 Hey, GovCon giants, Eric Coffey here. Today's guest, Mr. Lincoln Tyson, he is the founder of TPM Group, which he started in 2009. And in today's interview, we're gonna discuss how he accredits his journey to God and his faith. And then we're gonna talk about all the exciting things that he's doing and that he's done in his past and how he's growing his organization during COVID and even what his plans are for post-COVID. He actually helped with the transition of the Obamas and he is working in the White House. So again, one of the first people that I've had an opportunity to interview that's actually has contracts directly with the White House. He's part of the transition team and helping set up the stages for our government when you see it on TV. So again, a lot of exciting stuff. His business is IT, relocation, amongst other things. So again, I'd love for you to give me all of your comments or feedback. Tell me how great this was. How much you enjoyed this episode. If you like, we can even try to bring them on again. So definitely take a look. I hope you enjoy it. Let me know your feedback in the comments below. Thanks guys. My name is Lincoln Tyson. I am the owner of TPM Group. All right, hey, listen. Nice to meet you. Just before we got started, you were telling me about your business. You said, hey, what you do is not rocket science. You just have to do it well. Can you say that again? Well, yeah. What I do is it's not rocket science. What we do is provide solutions for our customers so that they don't have to do it. We do it well. And we just want to make sure we have the best customer service that we can have. But yeah, no, again, it is not rocket science, but you do need to be very focused and very diligent in our task. And again, I agree with you, but sometimes people call me an alien. So for the people that believe that it is rocket science, what do we say to them looking on the outside, looking in, saying, it's a little bit harder than that. The government is like its own type of Rubik's Cube. How did you figure out the Rubik's Cube? From sort of working from within, I was a contractor for a large construction company, a main building company for several years. I'll see that. And I was housed at some really large clients, the National Mechanics Institute, the National Institute of Health, the American Red Cross, National Headquarters. So just different large, very large clients, the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. So you were there with Gil Bain? I was at all those places with Gil Bain. Okay, wow. Yeah. You were on the federal side of Gil Bain. You were a Gil Bain federal. Absolutely. And so, yeah, on the logistic side, relocation management side. Okay. Yep, as an assistant project manager and a project manager. Now, what made you believe, hey, look, I want to go try this on my own. Why leave Gil Bain? They've got good benefits, good package. I'm sure you're making decent money. Yeah, it was pretty good. There were two main reasons. And the first is going to sound a little silly, but I was at a client site. I'm not going to say which one, but monthly, there were two of us there that were Gil Bain employees. And monthly, Gil Bain regional office would send the billing, a copy of the billing that the client was receiving every month. And after a while, when you look at the billing and then you look at your checks stuff, and you see just how far apart they are. Right? It was like 10%. Oh, no, no, no. 20%. I don't know. I would say, I'm saving well over 50%. Okay. Yeah, well over 50%. All right. Yeah. And so when you see that monthly, after a while, it starts to wear on you. Yeah. I would imagine. Especially when you're in a situation where it's you providing the services, you're on site every day with the client. You know, they know who the company is that you work for and they know what they're capable of doing. But I'm the one that's there for two years handling this project. So, you know, other than having that big name behind me, why- It's a difference, right? It was the difference, exactly. So I could save the client money by charging less than what this large, you know, a bohemian company is charging. Right. Which saves them money and puts more money in my pocket. So it was kind of a win-win situation. Don't you think that the government wants, some of the times they want the large guy to fill safety and secure? Oh, absolutely they do. Absolutely. And, you know, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. As long as they're not closed-minded to giving some small business a chance when they have the proper resumes and pass before them. Right, absolutely. You know, if I'm a contracting officer, if I'm a co-tar, if I'm a project manager for the government and I have a specific task to do, you know, you want job security, right? And so you want to bring contractors in that have a proven record and reputation for getting the job done. And so that's how these large companies became large, right, which is to be honest about it. And so, yeah, I totally see it. But, you know, there are a lot of us that are, you know, small business owners or just even small business executives that have come from these large companies and were able to soak in, you know, a lot of the knowledge that they were able to give us. And, you know, then we can just roll that over and do it for ourselves. And then also help others by bringing others on board. So I'll tell you something that's interesting, another fun fact. I actually work with two small businesses now that are doing extremely well that both came out of Kilbane. Oh, wow. And one of them, he's 8A also, I help them, but they're crushing it. And then the other person, he's too big to be 8A, which tells you where he's at, right? Not a bad problem to have. But they both came out of Kilbane and he actually told me, Eric, when he looks for like people to hire, he says if they come out of Kilbane, they were trained really well. I would agree with that. He says they have an excellent training program and they do a really good job. So, yeah, Kilbane's a great company. They're a great company. And I've watched them grow over the years. As a matter of fact, I'm a subcontractor to Kilbane. Now we've done a ton of work together. And you know, it's funny as you say that, a lot of, they are as well. They do a lot of work with Kilbane still as a subcontractor. So it looks like Kilbane, they're really smart about how they do business. They don't necessarily kick you to the side. They're like, okay, you wanna be successful? Hey, that's better for us. You come out and help us out. Absolutely. No, I think that's a great, I think that's an excellent entry way back in. So, but you left Kilbane and you went to Phelps and Phelps. I went to Phelps and Phelps. So no, actually I had a, there was a piece in there that probably doesn't show on my LinkedIn. But I actually started my own company, Tyson Consulting, before I became a member of Phelps and Phelps. Myself, the owner of Phelps and Phelps and the owner of a third company, we were all contractors at the National Cancer Institute together. And that went on for maybe about a year or two. We were doing very well. The client was very happy with us. And then Phelps and Phelps obtained their A-Day. Myself and the third company were not A-Day certified and the government felt like, it would be better for us to join forces instead of them having three subcontractors on site. Nice, nice. Okay, so now they were A-Day, you did that. So you've actually spent about six, seven years now learning and working. Yeah. Well, I think that's important because I don't want to leave anything out. I don't want people to think that you had, like they actually just threw you in there and you knew how to do all this stuff and you were so, right? Like you like, man, you figured it out so quickly and I want to talk about the journey. I like to talk about the roller coaster, the ups and downs. Do you have a, and I hate to say failure story because I think the word failure is almost like porn. It's overused. So, you know, you have a challenge story that you want to share. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I have one, absolutely. I had my first, and it was my first and only divorce and that was, you know, business divorce and that was at Phelps and Phelps. Right. And so, you know, some things transpired that, you know, the three of us didn't agree with and I went my own separate way and, you know, started TPM group. Okay. So, after about a week to two weeks after I left Phelps and Phelps, it was a really difficult decision because when I left, we weren't under good terms and, you know, there was possible litigation looming. And, you know, when things happen like that, you know, assets are frozen and, you know, they are, you know, money's not fluid, right? Yeah, sure. And so, you know, it was a huge transition in my life and I had to really sit down and think, you know, whether or not I needed to go and apply for some jobs or was I going to start from scratch and try to start a business again and, you know, continue my journey of wanting to be an entrepreneur. So, it was a really hard decision to make although I made it very quickly because I had no choice. I had to do something to be able to survive and, you know, feed my family. So, I decided to move forward and I started TPM Group with literally a couple of dollars and I rented a shared office space down in Washington, D.C. Literally, if there were two people in there, there was one person, too many. And, you know, I was paying $500 a month and, you know, I had zero clients, I had zero prospects and I just, you know, I hate to sound cliche but all I had was a dream, literally. And it took a while. It was not fast growing but we finally, you know, not to say that we've made it because we have a long way to go but we have sustained for sure. What did you do to get that first client? I mean, you said you didn't have any money and, again, this is people that... So, let's go back a step. A lot of people say, well, Eric, you know, I don't have any money and, you know, what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to pay my bills? How am I supposed to eat? Right, so it's all... It's like the MC Hammer bankrupt story. He's bankrupt but he's not really broke. Right. Right? There's a difference. So, again, I mean, I always say I don't have any money but then other people say, well, you're no money, it's different than other people's no money. Fair? It's all relative. It's all relative, right? Right. And then Oprah's no money, it's bigger than all our no money. Right. So, let's just clarify. Well, you say you don't have any money and you were trying to get a client. How long did that last before you regenerate any revenue for the business that you were able to help support the $500 a month bill or whatever additional expenses that you had because you obviously had to live somewhere. Yeah. I generated two clients and probably about the first maybe three months. Okay. But they were very small jobs. I mean, very, very, very small jobs. And so, I mean, there were things that really that I don't necessarily do in-house is things that I would manage typically but I wouldn't be doing them physically. I was literally physically going out and doing like a move job. And, you know, I'm, you know, moving desks and, you know, furniture and yeah, I was driving trucks and the whole night. The whole night. The whole night. And I like that. I like to hear that. And I think other people like to hear that as well. What's that? I think other people listening to this would love to hear that as well. Yeah, I mean it. You do what you have to do. You have to do what you have to do. You really do. I mean, I'll do it now. It's not a problem. I was on a job site two weeks ago. It was 90 degrees outside every day, you know? Sometimes you just got a new client. I figured I needed to be there, you know? Right. No, look, in 2013, I was in a verge of bankruptcy and I literally had a company that didn't pay me a lot of money. And I had two guys still working. I had to finish up some touch-up on this building that I had just built from the ground up. It's 43,000 square feet. I poured everything into it. They stopped paying me months ago, you know, like six months ago and you can't make a claim. And I took a full-time job and Uber to pay my guys to keep working. Wow. So I didn't even keep the money. I worked to send my checks to keep my two guys working to finish up the contract. Now, that's a test. I'm very proud of that, actually. You should be. You know, it didn't feel great. Yeah. Well, going through it is never, it's not. No. You do come out better on the other side. I agree. I agree. It was new. Yeah, so you, okay, it took you a few months. You got two small clients and then... And then I brought a minority partner on who was also a friend and he had a lot of inroads in the District of Columbia government. Right. And so we just, you know, beat the pavement together, you know, beat the pavement and... Like what? Like give me some examples of footage beating the pavement for you. He was able to set up meetings at a lot of different agencies. He had just, formally, he had been a director in one of the DC agencies. Okay. And so while he was a director, he met a lot of other agency heads. Okay. So we were kind of able to go, you know, high level to a lot of the different departments and just meet with them, let them know about what we were trying to do, what our goals were and then kind of, you know, see what their forecasting was. And then, you know, some of a couple of those meetings, you know, six months, seven months down the road, turned into some small jobs, but larger than the ones that we had been doing. Right. But still very small in comparison to, you know, what I was used to doing, like with Gil Bain, obviously, or what I'm doing. And, but slowly, but surely, you know, because we would do a good job, you know, they kept calling. And it took several years, but it got to the point where we were one of the premier go-to logistics companies in the DMV. It was in the DC market. And so, yeah, you know, we just kind of, kind of, you know, scraped and clawed our way than the natural way. You know, sometimes, you know, sometimes you start businesses and there's nothing wrong with it. I actually, you know, it would have been fine with me if it had been this way, but, you know, if you, you know, you could be a contractor somewhere and then just take that contract from the large business, right? Mm-hmm. You know, when that contract comes up for bid, you