← School of Hard Knocks Podcast
School of Hard Knocks Podcast
Onyi Odunukwe | Founder, CEO of Glo Tanning - On Building a National Franchise Brand, Entrepreneurship, & How to Delegate
01:16:06
Onyi Odunukwe is a commercial real estate developer and investor as well as the Founder and CEO of a rapidly growing tanning salon company called "Glo" which has 75+ locations. He breaks down how he got into entrepreneurship, how he scaled his business...
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- [00:00]
James
What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the School of Hard Knocks podcast. I'm James. I'm here with Josh and Jack, and we have a very special guest today, Anje Adenuque. He is the CEO and founder of GLOW Tanning, which is one of the largest Sunspa and tanning franchises in the entire country. Even though it's his first time on the podcast, he's still a very familiar face at the School of Hard Knocks, as we've generated just about 20 million views across social media. So, Anji, thank you so much for being with us today.
- [00:27]
Anje Adenuque
Yes, thank you.
- [00:28]
Jack
20 million. Something light.
- [00:31]
James
Absolutely. But, you know, before we kind of get into this podcast, you know, you've got an immense business knowledge in mind for a lot of things, everything entrepreneurship. But we kind of want to first take it back and get a little bit of a background on yourself and kind of where you first started before you started to build this massive business empire.
- [00:46]
Anje Adenuque
Awesome. So I am a Nigerian. I was born in Boston, kind of lived everywhere, you know, Boston, Jersey, Savannah, Georgia, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and now Dallas, Texas, also. I went to middle school in Nigeria, actually, you know, lived in London for a short time. My mom was born in London, my dad in Nigeria, but they both grew up in Nigeria. Both my parents are doctors. My mom's a psychologist. My dad's a surgeon. They really, you know, anybody knows Nigerians, very big on education, so really instilled, like, just education and, you know, it's really. It.
- [01:31]
James
Absolutely. And I kind of wanted to first talk about how. What was that experience like kind of living in a foreign country, and what did that do for your perspective on just the world in general and being in a different country than now living in the United States? What did that really do for your perspective on things?
- [01:45]
Anje Adenuque
Yes, I mean, you know, one of my biggest things that I talk about all the time is gratitude. So it's just like being grateful for what you have, where you're at, the people in your life, what God's blessed you with. So, you know, just being grateful for what you have and also just like, you know, appreciating, you know, the position that you're in and everything else. I think that's, like, really the biggest thing.
- [02:07]
James
Absolutely. And then when you got, you know, back to the States, kind of like, where did you end up? Did you end up kind of going to college and stuff like that, or.
- [02:14]
Anje Adenuque
So I moved back at 13, and so I moved back at 13, moved back. So when we moved, we lived in Savannah, Georgia. When I moved back, we Were still living in Savannah, Georgia. So I went to all boys military high school out there in Savannah called Benedictine military. And so that, that's kind of, you know, where I left off and how I came back.
- [02:37]
James
Absolutely. And kind of like growing up, like in your childhood, I kind of want to say, like, did you always have it kind of in you at an early age that you wanted to pursue this journey? I guess first kind of like what were your parents doing at the time, like for a living?
- [02:50]
Anje Adenuque
Yeah, so my mom, you know, she actually has a job where she does psychological work. She also is a professor at a university teaching it. And then she also does private practice as well. So she always has had kind of like three, you know, main job and then two side hustles. So she works for the state plus two side hustles. And then my dad, surgeon at the hospital, also private practice as well. So that's what they were doing. So then you also talked about like, you know, in terms of like, has it always been instilled? I mean, the first time I ever got in trouble in school and I got in trouble a lot at school was me and my brother selling candy bars. So we went to like a. What do you call those schools? It's not a private school, but a charter school. So we went to a charter, charter charter school. This is eighth grade. Just moved back from Nigeria. And we at the time, full size candy bars were three for a dollar at the dollar store. So we went to the, you know, we used to cut grass and make money. My sister went around with like the little survey, customer surveys and collect the money. We'd cut grass for like 20 bucks. This is like nine or 2000. Yeah. Moved back in the year 2000. And you know, so back then gas was 90 cents. You know, cutting somebody's grass cost 20 bucks. So we cut, you know, cut our Neighbor's grass, get 20 bucks. We went to dollar store, bought 60 candy bars or what tax, probably like, you know, 55 candy bars, something like that. Then we went to school and we'd sell a candy bar for a dollar. And we literally sold out within, you know, one lunch because people were taking their three dollar lunch money buying three candy bars. And by the time we got caught, you know, it was almost like it was a drugs thing with the, you know, principal and everything else. Got caught with like 100 candy bars in our book bag and about $500 and got suspended from school. Had to list out everybody's name on an envelope that bought candy bars. They confiscated all of Our money and, you know, so they were giving it back. And that was like our first, like, entrepreneurial journey. That and, you know, the lawn cutting, the lawn service or whatever. So have always really kind of been a hustler from, you know, that age on.
- [05:04]
Josh
Yeah.
- [05:05]
Jack
Where would you say that? You know, obviously, kind of what you said, you've been a hustler. Where has been that, like, official turning point where you were like, I want to be an entrepreneur businessman full time. You know, I would say, like, the three of us could probably go back to a pinpoint in time where we kind of made that decision where it was just like, you know, corporate life isn't going to be for me. Like, I can't go and work for somebody else. I have to go my own route and pave my own way. How did that experience kind of shape out in you and where did you see that turning point happen as well as just like, basically starting your business career?
- [05:35]
Anje Adenuque
Yeah, so I think that for me, it's like, I just have. I kind of have a problem with authority, if I'm being honest. So I just don't like people telling me what to do. I don't like being forced to be anywhere at a certain time or anything else. So it's like I just was just like, listen, I'm gonna figure it out. I'd rather. And this is the truth, I'd rather make $40,000 working for myself than make a million dollars working for somebody else. That's just how I feel. So. So, like, you know, I've never just been very good at, like, following directions or anything else like that. So. So it just kind of just came natural just in, like, who I am. I mean, my daughter's the same way. She doesn't like anybody telling her no. She likes to kind of like, do her own thing. And she's only three. So it's just more like a personality thing than anything else, you know, for my parents. My parents are not entrepreneurs at all. And they're just very much go by the book. You know, you go to school, you get your first degree, you go to school, you get your second degree, you go to school, you get your doctorate, you go get a job, you work it for 30 years, you put your money in retirement, and, you know, you feel good about that. You know, you go home, you wait, you go to sleep at this time, you wake up at this time, you go to work. That's just not the life that, you know, I wanted. Did I think that I would be. Make as much money as I'm making now. Absolutely not. If I'm being honest, I just thought, like, hey, I can figure it out. And I'd rather figure it out working for myself than working for somebody else.
- [06:57]
Unidentified Host/Interviewer
I feel like that's a constant cycle that's sold to people is the typical cycle of life is you go to school, you go to college, you get a good job, you save enough money to buy a house, start a family, and then you die. So what would you say to someone who's looking to break out of that cycle?
- [07:15]
Anje Adenuque
Yeah, so. So the thing is, that cycle was actually a really good cycle. That's. That's called the, like the American Dream cycle.
- [07:22]
Josh
Right.
- [07:22]
Anje Adenuque
So that cycle is a really good cycle in like the 60s. So we get out of World War II in like 45 or something like that. And. And then, you know, they have the GI Bill, which was the number one thing that brought Americans from basically into the middle class. I was the number one middle class builder in particular for, for, you know, for white Americans, if I'm being honest. But the number one thing to bring people into the middle class. So, you know, the GI Bill had free education, all that. So back then, you graduated from college and you get a job, you're in the middle class. On top of that, we also had, you know, a lot of union jobs and all that. And the union jobs and stuff like that didn't actually didn't discriminate. So that's how, you know, majority of black people got into the middle class. That's when, you know, people were, you know, moving to Detroit and because majority of black people lived in the south, and then they fled out to go to get factory jobs in Kansas City and Detroit and stuff like that. And that's what brought them to the middle class. Well, now those incomes did not rise with inflation and with the cost of living and the expense. So back then, a house cost, you know, $75,000, a nice house cost $75,000, and somebody was making, you know, $40,000. Now somebody is making $60,000, and the same house cost $600,000. So you can see that the disparity is a lot greater. So the thing is that if you graduate with a college degree, I think the average American makes $48,000. So if you graduate a college degree, let's just say that you make slightly more than that with 60,000. 60,000 really is not getting you far these days.
