← Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Success Story with Scott D. Clary
David Royce - Business Strategy Expert | Why Following Your Dreams Can Keep You Broke
01:17:46
Loading summary
Transcript196 lines
- [00:00]
A
HubSpot is a success story. Partner. Now, if you're an entrepreneur, listen up because HubSpot makes impossible growth impossibly easy for their customers. If you are building a business, you need to get HubSpot. Why? Here's the perfect example. Morehouse College needed to reach new students with fresh, engaging content. A problem that every single business in the world has. But with a 900 page website, even the tiniest update took 30 minutes to publish. Now Breeze, which is HubSpot's collection of AI tools, helped them write and optimize their content in a fraction of the time. And the results? 30% more page views and visitors now spend 27% more time on their site. If you are ready for impossible growth like this, visit HubSpot. Com.
- [00:49]
B
I'd say in sales it isn't just like what you say, but it's how you say it. Becoming an expert, something to try to follow your passion. I think that's a tough sell because number one, there's a lot of passion industries out there. The average person in those industry doesn't make a lot. So following your passion can actually be dangerous. I wasn't passionate about pest control in the beginning, but I was really good at. Go out and get experience and try things when you're young.
- [01:10]
A
This is David Royce. He didn't raise a single dollar of venture capital. He didn't follow Silicon Valley's playbook, and yet he built not one, not two, but three multimillion dollar companies, including Aptiv Environmental, one of the fastest growing pest control firms in America.
- [01:24]
B
Everything is hard before it is easy. I don't care how smart you are. If you work eight hours a day and I'm working 16, you're not going to catch up to me.
- [01:31]
A
What think one of the most important ideas that helped you succeed.
- [01:35]
B
I think smart.
- [01:37]
A
This isn't a story about business. It's a story about systems belief and a sixth grade teacher who changed everything. And this is the conversation that might just change how you see discipline, success and what it really takes to build an empire from nothing.
- [01:50]
B
I don't think being an entrepreneur is about an end destination. It's not about a building an exit. It's the journey. I feel like our education system needs a remake at this point. I feel like the first two years of GE's, I think we should be able to pick whatever classes we want to take.
- [02:13]
A
David, you've said that you were the accidental entrepreneur, so explain to me what that means.
- [02:21]
B
You know, I'd say it's something that I just kind of fell into. So it was. It starts. It goes back to when I was in college. Like, I'm a broke college student. And I had a friend come to me and say, hey, I made 25 grand last summer, you know, so it's 25 years ago, so it's probably like 50 grand today. And he goes, you know, I went out and sold pest control, and I had never. I didn't really hear anything that he was actually saying. I just heard the 25 grand, and that was it. I'm like, 25 grand in the summer, like, in between college breaks to make that money. That's insane. So I drove out to Sacramento, California, had an apartment, you know, start going out and selling. And for the first five days, I sell zero accounts. You know, other guys around me are selling one to four accounts, and I'm going, what is wrong with me?
- [03:06]
A
Are you just going door to door?
- [03:07]
B
Going door to door?
- [03:08]
A
Selling past.
- [03:09]
B
Yeah. And resident. Just residential neighborhoods, you know, and it's hot, it's sticky, you know, and it's a new, new field. I was working at a snowboard shop before. Nine bucks an hour, you know, very different mentality. So that weekend I went out and I went to, like, a Barnes and Noble, you know, and got a bunch of books and just started studying. 90 minutes a day. The thought was. I had. I did have those thoughts in my mind of maybe I should go home, but I'd already got an apartment. I'm like, well, let's, you know, just. This is where the rubber hits the road. We got. We got to do what we got to do. So 90 minutes a day, like, every day for the rest of that summer, studying. And by the end of the summer, I was the top sales rookie in the whole company out of, like, a couple hundred people.
- [03:50]
A
So what was the. I mean, you're studying a lot. Great. But what was the thing that actually, if you look back, because hindsight's always 20, 20, out of all the different things that you studied, what was the thing that actually allowed you to be successful even as, like, a sales guy? Was it just, like, pure tenacity showing up? Was it just understanding the product better than everyone else? Like, what was the. The sort of the X factor? Was it a whole bunch of different things?
- [04:14]
B
Yeah, I think it was a combination of really being invested. Right. Being all in, going, I'm going to figure out this no matter what. Constantly reading and constantly working, constantly training, trying to get better on a daily basis. And I think, you know, everything's hard before it's Easy, you know, it's like, it takes practice and perseverance. Perseverance is genius in disguise. Right? Like you just keep working at it and working at it. I'd say in sales, you know, a lot of it isn't just like what you say, but it's how you say it. And so learning body language, like para verbal communication, all those types of things. I had a lot of salespeople I worked with, they're like, man, what do you doing? This is incredible. And they would say, can you go over an objection for us? Like, you know, I have this issue, you know, tell me how you would say it. And I would say it. And they're like, why say the exact same words? And I'm like, but I think it's how you say it and not what you say.
- [05:08]
A
I want to talk. We can talk about sales in a bit. But I think that the one thing that I think is really interesting is the idea of following your passion. And I don't think anybody's passion is pest control.
- [05:18]
B
No.
- [05:19]
A
So probably not when somebody.
- [05:21]
B
There's a few sick people out there.
- [05:22]
A
But yeah, when somebody is trying to figure out where to start. So a lot of people who are listening to this are probably at the same level as you in your career. Maybe you're in college, maybe you're in university. If you're listening to this show, you probably are a little bit entrepreneurial and you're trying to figure out like what to do. And the prevailing wisdom is sort of follow your passion or follow what you're interested in. And I think that there's some wisdom in that. If you've already lived in an industry for a period of time and you have access to information that gives you a competitive advantage. So for entrepreneurs that are starting a little bit later on, not right out of college, university, and they've worked in an industry for 20 years and they understand the industry better than anyone else. I do believe they should go build in that industry. But when you have no experience at all, how do you figure out where to spend your time? I mean, you kind of lucked into it because your friend said, I just made 25 grand. But what's the wisdom for somebody that has no direction, doesn't know if they should really follow their passion or should they just try and figure out something that's highly lucrative? Kind of like what you did. Like, what do you tell that 21, 202122 year old entrepreneur.
- [06:38]
B
Yeah, so I got lots on that. So one, I think it was Seneca that said luck is what happens when opportunity meets preparation. And so, number one, I'd start to. If you're, if you're in school and you're just trying to figure out, what am I going to do? I started looking for opportunities like how to learn how to identify an opportunity that could make sense, right? Like, if you look at pest control, you could go, okay, recurring business model or recurring revenue model. You could say, you know, it's growing at X per year the way my particular marketing angle was growing 7 to 10 times as fast as the traditional marketing model. And so I'm like, well, that's, that is a great way to grow. And I, I would, I would argue go get experience, which is really what you did. Which is what I did. Yeah, I just happened to have that experience. And then I leveraged being a top sales rookie to being a sales manager, became a top sales manager, and then took over an entire sales program and developed the sales program, wrote training manuals, created training videos for that program. I was managing 100 people by the time I graduated college. And so becoming an expert, something to try to follow your passion, I think that's a tough sell because, number one, there's a lot of passion industries out there, right? Like, so a lot of people want to get into restaurants or Hollywood or music or whatever it might be. And the average person in those industry doesn't make a lot. Right? And so following your passion can actually be dangerous. So I wasn't passionate about pest control in the beginning, but I was really good at it. And I got passionate initially about sales, and then I got passionate about management and training. And then I, I took that next step where I said, well, what if I own my own business in this? And then I could, you know, get really great at operations and understanding financials and all that sort of a thing. And then, you know, then it was like, can you scale from here to here? So it was kind of baby steps along the way. And I think people, like, I'd certainly be more excited about investing in somebody if they had experience versus somebody has, you know, just passion to go into something and they have no idea what they're getting into because, one, they don't know if they're going to be any good at it. Two, they don't know if they're even going to like it. Right? You may go out and you're like, oh, this isn't what I thought. You know, I may like eating chocolates, but I don't want to make them.
- [08:54]
A
That's fair. Yeah.
- [08:55]
B
So, yeah, it's I go out and get experience and try things. When you're young, you can, you can experiment all the, you know, for many years. You know, if you don't have, you know, a wife and kids or a family or whatever, you know, you've, you've got lots of time to figure out what it is that you want to do.
