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Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Brandon Dawson - Exited for $151M at 77X EBITDA | Stop Blaming Your Employees for Your Failures
00:48:56
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- [00:00]
Brandon Dawson
When you see something that makes so much sense and you see how much money is being made, don't go do something else. What happens with a lot of these entrepreneurs? They start becoming successful, they get criticized by their group because here's the thing, success comes with a whole new series of conditions and then you finally succeed. Those same people say, oh, they got lucky.
- [00:17]
Scott Clary
This is Brandon Dawson. He built his first company at 26 and sold it for millions. But that was just the beginning. Over the next two decades, he mastered the game of scaling businesses, taking one to a valuation of over $150 million, then walked away. Not because he had to, but because he wanted to build something bigger.
- [00:36]
Brandon Dawson
If you look at the top three reasons business owners state that they fail, which is a majority of business owners, it's because they no demand for product or service, can't find great people, or can't make money. All three of those are an excuse. And then you say, well, there's no good people. Good people don't work for shitty business owners.
- [00:49]
Scott Clary
Today he partners with some of the most ambitious entrepreneurs in the world. But the road here, it's filled with lessons few dare to share. And the blueprint you're about to hear could change the trajectory of your entire business.
- [01:00]
Brandon Dawson
The rules of investing are simple. Invest in yourself, invest in the thing that generates the money. And then when you have access capital, go invest in something that you don't have to put your energy into and let it compound for you. What I found in life is the more interested you are in somebody, the more interesting they become to you. If you can't be something for somebody else, nobody can ever be that for you.
- [01:31]
Unknown
My favorite part of your story is that all this started with a 2.4 GPA. So take me back to that 2.4 GPA. Brandon, talk to me about a major inflection point that sort of pushed you on the path that you're on today.
- [01:46]
Brandon Dawson
Well, I mean, you know, I hate, I hated school and, and, and so, and I wasn't good at it. I love sports and I only was reasonably enough good enough to get out of school so my dad wouldn't. Because he told me you don't get at least a 2.4, you can't play sports. So I was a 2.2.4. Yeah, if he just had three, I don't know that I would have played sports. Right? But, but I could not wait to get out of this little town. I wanted to do something cool. I wanted to do something fun. I was a hard worker. I Loved making money. I liked being independent. Those things I liked. But I couldn't stand sitting in a classroom. I mean, I just, that wasn't my style. And so as soon as I got out of high school, then I moved up to Portland and I thought, well, I'll do a little bit of college at Portland State and get a job. And I got a job selling inside sales one day a week. I was making money and I loved the inside sales job and I hated sitting at Portland State. So I dropped out. And when I dropped out, six months into it, an outside sales rep territory opened for the company I was working part time in. And I was so good selling over the phones. They offered me, they opened a new facility and the territory opened and they said, you can go sell over the phones in Atlanta full time. And so I moved to Atlanta and I was like, oh, here we go. This could be amazing.
- [03:04]
Unknown
When you think about now, you teach like nine figure mindset, right? That's, that's, that is sort of what you've adopted. That's the name of your book. That's what you, that's what you teach entrepreneurs about. How do you think somebody starting out? Because when you're talking about your origin story, you're in Atlanta, like you don't have a nine figure mindset yet. And I don't even think that when most people start companies, you're thinking, I.
- [03:26]
Brandon Dawson
Was just excited to make $18,000 and not have parents tell me what to do.
- [03:30]
Unknown
Exactly. So when somebody is starting out, mindset's everything. Tactics are important, but mindset is very, very important. Getting off the ground, what's the advice to day zero? Start to have a nine figure mindset that would have made your journey maybe even a little bit quicker, shorter, better.
- [03:47]
Brandon Dawson
Yeah. So for me, I love the fact that I was my own person, you know, as I was, I was 19, I could be, do anything. You know, it's the first time I moved to Atlanta because in Oregon I still had family around. When I moved to Atlanta and I landed there and they're like, here's because I was supposed to be an inside sales rep. And they're like, the outside sales rep got sick. So starting today at the airport when I landed, you're an outside sales rep. I'm like, I don't know, what's that mean? You get a Ford Taurus and you're going to travel 11 states. And so for me, I felt like I was, I was an explorer. An explorer, right. Because I didn't never been to the south, didn't know anything about the South. I'd never been on my own, and I was just so excited about figuring it out. But if I could go back to that guy and say a couple things, I had the heart, I had the competitiveness, I had the desire to. But I wasn't even. I wasn't thinking about money. I was just thinking about how to learn to do anything right and then be good at it. But the one thing I will say that I thank God for that, Brandon, back then, because I was, like, smart enough to go like, who's the best in this whole company that's doing what you want me to do? What's their routine? So when I went to that first sales meeting and met the number one outside sales rep, I'll never forget this because there's like 200 of them. They gave him an award. And I was smart enough to go meet the guy. I was the youngest guy on the outside sales team. And I was like, how do you do it? And he befriended me and he said, here's how I do my call reports. Here's how many cities I go to. Here's how I speed things up. Here's the kind of conversation and I studied for that guy, and I just mimicked what he did.
