William Thomas with Golf2Grow

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Woodstock, Georgia. It’s time for Cherokee Business Radio. Now here’s your host.

Stone Payton: [00:00:24] Welcome to another exciting and informative edition of Cherokee Business Radio. Stone Payton here with you this morning. And today’s episode is brought to you in part by the Business Radio Small Business Initiative, Main Street Warriors Defending Capitalism, Promoting Small Business and Supporting Our Local Community. For more information, go to Main Street Warriors dot org and a special note of thanks to our title sponsor for the Cherokee chapter of Main Street Warriors Diesel David Inc. Please go check them out at Diesel. David dot com. All right. You guys ready for the headliner? It is time. Please join us in welcoming to the broadcast with Golf2Grow, Mr. William Thomas. How are you, man?

William Thomas: [00:01:12] I’m doing fantastic. How are you, Stone?

Stone Payton: [00:01:14] I am doing well. I’ve really been looking forward to this conversation. I’ve seen you around town at the business club at Darren Hunter’s thing the other day when we did the viewing party, and we have so many friends and associates in common. So I’ve really been looking forward to this conversation. I got 1000 questions. I know we’re not going to get to them all, but I’m thinking a good place to start would be if you could articulate for me and our listeners mission purpose. What are what are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks?

William Thomas: [00:01:46] Man Well, Stone, thank you for having us. We are excited to be here as well. Just to kind of give you an idea of what our purpose and our mission is, it is just to take advantage of the community that we have to allow those in our community who have a niche, have a need to have a service, particularly those who are nonprofits. And our goal is to help them to be able to raise funds through a fun filled event like a golf tournament. So we are able to partner with our nonprofits that are local, some outside of Cherokee County, but primarily in Cherokee County, to host and put together a fun, awesome golf tournament to raise funds and raise awareness for their cause and what they’re trying to accomplish.

Stone Payton: [00:02:28] Well, take me back to the beginning. How did you land here? How did this all get started?

William Thomas: [00:02:34] Well, I am a huge fan of putting together events. I like to to put things together, to do things, to have a particular focus. And I just happened to enjoy the game of golf. I love the social aspect of it. I love the fact that you get to build relationships. And I also understand that there’s power on the golf course. A lot of transactions as far as business, even if it’s not, I’m cutting you a check. You’re cutting me a check, but it’s the relationships that are built that ultimately build those those connections from from the business standpoint. So several months ago, I was out on the golf course and I wanted to put together just some things with some friends and send out some feelers, said, Hey, if we had a little fun tournament, would you be a part of it? And initially it started out with just a couple of people and then, you know, a couple of minutes later I get a text and, hey, can can I invite so-and-so and hey, this so-and-so wants to invite so-and-so else? And all of a sudden it turned into a full bore event. I was getting Venmo requests and Zelle requests the people sending money to get the, you know, the the event set up and to get it paid for. And my wife, just hearing all this commotion on the phone, didn’t understand why we were getting money sent over and over and over again. And so I let her know, hey, I’m just putting together a little fun event to have some, you know, some guys hanging out, raised some money, playing some contests and just see if we can have fun.

William Thomas: [00:04:03] And my wife essentially said, well, why don’t you do this for a living? Why don’t you put together golf tournaments? And, you know, I looked at the logistics and the dynamics and and we wanted to create something that it was essentially a no brainer for people to do so beyond just creating the golf tournaments. We said, why don’t we just plug in with local entities that care about our community? We have a heart for our community. My wife grew up here in Woodstock, grew up in downtown Woodstock, on Kyle Street, behind the Seventh Day Adventist Church. So she just has a real passion for this community, and I do as well as her husband. So we just said, if we can plug in, engage those in our community who are serving, who need to raise money to be able to perform their mission, let’s see if we can do that. And I’m really good at marketing. I’m really good at creating value for others and for businesses. So it just made sense. If we can put on a full scale marketing platform that engages the community to play, engages the community that needs to raise the money and engage its local business owners to grow their visibility in their brand, It’s a no brainer and a win for everybody.