- [09:10]
A
When did you choose to move from employee to entrepreneur? What was the, what was the inflection point?
- [09:18]
B
So I was leading about 100 people over this training program that I developed for a company called Moxie and I was studying finance in school. I thought I was going to go into investment banking. That was like the top job you could get, you know, at the top.
- [09:34]
A
That is a vanity business too, by the way. That's a sexy business and it's one.
- [09:37]
B
That turns a lot of people out too. It's, it's you, you know, it's, it's a, it's a total grind. And in my head I'm like, okay, I'm already working 14, 16 hour days and sales, you know, and training and all the stuff I was doing six days a week. You know, I've got, I've got the work ethic to go into investment banking and then, you know, studying finance or whatever. And I thought, oh, I'll go do investment banking and then maybe go into private equity, you know, you know, maybe I'd do my own firm someday. But you know, that was so far out, it just was hard to even think about. And I went to my boss and I said, I need a letter of recommendation from you. I need it to be really good. Like, this is like one of the hardest jobs to get, you know, But I need you to explain, you know, how I was top in sales and like managed all these people and I was, you know, leader, blah, blah, blah. And he just looks at me and goes, what are you doing, man? You got to go work 80100 hour weeks for somebody else. And like you're in the top 1% of 1% of what you're doing here should go start your own company. And I had never even realistically thought about it. He kind of intimated that before and said, oh, if you ever want to start your own company someday, you know, you can kind of learn here and go do your own thing. And I was just like, I'm in college, like, this isn't a very sophisticated industry. I'm probably gonna, you know, go do investment banking or something else. But it hit me at that moment and I just thought, yeah, I'm making 225 grand a summer at that point, probably half a million dollars almost in today's money. And I'm going to go take a 70k a year job and work those hours all year long. And I actually know this industry pretty well. Like I've knocked 60,000 doors. You know, I've talked to all these people, I understand what they want. I have an idea of what we could do better. I worked at a big company my first year. It was like $130 million company and so I understood what they were doing at a bigger scale. And then this other company I was working at was a startup, but only been in business for four years. And then my boss goes, by the way, I'm selling my company for 10 million bucks or whatever and I'm like.
- [11:43]
A
Wait a second, four years, 10 million?
- [11:45]
B
I've been in business for four years and I was here three of those years and you're telling me I should go start my own thing. And I thought, okay, if I go do this, if for some reason I don't like it, I can always go back to MBA school. This will be kind of like my three, four year deal of work experience before I go back to school. So that's what propelled me to get into it. And I had saved about 300 grand. And then my old boss is like, I'll invest in you if you go do it. He's like, I want to be a silent partner and not do anything, but I'll invest in you. And so I had money and yeah, I jumped in.
- [12:16]
A
There was never, there was never a chance for you to take over his business.
- [12:22]
B
So I actually a license. So he sold off his business and it didn't have any brand recognition. And so Termin X did not want the name Moxie and so I licensed the Moxie name from him as well.
- [12:35]
A
And when you first build like a service based business, what are the main things that you have to think about? Because now you're moving from employee and you were just sales to, you know, now you have to go 0 to 1. You have to figure out the entire business model. And I'm assuming when you're first starting out, you are the salesperson, you're the one selling everything. And then what are sort of the main moves that you make to get like a service based business off the ground?
- [13:02]
B
You know, there's a, there's a list of things you got to do and I'm sure any industry in terms of how do you open up a location and that sort of thing and because I had him invest in me, I could ask him questions along the way, you know, and say, hey, what do you think about this? Or what do you think about that? The other thing I did is before I started, I sat down with him for many hours and asked him questions like, what would you do with the business if you could fix it if you actually had the time? He had multiple kids and you know, he was very busy at that point in his life. What, what would you change about the company? And I, there's about 30 things that I wrote down. And so it was, it was an opportunity for me to go to work and start solving problems.
- [13:40]
A
He gave you the blueprint?
- [13:41]
B
Yeah. And it was like an experiment, right? Like the first company I was involved in, the day to day we had one location and we're running like 65 trucks out of that single location by the time we sold. And then I'd opened up another location to understand what is it like to scale multiple locations where you can't be there every day, you know, and run it. So, yeah, it really was great, hands on experience. I, I really also, I never sold, knocked the door myself. I never went out, you know, and serviced homes on my own. I was very committed to not getting involved in the business too much like where I had to be there. And really that was like the step to go become a regional company with the next company after that.
- [14:23]
A
Do you believe, just looking back at sort of your own, sort of your own story, do you believe that people are born as entrepreneurs or is it a skill set that you can really develop?
- [14:33]
B
And I, I really don't. People believe that people are really born at all with anything in particular. You know, unless you're going to be 7ft tall, you're going to have an advantage in basketball or something. Like, I think everybody's got to practice, practice, practice. Same thing I tell my kids, you know, and everything is hard before it is easy. You know, it's, you've gotta get that 10,000 hours rule in or that principle, right, For Malcolm Gladwell.
- [15:00]
A
Yeah.
- [15:00]
B
And I think that's the beautiful thing kind of about the American dream, you know, it's, you do have that ability to grow. You may have to go find money somehow, you know, whether that's in sales or investors or whatever it might be. But if you go out and you work hard, get education, get experience, people will want to invest into you. Do some people have it, maybe a different hard drive? Like. Well, I look at information and knowledge just like software, right. And like you're just constantly upgrading your software as you read more books, you get education, whatever that is. Just do some people maybe have a better hard, like a better processor, you know, or hard drive or whatever? Maybe, maybe there's, you know, some argument whether some people like QIs are a little better or maybe someone has ADHD and they can hyper focus or they're neurodivergent or whatever it might be. So maybe there's a little bit of a gift that way.
- [15:50]
A
Listen a whole other conversation. But I think a lot of people now are just so heavily influenced by social media and so heavily influenced by these perceived overnight success stories that are either fake or not overnight success stories because that doesn't even exist, that expectations are not aligned. So then when people want to become entrepreneurs, they think that it's going to be a lot easier than it actually is and that that hurts and that if you don't set the right expectations when you're starting out, if you think you're going to make x million dollars in year one or year two and that's, you know, again, 0.001% of people actually become successful that quickly or whatever it is they're building, then all of a sudden when you don't hit that, then it's a little bit harder to keep going. But if you set expectations properly from the get go and you realize, okay, I'm going to be in this for the next 10 to 15 years, I think that regardless of whether or not you have an aptitude for entrepreneurship, you'll find a way to become successful just because you'll stay in the half.
- [16:46]
B
Yeah, I'm a, I'm a 20 year overnight success, right?
- [16:49]
A
Like 20 years.
- [16:52]
B
So I can give you dozens of examples of friends I have who are wicked smart. They just intellectually you tell them once and it just sticks. And that can be a gift. But I was never that way. I have to reread things over and over to get stick in my brain. And to me it's, it's more about hours. It's just like how much are you willing to work and how passionate, how obsessed can you be about something so that you're just constantly, it's like I don't care works 14, 16 hour days and then you know, that's actually your competitive advantage because I don't care how smart you are. If you work eight hours a day and I'm working 16, you're not going to catch up to me. Yeah, it's just, it's like maybe there's a few people out there, but the majority of people can't. It's just. It's too much. Like, if I was working 10, you're working 8. Yeah. Maybe even 12. You were doing 8, but you're not. If I'm doing done twice the amount of work in a day or hours dedicated to something, I'm gonna beat you.
- [17:49]
A
So you nearly went bankrupt at one point.
- [17:52]
B
Yeah. First year.
- [17:53]
A
First year. So this is what entrepreneurship really looks like.
- [17:57]
B
Yes.
- [17:58]
A
So explain to me what happened and sort of how you recovered. Because everybody has these sort of hitting the fan moments in their business. I'm sure you've had lots.
- [18:08]
B
Yeah.
- [18:09]
A
Over 20 years. But when it happens really early on, sometimes a lot of people like, you know what? This is not for me. Fuck this, I'm out.
- [18:18]
B
I'd rather learn early on than later. Right, that's true too.
- [18:21]
A
Yeah.