- [05:28]
Unknown
That's smart.
- [05:29]
Brandon Dawson
And so thank God for the. For that Brandon, who didn't just drift around and take it for granted, Right? But if I could go back and tell him something, I'd say to a man, when you see something that makes so much sense and you see how much money is being made, don't go do something else. Because I had two or three times where I was right in the middle of something so huge, and I didn't see it for what it was, and I went away from it. Whereas if I would have made that where I put my career or I would have adjusted my career and did those things, oh, my gosh, I could have. I could have killed it. A lot of things happened in innovation in. In the 90s and early 2000s. I missed a lot of it because I. I saw it, I knew it was going to be unbelievable, but I didn't do something with it.
- [06:17]
Unknown
So you mentioned when you sort of starting off your career, you're hungry, you're ambitious, you're super excited, which I think most entrepreneurs are. But you made an interesting point. You weren't looking at the thing that made you the most money. You weren't looking at the thing that was like the best possible opportunity. And I think a lot of people that are just Starting out. And I know that you're more focused on after they figured it out, they scale up. But I just think the one little bit of wisdom that you have there is when you're first starting out, like, where do you put your energy? How do you identify that opportunity that you should actually be putting energy and time and yourself into? Because I think that too many people get excited and they jump into the first thing that presents itself to them.
- [06:54]
Brandon Dawson
Well, a couple things happen. Okay, so let's look at the macro stats. About 83 or 84% of businesses aren't started from somebody who wants to go build a high net worth and be an entrepreneur and be an executive. And if you go back all the way to e math, almost 50 years now, they all started because they're good at something and they don't want a boss, they don't want to be told what to do, they don't want a limitation on their earnings, they don't want to be held accountable and they're good at something. So I'm going to go start a business and be my own person. And then, and then what happens is as soon as they hire a few people, they want to back off of the thing they're actually good at because they've been doing it a long time. I'm tired of being the technician I'm tired of doing. So I'm going to have somebody else do. I'm going to hire a kid to do it or I'm going to, you know, and they start throwing people, people at the different components of the business and they're not leading the people doing the things they don't know how to do. So let's just take this for like, say I'm a roofer. I'm a great roofer. I can go to any house, convince any owner to have me do their roof, and I can collect the money and deliver the roof faster than anybody else. And it's beautiful. And they always refer three friends to me. I got, I'm, I'm natural. Well, I gotta hire someone to clean up the mess, to drop the stuff off, to order the inventory, to order, organize it, to make sure that my vendors are getting paid, to make sure that we're logging in the names, the information, sending out the right. Somebody has to do all that around me. And so it's not my expertise. So what happens is they get excited and they go to the thing that they're good at and they actually are so successful at it, everything else breaks down behind them because they have no Idea who to put in that position, how to orchestrate it with them, how to organize it with them and how to hold those people accountable. And then the thing I'm good at and I actually like, I don't like anymore because now what am I doing? I'm solving all the problems, I'm fixing all the, the broken things. I'm getting yelled at by clients that. And now all of a sudden, building a business is hard. It's painful. And maybe if I just went back and they don't say this, but maybe if I went back and controlled everything, I wouldn't have these problems. And then they locked themselves into staying small.
- [08:58]
Unknown
I think that most people end up. You believe this for sure. They end up building themselves a job. They don't know how to get out of it. They don't know how to scale it. They don't know what to do with it. And I think that, listen, I love entrepreneurship. I love building companies. I think this is something that is beautiful. But I think too many people rush into it without thinking and then they find themselves locked and trapped and they don't know what to do.
- [09:18]
Brandon Dawson
Well, remember, if you listen to my stat and I think it's important for your listeners to hear it and the validation of this is emyth. I mean, it's been going on for 50 years. They didn't start a business because of what they wanted. They, they started the business because of what they didn't want. And then they struggled because they're hiring people. Think about it. If I started my business because I didn't want a boss, I didn't want a limitation on my earnings, I didn't want to be held accountable, and then I hire someone, am I going to treat them the way I wanted to be treated or am I going to treat them differently? So now I start hiring people and I ignore them because I think they're going to be like me. But people aren't going to be like you. If you look at every study of every employee segment, they want to be led, they want to be nurtured. They want to be incentivized, they want to be, they, they want to be inspired. And then they want to be paid. Paid is like 4 5th. Now compare that to the person that started their business. I didn't want a boss. I didn't want to be told what to do. I didn't want to be held accountable. I didn't want to limit. So, so there's this huge disconnect and then the frustration. And if you look at the top three reasons business owners state that they fail, which is a majority of business owners, it's because they no demand for product or service, can't find great people, or can't make money. Well, all three of those are an excuse because if you are an H Vac tech and you work for an H Vac company, there is definitely demand for the product or service. So you can't say that. And then you say, well, there's no good people. No good people don't work for shitty business owners. So what you get are you get the people that don't know what they're doing either, and they work for someone that doesn't know how to help them do it. So it's chaos. And when there's chaos, it's no longer fun. And the thing you do that you're good at, you're no longer excited about that because you got problems.
