Finding Your Niche
Our guest on this episode is a successful serial entrepreneur, known for growing multiple businesses, including those with revenues exceeding $100 million. Welcome to the show, Host of the Profit Tool Belt podcast, Owner of Profit Tool Belt, Dominic Rubino!
Dominic sits down with Wes to explore his process for fast and efficient scaling. Dominic shares how he used strategic business models to his advantage, the importance of maintaining a work-life balance, keeping a strategy simple, and creating engaging content for business growth.
Takeaways:
Creating a business focused on recurring revenues and maintenance medications allowed for sustained growth and customer loyalty. By viewing prescriptions as pre-purchase orders, obtaining refills became additional revenue.
Niching down and specializing in a specific industry can be challenging but effective for business coaches. Even in today's digital age, targeting a local market and building personal connections remains valuable.
Balancing work and family is crucial, as missing out on important moments can have a profound impact on relationships and personal fulfillment. Prioritizing quality time when present and maintaining boundaries with work can lead to a more fulfilling family life.
Buying a business can be challenging, but learning the systems for business reinvention are crucial for sustained success and growth. Understanding how to repair the plane while it's flying can help simplify and optimize processes, leading to improvements.
Simplicity in sales is crucial to effectively communicate with customers. By breaking down complex concepts into relatable terms, you can convey the key value and benefits of your product or service.
Using social media can be a double-edged sword, as it is necessary for content creators to engage with their audience and add value, but it can also lead to unproductive time and distractions.
Different marketing channels, such as podcasts, YouTube, and Twitter, cater to diverse audiences. It's crucial to understand your target customers' preferences and reach them through the appropriate channel for business success.
Quote of the Show:
“The only people that matter in my business are my perfect customers and what matters to them.” - Dominic Rubino
Read the full transcript
Auto-generated from the episode audio and lightly cleaned up. Expect the odd misheard word.
- 0:31 Wes Mathews
Today's guest. I am really excited today. This is a founder whose brain I'm super eager to pick. A talented entrepreneur who has founded and grown multiple businesses. First one's YPO qualified. We got to talk about that. And, uh, that's over a hundred million in revenue and several EO qualified businesses, which are over a million in revenue.
Uh, he's someone who helps business owners do more. TEDx speaker, host of the Profit Toolbelt podcast and owner of the Profit Toolbelt, Dominic Rubino, welcome.
- 1:03 Dominic Rubino
Wes, how are ya?
- 1:04 Wes Mathews
I'm doing great. How are you?
- 1:06 Dominic Rubino
I'm good. I'm glad to be on your show. You were on mine and you tore it up there. You gave, gave a great interview. I hope I can return the favor.
- 1:12 Wes Mathews
Yeah, well, I appreciate it. I appreciate the time. Love your, love your background. Um, but I got to start first with the question I ask everybody, uh, here at Entrepreneur Intel, we're all about sharing knowledge that we picked up along the way. I just gave a nice meaty intro about you. So excited to dive in and.
Tear that apart a little bit, but I'd love to hear how you started the journey, but what's the one thing that made you become an entrepreneur as opposed to like the traditional nine to five?
- 1:38 Dominic Rubino
Yeah. I, I probably like a lot of people. It wasn't one thing. It was a combination of things, but for me, it started way back in high school. And, uh, the first thing I remember is we had to do this fundraiser for school. And I got given, everybody got given a bunch of boxes of all sorts licorice, you know, those like multicolored, multilayered licorice things.
And the teacher's like, go sell these. We've got to raise money for the school. So I'm like, okay. So I just went and knocked on doors and I sold everything. I came back the next day and. or not the next day when we had to tell the teacher and she's like, okay, who sold theirs? I'm like, I did. And everybody else was like, yeah, I didn't want to do it.
Or one kid's mom ate all of his. Um, but I didn't, I didn't know up until then. I like, I don't even care. I'll walk up to a door and knock on it. And just start talking to people. So that's really, that was one of the places that it started for me. I realized, Hey, I can, I can go make things happen on my own.
And I also, at the same time, got really frustrated by hearing people say, Oh, nothing will work. I can't make this work for me. I'm like, I'm going to do it on my own. So I just always had that little switch in my head.
- 2:41 Wes Mathews
So a sales, your thing or operations or combination of all of it or sales.
- 2:45 Dominic Rubino
Yeah, sales, which is scary because when you go, you know, through high school and college saying I'm going to be in sales, other people sort of
- 2:52 Wes Mathews
Yeah, everybody's like, yeah, great.
- 2:54 Dominic Rubino
know everybody's like, Oh, I want to be a pharmacist or an engineer or a nurse.
What do you do in being
- 2:56 Wes Mathews
Get a real job.
- 2:58 Dominic Rubino
Get, yeah, Get a real job.
- 3:01 Wes Mathews
So you push against that though. Like, did you go to school through that? So you went to school.
- 3:05 Dominic Rubino
You ready for a big, you ready? Don't sip your coffee. Okay. You drink your water. I'll, I'll wait till you swallow before I tell you. I did go to college. I'm a forensic anthropologist.
- 3:15 Wes Mathews
What does that mean?
- 3:16 Dominic Rubino
Yeah, right? Nothing. So I, uh, you know, you follow, you, you go where the breadcrumbs take you, right? So I started to get really good marks in archaeology.
And so I kept taking archaeology courses, which is an arts degree. And then eventually, you know, by the time you get to fourth year, I'm a forensic anthropologist. So recently deceased human skeletal remains was my specialty.
- 3:38 Wes Mathews
What led you down that path?
- 3:40 Dominic Rubino
I just kept getting good marks. I really found it interesting. Um, I like archaeology because I love hunting and fishing and so archaeology obviously in large part is a study of ancient civilizations.
You can go any direction you want but um, I really enjoyed that and then it just led off into other stuff.
- 3:58 Wes Mathews
So you go from forensic archaeology to a YPO qualifying business,
- 4:04 Dominic Rubino
Yeah,
- 4:05 Wes Mathews
is unreal. So talk a little bit about that. So YPO is like So from an entrepreneurial perspective, YPO is kind of, from my perspective, one of the larger, one of the largest organizations out there in terms of revenue for entrepreneurs, there's EO, right?
EO qualified to a million dollars, but YPO is huge, right? You
- 4:26 Dominic Rubino
yeah, you got to be doing a hundred, a
- 4:27 Wes Mathews
million dollars. What, what type of business was that?
