Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Brandon Dawson - Exited for $151M at 77X EBITDA | Stop Blaming Your Employees for Your Failures

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Brandon Dawson - Exited for $151M at 77X EBITDA | Stop Blaming Your Employees for Your Failures · Success Story with Scott Clary

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When you see something that makes so much sense and you see how much money is being made,
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don't go do something else. What happens with a lot of these entrepreneurs,
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they start becoming successful. They get criticized by their group because here's the thing.
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Success comes with a whole new series of conditions. And then you finally succeed,
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those same people say, oh, they got lucky. This is Brandon Dawson. He built his first company at 26
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and sold it for millions, but that was just the beginning. Over the next two decades,
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he mastered the game of scaling businesses, taking one to a valuation of over $150 million,
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then he walked away. Not because he had to, but because he wanted to build something bigger.
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If you look at the top three reasons, business owners state the fail, which is a majority of
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business owners, it's because they, no demand for products, service can't find great people
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or can't make money. All three of those are an excuse. And then you say, well, there's no good people.
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Good people don't work for shitty business owners. Today, he partners with some of the most ambitious
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entrepreneurs in the world, but the road here, it's filled with lessons few dared to share.
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And the blueprint you're about to hear could change the trajectory of your entire business.
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The rules of investing are simple. Invest in yourself, invest in the thing that generates
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the money. And then when you have access capital, go invest in something that you don't have
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put your energy into and let it compound for you. What I found in life is the more
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interested you are in somebody, the more interesting they become to you. If you can't be something
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for somebody else, nobody can ever be that for you.
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My favorite part of your story is that all this started with a 2.4 GPA. So take me back to that
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2.4 GPA brand and talk to me about a major inflection point and sort of pushed you on the path
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you're on today. Well, I mean, you know, I hate it. I hate it school. And, and, and so, and I wasn't good
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at it. I love sports. And I only was reasonably enough good enough to get out of school. So I,
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my dad wouldn't, because he told me you don't get at least a 2.4. You can't play sports. So
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I was a 2.4. Yeah, if you just said three, I don't know that I would have played sports, right?
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But, but I could not wait to get out of this little town. I wanted to do something cool. I
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wanted to do something fun. I was a hard worker. I loved making money. I like to be independent.
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Those things I liked, but I couldn't stand sitting in a classroom. I mean, I just, that wasn't my style.
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And so as soon as I got out of high school, then I moved up to Portland and I thought, well,
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I'll do a little bit of college at Portland State and get a job. And I got a job selling inside
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sales. One day a week, I was making money. And I loved the inside sales job. And I hated
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sitting at Portland State. So I dropped out. And when I dropped out six months into it,
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an outside sales rep territory opened for the company. I was working part-time in.
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And I was so good selling over the phones. They offered me. They opened a new facility
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in the territory open. And they said, you can go sell over the phones in Atlanta full time. And so
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I moved to Atlanta and I was like, oh, here we go. This could be amazing. When you think about,
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now you teach nine-figure mindset. That's what you've adopted. That's the name of your book.
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That's what you teach entrepreneurs about.
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How do you think somebody's starting out? Because when you're talking about your or just
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or your in Atlanta, you don't have a nine-figure mindset yet. And I don't even think that when
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most people start companies, you're saying that. Yeah, it's just excitingly. Yeah.
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You know, it's hard to tell me what to do. Exactly. So when somebody is starting out,
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mindset's everything. Tactics are important, but mindset is very, very important.
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Getting off the ground, what's the advice to day zero start to have a nine-figure mindset?
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That would have made your journey maybe even a little bit quicker, shorter, better.
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Yeah. So for me, I love the fact that I was my own person. I was 19. I could do anything.
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You know, it's the first time I moved to Atlanta because in Oregon, I still have family around.
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When I moved to Atlanta and I landed there and they're like, here's,
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because I was supposed to be an inside sales rep and they're like, the outside sales rep got six.
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So starting today at the airport, when I landed, you're an outside sales rep.
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Oh my god. What's that mean? You get a Ford Taurus and you're going to travel 11 states.
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And so for me, I felt like I was an explorer, an explorer, right? Because I had never been to the south,
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didn't know anything about the south. I'd never been on my own. And I was just so excited about
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figuring it out. But if I could go back to that guy and say a couple things.
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I had the heart, I had the competitiveness, I had the desire to, but I wasn't even, I wasn't
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thinking about money, I was just thinking about how to learn to do anything, right? And then be
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good at it. But the one thing I will say that I thank God for that Brandon back then, because
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I was like smart enough to go like, who's at the best in this whole company that's doing what
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you want me to do? What's their routine? So when I went to that first sales meeting and met the
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number one outside sales rep, I'll never forget this because there was like 200 of them. They
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came in a ward and I was smart enough to go meet the guy. I was the youngest guy in the outside
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sales team. And I was like, how do you do it? And he befriended me. And he said, here's how I do my
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call reports. Here's how many cities I go to. Here's how I speed things up. Here's a kind of
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conversation. And I studied for that guy. And I just mimicked what he did. That's smart. And so
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thank God for that for that Brandon who didn't just drift around and take it for granted, right?
