Junior Anziani went from doing "free labor" as a kid to building his own IT consulting firm — and in this episode, he gets real about what it actually takes to leave a stable W-2, make bad hires, burn out, and still keep building something worth owning.
Episode 7: There is No Perfect Time to Start a Business with Junior Anziani
What if the thing holding you back in business is waiting for the “right time,” when there never really is a right time? Save to Zero hosts Mike and Zach sit down with Junior Anziani to talk about building a business, taking risks, and learning as you go.
Junior shares how he went from working in corporate IT to building his own business serving small and medium-sized companies. He talks honestly about not having a perfect plan, about starting on nights and Fridays while working his W-2 job, and about why purpose matters more than comfort.
They also get into what happens after you make the leap. Junior opens up about hiring, bad hires, building systems, working with his wife, and why growing a business means growing beyond yourself.
This is a great episode for you if you’re looking to create more freedom and purpose and get a clearer view of what business ownership really looks like.
“What I realized was that if you keep waiting for a number or you keep waiting for that perfect scenario… There is no perfect scenario.”
“You find out quickly you can’t be everywhere at once. If you want to grow, you have to grow outside of yourself. You can’t be the center of everything.”
“When you’re starting a business, you can’t think you’re going to just start a business, work less, and sit at home doing nothing. You’re actually going to work a lot more.”
Junior Anziani is a seasoned technology professional with extensive experience in IT infrastructure, Cybersecurity, and cloud computing. Over the years, he has honed his expertise in managing complex projects, optimizing systems for efficiency, and leading cross-functional teams.
Junior is known for his ability to innovate and implement solutions that drive business growth. He has a strong background in working with cutting-edge technologies and is committed to staying ahead of industry trends. As a CEO, he is passionate about fostering innovation, empowering his team, and ensuring the company continues to lead and innovate within the industry.
Find Junior on LinkedIn
Find Anziani Technology Services Online
Find Anziani Technology Services on Instagram
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[00:00.0]
You can't fix everybody's problems. You gotta focus on yourself and what you're trying to accomplish. Right? You can't say, I'm gonna stay here and change this whole group's mentality. It's like, no, that's the mentality. I just gotta go find a group that has the mentality that I'm in right now. As your business grows, at least for me, I went from really small groups to bigger groups to groups that make you have skin in the game.
[00:18.2]
You gotta pay memberships to be part of so that they know you're serious. But it's all part of the journey. You know, you gotta start somewhere and then you gotta keep climbing, and finding where you're gonna be. Most people think saving money is the an, but the truth is saving only gets you to zero.
[00:35.7]
Join Mike and Zach as they flip the script from saving to earning from zero to unlimited potential. Welcome to Save to Zero. Hey, everybody. We are here with episode seven of the Save to Zero podcast.
[00:53.6]
My, business partner, Mike and I are here with our guests, Junior Anziani from Anziani, Technical Services. And Junior, welcome. And, just tell us a little bit about yourself and business. Did you always want to have your own business or what kind of made you take this route in life?
[01:11.6]
Thank you guys for having me here. And, no, I never thought I'd own a business. I actually didn't know, what I could do as a business until about five years ago or four years ago. Mike, who, you know, is one of my mentors, and him and I were talking one day at a cigar shop because I had paid him to be one of his students because ideally I thought I was going to be a real estate investor.
[01:34.4]
And, during that conversation, he's like, you're not going to want to change toilets. You're going to go do it as a business. And I was like, yeah, cool, that's great, but I don't know what that means. And then a few years later, I found out exactly what that meant. Where people needed my services and how to turn that into a business.
[01:52.4]
So how did you. Were you always in it before you had a business? Why it was. Yeah, so I've done it pretty much since I, I can remember. I think I did IT projects before I could even walk. But essentially, when I was very young, my father was really into computers and technology in general, and he got me into it.
[02:12.4]
I did a lot of free labor as a young kid where I was Doing data entry. It's okay. The experience was valuable. Wait a minute, wait a minute. What do you mean? You got to eat and you got a roof over your head. You were an apprentice.
[02:30.6]
It was my first internship. There you go. I just didn't have a name to it and I was forced to do it. But, you know, it was an internship. It's okay. I hear you, man. I, When I was growing up, my mother, my dad left when I was young and she had a hot dog, hamburger stand.
[02:47.2]
And I got the same type of apprenticeship you did. You want to eat? Yeah. Get to work.
[02:57.3]
Yeah. So we had to work. And then after that I just, I really liked it. I had an app for technology my high school. I would help fix, the TVs, the projectors. When the teachers didn't know what they were doing on their computers, they'd ask me. And I liked it.
[03:12.5]
I just didn't know what it was. Right. It wasn't really well defined as it is now. What is it? So when I went to college, I thought I was going to be a software engineer. And it turns out that's not it. It's very different. So I went back to working in IT jobs like Geek Squad.
[03:27.6]
Then I worked for the Microsoft stores when they were a thing. And then I went into the corporate world and learned, what real corporate it was like. And I did that for about 12 years. Tell us a bit about that corporate world then. You must have been in there in the corporate world, climbing the ladder, doing the grind and then you decided that wasn't for you.
[03:47.7]
So tell us about that. Yeah, yeah. So it was fun. Actually, my first corporate job, my mindset was really as long as I don't have to work retail and I make the same amount of money, I'm okay. So I'll take anything. Okay. That anything happened to be one of the best opportunities that ever came my way.
