called a value-delivered report. So when they're on our man of services, they're paying a fixed amount every month, just depending on the number of people they have, basically. And there's generally a savings, right? Because if it's hourly, you're not getting regular care and and the the bills can fluctuate wildly this month it might be. $300 next month might be $3,000. I mean a services just sort of flattens that out. But they need to be reminded that hey, you got, you know, you spent twelve hundred dollars or whatever, but you got three thousand three hundred dollars worth of value this month. And this is not arbitrary. It's like, no, if we had taken and we billed you for those hours, that's what it would have cost, right? So that that's one of the ways that we're communicating that to clients better.
Sheri Horvath: I
David Geiger: way.
Sheri Horvath: imagine there are people in that position who are kind of torn between overcommunicating the value because it doesn't feel good when what you are delivering or even not even when you're scope creeping, maybe doing a little more than you bargained for, but even when you are just doing exactly what your client has asked for and you're doing it in a good way and you're serving them well, it's Really easy for that to feel thankless, for that to feel like it isn't making a difference, especially in your industry. When you were telling your motorcycle story, you said you had some things brewing on the side, and I had a big question for you, like. Was starting Spur IT something you had been logically planning or was there a catalyst point that the pull became stronger than the security of staying employed somewhere else?
David Geiger: That's good question. So I started getting serious about having a managed service provider in 2019. And the business we technically started it in 2012. And then I started with my first client when I did not know a thing in 2009. Right. So I've been in IT technically since 09, so it's getting up there. so The I think the pull was we had just kind of we were on the back end of COVID and incidentally I got COVID three weeks after I quit my job, got rid of my health insurance. And I was in the middle of of a of a do or die project and I couldn't even stand up, but whatever we made it through. we had just made through COVID. I'm on this trip and I'm like, all we have is right now, you know. and I know that that I can do this better. Than a lot of people. I know that my enterprise experience gives me access to information, you know, the tooling, the techniques, the the programs, but something that I can I boil down and simplify for a regular business client, right? And they deserve as much protection as as a big place. So we made something that that is comparable to what you get at a big company and and it's layers upon layers of things that every every tool I've added, every technique we've added is as a result of pain over the last, you know, however many years, right? Like I have stories.
Sheri Horvath: Yeah, every builder has a story. And that's kind of the spirit of that question is what are you building now that you didn't have then? Or there was a h did you discover a gap? And I think you answered that beautifully, so thank you. I have another question on the same thread
David Geiger: Yeah. Okay.
Sheri Horvath: about owning your business. What did you think owning a company was going to look like that turned out to be completely wrong?
David Geiger: well, I thought it was going to be much easier than it is in real life. and looking back, I don't know why I ever thought that, but I I worked by myself for the first couple of years before I had anybody. and then I assumed that when I when I went big really got an office and and got people that would be very impressive. But in reality, we were sitting in my brother in law's conference room table. One of the guys was an intern. The other guy was, you know, just knew some IT stuff, but like totally green. So it did not look like I, you know, had envisioned it. However, it was still one of the best moments of my life. And I took a picture at that moment and I said, you know, this is what I've been dreaming about.
Sheri Horvath: I love that.
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: Walk me through the evolution, maybe even your from the very first thing you started doing in 2009 before you ever even knew what you were doing, to intentionally
David Geiger: Yeah. Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: building something in 2012 to completely revisioning in 2019. what size are you now? What's your team
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: structure look like?
David Geiger: Yeah. So starting backwards from now, so we have We have five people. If you include my my chief marketing officer Declan, he's my thirteen year old, then we'll say six, but he's on payroll. So he comes with me on some jobs. so we've got five people. We're in a historic building in downtown New Port Richey, which is pretty cool. and then going backwards. So in in twenty twenty three, that's when Will and Matt came on. Will is still here. He's my he's one of my key guys now. And Matt was only here for an internship for college and he's gone now. But we've had a few guys in the interim. You know, we have another David here now. And then another David applied to work here, but he too many Davids, right? So and then going everything being from twenty twenty three and backwards was was me. never had an office until twenty twenty three, after we we started with the guys and everything. you would not believe that what a good attitude will do for for a guy like me because my friend gave me a shot and he he was managing IT for this really small company, also downtown New Port Richey was a it was a nonprofit and he said, Hey you want to like do this thing or whatever? I don't want to do this anymore. He said, You're not going to get rich doing this and he was he's still right, but they d I didn't know anything. Now I had done some computers like some home home like computer services or whatever, but it's not the same thing as business, it's not even close. So the computers are just like the the tip of the iceberg with so much more to it than that. But I cannot believe what what people what kind of chances people can get when they don't know anything like myself.
Sheri Horvath: I agree with that. Absolutely.
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: Can you maybe elaborate on some of the services that the majority of entrepreneurs may not understand they actually need that you provide?
David Geiger: Yes. So I see the the one that is in the front of my mind, which is like the the most common one that is exploited by bad guys, is email. So the primary recommendation I have for most entrepreneurs is to use a branded email with either Google Workspace or our preferred tool, Microsoft 365. So the business plan because you can create a custom email address so you could be you know, you could be Sheri @ Horvath.com or whatever versus Sheri at gmail.com, right? So and with those paid professional services, you you can also plug in really essential tools. there's backups, there is anti-phishing protection, and the biggest one is account takeover protection, which happens a lot. So that's the number one thing that I see entrepreneurs, especially small shops, doing with is we've got, you know, Jim's Plumbing One @ gmail.com, Jim's Plumbing Two, Jim's Plumbing Office. And all these things are okay, but you the the one of the downsides is that there is a professionalism downside. I never judge people for their email, but some people do, right? The other side of it is there's a privacy concern. So your your emails in and free accounts are scanned for serving you ads, basically. So they're building a dossier with your free email. So it's not really free. Because they're they're selling that data to advertisers. There's really another another one that's sort of related to what I just said, where because you're on the free ones, they don't allow IT companies to connect these tools. So I have a client who we've had probably three, four years, and he gosh, it's five years now. he has a personal email and his username and password were exposed in some breach. And somebody called him, said they were from Google, which by the way, Google's never going to call you ever, ever. If it's Google or Microsoft, no none of these companies, including the FBI, the IRS, they will send you paper, they will not call you. So if anybody calls and says they're from Google, I can promise you they're not. but he was some guys called and and they had a bunch of key information on him. And they said, Hey, we need to send you a code to restore access to your account, basically, to secure your account. So they said, Hey, we noticed we're login, and And it was them, you know. And they they tricked him into giving up one of those authentication codes and and they got into his account for just a couple minutes. And this is a very, very smart guy, very savvy, but anybody can get tricked. So that's where like security awareness training is is the next biggest thing they need. and when you can plug in these tools, it will really prevent account takeovers from happening in a big way. Cause you know, if they're if they're in India and and they suddenly log in and you were five minutes ago in New York City, then
Sheri Horvath: Yeah, so you talked about bad guys and account takeover, and now you have me wondering how often does
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: account takeover actually happen?
