David VS Goliath Podcast – S1 – Episode 26 – Eugene Tinker

Adam DeGraide:
Hey, everyone. It’s Adam DeGraide. Big news, David vs Goliath. Shop on the davidvsgoliath podcast.com website. Get your iPhone covers, your cups, even cups like this. Check it out, a lot of fun. Support the show. Show off your swag. We really appreciate it, on to the episode. Coming up today on David vs Goliath, I am fired up.

Eugene Tinker:
Either you going to walk or you going to hit a home run, you will get to that first base.

Adam DeGraide:
I’ll send a shoe.

Eugene Tinker:
That was good.

Speaker 3:
Welcome to today’s episode of David vs Goliath, a podcast dedicated to helping small businesses, leverage technology to not only help them compete against their large competitors, but win. Your host is currently the CEO of Anthem Business Software, a three time Inc. 500 recipient and a serial entrepreneur with a passion to help small businesses everywhere find, serve, and keep more customers profitably. Please join me in welcoming your host, Adam DeGraide.

Adam DeGraide:
Hey, everyone. It’s Adam DeGraide with David vs Goliath podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in this week. It’s going to be a great interview with Eugene Tinker for CTE Technologies, a fantastic gentleman. We’re going to have a great time in this interview today. Before we get to that, today’s episode is brought to you by Anthem Software, where you can find, serve, and keep more customers profitably with their all-in-one solution built specifically for small businesses to help you with your software, your marketing, and how your people in process and the consulting in your businesses run. Take the 122nd tour today at anthemsoftware.com. Some other things that are going on, don’t forget, my book is out on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It’s a children’s book, The Adventures of Jackson: The Young Field Mouse.

Adam DeGraide:
It teaches kids about bravery, the power of listening, and the spirit of gratitude, three amazing things that they learn, and it’s a story I’ve been telling my sets of children and now my grandchildren for over 26 years, it’s exciting. So many great things are going on. You can visit us at davidvsgoliathpodcast.com. There you can apply to beyond the podcast, which is exactly what Eugene did to get on the podcast, or you can also subscribe to get our email, newsletters and updates, and you can even ask me a question. Ask DVG a question, simply type it in, send it off to me and we’re good to go. But with no further ado, let’s get right into another amazing episode of David vs Goliath. Eugene, welcome to the DVG podcast. Great to have you here.

Eugene Tinker:
Adam, how you doing?

Adam DeGraide:
I’m doing awesome, my friend. I was looking here at the sheet of some of your clients and I was incredibly impressed. Number one, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Veterans Affairs, Centers for Disease Control. The last one is actually interesting, U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command, and I was amazed. I’ve been learning a lot, Eugene, about the space right now of government and subs and primes and how it works, and the 8A, and the Hub Zone, and the women-owned and the veteran-owned businesses and how it all plays into the contracts and the government. I actually just interviewed, I don’t know if you know Eric Coffey, I interviewed Eric Coffey a few episodes back. He’s a pretty interesting guy as well, too. So check out his podcast. That actually comes out, I think, tomorrow.

Eugene Tinker:
Okay.

Adam DeGraide:
Your podcast will come out a couple of weeks from now, but it’s awesome to have you on the show.

Eugene Tinker:
Thanks.

Adam DeGraide:
I love people that have a passion for their own business, obviously.

Eugene Tinker:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adam DeGraide:
One of the things that I thought was also interesting is I want you to tell people A, how you started the business, and then cover a little bit about what you said about as a kid, you kept finding yourself taking things apart and putting them back together again, which I thought was an interesting piece of the story as well too. But Eugene, the time is yours. Let the watchers and listeners of DVG know a little bit about what you do right now.

Eugene Tinker:
Right now, I’m the CEO/founder of Certified Technical Experts. I’m also the CEO and founder of Certified Tech Group, which is a Hawaiian native company. CTE is what I call Certified Technical Expert, short name CTE, was founded about 14 years ago. One of the reasons, I was a contractor once I started that and basically got probed to, “Hey, you do well.” I became a manager, director and then basically, IBM put me together to actually be able to start a company. So started that company and moved to Toronto, and from there, I did a lot of work with the Air Force; before then, a lot of work with the Hyundai plant and stuff of the sort as an independent contractor. So it taught me how to be able to be a contractor or an independent owner, per se, and basically it grew from there.

Eugene Tinker:
A lot of people knew me for my skillsets like being able to get in and get it done. I always came in with the approach to make it happen, nothing never too big for me, so that was always my approach to make it happen. So that Hawaiian native company, it was in the 8(a) Program. We sooner or later graduated. I was approached for a Hawaiian Native entity that was a non-profit and say, “How do you feel about starting your own Hawaiian native company with the skillset that you have, because you look real promising that I’m sure somebody will probably acquire you just as they acquire a company.” So what we did was we created a joint venture between CTE and the Hawaiian Native company, and basically, that’s where that CTG came from.

