Re: SFS Contest
Hello, here's my stab at it.
My name is Billy Lewis (Usa Wizard)I first became interested in this business back in 2005 with a strong desire to get out of the restaurant business. This desire was branded into me in June 2005 when I was my oldest son's best man and gave my heart felt toast to him. I spent alot of time getting ready for that 3 minute toast (I have a little stage fright problem) and during this organization of thoughts that I wanted to share I realized for the first time how much of my first son's life I had missed because of the 70-80 hours per week occupation in the restaurant business and mandatory weekend work with all holidays included! After dedicating 15 years to a Steakhouse chain, they were bought out by another company and I begin to watch my friends and associates get either demoted or fired for 2 years. Finally it hit me! I was the 30th district manager demoted after having worked the type of hours I did, drove 4k-5k miles per month and my family litterally took a back seat to my job for 15 years. I was demoted even though I had lead my district to the highest profit and highest sales for the entire company for over 8 years. On our trip back from my son's wedding in Raleigh NC I "knew" that a change had to happen in my life!
I looked at many opportunities for something that I could dive into that would allow me more time to spend with my 4 and 10 year old kids at that time (I wanted to watch my now 6 year old play t-ball and wanted to hear my now 12 year old daughter sing in church). After alot of time studying marketing, sales, equipment etc. etc. etc. I took my first
IICRC class about 3 months before ordering my new
Vortex. Now you remember, I was the guy that Shawn York suggested I cash out my 401k to buy a truck and a new future! Well, I didn't cash out my 401k but I did lease a new truck. And with the help of my true friend and mentor Ian Hopkings (The Real Wizard!) I started out in our new buisness. As you may know things were going great and we were on track to do about 140k our first year in business but on May 23rd, 2006 after having help an older friend haul in around 300 bales of hay in 95 degree weather, I got home in time to take a quick shower and head our for our 3rd shift cleaning job. On the way back from that job at 3 am I met the rear end of a semi that was pulling back onto the interstate after having taken a nap, I may have dosed at the wrong time and hit him from behind. He was going 10mph I was going 70 well, you know the result. I mashed up my pretty new truck and me as well, after cutting me out of the pile of crumbled metal that used to be my Nissan UD (Thank God I am alive today!) I was out for almost 6 months and even though some friends helped me keep up with my accounts I decided to get out of the business probably mainly because of mental battles I was struggling with. I decided to go back into the restaurant business and this is when my "nightmares" begun. After alot of talks with my oldest son Brandon I decided to spend 1 year back in this business and then decide what to do with my career. In Sept. 2007 on our 12 year old daughters birthday my wife and I flew to California to pick up our new "used"
Vortex. I gave my job a 5 months notice of my intent to leave and started doing jobs on my time off from my 65 hour restaurant job. Finally I was able to start catching up financially from getting far far behind in the past 1.5 years. I was using my 401k monies to make ends meet and I finally decided to cash most of it out to buy this truck and pay for it so I wouldn't have any truck payments. Thankfully I cashed this out just before the last market crash so I probably saved enough to pay for half of my new truck, so no regrets there. Afterall if I hadn't made this choice the 401 would have ended up in our "leach line" if you know what I mean.
When purchasing my new re-start up equipment I was helped by some truely "Amazing" people that helped me out in every way possible because I was getting back in. Thanks to (and I hope I don't leave out anyone, and in no particular order) Greenie, Joe Brewster,
John Olson, Bridgepoint of Louisville, Mikey P., Steve Toberan, and alot of my old accounts for accepting me back. However, a very special thanks to Ian Hopkins and his family, they stood with us all along the way and he has gave and gave and gave. Anyone in this business that does not truely know Ian Hopkins doesn't know what they are missing. I know and this is from the inner parts of my soul how great an individual he is, and I cannot possibly thank him enough for everything that he has done for our family and me.
Now, I would very much like to win this
SFS course so that I could go, and take my friend, partner in life and in business my wife Heather. We have dedicated litteraly everything to this business and feel grateful to have another opportunity to make a go of it again, we enjoyed the sit down family dinners at 5pm (we had never experienced this before!). I enjoy studying and implimenting things learned and know that our company, myself and my wife would benefit greatly from this opportunity and would not let any of it go to waste.
Thank You,
Billy Lewis
a.k.a. The Wizard