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But if I could go back and tell him something, I'd say to a man,
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when you see something that makes so much sense and you see how much money is being made,
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don't go do something else. Because I had two or three times where I was right in the middle,
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something so huge. And I didn't see it for what it was. And I went away from it. Whereas
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if I would have made that where I put my career or I would have adjusted my career and did those
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things, oh my gosh, I could have killed it. A lot of things happened in innovation in the 90s.
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2000s. I knew it was going to be unbelievable, but I didn't do something with it.
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So you mentioned when you sort of starting off your career, you're hungry, you're ambitious,
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you're super excited. Which I think most entrepreneurs are. But you made an interesting point.
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You weren't looking at the thing that made you the most money. You weren't looking at the thing
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that was like the best possible opportunity. And I think a lot of people that are just starting out.
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And I know that you're more focused on after they figured it out, they scale up. But I just think
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the one little bit of wisdom that you have there is when you're first starting out,
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where do you put your energy? How do you identify that opportunity that you should actually be
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putting energy and time and yourself into? Because I think that too many people get excited and
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they jump to the first thing that presents self to them. Well, a couple of things happened.
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Okay. So let's look at the macro stats. About 83 or 84% of businesses aren't started from somebody
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who wants to go build a high net worth and be an entrepreneur and be an executive. And if you go
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back all the way to email, it's almost 50 years now. They all started because they're good at
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something and they don't want to boss. They don't want to be told what to do. They don't want
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a limitation on their earnings. They don't want to be held accountable. And they're good at something.
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So I'm going to go start a business and be my own person. And then and then what happens is
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as soon as they hire a few people, they want to back off of the thing they're actually good at.
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Because they've been doing a long time. I'm tired of being the technician. I'm tired of doing
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so I'm going to have somebody else do it. I'm going to hire a kid to do it or I'm going to,
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you know, and they start throwing people at the different components of the business.
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And they're not leading the people doing the things they don't know how to do. So let's just
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take this for like say I'm a roofer. I'm a great roofer. I can go to any house, convince any owner
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to have me do their roof. And I can collect the money and deliver the roof faster. And anybody
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else in it's beautiful. And they always refer three friends to me. I got I'm so I'm natural.
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Well, I got to hire someone to clean up the mess to drop the stuff off to order the inventory
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to organize it to make sure that my vendors are getting paid to make sure that we're logging in
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the names, the information, sending out the right. Somebody has to do all that around me. And so
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it's not my expertise. So what happens is they get excited and they go to the thing that they're
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good at. And they actually are so successful at it. Everything else breaks down behind them.
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Because they have no idea who to put in that position, how to orchestrate it with them,
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how to organize it with them, and how to hold those people accountable. And then the thing I'm good
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at and I actually like, I don't like it anymore. Because now what am I doing? I'm solving all the
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problems. I'm fixing all the the broken things. I'm getting yelled at by clients that and now all
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of a sudden building a business is hard. It's painful. And maybe if I just went back and they
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don't say this, but maybe if I went back and controlled everything, I wouldn't have these problems.
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And then they locked themselves into staying small. I think that most people end up, you believe
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this for sure, they end up building themselves a job. They don't know how to get out of it. They
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don't know how to scale it. They don't know what to do with it. And I think that listen, I love
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entrepreneurship. I love building companies. I think this is something that is beautiful. But I
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think too many people rush into it without thinking. And then they find themselves locked and trapped.
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And they don't know what to do. Well, remember, if you listen to my stat, and I think it's
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important for your listeners to hear it. And the validation of this is email. I mean,
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it's been going on for 50 years. They didn't start a business because of what they wanted.
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They started the business because of what they didn't want. And then they struggled because
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they're hiring people. Think about it. If I started my business because I didn't want a boss.
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I didn't want a limitation of my earnings. I didn't want to be held accountable. And then I
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hire someone. Am I going to treat them the way I wanted to be treated or am I going to treat
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them differently? So now I start hiring people and I ignore them because I think they're going to
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be like me. But people aren't going to be like you. If you look at every study of every employee
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segment, they want to be led. They want to be nurtured. They want to be incentivized. They want to
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be they they want to be inspired. And then they want to be paid paid is like fourth or fifth.
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Now compare that to the person that started their business. I didn't want a boss. I didn't want
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to be told what to do. I didn't want to be held accountable. I didn't want to let me take. So
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so there's this huge disconnect. And then the frustration. And if you look at the top three reasons
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business owners state the fail, which is a majority of business owners, it's because they
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know demand for products or service can't find great people or can't make money. Well,
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all three of those are an excuse because if you were an HVAC tech and you work for an HVAC
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company, there is definitely demand for the product or service. So you can't say that.
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And then you say, well, there's no good people. No good people don't work for shitty business owners.