- [08:59]
Josh
Right.
- [09:00]
Anje Adenuque
So that dream no longer is a reality. That dream was a reality before. Before. It's no longer reality today. Everybody can't be an entrepreneur. For us to have entrepreneurs, we have to have workers, right? Some people aren't built to take the risk, and that's fine. We love those people, right? Because those people, without our staff and without the support and the help or whatever, none of us can have a good business in it. I hate when I see entrepreneurs say, oh, you know, I'm self made. There's no such thing as self made. So, you know, because your dad didn't give you $100 million, okay, that doesn't mean you're self made. There's, you know, mentors, there's people. There's also, like, you know, for me in my business, there's people who had major impacts in my business that I remember till today, and they probably don't even think about it. Like, I have one Tyler Baumgartner, who worked for me when I had one location, was my GM all the way till I had four locations. You know, she had a major impact in the sense of like, you know, she really cared and nurtured the business as if it was hers and we were a team and she really helped me scale to where I was and when she left, was able to bring somebody else in in the image of her to help scale even further.
- [10:16]
Josh
Right?
- [10:16]
Anje Adenuque
So it's really one of those things where your team is vital and we need those people that don't want to take the risk and are willing to work as if it's theirs and you have to be able to reward them in kind to get really good workers. Right now everybody wants to be an entrepreneur, which is great. The question is, are they willing to take the risk? Are they willing to take the amount of work? Are they willing to take the lack of pay? Because a lot of times people just see social media is the devil and gives a false depiction of what being an entrepreneur actually means. Because, you know, everybody and their mom's on there, everybody's making $10 million if you ask them. And you know, doing X, Y and Z. And it's like the average entrepreneur, 1 is 80% of businesses fail within five years. The average entrepreneur is making nothing, right? So we're really focusing on the 1 to 2% that are extremely wealthy or not, maybe not even extremely wealthy, just wealthy in general. And that's the image of what people see when they're like, oh man, I have to get out. I have to break out of this, you know, nine to five. And it's like, well, you're making $200,000 at your nine to five. I'd probably keep that right. If you're, if you're, unless you have a solid plan that's actually, you know, going to work. But if you're making $30,000 of your 9 to 5 and you know that you have the skill set and you're willing to take a risk to try to, you know, get more, what do you have to lose? You have $30,000 to lose. If you're making $200,000, you have $200,000 to lose. Lose. So when you're younger and when you make less money, you can really take the risk because you really don't have much to lose when it comes to doing it. So for me, starting the business at 21 years old was vital because I have no kids, I have no wife. If I failed, if it took me three years before I failed and I'm 24 years old, when I fail, who cares? I'm starting. Most 24 year olds don't have anything in their life figured out. So I'm starting where everybody else at my age is starting. If I took from 21 to 23 on a failed venture and I could start over again and do something else or go get a job or do whatever I have to do. So starting young is really key, honestly, because trying to, you know, when you have, I have people in my DMs that say, hey, you know, 32 years old, I have five kids, you know, I really want some advice. I don't know what advice. This is actually a real DM that I'm discussing. Right know. I didn't even respond, even though I almost respond to everybody. I didn't respond because I have no positive advice to give you because at the end of the day, you made some really poor life decisions. Deciding to have five kids at a young age when you can't afford it. So it's like you can't go and be an entre entrepreneur that could take the real risk because you have people that rely on you to eat, that did not choose to come into this world. So when you don't have those, those, those anchors, those are positive anchors because, because kids are a blessing. But when you don't have those anchors that are relying on you, it's a lot easier for you to take the risk. But you know, when you have that, it's a lot harder. I can't go tell you, hey, quit your job and go, you know, start this business that you're not guaranteed to get paid on because you have people that rely on you. So it's a lot harder. So it just depends on when you're starting and. And how many people rely on you.
- [13:29]
Jack
There was this thing that you mentioned, kind of like not everybody's meant to be an entrepreneur and like 80% of entrepreneurs fail within the first year. And just kind of in our interactions leading up to this podcast, we talk a lot about this book called the E Myth Revisited. You've given high praise to that book. Said it's the number one business book ever. And so would love you to break down. I know you're a big guy on delegation, so just breaking down, kind of like how when people, before people start their business, let's say they need to read this book. And I would endorse it as well. Most people think that they're a small business owner, an entrepreneur, when really they're doing all the work themselves. Would love to hear you break down. Like, kind of like how you delegate your process for doing that. And even just like, if you're getting started as an entrepreneur, how can you get to that point where you hire yourself out and get to that step where you can be just the entrepreneur, the vision driver, the big thinker, and have people in that place, that great staff that you talk about?
- [14:19]
Anje Adenuque
For sure. So a business, right? When people say, I'm a business owner, which is what an entrepreneur is, or I hate when somebody says, oh, I want to be. You know, I talked to a group of high school kids in Little Rock this past Saturday, and, you know, we started off by, hey, stand up, introduce yourself, say what you want to be. When you. There was actually a basketball team, state championship basketball team. And, you know, you cannot say NBA if you do not make it to the NBA, what is it that you would want to be? And they all got up. A lot of them said real estate. One said a surgeon. I was actually very impressed with the responses. And one said entrepreneur. And I hate. I honestly, I kind of actually hate that term because what is an entrepreneur? Like, people just kind of just throw it out. And anytime that I hear somebody say I'm an entrepreneur, they have it on their thing. To me, that just means that they're like a lash tech, right? Or, you know, so it's like, oh, I'm an entrepreneur. You know, you're not a business owner. If we want to take away the term entrepreneur and just say business owner, unless you can sell your business, you are not a business owner. So a lash tech. And I'm not trying to be disrespectful to any last techs out there. But a Lash tech that is a single Lash tech that works in a salon suite is not a business owner because there is nothing to sell. You can't sell your business for $10,000 today if you wanted to. Now, if you're a Lash tech and you decide, and let's talk about delegation in this aspect, you're a Lash tech and you decide, I'm going to build an actual business, and I'm not going to be an entrepreneur.
- [15:49]
Josh
Right?
- [15:50]
Anje Adenuque
Then I'm getting other Lash techs and people that I've trained up. I'm putting them in an environment. I'm collecting as many customers as I can, whether it's through marketing or whatever else I have to do. And I'm basically saying, hey, listen, don't worry about the risk of trying to build your own business. Come work with me and we'll do a commission, maybe a 70, 30 split. I'll provide the space, and I'll also help you. You got your own customers, but then you also. I'll also make sure that I generate as many customers as possible. I'm not going to do any lashes at all. I'll review you doing lashes to make sure that the product is up to the standard that I have for my business and everything. All my customers, everybody else, I will delegate that all out to these Lash techs. Now, when you do that, you now have a business that you can sell because you're not working in your business. You're working on your business and something that you can sell to somebody else. I can't go buy a Lash Studio where the only Lash tech is the owner.
- [16:51]
Josh
Right.
- [16:52]
Anje Adenuque
I can go buy a Lash Studio where the owner doesn't work in it at all. And there's five of the lash tests that are doing lashes. I can go look at the books and say, this is, you know, they brought in a million dollars this year. $700,000 was paid out in salaries and 1099 salaries. $100,000 was, you know, expense for the. For the studio and advertising, X, Y, and Z. And she cleared 20%. $200,000. Okay, cool. I'll give her a 3X evaluation, and I'll pay $600,000 for her business. That makes sense. Otherwise, nothing else makes sense. So you're not an actual business owner. You're whatever you want to call yourself. You're a sole proprietor that does lashes. That's really what it is.
