Special Guest Expert - Charles Read: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

Special Guest Expert - Charles Read: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Brian Kelly:
So here's the big question. How are entrepreneurs like us who have been hustling and struggling to make it to success, who seem to make it one step forward only to fall two steps back? Who are dedicated, determined. And driven. How do we finally break through? And with that is the question. And this podcast will give you the. My name is Brian Kelly. And this is the Mind Body Business Show. Hello, everyone, and welcome, welcome, welcome to the Mind Body Business show. I am so unbelievably grateful that I get the opportunity to introduce you to an amazing, amazing man who I have gotten to known here in just a few moments because this guy has done so many things not only for himself but for our country. And that is one of the things that really endears him to me. And I know it will to you as well. He's he's got a lot of experience, a lot of life experience. He's got a lot of actual business experience. And he's here to reveal things that will help you and your business and maybe even in your life because of his depth and breadth of knowledge and wisdom that he brings to the table. And I'm talking, of course, about Mr. Charles Read, and I cannot wait to introduce him to you and share him and his brilliance with you. He's he's got so much to share and I cannot wait to bring him on. And that'll happen real soon. The mind body business show real quick. That is a show that we had developed with you, the entrepreneur of the small business owner in mind to help you to discover that quote unquote shortcut with all integrity to success. And to do that, I bring on only the most successful entrepreneurs from all over the world. And Charles Read is no different. And what happens is, as I ask these questions, the best thing you can do for yourself is actually take notes. And then when you are done watching this show and you've taken those notes, is the very next day, bring those notes back out and take action on those notes. I've done this show for several years now, three plus years, and I know when I see a high value person coming on, everyone is high value.

Brian Kelly:
We all get that. I think you know what I mean? When you got somebody who will show you a way to get the results faster, like Charles will, then you will want to pay attention, you'll want to take notes and you'll want to take action on those notes because all it will do is result in your achieving success faster than if you were to do it by yourself. It's all about modeling success. We were we were brought up in school not to cheat, weren't we? And now we're being told the secret to success is to model, which means to copy. It's okay. And you have our express permission to do so. That is why we're here. We're here to help you by giving you those quote unquote, secrets to success. And look, they're not these like, crazy hidden away secrets. They're out there for everybody. It's just how do you put them in alignment? Like a recipe to come out with a very successful end result, Like the ingredients for a wonderful chocolate cake. They must be the right ingredients and put in together in the right sequence, cooked for the right amount of time. And when you're done, the odds of you achieving success are great if you have the right recipe and instructions to follow. That's all we're doing here tonight and every single night that we do this show. I'm so blessed to do what I do. It's all about mind, which means mindset. And that is a very core quality of very successful people that I personally have studied over the course of a decade plus body, which literally means taking care of one's own body physically and nutritionally. These are all the core key elements of success that of people that I've studied. And business business is very multifaceted. It involves various skill sets that one must master in order to build and grow a thriving business. And we're going to talk and touch on probably all three of those. I don't know. We're going to have a great time talking to Mr. Read here in just a moment. Another one, one more final, great quality that I like to really showcase about the very successful people that I have met in my lifetime is that to a person they are also very avid readers of books.

Brian Kelly:
And with that, very quickly, I want to segue into a short segment I affectionately call Bookmarks.

Announcer:
Bookmarks for and to read bookmarks. Ready, steady. Read bookmarks brought to you by reach your Pique library dotcom.

Brian Kelly:
Yes. There you see reach your peak library dot com on the screen. For those of you watching live, if you're not watching us live. Oh, my goodness. I would love to have you on here to actually partake and comment and engage with us as we do these shows each and every week. Sometimes we do two week, mostly once a week. To do that, just go to the mind body business, show the mind body business show, and you'll see there's a place where you can register to be given announcements automatically the next time we go live. And just by registering, you are going to get a wonderful gift worth $300. It's bona fide gift hotel discount card. I personally have used it, so I know it works and it's it's a real thing. And that's just as a thank you for supplying us with your information. We don't spam you. We don't we don't pitch you on anything. It's solely there to remind you of the show and those of you listening reach your peak library and those of you watching instead of. Going and clicking away and looking at resources as they come up, because I know Charles has some as well. Instead of doing that during the show, I implore upon you to take notes and write down these resources rather than visit them while we are alive or while you're listening to the recording. And that's why is that? Because I've just from experience and I've spoken from stage many times, you know, when you're getting to that one place where you're the speaker, you know, where you're getting to the really juicy part, and then you see someone in the audience happen to get up and leave the room right at the moment that you could have literally changed their lives forever with the information that you have. You know, it's either that all important phone call or text message or maybe it's a restroom break at that moment. Whatever the case, do everything in your power to stay in the room. And I mean by focusing on especially Charles Reid as he speaks tonight, because I would hate for you to miss that one golden nugget that could change your life forever, only because your focus was diverted away from what Mr.

Brian Kelly:
Read is telling us at that moment. Okay, that's my soapbox moment. I'm now off of it. Reach your peak library dot com is a is a site that I had built by my team. Literally with you in mind. I did not start reading voraciously myself until the age of 47, which was now 11 years ago. Everyone's doing the math. They got it and it was such a life changer. So it was such a life changer that I had this site built and it's really for you and with you in mind. And what it is is simply a compilation of all the books. And in fact, I'm falling behind. But all the books that I've read that have had a profound impact on me personally, either in my personal life or in my business or in both. And I just started having my team throw them in there as I read them. There's no rhyme or reason. They're not alphabetic. You'll see a lot of Grant Cardone all at once because I read all. Of his books at one. Point. Some great stuff in here, you know, love or like people or not like them. There's always great information to pull out of each and every one of these. I put these here so that you would have a place that you could go one stop shop and say, Hey, there's my next good read. I see the description. I like it. You don't have to click and buy it there. You can get it anywhere you want. Just find the title that works for you. Purchase it from wherever your favorite bookstore purchasing area is and read it because it will change your life. I am. I am actual product of that. And so that is there for you. Reach your peak library. Please write that down and use that in your arsenal for achieving greater success as you go forward. And speaking of achieving greater success as you go forward, you know what time it is I think you do. It is time to bring on the one and only Charles Read. Here we go.