David Geiger: All day long. we have, you know, that fat stack of software I was talking about, our tooling protects from it very well. But most people don't use it. you know, not our clients, of course, our clients get all the they get all the stuff, but it's happening all day long. much of it's automated. Sometimes you can get your account taken over by browsing to a web page accidentally, the wrong one. And they can I don't want to be too technical here, but they can basically steal your token, which is just a little tiny piece of software in your browser. And they can take that token and paste it in their browser. No matter where in the world they are, they're logged in as you. It's a sp and you're especially vulnerable on free platforms because they don't really do much to protect against that. So yeah.
Sheri Horvath: How much of the technical side do you still do? Hands on?
David Geiger: I love the technical part, but I realize that much of it can be done by other people. So it's greatly reduced. I still do I still probably spend two hours a day or more on technical things. if we if we don't count like talking through technical things with the guys, like giving them tips or pointers, whatever. it's a lot. It's it's more than I want to do because I want to you I technically I'm the CEO. And you're supposed to, you know, sell things and and bring strategy and leadership and all these things. And sometimes I still have to click the clicks. I do enjoy it though. It's fun when I do it, but it also in a negative way, it sort of feeds my my hero complex, right? So it's fun to be the hero, to be the one that everyone loves because they you fix the thing. But it's time for my guys to do that. And it's also time for the clients to do that for their clients. Like we want to just be like their guide and we want them to be the hero.
Sheri Horvath: Yeah, let's stay on this subject for a little bit. For anyone
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: who has a team your size or bigger, it is a little difficult to hand that off when you've been operating for so long without a team. And a lot of people make some missteps along the way, or you just have to learn by doing. But you did once tell me that you were actively trying to stop meddling in the technical side.
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: so what does superhero David still really have a hard time letting go of? Is there any one thing?
David Geiger: So there are tech some technical skill sets that we don't have completely in house yet. advanced networking being one of those. So I'm like seventy-five percent there on advanced networking, so I I do a good portion of that. Some of it we hire out because we just those people are expensive. Okay. So I just pull them in for stuff I still work on is primarily very complicated very high end stuff I don't want to high end is maybe the wrong word it's like it's just you know deep or heavy skill set stuff. I'm trying to push as much of that down on my guys as possible but but this is these are things that that I've been doing for years and it's hard to it's hard to just turn those over. That's that's a some of it's growth for me. There are things that I still get involved with that's and I justify it by saying, well This is a this is a senior executive, so I can jump in real quick and take care of this, you know. and I get away with some of it like, I need to talk to them anyway about something and then I can just help them real quick.
Sheri Horvath: there's a a lot of relatability there, I think, in general business, but especially service-based business. And especially a service-based business where you are still out being the CEO, very much being the growth centric person, being the face.
David Geiger: Right.
Sheri Horvath: They like you, they connect with you, they want to give you some business, and then you aren't the one ultimately working with them. That can sometimes be a struggle. So yeah, bringing your team up and some of that more critical high level work is is work that still very much needs the special touch, the white glove service. And so there
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: is that dichotomy for a lot of entrepreneurs
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: in doing that. When you are the most technically capable person in the room or on the team, how do you stop your expertise from becoming the very thing that makes everyone dependent on you?
David Geiger: What do you think? No, I asked my team a lot, like, what do you think? How do you want to solve it? No,
Sheri Horvath: you can throw out a question. Serves me right for asking. I work with a lot of business owners who are currently in this season of growth. They are trying to increase their capacity to do the higher revenue generating activities, but they have been the one doing the task, doing the thing, the technical side for so long it is difficult to let go. And not because, well, maybe sometimes because, but usually not because. they don't feel like the person they're handing it off to can do it as well. It's generally a tug of war. It's a let me help you, let me hand this off to somebody who's capable. And there is a struggle sometimes. And then and then on the other side of that coin, there are times where the output is not maybe what you would have produced. And so now as a leader, that's a learning lesson for you. That's a skill sharpening, tool strengthening system that you have to have in place, but it is difficult.
David Geiger: It is. but I've been reading some stuff and it's like it was Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell and he's like,
Sheri Horvath: Yeah. Great book.
David Geiger: yeah, eighty five percent done is a hundred percent freaking awesome. Those are his words. And I I agree with that. So you know, I do get involved in in things like if there's a security incident and I'm the first one on it, I'm asking someone to look at it or I will, you know, there's nobody like I'm technically I'm the on call guy. Right, because I don't have my guys working on a call. but I am able to in a lot of ways ask them for their opinion. Well, what do you think? And it's also like, you know, give me the you state the problem, and then you give me three ideas that you think are good solutions, and then come back to me and tell me which one is is the best one, and then and then go with that, right? Like, and if they're going to step off a cliff, I always warn them like that's you don't want to do that, right? We also have kind of some rules around well, we're working these rules out, but after thirty minutes on an issue, if you don't if you've exhausted everything that you know, our knowledge base, the internet, like at le you know, th throw up a flag and get somebody else involved rather than just like sitting there flailing on it. One of the key problems that we see is and this is for our hourly clients, the ones that don't have a plan, is is have this tension between I want to we want to solve their problem and do it quickly. However, it's almost like it's in the best interest of my team to be there as long as possible because they're paid hourly and we bill the client hourly. But we have the tension between that and I want to get them back up as quick as possible. And I don't want to as they say, hit them over the head. You know, I I want it to be I want I don't want to overcharge, I don't want to undercharge. We want to charge fairly, but also like if you're on a plan, That's controllable. If you're not on a plan it is what it is. We just you're paying us to figure it out. So get putting those rules around that does help. Like after 30 minutes, you gotta say something. So that and part of it just like me letting go and saying 85% is is is pretty good and I can live with that. What did I do during that time while you're doing that? And and then that 30 minute rule Yeah. Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: Yeah. Yeah, that's a great rule. I once had a mentor ask me when I sh when I stepped into leadership outside of owning my first business, which I did completely in a silo and learned the biggest lesson of my life from that business, when I stepped into building a second business, strategically building a team from day one, one of my mentors said, What was harder for you learning how to delegate the work or accepting that someone else might do it differently than you? And I thought I want someone to do it differently than me. If I have to have a team member right by my side, I want that person to have an opposing viewpoint. Maybe not so opposing that it makes no sense, but s come at things differently, solve problems differently. I think we both learn and grow.