- [17:35]
Unidentified Host/Interviewer
I feel like something you're describing right here is the difference between technician and the business owner. And I look back at myself when I was 20 years old, dropped out of college, and started my own business. No one in my family previously was an entrepreneur. I pretty much was just going out there and trying to figure it out. And I really wouldn't recommend that because starting, I had no mentors, no one really to look up to. So if someone's looking to start their own business, maybe something they're really passionate about, maybe they're looking to start that lash tech business, how would you recommend them to go out and actually find the right information and actually figure out how to run a business the right way?
- [18:12]
Anje Adenuque
So number one is reading is key. So you just have reading in general. So they just need to read actual business books and understand how business works. Works in general.
- [18:24]
Josh
Right.
- [18:25]
Anje Adenuque
And then number two is find somebody who. Nothing is new under the face of the sun.
- [18:30]
Josh
Right?
- [18:30]
Anje Adenuque
So find somebody who's done what you're looking to do. Reach out to them. Everybody that I know that is successful literally loves helping other people. My number one passion is seeing my people and other people succeed. That's. That's like the biggest flex to me. Like, I. I personally, if somebody gives me compliments on my face, I'm very awkward and weird about it. But, you know, when you hear from somebody else and they're like, oh, man, this person was talking you up and they just said how much you really helped them and blessed them with, you know, X, Y and Z, and they're here because of, you know, the knowledge and the effort and the time that you've given them that nothing feels better in the world to me than that. Right. So. And I know a ton of people who feel the same exact way. So it's just reaching out and saying, hey, listen, you're inspiration. You're doing exactly what I want to do. And I would love for you to mentor me and show me, you know, kind of some of the pitfalls that I can avoid. To get to where you are, if you wouldn't mind, obviously, do not reach out to somebody who is in your market. And you're basically. I've had people do that before. It's like, oh, I want to open a tank salon in Denver. Well, we have 10 locations in Denver. I'm obviously not going to help you learn how to become my competitor.
- [19:45]
Josh
Right.
- [19:46]
Anje Adenuque
So. But if you say, hey, listen, like, I would love to, you know, open a franchise, and I want to franchise, you know, content creation, something very similar to School of Hard Knocks, but in a different, you know, industry outside of business content. And you guys came to me and you said, that then I would say, yeah, cool. Like, how can I help? What can I do? How can I be a resource? You know, what pitfalls did you see when you were starting your franchise? X, Y and Z. And those are things and questions that, you know, anybody in my position would be happy to, to kind of help provide.
- [20:19]
James
I kind of wanted to go back to when you were first starting Glo Tanning. Right. A business that you've now grown as a franchise to over 75 locations that's quickly expanding to well over 100. And who knows, like, where we'll be, you know, five years from now, but over 250 or. 250, yeah. That's incredible. But I wanted to ask you, like.
- [20:38]
Jack
He'S got the goals already set out. You know what I mean? Yeah.
- [20:41]
Anje Adenuque
Year two of the five year plan.
- [20:42]
James
I love it. And we'll talk about that in a second. But if you were to go back to when you were starting that business, what would you say is the number one thing that you would do differently? So, like, after all the years, all the grind that you've really put into that business, you know, if you could go back and have a conversation with yourself when you're initially starting that business, what's. What's the biggest thing that you wish you really would have known?
- [21:00]
Anje Adenuque
Two different questions. What I wish I would have known and what I would do differently are two different questions, right? So let's go with what I would do differently first and then what I, what I wish I would have known, what I would do differently is nothing. And the reason why is because every single, and this is just life in general, about how I feel about it is every single experience, whether negative or positive, has led me to where I'm at. I believe in, like, fate, you know, and so, like, if I take away one experience, that means I didn't learn. So even when I fail at something or something negative happens, there's a positive lesson that's learned from that negative experience. So, like, if I take that away, then I no longer have that positive experience or that positive lesson that I learned. So it's like, okay, what's more valuable is taking this away and never knowing this or experience this or just like taking that experience away in general. So, like, for me, it's like I have zero regret. Like, there's things that I would not do again because I, like, I made the mistake, I would not do it again. But the only reason why I know that I, I would not do that again is because I actually made that Mistake, Right? So zero. So zero things that I would like, you know, do differently in terms of what I wish I knew. I think understanding how easy it actually is in terms of like just really like believing and setting actually probably bigger goals. I now have like pretty massive goals. But like I said earlier in the pod is like, you know, did I think that I would make what I'm making now? Did I think I would be where I am right now? Answer is absolutely not. You know, if you would have told me 10 years ago, this is where you would be, this is how much money you'd be making, it would be something that just came off as completely unrealistic to myself. But I don't make 10 year goals. I make one, three and five year goals. So I've achieved every single one of the goals that I've set. So it's kind of like just making you want to make goals that are, that make sense, that you can visualize and you can see. I don't want to say realistic, because there's no such thing as a realistic goal. You just need to make a goal that is actually viable, that you can see. If you can visualize it and you put the work in, it will happen. So there's things that I can't visualize. Like if I said, oh, I want to be the president, I can't visualize that. I don't see me, you know, I'm sweatpant Millionaire. I'm not, you know, Mr. Suits, you know, like also on top of that, that's just not something that I can visualize for myself. So like, if I actually thought that I could visualize it, it's the same thing. Like, let's even bring up, regardless of somebody who likes Obama, doesn't like Obama, it's like Obama knew probably in high school that he wanted to be president. So every single president actually, outside of probably Trump, visualized in their head from literally high school that they were going to be president. They were class president, they went to college, they tried to be their college president, they went to law school, they went to Ivy League law schools. And it's literally the same pattern for every single one of them. So they literally visualize Obama, who had an absentee father, grew up in Hawaii to a single mom, is Kenyan, Kenyan, American is Kenyan. And literally visualized in his head like, I'm going to be president one day when no one like him, with his background or anything has ever been president. Like, that took manifestation, station, that took visualization. He put the work in to actually get There. So I'm just saying it's the most far fetched idea. And if he was 15 years old and told somebody, hey, I'm going to be president one day, they would literally say, you're crazy.
- [24:36]
Josh
Right.
- [24:37]
Anje Adenuque
So like literally anything's possible if you could visualize it. And he believed it, he visualized it so. And he saw it go through.
- [24:43]
Jack
Yeah, you can tell there's a lot of like influence there. And I also want to get into like for your manifesting and goal setting, are there any activities that you do that people out there that they might think, oh, you know, whether it's like meditation or just like, you know, something that like you take a break, like you go on vacation for a week, you know, you're always working, but being able to just like think about like where you want to be, vision setting, like what, what activities you do pretty much to, you know, counter that manifestation. Those things that are going to actually help you achieve those goals.
