Interview with Marty Davis
The Pulte Podcast- 1,632 views
- 1 Apr 2021
In this episode, Bill sits down with Marty Davis to discuss the path to success, the purpose of money, and people helping people.
Part of our mission of having humans help humans, I decided to have my friend and CEO Marty Davis of Cambria, a five hundred million dollar company, sit down with me and talk a little bit about business making money and hopefully giving money or said differently opportunity to people. Marty, thanks for being here. Thanks, Bill. Well, what kind of advice would you have with somebody to be able to get from zero to half a billion? Well, first of all, half a billion dollars.
And it was never a goal, I think, keeping it small. And and we had very short kind of goals that we could attain. And that was to to produce a good product, a high quality product. Capital is critical and how you how you develop. But many, many entrepreneurs do amazing things and end up with one percent of their company because they had to go out and borrow, borrow money and give up equity. So we were fortunate there as well.
It's very important to have the ability to take the risks. We went through the period of time where we said we pay for our raw material first, our payrolls second, and then we deal with trade payables by calling people up and saying we need your patience. And we went through that a couple of times here at at Cambridge. We would have been through it in the dairy business, too. So wealth is fleeting. So you're not a wealthy person.
You have access to capital and growth. There's no finish line. It's always alive. It's a biological happening to have a company and sustaining profitability and financial and economic viability is a challenge every day. And so innovation is a key factor to continuing success. If you have some, you'd better be innovating and investing in your people and investing in the marketplace with innovation to continue to grow the economic viability and demand of your product. You love what you do.
I do why? I like the competition creating new things that can impact the market. And if people want creating demand, delivering products that people are satisfied with, or how did you develop that competitive atmosphere? I don't know. My dad was a competitive guy and we had four boys within six years of age and we were very competitive around the house in the factories. When we went to work at the factory, we competed with Rouverol, the cheese better, who barreled faster, who kept their area cleaner.
And that's still with you today? I think it is with you. Yeah, to sometimes to a fault. But it was a very fortunate thing that we were able to work in a factory. Wasn't that we were told you. My dad never told us. You got to work at the factory to call Malil. The superintendent if you'd like to work at the factory. Is money important to you? I think independence it maybe is is and and maybe I think money sometimes a tool of that.
But I like Richard Manual's line. And in The Last Waltz, he said, I just want to at the end of the day, I just want to break even. I think if you can do the things in your life that you're trying to do, you know, money's a byproduct to a degree. It's it's a resource you need. If you have high ambition for a hundred million dollars of capital here, you've got two thousand employees, a lot of jobs, a lot of employees, a lot of people that you have to look after.
I know these are a lot of your friends, right, who work in this company. You care a lot about these people who care about them and their livelihoods, especially if something were to happen in the economy. What's kind of your guiding spirit? God, is it meditation? Is it peace? What keeps you mentally, for lack of a better word, sane fighting the competition? You just won this big trade case with the Chinese. How do you do all that mentally?
Well, I think it's what I said in the beginning when you asked about an entrepreneur, Bill, think little, don't think about the big and do the little things that are in front of you. I sweat the small stuff and I think that creates the big stuff. I don't believe in that axiom. Don't sweat the small stuff to the contrary. So I stay we stay a little and stay focused on knitting and X's and O's and doing doing smart things.
And I just builds up like it does of people. If you make it too big, it won't get it won't get there. You do that in your own brain. I just think about it that way. And I, I don't think about any employee more than the other employee. Friends are not friends. They all have families, they all have aspirations. They're looking for independence and opportunity in their lives, too. I think helping people is the key to joy in life.
I think helping people is I think one of the best things obviously have to be able to help yourself. But helping other people is, I think, really where it's at. I think helping people is a natural instinct. And really, I don't like that, like help people, like give them the opportunity to do their thing and they'll do it. But aren't you helping them in a way by giving them opportunity? Yeah, I'm not. Yeah, they deserve opportunity.
And if I'm giving it to them, I think we we all in the gang and the system have an array of opportunities and to help. Those situations and get people the opportunities with the capital generated from your businesses or your your activities, and it's just kind of I think it's a natural instinct for people to do that. It's been fascinating to talk to you, my friend. I always knew you were a special guy, built a half billion dollar company, but hearing about everything you're doing absolutely amazing across the globe.
Thank you for having me. Thanks for coming and visiting Bill and learning about what we do. Thank you. And thank you, everybody, for joining in. And let's continue helping other human beings. That's what this is all about. Humans helping humans. We love you all. Bye bye.