- [10:51]
Unknown
You're not on your zone of genius. You're doing everything else. Assets under management with Cardone Ventures. Where are you at now?
- [10:59]
Brandon Dawson
Well, we've engineered 6.8 billion in businesses. We've run 9.4 billion through our educational platforms, and we manage about 2.3 billion right now.
- [11:08]
Unknown
So say you work with one or two businesses, right? When you think about the segment that you're serving too, so you're serving a lot of SMBs and MID. Right?
- [11:17]
Brandon Dawson
Well, there's 34.5 million businesses between 1 million or between, sorry, between 100,000 and 125 million. And that's really our sweet spot. We do have larger businesses. They get my attention. But, but those are all in that segment.
- [11:33]
Unknown
And the reason I ask that is because I always hear about all these business owners that are sort of living what you just described, this chaos. And, and this is not a conversation that I usually have about entrepreneurship. A lot of people figure out or a lot of people want to hear, how do I start? You know, what, what should I, what should I focus on? How do I find my first 50 customers? That's all great. But then once you get that now you're stuck in this spot and that's who you're helping and that's who you're serving. So when you think about these, this massive amount of businesses, all I keep hearing about is wealth transfer, one of the largest wealth transfers. All these business owners that are stuck in chaos, that don't know what to do. They don't know if they want to sell their business. They don't really know how to scale it because they've sort of and they.
- [12:14]
Brandon Dawson
Don'T know how to sell it either.
- [12:15]
Unknown
They don't know how to sell it. Maybe their kids. It's interesting because I find that most business owners like sub 30, 40 million that I've met their kids for some reason don't want to take over the business. I don't really know why that is.
- [12:26]
Brandon Dawson
But you don't?
- [12:27]
Unknown
No, I.
- [12:28]
Brandon Dawson
Maybe we just discussed why.
- [12:29]
Unknown
It's because it's chaos.
- [12:30]
Brandon Dawson
They've been, they've been listening to their parents come home and about everything for.
- [12:34]
Unknown
The last succession plans anymore.
- [12:36]
Brandon Dawson
So like why would you. If you're a kid and your dad's coming home or your mom's coming home and it's like we got all these problems, people are letting us down. We're pissed off, fighting because of something happened at the office. And now you're sitting there looking at that. You're like the last thing you want to do is take your family business over. That's really what's happened. It's so hard to build a business. And if you're second or third generation, you've been working in those companies. Here's the problem. Owners treat their kids like you should work for less and you money, you should do more because you're my kid and I need you to be an example. But I'm not going to commit to you how much of this business you're ever going to own and one day it's going to be yours. So just suck it up. Because that's what I did with my dad. Because that's how the dads got it from their dads or their moms got it from their moms. We're in a different world today. So, so and that's where we, we're experts in family businesses. And if you don't engineer that family business so that the family members understand they need to work as much or as hard as your best people, but then they need to be compensated as fair as your best people. So you get this weird thing that happens with family where it's like we don't shouldn't pay you as much because one day it's going to be yours. But. But you're not making the kind of money other people around you are making. And everybody thinks you're making more than you should. And it's easy for you because you're the owner's family. So you're. There's so many lose loses when you're in a family business because all the employees are like, oh yeah, that's the owner's Son or daughter. Oh yeah, they get everything they want. Oh yeah, they don't have to work as hard. And then you have your family saying you need to work harder than everybody else and you should be willing to make less money. And so you're getting pounded on, on both ways. The first thing you want to do is get the hell out of there.
- [14:11]
Unknown
And it's sad because entrepreneurship should be a positive. It should be something that it's hard work, but it shouldn't be something that tears your family apart, shouldn't be something that ruins a relationship with kids. So I'm assuming these are, you know, you help businesses scale and Cardone Ventures helps businesses scale. But behind the scale, there's all these interpersonal dynamics that you have to help a business owner through and help them understand if they're really going to try and take their business to the next level or sell it or do whatever with it. So when somebody comes, comes to you, where are they in their business life cycle? We just sort of described the chaos we're dealing with. But then like, what's the first piece of advice for them to figure out which direction to go in?
- [14:49]
Brandon Dawson
Well, okay, so, so that's, that's a loaded question because they, you know, if you're a hundred thousand dollar a year person, yes. You're gonna have to do something entirely different than if you're a million dollar person. Only 9% of the businesses between, between a hundred thousand and 125 million, only 9% actually break through the million dollar barrier. So, so you're talking about, you're, you're talking about under a million businesses out of 33 and a half million. Here's an interesting thing going back to your wealth transfer. There's $5 trillion of wealth transfer happening in the small business space. Okay? It's a $16 trillion market right now. And those are businesses that range across the spectrum. Most of the reason the transfer is happening is they're owned by baby boomers who either can't or don't want to work anymore. Those businesses don't have high valuation. That's why the kids don't want to take them over because no one's making any money. Like, think about it, if you're, if your dad came to you and said, hey son, our 12 million dollar business, the one that's been paying me to have the new trucks every year, the Rolls Royce, the six homes, the private airplane that we take on vacation, the speedboat for the lake, you know, you've been a good son and I'm tired. So I'm just going to give it to you and you can start paying yourself 2 or 3 million a year. You think generation wants that business? They're like, they're fight over of course.
