From Dream to Reality: The Inspiring Story of Nestor Gutierrez and his Systemic Approach to Business

It's crazy because since the beginning, like even 2017, the owner is like, 'One day you're going to own this.' I'm like, 'Man, you're crazy.' I didn't see that. He saw obviously that I had a lot of passion for it, so that's why he would always tell me, 'Hey, you love what you do and this is going to be yours.' So he started planting the seeds. Then I started thinking, 'Oh, maybe one day.' 2018 he would talk about it, 2019 he would talk about it. Then 2019 he actually came up to me and said, 'Hey, I'm being serious. I'm really willing to work with you on a deal. If you don't want it, I'm going to sell it to someone else. I'm going to give you 20%.' 20% of the company. So you had skin in the game. I told him right away, 'Hopefully you sell it.' That's going to be good money. I was already thinking, '20%? I'm going to go buy a brand new Mercedes.' I told my dad, and he said, 'That's good money.' It took me a couple of days to think, but I'm like, 'I'm dumb. Why am I thinking this small? Why am I thinking 20% when the 100% can be mine?'

Thank you, Jonathan. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. I'm Nestor Gutierrez, the CEO of Rancho Express Inc. It's really nice to be here. I'm really grateful to have you as a friend. It just shows you the power of the events and how many great people you can meet at conferences. So really grateful for this. Thank you.

Nestor Gutierrez is actually from Mexico. He's a young immigrant. He came to the US at age 8. Tough times for just about anybody. When I first got here, I didn't know the language. I would get really frustrated. I would cry at school the first two weeks. I didn't know anyone. Starting from zero. It was really rough not knowing the language. I felt miserable because people would come up and talk to me and I didn't know what they were saying.

8 years old. It was really tough. They put me in ESL classes. I learned pretty fast. I still have an accent, but I learned pretty quickly. Within three months, I knew most words, at least to defend myself or ask questions. I took ESL classes for about three to four years. There was a time in middle school going into high school when my grandma passed away. My dad had to leave to Mexico for the services. My mom didn't work, I didn't work, and there was no money coming in.

I was 15. It was super rough. I was like, 'Damn, I'm the man of the house right now.' There's no money coming in. My dad had visas, but I didn't know if he was going to be able to come back. Everything was up in the air. So I told myself, 'I could help my parents.' I played baseball because I wanted the medal of the Hall of Famer in all sports. I didn't like it, but it was my first year playing. I had to miss a lot of practices because I went around the neighborhood and started telling everyone, 'Hey, if you need yard work done, let me know. I'm available after 3 o'clock after school. I'll make anything happen.' I got four houses and they paid me $10 an hour.

I was in high school. I was just doing yard work, landscaping, cutting grass and stuff. I didn't have a job. I was 15. I worked three to four hours after school.

Necessity to get money. I saw my neighbors had a lot of weeds and mess. They were elderly and could use help. So I shot my shot. They gave me the opportunity. On average, I would make about $120 per week. I thought, 'Okay, $100 will get some groceries and get us through. Another $20 for gas. We'll make it through.' Then my mom got a house to clean and we worked together. My dad came back after a month and was super proud of me. He said, 'You didn't have to do this. I didn't expect it. The fact that you did this means everything to me.' It was a proud father-son moment. I thought, 'This can't stop right now. I need to take advantage of everything I have and make my parents proud.' That's when my mind started opening. I started being more realistic, not shut down by the opportunities of being an immigrant. I said, 'I'm going to shoot high, dream high, and whatever happens, happens.' I used to bring myself down because not having papers, being an immigrant, everyone talks about going to university and college, and there's me. I can't talk about that because I can't go to school. Then the DREAM Act passed and I got the opportunity to go to college.

