Prepare For Growth

The Inventive Journey 
Episode #323 
Prepare For Growth 
w/ Phillip Hogan
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"So, I've learned that you prepare for growth and have the compacity. Then once you have the compacity, you start the marketing piece and the sales piece. You start looking for new business. When the new business comes in, you can handle it. Then your customers won't be dissatisfied, and your new customers won't be dissatisfied because you are able to meet their quota. That's the most important thing that I have learned. I really encourage any start-up that; don't rush to get more business. Build the compacity and infrastructure. Then once your infrastructure is built, you have the ability to meet the needs of your clients."

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What Is The Inventive Journey?

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

ai generated transcription

 so i've learned that you prepare for growth and you have the capacity and then once you have the capacity then you start this the marketing piece you do the sales piece you start looking for new business and the new business comes in then you can handle it and then your customers won't be this your existing customers won't be dissatisfied and your new customers won't be dissatisfied because you're you're able to meet their coder and that's the most important that's the really the most important thing that i've learned uh and i i really encourage any startup that don't rush to get more business build the capacity build the infrastructure then once your infrastructure is built now you have the ability to meet the needs of your clients [Music] hey everyone this is devin miller here with another episode of the inventive journey i'm your host devin miller a serial entrepreneur that's grown several startups into seven and eight figure businesses as well as a founder and ceo miller ip law where we help startups and small businesses with their patents and trademarks if you ever need help with yours just go to strategymeeting.com we're always here to help now today we've got another great uh guest on the podcast phillip hogan and uh philip is a quick introduction so graduated high school in new york um jumped around a bit through her in in uh through the 70s and traveled to the 80s and then settled in new york and i decided there started to work in a family business but then wanted to do something for himself so i went back to school and pursued a social worker social working degree at in the university of new york graduated and purchased a building i think in 2000 and decided to start a business with the housing management provided housing to those or for substance abuse program or coming out of substance abuse program did everything out of pocket worked full-time ran the program for uh several years got a bit burned out closed the program sold the bills in building took a break um and then decided to move to georgia found a few new jobs and then uh ended up getting divorced got a few better jobs and then the last job was a it was working at a program for providing housing for hiv patients and then shifted the um to a business so that's more of a mobile uh notary business which is what he's doing today so with that much as an introduction welcome on the podcast phillip thank you glad to be here so i just absolutely and i just took a much longer journey condensing into a much shorter period of time so let's unpack that a bit so tell us a little bit about how your journey got started in new york coming out of high school oh coming out of high school oh gosh well i graduated i graduated hampshire high school in 1975 and uh at that time just decided to do a little traveling and at that point i was pretty much like a sheltered child and it was time for me to see the world a little bit and see how other people lived and and associate themselves with their surroundings so i traveled throughout the country uh and i got opportunity to travel internationally and i was able to live abroad for a little bit and uh for i think for the best 10 years after high school i just was really into the mode of finding myself and finding out how other people lived and find out to be quite enjoyable but then when that time ran up it was like okay you know let's settle down what are you going to do here so that's when i came back to new york and got involved in a family business a very successful family business that my dad had started who was a a uh a decorated retired police detective who's deceased now and um so he and my mom would run into business he asked me to help him and i decided to come and join him and it was a great experience and that was his dream it wasn't my dream it was his dream but that was my father so he asked me to come work for him and how could you ever say no to your father so so i did and it was a great experience i learned a tremendous amount my business acumen that i have now it has really come from my mother and father working side by side and seen and built not only one not only two but three successful businesses so um so then you know it came time to again find myself on another level and so i just you know my father and i sat down we had a conversation and i said listen papa i need to go and do some other things with my life and he understood unwillingly and so then i uh got invite admitted into i started the pursuit of human services so i got my undergraduate degree from metropolitan college let me just ask one or one quick question i know dive into the middle of your story but one of the questions i had is you know so you're working with your dad and i definitely get hey how can you say no to family and helping them out and learning the family training you get a lot of skills but what was kind of the genesis or the tipping point to say okay i need to go out and do things on my own was that hey i can't stand working for my dad or hey i love you dad but i really have a different passions and