Adam DeGraide:
That’s great. Just for the watchers and listeners to know, when you say Hawaiian Native, you’re talking about a company that’s native to Hawaii?

Eugene Tinker:
Correct. Correct.

Adam DeGraide:
That’s what I thought. Okay. I didn’t know if there was a special term for that or whatnot. That’s awesome.

Eugene Tinker:
Yeah.

Adam DeGraide:
So you were helped out by IBM. You started your own business and you got out there and you’ve actually figured out how to move and shake within the industry.

Eugene Tinker:
Correct.

Adam DeGraide:
I would imagine at some point you started off as a subcontractor and then eventually, you got to the place where you could become a prime contractor that also leverages subcontractors in the space.

Eugene Tinker:
Correct.

Adam DeGraide:
So, congratulations. At this point, I think you’re almost at 100 employees, is that correct?

Eugene Tinker:
Correct. Correct. That’s correct. I started off with just myself and one other individual. We started off in the back of the house, and just had that dream. I was the actual tech, the CEO, the engineer, the all together.

Adam DeGraide:
It’s so funny, I remember when I started my first business, Eugene, you’ll love this, I started it in the basement of my house in a little town called Riverside, Rhode Island.

Eugene Tinker:
Wow.

Adam DeGraide:
I basically stripped all the asbestos out of this basement and built a recording studio at the time where I ended up doing music jingles, so jingles you’d hear on radio and TV, and then it morphed into me doing my own advertising agency. That morphed into my own technology business and it just kept getting bigger and bigger and it’s fascinating for the watchers and listeners, they love DVG because not only is it awesome to hear the success stories, those times in our life when we start, like you said, wearing multiple hats, I had the CEO hat. I was the CFO. I was the chief marketing officer.

Adam DeGraide:
I was the director of all things insanity. I was the junk mail generator. I think that was probably my favorite title of myself was, people would be like, “Hey, so what do you do?” “Well, I’m a junk mail generator.” They’re like, What does that mean?” “Well, every piece of junk mail that comes to my office has my name on it, so I assume that that’s my primary role here is to generate junk mail.” But it’s awesome when you think about, Eugene, the fact that in the beginning, it was you and a handful of other people. You wore four or five other hats and your team grows. One of the things we talk about here on David vs Goliath is the value of people, but it also starts with plans and goals.

Eugene Tinker:
Correct.

Adam DeGraide:
So when you first started out and you were helped out in starting your first business, was it fly by the seat of your pants, and then eventually you got more plans and goals? Tell the listeners a little bit about how it was probably chaotic in the beginning, and at what point did you start to have the ability to build a team where you could actually strategize and have plans and goals together?

Eugene Tinker:
I guess I can tell you one thing I do because I mentor companies, I probably got six companies I’m mentoring right now. One of the biggest things that I tell them to do is build a vision board. You build a vision board, a vision board to me is a business plan, because the only person that can see that vision is you. So what I started doing was, in turn, when I started a business, I said, “I got to have employees.” So when I said I had to have employees, I didn’t have the money to buy employees, what I did was I went out and got interns and I made those interns look like I had employees. So when I walked in a room, I walked in a room with three interns, but all of them had on shirts and everything like me, but I was the CEO and everything.

Eugene Tinker:
So when those interns that I was training, I basically said, “Hey, look. We going to do this work and this work, if you have any issues, I need you to walk to the bathroom, pick up your cell phone and give me a call. Don’t let the customer know that you don’t know the answer to what they’re asking you. You go to the bathroom and give me a call, and then I’ll give you the answer and you walk back in and you give them the answer that they’re looking for, or you make that phone call and had those earbuds in to basically say, ‘Hey, this is what the answer is,'” but I always stayed on standby just to make the company look bigger, because what happened was a lot of times, those companies will say, “How can I give you a contract when it’s just you?”

Adam DeGraide:
Yeah, and it’s definitely a good question. I think that’s a great, really interesting strategy because, perception, as we know-

Eugene Tinker:
correct-

Adam DeGraide:
… definitely becomes reality. So if you walked in with just yourself and I guess you could have alter egos, you could have on, “I’m Eugene,” and then on the weekends, “I’m Stanley,” or whatever. But at the end of the day, having those interns there give you that [inaudible 00:11:17] to and become long-term employees.

Eugene Tinker:
Correct. So what I did was I trained those interns, excuse me, and got those interns certified. Those interns actually went off to Iraq and made six-figure salaries. So basically, they worked for me for a while and they became employees after I started to generate, my first contract was 80,000.

Adam DeGraide:
That’s great.

Eugene Tinker:
So I got that contract about 11:59. I will never forget September the 30th at 11:59. So the government has to give out all this money by September the 30th. That’s when they end. We got our budget completely cleaned out by September the 30th So 11:59 PM, my phone started ringing. I pick up the phone, they said, “Hey, I got a direct award for you to do some work at Maxwell Air Force Base. Can you do it?” I said, “Yeah, I can do it.

Adam DeGraide:
That’s great.

