← The Money Mondays
Loading summary
Transcript158 lines
- [00:00]
A
Dad still today gives us the same advice, the only advice he's ever given us, and that is just keep on trucking. And so we just kept on trucking. We never had a plan. Talk to my dad today. You're looking, you'll see me all stressed out. He'll come in. Just keep on trucking. It's really good advice.
- [00:21]
B
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the most specialist money monies in history. Because this is the first time, hopefully the only time, we do this podcast. Not inside of the RV Motorhome, but inside of the massive, fantastic, gorgeous Gravitas membership club here in Beverly Hills, California. 28,000 square feet. And we are inside the poker room, the podcast room that they built. That is freaking gorgeous. Like the quality, the content, everything you guys have created here, the details of it is mind blowing. Okay, as you guys know, on the Money Mondays podcast, we cover three core topics. How to make money, invest money, how to give away a charity. But because this is a very special episode and I have one of my best friends on the planet here with me right now, we're going to mix in about business of building a membership club from the heart of Beverly Hills to take on this huge undertaking. Why did he do it? How did he do it? Talk through the concept of building such a gorgeous place and spending three years of his life when he already has massive amounts. I don't know, 17, 18 car dealerships. We'll talk about. I think he's got like 50 or 60 gyms, probably more by now. Might have opened one just yesterday for all I know. We're going to go through all those things. But as you guys know, these podcasts average a little bit under 40 minutes because the average workout is 45 minutes. The average commute to work is 45 minutes. This episode will be between 34 and 38 minutes for your listening pleasure. So without further ado, I'm going to bring on Brandon Stephen to give you a quick two minute bio so we can get straight to the money.
- [01:42]
A
First of all, this is your first podcast outside of the Motorhome.
- [01:45]
B
Yeah. Hopefully the last.
- [01:46]
A
Oh, my God.
- [01:46]
B
Just for you.
- [01:47]
A
And this is my first podcast. And this is the first podcast in the Gravitas podcast.
- [01:51]
B
Exactly.
- [01:52]
A
That's three first. That's a lot.
- [01:53]
B
That's a lot of first. We gotta make it extra, extra good.
- [01:55]
A
Okay, so two minute bio.
- [01:57]
B
Yes.
- [01:57]
A
Which I hate. So I probably won't even use the whole two minutes. I'm Brandon Steven. I am from Witto, Kansas. I still live in Witto, Kansas. People from Beverly Hills that have known me just from doing gravitas or amaze that I still live in Kansas, but I love it there. I think first, I'm a father, husband. I have six kids. Six amazing kids. Five daughters and a boy. I did start in the car business early on, like in my teenage years working at a. My best friend's dad's car dealership. And then I bought it. I just fell in love with the car business. Then I kind of. My brother and I were partners. We opened up a health club. So I think I opened up my first. We opened up our first health club in 95. And my first. No, my 94 in my first used car lot, which, you know, it's a little bit bigger in this room in 95. And, you know, fast forward to 20, 24. We have 74 health clubs.
- [02:45]
B
74, 74.
- [02:46]
A
I think 60.
- [02:47]
B
Like a week ago.
- [02:48]
A
Not a week ago, dan.
- [02:50]
B
All right, eight days ago.
- [02:51]
A
And 21 car dealerships.
- [02:52]
B
You had 18 car dealerships last time I saw him, which was a week ago.
- [02:56]
A
So Dan's exaggerating again.
- [02:57]
B
Okay, nine days ago.
- [02:59]
A
We have a couple restaurants, we have a hockey team. We have. We have a lot of things, but our core business are health clubs and car dealerships. That's our core business. And my advice to most people is staying, you know, stay in your lane. Stay in your lane, stay in your lane. And then I keep going outside my lane and doing restaurants and hockey teams and a membership club. What business do I have going in the heart of the Golden Triangle and building this massive project? So it's less than two minutes, right?
- [03:25]
B
Yeah, less than.
- [03:26]
A
Less than two minutes.
- [03:26]
B
So you already had a steakhouse in Wichita that was kind of like practice, right? Practice of this fancy steakhouse you built there years ago. But why this? Why go build 28,000ft in the heart of Beverly Hills right next to Mr. Chow and Chipani and all these fancy places? How did you decide, you know what? I'm going to stake my ground right here on the corner of Camden and Santa Monica Boulevard.
