In this episode of the AG45 Soul Aligned Strategy Podcast, host Katherine Breuss interviews Tony King, an experienced business owner who shares his journey from corporate life to owning a business. Tony discusses his background, the challenges he faced, and the importance of soul alignment in business. He emphasizes the necessity of resilience, hard work, and betting on oneself. Tony provides practical advice on avoiding pitfalls with marketing firms and highlights the significance of having a strong work ethic. The conversation sheds light on the realities of business ownership, offering invaluable insights for aspiring entrepreneurs and current business owners alike.
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Katherine Breuss: I wanna welcome Tony King to the AG45 Soul Aligned Strategy podcast. Tony, welcome and I'd love for you to introduce to the audience. Who you are as a human. Like tell us about you as a person, but also really wanna hear about your business.
Tony King: Boy, this is kind of the—there's a comedic line here that I'll skip, but yeah, I am father of four grown children, grandfather of three and a fourth on the way. They're all my pride and joy. Been married to the same woman for 40 years. Grew up on a farm so relatively straightforward, you know, kind of how you communicate with others growing up, and you knew everybody and you behaved in such a way that you were probably gonna encounter them some other time in your life. So, yeah, I was the youngest of five on the farm. There wasn't a lot of extra cash around. And then I spent over 20 years in the flexible packaging world. If that means nothing to you, it's food contact packaging, what the world calls plastics. It was a great run and met some wonderful people, but pretty early on in my corporate life, it just felt like a hair shirt. I love the people I worked with, but the things that were done that were so non-value added, and you're making a living and you're raising a family, so you kind of shut up and keep going.
Katherine Breuss: Mm-hmm. And it never quite felt right. I started dabbling after I left the corporate world in my own business. And I will emphasize the word dabbling until I really had skin in the game that it really became a business. I was still in this packaging world running a small, what we call packaging brokerage company, but it was okay, but it needed more tender loving care.
Tony King: Then I was willing or able, so I started looking for a company to buy that was in place, that had an infrastructure. I wanted an e-commerce business. The old, "Hey, you can make money while you're sleeping" kind of thing. And I got into the FedEx industry up in Libertyville, Illinois. And it's been an education that I league can't provide. I didn't go to league to an Ivy League school. But, you know, you think in the corporate world you kind of have a huge staff of people. You fly around the world and you buy this little company and you own it and all of a sudden you're kind of watching the bank account because you got payroll to make. And nobody cares about all that other stuff that was, all the white noise that was going on in your world, it becomes real very quickly. And we've done a lot of things in the last two years. The previous owner, who's a friend of mine, he was an IT guy, never wanted to spend any money on the commercial side in sales or marketing by his own admission. So that's where our focus has been. We're fairly small. We've got three or four different initiatives we're working on right now. So that's kind of it in a nutshell, Katherine. I loved our pre-conversation, and I'll get to that, you know, in a minute, about how corporate, maybe corporate life wasn't necessarily meant for you, but you stayed in it for 25 years.
Katherine Breuss: It was very good to me, well, you know what, and it can be, it absolutely can be, you know, corporate life. But I have a question that leads into the soul alignment piece. And we are, we're all about at AG45, soul Aligned Strategy. And, how, like I explained it and listeners, if they've been listening, will have heard me say it before, is that, you know, it's about really knowing who you are, knowing what you want, and then aligning that to your life. And because we talk about business, it's aligning it to your business. So for you, Tony, what does soul alignment mean and what has been the impact in your life and or business when you have been soul aligned versus when you haven't?
