Own Your Revenue: Finding the Right Levers for 7-Figure Business Growth with Rion Westfall

What drove me to entrepreneurship? Part of that would definitely be my upbringing.

My grandfather was an entrepreneur.

My father was a serial entrepreneur.

I had many uncles and family members and friends that were all entrepreneurs.

So I definitely grew up in the space of, of wanting and knowing what entrepreneurship is like.

And as I got older, when I went off to college and completed my engineering degree and I went into the large corporate world, Department of Defense, I realized real quickly how much I loved and admired the entrepreneurship world, and so I went, went right back to it and been in it since.

Okay.

Thanks for that backstory.

So you started your career working on, uh, specialty projects with the Department of Defense as a mechanical engineer, right? So how did that experience shape the way you approach business today?

That definitely-- When, when you're working for a very large contractor that is doing work with government contracts, it's a very long gestation cycle.

And in that gestation cycle, most oftentimes, I remember one experience particularly, is I was assigned with the design of a certain element for, for one of the, the, the bombs that we were building.

And I was given strict instruction that I was to do two months of research before I ever started building this application or this piece that would then be turned into a patent.

So in this case, the whole purpose wasn't necessarily to design what is best for the device, but it was almost for the sole purpose of developing a patent or something in a new way.

Even though other ways may exist, the whole purpose was to take that and build a, a, again, a new patentable device.

And so in that regards, while patents are good and they're strong, from the large corporate world, just realizing that it wasn't necessarily in the best solution for the object, but it-- the whole purpose was to try and de-design something that did not yet exist on a patent shelf.

Now, that definitely taught me that, hey, corporate world has a different mindset.

They're not out per se to, to focus on the individuals and the progressions of those individuals, but rather, hey, what's, what's gonna help them in the long purpose? And so that's definitely one of the things that, uh, that, uh, shaped my mindset in, in helping and working with businesses.

Okay.

Uh, thanks for that.

So that brings us, right.

So what are the some-- What are, what are some key lessons you learned about doing business internationally?

Key lessons that I learned doing business internationally, that revolves around patterns.

In my, in my business, uh, or at least largely what I traveled the world doing in about 15 different countries, is my job was to actually go in and perform audits or evaluations on businesses.

And as I went into these businesses, as I participated in their day shift, their night shifts, their senior meetings where they have the sing- senior leadership and staff, where I sat down and was able to visit with everyone or a sample of everyone across multiple sites, what I realized is patterns are the key to success.

Understanding what patterns are affecting your revenue.