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So what you get are you get the people that don't know what they're doing either and they work for
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someone that doesn't know how to help them do it. So it's chaos. And when there's chaos,
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it's no longer fun. And the thing you do that you're good at, you're no longer excited about that
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because you got problem. You're not in your zone of genius. You're doing everything else.
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Assets under management with card on ventures. Where are you at now?
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Well, we've engineered a 6.8 billion in businesses. We've run 9.4 billion through our educational
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platforms and we manage about 2.3 billion right now. That's why I say you work with one or two
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businesses, right? When you think about the segment that you're serving too. So you're serving a
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lot of SMBs and mid, right? Well, there's 34.5 million businesses between 100,000 and 125
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million. And that's really our sweet spot. We do have larger businesses. They get my attention,
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but those are all in that segment. And the reason I ask that is because I always hear about
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all these business owners that are sort of living what you just described, this chaos. And
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and this is not a conversation that I usually have about entrepreneurship. A lot of people figure out
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a lot of people want to hear, how do I start? What should I focus on? How do I find my first 50
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customers? That's all great. But then once you get that and now you're stuck in this spot and
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that's who you're helping and that's who you're serving. So when you think about these massive
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amount of businesses, all I keep hearing about is wealth transfer, one of the largest wealth
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transfers, all these business owners that are stuck in chaos that don't know what to do. They don't
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know if they want to sell their business. They don't really know how to scale it because they've
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sort of and they don't know how to sell it. They don't how to sell it. Maybe their kids, it's
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interesting because I find that most business owners like sub 30, 40 million that I've met,
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their kids for some reason don't want to take over the business. I don't really know why that is.
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You don't? No, and maybe it's just discussed. It's because it's chaos. They've been,
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they've been listening to their parents come home and bitch about everything for the last
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succession plans anymore. So like, why would you? If you're a kid and your dad's coming home or
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your mom's coming home and it's like, we got all these problems. People are letting us down,
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we're pissed off, fighting because of something that happened at the office and now you're sitting
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there looking at that. You're like the last thing you want to just take your family business over.
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That's really what's happened. It's so hard to build a business. And if you're second or third
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generation you've been working in those companies, here's the problem. Owners treat their kids like,
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you should work for less and money. You should do more because you're my kid and I need you to
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be an example, but I'm not going to commit to you how much of this business you're ever going to
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own and one day it's going to be yours. So just suck it up because that's what I do with my dad
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because that's how the dads got it from their dads or their moms got it from their moms. We're
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in a different world today. And that's where we're experts in family businesses. And if you don't
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engineer that family business so that the family members understand they need to work as much
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or as hard as your best people, but then they need to be compensated as fair as your best people.
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So you get this weird thing that happens with family where it's like we shouldn't pay you as
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much because one day it's going to be yours. But you're not making the kind of money other people
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around you are making and everybody thinks you're making more than you should. And it's easy
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for you because you're the owner's family. So you're there's so many lose loses when you're in a
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family business because all the employees are like, oh yeah, that's the owner's son or daughter.
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Oh yeah, they get everything they want. Oh yeah, they don't have to work as hard. And then you have
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your family saying you need to work harder than everybody else and you should be willing to
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make less money. And so you're getting pounded on on both ways. The first thing you want to do is
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get the hell out of there. And it's sad because entrepreneurship should be a positive. It should be
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something that it's hard work, but it shouldn't be something that tears your family apart. It shouldn't
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be something that ruins a relationship with kids. So I'm assuming these are, you know, you help
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businesses scale and Cardone Ventures helps businesses scale. But behind the scale, there's all
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these interpersonal dynamics that you have to help a business owner through and help them understand
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if they're really going to try and take the business to the next level or sell it or do whatever
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with it. So when somebody comes to you, where are they in their business life cycle? We just sort
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of described the chaos we're dealing with. But then like, what's the first piece of advice for them
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to figure out which direction to go in? Well, okay. So, so that's a loaded question because they,
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you know, if you're a hundred thousand dollar a year person, you don't have to do something
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entirely different than if you're a million dollar person, only nine percent of the businesses
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between between a hundred thousand and 125 million, only nine percent actually break through
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the million dollar barrier. So, so you're talking about, you're talking about under a million
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businesses out of 33 and a half million. Here's an interesting thing going back to your wealth
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transfer. There's five trillion dollars of wealth transfer happening in the small business space.
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Okay. It's a 16 trillion dollar market right now. And those are businesses that range across
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the spectrum. Most of the reason the transfer is happening is they're owned by baby boomers who
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either can't or don't want to work anymore. Those businesses don't have high valuation.
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That's why the kids don't want to take them over because no one's making any money.
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Like, think about it. If your dad came to you and said, hey, son, our 12 million dollar business,
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the one that's been paying me to have the new trucks every year, the Rolls Royce, the six homes,
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the private airplane that we take on vacation, the speedboat for the lake, you know,
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you've been a good son and I'm tired, so I'm just going to give it to you and you can start paying
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yourself two or three million a year. You think that second generation wants that business?