Stone Payton: [00:05:11] Yeah. And your wife, Kelly. Kelly, you decided not to get miked up this morning, but I’ll share with you, I live a block off of Kyle right in that next little neighborhood on on Market Street. And I walked down Kyle that’s where and I see deer when I walk down there. I see my deer family and I get the blood running. That’s wow, what a small world. That’s fantastic. So surely it was very exciting. And in achieving some escape velocity from the traditional career going into business for yourself, were there some challenges in that transition or sort of surprises?

William Thomas: [00:05:46] Certainly. I think the number one challenge for any small business owner is the scaling of it. You know, I’ve never really been overly fearful that I wouldn’t be successful in any venture I’ve taken. Maybe that’s an extreme. Braggadocious confidence.

Stone Payton: [00:06:01] I have. I think it’s.

William Thomas: [00:06:02] Great. But I’ve always believed that I’d be successful. I’ve never had a doubt in my mind that I could accomplish what I set out to achieve. But the biggest concern for us was just the scalability. Could could this be something that one would would be viable and and profitable for for those around us and then ultimately for our families, but that also that we could grow it in in a model that was sustainable, that we could duplicate for others to do. So that was probably our biggest challenge and currently is our biggest challenge is we are so busy right now with the tournaments we have scheduled.

Stone Payton: [00:06:36] What a great challenge to have though, right?

William Thomas: [00:06:38] Definitely is. But you get kind of nervous. You know, again, I have that that extreme confidence in myself. But then in the same token, I also doubt myself at times, Can I perform the way I said I would? Can I achieve what I’ve presented to my clients? So that’s probably the number one. And then just secondarily, you know, I am comfortable in in my career in what I was doing in finance. I knew what I was doing. I was I was good at it. And I enjoy those that I serve in, you know, as my as my my full time profession was. And I’m comfortable for my family. You know, I’ve got two kids in college and and we’ve got you know, we travel a lot. We we.

Stone Payton: [00:07:20] Enjoy. You went into business for yourself. And at this point in your life, you’ve got two kids in college, but you are the bravest man I think I’ve ever met.

William Thomas: [00:07:28] I just I’ve got a good support system. My wife is pretty clearly awesome. Yes, absolutely. So that that’s kind of those are the challenges. Just do do we how do we scale this? And, you know, is this maybe should I have done it sooner or should I wait it later? But I believe that honestly, we were poised for this to be the point where we launched. So it just we’re excited about it.

Stone Payton: [00:07:51] So at this stage, what are you finding the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about it for you right now?

William Thomas: [00:07:57] Man The most fun is chatting with my clients and and seeing their eyes light up when they think about what all they can accomplish, how that’s going to grow their visibility, their brand grow, potentially the eyes that are on their organization and ultimately knowing that it’s going to be financially rewarding for our clients, knowing that we get to put X, Y, Z dollars into their budget. You know, and I was sharing with someone earlier today that, you know, not that I wouldn’t love to serve a nationally, you know, recognizable brand, but they don’t necessarily need me. They’ve got the the foot power. They’ve got the the visibility to attract sponsors and funds. But you take the local small who entity who cares about their community but doesn’t have that kind of brand recognition and knowing that I’m there to to really help them, that to me is exciting. I mean, it it literally is what my wife and I get giddy about at night knowing that we’re really here for them. And kind of, I will say being in finance for a long part of my life after the service, not that there was anything wrong with larger branded financial companies, but our specialty was sitting down with the people who made 50 to 60000 a year, who had an extra hundred bucks a month to to to save. They didn’t have a 50, 50,000, 100,000, 400,000, $1,000,000 portfolio. I really felt like I was their only shot to get to where they wanted to be. Consistently, we say we take that $100 a month and you know, we do this for 30 years. And I feel that way about our business. I get to sit down with potentially the nonprofits that I really am going to help them put a substantial amount of money in their in their budget.