- [16:14]
Unknown
But that's not when your dad's been.
- [16:16]
Brandon Dawson
Bleeding out for 20 years, complaining there's no money, fighting with their spouse, all these problems, frustrations, anger, drinking, whatever it is, can't go on vacation because the next guy left and I got to go fix everything. Do you, you're not going to take that business over? So who gets that business?
- [16:37]
Unknown
No, they don't know.
- [16:38]
Brandon Dawson
I'll tell you who. Somebody that's listening to you and me right now. This says if that's real, what do I need to do to prepare myself? Because the dumbest thing to do in the world today, if you want to be a business owner is to start a business. The smartest thing to do, well, you don't have any money. The smartest thing to do is to go in and train and learn what a great business looks like. Learn from people that are building, learn your communication skills, learn how to sell things because if you can't sell anything, it doesn't matter. And then go work as an Apprentice in a 5 to 10 million dollar business and look around and part of your interview process, ask the owner, do you have anybody that you've already identified that's going to take this business over one day? And if the business owner says no, I'm still just trying to make it work. You say, I got an older business owner, I got a business been around for 10 or 20 years. If I learn the technical aspects of how to make this business work, I could exit this business owner and that owner will give you a seller's note. They'll be like, you know What? I make 150 grand, 250 grand. We had this kid, he was 22, we bought a 15 million dollar business for $225,000 a year for 10 years to this, to the contractor who's tired and we immediately two years later turn it into a 50 million dollar company. I mean people that are tired and don't want to change and they have that same broken mindset. It's so hard and there's people involved and this market sucks. Nobody's good to me. They' to move the business beyond where it's at. That's the reason it's suffering. They're not open minded to it. A young person comes in there and they're like hey, just I'm excited. And they bring the enthusiasm to it. Now if they learn the technical aspect of the business, they could blow that thing off the lid. And that's what I would say to my younger self. Instead of working in a corporation and then we it on my own and starting a business from scratch, the first one, and trying to raise capital, just go find somebody who's got a nice five, $10 million business that's tired and worn out.
- [18:33]
Scott Clary
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- [18:35]
Unknown
What does the future hold for business?
- [18:36]
Scott Clary
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- [19:22]
Unknown
The guide is free.
- [19:23]
Scott Clary
That's netsuite.com Scott Clary indeed is a Success Story Partner. Now say you just realized your business needed to hire someone fast. How can you find amazing candidates fast? It's easy.
- [19:34]
Unknown
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- [19:35]
Scott Clary
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- [20:29]
Unknown
What when you when you're talking to that person I love that idea. I absolutely love that because I know that the Cody Sanchez is Of the world are talking about car wash or.
- [20:39]
Brandon Dawson
She'S talking about Laundromats and.
- [20:40]
Unknown
Yeah. Like, you know, financing and all that stuff.
- [20:43]
Brandon Dawson
Cody's awesome, but she's going after a. That's a different. That's a cash flow business. That's a business that can pay you and you don't have to do anything. That's. She's an expert at that because she is really good at that and she's good at communicating about it. I'm talking about, you know, the. The people that speak the way I speak. The people that know what I know. Those are her Moses. Us. Natalie and I talk about it. There's. There's. Oh, shoot, I forget what the other guy's name is. I'll think of it in a second. There's. But there's probably three to five people that are speaking the right language to the right people that see this opportunity, know about it, and know how to go get it.
- [21:24]
Unknown
So for the. For the, you know, young entrepreneur that sort of deploys this strategy. They've never scaled the business beyond what, you know, they're going in. They're learning everything about it. And you're saying, well, you know, we could take this business from here and we got it to $50 million in two years. You're thinking, how the hell do I do that? Different levers you can pull. Right. Obviously, you know, with the. The marketing, the sales, the talent you bring on.
- [21:48]
Brandon Dawson
Yeah. Well, what do you teach people? People.
- [21:50]
Unknown
What do I teach people about scaling business?
- [21:52]
Brandon Dawson
Anything.
- [21:53]
Unknown
I mean, what's your.
- [21:54]
Brandon Dawson
What's your.
- [21:54]
Unknown
So. So my. My thing is mostly about how do you. How do you have the mental fortitude to stick with it for a long enough period of time? That's really the game.
- [22:03]
Brandon Dawson
That's right. So. So if I was that kid, I'd come learn from you how to have that mindset.
- [22:08]
Unknown
Because if you can stay in the game long enough.
- [22:09]
Brandon Dawson
Yeah.
- [22:10]
Unknown
You'll figure it out.
