Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / He Was a Millionaire at 25. Then One Phone Call Wiped Him Out.

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He Was a Millionaire at 25. Then One Phone Call Wiped Him Out. · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:00
  a lot of times you you hear these young guys like,
• 0:02
  Hey, I'm gonna go out and get like twenty million dollars of investor capital.
• 0:05
  Great, but maybe you should slow down a little bit because twenty million dollars
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  doesn't mean you're bringing in twenty million dollars.
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  and very wealthy people know how to keep their money and you're not quite there yet,
• 0:15
  you know, so slow down and make sure that you don't get the short end
• 0:18
  of the stick type of thing.
• 0:25
  All right, Michael Sandorovich,
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  welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
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  Thank you for having me.
• 0:31
  Yes, sir. Thank you for being here.
• 0:32
  so Michael, you have been an entrepreneur basically your whole adult life,
• 0:37
  and you've had quite a a roller coaster of a journey,
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  I guess you could say. ~ so some high highs,
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  some low lows, and then completely reinvented yourself in a brand new industry.
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  so a lot of value I think you can provide to our audience.
• 0:53
  ~ but just to set the stage, can you talk about your backstory and how
• 0:57
  you became an entrepreneur?
• 0:59
  Yeah, I guess you know, I don't know if it was a smart decision
• 1:02
  or a foolish decision looking back on it.
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  You know, I I think it was kind of a foolish decision to go into business
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  on my own at twenty one. Not necessarily on my own.
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  I had a business partner at the time,
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  but it was a very short lived business partnership.
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  it's been a long journey and it's been a a crazy journey.
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  And ~ luckily, thank God now, like things have stabilized.
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  ~ only
• 1:20
  probably within the last like five to six years have have really stabilized.
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  So it's been it's been a lot. You know,
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  I just a couple of a few days ago actually I turned forty so
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  we had this conversation with a lot of different people that are in my community.
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  It's like, hey, what what kind of wisdom do you have so far?
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  And I'm thinking like, I don't know,
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  you know, I guess I gotta kinda sit down.
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  I'm sure ~ all the stories that I've I've had with everything that's happened
• 1:43
  in business, th maybe there's some wisdom there.
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  You know, I kind of
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  I hope there is. ~ this is like I guess the time for me to apply
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  the wisdom according to all the the village elders that I was talking to.
• 1:54
  Okay. All right. Yeah. So you started,
• 1:56
  like you said, you had a short lived business partnership.
• 1:58
  that ended pretty quickly and then you had some massive success early on
• 2:03
  in the debt collection industry and you basically became a millionaire
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  at at age twenty five. Can you just talk about how that all unfolded?
• 2:12
  Yeah, so I got into the debt collection industry just just sort of by accident.
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  You know, I was in college and I I needed a job.
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  I was working for a ~ timeshare company and I was always in sales.
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  ~ and I'm I'm really good at it,
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  you know, I'm sure you could tell I like to talk a lot.
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  So ~ you know, in sales, talking's not a bad thing and
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  My one of my best friends at the time we went to high school together,
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  was working for this company, said,
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  Hey, you know, I I can get you a job.
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  ~ so I interviewed and I interviewed as a debt collector initially
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  and the business owner was a very smart guy and said,
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  You're absolutely not doing this,
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  you're gonna be terrible at it,
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  but I'm gonna put you on sales.
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  And that's what I did. I did that for a few years and we got some really great
• 2:51
  contracts for the business. And then I kind of thought about it and I said,
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  listen, like it I think it's maybe time for me to transition out.
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  And if I could do this for someone,
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  I could do this for someone else.
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  or for myself rather. And that's what we did.
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  You know, I started in a janitor's closet in a small office building which belonged
• 3:06
  to my friend.
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  And after a few months we got in some clients and it was it was a slow grind,
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  a very, very slow grind for about a year.
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  You know, just the kind of the ego of hey,
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  why aren't people calling me? You know,
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  I had we had no like foundation in the business whatsoever.
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  We had no presence, we were nobodies really.
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  Yes, like I was a salesperson at a company for a few years,
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  but that didn't really mean anything.