Eugene Tinker:
So those interns that was there, we had to do a access database. So those guys were my first, they had their first employment through me. What I was doing was I was paying them and training them at the same time.

Adam DeGraide:
Yeah, it’s great.

Eugene Tinker:
So it made me come up with a strategy that, “Hey, we can basically be able to get interns because we can’t afford some of these individuals that’s coming in with this experience. I could train these interns at a lower cost, be able to give the government what they need and we’ll be able to save money and actually be able to build a company.” So what we do, we bring in one senior level person and then that senior level person will have those junior levels and we’ll train them. One of the interns I have right now came in making $12 an hour. Now he’s my chief of technology officer-

Adam DeGraide:
That’s amazing.

Eugene Tinker:
… in the company.

Adam DeGraide:
I love stories like that when you hear about how people join and became a part of an organization, they start here and they end up becoming the CTO eventually as time goes on. That’s awesome because it’s rewarding. They were there with you in the beginning and they’re there with you now. At what point did the change happen for your business, where you went from having that initial contract to then you’re able to afford employees and then you’re able to get together and strategize and feel more comfort and going forward? How many years into the business did that transition happen for you?

Eugene Tinker:
It was really weird because when I came back into the States from Canada and those places, I started getting sub-work and I say, my second year of the business, my company started growing from the second year.

Adam DeGraide:
That’s amazing.

Eugene Tinker:
I didn’t start feeling no difference until my eighth year of the business, because it grew so fast and I hit the 8(a) when I came in. That’s why I try to tell a lot of companies, everybody comes in and say, “I want 8(a). I want to get an 8(a).” Well, you got to strategize with that. If you got 20 companies out here that are 8(a) or just getting in the program, and you go jump into 8(a) and these guys have had theirs for at least a year or two, then they’re five steps ahead of you.

Eugene Tinker:
So now you going to have your 8(a) and you just holding this 8(a) when what you could be doing is building your past performance, getting some subwork and partnering with those 8(a)s and by the time they get ready to get out of the 8(a) Program, you then apply for your 8(a) because now, you’re sitting out there alone because all 20 of those guys, at least 17, are out of the program. All that work stays 8(a). So now that’s what happened to me when I got in the 8(a) Program, a lot of those companies were getting out of the 8(a) Program. So a lot of that work started funneling down to me.

Adam DeGraide:
That’s amazing, and just for the watchers and listeners to refresh your memory on what we’re speaking about, the 8(a), is it 8(a) or it a (a)8?

Eugene Tinker:
Is 8(a). [crosstalk 00:15:13] the number 8 and [crosstalk 00:15:13]

Adam DeGraide:
I always say it backwards. [crosstalk 00:15:15] It’s the 8(a)-

Eugene Tinker:
Correct-

Adam DeGraide:
It’s a governmental designation that gives you, as a business, the ability to get a piece of a prime contractor’s contract from the federal government in a lot of ways. It’s a designation that allows you to be a prime and be a part of it. When a business gets it’s a very big step, because now they’re certified for lack of a better word, to be able to share in those contracts or be the prime contractor for these government contracts, and that’s how you grow. So you grow from being a sub to eventually having your own designations, and then you become the prime and then you’re hiring subs. So it’s a really interesting program for small businesses, and they have a lot first [crosstalk 00:16:00]

Eugene Tinker:
For the first five years, the government direcs awards you those contracts. There’s a nine-year program. That sixth-year, you have to put a percent. So they want you to say, “I want you to do 25% of non- 8(a) work. That means whether or not you sub, that means whether or not you have some commercial work, but you can’t be getting direct awards unless you match that percentage. What happens is, the government, it goes from the seven year to 35, fourth year, 45, the eighth year, 45, the ninth year, 50%.

Eugene Tinker:
So that means you got to have 50% of that work that’s non-direct awarded from the government. What they’re doing is the program is very clever because what it does is allows you as a small company, to be able to touch bases with those guys, but you also got to always keep in mind that I’m not going to always be given work. I got to get out here and grind. So I don’t really like that part of it.

Adam DeGraide:
Yeah, no, there’s no doubt about it. I’m learning so much about it, Eugene. I’m told it’s like baptism through fire, you know what I mean? So my company, Anthem Software, we ended up exhibiting at the 8(a). We had no idea what the heck we were walking into. We didn’t know how we can help anybody, and next thing I’m like, “Oh, wait a minute. There’s a lot of money over here, and there’s a lot of ability to help a lot of people that need help.”

Eugene Tinker:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adam DeGraide:
That was what’s so cool about it too. So we got to take a quick break from one of our corporate spots here, DVG. But when we come back, I do want to talk about your team and about if you can discuss, what you can discuss, some of the projects you’re working on. So watchers and listeners, you’re with Adam DeGraide and Eugene Tinker. You’re hanging out on the DVG podcast. Here’s a special message from Anthem Software. We’ll be right back.