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They're like, they're fight over. Of course, but that's on your journey. But when you're
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on your journey, believe now for 20 years, complaining there's no money fighting with their spouse,
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all these problems, frustrations, anger, drinking, whatever it is. Can't go on vacation because
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the next guy left and I got to go fix everything. You're not going to take that business over.
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So who gets that business? No, they don't know. I'll tell you, somebody that's listening to you
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and me right now, this says, if that's real, what do I need to do to prepare myself? Because
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the dumbest thing to do in the world today, if you want to be a business owner, just start a business.
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This is the smartest thing to do. Well, you don't have any money.
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The smartest thing to do is to go in and train and learn what a great business looks like. Learn
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from people that are building, learn your communication skills, learn how to sell things because if you
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can't sell anything, it doesn't matter. And then go work as an apprentice in a five to 10 million
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dollar business and look around and party your interview process. As owner, do you have anybody
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that you've already identified that's going to take this business over one day? And if the
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business owner says, no, I'm still just trying to make it work. You say, I got an older business owner,
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I got a business been around for 10 or 20 years. If I learned the technical aspects of how to make
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this business work, I could exit this business owner. And that owner, I'll give you a seller's note.
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They'll be like, you know what, I make 150 grand, 250 grand. We had this kid is 22. We bought a
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15 million dollar business for $225,000 a year for 10 years to the contractor is tired. And we
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immediately two years later turned it into a 50 million dollar company. I mean, people that are
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tired and don't want to change and they have that same broken mindset. It's so hard and there's
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people on the market sucks and nobody's good to me. They're never going to move the business beyond
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where it's at. That's the reason it's suffering. They're not open-minded to it. A young person
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comes in there and they're like, hey, just I'm excited. And they bring the enthusiasm to it. Now,
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if they learn the technical aspect of the business, they could blow that thing off the lid. And that's
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what I would say to my younger self. Instead of working in a corporation and then weeing in all my
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own and starting a business from scratch, the first one and trying to raise capital, just go find
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somebody's got a nice 5, 10 million dollar business. It's tired and worn out.
18:32
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if you're hiring Indeed is all you need. When you when you're talking to that person, I love that
20:32
idea. I absolutely love that because I know that the Cody Sanchez is of the world. They're talking
20:36
about. She's talking about laundry. Yeah, like Cody's financing and all that stuff. And Cody's
20:43
awesome. But she's going after a dip. That's a different. That's a cash flow business. That's a
20:47
business that can pay you and you don't have to do anything. That's she's an expert at that
20:51
because she is really good at that. And she's good at communicating about it. I'm talking about
20:55
you know, the people that speak the way I speak, the people that know what I know. Those are
21:00
her moses. Natalie and I talk about it. There's there's. Oh shoot, I forget what the other guy's name
21:11
is. I'll think of it in a second. But there's probably three to five people that are speaking
21:17
the right language to the right people that see this opportunity and know about it and know how
21:22
to go get it. So for the for the, you know, young entrepreneur that sort of deploys this strategy,
21:31
they've never scaled the business beyond what, you know, they're going in, they're learning
21:35
everything about it. And you're saying, well, you know, we could take this business from here and
21:38
we got at the $50 million in two years or thinking, how the hell do I do that? Different
21:43
levers you can pull, right? Obviously, you know, with the marketing, the sales, the talent you
21:47
bring on. Yeah, well, what do you teach people? What do I teach people about scaling business?
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Anything. I mean, my thing is mostly about how do you, how do you have the mental fortitude to
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stick with it for a long enough period of time? That's really the game. That's right. So if I was
22:04
that kid, I'd come learn from you had to have that mindset because if you can stand the game long
22:08
enough, yeah, you figure it out. Okay. And then then what I do is I go to Alex and Leila and
22:14
spend a couple days with them. You know what I do next? I'd go to over to Lead Edge or Brandon
22:18
Dawson or Grant Cardone thing. I would go find the three to five people that are communicating in a
22:24
way where I'm like all three, four or five of those people are legit. I, I can buy into what
22:30
they're saying. I don't understand it. And I'd spend a year, the rules of investing are simple.
22:34
Invest in yourself, invest in the thing that generates the money. And then when you have access
22:38
capital, either go buy something else that you can add to the thing that generates the money or
22:43
go invest in something that you don't have put your energy into and let it compound for you. Okay.
22:48
If I'm watching this and I'm someone that's like, man, I just don't know how to figure,
22:51
go learn from three to make it a point to actually invest in yourself and go to three to five people
22:57
that you respect that are speaking a language that you're like, I want to sound like that. I want
23:02
to think like that and go deep. Don't just go to a Tony Robbins seminar and say, I'm changed.
23:08
Like actually go frickin deep, right? Like I'm sure you've got a masterclass for people.