Announcer:
It's time for the guest expert spotlight, savvy, skillful, professional, adept, trained, big league qualified.

Brian Kelly:
And there he is, ladies and gentlemen. Yes, it is the one. The only Charles Reid. Yes. How are you doing, sir?

Charles Read:
I'm doing very well. Brian, Thank you for having me on.

Brian Kelly:
Oh, my goodness. I'm excited. We got to know. Each other for like 30 minutes. And it was a blast. Especially toward the end of our little chat where I realized we were both former software engineering geeks. I love it. So it's it's unbelievable. It's a great way. So I so appreciate you spending your time taking your valuable time to be here for not for me, but for the audience and for those who are going to ingest the information. I will learn more than anyone else. I always do. It's the greatest thing. I'm so blessed to be a host of a show that brings on amazing people such as yourself. And before we jump into the beautiful essence of of you, Charles, I would like to first do a little housekeeping. One is everyone can see if you're watching live, you can see the big insider secrets up there on the corner. Whoops, I can't even put the right direction up there in the upper right, right above Mr. Reid's left shoulder. It is a big insider secret. It looks like a red and white stamp. And that is my good friend, Jason Ness Company, and he sponsors this show. What does that mean? If you stay on live until the very end, you will get the opportunity to win a five night stay at a five star luxury resort. Again, compliments of the big insider Secrets. You do not want to miss that. Stick around to the end. You must be here. You must be present to see how to enter. That's the cool thing. And then a couple more and we're going to dive right into this amazing, amazing man. So if you're having any problems or issues in putting a live a life show together, a lot of people struggle with this and maybe it's overwhelming. And you want a lot of the processes perhaps done for you while still enabling you to put on a high quality show and connect with a great people like Charles Read. So many like Charles Read. And also grow your business all at the same time. Then head on over to carpet bomb marketing.

Brian Kelly:
Don't head on over there. Write it down. Carpet bomb marketing. Saturate the marketplace with your message. And one of the key components that is included in the carpet bomb marketing system is one that we use each and every week here on this very show. And it's one you'll learn how to absolutely master. And it is called streaming art, as you can see on the on the screen. And we use that here for the mind body business show. And all of our clients that have their own shows do the same. And over the course of the past goodness, ten years now, I've tried so many of these quote unquote television studio solutions for live streaming and streaming. It just took over and climbed to the top. And it became, for me personally, the best of the best. It combines supreme ease of use along with unmatched functionality. You can start streaming high quality professional looking live shows for free with streaming right now. Don't visit this now. Write it down and visit it later. Right. Or the URL is R.I.P. dot. I am forward slash stream live altogether report. I am for slash stream live. Now let's bring on the man, the myth, the legend, Charles Read. Back to the camera once again. And I wanted to give you the respect you deserve, Charles, and give you an official introduction and then we'll jump in and find out what makes you tick, my man. Is that good?

Charles Read:
Sounds good.

Brian Kelly:
All right. Charles J. Read is a certified public accountant, U.S. tax court practitioner, former member of Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council and the founder of you can see right behind him, get payroll. Hope you're watching live. If not, you should come on in. You can see all these wonderful things. Mr. Read's companies have provided full service payroll services, payroll tax services, Vietnam veteran and other payroll related services since 1991. I'm so thankful for not only his service himself in the armed services, but also how he's helping our wonderful vets. Charles is an accomplished senior executive and entrepreneur with more than 50 years of financial leadership experience in a broad range of industries and the author of four books. I'm still struggling to finish my first. With the most recent. One being the Payroll book A Guide for Small Businesses and Startups. This is beautiful and perfect. And by the way, speaking of all the gifts, a little birdie well, it's not a little birdie. It's a tough dude named Charles Read told me that there is also a gift that he's going to be presenting all of you with here toward the end of the show as well. I cannot wait for that. Ooh. So, Charles, I want to dive right in. I don't want to waste a second because you have so much life experience and so much knowledge and intelligence and. Oh, my gosh, I cannot wait. I literally have goosebumps under this jacket. I could. I could show you if I took it off. But I'm not going to. If you don't mind. Could you give. Us a little bit of your backstory? Like what? What brought you to where you are, the journey of your life? Because it's the little bit I learned in the little time we had together was just all inspiring. And then and then maybe tail it off with What is your primary focus right now today?

Charles Read:
Sure. I'm a midwestern boy. I grew up in Iowa. Graduated from high school at 16, worked for a while, didn't know what I wanted to do. My father was a Naval officer. Reserve was. I grew up, so I joined the Marine Corps. Spent four years in the Marine Corps. Two years overseas. Combat tours in Vietnam. Came back with stationed in Kansas City. Marine Corps Automated Service Center. Met and married my wife, Ruth. Best thing I ever did. Ruth was ten years old and I was and had five kids when I married her. Well, no, I just claim it's funny, but it worked. We were married for 45 years before she passed. I found that my military experience was not valued in business. Then as much the same now. So I decided I'd have to go to school, went to the University of North Texas, got my degree very quickly, got my BBA, got my MBA set for and passed my CPA exam while I was still in graduate school. What do our four Texas Instruments. You know, major corporation. I spent the next 15 years in corporate world working for large corporations. Small corporations did turnarounds, did start ups, wonderful experience. Realized in my early forties I was never going to get to the top of a major corporation. I didn't have the political skills. I was unwilling to stab people in the back and toss them off the ladder. So I talked to Ruth and I decided to start my own company. 1991, we started our own company. Ruth and I worked in it together. It's now been more than 30 years. We started. I was a CPA, so I hung up my own shingle. It was an accounting firm with a payroll sideline. About ten, 12 years ago, I sold off the accounting portion of my partner that I'd taken on and kept the payroll. And that's where we're at. Ruth died seven years ago after a long illness. But so now I'm doing payroll and payroll related services for small and medium sized businesses around the U.S. and having a great time doing it.