- [18:21]
B
It's like fail small, fail fast, so that you don't make those mistakes later. At a much grander scale. So it's almost like a pilot. Our first year, what I had forecast, like, even with my, my finance degree, you know, we'd gone, okay, well, if we do this well, we're going to need X amount of money. And if we do what in my mind was the, the high, well, we'll need this much. But I never forecast it up here. And so we had a good problem. The way that we paid out our sales commissions is you're paying out the. The commissions in advance of all the revenue coming in. You're paying like a percentage of the overall contract value for the first year of a client. And then we just know that a certain amount of customers are going to stick on, you know, beyond that, and we'll make our money that way long term. And so what I had to do is we did so well that first year. We thought we were going to put on, you know, 4,000 accounts, 5,000 accounts. We put on 7,500. And it was like, okay, I've got to go talk to my very top people who are making the most money, you know, sales managers or whatever, and ask them if they'll wait a little bit for that money to come in. I said, I'll pay you, you know, 10 interest on it. Are you okay? We just. We did way better than I thought we were going to do. And I had been, you know, in the trenches with them, training, you know, we had. They had an amazing summer. Made way more than they thought they were going to make. And they're like, yeah, that's fine. Like, totally understand. So they Gave me a few months to be able to catch up. And then the next year I scaled back a little bit. I'm like, okay, we're not going to. Although we could recruit more people, you know, and grow even faster. I'm going to have to put on the brakes a little bit, make sure that we're actually going to be okay. And then after that, I was like, okay, we've got this dialed in. Now we can scale.
- [19:59]
A
I need to understand the business a little bit more because this seems like a wildly successful year one, like objectively compared to a lot of the people that are just struggling trying to figure out how to get their first 50 customers. You're talking about 7, 500 accounts in year one? Yeah, I mean that's, that's. I don't think that's normal for like, in terms of like entrepreneur success.
- [20:22]
B
Now everybody heard about like, in my industry, everyone's like, what the hell is going on out.
- [20:26]
A
But still, 7,500 customers in year one is an insane amount for any business. Even if you were a great developer and you had a software product, I don't think many people have 7,500 customers in year one. So what was it that allowed you to have 7,500 customers for somebody who's just starting out? Was it a great product? I'm sure that has to. That you have to have the great product, but strong sales strategy, the ability to recruit and train, like even to have the people power to do 7,500 accounts. That's a massive recruiting training, HR operation. Was it commission based? Like, how do you, like just commission based? It was commission based. So it wasn't like there was any sort of risk in hiring these people to get 7,500 accounts. Out of all the things that I just mentioned, and maybe there's a few others, I'm sure. What do you think was the biggest X factor in achieving such quick success?
- [21:28]
B
What goes back to what we talked about before Experience, it was, you just.
- [21:32]
A
Knew this better than anything.
- [21:33]
B
Number one, I had experience. And so I knew I could not only forecast correctly, even though I under forecast how many I thought we were going to do. Yeah. I could still just change the model and go, okay, if we do this much, how much are we going to need? I'm like, oh, okay, that's the problem. Yeah, yeah. And I waited till the end of the summer to do that. I should have been doing that kind of along the way to go, hey, we're actually growing faster than we need. If you ask me in the Particular model.
- [21:56]
A
What.
- [21:56]
B
What is the X factor? The, the training was anything, you know, my horrible experience that first summer, that was, that's what led me to build a really great training program. Because I didn't want any of my friends. I was recruiting a lot of my friends to come out and work for me. I'm like, I didn't want anybody to go through that. Otherwise it was my reputation that was going to be on the line. So I created this really great training program. And then our sales reps. Not only that, like, it's one thing to do okay. Or you know, have rhetoric about how great at sales you do. It's another thing when you actually. The numbers, the data is real. And my, my strategy was if we're better at getting our salespeople to sell over time, that will, everybody will figure that out and they'll want to come work for us. But it can't just be flash or whatever else. It really, the data really has to be there. It has to be about the earnings. And for a lot of these college students that we were recruiting, it was life changing for them. Right. Like that amount of money and that was what really got me excited about the job. Like pests themselves. It's okay. It's not that hard to treat for pests. But changing people's lives, like training people, developing them, and then giving them opportunities to scale. Kind of like I had to be able to sales managers and then make commissions off everybody else, as you know, they had because they were training them and overseeing them. So to give you an idea, salespeople who switched over from another company to work for our company sold 70% more than they did for their previous company the previous summer. And so it was a combination of better training, better work ethic. You know, we worked really hard. And so that's another part of it. It's like, it's one thing just to be good at sales. It's another thing to actually work hard and work extra hours relative to the rest of the industry. And being on a team where everybody's doing the same thing. Yeah, it's kind of like being part of a championship team. It's not for everybody. They may work crazy, crazy hours and train crazy hours.
- [23:54]
A
You, you, you get paid accordingly. If, if you, if, listen, if you're the right fit, if you're the right personality, you'll make more money than anywhere else.
- [24:02]
B
Yeah. So that was the culture that we built out and then it was very help each other out. It wasn't like if you do well, keep it Close to your chest and don't tell other people. It was very incentivized to be like, hey, if you're the top person, like we want to get you on video and then share it with everybody else. And so it was more like a badge of honor, like to, to get on the training videos.
- [24:22]
A
I love that. I think, listen, I think the way there's, there's such huge opportunity if somebody does want to start a service based business, especially with that model. Because that model that you adopted, there's a lot of industries that adopt that model where you're doing commission only door to door sales. I mean, if I think about like going back, I did like the door to door painting and like the lawn aeration and all the, Those are a tough job.
- [24:48]
B
Great experience though. I bet it taught you resilience, right?
- [24:50]
A
Me, a lot of resilience. It taught me sales. I, I worked. Listen, I did not have to do cardio or go to the gym half as much because I was, I was working. I was, you know, doing probably 30,000 steps a day going door to door and selling. And I think that if I think about the companies I worked for, it was kind of just like they threw you out there and hope that you close something.
- [25:14]
B
Yeah, it's like a wet, like it's this wet rag mentality. That's what I call, it's like throw it against the wall, see who sticks.
- [25:20]
A
Yeah. Which is like, you know, and what a waste.
- [25:22]
B
It's like your company would do so much better. You have worse, you know, employee reviews or I'm sorry, better employee reviews. If you actually just train them and you really showed how invested you were with them and wanting them to do well. And then even if they don't do well, it's like, well, they did everything they could, you know, to help me get to where I needed. Whereas when I got in the industry, although this form of marketing had been around for about 10 years, it was still more focused on the product. You know, it wasn't as focused on sales. Yeah. And it was kind of like, oh, just go out and see how you do type thing as opposed to like, hey, you're required.
- [25:56]
A
I got.
- [25:56]
B
Yeah, yeah, you're required to have to go follow a manager and just watch what they're doing, you know, for several hours. And then the next week they have to follow you and watch what you're doing. And then if you want, you can switch back and forth or whatever, but you want to feel like you're taken care of.
- [26:12]
A
Netsuite is A Success Story Partner now what does the future hold for business? If you ask nine experts, you're going to get 10 answers. Bull market, Bear market. Rates will rise. Rates will fall. Honestly, I just wish somebody would invent a crystal ball. But until then, over 41,000 businesses have future proof their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one Cloud ERP bringing accounting, financial management, inventory and HR into one fluid dynamic platform. With real time insights and forecasting, you're peering into the future with actionable data. And when you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you're spending less time looking backwards and more time on what's next. If I had needed this product, this is what I would use. Whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. And speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning. The guide is free. That's netsuite.com ScottClary 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. Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post seen on other job sites. Indeed sponsored Jobs helps you stand out and hire fast. And with sponsor jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster and it makes a huge difference. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed have 45% more applications than non sponsored jobs. Plus with Indeed sponsored jobs, there's no monthly subscription, no long term contracts. You only pay for results. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed and listeners of this show will get a 75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility. Just go to indeed.comclary right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com Clary terms and conditions apply. If you're hiring, Indeed is all you need. You've mentioned that there are three phases to businesses. So startup scale up and then screw up. So talk to me, talk to me about, talk to me about these three phases just for people to understand like what's the revenue numbers or the headcount or the, or the size of the business where these, that fits into these three phases and what is the, what is the screw up phase?