Tony King: You know, everything is so real now. You go and you build a company and you try to build a company with, as you and I talked about, people wanna come through the door in the morning and you can, I'll substitute the word, but you surround yourself with people that get stuff done. Which I was pretty fortunate in the corporate world, but I think what's important is that you have fun doing it. And I don't care, I'll debate this with anybody. Work should be fun. And I went through a long stretch, speaking of alignment, one of my last bosses in the corporate world who remained unnamed. My marching orders from him were, and he was, you know, an ocean away. He said, "I don't care about anything. Just don't ever make me look bad in front of my boss." And I thought, "You have no soul." So I think it's from a kid that grew up in a small town, there's just no clutter. Every single thing you do is built around stuff that drives your top line and doing it in such a way that people wanna stay on board, that people wanna join the company. And it's not a drag to come into work. We can do all that stuff and have fun. And I don't mean silly fun, but just be joyous and get along. And we're a small, small enough company, office politics is just not gonna work. There's, and if somebody is driving that kind of behavior, they're not, I'm not keeping them and, you know, I don't, I don't need, you know, I always get a kick out of, when I first started the business, they were personnel people when they, within a few years, they gave themselves the title of HR and now their talent and people management. But I don't, I don't. I'm sorry and if I'm stepping on toes, but, we know what we want and we do it and everybody's on board with it. And I do think we're so aligned. I think that, I don't, I don't ever drive into the, to the warehouse and go, "Gosh, I wonder if Joe at the office in, you know, Southern California is gonna be cool with what we're trying to do." It's us. It's us. And we look at each other every day. And once it's, once it's no longer us, I sell the company. Once it gets to a point where it's grown to the extent that we need a lot of people and this kind of stuff that you try to get away from, I sell it. That's, that's so aligned for me. 'cause I love the smallness of it. I love the engagement of the people that are there. So, yeah. And I love, you know, you said as well, like, since you've owned the business, you enjoy getting up in the morning and going to work and like how many people? I really can say that and I think unfortunately, there are too many people who don't like going to work, don't enjoy, I was one of them. I was one of. It was just really unhealthy both mentally and physically and yeah, for the first time in my life, it's so, it's at a ripe old age. Here I am, and I will tell you this, that you, you better get it right for me. So I wasn't, you know, we, we put four kids through school, so I wasn't the guy that had seven or eight figures laying around waiting for me to nap every day for, you know, two hours. I went and bought myself a job and, it's paying off, but I'm trying to think who that I'm stealing this from, but, you know, they talk about burning the boats. You get to the island and if I burn the boats, there's no turning back. Well, the boats had been burned, so I was gonna make this work and, yeah, that's, that's fun.
Katherine Breuss: I'm curious because you are, I mean, one of the things is you're absolutely right. It's like burning the boats and there is a big difference between an employee mindset and an owner mindset, and I don't think an employee really gets it until they've actually run or like, and owned a business themselves. It's very different because it's all on you and the team and everyone around, but the responsibility, the buck stops with you. What drove you to buy a business and actually go, "Okay, this better work. This is, I'm throwing everything into it."
Tony King: Well, again, some of it was, I was at an age where, and this is gonna come off kind of victimy and that's not my intent, but I was in an age where, you know, recruiters just aren't that into you anymore and it's fine. I get it. So, I didn't, I couldn't. I was in an age where I couldn't just shut it down, so I figured, you know what? I'm gonna bet on myself. I love it. And, it's there have been plenty of days where I was, you know, I've been like, "What are you doing? What are you thinking?" But, those days are very few and far between now. So I had to, I don't care. Who knows? I didn't. This was, this was never a joy ride for me. It was never, "Hey, I'm just such a smart dude. I have the Midas touch and if I buy it, it's just chump change." Anyway, that wasn't my deal. I had to go buy a job. I went and bought a job and I bet on myself. And, the first year was a little nerve wracking, but as I said, when you burn the boats, you better figure it out. And there was plenty of Thursdays where I'd go in going, "Hmm, it's payroll day, and here's what receivables look like." And never missed a payday, never missed a payroll. But, you know, I'm, so we don't own our building. We rent and, the lease was coming up. You know, when you're in the corporate world, it's just, "Yeah, let's get that taken care of." It's, it's your problem now, and if you can't figure out a solution, I've got x thousand feet of product that I'm gonna have to find a new home for. So, I mean, it's just every day there's something, and I unabashedly will tell you like, tomorrow afternoon is repairing a toilet. Because to get a, you know, the guy wants like a thousand dollars to do toilet repair, which I've done a million times in my life, and it's just you, you know, if you've got a big ego and you just wanna say you own a business, don't do it. No, don't do it. If, if don't bother. If that's why you're doing it, to say, "Hey, I own this business and I'm gonna flip it to the PE guy." Don't, don't do it. You'll lose your money and never get it back. You have to be all in. And if you're not all in.