Yes, my dad has always been in landscaping and as a diesel mechanic. I learned a lot from him. Even when I was doing yard work during the summer, I would go work with him on big Caterpillar equipment and landscaping. One thing my dad would always tell me is, 'I don't care what you do, I just don't want you doing the same thing I'm doing, working for someone else 7 to 5, giving everything you got and not making that much money. I don't want that for you. Do whatever you got to do, but don't do this. You like cars? Pursue the automotive.' At first, I wanted to be a salesman because I wanted to be around nice cars, exotics. I really like exotic cars and thought it would be good for me. At the same time, I had a scholarship to go play football in Oregon. It was a hard moment. It was either pursue my dream of becoming a professional football player or go with automotive. It was tough. I either went to Oregon, didn't know anyone, far from my parents, starting from scratch, but it was a full ride. The only thing was I didn't have papers, so it was going to be a conflict. I turned it down. I came over here to Chaffey College because I had family in Southern California.

Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga. It's about two or three miles away from my business. I stayed with family. When I first came over here, I wanted to play football at junior college. In high school, I had ACL surgery. My dad said, 'No matter what it is, you need to get surgery.' The surgery was about $160,000. He said, 'I don't care if you have to make payments, but you need your surgery.' Luckily, medical covered it. It covered the surgery but not the therapy. It was a blessing. When I came to college, I still wanted to be a football player. At tryouts, my left knee gave out. The doctor told me my patellar tendon had swelling. If I kept forcing it, I would mess up my left knee too. Because I had right knee surgery and was walking two weeks later when I wasn't supposed to, I put a lot of weight on my other leg. That was the opening eye. I thought, 'I have to forget about football. Let's be realistic. I'm going to go all in on automotive.'

Yes. I'm driving down the second week after I moved over here, and I take a detour. I'm a huge believer that everything happens for a reason. I drive by Rancho Express, look left, and see a 'Now Hiring' sign. I stopped by to see if I could get a job. I had some money saved up from high school working with my dad.

When I came over here, I was 18. I was looking for a job for Rancho Express. I was 18, going to college, and trying to look for a job. The owner kind of liked me, but the manager didn't. It was very clear they didn't like me. They probably saw me as their replacement. They said, 'We're not hiring.' The owner heard and walked out, saying, 'What do you mean you're not hiring? You just told me we need people.' I knew there was a reason he probably didn't like me. We did the interview. He didn't want to take a chance on me because I had no experience, no shop experience, nothing. I said, 'I'm a hard worker. I'll show up and you can count on me.' That convinced them and I got the job. The managers were brothers, but they were super racist and rude to me. I almost gave up. I told my dad, 'They're treating me like crap. I don't feel comfortable. I don't look forward to coming to work. It feels like hell.' He said, 'Quit. I don't want you working there. Don't let anyone look down on you like that. Just quit and find another job.' I told the boss I was putting in my two weeks. He was an absent owner and didn't know what was going on. He started looking at the cameras and realized what was being done. He fired them and said, 'You're going to be my new assistant manager.' I said, 'I hate working in the front. I hate talking to people. I hate customer service because of the language and the accent. I don't want to deal with that.' He said, 'You're really good at it. You don't realize it, but you're good at it.' He saw potential. He said, 'You're going to do that. Just stick with it.' I'm really grateful for that because we wouldn't be here right now. A lot of opportunities have always opened. At first, I didn't see them, but now I'm looking for them and I get them. I'm a huge believer in the Law of Attraction. Whatever I think turns into reality.

I turned 19. Another conflict: a 19-year-old telling 30 and 40-year-olds what to do.

It was really tough. You do everything you can, then you tell someone, 'Hey, can you do this?' and they say, 'No, you don't tell me what to do.' I told the boss, 'This is going on. They're not listening to me. There's no respect. Maybe you should hire an older one.' He said, 'No, we're going to fire them.' I said, 'There's no need for that. I don't like getting people fired.' He talked to them. Some left, some stuck around. After that moment, I earned more respect. When new people came in, he would tell them from the beginning, 'Hey, the manager is younger. Whatever he tells you, you have to do it. I don't care if you're 60 and have a bunch of experience. Just listen to him. If that's going to be a conflict, it's not a good fit.' He set the tone from the beginning, so after that, there was no issue. Rancho Express was my first legit job, my only job.