- [03:46]
A
The answer to that question is pathetic. There is no answer because I didn't plan this. It started out as I literally came to pick up my buddy Paul for lunch, and they had this patio outside that was very underwhelming for where it was at. And they were getting ready to put a restaurant inside in this little 4,000square foot vacant space they had. That was Wells Fargo. And I was talking to him. I'm like, I just don't understand. It just didn't work for me. It didn't make sense. And I was like, you should put a bar. This should be like a garden bar. This should be an outside bar. I mean, look where you're at. He just kind of shrugged his shoulders, like, whatever. You're from Kansas. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, it's not going to happen. You're not going to put. The city's not going to approve that. Okay. Well, my question to myself was, how, you know, how would they approve it? And that's literally how we started. And so it started out to be 12,000 square feet. And now once we started going, I'm like, we need this.
- [04:41]
B
We need this, we need this. That's a good idea. Let's do that.
- [04:44]
A
And as my business was growing, I was. This was literally over. This was three. This was three years, 37 months ago. That's when this project started. Yeah. And I was like, I need this for my business. I need this. And that's. That's kind of where it just kind of dwarfed to.
- [04:58]
B
So it's open. Time has come.
- [04:59]
A
Today is day number nine.
- [05:01]
B
Wow.
- [05:01]
A
Wow is right. Yeah.
- [05:03]
B
Are. Are you happy? Are you ever happy? As a business person?
- [05:06]
A
I get a lot of congratulations, you know, because I've been doing this for so long, building this, and so people are congratulating me. So long. And it just. I don't want to say. It just frustrates me. It irritates me when people congratulate me because. Because I've done nothing yet. We are open, right? We're open. That's only one third of it. You know, I built this amazing. We built this amazing facility, but that's only one third of it, you know, great service and great food or the other. And the club is 95% done construction wise. So, Dan, you know me well enough to know what do I see?
- [05:36]
B
Everything to fix.
- [05:37]
A
Yeah, I see the 5%. That's not done. So that's just the way I've always been. So I do need to relax. I do need to appreciate how far I've come and how fun this is.
- [05:47]
B
So walk me through. Why restaurant and not membership club? Like, why did you decide, I'm going to go with membership club and go.
- [05:54]
A
That route as it got bigger. And so I started expanding here. You know, five, six years ago, my car business, I started expanding to Los Angeles. And as you know, I build a family, like in my car business. My team. My team is my team. And they're very important to me and my Meetings are super important to me, and my celebration dinners with my employees are super. So it kind of dwarfed it. Like, I need a space for this. I need a space for this. There was a need for this in Beverly Hills, and so that's how it kind of dwarfed. And as I was building this restaurant and taking on more and more space, it just became a membership club. Like, it became like, okay, I can't just have everyone use this comment. I just walked you through and showed you that gorgeous. It's called the poor room, the conference room. Like, this is a gorgeous room that I need for myself, which means other businessmen also need that for themselves. And that was not going to be just open to the public. It needs to be just exclusive to our members.
- [06:47]
B
So as you're building it, it's getting bigger. Goes from 12,000 square feet to 20,000 square feet. You build this retractable roof in the middle of Beverly Hills. You build this huge patio. But then you start talking about, like, cars hanging from the ceilings and, like, walk us through some of the extravagant parts. Like, why do those things? Do you think it matters to members? Do you think it matters the brand? Like, why. Why did it click in your mind, like, I'm going to hang a fancy car from the ceiling?
- [07:10]
A
I like being. I like people to tell me no and then to overcome. And I love the challenge. Like, nobody. Everyone says you cannot. I mean, literally everybody, my designers, everyone says you're not going to be able to hang an 18 foot F1 car from the ceiling.
- [07:22]
B
I mean, sounds silly.
- [07:23]
A
It sounds silly. And then now with that, there's all kinds of sponsorships. Like, I get to wrap the car. It's going to be a Red Bull car. Just found out yesterday. I'm doing it. I'm doing a deal with Honda Racing Club. It's good. Be a red bull car. 18 foot hanging from the ceiling. Actual Red Bull car. Why not, right? I mean, why not? That's a separate room. That's called the vault. Later, we're going to sell that. I'm going to sell naming rights to that room. I built a huge. So to get Beverly Hills for me to prove. To drive a car through the curb, up to the curb, into the building was a whole another task, a whole another world. But why not? Why not have a place where people can unveil their cars? Whether you're buying a car, Whether it's a F1 unveiling, whether it's Bentley releasing their new model, that's what that room's for. Come to find Out. We've only been open for nine days. That room's been rented out three nights. It's not even done. It's like, it's the room that's the most incomplete in this, the room that people want the most. So that was the last, last edition.
- [08:21]
B
Then on the wine side of it, talk us through. It seems like people can actually leave their wine here. They can store their wine here.
