How To Create The Life You Desire with Ryan Grimes

This is the Beyond the Story podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story. And now, Sebastian Rusk Ryan, welcome to the show. Thank you very much, Sebastian. I'm glad to be here. I'm glad to have you here. Glad to have you here. We were having a few audios technical difficulties when we first got started here. But hey, listen, the podcast guy, it's my job to figure those out. We didn't on this. So listeners, forgive my lack of audio quality, if you will, on this episode. But I always say, Done is better than perfect. I wasn't gonna reschedule. It's Christmas Eve for crying out loud. So- Yes. Thanks for taking some time to hang out with me for a few minutes. I appreciate it. So I love telling people's story on this show. And usually what I like to do for some context for our listeners, let's go back to the beginning of the story and you can define where the beginning is and walk us through what brought you to what you're currently focused on today and what you're excited about.

Sebastian Rusk

Sure. So this is a story 21 years in the making because of how long we've been doing this. Back in 2003, 2004, my wife and I were both happily employed teachers in Illinois. And we decided, you know what? We don't like stability. Well, actually, I decided that my wife was like, OK, but whatever. Like she supported me and she supported me for the last 21 years doing this. And we decided to leave our very stable, very eh, secure employment in the public education system in the Chicago area and move to Indianapolis and start a company. And I was like, you know what? I can totally do the company thing. How hard can it be, right? So back in 2004, you did not need any sort of employment or verification or anything to get a mortgage. They were giving them out to anybody who basically had a pulse. And so we sat down with the mortgage company, like, yeah, we're starting a company. Like, neither of us have jobs. And we're like, cool, here's a couple hundred thousand dollars. Go build your dream home. So that's what we did. And we survived. There were many, many, many tense nights, as anyone who owns a business can attest to. The fact that you know what you're getting into, the technology side of it, I was a very technical person. Like, I'm like, oh great, I can just do technical stuff for people and they'll pay me money. Well, I didn't know that there was this thing called marketing or this thing called sales. So we did everything the absolute hardest way for a long time and slowly but surely got better. And then about four or five years ago, I sat down with my wife and said, okay, your kids are getting older. I've got three kids. And they're getting to the point that they don't need me as much. I'm like, I want to grow this business because I don't want to do this forever. I want to have something of value that I can potentially sell or has value to it that I can sell to employees or sell to investors or at some point sell it and get rid of it. And I need to grow it. So we made the decision that I would invest heavily into the business. We started with marketing. And once marketing started working, it took us about a year and a half, two years, because we had to re kind of invent our image and our website and everything with our business. So marketing starts working, then they're like, Oh, crap, sales is completely broken. So we had to reinvent sales. And then we're like, okay, great. So now we've gotten people through the marketing into the sales, and now our client onboarding is garbage. So we needed to figure out how to fix client onboarding. And then support was broken as well. So basically, we took the next year and reinvented every other part of our company. And once everything was in alignment, we could go, okay, great, now we've got a real business here with processes, with people who own different parts of the company, and that's their responsibility, and we could actually grow this thing. So we focused on that. That was about three years after we started marketing. So after that, we grew approximately 65 to 70% the next year. And then this last year, we've just grown another 75%. And it's been fantastic. We do business IT services. I probably should have led with that part. But yeah, we do business IT services. We don't do any residential stuff. That's a Best Buy, Geek Squad level thing. So we work with some really amazing companies that do some really cool stuff. We just make sure that they're not being hacked or cybersecurity is in place. They've got good processes through the technology in their companies. Basically, we have been outsourced IT support for a lot of some really cool companies in the Indianapolis area and surrounding states. We do have clients in other states. The cool thing about Indianapolis is I can drive two hours and be in Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky. So that is pretty cool, especially for a long weekend down in Louisville, which are super fun. That's what we've done. And 49-year-old me looks back on 24-year-old me going, dude, you have no idea what you're in for. It's absolute insanity.

Ryan Grimes

I love that. I love that. So I think one of the main things that's showing up for me when you share that is that you made a conscious decision to just go all in on you. In fact, I got a piece of artwork somewhere hanging on the wall in here that says, It's a stack of casino chips, and it says, bet on yourself. And when we do that, it unlocks areas and opportunities that we probably couldn't even predict, because I bet the plan's working out better than you expected, huh?