Probably about $1,600 a month. It was still a little bit, but I was learning. I was in the training process. It shows you patience can do a lot of things. When I started working there, I like doing the best I can and giving it my all. That was seen, so it opened more opportunities. I had job openings from Mercedes, BMW of Ontario, and Ford of Anaheim with almost double the pay. I didn't want to go for more money because if I did, I wouldn't have the hours I had, I wouldn't be able to make my own schedule, and they wouldn't work with my school hours. I stuck with it. Even when I was a manager in 2016, I was only making about $12 an hour when minimum wage was maybe $10.50. I honestly didn't care. I thought, 'It's not that much, but I have to do what I have to do.'

I just wanted to get through school. The job fit really well with school. There was good alignment because I went to school for automotive. The owner worked with my hours. It was two or three miles away, very convenient. The house was five miles away. Everything was really close. I thought, 'I'm not making enough right now, but I'm going to school to make more money. After I'm done with school, maybe I can look for more opportunities.' I stuck with it. It's crazy because since the beginning, even 2017, the owner said, 'One day you're going to own this.' I thought he was crazy. I didn't see it. He saw I had a lot of passion for it, so he would always tell me, 'You love what you do and this is going to be yours.' He started planting the seeds. In 2018 he would talk about it, in 2019 he would talk about it. Then in 2019, he actually came up to me and said, 'Hey, I'm being serious. I'm really willing to work with you on a deal. If you don't want it, I'm going to sell it to someone else. I'm going to give you 20%.' 20% of the company. So you had skin in the game. I told him right away, 'Hopefully you sell it.' That's going to be good money. I was already thinking, '20%? I'm going to go buy a brand new Mercedes.' I told my dad, and he said, 'That's good money.' It took me a couple of days to think, but I'm like, 'I'm dumb. Why am I thinking this small? Why am I thinking 20% when the 100% can be mine? 20% is just one time.' So I told my dad, 'How can we do it? I don't have money to buy a business right now.' He said he didn't either.

He could have sold it for half a million. He was negotiating the price for about $400,000. There were potential customers. He gave it to me for free. My father-in-law, who had been my father-in-law for a few months, I asked my wife, 'You think your dad can let me borrow some money?' We talked and he lent me some money because I needed to put down 50% and the rest would be payments. I had to put down $40,000. I didn't have the money back then, so I borrowed from my father-in-law. I did the math, reverse engineering. I brought down all the bills. The first 10 days, I had to go all in because my bills are all due on the 10th. Those two weeks, those 10 days, are gold. I put in all the work. I thought, 'Damn, I need to make sure I pay my boss and my father-in-law back every month. That means I may not have money afterwards.' Thankfully, everything worked out. I paid my boss within 10 months and my father-in-law within 13 months.

Now the business was mine. That was the main difference. As a manager, I worked hard, but as the owner, there's no going back. You have to do more things because you have to eat and pay bills.

Back in 2020, at the beginning of 2020 during COVID, roughly about $45,000 to $50,000 a month. That's about half a million a year. I took over in August 2020. That first month we did $61,000. I felt really proud of myself. That's the most we've ever done. That's $780,000 a year. I thought, 'That's not bad because I've never done that before.' I grew it 20-30% right away. I had already realized things that needed to be done. One of them was social media. He wasn't doing social media, so right away I started doing those things. I started the page, but I would post stories and stuff. I put a lot of money into Google ads. August was good. September I did about $2,000 more. Every month since I've had the business, I've made at least $100 more, but never less than the previous month. There's always been growth. Now I'm averaging about $190,000 per month. I always improve. I have to make at least $5,000 or $10,000 more a month every month. I focus on how I'm going to do that. I'm very analytical and I like tracking everything because then you can see where the problem is. If we just talk about making more without a record, there's nothing to go back and see where the problem is. Everyone wants to make more, but the problem is sometimes they don't know how because they don't track it.

When I started doing that too, I started doing it last year in October.