know, you've been there working for three years, you know, the end-in-out, and when it goes off for bid, lo and behold, the company you're working for has no idea that you're running to get it as well, right? Mm-hmm. And so, you know, some people start with, you know, a million dollar contract, a half million dollar contract, two million dollar contract, whatever it is. That's the way to start your business. Yeah, that's the way to start your business. Exactly. I must say, I started my construction company with a million dollar contract. It's awesome. I did. But I was a consultant first, right? So, I was a consultant working for some companies, helping them get contracts. But when I made the decision to start my own company, I swear to you, I really do believe, once you make that switch, that the world conspires to help you. And when I, I mean, I pick a very specific business. Not, I didn't, I did not want to do general construction. So, it wasn't like I wanted to be a general contractor. I was like, no, I want to get into the market for steel buildings. Okay. And I don't know, six months later, a steel building came up, like project. Where, you know, and it's like, I mean, there hadn't been one 10 years before that, right? And actually, to be honest with you, there hadn't been one 10 years after that. But it just, I know, and the reason why I know this is because they reached out to me again last year for a price to add to more hangers. Oh, wow. So, I know it's been about 10 years since that happened. And then 10 years prior to that, nothing. Wow. But when I made the decision, I said, I want to do this. And I found that industry, a job came up. And so my first contract was like 1.2 million. Mm. Wow. Yeah. Not bad. No, not bad. Not bad. Mine was like 750 dollars. Yeah. That was the first go round. The second go round, it wasn't as easy, but yeah. That was the first go round. I've got some more war stories, but 750 dollars. Wow. 150 dollars. Are you guys listening to that? My client was George Washington University Hospital, who remained my client until about two years ago when one of the procurement officers, she'd be tired. She and I and her husband are friends to this day now. I met her at, you know, in a work capacity, but yeah, they were my longest. How long, how much, okay. So your first, this is a really good story. I like this. Let's stick with this. So 750 dollars. And so how long, well, how long have you been in business? 11 years. Okay. So they stayed with you for nine. They stayed with me for nine. Okay. How much do you think you did in contact with them over that time? Around about number. Maybe about a half a million. So even from 750,000 to a half a million dollars in contracts. And I say this, I actually, we obviously, we both agree we did not plan this out, right? But I really do, I like that. I think that gives me perspective because a lot of entrepreneurs out there are so short-sighted. And they go, oh, 750, why do I want to do that? Right. Right. No, you have to do it. Like I make more than that at my job. Okay. Well, go back to your job then don't go into business. Right. Right. Well, let me tell you, let me say, if you get 10, 750 dollars a day, right? You're not doing too bad. Nah, you're not doing better though. We do 750 dollars jobs all the time. We, I'll do a 500 dollar job. Is everyone listening? Is everyone listening? What's that? I said, is everyone listening to this? Is everyone listening to this? We're here to provide a service to our clients. And so, sometimes they have jobs at a large and sometimes they have jobs that are just, they're so infinitesimal that most people won't even pick up the phone. We can care less. We're here to service you because that job, you never know what that job is gonna turn into. And when we go there, sometimes we've done things that are so small that we won't even charge. Like don't worry about it. The next time you need something a little larger just make sure you give us a call. And then now we're gonna get the nod that next time or if it's something that goes out and that's a bid, and the numbers are close and we're bidding against two or three other companies, we're gonna get that extra little nudge because we service them in a time where other companies just thought the work was just too small and not significant enough. Where you from? Originally, Long Island, New York. My grandparents migrated from the South many, many years ago. And I had my mother and my uncles and that generation. Then I was born in New York, was there until a teenager. And then when my grandparents retired, they went back to North Carolina. And when they went back to North Carolina, most of us, their children and their children's children migrated back to the South with them. So they basically made that pilgrimage because they couldn't find any jobs in North Carolina, especially so my grandfather went to North Carolina A&T. Actually my grandfather and my great grandfather. Wow. Yeah, yeah. So my grandfather graduated, I believe. But that makes sense though. Back then, there was no mixed schools. No, no, no, no. And all he could do, my grandfather had a degree in education and all he could do was teach at a African-American school. Right. That was the only thing he can do with his degree. That was more progressive than the average job. Right, right. In the South. So he moved to New York, to Queens, New York. And he and my grandmother worked. He was a social worker, retired social worker. I think he was able to be 35, 36 years. My grandmother worked for New York Telephone. And she retired from there. And you know, rest is history. So yeah, we moved to North Carolina, attended high school there. And then followed in my grandfather's footsteps and went on to North Carolina A&T. Did you notice any difference between living in New York and North Carolina? Oh yeah, tremendous. Absolutely, absolutely. It's crazy because my parents were divorced when I was around three years old. So my father lived in Brooklyn. And my mother was in Long Island. So my home base was Long Island. But I was in Brooklyn all the time. So that was even night and day. And then to go to North Carolina, I had never been any far south than northern New Jersey. So it was definitely a culture shock for me. And especially it also had to do with where we moved, too. We were about 30 minutes outside of Raleigh in a small town called Clayton. And I love Clayton to this day. I have friends there that we are the best friends to this day. I love those guys. But I was devastated. It's hard enough just moving as a child, leaving all your friends and everything you've always known. I'm having to start all over. But then I couldn't just get on my bike and just ride anywhere I wanted. Like, things would be like seven miles away. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's true. He could have called it a star. It's right. Out of the Raleigh, things might have been a little different, but to live in this one. Not that much different. Listen, I lived in Durham. I lived in Durham for a while. Yeah, I went to RTP. I was an engineer. So I worked in Amrita's Triangle Park. And they weren't that much different. Yeah, I have several families working there now, by the way. Yeah, you still couldn't go right around. That's true. They're still far apart. OK, all right. So you went there, came out, went to Gilbane. Were there any signs early on when you were in Brooklyn, when you were in Long Island that, hey, you want to be a leader, you want to be an entrepreneur? Did you sell candy? Did you sell blowpops, baseball cards, anything like that? No, no, I can't say that that was my ministry as a kid. No. Nothing. No, not really. And I never really had any, not as a young kid. I didn't really want to become an entrepreneur until college. OK, why? You know, I took this, I signed up for this program that was in our business school called, it was like some young entrepreneurship program we had. And it was very interesting because I don't think the school had anything like that for long. And so it was kind of the beginning stages. So they didn't actually place you at a company to do an internship. So with this program, you basically found the company that you wanted to do an internship with. You convinced them to let you intern. And then the university paid for 50% of your wages. So at the time, I was majoring in logistics. Back then it was called Transportation and Economic and Econ Department. And so I said, well, I want to do a logistics intern. So I contacted Mayflower Logistics, which was a local company in Greensboro, and convinced them to bring me on for the summer. And it was there that I felt like maybe I can kind of run my own logistics firm. I had a lot of one-on-one time with the, they were an agent. And so I had a lot of one-on-one time with the owner of the agency. And so he just taught me a lot. I would go back and visit them. Even after the internship was over. And the wheels just kind of turned a little bit. And so graduated soon thereafter with the work for General Motors. And it was there that I was like, you know what? I definitely want to start my own business one day. I didn't think it was going to be anytime soon. I didn't have any plans of doing it right then. But that's when I kind of got the bug. OK, when you left Gilbain and started a consulting company, did you have any money? No, no, I didn't have any money. It looks like I'm going back and retracing all your steps. I think we missed that gap. We talked about when you left from the divorce, from the business divorce. But we didn't talk about when you left Gilbain to start your consulting firm. Yeah, no, I didn't have any money. But I did get lucky. There was, when I started at Gilbain, I was at the National Cancer Institute. I was there for like a year, year and a half. Won a couple of awards there with them. And then they pulled me to go to a project that was struggling. And so I went to help that project out. We ended up, you know, as a team, ended up being able to turn that project around and ended up being a successful project. And so left there, went on to a third long-term project with Gilbain. And at the end of that project was when I was like, I need to go off on my own. Ironically, the first client that I was with, which was the National Cancer Institute again, they had just received a ton of money and funding to basically revamp most of their office-based laboratories and the whole lot. And the director of the real estate office was saying that they needed to bring more people and more contractors. And he asked one of my old partners where I was. And he said, ironically, Lincoln just started his business and he's ready to leave Gilbain. And so I basically walked out of Gilbain and within maybe a month to two months, I had a contract. Now, doesn't that sound like the story I told you earlier about me? Yeah, it does. Mine was 1.2 million. Not even close. But I'm in a different inter-semit construction. So you get 1.2 million, your margins are really small. The numbers just sound big. I like to tell them, don't be impressed because. Now, we do construction as well. So I'm with you. Yeah, it's like the numbers are big, but the margins are small. I know IT guys that do $200,000, $300,000 contracts, but they're making 50%, man. 30%, you're like, wow, that's better than my $2 million contract. Why? It's not. I agree. I agree. I had a friend that did that a long time ago and this guy was killing it. And he was buying stuff I couldn't afford. But my numbers were bigger than his numbers. Well, that's a huge misconception. I have a lot of friends who are entrepreneurs. I mean, in the DMV, the DC, Maryland, and Virginia market, there are tons of entrepreneurs and a lot of minority entrepreneurs. And so we talk, or we're part of different forums. And so it's funny because I think a lot of companies are so focused on increasing their revenue and that sometimes they forget that the revenue doesn't necessarily mean that your profit is going to corollate. You can be doing $20 million a year to your point and make way less than someone who's doing $12 million. For sure. Right. There's a saying, it says, revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity, but cash is king. Makes a lot of sense. I'm going to steal that one. Yeah. No, it's true. No, but that's good. The other thing that, have you ever read the book, The Secret? Do you ever remember that book, The Secret, where it talks about your mind? I have it back here somewhere. But I really do, oh, I see it. But I really do believe that you commit it to that, right? You commit it to starting your own business. You had made that decision. And I really do believe that the world conspires to help. I would agree. I believe that, which is the same reason why every successful person, and I'm not talking about, I'm talking about success that we all envy, six types of success, or monetary wise, because success can be divided in a whole number of ways. They all say, think big. And no one believes there's truth to that? Yeah. And why? Because when your mind makes that switch, right, things start to come to you, things start to fall in place. Right. Well, you know, we all have our own journey, right? And some people's journey of success might differ from others, but success is success, right? And so to use your term, the world conspires to help, I think that's very true. And I think in my instance, the world conspires to help. And that's all through God. I don't want to turn this into a religious pocket, but when things are really bad for me, I turn to him. And when the doors just started opening up, I really, I was going to say, I really believe, I know for a fact that it was because of my faith and the fact that I had just turned myself to him and was like, God, I need some things to change in my life. And he just started opening doors. And so we all, like I said, we all have our journey, but mine definitely goes through him for sure. No, and that's actually, that's one of the questions I commonly ask is what are some of the things, your practices in terms of how you handle stress? And so you just answered it. No, and again, I'm a big believer in faith. I talk about faith all the time. I grew up in a church, I'm the same way, right? And I think a lot of people, when they're dealing with stuff, tend to pray. It's just when things are going good, they forget about praying, but I think a lot, I think all of us almost, I mean, my mom was a stay-at-home nurse and took care of elderly people. And I can tell you, it doesn't matter what religion they came from. When they were sick