David Geiger: Yeah, I agree with that. I I've come to terms with the fact that, you know, I certainly have my way, but my way isn't the only way. But if we set like some success criteria and say these four things have to be true when we're done here. And if those four things are true, then the route you get there is is not that important. It's we should try to make it repeatable and we should make it optimized. Like we don't want to spend a gazillion hours on something, we want to spend you know, as little as possible, getting a good solid result. So having those success criteria is another way we can help with that.
Sheri Horvath: Do you have standard success criteria? I can imagine it in there are some cases where it's different.
David Geiger: It's different for a lot of things. So Dan Martell, buy back your time, definition of done is really what they call it, right? So so for i if it's an email migration, so my definition of done would be something like all the clients email is on the new system and we're cut over so it's all flowing to the new system and the clients all logged in on their phones and their devices. If all those things are true, and then of course maybe like our tools are connected and plugged in. If all those things are true, then we're done. Right. And if it takes a little longer, a little shorter, whatever. We try to standardize as much as possible in terms of like process and path. but you know, where there are multiple ways to get there, that's great. And when the guys come up with a new way to do something or solve a problem that I have been like flailing on is actually really satisfying. It's like, okay, yeah, I'm cool with them being smarter. on certain things, although that is there's definitely tension there because yeah when you're used to being the the smartest most capable really those are very charitable. when you're
Sheri Horvath: Okay.
David Geiger: used to being the guy with all the answers, it is it's definitely it's not fun. It's not
Sheri Horvath: Yeah, I've
David Geiger: fun.
Sheri Horvath: I I understand. I've been ha I've had it handed to me a couple of times and I've
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: But you walk away and you're like, you know what? Yeah, I can see. I can see that there there are better ways or different ways to do something that maybe save some time, maybe some money along the way, or whatever that looks like. I want to touch on success criteria a little bit more and then I'm going to give your words right back to you. On the
David Geiger: Okay.
Sheri Horvath: success criteria using Dan Martel's done,
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: I challenge that. One step further and have two different versions of success criteria. There's the what done looks like, and then there's the what done very well looks like. And
David Geiger: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sheri Horvath: oftentimes these aren't the same, but if you have the time, the capacity, and it's within the agreed upon scope or contract, do it well. Take it one step further, exceed that expectation. so I challenged myself after reading that book to like what does done very well look like?
David Geiger: Hmm. Can you give me an example? Yeah. Okay.
Sheri Horvath: Yeah, absolutely. So
David Geiger: Your turn.
Sheri Horvath: So if I were if I had a process for, let's just say something that most people do have in a service-based business. Let's say you have a virtual assistant or maybe an in-person assistant, and that assistant has a process for how to onboard a new customer and they're checking all the boxes, right? The your success criteria might be The client completely understands what happens next. They know when you're going to contact them. Maybe there's a consultation or a meeting set up. Maybe there is now some follow-up involved. So you're checking all of those boxes. But then done very well might look like your assistant taking it one step further to say, you know what? I can imagine a time where this client might need to know the purpose behind this follow-up appointment, or they might need to. have a link to prepare better for this follow-up appointment. Let me go ahead and make sure that they have everything they need so they fully understand. So now they leave the interaction with me completely informed about what happens next. So that that makes the follow-up for the next person easy. The downstream impact of my work is less on the next person in line And not everyone has that systems thinking, not everyone thinks that way. And the first way would have been perfectly fine according to an SOP or a checklist. But to take that one step further. It's not something that everyone has, but I have done, done well.
David Geiger: That's good. in our work, it's less I feel like I'm an artist, but it's less artistic. It's more it's pretty linear. So yeah.
Sheri Horvath: I can I can appreciate that too.
David Geiger: Yeah. but I can see the problem is if it's done well, I'm going to make that the minimum next time. So yeah.
Sheri Horvath: Mm. Mm. Yeah, I get that. You're raising your own bar or lowering it depending on the time that
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: it took or the lift for your team.
David Geiger: Yeah, yeah, totally.
Sheri Horvath: Has there ever been something you've handed off that the person ultimately did it better than you?
David Geiger: Plenty of things.
Sheri Horvath: Yeah.
David Geiger: In fact, there are times that I have to just high-five the guy and be like, listen, great job. Like this is better than I did.
Sheri Horvath: So tell me about your assistant. I know you recently hired an assistant.
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: Some things changed that kind of flipped some switches for you. What was happening in the business that finally made you realize I can't keep doing this part myself?
David Geiger: Yeah, probably about a year ago we had Carmen come on board and Carmen's a friend of ours. her daughter was in the same homeschool co-op as ours and and and her and her husband, her husband's in my small group now for our men's group great family. And we were about $13,000 owed by clients and and that's a for us that's a significant amount. so me and Carla had talked. This is before she was, you know, officially acting as as COO and And we're like, we need to get somebody in here. And in in retrospect, my first hire next time would be an admin, right? Because if I hire an admin, I can go hard and and go bill a lot and go go do a lot of technical work and you know just really ring out the clients that when I basically maximize the clients that we currently have and and and whatever and really just bill a lot, probably get a lot of money. Anyway, so so we brought Carmen on about a year ago and she was able to clean up that 13K within about a couple of weeks, couple of months, whatever. And that was great. And being able to to give her items that are important to do, but they don't like move the needle for the business, has been amazing. I can say, Carmen, can you please go handle this? And she doesn't always handle it the way that I would want her to handle it. but it's done. And if I cringe, but it's done, it's still done, right?