Speaker 4:
Anthem Business Software System is designed to specifically help small businesses just like yours, find, serve, and keep more customers profitably. We do this by providing you with the most powerful software automations and marketing services to help your business compete and win in this ever changing digital world. Take a short video tour at anthemsoftware.com.

Speaker 4:
(singing)

Adam DeGraide:
We’re back with Eugene Tinker, the legend, the man who started in 2010, got awarded his first $80,000 contract to now he’s got over 97 employees and he’s gone from faking it, no, for lack of a better word, Eugene, to making it, and it’s very ingenious. You did mention, I want to a backtrack, just relying, just a smidge. You talked about a vision board and when you’re consulting companies on creating a vision board, what exactly is a vision board when you’re helping them think through their strategy?

Eugene Tinker:
That vision board, what exactly it is, is a lot of times people can see more than they can put down on paper. A lot of times they can look at things, so what they have to do is they have to basically take poster board, they can go to the craft shop and be able to put actual houses. I had one person came and built houses on theirs and put sand and the beach and to put rings on there. But they have to give me a vision of where they see themselves in the next 10 years from now.

Eugene Tinker:
What it does is it allows me to be able to look at that company owner, because sometimes that company owner is really speaking about themselves and if they got a partner with them, if you look at some of those vision boards, they never look at those visions to see, you can see that vision to say, “Hmm. This company me is not going to make it far with the partner because they are really just speaking about themselves, ‘I want to buy this, or I want these type of shoes. I want a house full of this.'” You never hear anything about community service or giving back. One of the things I always tell people, “You come into my class,” as I would say, “you come in my class with the mindset of finance, but you leave out of my class with a purpose.”

Adam DeGraide:
That’s amazing. It’s interesting that you talk about that, about how clearly articulating a vision. I heard a sermon years ago, Eugene, which impacted me as a young man. I went to this youth group and he was talking about how God gives us visions. He said, “The problem is,” the enemy he was describing. In this case, it was the devil as he was describing, “wants to cloud your vision.”

Eugene Tinker:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adam DeGraide:
So if you don’t have a clear vision and those clouds roll in, you get lost because you don’t know where you’re going, because you don’t even have a direction of where you were walking in the first place. But one of the things I thought was so interesting that he said, he said, “Create the vision in your mind that God has laid it on your heart,” or in this a business that you wanted. It has to be bigger than, “I want these shoes and I need this house and I like this car,” because you and I know, stuff fades away. That stuff fades away quicker and is gone before you know it. There’s always a bigger house. There’s always a bigger car.

Adam DeGraide:
There’s always a bigger whatever, and that just becomes scribbles and. But a vision of, “I want to change this industry,” or, “I want to change people’s lives,” it’s a bigger vision, and then all the stuff that comes along with it is secondary to the real vision, which is, “I want to help and be an improving of my community and my society at large. So when you have a vision, I love what you’re saying, and what he said was is, “If you could see the sun bright and shining and you’re walking in that direction,” he said, “when the clouds come down and you feel lost, just keep walking in the direction you saw the sun last because before you know it, those clouds will rise and you’ll be able to see clearly again.”

Eugene Tinker:
Correct.

Adam DeGraide:
That’s kind of what a vision board does, and so what Eugene is saying, guys, for your business is critical. Vision has to be bigger than just what you want out of it.

Eugene Tinker:
Correct.

Adam DeGraide:
It’s what do we period, I call it, collectively want out of it? So in Eugene’s case, he took these interns, raised them up. One of them’s a CTO and his team is probably grateful for these things that have happened over the years.

Eugene Tinker:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adam DeGraide:
I would imagine you still have those programs where you bring in interns and help them raise up, right?

Eugene Tinker:
Correct. Correct.

Adam DeGraide:
But it’s bigger than just having a fancy pair of shoes or 14 guitars behind you, these are all nice things, folks, but they’re not the things that matter the most, which is, “What have we done that’ll last beyond our time and in building a business?” Even if your goal is to sell it, you can absolutely build a legacy. Now, Eugene, your team, 97 people right now.

Eugene Tinker:
Correct.

Adam DeGraide:
Your CTO used to be an intern with you.

Eugene Tinker:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adam DeGraide:
Finding people is not easy-

Eugene Tinker:
Correct.

Adam DeGraide:
… especially today. What are some of the processes you do and what is the culture in your business to attract great talent?

Eugene Tinker:
Basically, we use all of your tools, but it is been word-of-mouth. What has happened is when you come into CTE, I tell people, “I’m not title driven,” but they come in the difference that I do, Adam, is when you come in, they have to build a vision board as well.

Adam DeGraide:
Oh, I love that. I love that.

Eugene Tinker:
So all of my employees have to build a vision board as they come in, and when they build that vision board, they have to stand up in front of everybody and tell them their vision. But then, when I look at them, everybody title in this office is CEO, because everybody in here, I want them to start their own business.

Adam DeGraide:
That’s right.