23:15
So go through, go for at the beginning and get to that masterclass and then go do it with Alex
23:19
and Leila, go do it with Brandon and Natalie, go do it with Grant Cardone and then all of a sudden
23:24
sit back and go, I'm going to go and while you're doing that, start reading about buying businesses
23:29
and start going, subscribe for $29 a month to a business buying brokerage account in your market
23:33
where you can start looking at stuff and then go to our 10x, how to buy a business program. It does,
23:39
there's enough information out there that if I really could sit back and say to myself, I want to
23:44
be wealthy. I want to do it the fastest way possible. I want to do a legal moral ethical and compliant.
23:49
There's five of us that you could start really studying under for a year or two and go kill it.
23:53
You know what my favorite thing about your story? When you first started working with Grant,
23:57
you already were incredibly successful, more than 99.99% of people on this planet and you still
24:04
put money into sitting at growth con and sitting up front and learning from him. And I think that
24:09
the takeaway from that that kills more dreams and more entrepreneurs than anything else is you
24:13
remove the ego because a lot of people that would sell a business for nine figures and be like,
24:18
I don't need to learn from anybody else, I figured it out. I was already worth 70. Well, at the time,
24:22
I was worth 90 million. I'll tell you what, you know how that doesn't stop. It's one thing to show
24:29
up and not have an ego, but you want to know what solidified grants respect of me because I was
24:35
a new entity. He said people make all sorts of promises and let them down two years into our
24:40
relationship. I bought my first aircraft. And I sent over the paint that I had put on it.
24:53
And it said, Cardone ventures on the tail and 10 acts on the plane. I didn't know it at the time,
24:59
but he had two other executives sitting there with them and he goes, that dude has no ego.
25:05
Nobody buys their first aircraft and doesn't put their own initials or their own name on it.
25:09
Nobody. I didn't even think to do that because I'm his partner. His name is bigger than my name.
25:16
So this is the thing. It's not because I think that the biggest issue is when someone like
25:21
becomes a great salesperson, they're all cocky. Let's just remember no matter what you ever
25:25
accomplish in your life. And I don't care what that is. There's always somebody that's 10
25:30
X bigger, more successful, more accomplished than you. And so if you think you're all that
25:35
ship because you've made your first 100 or your first million or your first 10 million and you
25:39
think that makes you special, just remember, there's people that are 20, 50, 100, a billion, 10
25:43
billion, a hundred billion, 200 billion. And you ain't that good. There's no end. So if you act
25:49
like you've arrived, you're never actually going to arrive at any other destination because anybody
25:54
that could help you spots that in two seconds is I don't want anything to do with this person.
25:59
That's the fatal mistake. And this is the part of mindset you were talking about.
26:03
One of my most impactful mentors is John Maxwell. And when John Maxwell was speaking at that
26:07
Grant Cardone event, John pulled me upside stage with Natalie. And I didn't even know what he
26:12
was doing. And he was pointing us out and it was all this chaos, 34,000 people. And I'm like,
26:17
John, we're going to sit back down. I don't know what you're trying to do. And he gets back stage.
26:20
He says, I didn't, he said, I just want to grant the seed to two of you because on the way to
26:25
backstage, I looked at Grant. And I said, Grant Cardone, if you can meet those two people,
26:29
I'm just going to tell you this. No matter what they tell you, you got 34,000 people here.
26:34
No matter what they tell you, it's the truth. And Grant, the next day ran into me and he was like,
26:40
man, you got one big endorsement from John Maxwell. I said, because I've been working with John. John,
26:46
I love John. John's a second father to me. I helped him double his business in 2013.
26:51
That's why I learned so much stuff about leadership and operationalizing and work alongside him.
26:56
And he became so close to him. You need those relationships. And at any point, if I always,
27:02
this, you see this, people come and take your classes and you see him trying to do a social media
27:06
and they sound like you, they're using your content, but they're not quoting you. And you're like,
27:10
that's kind of a bitch. I'm spending all this time trying to train him and they're acting like it's
27:14
them. I have never done that. So John Maxwell, why did John fall in love with me? Because all he
27:19
heard, everywhere where I was ever on a stage is John Maxwell and Sharon Lector and Jim Collins.
27:24
And I always ingratiate those people that affected me. And I always give gratitude to what they
27:30
did and how they taught me. And then I put what I did with it. Of course. And then it's a simple
27:34
hack. Then I'm like, if you want to bypass reading hundreds of books and 20 years of mistakes,
27:37
I'll teach you how to do what I learned from them in the next 12 months. Okay. But I don't have
27:42
to act like I'm the smartest guy in the room and people who act that way, nobody wants to help them.
27:47
One of my favorite ideas is just make yourself easy to help. Make yourself easy to root for.
27:53
And I think that everything you're saying is that it's like, if you just humble yourself,
27:57
you remove the ego, it is shocking at how many people want to help you win. Let's see you succeed.
28:03
The right people. The right people. I mean, the thing you have to address with that,
28:07
and this is the problem most entrepreneurs, we're talking about entrepreneurs too. So what happens
28:11
with a lot of these entrepreneurs is they, let's say they start becoming successful.