- [25:11]
Anje Adenuque
Yeah. So, so, so honestly, like naturally, like I just space out. So like we'll just, you know, let's just say I'm, you know, at home laying down and my, I go to sleep at probably, honestly probably 1:00am I'm up at about 7:00am so between like 11, probably start finishing off my, my emails at like 10:00pm till maybe 11:30 or something like that. And then 11:30 I'll put the TV on, catch up on little news, SportsCenter, you know, whatever it is. And then maybe go lay down around midnight. And for about an hour I'm just kind of like sitting there trying to sleep, but at the same time scrolling through, you know, Instagram, Facebook and daydreaming and then even out throughout the day, just in general, you know, I might be in the back of the van or something and just kind of just see a vision of like, okay, cool, like you know, I'm gonna, whatever it is that I'm trying to do, like visualize like I'm building these 12, these 12 townhomes in Tampa and I'll kind of like just visualize like just kind of close my eyes and just visualize the actual like me pulling up to the townhomes, seeing it, being in awe, being proud of the project and something that I thought that I would never be able to do and actually seeing it, seeing it, you know, come to fruition. That's one, one thing. But honestly, the most important thing and thing that I do all the time, I make to do lists and I make, I write down my goals and I also share So I have an iPhone. I don't know if Android can do this, but in your notes, you can share your notes with multiple people that can always see when you update it or you do anything. So I put my goals. So like my goals for 2023, I have my goals for 2023 and I have a shared with some of my best friends, you know, my brother and you know, some of my friends, and I have, I have my goals shared, me and my business partner. At the beginning of every single year, we send our business goals as well, which my business goals and my personal goals are two separate ones. And I just kind of like make sure. And the reason why it's so important to share them is to hold yourself accountable. Because if we, me and my business partner, the reason why we do that is to hold ourselves accountable to like, hey, we're not doing X, Y and Z. We need to finish off what we decided that we're going to do. So we do this thing. It's called a. It's part of an EOS system, which is which EOS is like a system of like organizing or doing or goal setting. And they go by rocks. So there's like four rocks. So every rock is basically like a quarter. So the first quarter of the year is rock one, rock two, rock three, rock four. And so we do this, this kind of project or assignment that they have called align your goals. And we do the align your goals every single year for the business. And it's like eight or nine questions and we kind of go through the questions and it has, you know, one five and ten year goals in there. And we really kind of focus on the one year goal. But we do list out the five and ten year goals and kind of like just make sure to hold ourselves to what, what we said we're going to do.
- [28:18]
James
When you initially started this business, where did the, the initial inspiration come from? So, you know, you kind of started the business. You've grown it immensely. But how did you originally get the idea to kind of go to the market with this product and service?
- [28:30]
Anje Adenuque
Honestly, man, I get asked all the time, like, hey, what made you go into tanning? And to be perfectly honest, it literally was so random. I'm extremely impulsive. So I just like had a space. I absolutely had this idea in my head that, hey, I had a supplement store on the north side of Fayetteville next to the like right across the street from the mall. And the university is on the south side of Fayetteville. So me as a 21 year old, you know, student. I basically. I mean, I just, you know, basically finished my senior year of college. I'm 21. And the people that I know, the demographic that I know are the students. So I'm like, yeah, the store's cool and whatever, but the students don't go from the south side to the north side of Fayetteville. They all stay on the south side. And then even if you're going, half the students from the University of Arkansas are from Dallas. So, like, if you're going back to Dallas, you just go south. So they never even make it to the north side unless they're going to the mall every once in a while. So I was like, I have to get a store, a second location on the south side. When I went to go and get that location, there was only One location available, 2700 square feet. And a supplement store really only needs like 500 to 1,000 square feet. So I was like, okay, what am I going to do in this extra space? At first, I was a personal trainer as well. So at first I was like, oh, I'll do a fitness studio. Then I was like, I don't know, I'm trying to, you know, get away from working in my business. And so I was like, well, maybe any person who cares about, you know, how they look, they also care or care, like, cares about their fitness, also cares about how they look. And fave was like 97% white. So I was like, okay, well, tanning. And. And a lot of the girls that I knew, they were from Dallas, and they said how the tanning in Favel sucked and tanning Dallas was way better. I said, hey, maybe this is a market. So first thing I did when I thought about it, I was like, well, let me, you know, drive down to my competitor. Competitor. And I went in there or not my. It wasn't my competitor at the time, but the only other salon that was in town or those couple of them. But I went to one that was in town and I pulled up and I asked if the lady was the owner, and she said she was a co owner of the business. And I walked in there, just kind of like a young naive kid. I just walked in there, I said, okay, cool. Like, I'm thinking about opening one. Like, how. How well does it do? Is it a good business? And she was like, yeah, it's a good business. But I think she was so shocked that I even, like went in there and asked that question, which is a very dumb question and thing to go up and ask somebody that you're about to become their competitor.
- [31:04]
Josh
Right?
- [31:05]
Anje Adenuque
But I literally didn't think anything of it. I didn't have much true business sense when it came to that at that time. So the lack of realization. But she said it was a good business. I was like, okay, cool. I want to make the nicest because Tank salons in Fayetteville and Tank salons really everywhere, for the most part are very. At that time, this was 2009, very much like theme. Like, you know, the palm trees in the lobby and the high school girls with the Nike shorts behind the counter and the big T shirts doing their homework. And that was kind of the vibe. And I was like, I wanted to make a extremely nice, almost like a hotel type vibe because I knew that a lot of the girls that went to Arkansas had money, were rich from Texas, super bougie parent. They have daddy's credit card. So make something nice that they would enjoy going to and also make it convenient for them. Because all the salons were more towards the north side and the locals and the money. And I wanted to gear more towards the students. So I opened it and it was a hit.
- [32:07]
James
What point did you know that you were going to be able to turn into. Into eventually? 2, 5, 10, 20. Like, how did you know? What was that first telling sign that you were going to be able to turn it into multiple stores?
- [32:15]
Anje Adenuque
Man, Honestly, it took. It took. It took five years. No, four. It took four years. So at the time, the tanning just did not do like it. It did well enough to make a very little amount of money, like maybe $40,000 profit a year. Very much mom and pop Popish. Between me and my brother, we had five different businesses. So we had, you know, a laser bit, laser hair removal, tattoo removal business. We had a marketing agency that did websites and design. We had a car service, like a limo, limo service, chauffeur service, and we also had the supplement store and then Glo. So we have five different businesses. So at the time, like, okay, you could be a slave to many a master of none, right? So I want to sell 2 to 3 of the businesses and let's, you know, let's kind of focus on one or two things. And, you know, I wanted to. I was actually selling the Tank salon. So I went to a competitor that was a couple towns up and dropped off the business card and said, hey, I'll sell this lawn to you. Give me a call. He never called me. One of my tanning mentors named Jerry Devaney, he, you know, gave me a Call, because I called or I called him and said, hey, listen, I'm trying to sell the salon. And he knows everybody in the industry, kind of like a godfather, you know, in this, and said, hey, can you help me kind of sell the salon? He's like, hey, before you do anything, let me let you with this guy. He links me with this guy. The guy ends up becoming my mentor. And he told me, said, hey, listen, just trust me, do not sell the salon. We give it a year. I'll kind of give you a little bit of a playbook to help you be successful. After talking to him, me and my brother both talked to him. After talking to him, I truly was fully invested in Glo and my brother was not. He, he didn't really believe in it. He's the one who started the marketing agency, started the laser hair removal. I started Mr. O's and I started Glo. But we owned everything together. So we decided we'll sell the limo service, which we did. And. And we kind of, because we had a difference of opinion on how we should go, we kind of got divorced. And so he took the two businesses he started, I took the two that I started, and I went all in one with Glo. I actually took out more debt in 2014 than the amount of revenue that Glo made. I'm not even sure how I was able to get the loans, but I did and bought all the equipment that he told me to do, change the pricing structure, to go more membership based than, you know, single sessions and packages, and did that. And the store did 200% better, 300% better than it did the previous year. And then that was the first time I was like, oh shit, okay, we got something here. And the next year, probably within three to four months, I was already looking for a new location, signed a lease, whatever. So it really took about five years before and really was more lack of focus. And that's the reason why, you know, when we first met and you asked me about diversification, I'm like, hey, focus on one thing. Because if I were to focus on one thing, you know, who knows how much sooner I would have gotten to that realization.
- [35:41]
Jack
Very cool. And I know that a big thing that you are really big on is being able to delegate. Delegation is like a point that I know that you drive home. It was the biggest point in our first interview that we did together. And so Robert Greene, he talks a lot about in the book the Laws of Human Nature, about Howard Hughes, who like, he breaks down this thing called the Law of Narcissism. And this Howard Hughes, he was an aviator entrepreneur in the 1900s. Pretty much he was trying to control everything. He would micromanage everything that he did and every company that he started ultimately ended up failing because he thought that he could do the job better than everybody else. How have you been able to build systems that glow and build a great team around you? Whether that's finding great people or just having great systems and being able to bring them into that business and ultimately be able to scale. Scale glow up to where it is today, for sure.
