← The $100M Entrepreneur Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
Sales cures. All the sales and the marketing and the hype of like, look at my brand, look at this. We did a NASCAR deal, the main Utah State Fair. We're the brand. Like marketing caused demand. Monster Rockstar, Red Bull. That was my arch Nemesis, the 800 pound gorillas. Monster Rockstar, Red Bull. And I got Costco to drop Rockstar for me. They actually came back to Costco and paid them $2.5 million to take me out. Like energy drink wars. I've been living in Malta, built up this poker site. Fifth biggest poker site in the world, netting net, net six figures a week.
- [00:27]
B
All right, 100 million. That's the goal as an entrepreneur. Dan Fleischman, another hundred million dollar entrepreneur. Welcome to the podcast.
- [00:35]
A
Thank you.
- [00:35]
B
Thank you, buddy. I want to start with first and foremost, the losing money making it back story. Tell us a bit more about that story because I think it's a great lesson for people about resilience and what it takes.
- [00:48]
A
It was April 15th at 10:10am I was at the Bellagio Casino. I get a phone call from Dan Bazerian. Where are you? I'm like, I'm at the Bellagio. He's like, why aren't you in Malta? I had a poker site based in Malta and I'd been living in Malta, built up this poker site, fifth biggest poker site in the world, netting net, net six figures a week, five employees at five grand a month each. That's my total overhead. I'm living in an apartment in Malta by myself and just crushing. We have tens of thousands of players coming into the poker site. I fly into the Bellagio because I'm about to have a meeting at the Hard Rock with this guy that invented the slot machine loyalty card. Got it, sold it for $440 million. He owned Jeopardy. And Wheel of Fortune, the licensing to all slot machines. Rich. Rich, right. I have a 12 o' clock meeting with him. 10, 10 in the morning. I just lost $65 million company in one phone call.
- [01:41]
B
Yeah.
- [01:41]
A
And I walk into this meeting and he goes, man, you look like somebody died.
- [01:47]
B
Something died.
- [01:48]
A
Yeah. His name was Edward Fishman. He was in his 80s. And he, I said, turn on the TV. So he turned on the TV and there it is all over ESPN, CNN, everywhere. The FBI had seized full Tilt poker, poker stars, all my competitors. I logged in my website. Nothing happened. I didn't get in trouble. Nothing happened to me. So I manually pay back 41,000 players the next four days instead of about to get a wire on the 19th, April 19th, instead of April 15th, lose 65 million.
- [02:16]
B
Wow.
- [02:17]
A
I'm not bitter or anything.
- [02:21]
B
You know, I teach business owners, you're going to have an exit from your business. Either you kill it, it kills you, or you get it to run without you, or you get to sell it for something that's. We're all going to have an exit. That one was just a little more sudden than you probably wanted.
- [02:38]
A
Yeah. By the way, I will say this. It's the best thing that ever happened in my business life because from that moment, never put my eggs in one basket again. I became an angel investor in 43 companies. I started throwing my live events. I started my charity for the homeless. I started this, I started that. I started speaking. Everything started when I lost everything. Yeah.
- [02:57]
B
Yeah. I think that sometimes getting it, and I won't say it was easy that first time around, but getting that success sometimes stops our innovation like that loss demanded. Dan, innovate in life, in self, in everything. Why do you think it is people don't demand innovation of themselves? What is that?
- [03:21]
A
They sit on the floor and cry about it. I had every right to cry, right? I just lost 65 million. April 19, I'm supposed to go to Costa Rica with a bunch of models, do a photo shoot and poker pros. And I rented out a whole resort called the Gaia Resort. I had it all lined up. Instead, I could have sat on the floor and cried about it. And by the way, some of my competitors are dead or in jail and some of them committed suicide because it was billions of dollars lost. Right? And for me, I just wanted to fix it. I wanted to make sure that all 41,000 people that didn't withdraw, there was hundreds of thousands of players. But 41,000, I had to manually pay back. 2011. Try it now. But 2011, it was like the ice ages for technology. And because of that, being immersed in trying to fix the situation instead of crying about it. Once that week went by, I didn't have emotion about being sad. I just had to figure out what was going to be next, which was all the everything else.
- [04:11]
B
I. I remember as a young man when I had my business partners decided they liked my money more than I did.
- [04:17]
A
I got those stories, too. For you.