- [28:29]
B
So you know a startup could be. I think it depends on the industry, right? And the size and scale and all that kind of thing. But you know, startup, it's just early days. It might be as, let's just say one location or maybe two locations, but you're, you're an entrepreneur, you're involved in the day to day and you're, you're very, very hands on. A scale up is more like you've got, you've got systems and processes down, training manuals, and you're trying to perpetuate a culture and a business across multiple states. Initially, it might be just one state, but as you start to scale and grow bigger, the screw up phase is when you start to say, you know what, we're one of the biggest in the industry. We've always done it this way, you know, we're good enough. If you start to rest on your laurels, that's where the screw up starts to happen and the cancer starts to set up. Right. It's, you've got to be entrepreneurial. You can't lose that entrepreneurial spirit. It's got to be like, hey, we're still willing to pilot new ideas. We're still, you know, we're gonna continue to get better and better. Like, we can't just say we're good enough. I found that many of the best ide come from those on the front lines.
- [29:39]
A
Yeah.
- [29:40]
B
And the problem is as you get bigger and bigger, those at the very top, they're not really communicating with people at the bottom anymore. And so when people at the ground level have those epiphanies of genius that you have to find a way to get those up to the top, up to the executive team and then pilot them and then roll them out. And so I think a great brand is a story that never stops, like evolving. Right. Like, it just keeps going, keeps unfolding. And if you're not growing, you're dying. That has to be the mentality to stay competitive with everybody. Otherwise you become a dinosaur. Right. Like gonna go, go away at the way of the dodo.
- [30:17]
A
Yeah. Well, the blockbusters of the world and all the other companies that I feel like the ego gets involved and they don't modernize, they don't change, they probably don't listen to the, the people that are on the ground level.
- [30:31]
B
And I think the entrepreneurs too, like, if they are less involved and you know, you've had some financial success, you're on a lot of vacations. You know, my experience as a founder, CEO, chairman, it slowly evolved and I started to take more time off. There was a time when I could never take time off. Like it was just impossible or If I went on vacation, I'm waking up at 5am to work until 9 and then I'm trying to hang out with my kids. That kind of a thing.
- [30:57]
A
I know what was the thing? Because even, even when you did remove yourself from the business, I mean you had, you had, you had what, four successful exits over your career. So you've found a way to still stay in touch and still listen to the, you know, the people that are dealing with the customers. I think that's one of the most powerful things you can do as an entrepreneur, even when you have the opportunity to take a month off and be the chairman and remove yourself out of the day to day. So what is the strategy that you have to constantly have this feedback loop from the front lines so that you don't lose track of what's going on and that you can actually still scale even if you're not involved in the day to day?
- [31:39]
B
Yeah, there's a couple of ways to do it. One, we did a lot of surveys, at least a couple per year. We're asking employees about ideas about how they're liking the job areas that we can improve for both them for the customers. And then the second thing is you can actually incentivize your employees. You can say, hey, we'll give you 500 bucks, a thousand bucks for any idea you send into the survey email box. Yeah, you know that we implement company wide and so we might get, you.
- [32:07]
A
Guys get some really good ideas.
- [32:08]
B
Yeah, we'll get different. You'll get lots of different ideas and like oftentimes you're just trying to find like the top 10% of those ideas, maybe top 5% that you can actually implement and pilot. And then of those that get piloted, a certain amount will, you know, get implemented. But it's really cool to have everybody be entrepreneurial. Right. Like the Japanese have a philosophy called kaizen, where everybody in the company is looking for ways to constantly improve from the very basic entry level all the way up the executive team. So it's the same mentality.
- [32:38]
A
Explain to me the evolution of the four different businesses. Because there was a point where you sold your first business to get capital to grow properly. So I want to understand over the course of these four businesses, I think the obvious question is why didn't you just scale the first one so strategically you thought through, okay, when do I sell, when do I start something new? So walk me through that because that's also very interesting. So you, you built four businesses. Were they all in the same category?
- [33:08]
B
All in the same Field.
- [33:09]
A
Yeah, all in all.
- [33:11]
B
So it's a unique thing.
- [33:13]
A
It is.
- [33:14]
B
It's not something you can do in every industry and you didn't have non.
- [33:16]
A
Competes when you'd sell. So you can't start something right away.
- [33:20]
B
I did the first time, but it was just a geographic non compete. So it's like I couldn't go back into the same zip codes where I had sold previously.
- [33:28]
A
So, okay, so, so first business, you scale it up, you sell it and then what's the next play and why did you want to sell it and not just continue to scale it?
- [33:37]
B
Great, great question. So the. I learned really quickly that money is important to have. Right. Because I almost baked right for sales the first time. And we scaled it to two locations. I'm like, look, I can scale slowly over time, but what if I sold my business, you know, and had many millions of dollars as opposed to maybe 600 grand to invest? Then I could, I could grow faster and I didn't want to disrupt momentum and how we were growing. And you know, for these bigger public companies that are in pest control, you know, M and A is a very big portion. It might be 60% of their growth annually and they've got to, you know, hit their quarterly targets and all that kind of thing. And so they wanted to buy just the customer base. And so what I did was asset deals where I just sold off the customer base with the corresponding technicians and then a lot of the customer service people. But I kept the golden goose. The golden goose was the sales force and the executive team and then a key operator in each location. So I sold my first company, was flush with cash and I'm like, all right, we can do two locations. Let's see if we can do. We'll start out in four different states. We'll see if we can pull that off. And that was fun. That was like the next challenge for me, you know. And then with that company, eventually we were in nine states. You know, we just kept rolling out and expanding. And then I'm like, all right, cash is getting low. What do we do? Let's see, let's see if somebody wants to buy us, you know, and sure enough, yeah, we're happy to buy. You sold, sold that business. When I sold that one, it was different. I didn't, I said, I'll sell to you, but I'm not going to, you know, do a geographic non compete. We have to be able to go back in the same locations. We have all the customer lists, so we're not allowed to ever Go after those customers for the next five years, but. Or three to five years. What. Whatever the deal was I structured at the time, it would vary from year to year as we got bigger, but then, yeah, kept each key operator, let the technicians and the customer base go, but kept the golden goose and started again. And each time it was, how do you. Because I, I worried about the idea of, are, are people going to be as excited about the next one? And so we just kept coming up with new ideas. If we had that money, what would we do to make it better? So that way nobody would ever want to go back to how it was previously. I think if you ask anybody in all the four companies, would you ever go back to what it was like the, the previous company? No, no, no. This is much better.
- [36:00]
A
You were super innovative, always entrepreneurial. Because, because, you know, listen, if, you know, private equity or, you know, publicly traded companies, the second they acquire that asset, they're not innovative. They're not doing anything different than they were last year. They're, they're, they're at a bare minimum, hopefully keeping things as good as they were, but they're not going to do anything radically different. So now you have this influx of cash. You have all your core people still. So then you're like, okay, what are we doing now? How are we going to, how are we going to, you know, break this industry all over again?
- [36:36]
B
And that's a good point. You mentioned private equity. And by selling the business, I was able to keep all the equity. Right? So, like, as opposed to going otherwise, to keep growing at that rate, I would have had to have gone and got investors. I also may have lost control of the business over time. And I'm like, I want to do it the way I want to.
- [36:54]
A
You're selling the book of business, really?
- [36:55]
B
And if I'm doing the work, I might as well make the money. And if I have the ability to sell and then just throw it back in the, you know, back in the company, then that's great. I can take a little bit of chips off the table maybe, but we're flush with cash and we're not really in a different position. So it made more sense for me to do it like that.
- [37:09]
A
I've never heard of anybody selling a company like that.
- [37:11]
B
Yeah, it's, it was, it's smart.
- [37:14]
A
It's very smart. So is this something that other people can emulate? Like, I'm trying to think of just selling your book of business. I don't think out of every single exit story, I've ever heard. It's you know, selling a percentage of equity. You sell a piece of the business, you sell. You don't just sell your book of business, you sell a piece of the whole business business. And was there a way that you negotiated this or is this just like an industry status quo that like works really well in this particular industry?
- [37:42]
B
You know, initially the companies didn't want the salesforce because they're like, it's too hard to figure out. We know this is a very difficult model. In fact the, the bigger companies, they had even tried doing it on their own and failed and were like we don't want that part of the business. And then later they did want it but then we're like well we don't want to sell it. So you can keep buying it the way you're buying it. And there are other industries that do this. You know, for example, alarm systems is a, is a business. Solar energy people sell even like trash services. Door to door roofing. There's a lot of different types of business that use the employee the door to door marketing model. A lot of people think it's antiquated, but it's, it's incredible if you can get the right sales force to do it.