- [36:29]
Anje Adenuque
So first to speak on, you know, one is, I mean, as I noticed from talking to you off camera and everything else, super well read. And I think with the Robert Greene analogy or really story in that book, which I've read as well, is my big thing. And you know, if you like, you go on my Instagram, one of the first thing I have pinned is my seven keys to success. And one of them is no ego and another one is to delegate. That's two of the seven. And no ego is huge. So at some point in business, obviously I had an ego. I loved the attention and being the man and people knowing that I'm the owner and all that stuff. I would probably say that it's probably been eight years, eight years now or maybe, maybe closer to six. But you know, six to eight years that I literally have, like, I do not care. I don't want anybody to know I'm the owner. If I go into the stores, my staff know, you know, hey, do never point out that I'm the owner. I walk in always dressed extremely down, you know, six dollar six Eddie Bauer T shirt from Sam's Club. And probably, probably some sweatpants and some Gucci slides or something dirty. Gucci slides. That's my uniform, right? So it's like I don't want anybody knowing I'm the owner. I walk in, I'm no better than anybody else that's there. And even for my team, my corporate team that I work with on a daily basis, because I really don't go to the stores much at all. They know. I don't think that I know anything. So I don't think I'm smarter than anyone. I just kind of, I'm able to. I really, truly believe in trusting the experts. So when I bring somebody in, it's like, okay, we brought you in to be an expert at X. I need you to be an expert at X. And if you can't get to where you are better than me, at the bare minimum, That's. And I don't think I'm that great at a lot of things. Then you gotta go because that's why we brought you in. We brought you in to make my job easier. You know, we're not, we're not. I call them co workers because I don't call my people that work for me, you know, my staff or you know, anything else like that. And I hate when they say, oh, our owner. I'm not a slave master, right? So you know, my co workers, they know it's like your job is to make my job easier. And the only way you can make my job easier is if you are proficient and almost excellent at whatever that one singular tax task is that you are there to do when you get to where you have a bigger business. And obviously we're getting into the. For us, we're getting close to like, you know, being a ten figure business. When you get to that level. I want for every single person to have a singular task. I don't want for some one person to carry five hats because when you have one person carrying five hats, if you lose that one person, then you're really, you're, you're. For all intent purposes, you're fucked.
- [39:39]
Josh
Right?
- [39:40]
Anje Adenuque
So it's like if every single person has one task that they are supposed to do and if I don't have somebody that I can give, like, I can't afford. So we just hired, yesterday, we hired a photographer and a graphic designer full time, you know, on staff. But probably prior to having a graphic designer and photographer full time on staff, we just delegated that out to a company. So we had a company that we hire and they handle all of our graphic design and we have a photographer that we hire that hands all our photography, right? So anything that I can't do that with, where I can hire somebody full time for a singular task, then I will hire a company because it's not my responsibility responsibility to figure out how to get that done. If the company loses their photographer, it's their responsibility to go get a photographer that's equal in skill compared to me having to figure out, oh, I have a photographer, graphic designer, social media content creator, our adwords person and our Facebook and social media ad spend person is all one person now, which that's not the case for us. We have four different people for everything. I just. For those five different things that I named. But if they were one person, that person was to either quit or God forbid, got into a car accident or something happened to where they can no longer do function in the position that they're in. You just now you're screwed. Now you have to figure out all those different things. So to me, it's like I focus on giving people a singular task and I want you to be great at that one thing that you do. You know, one of you guys does the filming, one of you guys does the interview questions, one of you guys does the editing. If one person did all three of those things, right? And that person decides, you know what, I don't like you guys anymore. Channel's gone, right? So you have to be able to delegate. You have to be able to delegate and make sure that you have, have people that are focused on single individual tasks that you need for them. And if you can't afford to have people who are focusing on individual tasks, then you hire out like an agency or something like that that can handle those things. So that if that person, if the person who's handling your account leaves, it's their responsibility to find somebody else. There's no interruption in your business from doing that.
- [41:57]
James
So you talk about delegating, bringing the right people in. And when you were first kind of starting Glo, you mentioned someone, Tyler was like one of your original business partners. But you know, you're all the time in order. You can create a six figure business by yourself, but really to get to that seven, you know, let alone eight figure mark, right? To create a million dollar business and let alone a multi million dollar business.
- [42:19]
Anje Adenuque
You can't, you can't create a six figure business by yourself. That's not a business. It's kind of like what we talked about earlier, right? You're a sole proprietor. That makes six figures, right? You're, you're a carpenter that, that, that does cabinets and you made $100,000 or $400,000 making cabinets. Is that a business? Can they sell that business without you making the cabinets? What is the business to sell? Are you selling me your leftover wood? You know, right. That's not a business, right? So a business is. If you're not, in my opinion, if you're not sole proprietor is not really a business. But, but if somebody who has a team, who doesn't have a team is not a business because there's nothing to sell, right? If you can't sell your business, then you don't have a business anyways. Continue.
- [43:06]
James
So you're building that team though. What are those initial things that you look for in your business partners? If somebody wants to work with you, what are the things that they must have adapted to either their mindset, their skill set that you look for in everybody that allows them to work with you.
- [43:20]
Anje Adenuque
Yeah. So our core values, which is the core values that I have for anybody that I work with, including my co workers. So there's three things, right? Integrity, doing the right thing when no one's looking. If I have to constantly turn my back, look behind my back and see, oh, is this person about to stab me in the back? Are they stealing my money? Oh, who's, you know, what they're doing with the books and X, Y and Z, then I can't work with you, period.
- [43:44]
Josh
Right.
- [43:45]
Anje Adenuque
Number two, are you coachable? That's massive, right? Because if you have a massive ego where you think that you know everything and no one can help you and your shit doesn't stink and, and you know, somebody's trying to say, hey, listen, like, we should do this this way because it's better X, Y and Z, and you can't be coached, then there's, there's no way we could work together because you're not looking to improve.
- [44:07]
Josh
Right?
- [44:08]
Anje Adenuque
And then, and then number three is a hard worker. And I always say, no matter how good you are at your job, like, if you, if you work for us and say you're a terrible. Let's just say you're at the bottom of the tone pole within Glo, which is going to be a sales consultant, right? And I love all my sales consultants because without you guys, there would be no glow but our sales consultants. And you're terrible at sales. You don't meet our goals and our minimum standards, our monthly metrics, whatever. If you have those three things, you have integrity, you're coachable and you work hard. I promise you, I've never seen someone who has those three things. And we were not able to make good because all we have to do is just coach you and you're going to listen and you're going to work hard at it.
- [44:51]
Josh
Right?
- [44:52]
Anje Adenuque
That's it. So like, for us, if you have those three things, you. That's all I need. I don't even need anybody who's. Anybody who hits my line like, hey, let's link, let's do this together. X, Y and Z, whatever. If you have those three things, I don't care how good you are at anything, we could figure something out on a way to make money. Because if you're coachable, then that means that, hey, you can adapt and learn whatever skill set you need to be successful in whatever field it is that we decide is going to be the best field that we can do business in. And then if you're going to work hard and you bust your ass and you're going to work hard, then obviously it's going to be successful.
- [45:30]
Josh
Right.
- [45:30]
Anje Adenuque
And then if you have integrity, so I can trust that, you know, hey, I'm putting my money here, and I know that, you know, this person is going to do their. They're going to be honest, and I don't have to, you know, have 18 lawyers figuring everything out to make sure to, you know, try to clean everything up or, you know, look after me or whatever. Those are the three things. So those three core values in an employee, for us, that's the only things that we look for.
- [45:57]
Unidentified Host/Interviewer
When you got connected to that first mentor who really opened your eyes to that new playbook, what were some of those plays and things that he kind of taught you and things that he kind of told you to put in place that allowed you to scale and become more profitable as a business?
- [46:10]
Anje Adenuque
Yeah. So his name's Mike Bloor, and he has salons out in California. And what he did was he really kind of emphasized to me the membership model. And like I said, in the last five years, every single business has gone to membership model. Doesn't matter what you're doing or whatever. If you want to go to a car wash, they want you to buy a membership.
