Interview: Paul Baron

Leela Sinha 0:01

Hi, everyone. And welcome back to Power Pivot. This is one of our bonus episodes where I get to interview a fabulous business owner. Today's guest is Paul Baron. He is an entrepreneur- a multiple times entrepreneur, I understand- and has a long history in the business world. So we'll be talking with him about his history and what he's learned along the way. Thank you so much for being here.

Paul Baron 0:25

My pleasure. Nice to be here. Nice to see you and meet your audience. I appreciate that introduction. Long history, of course, translates into he's an old guy. So, so yes, I'm 72 years old, I have been a serial entrepreneur. If we were going to do a quick description of what my professional career has been all about. I've identified products that I find that are innovative, and I take them to market. That's what I've done for most of my career, although I have owned everything from restaurants, to sporting goods stores, retail, consumer packaged goods, manufacturing, distribution, many things. And so today, I find myself with a wonderful new product that I'm launching, and it's about five years into it. And we create business opportunities for other people now. And so that's what my current business is all about with a, what's called a vertical printing machine, called the wall printer. That's what I'm doing today. But it's really about creating business opportunities for other people who want to reach their own financial hopes and dreams and goals for themselves and their families.

Leela Sinha 1:37

That's fantastic. So I'm curious about the wall printer, I did look at the website a little bit. It's a really interesting product. But I want to rewind a little bit and just ask how did you get into entrepreneurship? Everyone's journey to entrepreneurship is really different. Some people were born into it, some people just couldn't help themselves. How did you start?

Paul Baron 1:54

Well, it's interesting that you say some are born into it. And I'm sure that's true. Because I believe we are, if we're lucky enough to have good parents, which I was you, you are influenced by them, and you take direction from them. My parents were the exact opposite of what my life became, in terms of professionally. They both worked for same company for thirty, forty years, basically their entire lives until they retired. Fortunately, they were able to enjoy retirement too, before they passed some years ago. But at the same time, they liked the stability of that and the security,. And I can't fault them or anyone else for finding companies who can support them, and give them an environment that fulfills them. Whether emotionally, financially, or professionally. I give credit to companies that, you know, large companies that people do hold on to for their entire lives. And some civil service jobs, and other positions that allow them to do basically the same thing for their entire lives. That was never me. I always

I always fleeted from one thing to another. And that's not always a good thing. But it is the seed of entrepreneurship, I believe, it's the fact that you can be influenced by something, whether internal or external, that drives you to wanting to do something. Now that do something could mean you want to create a product, you want to find something innovative, you want to improve upon something. You want to find a path, a financial goal that might be achieved, through either working for something or working for yourself. Entrepreneurship usually means working for yourself. But that's not really necessarily true. I've had some of my best entrepreneurial, entrepreneurial experiences with partnerships. And again, finding people that either complimented me, because they had skill sets that I did not have. Or they had the time, talent or treasure. Those are the three things that I say are the ingredients to any entrepreneurial venture. The time to do something. The talent to pursue it and succeed. And then the treasure, the money to be able to withstand the needs of you, your family, and the business. And so sometimes you can do that independently, sometimes you do it with other people. And I've had successes, and I don't like to call them failures, but I call them lesser successes, when sometimes the partnerships didn't work out. Or the idea was a total bust. And I've had those experiences. Fortunately, my current situation is is a winner. This This one is a homerun. And I don't mean that just financially, I mean that because it does provide a real level of satisfaction for me for what I'm creating for my employees. I have about 15 employees now. Everybody benefits by the success of the business, which is how I've always structured all my businesses. I'm not talking about the stock option, kind of philosophy or culture, most of which never succeed. But everybody, if the business does succeed, revenue wise, everybody does participate and succeed in my business. That's the way I like to do things. And I find that that develops a team that takes ownership. Because somebody said something to me a long time ago, which sticks to me today. And maybe is what started me on my path for having my own businesses or trying to find my own path. I thought I did very well for this company. And the company did very well, I think as a result of my efforts, which were in the sales area. And I asked for a raise after my first year. And I was very well paid. Very young, in my 20s, making more money than I really thought I would, at that time. And it was, it was a very nice job. And I learned a lot. But I thought I still was underpaid. And I went into the owner of a company and I said, I really enjoy working here. But I think I'm really due for an increase in compensation. And he said, Paul, he said, I'm going to tell you this, and take it for whatever it's worth. You are a wonderful worker, and you've done great for the company. I will make sure that you're always being paid more than anybody else will pay you. But Paul, you will never make what you think you're worth, unless you work for yourself, and take the risks that are go around having your own business. And so I thought about that for about 30 seconds. And I said, that makes a lot of sense. And I quit. And and then I went to- I became an independent salesperson at that point. And I worked for myself and found a couple of companies that I could do sales work for on a commission basis. And I made twice the money I was making for that company in half the time. And the quality of my life allowed me at that time to start looking at other options and other things to do. And that's when my journey really began. I started with a couple of sporting goods stores, went into the restaurant business, then I went back to work for some companies, because I realized there were things that I didn't know, and I wanted to try to learn. And then I went back into my own path again, on one thing or another. And now fifty-some years later, here I am.

Leela Sinha 3:00

So do you think he was right? Do you think it's true that people will never be paid what they think what they they think they're worth unless they work for themselves?