- [22:11]
Brandon Dawson
Okay. And then. Then what I do is I'd go to Alex and. And Layla and spend a couple days with them. You know what I do next? I'd go over to Lead Edge or Brandon Dawson or Grant Cardone thing. I would go find the three to five people that are communicating in a way where I'm like, all three, four or five of those people are legit. I. I can buy into what they're saying. I don't understand it. And I'd spend a year. The Rules of investing are simple. Invest in yourself, invest in the thing that generates the money. And then when you have access capital, either go buy something else that you can add to the thing that generates the money, or go invest in something that you don't have to put your energy into and let it compound for you. Okay, if I'm watching this and I'm someone that's like, man, I just don't know how to figure. Go learn from 3 to 4. Make it a point to actually invest in yourself and go to three to five people that you respect that are speaking a language that you're like, I want to sound like that. I want to think like that. And go deep. Don't just go to a Tony Robbins seminar and say, I'm changed. Like, actually go freaking deep. Right? Like, I'm sure you've got a masterclass for people. So go through, go at the beginning and get to that masterclass. And then go do it with Alex and Layla. Go do it with Brandon and Natalie. Go do it with Grant Cardone. And then all of a sudden sit back and go, I'm going to go. And while you're doing that, start reading about buying businesses and start going, subscribe for 29amonth to a business buying brokerage account in your market where you can start looking at stuff. And then go to our 10x how to buy a business program. It does. There's enough information out there that if I really could sit back and say to myself, I want to be wealthy. I want to do it the fastest way possible. I want to do a legal, moral, ethical, and compliant. There's five of us that you could start really studying under for a year or two and go kill it.
- [23:54]
Unknown
You know what my favorite thing about your story? When you first started working with Grant, you already were incredibly successful, more than, you know, 99.999% of people on this planet. And you still put money into sitting at growthcon and sitting up front and learning from him. And I think that the, the takeaway from that, that kills more dreams and more entrepreneurs than anything else is you remove the ego. Because there's a lot of people that would sell a business for nine figures and be like, I don't need to learn from anybody else. I figured it.
- [24:20]
Brandon Dawson
Yeah, I was already worth 70. Well, at the time, I was worth 90 million. Like, I don't. I'll tell you, I'll tell you what. And that, you know how that doesn't stop. It's one thing to show up and not have an ego, but you want to know what solidified Grant's respect of me because I was a new entity. He said, people make all sorts of promises and let them down. Two years into our relationship, I bought my first aircraft, and I sent over the paint that I had put on it, and it said Cardone Ventures on the tail and 10x on the plane. I didn't know it at the time, but he had two other executives sitting there with him, and he goes, that dude has no ego. Nobody buys their first aircraft and doesn't put their own initials or their own name on it. Nobody. I didn't even think to do that because I'm his partner. His name is bigger than my name. So this is the thing. It's not because I think that the biggest issue is when someone, like, becomes a great salesperson and they're all cocky. Look, just remember, no matter what you ever accomplish in your life, and I don't care what that is, there's always somebody that's 10x bigger, more successful, more accomplished than you. And so if you think you're all that because you made your first hundred or your first million or your first ten million and you think that makes you special, just remember there's people that are 20, 50, 100, a billion, 10 billion, 100 billion, 200 billion, and you ain't that good.
- [25:47]
Unknown
There's no end.
- [25:49]
Brandon Dawson
So if you act like you've arrived, you're never actually going to arrive at any other destination, because anybody that could help you spots that in two seconds. I don't want anything to do with this person. And that's the fatal mistake. And this is the part about mindset you were talking about. One of my most impactful mentors is John Maxwell. And when John Maxwell was speaking at that Grant Cardone event, John pulled me up side stage with Natalie, and I didn't even know what he was doing. And he was pointing us out, and it was all this chaos. 34,000 people. And I'm like, john, we're gonna go sit back down. I don't know what you're trying to do. And he gets backstage, he says, yeah, I didn't. I. He said, I just want to Grant the seed, the two of you. Because on the way to backstage, I looked at Grant and I said, grant Cardone, if you can meet those two people, I'm just going to tell you this. No matter what they tell you, you got 34, 000 people here. No matter what they tell you, it's the truth. And Grant, the next day ran into me and he was like, man, you got one big endorsement from John Maxwell. I says, because I've been working with John. John. I love John. John's a second father to me. I helped him double his business in 2013. That's where I learned so much stuff about leadership and operationalizing and worked alongside him and became so close to him. You need those relationships. And at any point, if I always this. You see this. People come and take your classes, and you see them trying to do social media, and they sound like you. They're using your content, but they're not quoting you. Yeah. And you're like, that son of a. I'm spending all this time trying to train them, and they're acting like it's them. I have never done that. So John Maxwell. Why did John fall in love with me? Because all he heard everywhere where I was ever on a stage is John Maxwell and Sharon Lecter and Jim Collins. And I always ingratiate those people that affected me. And I always give gratitude to what they did and how they taught me. And then I put what I did.
- [27:32]
Unknown
With it, of course.
- [27:33]
Brandon Dawson
And then it's a simple hack. Then I'm like, if you want to bypass reading hundreds of books and 20 years of mistakes, I'll teach you how to do what I learned from them in the next 12 months. Okay. But I don't have to act like I'm the smartest guy in the room. And people who act that way, nobody wants to help them.