- [08:26]
A
Yeah. So that was something I did not know. Advice from Paul, who's my buddy with this building. He's like, brandon, there's a huge need for wine, wine storage in la. People will pay whatever for wine storage. I'm like, yeah, okay, Paul. Sure enough. So we built these almost 400 wine lockers. I don't know if you know anything about memberships. We're doing what we call GM gym memberships, which is. We're only selling a few of them. They're lifetime memberships. But with that lifetime membership, you also get a life. I mean like a huge 12 by 12 wine locker by biometric. So you walk up, you put your thumbprint in.
- [08:58]
B
Oh, really?
- [08:58]
A
And the wine locker comes out. It's a gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous room. That room won't be done for the month, but we just started renting out those wine lockers and they're almost sold out.
- [09:08]
B
So to the entrepreneurs that out there, like, I want to open a restaurant, obviously not necessarily a 28,000 square foot one, but let's say they're 2800 square feet, they want to open up their first thing. What was advice you would tell them when they're first planning, like, not to do it. Not to do it.
- [09:20]
A
Not to do it.
- [09:21]
B
There you go.
- [09:21]
A
Yeah. Not to do. That's probably not a good answer. Ask me again. I'm sorry.
- [09:26]
B
No, it's a great answer. I, by the way, I've been going very hard the last year saying most people should not be entrepreneurs. They're not built for it. They don't realize that they're trying to be the entrepreneur because they heard someone fancy on social media say, you should just tell your job, your boss, you're going to quit and go become an entrepreneur. They don't realize that you're not going to make money for 1, 2, 3, 4 years, even when your business makes money. Let me explain real quick, guys. Let's say, Brandon, I decided to start white t shirts.com and white t shirts.com, brand. I crush it. We put in 100k each to start it. We got 200 grand in capital. We go do $1.5 million in sales, our first year brand. And I should be happy, right? Does anyone know out there how much money that Brandon and I pull out of the 1.5 million sales?
- [10:11]
A
Zero.
- [10:11]
B
Rhymes with zero. Yeah, because what happens? Well, 50% of it goes to the cost. Manufacturing, production, shipping. 12% is going to go into the marketing. 5% on the paid ad spend, we're going to get a convention booth, we're going to have staff, we have employees. But then for year two, we go from 1.5 million to $4 million. We crush a brand. I freaking crush it. Guess how much brand I pull out.
- [10:32]
A
Negative.
- [10:33]
B
Negative. Exactly. You know why? Because it's working. So if your business sucks, you're not going to make money. And if it's working, you pour all the money back in and you take on debt or investors or loans or something to scale the business because it's working. You didn't get paid year one, year two, year three, et cetera. And so when I tell people that it's hard for them to grasp, they just see fancy numbers on social media like, oh, they did 4 million in sales. That's gross sales. That's not net profit. And you, as the entrepreneur CEO are dead last to get paid from staff, from vendors, from lawyers, accountants, leases, and everything between. They're all first. And you are dead last. And even when you're dead last, you're probably not going to get paid. All right, But I digress.
- [11:13]
A
So, Brandon, Stephen, there's an exception to every rule. Of course there's an exception to that as well. And I do agree completely what you said. Not everyone is meant to be entrepreneurs. And that's not a negative thing, right? There's. You can make so much money working for a company like myself where you're actually. We actually enhance you being an entrepreneur inside of our company when that company already has the infrastructure, already has all the things you need to expand your database, which in essence is your business inside of my company, our company. And that's what I've done inside my car business is I've enabled great people to market inside my company. Instead of doing everything you're talking about building own infrastructure, having all these resources, not having the funds to advertise and market it. I mean, there's so many things inside of my company that an entrepreneur could come in and just expand his business side, which is good for some people. And some people want the right.
- [12:06]
B
They want the pain.
- [12:07]
A
How'd you know? They want the pain. And some people will just get lucky and Have a great product that costs very little and they get to produce a lot of income off it, and they get to take money home right away. But I would definitely say that's the exception to the rule.
- [12:23]
B
So some of you listening after I went on my tirade about entrepreneurs is hard.
- [12:28]
A
You definitely did, by the way, very passionate about it. I can see that.
- [12:31]
B
Yeah. I just. I see a lot of people get stressed out and. Yeah. And I don't want society to think that you should just quit your job. I think you should save up money, have 6 to 12 months saved up in your piggy bank, because you're probably not gonna make money for a long time even when it works.
- [12:42]
A
It's interesting you say the word stressed out. I'm 51. I've been opening up my own. I opened up my first business at 11 years old, believe it or not.
- [12:49]
B
Wow.