- 4:30 Dominic Rubino
It was a mail order pharmacy. Mail order pharmacy. And so we sold medica I'm in Canada. We sold mail order medications from Canada to the United States. And really it came about because I had, I'd left the corporate world and went into selling used stuff on eBay. Crazy. Like used calculators and LED games. I ColecoVision head to head football? The LED lights?
All that stuff. So look, they were a big collector item, but you'd buy them at a garage sale or flea market or something for a buck, but I could sell them for 40 bucks US. The conversion rate at the time was kind of as it is today, 1.
So it was big money. But really hard to inventory and store and forecast sales. And so, um, I eventually morphed that business into selling used books, which is a story on its own. And then the books led itself to some food products. The food products led itself to over the counter medications, over the counter led itself to pharmacy.
And that's where it took off. And I built that to 120 million in sales. And then I sold it.
- 5:32 Wes Mathews
year did you start that venture?
- 5:34 Dominic Rubino
Oh, way back. So I started, so this actually all started because of business coaching, which started in 2000. So I probably started this in 2001. The pharmacy probably started in 2004 or five, and then I sold it a couple of four years later.
- 5:49 Wes Mathews
So forensic archeology to.
Online
- 5:54 Dominic Rubino
know when you say it back to me, it doesn't make any sense. You're
- 5:56 Wes Mathews
that's why I keep saying it, um,
- Dominic Rubino
Yeah.
- 5:58 Wes Mathews
to pharmacy in Canada,
- 6:03 Dominic Rubino
I'm not a pharmacist by the way. I'm a businessman.
- 6:05 Wes Mathews
So you're a drug dealer in Canada.
- 6:07 Dominic Rubino
dealer. Yeah.
- 6:08 Wes Mathews
So you've got online sales of pharmaceutical drugs. Like what, what led you down that path? I mean, did you have, is it, was it all kinds of drugs that, you know, people just go to the pharmacy and you fulfill all that, but it's just
- 6:18 Dominic Rubino
No, that's yeah. That's actually, that's actually a brilliant question because most people wouldn't ask that. So what led me to that and what kind of specialty inside pharmaceuticals? So, you know, the easy one is, uh, especially at the time is everybody thought, Oh, you sell Viagra. Now, Viagra was really problematic for us.
So what I wanted to do was create a business that we would have recurring revenues. That was all, that's always been a driver for me is recurring revenues. And so we focused on maintenance medications. So for instance, if you have high cholesterol, you've got high cholesterol. If, just say, somebody's in menopause, they're in menopause.
There are multiple products and services we can provide to somebody who's got a chronic ongoing condition. And the second thing we did is we viewed a prescription as a pre purchase order. We knew that there were three refills, you know, one fill and two refills. So we automatically, as long as we took care of that customer, we'd get those refills as well.
- 7:14 Wes Mathews
So, uh, what year did you sell that? You mentioned you sold that business. What year did you sell that business?
- 7:18 Dominic Rubino
Um, I almost have to go back and look on LinkedIn to see that. It was, it was probably, I'm not kidding, you know, probably somewhere around 2006 and 7.
- 7:26 Wes Mathews
Okay. So you ran it for about seven years,
- 7:28 Dominic Rubino
No, I ran it for Four years. Four years. So 2000, let's say I started, uh, the pharmacy started sometime around 2000, 2001. So 2005 or 6. And then as you know, Wes, selling it and completing the documentation when you sell a company are two completely different things.
Like the day you walk out the door and the day the papers are signed are never the same day.
- 7:49 Wes Mathews
So did you buy this existing business or did you grow this from zero in four years to 120
- 7:54 Dominic Rubino
From Excel spreadsheet to 120 million in four years.
- 7:58 Wes Mathews
That's incredible. Could you do it again right now?
- 8:02 Dominic Rubino
Could I or would I?
- 8:04 Wes Mathews
Could you? Like in the pharmacy world or
- 8:05 Dominic Rubino
No, I, I, no, I think that ship has sailed in that world. I mean, there's some opportunities still in optical. The problem is the supply, because you're not really able to get that level of supply from the main pharmaceutical supply houses to be able to do that kind of volume. Now we were in Canada and we were selling tons of volume, but we were buying it through pharmacies after the pharmacies had already bought it.
We weren't direct buyers of it. Even though we were registered pharmacy, you have a quota for how much. In Canada, everything's on a quota. You can only have so much of something, right?
- 8:36 Wes Mathews
You had no background, like no, you know, you went to school forensic anthropology. You just have an entrepreneurial
- Dominic Rubino
Yeah.
- 8:44 Wes Mathews
and you're like, hey, I'm going into pharmacy. So did you have to hire doctors, physicians, pharmacists?
- 8:49 Dominic Rubino
you have to, yeah, in order to be, uh, in order to sell, in order to have a pharmacy, you have to have a pharmacist on the board. So we brought a pharmacist on the board, but the pharmacist on the board was just a pharmacist on the board. They really didn't have any operational knowledge.
Now the pharmacist thought they were a business person, but they were not a business person at all. The Pharmaceutical Oversight Committee, they were a special breed as well because they'd never seen an animal like us. Like we had a man, we had a facility, think of a warehouse with a big U shaped. Um, conveyor belt and pharmacists were taking the orders and filling the orders.
Pharmacy assistants were helping them and it was just going from one side of the warehouse to the other. So when they walked in, they'd never seen anything like that. The minimum square footage for our pharmacy, I think was 600 or 800 square feet had to have a raised diaz and a sink. And we didn't have any of those.
We had a sink, but it was the bathroom. We didn't have a raised diaz. They were freaking out. So I had to create my own form to walk them through and say, this is a legitimate pharmacy.
- 9:45 Wes Mathews
So I'm no mathematician, but you're, I'm not interviewing you on a beach right now. Which means you have a sick disease, which is called entrepreneur, like pure entrepreneurship.
- 9:56 Dominic Rubino
chronic disease. Yeah.
- 9:57 Wes Mathews
So like you grew a company phenomenal within a very short timeframe. I mean, that is an incredible accomplishment, but now you're hosting, coaching, consulting.
Talk a little bit about the transition from selling. I mean that from, from zero to four years to that exit a company back in 2006, 2007, can you talk a little bit about like, number one, why'd you sell it? Why don't you go to a billion? There's the question always people like, why don't you just go 10 X?