Yes. As of now, it is. There were some rough times in there, because owning a business is not for If you want an easy existence, don't ever start a business. Let's put it that way. It's just, you know, there's ups, there's downs, there's things you can't predict. There's large clients getting bought, you know, and they just don't need you anymore. We've had situations where like, oh crap, we can't make payroll. What are we going to do? And then there's been like, oh my God, we just landed the biggest client of our lives. Like now we're doing amazingly well and everything in between, right? So it's, We strive for stability, but the world's a crazy place.

Yeah, it is. You said that you had a big sales problem early on. How did you solve that?

So we didn't have a process. And one of the things that you and I have both learned is that a confused buyer doesn't pull forward. So if you think about all the technology that's needed to run a business, it's absolutely mind blowing the complexity of it. So what we've done is we've distilled that down to very simple to understand things that business owners can wrap their heads around because nobody understands what we do. Sometimes I don't even understand what we do, but that's just because I'm not the technical side of it anymore. I have people much smarter than me that are making sure that the technical side stays up and running. I don't understand that world anymore. I've aged out of it. for business owners, getting them to trust us with that level of intimacy and companionship that we have with their businesses, because we are in their business, right? With the technology side, like we are literally backing up everything in their business. We're protecting everything in their business. We're making sure that their employees are safe, secure, and are able to do what they need to do without the risk of having an incident happen, because that could be, they can put you out of business. Like that's the level of severity we're playing with. So getting businesses to trust us and to make them feel taken care of is what I do for my business on a daily basis.

What's the hardest part about running the business?

juggling all the chainsaws that are on fire with your eyes closed on a merry-go-round. I mean, it's always something. Yeah, it is always something like got to deal with this one vendor that's like, hey, we're raising our prices 10% next year. Suck it up or leave. We don't care. It's dealing with all the parts now that we have humans that work for us dealing with human stuff. Hey, I got to take a day off because I'm sick. OK, great. We've got this project we've been working on. You were doing this part today, and now we need to figure out another way to do it. It's just all the things that you just never think of that are absolutely huge issues at the time for the person dealing with them. You know, if someone's sick or if someone's family member is sick or they can't come to work or a client is, you know, they get a new president and they want to sit down and go over everything. It's just always something. And it's never dull and it's never the same thing two days in a row. The sheer magnitude of the stuff that we have to deal with, it's just something that regular workers and people who go to jobs and regular employees, they just can't fathom the level of stuff that we have to deal with.

Yeah. Yeah. And to the opposite of that, what would you say the best part? Outside of the success and increased revenue and things of that nature, what's the best part about the business?

The best part about the business is working with my employees. Like they are, you know, one of the things we learned about in Dan's class or webinar or series or whatever, is you have to have the right team when you want to grow, right? Because not everyone is going to be able to keep up with your vision. And I've been very fortunate and my team has been like, okay, let's do it. And they've always just pivoted because we've had to change things so many times because we've been breaking our systems as we've been growing and we've had to reinvent them, reinvent them, reinvent them. And just that level of dedication on their side is allows me the safety and security to say, OK, I can go out and I can go sell a huge project and a huge contract because I know my team is like, yes, let's do that. Let's get more.

So you said you got three kids, obviously married, you mentioned too. So there's a life aspect to business. And what does that look like when the day-to-day operations of running a business doesn't happen? And what keeps you guys excited and active in the Midwest there?

