Freedom-First Pathway’s guest in this episode put in eighty to a hundred hours a week for his dad, and never saw a dime of overtime for it.

Let’s meet Najeeb Haddad, he’s the president and CEO of ENDOCORP. His dad started the company in 1996 sourcing and repairing parts for endoscopes. Najeeb grew up in that shop before he ever sat behind the desk.

ENDOCORP now touches 4M patients a year through the parts it puts back into circulation, with a plan to hit 10M by 2030.

What this episode covered:

→ Taking over the family business and earning trust from people who watched him grow up

→ Running the entire company with one other person during Covid

→ Building a culture where employees vote on who's actually living the values

→ Learning to let go of control and step out of his own meetings

→ The five year plan to serve ten million patients a year

Thanks to Najeeb for making the drive to Southfield to sit down for this one.

Chapters

00:00 Intro

02:30 Meet Najeeb Haddad and the ENDOCORP story

05:00 Second generation, eighty hour weeks, and the owner's son problem

10:30 What ENDOCORP actually does in endoscopy repair

12:58 Getting buy in, small wins, and building a culture that fits

18:00 Giving up control and stepping out of his own meetings

20:00 Consolidation in the industry and staying close to customers

21:30 People are the biggest asset and the biggest risk

23:30 Running the company alone with his brother-in-law during Covid

26:00 The five year plan to serve ten million patients

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This episode is powered by Freedom-First Pathway.

Ready to take back control of what you’ve built?

https://www.ffpathway.com

Ivan Katz started Great Lakes Landscape Design in 1989 with no job, no plan, and a few months of backpacking through Europe behind him. 37 years later he runs sixty employees as the Visionary of the organization.

Even during Covid, the company saw great growth, up until a slump last year.

Ivan didn't fix it by working harder…. He brought in EOS and started handing pieces of the business to people who could do them better than he could. And slowly, the company stopped needing him to run everything.

In this episode of The Freedom-First Pathway Podcast, they covered:

→ Starting a landscaping company with no experience and no money

→ Why 71% of the business comes from repeat clients

→ Learning to let go of sales after almost 40 years of owning it

→ Getting through a Michigan winter of Covid restrictions

Thanks to Ivan for making the time between job sites to sit down and talk through all of it.

Chapters

00:00 Intro

01:59 From backpacking through Europe to starting a landscape company

05:39 What actually sets Great Lakes apart from competitors

07:55 The brand promise: we make it right, no matter the cost

09:15 Becoming the visionary and learning he's a 30% guy

11:48 Letting go of sales and breaking the machine

14:20 Building a mission around transforming employees' lives

17:41 From cutting grass himself to building career paths for the team

20:28 Reading the market in 2026 after a rare downturn

24:18 Ten years out, Covid lessons, and protecting the reputation

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This episode is powered by Freedom-First Pathway.

Ready to take back control of what you’ve built?

https://www.ffpathway.com

Carla Marsh runs Accurate Pay Systems, a payroll and HR company out of Sterling Heights, Michigan. She's been on payroll since her second job out of college, and she built a company around fixing the problems other providers leave behind.

She wasn't a CPA, so it took a year and a half and a letter from her own accountant just to get the IRS credentials to process payroll herself.

Based on that grit alone, she's built an all-female team of eight, spread across three states, with a Google Meet every morning and a wine tasting on the calendar too. And she still shows up to CPA firms with donuts, because that's what built her client base in the first place.

Here’s what Matt and Carla covered on this episode:

→ Why business owners get blindsided by unemployment and tax notices

→ Buying out a business partner and learning payroll operations from scratch

→ Getting called out by her own staff, and changing because of it

→ How pay-as-you-go workers comp actually works

→ Running an all-female team across three time zones

Thank you to Carla for making the time to sit down and tell this story. We appreciate you coming and sharing your time!

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and meet Carla Marsh, the "Payroll Wizard"

02:19 The payroll mistakes that blindside small business owners

02:48 Three business partners, one buyout, and learning payroll from scratch

07:37 The staff pushback that changed how she leads

11:12 Pay-as-you-go workers comp, explained

12:58 An all-female team spread across three states

16:06 Where AI fits and where it doesn't

17:19 The campground kid who became the "number two" sales rep who failed

17:59 Donuts, coffee, and the CPA strategy that built the business

21:22 What's next for Accurate Pay Systems

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This episode is powered by Freedom-First Pathway.

Ready to take back control of what you’ve built?

https://www.ffpathway.com