Sheri Horvath: Yeah. Yeah.
David Geiger: So we there are things to work on, like you know, you know, we sometimes you know, we talk about communication style and and and things like that. And for instance, when she jumps, she has access to my email. So when she jumps on my email to email a client, I want her to make it clear that it's her and and not me. And they can read anyway and like this is not Dave, you know, because Carmen is very direct, which I can appreciate. Like and and one of my favorite parts about having her is that She doesn't have the emotional baggage on various issues or emails or concerns that I do. So she's just like, whatever, just deal with it. And if I'm crying in the corner, she's still taking care of it. And that's that's great.
Sheri Horvath: So that's really interesting. So the emotional baggage about your email, your business problems, she doesn't have that. How much have you learned about the value of giving a problem like a five-figure inherited outstanding balance sheet to somebody who isn't emotionally attached to it?
David Geiger: at the time I was nervous, but now I'm like, this is great because sometimes I will obsess over invoices and over things. And she and Carla the same way, they're like, just send it. And if they come back, then we'll deal with it, you know what I mean? So and and and the part of that baggage comes from You know, we're shifting out of doing what we call break fix work, which is that hourly billing and trying to be as much managed as possible because it's for me, it's it's the most fair. And we're incentivized if we get things dialed and tight and spend less time on a client's work, that's good for us, right? Because then it's like now we have time freed up to get more clients or do more things for other clients or do value adds like do things that the client isn't requiring, but like it help their business, right? Really. having that efficiency is pretty awesome. And and one thing by the way, we we never want to sacrifice the effectiveness or the the relationship for efficiency. So my mantra around here is always efficient with things, but effective with people.
Sheri Horvath: I love that. Yeah, that's great. What else in your business might be easier if David stopped being the person responsible for it?
David Geiger: The finance, the hiring, pretty much everything that is not technical. It's it was a very hard transition for you know, I assume because I was good and it was very good. And my client, my the people I work with, this is before you know I had a lot clients, they love me, right? And because you when you fix the problems and show up and they just love you afterwards and they pay you money, that's all very easy. the the the doing the business that's the important. but not urgent strategic work of like let's re let's redo our managed services agreement our legal agreement let's redo our plans these are all things i would love to not do and and there are probably people out there and that would do this better and and i'm looking actually to get there like my intent my dream so we traveled on the road for four years with an RV we sold our home back in twenty sixteen and Carla told me up something came up today on our on a 10-year you know Facebook feed or something and said hey it's 10 years ago you started X And I think it might have been we put our house for sale back then and sold it and bought everything. So we spent four years doing that, and I don't want to spend four years again in a row, but we'd like to go maybe spend two months, take the RV, travel out west, and not have to worry about what things are doing back here. Now, obviously, you know, we have to be somewhat involved, but I'd love to not have to get on meetings and just let's go to the national park and run around. And and then my my president or my operations people can call if there's a real problem that I need to deal with. But I'd love to see a business where sellers are selling and service delivery people are delivering and admins are administrating and and they don't really need me. But we're there
Sheri Horvath: Mm-hmm.
David Geiger: just to put the put the finesse on things and to drive strategy and and that kind of thing. So that's that's the dream anyway.
Sheri Horvath: That's the dream for a lot of people. That mid-level manager, that operations manager, it's very important hire. And you touched on something earlier that a lot of my personal clients are navigating right now, and you did opposite. You did exactly at the time what I am advising a lot of them to do now. And case by case, everything's different. a lot of people start with the admin hire. They think naturally that if they had less of the admin work, they wouldn't be so buried. But in reality
David Geiger: Hmm, interesting.
Sheri Horvath: In a in reality, a lot of people that I'm working with, and and for anyone if this is your very first podcast tuning in, I am an operations consultant. A lot of my clients are really busy and have no capacity. They're leaving money on the table. And an admin hire, while they are indirectly making your business money when they're freeing up your capacity, they are generally eating margins right away. They're not making you any money. They're They're lifting off of your plate. But if you're someone who's been operating a long time doing the admin side but not doing it very well because it you have no more time for that and you are just serving the clients, it makes sense a lot of times to hire someone, in your case, a tech, who can also serve clients, take that client capacity, free up some of that from you. Your business is still generating income while you now can go train the admin or train the next hire. So a lot of people do that admin hire first and then they realize, well, that didn't actually free me up because I really wasn't actually doing that work. I just it wasn't getting done at all. So now it's getting done,
David Geiger: Yeah, yeah.
Sheri Horvath: but I'm no freer and I don't have the increased margins to go hire someone who's actually going to do the work that I do. So they find themselves in this trap. But yeah.
David Geiger: I think part of that is probably leads is probably comes from margins, right? So our margins are they're very good. and
Sheri Horvath: Okay.
David Geiger: when we're doing hourly billing, they're extremely good. so hiring an admin was first for me a no-brainer because let's say that, let's say we bill $200 an hour, which is just about right. so if our admin's making 25, 30 bucks an hour, whatever, if I can I can make her per week in in a few hours of billing, right? And then everything on top of that that I can do. Billing wise is gravy ... right?
Sheri Horvath: Mm-hmm.
David Geiger: So, and in their admin, you know, she's not, she's not full-time anyway, right? So it's, it's, it works out really, really nicely. I could probably use somebody, honestly, 40 hours, but but but this arrangement works pretty good. And I see a lot of the guys in my industry talking about, you know, your first hire ought to be an admin, because I hired techs first, and then I was like, I don't like the admin work. I want to do the technical work more than that. So my admin was able to pick up things. Like for instance, I haven't had to think about sales tax in like a couple of years. Really, when I brought her on, I had to show her some things. And we you've you've corrected the course a few times, but other than that, like it just happens every month and I don't worry about it. and it used to be just a time suck I don't want to get on the phone and talk to those people, right? So f at least for my industry, my margins are fine, where bringing an admin was like that made the most the most sense in the world. I I wish I'd done it first, but It feels sexier to bring in techs And if you're great at the admin stuff and you like it, cool. I don't like it. So
Sheri Horvath: Yeah. Yeah, it does matter. Margins definitely matter. And then the another key component there that I I assumed in my scenario was hiring someone that didn't quite have the proven talent. They were maybe on a potential talent or emerging talent level because the pay was not like the margins weren't there, therefore the the high higher dollar per hour is not there. in your case, Carmen sounds like she was skilled, had some skill set right away, hit the ground running, was a true capacity saver for you. I find you to be someone of very high moral integrity, and many business owners listening to this can probably relate, but have you ever experienced a time where your integrity cost you something?