The mindset changed last year in October. That's when you started growing even more. Right now, I'm at almost $3 million. The mindset started changing slowly in 2022, but a lot of eye openers happened during COVID. In 2022, seeds were slowly planted. In August 2022, my wife was already pregnant. We did a gender reveal. I lived in apartments. I didn't really care back then about goods or materials, but I asked myself, 'Okay, you have a business. You're living in apartments. The business is doing all right, but how come you can't buy a home?' That was my personal thing. We had the gender reveal at a park across the street from the apartment. My family is big, her family is big. There were probably 100 people at the park. It got dark around 7 and people were still there. I thought, 'Where do I put all these people? There are no lights at the park.' I started thinking of taking them to the pool. Some people were at the pool, some at the park, some at the apartment. I thought, 'This is the last time I do this. This is the last time I have a bunch of people over at my apartment.' I felt like I was making a fool of myself. How am I going to own a business and be living in an apartment when that should be my focus? I have a baby coming. I have a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment. My sister is living with me. Where is my baby going to go? That same night, I was looking for realtors. I reached out to a couple. The first two shut me down right away. They said, 'The business hasn't been incorporated for at least two years. You've been in business for one year under a corporation. You're going to have to wait.' I thought, 'Damn.' I really needed to get a home. I found the right one through one of Albert's people. I met Albert in October 2022. I got a house in November. In December, I did my first virtual seminar with Grant Cardone. 2023 started hot. I started doing things I had never done: seminars, conventions, none of that stuff. 2023 was my breakout year, my best year ever. I don't want it to be the best year ever. I want this year to be the best year ever.

The mentality. The mentality changed. I was more open, open-eyed, open-minded. I wanted to see what could fuel me. For example, I like sports. I look at athletes like Kylian Mbappé. He's younger than me and getting paid millions of dollars a week playing a sport. I'm over here feeling proud for being a young entrepreneur. I think, 'What the hell is wrong with me?' I always try to find things that will make me do more. When I look at other people, it's not about comparing, but asking, 'What are other people doing that you're not doing?' Athletes need discipline. They need to eat right, work out, train every single day. It's the same as an entrepreneur. You need to train every day. You have to stay disciplined. When I saw that other people are out there younger doing bigger and better things, I thought, 'I'm not doing enough.' At the beginning, I felt too good. I thought, 'I'm an immigrant, 24 years old, a business owner.' I was pretty proud of myself. That whole year I was really proud of myself.

It was literally Driven. Driven is the main purpose of this. I've been there. It's huge. I didn't know who Grant Cardone was. I didn't know any of these guys. I had no idea. When I went, I was super shy. I didn't want to talk to anyone. It was my first experience. I took a lot of notes. All the speakers that came up, I started following them right away. I started following more people with the right mindset, talking about positive things. Then I started eliminating people I followed that were causing distractions. I cut a lot of friendships that wanted to go out on weekends and party at bars. It was hard, but I thought, 'Either I do this or I do that. I can't do both. I can't be chill partying on the weekends and have a business and want to grow and be successful. It doesn't work like that.' I wasn't rude about it. I said, 'I'm really after something. I think our friendship is good, but what's not good is that every weekend it's the same thing: go out, have drinks, get drunk, hangover. If you really value our friendship, just respect that I'm going to be absent for three months. I'm not saying you can't talk to me, but I'm just not going to be attending those.' I lost a lot of people like that. A lot of people stuck, and I value them even more because they supported me. After the event, I started following the right people. As we went, I just started following more and more successful entrepreneurs. Right now, I mainly follow 80% successful entrepreneurs. If I'm scrolling through social media, I want to see things that will keep the fire going, the momentum going. I don't want to see someone going to the bar or a bunch of distractions. It would be really easy to do that. Scrolling never stops. Social media can make you millions of dollars, or it can be the death of you. Some people work 8 to 5, spend three or four hours on social media during the day, then another three or four hours after work. At the end of the day, they're more on social media than working. They're distracted, not making money, bringing their energy down, and have a bad relationship with their spouse because they're always on the phone. Social media will make you or break you. Even I can fall into it. Sometimes at home, I get on Instagram and my wife is there. I have to stay focused on the family. Even at dinner, back in the days I used to be on the phone a lot, texting people. Now I put it away and focus.