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  You know, I couldn't go back and I wouldn't go back to get those clients that
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  I brought in. ~ you know, I do have some ethics.
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  ~
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  So things ~ moved very slowly,
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  and then all of a sudden we just kind of figured it out.
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  Something clicked where there was a particular industry that we wanted to target,
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  and that industry was payday loans,
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  auto-tital loans, basically ~ you know,
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  high-risk loans. And we started targeting those industries because there
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  was a lot of volume there. So we kind of switched things up,
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  and finally we were getting some traction and some cash flow.
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  And I took that cash flow and reinvested it into salespeople.
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  And those salespeople started calling on larger and larger leads,
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  and we ended up landing some very,
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  very large contracts, pretty much throughout the country.
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  And that's when things really took off.
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  And ~ right before that, I knew that the writing was kind of on the wall.
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  I needed to separate from my business partner because he was essentially an absent,
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  you know, kind of business partner.
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  He would kind of just check in and collect his check.
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  ~ and he wasn't supposed to be like that.
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  He was supposed to be someone that was supposed to help me,
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  you know, it was a 50-50 partnership.
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  and on the on his end, like he he was really knowledgeable about
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  the actual operational side of the business,
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  whereas I was just knowledgeable on how to,
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  you know, do set up a marketing campaign and set up sales.
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  So the writing was on the wall,
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  like I said, and I called an attorney and we were able to,
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  you know, cut a check for him and we amicably walked away from each other,
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  and that was essentially it, you know,
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  with ~ my business relationship with him.
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  And then
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  Within like three months, we a landed just even more you know crazy,
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  just crazy for us contracts. I mean these are multi-million dollar a year contracts.
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  And then you know we we bought ourselves out of the lease that we were in.
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  least a a large kind of like mixed industrial space.
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  I was into the you know mixed industrial look with the open like roofs
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  and and the HVAC and all that stuff.
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  You know, it was very kind of trendy and and fashionable at that point.
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  So I was like, wow, this is a great space.
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  We built it out. We had a wonderful ~ call center there and and great offices and
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  the ball just you know it was like an avalanche,
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  you know, within months we were just raking in a lot of,
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  a lot of money. And on paper, yeah,
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  you know, I was a millionaire.
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  And ~ then things kind of progressed and we were doing really,
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  really well. And apparently we were doing a little too well for one
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  of our largest cli actually the largest client.
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  We didn't know that on the back end they were actually looking to sell
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  the business off. And they were looking to stabilize their book of debt
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  and that was actually a strategy of a very smart strategy of theirs
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  to get more money for the business.
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  So all of a sudden, you know, we're working and we've got a lot
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  of placements and we've got a lot of people on payroll.
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  And we get an email. Hey, you know,
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  hang hang tight. You know, we're not gonna do any placements for you.
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  And debt collection is an interesting business where you get just like large bits
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  of data, and that data is those people that owe money to ~ the the client.
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  And ~ you know, from there things kind of just got a little messy.
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  It was like
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  Three weeks, four weeks go by,
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  then a couple of months, then three months,
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  then six months goes by and we're like I'm calling the client going,
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  Hey, what's going on? What did we do wrong?
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  What what is it what's the problem?
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  And you we're not getting any placements from you anymore.
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  And they are like, No, you're doing great.
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  We're just we're just trying to figure some things out.
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  We'll we'll get back to you. Everything's just well thank you
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  for everything that you've done so far.
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  And at this point, you know, this this is a very,
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  very large client and sustaining quite a bit
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  few employees and so I had to start laying people off and telling them,
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  look, as as soon as they come back on board,
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  I will give you a call, please come back in.
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  And that just never happened. ~ and then there was more regulation that came into
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  that industry. And this is around two thousand ten.
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  you have the consumer financial protection bureau that came in and
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  it was burdensome, you know, for us to to to do what we needed to do
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  in order to make money. And the profit margins just kept shrinking
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  and shrinking and shrinking. And at that point I just the burnout was real.
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  I I literally at that point I'd worked I think nonstop for four years without really
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  any kind of rest, like not no weekends,
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  no nothing really. ~
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  You know, and as a twenty-something,
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  you you kinda wanna get out there,
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  you know, and you wanna see people and friends and and see the world.