- [04:18]
B
Yeah. I moved back in with my parents, which you want to have a humbling experience. It's like, hey, Mom. But I remember my dad just came and said, listen, make a list, start at number one. I said, I don't know. He says, you've made millions of dollars. Yes. I said, yes. He said do it again.
- [04:35]
A
Right?
- [04:36]
B
Not complex. I hadn't lost the knowledge last the money. So let's we do three layers of business here on the podcast. Getting to your first million, getting your first 10 and then scaling to 100 sort of thing. Let's go back to what's something that you thought when you first went into business that you'd argue against today? Like when you're a young man starting getting your first million, what would you argue with that today? And how would you teach it different to yourself and to others?
- [05:03]
A
So my first million, I was 17 and a half and it was here in Las Vegas at the magic convention at the Venetian Hotel. And I couldn't even get my business card to get inside. I didn't have an ID to get inside the convention. I had to sneak my way in and we wrote over a million dollars.
- [05:16]
B
Which by the way is the clothing convention here in Vegas.
- [05:19]
A
It's 1999. The booth next to me is Daymond John's FUBU brand.
- [05:22]
B
Oh really?
- [05:23]
A
On my left is Sean John. So Diddy had his brand. He launched the same show I did in 1999. Sean John also became a multi billion dollar company. And I'm 20ft booth in between these 2 million dollar booths next to me. And we wrote a million dollars in orders. And I remember my older brother and my partner's dad called us and when we told them, oh my God, we got over a million dollars in orders from Nordstrom's and Miller's, Outpost and Mervyn's and all these brands, blah, blah, they said, pack up and come home. It was a four day show and on the first day we wrote a million dollars in orders and we both like separately. What are you talking about? Right? And it was because of what you're exactly thinking. We weren't ready, didn't have a manufacturer. How was I going to make a million dollars in orders? I literally didn't have a manufacturer. I made my T shirts for the booth by the beach in San Diego at a print shop. How was I going to make denim? They didn't have to do denim. And so I'd say oftentimes I like people just get started and get out there. But you also have to have things set up. And the 17 year old version of me had nothing set up. I just knew that I had a funny catchphrase. Who's your daddy? That's what I was selling. I was going to get a big booth, 20ft, not 10ft. I was going to spend four grand, not two grand. Like I Thought I knew everything. So I was 17. And so now I'm obsessed with telling entrepreneurs about setting up shop Corporation and your llc, your website. What if someone wants to pay you? What's that contract look like? Just the basics. Set up shop before you go out there.
- [06:48]
B
Yeah, that balance of demand and supply. If you're. And this is a challenge for a lot of business people though, because I'm going to flip this back to you. You're a genius at demand. Right? Most business owners, their genius is supply.
- [07:03]
A
Right.
- [07:04]
B
They're 80% supply focused and 20% demand focused. How did you become a genius at demand rather than supply? And what can people learn from that especially to that first million sales cures all.
- [07:19]
A
If I get sales, my investors are excited, my employees are excited, my other clients are excited because I tell them about I have other chain stores. So if I say I got Miller's, Outpost Bourbons and Nordstrom's and you're at Macy's, you want to buy from me, don't you? Yeah, because my competitors bought for me. Sales cures all. So I would go out there and just the sales and the marketing and the hype of like look at my brand. Look at this. We did a NASCAR deal. We're the Salt Lake City, the main Utah State Fair. We're the brand like marketing caused demand. When I did the Utah State Fair deal, it was Coca Cola for 16 years and they switched to a little energy drink for two years. Two year deal. How did I do it? I didn't have the 1.8 million they wanted per year. I got 3.6 million a year from Smith's grocery store. Smith's grocery store bought 3.6 million. I netted 1.8, gave that to them and I made it for Smith's. You get tickets to the fair, you get four of them for $20 for every four pack, which is only $8 at the store. So you spend eight bucks, you get $20 tickets and you get the drinks. They did like $11 million in sales. And so the little engine that could to fight with things and my long winded answer is by creating the sales and marketing, everything else starts to fall in place and it forces you to level up.
- [08:31]
B
Yeah, most people hustle at the start on doing the job. You were the opposite. Your hustle in the beginning was the sales and marketing. Was that just a mentality, a decision? Was it just your nature which way?