How old are you?

Wow, you're young. I thought I was young. I'm 34. Everyone in my circle is in their 30s or 40s. There are people my age I still talk to, but I don't really talk to anyone younger than me. It's not that I'm better than them, but the generation of 20-year-olds right now is really bad. Everyone is on social media all day. The mind is not like it should be. It's sad to see. There's no alignment with younger people. There are a lot of younger people doing amazing things that I wish I had close connections with, but there are good and bad people out there. I do wish I was really close with younger people because I'm 27 and I want to learn from a 20-year-old if he's doing better than me. There's something that's working right now. I'm always about learning, not staying behind in the automotive industry or business. Whatever is going to make me better in sales, I want it. Before, it wasn't like that. It's good to attend networking events because you meet younger, smarter people. Anyone who goes to events is there for the same reason, so they're most likely going to be in good alignment. Some people may not be because ego is another problem. Ego might be the problem that they're not moving up. As a man, I feel like a lot of men lack their word. In business, I hate it even more when someone tells me a certain date or promise to come and do a service and it's not met. I'll let it slide once because things happen, but if it's over and over again, I can't tolerate that. There are so many people that do this. So many fakers. They want to sell the product, they sell it, but then they fall off. They're working on the next product, but why look for more when you have to complete the first one? A lot of people focus on acquiring new customers, but you have to focus on the existing ones. 60% of the business is repeat customers and referrals. I hate when men say something and they don't deliver. As a man, you don't want to do that. You want to be a man of your word. You want to get the respect you want. It starts with that.

I finished college in spring 2018. I graduated from Chaffey College with a degree in auto repair and a science degree in master technician in the automotive industry, and electrical engineering and automotive technology. It was only supposed to be two years, but I did more things, so I stuck around longer.

Nothing specific. I just really like cars. For me, it was really the fact that I had to help my parents. If I can work on cars and fix them anytime they break down, that's already a big win because my parents can't afford big repairs. That was my mentality. I thought, 'If I can at least have that, then that would be good. I can work on my personal cars, then maybe I can work on other people's cars and make some money.' That was literally the mentality I had.

Right now, I have a total of nine employees. I'm actually looking for more people, another two technicians. The main goal for this year is to open up more locations. I want to be ready for that.

All these businesses don't have a lot of overhead. They're IT companies, insurance companies. So it's different.

It's hard to do it differently with other industries, but yeah, you got to keep it a minimum of 250. It's just basics.

How do you fire someone when they make mistakes repetitively? I just can't do it anymore. Mistakes are always going to happen, but if you don't learn from them, it's over and over again. It's costing the company a lot. It's like, obviously you don't care. I care more for you than you care for yourself. So I'm sorry, but it's not working out. I hate being that person because life's tough, but at the end of the day, I'm not going to hold someone back when they don't care about themselves. If they don't care about themselves, they're not going to care about my company or their job. So why is this not worth it? That's going to be the bad apple in the business. You don't want that. It's going to be the cancer. A lot of times people think with emotions, and you got to think with logic. That's another thing a lot of people don't understand. They're always with emotion. They don't want to fire people, but if they're not cutting it and the numbers are not right, then you got to let them go.

That's a great idea. So you do the problem and then the solution so people can go back to it as a reference.

How do you keep track? Is it with a spreadsheet or something?

What got you to being so analytical? The fact that now I can see something and fix it versus just going with emotions. It's not going to fix anything. I started doing that this past year. I would hear about it, and a lot of people would tell me the same thing. I need to start doing the same thing: systems and procedures. I need to have the manual. That's something they can find in the manual too: problems and solutions. When I did that, now I'm delegating a lot of things. I don't have to be there when a problem comes. They already know, oh, go to the computer under the section of problems, you'll find that problem and solution. It takes time and it's never going to end because you always got to keep updating it. A lot of people think training employees and systems and processes, oh I don't have any systems, I don't have any process. Everybody has systems, everybody has processes. It could be a pen and paper, but some people have better technology and better systems and processes. It has to be done. I hated doing that too, but it has to get done. If I'm busy, like we're here on the podcast, and if a lot of my people didn't know what to do, my phone would be blowing up. A lot of people think, okay, I'm busy, and they're on the phone all day. But for me, I have over 50 employees, 60 employees, my phone's not even ringing. I don't even have it in quiet mode because I have people to delegate to. It's a chain of command. If they can't find the solution, they go to this person and this person. It's good that you have those things in place.