[04:07.7]
Because it was the first time I worked in an office. A nine to five, and I was at a startup company. There was only 30 employees when I got there and I was their first help desk person. So through the ranks it was just three of us. There was the senior guy, the manager, and then me, fresh out of the Microsoft store, thinking I know everything.
[04:26.2]
And I show up to this company to be the front desk help desk guy. And an engineer comes in and says, help me reset my Linux password. And I was like, what is that? I have no idea what you're talking about. So humbled me very, very quickly as soon as I got there. But then, like you said, I had to work through the ranks.
[04:43.2]
I had to learn what Linux was, how to support that. I had to learn what it took, to build a business from, you know, at that point, 30 employees to when I left there was 280 something employees there. And today there are 700 and something employees. So we did everything from set up the computers, help clean up after events, I traveled a lot with them as well to get things done for different projects.
[05:07.1]
And just anything that was asked of me, I, would do and I actually volunteered to do it because one, I had fun and two, everything was learning experience while I was there. So what made you not want to be a W2 anymore? What made you want to go on your own and, you know, plant your own flag? Yeah.
[05:24.8]
So after, you know, that humbling experience being a help desk person, I did work my way, all the way up into being a manager of it. And I was making, you know, what I would call good money. And it was a, you know, very, very good job. To this day I think it's one of the best jobs that exist.
[05:40.6]
But I thought there was more out there for me. I said, you know, this is great and everything, you're making a lot of money. But there's this one place, that for me, where I was like, it's not about the money anymore. It's about what's my purpose, what am I doing and who am I doing it for.
[05:57.7]
And when you start asking yourself those questions, you start to realize there's more than just working out of five, you know, sitting there getting the next promotion, you know, getting the next, you know, dopamine hit by getting, you know, extra money or whatever it is. And that you, you are there to serve a purpose to someone else.
[06:15.9]
And my purpose was to just help small businesses, medium businesses with it. You know, these big businesses have unlimited budgets. They'd spend money. They'd actually tell you to spend money right beforehand and say, you know, go spend half a million dollars before the end of the year so we could renew our budget next year, but had no purpose behind it.
[06:32.1]
Where when you're working with a small business, they're like, save me those $10 so I can make sure I can pay my employees next week. And there's real purpose to that. So how. So if you're working corporate, it, you think you want to help small business, right. And make that transition.
[06:48.6]
Did you know right away that that was going to be doing your, like, technology consulting services and all that, or did you have to kind of figure that out? Oh, no. I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know what services to sell. I didn't know how I was going to get paid. You know, if I. If I sat here and told you I had this beautiful business plan and it's ready to go, and I put it in front of investors. I'm a liar.
[07:08.9]
I didn't do any of that. I didn't know. It just came. So one day I was sitting at my house, and, we were doing my daughter's newborn photo shoot. And, the photographer is a good friend of ours. He's done all our pictures. And he told me, he's like, you know, my sister really needs IT help.
[07:25.0]
And I said, cool. I don't really do it on the side like that. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. So he's like, when you talk to her, you willing to help her? I'm like, I mean, I guess, I could help her out on the side. Why not?
[07:40.8]
You know, this sounds good. And then I went and, I spoke with her. They needed a new network. So we went in there, we did a WI fi analysis. We said, oh, you need a firewall. You know, it was like, this is really easy to me, what you guys need here. And they were like, wow, this person is a genius who's coming in here to help us. And I'm like, this. I just think this is.
[07:57.9]
This comes natural. So I went and I did some math, and just. I'll, be honest. The math was, here's how much I make an hour now at work. So if I'm going to help you out, you got to pay me my hourly rate that I make at work, which I thought was a lot of money, by the way. I gave him a great discount based on what, consultants are charging.
[08:18.4]
So wait a minute now. When you started your business, which is something different than W2, you learned what labor burden and taxes were, didn't you? I'm still learning what that is right now. It changes all the time and overhead, and you got to pay for that electricity and insurance and, you know, who's this FICA guy? Yeah.
[08:37.8]
So, yeah, so, you know, we, we started there. I started helping him out. And let me just tell you, I was still working my W2 job. You know, this wasn't like, I'm going to quit. This is great, you know, to do everything. I was still working my W2 job for a year and a half before I went full time into my business just to build up the clientele.
[08:57.5]
It was night grinds. So at night I would go and service all my it, clients. I was lucky to work in tech, where we had 10, 40 schedule, where we had, every Friday off or every other Friday off, depending on, what season it was.
[09:13.0]
But, pretty much every Friday off. And I would work those Fridays as well to service them in their office. And I just ended up starting to build clients little by little who needed support like that. So did you wait to leave your W2 job until you had, like, did you fully replace your income with your business, or did you get to a point where you felt like you had to kind of just jump in and figure it out?
[09:32.4]
Yeah, we're going to keep laughing at me because that's. That's part of the entrepreneurship journey. So I had a number in mind because my wife still worked at W2. And I said, you know, once I get to this number, I can quit my job and everything's going to be great. I got to that number, and I was like, if I leave my job now, I'm not going to be able to eat tomorrow.
[09:51.3]
I can't survive just now. But what I realized was if you keep waiting for a number and you keep waiting to get to that perfect scenario. There is no perfect scenario. So after a while, I said, okay, what I need to do is I need to get to this point where my wife and I are comfortable.