Stone Payton: [00:09:43] So have you had the benefit of one or more mentors to help you navigate this new world of running your own business? Some folks that you can check in with bounce ideas off of and maybe have helped you save a little heartache, you know, remove a little friction, shrink the timeline a little bit.

William Thomas: [00:10:03] Absolutely. So I will say that my dad was in business for for many, many years before his passing. So I was able to just really bounce, just mindset off of him. And I think for most people in business, mindset is key. So I was able just to really kind of get his opinion on things and get his, his stance on things and and ask him how he handle that. But now, consistently now I would say one is, is my brother in law, Steve Riddick, and his wife, my sister in law, Tanya Riddick, he is a visa executive, does very, very well, owns several rental properties, owns several businesses, and they also run a nonprofit. So we’ve been able really just to kind of run things by them, you know, so we’re not you know, we laugh about it, but, you know, I don’t want to go to jail because I didn’t get the raffle license for a nonprofit, you know, you know, raffling items. So, you know, the last thing I want to do is get in trouble and miss a miss an I or. Miss crossing a T, So that’s definitely been the mentor. And then just some of the people that have poured into our lives in our community and my wife’s parents, my in-laws, their business owners retired as well. And just they’ve always been willing to support us. And and, you know, when we tell them, hey, this is what we’re thinking about doing, the first thing they say is, you’re not pregnant again, are you? You know, the next question is, is is how can we how can we serve you? How can we pour into you guys and knowing that you have someone that at least believes in you, that that beyond financial but more than more than that is just absolutely whatever you need us to do. We’re there. So it’s been awesome in that regard.

Stone Payton: [00:11:39] So we have a we have a very unique opportunity this morning since Kelly has headphones only at the at the moment. And clearly she has tremendous support in all of this. But I want to back up a little bit further. How did you guys meet?

William Thomas: [00:11:55] Well, that’s awesome. Well, the funny thing is and and I was going to mention my my other sister in law and my brother in law, Jasmine and Keegan, they are great supporters. But I actually met her her sister first. So back in 2001, a friend of mine, I was in my final year of high school. That tells you how old I am, but I’m getting older. But I was in my final year of high school in. A friend of mine from high school asked me to come to a church lock in. And for us, as you know, hormone crazed teen boys, it was a chance to meet girls.

Stone Payton: [00:12:27] Sure, sure.

William Thomas: [00:12:28] That’s why we were coming. So we drove up from Jonesboro, Georgia, and came to a church lock in here in downtown Woodstock, Mount Olive, and initially met her sister. And and I guess I’ll tell my version of the story since I’m miked up and my wife isn’t. But ultimately, there was an email chain that went out amongst my now future or my my current sister in law. But, you know, future sister in law at the time and a couple individuals that it said something like, if you love Jesus, you know, send this message out to 100 people. So naturally, I wrote back and forwarded to everybody that was in the email list. And my now wife wrote me back and said something to the effect of I don’t like spam, I don’t know, you don’t like me. And that really intrigued me. I was a pretty decent athlete in high school and, you know, most most relationships, I guess you’d say, is a high school if you can have a relationship or just I was an athlete and there was nothing really beyond a connection. I just was the athlete and it was cool to date an athlete.

William Thomas: [00:13:35] And so I never had any pushback. And my wife gave me a little bit of pushback in that email. And I think I said something smart back to her. And essentially she got on there and she said, Well, that’s why your girlfriend is dating somebody else. Dot, dot, dot, dot. And yes, and it just really got my juices flowing and I was excited. I’ve got to meet this girl that’s willing to push back, like, does she know who I am? Like, I’m William Thomas. And we started bantering back and forth and we decided that we’d kind of talk on the phone. So it got her phone number. It took me a while to ask because I was scared. So January of 2001, we decided to meet at a church down in Decatur, February of 2001, actually, four days from now. We officially started dating and May 19th at my senior prom. We got engaged, and in October 2001, all in the same year we got married. Wow. And we’ve been married going on 22 years.

