Latest / Forge Fire Protocol Podcast / Decoding Your Score: The 7 Traits of a $10M-Exit Business

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Decoding Your Score: The 7 Traits of a $10M-Exit Business · Forge Fire Protocol Podcast

• 0:02
  Imagine breaking free from the grind and building a business that lights you up, ignites with purpose, and delivers the ultimate reward.
• 0:12
  Forge Fire Protocol gives ambitious entrepreneurs the proven five-step system to choose the right business, launch it successfully, scale it strategically, and exit on your terms.
• 0:26
  Turning vision into lasting wealth, forged in fire, built for legacy.
• 0:33
  All right, welcome back.
• 0:35
  This is the Forgefire Protocol, episode three.
• 0:38
  You've got Stephen Moynihan, Michael Sullivan, myself, Don LaPlume.
• 0:41
  We are here, we're back.
• 0:43
  And in our last episode, we had worked all the way up through number four on our checklist, really our system, seven characteristics of a $10 million exit business, right?
• 0:57
  Because if you're going to launch a business or let's say you've got a business now that you already launched,
• 1:01
  you're looking at well does this fit this protocol right or how could i make it fit the protocol there's certain characteristics of that type of business that um makes it very very viral it makes it just it would be to take off but not just take off take off in a way where it replaces you or you are easily replaceable and sometimes we think you know guys none of us really want to be replaced in life right
• 1:29
  But in business, guess what?
• 1:31
  We do.
• 1:32
  You might not think so.
• 1:33
  All right.
• 1:34
  And that's why we don't get into the trap of, say, a purely passion business.
• 1:39
  All right.
• 1:39
  Because, you know, I use the example, I think, in our first episode of being a baker, loving baking.
• 1:46
  All right.
• 1:46
  Now, I love eating baked goods, but we're not going to go there.
• 1:50
  Right.
• 1:51
  But being a baker, there are people that they're just passionate about that.
• 1:56
  Does that mean they should own a bakery?
• 1:58
  maybe maybe not all right there's a lot that comes into running a business right in this case same thing when we look at the characteristics we're looking for for a business that you can launch quickly iterate rapidly scale very quickly and exit in three to five years with a 10 million exit that's the objective okay
• 2:20
  We can't guarantee you're going to do that because we don't know what you're going to do.
• 2:23
  We don't know if you're going to take the action.
• 2:24
  We don't know if you're going to follow the protocol that we've lined up and outlined here.
• 2:28
  We don't know if you're going to make the right decisions in your business.
• 2:31
  But what we do know is that we've got a system, a track that you can run on that is going to bring you a long ways to getting to that point.
• 2:40
  All right.
• 2:41
  Can't give you everything, but it can give you a lot.
• 2:43
  And this is something you're going to want to be part of for a long time.
• 2:46
  Yeah, and those decisions, Don, by the way, if you make a wrong decision, you have the community here.
• 2:51
  Okay, so when you make those wrong decisions, my apologies, what's important is that you're learning from them and you're analyzing them and you're assessing them.
• 2:59
  Yeah.
• 3:00
  And for example, years ago, someone said to me a long time ago that, oh, well, if you're the person that this company needs to handle all this stuff, that you have job security.
• 3:07
  He was 100% wrong.
• 3:11
  Okay, by me being the person, I had the tightest leash at the company.
• 3:16
  which meant I basically worked 24-7.
• 3:19
  At one time, worked 40 hours straight just to work us through an issue because I was the only person.
• 3:24
  And what did I do coming out of that?
• 3:26
  Learned that I needed to build a better system, I needed to trust the system, and that the system could not be dependent on me.
• 3:31
  I could be the puppet master or the conductor of the orchestra, but I could not be playing all the instruments at once.
• 3:41
  It would have sounded awful too.
• 3:42
  So in order to have that harmony, you just got to have that system.
• 3:46
  And that's again, AI though, lets you create that entire orchestra just by you creating it and then you can conduct it after you creating it.
• 3:55
  So it's really powerful as to what you can do.