Twice a week as a team and three times with myself per person.

Yeah, I have a manager. Everyone knows their role. Everyone knows how much they have to bring to the company. I've been struggling with that lately. For the past two or three months, I'm doing my training but I'm not able to have them do the training. They do it but they don't attend every single day. It's kind of hard to get them online. I'm trying to get a sales manager.

It's not that they're bad people. Sometimes they don't do the training. But you're right, you just got to talk to the people and align them with the profit. You have to talk to them. Sometimes it's just the drive. The drive they have is not clear. They don't even know what their drive is. That's why sometimes they miss a couple trainings. Maybe they show up at 8:03 instead of 8:00, and we're like, oh it's okay, he's here. But it's not okay. There's always going to be little things that we don't fix that can cause that. Sometimes they can be really great at what they do, the perfect employee, but then there's that one thing: they don't train, or they show up two minutes late every day and want to leave five minutes early. You have to be fixing these things right away and make it about them. That happens in the one-on-ones. When you make it about them, you're telling them you're willing to put everything you got to make them better and help them achieve their goals. What you get in return, if they're legit people, they're not going to leave. There's a risk: you teach everyone, give them everything, and they learn a lot and leave. But if they're really a man and appreciate everything you've given them, why would they stop? If they want to stick with you in the long run, you got their loyalty forever. It's like Andy Elliott says: I'll pay you a million dollars if someone can take one of my employees and they won't do it. Why is he doing that? Because he knows what he's got. Andy focuses on making his employees better. He trains them physically, emotionally, professionally. That's why they're a bunch of lions. It's something you don't buy, you make. He has something really good going on. It took him a while to get there, but it's working. That's something I really admire about Andy: his marriage with Jackie, he's a great leader overall. He speaks nothing but the truth. I've learned so much from him. That comes with following the right people. Sometimes the truth hurts, but you have to hear it. When I met Andy, he was talking about a certain subject and I'm like, damn, this guy is talking straight to my face. Someone can be like, man, this guy is so cocky. You're going to have people say good and bad things all the time. He speaks facts for that same reason because he knows he's going to hurt a lot of people in the building, but with that he's going to wake them up. They'll be like, you know what, he's right. I'm a fool. I'm not working hard enough. I'm not the perfect husband to my wife. That's why so many people follow him because he has changed their lives 100%. He's a great guy. I learned a lot about him and from him, about the energy and not being a one-dimensional guy. It's really crucial to listen to the right people. When you want to seek advice, make sure it's from the right person. You can be sitting here listening to someone that doesn't have what you want. You can be listening to your buddy telling you not to buy another property just because he thinks it's not a good time, but your buddy is living in an apartment. You can't do that. Even with family, sometimes as a parent they can tell you, oh no, don't do that, that's a bad investment. But they've never gone through that. It's tough, but you just got to watch out. You say, I appreciate the feedback, but I think it's a great opportunity. I'm going to take the risk. If it doesn't go well, I should have listened to you, but I'll never find out. I love taking huge risks because every time I take a huge risk, the return is amazing. The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward. I'll keep doing it every time if I can. Some people are afraid of that. Some people work so hard, they have $20,000 in savings and they're afraid to put $20,000 into an investment or personal development because the money won't be there. They rely on that money later on for some reason. What if something happens? What if an opportunity comes and I don't have the money? People think like that. They save, save, save, but money doesn't grow in a savings account. Money in a savings account is like not having it. It's no good. They're so stingy when it comes to spending and investing cash. Cash is trash. Cash flow is king. That's facts. Even if you have a thousand bucks or a hundred bucks, you always got to find where you can put it.