Eugene Tinker:
So it’s no different than, it is like from the biblical standpoint, iron sharpen iron. So if I influence you, if you start being around people of the same culture, same generation, you and sooner or later would adapt that. So everybody in this office, we basically, one lady, she started a company already, and I am the employee of her company and it’s called Falling Forward.

Adam DeGraide:
Oh, I like that.

Eugene Tinker:
So what it basically does is all of the companies that I’m mentoring, I send them to her company and then I mentor them through her company-

Adam DeGraide:
That’s great.

Eugene Tinker:
… because she understands it. She’s been here with me for quite some time, and what I do is as those companies pay, then the people, she gets paid now. So she understands. So you look at it and I think a lot of times when you are a small business, if you are able to empower were the individuals, because as they say in the Bible, you look at it said, “Write it down and make it plain.” So when you put the vision board up, now they can write it down because some people can never write it down until they see it.

Adam DeGraide:
They can make it plain.

Eugene Tinker:
They can make it plain.

Adam DeGraide:
Because it helps them think through it.

Eugene Tinker:
Correct.

Adam DeGraide:
Eugene, that is genius. I think that they’ve always done these exercises over the years, it’s like, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

Eugene Tinker:
Correct.

Adam DeGraide:
Where do you see the others around you in five years?

Eugene Tinker:
Yeah.

Adam DeGraide:
That’s what you and I are talking about right now, right?

Eugene Tinker:
Correct.

Adam DeGraide:
So there’s a guy who runs a company called GiddyUp. They do over 500 million a year revenue right now. He used to be my right hand marketing director for eight years, and he built a company four times the size of my biggest company that I’ve built so far.

Eugene Tinker:
Wow.

Adam DeGraide:
How do you think that makes me feel?

Eugene Tinker:
Good.

Adam DeGraide:
How do you think it makes him feel?

Eugene Tinker:
It makes him feel good.

Adam DeGraide:
He’s doing the same thing. You see, so where it’s bigger, your business is bigger than just your end means. It’s a community of bigness. So do your team right now, do you guys get together? I love the fact that you make them stand up and share that vision board.

Eugene Tinker:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adam DeGraide:
Are you involving your team members in the planning and the strategy for this year as well as years in the future together, or does that still primarily come from you and then they add to it?

Eugene Tinker:
No, we’re involved. So right now, let’s say for example, we put a pot together. What I did was I sit down with everybody here and said, “Okay, what do you guys want to do?” So I added up with them, say, “What kind of bonus you want?” The bonus that they want by September is 480,000. I divided it by the seven people sitting in the room, right? So I took a jar and I said, “Here’s what I’m putting in the jar. You come in and if you can put a $100 in the jar, $1000, $5,000,” what it did was it turned the morale of the team to, “Now I got buy-in,” because a lot of times when you look at companies, if they know it’s only coming from you, Adam, then they know that, “Okay, if I’m going work, I’m going to get paid. I’m on a salary.”

Eugene Tinker:
But if you buy into something, then you going to basically be able to have way more at stake with it. So you going to be able to get on your teammates before the CEO gets there, or before the project manager get there, because you like, “Hey, I put my $100 in and I sacrificed my money for the bill, and that jar is only to turn into, to basically this return that we getting.” So we are hitting that goal right now. We’re putting out proposals. If I’m traveling, I get a phone call that said, “Hey, we had a meeting today. We found three opportunities that I think is good to go after. We just want you to vet it because we already done vetted it,” these are individuals that never wrote proposals.

Adam DeGraide:
You know why, Eugene? Because their belief is now theirs.

Eugene Tinker:
Correct.

Adam DeGraide:
I tell people this all the time, “Everything truly great and worthwhile starts with one word.”

Eugene Tinker:
Correct.

Adam DeGraide:
“And that’s believe.”

Eugene Tinker:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adam DeGraide:
The question I always say to people is, “Do you believe?” Because the worst thing you can have on your team is an employee that doesn’t believe-

Eugene Tinker:
Exactly.

Adam DeGraide:
… because then all they’re doing is collecting a paycheck. By helping them become part of the vision, part of the creation of it, they become part of the vision, and you don’t have to manage people that have passion for what they’re doing.

Eugene Tinker:
Correct. Yep.

Adam DeGraide:
You have to manage people who don’t have passion, but you typically don’t have to over manage people. I shouldn’t say manage, you have to manage, but you don’t have to over-manage-

Eugene Tinker:
Over-manage them, mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adam DeGraide:
… people that have passion.

Eugene Tinker:
Yep.

Adam DeGraide:
Man, that is really, really interesting. Now, before you started this, did you see yourself as a young child growing up owning your own business someday? Did you ever think about it and how did this happen?

Eugene Tinker:
So growing up, I was in high school and my moms had a bad car accident when I was younger and they gave her three days to live. So I used to read books like Network for Dummies and stuff of the sort. One day I was tired. I just had to drive at least two-and-a-half hours in my 11th, 12th grade year to school when I got to school and I was reading this book and it was Network for Dummies and I was able to shut the school down. So it basically stirred me into it. I used to walk around with a magazine and tell a lot of my cousins, “Hey, I’m going to be in a magazine one day, watch. I’m going to make it.”

