Rebuilding After Burnout: Systems, Ownership & Peace | Dave Zaron

Speaker A: Welcome to the Pivot to Profit podcast where we believe that understanding your numbers is the key to freedom of time and money. Because at the end of the day, it's really not about what you make, it's about what you keep. So each week we're going to bring you real stories from real entrepreneurs who have faced the challenges of growing a business. We'll also dive into how numbers have helped and sometimes hurt them. And gaining clarity over their finances has unlocked new levels of profit and freedom.

Speaker B: Hello and welcome to today's episode of Pivot to Profit, where we help entrepreneurs and founders better understand their numbers and by learning from amazing entrepreneurs successes, painful tuitions, and, uh, the lessons along the way. Today's guest is Dave Zarin. How are you?

Speaker C: I'm doing wonderful. How about yourself?

Speaker B: So good. Let me officially introduce you. Dave is a seasoned entrepreneur who built a seven figure business from scratch, only to watch it collapse while chasing profit without purpose. After losing it all, he began rebuilding with alignment and clear systems that prioritize keeping what you earn. Love that. Not just making more money, Dave now helps business owners build lives they don't need to escape from. While scaling sustainably, he brings a direct, grounded perspective on on the hidden cost of business growth and what it takes to build success. That feels like success. I love that. So before we dive in, listen, business owner, founder, if you are stressed about your money, you got surprise tax bills, your accountant just isn't cutting it anymore. Go to pamjordan.com we would love to help you at Pivot Business Group. Get a hold of your numbers, have clarity on where you're going, scale profitably, and be able to exit when you're ready. All right, Dave, are you ready to jump in?

Speaker C: Oh, yeah.

Speaker B: All right, perfect. Tell me, what did you want to be when you were a little kid? What was the dream?

Speaker C: The dream was I had no idea. So I grew up taking martial arts. I became a second degree black belt and instructor, uh, in taekwondo when I was 14. So that was the first time I had to experience bossing my parents around because they were my students in class. And my mom always reminisces about how much she hated to say yes, sir to me. Um, but I'd say, like, during that experience, I realized that I liked being more in control of what I did with my time or, like, how I learned things or how I interacted with others. Uh, because you're in more of a leadership position when you're an instructor. And I realized that I like that a lot more than being told how to do things. I was a terrible student in school. I just barely made it. But it was because I wasn't really engaged. Martial arts was the only thing I really excelled in and it was because I took ownership of it, because it was something that I was passionate about. So that's a lesson I learned at a young age that I actually uh, moved away from as I got older when everyone was telling me to get my head out of the clouds and you know, I got to figure out how to be successful and how to make money in the world and everything. And you kind of start to lose yourself a little bit once you're staring down the face of success and try to figure out the best path to get there or really the quickest path to get there. Um, so I'd say that, you know, as a kid I knew I wanted to kind of go by the beat of my own drum. I just didn't really know how.

Speaker B: So tell me, you said school wasn't the path for you. So there's no like certificates upon certificates and letters beyond letters. So how did you start your entrepreneurial journey?

Speaker C: So I had an interest in computers when I was young, so I was working with hardware when I was a kid and um, and then as I got a little older I was doing you know, video editing and I just found I had this real aptitude for understanding software very easily. I sold insurance for a little while, but I was also did mortgages back in 2007 and eight and I was like learning the software so easily. So I was like teaching people who've been there for like two years and I'd only been there like two months how to use it because it just felt intuitive to me. So soon after that I started my first business as a process server. It's very interesting work and it's uh, a little hard, heart wrenching uh, over time especially you know it was 2008 when everything kind of collapsed and there's a lot of foreclosures and stuff and it wasn't rewarding but at least I was kind of working for myself finally. So then I, on the side I was doing the video editing and then I started developing uh, like doing web or not really web development, but it was just programming with Action Script 3 which was a Flash programming language. Well you know, thanks to Apple, which we all love very much, uh, Flash died. So learning that language, it didn't really serve me but learning it taught me how to actually develop. So I switched over then to doing more web based programming. Uh, like um, you Know, backend servers and things like that. But then that's. That's kind of how I started my business. Uh, Xeronology was, uh. It actually started off as a different business called Chunky Chihuahua. Web and mobile development.

Speaker B: That was a long name.

Speaker C: Yeah, well, it was kind of. I thought it was wittier at the time, but, you know, my now wife, then girlfriend, she had this fat chihuahua who named Caesar that, uh, died. So I kind of named it that. And it was. It's kind of memorable and stuff like that for people. But I had to take it seriously after a little while, after we started to kind of grow and people actually worked with us with that name.