[10:07.2]
We were ready to take the risk and then go ahead and jump ship and go full time. And that just happened to be about a year and a half ago in the summer. I told my wife, I'm like, this is it. We just finished a major, build out as, where I was working. I said, they're stable now. It's open.
[10:23.7]
We did everything we could do. There's no better time than now. And then I said, I'm leaving my job. And I gave my notice. I gave him a month notice, left the job, and I just kept grinding here. Well, good for you for burning the bridges. You know, burn the bridge and just jump in and go, I'll burn the side, burn the boat and just jump in.
[10:40.2]
Because people can plan and plan and plan and plan and plan and then over plan and go back and plan again. And like you said, and I think it goes along with your mindset. From what I'm picking up here is when you were working for the Company you would volunteer for stuff so that you could get the experience.
[10:57.8]
And I think that may have been key. Let me know if I'm wrong here. May have been key in you deciding to just jump. Because it's the experience as the teacher and you experience. Okay, now I have to pay this. Now I need to make more money for this, and it makes you much hungrier.
[11:13.0]
And when you're hungry, you work a little bit harder. Yeah. And, one thing I would say to anybody that's looking for work and they're starting off right now, is forget about how much you're gonna get paid. Just forget about what your salary is and think about what you can learn while you're there. Because nobody actually puts any value to the experience you're gonna gain.
[11:30.0]
If you picked a right employer who's gonna train you, who's gonna invest in you, then the base salary isn't everything. Because if I was just thinking about, I need to make X amount of money, I could have stayed where I was. I, wouldn't have taken the risk that would have. But as a small startup company, they invested so much time, so much money, so much energy that that experience anywhere else would have taken three times.
[11:51.6]
Three. About three times as. As long to gain. Yeah, excellent point. So when, after you jumped, right, you have a few clients, I'm assuming your business isn't as big as it is now. Like, what are those next. That next year and a half, I think you said, was it look like.
[12:06.8]
I mean, was it all smooth sailing or did you hit some roadblocks or how. How did that. How'd that go? It was great. We rode off into the sunset, and it's over. That's it. I'm retired now. No, no. I think the biggest thing was, you know, learning how to build a business, because at that point, I wasn't building a business.
[12:25.1]
Clients were coming to me. There was referrals, there was things happening, but I had to learn. Okay? Now I'm here 40 hours a week or 50 hours a week, whatever your work week is, and I got to build clients out, and I got to build the business, and I got to start replacing that salary that I left behind. So I started by finding out, you know, what's the local networking groups look like?
[12:44.1]
And I started going to our local chambers because that's, like, the first place you start. You meet people there, then they bring you on to other groups, and you start finding your way around networking. Then you start building plans about how I'm going to market myself. What is it that I want to do? I think, a big, come to come to Jesus moment, as they say, was, what is it I'm selling?
[13:03.1]
What am I really selling here? Not just me. What is this business? What packages are we selling? What are we trying to, provide? What services are we trying to provide? And are we building something that we want to do, not something that we have to do to get paid for? That's a great point. That's cool.
[13:18.9]
Let me ask, are there any, podcasts that you listen to that helped you to get to this point? Is there any books that you read that helped you to get there? Because I know I found podcasts and reading to be instrumental in getting me to the next level.
[13:36.0]
Yeah, I think, reading has been super instrumental to me. I've read so many books, and I feel like every time I'm stuck somewhere, I just find a book that will help me see clarity. Buy back your time by Dan Martel. Who. Not how, I read a book.
[13:52.5]
This is very specific to my industry by Nigel Moore, which is called a package profit. And there's one other P there. But essentially, it's how do you build the packages you're building? How do you add the value behind it? So how do you structure it? Which is great. Right now I'm reading the Boutique Consulting firm.
[14:10.6]
It's a book about, you know, boutique services. I'm reading who currently. Like, I just started that book yesterday because one of our challenges now is hiring and getting the right people in to, fit our culture. So every time I find myself in a bind, I just feel like there's a book that gives you the inspiration you need and has, like, actual, steps you can follow and implement in your own way. Absolutely.
[14:33.9]
I know right now I'm on a, Alex Hermosi binge, and he has just got so much information. I listen to his podcasts when I'm reading. I'm sorry, when I'm working out or something. And what's funny is, I'll do it on a Sunday or something, and it'll get me going. And I'm texting Zach, hey, I heard this.
[14:51.5]
I heard half a dozen or a dozen dozen texts. And I think one time he was out to, to dinner, with his wife at a restaurant, which is no longer in business, which is a good thing because it wasn't a good place. And I said he liked it, and whatever.
[15:08.2]
I won't get into the whole story, but, I think at one point she Said, hey, you gotta tell your boyfriend to stop texting us. We're at dinner right now. That did happen.
[15:22.2]
You get excited, I get motivated. I'm like, okay, yeah. When I send it and he doesn't riff, I say, okay, he's ignoring me. He doesn't want to talk. That's cool because I get the same way. But once he starts, well, then that's it. I get fired up and I keep riffing and we can go on for a long time.
[15:40.4]
My wife tells me to be quiet. I'm like, but listen, you gotta read this. Yeah, I don't care. I'm like, all right, cool. Now does she still have her W2? No, she works with us as well. Oh, cool. What does she do? So she's keeping. No. So it's funny because, I left my job and then about a year later we, we have two small kids and we were just like, this is great.