- [46:36]
Josh
Right.
- [46:37]
Anje Adenuque
So, and because in memberships, whether it's the gym, Glo, car wash, anything, they know that 50% of people either use it once a month or don't use it at all. When you're selling the membership, you're selling on multiple uses in a month.
- [46:51]
Josh
Right.
- [46:52]
Anje Adenuque
So, and then only 3% of the people actually abuse it. So you're losing money on 3%, you're getting free money on 50%, and then you have that 47% in the middle where, you know, let's just say you're, you're breaking even or you're making a little bit of money on. So membership model is key for anything and everything that you do. So him really kind of, you know, emphasizing how important memberships were, I think was massive and then also value. So, so what he did was we, when we added spa services, which we, you know, we're one of the, the innovators in that. Him, us, and another franchise that's actually been dwindling, you know, sometimes being first to market isn't always best.
- [47:39]
Josh
Right.
- [47:40]
Anje Adenuque
So we were one of the innovators with spa services. And, and when we brought spa services, everybody else when they add a service, they always want to charge more. So, hey, you know, let's just say within this office there's a basketball hoop, there's a ping pong table, and let's just say this was rented out suites. Every single one of these. This is WeWork or something, right? When WeWork comes in and I own this WeWork franchise and I'm renting out offices. So I'm going to invest $5,000 and put, you know, a kitchen in there. I'm gonna put the ping pong table, the basketball hoop in. And I'm like, oh, why would. If I do that, I could up everybody's rent $50 a month. I'm gonna make my investment back plus X.
- [48:24]
Josh
Right?
- [48:24]
Anje Adenuque
That's how people think about it. The way I think about it. And this is because of him. It's just a value add. Just do it and don't charge an extra dollar because it's just your. You're giving somebody so much value that they're like, oh my God, like, I get all of this just for this. And so every single time when somebody comes in to our door and we give them the price, they're like, are you serious? It's literally just this price. I'm like, yeah, you know, it's like there's no catch to it. There's no nothing. There's no added fees, anything. It's literally just this price. So our, the value that we provide is so massive. So value added membership were the two things that he really emphasized. And that's what kind of like, you know, changed the game.
- [49:06]
James
You know, in our prior interview, you talked about how a big thing that you're honing in on is really vertically integrating your business, right? And when you were building glow, you realized that a lot. You were spending money on H vac and electricity and paying all the real estate fees to the brokerages. And now you realize that you can actually expand your business and start kind of acquiring, buying other companies. So that way you're not having to give all these excess fees to people. So for someone who's built a business, they found success, they have a profitable business. How do you recommend them go about expanding their business vertically, integrating into other avenues to where they can actually build, rather than just one business, but actually a conglomerate across different industries for sure.
- [49:44]
Anje Adenuque
So the way you look at it, right, And I've actually never thought about it, this is just kind of off the dome, but this is what we're doing. And the person who's done this really well is Actually like Amazon has done this really well. So for instance, Amazon has probably the largest at this point servers and data center. What Amazon probably realized was, hey listen, we're paying another company to host our data as an online company and they're probably paying, I don't know, 20, $30 million a year. Maybe right now they would probably the size of Amazon, they're probably paying a half a billion dollars a year to do this. So they said we're not doing that anymore, we're gonna go buy a company and host our own serving, right? And then once we figure that out, we're now gonna offer it to everybody else. So now they literally are the number one server host in the country probably in the world, right from because they just said we're spending all this money over here. We already have a built in market so we might as well just go ahead and get it ourselves, right? And then that's every single thing. So for us, the way I look at it is I say, okay, if we're spending, you know, I'm flipping, I'm flipping homes on the side, you know, I'm not really doing much of anything, but I'm letting my money work for me and have a couple friends that, you know, flip flip homes for me and I pay them a GC fee. I buy a lot of commercial buildings. I also negotiate every single lease for every single franchisee nationwide. So at any point in time I'm negotiating, you know, anywhere from 15 to 30 leases at one time between me and my director franchise at Stanton. So it's like on every single one of those leases, we just signed a new lease in Georgia. We signed, you know, a couple leases here in Dallas on say the lease that we just signed in Dallas. The real estate commission that my realtor is going to make off of that is $20,000. And she literally did nothing for that location in particular. I went and drove the area and found the space. She gets the loi, she puts it on a sheet of paper and we have a standard loi gloi that we use. We submitted the loi, they come back, they redline the loi. She forwards the email to us to review, we respond back and say no change X, Y and Z. She changes X, Y and Z. The landlord looks at it and says, okay, I agree, sends us the lease. We have an in house attorney. We forward the lease to in house attorney, he reviews the lease, we agree on the lease, make a couple changes, we agree on the lease, send it back, docusign it, Boom, she gets a $20,000 check. She forwarded two emails. So. And Stephanie, love you. You're good people. But at the end of the day, why would we not do that for ourselves?
- [52:58]
Josh
Right?
- [52:59]
Anje Adenuque
So instead, I will create my own real estate brokerage, and then I will have agents that work for me. I have deals to feed them. So now I can go and have an agent. We split a 50, 50 split on any deal that I bring you, right? If they bring a deal, the way typical brokerages work is that you get. The brokerage gets 20%, the agent keeps 80%.
- [53:21]
Josh
Right?
- [53:22]
Anje Adenuque
Any deal that you bring for yourself, you keep 80%. Any deal that I bring you, you keep 50%. So every single GLO deal that comes across, because I'm the one who negotiates it, I can literally feed it to my own brokerage. And I will make 50% of the real estate commissions this month alone. In real estate commissions, we probably have somewhere 200, $300,000 in real estate commissions that landlords are going to pay to our realtors that represent us. And on top of that, I can also hire one or two agents that, because they have experience negotiating for Glo, it actually makes my job easier because now I can delegate a lot of the tasks that I have to do in negotiating it because they have, you know, when I walk them through 5, 10, 15 negotiations, I no longer have to do the walkthrough with them because they understand, hey, he's never going for that. So there's no reason for us to even send that back. This is the typical deal that we go with. And it makes my job easier. So not only does it make my job easier, I'm able to delegate my responsibility. I'm also able to make money on something that other people are making money on off of, you know, our business. On top of that, I could still make 20% of whatever else they bring in outside of the deals that I feed them. So it just makes sense. So that's just vertically integrating. So you have the Amazon way of vertically integrating, which is the same exact thing that I'm doing, doing. And then they're just doing on a way higher level. And then you have, you know, what I'm working on doing as well.
- [54:44]
Jack
And you brought up a real estate brokerage, right? And so, you know, a lot of the people that we interview on our channel, and then also just from talking with you, real estate is obviously a great way that people can take their money, have their money work for them, either real estate or stocks or things like that. But we can primarily just Talk about real estate. You know, most people, whether they have a job or they're, you know, somebody that, you know, they're trying to build a business, stuff like that, they get money. A lot of people have this notion that real estate takes a lot of money. It takes a lot of time and effort to be able to build a real estate empire. How are you as the CEO of globetanning and the ventures that you're also starting, how have you been able to take money and be able to put it in real estate with, you know, you probably don't have that much time to be able to like, be able to invest it. And you know, there's people that are realtors full time and so they're fully invested in real estate. But if you have that one business driver, you know, you talk a lot about building that cash flowing business and then taking that money and put it into real estate. So we'd love to see you break that down. And also, like, how can someone with no time or even no money be able to do that for themselves?
- [55:44]
Anje Adenuque
Number one, when it comes to time, you make time for what you find important, right? So we can always find time if we find it important enough. That's number one. Number two is, you know, when it comes to, to me, real estate is not a cash flow play. It does make cash flow. Every single one of my buildings makes good money. I have buildings that make $30,000 a month and I have buildings that make $5,000 a month.
- [56:05]
Josh
Right?