Stone Payton: [00:14:28] Now, a man and a woman of.

William Thomas: [00:14:30] Action. We were. We definitely were.

Stone Payton: [00:14:33] I just read a quote this morning. I’m reading this book, Everything is figure out able, which I’m loving. I have a tendency to read stuff that I already agree with. Right. But I just think it was fantastic. But the the quote is that clarity comes from engagement, not thought. And and for me, I use smaller words. So so to me, clarity comes from action, not thought is. And a lot of times you just got to throw your head over the fence and good for you. That is fantastic. All right. So let’s talk about the work a little bit, the process. So if someone says, you know what, we need to raise some money and they reach out to you or you reach out to them and somehow you get connected, what does it look like? You just sit down with them and kind of have kind of a consultative exchange. Yeah. Walk us through what that what that looks like.

William Thomas: [00:15:19] Absolutely. Thank you. So essentially, we want our our process and our system to be as easy as possible. And as I’ve probably said a couple times today, I want it to be a no brainer. I want our clients to say, what do we have to lose? What, what, what, what’s the negative? If we if we do this and for every one of our clients, it’s been it really isn’t any. So essentially what we’ll do is we’ll sit down with our potential clients. We’ll present to them what we can offer and what we offer. In a nutshell, one is visibility for their organization. Number two is an event that people want to participate in. They want to have fun in, which is a golf tournament. Number three, the ability to use the resources that we have, the connections that we have, the standing that we have in the community to engage local businesses, small business owners, to be able to get some visibility for their organization as well. So we work together with essentially those four things our clients, our sponsors ourselves, as well as potential golfers in the community that want to plug in that one, engage that want to be a part of something and allow them to have a fun filled tournament. So I am big on betting on myself. I believe that I can achieve in accomplish pretty much anything. So our compensation system is built solely on how we perform. We don’t charge our clients a retainer. Really, We don’t charge them. And we don’t send them in an hourly report. We don’t send them know at the end of the week. This is what we did. Here’s the compensation we expect. We bet solely on ourselves. So it allows, I mean, completely our clients to say, again, this is a no brainer. We have nothing to lose. We’re not paying them X, Y, Z thousands of dollars upfront to secure their services. We are going to go work for them. We have a work ethic like I believe nobody else does. So we are really going to engage and get that done for our clients. So it makes it a win win for everybody.

Stone Payton: [00:17:18] So I want to ask you about the whole sales and marketing thing, and maybe it’s two different aspects of it. There’s the the sales and marketing where you have the opportunity to serve a new client, a prospective client. I’m interested to hear how that comes about and what things you do. And then there’s the sales and marketing on behalf of the client or clients. Can you speak to both of those a little bit?

William Thomas: [00:17:41] Certainly. So I don’t have a problem here in the word no. It’s it’s I think 22 years of marriage will do that to you, too.

Stone Payton: [00:17:48] Thank you again, Kelly. Man, you just.

William Thomas: [00:17:51] But ultimately, you know, we there’s I’ve heard people, you know, look negatively on salespeople or people who are engaged in community. I’m not selling hope and soap or lotion and potion is what I call.

Stone Payton: [00:18:04] You know, open soap. I’m going to steal that. You’re going to hear that again.