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  And that's not what I was living.
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  I was literally going to the office at six,
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  six thirty every morning and then coming back home,
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  you know, probably around that same time and just eating,
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  going to sleep and repeat, repeat,
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  repeat, which I I saw as like this is what I need to do.
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  These are the the hours that I need to put in.
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  You know, I've I've gotta be the this the sweat equity guy.
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  And I have to show my team that I'm the sweat equity guy so that they could
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  see that, you know, we're all on the same page.
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  And the burnout just started getting crazy,
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  was getting really crazy anxiety,
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  wasn't sleeping at night. ~ you know,
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  I went to a doctor, the doctor looks at me and How old are you?
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  I'm like, I'm in my you know, you have my chart.
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  He's like, You know, you don't look like that.
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  You look just terrible. You know,
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  bags under the eyes. And he's like,
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  Are you getting any sleep? Do you have kids?
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  I was like, No, not yet. So something had to change,
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  and ~ at that point I just decided that
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  I didn't want to do it anymore,
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  and we sold off whatever we could sell off.
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  And I went back to school to get my MBA.
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  And then ~
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  You know, started doing research on the insurance industry,
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  actually different industries,
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  'cause I was looking at real estate and insurance and a couple
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  of different industries where I could ~ get into something without much cash because
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  at that point I had nothing but debt.
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  There was no cash. You know, when you have a client that is like eighty percent
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  of your business and then all of a sudden overnight they disappear,
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  you gotta figure things out. And I was trying to peep keep people on payroll
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  for as long as I possibly could.
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  You know, so there was no cash left over.
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  I was looking at the insurance business and ~ I saw that there is
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  a
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  a a really desperate need for people to come into the industry.
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  For every four people that were retiring,
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  only one person was coming in.
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  And this was fifteen years ago,
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  so it's just as bad, if maybe not worse now.
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  And ~ insurance is one of those things where you can kind of
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  work it like real estate. You know,
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  when you bring in a client, that there's about a 90% chance that client's gonna
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  renew with you. So if you keep building and building and building on that book,
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  it's kind of like real estate.
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  You're building a real estate portfolio.
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  And I love that. And you know that's one of the ways that I transitioned into
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  the in into the insurance business.
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  And I don't know how much time we have but there's a you know there's story after
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  story with the insurance business as well.
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  So there's there's quite
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  Yeah, no w
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  a lot.
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  we'll get into that. Let let's just go back to the debt collection because you had,
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  like you said, like a really meteoric rise and then it it kind
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  Yes.
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  of crashed and burned. So I mean,
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  when that all happened, right,
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  and I appreciate all the detail because you know,
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  you get out of this bad partnership,
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  you reinvest the money, you're a sales guy,
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  you reinvest the money, you grow,
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  you go into this new industry with the high risk debt,
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  you get all these clients, the money's pouring in.
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  You know, you you get a new space,
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  right? Like you said, the trendy office building,
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  I'm sure, right, expensive, but the money's coming.
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  And for a young kid, right? because you hear all the stats about what
• 10:21
  it really takes to build a business,
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  and most people take years and years,
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  and it's it's usually later in life where people see the real success.
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  For a young kid to like, you know,
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  just be grinding and have things take off,
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  like do you
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  Do you think part of the problem was maybe succeeding too quickly
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  and just having that mindset where like,
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  wow, it's just gonna continue like this on and it it's you know,
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  we're just gonna be rolling from here on out?
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  A hundred percent. And also the lack of mentorship,
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  because you know, when you're that young,
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  the ego is is probably gonna control most of the things that you do.
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  And there wasn't anyone there to say,
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  like, hey, you know, maybe you should look at things a little bit differently.
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  Maybe you should slow down here or have a little bit of a strategy where
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  you have something to fall back on there.
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  ~ I didn't really surround myself with like the appropriate people.
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  One of the reasons why I did that is I'm more of an introvert and I kind of just,
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  you know, I put my head down and do the work.
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  And it's tough for me to reach out and ask for help.
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  And I think that's really important,
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  is is, especially if you're a young entrepreneur,
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  is to get someone that's smarter than you.