28:17
They get criticized by their group because they're, oh, you're working too hard,
28:21
you don't care about your family anymore. Everyone starts picking them apart because here's the thing.
28:27
Success comes with a whole new series of conditions. And if you actually go do something,
28:34
that group of people you're around, if they're not doing it, instead of actually cheering you on,
28:38
they have to face the fact that if you have the courage, the wisdom or ability to go change your life,
28:44
and they're not trying, there's this thing that happens with there because you're a mindset coach.
28:49
There's a thing that happens with their mindset, which is I'd rather see you fail.
28:53
Well, because they're looking in the mirror going, why don't I have their courage? Why don't I have
29:00
their ability? Why am I not, why don't I have their strength or their stamina? Why am I unwilling to
29:05
look stupid when they're willing to look stupid? And then you finally succeed. You know what,
29:09
those same people say, oh, they got lucky because this is the only way they could justify you
29:13
breaking out and doing something. Resilience is an important thing as an entrepreneur that
29:19
wants to succeed and the mental fortitude and strength to be willing to leave behind
29:27
and move forward and elevate yourself up has to be a core strength. It's tough. It's a tough
29:32
realization. Grant speaks about this a lot. To get something good, you have to let something go.
29:37
Yeah, 100%. People are everything. Whether or not it's the people that you surround yourself with
29:43
that are either pushing you towards your goal or the ones that are holding you back, business
29:48
partners. Like, I mean, you had a home run with Grant, but I know that first company,
29:53
you did not have a home run with those people that pushed you out of your own company.
29:57
So you've learned what those weren't people. That was a financial institution.
30:02
And but it's a group of people. Yeah, but they're also, you know, look, I had to take ownership.
30:08
If people listen to me talk, I go back and look at all the mistakes I made. And today, if I was
30:12
invested in a company like my company back then and I had to do the same thing, I would do it in
30:16
two seconds. I just didn't have that perspective back then because I made a lot of mistakes. And I
30:21
I was a cowboy and I lost their confidence. And then when they could get all their money plus
30:24
all their money, plus 100%. They took it like same thing I'd do today if I was back in the guy
30:29
that I was back then. So reflection is critically important. And so we need to reflection
30:36
that you gain wisdom. Because in present time, you never know if anything you're doing is a good
30:42
decision, bad decision or great decision. You don't know until you look back and go, that was a
30:46
great. And a lot of people find themselves in situations to where they could have had a great
30:50
situation, but they blew it. Well, what changed me is when I finally was able to look at the mirror
30:57
and go, you blew it, dude. It wasn't there. They were doing what they were supposed to do. Protect
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Two things can be true at the same time. The first thing is that yes, you have to take ownership
33:04
for the situation. You would find you were a cowboy. You weren't acting in the best interest of
33:08
their investors. But also, say you have a little bit of self-awareness. You realize you're not perfect,
33:15
but you're kind of on a journey and you want to align with people that will not only
33:23
support your business and your professional goals, but to also support your self-development goals
33:26
so that you can sort of like grow together with that person. So you're looking for investors.
33:30
It's not just about money. There's a lot more that comes with investment than if you find the right
33:34
investors, okay? My real question, what I want to find out from you is how do you find out who
33:41
those right people are that you should align with on your journey, with business, with investors,
33:47
with peers. I mean, it's a whole other conversation about people. But what is like the human
33:53
characteristics that you would advise somebody to look for when you are bringing somebody into your
33:58
world? Yeah, well, that's a great question. And unfortunately, people out trying to find money
34:04
and stuff don't ask that question. They just get stuck in their thing and try to go sell everybody
34:09
on why they know what they're doing. The most important thing, if you were to ask me 19 years old,
34:19
and you were to say to me, Brandon, I'm going to tell you what the most important thing is,
34:24
forever. It's the quality of your relationships. And you'll never have a high-quality
34:30
relationship if you can't be a high-quality relationship. So you ask me about investors or
34:35
business partners or things. In fact, top three reasons, business is bust. Even the successful
34:40
ones is busted partnerships. Ego is getting involved. I say there's two times people fight, no money,
34:45
too much money. You said earlier, it's all about people. So if I'm unclear, the kind of person I
34:57
am, and if I'm unclear, the kind of person I want to become, if I'm unclear about how committed I
35:05
am to making that happen, I'm going to be unclear about who to attract into my life. If I am
35:11
transactionally just trying to get something done like I just need money so I can start my dream.
35:15
You're going to accumulate a lot of problems there because you probably don't know what you're
35:19
doing and you're probably going to lose the money. So friends and families, not a good way to raise
35:22
capital, by the way. So I would look at the person. If you want an investor, I would go look at
35:28
what has that person done. I would never take money from somebody early days that with their money
35:36
wouldn't take an active interest in me in helping me because I know I don't know what I'm doing.