You're wearing a 10 X shirt. Why didn't you just go 10 X from there? Like what led you to actually put it for sales side and do a deal?
- 10:33 Dominic Rubino
some of you got some really good questions here, Wes. So it was a family business. Uh, well, a whole bunch of people are nodding like you just did right there. So, uh, my cousin and I started that business. He's still my cousin, but we're no longer business partners. It's probably the best for my life if we don't talk any more than that. I can tell you this though. Money's a magnifier. If you're a dick with no money, you're a bigger dick without money or with more money, right? So a dick is going to be a dick. You just, when you suddenly have money, you think that you rule the world. And that's not necessarily the case.
- 11:06 Wes Mathews
So do you think that the non, the non entrepreneurial is more of a dick? I feel like entrepreneurs are pretty humble. They're pretty, you know, easy going. If you, to me, if you line up 20 in a room, for the most part. Everybody's pretty humble, pretty, you know, pretty approachable.
- 11:22 Dominic Rubino
Yeah. I mean, I think it varies like a lot of things. It varies, you know, I find that when you deal with people who are really high level martial arts, whatever their martial arts specialty is, they're very chill because they're just like, bring it, what can you do to me? Very chill. Entrepreneurs are all over the map.
Some are high strung, some are more chill, some are mellow, some smoke weed every night and some don't, you know, it's all, they're all over the map. But, um. I think I've come to realize that I know how to start and build businesses. And that, that's a ballsy sentence, but it's just what I know how to do. And I'm, I'm still trying to get better.
I'm not great at it, but I'm pretty good and I'm going to keep working at it.
- 12:00 Wes Mathews
Yeah, four years to grow a company from Excel spreadsheet to 120 million over is
- 12:05 Dominic Rubino
I know it's crazy.
- 12:06 Wes Mathews
pretty decent. Um, so did you take a break? Like you sell the company and like have this aha, like you're going to play golf and surf and do all these things
- 12:15 Dominic Rubino
I thought I was going to, and then I got bored and So I bought another company.
- 12:19 Wes Mathews
How long after?
- 12:21 Dominic Rubino
Well, um, it took a while cause buying a business is hard. There's a lot of junk for sale. And so I ended up buying a company kind of, uh, through somebody I knew. I ended up becoming partners with them. I have to say though, back in 2000, what changed for me is I left corporate and I became, I've actually bought a business coaching franchise.
And so that's where I started to learn the systems for business reinvention. So there's lots of different kinds of business coaches out there. And by the way, when I started business coaching, the two words didn't go together. Like it'd be like looking at something on your desk and calling it an apple wrench.
It's like, what the heck is that? So business coach was not even a word when I started, but I did learn the systems for business reinvention. So my specialty is. Repairing the plane while it's flying. That's the kind of business coaching I do. And so I started, I took that and I applied it to this business that went from Excel spreadsheet to 120.
All I did was the simple stuff. I'm very, like one thing I'm good at is keeping it simple. I don't like complexity at all.
- 13:21 Wes Mathews
What helped you with that? So I think, yeah, so I think as an entrepreneur, like that, that's a great point. Yeah. Keep it simple. Go back to basics. What helped you get there? Right. I mean, coming from your, your college degree to like your entrepreneurial hat. Did you read a lot of books? Did you have any mentors?
Did you have any friends that were entrepreneurs or what made you say, like, let's keep it simple. Like don't overcomplicate things early on.
- 13:44 Dominic Rubino
First, I'm not a very complicated guy. I don't, I don't like people that use big words. You know, I was in, uh, when I was in corporate, which I call, I was selling telecommunications, I was selling telecom for Sprint and man, there's some big words and phrases in there. And I found that I did, did a much better job when I was selling telecom services as if I just translated everything into normal person language. So we'd walk into a co location facility, banks of servers and rows upon rows of servers, and I'd be taking some CEO like yourself through there who needed. That critical infrastructure and we'd have the systems engineer next to me and he would just be going nuts because I would say to this, to the Wes Mathews, you see those green lights, you see those red lights and you'd go, yeah, I go, well, our job is to keep the green lights green.
And that little, little red light just flashes as a test, but it never needs to go on. That's what we're really good at. And the SE next to me is losing his mind. He's like, that's not the explanation. I'm like, Shut up, that's what he needs to hear and that's what we do. He doesn't care about all the other things.
So simplicity in sales to me just comes down to just get to the bare essence of something like, and that's hard. It takes discipline. I find it very hard to do, but I struggle to do it all the time.
- 14:59 Wes Mathews
Yeah. It's interesting. I heard something yesterday. I think it was yesterday. Jeff Bezos talked about why he came up with Amazon. And what I caught was he's like, really, Amazon was kind of easy. And I was listening like, what, how is it easy? Like, but the reality was he's like UPS FedEx and all that infrastructure was created already.
And so was the internet. All I did was create something that utilized those infrastructures. he was talking about how, you know, his footprint to the world is, he wants to do that for the future, but why I thought of that and why that came out of my mouth is he was saying something like, back in 2000, business, coaching, like, did you have to, you had to educate people on, that was even a thing,
- 15:45 Dominic Rubino
Yeah. They, it wasn't even a thing.
- 15:46 Wes Mathews
Which is really hard.
- 15:47 Dominic Rubino
Yeah.
- 15:48 Wes Mathews
So Talk a little bit about that journey. So you're talking 2000. I mean, I had just graduated high school at 99,
- 15:56 Dominic Rubino
Yeah.
- 15:57 Wes Mathews
a long time ago, but things were different, right? Internet was there, but not really a thing. Phones were just coming out. Like I don't think the iPhone came out till 08, 09.
- 16:08 Dominic Rubino
No, it was a while before that
- 16:09 Wes Mathews
you probably had a big ol you know, big ol phone, you know, phone, and a couple thousand a month. Like, how do you go out and start educating people now on this business
- 16:19 Dominic Rubino
well, the value proposition was different. You know, you couldn't necessarily go in and talk about the same thing because people didn't know what a business coach was. So quite often, at least for me, I went out, we talked about increasing marketing or increasing sales, like getting more and better customers.