William Thomas: [00:18:08] I believe I’m offering something of value. So for me, it’s I’m offering a service. I’m offering a benefit for, again, my clients and my sponsors, because they know they’re going to have, you know, potentially 70 to 90 golfers. They’re going to have, you know, 30 staff, volunteers, core staff, and they’re going to have 15 to 20 other community sponsors that are involved in the event. So you’ve got a pretty broad, broad segment of middle class, upper middle class people who are engaged, who spend money on other products. So it is a win win for everybody. So when I approach my clients or potential clients, it is, hey, I want to give you an opportunity to again create brand awareness of what you offer, what you do, how you serve. And I want to help you make money and it’s not going to cost you an upfront dollar. So it’s an easy approach. I don’t really have to I shouldn’t say don’t have to do much, but I just have to make sure I do connect with the right individual at the organization. So I have to make sure that I’m getting to the decision makers. And that’s a little bit of work just finding that I’m going to the right individuals. From the sponsors side, it’s truly just creating that value.

William Thomas: [00:19:13] And I’m not saying every business owner only is looking at it transactionally. A lot of them do want to plug into their community. A lot of them do want to give back. They just never have been approached the right way either because they are so small that people say, well, you know, there are thousand dollar commitment and I want to go for the bigger dollar. No, no, no. My nonprofits would love $1,000 commitment by small business owners who are potential sponsors. Just want someone to ask them. So we ask we have no problem saying, hey, this is what we’re doing. This is who we’re serving. This is the area of the county that we’re in. We’d love for you to be a part of doing something for them, and they’re thrilled. The cool thing about it is a lot of times the feedback from our potential sponsors is, Thank you, thank you for asking us. Thank you for engaging us in our community. We want it to be, but no one has done it. So I wish I had some grand. This is our marketing scheme and maybe we will develop something. But as of right now, we simply are just asking and we’ve had a great response.

Stone Payton: [00:20:14] Well, and you do such a great job on site promoting all of your sponsors, but then you give them a lot of love digitally, too. I mean, like your your events have legs, I guess I would call it like leading up to and beyond. It’s there’s the value on site, which is irreplaceable, I’m sure. But but you really. Yeah. Your events have legs for sponsors, don’t they.

William Thomas: [00:20:38] Absolutely. We we think it’s important to to have, you know, someone gives or donates or becomes a sponsor or is willing to share an event. We want to give them brand recognition. We realize that that is important for them to feel like they’re valued, that, you know, from a from a financial standpoint to that their business has some ability to to be profitable as well for what they’re doing in exchange. So we will over inundate social media with who our sponsors and supporters are. We will, you know, make sure that that’s listed on our website. So our tournament websites, our specific tournament websites are our business website, our models. We ask our clients to do the same thing. When a sponsor sponsors an event, we ask them to share that flier with them as the sponsor, saying, Hey, we’re proud to sponsor this event. This is who we’re serving in our community because again, that helps them as well. So like you said, it does have legs. We we want as many people touched and to see what’s happening with our organization, but primarily for our clients.

Stone Payton: [00:21:35] So if Business RadioX or Cherokee Business Radio. Or Main Street warriors wanted to put on a golf cart. A golf cart? I’ll tell you why I said golf cart. Just a moment. It’s it’s a Freudian slip. It’s on my mind at the moment. A golf tournament. So there’s there’s presence on your site. But then the tournament would have a site as well. Is that how that typically works?

William Thomas: [00:21:57] Correct.

Stone Payton: [00:21:58] If you connect us up with people to do that, or is that something that you do or how does that part work?

William Thomas: [00:22:02] We do it as well. We create the site, we create everything. So they have specific sites dedicated to their particular tournament, their particular sponsors. There’s particular engagement of where they want to be in the community. We do all that for them. So we we literally try to make it to where our clients simply show up on tournament day and get a check. Like that’s that’s what we want to do.