[16:02.0]
I'm building a business, it's going well. And you have a job that's very demanding of you as well. I can't continue to build the business and you can't continue to be at a demanding. While we're both trying to raise small kids who require a lot of time, you know, pickups and drop offs. And at that point I was also working on a big project and I'm like, I need help here and I'm going to hire for it.
[16:21.0]
So she came in and she's like, okay, for our lifestyle, she left her job, she works with us and she helps me on one of the projects doing, data entry training, anything that's really needed for that, for that project. Well, let me ask how, how do you, if you comfortable sharing, how do you, separate your business with your home life?
[16:43.5]
Because what I've always found or in scene is if you have a disagreement at home, it can come into the workplace and vice versa. Whereas if you an employee, you can leave and not see the person for the next 12 hours. So how do you, how do you guys work that through?
[17:00.6]
Because clearly you're going to have disagreements. It's life. Yeah, I mean, I think, understanding and being intentional that when we're at work, they're work stuff and when we're at home, they're home things. For me, it's hard because everything is work. I'm thinking 247 about work and I'm talking about work 24, 7. Oh, yeah.
[17:15.6]
But once you get in the mindset of I'm home, I'm a husband and I'm a dad right now, and understand that that's what we're. We're doing there. That's what the intention is. Then, I don't think it becomes a problem as much. You. You can kind of leave work. At least I can. I can leave work and still be a husband and a father, even if we had a disagreement at work.
[17:34.7]
Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, good for you. That's a great way to think it, you know, and be able to think about it and be able to compartmentalize things like that. I'm sure it's hard sometimes, but I definitely see it that being the way to do it. So when you started the business, it was probably just you, right?
[17:52.0]
Unless you started with a bunch of employees. But I've never heard anybody do that. How did you, you know, what, when did you. Did you get to a point where you realized that, oh, my God, I'm like, I need to get out of doing the day to day stuff and grow the business? Like, what were your first hire or two or what?
[18:08.6]
You know, what made you realize you had to make that change? Yeah. So you find out quickly you can't be everywhere at once. And, if you want to grow, you got to grow outside of yourself. You can't be the center of everything. But I will say that was actually, and it still is, one of the hardest things that I'm dealing with right now as a business owner is replacing yourself in certain tasks.
[18:29.1]
Early last year I said, you know, I got to get out of it. I got to hire an ea. I got to hire a tech person. And I did. But again, books. Going back to books and reading how you do stuff. I wasn't really informed on doing that. And I made a couple bad hires. Yeah. And it's just as hard to.
[18:44.7]
To let someone go as it is to hire them, because once they're in here, you, they work for a few months, you know, they have families. And it's kind of hard to say it's not working out, but it is something you have to build up as a business owner. So those few bad hires, actually, you know, I let them go and then I got stuck again.
[18:59.8]
But being like I could do it better by myself. And then you start to realize again, you burn out. And then you're like, okay, now I got to get back, and you're back in the cycle. But you just take those lessons you learned from before and then make sure you don't repeat them again and find new information. Like, right now the book who, who not how has helped a lot as well.
[19:18.1]
And then you hire for that. So right now we have my wife who came in. I thought that was great. So after those two folks, we let them go. My wife came in and she started helping me with the business and doing that type of work. We just hired a data entry specialist as well, and we're hiring another tier, one person, as it goes right now.
[19:34.3]
And I sat down and wrote a, you know, an org chart and a vision board essentially of this is what the company is going to look like. And I've done this. I do this every certain amount of time. So like last year I did that and I outsourced my marketing, I outsourced my accounting and my, bookkeeping.
[19:52.1]
And then we got data entry person. So understanding the vision of where you want to go, where you need to fill in those gaps and what you're going to do when you have that extra time, helps you plan on who you got to hire. Absolutely. So what source are you using or have you used in the past to help you set up your org chart?
[20:09.9]
Because I think that can be somewhat daunting for people and overwhelming. Yeah. So when I do my org charts, I'm literally just on a whiteboard and I say, here I am. Here's the departments that I have. Here's who has to be on there. I don't use anything official. I'm just standing there saying, here's all the jobs and all the hats I'm wearing right now.
[20:26.2]
And because I come from, you know, a corporate background where we had org charts, it's easy for me to visualize and say, this is where I want to put. This is the department I want. This department's going to handle xyz. This is the hat I'm wearing there. And then I'm going to go ahead and hire someone for that hat. It's funny, it's interesting that when you were looking at the org charts when you were in corporate, you probably never thought that you'd need one in your own business until you started it.
[20:51.1]
And it's interesting how that training stayed in your head and you're able to transfer it to your own business. So that's good. Good for you, man. Yeah. So, yeah. And just in your business now, in terms of maybe it's staffing or whatever, like, what are your challenges and things that you're.
[21:07.4]
Like, what ceilings are you hitting now? I guess, that you've got to overcome. Yeah. Right now, Hiring, I'll say, is my biggest challenge. I think hiring is hard, especially in the market we're in right now. I think a lot of people are very keen and focused in on, I want to make X amount of money, but on their terms.
[21:25.9]
And when you're looking for a job, it's kind of, it's kind of hard. Right. So I'll give you a good example. Every time I put up a, job wreck for some sort of job, the first thing I get asked is, is it a remote position? Sure. And as soon as you say no, it's like, all right, yeah. Then they ghost you. Right. And then the other thing is, okay, am I going to make six figures?