and dying, they wanted her to pray for them. They were praying, exactly. They want, they asked her, even if they weren't praying to people, they asked her to pray for them. Right, absolutely. And that example you just gave, that example is me. I do tend to pray more when things are bad, when I need the help. And that's not good, but I'm human, right? Of course, yeah. So that's one of the things in my life I'm actually trying to work through it and be better at. Oh, that's great. Since we're on that topic, what other daily routines or daily habits do you have that help you out with running a business and being an entrepreneur? Daily habits. The gym. Okay. I work out three to five days a week. Okay. And so that's how I start my day. I've been doing that. I've been working out for several years now, but I've been starting my day with it. Maybe the last three years. And I think that's helped me tremendously, honestly. It helps me just get focused. It helps me to get up earlier. Cause sometimes when you're an entrepreneur, if you don't have any way to be, or any meetings in the morning, you just, you know, you'll just, your morning won't start, really, really start until 10 o'clock sometimes. Right, right. And so I'm at the gym at seven a.m. almost every morning. Period. And so when I get, I'm home by 8.15. I'm showering and I'm right back out the door. I'm trying to be, unless I have meetings or whatever or something. Right. And I'm trying to be at the office by 9, 9.15. And to get my day started. Typically, they're long days. But yeah, I think the gym is probably the biggest thing. But now I'm turning into this, I'm getting a little addicted to golf. So I've been trying to play all the time. Hey, that's not the wrong with that. That's great. How do you, that brings me to another subject. How do you define your work-life balance? Laser, you know, family, friends. Yeah, so I am a work-hard, play-hard type of guy. I've always been like that. I mean, literally since I was young, since I was a teenager. I worked all through high school, you know. And I've, you know, always played sports. That's another thing I used to do all the time too was play basketball until I tore my Achilles two years ago. So I just, I retired two years ago. But yeah, so I have a lot of friends in the area that we all went to college together. So we tend to hang out in each other's basements or backyards or whatever. You know, I spend a lot of time with my family. You know, we're always doing something either at home or going to dinner. You know, I love going to dinner. I didn't go to dinner, I went out to dinner that much as a kid. So I think I'm addicted to it now. Wife and kids? Yes, wife and kids. How many? Yep, three boys. Three boys? Yeah. What age is? Oh, you don't want to know. You don't want to know. So 25, 18 and seven. And seven? Yeah. Okay. That might be me though. I could see me doing that. I could, that might be me. That might be me. It's a struggle, trust me. It's like you start, like you started all over again, but you... Yeah, no, I'm not all over again. Well, I got remarried, so... Okay, all right. No, that happens, I understand. That makes sense. That makes sense. Any... Again, you're going through this journey, it's tough, it's not easy. There's things coming at you, people coming at you. How do you... Is there something that you tell yourself in the back of your mind? Is there a book that you turn to, a quote that you turn to that just kind of like sticks with you when you're dealing with all the craziness of being in business? How... You know, when I... It's funny, there's not necessarily a specific quote, but I do think about my grandfather, though. Okay. My grandfather raised me. As I mentioned, my parents were the boys when I was young. And so I lived with my grandfather almost my entire life. He was absolutely the strongest man I've ever met. And so I was just, I would just think back to the things that he would instill in me. Like, you know, some of the things I don't even necessarily do now to this day that well, but, you know, growing up, he would, you know, I guess, you know, he would teach me how to speak properly. He would correct my, you know, grammar all the time. You know, he would instill hard work in me by going outside and doing yard work all the time, right? And so I do think about just how much work he put in and how he raised two generations of kids because he raised his kids and they're doing great. And then the end of having to raise me and my siblings and he never wavered. He never, you know, mentioned anything about, you know, I've already raised my kids. I shouldn't have to do it again. You know what I mean? Like he was never had that attitude. So I just always go back and think about how he has lived and still is living his life. He's 90, just turned 91 now. Just actually went to go visit him in North Carolina for his birthday in March. I'm sorry, a few weeks ago I went to go see him for fall this day. And so yeah, that's what I go back to. I go back to my grandfather and just how he has lived his life and just being an excellent role model. No, that's great. That's good. No, I mean, hey, that works. Some people, they're inspired by a teacher, right? They're Mrs. Jones said to me, right? You're going to be this and that. Or Mrs. Jones said, you're not going to be this or that. And so that, That's motivation, right? That's motivation. Either way, so that's great. Any books that you give people that you recommend that they read? Well, I'm not the biggest reader, but the book right now that I'm finishing up, it's, oh, I had to write here about the fact the warmth of other suns. Have you heard of that? No. Okay, so it's basically about the great migration. And so it tells, it gives three examples in there of three people who migrated from the South, from different parts of the South and migrated to different parts of the country outside of the South, California, Louisiana, and I think Texas, I haven't read the third person's story yet, but it is an awesome book to just show how far we have come and just the struggle and our plight as African-Americans, when you read these individual stories on their plight, it's just amazing. It really is. Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. This one, the warmth of other suns. That's it. Okay. It's a huge book, though. That's it? It's not small by any means. Yeah, that picture doesn't do it no justice. This is what you chose. No. I'm sure it does. It's no joke. Oh, yeah, okay, I got you. Yeah, it looks like one of them novels. It's no joke. It's a commitment. It's a commitment. That's, yeah. No, that's interesting. That's interesting. You know, I was thinking again along the lines of business and entrepreneurship, but that's great. Look, everything doesn't always have to be business. Sometimes we'll, I've read books that were like nursery rhyme stories that drew parallels to business. Okay. Sure, sure. But that's okay if you're not. What about like before we talked about some of my previous podcast case, you were all emerging leaders together. Yes. So any other type of trainings or programs that have helped you in terms of your business? Well, Emerging Leaders definitely helped. Okay. I don't think I've done much more than that. I've done some of the local programs, just like