- [12:49]
A
And it's crazy. And I kept on opening, and I'm still opening businesses, and I'm still stressed out. Like, it's crazy. My poor wife and my kids see me stressed out all the time. And some people will come up to me and say, gosh, celebrate, relax. And a true entrepreneur just is not. It's just never. It's always. I remember somebody told me 25 years ago, an entrepreneur in Kansas, a real estate guy that I just immensely still admire, he kept on saying, brandon, it's just more zeros. And you're right, it's just bigger zeros. But the things that stress me out now would have literally murdered me 25 years ago. And the things 25 years ago that stressed me out now are like nothing to me. So it's just. It's just. They just get bigger. And the stress, unfortunately, gets bigger.
- [13:31]
B
So employee number two, four, seven, you can live a really good life. There's nothing wrong with not being employee number one. Imagine, think about, be realistic. Employee number four at your car dealerships or employee number four at your gyms. They make good money, right?
- [13:46]
A
They make great money. But does not mean they're not stressed, of course. Because if they're there and they're that high up inside of our company, they are like us. They want more. They see the 5% that's not done. They see the 12% that was. That was. They could have got, they should have got. They see the crumbs.
- [14:01]
B
What they don't have to pay your rent, your insurance, your payroll, your liabilities, your lawyers.
- [14:08]
A
Stop making it sound worse than it is bad.
- [14:10]
B
Did I. Did I exaggerate something?
- [14:12]
A
You didn't exaggerate it. But I think the people that are that high up that have been with me for 30 years, they fill it with me.
- [14:20]
B
I love that. Yeah, I love that.
- [14:21]
A
And that's.
- [14:22]
B
I just, I want people to be okay being employee number four, getting some equity, making six figures a year.
- [14:28]
A
Sometimes that's even better.
- [14:29]
B
For sure.
- [14:29]
A
Because you do get to go home at night and have a different. The meal tastes better. Sometimes your sleep, you do get a better night's sleep, I would say, for sure.
- [14:37]
B
Okay, so the tirade is over. From that part of it, I'm guessing.
- [14:40]
A
You'Re going to come back to the tirade, though.
- [14:42]
B
Well, yeah, it's been passionate about it. On the investing side of the world, you've chosen to invest a lot of capital into this project. 20,000 square feet. When you're making investment decisions, whether it's real estate, more car dealerships, more gyms, a massive location in the middle of Beverly Hills. How are you thinking about it? Are you talking to other people? Is it our advisors or partners, friends, or is it you on a whiteboard? Like, okay, this is my crazy plan. This what I'm going to do.
- [15:07]
A
Yeah, that $25 whiteboards cost me a lot of money. Yeah. I don't. I didn't. I did not do very good job of investing in this part. So I would definitely tell everybody everything I did in gravitas. You should not do.
- [15:19]
B
It's gorgeous, though.
- [15:21]
A
Like I would say, actually, everything I should. That I did, you should do the exact opposite. I started out with a great plan. I was going to make it small. My budget. I'm embarrassed to tell you guys this, but I'm going to tell you. My budget for the first 12,000 square feet was $13 million. And I spent two months value engineering with my team. Two months to get it from 13 million to 11.4. And I'm like, I did it. I was really proud of myself. I signed the contract. Let's go 11.4 million. Now, it's ironic that we got from 13 to 11 4, not 11. Let's not round off to 11. And we're at $37 million is what I spent. And guess what? I'm still going.
- [16:00]
B
Right? You still have 5% to finish 37.
- [16:02]
A
But I'm so happy that I got it to 11.4 by spending two months to value.
- [16:06]
B
The whiteboard says 11.4.
- [16:08]
A
Yeah. So back to your. Your question. This was a horrible investment idea. Like, I. And then when I got it down to 11, I was going to get 20 partners friends of mine and say, hey, this is going to be a passion project for all of us. We're going to build this great thing, and we're going to use it for ourselves. And then as it got bigger and it got bigger, the number got to 23 million. I was for sure, 23 million. I'm done. I went ahead and talked to some of my buddies about it and said, here's what we're going to do. And I said, we're close, and I'll get. I'll get the information to you when we get closer. And the number got so big that I just said, I can never bring somebody else in as a partner in this deal. And so I own 100% of it. Unfortunately, when I say I, my brother and I are partners, we own 100% of that. Interesting enough. Rodney, my partner, my brother, I kept on telling him for the last, you know, 16, 18 months, you need to come to L. A.
- [16:53]
B
To see what you're doing.
- [16:55]
A
He's like, I'm busy. You got that part. I'm like, you need to come down to see what we're doing. And as the numbers got bigger, he came last week.
- [17:02]
B
Oh, finally. Three years later. Yeah, three years and month 36.