[21:43.6]
And we're like, you know, first you gotta understand what the job role is. First you gotta understand what the responsibilities are before we even talk about what the, you know, the pay range is. Because I think there's a stigma basically on social media mostly, that's pushed that everybody's making six figures, everybody's rich, and you could work on your terms.
[22:00.4]
You don't have to work on an employee's terms. And I. And that's not the reality. And I'd never worked like that either. When I was a W2 worker, my mindset was always, I gotta go do the job as the job is described, and I got to go take advantage of all the learnings and use that experience. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah.
[22:17.0]
For me, the operations part of the business as far as, whiteboarding it out and putting the pieces in place and hiring the attorneys and, you know, all the technical stuff that I need to do, I've never had an issue with that. For me, it's always been the human resource side is always difficult because people are people and they're going to do what they're going to do.
[22:39.4]
And like you said, they think they're going to get six figures and they're going to work six hours a week every other Tuesday from the beach. Yeah, I ran into that, the guy who was, you know, in my construction company, my second company, he was on draw against commission, and he said, well, I will work more hours, I will work more, I'll work harder if you pay me more.
[23:02.6]
Well, hold on a minute. So you're not working up to your capacity now? No, but I paid you to work at your capacity. I didn't know I was only getting 60%. And he said, well, you have to pay me more in order for me to work hard. Well, that makes absolutely no sense. And he actually had this logic in his head.
[23:19.6]
And he was a bright guy. He was in the Navy and he was on the submarines, which I understand you gotta be way up the food chain, intelligence and skill wise. So he actually had logic in his head that, that made sense to him.
[23:34.7]
And then he left us and went to a competitor and he lasted about six months. And I spoke with one of the guys at the competitor and they said, yeah, he just wouldn't work and all he wanted was more money all the time. And I was like, oh, honestly, I'm impressed he admitted that to you. At least.
[23:49.8]
I'm, like, do you have to say it? Hey, at least he put it out in the open. Yeah, that's funny. I'm not working hard because I don't get paid as much as I think I should. No, you should do the work, you know, then I'll pay you. Don't get. You don't you get paid for doing the work, not for potentially doing the work.
[24:07.4]
Show me what you can do. So, yeah, I've been there. But human resources is tough. Yeah, yeah. And I think everybody should be really, their mindset should be more around, I gotta prove I'm worth this, versus I'm gonna ask for it and then prove it. Because it never works. That's true.
[24:23.6]
Yeah, prove your, prove it first and then your compensation and whatnot will follow. Yeah, I have no problem as an employer when I see somebody come in and they actually take ownership of a job, pay them. You know, I remember with my second company, we did, property, damage restoration, the construction company.
[24:40.7]
And we had, we hired several technicians at the same time. And I explained to them that paying you more money actually makes the company and me more money. And I white pointed it out for them to explain. If I'm doing this task table training you, then I can't do this.
[24:56.4]
And it's actually costing the company money. So I'm happy to pay you more money. As soon as you can do these six items, I will increase your salary 30%. And once I whiteboarded it out, they kind of understood it, and we went from there. But yeah, I make more money.
[25:12.6]
It's like Dan Martell, I make more money by not doing these tasks and doing other things. So I'm happy to pay you more to do them so I don't have to. Yeah. So let's switch gears a little bit now to like, more, you know, investing in finance.
[25:28.8]
A lot of people use business, you know, their own business as a means to an end to grow wealth or, you know, have some sort of legacy or whatever that may be. Like, how do you think about that? And what's, I guess, your end goal with running your own business and everything?
[25:45.9]
Yeah, right now I have two small children that I really hope would, like it at some point and want to take over the business. But I'm also a realist and I don't want to be one of those legacy companies that, you know, the kids don't want the business they, you know, they inherited. They don't care about it as much right now.
[26:03.2]
This business is something that my wife and I are investing heavily into for our children's future. But that doesn't mean they have to run the company. If in, you know, 20, 30 years they don't want the business, we could sell it. That's still investing in their future. But as, but when we think about it, we think about it as a investment, right?
[26:20.7]
The more we put into it, the more we grow it, make it valuable. Not just like a little mom and pop shop where there is no valuation behind it. You can't get any money because there's no processes, there's no procedures. We want this to be something that at the day that her and I say we're stepping away, the business still runs and can be sold or it can be acquired by someone else.
[26:39.7]
That's a great point. Yeah, great long term thinking. That's cool. You've definitely read some good books. No, I'm serious. To be a year and a half in business and you're thinking that far down the road, that's impressive, man. Much respect. Yeah, we try.
[26:54.9]
I mean, we're not, we're not, when I tell, I tell this to my wife, I'm like, we're not here just joking around and playing around. We're trying to build something. Because if not, it's a waste of time at the end of the day for us. Well, that's where a lot of people get stuck, right? They think they're building a business and then they end up finding out that they've built themselves a job.
[27:10.2]
You know, if they, if they try to go away for a week or sometimes even a day or four hours. Like, you hear stories about people, they have a dentist appointment and their whole company grinds to a halt around them because they, they're not there to answer their phone. So it's cool that you've got that, that, in your mind and planned out so, you know, from the beginning, basically. Yeah.