• 3:59
  When you're looking at it and you're looking at your business model and auditing your business with a seven characteristic scorecard, and really in chapter one, the scoring matrix showing how community peer –
• 4:14
  Community peer reviews help founders objectively score their business ideas out of the 70 points.
• 4:22
  And you've got community feedback to really help prevent founders from falling in love with their own ideas instead of market pain and willingness to pay that we've talked about.
• 4:33
  Yeah, exactly, because it's.
• 4:35
  We don't want to get stuck in that.
• 4:36
  So I'm going to pull up the seven characteristics, by the way.
• 4:39
  And we've already gone through a bunch of these in earlier episodes.
• 4:41
  If you didn't catch the earlier episodes, go back and watch them because it's going to make a lot of sense to you.
• 4:47
  But we talked about the high willingness to pay and clear paying.
• 4:49
  We talked about recurring high lifetime value revenue.
• 4:52
  We talked about low physical overhead and inventory risk.
• 4:55
  Those are all things you want to look at and evaluate in choosing, should I start this business?
• 5:01
  Or if I've got a business now...
• 5:03
  are these things that maybe I wasn't thinking of before but I really need to look at and how can I tweak them so that my business is uh going to be able to be positioned so I can sell it when I'm ready and then of course we we finished off with AI AI leverageable delivery in our last episode and sounds like Mike you're just going for a perfect segue into that and then um uh so I want to go back to that because
• 5:27
  We covered a lot on AI delivery, and we're going to get to these others before we finish off this section here.
• 5:33
  But AI leverage delivery, right?
• 5:38
  Everything you do in a business today, just about almost everything, can be automated.
• 5:45
  For years, there's been systems to automate, right?
• 5:49
  You can do this, and you can automate emails going out.
• 5:51
  You can automate these going out.
• 5:52
  You can do this.
• 5:53
  You can do that.
• 5:54
  But things have evolved so rapidly with technology that now, I mean, I can tell you all of our phones are answered by AI.
• 6:06
  I've got multiple companies, three companies, all three of them have different AI systems answering the phones, directing people to different places.
• 6:17
  I don't need to have anybody answering the phones.
• 6:19
  And you know what the cost is, by the way?
• 6:22
  The cost for those three companies for the phone systems is under $100.
• 6:27
  Yeah.
• 6:29
  So what is AI doing, right?
• 6:30
  So AI is doing two things.
• 6:32
  Number one, it's lowering your overhead.
• 6:35
  Look up above.
• 6:37
  Yeah.
• 6:37
  Okay, that's number one.
• 6:39
  Number two, it's compressing time.
• 6:41
  Now, whether you go back to the printing press, what did that do?
• 6:44
  Compress time to produce newspapers and print.
• 6:47
  Whether you go back to, as we said, the Industrial Revolution, air travel, internet, all of these world-changing innovations happen with the focus of mind of efficiency and giving people back more time to focus on the things they needed to do to produce better content.
• 7:05
  That's what we're doing here.
• 7:06
  That's it in a nutshell.
• 7:08
  You're buying back a lot of this time.
• 7:10
  We're able to better structure that time and you be the person running the system or the person guiding the system to get the results that you want to get without relying on 30 other people out of the gate, especially.
• 7:24
  And I got to point this out because if you've got a business now where you've got people, let's say you've got somebody answering the phone.
• 7:30
  I'm not saying get rid of them.
• 7:31
  That's not what I'm saying, right?
• 7:33
  Yes, I have,
• 7:35
  three businesses all with three different phone systems being answered for less than a hundred dollars a month.
• 7:39
  You can't get that with an employee, but I would say take that employee and we can teach that employee how to utilize tools.
• 7:50
  Cause if they can answer the phone, they can do this.
• 7:54
  Okay.
• 7:54
  It's, this is not rocket science anymore.
• 7:57
  Used to be that you need to know how to code and do all these other things.
• 7:59
  That's not the case.
• 8:00
  We can teach them how to use these tools,
• 8:03
  But you can teach them how to use these tools.