- [17:05]
A
He came by, he had dinner.
- [17:07]
B
That's nice. Was it good?
- [17:09]
A
He loved the food.
- [17:10]
B
It's fantastic. Okay. From an investing perspective, when you have infinite options because you are surrounded by so many people, relationships, you travel a lot. How do you decide between real estate, stock market, investing in companies outside of just investing in your own business?
- [17:26]
A
So I know a lot of people. You know a lot of people. We have a lot of friends. We're very passionate with our friends. One thing I'll tell you is when you're in the position that we're in, everybody comes to you with their new idea to invest in. If it's not once a week anymore. It used to be once a week that people would come to me and say, hey, I want you to invest in this. And now it's not as often because people know very clearly that I do not invest in other people's business. I know that you're very good at that. I am not. I've done it a lot in the past, and I'm telling you, I'm zero for whatever. That's not true. Maybe I'm one for whatever. I have decided. Rodney and I have decided we're going to invest in us, so we're going to invest in projects. We do. I have no problem spending an infinite amount of money borrowing it or in my own capital of a car dealership or a health club because I know for certain that I will win. That's not arrogant. It's because we have a solid processes. We have an incredible team that's been with us number four employees. They've been with us since the 90s. So we have confident in our team for our two core businesses, health clubs and car dealerships. We know for sure that I can go buy a car dealership that's broken and fix it. That's not arrogant. Trust me. It's really not arrogant because it's just a proven process and it's the team that we've built, the teams we build. We know for sure that we can go into market for health clubs and we're going to do very well. Health clubs are a little different because it takes us years to curate the market, but we're good. We're really good at buying the real estate and then putting the best health clubs in the best places. So real estate is. It's interesting because we're in the car business, in the health club business, but we own all of our facilities.
- [18:50]
B
Oh, wow.
- [18:51]
A
So we're really real estate developers, but not really.
- [18:54]
B
Right. Like the McDonald's. McDonald's model.
- [18:55]
A
Yeah. But for car dealerships, healthcare.
- [18:58]
B
Right?
- [18:58]
A
Yeah. Interesting enough that Gravitas is the only thing in the world that I don't own. I'm leasing this space, which is very frustrating that I spent all that money on leased space. Leased space.
- [19:10]
B
So the developer, if you're listening, Brandon, would like to buy this building at.
- [19:13]
A
Some point, not now. I should have bought it in 2021 and it was worth a lot less after I spend all this money.
- [19:19]
B
Yeah. Okay. So when you have brother focusing on the gyms, you're self focusing on the car dealerships. Where does the trust come in? At what point you're like, you know what? I'm not going to play around your business. You're not playing around my business. You obviously listen to each other because you're brothers, but how do you get someone to stay focused on their thing that's never there?
- [19:38]
A
And I still help Rodney and he still helps me. It's like, it's hard. Like, Rodney is the face of the health clubs and I'm the face of the car dealerships. But it's interesting enough, we are both in the same business. Like, it's about retention.
- [19:48]
B
Yeah.
- [19:49]
A
It's so much cheaper and so much better for us to spend money retaining a customer and retaining a team member versus hiring a new Team member and trying to get a new customer easier to retain. A health club. You know, anybody that's just come to work out, everyone who comes in. Right, Roger. They come in and they get all excited to work out for the first. And they do for the first six weeks, seven weeks, and they go crazy and then they start to work less. That's where we come in. We're like, hey, listen, we've built the software. We know that Dan came in an average of three times a week and now it's two times a week. And now it's one time a week. Well, we're going to spend the money to retain Dan. Now let's give Dan a personal training session.
- [20:23]
B
Right?
- [20:24]
A
Let's get Dan back in here and try to keep Dan as a member. Same with the car customers. Our people come to our dealership. Nobody wants to shop for a car. I mean, it's really. It's like they actually equate it to going to the dentist, going to the car dealership. It's scary. People hate going to the car dealership. We tried to change that where people come in, we try to make it more of a personal experience where your sales for professional, your sales professional. You get to know them and you get to know the manager and that's the easiest and best way to retain the customer. And guess what, it's also the best way to retain a team. I spent my whole life building the culture, building the culture around take making sure your environment's perfect. If you do that and your customers fill it from your team, you win.
- [21:04]
B
So when you build a place like Gravitas or you build a chain of gyms or chain of car dealerships, is there an end in mind? You build it with an exit in mind or you build them as legacy for the family. Like, what do you. What are your thoughts when we go.
- [21:15]
A
Into it, It's a great question. Do you have the answer?
- [21:18]
B
It's my job.
