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Hey everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Lindsay Anderson show. Now I have a very special guest today and we're talking about scaling your business. And While my guest, Mr. Mike Aguilerio is a utmost expert at helping you scale businesses, he's worked with over 20,000 people. He's a former electrician turned powerhouse entrepreneur, coach and author. He really knows what he is doing. We end up talking about, yes, you need business systems and you need sales and you need the marketing and you need all of these things in order to scale your business. But where our conversation really lights up is around this relationship with money. If your relationship with money is not in order, then it's going to be really hard to scale your business. Mike shares so much wisdom and inspiration during this episode. And it's true. At my build and monetize agency we see this all the time. People who have the systems and the strategies, but they still struggle to get to that next level. And that is because of this missing mindset piece. If you aren't at peace with money, if you have negative reactions to money, it will show up everywhere in your business, in the micro decisions you're making every day in the way you're handling your team and investments and your programs and your customers. It really does evolve around your relationship with money. It if that is not where it needs to be, it can be very difficult to scale because of those subconscious micro decisions that you make every day. And during this interview, Mike gives us some real clear step by step strategies on how to start healing that and getting that to a place where the systems and the strategies and operations can actually help you scale. So excited to introduce you to my guest, Mr. Mike Aguilerio, a former electrician turned powerhouse entrepreneur, coach and author. You do not want to miss this interview. Welcome to the show, Mike. Hey everybody. Welcome to this very special growth in your business. So today I'm joined by Mikey Anderson show former electrician turned the exact strategies, tools and mindset.
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If you're hungry for.
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More service companies helping 20,000 people now through Food Dog Group, he's teaching others how to elevate every area of their lives.
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Lindsay.
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Mike, thanks for being here. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what inspired you to help business owners scale.
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Yeah, super excited to be here. Thanks for having me on your show. If I take it way back and we won't stay there too long, you know, being on my own since I'm 15 years old, you have to figure out how to survive really quick. My dad was a little bit of an Entrepreneur. He was a union mason, but he also had his own little business of doing side work and stuff. And growing up as a kid carrying bricks and blocks, I did not want to become a mason, so I became an electrician because there's kind of a conveyor belt there. It's like you're built for college and, no, Mike, you're probably going to be an electrician or a plumber or something. And it worked out very well for me. As soon as I was out of school, which I went to a vocational school, I thought that all my bosses were pretty much idiots, so I figured I didn't like them. I should be able to do this better. So. So I started my own company and found out I was an idiot just like them. You think you know everything until you're in it. And I did it wrong for at least a decade. So anybody listening to this, I struggled. I didn't know how to hire. I had every excuse. I tried to do everything myself. And then, long story short, I then figured out marketing, sales, operations, and systems. And based on mastering those things, I took a business from under a million dollars a year to over 32 million a year. From me working as an electrician in a truck to over 165 vehicles in New Jersey, and from me being an employee with a partner to 200 employees. But it was after we really hit about 20 million. Lindsey. Every time I was around somebody, a friend of mine, I'm like, all excited. I'm like, oh, you know, we're making tons of money and profit. How are you? And they're like, horrible. And, yeah, over time, I just got tired of hearing that. And I've always been a servant. I've been a martial artist for over 39 years now. So I was always helping people train martial arts. And I, believe it or not, a side note, I'm a tattoo artist. I don't do it a lot anymore. So if anybody's looking at, I hope everybody's tattooed today, but if not, you have time, man. I told my wife, I just can't. It's hurting me to watch so many people struggle. And that's what made us say, let's start helping people figure this out. And also, in a way, Lindsay, I'm sure you know, it's not a one size fits all. It's not a McDonald's model. I know the E myth, and these people want to try to tell you, like, it's like shaking fries three times and flipping a burger. But an electrical business or any type of business is Very different than cooking french fries and hamburgers. That's right.
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A
That's right. So, Mike, what are some signs that a business owner is struggling with scaling that they need? These four things that you mentioned.