[27:31.7]
And let's let's clear it up. It doesn't mean that we're there today. Yeah, sure, we need to still pick up the phone calls. It's hard to go on vacation, but that's where we're heading. Right. And when you're starting a business, you can't think you're going to just start a business, work less, and sit, you know, sit at home doing nothing. You're actually going to work a lot more, when you don't want to, when you do want to.
[27:50.8]
But it's all part of the strategy to get to where you want to be in a couple of years. You give up a few years to gain, hopefully a whole lifetime. Yeah, that's true for sure. And the efforts that you put in now are going to compound. So what you put in place, then you grow upon that, and you grow upon that, and you're just putting the bricks or stones in place, and you keep just growing.
[28:11.1]
Let me ask, how many hours a week would you say you're working on average? Do you want to ask me or you want to ask my wife? Because I don't think I work enough, and she thinks I work too much, so. Well, we'll. We'll do a podcast with the boss and ask her next. But how many hours would you say no?
[28:27.8]
I really can't put hours on it because I'm probably. If we call it work, it's probably 80, 90, 100 hours. I work Friday, Saturday, Sunday nights. Mornings I wake up in the middle of the night because I have an idea, and I'm like, cool, let's. Let's put it down on paper. Let's go try this out. So if I was doing real tracking, it's probably like, anywhere from 80, 90 hours a week, but does it feel like that many?
[28:51.3]
Like I said, I feel like I'm not working enough. I tell my wife sometimes, like, I did nothing, and she's like, you sure look at all this stuff that we accomplished. I'm like, yeah, I did nothing still. But that's. Right. That's what you hear from a lot of business owners. They enjoy it so much that, yeah, maybe you are working that much. But it's exciting and it's motivating, and it doesn't always feel that way.
[29:09.6]
Oh, yeah, it's a lot of fun. And I, you know, we were just at Mike's goal planning session, this week, and he says, you know, what are things that energize you? And for me, it's being around business owners. So when we're working on their problems. When we're talking about their goals, their future, that energizes me.
[29:24.7]
And I sometimes go into a spiral, and I'm like, I could solve all your problems today. And, you know, you start working all these tech, solutions around it. But that gives me a lot of energy, and it motivates me. So when you're working those 80 hours, it feels like I didn't work at all this week. I've just been hanging out with friends, and, you know, we've been talking about some cool problems.
[29:41.3]
Yeah, there's some days like that. Go ahead, Mike. Go ahead, Mike. No, go ahead, Zach. I, was just gonna say there's some days like that where you, you know, before you even know it, it's six, seven o' clock at night, and you barely left your desk all day, and you're not even. You're not tired. You're like, you're having a great time. I mean, Zach, when we go out to, like, the standard.
[29:57.9]
Right. That's work at the end of the day, I don't feel like I'm working there. We're hanging out. We close the stand. We're usually the last people to leave. This, like, 10pm we're like, all right, I'm gonna close the door. That.
[30:10.9]
But we're there. Right. If you get there at 6 and we leave at 11, you're there 5 hours. Is that. Do you count that as work that day? Yeah, it goes by. Yeah. When you're in a group that you're getting energy from, you just want to keep. You want to stay. Yeah, absolutely. So let me ask. And I know that this happened to me with my first business, when I was starting out and actually was part of the reason that I left Massachusetts and moved away.
[30:37.3]
Do you find that your circle of the people in your circle has changed in the last year and a half, where you're more focused on people who are growing, running businesses and not people that are complaining about, the Patriots all the time. Yeah, it definitely changes a lot.
[30:54.3]
And you got to find those rooms, because at least when I first started, I said, where are all these people that are thinking positively, that have this view of anything's possible, versus, like, oh, you can't do that, because this might happen. Right. Yep. And as you start finding those people between networking groups or, you know, friends of friends?
[31:12.1]
For me, a lot of my clients have become really good friends. Right. There's this one client specifically, I could talk about where I walked in their Doors looking for their services. And then they heard about me, and they're like, okay, we need your services. And outside of business, we're friends. We'll go all together to the same networking events.
[31:29.0]
We'll. We play fantasy football together. We go out to lunch and dinner. We'll see each other on the weekends. And again, people that bring a lot of energy into my life and motivation. But that all came through being in business. We didn't, know each other before then.
[31:44.8]
And the funny thing about this specific friend I'm talking about was I was introduced to them years before, and it didn't become a friendship until the business was involved. Well, sure, because I think you get that deeper connection, and it isn't just talking about superficial stuff and how long you binge Netflix on Sunday.
[32:01.8]
You're talking about growth stuff. And then the same as negativity can, compound positivity compounds as well. And you just keep getting. You want to be around these people, and you get that dopamine rush, and you're like, oh, I've got to be there. And you get excited. Oh, yeah, I know.
[32:18.7]
Sometimes I have, because I want to get up, I want to go to work. Yep. And a lot of these people have opened up new doors that we never would have thought of just because we're like, hey, let's go to this event together. And all of a sudden, you're at a new event with new people with the same energy. You're like, well, it just opens up so many avenues that are available to you, which, when I first started business, I'm like, I have no idea how I'm going to get there. Yeah. And I think. Yeah.
[32:42.0]
And upgrading your circle, I think, is a huge part. They say you're the, what the average of the 3, 5, 7 does. The number doesn't matter. People that you spend the most time with. And it's absolutely true. If you hang around people that have no goals and no ambitions, you're probably going to be in the same boat. If you change your.