- [56:06]
Anje Adenuque
So it does, so it does, it does produce cash flow, but it's not, for me, it's not realized cash flow because I'm using that money to pay down debt. So I've never taken a dollar from real estate and spent a dollar from real estate. I didn't buy a watch because of real estate. I buy my cars and my watches and live my lifestyle and invest my money from glass flow. So I have a cash flowing business that makes a ton of cash. I take that money and then I live on it and I reinvest it. I probably reinvest about 90% of what I make and then the other 10% is what I live on and do everything else. So I would say the biggest thing is cash is king. So you want to be able to know how to properly use debt.
- [56:53]
Josh
Debt, right.
- [56:55]
Anje Adenuque
So knowing how to properly use debt, creative financing is huge. When you have money, things actually become easier. It's kind of really weird, but things become easier and you actually have to use less money.
- [57:09]
Josh
Right?
- [57:10]
Anje Adenuque
So it's just like Just creative financing and doing things like that to where it actually makes sense. And also how motivated is the person or the seller. So I find locations and areas where, where maybe something's been sitting for a while. Maybe I have to slightly overpay for something. Like they have it listed. Like say a building is worth $4 million. They have it listed at 4.5 million. Everybody is coming in at 3.8 or 4 million or 4.1. And I go to the owner and I say, hey, listen, I'm willing to buy this building. I'll give you 4.3 million for it. But I want you to hold a second mortgage, you know, for $800,000. So at close you're gonna get 3.5 million. And over the next, you know, three years, you're. I'm gonna amortize the second mortgage over 20 years. We'll do a three year balloon, right? So at, let's say interest rates right now are 8%, but I'll give them an offer at like say 4%, right? So I'm making very small payments or you can even do interest only payments, interest only payments at 4 or 5% for three years. After the three years now it's a balloon payment of the 800,000. Well, in three years, right, you've done everything you want to do to the building. You've added new tenants, you've upped the rents. If you own a business, you've added your own business in there, X, Y and Z, whatever. Now I go back to the bank in three years, I refinance the deal and I refinance in the $800,000 that, that I owe them. So I just got that building for $0 down the building's cash flowing and paying for the debt because I do not care about making a dollar off of the building, right? Then that's how I would do my deal because I'm doing it as a wealth play. So that building's gonna appreciate in value and then over time that building is going to decrease in debt, right? So a commercial building is typically financed on a 20 year deal, 15 to 20 year deal. So in 20 years that building's paid off. I'm in my mid-30s now. When I'm in my mid-50s, I have an asset that I bought for, you know, $4.3 million that's now worth 8 to $10 million. If we go with the typical rate of inflation on real estate, you know, a commercial real estate over the last 20 years, now it's worth $10 million. I owe zero dollars on it. Even though I've made, you know, not much from the investment through the life of having the building, but I have a 10 million dollar asset that I literally paid that I literally have taken $0 out of my pocket. That's a pretty good play.
- [59:43]
Unidentified Host/Interviewer
When you first started out Glow, you were doing a bunch of different businesses. You had the marketing agency, you had Glo, you did the chauffeur, and then you decided to part ways with those different things and decided to focus all in pretty much on glow. At what point do you feel like it's okay for entrepreneurs to diversify their income streams and start building businesses alongside their main source of income?
- [60:05]
Anje Adenuque
That's an amazing question. So I need to start. You know how, like, you know how celebrities get the prep questions beforehand. I'm not a celebrity, but I need to get my prep questions because that was. That's an amazing question. So just off the top of the dome, I'll just, I'll say this, really. When you're making enough money where you can invest 50% of what you make in something else that you're not having to, you know, put any money back in the business, you're able to live the lifestyle that you want to live a comfortable, not the lifestyle you want to live because you obviously, you always aspire to have more and to do more in X, Y and Z, but you're able to live a comfortable lifestyle and you're able to pay all of your bills, put back for savings and retirement and everything else. And you can take 50% of whatever you have and invest it. Then you can start to diversify until you get to that point. You know, people who say, oh, I have a successful business, it makes, you know, $300,000 a year profit, but you're spending $250,000 to live and you have $50,000 left over. That's. Then that business is not successful enough for your lifestyle.
- [61:17]
Josh
Right.
- [61:18]
Anje Adenuque
So if you're making. If you have a business and you spend $250,000 a year to live and invest in X, Y and Z, and So you're making $500,000 profit. So you have $250,000 left over to invest. At that point, you can start to diversify with your money.
- [61:33]
Unidentified Host/Interviewer
And there's a guy named Neil Patel who's famous in, like, the SEO and marketing space, and he was giving someone a piece of advice on, like, I feel like I've hit a ceiling on where I'm currently at. How can I continue to expand and really do more and Pretty much what he said is that a lot of people make the mistake of instead of focusing really, like you have a skill. Like let's say us is content creation, right? Is instead of us trying to go ahead and build, you know, a roofing construction company, you know, you should just double down on another form of media. And would you say that a lot of people make the mistake of instead of really just doubling down and building another avenue of what they're already good at? That. Sorry, I just got a. That really. That people should just double down on what they're good at and build another avenue of their existing business? Or do you think people should really expand if maybe they have a calling or feel?
- [62:29]
Anje Adenuque
Yeah. So that's so literally what you asked to say. Same thing that we just talked about a little bit ago, which is vertical integration. So let's just speak about you guys, right? Within your business. Like the best thing is you guys are content creators, but you guys are content creators in one single space. Business, right? If you guys were just creating content and shock jock stuff, business, sports, you know, sports betting, current events, whatever, it's, you wouldn't be successful. You'd be a slave to many a master of none. So it's like you guys are aiming to be a conglomerate within business content creation. When you get to where you actually feel like you achieve your goal. Because at some point you guys are going to sit back, right? I hope I get a text telling me when this point happens, but you guys are going to sit back and you guys will be like, damn, man, this was a dream. We did it. And not just we did it like the realization, like you guys obviously have the realization like, hey, things are starting to click, things are going well, but we did it. As in something that maybe it's each of you guys taking a distribution out of the company for half a million dollars to go put down on a house each, right? And going and buying a car. And you guys are doing that together. And you guys are like, damn, man, who would have thought that what we started could have been this, right? So when you guys come to that realization, it's because of the fact that you guys focus on one singular thing. And at that point now you can take your systems, your processes, your team, and now you can diversify into another form of media, right? That can be the same exact thing as what you do now, but in a different direction other than business. So and that might be even within business, but a subset of business. So like now it's like, you know, school of hard Knocks real estate. Right, where it's strictly about real estate.
- [64:36]
Josh
Right.
- [64:37]
Anje Adenuque
Or just like the same way barstool has barstool, and then now they have barstool gambling, you know, so it's like, literally focused on what you're doing. Because the biggest thing and the reason why it's important to stay within the same kind of industry or niche is because of the amount of work and time and effort. And you guys will appreciate this amount of work and time and effort it takes to build the processes and the systems. So why do you want to go and build that for something else that you know nothing about? You can do it because you've done it once before, but now you have to figure out, okay, I'm going to create the, you know, number one, you know, tire distribution center in Texas. Now you got to learn everything about tires, you got to learn anything about the distribution. You got to learn everything about trucking. You got to learn everything about, you know, what's Bridgestone versus X, Y and Z, what cars do, what this is that. It's like, why do all that? Why not just take. You've already built all the civilization systems, you already built all the processes. You already built, you know, a whole team. So, like, when we did our first interview, I talked about delegation. I literally said, I take my team and use my team to help get everything set up. So it has to be something that I can use my team, my current team, and utilize my current team, My. My photographer and my. I have, you know, videographer on staff. I have photographer on staff. I have a graphic designer on staff. If I'm doing a real estate project, I'm going to utilize those same people to do my real estate project, even though they're for Glo, right? Because I have a team of people that I can literally utilize for whatever I need to utilize in any other projects that I'm doing. So I have a team of people, and I need to utilize my team to do whatever else it is that I need to do. And that's for you guys that would be vertically integrating into another space outside of business.