- [08:45]
A
So I was trying to do everything I could morning, noon and night. And so I knew that if I had sales I could Go out and get more investors. I knew if I had more capital for investors, I could do more manufacturing. I knew if I did more marketing, people would be more excited by my product. More people buy product. I can then get into the other chain stores. If I could do that, I could create customer demand. I was just building it as I was going. So I don't have like a rocket science answer. I was 17, 18, 19 when I finally launched an energy drink. I was 23. I took it public on the stock market at 23 years old. I had no idea what that meant. Zero, actually. Zero.
- [09:21]
B
But there's something you've said in your answers that you just say naturally. And most people don't get it. You were bringing on investors from day one for sure. Most business owners try bootstrap it. Hustle and grind, they go through that. Share with me the mentality of bringing on investors other than, well, I didn't have any money. I had to.
- [09:42]
A
So I had the sales, and I can go get the sales. Here's the problem in the beverage space or food and beverage, that whole category. Let's say you get an order from Costco for $1 million. Great job. Brad Sugars. You got a million dollar order from Costco on January 1st. You don't ship to them until March 1st or April 1st. So it's 90 or 120 days. You're putting up the 500K to make the million dollars of product. Once they receive it. Let's call it April 1st. It's net 30, net 60 or net 90. When they pay you, let's say they love you. It's net 30. That means May 1st is your first chance of getting a payment. But Brad, your drinks are actually really good. And they start to sell through after two weeks. Hey, Brad, guess what? You're getting a west coast regional buy of $5.6 million. Brad, you got to come with $2.8 million. You scrambled and mortgaged your house for the first 500K. You haven't been paid yet. I knew we were gonna be great in my mind. And so I was going to where the puck was, right? The hockey theory. Wayne Gretzky.
- [10:38]
B
Gretzky analogy.
- [10:39]
A
And so I knew I was gonna be in tens of thousands of stores and I needed a lot of capital to do that. And if I didn't do it, none of it would ever happened. And too often you see these brands, like, why did this snack company or cookie company raise 18 million? They needed to survive, literally for Air Force, for the retailers, because they were doing so, well, if you suck at your business, the capital you're just going to burn on your overhead. If you do great, you are going to need a war chest of capital, especially in food and beverage. And that's what my life was the first 10 years. Yeah.
- [11:10]
B
Yeah. I think that it's great that you were in a business that demanded capital.
- [11:15]
A
Yes.
- [11:16]
B
A lot of people go into business that doesn't demand capital, so they never learn how to raise it. They never learn to be good. Just touching on that for a second. I've always said to people, raising capital is the same as selling anything. It's just a sale. You're gonna meet with a bunch of people and you're gonna sell them. You're gonna pitch them an idea, and some will buy and some won't. Thoughts on raising capital?
- [11:38]
A
So the first round is friends, family and fools. Yeah, right.
- [11:43]
B
Throwing fools.
- [11:44]
A
In the end there, the friends, family and fools. Because they're gambling on you.
- [11:49]
B
Yeah.
- [11:49]
A
You might have the best product. Let's just use the energy drink. Brad has an amazing energy drink. He knows someone at Costco. That's all fine and dandy. You have to bet on that person that they are what I call ride or die. When you get that capital. So when I say to people, if you're going to raise money, you better know you're going to work on this thing. How can you find out? Taste it, go try, go to the chain store, go to the convention, go to Magic, etc. Sell your clothing, sell your drinks, sell your whatever your products are. And once you know that people believe in that product and they're actually willing to buy it, you should for sure raise capital because you are now in an uphill battle. If you go there and no one wants to buy it, please don't raise any money because you can't change customer habits. People have to want to buy your water, your books, your product, your coaching, anything. They have to want to buy it. No amount of marketing is going to make them reorder something. Meaning I can get my drinks onto a shelf once. If it doesn't sell through, that's it. If someone buys and they taste the drink and doesn't taste good, that's it. No amount of marketing gets past bad product.
- [12:53]
B
Yeah, I can think of a few of those.
- [12:54]
A
Of course.
- [12:55]
B
Especially sports energy drinks. It's like, yeah, some famous guy who boxes, he made a sports energy drink and it's awful.
- [13:03]
A
Billions in sales and then has an 80% drop. Yeah, right.
- [13:06]
B
Because it's just not good.
- [13:07]
A
Yeah, I'm a dear friend of his. But we've watched it happen. It's the proof is there, right? The quality of product has to be there.