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Let me share what I figured out. What holds people back the most? And years ago, I used to think that maybe it's marketing or sales or operations or numbers. And I think those play a part. But now, being over three decades of studying human behavior, I found out the number one that keeps people from scaling is them. Now, wait, I'm not going to give everybody some foo foo big broad thing. Oh, think better, grind more. I'm not going to give you that. I want to give you a theory. When I was a kid, Lindsay, I found a nickel or a quarter and I ran up to my mom and I was like, mom, mom, look, I found money. And she said, oh, that's really good, Michael. Now go wash your hands because money is dirty. And I bet a lot of people even let's pretend Lindsey and I are looking at you. Raise your hand if you've been told money's dirty or money doesn't grow on trees. Now you think today, no, that's not a problem. And maybe you would lick $100 bills. I don't know why it's programmed inside of you. And unless you redefined that program, then people are living in a form of scarcity instead of a form of abundance. And so I do believe when they say, and I don't know if it's 75% or 80% psychology, but it is a huge percentage that if you don't have that figured out first, how you function. And I would say your relationship with money as a vibration and understanding all the marketing, sales and operations is never going to help you now if you get that in place. Because when I look and say, how does someone like me scale two companies? Well, very high eight figure companies. I sold both of them in the last six years. One of them took me ten years to grow. One of them I did in less than five years. And now I have a portfolio of companies that we run. How does someone like me on his own at 15, no college degree. Now I've invested in a lot of training. A lot, probably, probably $4 million plus in training. And those of you that think that's bullcrap, I could prove it. But when you look at what I've invested in training, compared to the outcome, it's a very small amount. So if we could get everybody just to say, okay, what are my old beliefs holding me Back. We get that handled. Now, I could teach you marketing. I could teach you the art of I don't like it is sales. But even though sales has such a bad rap, let's just call it serving instead of sales. The art of serving at such a level, people say, what can I buy from you? And then how to scale a business. It becomes a lot easier and a lot more fun.
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A
I love that. I want to go back to get your relationship with money in place. I want to dive into that a little bit more. It seems like it's going to be the first step. If you're not scaling and you're struggling, we got to look at this first. It sounds like that's what you're saying. So what's step one of getting your relationship with money in place?
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Step one, I would put everything on the table. I would put your checkbook there. I would put some cash. I would put some coins. I would put a credit card. I would put a bank statement, and I would just one by one, pick it up and say, how does this feel to me? And why? See, when I pick up a credit card, well, first off, American Express loves me, even though they stick me in that automated machine, and then they get on there like, thank you for 37 years of experience. You would think after 37 years of loyalty, you would pick up the phone and say, hey, Mike. But one person despises credit cards. I have a balance, and I have debt. Me, I've loved it for 37 years. I've never carried a balance. They given me free money points. I've flown all over the place. I pay my Amazon bills with point. So for me, a credit card is free cash to someone else. It's pain and suffering. If you can just do this simple exercise and pick it up. And then if you're in a relationship, I'm with my beautiful wife Jennifer. Since I'm 15. It's 39 years we're together. You know, if we pick that up and then say, hey, what does my checkbook mean to me? What does it mean to you? You're going to identify real quick that you have what I would call either shames, guilts, or traumas built into that. And a lot of times, it is some form of trauma there, right? Like, I defended myself. I mean, this happened a lot through 2008 and through the years. And then what happened is, during the pandemic, people pulled back on money, and then all of a sudden, they felt invincible and they just started buying, Right? The other thing about this money is we're being controlled by dopamine hits right everywhere you go. If you're on Facebook or YouTube or TikTok or Instagram, you're watching one thing of value and being programmed of one thing to buy. I was just watching it the other day. They're like, hey, take this pill. It will kill every bug inside your body. And now I'm thinking, man, I don't know, do I have bugs in my body? Maybe I should buy this thing. And every day that's controlling you. So not only do you need to know the relationship of money, you need to know your relationship with things that are trying to take your money. So let's pause there a minute.
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I love that Mike. So, yeah, I mean, I'm obsessed. I want to know what the second step is. So I lay out all of these financial tools, I pick them up, I come back to myself. I'm trying to identify that feeling, what this is making me feel. What's step two? Do I just need to feel through that feeling and that's going to help the healing? Or I rhymed.
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C
What do you think of what helps healing? And if everybody would just consider this theory for a minute, you could really neutralize a lot of things in your life. And most people, when they pick up the credit card and they have that ill feeling, they're only seeing the one side, which is the downside. They had a fantasy, but they could only see. Instead of seeing heaven, they could only see hell. Right? So the freeing yourself from it is to realize the upside that came from that credit card. Okay, yeah, you had debt, but without that card, you couldn't get new tires. Which now that you got new tires, it allowed you to go to a wedding, or it allowed you to go to a vacation, or it allowed you to drive back and forth to work. And then you go, oh, okay, so this was not all bad. This credit card was. Has a ton of good in it. And then you go to your checkbook. So the point is to take every one of these, feel what you feel, and then get to the point where you could see equal upsides as downside. To the point you go, this checkbook is nothing more than a tool. This credit card is nothing more than a tool. And I promise all of you can do it. And I'm not saying this to brag. My wife and I have been debt free since we're 28 years old. And now I'm level 54. Now, I don't believe in saying age. I don't know why anybody likes when they Say age, it's like they crumble over. And when you say level, you feel.