Speaker B: So I was like, uh, Xeronology is a little bit more official.

Speaker C: Yeah, it was. And so we incorporated. And that was in 2015 when we did that. And, um, yes, that's kind of how it all started. And I discovered my passion for, like, systems architecture while doing it. And it continued to evolve and get deeper and it turned into building or, uh, now what we do, which is like advisory and implementation for organizations, uh, that are at growth stage. And usually what's happened is they found that the tools that got them there aren't taking them to the next level and they're introducing new bottlenecks and a lot of stress and suffering. So we come in and we help them, uh, not just we do an audit that helps them understand what could be optimized, not just technically, but operationally, so that can fit into the ecosystem of their whole business. And then we either rebuild it for them or we assist their team in the rebuild.

Speaker B: Okay, so taking back to the business that you built that fell apart, and you say that if the consequences of that falling apart was chasing profit without purpose. Help me understand what that looked like for you.

Speaker C: It actually was the same business, Xerology, um, so. And we still exist today as Xeronology. I have other business ventures I'm in as well. But what happened with Xeronology was as I was growing, I never had a website of my own, which was very interesting. I never marketed anything. So my business grew word of mouth, um, very quickly because I was, uh, at my core, I'm the kind of person who loves to solve problems and I love to help people understand what's going on. So because that was my passion, I spent a lot of time helping organizations fix a lot of problems that they had. And then they would just recommend me to their friend who had another business who is struggling.

Speaker B: You brought value, so they would introduce you to other people. Love it. So how did it fall apart?

Speaker C: So, uh, over time you start getting relationships with different organizations and different agencies and things like that, and then you start becoming very busy. So I had to grow because I, uh, couldn't handle all the work myself. And that's kind of the entrepreneurial journey, right, is to one day not have to be the only person doing the work. So in that transition, you go through a lot of, um, personal suffering, uh, like letting things go and trying to have trust in other people that they're going to do it as well as you do it. And honestly, in the beginning, it's almost impossible for that to actually happen that way because, you know, you're not spending your time writing SOPs and putting together, you know, systems when you first start because you're just kind of figuring it out and growing. Uh, and then when you start bringing people in, uh, you either you put a system in place to help train people to get them where they need to be, but when you're a novice at business, you probably don't think that way. At least I didn't. So I just, I kind of was like just rolling up my sleeves. And even though I had people like half the time, I wasn't letting them do, um, the things that they needed to do. So there was that side of it. And then I formed relationships with various agencies that were bringing business in left and right. But what I discovered over time was that I wasn't taking ownership myself over how the accounts that we were pulling in were always fully vetted and how the projects were being, I guess, sold. Um, so what started happening was is there was expectations put at the sales table because they're just making things up to get the sale.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: They're just trying to close them.

Speaker C: Exactly. And then we get them and we're like, oh, okay, so we're getting stretched too thin. So we're scaling very quickly and I, you know, we were doing very well and we were making money. But you know, uh, there's a difference between top line revenue and profit. So if you're making, you know, 1.5 million and you're spending 1.7, you're still doing something wrong. Yeah, exactly. So, um, we got to the point where like, our payroll didn't outweigh our revenue. But I got a little cocky and I decided to work with one of our agency partners on building a software. It's a m, really a mid funnel streaming platform for people who want simple tools. We have a lot of like, creators, like docu series, people who do long uh, videos that are tired of paying the high prices of a lot of other streaming services. So we built this, and then the partner basically decided they didn't really want to do anything, and they were the marketing side of the whole thing.

Speaker B: Oh, no. So you built it and there was no marketing.

Speaker C: Yeah, so basically we built it. There was no marketing. I invested a lot of money and time and effort into this. And at the same time, that same partner, who is also big, uh, what, our largest, uh, agency for bringing in work, uh, just kind of started kind of going through their own thing and falling apart, and it started crumpling relationships and becoming very toxic within, like, within my organization and everything else. So I had to scale back. I had to let lay off 60% of my staff. And what I realized as I was going through this process was that I kind of lost myself in the entire, you know, success chase. Right. I'm chasing currencies. Like, in this case, it was money, success, reputation, all of these things, which is like saying yes to everything because it's an opportunity. So you start growing and you start seeing those results. You're like, yes, I'm doing this right. And you're like, this is working. This is working. Everything's going so well until it isn't.

Speaker B: Until.