David Geiger: I mean we have we have many opportunities to fudge and many opportunities to pad. and here's a big one. So and this was less it it was about I didn't feel like the job was done to the standard. It was my own job even. Like I was the one doing all the work at this time. So we did it we did a a software deployment from referred client and this was a multi-year thing. And I was just working on the the the tip of the like the leading edge of it basically. And you know, we went through and and and it was sort of like it wasn't well scoped, it was more like Well, we're just going to pay hourly, we'll just figure it out as we go. And we did that. And there was a certain section of it that I really didn't feel great about after I, you know, I'd done the work and I I I did I did what like in according to his ask was effective. However, I didn't feel like the result was was what I liked. It wasn't like you can ask for a thing, and if you're very sure you're asking for a thing, that's fine. But that's actually a lesson in IT is Is because somebody's asking for something, we have to find out what they're really asking about. Cause they might say, I want X product. And that might be the wrong product if you don't ask them like, what is, what's your end goal here? What you trying to accomplish? So I we did the work and in terms of like the letter of agreement, it was all perfectly fine. But I just really felt like I didn't really deliver him what he wanted because he maybe, maybe I didn't clarify enough. So I said, hey, here's 2,500 bucks back, man. I'm really sorry about this. And I agonized over it honestly before I did it. And we're standing in Walmart. Carla's like, just call him. So I called him up, twenty five hundred bucks later, and then now he won't leave me alone. Right. So he's a client we've had for probably five years also, different from the earlier client. So this guy's a he's a seller, he's a man he's a he's a president, he's he's not a technical guy, but that's what we're for.
Sheri Horvath: All right. Well happy ending story there. It did cost you something, but there was a
David Geiger: Yeah. Yeah, I did, yeah.
Sheri Horvath: long-term gain there. yeah, that's great.
David Geiger: Yeah. there we we we tend to err on eating money if there's a if there's a discrepancy or some kind of problem, right? Like we have limits, right? And it's more like I'm not I'm not just giving everything away, but I feel like I I normally give the client the benefit of the doubt and and sometimes we take a hair cut and some stuff.
Sheri Horvath: I mean, I've certainly had these moments, I'm sure a lot of people have, where you know you did your good work, you know you solved the problem, you know you showed up when you were supposed to. Could you have done your best work? Could you have done a little bit better? Or do you feel like, it took me really virtually no time at all where I thought maybe it was going to take me a lot longer? I really feel a moral high ground here to maybe make this right in some way. In my case, I usually give additional time or I'll throw in a couple extra consulting sessions when I feel like we've
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: hit a mark faster than I anticipated we would.
David Geiger: Yeah, that's the that's the other side of hourly, the ugly side of it, right? If you go in and solve the problem really fast and the clients like, well, why I paying all this money? Well, we have minimums and a trip fee and all this stuff and and you gotta pay it. But if it's a if it's a client that's long term, then we normally do we'll try to do something if we can, but it it's sometimes it's just that's the that's the value of having a contract, like an agreement, like a plan, because then it's like you don't ever worry about those. And I want to feel like I'm not selling that. I'm just trying to explain like I w I really want people to understand why a plan is better than just hourly. It's great for me, it's not as good for you.
Sheri Horvath: Yeah, the plan's important. I can imagine I I certainly do and I can think of a thousand ways this might show up for you too, where you have a plan and you get in there and you start uncovering things and then there is this necessary pivot because you've got a more complex issue than you anticipated and now you've got to take ten steps back or maybe even two steps back, install something you didn't anticipate. And it's not only going to cost more, but it might take you longer. How do you navigate that with clients?
David Geiger: We have to be really good at discovery. And in in that department when people are on our plans we actually we try to give away we give them a lot. So for instance, one of the ways we do that is we charge our clients under retail on hardware. So when they buy hardware, if it's a two thousand dollar laptop, but we're you know, we're going to we're going to maybe make ten percent margin on it instead of thirty, which is the standard for the industry. So we have some wiggle room on some things like that. but but really understanding like doing really good discovery and and putting a nice tight scope on things really does help. But yeah, there's times like you know, I've given away free networks before just because the client really needs it and we're going to make great margin on the rest of their deals. So we'll just make it happen.
Sheri Horvath: Yeah, it's the beauty of owning your own business and building something that
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: genuinely helps people.
David Geiger: Yeah. And don't tell Carla, thanks. Okay.
Sheri Horvath: Won't, yeah. Your secret's safe with you and me and our listeners.
David Geiger: All the listeners... Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: so we talked about your leadership style, we talked about your team, we talked about the technical side of what you do and serving your
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: clients. What part is there a part of your work that brings you the most satisfaction?
David Geiger: Fixing the problem is always extremely satisfying. That goes back to being the hero, which is what I'm not trying to be. But it when you when everything sort of locks into place and the thing works again. And the c when I see the relief on the client's face that yeah, we recovered the files or we brought the network back, we got the person up and working again, or we defeated the threat, you know, those it feels really good. Like the relief feels really good. second to that would be when my guys pull off something big and really surprise me.
Sheri Horvath: You truly use superhero language. You're painting a picture of you in a cape, when you say protected the threat or the
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: bad guys, it's it really truly is like the unsung hero of cybersecurity. Have there been moments
David Geiger: Yeah. Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: in your business where growing has tempted you to compromise something that may have mattered to you when you didn't have a team?