[32:58.2]
I think you can do it in both directions. Right. You start a business, so you want to change who you're around, or you change who you're around because you know that you want to start a business or you're capable of more, whatever. And you know that you need to change your circle. Yeah. What I find. And let me know if you found this as well. Even in a year and a half, have you, had some people leave your circle?
[33:17.5]
Because I know for me, I'm constantly trying to grow. And there are times where I'm growing beyond my circle, even though it's a positive circle and things are going well and I have to move to the next, you know, the next circle, because I need to go there.
[33:33.2]
I've gotten what I, you know, I've grown as much as I can with the circle. I want to keep going. Yeah. I've actually found that a lot about networking in general. So like I said, I started, like, going to the chambers, and then I went to other groups, and you start to have the conversations, you start to meet people there, and you're like, okay, this is great right now.
[33:50.6]
And then six months later, you're like, I've already outgrown this mindset of, like, where we want to be, and I need to move somewhere else. And it's hard, right, because sometimes you make good friends there. But the reality is you're not going to grow, past that, and you can't, like, fix everybody's problems.
[34:06.0]
You got to focus on yourself and what you're trying to accomplish. Right. You can't say, I'm going to stay here and change this whole group's mentality. It's like, no, that's the mentality. I just got to go find a group that has the mentality that I'm in right now. So as your business grows, at least for me, I went from, you know, really small groups to bigger groups, to groups that make you have skin in the game.
[34:25.0]
You got to pay memberships to be part of so that they know you're serious. But it's all part of the journey. You know, you got to start somewhere, and then you got to keep climbing and finding where you're going to be. Even as of last week, when we did the goal planning session, I said, all right, here's some groups I'm part of now that I'm no longer going to be a part of.
[34:44.1]
And the next day, right after the goal planning session, I sent emails and said, I'm no longer going to be in this organization because I know my mindset has shifted, and where I want to go, it's not going to be accomplished there. I think that can be kind of hard. And what, honestly, sometimes can make it kind of lonely. Right? You get in a group and you get to know people really well, and you're vibing with everybody, and then you realize you got to move on, and then you go to the next group where you're a total stranger all over again and start over. Yeah.
[35:09.1]
And I Mean, you can still connect with those folks, but you can't have the level of commitment that you had prior because where you want to get to that commitment's not, you know, you got to put that energy elsewhere. Yeah. The way I look at it is, and I've had people push back on that and say, well, you're going.
[35:25.0]
You think you're going to another group or you are going to another group, and it seems like you just use these people to get where you're going. Nope. Relationships can run their course. But at the same time, I have an ethical obligation to myself and my family to grow as much as I possibly can.
[35:44.6]
And it would be unethical for me to stay in a group that's holding me back and not pushing me forward because I want to keep going forward. So I think you have an ethical obligation to tighten, your circle and make it a better circle every time. So that's my argument.
[36:01.0]
I would say it's part of being a leader. Right. You can lead the group. So whoever's in that circle that wants to level up as well, you guys can have those conversations. They could also come and open up that group. But if they don't, then it's not your job to pull people with you. It's your job to show them the path and they could follow his thing. Absolutely.
[36:17.1]
A hand up, not a hand out. Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you. Yeah. Because if you keep pulling people along, you're eventually going to get tired. You only have so much energy. Right. Yeah. The goal is not to leave people behind, but if, you know, if they want to come and be along for the ride and, you know, then great.
[36:34.4]
Yeah. They may not be ready to move forward. They might want to stay exactly where they are. They need to get more, or they've grown as much as they want, which is completely fine. Yeah, it's fine. If that's what you want to do. It's your life, go ahead. But it's not for me. I need to move on. Yeah. You know.
[36:51.2]
Okay, switching gears a little bit, Junior aside, you know, obviously you're invested heavily in your business and all that. We get that. But what other kinds of things do you like to invest in? Yeah, so I. I'm a huge real estate fan. I still think there's a good way to merge what I do with real estate, and we try to do it all the time.
[37:09.5]
But outside of my business, I do invest in real estate as well. I've owned a couple multi families. Right. Now I'm doing more of a passive investor strategy where I'm just putting in capital, with someone I trust, let them do the investing, and then get the returns from that right now. Great idea. Love it. Yeah.
[37:27.2]
Did something happen? Go ahead, Mike. No, you go, man. Did something happen when you owned the Maltese yourself, that pushed you in the syndication route? Because sometimes that's the case.
[37:44.1]
So I'll give you guys a quick story. I had a multi family that I bought very young. I think I was, like, 23 when I bought this property. I buy the property, everything's great. I inherit the tenants that are there. At this point, I bought the property. Just because you have to buy property, you got to put your money in somewhere.
[38:00.3]
You know, if you're renting, you're losing money. That was the narrative. So I bought the. I bought this house, three and a half down, FHA loan. I, took the money out of my 401k to go buy this property. Cool. And, when I moved in there, I was paying more money for the mortgage, than my tenants were paying, downstairs for rent. So for.
[38:17.7]
Just to give you an example, the tenants downstairs paid 1100amonth, and I was paying 1400 so that we could cover the 2500 dollars mortgage. The tenants thought they owned the house, and I was the tenant there. So they would ask me, like, weird things sometimes.