Brian Kelly:
Fantastic. So many things. Thank you for your service and thank you for. For helping with the other veterans as well. And I love I love the statement you said about. In your early forties. You didn't have the political skills to climb that ladder. I totally get what you're. Talking about there. It's like it's. Unbelievable how political one must be to advance in a traditional corporate atmosphere, isn't it? It's sad. It's what it is. It's not really done based on merit or achievement or quality of work. I mean, those do play into it at some point, but oftentimes, sometimes I'll be going, How the heck did you become a manager, the leader of us? How did that happen? I was just I could not believe it. It's like. Well, yeah, I figured it out and you said it, I think most eloquently. The political skills, like, wow, that was that was pretty awesome. And then Marine Corps for four years. Vietnam, My gosh. The story is, I can imagine you could tell. I just I can't imagine. And I was asking you earlier if you you saw combat. You said. Yes. And I'm just I'm personally grateful that you made it through because it was, you know, not not many people get to go through that and come home. So appreciate you for everything you've done. And I can't imagine how this has impacted you, your life going from that point forward. And you know, something you said actually intrigued me. I was curious. You said military experience was not valued in business. Can you expand on that a little bit? What does that mean?

Charles Read:
People who haven't been in the military normally don't realize what valuable things you learn and experience you get in the military. You develop discipline, leadership, discipline, both internal and external. The leadership team activities, group Success. Much of my leadership style comes from the Marine Corps. There's various schools of thought, but mine is basically mission men self. You accomplish the mission at whatever the cost. That's your first job. Then you take care of your men. And after you've taken care of your men, you take care of yourself. Your men come before you do. That's leadership. I've been a critic of of corporate management style and leadership in the US. Since I can remember for more than 50 years, very much of a Tom Peters fan and the fact that he highlights the good ones and sometimes highlights the bad ones. And I swore I'd never be that way. So. I have. I had a company here in Dallas that was converting from 1401 to 360 old computer systems. And I had just gotten through doing that as part of the Joint Unified Military Pay system back in the very early seventies. And the recruiter said, Well, I don't see how that applies in business. That's the only recruiter I ever told that was an idiot.

Brian Kelly:
Because he was.

Charles Read:
And walked out. The company went bankrupt about six years later, and I always knew why. It's because they hired the wrong people. They didn't hire me. So yeah, they didn't understand what we as as as veterans bring to the table and really downplayed our strengths and said, well, you know, you haven't been working in business, so you don't understand anything. And most of them that and I've learned as I've gotten older, it's because they don't know. They weren't there. They haven't done it. And if you've done it, if you've been in the military, nobody has to explain it to you. If you haven't been. Nobody can explain it to you. So it's.

Brian Kelly:
Interesting. I've never been in the military, but I grew up with my dad having been. And we grew up with those. Those elements you're talking about with discipline, team success. I played team sports that my whole youth, it was all about the team first and everything you said. So I'm like, I was kind of shocked that businesses didn't recognize the value of a military background. It's like, my God, it's like the most valuable thing they could have ever brought on is everything you just described. It gives it structure. The discipline is a huge one. And the team and the leadership. Everything you just said is like it made no sense to me when you said that they did not embrace that. That just kind of blew my mind. Honestly.

Charles Read:
That's crazy. A couple of years ago, I was on Fox News with Maria BARTIROMO in Fox Maria in the morning and we discussed this and her and her panel. And it's it's common in business. They just don't understand what veterans bring to the table.

Brian Kelly:
Wow. That's unfortunate. I get it personally. And I would I would. Man, I would tend to naturally. If I had more than one candidate in front of me, I would go after a veterans if they are in the list for sure. I mean, without hesitation because of all the inherent things that they went through that you went through that helped them. I mean, discipline was the biggest that was the first word you said, too. And I was thinking, yeah, that discipline. And that could be that could permeate throughout the entire culture of a business in such a great way.

Charles Read:
It does. My father was a Navy officer, so I grew up with We had a plan of the day posted in the upstairs hallway. So just like you would on ship. So. Yeah, I learned it from a very early age. I have three sisters. Two of them served in the military. Wow. You know as well as myself. So we're a military family and I think very highly of the military experience and value my Marine Corps experience. Incredibly. But people who haven't been there don't understand.

Brian Kelly:
Hmm. I almost feel the need to educate because. Yeah. Goodness. Anyway, I appreciate that you have that background. And I think that's it's got to be a key ingredient. Why you've achieved the level of success that you have in not just business, but in life.

Charles Read:
Mission first.

Brian Kelly:
Yeah. Yeah.

Charles Read:
Mission first. To accomplish the mission.

Brian Kelly:
It teaches respecting your leaders, your peers. I mean, so many wonderful things that come out of the values that seem to be missing in today's environment in the United States, which is unfortunate. But we need more people like you out there and getting their voice heard like you're doing right now. Okay. That's my soapbox moment. And that was my second one, actually, wasn't it? So you have authored four books. God bless you, man. I got to get past my first but four books, and that's quite an achievement. And kudos to you for that. And I'm going to guess that that would also translate into the fact that you're probably also quite the avid reader. And if that's if that's true, which I'm guessing is what book are you reading now or, or maybe either one, what book are you reading now or what was one of the best books you've ever read?

Charles Read:
Well, currently I'm reading the newest translation of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius by the Hix Brothers, which is a much more approachable edition than any of the others that I've read. And I recommend it highly to everyone. So it's called The Emperor's Handbook, and it's Scott and David Hicks are the translators on it. But my best business book is, Without a Doubt The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber, because it teaches you how to work on your business, not in your business. As entrepreneurs, we tend to find a job. We make ourselves a job. We have a company that we can work in. And that's wonderful. But that's not growing the business. You've got to work on your business to be able to grow it, and there's a huge difference. That book was given to me by a friend of mine almost not quite 30 years ago, 28 years ago, and I was at my wit's end. I was about to fire everybody and move it back into the game room and be a sole entrepreneur again. And I read that book and I learned and I started working on my business, which has allowed me to be successful.