Stone Payton: [00:22:25] That’s fantastic. So I’ll tell you why I said golf cart before you came in. And for the last couple of days I’ve been golf cart shopping because for the main Street Warriors for this small business initiative, we you know, we do on site remote broadcasts. We’ve done stuff at the Kid Biz Expo and and some of them are for these non profit things and so to to show up at golf tournaments in any of the outdoor events, we’re getting a golf cart but it’s going to be decked out with the main Street Warriors motif and that kind of thing. So I am at this very moment golf cart shopping. And I think depending on what kind of funding and participation we get from our sponsors, we’ll probably work with Finlay out there, golf and garage. And the phase one will probably be just get a really good looking golf cart and we’ll throw a couple of decals on it and then we’ll probably have him trick it out and make it look, you know, like a Jeep or a Humvee or whatever. But I literally I was on the computer golf cart shopping, you know, when you guys knocked on the door.

William Thomas: [00:23:25] Well, awesome. Yeah, I was going to say Finley’s the person that talked to you in that regard.

Stone Payton: [00:23:29] Yeah, but it’d be fun to come out to some of these things that you’re sponsoring and Main Street Warriors could sponsor or contribute in some way, do an on site broadcast and pull in, pull in with the Main Street Warriors golf cart and maybe even have the trailer and maybe even set up the platform on it. I got all kind of I got okay. And now that we have, you know, we got Diesel David out there sponsoring that for us and we got more and more participation. So we’ll probably have the funding for. So anyway, that’s why I said golf cart instead of golf golf tournament. So being involved in the community, something Holly and I have really begun to enjoy since we moved here. And like I said, I got this little patio home right here on the edge of downtown Woodstock, a block from where Kelly grew up. And and Holly has become part of the theater, and she’s teaching watercolor classes, and she’s she’s in the show right now at Murder on the Orient Express. So we’re we’re loving everything about being part of the the community. You guys have been part of the community much longer and have been more immersed than I have. Tell me more about why that’s so important to you guys.

William Thomas: [00:24:35] Well, I guess it’s a bit personal, but I’m glad you asked the question. I grew up without my father. We have a we had a great relationship prior to him passing, but I always looked for and longed for people around me because I realized that having my pastor growing up and having my grandfather and having some we call them uncles, even though they weren’t related.

Stone Payton: [00:24:58] Right, Right.

William Thomas: [00:24:59] Uncles and aunties, I realized how important community was. And I think when my wife and I got married and when I started hanging around her family, I was a bit distant because I didn’t understand how people just loved each other and cared for each other and prayed for each other and spent time with each other with no ulterior motives. It was just foreign to me because I didn’t grow up with having that community. I longed for it. I looked for it, but I didn’t have it. So I think finding and seeing how my wife loved those around her and how they loved her, how they loved her, you know, my extended family now, my in-laws, it was just exciting. My wife grew up with that community feel and I kind of was adopted into it. And it’s it’s a huge part of who I am now. I’m more of the vocal and visible, visible, visible one in our marriage. I would have somebody over my house every night. I would go out to dinner or hang out with somebody every night, because now I love that community. I love being engaged with people. And so it’s just it is an awesome feeling to know that you’re a part of doing something where you’re at and maybe, maybe we need to grow our vision. But I if I can impact 8 to 12 nonprofits a year, you know, I’m happy if I can impact those in my community, if I can engage people to do something fun, to raise money for someone else. You know, I’m I’m satisfied. I mean, I, I wish I would could say that I want to take over the world, but I don’t I’m not pinky in the brain from my childhood days. You know, I don’t want to take over the world. I just want to be an impact in my community.

Stone Payton: [00:26:39] Well, I genuinely believe that I can see that. I can feel it here in the studio. I know that your passion comes through over the over the airwaves. It’s clear that you and Kelley, you’re you are genuinely committed to this and you are happy and fulfilled in doing it. One of the things that I’ve come to, to really enjoy is I’ll walk across the street to the circuit on Thursday mornings and participate in YPO Young Professionals of Woodstock. And I love that format because, as you know, we go around, we ask a question, and in asking the questions, you can learn so much about people. One of them that Jared and Jared wrote and I asked a few weeks ago that I’ve begun to steel ever since is what do you have a tendency to nerd out about? And so I wanted to ask you outside the scope of this work that we’ve that we’ve been talking about, what do you have a tendency to to nerd out about, man, any other kind of interest or something like that?