Katherine Breuss: Oh, you just spoke to my heart right then and there. That word "all in" that is our top A in the thing is like I, first of all, everything you're saying, I'm just like cheering on going, "Yes." Um, yeah, but you're right. All in is so important. And the other thing that you said too, Tony, which I absolutely love, is you bet on yourself and like. I'd like to share, I can you share a bit more? So for somebody who might be out there, they might either be in a business and they're struggling, or they're thinking of buying a business. How did you know to bet on yourself? Like what, what advice can you give to someone around that aspect there?
Tony King: I don't have the magic elixir and there's, you were the big corporate guy, right? All social embarrassment if this doesn't work. I end up, you know, six months on a Lyft truck at Amazon, which by the way, I did that at a very ripe old age because the deal hadn't closed and we didn't have health insurance. So while I'm calling business brokers and trying to get this deal done, get on. Yeah, I'm, I'm doing Amazon stuff. So, I just felt like, I just looked around and I just felt like there's gonna be some hard days. And I, I unabashedly will tell you there's, I, I believe that there's, I don't believe we came from apes. I believe that there's a higher power that will guide you. And, I just felt like deep down, there's gonna be some bad days and there's gonna be some things you fail at. There's gonna be some stuff that, and if you have another two hours, I can tell you all the stuff that we've tried that, but we, you know, it, we're just gonna put one foot in the other again today. And, I just, I felt like this is right. I can do this. I don't know. I trust me, there was a lot of times when I was like, "What are you doing?" But deep down I felt like, really, this is like, I, I managed a revenue line that was 200 times the size of this. I can do it. Now be careful. Because your workload and your anxiety go through the roof compared to what, you know, again, there's not a staff of 10 here covering you. You don't have a bunch of college grads that are trying to impress the world working for you. So, it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy. It was a lot of self-doubt, but I really got to a point where you gotta stop talking and start talking, as we used to say in the pool hall. You just gotta do it. You've gotta do it. And you know what? You might fail, but you're not gonna starve.
Katherine Breuss: And to that, like, obviously, I mean, you said you grew up on a farm, so I am assuming that, you know, hard work just from that. 'cause now I did not grow up on a farm, but I know people who have, and let me tell you, I wouldn't wanna do that is hard work. So I'm assuming you got quite a good work ethic from your upbringing, just from that.
Tony King: Yeah. And the other thing was tough love. You know, my mom, I miss her every day and I miss my dad. But my, I have no recollection of my dad ever missing a day of work, and he farmed and he also supported five of us through a second job. I have no recollection of him going, "Oh, I don't feel good today. I'm just gonna call off sick or I'm mad at my boss, so I'm gonna call off sick." There was, you had a responsibility, you took the job, you said you'd be there, get your rear end in there. So, you know, stuff like that was never acceptable in our house. That was probably more important in the work ethic piece because if you said you were gonna do something, you were expected to do it. And, so yeah. You know, we, I think that there wasn't much that was ever handed to you growing up in a situation like that. So I was a little past the age of being, again, even a late bloomer, but. I don't know.
Katherine Breuss: Well, and, and so in regards to like business ownership and you said that you've tried a lot of things, some things have worked, some things haven't. And it's about really just picking yourself back up. Keep going. Like you said, I think you said put one foot in front of the other and it's that grit. I don't know. I call it like grit or resilience or it's not that, "Oh, this is too hard now I need to quit." I mean, it's gonna be really hard as a business owner. I haven't met one yet that's been like, "Oh no, this is a breeze."
Tony King: Well, and you've got, family, they're younger than you obviously, and they have children, so. You know, it's back to failure is just not an option. You have people counting on you and, that doesn't make, you don't make long-term decisions about staffing and all that other stuff, but to just walk in on a Friday morning and go, "Oh, is it baby this? You can't do it." People are counting on you. And, it is about yourself, but it isn't just about yourself. And if you don't understand that. You need to.