Brian Kelly:
Wow. That is also a turning point book for me as well. I got the unbelievably distinct pleasure of meeting that gentleman in person several years back. It's probably been seven years or so ago. It was at an event and he was one of the speakers. He also had one of those quote unquote vendor booths outside. And he was just this very approachable, kind, grandpa looking guy. And the interesting thing is that's not truly who he is. He's very astute and he goes after it in the business. And I know that because a mentor of mine went through one of his advanced courses that he offered back in the day, and he said, Yeah, the guy would make sure you got what you needed to get done if you want, if you know what I mean. If you want to read between the lines on that. And one of the things that stuck out in that book, because at the time it was a pivotal time for me, he said, if you don't have systems in your business, then you have no business. And I was like, Right between the eyes. Xana Because I did not have systems at that moment. And from that moment, it didn't shame me, but it embarrassed me, you know, like, Gosh, I'm that guy. I'm that person. I'm one of those I'm sure I was one of many, but that got me to change my focus to building and developing systems and having that software background. Charles, that you and I both have. You know, I went straight into automating everything I possibly could and then also developing personal skills for leadership with people. Both are equally as important in my humble opinion. What are your thoughts on when it comes to automating various aspects of a business and or bringing on and developing personal relationships to help you build that business? Do you see the benefit of both or do you do you tend to choose one over the other? What is your philosophy on that?

Charles Read:
No, you have to have both. You know, I didn't have symptoms either. And the first thing I did was devise a checklist for the payrolls. So each payroll was done by my employees exactly like I would do it. And our error went down to five sigma. We just didn't have any errors anymore. That had been a huge problem and all of a sudden they disappeared by installing that system. We have a manual that covers everything. Literally, you could come in to payroll, pick up that manual and do payrolls perfectly and take you a few days. The first to do the first one and the second one would be faster, faster, and so on down the line. But everything is documented. Everything is detailed. We update it constantly because things change. We encounter new errors, we encounter new problems, tax laws change, everything changes, and we're constantly updating that. But you've got to have people who understand that, who are capable of doing it. You want to hire good people. I like Warren Buffett's advice. We hire good people. We don't hire jerks. So you've got to hire good people. You've got to have systems in place. Systems allow them to succeed. My job as CEO. Though I do some specialty work on the tax side because I'm the expert on that. But most of my job as CEO is to make my employees jobs easier and more efficient, because the easier it is, the faster things get done. The happier my clients are. The more money we make, the more I can pay them. My employees and everything work together. So my job is to make them more efficient and make their job easy, solve problems. That's that's what a CEO should do. Not not be harping on them and nit picking and and theory x manage them and so on. If you hire good people, you don't need to do that.

Brian Kelly:
I totally agree with that micromanaging. I've been I've been in those situations myself, former corporate employees as well and oh my gosh don't have the. So I love that quote from Buffett. And I'm curious. So if if you, Charles, you have two people in front of you. One has incredibly great character. The other one has all the experience you could ever need but doesn't have the character. Which of those two would you choose?

Charles Read:
I want. The person has the correct character. I want the person to fit our corporate culture. Our new hires get interviewed by everybody, and anybody has the right to say no. Wow. If they don't fit, then they're just going to be destructive and they're going to blast. They're going to problems. What will they do? So I want good people. I don't want jerks. I don't care how smart they are now. I hire smart people. Don't misunderstand me.

Brian Kelly:
Right.

Charles Read:
But if they don't fit the culture, their brains, their experience, their skills are going to do me no good because they're not going to last.

Brian Kelly:
Agree. Yeah. And if they have the character but not the experience, you can always train them if they have enough smarts to be trained, which is what you're looking for. Right.

Charles Read:
That's what the system, that's what the systems are for, because the systems are the training.

Brian Kelly:
And today, in today's terminology, I think a lot of people call those SOPs standard operating procedures. There's so many different words. I know you come from a military background where everything was what I call acronym soup. It's like, my goodness.

Charles Read:
I hate.

Brian Kelly:
That. Yeah, I know. It's like people are. Like, can you can you tell me this in English words? I don't know what the letter stand for. You know, I remember seeing documents that the last 50 pages or so are definitions of acronyms. Oh, my God. It's unbelievable. So another thing would be, is to make what is your opinion on making those manuals and those checklists digestible, usable, readable, without going through all the endless mire of process. I know you've seen that in your military background that they seem to think process is more important than results.

Charles Read:
Oh, and that's that's their mindset in many cases. And they're tend to be narrow minded people and narrow jobs and process is is their whole purpose. And as a bean counter and I'm a CPA, you tend to fall into that and I have to to to make sure I don't but our. Publications are our SOP. Our manuals are written in-house by real people that use them. So they're written in real terms. We don't have writers come in and create them and jargon and so on that that makes them less useful. So these are written very carefully and concisely and precisely, but they're not written in, oh, there's some payroll jargon. I mean, you can't help it think it's pica and you don't know what know what that means. But I do. So do my people. So. Yeah, they're really written for us to use on a regular basis. So if something comes up, we can flip to it. We know exactly what to do and do it and move on.

Brian Kelly:
And I think that's key, that it's written by your own people because I do a similar thing. I'm lucky in that regard that I don't have a whole lot of number crunching that I deal with. I would go crazy, My eyes would cross and I'd go blind if. I had to do that for a long time. So God bless you and those that of your team that do this, because, you know, we're all given our own gifts. But I love to basically record everything in video form and just narrate what I'm doing and show it on the screen. If they can follow that, they can do it. It's really simple. But then I just give them that little nudge and say, Now go do it. They do it and they do it over and over and over again. I have them then record their way of doing it, not mine, because they probably most likely in almost every time, find a better way to do it. More efficient way of some thing that I never thought of. And then that becomes the SOP or the video training for the next person that comes in. And I found that to be extremely successful. So I ended up getting my systems, which were my own people. Recruiting my systems. So my systems are generating my systems. And it was like, Whoa, this is awesome. And the great thing, Charles, I never had to review a single video, not one, because all I needed to see were the results at the end of the line where the results being done were they are error free. And if so, I knew whatever they did for the recording was spot on because the results were there.

Charles Read:
Okay. Absolutely. And that's our our SOP, our manuals are updated all the time by everybody.

Brian Kelly:
Hmm.