Paul Baron 7:18

I do believe that. I do believe that. I don't think... I think that. And I and that's really, I guess that's really the way it should be. When you're, when you're trying to price a product, for example, you know, you've come up with a price based on the investment in raw materials, or how much work it took to do that, the labor costs, the materials cost, but ultimately, the market tells you what something's going to be worth. And so when you price something,

do you know what the prices are too low or too high, you know, just look at eBay or Amazon and the auction type prices that things come up with. And that, you know, everybody's trying to undercut everybody by a penny or something like that, to get to be the first one that people see when they do a search. You know, so do you ever really know what you're worth except what somebody will pay for it? And then when somebody buys it, you say, oh, I should have asked for more. And so, so I think if you can do that with a product, why can't you do that with yourself? And so, I believe that most people, if somebody is going to pay me for the time, and the contribution I make, they think it's worth it. But I'll always think that if they think I'm worth it, I'm probably worth more. And so. So I do believe that. And then when you work for yourself, though, you have nobody to blame but yourself. If you don't make any amount of money that you think you should, then there's some other things going on. Either you've got the wrong product, you're not doing it, well. You're not delivering good service, you've got bad people around you, you're paying too much for your raw goods, whatever it might be that contributes to you not achieving the financial goals. Or customer goals, whatever those goals might be. If you're not achieving what you expect, it's probably because you've done something to impact that. You can't blame anybody when you own your own business, but yourself.

Leela Sinha 9:03

That's true. That's true. And I- you know, I think it's interesting to think about the way that we, when we're looking at our business, the shape of our businesses and the way that we develop our businesses, and how do we price things and how do we determine the value of things.

You wouldn't be in the business if you didn't value what you're doing. And at some level, right? You have to think that it's worth money or you wouldn't be trying to sell it. And when you think it's- when you're the product and you're trying to sell it to somebody else, you think you're worth a certain amount of money. And anytime somebody says yes, there's this little question of like, oh, they said yes. Maybe they.... You know, somebody said to me if if you send out a contract and they say yes immediately then you obviously underpriced yourself. And I don't know that that's necessarily true. I think sometimes you just have a perfect product-market fit. But I do think it's worth examining. You know, what, what are we doing? How can I be making more money? How could I be doing this better? How could I be saving more time or more effort? How could I be improving my life, the life of the people who work for me, the shape of the company, the shape of the world? You mentioned earlier that your employees are, are that you believe that your employees should also benefit when the company is doing well? How do you structure that?

Paul Baron: 10:29

Probably very foolishly. But the way I structure it is it's strictly based on revenue. I give people a little bit of a percentage now of the revenue. Now if I didn't have the proper profit margins, I couldn't do something like that. But I know my profit margins are such and my expenses are such and that we're doing enough business to pay for those basic expenses of the business that it requires to continue to function. And that there is then room beyond that for, let's call it the leftover. That, you know, I could take and put into my pocket, I could reinvest it into the business, I do all of that. But there's also some amount that I can put aside. Now, I won't say that, I've always taken that from a profitable pool of money, I haven't. Sometimes I've guaranteed people, a percentage of the revenue the company makes when we did not have a profitable month, or something along those lines. But still, when people actually raise their hands and want to buy what I'm selling, it is because of the people I have working for me. And they are the ones to support them. And I believe they should be compensated fairly. And they are they are compensated fairly in a base salary or an hourly wage or commission that they get. But beyond that, I believe that everybody deserves to benefit when the company benefits. And so that's all just the way it's been. I'm not gonna say it's the smartest way to do things. I'm not going to say that I've always succeeded as a result of doing it that way, more so than maybe some of my employees. But that's okay. And, and I am doing well enough that I'm okay with this, this game plan, you know. So time will tell whether or not it proves correct. I guess when I'm ready to exit the company, and everybody looks under the covers and sees what it is I really have, then that person will determine the value of my company. Because once again, something's only worth what somebody's willing to pay for it. And so when that time comes, hopefully I've made the right decisions.

Leela Sinha: 12:31

You know, I grew up outside of New York City, I don't know where you're located, but I grew up-

Paul Baron: 12:37

I grew up in Long Beach, Long Island, but I'm in Wilmington, North Carolina, now.

Leela Sinha: 12:41

Okay, so I grew up in in southwestern Connecticut. And so you remind me of all of the small business owners that I grew up around. The guys who just like it was, you know, one guy, and his 15 employees, and they were just doing the best they could for themselves and for their people. And I really appreciate that kind of like basic structuring of the company. You know, I've spent a lot of time in and around the tech world and stock options- like you said, stock options, I don't know about that as a compensation strategy. There's a woman down in LA named Madeline Pendleton, who runs a small brick and mortar store. And she is very active on social media, she talks a lot about the way she structures her business. And one of the things she does for her people, is they do a an absolute revenue sharing, and everybody in the company makes the same amount of money. Which I think is a really kind of radical version of what you're doing. You obviously you take a little bit out, you structure your compensation, you structure your compensation differently for different people. But it's the same basic idea that if the company does well, the people who work there are the reason that it's doing well. And so they should benefit from that. And, and it's working really well for her. It's it's people keep saying, Oh, it can't be done. And she looks at them and says, Please get out of my way. I'm busy doing it.

Paul Baron: 13:57

I actually actually kind of that kind of resonates very favorably with me. It's not what I do. People have their different levels and their different hourly base rate and their compensation of shared revenue, as well as the bonus structure of their compensation. But everybody getting paid the same as an interesting concept. I would I would not discount that as something that has a great value in certain situations.

Leela Sinha: 14:23

Yeah, it's been really interesting to listen to how she talks about it Because her principle is, every life is worth the same amount. So a portion of every life is worth the same amount. So I should compensate people the same for that portion of their life that they're essentially selling.

Paul Baron: 14:40

I don't necessarily

buy that but I like the concept. I like the concept to the point of everybody being paid perhaps the same, but the bonus structure that I give, the revenue share, you know, that that I think somewhere that has to be a sliding scale based on experience, too. So you know, just to say everybody's a person, and everybody's life and everybody has value. Yes, those are truths. But when you talk about compensation, and the job that's needed to be done, you can't say that somebody who's had 10 years of, of education, and another 15 years of experience is worth the same as somebody who just came out of high school. It's just, they those things don't balance just because they're both human beings,

Leela Sinha: 15:21

Right. They contribute differently to your business.