So my kids are, one's gonna be 23 next month, one is 18, he just graduated from high school, and my little baby girl is gonna be 14 in a couple of weeks, so two boys and a girl. The empty nest is in sight. It is kind of in sight. My 18 year old just took over our basement and like my home office is like his new bedroom. So he's kind of got his own little apartment down there because he's going to junior college to kind of figure out what he wants to do. He graduated from high school earlier. He's like, I don't want to be in college. I don't want to, you know, I don't want to commit to anything right now. I'm not ready. Okay, cool. So he actually works for us part time, he does our YouTube videos, and does some video, video work for us. And, you know, it's been a conscious decision to be there for my kids. Like, that's kind of why we didn't grow for a long time, because my kids came first, I didn't have them to ignore them. So We are very cognizant of what they were doing. When we moved to Indiana, my wife did go to work and then she stayed home. She stayed home on and off for about 10 years, just taking care of the kids. Most recently, last year was like, okay, since you're doing your business thing a little bit more, I'm going to go back to school and get a master's degree. She's going to go be a guidance counselor at a school district, potentially as her end goal. it was always making a conscious decision to be there for our kids. So I always chaperone field trips, um, went to all their sporting events. Uh, I had kids in travel sports, so that's a whole different level as my arm keeps going up. Yeah. So, I mean, we always make it an adventure. Like, I think we go to Virginia, uh, and then we go to Memphis. Um, so those are like, eight to 12 hour drives. Um, so we'll take the Friday off. We'll make an adventure out of it. Uh, and just go have fun. Like we'll take the whole day off. We'll go eat some good food. We'll go make a party out of it. And then I will take that next Monday off. And I'm like, I don't care if you go to school or not. Like I really don't. So we're going to go have fun and create memories. Like, um, another thing I've always done is I don't, I tell my kids not to buy me anything for like father's day, Christmas, my birthday. Just take me, let's go out to lunch. Let's go have some time together. So we pick a different restaurant. Good. You can't go to the same place twice. And we go out and have, we go out and have lunch or breakfast or whatever, and just go talk. And it's been so cool, cause I don't need anything. I got more crap in my life than anyone ever needs. And I just want to make sure that I'm there for my kids and that they, when I'm old and senile and they got to deal with my shit, like, oh, that everything's cool. Like they have good memories of how amazing I was when they were younger. So.

I would agree that if you're not nice to your kids, they will not wipe your ass when you're old. Yeah. I would agree with that. I would agree with that. So you and I both linked up in the great Dan Martell's elite group. Dan's quite the dynamic guy, wildly successful, and just a great guy to listen to and follow, and very good in the Instagram DMs. So much so that I decided to join his program for a year. What was your motivation for jumping in the group other than increased knowledge and being in community?

Oh my goodness. So I actually was told about his book. I don't remember even where I was told about his book. It was about two years ago. So I got the audio book, listened to it. I was like, okay, this is just too much to consume and to work through in an audio book. So I went and bought the Kindle book and I've been rereading it. And I've been, as a business owner, especially with a growing business, you need to get things off your plate. Like you can't do all the stuff. And I was really struggling with that because I'm very ADHD, very outgoing personality. But if you get me to sit down at a desk and look at Excel, like I'm going to give you 20 minutes and that's about the max I can do that. So I was reading his book and I'm like, Oh my God, like, why don't I just hire someone to do that? So we, um, I'm in a peer group for other it business owners. And one of them had hired some technical resources in the Philippines. He's like, that was a great decision I made, um, because it allowed me to, you know, have a different caliber of technical assistance than Americans. I'm sorry, Americans, like our skill sets are kind of garbage. Don't take offense to that. Just level your skills up. But we ended up hiring some technical staff over there as well to take things off of everybody's plate. And then I hired an operations person who's kind of like my VA. And it's been a game changer, absolute game changer. She has worked through onboarding processes, make sure our documentation is great, because I'm not good at that, make sure that invoices are reconciled properly. I mean, just taking on all these things that I'm not good at and it's just way too expensive for my company for me to be doing it. So I've been solely getting myself out of the business because the other thing that does is it increases your valuation immensely when you are not an integral part of your business. So now we're seeking business development reps, SDRs, and basically getting sales and marketing off of my plate as well because If I can get myself completely out of it, then we're going to grow and we're going to do great things, even more than we're doing now. Actually, I was on Axe and I followed Dan. Dan actually messaged me. He's like, it says you're a business owner. What kind of business do you own? We started talking. He's like, dude, I got this club. you should join for a month or month or two. I can't remember what the, uh, oh, I would join for a month. And then he said, after three weeks, I'll let you join for a year and pay the difference. I'm like, okay, cool. So I joined for a month and three weeks in, I'm like, okay, basically somebody every week is yelling at me to get my stuff done. And that's kind of exactly what I need. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love that.

I, well, but you don't want, you have to show up for that though. If you're not showing up on the online community, if you're not showing up on the calls, I didn't make the call yesterday, but I was all up in the call this morning with the replay because I don't want to miss anything. And there's already like, how many coaching calls? Like that's been the biggest thing people have given me feedback on. Go back to the old calls and listen to them. So I like it. I like it. We actually picked up, I mean, I help people start podcasts. So it's mastermind communities are a good sandbox to play in. We're actually launching a cybersecurity show right now for a guy that's in the group. OK. Brett Gallant. I don't know if you know Brett or not. He's in Canada.