different priorities or kind of what was that trigger that tipping point to say hey i want to go out and do my own thing and then start you down the path of going back to college yeah it was as i mentioned earlier that was my father's passion that business was his business and so i didn't join the business to really learn the business i somewhat i i mean it was part of the process but my real passion and real reason for joining the business was just to be about my father's side and to help him and and to give him the assistance that he needed to build the business and so at that so so that was fulfilled and then i forgot then began to experience that well listen this is really not my this is not my path right this is really not the things that i want to do it doesn't really express who i am as a person uh deep down the side uh as a family person yes as as as a busy person yes but as a passion for something for me to pursue that just wasn't quite it so we had it it was a tough decision devin it wasn't something that you could easily walk away from you know but it was a decision that had to be made to bring me peace and also to help him be satisfied to know that okay well listen you know what let me not think that my son is going to be here forever and a day when in fact he has some other desires to pursue himself and so those those are the reasons that i uh those are the reasons that led me to move on and moving on i began to my undergraduate degree in human services uh did well there and then i got accepted into fordham university school of social work uh got a great social work degree and um this is a 97 so in 2997 got the opportunity to purchase a building as you mentioned in your intro and that's where i started i decided okay how can i use the business acumen that i learned from my parents coupled with the social services education i acquired from the school and the work that i was doing at the time and at the time i decided that to let's open up a transitional living community for adult men formerly incarcerated non-violent drug offenders in brownsville brooklyn new york so in 2000 october 2000 we opened up housing matters of new york and converted into a non-profit and began providing the services to help these men transition back into everyday life now one question to that because so how did you see i in one sense that makes sense you know you get the social worker degree kind of where your passion when you're coming out and you got the building on the other hand you know that would be wouldn't have been the necessary the first thing would have come to mind you know social working degree in other words you may go work for public services you may help people get jobs and that so what kind of drew you to that or what made you decide hey i'm going to go through something on profit do a business or you know set up the the business and do that or at least you know and offer those services how did you kind of land on that as kind of where you wanted to head sure and so at the time uh in 1993 i got hired with the health and hospital corporation uh outpatient substance abuse program and there we were doing a lot of we were treating our clients were those mandated into treatment for substance abuse by division of parole administration for children's services and other state type run agencies that are required to monitor the movement of those that have been admitted into their programs so at that point for and i had the opportunity to do this work while i was through my entire educational venture and so i realized that many men were coming home from corrections facilities going back into the city shelter system and where more crimes were being created or they were creating crimes and what was happening they were being reincarcerated because they had a parole violation so these men were who and they couldn't go into the new york city public housing authority because they had felony convictions and a person with a felony conviction cannot live in the project or in public housing so they were only the only option were to go into the shelter system all the other type of transitional living communities beds were filled and so at that time there was a tremendous amount of men and women coming up for correctional facilities and really the systems to provide services to them were oh were being flooded because so many people were coming home and they just weren't prepared to meet those type of numbers so i said to myself well the issue here is that they need housing right and the program that i was working for didn't get into housing and they didn't have people who were really many they didn't have any any collaborative relationships with those who could provide housing so i says well you know what i'm going to start a housing program and one of my f one of my professors asked me says okay just as we're graduating he says okay phillip now that you have graduated what are you going to do with your degree and i said to him i wanted to get the housing and so when i graduated the opportunity to purchase this building became available and i did just that no no i think that you know i think one that that's a great mission to be on and say hey i recognize that there's a need in the community i think that they can make an impact to make help utilize both the degree as well as you know i'm just generally wanted to have that giving nature which i think definitely um is a great uh mission to set out on so now so you set out on that you know you get the housing and i think you did that for a period of five years is that right five years yes and then i think as you as you mentioned there was we chat a bit before the podcast at the end of it towards the end of that five years you got you got a bit burned out in other words there's a lot of time a lot of effort you're having to you know spend a lot of extra you know spend a lot of your i'm sure nights weekends all of your free time thinking about it running it and otherwise doing it and so you're coming