- [13:14]
B
I know that, like, because for us, action coach, 32 years doing this. Why? Because our coaching works. You know, we don't have customers with 20 years because it didn't work. They're here because it works type thing. And so that's that. All right. So your first million, you gotta hustle your butt off. You gotta be amazing, you gotta do all that stuff. Part of that lesson of the capital is the 10 million because each. It's rare. You're gonna scale. Scale needs capital. It just does. Human capital, financial capital, intellectual capital. Let's talk about bringing in intellectual capital. Are you a fan of agencies, staff? Where do you cause for speed? Intellectual capital? Talk to me through that one.
- [13:58]
A
Yep. So I like to work with agencies in certain categories that are category specific. Because you're never gonna have someone as good as them. Cause they don't spend as much money as them, meaning anyone that I always see these people post on Facebook and everywhere. I want someone with 5 years experience that spend over a million dollars a month and blah, blah, blah. They don't want to work with you. Yeah, they can sell four grand a day of freaking couches and pillows and napkins, let alone. Why would they work for you for your whopping 12 grand a month. No, rather an agency that's got 42 guys like that that is paying them all six figures each and giving them equity. They have wisdom of the crowd because they've got 62 clients. They're spending 100 million a year. They've got. So I like hiring agencies that have proven track records. Not small agencies, no offense. Small agencies you can't do at scale. You just haven't spent the money.
- [14:48]
B
Well, that's for us. Like we go to an agency and we got a thousand offices around the world. And I'm like, all right, so if I send all thousand of my people to you, how will you handle that? And they're like, yeah, we can.
- [14:57]
A
Of course not.
- [14:58]
B
Thank you very much. We need to find someone that can scale with us. And then they've got to have the capital to scale with us too. So I think that's important. So where do you hire internally rather than agency?
- [15:13]
A
Yep. So people that have to live and breathe the company. Right. I want a coo Sometimes I want a CEO. If I'm not running the business, I need as true someone to handle accounting. If it's not an accounting firm, I Want a real cfo. A lot of times the main thing I'm looking for is I want sales. But I'm open to sales agencies. They're a bit disposable because they're hiring fine all the time. So I'm open to agencies because a lot of times it's replaceable. If I have a good product like me selling action coaching, I can do that in a heartbeat. Because hire eight guys, four of them suck. Four are good. One's a superstar, whatever. Like I can burn through it internally though. I need someone that's the administrative assistant that lives and breathes us. I need someone that's the CO that's operating just us. There's nothing else. Is not a consultant. Just lives and breathes us. And so I want my C level executives to be my main. A lot of the people here in the administrative are interchangeable.
- [16:11]
B
Yeah.
- [16:11]
A
Because if they are not bringing in sales or making an impact for me, I'm not as concerned. But I do want my administrative assistance dealing with my C level executives that they are ride or die and I want to pay them higher because I want them to not leave me.
- [16:26]
B
Yeah. It's interesting. The pay peanuts get monkeys sort of thing. 30% more money and you get someone who's twice or three times as good.
- [16:32]
A
And they don't leave waste months trying to hire someone new.
- [16:36]
B
Cost so much money when someone leaves. You know, I remember doing a speech in Dublin and the guy after me was Sir Richard Branson who's like, yeah, the Australian convict. And sir. And someone asked him, you know, do you ever worry about training your people and they leave. He says, no, we train them so that they can leave. But we run a company so good that they want to stay for sure. And that's a big thing. You mentioned sales agencies. We have sort of a rule of thumb. If you need a large team of sales will hire in house because you can, you can burn through four or five and keep the rest. But if you need one or two and you build on one guy or one gal and they leave.
- [17:14]
A
Yes.
- [17:15]
B
Your whole sales is done. Let's then talk about the distinction. The, you know, the old what got you here won't get you there for sure. Getting to a million versus getting to 10. What are the things you have to change dramatically to go from superstar at 1 to get into 10.
- [17:32]
A
Your emotions with those people.
- [17:35]
B
Letting go.
- [17:36]
A
What? Because a lot of times you're hiring your friends and your uncle and your dad and your brother to get you to a million and they can it's really rare they can get you to 10 million. And I pinky swear none of them will be there at 100 million. You might even be friends with them. Unfortunately.
- [17:49]
B
Yeah, I found that you generally have to demote people as you scale the business. And if you're not willing to demote people or move them to the side or people give people a C level executive title well before it's needed.
- [18:04]
A
Because titles are free.
- [18:05]
B
Yeah, yeah, but they're not free when you go, okay, my CMO at 2 million a year spend is definitely not my CMO at 100 million a year spend.