William Thomas: [00:27:35] Yeah, absolutely. So I think I answered the question that I like Excel spreadsheet formulas. That is, that is my thing. I love Excel spreadsheet formulas and I think it’s just because I’m an analytical person. I like to know that this amount of effort creates this amount of work, which creates this amount of reward, and it is how we live our lives. We we know that if we want to take this many trips a year, it’s going to require this amount of work, this amount of effort, and I’m going to take my trips. We are going to travel.

Stone Payton: [00:28:11] You guys do like to. So do Holly. And in fact, last night we were we were watching YouTubes on Spain because we’re going to we’re going to and you guys, you really enjoy international travel as well, don’t do we?

William Thomas: [00:28:22] Do we? We spend probably 50 to 60 days a year outside of the country.

Stone Payton: [00:28:29] Oh, wow. Now, I can’t say that. I think we’re closer to like ten or 15, but we do.

William Thomas: [00:28:34] And we’ve made it part of our our school for our kids. So we call it road school or world school. We believe that our kids, if they can treat people well, understand different cultures and know how to manage a checkbook, they’ll be by far better in in how they become adults. We aren’t raising children in our home. We’re raising adults. So we’ve we’ve kind of lived that out. But yeah, we love to travel. And by default it costs money, of course. Sure. So we are willing to put in the work. If you if you look at our schedule last year, we spent six weeks between Australia, Fiji, Hawaii, Abu Dhabi, Italy, Spain, Spain, Switzerland, France, the United Kingdom. And we knew that it was going to cost a certain amount of money. So for the period of about four months, five months leading up to that trip, I worked every morning from 730 till about nine in the morning or nine in the evening, and then we’d go DoorDash after that, not because we had to have it, but because we wanted to have additional monies so that we could do the hey, let’s take a little tour of a of a haunted castle. Let’s go down to Versailles, Let’s go down to the catacombs. And we didn’t want to to not have the experiences because simply money wasn’t wasn’t there. So we were willing to work and do what we need to do so that we can enjoy the things that we enjoy doing.

Stone Payton: [00:29:56] My late father in law, Holly’s father, used to say that travel broadens you. That was his phrase. And I think that is so true. To gain an appreciation for other cultures, if you if you’ll open yourself up to that. It really does, doesn’t it?

William Thomas: [00:30:11] It does. You you think differently. You see people differently. Yeah. And you find out you just find out beyond your, your bubble, you know, where I’m where we’re typically all comfortable being. So it is just and for our kids it’s I think it’s comical that our kids you know, we took our two younger kids in one of our longer trips last year and our two older kids, when we tell them we’re traveling, we’re going, well, ask them, hey, do you want to come? And they’re like, I’ve been there before. So they oftentimes now don’t want to go. It’s it’s I’ve got to work or I’ve got school. And I’m it’s exciting to know that they’re committed to their craft and being good at what they do, but that also they’ve seen so much of this beautiful world, this beautiful country. Our two younger kids have been to all 50 states. Our two older kids have been to 49 of the 50 they have my two olders have not gone to Hawaii, but they’ve had an opportunity to see some great things and some great people learn some great things. And we’re setting them up, I think, to to be productive, conscious, loving and caring people as adults.

Stone Payton: [00:31:19] Well, I certainly think so. I am so glad I asked. Thank you, Jared, for inspiring that question. I. Put it into every interview going forward. Okay. Before we wrap, I wonder, because of your experience making the transition from a successful career to running your own business, if maybe you could share a pro tip or to a something a person might be reading, doing, not doing just a because so many of our listeners are, I’ll call them budding entrepreneurs or some of them have an idea on a cocktail napkin. You know, so maybe something to share with them that’ll keep them inspired and help them get and stay on the right track.