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Like, yeah, yeah, right?
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And people say, I don't understand. How did you stay debt free? I don't have a mortgage. I still don't have mortgages today. And I say it's not because I made a fortune. It's because, one, I had this understanding with money, and two, I wasn't dopamine driven. For tiny moments of feeling ecstasy of something. I looked at it and said, is this something that's going to give me a tiny hit of energy or will it be a long term thing? A lot of times you go, okay, yeah, do I really need that TV now? What am I hoping to get from it? So you start to. And I'm also not saying go to a restaurant and say, how much is the cheese on the fries? And don't get cheese, right? I'm saying there's a balance, there's a harmony. You need to get into this rhythm. And Lizzie, if you don't tackle this, I promise, scaling anything, building a business, it's going to be very hard.
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Why, Mike? Why? Why? If I knew all the systems and the strategies and the business and the sales, if I still have a not great relationship with money, why does it work this way?
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If anybody listening has ever heard of a theory, it's been around a long time. It's called a gap analysis. And I'm going to make it so simple for everybody. A gap analysis is this. If we draw one circle here, this is where you are. And let's get really clear. If we were to be as transparent as we can be with where we are. We either have money, we don't, we're happy, or we don't. In my world, I always say I'm a force multiplier for people who want life, business and wealth by design. But the only way we could get there is if you're truthful, if you have a place where you're at, well, Lindsey, there's probably a place you want to go now. I just did this the other day on a training I'm on. I said, who wants more money? And everybody listen. If you want more money, just raise your hand. And everybody does. I say, here's a dollar. Now sign off the training, you're done. You see, you're not being clear. You want more money, but you're not saying how much. So we got to know where we're at, we got to know where we want to go. And yeah, it's simple. You need an arch.
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Let Me, no problem. It was getting intense there.
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It's intense. The camera pulls in my emotions, and so there's an arch and you need to do things to get there. But when I was looking at this now, training over 20,000 people and well over a thousand business owners, creating more DECA millionaires in the last four years than anybody else I know that have sold, exited their companies, I kept saying, why is everybody not getting there? Just know where you're at, where you want to go, do new stuff. But there's something nobody ever taught me on this gap analysis. Where you want to go, there's a line going the opposite way. And that line is called the resistance line. So what's the resistance? It's everything we've been talking about. Oh, well, my. My parents were middle class and I was bullied as a kid and I'm dyslexic and I have adhd and I have all these things that we tell ourselves that are resistances until you say to yourself, wait a second. A resistance is just an unutilized opportunity. I just don't understand how to leverage it in a different way. Someone the other day, they said, lindsay is funny. They said, hey, love your post. Whole lot of spelling mistakes in there. And I said, well, it's a good thing it doesn't take spelling to become wealthy, because I wouldn't be wealthy. I'm a horrible speller. I never could figure out they're your. I didn't like my English teacher, she didn't like me. That's just a resistance that others see, but it doesn't keep you from being ultra successful. The last thing I'll share, I hand it back to you is a lot of times people are consuming information and they might be consuming the right stuff at the wrong time. I ask people, what book are you reading? They say, I'm reading a Blue Ocean Strategy or who Moved My Cheese? And these are all great books. And I say, why are you reading that book now? And they always say the same thing. Well, oh, I saw it online and a friend of mine referred it. I said, but is that your biggest problem? Oh, no. Then why are you reading something? And I hope this is a big aha for some people. Why are you reading something that does not solve your most immediate issue you're dealing with? If you're dealing with a business culture, well, you should read five books on culture until you solve it. And if you solve your culture problem in book one, give the other four books away. You're done for. Now. If you solve your Culture on page five, close the book and stop reading. You're not in fifth grade and you're going to fail if you don't read the whole book of Tom Sawyer. But some of you that are listening have been trained. If I crack open the bind I must get from start to finish or I'm a failure, and in the end you go, good, but it made no difference in your life. Is this resonating Lindsay here?
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I love it, Mike. Mike, it's such a good point about the books. I love it. I haven't heard it worded that way, but it's so true. And they tend to skip ahead and it bothers them because they're getting worked up about problems they don't have right now, but your problems. And yeah, just address the problem that you have. I love it. Now, Mike, for my final question. You've done so much. You've helped so many people. You're on level 54. What is one thing that you wish you would have known before you got started?