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  And there are many people, there most people are probably,
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  ~ and I say this to kind of you know for my experience.
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  And just to talk through through with them and just get you have to have
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  a vision for the future. You know,
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  when you're young, it it's like it's a day-by-day thing,
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  you know, especially with
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  buying something you're like, okay,
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  I bought something and I'm really happy with that thing,
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  and then the next day it's kind of like,
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  okay, well, I gotta find something else to replace that thing with.
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  ~ and when you're looking at numbers,
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  right, when it's not cold hard cash because everything was obviously digital,
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  you're looking at those numbers and they're kind of up and down a little
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  bit and side to side, and it's really not that big of a deal.
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  But when that number really takes a dive,
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  that's what really takes, a really,
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  really tough person
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  to handle that. And I wasn't tough.
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  At that point, I definitely wasn't tough.
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  That's why I wasn't sleeping. And ~ you know,
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  I had these health problems. So yeah,
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  I I think that, you know, slowing down is is kind of key.
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  ~ my wife, you know, ~ whenever I try to get ahead of myself,
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  she was like, look, slow and steady wins the race.
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  You know, you you're you're not the rabbit here.
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  It's like, hang on.
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  So when when that all, you know,
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  happened too, because right, you lose your biggest client.
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  and I guess they ended up they were purposely kind of doing all these placements
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  and giving you so much business to basically position themselves to get acquired.
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  and so it was almost kind of artificial,
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  right? And maybe even feels like,
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  wow, success, success, success.
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  And then next thing you know,
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  Out of nowhere, gone. Clients gone.
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  They don't even tell you what's going on.
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  Months and months go by. You probably had a bloated payroll for too long,
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  right? when you finally realized what happened,
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  and then kind of you're like upside down basically,
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  almost overnight, like what was that internal conversation like?
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  the internal conversation was this where am I right now?
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  Do I like the place that I'm in?
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  Do I want to be doing this for the rest of my life?
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  Is this an industry that I want to stay in?
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  And all the answers were no. It's look,
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  the the insurance industry I love,
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  and that's why I've been doing it for 15 years.
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  But the financial and debt collection industry I hated.
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  I just couldn't stand what I was doing.
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  There was a lot of different reasons,
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  And it's not just, hey, we're calling people and you're trying to be nasty
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  to them to get money.
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  You know, out of them. In fact,
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  our approach was completely different.
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  You know, the nastier that we were,
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  or the nastier that my collectors were,
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  the less result they had. So we kind of you know changed things up a little
• 14:25
  bit here and there. it's a self-realization thing that thank God I had.
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  ~ and I had some support for my family,
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  and they said, look,
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  You know what you're doing, kind of in a way.
• 14:35
  you're good at this, you know,
• 14:37
  talking and sales thing. I'm sure we're sure you can apply it in
• 14:41
  in a different place. And going back to school,
• 14:43
  you know, looking at people that were in the corporate world,
• 14:47
  I I still just couldn't do that.
• 14:49
  I couldn't, you know, do the whole climbing the corporate ladder thing,
• 14:52
  even though I was getting my MBA and I could have you know had the connections.
• 14:55
  It's just I really wanted something that I was capable of doing first first
• 15:01
  and foremost.
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  But also something that I wouldn't hate and something that would really benefit
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  people. Not to say that there's no benefit in debt collection.
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  It's an absolutely necessary business.
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  But here, you know, I'm solving problems and I'm helping people grow their business.
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  And yes, I was helping my clients grow their business by stabilizing their debt,
• 15:20
  and obviously, you know, there's there's definite opinions of short-term lending.
• 15:25
  ~ these these are not the cleanest of businesses in most ~ aspects.
• 15:29
  ~ and there's a reason why there's a lot of regulation.
• 15:32
  There is predatory lending involved in in these,
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  but that's you know kind of the name of the game.
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  So I just didn't want to be associated with that.
• 15:39
  And quite frankly, the burnout of hiring people and firing people
• 15:43
  and all that stuff, like the turnover is crazy in debt collection.
• 15:46
  And most people in the debt.
• 15:48
  collection industry, and I say this you know with all due respect,
• 15:51
  especially collectors, not the most savory characters.