Still the same outcomes, but they didn't know that it was called a business coach that would deliver that. And at the time I actually specialized a lot in dentists and chiropractors, even though I
- Wes Mathews
you, so you niched? You niched
- 16:41 Dominic Rubino
I did niche, I did, I tried to niche as much as I could. Um, but you know, again, niching was, I found it much more difficult at the time because the distribution of my marketing was, you know, you're, you're just trying to hit a local market.
Now, as you know, one of my, one of my podcasts is called cabinet maker profit system. Like, come on, man, that's pretty, that's pretty niche. I always make the joke, it's not as niche as left handed vegan cabinet maker profit system, but it's pretty niche, right? But at the time I'm working out of a city, you know, and I can only drive so far to meet people face to face cause there was no zoom. What was the other? There was no Skype at the time. And so you've got this natural market that I could serve. Nobody's going to do telephone coaching. That was already hard enough to do it face to face. So really you're talking about a direct mail strategy, something I could do inside a couple of zip codes.
So it's much harder to niche back then.
- 17:36 Wes Mathews
So thinking back, I mean, has that industry completely flipped upside down from what you can remember?
on how you approached it. I
- 17:44 Dominic Rubino
it hasn't, it hasn't. I mean, now the podcast really helped me a ton, you know, uh, but you can still do the same thing. Pick any town and you could niche down and decide to just work with dentists or chiropractors or insurance agents, whatever you want, but I love contracting. It's my, it's my kitchen.
It's the kitchen table I grew up at. It's all my uncles. It's my family. It's I, you know why I like contractors? Cause they'll call me on my BS and I get to call them on theirs. And it doesn't stop the conversation. They're just like, yeah, you're full of it. That's not going to work. Okay. And then two seconds and later, no, that's not going to work.
They're like, okay. And then we just keep going.
- 18:18 Wes Mathews
think what's nice too, I love contractors as well, and I, I don't like to wear a suit. And I feel like if you wear a suit around a contractor, like, that's just not good. So you go from forensic, I can't even think of the second
- Dominic Rubino
Forensic anthropology.
- 18:32 Wes Mathews
forensic anthropology, to pharmaceutical sales, and now you're in the business coaching world, but now you have a flavor towards contractors.
- 18:44 Dominic Rubino
Yeah. So after I sold the pharmacy, I was looking for another business to buy. And then I ended up buying actually the, um, a business coaching franchise. So I had the global rights. To a business coaching concept, uh, in our partner, who is a guy named Brian Tracy, who's a really well known author, especially from the eighties and nineties.
He's written a ton of books. Most of us have
- 19:05 Wes Mathews
Amazing, amazing author.
- 19:06 Dominic Rubino
Yeah. And he's a great man as well. He's the same offstage as he is on stage, but I could tell you offstage. He's spicy. Like you missed a number and we're going to talk about it. Not for an hour for a day. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And I've missed many numbers with Brian and we talked a lot about it.
He'd take a beating, but he's a great guy, you know, very wise, wonderful guy. So he was our brand partner. I had an operating partner. Anyways, I bought that business. It had six locations. And by the time I sold it, we had 237 around the globe, 237 franchise units.
- 19:42 Wes Mathews
And you started that in what year?
- 19:45 Dominic Rubino
I gotta go look at LinkedIn, man. Right sometime around 2006. If I, if I'm lying, if anybody's checking LinkedIn, I'm saying it first. I got to go check my LinkedIn background. I don't pay too much attention. I'm very
- 19:55 Wes Mathews
how many, how many years, how many years of that run?
- 19:57 Dominic Rubino
Oh, I was running it for, I was there for 13. It's still running.
- 20:01 Wes Mathews
So you went from six locations to 230, some locations and
- 20:05 Dominic Rubino
Yeah. 237.
- 20:06 Wes Mathews
And you sold, you sold that business, but it's still running today. Or
- 20:09 Dominic Rubino
Oh yeah. It's still running today. Yeah. A lot of great people there.
- 20:13 Wes Mathews
so I see a trend.
- 20:15 Dominic Rubino
I keep selling my businesses or I keep growing my businesses.
- 20:18 Wes Mathews
just like getting into new things.
- 20:20 Dominic Rubino
I do. Well, yeah,
- 20:21 Wes Mathews
Yeah. Like, so, so that's, I have to ask that question because you get the pharmacy to a point. I mean, that's bucko bucks, right? There's a lot of entrepreneurs that. They just want to qualify for EO, get to a million.
- 20:32 Dominic Rubino
they're scared. I'm going to call it right now. People get to a certain point and they're scared. They don't think they can go do it again. For some reason, I'm there switching my head. I'll just go do it again. It's a lot of work, but I just, I'm, I know that I can go do it again. If the business I'm in right now melts away, I'll just go do it again.
- 20:47 Wes Mathews
So what, so with the franchise for the business coaching, did you just get bored or like, what now prompts you again? Is it just the close of the deal, the sale, the revenue from that? Or is it just that, you know, you're kind of done
- Dominic Rubino
Yeah.
- 21:01 Wes Mathews
and you get out of the way,
- 21:02 Dominic Rubino
Yeah, it got to the point where it was time to, to part ways on that one. It got to that point and we were really more in a maintenance mode than a growth mode. It was getting kind of boring. Uh, we had differences of opinions on the vision
- 21:14 Wes Mathews
got it.
- 21:15 Dominic Rubino
that were significant. And, uh, and you know, I'm sat there and, and I stuck with it for quite a while before I'm like, you know, I got to go on top of that.
I have to say, I was traveling way too much for my family. And it was starting to affect my kids and, uh, I don't need that. That's not why I'm here.
- 21:32 Wes Mathews
How many kids you have?
What are their ages?
- 21:36 Dominic Rubino
Well, right now they're 18 and 15. They're both super jocks. They're very active in sports and there's a lot of travel involved in that, but that's different traveling with your kids for their sports is different than traveling for business where I'm gone Monday to Thursday X weeks a month.
- 21:52 Wes Mathews
And while you're doing all this, they're, they're really young. Right. And I mean, they're young.
- 21:56 Dominic Rubino
Yeah. I missed a whole bunch of events that most people really hold dear and near and dear to their heart. Like first steps for swim lessons. First this, first that wasn't there. Getting home late for birthdays. I didn't, I never wanted to be that dad. And I was that dad and I just didn't like it anymore.
- 22:12 Wes Mathews
So what's the reflection now, like being 18, 15, I'm fascinated. So to me and entrepreneurs, you know, personal family business, they're all tied together. People that say, Oh, how do you have balance? I'm like, they all bleed together to me. I have five kids ranging from 15 to 15 to one. So that's a super important question to me.