- [27:47]
Unknown
One of my favorite ideas is just make yourself easy to help. Make yourself easy to root for. And I think that everything you're saying is that it's like if you just humble yourself, you remove the ego. It is shocking at how many people want to help you win and see you succeed.
- [28:04]
Brandon Dawson
The right people.
- [28:05]
Unknown
The right people.
- [28:06]
Brandon Dawson
I mean, the thing you have to address with that. And this is the problem. Most entrepreneurs. We're talking about entrepreneurs, too. So what happens with a lot of these entrepreneurs is they. Let's say they start becoming successful. They get criticized by their group because they're, oh, you're working too hard. You don't care about your family anymore. Everyone starts picking them apart. Because here's the thing. Success comes with a whole new series of conditions. And if you actually go do something, that group of people you're around, if they're not doing it, instead of actually cheering you on, they have to face the fact that if you have the courage, the wisdom or ability to go change your life, and. And they're not trying. There's this thing that happens with their. Because you're a mindset coach. There's a thing that happens with their mindset, which is, I'd rather see you fail than me.
- [28:56]
Unknown
Because that meant all of it.
- [28:57]
Brandon Dawson
Yeah, because they're looking in the mirror going, why don't I have their courage? Why don't I have their ability? Why am I not? Why don't I have their strength or their stamina? Why am I unwilling to look stupid when they're willing to look stupid? And then you finally succeed. And you know what those same people say? Oh, they gotta at look because it's the only way they could justify you breaking out and doing something. Resilience is an important thing as an entrepreneur that wants to succeed. And the mental fortitude and strength to be willing to leave behind and move forward and elevate yourself up has to be a core strength.
- [29:31]
Unknown
It's tough. It's a tough realization. Grant speaks about this a lot. To get something good, you have to let something go.
- [29:37]
Brandon Dawson
Yeah. 100%.
- [29:39]
Unknown
People are everything. Whether or not it's the people that you surround yourself with that are either, you know, pushing you towards your goal or the ones that are holding you back. Business partners. Like, I mean, you had a home run with Grant, but I know that first company. You did not have a home run with those people that pushed you out of your own company. So you've learned, but those weren't people.
- [30:00]
Brandon Dawson
That was a financial institution.
- [30:03]
Unknown
But it's a group of people making decisions.
- [30:04]
Brandon Dawson
Yeah, but they're also, you know, look, I had to take ownership. If people listen to me talk, I go back and look at all the mistakes I made. And today, if I was investing in a company like my company back then and I had to do the same thing, I would do it in two seconds. I just didn't have that perspective back then because I made a lot of mistakes, and I. I was a cowboy, and I lost their confidence. And then when they could get all their money plus all their money plus 100%, they took it. Like, same thing I'd do today if I was back in the guy that I was back then. So reflection is critically important. It's only through reflection that you gain wisdom. Because in present time, you never know if anything you're doing is a good decision, bad decision, or great decision. You don't know until you look back and go, that was a great. And a lot of people find themselves in situations to where they could have had a great situation, but they blew it. Well, what changed me is when I finally was able to look in the mirror and go, you blew it dude. It wasn't their fault. They were doing what they were supposed to do. Protect their investors.
- [31:04]
Unknown
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- [31:07]
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- [32:18]
Unknown
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- [33:00]
Unknown
Two things can be true at the same time. So the first thing is that yes, you have to take ownership for the situation. You were fine, you were a cowboy, you weren't, you weren't acting in the best interest of their investors. But also say you have a little bit of self awareness and you and you you know, you realize you're not perfect but you're, you're kind of on a journey. And you, and you, and you want to align with people that will not only support your business and your professional goals, but to also support your self development goals so that you can sort of like grow together with that person. Say you're looking for investors, it's not just about money. There's a lot more that comes with investment than if you find the right investors. Okay, my real question, what I want to find out from you is how do you find out who those right people are that you should align with on your journey? With business, with investors, with, with peers. I mean employees is a whole other conversation about people. But what is like the human characteristics that you would advise somebody to look for when you are bringing somebody into your world?
- [34:00]
Brandon Dawson
Yeah, well, it's a great question. And, and unfortunately people out trying to find money and stuff don't ask that question. They just get stuck in their thing and try to go sell everybody on why they know what they're doing.
- [34:11]
Unknown
Yeah.