David Geiger: I make less than I made when I started. but it's but I got my eye on the long game. I realized that we build good recurring revenue. We build, you know, nice good processes. I mean, my ultimate goal is to be able to take a person off the street, give them some training and set them in front and they have everything they need to start clicking, right? 'Cause we actually like to raise I like to raise guys, from scratch because you know guys with lots and lots of experience can end up with some bad habits and they're very expensive but I'm not sure if I answered question on that. Okay.
Sheri Horvath: You did. It it shows up in a lot of businesses with the the bad habits or the old habits or the
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: this is the way we've always done it or we did it here in
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: my last twenty year career. So I don't disagree with you there at all. I think there are certain things that as business owners we are not willing to trade in for a bigger company. We're not willing to trade about what made us who we are today, just to grow and scale. So More curious
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: about what you as David Geiger are not willing to trade for a bigger company.
David Geiger: So we could outsource our support to overseas. We could also do near shore, which isn't as bad. Near shore is like the same time zone, similar time zones. So think like Colombia, Brazil, that kind of stuff. Like it would be literally Eastern time, right? But for me, having the client really, really understand what the technician is saying. And had the c technician really truly understand like social norms and and cues and all these things is super important to me. I it's just so frustrating. When I I'm a consumer too, right? So when I call a place and and I'm speaking to someplace overseas and and all love to those people, obviously, right? They're made in the image of God, they deserve love. and and they deserve to be able to make it. none of that helps us when their stuff is down and the person is is very pleasant and very nice. But it is it's hard to understand, right? Or not competent. So I'm not willing to send our stack or send our service overseas to make more money. Cause I could get for the the two and a half tech I have, may be half, I could get five or eight people for the same money. And I just I really, really want my clients to know that hey, it's here. You can understand the person, they're local to you probably. And you know, I I have no issue with a person from another country who lives here working with us. No issues there at all. Like if it seems like they're from India, they're from just some some place. And as long as they're they we can they can be understood and and my clients can understand them very well, they understand the social cues and norms are really important. then fine, right? But but I want them to know that they're not just they're not just going to the lowest bidder overseas, basically.
Sheri Horvath: Yeah, what you're building is something that I admire. The boots on the ground approach is very important in the work you do. I know a lot of people are outsourcing and hiring offshore and maybe even hiring AI for some of that support assistance. Whereas I think you are keeping that, although you have a very vast service area, you are keeping that hyperlocal attention, morally sound business. But growing people who are similar and then sh leading that leading the way, showing them the way. And I love your take on wanting to pluck someone off the street, put them in a chair, give them the resources and tools to learn an actual skill because it's something operationally, you've built that infrastructure, you're speaking my language. I wish every
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: I wish every CEO gave that the gravity and the weight that that deserves.
David Geiger: Yeah, it's it's always a struggle between me and my COO, who's my wife also, because raising people is is kind of expensive. and so there's also tension between you want somebody who is mature and responsible enough to do the work, but doesn't need too much money, you know what I mean? Because at that level it's it's really hard because it takes longer for them to do stuff. but our primary higher c hiring criteria if we build that model correctly is are you a fun person to be around? can people talk to you easy? Are you going to get along with the team? these are far more important than well, what do you know about you know Fortinet networking, right? Those are important things, but like I can teach you where to click. And and 80% of what we do is is highly repeatable, with the other 20% being what the heck's going on? and your troubleshooting ability and your your your smart sort of go figuring out ability goes into that. But yeah, yeah,
Sheri Horvath: Critical thinker. Yeah. The critical thinking.
David Geiger: can you like dissect it? And there's a true troubleshooting methodology that that's used. And if you use that methodology, it works every time, but not everyone wants to do that. But if you're if you're the
Sheri Horvath: You don't have to tell us what it is. I don't want to put you out of business.
David Geiger: No, that's fine. It doesn't work anyway. Like, I mean it works, but you it's it's very hard to do it in a disciplined way. but if if you're a person that we that we like, like the team likes, the clients like the the I like, then you know, that goes so far. Now obviously you have to be minimally competent, right? But if you you know the if you the right f the really the fit more than the skill is is what we're after because I can train you on just about everything. Just about everything is is at your fingertips. in Claude and Chat GPT and Google and all things just about not everything so we you know we'll send people for certifications or whatever but it's kind of showing up and having those basic like people skills is is far more important if you're fun i mean you're in you know what i mean because we we try to have a good time while we're doing it the clients we want them to have a good time when things are hard we have to be able to deal with it but if you if you meet those Likability ... criteria is not really good, but like, you know, if you like those those basic fit things, a lot of the other stuff we can figure out.
Sheri Horvath: Yeah. I I couldn't agree more. The people piece is something that I could nerd out on all day. So you can teach skills minus soft skills.
David Geiger: Yeah. Right. I can't teach you soft skills. Like I there are there's training on it, but I've worked in call centers and things and it's like you either have it or you don't. And you can put nuance on it, but if you're not a nice person, no amount of training will fix that. Like if you've got life problems happening that are taking you away from your work, like I can't I can't fix that. That's not going to work. so soft skills being being part of those those likability criteria, right? Those those all lead into that. So if you can talk to people, that's you know that that's the biggest thing. If if you can, if you're confident enough to talk to the owner, the CEO of another company, all the way down to the janitor and treat them all with respect and and and take care of them and and you know see how try to see how they see things and try to fix their problem fast so they can get back to their core competency, man. That's everything.
Sheri Horvath: It certainly is. I actually once worked in a consulting agency where it was a fifth core value, an invisible core value of the business. It was fun and sometimes funny. So it it was never something they hired by. The they hired according to their core values. But that fifth component was always something we were looking for when we were growing the team. It's like, are they funny? Could we laugh with them? Could we be stuck in a high pressure situation with this person and laugh? And if they didn't have it, it just wasn't going to fit. You can't force the fit there. So yeah.
David Geiger: Yeah, that's something I'm not willing to compromise on either, right? If somebody's not a good people fit, I you know, there's there's other places for them, but but not here. because exactly that. We get these high stress situations too, and and we'll often see we have to laugh. And we don't laugh at clients in terms of we don't like make fun of clients. but we laugh at ourselves a lot. And
Sheri Horvath: Yeah.
David Geiger: if we if we mildly rib a client, we'll never tell them.