William Thomas: [00:32:03] Absolutely. So I’ll give really three tidbits. Okay. Number one is, is don’t be ashamed of where you’re at now and the idea that you have you may not have instant success. You may not have instant supporters or instant fans, but if you believe in what you’re doing, it’s okay to have that cocktail napkin business plan. If you were to check our office at home, you would see so many revisions of.

Stone Payton: [00:32:28] Revisions and revisions.

William Thomas: [00:32:30] As we’ve we’ve kind of scaled it and grown it and thought about it and got advice and got tips and encouragement and criticism at times, which is which is fair. So I would just say, number one, just be okay with where you’re at and continue to to to push. Number two is, is find groups of people that think like you I was prior to really engaging in some of the networking groups that I’m in. I always thought networking groups were for people who just wanted to hang out but didn’t want to do. And that was from looking from the outside in and being a part of those groups. I found genuine friendships. I found people that who really care to pour into my lives, who care to encourage my mind, who, you know, are willing to say, Here’s a book. We just left a meeting this morning and was given a book and just can’t wait to dive into it and to read it. So excited about being around people that think like I do. And number or number three. And to me, the most important is whether it’s a spouse or a business partner or a family member or just a friend. You’ve got to find someone that is willing to cheerlead you. And I think my wife is biased. She thinks I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread, or at least that’s what she tells.

Stone Payton: [00:33:44] Well, I’m beginning to think so, too, man, for whatever that’s worth.

William Thomas: [00:33:46] See, she tells other people that, but she’s willing to champion me, to others. She’s willing to make sure people see us but me primarily as the face of golf to grow. She wants people to see that I’m you know, that I’m a superstar again. I don’t know what that looks like or really what that means. But she’s willing to to, to to champion me and then also to encourage me, but also to hold me accountable. Because in running a business, there’s times that I’m away. There are times that I have to to sacrifice certain other things. And she’s not one to hold it over my head. She’s not one to to say. Why are you going here or why are you doing this? She she understands and she’s championed me. So I would say find someone that can be in your your foxhole as a former service member would say a foxhole buddy, someone that’s willing to to do what it takes to get out of the foxhole together. And I happen to have that in my wife, which makes it awesome for our marriage to hell.

Stone Payton: [00:34:44] Marvelous counsel, man. Thank you for that. All right. What’s the best way for our listeners to connect with you and have a conversation with you or someone on your team? Whatever you think is appropriate. Email, LinkedIn, website, all that stuff.

William Thomas: [00:34:56] I am a fan of email. I am. I’m okay with people emailing me. I like the way it sounds when I get an email from to my business email. So maybe it’s just the excitement of hearing the the certain twerp that I have that comes across when I get an email to our business. Email. So that would be William at golf, of course, the sport golf, the number two grow. So William at golf to grow dot com is the best way to get in contact with myself or our team.

Stone Payton: [00:35:22] Well it has been an absolute delight having you on the show, man. It’s a it’s been informing inspiring. It’s and it’s fun to see someone and someone some two people with so much passion for what you’re doing. Keep up the good work, man. What you’re doing is so important. And don’t be a stranger. We want to continue to to follow as your story unfolds. But thank you for coming in and hanging out with us today, man.

William Thomas: [00:35:51] Absolutely. We appreciate it. Thanks for having us. Also, you can check out our website at we talked golf to again the number grow dot com.

Stone Payton: [00:35:59] That was a lot so Kelly whispered in his ear when we were talking. I’m so glad that you came golf to grow and it’s the two is the number two.

William Thomas: [00:36:07] Yes, sir.

Stone Payton: [00:36:08] Fantastic. Well, I have thoroughly enjoyed the visit, man. You got to come back.

William Thomas: [00:36:12] We will.

Stone Payton: [00:36:13] Thank you. All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today with Golf to Grow, Mr. William Thomas and everyone here at the Business Radio X family saying we’ll see you again on Cherokee Business Radio.