https://youtu.be/909yDIlWajk
RJ Grimshaw is the president and CEO of UniFi, an equipment financing company. We talk about the ABLE leadership framework, the concept of intrapreneurship, and break down the world of equipment financing.
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Identify Your Intrapreneurs with RJ Grimshaw
Our guest is RJ Grimshaw, the CEO and President of UniFi Equipment Finance, which grew from $13 million in revenue to $18 million in two years. RJ sits on the board of the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association. And he is a head coach with USA Hockey. RJ, welcome to the show.
Hey, Steve. I'm glad to be here. Real quick correction. I coach not for USA Hockey, but within USA Hockey. So I don't want to mislead anyone that I'm actually coaching the USA Hockey team. But we have actually a side note, where I live is where USA Hockey is based for the whole country and they bring in the top 20 players, 17 and 18 year olds, every year to play for USA and typically that's your Olympic team. So I again, I don't want to confuse anyone or anyone think, geez, RJ is really getting ahead of himself thinking that he's coaching USA hockey, but I am a certified level four coach for USA hockey. And I've coached for close to 20 years. So it's one of my passions. I just love the sport, but more importantly, I just love, you know, the life application you can, you know, teach players.
Yeah, definitely. And building a hockey team is not completely dissimilar from building an effective business team, right? Who can execute a playbook and score some profitable goals and get things moving, right?
That's spot on. And there's a lot of parallels between team sports and business on a daily basis. So, we actually search within Unifi for athletes that have a background and it doesn't have to be a high level. They just played in high school or club or things of that nature. That means that they understand what it takes and the sacrifices, discipline, and more, most importantly, a compete level of the strive for excellence. So I think that there's a lot of parallels between any athletics and in the business world.
I definitely agree. And when I was running my own company, I was always looking for, as well, I was always welcoming former athletes, because I knew that they understood how to strive and how to persevere and how to overcome challenges, which in business and entrepreneurship are a given, right?
And it continues to, on a daily basis, those attributes continue to be pressed more and more in the world that we live in and what everything's been thrown at us over the last couple of years. And it seems like it's not going away anytime soon now with the other challenges relative to human capital and supply chain and things of that nature. So again, if you built those attributes at a younger age and now you can rely on those and continue to build those muscles in regards to the adjectives that you just said, it's important.
Yeah, they say that winning is a habit. So let's start with your entrepreneurial journey. You grew up in a family business, I believe, and you got your first start with a couple of businesses. So can you tell us a little bit about how you got started and how you end up running an equipment leasing company?
Sure. I guess I picked my parents correctly because they're both entrepreneurs. My dad was a successful business owner and my mom supported him. And one of the first businesses that they had was a mobile home park that they actually built from dirt up and built it to 40 units and maintained it for over 20 years and then ultimately sold it out to private equity firm. And I was part of that and saw what it took in terms of discipline, evening hours, weekends, and things of that nature.
I was young when they started it back in 1969. That was the year I was born in terms of the true hard work of laying electrical and things of that nature. But I was able to witness that. And then my dad owned several businesses. And then ultimately started my brother and I in our first business at the age of 23. I was actually in the US Air Force and at that time home on a family leave and I was in his home office and saw in his home office a listing for a bar restaurant. And I said, dad, what are you thinking about here? And he said, well, you've got an eligible candidate right here.
And the next morning we went to breakfast and we met with the realtor and lo and behold, within six months, I was out of the Air Force and the timing was, they were cutting back resources in the military. So the timing was great. Came back and refurbed. The building was built in 1937. So we had to do a complete refurb of the building. And we took it from concept to close to, you know, a million dollars in revenues. And that was during the early nineties when you had to become a destination point for a bar because DWI laws and things of that nature, which are critical, made people sensitive.
So that was my first, you know, entree into entrepreneurship. I did a couple, I call them side hustles, you know, early odd, but that was my first, you know, true running, setting up a corporation, meeting with an attorney, meeting with the bank, meeting with the insurance, and I really learned the value of building strong relationships and understanding supply chain with a distributor. So that was my first entree. Again, I was 23 years old and my dad was my mentor and weekly staff meetings, weekly update meetings, regards to financials, construction and things of that nature.
So I was very blessed and fortunate to be able to one, watch and be part of an atmosphere with my mom and dad. And I quickly learned that it takes two to be successful in terms of understanding the role within the company. And it goes right back to the parallel that we started with in sports. Everyone can't be a quarterback, everyone can't be a wide receiver, everyone can't be a center on a hockey team. You have to understand your strengths and play to that.
So RJ, how different it is to run an equipment finance, you know, financial service company, which is owned by a banking group from running that family owned bar, this one million revenue?
Well, it's very similar in terms of the foundation of running any successful business. The difference is that when you're an entrepreneur, everyone has someone to answer to, right? I had my dad back then to answer to. Today I have a boss and a board of directors I answer to. So it's very similar other than now I'm working and we're gonna talk about this. I'm working now within the foundation and structure of another company, which is Unified.
But it's the same attributes in terms of entrepreneurship, resourcefulness, being creative, managing KPIs and things of that nature. So there's, again, there's, and if you can run a restaurant, I was talking about this yesterday with a buddy, if you can run a successful restaurant, and we were far from successful from a restaurant perspective, we were break-even, but if you're able to do that, you pretty much can run any business due to the fact that there's just so many different elements in a restaurant business that can go wrong or can go well.
So again, I ended up in equipment financing by accident, but I'm glad I'm here. And my true why is that I'm able to help businesses across the country acquire the equipment that they need for their business. And that's what drives Unifi. That's what drives myself. That's what drives our culture within our organization to be able to help these people acquire vans, yellow iron, any equipment, woodworking equipment that they need to grow their business.
And the stories, and I can go on and on in terms of stories, of success stories, and I get chills from that. Because again, that was my upbringing, and I saw what it took, hard work, and I saw what it took to make payroll, and I saw what it took to manage your expenses and your AR and things of that nature. So I can relate when I'm dealing with business owners and understand the hard work that it takes to run a successful business.
I think equipment finance is a great business. I like the idea of an entrepreneur being able to borrow money to grow their business without having a piece of property to pledge to or giving a personal guarantee and sending their life away to a bank. It's a much more constructive way of financing companies. So I really love this idea.
I believe equipment finance is excellent, allowing entrepreneurs to borrow and grow without risking personal assets or life commitments to a bank.Share on X
And so what we try and do too, to elaborate on that a little bit, we just try and take friction out of the system because time is of the essence. The one thing that every entrepreneur, manager, CEO, it doesn't matter the title, we all have limited amount of time. And in the world we live in, we're asked to do more and more. So what we've tried to develop and continue to improve on is just taking that friction out of the system when, especially now with the supply chain, people need to move extremely quick or the dealer will sell that piece of equipment from underneath them.
And you can't blame them because they have to move the equipment. So we've taken that friction to be extremely quick. We're all digital in terms of documentation or credit application, documentation, invoicing. So you can pretty much do everything in transaction right on your iPhone or your phone or tablet versus the old-fashioned way of doing business. And that's what business owners want and desire. And we've been a leader in that aspect. And again, I'm not knocking a bank.
They just move at a different sense of urgency than what we do because we have two elements. We have the customer who wants to get the piece of equipment. And then we have a dealer that's selling the equipment that wants their cash, wants their money to ensure that they're going to be paid for that piece of equipment.