- [38:25]
A
You know, if you look at the statistics, the majority of businesses fail. You've built and exited four times. So what do you think was sort of one of the most important ideas that helped you succeed those four times?
- [38:41]
B
I'm going to keep going back to experience.
- [38:43]
A
Experience, right.
- [38:44]
B
Because I think so many people, they hear about something and they're like well, I don't want to take the time to go learn an industry. I just want to jump into it right out of college or whatever. And if you have that experience and you're really good at something and you keep building on that foundation of getting better and better and then you're just getting. For me it was more capital to feel it to grow even bigger. That's a key one.
- [39:07]
A
What's your advice for somebody who is looking to hire out the. They've. They've built the business to X point. How do you know when it's time to move on to a new executive team? Even replace yourself as a founder? Like what is the signal that you're looking for? Is something breaking? Is. Is it? I guess that would be it. Really something.
- [39:30]
B
There's a lot. So yeah, one. You know, let's. There's. I'll start off by saying this. So there was three executives I had to replace that had been with me for A long time. One of them was the first employee I ever hired. Amazing individual, incredibly creative. You know, he'd only had a semester of college, but worked harder than everybody else, helped us build so much. And it's kind of like Jim Collins says in Good to Great. You know, he has the bus analogy where it's like, you got to get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off, and then everybody in the right seats. Same thing. And all three of those individuals still work for our company. And so if you have great people, you don't want them to exit. Oftentimes it's just getting them in a different position. And for us, when we were starting to get to 200, 300 million in revenues, we're like, okay, we need some new ideas, something that's fresh. And so if you're, I mean, you could be missing forecasts, like for a cfo, you could be not. Maybe they're just all out of ideas in terms of how to, to save money. Because the bigger it gets, the harder it is, right? And more and more overhead. It could be that you're at the executive, you're at the executive table and you're just not getting ideas anymore from the guys or the ideas you're getting. Maybe they're just, they're not leveled up or where we need to be for that size of a company. So there could be lots of different ideas. But yeah, it's, it was, it's really hard to have to go to them. But you're also thinking about everybody else in the company. If you've got thousands of people working for you, they are dependent upon having the very best people in the executive leadership. And so you've got to go out there and the way we did that, we typically hire executive search firm to go find the very, very best. Typically people who are working at billion dollar companies, like, because we were starting to approach 500 million, we're like, how are we going to take it to a billion? Well, let's bring in people who already have that experience so that we don't have to sit around and just keep trying to figure it out on our own. We'd rather have them save us the dumb tax.
- [41:30]
A
Yeah, exactly.
- [41:30]
B
And the time, you know, let's pay for that. We'll incentivize them correctly, you know, and if the company gets to X, then they get paid X, you know, they get big bonuses and equity or stock.
- [41:40]
A
When you think about hiring people that are at that level that obviously in their respective field, you know, know way more about that thing than you will ever know. How do you gauge, how do you gauge whether or not they're going to be effective at their job? And I'll tell the reason why I ask this is because I know know several people who have hot that again in the 2, 3, 4, 500 million dollar range when they start to hire executives. They say it's very difficult because some people are just professional executives and they're actually, and they've, they have a great resume, but they're not actually that effective because they're so far removed from the day to day. And it's almost like this minefield of okay, I know that you worked for a big company, but like if I take you out of the big company and I put you into like a two and I say big company like pub publicly traded company and I put you into a 2 to 300 million dollar company, are you going to be more of a, like, are you a, what's the word? Like you're good at, you're good at talking about the thing or are you actually good at doing the thing? And I think that that's a difficult thing to hire for because you don't have the experience and you've never played at the level that some of these executives have played at that. So when you hire these executives, what's the strategy so that you make sure that they're actually effective in the size of company that you're in right now.
- [43:01]
B
Yeah. So, you know, I think you got a 50, 50 shot at choosing the right executive. And I know that's not what people want to hear, but when I've talked to a lot of other entrepreneurs, they're like, that's kind of what our odds are. And we had something similar to that where we brought in a CFO and he'd been CFO of a billion dollar company and he just, it felt like he was too removed from the day to day and he was building out his team, but he really didn't have his head wrapped around every little detail and how, you know, each lever worked for each, you know, each financial lever and it wrecked our financials for the year. And it was a lot of tough learning experience to go through that. But I mean everything from looking at a resume, even if they're not in the exact same industry that you're in, you're trying to find an industry that rhymes. Maybe it's another, you know, blue collar dirty jobs sort of business or something like that. With, with a cfo, it probably doesn't matter as much that way it can be helpful, but depending upon the type of job that you're hiring for, there's gonna be different things that you're gonna actually look for. But yeah, you're not gonna, you're never gonna get it right. And it's, it's tough. You're, you're hoping that because of the experience they've had at that larger scale, they've seen things that you haven't. But we got much more in depth and meticulous about who you're hiring in our interview process. In fact, to replace that cfo, I think it took find the right cfo because we're so scared based on that first experience. Like, we gotta find super intense.
- [44:30]
A
I've heard this like there's, there's at no point does it become easy to hire executives at that level. It's, it's never easy. I've just heard of horror stories of like, you know, executives from brand names that people on this podcast would know that you hire them. And they are, they are so far removed to your point, from the day to day that they're, they're, they're not going to take you to where you need to go.
- [44:56]
B
They got to be willing to get their hands dirty. Really get in there.
- [44:59]
A
Yeah.
- [44:59]
B
You know, and granted, if you can find the right one who's actually worked in the industry before, I mean, that's incredible. Yeah. But it's a lot of times as industries, they have non competes or whatever and it makes it tough, tough to hire.
- [45:13]
A
I just want to take a second and thank Cornbread Hem for supporting today's episode. Now, now, Cornbread Hemp CBD gummies have been this really nice addition to my wellness toolkit. I don't use them every day, just when I want to unwind after those extra busy weeks, but they're perfect for those moments when you want to take the edge off and just find your balance, really just shut off from work. And what makes them special is how Cornbread Hemp crafts them. They only use a flower of USDA organic hemp plants. That's the best part. For the purest, most potent experience. No fillers, no artificial fluff, just clean full spectrum goodness and delicious watermelon berry and peach flavor. I keep them in my nightstand for those moments when I just need a little extra help relaxing. And I love how transparent they are too. Every batch is third party lab tested so you know exactly what you're getting. And they put together a special offer for all success story podcast listeners. All listeners can save 30% off their first order, just head to cornbread ham hemp.com success and use code success at checkout. That's cornbreadhemp.com success code success for 30 off your first order of these amazing gummies, the HubSpot Podcast network is a success story partner. Now, if you like success story, you're going to love other podcasts in the HubSpot Podcast network. One of my personal favorites is I Digress. Hosted by my boy, Troy Sandage. Each show is under 30 minutes. I digress helps eliminate complexity, complications and confusion in your business with frameworks and strategies to achieve true, scalable and sustainable success. If you're an entrepreneur building anything you need to listen to I Digress. This is one of the most useful business podcasts, trust me. Go do yourself a favor and listen to I Digress. Wherever you get your podcasts, you're at the point now where you have, you know, you're scaling up approaching $500 million in, in, in revenue. Incredible business. What's the, what's the thing that makes you want to sell at this point and, and sort of step away from the game? Because I mean, you've done three exits to this point. Obviously it's worked out well. But when is the point where you want to say, hey, I'm done. I want to take a step back. This season of my life is over.