- [66:21]
Jack
Absolutely. There's a question I think I've heard many people talk about on podcasts with their guests. And I think it's the tombstone question, right? It's, you know, how do you want to be remembered?
- [66:33]
Anje Adenuque
So that's a great question. It's a very dark question as well. So I think that the biggest thing and something that I'm not sure when I told myself this, but maybe it was four or five years ago. And I said that I want to make sure that any person that I come into contact with has a positive experience from me. That doesn't mean that, like, somebody does something and I'm not going to check them and, oh, that wasn't a positive experience. But any person that comes into contact with me is going to be better off from having a relationship with me. I never ask anybody for really anything at all. Not saying that I couldn't or I shouldn't, but I always try to make sure. How can I add value to the people that are around? And also, like, anybody who knows. I say this all the time. Anybody who knows me. There's nobody who knows me who doesn't like me. And it's not that I'm really concerned about trying to get people to like me, because that should be the least of anyone's concern ever, right? But it's just saying that being a genuine person, being somebody who cares about other people, being someone who is not so focused on what could say, somebody do for me. But for me, it's like, how can I add value to someone else? That's literally the first thing and everything I think about. Obviously, you guys know, when we talk off camera and stuff like that, it's like, you know, really trying to, like, make sure to, like, pour into you guys and say, okay, you know, what are things that I can do to kind of give you guys some game to really, like, you know, you guys are already doing it prior to meet me at all. So I'm not taking zero. Taking zero credit for your success. But I'm saying, like, there's things that I just know as an entrepreneur, and I'm over a decade older than you guys, but how can I give you guys some tools or steps, some advice to really kind of like, skip some of the things that I had to learn on my own, right? Or advice that I got from somebody else that I'm just passing along to you guys. So to me, it's one of those things where I just want that if anything was that, God forbid, anything was to happen, that people, you know, really kind of say, hey, man, he was a good guy who really wanted to make sure that everybody around him was taken care of. Everybody around him, you know, was. Was successful. Everybody around him was better off from knowing him. So that's. That's kind of been my philosophy, and that's just how I kind of live my life. So it doesn't matter who's around me or whatever. I always want to make sure that they. That I can. If I can put them in a better situation. I try to. I never give a handout, but I try to give a hand up, so I love it.
- [69:06]
James
I'll end with just one more question for you, and then we'll. We'll wrap it up. But my final question for you, if there's any guiding principles that you would pass on to the younger generation out there that's really aspiring to become successful, you know, maybe they didn't. They didn't come from much, but that they just have really high ambitions. They want to really achieve success. What are those two or three guiding principles that you would pass on to them that. That work for you and that. That you've seen really generate success in people?
- [69:30]
Anje Adenuque
Yeah. So I go back to my seven principles for success. So number one is gratitude. So being appreciative of what you have, no matter how big or small what you have is a lot of times I hear people comparing themselves to other people looking on Instagram or Facebook or TikTok or whatever and saying, oh, must be nice, or I wish I had that. It's like you can't complain about something that you did nothing for. Right. So being grateful for the situation, just being grateful. I saw a video of a guy that was explaining something to this couple. He's an influencer or something, and it was actually a great analogy. He said, if I can give you guys $10 million today, but I told you that tomorrow, you wouldn't wake up, would you take it? And they said no. So obviously you living and breathing, breathing is more important than that $10 million.
- [70:22]
Josh
Right.
- [70:23]
Anje Adenuque
So just be grateful for what you have, for the life that you have, for what you've been blessed with, and stop always focusing on the negative. Number two, you know, live in the moment, but plan for the future. So focus on what's in front of you. So, you know, a lot of times people always want to focus 10 years out. The X, Y and Z, whatever. It's like, no. Focus on what's in front of you. Get done what's in front of you, what. Whether it's good or bad, but also at the same time, keeping in mind what you have going on. Number three, learn to delegate. We've discussed that a lot, so don't have to really go too much in that. Number four, no ego. So thinking that you know everything or thinking that someone can help you when you're talking to somebody and they are quick to always cut you off to give their opinion, that's probably somebody you do not want to Be around. Around, right. So it's like one of those things where it's like, you know, even people who are smarter than you and extremely successful, if you ever notice, they typically are listeners. They just kind of sit around and they just let people really talk and they're observing and they're listening because they just want to, you know, what can they. One is, you know, they're kind of surveying the room. But two is they're learning. You know, you can't learn when you're talking. Right? So that's another one. And you know, I would say that that's some of the major ones and major keys to success, in my opinion. And really, you know, to emphasize back on, one of the things that I said, especially for younger people, is, you know, comparison is a thief of joy. You know, you've heard me say that a lot lately. And comparison is thief of joy. So like comparing your life to somebody else's, especially on Instagram or anything else. It's like, you know, especially women. Women will take 100 pictures to pick one that's the best angle. Then they'll go on there, they'll edit it, face app, do everything else and then post that. And then somebody else is comparing their looks or their life or whatever to this person that is giving you a 1% snapshot of their life. It's not even 1%. The location, the area or whatever they're in is 1% of the time in their timeline of their life, right? Or in the month that they're in, they take a picture of. It's a highlight reel, right? So they take a picture of that. Then they took 100 pictures of this highlight reel. Then out of the best picture that they took, they edited the best picture. That's a picture, a 1% picture of a highlight reel. And then they edited that picture. And now you're comparing yourself to that edited 1% of a highlight reel. And so that's just not. It's not, you know, so you have to be focused on your own race and not focused on what everybody else is doing and comparing whatever. It's like, are you happy with where you're at? Some people are happy and, you know, making $50,000 a year. And I wish, and this sounds crazy, but I wish I could be content. My number one problem is I have a lack of contentment and a lack of achievement. Like, I reach a goal, it might be a goal that I set for myself in a five year goal. I reach that goal and I'm not happy. I'm not Like, I'm like, okay, cool, reach the goal. And that's why a lot of times I set a purchase something that I want, obviously I can go, just go and buy it, but I won't allow myself to buy it until I reach that certain goal. So when I reach that goal, I can now purchase X. So, like, the Rolls Royce was one of those goals. So when I reached that goal, I said, okay, cool, I reached that goal. Now I can purchase X, right? So now every time that I look at X, I realize the, the, the achievement of that goal. But otherwise, the second that you reach the goal, for any high achiever, you're just looking and saying, okay, what's the next goal? You never sit down to really kind of appreciate the fact that you achieve that goal, right? So there's a lack of contentment there. And that's why a lot of times people say, you know, money doesn't buy happiness because where's the contentment? The guy who made $40,000 or $50,000 and he's the manager of Best Buy, he goes home to him, he has a smoking hot wife. He goes home, he kicks his feet up, he looks at his store's numbers. He has the district manager send him an email saying, great job, Robert. Your store is number two in the district. And he's happy about that. Takes his family out to a nice steak dinner and spoils them. He goes to Disney World once a year for five days, and to him, he's extremely happy. Then you have the other person who you know, literally during the downturn in 2008, there was a billionaire in Germany that lost $7 billion and killed himself. The only thing is he still had 2 billion to him. He lost everything, right? So everything is about perspective. So it's like, you know, how are you, how are you framing your life? Are you comparing your life to somebody else's? Are you comparing your life to what you consider what you deem to be to be happiness? And what is considered happiness for you? Everybody has to figure that out for themselves.
- [75:37]
James
Amazing guys. That wraps up today's episode with the School of Hard Knocks on you. You dropped some incredible gems and game for all the young entrepreneurs, everybody out there. Before we get off here, where can everybody find you?
- [75:47]
Anje Adenuque
@Sweatpantsmillionaire on Instagram. And then I'm not sure yet, but we'll have a TikTok and YouTube at some point. Set up.
- [75:57]
James
Everybody sweat. Sweatpant, underscore millionaire. Be sure to give him a follow. Reach out to him. And if you're tuned in like and subscribe for some amazing content coming soon. We'll see you guys in the next one.
- [76:06]
Jack
Let's go, y'.
- [76:06]
Josh
All.