I'm 100% with you, bro. I'm always broke. I just bought this building. I'm broke. I don't have money. All I'm doing right now is optimizing. That's why I asked you about accountability for my salespeople. What I'm going to do is just do training videos. I'm going to hire a sales manager and there's not going to be any slack. Like you said, you're not doing this training, first, second, third warning, you're done. I'm working with my executive and we're just going to track everything out and put them in the PIP program. If you're not cutting it, you're gone. You have to have different people that they report to. Having a sales manager is great. Mr. Josh over here says he wants to do this XYZ. I told him I'm going to give it to him, but these are the things he needs to do. Mr. Josh needs to report to Mr. Jonathan every day. If he's not reporting, there's a problem. Jonathan needs to take action right away. Hey Josh, you're not doing this. This is a warning and a write-up. We can only be here so long. It's accountability from everyone. I tell my team all the time, you got to hold each other accountable. If I, the leader, just sit back and say, hey guys, great job today, every day, you guys are so amazing, but I know they're lacking in sales, efficiency, motivation, so many areas. I'm making them worse, not better. Just because you told me we're doing great, that's not good. What is great? What does great look like? What does your day look like? A lot of the problems start in the hiring. If we didn't talk about this during the hiring process, they're going to be like, what makes me do this now? Why should I do that when for the last four months I've been doing it my way and it's been working? I don't have to work as hard. Why would I work harder now? That's the problem sometimes. We get people and we don't say that from the beginning. You correct them by giving them warnings and write-ups. If they don't change, it's just not a good fit anymore. That can come with a lot of legal terms, but you got to do what you got to do. Always watch yourself how you run your business. Make sure you give breaks, do everything correctly on your side so nothing can backfire. A lot of business owners are afraid to make a move like that because there are so many things they don't do right, it's going to be a lawsuit. You don't want that. As a business owner, you always got to be in control. It's like playing chess. You got to move pieces. You can't sit back and be like, you're an employee of the company. You can't have your employees run the company in a bad way. You can't afford that. When we're doing a hiring, we align the people with our core values and make sure they know our mission statement. If they're aligned with the core values, we bring them in, try them out, and go from there. But for me, I've been growing so fast that I got to step back a little bit and focus on my team, do more training, get everybody aligned. We're growing fast and we have a lot of customers. This year 2024, we're going to grow double. Maybe 50 to 75%, but we're shooting for double. We got to align everybody so we can be profitable. Revenue per employee. If people wake up dreading to go to the job site, that means there's a lot of issues. When we see the numbers, it's like, okay, he's not motivated to train, not motivated to meet the numbers. He talks about vacation but he's not motivated about the vacation. We got to find out what he needs, what motivates him. One-on-one, what motivates you? He starts telling you. Also, I've been focusing on doing PPFs for everybody starting in January. Sometimes we forget, we get dragged into work, especially when you're running four or five businesses. But right now we're doing personal, professional, financials for every employee. Keeping them aligned, what motivates you? Are you aligned with your goals? What's going on with your personal life? What's going on with the business? You have to do that. The moment I did that, my company changed for the good. I got rid of people that weren't aligned with me, but I got better people. Every time someone leaves or I have to fire someone, better comes. I'm not saying I get excited, but that's the positive out of the negative. When it comes to employees, I tell them all the time, I see them as business partners, not employees. I don't want to say, oh yeah, he's my employee. Obviously he is, but he's part of my team. He's my future business partner. When they hear future business partner, guess what happens? The mentality changes. Damn, he sees me as a business partner. They're motivated. Every time they wake up, they think, I don't care if someone's paying me more, I want to go in because he says I'm a future business partner. That's what people want to hear. When you open another location, you're not going to be all over the place. You can delegate and say, you know what, you're going to have skin in the game, maybe 10 or 15%. He's going to manage the place, be loyal, grow the company, be aligned. It's all in the people. People alignment is huge.

