“Business is not a sprint, it’s a marathon, so stick with it and you’ll be amazed what can happen over the years.“ Charles Read

After leaving the military, majority of servicemen and women find that all they have learnt and experienced is not valued and appreciated in the civilian world. This is according to our guest today, Charles Read, whose experienced while transitioning from the military to civilian life was not easy despite having the skills and expertise needed by majority of organizations. Charles believes that the service men and women have all they need and more to be successful in business, only if they believe in their abilities.

Charles J Read is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), U.S Tax Court Practitioner ( USTCP), member of Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council (IRSAC), and the Founder of GetPayroll. Mr. Read’s companies have provided full-service payroll services, payroll tax services, and other payroll-related services since 1991. Charles is an accomplished senior executive and entrepreneur with more than fifty years of financial leadership experience in a broad range of industries and the author of four books with the most recent one being, The Payroll Book: A Guide for Small Businesses and Startups.

In todays episode, our guest will discuss his life in the military as well as how he was able to successfully start and run his business after leaving the military. He will also talk how the military helped him become who he is today.

Listen in!

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I grew up in Iowa, graduated from high school at 16 and worked because I wasn’t ready for college for a number of years. [3:11]
We’re a military family going back several 100 years and so we have always [3:24]
I joined the Marine Corps at 17 and enlisted for four years and so I was 21 when I got [4:08]
I started as an operator and later I was transferred to Okinawa to the third FSR support group there and was sent to IBM and became a computer programmer and systems engineer. [4:27]
I got myself transferred to Vietnam and I got myself reassigned to the local infantry company that was doing interdiction and ambushes. [4:55]
After six months being in the field I came back and was stationed in Kansas City Marine Corps automated service center. [5:22]
When I got out, I found that businesses did not value my military experience and at that point I realized I had to go get the civilian credentials. [6:15]
I went up to the local junior college and then to University of North Texas and in two and a half years, I had my MBA which got me [7:56]
One thing the military teaches you is, how to accomplish things, staying focused and the discipline necessary. [8:17]
One of the things I learned in management while in the Marine Corps is mission, men then self, and that you need to accomplish the mission and in business, that same mechanism works. [9:38]
You complete the mission, you take care of your men, whether it be your employees or your clients, then you take care of yourself. [11:04]
One of the biggest things I’ve seen that is destructive to businesses is ego. [11:12]
You don’t want to be the smartest person in the room, you want to know how to hire the smartest person in the room. [11:33]
You learn to value your men because your employees are the most important thing you have. [12:03
My job as CEO was really not to do the work anymore rather my job is to make theirs easy and make them more efficient. [12:19]
Commercial break. [13:22]
When I was 14, I started doing security analysis because I was interested in the stock market and buying and selling stocks. [15:10]
Afterwards I worked in the corporate world for 15 years and I realized I was never going to get to the top of a major corporation because I lacked the political skills. [16:03]
Marines have a have a real aversion to sucking up to anybody and that did lead to problems at times, which I learned to just keep my mouth shut. [16:30]
I started my own business and 30 years later, we’re here but about 10 years ago, I sold off the accounting side, because I’d gotten kind of bored with it. [16:50]
I finally realized one of my deficiencies here a few years ago, that I can’t market my way out of a paper bag. [19:41]
We’re continuing to grow and bringing in clients to take care of them and enjoying the business. [20:02]
I recently wrote my fourth book which Wiley published last year. It’s the payroll book guide for small businesses and startups. [20:10]
It’s a comprehensive book and we think the only thing similar to it is the payroll source from the American Payroll Association. [21:10]
For your listeners, if they’d like a copy of this, they will go to the payrollbook.com on the web, and enter the discount code for the podcast and we will ship them a free book. [21:24]
There are a lot of things I don’t do that I outsource and payroll is one of those things you can outsource as a small business and an entrepreneur very inexpensively and get really good care. [23:15]
A person will overestimate what they can accomplish in a year and underestimate what they can accomplish in a decade. [25:53]
Business is not a sprint, it’s a marathon, so Ssick with it and you’ll be amazed what can happen over the years. [26:05]

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