https://youtu.be/xxcgOeSw3y4
Charles Read is a serial payroll entrepreneur and the CEO of GetPayroll. He is also the founder of Custom Payroll Associates and Payroll On A Budget and has over 40 years of experience in the industry. Charles is a US Tax Court Practitioner and a United States Marine Corps veteran.
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Fascinated by Payroll with Charles Read
Our guest is Charles Read, who is a serial payroll entrepreneur. He's the president of GetPayroll, a payroll and HR advisor firm serving companies with 10 to 1,000 employees. Previously, he was the founder of Custom Payroll Associates, a CPA payroll firm of which the CPA part, he spun out into a company called Cheyenne & Reed, and he kept the payroll. During this time, he also set another company called Payroll on a Budget, which was serving his customers. Prior, he started his career with Texas Instruments as a financial analyst. He's a Marine. He was in the U.S. Marine Corps, and he is a graduate of the University of North Texas, where he got his bachelor and MBA degrees. So welcome to the show, Charles.
Steve, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
It's great to have you. So, Charles, tell me a little bit about you. You have an interesting background. It seems like you are well-reached on this payroll business, but you've done different iterations of it. So tell me a little bit about how did you start this business and how do you become a payroll entrepreneur?
I've been in business, I started working for my father in his business when I was six years old. So business has been what I've been all my life. When I was in school, I actually started a business making nose clips for my daughters who were synchronized swimmers and sold them to other synchronized swimmers around the country, around the world. So I've always been in business.
But when I got to about 40, I'd been working for major corporations and realized I was never going to run a major corporation. I didn't have the political skills. I was unwilling to stab people in the back and throw them off the ladder. So I figured if I was gonna run a business as my father had done, I'd have to do what he did and start my own. So being a CPA and an MBA with lots of experience, I started a business. I actually bought a franchise. The franchise went belly up a year later, and the wife and I just took it and ran with it.
That's been almost 30 years now. So, you know, being in business is how I was, you know, born into it and grew up in it. It just seemed natural to have your own business. So, for all those who have started one, you know, great. Bring your kids in. It's fun. Now, I never could work with my father. He was a rather authoritarian naval officer and we didn't get along all that well in business. But later on in life, we got along fine. But it's just what I was born to I guess and it's been a great run. I've enjoyed it immensely.
So you think that you bought the franchise and then the franchise ran out of business. So was your franchise company was the Custom Payroll Associates or CPAI?
It was actually Financial Express, which was a mobile accounting service. And the board, I was the COO at the time, I'd come from Pennies, and I was the COO, and the board was after the franchisor to sell off the original office and concentrate on selling franchises. So I bought that and took it over, and was having a lot of fun, and it had an integral payroll service bureau in the franchise.
Then when the company went, the franchisor went belly-up, we changed the name, incorporated, and just moved on and built the payroll. I enjoyed payroll, I enjoyed taxes, I enjoyed accounting. Later on we took on a partner and my wife retired. She passed away a few years ago, but we had 45 years of marriage, it was pretty good. So the partner wanted more autonomy himself, so I sold him the accounting portion, kept the payroll, and we've been growing it leaps and bounds ever since.
And he kept your name in the business because it's called Shane...