- [18:13]
A
No, and they shouldn't be. And they couldn't be. They don't have the experience for it. And people are like, oh, but this, but that. But they've been with us from the beginning. That's all fine and dandy. I pinky swear they're going to go get another job just fine because they got the experience and you go get them the best approval stamp of approval from you to go get them another job. They cannot should not be your head of sales or your CMO when you're going to 100 million. How do they know how to deal with outdoor marketing and buying billboards and buying bus stops and buying freaking super bowl commercials? How? No, you know what they've done? They've run Facebook ads for you and some TikTok ads. How do they know about SEO and Google and SEO? They don't know. They can't spell SEO.
- [18:52]
B
But even hiring agencies, like a CMO at that level has worked with a dozen agencies. They probably come in and go, yeah, we'll use this guy, these guys for that, these guys for that. Rather than, let's guess, right? You know, you don't go to Rome and get a tour guide that grew up in Philadelphia. You know, you go to Rome, get a tour guide that they were there. What's something that gets you to 10 but stops you getting to 100?
- [19:18]
A
So what gets you to 10 is you going out there and just calling. Just get the sales, go to the conventions, go to the trade shows, the systems and operations, convincing the clients that you had at 10 million to scale with you. Meaning if I go get into Costco, Ralph's Bonds and Albertsons and I want to go in and get 30 more chain stores, the business going to go bankrupt. It will compared to all store buy from Costco, all store buy from Ralph's, all store buy from Vaughn's. The four that I had, all store buys from them can get me to 100 million better than getting to 30 chain stores. That's gonna cause complete disarray. Shipping, trucking systems, operations, net 30, net 60, net 90. All different terms. Every single chain store needs its own marketing program. I gotta do point of sale displays for them. I gotta do, you know, the newspapers that come to your house, the coupon ads. I have to do outside marketing. I have to wrap vehicles. I have to do so much stuff around one Costco. If I go try to do it for 30 different brands of CVS and Walgreens and everybody else, I'm literally gonna go bankrupt. And so going from 10 million to 100 million is typically with the same clients just going all in with them.
- [20:25]
B
It's interesting strategy. So it's really do something once, get great at it, but have customers that can take you to that. Let's go backwards a step. Most people don't think of doing business at that level. The big companies selling to a Costco, selling to those sorts of things. How did you get comfortable with that in the beginning? Or was it just natural for you?
- [20:47]
A
So I wore the brand every single day from 17 to 23. When the energy drink launched and we went public, I carried the drinks with me literally everywhere. Like I would have it in my pocket, a 16 ounce can, one pound was in my pocket at all times. I would have an energy shot, little 5 hour energy size shot in my pockets. In my car, I didn't care if I was warm, I'd bring you ice. I carried my brand literally every morning, noon, night. If I was at a funeral, at a wedding, it was in my car. And then I would slip it into the wedding afterwards and bring it out during the party like I always had it. And so what made me comfortable was everywhere I went, I talked about it. I was at the car wash. I promised you we're gonna get into the car wash. I stopped at the gas station, I talked to the manager everywhere I went, to the restaurant, the bar, the nightclub, the college, everywhere I went, I talked about my product everywhere. So when I was starting to talk to Costco, it's the same thing. And by the way, if you walk into Costco and you're already in 406 stores in the area, guess what? You're getting to Costco. Yeah, because the security guards knows about you, the secretary knows about you. Like I make the ecosystem know about me because I would take over a market before I even walked into the big chains.
- [21:49]
B
That ecosystem theory is something that's amazing that I don't think people understand. Give us more Depth on that. I think that's really important.
- [21:57]
A
I got a perfect fun story for you. So I really wanted to get into Walmart. Obviously, it's the holy mecca of chain stores. For context, if you get a four way of T shirts. So four T shirts. It's an $11 million opening order for four T shirts.
- [22:11]
B
Got it.
- [22:12]
A
That's back then imagine now it's got to be 20, 30, 40, 50 million. Right. And so I wanted to get to Walmart. What did I do before I set up the meeting? I sponsored the high schools within 10 miles because guess who their parents are.
- [22:25]
B
Yeah.
- [22:25]
A
They work in Walmart. Right. I sponsored limo buses for their prom. I sponsored the football teams, I sponsored the baseball teams. I actually was sending care packages to all of the main players on the football and baseball teams, the basketball teams. I put coolers in the locker room before I even called Walmart. Guess what? I actually didn't call Walmart. They called me everywhere they went. And I only bought two billboards. The exit to get into Walmart corporate headquarters.