Paul Baron: 15:23

Especially in terms of their capability to

help the company realize its goals. You have to admit there are other things to measure besides somebody's life. That's my opinion. But I like the idea, like the idea and and once again, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. If it works for her wonderful.

Leela Sinha: 15:41

Right, and it is working for her. I can also see your point, you know, absolutely somebody with a lot of experience and a lot of education in their particular area, which they are bringing to the company, is able to help the company further its goals, perhaps more efficiently, perhaps better, perhaps, with fewer, you know, missteps, and that's worth compensating for. That's, that's worth worth....

Paul Baron: 16:04

You know, we're not communists, you know. We're not, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm a very proud American. I believe in democracy, and I believe in capitalism. And I think, you know, I, you know, I, I'm somewhat socialist to a point that I think there should be a level base for people with health care. And everybody should be able to get education and to feed themselves and their families, and live a quality of life. But beyond that, you know, your your capabilities, your path that you choose to take, or that you find yourself on may very well lead you in a different way that it compensates you in a different way. And I believe if that's a positive thing in your life by positive, then that doesn't necessarily mean money is positive. It can work against people just as easily as it can work for you. But if that's what you want, and that's what you can achieve, America, that's what you deserve. And and that's, that's my feeling on that.

Leela Sinha: 17:00

Yeah, yeah,

So I have two directions, I want to go and I'm trying to decide which one to go first, I think I'm gonna go this, I think I'm gonna go forward first, and then backward. So forward is I have this, I have a friend, we went to high school together. And we recently started talking again, after years of not. And he runs a small business, he's got about 20 employees. And one of his challenges is that when people come in to his company, they are relatively new at being at work at all. They're usually fairly young in the workforce. And, and so he ends up investing a lot of time and energy in just bringing them up to like, a baseline level of like, acceptability for going to work. You know, a lot of them have client contacts and they have to be able to meet certain standards of appearance and behavior. What advice would you give him as he's trying to build his company to a place where maybe he doesn't have to put so much energy into his- into building his staff? Or is that the best investment he can make to help people get up to speed? And if so how can we keep them once they're up to speed, instead of having them jump ship?

Paul Baron: 18:05

Kind of a follow up to what we were just talking about a new competency has a value. And so and that value is also measured in the fact that the people who reach a level of competence, whatever that might be for the task at hand, it's a quicker path for them to then achieve the goals that you're looking for. Whether that be a marketing goal, a sales goal, product development goal, customer service, whatever that might be, you know, both the experience and the competency level that that person achieves, only serves to help the task and the company, that much quicker. So if you do bring people in- and I'm, I'm a very, very big advocate of doing that. I've always had interns. I'm in a town in Wilmington, North Carolina, where there's a University of North Carolina at Wilmington, very large university. Branch of the University of North Carolina system. Just like SUNY in New York has a large university system. And I've always had- every semester I take one or two interns out of either the business school or the engineering to bring them in to put them into the marketing area, the technical area, customer support, sales, and giving them that experience. Now, yeah, they come in totally green. They have no idea of of what it is. Ture they have their classroom learnings they've done, which are basically worthless, you know, when you get into the real world. But letting them hone those skills does take the time from somebody. I hope that I identify people that can shadow somebody who's doing something. And then, by osmosis, if you will, pick up some of those skills and learnings that let them achieve a level of competency. And then very honestly, you're going to find that some people who have absolutely no experience in anything, but they're young and they're fresh and they have ideas. If you listen to them, they may pick up a lot more than you think they do. They may need a lot less hand holding and direction than you think that they do. Sure, they might not know your business today. But give them some time, give them some time to- my advice, if that's what you we started this conversation about is to these people is: don't assume that you need to go ahead and, and teach them everything. Let them let them just, you know, match them up with somebody who is doing it and see what happens. You know, tell them that you want them to, to understand what they're doing, because there's going to be a point at which they're going to do this themselves. And without spending a lot of time on that. It'll also tell you what kind of a person they are. How quickly they can learn how quickly they can influence the job that's really needed. And you'll also be very surprised, because as I have been time and again, is finding people who bring much more to the party than I ever expected. And they come up with fresh ideas and fresh eyes. And again, I'm 72, these people are all 22. So yes, I've got a lot of experiences, and I've got a lot of set ways in the way I think things should be done. But I'm also open to the fact that somebody else comes at it with a total fresh perspective, can really improve upon what we're doing. And that's happened time and again.

Leela Sinha: 21:18

Thank you, that sounds like really sound advice. And I'm thinking now about the business you're in now. Because I'm sure that when you were 22, you did not envision the wall painter, as like the, one of the businesses you're gonna have. So tell us a little bit about this wall painting thing that you're doing?

Paul Baron: 21:40

Well,

first of all, let me just as a correction to the terminology, it's wall printing, not painting.

Leela Sinha: 21:46

Oh sorry, wall printing.

Paul Baron: 21:48

That's okay. Nobody knows it. And that's one of the reasons why I'm doing it. I've had absolutely no experience in this. And so and, and pretty much most of the things I've done in my life have been with products or services, or technology that I've had no experience at. My hats that I've warn successfully, are sales and marketing. I love developing relationships with people. I had a knack that I that I developed a reputation early on in my career of being able to take foreign companies product services, software technology, something that that's that I found in a country outside the United States, that hasn't found its market here. And these companies want to come here because America is where the money is. And so a lot of these companies don't do that. Because either they don't understand the culture, or the expense of bringing something across the pond, so to speak. Whether it's from Asia, going across the Pacific or Europe going across the Atlantic. They don't want to necessarily make that hurdle for the financial impact that it may require. But at the same time, everybody looks to America as the proving ground or the source for revenue and success.

Leela Sinha: 22:58

If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.