• 15:54
  You know, they tend to have a lot of problems in their personal lives
• 15:58
  and their own financial problems.
• 16:00
  And you have to basically be a master of dealing with people,
• 16:04
  which is not to say that's any different,
• 16:07
  you know, in in this business,
• 16:08
  but it's a little bit more labor intensive,
• 16:10
  I guess you could say. The HR was nuts.
• 16:13
  Mm. Okay. And through all that,
• 16:16
  what do you think's the most important lesson you took from that whole experience?
• 16:21
  Well, there's there's quite a lot,
• 16:23
  but I guess like the primary lesson would be is just to slow down
• 16:26
  and really think things through and not try to,
• 16:30
  you know, satisfy a lot of different people and I was trying to make sure that
• 16:35
  my employees were making more money,
• 16:36
  like I wanted them to drive nicer cars.
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  You know, they would come in let's say on their car and I would bring them into
• 16:41
  a meeting and say, What can we do to make you more money so that you
• 16:43
  can get a better car? Not even thinking if they wanted a better car or not.
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  I was just the conversation that I was having with them.
• 16:50
  So
• 16:51
  But now it's a it's a completely different approach.
• 16:54
  It's like how can we help people?
• 16:56
  But before we can help people,
• 16:57
  we really have to listen to what it is that they need.
• 17:00
  You know, our outreach, for example,
• 17:01
  right now is like, hey, how can we help you?
• 17:04
  What kind of business are you in and what kind of problems
• 17:07
  are you potentially looking at that we can you know how help wrap
• 17:11
  up with the insurance products that we have?
• 17:13
  All right. So let's talk about insurance.
• 17:15
  So you go through this kind of epiphany.
• 17:17
  You go back and get your MBA. You really think things through and look
• 17:21
  at the industry you want to be involved in.
• 17:23
  You settle on insurance. You you didn't really have any experience
• 17:26
  in that industry going in, but you obviously had a sales background.
• 17:29
  You were good. You understood business,
• 17:31
  right? So talk about what that was like getting getting this new business
• 17:35
  off the ground.
• 17:37
  Brutal, in in some ways, even more brutal than collections.
• 17:40
  Because ~ you know, insurance is very heavily regulated.
• 17:43
  You have to get your licensing done and you have to make you know
• 17:46
  get your bonding and your insurances,
• 17:47
  your own insurances in place. And unfortunately I had a really bad
• 17:51
  ~ experience with a mentor. You know,
• 17:53
  at that point I was kinda like,
• 17:54
  okay, I I really need mentorship here.
• 17:57
  And I sought it out and I got connected to a gentleman that was somewhat local
• 18:01
  to me in the same city. LA's kind of tough because it's very spread out.
• 18:04
  You know, I'm in the valley, he's in the the city,
• 18:06
  so it
• 18:07
  Local is kind of a a light, light and fast term.
• 18:10
  so I started working kind of with him and he was sort of giving
• 18:16
  me some direction and then it came time to collect my commissions and he goes,
• 18:19
  I didn't we didn't agree to this.
• 18:20
  You know, I was just mentoring you.
• 18:22
  And it was a lot of money, especially for me,
• 18:24
  who didn't have any money. And ~ that was a really,
• 18:28
  really tough pill to swallow. But I learned enough from him to go,
• 18:32
  okay, I don't have to go through you,
• 18:34
  I can do this myself. And I started conversation.
• 18:37
  contacting the companies that they were working with.
• 18:39
  And insurance is an interesting place.
• 18:40
  A lot of people don't understand that it's very similar to like a grocery store,
• 18:44
  where we're the retail grocery store,
• 18:46
  but we have to get the groceries and the groceries are the products.
• 18:50
  We have to get the groceries from somewhere,
• 18:51
  right? So you either get direct ~ appointment with a carrier where
• 18:55
  the grocery gets sent to you directly,
• 18:57
  or you go through wholesalers.
• 18:59
  And in the business world, wholesalers are quite prevalent.
• 19:03
  So I started reaching out to a ton of wholesalers and getting access
• 19:07
  to more and more markets. And for the first you know,
• 19:09
  few years, I was kind of a jack of all trades.
