We were lucky to catch up with Kyle Barry recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kyle, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I remember my first day of work. I’m 11 years old and my father is showing me how to use our cash register. We owned a grocery store and hot food restaurant in Upstate New York with a population of about 800 people. Tiny and remote, but my father made a successful business. I can remember my desire to work for the family business. I wanted to make money and make my family proud. That small business evolved over the years. By the time I was 16, I was running a kitchen of about 4 staff members, doing 100 tickets a day. All after getting home from high school.

I loved that little restaurant so much. In 2010, after the housing market crash, my father was loosing money and decided to revamp the business. I was out of a job and had no direction on what I wanted to do next. Coming into my senior year in high school, I decided to take a step forward and rent the kitchen from my father.

From 2011 to 2013, I was a horrible business owner. Being 18 years old and knowing how to make a good plate of food does not translate into business success. We had some wins, but with the business constantly in the black, my attention being split with engineering courses in college, and my family feeling the pressure, my father decided to walk away from the business. Oh, and did I mention he built our house on top of the restaurant?

In 2013 my family decided to restart their life after almost 20 years of a successful business. They got rid of our house, the store, and all of our worldly possessions and moved to Florida.

I stayed in NY to finish my first year of college. I worked some jobs across every vertical, from construction to tutoring, but I couldn’t get that feeling of defeat out of my mind. The feeling that my family and I had lost the game of entrepreneurship. This drove me crazy.

With an opportunity to play professional paintball, I followed my family down to Florida at the end of 2014. My eyes truly opened to what I wanted to do in this world at my first professional paintball tournament. Playing professional paintball was something I had strived for for 15 years. I had achieved it and was disappointed. The sport is incredible, but the way paintball is represented is horrible. You are probably reading this saying, “professional paintball is a real thing?” Here is a glimpse into that world: https://youtu.be/y0u6W5T4XVA

I knew then that I wanted to learn how to market, how to bring things into the market successfully, and how to help companies grow. I didn’t want anyone to experience the hardship of losing their home and their business like my family did.

I spent the next three years working with direct mail companies and branding agencies. I even worked as a CMO for several different companies studying the newest tools and advertising methods.

In 2018, I created KB Social Media and Online Advertising. It was a marketing agency designed to deliver enterprise level advertising to small and medium sized businesses. We were a low cost, extremely effective marketing agency that gave the power of business growth back into the hands of the business owners. Our core values include transparency, we will tell you the hard truth even if the truth hurts. Ownership, we give 100% of the data and our labor efforts to the business owner, but take 100% of the responsibility of the success or failure of our efforts. Profitability, we are a customer acquisition based marketing agency, meaning we only truly care about the business growth.

From 2018 to 2020, I was a solo entrepreneur taking on restaurants, service based businesses, medical facilities, e-commerce ventures, coaches, and every other vertical under the sun. Why? Because my goal was to become the best marketer in the world, not the best at growing a single type of business. We strive to find the common denominator in advertising and business growth, so we can truly be there to help grow ANY business.

In 2020, I brought in my COO, Santi Lozano. This man put my crazy mind and techniques into a system. Over next two years, we went from two employees to 15, from $15k MRR to $50k MRR, and took businesses from $300k in annual revenue to $3.4M.

At the end of 2022, we rebranded the company to better represent what we do. We changed the company name to “Kaizen”, a Japanese business term that means continuous progression in both self and business.

Kyle, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m 29 years old, have a passion for progression, the development of people, competition, sports, and the compounding of intelligence. The previous message really outlined how I started my company and that has been a life journey.

Today, I play and captain the professional paintball team ML Kings. I run my agency full time connecting with current clients, new clients, and spending the majority of my time training our employees. I connect with friends and family and help them develop their own business and give them guidance on today’s best practices.

My vision is to give all business owners the control and the tools needed to grow their business. The problems I look to solve are; giving business owners clear understanding of the market in 2023 and beyond, reducing stress and questions regarding the correct steps of business growth, educating business owners on the difference of owning their business success instead of renting it, and we solve the biggest problem in any business, how to acquire new customers.

My life goal is to purchase the professional paintball circuit. I want to restructure what paintball is in the eyes of the public. What Dana White did to the UFC is what my goal is for the paintball industry.

I am most of proud of my personal and business successes in the development of others. A business example is how we took a new fencing business in SWFL from $300k a year to $3.4M a year in a matter of two years. Another business example is how we took a failing paintball field in Boston that had to close one of their three locations into a powerhouse in the local community. They are looking to reopen their third location and have seen the highest profits since the inception of the business. As for personal wins I’m proud of they all live within my coaching efforts. In the past 5 years I have helped over 1,500 people excel their lives through coaching. This coaching stems from the paintball field but has spread into the everyday lives of these players. From taking one young child from a tailer park to now being a top paid professional in the paintball industry to taking older individuals without a passion and putting a purpose back into their life.

I was never a prodigy or someone that found success early in anything I did. I had to go through the burns, cuts, and bruises to learn what I know today. The only thing I want other people to know is im here to help them. I want to help people achieve by simply guiding them away from the pain I had to endure to find a quicker path to personal success!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Prudence is the most important aspect in the development of a human being. Through my years I have found there is one aspect that separates successful and non-successful people, Consciousness. Consciousness is broken down into four parts; diligence, organization, perfectionist, and prudence.

You can find three of these four traits in most striving individuals. They work hard, they stay organized, and they double check their work. The one trait that eludes us all is prudence. Prudence is defined as the ability to make the right decision.

For years I have sought prudence. Where to find guidance that will lead me to success. Which books I should read, what youtube pages I should follow, what kind of mentors I should have, what podcasts I should be listening to, etc.

My guidance on finding prudence is to look for the common denominator in success. You need every outlet of knowledge form mentors to podcasts to find true success. The difference is to find the guidance that leads you down the path you are looking for, this will keep you motivated.

In short, I learned the search for knowledge is the most valuable trait for any business owner or individual.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I went from doing $18k a mont to $4k a month with one wrong social media post.

When I started my agency as a solo entrepreneur I grew rapidly. I was offering Meta advertising in a time where most local business didn’t know Meta advertising was an option for them. I also had a rolodex of business owners from my time as a direct mail advertising sales rep.

Within the first 12 months I took my new business from $0 to $18k a month in reoccurring revenue. I was living large and loving life! I decided to take the business to the next level and start hiring employees so I can take on more clients.

At this time I was unaware of SOPs, business structure, holding accountability, and several other general business facets.

The 4 employees I hired where not trained correctly and in one weekend they destroyed my relationship with two major clients that held 80% of my book of business. The email on the following Monday destroyed my business.

There was two options; blame my employees and fire them, or take personal responsibility. I chose the latter.

I spent the next two months eating Rahman noodles and studying business etiquette, development of SOPs, how to create training modulars, and a much further understanding of general business.

I rebuilt my book of business, trained my employees, and put a stronger expectation on myself on how this company was going to run. Now we are 17 employees strong, and doing over $50k MRR and growing every month!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kaizenmarketing.agency/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kylebarry_pb/?
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kyle.barry.108
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kbsocialmedia/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqd0_JvGWiGDJK0L_yNkA8g
• Other: I have a bunch of long form content and interviews around paintball. You can find more info by searching “Kyle Barry Paintball” on Google