Paul Baron: 23:01

So that's what I've done. I've found identified other products to do that. But I've done it- not bu-t but I did that as as a hired gun for companies. And what I mean by that: a commissioned salesperson. We're just like the people that are rewarded in my business, my performance dictated my success. I worked on commission, if I sold the product or got the relationship or, you know, delivered on what was necessary, I was compensated very well for that. And so, so that's been my mindset along my whole professional career too. Even though I have had times when I needed and wanted a salary. And I went that stability route, to be able to have a set income when when it was necessary in my life. That I didn't want to take the risk. But most of the time I did. And anyway, I retired several times, actually over the years.

Leela Sinha: 23:51

I was gonna say, I can't imagine you're retiring, you just seem like your brain just keeps going and going.

Paul Baron: 23:57

I never have. So now my long winded way of getting around to answering your original question about wall printing. And so I was retired about six, seven years ago. And but I'm always looking at things or things are coming across my desk. And I was approached by a company, a German company that had this vertical printing machine. It was like an inkjet printer on steroids. It was a device that would allow you to print artwork onto a wall. Indoors, outdoors, pretty much any size you wanted. And it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. And I'd never seen anything like it before. So those are the two ingredients that get my attention in something. Number one, it's got to be cool. Number two, it's got to be something I've never seen before. And I asked myself, Why not? And so this company presented me with an opportunity to take that product from Germany to market in the United States. At that point in my life, not only financially was I okay, but I also didn't want to be a hired gun anymore. If I saw something I liked I wanted to own it. Or at least have an equity piece. Because once again, I wanted my efforts to be rewarded. And I wanted to be rewarded more than just a commission on a sale. And so I asked the company, okay, this is a really cool product, how much do you want for your company? And so they said, no, no, Paul, that's not what we're here for. We're here to hire a salesperson. And so. So the conversation broke down right then and there. Because I didn't do that, at that point in my life. When I was this is when I was 65 years old. And so, but I hung up the phone with them, or disconnected the Zoom call, which is what we had, and, and I said, Wow, that is the coolest thing I've ever seen. Now, I have no printing background, no artistic bent at all. My wife is a pianist, and plays wonderful. I'm musically no tone, tone deaf or whatever, whatever the expression is, and- but, no advertising experience to speak of, you know. Again, my hats for sales and marketing, building relationships with people. But this was a product that I saw was so cool. And I've never seen it before. So after I finished my conversation with them, I said- which I always say at this point- why haven't I seen this? So I did my homework. I found out that literally there were only a handful of companies that did this. There were two Chinese companies, there was this German company, there was an Australian company, and a company in India.None in the United States, or North or South America. And that's one of the reasons- that's one of the reasons, of course, that I hadn't seen this before, because it didn't exist here. And so- and then I found out that the German company was really a copycat from one of the Chinese companies that invented this technology. And so when I started looking under the covers, I found out that this one Chinese company, the originator of the technology, that was priced and about half of the German product was, in fact, more fully featured than this product. And the more I learned about the technology, and how people would use it, and doing all the homework I do, because I'm very anal like that. I'll dig into something to ad nauseam before I'll make a decision on it. So I sent some people to Beijing to check out the company to make sure it was a real company, not somebody working out of their garage. And I had a vision of this product that I thought was so cool to be a machine that would let other people be in the business of putting art on walls. That was my vision for it. So I wanted to make sure that they could support that vision with production and supply chain and everything else. Anyway, they ticked all the right boxes. The other three companies, there was a second Chinese company and an Australian and Indian company, I rejected them for one reason or the other, we don't have to get into. But the bottom line, there are only two quality products, then, six years ago, there's only two quality products now. The German product and my product, and feature for feature, my product is better. But we don't- I'm gonna let my customers prove that correct. I don't have to get into the details of that. Because I don't want- these conversations and not a sales pitch for my company. It's more about the journey. And so typically, when I get to the point that I say, Yeah, I'm going to do this, I call to my wife and I say, hey, Maureen, come take a look at this vertical printing machine I found. And rather than coming to my home office- which is where I am right now talking to you. Rather than coming to that office, usually she goes and she cuts up my credit cards and changes the password to my bank account. Bacause she goes, Oh, here we go. Paul's going to invest in something bananas again. And so- but this time she looked. And she saw it and she thought it was the coolest thing she'd ever seen. And she says you think you can do something with this? And I said, Yes, I do. And she said, well go ahead and go for it. So I got the buy in from my wife, which is important to me. And so, so I went and I bought into the manufacturing. And I developed a relationship with this manufacturer, where I'm a co-owner of some new patents that we've developed over the years. And now I'm fast forwarding. I own all rights to the western hemisphere with my company, I manufacture it and supply everybody from Canada, the United States, Mexico, South America, the Caribbean, all out of my Wilmington, North Carolina warehouse and offices. And so that's what we're doing today. And we've grown. We have over 150 customers today. And what a customer means- we were very honored last year, we were awarded Entrepreneur of the Year. Which is a very big honor here in North Carolina. It's a contest- not a contest. It's an award that's given to the company being identified as the company that "who would you invest $100,000 in?" That's that's what the judges are tasked with. Pick the company. There's hundreds of applicants. The reason we were selected over all others was really not because it was a company they would invest in. But what they really liked about the wall printer, which is what I'm most proud of, is that every customer we have, becomes a new company. Everybody that buys a wall printing machine establishes a company around this machine. Or they've added a revenue stream to an existing company. Like a painter or general contractor. Or an artist, muralist photographer, interior decorator. That already has customers that could use this machine. Or if there's somebody like half of my customers are that have never had a business before. They also don't know anything about printing, or signage or artwork. And they just think for $35,000, which is, by the way, what these machines cost. For $35,000, they can start a business with something. Now, truth be told, as I have learned over the years, and as anybody who gets into business will learn very quickly, it's not just about the tools that you need. Nobody goes into the restaurant business because you buy a stove. You know, you going into the restaurant business for many other reasons, and a stove is necessary. Well, you have to want to be in business. You want to have that- you have to be willing to take a risk. I always tell people that talk to me and say, hey, that's really cool. I'd like to be in that business. When I say well slow down a minute, you know. There's good news and bad news. The good news is, you're probably going to be the first one in your town to be doing this The bad news is, you're going to be the first one in your town to be doing this. So you better understand that you've got to introduce this to people, you got to market it. We're not a franchise. I intentionally, I didn't want this to be a franchise. We don't set up people's websites for them, we don't dictate what they charge. We just- We make sure the machines work for them. That's my business. My business is selling machines, and making sure our customers are trained, supported, they have the proper tools they need day in and day out, for these machines to work. Who they want to sell to, that's on them. It's a marketing business and a service business. They have to learn how to deal with customers, just as I've done all of my life. They have to learn to provide good customer service at a good price. When you're buying something like ink that cost about 50 cents a square foot, but you can sell it for twenty, thirty, forty dollars a square foot when you finally deliver the product. There's a lot of room. It's a nice markup. And, and it's deserved. And it's and people pay it every day of the week. And so, so it's a really good business for somebody else. And we make sure that they they're successful. And, and it doesn't always work. Sometimes people buy it because it's really cool. But they don't want to do everything required to be in business. Or they don't do it enough to make a lot of money, when it's just a side hustle. Because they don't want to make that leap out of their day job to put all their efforts and energy into it a business. That's the entrepreneurial spirit that many people do not have. And don't have sometimes for very valid reasons. Like they've got families to support, they got kids to put through college or whatever else. That's another reason why my life went the way it was we weren't really blessed with children, my wife and I. So we didn't have those responsibilities. We went the puppy route. I've got a couple of running around here, we have our children the four-legged type. They don't ask for the car keys, and there's no college fund. So a little bit more flexibility for me to do the kinds of things that I like doing. And again, not everybody can can do that. But if it's right for you, you know, it can be a fulfilling path. Or it could be a financial disaster. It depends. If you have the right attitude, then it's not how many times you get knocked down it's how many times you get up that matters.

