Lushin 25 Year Anniversary with Paul Lushin

Never in a million years did I think I would become an entrepreneur. I really like the safe stability and regular income of police work and Ecolab. But, circumstances put me in the position to become an entrepreneur.

Police work defined me, and Ecolab refined me. Combining those two things really helped me in sales. But going into the sales training business really was where I should be. All those things just fit because not only could I apply them, but I could also impart them to others.

I was newly married for the second time, and my current wife, Sarah, and I decided to take the plunge. It was so contrary to our risk tolerance, but we did. You know, new marriage, new business, having custody of my children.

It was tough, but we did. We did it. We started with humble beginnings in this business. We borrowed $6,000 from her dad and some 401K money. All in, it was $54,000 and bartered furniture.

We started in a basement in a place downtown that stunk. It looked like the Miami Vice cast had decorated it. It's hard to believe, but we were there for three years and made something happen. Something happened to the point where we had to upgrade our image. We were getting good clients, but we had to upgrade our image. So we went to the office complex at 96th and Keystone. I forget what it's called now, but it's different.

Simultaneously, because we were on the verge of getting custody of my children, we had to get a house. It was all about survival, so to speak, or duplicating our income, or proving we could make it.

We were short on down payment money, but for whatever reason, I said, let's just go for it. And I had the best month of sales, the best month of collections in my entire life, the most income I've ever made because I had to come up with a $35,000 shortfall.

Since then, you know, we've hired some great people along the way. Scott Kramer was our first. And, you know, we built upon that foundation. Scott was a sharp kid. He was a good guy to build a foundation from. And so that's when we knew we had culture.

So you know that culture, along with stretching to cover that $35,000 shortfall, got us back to our north star of serving mankind. We had three offices. We had to expand three more offices. And we, at some point in time—I don't know when—decided we got to have our own building.

We have to have our own building for a couple of reasons. One is so that we don't need to move every five or seven years. Second, it's a 401k through debt.

Let's borrow the money.

Eventually, this was almost paid for. So we bought it, and we deliberately built it with empty offices because an empty office just bugs the hell out of you. You have to fill it.

So we filled it, and in fact, the upstairs, we rented for ten or fifteen years, and now we've taken over the upstairs, and we have great people here. I think we're up to fifteen or sixteen. By year's end, we'll be eighteen. Next year, we'll be twenty-some.

So we've grown. And, you know, yes, we are part of a Sandler network, but we're the number one franchise, and I'm very proud of that. That's because of the team that we have. We have an awesome team.

And if I have to take a calculator and tally up all the years of experience that are here, it just speaks to the fact that we're not in the sales training business. We're in the sales wisdom business. We're not in the sales management training business. We're in the sales management wisdom business.

There's so much wisdom here.

When someone sits down with us, they know we're different because we make them think. But it's been a great twenty-five-year ride. It's gone by so fast.

I feel blessed. I got into this business with the mission of helping people first and money second. We've never deviated from that mission; surprisingly, money has never been a problem.