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Oh, really? Great question. All right, I'm going to share what I knew, which is something I'm talking about right now, today. Except it would have helped me then, but everybody must know it now is that knowledge is going to be useless. It's going to be useless now. Let me make my point here. We're in a world today where AI and technology is moving so fast, you can get an answer by blinking your eyes in a set of glasses and it will tell you, which means all people with knowledge. It doesn't mean anything. The superpower is wisdom. And I wish somebody told me years ago how important wisdom will be. See, knowledge is information and wisdom is experience. And any of you that have a business, if you're not using your wisdom as your brand authority and making sure that's out there, I would be slightly concerned, everybody listening. Because I always use the example, Lindsay, Dr. Phil, which most people know he is not the best doctor at all. Matter of fact, I watch some of his stuff. He's annoying as heck, but he makes a lot more money than, I bet, your doctor and everybody else's doctor. Why? Because he has a sense of wisdom along with brand authority. And I wish somebody had told me that years ago. The other thing is, I'm pretty sure to give you number two a bonus here. I'm pretty sure people told me this. If you could take what you were told as a kid, because when you were a kid, you were told you could be the president, you could be Wonder Woman or Superman by time, you're 15, your parents are telling you now you ain't never going to be the president, right? And all of a sudden what you thought was possible and what is possible goes away. I would go back and say to all of you, every single thing you want to be possible is possible. With a different sense of thinking, different strategies and different tactics. All the stories are out there, right? The founder of McDonald's, what was he, 50 something? Every story is out there. There's an eight year old kid that's a multimillionaire and then there's a 90 year old person who just started a business and became a millionaire. Which means if you fall anywhere in that realm, it means you can do the same thing. Just get around. I'll give you one more bonus here.
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I love it.
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Lindsay, who said a journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step. I think he was an idiot too. And I don't look at it. It's a probably 5,000 year old strategy. I think a journey of a thousand miles starts with the first right step because if you take the wrong step you're going to fall right off a cliff. And the second one I would tell you guys is challenge. Don't just agree to everything you're hearing. Not from me, not from Lindsay. Ponder it. Because a lot of people are telling you like wait a minute, unless you get up at 4:30 in the morning and you cold plunge and sniff butterfly butts, you're never going to be successful. I'm like if I get up at 4:30 in the morning I'm going to be vomiting because I must be sick because I don't do that. Start to pave your path and don't believe everything. You don't need a miracle morning to win. You could just know that every minute's a miracle. And if you're worried about only doing the four hour work week and you only want to do something for four hours, you should kill it because it means you dislike it. Don't do it at all. So question a little bit of what you're thinking. Find your path. And I'm rooting for everybody. Lindsay, I love it.
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Mike, thank you so much for dropping. So much wisdom. So many bonuses on the end too and they were all worth the. Listen, before I let you go, I'm going to turn the time over to you. How do we find you and what else do you want us to.
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You could go to Fooddog Group, that's F u d o g a second G R o u p dot com and find us if you heard this. Find me on Facebook, private message me. It's going to be me responding. I don't have some robot talking to you. I respect you way too much for that. And we do have a really great. If anybody does reach out or Lindsay, I could get you the link. I wrote an amazing book called Mind Power. I'm super proud of it. I'll give a free digital copy if somebody wants it. I mailed this book. I'm so proud of this. We mailed this to a woman that was homeless. She said mail it in this person. Give it to me. She's no longer homeless. She's in a house. She's teaching other people about hope and success. I'm really, really proud of this book. I've written 28 but this one's got me really proud. If anybody wants that, just don't make this a drive by. Say hello to me.
- [24:36]
A
I love it. Thanks Mike for your time. Appreciate you being on the show. Are you ready to uplevel your social media game and finally get the results that you've been looking for? Let's create a strategy together that works for those qualified business owners. My calendar is now open for you to book your free social media strategy session with me today. Get signed up for that session and you and I will transform your online presence into a client generating machine. Spots are limited for qualified individuals, so don't wait. Secure the session now simply by going to lindsay a.com and/book-now let's make your social media unstoppable. All you have to do is go there and apply for a one on one complimentary session with me. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Lindsay Anderson Show. Cheers to you and your success.
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That's a wrap for today's episode of the Lindsay Anderson Show. If you love this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share how you're leveling up your business. Want more? Connect with Lindsay Anderson and get the tools you need to crush your goals@lindsaya.com until next time, keep pushing, keep growing and turn those business dreams into reality.