Leela Sinha: 33:14

Right. Get up with that one more time. When people come to you, and they're interested in starting a business with the wall printer, and they've never been in business before- they don't know entrepreneurship, like in their gut? What kinds of support or advice or help do you give them? Or do you just say, we're just gonna sell you the printer? Because it sounds like you do more than that. I can't imagine you just letting people out there...

Paul Baron: 33:37

Yeah, well, we obviously do tell them, and make sure they understand, that it is not just the printer. That it is a business that requires marketing and requires support. It requires somebody to be able to, you know, manage the books. They have to have a vehicle to transport this machine. Because this machine is designed- doesn't have to- but it's designed to go to a customer site. To a restaurant, to a school to a doctor's office, to a museum, and print on the walls. But it could also do signage and never actually leave somebody's home office, garage, or whatever. But but they have to know that they need a vehicle. They need to feed their families still. They need to find the customers and do marketing. Now we do give them some of the tools. The same way that people find us which is through social media. I don't go to trade shows. I don't I don't go in into communities and show people this machine and how it works. We have a place we have we attract people through YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, all the social media channels. We show them videos. We show them- We tell them how much it costs. We say is this something interesting to you? And that starts the conversation. At that point, we do caution them that it's more than just the machine. It requires maintenance it requires somebody to handle it. It's no different than a painter who has a paintbrush. You got to wash it after each time. A machine needs some stuff- you have to do you have to do something. It's a it's a it's not going to do it by itself, it's not one, it's not one of these, you build it, they will come. It doesn't work that way. And no, I don't know any business that really does. Or any website that's going to attract people, if you don't do the right stuff underneath it, that requires other skill sets to attract people to your website or to your to your storefront or to your restaurant. I don't care if you're a doctor, or you know, selling hamburgers, you got to get people into your place. You have to provide good value, a good product, good service, and you have to know how to price it. But all of those things, you know, are the things that they need to know. We do give them some tools, we do give them some guidance. We know what people have paid for the services, like I said. I can tell them very matter of factly and factually what their costs are going to be, and what they may need to consider. But ultimately, it'd be up to them what to charge a customer. They'll have to figure that out themselves, we'll give them guidelines, and they can start there. And then like we said, at the very beginning of our conversation, find out the market supports it or the market doesn't. You know, people in Mexico have a different economic environment than the people in New York City. Or Chicago or Dallas. And Des Moines is different than Atlanta. So you know, everybody has has a market that they are going to approach. A price for the services that they're going to expect or try to, to get. And people just have to do that themselves. So we don't hold their hands through that process. But we try to give them as much guidance as we can.

Leela Sinha: 36:28

And part

of that is because they know their market. If you're in New York City, and you need to drive a sizable truck around, you're probably going to have to budget a certain amount for parking tickets, like that's just got to be a cost of doing this

Paul Baron: 36:39

Yeah, and

you're going to have walk ups. So you need somebody to carry this 125 pound machine up three flights of stairs, sometimes. Everybody is not just drive in and roll the machine in which you can do if you're on a level field. But that's not always the case. So you may need two people, you may need, you know, an extra person.

And extra insurance for when you drop it

the machines only require somebody to babysit the machine while it's printing. But it does need some attention like that sometimes. So, you know, it does require these other things. We try to- we're there to support. You know, we I think my team provides outstanding support to our customers, I think that really is what separates us from anybody in this business, even though we only have one competitor. But what really separates us is the support we give our customers. And we want them to succeed. This other company that has a very quality product, but they also provide services to their customers. They compete with their own customers by providing services, we don't do that. We just provide the machines and we help them succeed in servicing their customers. We don't compete with our customers. And we don't provide the services even in our own backyard in Wilmington, we have somebody who bought for Wilmington territory, and services that themselves. And so that's that's our business model.