- [34:13]
Brandon Dawson
The most important thing, if you were to ask me 19 years old and you were to say to me, Brandon, I'm going to tell you what the most important thing is forever. It's the quality of your relationships. And you'll never have a high quality relationship if you can't be a high quality relationship. So you asked me about investors or business partners or things. In fact top three reasons businesses bust, even the successful ones is busted partnerships, egos get involved. I say there's two times people fight. No money, too much money. You said earlier it's all about people. So if I'm unclear the kind of person I am and if I'm unclear the kind of person I want to become and if I'm unclear about how committed I am to making that happen, I'm going to be unclear about who to attract into my life. If I am transactionally just trying to get something done. Like I just need money so I can start my dream. You're going to accumulate a lot of problems there because you probably don't know what you're doing and you're probably going to lose the money. So friends and family is not a good way to raise capital by the way. So I would look at the person if you want to, if you want an investor, I would go look at what that, what has that person done? I, I would never take money from somebody early days that with their money to wouldn't take an active interest in me and helping me because I Know, I don't know what I'm doing right. And so the people that helped me, even in my first company that I screwed up, they didn't invest enough in. Into the company because they were all really super wealthy. So, you know, putting a million bucks in, a million and a half bucks, and they. Papa John, Papa Papa Bear, Marky Mark, all, all those initial five. Dougie, Doug, Dougie, Dougie Good was his name, so I call him Doogie. But. But these were all my original investors, all older guys that were worth money. But you know what? They loved me because I loved them and I was appreciative and I listened to them, used to play golf and pick their brain. You want the right investors, Take an active interest in successful people and what they've done and really respectfully try to learn from them. And what I found in life is the more interested you are in somebody, the more interesting they become to you. If my interest, if I'm being interested in you because we're playing Call of Duty and smoking dope and getting drunk on the weekends, I'm going to gravitate to that. And you're probably not going to help me much. If I go find a successful local business owner and I said I'll work for you for, for the cheapest you've ever paid anybody for the next two years, I'll become your most valuable employee. I'll never ask for anything with the hopes that if I prove to you that I could be the best apprentice you've ever had here, I'll do anything at any level. Give me two years. That if I prove to you I could master this business and create value and have the humility to never ask for anything and always be the best example, would you consider expanding this business and making me a partner in the future? Imagine somebody coming into a business owner and asking that question. What would most business owners say to that?
- [37:28]
Unknown
Yes, for sure.
- [37:29]
Brandon Dawson
Unbelievable. But no. What do they do? I demand more money. I'm not being treated fair. This isn't. I want more like, like, like that's how a majority of people think and act. And those people are always going to struggle. So the more you can lay yourself out there, ingratiate the, the, the people you want to mentor, you respect them and actually really care about them and try to drive so much value for them. Because here's what I've learned. If you can't be something for somebody else, nobody can ever be that for you. Why am I a great partner with Grant Cardone? Because I'm a Great partner. If I couldn't be a great partner for Grant, Grant would not be a good partner for me. Grant would spit me up and chew me out, and he has multiple partnerships because people didn't do what they said they were going to do. People weren't respectful. People wanted to tread on his brand and then spin off other companies. I mean, we just had a situation where we had a partner we had to exit because they were setting up all these side companies using our relationships and our vendors and all this and that, and hiding things with family like that. That's not a good partner. So you will attract what you are. So if somebody wants to know how to be successful, define what you are and then choose what you're going to become.
- [38:50]
Unknown
Last thing I want to ask. I know that people's lives change after they work with Cardone Ventures and work with you. When they understand themselves, when they understand the right people to bring into their world, when they understand all the tactical scale strategy, direction that they want to go in. Just paint a picture for the before and the after. When somebody leans into all the ideas that we're talking about today, what's the outcome?
- [39:13]
Brandon Dawson
It's a great question. Here's the thing you have to know about scaling anything is that there's three levels of expertise you have to have to scale. First is personal. Second is professional. And third is financial. There's no such thing as scaling to massive success and not having all three of those things have to scale. Because if you professionally are scaling and you're smart, you're blowing it away, but you don't scale, your financial acumen and awareness and understanding, you'll bust out. If you become the most successful business owner and you throw everything at it and you ignore your family and your friends, you'll bust out personally. And you're also guaranteed in those breakpoints as you're getting big and encountering all these new things. Because you're going to have to change as a human being, literally. Break point one, 3 million or less. Break point two. 8 million or less. Break point three, 15 less. Break point four, 25 less. Break point five, 45 less. Breakpoint six, 75 less. And breakpoint seven, 125. And then 8, 9, 10, 11 to a billion dollars. Okay? Every time you enter a new break point, you will be an entirely different person that entered the breakpoint before. And if you haven't personally, professionally, and financially grown at the same time you're going through those revenues, you will break. As certain as gravity, something is going to break you and you won't see it coming. When we interviewed thousands of business owners that went broke, one consistent thing. What caused you to go broke? You want to know what everybody said? The thing I didn't see coming, it was never the thing they worried about. So you're not going to see it coming. So contrast that to the people what allowed you to succeed. Think about this. I didn't see it coming because they relied on them. Me, I, my. The people that succeeded. I surrounded myself with loyal, great people and we were in the trenches together. I might not have seen it coming, but my partner or my friend or my loyal employee did, did. So we were able to attack it before it killed us. Strength in numbers. But if you can't be it, you won't attract it.
- [41:30]
Unknown
Where do people connect with you? Where do people find out About Cardone Ventures?