Cause I think entrepreneurs, they all have a different. Or I have some entrepreneurial friends that just like grind away badge of honor. I worked 150 hours this week. I have some that are like, I haven't gone to the office and shit. I forget where my office is.
- 22:43 Dominic Rubino
Yeah.
- 22:44 Wes Mathews
So to me, I always love that question or like, how do you, how do you balance that?
And then there's always a good reflection point of, cause I always think you can either, you can always do better or worse with anything.
- 22:54 Dominic Rubino
Yeah.
- 22:55 Wes Mathews
And when you, in reflection, it's like, how do you. you.
know,
- 22:59 Dominic Rubino
I think it's the, I mean, I try to focus on the quality that I have with the kids. So I'm, um, with, when I'm with my kids and my wife, I'm present. I'm not working. When I'm working, I'm working.
- 23:11 Wes Mathews
you're working.
- 23:12 Dominic Rubino
I'm working, but when I'm not working, I'm not working, but when I'm working, I'm working and everybody knows that it's taken a while for us to get that solved.
But if, if, uh, if there's a day where I'm working from home and I'm in the office, nobody bugs me because they just know dad's working. But when I come out, then, you know, it's especially when they're a little, it's jump on daddy time and absolutely bring it jump on daddy time. I love it. I live for that.
Well, it's gone now because 15 year old to kill me.
- 23:36 Wes Mathews
He crush you, kill
- Dominic Rubino
He crushed me.
- 23:39 Wes Mathews
What about like your, do you leave your phone behind? Do you leave your phone in your office?
- 23:44 Dominic Rubino
Uh, no, no, but I, I, I'm like, I don't. If I didn't have to use my cell phone ever again, I'd be fine because I come from an era before it, you know, I find myself using Instagram too much, even at 20 minutes a day, 20, if I use the cell phone for like social media stuff, 20 minutes, three times a day, I've just burned an hour of unproductive time.
I just into the ether, it went nowhere and I, I struggle with that. I got to get better at it?
- 24:09 Wes Mathews
Yeah, for sure. It's, it's crazy. Do you, is, is social media good for your business? Do you use it as a tool for your business at all? Or is it more just like scrolling pictures and stuff?
- 24:18 Dominic Rubino
Dude, great questions. Yeah, no, that is, that is actually a really difficult razor's edge because I need it for my business because I'm a content creator for the construction and contracting space. We have to add lots of value to our, I call them our customers. They're not even our customers at that point.
We're just adding value to our audience. And then when they're ready, they'll ask us questions. And if they like, they can work with us, but I have to create quality content. So yeah, that's the struggle. Sometimes I got to have the phone cause that's, you know, I'll shoot a video on there or do something and I need to do more.
- 24:49 Wes Mathews
So talk about what led you into the podcast. Now, I mean, we're doing a podcast now, I believe in the medium. I think they're great, but you, you, you niche specifically with home, home service contractors, correct me.
- 25:01 Dominic Rubino
Contractors. So there's, yeah, it splits between commercial and residential. And there are some def, there's some differences from a business coach or an operating perspective on commercial versus residential. But if somebody is in a sub trade, so they're, they're not the builder, they're not the general contractor, but they're a sub trade, then I, I work with them.
So they might, um, they renovator on the residential side. They might be a home painter or a roofer or. Do driveway, you know, repairs or installations. On the commercial side, it can be almost all the same things, but just commercial.
- 25:34 Wes Mathews
So, with the podcast, like, why, why go that route? Like, why that megaphone for that type of crowd? At first blush, without thinking any, I would be like, is that? Are they listening? How do they find it? You know, go find them at a bar. Like, I'm just curious what led you to the pod, to the podcast medium.
- 25:55 Dominic Rubino
I'm going to give you a business coach answer. It's it comes down to my values. So let me go back to why I sold the last company. Traveling too much. I'm sitting at the kitchen table one night. I've said to my wife, he's some franchisees offered to buy the business. And we said, no, because we weren't ready to sell, came home that night.
And my wife, you know, we're sitting around the table, having dinner. My wife says, Hey, how was work? I'm like, Oh, pretty good. Somebody offered to buy the business thing. She's like, Oh, no way. You're going to sell. I'm like, I don't think we're ready to sell. My wife is sitting to my right and my son is sitting next to her.
And I just launched into a normal talk. So, Hey, listen, honey, I'm going to be going down to San Diego next week. You know, the bigger, better, better part of a week and a bit. And, uh, but I'm, you know what I'm going to do. I'm going to leave Monday after the kids go to bed and I'll come back Thursday after the kids go to bed.
So I'm here for the weekend. No one will even know I'm gone. And my son just shrunk in his skin. He didn't say anything. He just deflated. And I thought, Rubino, what the fuck are you doing? What the fuck are you actually doing? So I walked in the next day and I said, I'm selling. And so that now you go back to why the podcast, because I'm a great public speaker. As a business coach and as a trainer of business coaches, I've been on stage for a long time all around the world. There's better speakers than me. Don't get me wrong, but I'm pretty good speaking. So I thought, well, how can I?
That's the entrepreneur question that we learned from Michael Gerber. Start your question with how can I, or what if? How can I use my public speaking skills to use a one to many approach to reach the audience I really want to reach, but I don't want to travel. So I'm okay to put as many limiters on the question as I, as I can.
That's fine. That'll cause me to be more creative. And that's where I got the Answer podcast. So I started two
- 27:43 Wes Mathews
So what is the podcast done? So I'm asking this for other entrepreneurs, right? There's so much out. I mean, if you go on the worldwide web, if you will, and as an entrepreneur, you start to think like, how do I attract clients? For the problems I'm trying to solve in the world, right? There's social, I mean, look, I come from digital marketing.
So
- Dominic Rubino
Yeah. I mean, you're
- 28:03 Wes Mathews
me, it's like, my wife's a nurse and like, people would be like, can you look at this rash or they're texting her pictures? I'm like, what the, anyway, so like, I'm in the, I'm a digital marketer. So people are like, Hey, how much should I invest in this? And how much I invest in that?
I'm like, I don't know. Like there's a lot of factors, like it depends and I'm not trying to be vague, but just cause it worked for. You know, John Smith plumbing over there. Doesn't mean it's going to work for you over, over there.