Leela Sinha: 37:50

What's your favorite success story? Do you keep track of these folks, once they've bought the machines? Do you watch them grow?

Paul Baron: 37:57

Yeah, we do. We watch them grow. And we watch the ones that don't grow. We, you know, we learn as much from them and who our customers- we're always trying to figure out who the best customer is from those experiences. And yeah, we have our favorites. The ones who are really, really doing it and doing it well and enjoying it, and get customers who are really happy as a result of that. And that's going to be true in any kind of business. You know, there are people who volunteer to be, you know, to give testimonials and to entertain other people when at the very beginning. You know, somebody said, Okay, that's looks interesting, but let me see who else is doing it. You know, sure. If you want to be in the hamburger business, you can go and look at McDonald's and Burger King and Wendy's and Hardee's and and all these places. You want to be in, you know, you want to be an electrician, or a plumber or a lawyer or a doctor. There are lots of things that you can look at to say, is this what I want to do? Or is this what I want to go to school for 10 years to learn how to do? There are those things. That didn't happen with this. So the ones at the beginning were the real risk takers. They were willing to be the you know, the trailblazers for something totally new. They're the ones who for the most part are the most successful ones. The ones that say, Oh, let me see what they're doing, you know, that kind of stuff, they were a little bit more cautious which I respect that. But that's not necessarily a- that's not necessarily what's going to make somebody successful in this or not. Just because they've convinced themselves that it can be successful, you still need to have that personality that will let you take a risk on on being the first kid on the block to introduce something to your market. Because right now we've got 150 customers and I don't know whether you or your audience may say that's a lot but that's not so many. I think it's a lot. We sell about one to two of these a week now.

Leela Sinha: 39:39

Wow

Paul Baron: 39:39

which which is great. And and when we sell it not only is it a machine, but it's also possible- possibl-y it's at our customer's option. We will sell them an exclusive territory. Again, we're not a franchise, but we'll sell them a territory. Where they're the only ones we will sell printers to. Because we want- we want to reward the people who did raise their hands first. And when somebody else does see it, like the hamburger places and the coffee shops and the pizza restaurants, when somebody sees it and says, Hey, that's really cool what Paul is doing over there. I'd like to do that too. Well, we won't talk to them at that point. We will send that person's interest to the person who's there already and say, Do you want to hire this person? Do you want to sell them a wall printing machine and let them will print in your community? You know, what do you want to do? We don't we don't deal with them at that point, because we support the growth of the people who've raised their hands first. Of course, that that comes with obligations. If we don't sell printers to anybody in their territory, they're going to have to buy more printers. And so there is an obligation that goes along with with that awarding of territory. But if they're successful, they're making money. They're doing business, there's no lacking walls in this world. That's what makes this room look so good. I'm looking at your room, you know, you could use some artwork on your wall there. Everything behind me here is a wall print, not on the walls, because my wife doesn't let me print to the walls in my house. But at the same time, you don't have to print directly to a wall. You can, and it's beautiful when you do. But these are that picture my dog is with Santa Claus, that's on paper. This over here above my head is on canvas. And the other ones are on paper or acrylic or something else, glass or something. You can print on anything, you can hang it on the wall, just like a picture. That's it doesn't doesn't really limit you. And the customers are everywhere. So there's I don't think my customers are ever going to run out of customers. And you know, anybody who's got a wall. And we also have a floor printer now. So we print on floors, too. So, but there's of course, every room has four times as many walls as floors. So there's more money to be made with the wall printer than the floor printer. Most of the floor printers have been sold to companies that are in the flooring business. For customers that want to put their logos or something on the floor, or their school emblem on a basketball court or something like that.

Yeah, although I can imagine a residential application where you know, it's the, it's no longer parquet flooring, it's now a printed painted floor.

Absolutely, absolutely. Just just like, y'know wood floors have migrated into tile that looks like wood. You know, now you can actually have wood that gets painted to look like any kind of wood. Or put a mosaic design, instead of doing it with tile, do a mosaic time and print it in your foyer.

Leela Sinha: 42:27

So when don't like it, have it sanded off, and you can change it.

Paul Baron: 42:31

The beauty of this wall printing business is that: you don't like the picture, you get tired of it, primer over the wall and start again. If it's on glass, with a razor blade, you can scrape it off. If it's on brick or something, you can just use a sandblaster or a power washer and get rid of it. So it's easy to change. Much easier than people who slap up a vinyl sticker or a wallpaper on a wall. And of course, if you're going to spend the money to have a muralist. And this is, and this is again, a business that doesn't take the food off of the table of artists. We actually see this and we see it every day as a way for artists to create their art. But don't just sit there for days or weeks printing something when we can do it in hours. Create your art Make the picture, and then we digitize it and we print it. It doesn't take the food off their table. It just lets them be more creative more frequently, which is what their real business is, I believe.

Leela Sinha: 43:22

Right, it's making the art. So So tell me, can you like draw me a picture of what your most successful customer looks like? Not a particular person. But like in general, what are the qualities of your most successful customers. The ones who buy a machine and then are able to really make a go of it?