Charles Read:
Every time something there's an exception, there's a change. It's written up and it's discussed and it's made part of the manual. So everybody is involved in it. Everybody can criticize. Everybody can say this didn't work this time or we're missing something here and add to it and create. And we value that heavily. So yeah, we do what a lot of what you do.

Brian Kelly:
That's enlightening. That's rare. A rare business culture in these days that I'm I'm familiar with and I love that you're giving your people say in how they go about doing their business that will make it as easy and as efficient for them and they get to make some choices. That means they have skin in the game. They feel like they own the process. They have ownership, not necessarily the company itself, but of what they're doing. And that just gives you job satisfaction, in my humble opinion. And is that how you see it's working for your EP?

Charles Read:
Absolutely. They have to have they have to buy into it. They have to have game. And yeah, some of them own part of the company now and it's going to all my employees when when, when I die. My, my, my kids are in whole different things. My employees have helped make this business what it is. They're going to inherit it pure and simple, and they all know it. So it's to their advantage to help it succeed and grow and be successful because it's their inheritance.

Brian Kelly:
So.

Charles Read:
You know, maybe that makes us family. I don't know. Some of them I wouldn't want to live with. But, you know, I don't want to live with my sisters either.

Brian Kelly:
So, you know.

Charles Read:
It's it makes for a great environment. We all have common goals. We're all working toward the same end. So, yeah, it makes for a much better life. And that's again, why I give them veto power over over other employees that are going to join the family. And why we don't have technical writers. We do it ourselves because we know what we need. We understand it. Somebody from outside isn't and I can't write it anymore. They know their business, my business, our business, their jobs, their functions far better than I do. If I tell them what to do, I'm going to make them less efficient, not more efficient.

Brian Kelly:
And isn't that personally liberating for you that you can step back from all the minutia and just know that they've got it and they can just take it off and run with it?

Charles Read:
Absolutely.

Brian Kelly:
Yeah. So I'm curious, Charles, listening to you talk, I mean, it's rare that I hear someone embrace the core values of leadership and put it into practice and explain it the way you have, the way you've done it with your team. Are you doing anything on that front as far as getting out on a speaker circuit and training in this concept called leadership that so few companies seem to follow?

Charles Read:
It's been tough the last couple of years. Speaking is getting back into it. I am. I've outlined in my next book. Which is park your ego at the door to try and explain what corporate management ought to look like. I've seen way too many businesses ruined by the owner's ego or the boss's ego. And I've seen companies destroyed because of it, and it's stupid. So, you know, whether I'm going to finish that one or not, I don't know. But that's kind of the next big project.

Brian Kelly:
I think a lot of companies could use your wisdom and learn that, and that would be the first hurdle is getting past an ego. I know we all have egos. Every one of us does is just how much of it are you willing to get in your way to from being successful? You can either have a big ego and be right, or you can have a small ego and be successful. Which one do people wish to have? I mean, it's it's such a cancer to progress. Ego is in my in my life and my experience.

Charles Read:
Absolutely. It destroys businesses, it destroys lives, it destroys families. And it's totally unnecessary. I mean, yeah, you're right. We all have egos. Dr. George Washington Crane, who was a physician and a lawyer. My parents took a small paper in Virginia, just get his column, all of them. And he had a sane. And the way to get along with people is to treat them like tattooed on their chest are the words I am important. And if you'll treat them like that. You'll be amazed at what happens.

Brian Kelly:
Yeah. Who was it? You know, come to me. There was a gentleman I saw speak recently that he said there were only two things. Ed Mylett has his name? Ed Mylett. First time I ever saw him speak. I've heard his name many times. Very successful entrepreneur. And he said, there's I have two components that have basically they have comprised my success. He said, Number one is I love people. I see the good in them. I see that they are they have greatness in them and they can they can achieve great things. He treats them that way. And then number two, he said. I talk. So he loves people and he talks. He gets out there. Those were his two main components of success that he can get out there and communicate with people. That's what he kind of meant there. And I thought, you know, the love part is so missing the loving of other human beings and seeing the the good in them versus picking them apart so that we can look better against and next to them to further boost our own personal egos. Absolutely. It was just so telling. And you seem to be very just I mean, you you probably led him into it because he is your junior in years. He's actually younger than I am, too. I found out like, wow, I'm not doing so bad. I thought, Anyway, he's a good he's a good guy. Really good guy. From what I could tell, I don't know him very deeply, but everything I saw loved. They're one of the things I love is how we learn from what we've done in the past. And all of us, every single one of us, especially the most successful, have made more mistakes than most people would ever even care to admit. Right? But for a successful business person, mistakes are essential because it's the only way we can get to that next rung and learn from that past mistake to move it up. So in your life, what would you call what you would say is one of the biggest mistakes you ever made? And yet, more importantly, what did you learn from it that catapulted you to yet another level of success?

Charles Read:
Well, we're discussing ego, and I have one, and I thought I could mark it. You know, you wear a lot of hats as an entrepreneur and you pass them off as you get busier and busier and and you pass off various responsibilities to other people you delegate. And one of the last ones I was willing to delegate was marketing, because I thought I knew what I was doing. And I'd finally gotten so busy here. A few years ago, I hired a marketing manager. And after two weeks, I realized I couldn't market my way out of a paper bag. So had I realized that a lot earlier, I'd be a lot more successful today. But what it taught me was that you really have to examine your strengths and weaknesses from outside. You have to really understand yourself and what you're doing and run with your strengths. My strengths are tax and and litigation compliance. I'm a real expert in those and I write books on it. And for those that you can't go and hire people that are better at it than you are. Your job is a CEO is not to be the smartest person in the room. It's to hire the smartest person in the room and let them do their job. So I learned that I had not analyzed myself as well.

Brian Kelly:
As I should have. And to come to do that kind of philosophy and hire the smartest people and surround yourself with the smartest you may not be And I'm talking to this in general, not just you, Charles. You may not be the most the smartest, but I would I would venture to guess you are probably the wisest because of making that decision to put the ego aside. None of what you just said can happen unless the ego is thrown away to a great degree to admit there's somebody that can do somebody better than you. No one likes to do that. I mean, no one male female. I don't care who you are. It's a human thing. And once you get past that and realize it's not only okay to get help, it is it's going to catapult your success to get help. And it's a lot more fun, in my humble opinion, to have help and work with people rather than try to do it all on your on your own.