- [47:20]
B
I think it's going to be different for everybody, right? For me, I remember when I first got into business, some people said, hey, how long are you going to do this for? And as I sold businesses, some people got worried that, that, you know, I might sell and then be done. But it was always, hey, we're selling, but we're starting up a new company. We're just, this is just a way to get capital, that kind of a thing. For me personally, I, I told people initially, I said, hey, as long as this is fun for me, I'm going to keep doing it. And for me, what, what I learned is that it was really about learning, it was about growth. You know, I don't think being an entrepreneur is about an end destination. You know, it's not about building an exit or building a unicorn or whatever. I think it's the journey, right? It's all the learnings you're picking up along the way. It's the character you're developing during that time. And when I look back at my favorite moments in the business, it was actually the earlier years where you're just grinding like crazy. It's like 16 hour days, like the whole team's just completely focused and in on it and you're learning every day or every week there's something new and you're implementing and you're piloting. It's exciting. And when I got to like, when we did our third company, we put all this money into really amazing headquarters. I started setting Silicon Valley companies because pest control just wasn't, it just kind of was what it was. And I'm like, well, what are other successful things, you know, tips I can learn outside of my industry? And like we built this really beautiful building with the NCAA basketball court and you know, pool tables, ping pong, foosball, you know, movie room, a golf simulator.
- [49:02]
A
You're really looking like a. Yeah.
- [49:04]
B
So when people walked in, they thought we were a tech company. And I, it was more about as we're scaling and we're trying to, you know, grow nationally, you know, into like 5,000 cities. Like, how do we get the, the human, the talent like to come in and also to make them know we really care about us. Bottom I was really struggling that, with that with my second company because as we were growing I had, I realized I had, I wasn't able to be everywhere all the time and let people know how much I cared about them and, you know, rock everybody super excited. And so building all of those things and it was fun, it was always something new. Building out a company culture, building out technology, you know, to help support the business and improve sales productivity or what it might have been. All those things were very exciting. And, and at the end of my third company, I just said, you know what, I'm not learning that much now. We're in a couple thousand cities. I think I want to step back out of the CEO role and replace myself and my protege, Vess Pearson. He'd been with the company for 10 years. I knew very, very well. He started as a top sales rep, top sales manager.
- [50:08]
A
He worked his way up.
- [50:09]
B
It's a very similar trajectory to me. When he graduated college, I put him in charge of the sales program and made him president. And over the next six years you would get to know the company even better. And then I wanted to replace myself. And so I put Vess as CEO and I was the founder and chairman. And then I could just focus on strategy. So my days went from like our weeks were like eight hour weeks down to maybe half that. And I could just focus on strategy, hiring key executives, eventually learning how to run a process to find a buyer for the business and all that sort of a thing. And so if I'M not learning and I'm not like growing that way. I, I get bored, so.
- [50:51]
A
Interesting. I always wonder, like, when is enough enough? And I think that's a question that a lot of people struggle with, especially.
- [50:58]
B
Entrepreneurs, because we, we achieve whatever it is we want to achieve and then we just kick the goalpost back further and see if we can do a little bit more.
- [51:05]
A
I know, because you keep thinking, okay, well, well, because at that point, you've had more success than you ever thought possible. Like, you never, when you start something, you never expect it to. It would be nice. Nobody expects to build a unicorn. And I mean, at that point, you know, whatever you sell it for, you never have to work again. So it's more of like this internal discussion you have with yourself about, okay, I've built what I want to build. Am I happy with this? Should I move on? But also, I think for high performing people, you start to think like, what's next in life? I'm curious. Was outside of you feeling like you stopped learning and because you could still build it bigger if you wanted to, you could IPO it. You could, at this point, you could do a lot of different things. Was there, was there, There was never any friction between business and family? It wasn't like you wanted to spend more time with the kid. Like, what was the, Is there anything else outside of, of not learning that made you want to actually exit out of the business?
- [52:13]
B
I felt like I wasn't needed as much anymore. Like the company got to a point where we had put in place all these great executives.
- [52:21]
A
Yeah.
- [52:21]
B
It was a safe. In my mind, it's a safe time to go to market.
- [52:26]
A
Timing is everything too.
- [52:28]
B
Yeah. And it was, it was, it was a good time in the sense that I knew the company could continue on and do just fine without me.
- [52:34]
A
Me.
- [52:36]
B
I never really wanted to be a public CEO, to be honest, or a public chairman. My wife is a securities fraud litigator, so maybe that may make me think twice about that idea. I've got dozens of friends who are CEOs at public companies and they're like, don't do it, man. Don't do it.
- [52:53]
A
That's so fun.
- [52:54]
B
And we were getting so big that we're getting to a point where it's like, hey, if we go to sell again, like after this time, there might only be a dozen buyers potentially on the private equity side, but more than likely we're going to have to go public. And I was just like, yeah, it's just not really my thing. I thought it was easier for me to sell, get all my money out, and have a good steward in place, good private equity firm to continue to build the company.
- [53:19]
A
Can you shut off as an entrepreneur? Did you think about this when you were selling it? Am I able to actually shut off, relax, take a step back. And I just say this from personal experience. I say this from a lot of my friends. They can't. They can't shut off. And people sell for different reasons. Sometimes it's like it's strategic buyer, right timing. But on the other side of that sale, they're like, okay, what do I do next? And did you ever have this existential crisis moment, like, the past 20 years of my life I've put into this company, so what do I do after?
- [53:58]
B
So I weaned myself off of it. I'm still not perfect, but becoming chairman gave me a chance over the course of eight years to, you know, slowly do less and less work where I didn't need to be involved. And it was really hard at first, going from, I would say, 80 down to 40 hours a week. Yeah, was the toughest part. Versus, like, I want to be busy, but you. I also was starting to have my family done and my priorities were shifting, you know, and there's nothing wrong with that. I think it's a beautiful thing. It's part of life, you know, and you want to be able to dedicate time to your family. My dad was gone, like, five days a week as a consult, as a consultant and an executive for hire. And for me, I didn't. I didn't want to do that to my kids. My mom was literally like a single mom mom, like, for a bunch of years. And so, yeah, I really wanted to put more time into my family. I would say that I have a laser like, focus, you know, this obsessive personality. It's whatever I focus on, I can typically do really well at because I just keep researching and research and researching. And so now my focus is more on things like exercise, sleep, nutrition, longevity, and just other fun things, you know, that things that are more creative, things that are philanthropic. And so I'm just starting to research and figure out maybe what's next for me.
- [55:26]
A
No, I love that. I just think it's important to. I think a lot of entrepreneurs have a tough time shutting off and turning off. And I think that you've done a very good job of finding a way to sort of point your passion towards something else. House. But I think. I think that. Listen, I think we mentioned before, even before we started Recording. I think that a lot of entrepreneurs are neurodivergent to a degree. I think they get obsessed about building, and I think that they wrap their identity into building an entrepreneurship. And I don't necessarily know. Well, it's not healthy. I know for a fact it's not healthy, but I think it's really hard to unravel that and unwind that.
- [56:06]
B
I agree. Yeah, I went through that phase. Yeah. I'd say as I became chairman and I started to, like, wean myself off of it, I always saw the business as just a symbol of who I was and my reputation. I felt like my signature was on everything. And so to have it maybe not do as well, you start to feel that a little bit as you scale, it gets harder to have the same level of excellence everywhere. And you have to be okay with a little bit less, you know, and that's why there's so many small business out there. I think, like, two thirds of America is small business.
- [56:40]
A
Yeah.
- [56:40]
B
And you're like, how is that possible? Like, they can't, you know, get bulk pricing. They, you know, they're just.
- [56:45]
A
But it's excellence.
- [56:46]
B
Yeah, that customer service. Right. Because oftentimes, like in a mom and pop business, like, the owner is right there with you, and they really, really care. And so it's a very unique competitive advantage. But as I started. Yeah. Little by little, as the business isn't quite doing as well, it was hard for me. And then over time, I just had to say, look, I am not my company. I'm just the same old Dave that I was when I was in high school or college, you know, just a little bit smarter. And then the older you get, the more you realize how you're really uneducated about a lot of things. Right. Like, you're not that smart. You become more humble.
- [57:20]
A
It's so true.
- [57:21]
B
It's funny.
- [57:22]
A
That works. I mean, entrepreneurship is, you know, you can get addicted to it for sure. You know, you've spoken about being addicted, sort of the dopamine hits of entrepreneurship. Even on vacations. I mean, I don't know when I've taken a vacation, like a true vacation. I don't remember the last time I've taken a true vacation. I'm. I mean, I. It's. It's very difficult to shut off. It's very, very difficult to shut off. For somebody that is sort of looking at. Looking at how you've been able to step away. Somebody that really is addicted to building and, And. And putting themselves into their company. Is there anything that you'd advise them to do to help them sort of understand that there's more to life than just building. Because I think this is, it's, it's beautiful how you've been able to somebody who, again, you've said you get addicted to the entrepreneurship rush, which I get, I feel it. But stepping away, it's very difficult. You've done it. You said it was difficult. Was there a strategy? Was there a practice? Was there anything that you did that really helped you remove yourself mentally?