Paul Baron: 43:41

Well, a successful customer number one, first and foremost is one who cares about their customers. So so the ones that that have that service mindset, that they care about the customers. When somebody says I'd like this wall to have this kind of a picture or something like that. And you have identified the picture or the customer's presented you with the picture. Delivering it. Looking- And this is no different, I think, than anybody in any profession: when you can be satisfied with the work that you've done, you're going to be successful, your customers are going to be happy, you're going to get referrals, your business is going to improve. And those people that go through that path are the ones who are the most successful. And of course, success generates revenue. I don't know people who don't like revenue, and profits. So when you do that, then you want to grow. You want to maybe hire somebody to do this because you realize that these machines don't require printing expertise. We can we can train anybody to use these printers and to maintain them. You so it just it just requires somebody to go out and do it. And if you'd market and find your customers, you will be successful. That's the new provide good service at a fair price. So the people who can do that, you know- you can't be too much of a perfectionist with these because it is a it's not. It's not a photographic duplication. You are doing- you're spraying ink onto a wall, so there may be some slight imperfections or so. But most of the art that's done with these, these wall printers are viewed from a distance. Although they will print very fine text. We've had customers print descriptions of artwork and sculptures in museums, where it prints on the wall with descriptions. It'll, it'll print signage, just like anybody else. It will create a sign for something. So it can do that. You can print the menu of a restaurant on a glass window. You know, but at the same time, and if the menu changes, scrape it off and start again. But, but yeah, the successful ones, again, I'm not trying to avoid or evade the question of who or what makes somebody a success. But it's really all over the map. It comes it comes from, it comes from customer service more than anything else. Nobody is going to be successful in this business, or really any business, if you can't take pride in what you do, and fulfill the expectations or exceed the expectations of your customer. Do that and you're successful, and you're happy.

Leela Sinha: 46:04

So what makes them good at marketing. Because that's the other thing you've said over and over this entire time, you keep saying, you know, you have to be able to market. You have to be able to take a product that nobody knows about and make it appealing enough that they'll buy it. So what makes people good at that you're good at that. Do you know what it is about yourself?

Paul Baron: 46:20

Well I'm not. I was I was smart enough to hire people who know how to do that. And what I mean by- but that's- as much as I love respect and reward the people who do that for me, there are a lot of people with these skill sets out there in every community. So this isn't something unique to me, or to my company that anybody can't duplicate in their town. No matter how rural or no matter how urban it is. And what I mean by that is you just- and we give them videos. We give them images of art of the art that's been produced with this, and you just have to get it in front of people. Now some of our customers do do trade shows. They'll go to a home show or something like that, for, you know, where people go in and show home services and everything from insurance to hot tubs and spas and other other services that are provided. Sunrooms and all that kind of stuff, and they'll go to something like that. Or an event that's sponsored by interior decorators are something like that, you know. They'll do that kind of stuff, which we don't do. That's a way to get out into communities that you're going to service. Because me I'm servicing everywhere in the whole western hemisphere. So I can't- Nor do I really want to go to those really big shows that have 1000s of exhibitors and, and people. That's that's just not my style. Not to say that I wouldn't be more successful if I did those things. Maybe I would, you know, maybe if I spent the money to advertise on TV or went on to Shark Tank, you know, maybe I'd be, maybe I'd be more successful more quickly. But I'm okay not being that way. Or doing what I'm doing. I'll let the person who buys my company do that and take it to the next level. I'm very, I'll be very content by somebody else who can take my business to the next level. But to your point, Leela, we want people to market, find customers. You have to go out and maybe knock on the doors of schools and say "how much are you spending on art?" We've sold to schools. We sold to a university in California, we sold sold to a STEM school in Chicago, because they wanted their students to have some of the experience with something technical. But they wanted the artwork to be displayed more quickly on walls. The school in California that bought it, they spent tens of thousands of dollars every season, changing out sponsor logos on walls and on on in the locker rooms and around campus and things like that. And they wanted to do it themselves. Amazon just bought six machines from us, because they want- they don't want to sell it on Amazon. What they want to do is they want to decorate their warehouses. These big warehouses that just look like prisons. You know, they have these huge facilities. And they said, Wow, what a cool machine. Let's start printing stuff on the walls of our warehouses. And they bought six machines. And we're just in the middle of training them now. So so there's the customers are everywhere. And walls are everywhere. So it's up to them to go out and find them. So that is the marketing that's necessary for something like this.

Leela Sinha: 49:21

So they need imagination, and they need initiative.

Paul Baron: 49:23

Absolutely.

Leela Sinha: 49:24

And they need the willingness to go bang on the door.

Paul Baron: 49:26

That's why it's not for everybody, because not everybody has that. Not everybody wants to knock on doors. Not everybody, you know, wants to even hire somebody else or spend the money to go ahead and take out a Facebook ad or a Google ad or do something, you know, understand how to do it. Or get the people that can do it. That's probably the biggest barrier for success of some of our customers. Is that they buy this machine, and they think this is like a one person operation. And it definitely is not. It's not a business that one person could do. You know, sure one person might be able to be an accountant or a lawyer. But but even if you look under the covers of those professions, they still have people that are doing things. You have a bookkeeper, you have somebody who perhaps is managing their customers and invoicing them, you know. There's always something else going on. But you can't be one thing doing everything. And if you're marketing it and finding customers, you can't be the one who's sitting there babysitting this machine for six hours a day, while it's printing this beautiful art. Otherwise, you're neglecting the opportunities that are out there to grow your business. If you're just out there babysitting in machine. So you have to be willing to invest in more than just the machine. And more than just the marketing. There's a lot of other aspects to business. And people need to understand that. And I think if if I've had one failure, in, in my approach to this; is I got so early on, passionate about the machine and the technology that I ignored communicating those things to our customers. And so they fed off of my passion and my enthusiasm for the machine and said, Yeah, I want one too. And so they laid down their thirty-five, forty, fifty thousand dollars, whatever it was, that they were able to afford. And then they realized, Oh, I gotta get customers, Oh, I gotta, I gotta buy a truck, you know, all these kinds of things that like should not have dawned on them. Because we do tell everybody that. And we tried to make it very clear what this business is. But most people see it the same way that I saw it initially. "Wow, really cool. I want one."

Leela Sinha: 51:29

And I think that's an interesting- I think everybody who goes into business goes through that process of like, there's the thing, there's the actual thing that you're selling, or that you you're focused on. And then there's all the stuff around it. There are all the different pieces that have to be in place so that the thing that you want to do can happen. And if you want to do this thing, then you might need to hire someone to run the business so that you can do the thing you wanted to do.