- [21:19]
A
I was hoping you have answered that question because I don't. We've talked about a lot. It's tough because our kids are getting older now. Rodney's, you know, we have Rodney's. Three of his kids. Four of his kids now working in the gyms. I have three of my kids now working in the business. It's interesting. It's like, because I don't. We don't. We didn't do a good job of. We didn't do a good job of thinking about legacy. We just started working, we kept working, we kept on plowing for it. My dad My dad still today gives us the same vice, the only advice he's ever given us, and that is just keep on trucking. And so we just kept on trucking. We never had a plan. If you talk to my dad today, you're looking, you'll see me all stressed out and they're coming. So just keep on trucking. It's really good advice. So I don't have a great answer about legacy.
- [22:01]
B
Yeah. Okay, let's go to the charity side of things. Why do you think it's important for businesses? So let's say that car dealerships, gyms, or someone out there has a restaurant or insurance agency. Why should they have some type of charity component if they have to or not? Why should they have some type of charity component for their staff, investors, partners or vendors to be able to see?
- [22:20]
A
Yeah, I don't know if I have a good answer to why they should. I've seen a lot in this realm. Like, not only did I would say not only, not only did I used to be hit a lot about and like people would always come to me and say, donate donations, donations, donations. And I never said no. I, I, I hated being the guy that said no. But I didn't enjoy it as much. Like writing a check to me is not that big of a deal, though. I don't mean that negative way. Like, I never got great pleasure out of it because I never really saw the effects. So about 15 years ago, we, I started, I had a poker tournament in Wichita, Kansas for kids. At the time, it wasn't called gift, which is GFFT, Genesis 4 fitness and tennis, but it was just for these underprivileged kids. And I saw my team, my staff couldn't wait to volunteer their time to help. They just couldn't wait. Yeah, then they love to see me passionate about helping. Now it's this huge foundation that we started, but it's only for local, local kids. And I get a lot of. It's pretty rewarding. That's all I can tell you. It's pretty rewarding. It's like for an example, we give shoes to kids every year, starting out as a couple hundred and we ran out and then it's now it's a couple thousand pair of shoes we give kids to, you know, these underprivileged areas in Wichita. My mom goes all the time and it's like she cries every time. It's like kids have. It's amazing. It's sad, but it's still amazing. When you give somebody their first brand new Pair of shoes. Now, Dan, we're talking about somebody that's 13 or 14 years old and they get their first brand new pair of shoes. And it just blows your mind of how the things that we take for granted. So to answer your question, how is it important? I don't know if it's important for everyone, but it was amazing when. Now, how many, how much of our team, our big team, they look forward to volunteering their time because they got that same feeling inside when they see it.
- [24:07]
B
Yeah, a lot of people think about charity. They think about money. They think about the initial reaction. What Brandon said was like just writing a check. But charity really is more about the time and energy, the passion, which is.
- [24:18]
A
More important, for sure. Unbelievable.
- [24:20]
B
Yeah, because you can do those type of things. Like, most of the charities that we've created are about people going out and giving out backpacks to the homeless or giving toys to kids or doing Thanksgiving food drives. Like, it's not about. You don't see me doing, like, hey, we raised $1 million and ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Like, we don't do that stuff. Like, we do, hey, we want you to do a toy drive in your city. We want you to do backpacks for the homeless. We want you to go do a tipping dinner and tip, surprise, tip staff, like, give away your clothes in your closet. Like, our stuff is not about money. The things that I post about, it's about people replicating for their own version. What do they like, what do they want to see? And then you find the thing that you like, you might have done three or four different charities before finally, like, wait, this is the one that all the staff likes? Or this is the one that you individually like. What about the family side? Or are the kids ever involved in charity stuff? Do they like anything in particular?
- [25:06]
A
Yeah, they do. They've been part of the foundation that we've done forever. And, you know, doing all this and being in Wichita for my whole life and a lot of these other foundations, I volunteer some of my time for other people's stuff and events. And I stumble along a family that's like, wow, this is. Sometimes a family will blow your mind. Like, like, he's working two jobs, she's working two jobs. They got five kids at home, and they're barely cutting it.
- [25:28]
B
Right.
- [25:29]
A
And so I'll just, very anonymously, we'll go in and just. And help the family, and it's always, take my kids with me. And then it comes to the point where one year you do it, and the next year you do it now. It's like they're part of your deal. Like, you just do that. And my kids do that for me. Now, my assistant, God bless her, because she does. Like she. Or like, she handles all. And like, every once in a while. Sure. Tell me, hey, listen, this person I just found out is struggling and I'm like, send them to this pog, you know, whatever. And like, we just do random stuff and that's all anonymous. And it's like, as bad as it is, I get a lot of pleasure out of that. That makes me feel good about me. I don't want to say wasting money, but some of the silly things that I do waste money on. It makes me feel better when I get to do that for somebody else.