Katherine Breuss: So is there something in your business, was there a time in your business, Tony, that if you are willing to share that you, you did, you, you failed or, and see, I don't think anything's a failure really, if we learn from it. Like if we actually take it, learn from it, and grow. But is, was there a time that you don't mind sharing with us where maybe you made a decision that didn't go the right way or, that you look back now and like, "What was I thinking" that you wouldn't mind sharing with others? Because I think sometimes when we share what we've done wrong, people can either learn from it or they can sit and go like, "How much time do we have?" But, well, if there's one thing that you think that some, that it might also resonate with someone else and they might not feel just alone.
Tony King: Yeah, I mean, like we sell out of three different channels. We have third party eBay, Amazon. We have a fairly significant e-commerce offering, and then we have direct sales. I thought I was gonna get a quick lift by pouring a bunch of advertising and agency fees into the third party. It was a disaster. I hired this outfit out of, well, the southeast, let's say that we hired this outfit out of the southeast that drove our third party business nearly into the ground. Like any agency, they really don't have any skin in the game.
Katherine Breuss: Hmm.
Tony King: And, you know, looking back, I thought they were a little pricey, but I thought, "Hmm, you know, maybe I'm paying for the Mercedes versus, you know, the low end, whatever." And so I rolled with them for four months and it was at a time when revenues were sluggish and, there were, you could literally see our third party sales going in the tank and they're standing there with their handout. I mean, I signed the deal. So, I don't know if that's really specific enough for someone to their arms around, but. I made a decision based on what I thought was gonna be a quick lift for the business, and it, it just, it wasn't, and I would, here's what I would tell a small business owner, there are going to be every day get really good because someone's going to be trying to separate you from your money every day. With, with, I'll still love you in the morning. Just be careful.
Katherine Breuss: Be careful.
Tony King: You know, I always use the example, you're probably not old enough to remember, but there was a game, a sitcom called Green Acres, and the guy, there was a guy in Green Acres named Mr. Haney, and he would always drive up to the farm and he always had a deal for somebody. And so I always found myself in these situations like Mr. Haney, where. "Oh, I don't, this isn't working. This isn't work. The, you know, you didn't tell me I had to redo the images and all this stuff." And Mr. Haney would say, "Well, you didn't tell me you wanted a steering wheel on the truck." So we always had some deal. And you always, you always find yourself in some deal. And then when the deal doesn't, you know, when you're paying for the service, that's awful. They're like, "Well, you didn't. You didn't say you wanted visitors to go up, Katherine, you never mentioned that you wanted more people on the site." And so, you know, so I would, that's been my education.
Katherine Breuss: So what was, if, looking back now on that, and I've actually had so many people say something similar and I've experienced it myself, with marketing firms. Were there any, now looking back in hindsight, going, "Oh, that was a red flag, huh?" Like, anything that maybe you think like, and what would, what were they that could maybe help others?
Tony King: Sure. That in mine, well, it's just a classic stuff, right? There's always these claims that. You know, 95% of the people who use our agency are still there in six months. Well,
Katherine Breuss: Are they in a contract?
Tony King: Exactly. Exactly. There's my, yeah. The red flags are like a lot of claims, like they're gonna grow your business 400%.
Katherine Breuss: Well,
Tony King: If I, if I had 10 visitors that month, they're gonna grow at 400% that it's not that oppressive. So watch for the claims that people make, that they're going to you, you know, there's this breakthrough that they're gonna provide your business. It doesn't work that way. It just doesn't. If you, especially in e-comm, if you wanna grow the business, you have to pay for ads. It's just. It's a bit of extortion and I'm not gonna mention any company's names, but people can figure it out. If you are not placing ads, your company's gonna get suppressed. It's just, it's the way the game gets played. So if somebody's making you a bunch of promises, run, run like the wind. And the other thing that I've learned is more, there's a lot of really good companies out there. Give you really good service processes, outcomes that they're not charging an arm and a leg for. It's again, there's this misnomer that, well, you get what you pay for in some, in some markets that's true. I don't think it's true in the agency world. I really don't. I think that there's small houses with one or two people that work really hard and, so agency work has been my education.
Katherine Breuss: Well, did you, that warned me about it. Did you find, someone or an agency to then help you or did you figure it out yourself?