[38:33.2]
Can I put a pool in the backyard? Because the last landlord let me put a pool there. There was one. One time, specifically, two months after I bought the property. It was like negative 3 degrees outside, middle of the winter. Tenant calls me downstairs, and they're like, this apartment won't get hot.
[38:48.3]
And I'm like, it's 74 down here, and upstairs it's 63. Like, I don't know what you want me to do. I can't do much. This house was built in 1901. There's no insulation in here. I just bought it last month. And they just kept. They kept going back and forth. I ended up turning that into a, three family.
[39:05.5]
So it was a two family. I turned it into a three. And then even that process of going to the city, getting permits, getting contractors, getting people who are going to work. One of the contractors I had, he, took the roof off one day, put a tarp over it. Didn't, secure it, and there was rain water the next day coming into my unit.
[39:23.5]
He left it. He just left it insecure. So all those little things, I'm just like. And I'M not making money from this. I'm putting more money out of my pocket. Like, is this really what it's like to be a real estate investor? And it's just learnings that you. That you go through, right? You learn what you want, what you don't want. After that, I sold the property.
[39:39.9]
We did make money on it, right? Like a thousand dollars, so we didn't lose money. And then I bought a single family. And I said, all right, if I'm going to do this, I'm not going to live at the property. I'm going to invest somehow. And that's when I met Mike, and we started talking about what he does. And it took years for me to invest with him because, you know, it's hard to trust somebody with your money, especially large sums of money.
[40:02.6]
But I did it, and I'm very happy. And to this day, I'm like, why didn't I do this sooner? Yeah. Just to make it clear to anybody who's listening, he's not referring to me. He's referring to another investor up in New Hampshire. No, he says mike. And I don't want people to think it's me.
[40:17.7]
He's not referring to me. That's true. But yeah. And then once you find somebody you trust like that and you invest with them and you're on the more passive side, it. It's a lot different game. Nobody's calling you. You're not worried about, like, toilets or. For me, I don't have to go evict the person that lived upstairs for me when I owned my duplex.
[40:36.6]
And, yeah, much, much easier to sleep at night. Oh, yeah, 100%. You don't have to worry about all that. Nobody's calling me about their heat not working. I don't want to ever hear that one again. So let me ask, kind of as we start to wind up a little bit, wind down a little bit, can you tell me what is.
[40:56.0]
I guess the. The biggest thing that you've. That. That you learned as a business owner that was different than when you were a W2 employee? The biggest thing? That's a. That's a big. That's a good question. I guess the biggest thing that you learn as a business owner is that relationships do matter.
[41:13.2]
I think when you're a W2 employee, you think it's your manager or their manager's manager and somebody's responsible for what's going on. And you don't care about burning that bridge with other people. But as a business owner, it's all about who you know, how you present yourself to them, how you treat them, and the relationships you build with them.
[41:30.6]
Like, you're responsible for everything that's going on in your life. Not anybody else, no one around you. So you have to take your life by the reins and decide where you're going with it. Gotcha. Okay, Zach, you got any questions, bud? Any wrap ups? Yeah, just couple quick wrap ones.
[41:47.6]
So I know you said you helped your father out with his stuff when you were younger, but did you get that the attitude that you have about money and investing now from your parents, or did it come from someone else or some other moment in life where you realize that, you know, how everybody thinks about money is wrong?
[42:06.3]
It came from the struggles. It wasn't from my parents. My parents, they came here, they immigrated here when they were young. Like I said, I immigrated here very young as well. But just learning what is money? How does money work? And then understanding that the way to make money is by investing, whether it's your time, your efforts, or your money to make, to make more money back.
[42:27.6]
What, what planted that seed, did you, Was it a book you read or did you listen to somebody? Or like, do you, do you remember what sparked it? I don't, I don't remember what sparked it. I just remember that, that first corporate job I had made me very, cognizant of my money.
[42:43.0]
Because they used to pay monthly, really. So when you get paid once a month, you get, you know, you pay all your bills and then you're like, this money that's left over has to last me the next month. If not, there's, we're eating ramen noodles all month, there's no more money. Nothing else is coming in. Yeah, it forced you to pay attention.
[43:00.9]
Then I guess you don't have a choice, right? Yeah. So, I mean, it helped you budget early on because I think nobody really budgets. They get a check and they just pay all their bills and they're like, cool. That's what's there. Where. When you're getting paid once a month and you're not getting bi weekly checks, you're just like, this is it. I really won't be able to eat.
[43:16.3]
So you start budgeting out, you say, I could use this much this month. You can do that much this month. And then once you learn about leverage and how to leverage your positions, your money or whatever it is, then you can start implementing even more with that budgeting system that you have as well. Yeah. All right, last question.
[43:34.4]
What does financial freedom mean to you? Oh, financial freedom means, being able to do with my time what I want. And that doesn't mean I'm not working. It means I work on what I want to, when I want to, with who I want to, which is a huge, deal. As well.
[43:51.5]
And I spend the time with the people that matter the most to me, which is, you know, my wife, my kids, and the friends and family that I have around me. Awesome. That's a great answer. Where can, people find out more about you if they want to connect with you or follow you or whatnot? So if they want to connect with me, you can find me on LinkedIn.
[44:09.8]
Junior Anziani, if you want to connect with the business, and Zani ts on all platforms. All right, Junior, thank you for coming on the podcast. We really appreciate it. Thank you guys for having me. All right, thanks, man. Of course, Sam.