So, you know, how, how are you able to, you know, use your medium? You said, you said something I love the one to many, cause I love that.
Cause I think there's the one to one, right. When you're talking to somebody engaging and solving that one problem, but you're like, no, I'm the one to many I'm using a stage. How do you apply that to the home contractors?
- 28:49 Dominic Rubino
Podcast. But I, but I have to say, I'll go back to one of your questions. Like, how did I choose podcast versus something else? don't matter. And you don't matter. The only people that matter in my business are my perfect customer and what matters to them. And so you, Wes, you could have, uh, an exact same podcast.
No, sorry. You could approach exactly the same market as me in the office next to me and do only YouTube, and you would have a business just as big and growing as mine. And then you might be able to do the same thing on Twitter. I've got a really good friend that does a ton of his stuff on Twitter. And I'm like, how the hell do you do anything on Twitter?
But he's on Twitter and he's got a great business. So all of these different channels, there's different consumers. There's different trades people who only follow Twitter or only follow YouTube. And I've got the guys that listen to podcasts. But that's a very, that's a very narrow funnel mouth.
- 29:42 Wes Mathews
What are they learning? Are you talking like business strategy? Are you
- Dominic Rubino
Hmm.
- 29:47 Wes Mathews
basic fundamentals? Getting them clients? Like what's the,
- 29:51 Dominic Rubino
I brought a different voice to the contracting industry. Cause I'm just about, you know, well, you and I are both EO members.
- 29:57 Wes Mathews
Yep.
- 29:58 Dominic Rubino
Right. So I had an EO qualifying business, but I never joined EO because I didn't like the, the, the chapter just wasn't for me. I like the scrappy entrepreneur startup. So I joined EO and I've been an EO member for years and years.
But in EO, we talk about the business of business and that's what I talk about on the show. It's the business of the contracting business. If you want to stop, if you're happy being a contractor running a few crews, that's fine. But if you want to be a contract, a business person who happens to be a contractor.
I'm your show because it's about the business of the contracting business. Totally different thing.
- 30:32 Wes Mathews
Do you feel most contractors sort of, they go work for a company, they're really good at what they do, they get sick of their boss and they're like, F it, I'm going to start my own company. Is that where a lot of home contractors start or do they start with the business in mind and kind of build that way?
- 30:48 Dominic Rubino
Yeah. There's, there's one exception to that rule, which is the closet industry. A lot of business people get into the closet industry, whereas a lot of cabinet makers don't go into. You know, cabinet makers are cabinet makers, but they don't go into closets. But otherwise, most of them are technicians. They came through the tools.
They were a mason, they're an electrician, they're an HVAC guide. Then they got a truck, then, or a van. They got a couple of vans. Now they run an HVAC company. Um, to a lesser extent, it's a family business, although that's starting to happen more, multi generational businesses. So people come at it from a number of different ways, but usually as a technician who realize, Hey, I'm good on the tools, but this business part, I need, I need.
I don't want to say help because they don't need help. They need guidance. They need somebody beside them going, Oh, no, watch out. That's going to be a bump. Let's go over here. They're strong people, very, um, internally driven. So the trade doesn't matter. People think, Oh, it has to be one specific trade. No, I'm looking for people that are internally driven and just need to have that channeled and focused in one area.
- 31:53 Wes Mathews
So you've got the podcast going with the home contractors. What is the ultimate goal with that, right? You have a lot of listeners, one to many. And then what, what, what happens?
- Dominic Rubino
Uh, well people,
- 32:07 Wes Mathews
that. Yeah. So are you,
- 32:09 Dominic Rubino
what's the business
- 32:10 Wes Mathews
yeah, individuals, they get to a point where they're like, man, I really like what this guy's saying. I'm ready to take that next step. Like, what's that smoking gun on your podcast? Cause that's your marketing that finally gets them over the line. Is it listening to you for so long?
And then they're like, man, this guy really
- 32:25 Dominic Rubino
Yeah, they just get waterboard and they're like, I better just call this guy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so the CTA or the, you know, the point of the podcast is to get clients, but the point of that is to help people. They really were just here to help people. So I'm growing my coaching practice. I've got, um, my, my team is growing.
We've got coaches who help me deliver coaching. We use a system specifically for contractors on how to turn things around, but I have to say it's in, it falls in themes, right? Like there's time and time management, there's people, there's money. And then there's growth strategy and exit strategy. So those are basic themes and inside of those fit sales and marketing.
- 33:04 Wes Mathews
contractors are tough. So are you ever hit with the objection? Like, what if this doesn't work? I'm going to pay you a bunch of money. And like, what's your biggest objections you get from home contractors after you engage with them?
I'm just curious.
- 33:19 Dominic Rubino
You know, the big, so some people will say, what if this doesn't work? But I think the bigger objection is what if I can't make it work? And so it's an internal objection, like, I've seen other people do it, but it's not me. You don't know my town. This part of Cincinnati is so small, it's not going to work, or I'm in the deep south, or I'm in Canada, it doesn't work, you can't get it out of your head.
It, it, you know, that's the, the limiting belief that we have to overcome. This will work if you decide you want it to work. And you know, obviously we've seen it work many times over.
- 33:52 Wes Mathews
So you're a, you're a crazy successful entrepreneur. Like what are some things you do? Again, I like to go back to personal family business. How do you take time for yourself? Like you have a family, you have two young kids. Well, oldish kids.
- 34:06 Dominic Rubino
Yeah, I know.
- 34:07 Wes Mathews
Like what, how do you keep going? How do you recharge your batteries?
You mentioned you're married.
- 34:12 Dominic Rubino
Yeah. Well, I mean, I love fishing and hunting. Love it. Uh, in the, so I, I like, I like to lead a life of discipline as much as I can. So, in the morning, I, I get up, go to the gym. Uh, I, I go to a group class like a CrossFit gym and uh, although as I get older, I scale so much, I modify so much, man. It's It's not funny, but I get a lot of energy there.
I get energy from the chirping in the morning and then the re, but the reason I go, I go to 6 a. m. Classes and if they had a 5 a. m. I'd go to that. But the reason I do that is my family doesn't know I'm gone, right? Because I can't, if I go after work, I'm taking from family. It's the same reason I can't go to like massage therapist because I feel like I'm getting something recreational and taking from my family.