• 19:11
  Hey, let me do your homeowners,
• 19:13
  let me do this. I mean, it was desperation,
• 19:14
  quite frankly. I just needed to get cash flow in.
• 19:17
  And then ~ as things progressed,
• 19:19
  my
• 19:20
  book started growing and I was on paper doing really well,
• 19:23
  but financially it was really tough because there was not much of a margin.
• 19:26
  There was just too many things to keep track of.
• 19:30
  Everything from customer service to carrier relationships to ~ hey,
• 19:35
  you know, I I don't like you for your auto insurance anymore,
• 19:38
  so I'm gonna pull my business auto insurance policy or my business whatever policy
• 19:42
  as well. And it just became kind of sort of
• 19:44
  Too political in a way, and then too just cumbersome to deal with.
• 19:48
  And I had the realization that specializing in business.
• 19:52
  Is what I really like. And honestly,
• 19:54
  you know, you need when you do a lot of homeowners' policies,
• 19:57
  it's the same thing, the same series of questions.
• 19:59
  Hey, when was your roof replaced?
• 20:01
  ~ how recent is your plumbing and all that?
• 20:04
  And it just became very boring to me.
• 20:06
  and business just was never boring.
• 20:08
  I always kind of wanted to do more business insurance and
• 20:12
  I realized like, okay, you know,
• 20:13
  we have to pick pick certain target markets and we have to really
• 20:17
  put everything into those target markets,
• 20:19
  learn everything about them. And not necessarily specialize because specialize
• 20:24
  in in the insurance world is is a tough term to use because really
• 20:28
  the only specialists are like coverage attorneys,
• 20:30
  because ~ interpretation of policies is is a is a tricky subject.
• 20:35
  But you know, we do have ~ a certain level of knowledge in business insurance,
• 20:40
  and that's where we're really shining.
• 20:42
  And and within the last, I would say,
• 20:43
  like five and a half to six years,
• 20:45
  things really took a turn. You know,
• 20:47
  business became very profitable,
• 20:49
  and growth is very steady, somewhere between twenty-eight and thirty percent
• 20:53
  per year, and things are just going well.
• 20:56
  You know, and at this point, I can take the time to do a podcast like this,
• 21:00
  or I could take the time to take my kids to school,
• 21:02
  or you know, give my wife a break or something like that,
• 21:04
  because
• 21:05
  At this point, The portfolio is growing.
• 21:07
  So things are, thank God, you know,
• 21:09
  much better. And ~ you know, right now it's it's all about me helping
• 21:13
  the the team that I have to build more business.
• 21:16
  And you know, they're they're doing great,
• 21:18
  thank God.
• 21:19
  Okay. All right. So you get into insurance.
• 21:22
  It's very tough in the early going,
• 21:24
  right? You're doing a lot of different things and you realize that,
• 21:27
  you know, you need to really specialize and business is where your your mind was.
• 21:32
  So you niche down in business and so you've had this company fifteen years,
• 21:36
  but really just within the last six years or so did things really start
• 21:40
  to stabilize and get a strong upward trajectory.
• 21:43
  Is that right?
• 21:44
  Yes, absolutely.
• 21:46
  early success and then you crash and burn,
• 21:48
  you serious health problems, kind of soul searching thereafter,
• 21:52
  you settle on insurance. It's a grind getting started,
• 21:55
  and almost a decade goes by before you really,
• 21:58
  get a handle on everything, become profitable and really have a like
• 22:01
  a strong foundation.
• 22:02
  Given what you went through, what what's that feel like when you finally
• 22:06
  get things going in the right direction and you you start to experience this type
• 22:09
  of upward trajectory?
• 22:12
  It's like a a burden that has been removed.
• 22:14
  You know, the weight off my shoulders is still there or on my shoulders
• 22:17
  is still there. I still have a family to,
• 22:19
  you know, obviously provide for.
• 22:21
  But there's like light at the end of the tunnel.
• 22:24
  It's like, okay, it's working.
• 22:26
  Now we just have to repeat it.
• 22:28
  Just figuring out how to make the business work.