- [26:10]
B
Last question. We didn't really cover about when the concept of the membership club. How do people apply for membership clubs? What does a company look for when they're thinking about how to curate? Because there's different types of membership clubs. There's obviously chains like Soho House that are around the world. Then there's some smaller format ones that are like restaurants mixed with a health club or something. Like. Walk us through the concept of people being onboarded. What's the concept of membership club in general?
- [26:35]
A
It's been interesting. And I don't want to say that we're figuring it out as we go, but we're kind of figuring it out as we go. I know what I don't want to be. How about that?
- [26:43]
B
Sure.
- [26:43]
A
I don't want to be snobs. I'm trying to bring Midwestern hospitality into Gravitas. I'm being like, I just. You saw me downstairs. I told Seth that I'm going to be at the front door all night tonight. And I will be at the front door all night. And the only reason I'm going to be there tonight is I want to make sure that nobody comes off the street. And our hostess says, oh, we're membership only. And they're going to say it the nicest, sweetest ways possible. I want to shake their hand and say, oh, man. Welcome to Gravitas. Tonight's night number eight or nine. Let me show you. We are a club and we have to be respectful of our members. We're not going to be given tours, but I want to make sure that they feel like we're not snobs.
- [27:16]
B
Sure.
- [27:16]
A
I know that Beverly Hills is Beverly Hills and everyone deserves that sense of exclusivity. And we're going to have that. We're definitely going to have that. But we've been fortunate where we've put. We've got a lot of applications in, and right now we're only approving referrals. So, like, if you're a member, you can refer somebody. Then we're going to look at them and treat them. But everyone else has kind of been on the wait list, and we're going to open that up here in a couple weeks. I just want to get open, make sure our food is great, which it is great. Our services. Our services out is incredible. So I'm really comfortable now to start letting members in.
- [27:48]
B
Can you talk about the pricing?
- [27:50]
A
Yeah, it's very, very, very affordable. I didn't want to go. I didn't want to go crazy high. I wanted to appeal to me at 20 years old, 25 years old, we could have for sure.
- [28:00]
B
But this place you could have. This is a gorgeous thing. This is.
- [28:02]
A
I didn't want to be that. I didn't want to be about the money. I wanted to. Like I told somebody the other day, this club represents everything that I needed in almost all of my stages of my business life and my personal life. Yeah.
- [28:14]
B
There's a whole sports bar right there.
- [28:15]
A
Yeah. Right next to us as we walk through here. Yeah. So it represents all that. So it's only. It's 2500 to sign up, which is cheap. That's one time you fee. It's initiation fee. And it's 5,500 per person. Nice. I know. Everyone told me, y'all, you don't have spousal memberships in la. I'm like, why?
- [28:30]
B
Why?
- [28:31]
A
I want. I want. I want the wives here.
- [28:33]
B
Yeah.
- [28:33]
A
I want the wives to be able to come without the husbands. And, like, let's face it, women get done.
- [28:38]
B
Yeah.
- [28:38]
A
And women plan things.
- [28:39]
B
Yeah.
- [28:40]
A
And we show up.
- [28:40]
B
Right? Exactly.
- [28:41]
A
And women are. They have opinions, and they have no problem expressing their opinions. And we need that here. And so. So it's 7, 500 for a spouse for a year. That's cheap. Yeah.
- [28:50]
B
Is there corporate versions also?
- [28:52]
A
No, not yet. Not say there won't be, but we just don't have any corporate right now.
- [28:56]
B
Got it, Brandon. Stephen, I have a question. I ask everyone that comes on the podcast, and I've never, ever gotten the same answer. I don't think I'm getting the same answer in this case as well. So you're a healthy guy. So hopefully it takes 100 years, 200 years. With modern technology, maybe you'll have bionic arms and bionic different organs and you survive to 162 years old. But unfortunately at some point you pass away and gravitas, maybe it ends up being in 10, 20, 30 cities for all we know. Maybe there's hundreds of car dealerships, maybe there's hundreds of gyms and you build this multi billion dollar legacy and it's finally time to pass away. What do you leave to those six kids? Oh, what percentage?
- [29:38]
A
What a great question. And I have heard you say that before but it sounds different when you're sitting right here. If I was to ever write a book I would title it. I started with everything. What do you think I mean by that? Or do you know what I mean by that?
- [29:56]
B
I have a, I have a version of what I think.