- [22:55]
B
Oh, that's perfect.
- [22:56]
A
And on the way out, I'm sweers.
- [22:58]
B
I know.
- [22:58]
A
You're serious. That's perfect. I got pictures of all this. And so they thought I was everywhere. I'm a top 10 energy drinker in the world. Because in their mind, they saw me everywhere.
- [23:08]
B
Yeah.
- [23:09]
A
And they finally. And they called me and I went there. And the meeting's a lot different when they call you because they're getting pitched the other 900 drinks in the market. Remember Costco, Walmart, they really only carry three or four brands of anything of any category. Monster Rockstar, Red Bull. Monster Rockstar, Red Bull. That was my arch Nemesis. The 800 pound gorillas. Monster Rockstar, Red Bull. And I got Costco to drop Rockstar for me and I got Walmart to place me instead of Rockstar. Rockstar actually came back to Costco and paid them 2.5 million to take me out. Like energy drink wars.
- [23:40]
B
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's a fun thing. In any product or any business that you're in, that's going to be the case. 100 million.
- [23:50]
A
Yes.
- [23:52]
B
What is it that most people don't realize about getting to 100 million and above?
- [23:57]
A
So that's been my life since 2019. I created 100 million mastermind experience. I used the word experience going into our seventh year now. And the whole concept was I'm going to bring in guys that are doing 10 million or more to get coached by guys doing 100 million or more. Because it's a huge difference. The whole point of your podcast is that difference. When you get into that place, you need to go kidnap the best executives you can. You want to build the best. I'll just keep using energy drink. Go get the vice president of Monster. You want the best cmo? Go steal the CMO of Red Bull point blank. Go kidnap the best person from your competitive field. And often it's the number two or three at that place because they're capped.
- [24:38]
B
Yeah, they can't get the CMO role, junior. Yeah. They're the next guy down. Next gal down.
- [24:43]
A
Yes. And when you do that, what's really interesting happens is you'll usually get one to four more that come over. You'll get one to four more executives that come over or staff members or supporting roles that come over. And so oftentimes I'll get someone to come to the company and I get three more people from that company. It's really fascinating what happens because they're capped or they've been there for three, four, five, 10 years and they're frustrated or, you know, it happens in corporate culture. And I do everything I can to keep them. And by doing that, the people are what scale my companies. Right. I'll give you a quick example. My Elevator Studio, my agency for the first nine years from 2011 to 2020, every caption, every post, every contract, every wire. I did 110,000 posts. You saw Kim Kardashian post the product. I wrote the caption. I'm taking the picture. I dropped the fashion of a dress off for her. I go to Tyga and Kylie's house, drop off. I drove there. I'm not kidding. I drove there and dropped off. Hey, you want to post about this book for Brad? I wrote the caption for Brad. I did the contract with Brad. Brad wired me the money. I did the contract with Kylie. I did everything. I hired a CEO 30 years in the game named Joey Carson. He was the CEO of Buena Murray. So he created Real World, Simple Life with Paris Hilta and all these big shows. Way above my pay grade. My company's doing 18 million. I'm going to pay this guy mid six figures, give him a big chunk of equity. And I've never sold a piece of equity. I own the whole company and still do to this day. Went from 18 million to 60 million that year. I started the 100 million mastermind that year. I started speaking tour that year. Everything happened the year because I finally unshackled myself from the office and my ego thought I had to do everything went from 18 million to 60 million because I got to go out there and bring in more clients because now I'm on stage. I wasn't in the office 19 hours a day, 16 hours a day, 14 hours a day. And so going from 18 to 60, that happened. The same concept of 10 to 100, that happened literally, because I brought in a CEO to replace me, and I became the face of the brand and he became natural operations.
- [26:43]
B
Love it. I remember when I first retired myself and my daughter was born and I was like, I'm done running the company. And I went and spent four years being a dad running charities, and the company grew faster without me running the damn thing than it was. Why? Because our goals were based on market penetration, not based on Brad's desires, Brad's goals. So I love that factor. What's one thing that business owners should stop doing? What's the one thing that they should all just stop doing that's killing their profits or it's killing their growth sort of thing? What?