Charles Read:
Oh, it is. And it is, as you said earlier, liberating. I have people who I can give responsibility to and the commensurate authority to to handle that responsibility and not worry about it. Uncle play poker. I can go on vacation. You know, I can do whatever I want to do. I can do a lot of things because. I've got great people. And that's the key to success. That's the key to my success is, is my people have made me successful in spite of myself.

Brian Kelly:
And I love you're basically calling the fact that, you know, you're successful because you have brought in great people. And I love that because it takes you outside of yourself in such a beautiful way, because it makes you a family figure in that regard. You're the business, dad, if you will, and you're one of those great dads who loves his kids and who is always, I can feel it. And everything you're seeing, you're one of those people that lifts people up and does not degrade them and push them down to make themselves look better. I can imagine what a wonderful culture it is for anyone to work with you in your company.

Charles Read:
It's gotten better over the years. You know, I didn't start out this way. I've learned my greatest teacher was my wife, who was a wonderful people person. And she she frankly had the people skills in the beginning that allowed me to hire good people because she made the hiring decisions. I didn't. And there was one time I disagreed with her and I said, no, I'm going to hire this person anyway. It took me about three weeks to regret it. It took me another year to admit it to her. But, you know, but I learned and I studied her and what she did with people. And I got a lot better at it. Everybody loved Ruth. Everybody loved Ruth. And. The best thing I ever did in my life was marrying her.

Brian Kelly:
I'm very sorry for your loss. I mean, it sounds like you had a wonderful relationship with her and. Oh, my goodness. And how how many people get to say they get to partner and work in a business with their wife and still keep their marriage intact on, let alone.

Charles Read:
Yeah, well, there were times my favorite story about that is when we were working together. We'd get home. We'd have dinner, we get ready for bed, we get into bed, and then she'd have one more problem. She want to get off her chest. So she'd tell me about it and she'd roll over and go to sleep. And I'd sit there and worry about it until two or three in the morning, not being able to sleep, thinking about it. So we finally came to an agreement that after dinner, no more business. Now, that meant for some very late dinners, some nights, but no more business after dinner.

Brian Kelly:
Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I can relate. It's interesting. It seems to be an artifact of women. And I mean this in the kindest of ways that they can shut those things off so fast. And with men. I'm the same way I'm sitting there sweating. And turning and tossing and analyzing and processing everything. Like, how did I do? Where do I go wrong? I don't want to be wrong. I want to have the best relationship ever. I don't want to mess up. And you just rewinding and beating yourself up and they're like snoring next to you. I love it.

Charles Read:
My parents work together my entire life. Wow. And so I thought it was a natural thing to work with your spouse. Wow. So that's why we started the business together. And let me tell you, working with your spouse is an unnatural act.

Brian Kelly:
Okay, well, that's good to know. Okay, I'm not. So on occasion, I'll try to lure my wife into doing a few things along what I do, and she doesn't want it and not interested in it. And I'm like, Doggone it, I'd really like her too. But after talking to you, I should just let it go and be okay with it. I like to share everything. I like to include her as much as I can, and to me that would be the ultimate is to share it by doing it day to day. But maybe it's not a good idea. I'm always open to learning new things. Let's see. My goodness. That would be a phenomenal thing. Let's see where we at goodness sakes. Charles, you're a phenomenal guest. We're only 11 minutes out. This is amazing. That's a good sign because I'm having a blast. One of the things I love to ask is, you know, as we go along this journey of being an entrepreneur, a lot of people that aren't or haven't done it yet aren't privy to what one must sacrifice sometimes or choices we must make between taking the road of success or taking the road of easy street and just saying, I'll just go get a job. And look, I'm not saying anything negative about people who have jobs. Been there, done that. I think you have as well. And you've done it beyond on steroids being in the military. My goodness. But. What kind of sacrifices or alternate decisions have you had to make that stand out in your mind over the course of your journey in becoming a successful entrepreneur? That that just really stand out to you.

Charles Read:
Well, you'd ask the question in writing first. So I had some chance to think about that. And the sacrifices I've made are kind of unique. The first one is I've sacrificed having to put up with the idiot whims of idiot bosses, and I don't mind that sacrifice. But in reality, I didn't sacrifice as much as a lot of entrepreneurs did. I worked with my wife, so our relationship was did not. Suffer from being apart because of it. It may have suffered being together because of it. But my wife and I, Ruth, together with her, I could never be ruthless. The kids were grown when they started the business. So, you know, and I've built a retirement. I don't have to worry about that now. I didn't get the free gold watch, but I'll pass on that one. So we worked very hard and it was a long struggle. The first ten years were very tough, you know, it was 80 hours a week and no vacations. But we did it together and we had a good time. It was it was a good experience.

Brian Kelly:
I'm glad you brought up the ten years. You know, it's often it's kind of kiddingly said, Yeah, it took me 20 years to become an overnight success. And that's the thing with today so many people in society, we're just a society of instant gratification. You know, it's, you know, a coffee, remember tasters choice where you boil the water, then you dump in some flakes. You probably had that in in the military, I'm guessing something like that, freeze dried coffee. And then you'd stir it up and there's your instant coffee, you know, before you had to put that percolating thing that would bubble it up into the grinds. And it took all day. It seemed like I remember those from back in the day with my parents. And now it's even more instant because we have this thing called Keurig. The water is instantly hot, it's pouring through grinds and we have a coffee in like 3 minutes. And so we're constantly being taught without knowing it, that instant gratification is what you should expect of instant food. We've had that for a long time. So it's interesting that and I love the fact that you brought it up that the first ten years were rough and I'm hoping people that are watching and listening to this are really integrating that and realizing that something great takes time. It takes a lot of discipline, as you so astutely pointed out, which is one of the key ingredients for successful business. It takes perseverance, it takes it takes making mistakes. It takes getting rid of ego. It takes getting along with people. It takes building personal. Your own personal being is learning and expanding who you are as a leader. So many. I think it's amazing because there's so much to it. I love that about it. It's just there's hardly anything you can't not do to become a successful entrepreneur. You've got to you have to step up to the bar and become good at so many different things that that's what I love about it. I'm kind of weird that way, I guess. But what are your thoughts on that?