I agree 100%. Going back to mentors, what are some of your mentors?

What about Brandon Dawson?

That's a lot of money, bro. For the audience, for people that don't have the money, what would you do? Any advice for people starting who don't have $100,000 or even a thousand?

Me too. I learned so much from Alex Hormozi. He throws a lot of amazing content, and it's free. What does your day look like? What does Nestor's day look like? From what time do you wake up to what time do you go to sleep? How do you plan your day? How do you prioritize family, business, the gym?

How many hours do you sleep?

That's me too. About five. I try to get six, but no matter what I do, I cannot go to sleep before 11:00. Even if I try, even if I have nothing going on, I can't go to bed at 10:00. I just can't fall asleep. My body is used to sleeping five hours. Even on Sundays, I have my routine. I wake up at 6:00 sometimes on Sunday. Even if I feel lazy, I'll be up by 6:30. Even if I went to sleep at 2:00 in the morning, my body knows I can't be in bed anymore. Every Sunday, I work out with my wife. We work out together at least three times a week. Sundays are for sure. We try to get in at least two more during the week. Sometimes it doesn't happen, but Sundays is a for sure. She has her own personal trainer. It's good to have because when you work out together, your relationship gets even better. You're helping each other out. We hold each other accountable. I tell her, call me fat. Call me an ugly piece of [ __ ]. Just call me fat. Tell me I'm out of shape. That motivates me. My wife told me, get my love handles. She said, damn babe, you're getting a little bit of love handles or a little bit of a stomach. I said, okay, tell me more. Tell me what else you don't like right now. I'm taking it all in. Obviously I can't tell her the same way because you don't talk to a woman like that. You can't say, you look fat now. You got to say, hey babe, let's work out. I know you like looking good in that dress. You want me to be honest? It looks amazing, however, just make sure you're keeping up with the workout. I know this week was a little rough, but let's keep going. You also keep her accountable. That's what happens when marriages break. Men are looking for something they don't have in their woman. Same with women. Why get to that when you can fix it? That's why marriages break all the time. That's why there are loyalty issues. They're always going behind their spouse trying to get something they don't have at home. It's that simple. Communication. We hold each other accountable and it's amazing.

I'm going to start doing that. I'm always complimenting my wife, but I got to start telling her this and that. Compliments are good, but you have to find the right words. If you say, hey babe, this year my goal is to be 6% body fat. Maybe I look good right now, but my goal is 6% body fat. If she tells me in March or April, you look amazing babe, and I'm 12%, she's lying to me. Maybe she does think I look amazing, but that's not helping me get to my goal of 6% body fat. That means I need to cut a lot of things. I really like eating, but I can't. She's not supporting me in that way. Maybe she doesn't want you to work out as much because they start putting that, why does he want to look so good? What are his intentions? I'm not going to support him. But if you tell her, you know what, my challenge for this year is 6% body fat because I've never done it and it's a really hard challenge. I know I can't go without eating cookies and drinking soda. This is my challenge. I know if I do this challenge, it's only going to make me stronger and I really need to get this. If you tell her like that, okay, I'm going to support you. It's communication and breaking it down, having a plan. Next time, she says, you're 12% body fat, what's going on? You dropped the percent. You talk, you talk, you talk. I tell her, talk to me strong because I know I can take it. The way I see it is, how is my wife dealing with this? If I was in her shoes, I wouldn't like the way I looked. I always try to find any little thing to just twist it and fuel me. I'm super competitive. In football, I think that was the big seed planted. I never lost a home game. I went undefeated in the home stands all four years of football. I lost three state championships. I'm not proud of that, but the fact that I never lost a home game, that was kind of the focus: don't lose, don't lose, don't lose. It really helped with the mentality I have now.

That's crazy, bro. What are three books you would recommend for starters and advanced?

Where is Nestor or Rancho Express going in the next five years?

Where can people find you on social media platforms?

Great. It was great having you. Thank you so much for listening and tuning in to the Limitless CEO podcast. Please stay tuned for the episode coming up on YouTube. Peace out. Let's get it.