- [41:33]
Brandon Dawson
Cardoneventures.com you can go to 10xhealthsystem.com you're going to find me. You can go to B. Dawson.com you can go to @ BrandonM Dawson on my Instagram and social media that's been shadow banned for the last three months now. You'll find me YouTube, you can find me on YouTube. But I'm pretty, I'm pretty out there. We post consistently. My beautiful wife is blowing up right now on social media and if you just google Brandon Dawson, I'm gonna pop up and you can find me however you wanna find me. Look, if you're ambitious, you're excited, you wanna do something great, you gotta listen to this guy. You gotta listen to the people that are proven experts out there. Stop wasting your time getting sold a bunch of bullshit stuff. Go find the experts. Go find people who've really done it that are willing to commit you energy and effort, you know it takes to do all this and you waited on me. I'm. I'm so sorry. You waited on me. I want to cram as much in as I can, but here's the thing. We're doing this because we're trying to add value to someone on the other side of that.
- [42:29]
Unknown
That's it at the end of the day.
- [42:30]
Brandon Dawson
And if they don't respect that, well then they should go play Call of Duty.
- [42:34]
Unknown
Every answer that you ever need is out there. You just got to be willing to listen, pay attention.
- [42:38]
Brandon Dawson
And here's the thing. If you don't know what your destination is, you haven't set that, it doesn't mean you have. You don't have to go. I want to be worth a hundred billion okay, you know what the biggest impact for me was When I asked my mentor at 26 years old, how much money do this guy's worth? Hundreds and hundreds, maybe even billions. I said, how much money, Papa John? How much money do you have to have where you never have to work again? And he literally, he was like, well, if you had 5 million and then 25 million, at 75 million, 150 million, and here's what your life could look like. And he said, but look at Warren Buffett. At 27, Warren Buffett was worth a million. At 37, he was worth 10 million. At 47, he was worth 75 million. But at 53, it compounded to 350 million. And then, boom, it took off. Because Warren lived like he was making 100 grand a year. And all the access capital he threw into a compounded event for him. I never forgot about that. I wrote it all down. I sketched it all out. 20. At 27, I was worth a million. I was worth 10 million. Sorry. And I'm like, I'm. I am 10 years ahead of Warren Buffett. That's right. But the problem was my. That was at 27. At 32, I was back to zero. But when I sold my company at 47, think about this. So 27, 37, 47. Warren is worth 75 million. I was asked, how did you set the price of your company? Because it was such a high price. Nobody's ever paid that for a business. I said, because I had partners and my employees, and after taxes, I needed to put $75 million in the bank because that was my target from 20 years. And I did. I put 76.2 million after taxes. If I had not had that conversation and I had not thought about it, I might have sold my business for 50 million and been happy. I got up 25. This is why Grant talks about those targets. When I met Grant, I shared that story. I said, but I have a new problem. And Grant says, 350 million. I'll solve that one for you. So we partnered. I'm now 57. We partnered six years ago. In six years from dead. Stop taking the best what I have the best we have. Putting it together with my wife as partners, we built an enterprise that. That last year did 245 million in revenue and is worth about $750 million right now. In this year, it'll go over worth. It'll be over a billion.
- [45:00]
Unknown
And for context, that is revenue for the Org, not this portfolio companies, which is.
- [45:05]
Brandon Dawson
That is my revenue.
- [45:06]
Unknown
That is Your revenue.
- [45:07]
Brandon Dawson
I am managing partner, co founder, chairman and CEO of Cardone Ventures. And Grant, my wife and I. Grant, my wife and I and Grant are 50. 50. And then Cardone Ventures, I bought 10x Health. Inside of it, it's a little 1 million dollar 1.5. And today that business is 150 million. So between Cardone Ventures 120 and Health we ended last year, they both were 100 and 20 from zero invested capital, zero debt, all internally, cash flowed. We own 99 of the equity of Cardone Ventures and 10x Health. Grant, my wife and I. And when we do what we're going to do with that, that'll be worth about three and a half billion dollars in another 18 to 24 months.
- [45:48]
Unknown
That takes care of the 350, but.
- [45:50]
Brandon Dawson
That takes care of the 350. And can I tell you, Grant's like. Grant laughed at me when we were doing the math two years ago when I hit my 300, he goes, I said, I knew you were going to.
- [45:59]
Unknown
Help me do it.
- [46:00]
Brandon Dawson
You know what he laughed at? He says, the thing that surprised me. I almost blew the deal, Brandon. I go, what? He goes, you're thinking so small. I said I wanted a 350 net worth. He's thinking, why don't you want a billion or 2 billion?
- [46:12]
Unknown
You know, when I spoke to him, he was telling me about how he wishes he was 10xing everything from day one. He would have been worth tens of billions at this point.
- [46:20]
Brandon Dawson
The guy's a machine, dude.
- [46:21]
Unknown
And he's, he's, he is a direction, north star. And direction is so important.
- [46:25]
Brandon Dawson
Got to pick your target and then you got to look for the clues to get you there. If you're drifting and wandering, it's going to be horrible if you're intentional and you take the right action. Law of attraction, like it's not a real thing, but it is a real thing if you do it this way. If you have intention, you take action towards the right objectives. Eventually you attract your target. Yeah. And that's how you get it. Dude. Thank you for having me.
- [46:47]
Unknown
I appreciate you so much.
- [46:48]
Brandon Dawson
Dude.
- [46:48]
Unknown
Thank you so much.