Charles Read:
Oh, I agree. To be a successful entrepreneur, it takes desire, tenacity and optimism. Yes. And then on top of that, one of my favorite scenes I stole from Bill Gates is people will overestimate what they can accomplish in a year and underestimate what they can accomplish in a decade. Yeah, it's a marathon. It's not a sprint. If you want to be a unicorn, if you want to be the next Facebook or whatever, it ain't going to happen. You're not going to be that unicorn. It's going to be a slog. It's going to take time. It's going to take a lot of work. It's going to take a lot of desire. It's going to take a lot of tenacity. And if that's not what you want to do. Go work for Ty. Go work for the government. Go work for the post office. There's nothing wrong with that. Nothing. 40 hours a week working for the government. 30 days of vacation. A retirement at 30th of 40 years. Whatever it is. Nothing wrong with that at all. Being an entrepreneur is tough. Being an entrepreneur is work being not for. Blood, sweat and tears. And a lot of all of them, so. It's not for everybody. But to me it's extraordinarily satisfying because it's mine. I built it along with my people. So, yeah, you know.

Brian Kelly:
Yeah. I've heard great debate over this, where I have my own personal opinion. I have an idea what yours is going to be, but I want to ask it anyway. Is going through all of that, how important, in your opinion, is it to succeed? How important is it to absolutely enjoy and love what it is you are doing day in and day out?

Charles Read:
Oh, it's critical. If you don't, you're not going to be a success because enjoying what you're doing is success. That is success. The wealth is not the success, the position, the power satisfaction. It's that's what's that satisfying feeling is success. That's what makes it all worthwhile. That's success.

Brian Kelly:
Wow, wow, wow. That was. Oh, I've never heard that one. That is a phenomenal definition. I love that. We may have you expand on that a little bit later and you'll understand what I mean by that when it comes. My goodness. So before we get too far in this and I completely forget a couple of things I wanted to put up for everyone watching us live, I didn't forget. I'll show you how you can win a five night stay at a five star luxury resort. Now, look, these are all over the world. And they are not these little things where they take you to the basement and strapping a chair and water drip, torture you and tell you about a timeshare presentation. That is not what this is. These are bona fide vacation days. And all you do is you pay the the resort fees, the taxes, and that's it. And and the travel to and from. But the resort stay 100% on the big insider secrets the sponsor. So what I'm going to do is bring that up real quick and show you how you can enter and remember to write this down. Don't go enter the second. Don't worry, you will have plenty of time when the show is over. We will monitor it for several hours after the show is over and then make sure everyone's in and then we will announce the winner to that person after you've entered. And here is how you enter to win. I'll put that up on the screen. For those of you watching live, write this down, go to our WIP. I am forward slash vacation and that's our WIP. I am for vacation. Write that down and as soon as we're done with this show, I want to you to go ahead and enter. I can't wait to choose that that winner. And then we have I have one final question I love to ask every guest on my show, Charles, And you, in a way, have already answered it. This is this has never happened before. Two in a row. My last guest just two nights ago did the same thing, but I'm still going to ask it and see how or if the answer might change. And that's not to set you up for any weird thing. It's it's really because it's a very deep question. Very deep, and there are many answers to it. And that's what I find very intriguing about it. I wanted you to also have the opportunity to do two more things. One is I wanted you to be able to hold up your book and give a brief blurb about that. I want to put you up on solos. Everybody can see that big, beautiful book. It looks very similar to your background. I remember. I love it.

Charles Read:
If I hold it up here, it disappears in the green screen.

Brian Kelly:
So the.

Charles Read:
Payroll book.

Brian Kelly:
Yes, the payroll book. So tell us a little bit about that, your latest project that you completed there.

Charles Read:
It's 30 years of experience in the business, distilled down to 95,000 words. It's really a must for any entrepreneur that hires anybody, including themselves, to keep you out of trouble with the IRS and the states. And so you understand what you're doing. We haven't talked about payroll much, but it's here and you have the URL. If any of your listeners would like a free copy, if they will go to the URL that you have and enter the discount code podcast. I will ship them free of charge a copy of the book as long as supplies last.

Brian Kelly:
Oh my goodness. Thank you so much. So that URL for those of you listening on audio podcast is ripe. I am forward slash the payroll book report. I am for slash the payroll book. And then when you're checking out in the discount code field, enter the word podcast and you get a free copy thanks to the amazing Charles Reid. Thank you so much. And I do want to give you a moment. I promised you this and we don't have to stop right at 630, which it just turned because I'm not paying for studio time, brother. We can go a couple of minutes late if you're okay with that, because I definitely want to learn more about what it is you do, your actual your business. And so what I want to do is pull up your website and give you the opportunity to basically let people know who it is. You help, you know, who's your target market, what kind of services you provide that can help them. And if you have a success story or to please also go with that. I mean, I'm here all night. I'm not going anywhere. So as long as you wish, feel free to let people know what it is that get payroll is all about.

Charles Read:
We provide payroll and payroll related services to small and medium sized businesses across the United States. Our target market is small businesses, 50 and less employees. We handle bigger companies, but we really go after the small guys because they need the help. We are the most compliant payroll services in the country as far as we know, CPA tax court practitioners, specialists in handling this. The IRS makes millions of mistakes every year. They issue billions of dollars in penalties that they shouldn't. And we get them reversed, we get them abated. We solve those problems. I can take them to tax court if need be at no additional cost. One of my success stories took nine years. It was a client that the IRS was penalizing $90,000 for a paperwork screw up. It took appeal after appeal after appeal after appeal. Finally, I got to the point where the people wouldn't return my calls. So I called the chief of appeals in D.C., who I'd met and said, So-and-so won't return my phone calls. And she said, Well, I'll have him call you. He called me that afternoon. We put it to a different office, had a different appeals officer look at it, and 90 days later my client got a refund for $400 instead of what was then a $95,000 penalty.