out and saying okay i'm getting a bit burned out which definitely understand and so now as you're saying okay i'm getting burned out and i want to do something you know do something else i want to shift or pivot or adjust kind of how did you decide okay as i'm burning out and i want to do something else where what was going to be the next part of your journey sure well you know we had we uh became a non-profit we got a 501c3 and we got some funding some some private funding some state funding and uh some city funding and so we were doing well in regard to we had more more need for the services opposed to the funding for the services and so i was doing my best to convince uh those at the city and the state level that this is a program that is is essential for this community and your involvement financially and um proactively would make a huge difference in the community because these these men are coming home these men committed crimes they came from these communities they committed crime in these communities and they're going to come back to these communities and if they don't have any place to live guess what they may may create may do more crime that would then what hurt the community in addition to put them back in prison so rather than see that happen let's join a comp let's join an organization that is there to meet the needs of these of both the community residents as well as the uh the new as well as the phone incarcerated so both parties could possibly have been these men well the community quite deceived that way and after just repeatedly speaking to a number of individuals i just got i got between working full-time raising a family two children and a wife and you know i had my own private home and then you know just trying to tend to the needs of the business i just got i got i got torched and so i had a conversation with the board the board president and let her know where i was where i was and it was very difficult decision because we thought that we were really on the right track to make a difference in the community but after some soul searching after after the mission of me being just completely burned out we decided to suspend the services so we we went on ahead and transitioned them in from the building into other programs so they can continue on with their treatment and when the building was completely empty and all residents personal property have been transferred to their new residence that's when i put the building up for sale and i sold it and really uh devin you know as i look back that time i was i i had been working hard from probably about 1993 to 2005. i mean it was just chasing the the education the career goals the educational goals the family goals and so when i stopped in 2005 i hadn't realized i had been running uh not running but working so hard and so focused on meeting the goals that were placed in front of me that i was due for a good break and so at that time also my son who is now 27 and lives in georgia was graduating from his uh undergraduate he was graduating from his uh junior high school his his elementary school went to the sixth grade and he would have had to travel to a largest high school uh junior high school in another part of queens new york and my son had never traveled underground to trains and trains and buses and public transportation before in his life so to say to put philip on a uh on a bus or train and say okay this is how you get to school it just wouldn't have worked for him and and i knew that so you know my wife and i at the time decided what's the next best thing to do we had some friends in georgia and uh they invited us to come down check some things out and so so we drove down to georgia and i said this is a place where i think phillip and his sister can continue to live and grow up in a slower environment a safer environment where we could be a part of a community and that was and so that was the decision and we relocated to georgia in 2005. and i say and i think that definitely you know making or making the move for the family saying hey we need a environment we'll be you know good for school both that you know i get i don't know that i'd want to put my kid on the subway or have them go out in the world i'd probably be a bit too protective and i definitely get for that uh that desire comes in says okay i'd like to you know make that transition that shift and then it's a good time to do so as he's great you know as he's moving along in his education and he's doing that now on the kind of on the career side as you're now moving into a different area you know something that you're you know i would assume that without or having you know compared to other side new york and georgia are going to be a bit of a different environment different things that are going on and then that so how did you kind of transition your career or what did you do as you're moving into a new town probably not knowing it you know other than having maybe a few friends not knowing as many people or having connections how did you kind of land on what your the next phase of your career was that's a great question devin and i i'm i'm kind of i'm an adventurous person so you know we just decided that georgia was a great place to live uh the economy was pretty stable uh this part i live in the uh atlanta region and so this part of georgia was really up and coming and um so i says you know let's go for it so we packed up and literally came that solar solar liquidated the real estate we had in new york and my son and i first came down and um so i felt that since i had a very good education from a tremendously well-known school both undergraduate and graduate level that i shouldn't really and then i had the experience i shouldn't have any problems finding a job and i did i didn't have problems finding a job i just had problems finding a job that could earn that i could earn the type of money that i was earning in new york that was a challenge right so so i found myself you know leaving jobs and