Sheri Horvath: No it it's again another secret that's safe on this podcast. you talked
David Geiger: Yeah. Yeah, no one will know.
Sheri Horvath: about your COO, your wife Carla. She definitely deserves some airtime. I know I happen to
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: know she's the person who believed in you before you did and is apparently the person most willing to tell you when you're wrong. what has having her by your side changed the way you're building the business?
David Geiger: So where I am a technician and a little bit of an artist, she is much more process driven and and structure oriented. Now we'll tell you, and she's not afraid to tell me when I'm wrong, which is regularly. but the but she has a an amazing side to her that people literally just want to tell her their life story. Like there's a time that she was in Walmart. This was years ago when our son was maybe two, three years old, Brent, the the older one. And she's standing at Walmart at the deli counter and some lady just walks up to her and who's waiting for and they start a conversation and and they're friends, they become friends suddenly and then and the lady invites her up to a play date and then she's like, Carla's telling me all right, I'm going to this play date. Here's the address if something happens. You know what I mean? But they ended up being good being great friends and she still talks to her today and this is you know eighteen years ago. but she's got that quality where people something about her disarms most everyone. And she's very good at she's very good at reading people and figuring people out. We've we've had some recent you know candidates come through and and and she has a way to sort of sniff them out better than
Sheri Horvath: Hmm.
David Geiger: me, because I'm thinking, yeah, this is great. And then she can look at this person, talk to this person for a few minutes and say, No, this is going to be a no. And he and here's why, you know, obviously privately, but but she is so she's very organized. And she she helps pick up some of those blind spots for me in terms of of peopling.
Sheri Horvath: I am very blessed to have spent some dedicated time with Carla in the past. And I can attest her God given gifts are definitely discernment. She's got a high level of discernment, and
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: I am someone who values that. I see that in people. And she also does have one of those faces that makes you just want to tell her everything about you. which is is, you know, both a blessing and a curse.
David Geiger: Yeah. It is the curse when we're trying to leave someplace. But other than that
Sheri Horvath: Yeah. True. Yeah, if you've got a time limit on something, forget about it. so the two
David Geiger: Yeah, yeah.
Sheri Horvath: of you are very well connected in this community through community service organizations, volunteerism, community activism. What changed when you stopped treating relationships and community like something that was adjacent to the business maybe instead of part of building a business?
David Geiger: we realized much later than I expected that we had to network, we had to tell people what we were doing, we had to show up places in order to continue to like operate, right? and we have always l had a service lifestyle. so we met at youth group at church and we've done a million projects together. so it wasn't a huge change recently. But the really getting out and networking, honestly, has been has been the biggest thing that that we've done together that's made a huge impact. And she actually she loves that part of it. when we decided that we're going to we're going to be in the community and we're going to serve regardless of the results, the results have actually been really awesome. I don't know if I told you this previously, but so when I first started at Rotary. of the one of the three types of networking that's the service organizations. I was there like, yeah, I want to make some money because my friend invited me and like, you know, come on and start networking, whatever. And I realized when I got there, after a few after a few weeks, a few months, whatever I'm like, this is this is not about me actually. So so
Sheri Horvath: Mm-hmm.
David Geiger: when I said, okay, so I'm just going to do the service thing and we'll see what happens, you know. with with business. Business actually has come from rotary quite a bit. rotary takes a lot of time and and sometimes I don't want to do it, but but committing to service has really made a huge difference. it's really raised our profile in the community and being seen when you're in business, especially B2B is really, really important. So when when we decided to make that part of it, not about ourselves, it really it really pays off. You know, a givers game. when you sow, you reap.
Sheri Horvath: Yeah, it is. It's one of those things where if you, give without expectation, it will return to you. You just have to have that genuine heart for that. You have to walk into a room and say, What is needed here? How can I help? instead of, What am I going to get out of this interaction today? And very much is that is something that you and Carla absolutely do. I've watched it happen time and again.
David Geiger: She's a she's a great coach about that. I'm not as good as as as her as when it comes to just freely giving and and just throwing your hand at it immediately. But Carla's she's built for that. So I've just kind of taken some lessons from her for the most part.
Sheri Horvath: Yeah, and you know, we don't some of us have more time than money, some of us more money than time. And those are
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: both very, very important commodities, but I'm I'm more mean the time piece, less about the the charity aspect of like giving too much of yourself or of your time, but more about when you are intentional about the way you show up in the world, you are, you receive that tenfold.
David Geiger: Yeah, absolutely.
Sheri Horvath: So being a tech professional, building a business in a moment where technology is changing incredibly fast, how do you distinguish between something that is genuinely going to make your business better or is just like that shiny new object that everyone's just talking about?
David Geiger: how do I do that? I read I read a lot. I read a lot. it's it's very easy in in tech especially. There's a shiny new object every week, you know what I mean? And and everything's either this is the best thing ever or everything's going to be destroyed and this is doom and gloom. And I realize that it's it's really neither of those. I actually wish I would take a a little a few more risks. I don't mean like security risks, but I mean risks on some newer technology. but the way to really have a handle on that is definitely read and talk about it a lot, talk to people and be okay with your perspective being wrong. Because sometimes, you know, I'll say a thing and then I hear from somebody who's maybe more versed in that thing and they can tell me I'm wrong and and and kind of be okay with that and be willing to like learn and say, Well, I guess you're right. Tell me all about that.
Sheri Horvath: Yeah. Yeah. Take that one step further. I I want to
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: learn more, help me understand.
David Geiger: Yeah, yeah. You you can't think y you know everything, 'cause you don't. I don't. Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: Would you want to?
David Geiger: No. I already don't want to know I don't want to know what I already know.
Sheri Horvath: I'm a lifelong learner by by nature, so for me I feel like the researching and learning is part of the experience for me.
David Geiger: Yeah. you mean that kind of yeah. Good good things, additional knowledge. Yeah, okay. There are things I don't want to know.
Sheri Horvath: That kind of learning, David.
David Geiger: but yeah, but no, I yeah, I love that too in the same way. lots of audiobooks and we have about a 40 minute community each way.
Sheri Horvath: So on that forty minute commute you listen to this podcast obviously and then some audio books.
