In this episode of Built for This, Carly sits down with Charles Read, founder of GetPayroll, decorated Marine veteran, CPA, and author of The Payroll Book: A Guide for Small Businesses and Startups.

With over 50 years of financial leadership experience, Charles shares the hard-earned wisdom that every entrepreneur needs to hear — from understanding cashflow and building loyal teams to keeping your ego in check as a leader.

Whether you’re just starting your business or scaling toward seven figures, this episode will remind you that success isn’t just about profit — it’s about people, process, and principles.

Charles shares with Carly why showing profit on paper doesn’t mean you can actually pay your bills. He breaks down the difference between accounting profit and real cash in the bank—and explains why cashflow, not profit, determines whether a business survives or collapses.

Charles talks with Carly about how his Marine Corps motto, “Mission. Men. Self.”, became the foundation of his leadership philosophy. He and Carly explore how focusing on the mission and taking care of your people—before yourself—creates sustainable success, while ego-driven leadership can quietly destroy even the strongest companies.

Charles reveals to Carly how he designed GetPayroll to keep running smoothly even if he’s not there—complete with systems, procedures, and empowered people. As he tells her, “If I drop dead today, the payrolls will still run tomorrow.” It’s a powerful example of true operational freedom and legacy-focused leadership.

“You can be profitable and still go bankrupt — because profit isn’t cash.”

“Your job as a CEO isn’t to be the smartest in the room. It’s to hire the smartest person in the room.”

“Without my people, I’d be nowhere.”

https://getpayroll.com

https://www.linkedin.com/company/getpayroll/

https://www.facebook.com/GetPayroll/

https://www.instagram.com/getpayroll/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxs-_RwC9NgfUcqbwvEaMIQ

In this inspiring episode of Built for This, Carly sits down with Joseph Merhi, the Syrian-born filmmaker and entrepreneur who co-founded PM Entertainment alongside her father, Rick Pepin. Starting with $400, a high school diploma, and a dream that began at age twelve, Joseph went on to help build one of the most prolific independent studios in Hollywood — producing more than 100 films and TV projects for major networks and international distributors.

Joseph shares how he went from dishwasher to restaurant owner, then sold everything to make his first film — a comedy that flopped — and how that early failure became the foundation for everything that came after. He talks about meeting Rick, learning the craft side by side, and how their complete lack of ego created a company culture where hundreds of people found their footing, launched their careers, and felt like family.

From writing scripts in a weekend to selling films at Cannes, from dreaming up wild stunts to running a 60,000 square foot studio, Joseph opens up about the chaotic, hilarious, and deeply human journey behind PM Entertainment’s rise. This episode is a tribute to legacy, leadership, and the magic that happens when two people say yes to each other and decide, “Let’s make a movie.”

Key Themes:

• Build Culture First — Skills Follow: Why Joseph always hired people for who they were, not what they had on paper — and how that created one of Hollywood’s most loyal and high-performing teams.

• Humility Scales What Ego Breaks: How Joseph and Rick ran a 100-film studio by listening, laughing, and treating every idea as valuable, no matter who it came from.

• Opportunity Is Something You Give: The reason PM became a launchpad for hundreds of careers — because Joseph and Rick constantly gave people chances to grow.

Memorable Quotes:

“We just treated everyone like family. And we knew our success was because of all the people.” “I would rather hire a great human being at skill level four than a difficult person at eight — we can train the skill, we can’t train the human.” “We never took ourselves seriously. That’s why we could create so much — we listened, we laughed, and we worked together.”

Links for Joseph:

Website: https://www.josephmerhi.com

A special thank you to

http://www.mm-u.ch and https://fokus-media.ch for the clips

In this episode of Built for This, Carly Pepin sits down with Roggen Frick, founder of Bear Ironworks, a Colorado-based manufacturing company redefining what it means to be “by contractors, for contractors.”

Roggen opens up about how his journey from seven-day workweeks to sustainable success began with one hard truth — burnout doesn’t build legacies. By transforming Bear Ironworks from a custom fabrication shop into a lean, systemized manufacturing company, he and his father turned a hands-on trade into a high-efficiency business built on clarity, culture, and core values.

He shares how they implemented a four-day workweek, built repeatable processes, and developed measurable systems that allow the company to grow without sacrificing people, safety, or quality. This episode is a must-listen for founders who are ready to stop surviving their business and start scaling it with intention.

Key Themes:

• Systems Create Freedom — Not Control: How tracking time, inventory, and quality metrics turned chaos into clarity, freeing Roggen and his team to focus on innovation instead of putting out fires.

• Culture Is a System Too: How embedding safety, honesty, and customer satisfaction into daily operations built a workplace people love — and clients trust.

• Delegation Is a Skill, Not a Surrender: Why true growth begins when you let go — even of the tasks you enjoy — and empower experts to elevate the company.

Memorable Quotes:

“If you don’t define your company’s values, they’ll define themselves — and you might not like what they become.” “You can’t be free as an entrepreneur if you’re doing the work you hate.” “We stopped trying to do everything and started building the systems that could do it for us.”

Connect with Roggen Frick:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/bearironworks/ https://beariron.com/