Eugene Tinker:
Every time we talked, they’d be like, “Oh, here we go again, where you going to be in the book again, I’m going to be in a magazine.” Well, I never thought about being a CEO. I always wanted to be the best computer guy or somebody that had that skillset, and not really even knowing that was my gift. But when the school situation happened, the principal and the superintendent met with me and I negotiated a deal with those guys, I got a office and two classes until I graduated.

Adam DeGraide:
That’s amazing. So think about this, watchers and listeners, you turned tragedy, so very sorry about your mom, by the way.

Eugene Tinker:
Yeah.

Adam DeGraide:
You turn tragedy into opportunity and you said something interesting. You kept driving your cousins and your friends or whoever it was crazy because you kept saying, “One day, one day,” and you know what that was, man? That was vision.

Eugene Tinker:
Correct.

Adam DeGraide:
That was something that, I believe, God divinely had put in you and that he was burning it in your mind that, “Eugene you’re meant for something bigger than you think and you even know,” and here we are now. Who knew it would even be David vs Goliath podcast, the great create a small business podcast in the world, where we champion the small guy and that’s taken on the big guy? So Eugene, I got to take another quick break from another sponsor.

Eugene Tinker:
Okay.

Adam DeGraide:
But when we come back, I want to talk about courage, which I believe is the most important thing that is needed to start your next business or a business in general. I’m Adam DeGraide. You are watching and listening to David vs Goliath podcast. Here’s another amazing spot right now from one of our sponsors on David vs Goliath. Enjoy.

Speaker 5:
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Adam DeGraide:
We’re back with Eugene. Eugene, are you having fun? This is going great.

Eugene Tinker:
I’m loving it, loving it.

Adam DeGraide:
You had no idea you were going to be hanging out with some maniac in a tee-shirt with a bunch of instruments behind him, with his hair spiked out, talking about these cool things today, and I think that’s amazing.

Eugene Tinker:
Yeah.

Adam DeGraide:
I’m just very impressed with people that have vision and can see themselves bigger than they are in the beginning.

Eugene Tinker:
Correct.

Adam DeGraide:
If you think about it, I think about the courage it took for you to hire those interns and to bring them with you to that meeting and to stand there and ask for the business, because you knew you deserved it and you knew you could handle it.

Eugene Tinker:
Correct.

Adam DeGraide:
There’s courage in that, man-

Eugene Tinker:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adam DeGraide:
… and that is a scary thing for people to do. When you’re a small business and you’re going in to ask whether it’s a client for your first piece of business or getting a big contract, you’re probably sitting in the car psyching yourself up-

Eugene Tinker:
Yeah.

Adam DeGraide:
… but it takes a lot of courage. I tell people all the time, in the story of David vs Goliath, David, the shepherd boy, was offered the armor of Saul and his, and he said, “I don’t need that.” He said, “I’ve got the big guy on my team.” He went out in a shepherd boy outfit. He went down by the river and the Bible actually says that he got five smooth stones.

Eugene Tinker:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adam DeGraide:
These five smooth stones on DVG, I liken to the five things in every small business has to have, which is: plans and goals, the right people, the right technology, the right process, and the courage to get out there. The fascinating story about the story in the Bible is that it only took one stone to slay giant, and that was courage. So I think back to the story of you, Eugene, walking in there with those interns, with clear instructions, “Don’t say something you’re not supposed to say,” but you presented a good front and you landed your first piece of business, that takes courage. How did you feel walking into that first meeting?

Eugene Tinker:
You hit the five stones, I live by five Ps: proper planning prevents poor performance. So if you plan properly, it is going to help you prevent any type of poor performance. So the courage that you would need, and it is like faith, just faith of a mustard seed, and people don’t really know how big a mustard seed is. It’s very small.

Adam DeGraide:
I think it’s like that small-

Eugene Tinker:
That little bit, it don’t take much. Just say, Adam, I’m about to go into a meeting and you say, “Eugene, you could do it. Let’s go over it right now. You can do it.” Me walking in that meeting, or you sit in the crowd of that meeting as I’m walking in to do my presentation and you’re nodding your head like, “Yep.” You not saying a word gives a person courage. So courage allows you to be able to take upon anything that walks against you. I have a clothing line called Believe in One’s Self. So if you start believing in yourself, I call it bios. I give it to a lot of the kids, we do a scholarship program. Right now, we give our laptops and it is bios. So if you start believing in yourself, believing in yourself, allows you to actually be able to have so much courage that you wouldn’t even know that you really have.

Adam DeGraide:
Yeah. It’s amazing.

Eugene Tinker:
Yeah. It’s just-

Adam DeGraide:
I think about that first meeting though, when you walked in there and you are like, “I deserve to be here.”

Eugene Tinker:
Correct.

Adam DeGraide:
I think that’s something that is important. So watchers and listeners, if you’re thinking about starting your own business, you got to look in the mirror and you got to say, “It doesn’t ultimately matter what other people believe about you at that moment. It’s do you believe it?”