It's just a weird thing. So I go before anybody knows I'm even out of the house and then I try to be home right after work and then I'm daddy time.
- 35:03 Wes Mathews
That's great. I love how you think, cause I think the same way. I mean, you could probably buy a couple of massage parlors and just have them come to your house.
- 35:11 Dominic Rubino
Yeah, that means something different where I live, by the way. Massage clinics, we should probably, yeah, I'm not in that business anymore.
- 35:22 Wes Mathews
uh, what, um, so I read something about TEDx.
- 35:24 Dominic Rubino
Yeah,
- 35:25 Wes Mathews
How did you get on TEDx? I mean, I think that's one of those entrepreneurial things, right? Of like, how do you get on TEDx? What did you talk about?
Was it worth the time, the value? How'd you feel about that?
- 35:36 Dominic Rubino
yeah. Jeez, I don't know where to start. I'll tell you what, it was the hardest work for 15 minutes I've done in my life. I prepped for a year to do a 15 minute speech, and I would have been happier with three talking points and a five minute warning, but they wanted me, I had to be down to the work, to the breath. I had to be down to the breath, like just so focused. So I practiced for a year on that, but that was the transition between, um, selling, uh, and, and starting the other company, starting the business. I needed to do something after I sold the, the, the franchise. And so, um, I thought, well, you know, this will consume some time.
So I went and applied to, to be a Ted, to do a Ted Talk. That's kind of it.
- 36:17 Wes Mathews
I, I skipped around, but I want to go back to your hunting and fishing. Is it, what kind of fishing you do? Like, is it fly fishing, regular fishing?
- 36:24 Dominic Rubino
Well, yeah, I mean, I like to do fly fishing, but I suck at it. Although, you know what? I organize a buddy trip every year. And so there's four of us in each year. We choose a different place to go. Last year we were in Venice, Louisiana, but, um, no, two years ago we were in Venice, Louisiana, but last year we went bone fishing in Molokai.
That was awesome.
That was
- 36:42 Wes Mathews
you go with, you go with other fellow EO people or?
- 36:45 Dominic Rubino
No, these are buddies. They're all, they're all other presidents and CEOs, but they're all, they're just buddies. So I like, I like all kinds of fishing, to be honest. And I like, I say I like all kinds of hunting, but I don't do enough, um, upland game bird or duck hunting. I just don't have, like, I don't have a dog.
So it's kind of limiting, but I do a lot of big game hunting. Western style big game hunting.
- 37:04 Wes Mathews
It's awesome. It sounds awesome. Um, so going forward, you have the podcast and then is it a new style of coaching? Is it a continuation of the business coaching you were doing? Or if a painter engages with you, they listen to your podcast. What happens?
What happens from that point?
- 37:22 Dominic Rubino
You know, I, I, so the coaching model that we use is obviously an evolution over time, right? So the, I, I love using strategic planning systems. When I built the pharmacy, we used Vern Harnish's model, which is, you know, deeply embedded in EO, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits. Yeah. Now called Scaling Up.
Um, so you've got the, that was the evolution. When I did it, it was called Mastering the Rockefeller Habits. Now, then he wrote Scaling Up, but by that point, I'd also switched to starting to learn more about EOS or the traction system. And so I'm not a, uh, You know, I don't follow in lockstep with EOS model, but the EOS model is part of the base of one of the tools we use for the strategic planning.
And then on top of that are a whole bunch of contractor tools for pricing, for, um, uh, profit margins for managing people. There's all other sorts of tools we add in there. And so it's a blend of coaching and a little bit of directed. Consulting, but mostly it's on the coaching side. Cause sometimes you, I'm not going to tell a guy, Hey, if you were to build the perfect form for profit for estimating profitably, how would you build that?
He's going to punch me in the face. What I'd rather do is say, here's a form. It's a, it's a worksheet. Tell me what you'd fix. And a guy can work with that, but I can't do some loosey open ended question and hope he's going to get value.
- 38:38 Wes Mathews
I think it goes back to what you said a little bit earlier. Uh, you know, I, I think for me, a big takeaway from, from your share, it's keeping it simple. I read scaling up and I'm like, this is great, but putting it next to EOS. I'm like, EOS is one plus one is two. Scaling up to me was a little bit more complicated.
Seemed like from an organizational perspective, you would have to have
- 38:59 Dominic Rubino
more
- 39:01 Wes Mathews
little bit more infrastructure, you know, not to down,
- 39:03 Dominic Rubino
it's a bigger company thing. I think I have, I would imagine you get to a point where EOS doesn't work. Like at the, at the upper end of EOS, you need some more detail, but I love EOS for its simplicity. all the same concepts, by the way, neither of those two gentlemen, and I hold them in very high regard, both of those guys.
Um, but they didn't, they haven't reinvented anything. Neither have I. We're just repurposing things we've seen in the past and making them better.
- 39:28 Wes Mathews
R and D. Right.
- 39:30 Dominic Rubino
All right, rip off and redeploy.
- 39:32 Wes Mathews
So with that being said, so you're talking about scaling up traction. What helped you along the way with all this crazy, with this crazy growth? I mean, that's just massive growth. So you're, you're the content King. Now you said
- Dominic Rubino
Well,
- 39:45 Wes Mathews
content.
Like, what are you reading? What do you do? Are you audio books?
Are you reading
- 39:50 Dominic Rubino
yeah, I'm audio books, audio books and podcasts a lot, a lot, you know, I don't, I find it hard to read now because I'm used to audio books. Um, no, not all, all business books. You know, I, I listened to a Freakonomics podcast is one of my favorites.
- 40:04 Wes Mathews
Freakonomics.
- 40:05 Dominic Rubino
there's a guy, Terry O'Reilly, that does, um, uh, a couple of marketing podcasts.
I like strategy. So, you know, there's a book I've probably read more than almost any other book, which is The Art of War by Sun Tzu. There's a, here, you want a crazy surprise? This book, most people would blow past and never pay it any attention. And it is way, it's crazy. It's called The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino.
It's old, man. Yeah, it's written in like 1968. If you buy it at a used bookstore, it'll cost you 25 cents. And you'll think
- 40:35 Wes Mathews
And how much value is in that book?
- 40:37 Dominic Rubino
it's incredible. It is incredible. And you know, uh, I don't know when this is going to go live, but if anybody has a shred of faith, it doesn't matter what faith in your background, in your personal background, read that book and you'll get goosebumps, surprise goosebumps,
- 40:56 Wes Mathews
That's great.