taking another job uh for the sake of the money opposed to the really passion for the work that i was doing and i had my family we had built a home in georgia so i had responsibilities and i had to make decisions for the the welfare of my family and so therefore i did in a short period of time i was able to maybe change two to three jobs and the third job was finally one that really fit we it was a fit it was it was organizational fit and it was a career fit in myself and so i worked there for about a year about a year year and a half and then i got laid off and uh and it was it was a layoff you know it was interesting because it was it was a hiv community it was hiv a program for people hiv positive and hiv is it is a disease that's ravishing all type of communities uh but in the in the hiv community is predominantly this the workers and those that do the work are predominantly in the gay community and i don't have a problem with with uh being working with anyone of any denomination or any sexual orientation you know you are who you are and we're coming together for common cause uh but i just wasn't a fit for the community uh because i'm i'm a straight guy and people would look at me and say well listen you know straight men don't do this type of work why are you doing this type of work and i would my response to them says you don't have to be you know hiv doesn't select what your gender is or your sexual orientation it is what it is and so we have to be open-minded to all walks of life uh for workers as well as those that come to us for assistance uh but it was just it was it it it became a um it became an issue as to my sexual orientation in a industry where uh straight african-american men are not known to work so that became more of an issue opposed to the issue that brought us to the table which was the clients that are hiv positive so it was a mutual decision for uh for me to be released because i just wasn't a fit for that particular assignment that definitely you know makes sense in the sense that when you're working with anybody it just has to be a cultural fit it has to be a fit where everybody feels comfortable and if that's not the right environment even if it's no fault of your own is one where you have to say okay i've got to find one where it is a good fit and it's one where everybody you know everybody's comfortable and everybody it's a good environment for everybody and everybody can have make sure to serve everybody it's knowledge you're saying okay that's not a good fit you know it might here or look for you know a different opportunity or different um you know or place or area to within which to explore your talents what was kind of the next step or phase or what was the next part of your journey yeah uh well the next step was to uh you know with his social work degree from florida university i i was really committed to providing you know i you know uh devin my family my mom my my my my dad um our public servants who are public servants uh my sisters are uh have advanced degrees and you know their public servants in one capacity or the other so we're just we're a family of servants we believe in serving the needs of those in our communities and in our in our uh families in our regions and so i was committed to continuing to be to be of service to those in need and that's what i was trained to do so i was able to get another job uh with a very successful non-profit here in the atlanta area and um and so i i we worked together uh as i was a director of human services program and um and i think i was there for maybe i don't know two three years uh it was a family run it's a family-run non-profit so while we did great work there were some challenges to me ascending to uh higher position leadership because the family was at the top of echelon of the the the organization and so my opportunity for k for growth have been capped and i realized that there wasn't just any more room for me to grow and if i wanted to stay in this position for the next 10 15 20 years they had been fined by them but i had much more aspirations and i was just too talented and too ambitious to to remain there so i got another opportunity with the company where we were providing hiv homeless prevention program for hf for people hiv positive down in south georgia and that was a great program because uh they were awarded you know a whole bunch of money about two and fifty thousand dollars a time hiv homeless venture program in south georgia and um so i was able to i got hired and had to set up the program in south georgia while i remained in atlanta so we had the staff we had the we had the office we had all the all the things needed to to run this program and uh but we only had a year to spend 250 000 and that's quite a bit of money in the non-profit world to spend when you don't have the structure when i say the infrastructure to spend it you know the money was only supposed to be utilized for um for those that are recipients of the program you couldn't use it for administrative costs so trying to spend a quarter million dollars without an administrative cost was kind of challenging and the company the non-profit didn't have the the the um they didn't have the resources to hire more staff and pay them to assist in getting the work done so we on a limited budget um with limited staff we were not refunded so that was a year it was a good experience and um so then i kind of like said i tried to find more work and i just couldn't find my work and i i really got burned out i got burned down looking for more work i knew i had a very good degree i knew i had the experience i knew i had the passion to really be a service and um but i just didn't i just got tired of the of the rejections i got tired of you know resumes falling into the black hole so to speak so i just pulled back and um and then one day i met a notary who came to my home to notarize some documents and i had never heard of a notary coming to your home to notarize documents so i