taking classes and stuff like that. Right. There's some continuing education at the community college here. So as I mentioned, I do have a construction division with interior renovations. Okay. And so I've taken just, you know, continuing education classes and just trying to brush up on stuff like that. But not, you know, it's funny. The Emerging Leaders program is like a executive, fast-paced MBA program for small businesses that I guess they deemed were, you know, at least worthy of, you know, sustaining more growth over the next few years. And so it was a lot of information crammed into like, I think it was like nine months. We met and we had homework and it was, it was, it was a, it was no joke. It was no joke. We learned a lot. They really taught you how to look in depth in your business. You know, we have, we're always dealing with financial statements and, you know, all kinds of things that we are paying an accountant to do, but we may not necessarily know how to read them and how to break them down. Right. You know what I mean? No, I know. And so the program was basically to help you do that and then also to help you market your company. And, you know, just teaching you about, you know, elevators, pitches and, and growth, you know, just, you know, everything to just kind of help you step outside the business and help it grow without being that, that work would be all the time. Did you, let's go back to a couple of conversations ago. Now I see that you're 8A today or you see on your, I profile says you're 8A. When did you get 8A? At what point? August 2017. Oh, 2017. Okay. So it's recent. Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. No, it's cause that was going to be my next question. How did you know when was the right time to do 8A for you? Well, because I had been a partner in an 8A firm years ago. I knew that you needed me to establish first. Me personally, unless you started a business like we spoke about earlier where you just starting off with contracts and you hit the ground running, then I think it's okay to apply for 8A in your, you know, second or third year. But if you've grown, you know, from just doing small contracts here and there, you really, in my opinion, you need to wait to at least five years before you get your 8A. You need to be, when you get your 8A, you want to be fully up and running. You want to be able to go to federal agencies and say, look, here's the past performance I have. Here's the current work I'm doing. Here's all of our capabilities. We can do this for you now. And by the way, we're 8A. That's what they want to hear. If you get 8A and you have little past performance, you know, you're going to waste maybe the first two, three years of it, if not longer. I know companies that have been 8A and said, you know, they've been in the program six, seven years and have never had an 8A contract. So I do think you should be very, very established before you get become 8A, even though it's a program that's supposed to, you know, help you grow the company. I think you should wait. And I agree 2,000% by the way. And it seems like a question that I ask all the time. People are listening to this for like this. If you go and ask another 8A, yes, because there's many inquiries that I receive from people that are in the 8A program. At the combat, there was many intelligent, articulate answers from my guests who are successful and what they say because this is the case with so many folks that come to me wanting 8A that have never, they haven't even started a business. Right. And I'm gonna say this, you know, you said the 8A is meant to grow your business, but you are growing your business. Like, I mean, that's, it's exactly what it's doing because for a lot of small businesses, minority businesses, we think that, like you said, if you look at revenue numbers, that means you're big, but the way that they calculate it, we're still small. Right? So it's like. Not even close. Not even close. So, I mean, it is technically growing your business, but just again, from the perspective of, well, a big business is this number. I can't even see it, it's not even on the screen, right? We've been down, it's like, it's like over here. Right? And look at the businesses that just received PPP loans. Right? Yeah. Like Ruth's Chris. Right, 15 million, 10 million. Exactly. That's a business. That's what they're talking about when they say a business. When you look at, when the average person thinks of a Ruth's Chris or a Shake Shack, right? You're thinking, oh, that's not a small business, right? But they, by government standards, that's why they were able to apply for those loans. Correct. And receive them. Right. And so I agree. I still believe that, like you said, five years in, seven years in, or even like yourself, you're, you know, eight years in, you're still growing a business, like you're building a business. Absolutely. So I think it's still gonna serve its purpose for you, but you're gonna be able to maximize it 10 fold than you would have if you had done it in 2009. Right. Absolutely. Right? So that's good. No, thank you for that. Thank you for that. So we talked about your grandfather, your upbringing. Now let's bring it forward. Now, currently, what are the services that TPM Group offers? So currently we have a three headed monster, if you will. We have a construction division where we do interior build out and design. We have a logistics division where we do relocation management. We do moving, and we do FF&E, furniture, fixtures and equipment. So, you know, basically that is furnishing office space, modular furniture, freestanding furniture, and we also do the design, curing and installation of that. And then our third segment, we started about a year and a half ago, about 18 months ago, which is our IT division where we are focusing on cybersecurity. And we also have, we're Oracle certified, and so we're an Oracle certified rep and dealer. And so yeah, so in the nutshell, those are our three divisions. So IT, construction, and logistics. Now, logistics, I see here on one of the capabilities that you sent me. You've done some really cool projects, I guess. Again, for me, a guy that's outside of DC world, one of your projects was featured on CNN. The White House, yes. Okay, tell us about it. For all of you who didn't catch CNN. Oh, look. I think the project was the renovation of the East Wing. So we handled all the logistics around that renovation, but we're actually, we're there five days a week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. We have a five year contract at the White House where we provide all the logistics that have anything to do with the White House, the old executive office building, the new executive office building, anything that houses anything that has anything to do with the executive office of the president. And so we manned that five days a week. So you're moving stuff around? Yeah, we're moving stuff around, but we're setting up room one. Typically when you see the president doing anything on television, we set that up, we break that down. Wow. Yeah, so yeah, just whatever they need us to do, we're on call there, like I said, we're on call 24 hours a day, but we actually have physical staff there from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. So we've been