- 40:56 Dominic Rubino
surprise goosebumps.
I will say that's a great mindset book, by the way, totally a hundred percent underrated.
- 41:04 Wes Mathews
So it's not just sales stuff. You know, people
- 41:05 Dominic Rubino
No. And see, that's the problem with the title is somebody looks at it and goes, the greatest salesman in the world. So I'll challenge anybody that wants to read that book, change it and say the greatest business person in the world, change it and say the greatest solar panel distribution company in the world.
Change the word salesman to anything you want, the greatest nursing, private nursing clinic in the world. And you'll get every ounce of value you needed in the world out of that book.
- 41:25 Wes Mathews
well, happy day for me. I just got my audible credit for the month and I now know what I'm.
- 41:30 Dominic Rubino
It's old school, man. It's, it's old. But it's, it doesn't take, just cause something's old doesn't mean the value diminishes. The E myth, revisited, has stood the test of time. Kiyosaki's, um, uh, book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, stands the test of time. You don't need the newest book to get the best ideas.
- 41:48 Wes Mathews
So a question I like to ask, like, what's holding your attention now? Or like, what's the future, right? You got this coaching business, you got the podcast. We could probably go down a massive rabbit hole with AI, but what's, what's sort of next for you. Right. Or like, what's, you know, what's
- Dominic Rubino
gonna
- 42:01 Wes Mathews
your, what's consuming your thoughts and your focus.
- 42:06 Dominic Rubino
You're gonna laugh simplifying my business.
- 42:08 Wes Mathews
Okay.
- 42:09 Dominic Rubino
Yeah, because we're going through a massive growth phase right now. Um, I'm bringing on coaches. I need to bring on more coaches because the podcast is getting much more popular. I also need to be able to scale the quality. So, you know, I'm actively looking for coaches to bring onto the team, but I can't, it's not just everybody.
It's not a cattle call. I have some very specific filters that our coaches have to go through for who they are before they show up, and then the onboarding, and then the training, and then the support, and I did that for years. Uh, the franchise company, right? So I'll be doing that here. So we need to simplify the business and scale it.
- 42:42 Wes Mathews
Who's a great candidate. You know, somebody listening might be like, Oh, I like that. Like what, you know, what, what qualities are, you know, I, a lot of my entrepreneurial friends, they've either sold the company. I think everybody at some point.
- Dominic Rubino
Hmm.
- 42:53 Wes Mathews
to consult, but I think for me as an entrepreneur, you have to have a framework or something behind you to be able to effectively consult.
And from my perspective, a lot of entrepreneurs, their idea, their strategy, but they lack process and systems. Sounds like you have that built out. So like, what's a great candidate for you that could be a good consultant?
- 43:12 Dominic Rubino
Well, a great candidate for me would have some sort of coaching background, which to me, coaching means that even if I know the answer, I've got enough ego to set it aside and ask the question instead. Getting the person on the other side to come to their own realization is real important, really important.
That's coaching. So I'm not here to just tell people or it's not a stage to, you know, put your own ego out there. You got to really want to help people and let them learn, let them go through a bit of pain. On top of that, I'd love to have anybody who's a contractor who sold their contracting business. Or if they.
Did franchise support for a home services business. Yeah. There's like, there's a ton of great people that come out of College Pro Painters or the O2E brands. Um, and then yeah, a coaching background. If they got a coaching background, but aren't really nailing it with the marketing, then, you know, you'd find a good place on my team.
Cause I'm going to hand you clients, but you've, you're going to have to prove it, provide quality.
- 44:07 Wes Mathews
Oh, that's great. I, uh, man, we've already been chatting now for 45 minutes. It seems like we've been talking for only a couple of minutes, but Dominic, how can people contact you or if they're interested in the coaching or just want to connect with you? I mean, you're, you're a wealth of knowledge. I think in my journey, personally, as an entrepreneur, I've been at it for a decade and a half and you know, guys like you don't pop up all the time, right?
I mean, what you've been able to do. Is, is a huge, I mean, as an entrepreneur, I'm, it's, it's really, it's, it's great to know people like you. So people have questions or comments or want to explore actually becoming a, you know, a coach. What's the easiest way for them to connect with you?
- 44:47 Dominic Rubino
Well, first, I mean, thank you, Wes. I appreciate the compliment. I really do. Cause I think I lose sight of, to me, it's just normal. That's just what we're going to do today. Right. But it's, I lose sight of that. Um, you know, I'm easy to find. If you, if you can't find me, you ain't looking is what I like to say.
So find me on LinkedIn, you know, Dominic Rubino spelled just like you think an Italian guy spells his name. Uh, I'm not the college wrestler kid. Definitely not that guy. But, uh, I'm, I'm the other Dominic Rubino, and then I've got the two podcasts, right? One's called Profit Tool Belt, and the other one is Cabinet Maker Profit System.
Uh, I've got articles on Forbes Magazine, like you can find me in a couple of different places. But just LinkedIn's probably a good start.
- 45:26 Wes Mathews
that's great. We'll add all that in the show notes. What's easy? Is it like Apple podcast or YouTube or
- 45:30 Dominic Rubino
Yeah, any, anywhere you get 'em. And on YouTube. Yeah, I need to do a better job on YouTube. We've got, uh, we've got some serious plans for 2024 on YouTube, but, um, yeah, I mean, you can find me on all those platforms.
- 45:42 Wes Mathews
Well, Dominic, thank you so much for coming on. I learned a ton
- 45:47 Dominic Rubino
Yeah.
- 45:47 Wes Mathews
About you and just your successful entrepreneurial journey. So thank you So much for sharing.
- 45:51 Dominic Rubino
Yeah, let me plug you too, because you were on my show. You were on the Profit Toolbelt podcast, and we talked about if there's a market shift with the economy, what do I need to do from a marketing perspective? So if anybody wants to listen to Wes, instead of me, you should hear him there.
- 46:05 Wes Mathews
Not as cool, but you know,
- 46:07 Dominic Rubino
Yeah, cooler.
- 46:08 Wes Mathews
but Hey, well, thank you. So if to the audience, if you learn something today, please tell us something about this podcast. Again, thank you, Dominic. This has been another episode of Entrepreneur Intel. Thanks so much.