says okay what's this all about and you know he after the notification we chatted he taught me a little bit more about how he became a notary and how he became to to doing this type of work and i said okay you know what i could do this i i could do this is something that i think i can do it doesn't require me going back to school because i was really burned out with going back to school so i got my notary commission pretty much followed his uh his blueprint to become a mobile notary and went to the national notary association's website learned how to and took the certification courses to become a certified notary signing agent which would then allow you to been trained as a how to notarize mortgage documents understand the mortgage process so uh so i learned that uh in in one vein if you will and then in another vein i was interested in becoming a mortgage loan officer so i went and learned how to become a mortgage loan officer well i learned a lot and but when it came time to take the test to become a licensed loan officer i didn't pass and so i says okay well maybe you didn't you're not meant to become a loan officer phillip because you're pursuing it for the money and you can't that's not that's never been your your objective in life so um so i decided to stick with the notary and um and then the notre business grew i began getting more customers i i learned the process i didn't know anything about the notary signing business i knew nothing about it everything that i learned i learned by by just on this job training so to speak and i had a really great client out of florida that was sending us a lot of business a lot of refinance business and i just couldn't handle all of it so so they they asked me well philip you know we have a lot of business and we want to send it to you but you're having some difficulty managing our book of business what are you going to do well that was the million-dollar question do you do you walk away from this opportunity or do you rise and so i said i'm gonna start a signing service and they said okay great let us know when you're up so in july of 2016 i launched signing services of america which is a national notary signing service we are hired by national mortgage lenders and title insurance companies to schedule and close any of their mortgage product loans throughout the united states so in 2016 we started signing service america i had this account that was sending us about 150 200 a month and back then for that type of business with the startup was fantastic i mean no business comes in the door making money we were making money but i was learning along the way at devon so so um so fast forward uh we got through 2016 uh with some bumps and bruises um but 2017 is when things kind of like fell apart and um the the business that that company went out of business and that was my main source of revenue and so i had to really learn the sales side of the business and so i learned how to learn the marketing side of the business and then you know between the two i i was just able to um piece together smaller accounts that can allow us to continue to keep the doors open i did hire one person in 2016. she i had to let her go in 2017 and so in 2017 is when i was really pushed to the brink of i don't think this is going to work phillip you're going to have to walk away from it you know um so during in that year devon it was a time it was a very trying time um i used to live and listen to a lot of motivational tapes uh or youtube videos um i talked a lot i prayed a lot i cried a lot um i i challenged myself to get up every day i was very depressed um many days i didn't want to get out of bed many days i i just i i got out of bed but then we're going to the office but i think that office i think that office was a big part of me hanging in there because i had a i had a rental agreement with my landlord and it was you know whether you close the doors and never never do business again or not you still have to pay your rent and so i said well shoot if i close the doors and go home guess what i still got to pay rent so i got to pay rent and i might as well stay here and fight and so and that was one of the things that really that really kept me going he said you know you got to pay this rent phillip and if you got to pay the rent then you might as well fight it out so days were long then devon you know uh they were very long they were started nine o'clock and sometimes they went into one two o'clock in the morning but that's what was required and um so we got through 2017 and when i got through 2017 it was like it was a major breakthrough man because then it was like okay you could do this philip you know and um so 2018 you know uh had his own set of issues but we were we we never had the kind of financial issues we did in 2017 right there were other issues right and and i'd be happy to talk about those um but i'll let you ask some questions or something no i think that's a definitely a great walkthrough and it's always you know i think that it paints that real picture of you know people oftentimes just have the idealized well you know yeah there's a few hard years but oh it was fine because it all worked out in the end and in reality it really does or it does take a toll and you do get burned out it is a lot of work and you having to you know have the un or the lesson fun situation of letting people go and then rebuilding it and otherwise fighting and struggling all which i think is real and and paints that real situation so i think that that is uh definitely a great uh a great walkthrough of your journey and an interesting one of that so now you kind of you know as we talked a little bit before i'm here you know the business is still going you're able to you know you kind of uh pivot and adjust and otherwise keep it growing and building and this year having to to navigate that um it brings you to a bit to today and i think there'd be definitely some fun conversations to have maybe on a future episode or have