David Geiger: Yeah. Obviously. Yeah, lots of audiobooks. my son and I we don't get to ride to I mean, we do ride together, but like he's with mom a lot 'cause she's running him to to and from co-op and things like that. But we do like to listen to a cybersecurity podcast together. It's called Darknet Diaries and it's really interesting. It's not like nuts and bolts cyber, it's more like Here's a crazy story about a guy who was a hacker starting in the eighties and he did all this crazy stuff. So yeah, we we listened to some of that stuff. lots of audiobooks. I listened to the Bible on the way into the work into work, you know. I love this app. It's called Through the Word, and they give you a commentary, a good, funny commentary before, and then you have the actual verses after, and it it's pretty good.
Sheri Horvath: Sounds awesome. I've not checked it out and I will on your recommendation.
David Geiger: Yeah. Yeah, through the word.
Sheri Horvath: Awesome. You mentioned something earlier that I did want to give an appropriate amount of time if you're willing to share a little bit about that that part of your life. something most people don't know about you, or at least many people don't know about you, is that you did take an intentional kind of call it a sabbatical if you will, where you hit the road in an R V and explored very cool places. What was that time of your life like for you?
David Geiger: I had never spent so much money to live like a homeless person. It was it was amazing. we went to the homeschool convention in Orlando in this would be 2016 in May, to every year in May, right before Memorial Day or whatever. And we went to the convention and we heard about this guy. I can see his face, I can't remember his name. I think his name is Tom. But he lived in an RV with his family for like eight weeks. And we just drove all over the country, had like eight kids, a bunch of adopted kids, you wonderful. And I'm like, babe, we should do that. And I went home. We went home from the convention. I said, babe, we should sell everything and buy an RV and travel the country. And she said, You're nuts. Right? So whatever. I'm like, all right, cool. Out of my mind. We're keeping going. And then in August, she's like, let's do it. So We capitalized on that immediately. So we put the house up for sale. Our realtor came in and said, All right, you need to paint, you need to do this and that, whatever. And and I wish we had done those projects early on. They really improved the quality of life of the house. I think that's everyone's story, but all right, so so we bought we sold the house for the proceeds. We bought an R V like a fifth wheel kit trailer and and F 250 - diesel, which was the loudest truck I've ever owned,
Sheri Horvath: Mm-hmm.
David Geiger: because it's you know, just Sounded amazing. it was a cowboy Cadillac. But anyway, we we struck out and one of the early lessons was when you start doing something like that, don't don't try to make your family members or your friends happy. just go where you want to go. Because they you know, they had us bouncing all over the place. One day we drove for like 18 hours, which over six hours driving an RV is like heinous. So we drove this triangle between Philadelphia and New Jersey and New York in one day and it was just a nightmare. so yeah, don't don't go too hard. really we would spend probably two weeks in a spot and then my rule was once we know the way to the grocery store without the GPS, then it's time for us to move on. You know what
Sheri Horvath: Mm.
David Geiger: I mean? I call it I was going to open a blog, I never did this one, but I was going to call it 30 minutes to Walmart. Because that's basically, you know, where
Sheri Horvath: Mm-hmm.
David Geiger: you're always about 30 minutes from Walmart. yeah, so but it was amazing. Like when you're in an RV, people assume you're on vacation and we were very much not on vacation. I was working full time for my company. but it it is an incredibly affordable way to see the whole country and and we did it for four years and we only saw 38 states. Like it's there is so much out there. I know we saw parts of Mexico and Canada too, but small parts of Mat we only saw parts of Baja California and only small parts of of Ontario. Like we went to Toronto, we went to Mattawa, which is way north, almost to Quebec, and then and then came out in Michigan and like we don't need to travel the world, because there's so much here, like you couldn't even pot possibly touch it all. So It's funny too because the kids now that you know in hindsight ... were like, we hated it, it was miserable, but we were doing it. We were having a ball. And it wasn't all
Sheri Horvath: sure.
David Geiger: it wasn't all fun. There were times that we wanted to kill because they were just acting extremely ungrateful.
Sheri Horvath: Yeah, there's a there's an element there too, but when they look back someday and thought, you know, we got our history lessons and in the standing in the places where this history happened versus looking at photos in a textbook. Like there's it's invaluable.
David Geiger: So and that and the age that we did it for the boys almost makes it like I mean he's got he's got one of his best friends, Brent, from from from the from traveling. We met his friend who's now his best friend, we met him in Bend, Oregon, and they're from Vancouver, Washington, and they actually all relocated to Orlando, which is amazing. And that friend is getting married. but that was from the road, right? And now Declan was a lot younger. Declan's seven years younger than Brent. So He doesn't remember a lot of it because he started we started when he was three. So that almost drives a little bit of the urge for me to say, let's let's do it again, but just on a more controlled scale. Like we need to keep our house. Last time we sold our house, it was we shouldn't have sold it. In 2016, it was just on the rise. But it was the most cost effective way to see the country. you know, I don't think people have to be super self-reliant. We don't need to be lumberjacks or whatever, but But we we learned a great many things that we could do ourselves in in in the tight quarters, we actually had to face a lot of our own shortcomings and problems and work through those. so personally me and Carla grew quite a lot during that time. So it was always a fun and unique challenge and I love waking up different places.
Sheri Horvath: It sounds mostly fun and I know that someday you will hire that mid level manager and you will be on the road again. Shorter spurts this time. So David,
David Geiger: Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: no guest of this podcast is exempt from this question, so I'm going to ask you, what does
David Geiger: Okay.
Sheri Horvath: it mean to you when say work hard, be nice?
David Geiger: It means go hard for your team, go hard for your clients, go hard for the Lord, and treat everyone with the golden rule, like the way you want to be treated.
Sheri Horvath: Love that take on it. Yeah. Not
David Geiger: That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: always easy to execute, easy to say. Yeah.
David Geiger: No, not even close. Very easy to say. When the rubber hits the road, it's very it's, you know. I'm glad I have a good wife that will remind me Yeah. Yeah.
Sheri Horvath: Thanks so much for sharing your story today. I've enjoyed having you on, and I hope that listeners can resonate with part of your story and have learned something from the rest.
David Geiger: Awesome. It's been a great a great pleasure to be on here.