OK.

It has a very large and successful cybersecurity company. But anyway, found me through cell by chat to the community. I asked a question on one of the calls, very organic. So that's been another thing, like I'm learning from Dan, I'm making new connections, have some new business come in from it. And then we're also linked up locally here too. We got together and went to the Hard Rock last week for, well, there was about six of us, but four of us were there and met up at the Steakhouse. We're all people that are within South Florida. All these things like lining up on how, in fact, my buddy Brady's been in the group for about a year now, and I used to do his foodie events that he hosted here in Miami and 20 other states. In a past life, I was an on-air personality and host, and I would host foodie events and whatnot. Ran into him at the grocery store downstairs about a month and a half ago. He lives in Atlanta. He's in the wine aisle with his wine clients, and I was like, Brady? Tells me what he's up to. I told him we should get him on the podcast. Said he was thinking about starting a podcast, and he's in Dan Martell's group. I was like, dude, Dan just messaged me yesterday. And earlier this year, part of another group out of Dallas he was the keynote at the conference. So that was where I first learned about him. So you're talking about like connecting all the dots with all of this, but showing up and then all the dots connecting is like a complete recipe for success.

Yes. Yeah. I mean, just we all know we have to do right. It's just the constant reminder. And Dan's got a certain way about him. Like there's there's no nonsense. And that's exactly how I work. There's just no nonsense, right? It's either you just get your stuff done and Just hearing him walk people through things that may not be 100% in line with what I'm going through, but I'm like, you know what? It's actually very close to this other thing I've been thinking about and just getting I've got a path through a lot of the things because, you know, as I tell my employees, I look, we're growing like this is the first time we've done any of this stuff. Like we are brand new to this level of growth, brand new to this level of service. So we're going to have to build our own path and we need the best guidance possible.

Yep. I agree with that. I agree with that. Yeah. Dan's like a hug with a slap in the back of the head. Exactly, yes. With some F bombs thrown in there too, yes.

Right, exactly. I love that.

Brenda, you, well, I mean, it's, I was talking to a guy yesterday that I actually met him, his name's Cassidy, by small boutique hotels, is in Elite as well. He jumped on Dan's Live, was the first one Dan brought up, because Dan recognized him, obviously. And he said, you know, I think 2025 is the year I'm going to launch the podcast. I know I need to do this. And I was like laying on the couch watching like four different bowl games, like on a Saturday afternoon. And I happened to jump on, I followed him, sent him a quick message, hopped on a call with him. And I'm like, man, how cool is this on how we connect here? But he was the one to say, hey, go back and listen to some past calls. But when I shared the same sentiments about Dan being just warm and fuzzy, aggressive, he said, that's what people need, especially entrepreneurs and business owners, because we're so used to doing things our way. You know what I mean? Anyone's willing to course correct. But yeah. Right place at the right time, that's for sure. Well, Ryan, I admire what you've created here with just life in general, great business, beautiful family, and you're enjoying every aspect of that. I think that is ultimately what all of us desire through this, at least I do, through this experience we get to call life. I'm encouraged by your story. I appreciate you coming on to hang out with me for a few minutes. I look forward to continuing to stay in touch and connecting with you. Any final thoughts for our listeners?

No, I mean, well, I say no, but I could, I could talk for another eight hours, but you know, just, just do it. Like you've got the idea, you've got to put in the time, you got to put in the effort. Like just, just do it. Like if you're not happy with where you're at and you think you have a better way forward, do it. Um, you know, we're only here one time and you know, life is too short to drive a shitty car. It's like, it's too short to work a shitty job. It's too short to have a shitty home life. Like make those things better.

Yeah, I agree. Frank Sinatra said, you only live once, but once is enough if you did it right. Yep, exactly. Hey, thanks again, Ryan. I appreciate your time, man. Absolutely, Sebastian. Have yourself a great day. You do the same thing. Until next time, friends. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Beyond the Story podcast. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. We sure do appreciate it. Signing off from the podcast, launchlab.com studios. We'll talk to you next time.