Speaker C: And then all of a sudden, yeah, you start like, you. What your plans were for. You know, when you're building something like a software on the side and you're investing in that, you have this, you know, plan for, all right, this is the number we're going to hit, so we're going to be profitable even with this. But then you don't hit it because all of these things start to fall apart in a certain point. And I think for me, what I realized is that I wasn't taking ownership, and that was kind of the bottom line. Sometimes you think you're delegating, but what you're really doing is abdicating the responsibility to something or someone else. If you delegate it to somebody, then you have to have ownership of how they're addressing it and making sure that they know what's expected so that they can actually execute it in the way that's going to give you the favorable outcome that you're looking for, at least get you closer to. To it. And when you don't do that, then it's really abdication. I, uh, think there's a fine line that a lot of us in business ride when it comes to those two things. So it's a very hard lesson I learned over time and has Actually led me to some of the new ventures that I'm working on now as well.

Speaker B: So now that you're in version 2.0, what did you do personally to educate yourself and grow yourself so that you learn from those mistakes and were better? For 2.0 version, what did you do?

Speaker C: I'd say the most important thing that I did was learn how to draw boundaries. When I talk about ownership, I mean taking ownership of your outcomes. Now, we can't control those outcomes because ownership isn't really control. It's just about, uh, really being able to find your piece regardless of the outcome, knowing that you put everything that you could into it so that you've got the most favorable outcome possible. But it's not always going to be favorable. Many times it's going to be unfavorable. And then realizing that unfavorable isn't a mistake. Uh, it didn't mean that you made a mistake. I mean, mistakes don't happen in the moment. Uh, in the moment, you make a decision and you make the best decision you can from the relative perspective that you have at that time. And then time goes by and your relative perspective changes, and then an outcome happens, and you're like, oh, that was a mistake. Well, it may seem that way, but you have to give yourself grace for those things because you did make the best decision you could, and you learn from it and you move on and you build on top of it. So it's a stacking. You say, okay, this happened. So now what's next? What can I learn? What can I take away? And the boundaries are important because one of the things that we hear a lot is people are like, you have to learn how to say no. Um, but no is a boundary, and it is an important one because, um, I've kind of developed this language for myself that if it doesn't serve me, then I'm serving it. And for me, that's what ownership is all about, is knowing what serves me. And, uh, knowing that if. If I'm serving it, then I need to change my relationship with it or I need to remove it. So, you know, my entrepreneurial journey had a lot to do with finding success. But what does success look like, you know? Well, success looks like for me, it's like being at peace, being in joy, being happy all the time in what I'm doing. There's no currency in the world that creates that for you. You know, money doesn't create happiness. It's a fuel for the fire in which it keeps things moving. But, uh, Your relationships are just as important or probably even more. Am I willing to sacrifice my, my finite time with my children? You know, my youngest, uh, is a toddler, um, and she's about turn four. And I have two 19 year old daughters as well. And what I learned from theming was that I was sacrificing a lot of time with them to do this and I was convincing myself I was doing it for them. But you know, they needed my presence more than they needed my money. Don't get me wrong, the money was nice. I mean, uh, they enjoyed it. But as I see them at 19 now, and we look back at all the vacations we took and all the fun things we did, none of those things matter as much as me, like being there for them, listening to them, talking to them. And so that's what I did in this go round was I started removing things that don't belong. I started drawing my boundaries and I started taking ownership not just of the external things that are the things I was putting out or really of my desires, but the things I was taking in. Because the currencies are a two way exchange. You consume them and you spend them. You have to make sure that you're, you're consuming the ones that are bringing you peace. And so that's kind of what I've changed. And I recently wrote a book, it's actually coming out the 1st or 2nd of August. It's a bit of a story of my journey, but it's not so much like literal, it's the things I learned along the way. I'm um, a systems architect or engineer. I say architect because we build it and blueprint it, but really it's engineering. But also I'm also deeply spiritual individual and that's something I've taken with me most of my life. And so I've just kind of aligned the two things very well to kind of find the pathway to my piece. And that's kind of what the book is about. And it's actually kind of a segue into this new leadership program that we're launching in fourth quarter called Integrated Ownership. Which is really for founders and leaders who are, you know, trying to find the balance back in their life.