there into this week will be five years and then we just re-won the contract. So we just won another five years and we started getting all dispersed. Wow. So you were there five years, so you were there with the Obama administration? We were. Yeah, we moved Obama into his new office's downtown. Wow, did you really? That's really neat. And then, so then you'll see the next, you'll see whatever happens after the election, then you'll, is there anything different when you have to move out someone or is it moving around or you don't care, you guys don't. Do you actually go to this stuff yourself? I do sometimes, sometimes it's kind of a, you know, I do, I go out. You've probably seen it, you've seen it a lot, right? So for you. Oh, yeah, anytime. I've never been to White House. Yeah, first couple years I was there all the time. Right. But, you know, I have great staff there. They really know what they're doing. I have a project manager on down for supervisors. Some of my staff have been there over 20 years. So they've been there since, you know, pushing in. Push, yeah. Yeah, so it kind of runs itself. We run into some things here and there, but it's a good contract. I go, I go maybe once a month. Okay. Or if I need to go for meetings. Okay, okay. Wow, that's cool. No, that's really neat. I didn't know that. I didn't see that anywhere on your stuff. You didn't? No. You were there. I'm telling you, man. We can't say, we can't put you out that out though. No, no, I understand. Yeah, no, sir. And I've interviewed guests in the past that have certain IT contracts that they're not allowed to publicly disclose. Yeah. Because of national security. Exactly. So I do understand that as well. But if it is something that you can disclose, I don't see it on here. I've disclosed all I can disclose. I got you. Hey, look, I'm on your side. I just want to make sure I want the world to know all the good work that you're doing, right? I appreciate it. Because at the same time, if someone wants to, hey, look, I listed this podcast and he's doing this great work. I mean, look, in my opinion, someone that's doing work at that level, I would feel comfortable trusting them working at my secure site, right? And so I would, again, I'll draw back to one of my own personal experiences. For about three years, I worked on Fisher Island. And we did all of the, do you know what Fisher Island is? I don't. Okay, Fisher Island is a private island here in Miami. It's right, like going towards Miami Beach, it's right off the side. It's only accessible by boat or helicopter. There's no bridge that runs to it. You have to, you actually drive your car on a barge. The barge takes all the cars over to the island, drops them off, and then you drive on. Oprah used to live there, okay? Wow, okay. We had the contract to do, because it's a private island that's on the ocean, all of the saltwater eats away at the concrete columns and they start rusting and cracking. They call it spalling. And I had the contract to do all of the spalling work on several of the, for several associations that manage a bunch of these high-rise buildings. Well, again, because of the type of people that live there, they're all extremely wealthy, they, you know, I mean, yeah, your contract, maybe my contract, I don't know, to do this work is $20,000, $30,000. They've got paintings that are a million dollar painting, and they're, right? They've got statues that are like $200,000 statues. So you just can't put every Tom, Dick, and Harry outfit. That makes sense. And that's what I'm trying to draw that parallel between you is, yeah, mine may not be the, it may be it's not that they don't have the stature, but in terms of who they are, is it like a, like if you knew them individually, these are all, you know, billionaire type people. Right. Or a hundred millionaire, let's say. Right, right. You know, they don't want you tracking up their floor no different at all, like. Exactly. They got living, people cleaning, earning, washing. Yeah. From seven to seven, like you said. Seven to seven, all longer. All longer, just cleaning the house from dust. But when they do come back, there's not a lot of dust. Exactly. I was just trying to draw that parallel. Yeah, but no, to your point, I mean, it's great for our past performance resume, for sure. Right, absolutely, absolutely. Listen, a couple more things and then we're going to wrap up today. Are you an early morning guy or are you a midnight burn-to-oil type guy? Um. I know you said you could start going to seven, but you also said you wake up at 10 when you were before. That's not really, that's the earliest for me, like six o'clock in the morning, that's, yeah. Okay, when is your brain function best? Ah, my brain functions best in the morning. It does. Okay, okay. But not 5 a.m. morning. I gotcha. Have you ever done it all nighter? Oh yeah, especially with proposals. Okay. Oh, for sure. Okay, okay, cool. Tell me a odd job that you did that someone might not know about you. Ah, and- Or it could have been, or it could have worked at a place that we wouldn't know. Maybe you've worked at Shake Shack. Oh, well, I've worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken for my junior and senior year in high school. No way. Like literally, so I played sports and basketball was my favorite sport. During basketball season, I would either, if I didn't have, we played, we had games on Tuesdays and Thursdays, right? I'm Tuesdays and Fridays. Okay. And practice on the other days. So I would work, I mean, I would go to school and then basketball Monday through Friday and then Saturday and Sunday, I would work from eight to four at KFC. Every single weekend, 16 hours. Get it, baby, get it. Eight to four. So I was up every morning to my junior and senior year in high school. What'd you do at KFC? Cashier. I mean, I had a piece of work I could do at all, but I was mostly the cashier. The chicken frying wasn't really my thing. I was like, come on, man. I didn't cash your Burger King. That wasn't that bad. Cleaning bathrooms and toilets was not fun. No. Not at all. No, definitely a Burger King bathroom for not fun. Right. But let me tell you, you know what? I can't believe I thought about that first. So I have a job and all my friends know this too. So when I was in college, I left college for a couple of years. I was in college messing around and stuff. So I left for a couple of years and just was working full-time. And so I got this job delivering quarter jobs. Yeah. Go ahead, come on, give me some more. So, I get this job, right? That's probably your intro story. Oh my God. My family and my friends still laugh about this job to this day. I miss it. I forget for quite some time as a matter of fact. So I used to deliver these quarter jobs to either construction sites when they're building houses. Or to the nicer ones, the cleaner ones would go to people's homes that they were having like parties. And events at their house for the weekend, right? And so I had to be to work at like 5.30 every morning. I was 20, 21 years old. And I would be at work. I wouldn't get home until like 7 p.m. Okay. So it was, I think it was like $17 an hour or something. So I was making really good money. Yeah, you're doing well then. It's the 90s, right? Yeah, you're killing it. So, and I worked my butt