Eugene Tinker:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adam DeGraide:
Because if you don’t, don’t go in that meeting. But if you do, you can walk in with confidence, courage, self-respect and dignity and say, “I deserve this piece of business, and here’s why,” and feel 100% comfortable on that, right?

Eugene Tinker:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adam DeGraide:
People work with Eugene because they believe in Eugene.

Eugene Tinker:
Correct.

Adam DeGraide:
Eugene works with his employees because his employees believe in themselves, which in help feeds the whole company at whole. So this is what it’s all about, guys, as you’re building a business and you’re having courage. Now, when you started the business and you got that first contract and you went home that night, how did you feel?

Eugene Tinker:
Man, I felt so good. When I got that phone call, I basically were in tears, because I got tattoos, so what I did was I got up that next day, crazy is as it may sound and I went and tattooed on my arm, blood, sweat and tears-

Adam DeGraide:
Oh, I love it.

Eugene Tinker:
… because that’s basically what I had. The biggest thing is every day you got nos and that you have to have courage to pick up the phone because, Adam, if somebody going to tell you “No” every day it’ll kill your self esteem. You’ll be like, “Well, I’m going to get no, so I might as well don’t call.” But if you got the courage to get up every day and call, the belief to say, “I’m going to call whether they say no or not. When we got our 8(a), we got our 8(a) back in 90 days. You know what happened? Every single day, I would call the SBA office and ask them, “I was just calling to see if you have any time to look at the results for CTE’s 8(a).” So they stopped answering the calls. You know what I did? I took my mother phone and started calling. I started blocking my phone number and started calling. So I think we got our 8(a) back in 90 days because they were like, “I’m so tired of this guy calling every single day,” not saying that works for everybody, but it was the persistence.

Eugene Tinker:
After talking to the representative, she said, “It was the persistence, young man, that you did that allowed me to go ahead and pick up your package,” because the first time we went in, we got denied. The second time my mom said, “I’m disabled. Let me see can I write it?” So she writes this book that’s bigger than a binder that you get for school, like it’s a huge book, and I’m like, “Ma, they didn’t ask for all this detail.” She said, “Well, I don’t know. I gave them enough information, so if they want to read it, they going to know everything about you and all the blood, sweat, and tears, it took for you to get it.” So all those things mattered when it comes to wanting to win. I spoke last week. I always say this, “Forget walking in your shoes. Take your shoes off, take your socks off, take your toes, and you dig in the mud, because if you grip that mud with your toes, you going dig and you going to climb.” So that’s what I did, and that’s what every small company has to do.

Adam DeGraide:
I absolutely love this, because everyone listening, persistence is critic. You know what I did one day on a sales call? I was a radio sales guy and I literally could not get my foot in the door. So I took my shoe off and I wrote a note and I put it inside.

Eugene Tinker:
Wow.

Adam DeGraide:
I FedEx-ed it. The guy got my shoe the next day with a note sticking out of it, it says, “Now that I have one foot in the door, can I get the other one in?”

Eugene Tinker:
That was good.

Adam DeGraide:
He became a client and he was a client all the years I was a radio rep. It’s like, you know what it is guys. It’s not like an arrogance that Eugene is talking about or that I’m talking about; it’s just that we know we can help people, and that we deserve the job. We deserve the chance.

Eugene Tinker:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adam DeGraide:
So when you have that belief and that confidence it makes all the difference. Eugene, there are people right now, and I feel like Mr. Rogers right now, as I’m putting on my do, do, do, do, do, do, putting my shoe back on, there are a set of people that have gone through difficult times in their business. I know that you have as well, too-

Eugene Tinker:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adam DeGraide:
… or they’re afraid a little bit. They’re discouraged. They haven’t gotten to that point where they believe in themselves that way yet. But they have a great idea. They have a good company or a good foundation, but they can’t get to the next level. What is the one thing that Eugene Tinker would recommend to them to help them get over that fear, uncertainty, and doubt and get that foot, that shoe off their foot, in that door?

Eugene Tinker:
Faith. You got to have faith and you got to be able to knock on the door. A lot of times it is criticism is not the worst thing to happen. If you get to the door and they tell you, no, in my office, my kids, they can’t say the word “can’t” I don’t accept the word “no.”

Adam DeGraide:
I hate that word, by the way. I hate that word.

Eugene Tinker:
Yeah, and I don’t accept the word “no.”

Adam DeGraide:
It’s like every time you quit, all you’re doing is teaching yourself to quit.

Eugene Tinker:
Correct.

Adam DeGraide:
Every time you say you can’t, all you’re doing is teaching yourself that you can’t.

Eugene Tinker:
Correct. Correct. So [crosstalk 00:42:57]

Adam DeGraide:
So how do you handle that?