• 22:31
  That was first the first 10 years.
• 22:33
  And then after that
• 22:35
  Things just started progressing and and growing.
• 22:38
  And now it's just like, okay, what do we need to do to continue the growth?
• 22:43
  ~ make sure that we're not going into places that we're not supposed to be going.
• 22:46
  Like for example, you know, we don't do truckers insurance.
• 22:49
  Been there, done that, couldn't make it profitable.
• 22:51
  So if I have a new producer coming in,
• 22:53
  hey, I really know a lot about trucking,
• 22:56
  I'm unfortunately not the agency for you.
• 22:58
  You know, go somewhere else and you'll have a lot more success there.
• 23:01
  So the having the ability to also say no and not having the desperation
• 23:05
  of trying to be you know the jack of all trades to everyone and trying
• 23:08
  to service all kinds of different industries,
• 23:09
  you know, we stick to, I would say we have like probably five primary industries.
• 23:13
  and ~ industries outside of that we can service,
• 23:16
  but sometimes and a lot of times actually we'll get a phone call and hey,
• 23:20
  I need you to help me with this.
• 23:21
  Sorry, you know, we can't we can't help you with that.
• 23:23
  So yeah, it it feels it feels good,
• 23:25
  I guess is kind of the the short answer,
• 23:27
  you know, here.
• 23:29
  Okay. And I mean, at the time too,
• 23:32
  with the debt collection stuff,
• 23:33
  right? I'm sure that was all traumatic,
• 23:35
  right? But then looking back at it all these years later and given what what you've
• 23:40
  built now, I mean, does it it is almost seemed like without that experience
• 23:45
  you couldn't have maybe really had this type of success you're experiencing
• 23:49
  now with going through that and really learning because it's one thing
• 23:52
  to hear about it, but really experiencing it,
• 23:54
  right? Do you think that really made you a much better entrepreneur
• 23:57
  for for where you are now?
• 24:00
  Yeah, just a and better person,
• 24:02
  I think. ~ you know, when you're dealing with so much adversity,
• 24:05
  ~ look, you know, my it's all relative,
• 24:08
  right? Like I I feel like I went through a lot,
• 24:10
  but compared to the what people go through,
• 24:12
  I haven't really gone through that much.
• 24:13
  You know, it's it's tough starting a business,
• 24:15
  but you know, money comes and goes,
• 24:17
  you'll figure it out eventually and there's always looking for a job and
• 24:21
  Yeah, you'll probably be all right,
• 24:22
  especially someone like me, where I have an MBA,
• 24:25
  so I could probably get a job somewhere and with pretty decent pay.
• 24:28
  So yeah, I mean it's a wonderful place to be right now,
• 24:32
  but slowing down really was like kind of the core thing and just making sure that
• 24:36
  I'm not running into different directions.
• 24:38
  You know, focus, focus, focus.
• 24:40
  I kind of talked to you briefly about systems.
• 24:43
  Like I read the book Emith.
• 24:45
  ~ just as I got out of actually my my MBA,
• 24:49
  I'd graduated and then I got the book.
• 24:51
  I was like, why did I even get an MBA?
• 24:53
  I could have just read this book,
• 24:54
  you know, over and over and over again and really
• 24:55
  Yeah.
• 24:55
  set up my systems. And once you get that,
• 24:58
  like once things finally start clicking.
• 25:01
  Yeah, it's it it feels really good.
• 25:03
  But yeah, slowing down is really important.
• 25:05
  Just ~ putting your ego aside and and really reaching out for help.
• 25:08
  one thing that I I really like doing now is when I've got younger people coming
• 25:12
  to me. I I did some some teaching for three years at a trade school.
• 25:16
  I that's kind of like my outreach and and my giving back.
• 25:19
  And
• 25:19
  a lot of times you you hear these young guys like,
• 25:21
  Hey, I'm gonna go out and get like twenty million dollars of investor capital.
• 25:24
  Great, but maybe you should slow down a little bit because twenty million dollars
• 25:28
  doesn't mean you're bringing in twenty million dollars.
• 25:30
  and very wealthy people know how to keep their money and you're not quite there yet,
• 25:35
  you know, so slow down and make sure that you don't get the short end
• 25:37
  of the stick type of thing.