off. So, cause I'm like, you know, I got to get my stuff together. I'm trying to get back in school. So I just wanted to save as much money as possible. And I drove the truck to campus one day to see my girlfriend. And I parked them like the outskirts of campus. And you were like the small septic tank on the back. I'm putting you on a big screen for this one. Go ahead. Let me tell you that job, it built some character. I tell you that. Well, anyway, lo and behold, a car load of my friends happened to ride by and see me getting out of this truck. And the rest was history. That's a good story. I like that. You said Bill's character. Bill's character. I think a lot of people can identify with that. Hey, I mean, you know. I mean, look, I deliver newspapers. You don't always do what you're supposed to do then. Sometimes you gotta do some things you didn't want to do. Oh, look, I delivered newspapers when I was in college. Did you? Oh, yeah. In college. In college, I did it. But I mean, yeah, I did it. I did it. I mean, it was one of the jobs I did in college, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, it paid really well, actually, considering other jobs because you only deliver for a couple of hours a night. Okay. And so I made as much money. Middle of the night? Yeah, yeah, like you get up. I would get up at like two in the morning and go pack them and then you start, like, because it depends on when they finish, right? Because they would have to print the newspapers and be finished. Sometimes they finish at midnight. Sometimes one, like, you can't get there too early because the newspaper company was still pressed. These are physical newspapers. So they had to print all this stuff. Right. Sometimes they'd be late with printing it and bringing it to you. Especially, you know, particularly on Sundays was the main day because Sundays is a thick newspaper. Coupons. The coupons and all that. So that thing would be thick. Absolutely. And I used to have a car. And the, let me tell you, I had like, I had a Delta 88. I was in college in a second. Okay. But you know what was good about the Delta 88? Now that I reflect on it, when I was delivering newspapers, I was the only guy that could fit all my newspapers inside the car. Yeah. To go on my run. Right. As I said, to make two or three runs, I could fit all my newspapers in that car. I would have been able to fit all the newspapers in my car as well. Which was a? I had a 1984 Buick Regal. Oh. A straight boat. Yeah. Well, that's what my Delta 88 was. My Delta. Listen. I've been paying $50 in gas since college. Right. I never knew the gas price went up or down. Exactly. I'm like, I'll be paying it up. Exactly. I never had $20 in gas bill. So am I. Hey, look, we got to close out, man. Tell the small businesses out here is something how they can recreate your level of success. Give them some words of encouragement, support for those that have made it to the end of the show. Um, I would just say, stick at it. You know, keep positive people around you. They're going to be people around you that tell you that you can't do it. You can do it. Trust me. I've seen a lot of companies do it, you know, really starting from scratch. I would make sure you have positive people around you. I would make sure that you have a nice religious foundation and get smart people around you. I am probably the least smartest person in my company. But I hire smart people all the time. That's so true, man. What's that? No, that's so true. That's so very true. Yeah, I mean, you know, that's a cliche statement. But people also, how do I find a smart person when I don't have any money? Well, it's hard. You know, because when you're starting out, you're by yourself. And so typically you're by yourself unless you have partners. Every time you make, you've got to figure out the best way to spend that money. You know, pay your bills first, obviously. You know, it's just like your personal finances, right? Pay your bills first because you're going to need to get a line of credit or some type of financial backing soon if you're doing well. And it is not easy for businesses to get any type of funding. It took me quite some time. And I was doing pretty well, at least I thought. The banks didn't think so, apparently. Right. But yeah, I would say, you know, keep smart people around you. As you grow, put money away so that you can hire people and that you can, you know, get lines of credit. Those lines of credit should be used to grow the business. You need to hire somebody that's $125,000 a year and you factor that into the line of credit that you received. Those people will bring you returns. Those people will absolutely bring you returns. And my word of advice for the people that you have around you on your team, and shout out to my team, by the way, because my team is amazing, you want to take care of them. My model, my philosophy in running a business is my executives are in this with me. We're like all small business owners, you know what I mean? And so everyone wants to eat. And so I try to make sure that being in business with me and trusting me with your livelihood and being able to provide for your family, I take that very seriously. And so I try to compensate as well as I can to make sure they know I'm appreciated. So in a nutshell, there's no blueprint. If you do 20 podcasts today, everyone's going to have a different story. Everybody's going to have a different path. But lastly, I would say, look for companies and business owners like myself and like you that have been through it and that could provide guidance. That's the biggest thing. I had people that I could bounce questions off of. And it was so valuable, it was not even funny. And I do a lot of that now. I do a lot of small business mentoring. I do it for free. If you are looking to start a business and you need some help, you have questions you want to ask, I am an open book. And a lot of the business owners that I know in my small business community, they're the same way. We're all willing to help out because we've been there. And we want as many of us to strive as possible. There's enough money out here in this government contract in the world. We do not need to be crabs in a barrel. We need to help each other. We need to JV. We need to partner. We need to lift one up. We need one another up. We need to subcontract one another. We need to introduce each other to the agencies that we're in. I don't see enough of that. It's too competitive. It doesn't need to be. The government spends billions of dollars in contracting dollars. Why do I need to fight against you for 10 million? No, doesn't make any sense. We are stronger together. Right. Powerful. We're stronger together. Powerful, powerful. I think some people are going to be reaching out to you. What's the best way they can reach out to you? You can reach out to me. Yeah, the website, tysonpedangroup.com. My email is tyson.tysonpmgroup.com. The company is on LinkedIn. The company is on Facebook at TPM Group. Facebook, Instagram. Well, we'll make sure we'll plug all those things into the show notes page that when this comes out, we'll make sure that everyone has access to all that information. Hey, thank you so much for your time today. No, thank you for having me. This was great. This was great. We're great hosts.