35:43
And so the people that helped me, even in my first company that I screwed up, they didn't invest
35:48
enough into the company because they were all really super wealthy. So put in a million bucks and
35:53
a million half bucks and they all pop a John, pop a bear, a marquee mark, all those initial five
36:00
Dougie, Dougie, Dougie, Dougie, good was his name. So I come doogie. But these were all my original
36:06
investors, all older guys that were worth money. But you know what, they loved me because I loved
36:11
them and I was appreciative and I listened to them. You just played golf and picked their brain.
36:17
You want the right investors to take an active interest in successful people and what they've
36:21
done and really respectfully try to learn from them. What I found in life is the more
36:28
interested you are in somebody, the more interesting they become to you.
36:37
If my interest, if I'm being interested in you because we're playing Call of Duty and
36:41
smoking dope and getting drunk on the weekends, I'm going to gravitate to that and you're probably
36:46
not going to help me much. If I go find a successful local business owner and I said, I'll work for you
36:52
for the cheapest you've ever paid anybody for the next two years, I'll become your most valuable
36:59
employee. I'll never ask for anything with the hopes that if I prove to you that I could
37:04
be the best apprentice you've ever had here, I'll do anything at any level. Give me two years
37:12
that if I proved to you, I can master this business and create value and have the humility
37:16
to never ask for anything and always be the best example. Would you consider expanding this
37:20
business and making me a partner in the future? Imagine somebody coming into a business owner
37:25
and asking that question, what would most business owners say to that? Yes, for sure. Unbelievable.
37:29
But no, what do they do? I demand more money. I not be in treated fair. This isn't, I want more.
37:37
That's how a majority of people think and act and those people are always going to struggle.
37:43
So the more you can lay yourself out there and appreciate the people you want to mentor you,
37:51
respect them and actually really care about them and try to drive so much value for them because
37:55
here's what I've learned. If you can't be something for somebody else, nobody can ever be that
38:02
for you. Why am I a great partner with Grant Cardone? Because I'm a great partner.
38:09
If I couldn't be a great partner for Grant, Grant would not be a good partner for me.
38:15
Grant would spit me up and chew me out. And he has multiple partnerships because people didn't do
38:20
what they said they were going to do. People weren't respectful. People wanted to tread on his
38:23
brand and then spin off other companies. I mean, we just had a situation where we had a partner.
38:27
We had to exit because they were setting up all these side companies using our relationships
38:31
and our vendors and all this and that and hiding things with family. Like, that's shit.
38:35
That's not a good partner. So you will attract what you are. So if somebody wants to know how to be
38:43
successful, define what you are and then choose what you're going to become. Last thing I want to ask,
38:52
I know that people's lives change after they work with Cardone ventures and work with you when
38:56
they understand themselves, when they understand the right people to bring into their world, when they
38:59
understand all the tactical scale, strategy, direction that they want to go in, just paint a picture
39:06
for the before and the after. When somebody leans into all the ideas that we're talking about today,
39:11
what's the outcome? It's a great question. Here's the thing you have to know about scaling anything
39:17
is that there's three levels of expertise you have to have to scale. First is personal, second is
39:24
professional and third is financial. There's no such thing as scaling to massive success and not
39:29
having all three of those things have to scale because if you professionally are scaling and you're
39:35
smart and you're blown away, but you don't scale your financial acumen and awareness and understanding
39:40
you'll bust out. If you become the most successful business owner and you throw everything at it and
39:47
you ignore your family and your friends, you'll bust out personally. And you're also guaranteed
39:52
in those break points as you're getting big and encountering all these new things because you're
39:56
going to have to change as a human being literally break point one, three million or less, break point two,
40:01
eight million or less, break point three, 15 less, break point four, 25 less, break point five,
40:06
45 less, break point six, 75 less and break point seven, 125 and then eight, nine, 10, 11 to a
40:14
billion dollars. Okay, every time you enter a new break point, you will be an entirely different
40:20
person that entered the break point before. And if you haven't personally, professionally and
40:25
financially grown at the same time you're going through those revenues, you will break as certain
40:31
as gravity. Something is going to break you and you won't see it coming. When we interviewed thousands
40:36
of business owners that went broke, one consistent thing, what caused you to go broke? You don't
40:42
wonder what everybody said? The thing I didn't see coming. It was never the thing they worried about.
40:48
So you're not going to see it coming. So contrasts at the people. What allowed you to succeed?
40:57
Think about this. I didn't see it coming because they relied on them, me, I, my, the people that
41:06
succeeded. I surrounded myself with loyal, great people and we were in the trenches together.
41:14
I might not have seen it coming, but my partner or my friend or my, my, my loyal employee did.
41:20
So we were able to attack it before it killed us. Strengthen numbers. But if you can't be it,
41:28
you won't attract it. Where do people connect with you? Where do people find it about Cardone Ventures?