Tony King: I figured it out myself.
Katherine Breuss: Okay. So I figured out myself, which it's interesting, I was listening to this podcast, and a CEO who's in software development and whatnot, and he paid, like six figures worth of PR and getting the PR to help them and mm-hmm. And he said it was just, it was nothing like, got absolutely nothing. He got some little article in some magazine that nobody even heard him. And in
Tony King: the trade magazine. Yeah. Yeah.
Katherine Breuss: And then he is like, "Well, I ended up figuring it. You know what, I can do this myself." And so, you know, now he's head of. PR and, and I find that interesting. Now, by no means am I saying that that is across the board for everyone. So I don't wanna be pooh-pooing marketing firms because there are some really good ones out there and they, they can really enhance. Um. And to your point, Tony as well, you know, even the little guy or the, like the one or two, the small ones as well. I would say in those though, it's looking for people who are niche expertise because I do find that in the marketing space, when people say, and it's one or two people, like, "we do everything." I find it so complex, like just a marketing person to know Facebook ads and how that's like one expertise in itself. Because my understanding it is the algorithms change so much and whatnot. So I would say if someone's like, "Oh, I'm an expert in Facebook and I'm an expert in email campaigns and I'm an expert in, you know, Instagram, well, I guess that's the same as Facebook, but LinkedIn, like they, all my understanding. Is like all kind of separate expertise that you really need to, to get your head around
Tony King: It is the same way.
Katherine Breuss: Okay. Ooh, say more like in terms of,
Tony King: well, so we have e-commerce, right? So, we have third party and never the twain shall meet. If you have somebody that you're working that's working on your SEO, do not let 'em near your Amazon and vice versa. And then of course there's just the raw it, there's the back of the website.
Katherine Breuss: Mm-hmm.
Tony King: And, and I don't, I don't really care. We've got enough, we've got enough items. I don't, our, we're built on a platform called BigCommerce. And, they're a little pricey, but everybody's like, "You should, should move your stuff over to, I won't mention the name. You've heard of them, and that's not trivial. That's a huge cash outlay to take your ERP system
Katherine Breuss: mm-hmm.
Tony King: That talks to BigCommerce and now switch it all out of there to talk to. It's, it's huge.
Katherine Breuss: Mm-hmm.
Tony King: So, you know, you've got your ERP system. You've got, you've got some sort of platform for your email. You've got an SEO, you've got, again, you need some. Some platform for your eCom business. And so, I, I've lost a lot money on the guy that can handle all of it and he can't.
Katherine Breuss: Mm-hmm. He
Tony King: can't because in the back of the website, you have to have somebody that understands coding and, skillset are very different.
Katherine Breuss: So I'm curious what, what was the draw to e-commerce? Was there, was it just this was an opportunity or was like, what was, what was that?
Tony King: Um, I'm old and I, I think you can scale it much quicker than I looked at a packaging company, which is my background.
Katherine Breuss: Mm-hmm.
Tony King: But you know. If I can use a football analogy, you're, you're grinding it out two or three yards at a time and picking up a customer. That's not the case here. There's, there's places we can go play that. For a company our size, you can grow exponentially very quickly. And, that was probably the appeal was if, and again, he had, he had no direct sales force at all. There was no effort to add additional items to the website. So as you start doing that, you're not talking about growing. Four, five, 6% a year. It's, it's not inconceivable. We're small enough that we really should be for the next four or five years, doubling the size of the business. We're gonna come pretty close this year. You know, at some point you hit this, you hit a bit of a snag and, and things start to slow down. But, we were small enough that I didn't need a ton of capital. I didn't go, need to go buy two presses and a laminator to grow the business. It was all right there.
Katherine Breuss: Nice.
Tony King: And we can go from 30,000 to 60,000 visitors without me putting another dime into this business. So I may have to add some people, but you don't have to, I don't need, again, new presses or laminators or, or slits to, to do that in this business.
Katherine Breuss: Nice. And so is your end game to sell?
Tony King: Yeah, I, you know, I've been blessed with good health. I don't have a lot of hobbies. When the weather's warm, I golf.