- [29:58]
A
Yeah. So many success stories you hear and they always start with the same thing. Oh, I started with nothing. I started with literally everything I needed both in my business and my personal life. My parents gave it to me, my grandparents gave it to me. My grandparents on both sides of my family gave it to me. I mean I am extremely lucky to be raised the way I was. When I was raised by my dad, I couldn't wait to go to work at his dad, my grandfather's car wash. I just, I mean I'm talking about 9, 10, 11 years old. I couldn't wait to go work there because the whole family worked there because they, they worked hard. I couldn't wait to go to my grandparents house for Christmas to set up the Christmas decorations. It was because he was open to the whole city and the whole city during all of December you could wait in 20 minutes in line to get to my grandparents Christmas play. But every single night we had to work to keep this thing going. And I just couldn't wait to do it. And it wasn't about the money, it was about, I didn't want to be out worked by my grandparents or my uncles or my brothers and my dad especially. And so, and then they taught me how to, to be a good person all the time. You know having integrity is not situational, right? Which unfortunately a lot of people think it's a situational thing. And I learned that early on. I don't know if I was rich or poor growing up. I don't know. We didn't know. It wasn't about the money, it was about being together with family. My parents made it very, I don't know if they did it but we always wanted to be with our cousins and our uncles and our aunts. Still today we are with our cousins, our uncles and aunts. My kids are Today their best friends are their cousins and their uncles and aunts. And so the best thing they gave me was that the ability to know good from bad, which is a big deal because a lot of people will know the difference. But they choose bad, which is scary. But my parents taught me everything I needed about being a good person. And with that became the work ethic. I mean, I remember my dad used to take us out of school. He used to come to grade school and get Rodney and I out of school because he had self service car washes and that would freeze up and he needed hands to get him to not freeze up. And so we just didn't know any better. I mean, that's just what we did. We worked and we loved it. So literally I started with everything. So if I could give my kids something, I think I've done that, my wife has done that. They have that same goodness inside their heart and the same work ethic.
- [32:14]
B
All right, so if people want to come to Gravitas, apply to Gravitas. Walk us through. How do they find this place? How do they apply?
- [32:21]
A
I want everyone to take a tour. I don't want people to sign up. It makes me sad. I was just on. A friend of mine came in. When I was walking up here for this, I saw Lee and I was like, he's like, oh. I was explaining the floor to him because the floor has all these lines on it. It's travertine floor and it has all these lines in it and they go like this. And I'm like, oh. You know, that's to scale the streets of Beverly Hills and you can see all the names and like all three of them, like, oh my God, that made me sad because I spent so much energy and time to make that and there's so many cool things like that in this restaurant that are specific to Beverly Hills. I want everyone to take a tour. I don't want people to sign up, say, oh, I'm already a member. I'm like, I've not done my job. He's a good friend of mine, but I'm like, he should be taking a tour. So I want everyone to take a tour. You can go to Gravitas.com Gravitas Beverly Hills.com either way, you get to the same place and you can apply and then you know it's going to ask you to take a tour. The best thing you do is go there and just say, request a tour. Or you can come in, you know, come in during the day and just take a tour. From two to four is probably the best for us.
- [33:18]
B
How was your first podcast?
- [33:21]
A
Went fast. Is that 40 minutes?
- [33:22]
B
Yeah.
- [33:22]
A
Oh, good.
- [33:23]
B
I don't have a clock, but I can tell you it's 40 minutes.
- [33:25]
A
Yeah, I'm not good about talking about myself, so it's good you actually have me talk about the company and stuff, which was interesting.
- [33:32]
B
All right, guys. As you know, the whole concept of the Money Mondays is we all grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money. I think it's rude not to talk about it. I think it's a problem in our society. People who can't talk about FICO scores and loans and if their friend borrows money for rent, what should they do to get it back? Should they sign a contract? Should they lease a car or buy a car? So many questions people have because they turn 18 years old and wee we just throw them out into society. And they don't know because they didn't learn in high school and they're not even learning in college what to do about money. They can't spell irs, they don't know how to pay their taxes, they don't know how to open a bank account, don't know how to manage a budget, anything. Because we think it's rude to talk about it. So it's important for us on this podcast for you guys to like comment, subscribe, share it. As you know, we've been running this ad free. We want you guys to enjoy the experiences. We have a 93% listen through rate because of this. We're not sitting here reading these two minute long, three minute long commercials. I want you to enjoy these experiences, especially with someone like Brandon Stephen who's built up in multiple verticals, these huge companies. These are the type of podcasts for you to share with your friends, talk with your staff, talk with your family, talk with your followers about money. So visit us at the moneymondays. Com and we'll see you guys next Monday.