41:33
Cardone Ventures.com. You can go to 10xhealthsystem.com. You're going to find me. You can go to
41:38
be Dawson.com. You can go to app branded in Dawson on my Instagram and social media that's been
41:44
shadow banned for the last three months now. You'll find me YouTube. You can find me on YouTube,
41:50
but I'm pretty, I'm pretty out there. We post consistently. My beautiful wife is blowing up right
41:56
now on social media. And if you just Google branded Dawson, I'm going to pop up and you can find
42:02
me however you want to find me. Look, if you're ambitious, you're excited. You want to do something
42:05
great. You got to listen to this guy. You got to listen to the people that are proven experts out
42:10
there. Stop wasting your time getting sold a bunch of bullshit stuff. Go find the experts. Go
42:15
find people who've really done it that are willing to commit. You know how much time energy and effort.
42:18
You know, it takes to do all this and you waited on me. I'm so sorry. You waited on me. I want to
42:24
cram as much in as I can, but here's the thing. We're doing this because we're trying to add value
42:27
to someone on the other side of that. That's it at the end of the day. And if they don't respect that,
42:31
well, then they should go play call duty. Every answer that you ever need is out there.
42:36
You've got to be willing to listen, pay attention. And here's the thing. If you don't know what your
42:40
destination is, you haven't set that. It doesn't mean you have to, you don't have to go. I want
42:44
to be worth 100 billion. Okay. You know what the biggest impact for me was when I asked my mentor
42:49
at 26 years old, how much money do this guy's worth hundreds and hundreds, maybe even billions?
42:55
I said, how much money? Papa John, how much money do you have to have? We never have to work again.
43:01
And he literally he was like, well, if you had five million and then 25 million at 75 million,
43:07
150 million. And here's what your life could look like. Do do do do. And he said, but look at
43:12
Warren Buffett at 27 Warren Buffett was worth a million at 37. He was worth 10 million at 47. He
43:19
was worth 75 million. But at 53, it compounded to 350 million. And then boom, it took off because
43:25
Warren lived like he was making a hundred grand a year. And all the access capital he threw into a
43:33
compounded event for him. I never forgot about that. I wrote it all down. I sketched it all out.
43:39
20 at 27. I was worth a million. I was worth 10 million. Sorry. And I'm like, I'm I am 10 years ahead
43:46
of Warren Buffett. That's right. But the problem was my that was at 27. The 32 has back to zero.
43:52
But when I sold my company at 47, think about this. So 27 37 47 Warren was worth 75 million.
44:00
I was asked, how did you set the price of your company? Because it was such a high price. Nobody's
44:04
ever paid that for a business. I said, because I had partners and my employees and after taxes,
44:09
I needed to put $75 million in the bank. Because that was my target from 20 years. And I did,
44:15
I put 76.2 million after taxes. If I had not had that conversation and I had not thought about it,
44:24
I might have sold my business for 50 million. And been happy I got 25. This is why Grant talks about
44:30
those targets. When I met Grant, I shared that story. I said, but I have a new problem. And Grant says
44:36
350 million. I'll solve that one for you. So we partnered. I'm now 57. We partnered six years ago.
44:43
In six years from dead-stopping, the best what I have, the best what we have,
44:46
putting it together with my wife as partners, we built an enterprise that last year did $245 million
44:53
in revenue. And it's worth about $750 million right now. And this year ago, it'll be over a billion.
45:00
And for context, that is revenue for the or not this portfolio companies, which is that is my
45:05
revenue. That is your revenue. I am managing partner, co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Cardo
45:12
Minchers and Grant, my wife and I, my wife and I and Grant are 50-50. And then Cardo Minchers,
45:19
I bought 10x health inside of it. It was a little $1 million, $1.5. And today that business is
45:23
$150 million. So between Cardo Minchers, $120 million in health, we ended last year. They both
45:29
were 120. From zero invested capital, zero debt, all internally cash flowed, we owned 99%
45:35
of the equity of Cardo Minchers and 10x health, Grant, my wife and I. And when we do what we're
45:42
going to do with that, that'll be worth about $3.5 billion in another 18 to 24 month.
45:48
That takes care of the 350. But that takes care of the 350. And can I tell you, Grant's like,
45:52
Grant will have to me when we were doing the math two years ago when I hit my 350 number. He goes,
45:58
I said, I knew you're going to help me do it. You know what he laughed at? He says the thing that
46:01
surprised me, I almost blew the deal, Brandon. I go, what? He goes, you were thinking so small.
46:06
I said, I wanted a 350 net worth. He's thinking, why don't you want a billion or two billion?
46:12
You know, when I spoke to him, he was telling me about how he wishes he was 10x,
46:15
saying everything from day one, he would have been worth tens of billions at this point.
46:19
The guys on machine, dude. And he's, he's, he is.
46:22
But direction, nor star and direction is so important.
46:25
Got to pick your target. And then you got to look for the clues to get you there.
46:28
If you're drifting and wandering, it's going to be horrible. If you're intentional,
46:33
and you take the right action, law of attraction, like it's not a real thing,
46:36
but it is a real thing if you do it this way. If you have intention, you take action towards the right
46:41
objectives, eventually you attract your target. And that's how you get it. Dude, thank you for having me.
46:47
I appreciate so much, dude. Thank you so much.