• 26:15
  And looking back at the whole journey,
• 26:17
  right? The ups, the downs and kind of like the the ability to slow down
• 26:22
  and now having the ability to say no and be very specific about what
• 26:25
  you will and won't do and and sticking to that.
• 26:27
  what's been the best part of being an entrepreneur for you?
• 26:32
  Freedom. It it doesn't sound like I had much freedom because I really didn't,
• 26:36
  but now the freedom is there. You know,
• 26:38
  my wife is an attorney, she works for a wonderful firm,
• 26:40
  but she doesn't have the freedom that I have.
• 26:42
  And that is really important, especially in you know in a dual income household.
• 26:47
  We've got kids and we're thinking God willing gonna have more kids and
• 26:50
  I I we need to be able to have that flexibility.
• 26:53
  Unfortunately, with our parents,
• 26:55
  we don't have you know a big support system within the house and kids
• 26:58
  are pretty young. So thank God I have the ability now to do what I need to do.
• 27:02
  If my wife you know, being an attorney,
• 27:04
  especially in her line of work,
• 27:05
  she does real estate law, which is nuts.
• 27:07
  she has stayed up many a night,
• 27:10
  you know, 24 hours sometimes literally of just chugging along trying to make sure.
• 27:15
  that the the client doesn't lose everything that they have.
• 27:17
  And that's really, I think that's helped our marriage,
• 27:21
  it's helped our personal lives.
• 27:23
  ~ But you know still to this day it's like you gotta keep trucking,
• 27:27
  got to keep pushing. You know,
• 27:29
  every time I bring in a new producer,
• 27:30
  it's it kind of reminds me of the early days because if I bring in a new producer,
• 27:34
  now I am at their back in call,
• 27:36
  essentially 24-7.
• 27:38
  Because I have to make sure that they're set up in a way where they're
• 27:41
  not going towards failure, they're going towards success.
• 27:44
  Right? So I have to give them the time that I need to give them.
• 27:47
  And but still, you know, that's there's a process to that,
• 27:50
  thankfully with emith, where I can walk through things with them pretty quickly
• 27:54
  and say, okay, these are the steps that you need to take.
• 27:56
  And once you've mastered those steps,
• 27:59
  you can come back to me if you have any more specific questions.
• 28:49
  right. And so if people want to learn more about the the insurance services
• 28:54
  you offer or reach out to you ~ if for for any other reason,
• 28:57
  what's the best way people can find you online?
• 28:59
  Sure, yeah, you could go to 613ins.com.
• 29:03
  That's our website. And if you would like a quote,
• 29:05
  there's a very simple process on the website.
• 29:08
  To ~ request a quote, whether it be workers' compensation,
• 29:11
  commercial auto, general liability,
• 29:12
  et cetera. We we have pretty much everything that you can think of when
• 29:16
  it comes to business insurance with the exception of benefits.
• 29:18
  We do not handle benefits, but we do have some great referrals that
• 29:21
  we can provide to our clients or even if you're not a client,
• 29:24
  if you just have any questions,
• 29:25
  and we're not licensed in every single state,
• 29:27
  but wherever it is that folks are calling from,
• 29:29
  I'm happy to take five, ten minutes,
• 29:31
  you know, if I put you on my calendar and go through what you have and give
• 29:34
  you some direction if needed.
• 29:36
  Okay. All right. And if people want to reach out to you for any other reason,
• 29:38
  ~ is it LinkedIn or any anywhere else they can find you?
• 29:42
  my email, I'm not super active on LinkedIn.
• 29:44
  I do have don't have enough time to do that,
• 29:46
  but my email is just Michael at six one threeins.com.
• 29:50
  Shoot me an email, I'd be happy to you know put some time together to
• 29:53
  to chat with you.
• 29:54
  Okay. And we'll link all that in the show notes for everyone.
• 29:56
  All right. Well, Michael, thank you so much for taking the time to
• 29:59
  be here and sharing all this incredible wisdom from your journey with our listeners.
• 30:03
  We greatly appreciate it.
• 30:05
  Thank you for having me, appreciate it.