Speaker B: Well, let's talk nuts and bolts. Software integration in businesses. All businesses have a big tech stack. And what have you seen are ways that business mistakes that businesses are making with their software that they currently have. And uh, how do you identify those and then how do you solve them

Speaker C: depending on the organization? You know, so we work with organizations some that are. That have been around for, you know, 30, 40 years where they have held onto legacy systems for just way too long. So it's attachment, um, to uh, systems that you're comfortable with. Um, that's usually. And I see that even in younger businesses that, uh, you know, scale quickly. Um, they're like, oh, well, we understand how this works. You know, so this has to be the best way. Even though they keep breaking and we keep having to come in on the weekend or, you know, calling people, you know, because the website's going down, as you said, there's so much software that we have and it creates this thing that I call software overwhelm. Um, and it's very easy to get lost in it because so many of us don't feel like we have time for this stuff. You know, if it's not your expertise, you don't have time for it. Right. So it's fair because like, we only have so much time in a day and we have to budget that accordingly. So how do you make the best decisions? Well, it's very difficult. Again, like I said, there is no best decision. There's just, you know, what's appropriate for you. Um, and what we find with a lot of companies is that a, uh, lot of people find it more appropriate to continue to do these manual processes, to keep putting out fires. Because what they don't see is on the other side of what it looks like when it's working, you know, uh, it's actually operating, uh, successfully. Um, they don't realize that relief because all they see is the journey between. Between, uh, where they are now and where they want to be. And it seems so insurmountable because getting to the uh, what I would call like a duct tape solution was very difficult for them. So I see that that's probably like the hardest part is the mentality of getting out of that. It's just such a big job. Well, obviously it is. It's not the same as going to the lake for the weekend, being on your boat. Sure. But it's necessary because it's going to give you a lot more weekends of doing that once you fix the problems that you have. Ah. So there's really no one size fits all solution. And I think that's one of the things that frustrates most of my clients the most, is because people like, just tell us what to do.

Speaker B: They want the silver bullet. They want this secret path to make life easier and solve all these problems.

Speaker C: Sure. And we're all sold simple. I mean, if you're on Facebook. I mean, everyone's like, oh, just do this one thing, and it solves all your problems. But the opposite of simple is not complex. It's depth. It's understanding the depth of what needs to be done and understanding all those levels. Because complexity is also a bad thing. You know, we have to remove complexity. It's about finding the systems that serve you and the ways that they serve you. Because a lot of people are using systems that serve them and do the things that they want to do. They just don't understand how they do them. And if they don't have take the time and to understand that, then they're going to use it incorrectly. So typically, it's not always that we come in and rebuild. A lot of times you just have to retrain you how to use the system appropriately for the way that you're doing business. So, I mean, and it's different in every industry. I mean, you could have two companies selling the exact same things, but the way they sell them, uh, what kind of traffic sources that they have are going to dictate, you know, if they're all social media, if they're a combination of social media and affiliate, you know, if they're also using influencers as well that are using different types of links. And there's all kinds of different ways that you can, um, assess these things or find success with, um, at the top of the funnel. Um, but ultimately, uh, it has to do with what your unique business goals are, what your unique, um, business, um, methods are, and what you found works. And that's why we mostly work with scaling companies, because you really found what works. We don't want to fix something that doesn't work because you don't want to invest money in fixing something that you're still testing out. Like, once you know it works and you need to scale it, but you can't, that's when we come in and shine the best.

Speaker B: Awesome. I love that. Amazing. Thank you so much, Dave, for sharing your profit story with us and the wins and losses that you've had along the way. Uh, let's wrap up with some rapid response questions. So just answer, don't explain, don't. Just whatever first comes to mind. Are you ready?

Speaker C: Okay.

Speaker B: Profit or growth?

Speaker C: Growth.

Speaker B: What's one business expense you'll never cut, no matter what?

Speaker C: Oh, masterminds, uh, community masterminds.

Speaker B: What's the best money advice you've ever received?

Speaker C: I would say, honestly, it's not all about money.

Speaker B: Yeah. If you had to start over again today, what's the first thing that you would do differently with your finances?

Speaker C: I would be more cautious about when I brought in a new expense. It would be more based on numbers instead of feelings.

Speaker B: I love that. And what does financial freedom mean to you, Dave?

Speaker C: Financial freedom to me means that I have peace and profit. Because if I have to, if I'm suffering and I'm at profit, then it's just not worth it.

Speaker B: Awesome. Well, Dave, thank you so much for sharing your profit story with us. Where can people connect with you?

Speaker C: LinkedIn, our website, xeronology.com. you can find us there. You can book calls to chat if you, you know, have some. Something you want to talk about. When it comes to your systems, we're on Facebook, you know, we're on X, and, you know, we're on. We have a little presence everywhere, but, um, probably the best place would be LinkedIn or the website.

Speaker B: All right, amazing. Well, thank you so much. That's all for today's episode of Pivot to Profit. If you're ready to understand your numbers, increase your profit, and reduce your taxes, just connect with us@pamjordan.com and remember, it's not what you make that matters, it's what you keep.