Paul Baron: 51:58

Absolutely. That's the that's probably the biggest source of failure for people is that they don't look a little bit beyond their own passion, or their own lane that their expertise falls into. You know, I did sales for a long time early in my career, and I had to go out and wine and dine people. And I go to five cities in five days and go to five different restaurants with people, you know, going out for lunch and dinner and, and trying to communicate what I was selling at that particular time. And so anybody who goes out to eat thinks they can be in the restaurant business. I was I was no different. Young and young in my life. And, and I wanted to I wanted that. But I was smart enough to know that I knew nothing about the restaurant business. So I did in fact, go into the restaurant business. Had a very successful restaurant that I founded with a friend who did know about the restaurant business. And that's what I needed. And that's what I was smart enough to get. And that restaurant that I founded in 1979, in a little town in upstate New York. Now it's 1979. So forty-five years later, that restaurant is still open. I sold my interest

Leela Sinha: 53:02

That's amazing.

Paul Baron: 53:03

Yeah, it is amazing. I've been very proud of that. But it's had three owners since I got out in 1990 after 12 years. But the fact that it survived and bascially has the same menu I created in that restaurant with my partner 45 years ago. It's still there today. Every time I travel up into New York, I take my wife there for lunch or dinner. And it gives me a great deal of pride. But I never would have gotten into that business by myself. But many people do. And you know, you have to be smart enough to know what the business involves. And whether it's a restaurant, or a car repair business or a painting business, whatever. You have to you have to do your homework.

Leela Sinha: 53:42

Yeah, I know I have listeners in upstate New York. Can you tell us what that restaurant is?

Paul Baron: 53:48

Yeah, Ward's Bridge Inn, in Montgomery, New York.

Leela Sinha: 53:51

Thank you.

Paul Baron: 53:51

It started out as a as as as basically a local bar. That we converted into a 75 seat restaurant in a town that never knew anything but chili and hotdogs. And we made it into an upscale restaurant. And we promoted it in New York Magazine. And we got people who are coming up into the Hudson Valley on weekends, who are willing to spend fifty or a hundred dollars on dinner,. And everybody in the local community thought we were out of our minds. But from the time we had in the first couple of years, we grew from 75 seats to improving upon the building and making improvements on it. To being a 150 seat restaurant, and had a nice piano bar had an hour long wait there for dinner all the time. And we bought adjacent property and we made a little bed and breakfast out of that. So it was a wonderful experience. And, and again, I'm happy to say that restaurant is still open today. And anybody wants to go into Montgomery, New York. It's if you don't know where that is. It's near Newburgh, New York, in Orange County, New York. And it's called Ward's Bridge Inn and it's a great restaurant. Of which I have no vested interest in anymore. So I'm not not promoting it for my own benefit, but- and in fact, so when I go up there, which we do go up there pretty much once a year, I actually don't go to that restaurant because my chef, who I had, he ended up opening up his own restaurant. And I really liked him. And I like what he's done. So whenever we go up there we go to his restaurant, which is a few miles down the road. So his restaurant is called the Lake House, in in Newburgh, New York. So if anybody wants another good restaurant up there, go to that restaurant. That that was a plug for the restaurant. The other one was not a plug for mine.

Leela Sinha: 55:30

Well, thank you for sharing those. I'm sure my listeners will appreciate it. So we are just about at the end of our time. Is there any last advice that you want to give people or reflections on your career. You've had such a long and storied career. You've been, obviously such a successful salesman and entrepreneur. And now you're in this new venture. And I have to say, I know a lot of 72 year olds who do not have nearly the active, engaged, relationship to life that you do. So I really want to-, I hope that I can be 72 like that.

Paul Baron: 56:06

Well, I appreciate that. I hope it doesn't end. You know, people keep saying as they turned forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, it's the new thirty, forty, fifty, sixty or whatever. I hope they're correct. But But I also firmly believe that, you know, the more you do, the more you can do. And so you know that that is something that I do enjoy getting up, I play tennis, I swim, I do other things. And you need other things in your life besides just working, at least I believe I do. And that keeps me going too. And if I was going to give advice to anybody about anything: my whole life has been based on great relationships, that's what it's about. Being nice to the people on the way up, because they're the same people you're going to see on the way down. It's, you know, create, create relationships, some will be good, some won't be good. Some will satisfy and propel you, some will drag you down. But put yourself out there, you know, be open and honest with people and, and learn from everybody that you encounter. Because to me, it's all about relationships. That relationship may become a partnership, it may become a customer, it may become a vendor. It may become your wife, you never know, or your husband. You know, you just you just can't tell where friendships and relationships go. But that's the single most important thing that's gone through my entire life and career, is just developing relationships with people. Networking, you know? Anybody wants to connect with me, go onto LinkedIn. You know, I'm not that's not an advertisement for LinkedIn, but it's a good professional network. And most people have a LinkedIn profile. I'm always happy to connect and learn what other people are doing. Or share, you know, any kind of input that I might give that might help a person or warn them. The old Yogi Berra, "when you get to a fork in the road, take it." So you know, you never know where those warning posts will pop up. So anyway, I'm always happy to connect with people.

Leela Sinha: 58:00

I think anybody who decided to connect with you would do very well in that conversation. Again, I've been speaking with Paul Baron. He is with The Wall Printer. I misspoke earlier, Wall Printer. And that's at thewallprinter.com

Paul Baron: 58:15

Correct. Yep, thewallprinter.com. If they want to know anything about that, and as I said, if they just want to connect with me, LinkedIn is the best way. But yeah, if anybody wants to learn something about this particular machine, and business opportunity, thewallprinter.com.

Leela Sinha: 58:30

The Wall Printer and Paul Baron. Well, thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure to talk with you.

Paul Baron: 58:37

I hoped I hope your audience enjoys it.

Leela Sinha: 58:39

Thank you. Take care.