Eugene Tinker:
What I can tell any small business that’s the fear is, “I guaranteed you once you step out and try it and you try it, is just like striking. It’s like I guarantee you you’ll never strike out. Your first two you’ll get strikes, but that third ball that you going to hit is going to be a ball, ball. Either you going to walk or you going to hit the home run. You will get to that first base, but you have to try it.” Nobody else is going to see that vision. Nobody else is going to believe as hard as you can. Nobody else is going go as tough as you can. I was told from my mentor, he’s used the word “talk.” That’s trust, access, like and know. So you got to be able to trust yourself. You got to figure got a way to have access-

Adam DeGraide:
I love it.

Eugene Tinker:
You got to like what you do, and you got to know what you talking about when you walk in that room.

Adam DeGraide:
Woo.

Eugene Tinker:
If you can do those things, it ain’t nothing on this green earth can stop you from becoming whatever in this world that you want to be, because-

Adam DeGraide:
No doubt about it.

Eugene Tinker:
Nobody can stop it.

Adam DeGraide:
Nobody can stop that. Oh, my gosh. That is such great advice. That is such great advice. Talk, say it one more time for the listeners, talk.

Eugene Tinker:
Talk, you got to have trust. You got to have access. You got to like, and you got to know. So you got to trust yourself, first of all, you got to trust yourself and you got to gain trust of others.

Adam DeGraide:
Then you got to figure out how to get in there.

Eugene Tinker:
Yeah. Then got to have access. You got to figure out, “How can I get in there?” Okay. If I can’t send a letter there, if I can’t send a postcard, if I can pick up the phone-

Adam DeGraide:
Send a shoe-

Eugene Tinker:
Send a shoe. There you go. But then you got to like, what you putting this time in for, and you got to be liked. See, in the beginning, I don’t know you, so I can’t like you. But if you like, what you do you going to find ways of being able to make it happen-

Adam DeGraide:
Then you got to-

Eugene Tinker:
… and then-

Adam DeGraide:
… know what you’re doing.

Eugene Tinker:
You got to know. You get that opportunity [crosstalk 00:45:19]

Adam DeGraide:
So you can fake certain things, but you can’t fake that.

Eugene Tinker:
You can’t fake it. So if I get the opportunity, just like getting invited to the show, if I got this opportunity, I got to know what I’m talking about. You got to be able to say, “I can pull one podcast back where this Eugene knew exactly what he was talking about,” but if you get that access, you do all of that work and when you get in the room and you still have that fear and don’t have that courage inside of you, guess what happens? Now, that one opportunity is toast.

Adam DeGraide:
Man, this is such amazing advice, and so fantastic. Now, Eugene, how can people find you online or reach out to you if they have any questions or if they want your help?

Eugene Tinker:
LinkedIn, I’m at EugeneTinker@LinkedIn. My email address is eugenetinker@CTEX, that’s inc.com. You can reach me at eugenetinker@creativetechgroup.com. I’m on Facebook. I’m on Instagram. It’s all Eugene Tinker. I don’t hide it. You can actually just go to Google and type in Eugene Tinker, and you’ll see this ugly guy pop up. Don’t run from your screen now, but I’ll be there, so I don’t mind, what I call it is nuggets and jewels. I don’t mind. One of the things I always say, “Crabs in the bucket, always look to pull each other down, but ever think that if you ever was that crab in the bucket that was able to get off top of the bucket,” what I want anybody to do, and this is what I said for myself, “I’m going to turn around and I’m going to cut a hole in the side of the bucket.” I’m not going to tell you don’t look up, but what I’m going to do is give you an opportunity to look around.

Eugene Tinker:
Instead of trying to climb out, you can just walk right out of that hole on the side and you going be able to make it and be successful. So I’m always there to give some advice. If you want to be able to get into mentoring, you want somebody to mentor you, like I said, I work for now, who’s my director. I work for her now as a mentor mentoring companies because she’s so big in HR, and she said, “You helped me so much,” so now I mentor companies for her and basically it’s called Falling Forward. So you don’t fall and fall on your face, it’s called you Falling Forward. So every time you stumble, you still getting to a good place in life, but it seemed like you’re falling to fall down, but you’re falling forward, because if you stand up straight right now, and if you fall straight down, you going to be further than where your feet was planted at, because now I start from the head.

Adam DeGraide:
No doubt it bought it. Man, I am fired up. Eugene, this has been absolutely awesome. I am so-

Eugene Tinker:
Yes, sir.

Adam DeGraide:
I am so glad that you spent some time with us on the David vs Goliath podcast-

Eugene Tinker:
Thank you.

Adam DeGraide:
Watchers and listeners, I tell you this all the time, you can’t find content like this anywhere else.

Eugene Tinker:
Correct.

Adam DeGraide:
You can’t get great advice like this anywhere else. This is the place right here on the DVG podcast. Eugene, thank you for coming-

Eugene Tinker:
Thanks, Adam.

Adam DeGraide:
Watchers and listeners, thank you for watching and listening. Stay tuned next week for another amazing edition of the David vs Goliath podcast. Have a fantastic day.