- [58:30]
B
You know, I think some of the things was, I just noticed that I wasn't, I was starting to lose energy, especially as I got my early 40s and, and even before that. I remember looking in the mirror once and I was starting to become more and more overweight. And I just thought, I've got to do something. And I always did just the bare minimum. Like, I wasn't willing to work out. I wasn't willing to quite eat right. I just tried to eat less, less of sweets or whatever else. But when I got my 40s, I got really serious about that. And part of that was like, hey, I have the time now. I'm stepping back. I want to focus on being more balanced, more well rounded. Completely weaning yourself off of it is, is, it's tough. I think the obsessive personality, I don't know if that's just something that you have initially or if it's something that you develop over time. Because you realize that if you're not, if you don't, if you're not completely assessed about the business and evolving that a competitor is, and your existence is dependent upon that. Right. You have to like evolutionarily continue to evolve and get better and better. Otherwise you become a screw up and you start to go the other direction.
- [59:37]
A
If you're not growing, you're declining.
- [59:39]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [59:40]
A
So when you look at sort of moving on from business to the next stage in your life, tell me how your definition of success has changed over, over time. So obviously when you're building a business, what did success look like to you then, but now, how have you sort of reinterpreted your relationship with success and what's meaningful?
- [60:03]
B
I think that once you've achieved something, maybe it seems less meaningful to a degree where you're like, oh, I worked all those years and, and this is it, right? Not to take away from entrepreneurship and the thrill of it, but I think it's being in it that's what's so exciting. And it can be anything. It could be being A great musician or a great artist or whatever you might be doing. As far as success, though goes, I think success is. It's more about goals. What do you want? And that's different for everybody. That's a beautiful thing about our world is everybody wants to work crazy hours as an entrepreneur. You know, a lot of people are happy just attaching themselves to a really great mission, you know, with a company that has a really great culture and good people and, and that sort of thing. And they can be entrepreneurs like within the business, but they don't have to work as much or take on the financial stress and all that sort of a thing.
- [61:01]
A
Yeah, I think that, I think that we over glorify entrepreneurship. Yeah, Like, I really don't think that everybody has to be an entrepreneur. I, I also feel like. But I also feel like at the same time, people don't pause, entrepreneurs or otherwise. I feel like people don't pause enough and understand why they're even doing the work that they're doing or why they're even on the path that they're on. I feel like everybody's like running so fast and, and whether or not you start a business, whether or not you work in a company, I always try and encourage people just to take a step back and pause and understand is what you're working on actually aligned with your personal North Star.
- [61:45]
B
Yeah, it's really wise advice. I mean, for me, some people said, oh, you're gonna sell, like, what's next? And I'm like, slow down. I'm like, I wanna be super intentional about whatever's next. And it may not be scaling a business. I'd probably rather, or do something more creative or something more philanthropic. Maybe a different challenge than just scaling something. Or maybe I'm scaling something in that field. But yeah, I think there's. We kind of joked about this earlier, but there's probably some shadow work to be done to look back at your past and understand. I have this idea that, I have this hypothesis that all entrepreneurs have a chip on their shoulder about something thing. And you kind of have to, right? Because you're, you're saying, I want to go into a career or an industry and my likelihood of success as an entrepreneur, statistically, it gets worse every single day. Like if 95% of businesses are out of business within just 10 years, like, you've got to have something to live for and something to prove. Like, there's something inside you that really wants this. You know, it's a place for gladiators, not dabbling. Wannabes Right. Like, you've really gotta want it bad. And so what is it that's driving you? You know, have you analyzed that? You know, were you not the cool kid growing up? You know, your parents, you know, something with your parents or whatever your upbringing was? So, yeah, like, I'm diving into a lot of that. I have been probably the last five years, I've been thinking a lot about.
- [63:17]
A
It, and do you think that's a. Do you think that's a blessing or a curse to have that chip on your shoulder?
- [63:24]
B
I think it's a gift. Yeah. You know, I think you could probably look at it in a bunch of different ways, but then the real question is, like, would I have done what I did? I didn't have that chip on my shoulder. Look at all the beautiful things that came out of it. And I was reading a book called Bittersweet recently that one of my friends recommended to me, and it talks about how, you know, a lot of different. Whether it's trauma or difficult times, Artists, for example, are able to write better music or create better things or entrepreneurs. Right, like that.
- [64:00]
A
The joke. She always writes better albums when she's. When she's single and she had a bad breakup.
- [64:06]
B
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think it's those emotions that somehow we're more creative. And I really do believe entrepreneurs are artists. You know, artists probably would laugh at that comment. But it's, It's. It's creating something and building something beautiful. And if you've had some difficult times or whatever, you can throw yourself into something and build. And I think you're actually even more motivated and more creative if you're coming from those circumstances.
- [64:32]
A
This is why I think that. I think throwing yourself, especially when you're young, into as many experiences as possible is so important because it just gives you all this lived experience that you can take into whatever it is you want to build. I think that, you know, I just mentioned that not everybody has to be an entrepreneur or should be an entrepreneur, but I am a big fan of people at least trying it out. Because when you try out entrepreneurship, you'll learn so much, you'll get exposed to so much. It will make you a more creative individual. Not in a traditional sense, but just because of the exposure to all these different experiences that you've had. Some good, some very bad, some very stressful. But I think it just makes you. I don't even know the word for it. Like people that are like a problem.
- [65:26]
B
Solver, like solution oriented, you've seen more.
- [65:29]
A
Of the world so you can just, even, even in non entrepreneur discussions, when you speak to an entrepreneur about any subject, they just seem to have this more interesting perspective on it because they've just, their lived experience has just sort of opened their mind to all these different possibilities. So I think you're right. Entrepreneurs are creatives for sure. You have to be. And the more things you expose yourself to, I mean, forget, you know, a traditional definition of entrepreneurship, but just if you expose yourself to more things in life, if you travel, if you meet more people, people, you will become a more effective entrepreneur. You will always become a more effective entrepreneur. If you spend time overseas and you see how different people do business and how different people operate.
- [66:13]
B
Can't agree with you more.
- [66:14]
A
You can take that stuff into your own business, into your own culture, into your own worldview. And I think that that just makes you a stronger, stronger entrepreneur. So yes, I think a lot of entrepreneurship is creative and I think that too many people and I think that sort of the gate, the gateway drug, I don't know how else to describe it. The entrance of the rabbit hole in entrepreneurship is just in life is just to try and build something and take risk and fail and expose yourself to more things. And I think that that's just setting yourself up for a more fulfilling life, whether or not you choose to build a large company or not. But I don't think that, I don't think the true fulfillment in life is, I don't know. I personally don't agree that just taking a job when you're 20 and working it until you're 60, I feel like you're missing out on a lot of life.
- [67:04]
B
Yeah. How many people love their job?
- [67:07]
A
You know, I don't think many.
- [67:09]
B
You think about how many people switch jobs. Right. Continually now in this market really, what.
- [67:15]
A
Are they looking for? And it's not usually. I think there's even like data that when people switch jobs, it's not about a bigger paycheck.
- [67:22]
B
Right. It's sometimes, yes, for sure, sometimes. But there's, there's there's at least on a list of like 10 things.
- [67:29]
A
Yeah.
- [67:29]
B
Pay is probably, you know, number four.
- [67:32]
A
Yeah. So then what are you looking for? And I think that you're looking, I think that you're trying to figure out like, what does my life mean and why am I doing what I'm doing? And you're looking for novelty and you're looking for excitement and you're looking for all these different things that you're not getting just by working a 9 to 5 so I think that especially when you're young, take advantage of that, take more risk, throw yourself into more things, experience more of the world. And then. And then when you're 30, then you can consciously make a choice. Do I want to be an entrepreneur? Do I want to work in a company and be an entrepreneur? Because that's another option. And you could also make the argument for, you know, in the future where AI is going to take away a lot of the very basic jobs. To be successful, even within a company, you have to be entrepreneurial, slash entrepreneurial. So I think that, listen, this is why, again, entrepreneurship isn't for everyone, but I think everyone should at least try it.