your bag and talk a little bit more about kind of um now how you you know as you struggle through where the business is at today and where it's going um but with that you know we are as we wrap up towards the end of this or this podcast episode i always uh wrap up the episode with two questions so the first question i always ask is along your journey what was the worst business decision you ever made what did you learn from it well my journey was the worst business decision i made when i learned from it there was so many um i think that uh yeah i think the worst business decision i made uh devin was to walk away from my father and um and uh walk away from my father's business i think that uh the the what he understood it it was very painful for the both of us i'm his only son and that was his legacy and it would have been as i looked back it would have been an honor to be able to continue on my father's legacy and not allow another family person to do that right um so i think that was the worst decision no i think that that's you know that is a hard one in the sense and i've worked with family on some businesses and it's oftentimes worked out great but it does have that layer of complexity and it does have that layer of you know is it one year having to deal with a family dynamic and two you're doing it for other motivations and sometimes it's the right decision to walk away to preserve a relationship or to explore go after your passion other times you're looking saying hey i wish i stuck around or it could have been it turned out differently so i think that is definitely an atmosphere you know mistake or the worst decision but also definitely one to understand and it allows you to pursue are some of the other passions that you have second question i always ask is if you're talking to somebody that's just getting into a startup or a small business would be the one piece of advice you give them to take your time and grow take to uh take your time that you know the growth of a business you can you can either yeah you can either the business you could prepare for growth and then do well or you don't have the capacity for growth and you get the new business and you're not able to handle it so you'll wind up losing the business and you could possibly lose you'll lose the accounts and you'll lose the business so i've learned that you prepare for growth and you have the capacity and then once you have the capacity then you start this the marketing piece you do the sales piece you start looking for new business and the new business comes in then you can handle it and then your customers won't be this your existing customers won't be dissatisfied and your new customers won't be dissatisfied because you're you're able to meet their coder and that's the most important that's the really the most important thing that i've learned uh and i really encourage any startup that don't rush to get more business build the capacity build the infrastructure then once your infrastructure is built now you have the ability to meet the needs of your clients no and i think that that's a great piece of advice and i think that you know oftentimes yeah we are focused on growth and growth is a great thing for businesses if you're not you know growing can bring in more revenue and that but if you're so focused on growth oftentimes you are aren't focused on you know you lose track of the customer service or otherwise providing a good offer you know providing a good service to your customers and taking care of them and and all those things and it can have that negative repercussion of hey yes we're growing on the other hand our clients are unhappy and where it you know has that negative long-term impact on your business whereas if you can set it up to have that structure and that ability in place that as you grow you're able to meet the needs of your clients is a much better um path forward so i think that's a great uh great takeaway and a great piece of advice well as we uh wrap up if people want to reach out to you they want you know they're looking for a no mobile notary they're wanting to be a customer they want to be a client they want to set up their own or they want to pick your brain about how you've done it they want to be an investor they want to be an employee they want to be your next best friend any or all of the above what's the best way to reach out to you contact you or find out more sure be happy to talk with you and anyone else on any one of your in your audience devin so my email is p hogan uh s p h o g a n at signing services america our website is signingservicesofamerica.com and our telephone number is 770-984-5390 eight or nine nine well i definitely encourage everybody to check out any or all above email website or give them a call because uh definitely it's a great service for those that are in need and i think and also not an interesting business opportunity for those that may be wanting to look into it so well thank you again uh for coming on the podcast it's been a fun it's been a pleasure now for all of you that are listeners if you have your own journey to tell and you'd like to be a guest on the podcast we'd love to have you um feel free to apply to be on the show just go to inventiveguest.com and play a couple more things as listeners make sure to listen make sure to subscribe make sure to share leave us a review in other words help us make sure that we can share these journeys with all those all the other entrepreneurs and startups out there so they can be helped along their journey as well last but not least if you ever need help with patents trademarks or anything else in the business just go to strategymeeting.com grab some time with us to chat well thank you again phil for coming on the podcast it's been a fun it's been a pleasure and wish the next leg of a journey even better than the last devin it's been a pleasure being a boy thank you so much for the opportunity you

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