Brian Kelly:
Wow.

Charles Read:
It took nine years. But if you know what you're doing and you know the right people, sometimes you can get things to happen. Dealing with the IRS is a whole series of no's followed by a single yes. So. We handle the compliance side. I mean, our competitors do a reasonably good job of producing paychecks. I'm not going to argue with that know, or they'd be out of business. But when it comes to compliance side, they don't have the expertise on staff. You know, if you call my my, my biggest competitor, I won't use their name, just their initials, ADP. And you say I've got a tax problem. I want to talk to a CPA. They'll tell you to call your own CPA. And if he really understood payroll, he'd be doing your payroll already. So. We're compliance. You may never need us. But when you do, you really will need us.

Brian Kelly:
Yeah, I mean, just put that in perspective. 90 K even though it took nine years, I mean, just do the math. That's ten K a year. You just saved that that company. And is that worth it?

Charles Read:
And we didn't charge it. We didn't we didn't charge them anything. That was just part of the service.

Brian Kelly:
My goodness. So there you go. Look at this. You can schedule things on the website. It's scrolling by. For those of you that are listening on audio podcast, I'm going through his website. It's get payroll dot com get payroll. And I think you will agree from listening to this amazing gentleman, Charles Read that he gets it he understands how to not just conduct business but he's a phenomenal leader and he loves he loves his people, his employees so much that they're looking at inheriting this business when he's done with it himself, which is rare. I don't hear that. I guess. Never. So that's pretty compelling right there. So everyone visit, get payroll. If you are a business that has 50 or fewer employees and reach out. And I'll bet you if you know, if Charles Read doesn't talk to you that somebody amazing from his team will because it sounds like he's assembled an all star team.

Charles Read:
All my anybody who calls if they're not happy with what they're getting from who they're talking to, all they have to do is ask for Charles. And if I'm in the office, I'll I'll pick up the phone. If I'm not, I'll call them back.

Brian Kelly:
You know, I wouldn't doubt that at all. I have zero doubt. And so I so appreciate you, Charles, for being the man you are, for being the example. That's the word I'm looking for the you know, what is it called? I'm nobody's there's a I can't think of the word, but you're a prime example of a person to follow in so many ways. And I know you're not perfect. I'm not perfect. In my humble opinion, only one human being that's ever walked this earth has ever claimed and can be claimed as perfect. So but the thing is, there are not that many individuals that take it to the level you have. And I just am so appreciative of you. And I thank you. And you have just brought blessings upon so many people here tonight. And I just I thank you. I can't say it anymore.

Charles Read:
I appreciate you, Brian. It's been it's been my pleasure. Thank you.

Brian Kelly:
Absolutely. And we got one more. Remember that that question to end it, not letting you out. So and then then we'll be done. I promise I'll let you go if you're okay with just a couple more minutes. The good thing about this question is there is no such thing as a wrong answer, even if it's a different one than you had earlier. And the opposite is, is the truth is that the only correct answer is yours, Whether it takes you a moment, whether it takes you several seconds or minutes to come up with the answer, it doesn't matter because it's your answer. It makes it absolutely perfect and correct. So are you ready to answer that mysterious question one more time, Charles?

Charles Read:
I don't know. I guess we'll find out here in a second.

Brian Kelly:
All right, here we go. Charles Read. How do you define success?

Charles Read:
Success is enjoying. Your life. Enjoying what you're doing. The money, the position, the power, the authority. All those are meaningless if you're not having a good time. And don't. Don't get me wrong. Money, money, money is important. But, you know, they say money doesn't make you happy. It doesn't. It just solves all the problems of being poor. But happiness. Contentment. Enjoying life. That's success. I mean, I've. I've had. All kinds of positions in my life, done all kinds of things in all kinds of positions of authority. And I love what I do. I enjoy coming to work every day. I enjoy my staff. I enjoy my clients. I enjoy fighting with the Internal Revenue Service. I'm having a great time. I'm an old man, I guess, and young folk don't pay me much mind anymore. But that's success. The only thing I'm missing is Roof, and then that would make life pretty well perfect.

Brian Kelly:
But.

Charles Read:
I can't have that. So I'm enjoying the rest of it and.

Brian Kelly:
That's success and that is worth an amazing bomb run. Here we go. My knowledge. Bombs, bombs of wisdom. That is the definition of this amazing man named Charles Read. I am so over the top, excited and happy that you decided to come on the show and you just you just you epitomize everything that's right in the world of today that's in kind of disarray. And I appreciate you for kind of writing the ship, hitting the reset button for all of us to kind of go wake up. Let's get back to doing things the right way, doing the right kind of leadership, doing it with intelligence and looking forward to that moment when I'm going to be reaching out to your company services as well. And I think everyone else should do the same. Is there one best way to connect with you before we sign off for the evening, or is it going to your website? What would you prefer?

Charles Read:
The website. Email is CJR at get payroll. And frankly, if it's something you really need help with. 9723530000 press one for payroll and that's for Charles.

Brian Kelly:
Who does that Only Charles read. That is phenomenal. Thank you so much for that. That is nobody does that anymore. No one gives away their phone number. That is awesome. Thank you so much, my friend. I appreciate that. Well. All right. Well, on behalf of the amazing Charles Read, we have to call it a night at some point. And sadly, this is time to do so out of respect, both for Charles and for you watching and listening. So that is it. For tonight's episode, I am your host, Brian Kelly of the Mind Body Business Show. He is the one and only Charles Read. And I'll be back again very soon with another episode. Go to the mind body business and opt in there. Get your $300 hotel discount card just for doing that and you'll get notified of the next amazing entrepreneur that we interview. And don't forget, go to the mind body business Qcom. Go to past shows and you can watch this interview. If you missed any of it. It will be there within a day or two and you can watch and listen to the amazing and very knowledgeable Charles Read. All right. With that. Thank you, Charles. God bless you, my friend. And for everyone else out there, keep crushing it, keep serving people. And blessings to you so long for now. Take care, everyone. Thank you for tuning in to the Mind Body Business Show podcast at www.TheMindBodyBusinessShow.com my name is Brian Kelly.

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