- [68:32]
B
Yeah, try it while you can. Feel, you know, while you're young. You know, take some. Take some classes in college or whatever it might be. I couldn't agree more. Through you. On the travel side, there's a good argument that I may have done everything I did just to be able to travel. I do. We didn't travel a lot when I was growing up. And I just love the ability. Like, you go to a different country and you see the world differently through a different lens. Right. So the architecture, the language, the spirituality, the food, there's all these different things that help you to think differently. I remember going to Spain in this idea of a siesta in the afternoon or at midnight, seeing families walk around together because they will go out to eat at 10, later in the evening. And then people go to the clubs from midnight to six in the morning just like, wow, this is so different than the States. You go to LA and things are probably closed by 2 or something, right? Like, nobody's out that late. Super rare.
- [69:28]
A
One thing that you speak about a lot is, is learning. And you mentioned how important learning is and how, like, if you want to accomplish anything, you have to lean into learning. Now, you have more or less adopted a systematic approach to learning over your life. You have adhd, but you've consumed over a thousand business books and you read about two books a month. Month. So talk to me about your approach to learning and how you actually. Because I think there's also. There could be an addiction to learning and not implementing. So there's important to learn, but it's also important to execute. So talk.
- [70:11]
B
Knowledge is power, but without action, it's exactly. It's not actually power.
- [70:16]
A
So talk to me about your approach to learning. How do you read so much, but also how do you actually use that knowledge to actually to build your business, to improve your life?
- [70:26]
B
Yeah. So one to be fair, physically reading a book is pretty rare for me. It's almost always on audible 2. It goes back to that idea of always evolving and always growing. You know, just stay ahead of the curve and then you develop that skill set and then you start to apply it to other aspects of your life. The reading for me, like, education, like, you think about how much you really learned in school, in college, right, like, or school before. I feel like our education system could needs. It needs a remake. You know, like, at this point, I feel like the first two years of ges, I think we should be able to pick whatever classes we want to take so you can figure that out. You're spending the money, figure out what you like and what you dislike, and then you choose a major and. And then, you know, you go forward. You know, I think if I had had four or five years of business classes, how much better would I have been at what I did and how much more thrilled would I have been about college and want to even donate more, you know, back? It's like, hey, you really helped me out. Whereas I felt like I was limited in what I could study and when. But, you know, our college, the knowledge, what we learn in college is. It's probably irrelevant in what, five, 10 years after, you know, it's even faster now with technology. Everything just keeps changing. If you go back to college, like, Facebook wasn't even out when I was in college. That shows how old I am. But, you know, everything from Snapchat to Slack to Instagram to, you name it, there's all these different things that maybe businesses use today to brand or whatever or to, you know, increase productivity, and they just weren't even around. So, like, you've got to stay ahead of the curve. I learned that, that, and then now I'm just applying that to my own life.
- [72:13]
A
Do you feel like, do you feel like college university is still useful?
- [72:17]
B
I feel like it's still useful in terms of having you sit in a chair and go, okay, you got to learn these things. You know, for some people, they can maybe go do it on their own. But I, I do feel like when you're younger, like, you want to go out and just have fun.
- [72:31]
A
No, I know. That's the thing. So if I think about, if I think about my, my college experience, I. I did not take it seriously at all. It was, it was, it was a.
- [72:39]
B
Lot of parties, a lot of partying.
- [72:40]
A
A lot of drinking. Like, but we were talking about this for we press record. I think that, I think that there's so much information out there. You do have to, you have to. You. The word is autodidact, right. Like a self taught individual. If you can take, if you can take, you know, even a fraction of the information out there and, and truly study it and implement it. I mean everything you need to know is available in podcasts and YouTube and books. I think that it's just understanding that you have to not just consume and accumulate knowledge but actually action it and do something with it. But does, you know, does traditional university have a place? I'm sure it does. I mean I think that, that you know, you can always make the argument that the network that you build through education is phenomenal and that's, that's probably only going to be a certain subset of, of schools. It's not going to be every school you go to where you have a significant network. But I don't think that people should depend on traditional education and tradition and traditional school. I think they should, I think there's a lot of people that could just be successful by learning online line but they have to actually action it and do something with that information.
- [73:59]
B
Yeah, I think network is critical. Like if you're talking, I don't know if it's top 30 schools now or whatever it might be. It used to be like top 10 schools. The reason you go there is because you know, your network, like when I, when I talk to friends who went to those schools, like they're still in contact with many, many of their friends.
- [74:15]
A
That that's a good reason to go to school. But in terms of the actual information that you learn.
- [74:21]
B
Learn.
- [74:22]
A
Yeah, it gets outdated quick and then.
- [74:24]
B
The recruiters, whoever, like the very best firms are probably going to those top 30 schools or whatever it might be. And so I think that can be helpful. You're looking for a job after. If you're going to be an entrepreneur, you know, it's kind of a different story.
- [74:37]
A
Have you thought about, have you thought about, you know what, when you, when you build a business like this, you never thought about passing it on to your kids to some degree or trying to get them to, to, to take it over or.
- [74:51]
B
I have two daughters, I'm not sure.
- [74:53]
A
If they want to go into passing.
- [74:54]
B
How excited you want to impasse. And I'm not, I'm not huge on family business. Some people can pull it off but it is extremely difficult to pass something on. Right. Like maybe the next generation, they're, they're not excited about that industry or you know, what made you, they're not going to have a lot of those same experiences, like usually entrepreneurs to come from some sort of tough experiences I found, or to tough circumstances. And they're going to have probably a cushier life. Right. Like vacations or, you know, best schools or whatever it might be. And I'm not, I'm not even trying to create trust funders. I'm going to give all my money away to charity.
- [75:34]
A
Are you?
- [75:34]
B
Yeah. And so I'm, I'm being very upfront with them. I'm saying, hey, like, you've got, you've got me. You know, you're going to have, have the ability to go to, if, if you work hard in school, whatever school you go to, I'll help you with your education. But after that, you got to grind on your own. You got to make it happen. So I don't want them to lose that incentive to work hard and to go do whatever it is. That's. I also feel like it's, maybe it's an equity thing. It's like, fair. Like I. They're going to have what I, you know, could have. You know, they're going to have that ability to, to do whatever they want, ask questions, go to the best schools, that kind of a thing. I would give my money to people who maybe have worked really hard in school, but they don't have the financial means to get through it, you know, and give those people a leg up.
- [76:19]
A
Do you think that, do you think that you would prefer if they were entrepreneurs themselves or have you never.
- [76:27]
B
I don't know if I've thought about that far into it. I just think for people who didn't grow up with the right role models and then they're that incentivized to get out of whatever that situation they're in. I love that. To me, like, somehow perpetuating American dream, I think is a good thing.
- [76:43]
A
What is next for you? I mean, we spoke about, you know, we spoke about. You're focused on your health, on your family. You give back. Have you thought about anything to do with the next chapter or what you want to, what you want to do in the future?
- [77:00]
B
Yeah, I'm really just taking time to think about what I achieved, why I did it, what made me happiest, you know, when I was doing it, to figure out what that next thing is. And I think whatever's next, I really don't have something in mind other than, you know, maybe something creative or maybe something philanthropic in my mind. It's. It. I have to be able to grow.
- [77:23]
A
Yeah.
- [77:23]
B
And Then two, I want there's something to be, be some sort of a service aspect where I'm giving back and, and helping people.
- [77:29]
A
If people want to keep up, where would they, where would they go and connect with, with you? Just LinkedIn the last question I like to ask. So you've given over a lot of wisdom, but if you could distill all the lessons that you've learned over your life into one of the, like, one major, most important lesson, say the lesson that you could pass on to your kids, if you could only pass on this one lesson, what would that lesson be and why?
- [77:54]
B
I'll always be learning, right? Because, you know, they want to say leaders or readers. There's a lot of quotes around this concept. But just, just if you're learning, it's, it's inspiring, it's exciting. Like you can take control of your life that way. You know, there's so much great knowledge out there. And kind of like you said earlier, right, like, knowledge is power, but it's only potential power if you don't actually apply it. But yeah, it gives, it gives me a lot of confidence to know that whatever you really want in life, you can study up, research it, become an expert at it, and then hopefully go to that.