Katherine Breuss: Hmm.
Tony King: We've got a fourth grandchild on the way, but I. Our son who's out of the area, he and his wife are moving back to the area. So it's not,
Katherine Breuss: oh, that's, you know, I
Tony King: just don't have, you know, this is kind of, this is kind of both, vocation and advocate for me. So, yeah, I mean, at some point we'll sell it, but I'm not. You're in growth. I didn't buy it to go, "Hey, let's sell it. Next thing you know, Jed's a millionaire." That wasn't the plan. You know,
Katherine Breuss: Jed's a millionaire. Wait, where is that from?
Tony King: Beverly Hillbillies.
Katherine Breuss: That's it. Yes. No, I know that one. I do know that one. Now, now the, the, the tune, the, you know, the opening of the TV show. Yeah. Is going through my head and I'm not gonna sing it because that will make people really go off the, shut down the podcast if I start singing. Well, if there is, okay, so to round this off, Tony, sure. If there was one piece of advice that you would give someone of a business owner, what would it be?
Tony King: Somebody that's a business owner or somebody's thinking about being a business owner.
Katherine Breuss: Well, either actually.
Tony King: Do it. Just, if it's something you've longed to do, just go do it. And if you're waiting for the perfect opportunity, if you're waiting for that perfect person at the dance stop. It just doesn't work that way, you know? I mean, obviously there's some stuff that you're going to do to vet the business, but if, if you're looking for the perfect opportunity, don't waste your time. Don't waste your time.
Katherine Breuss: And I, yeah, and I think if, if someone is a perfectionist, maybe running a business is not the best thing because it is so imperfect.
Tony King: Day is imperfect. And, and if you, if you came up through and in the corporate world and you liked that, I wouldn't recommend it. I really wouldn't.
Katherine Breuss: I
Tony King: really wouldn't. Because you're gonna wake up and that huge staff that you had, and they're not there, they're not around, and you, you gotta figure it out and you've gotta close the books. So, do it and don't look back and have fun and burn the, burn the boats behind you. But I mean, time just flies.
Katherine Breuss: Yeah. And
Tony King: once you buy a business, your life is in monthly increments. Right. And I'm, well, this is a three payroll month, well, boom, boom, boom. So I, I would just, if you're thinking about it, stop thinking about it and go find something that you think you can enjoy. If you have a lot of misgivings, don't this, it's gonna, you're gonna have some really bad days. Don't go ahead.
Katherine Breuss: Do you think that also being an entrepreneur, entrepreneur, a business owner, do you think that was always in your blood, in your bones? Maybe you didn't pursue it, you went down the corporate route, but do you feel like this actually is you?
Tony King: Yeah, I do. And I don't care, I'll just tell you, I always had authority issues. I did. But you know, life happens and there's miles to feed and I loved it. Met some people. I still consider friends for life, but. Yeah, I, I wish, I wish I would've done it sooner, like committed to it a long time ago, but I didn't. And, yeah, I always had a chip on my shoulder about authority and, I always laugh. I don't think I would've lasted in the military very long, and there's some really great people in the military. But, yeah, I think it was always in my blood.
Katherine Breuss: Yeah, I think, I think that's, what separates like an entrepreneurial business owner from just an owner, is that an entrepreneurial owner, they just have it in their blood. It's just kind of part of who they are. It's, and so those people out there who have that definitely I'm like, "Go for it," like the calling, but make sure it's the right thing. Like you said, you know, don't go out and like, think like, "Oh, these fart machines are a great idea that, you know."
Tony King: Right, right. No, it's, it's the most rewarding thing you'll ever do
Katherine Breuss: because
Tony King: you'll figure it out. You will figure it out, not without some bloody noses, but you'll figure it out. And it's, it's just a totally different lack of a better term high that once you make start making decisions and, you know, things start to happen
Katherine Breuss: and,
Tony King: yeah. Good.
Katherine Breuss: I love it. I love it, Tony. Oh my gosh, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having us. Oh my gosh, it's been such a great, I love the conversation. Really appreciate your time and I hope you had fun.
Tony King: I did, I did. It's been a pleasure.