- [27:22]
A
Do you notice something that you mentioned earlier? They're literally wasting hours of day doing mundane stuff. The $20 to $100 an hour things. How dare you do that as a CEO? Like, how dare you sit in meetings for three hours each? I don't allow three hour meetings with eight people in it. That's not a three hour meeting. It's 24 hours. You got eight of my staff for three hours each. Why is my marketing guy sitting through three hours? Why is my sales guy sitting through three hours? Say their piece for 15 minutes and get out. Go work. Say your piece for 22 minutes and get out, Go work. We waste so much time in these things. And so when you think about, oh, I'm just being efficient, I'm sitting in on every meeting, I'm doing every one on one meeting. What are you talking about? You think you're worth 40 bucks an hour? Why are you dealing with the phone call for this? Why are you calling Wells Fargo for this? What on earth are you talking about? Your value should be hundreds of dollars an hour, hopefully thousands of dollars an hour, and at some point, tens of thousands of dollars an hour for the company. If I was an investor in your company and you're literally doing two hours of blah, blah, blah. What? Two hours of blah, blah, blah is 10 hours a week, 40 hours a month, 480 hours a year, blah, blah, blah. If you were worth thousands of dollars an hour, it frustrates me so much.
- [28:35]
B
I don't care what I get paid to Speak.
- [28:37]
A
Right.
- [28:37]
B
And so that's my hourly rate. If it's not going to be worth me being in something for that, then why am I even worrying about it? Sort of thing.
- [28:43]
A
Like, do you mow your own lawn?
- [28:45]
B
No.
- [28:46]
A
How dare you mow your lawn.
- [28:47]
B
Since I was at 22, I set a $25 an hour rate that if I could pay someone less than 25 an hour, I would never do it again for the rest of my life.
- [28:56]
A
Yes.
- [28:57]
B
So obviously that rate's a little higher.
- [28:59]
A
Today, but, you know, but the concept is the same. Like, if you. If you believe you make hundreds of dollars hour for your company, how dare you spend $25 an hour of your time mowing the lawn, cleaning the pool, etc. People are. And people are proud of it. Like, I still mow the lawn. I still clean the pool. You are literally paying to do that. Hundreds of dollars an hour.
- [29:17]
B
Yeah, Yeah. I had a guy one time tell me he enjoys mowing the lawn. I'm like, it's just because you don't have a yacht, you know, it's more fun doing bigger toys. And if that's your best toy, your lawnmower, then let's change it up. All right, final question. What's the price of success and would you pay it again?
- [29:37]
A
The price of success is a lot of your relationships. The people that don't understand you or won't put up with you and won't fight with you. Like, it's typically, you know, wives, husbands, children, close friends. If they don't understand that you're just wired that way, you're gonna lose the relationships, and some of them are gonna fade away, even if they understand you. But would I do it again? Yes. Because my greater purpose and my ultimate goal is if I go do these things, I will help the world. And I also say this. I would resent some people in my life if I stopped.
- [30:11]
B
Yeah. If you held yourself back because someone else didn't feel comfortable. I remember years ago, and I'm sure you've experienced this, whenever I go to a sporting event, I buy a suite rather than tickets, because then I can bring 16, 20 friends sort of thing. And one of my buddies just kept saying, I can't go. I'm like, dude, why not? He's like, I can't afford it. And I'm like, I don't.
- [30:31]
A
Yeah, I didn't ask you that.
- [30:32]
B
To afford it.
- [30:33]
A
Right.
- [30:33]
B
You know, an opposite friend who, if we go out for a big steak dinner sort of thing, he won't put his hand in his pocket because he can't. Right. But if we go out for lunch and it's sandwiches, first guy to pay. And he's smart like that, he picks it up where he can sort of thing. So, yeah, that's a real interesting observation. I like it. I like it a lot. People want to give to your charities, learn more with you. Where's the best spot?
- [30:58]
A
So we throw the world's largest toy drive. The website is trinaskids.org 10cities, quarter of a million toys. I buy half the toys. Some friends buy a lot of toys. Sean Callagy bought 120,000 toys. And so that's my passion project for the last 12 years. Social media is all just Dan Fleischman on every single platform.
- [31:15]
B
Got it? And it's Fleischman with a yes. All right, Dan. Thank you, brother.
- [31:19]
A
I appreciate it. It's great.
- [31:20]
B
Thanks for joining me on the $100 million podcast. If you've got value from today's episode, make sure you've subscribed and share this with all of your friends. Never miss a strategy that could change your business and your life. And remember, the fastest way to scale is to learn from those who've done it. That's what this show is all about. See you on the next episode.