• 8:05
  You can create SOPs on how to use these tools where now they are doing even more value.
• 8:11
  They're providing 10x the value that they're currently providing for your business.
• 8:15
  Don't get rid of them.
• 8:16
  Multiply them.
• 8:18
  Right.
• 8:18
  And the example I gave earlier, too, they can be that entry level.
• 8:22
  They can be that low level, just taking away the low value labor or taking away.
• 8:29
  How much are you paying those AI employees in healthcare costs and in insurance?
• 8:35
  How much does that cost you?
• 8:35
  I'm pretty sure it's zero.
• 8:36
  It's zero.
• 8:37
  Yeah.
• 8:38
  And our healthcare costs going through the absolute roof nowadays?
• 8:41
  Yes, they are.
• 8:42
  Double digit increases every year.
• 8:44
  Again, and I'm not saying...
• 8:47
  as you said too, if there are people who have high value that are producing, great, keep them.
• 8:52
  I 100% believe that.
• 8:53
  But what I'm noticing that all the most successful entrepreneurs are doing is they're requiring those people, those physical people to invest part of their day, part of their month, part of the year, depending on the level of aggressiveness and the companies that want to be more successful than others, quite frankly, they're requiring them to invest in learning AI and using AI within the business because it's required.
• 9:17
  If I asked you to look something up, I am not going to an encyclopedia Britannica and going through a bunch of stairs and trying to find what's on that page.
• 9:24
  It's fantastic that it's there and it was awesome for a certain point in time.
• 9:29
  But I'm looking to get an answer in about five seconds.
• 9:32
  There's only two ways I'm getting that.
• 9:34
  AI and the internet.
• 9:38
  That's right.
• 9:40
  So we're not telling you to get rid of people if you don't want to get a business.
• 9:43
  If you don't have a business now,
• 9:46
  We're going to help you to launch a business where you need ridiculously few employees, if any.
• 9:55
  All right.
• 9:56
  These days, you can literally start a business on your own, be the only employee, and it could become a billion dollar business.
• 10:03
  That is doable today.
• 10:07
  That is mind blowing when you really think about it.
• 10:11
  But it's true.
• 10:13
  The question is, will you?
• 10:15
  Right.
• 10:15
  And what is it?
• 10:16
  And how do you do it?
• 10:18
  So we're gonna help you determine what it should be.
• 10:20
  And we're gonna help guide you through building it.
• 10:25
  But AI is, it is a tool you will want to use.
• 10:31
  And you're going to almost have to use it to get to that next step and have that defensive positioning and that moat potential.
• 10:37
  I mean, as I've mentioned before, but to you guys, I'm not sure.
• 10:40
  I don't think I've mentioned on the podcast before.
• 10:41
  If you've ever studied how Warren Buffett invests, he looks for an economic moat.
• 10:48
  Okay.
• 10:48
  And that's exactly what he calls it.
• 10:49
  And it's in reference, as we are too, to a medieval castle that had a moat around it.
• 10:54
  And the way in is when you let the gate down or the thing down.
• 10:58
  And then once it was done.
• 11:00
  pulled it back up so no one could get in unless they scaled the walls and you had time to get them but the bottom line is is a moat is basically a company's like there's let's call it their sustainable competitive advantage all right it protects them from for like long-term profits and market share from their rivals by leveraging ai and using what we're doing we're helping you understand how you can build that because that by the way when someone's looking to purchase your company
• 11:27
  is of massive importance in terms of the multiples that we'll talk about later in terms of the value of your company compared to the annual revenue.
• 11:34
  I really want to emphasize there on that point.
• 11:37
  When you submit your business model to the Forge community, you get raw, honest, life-saving feedback rather than polite encouragement from friends and family.
• 11:46
  Yeah.
• 11:48
  Yeah.
• 11:48
  Yeah.
• 11:49
  Yeah, and you need honest feedback.
• 11:50
  Look, this is business.
• 11:51
  This is not emotion.
• 11:52
  This is not, this is the way it needs to be.
• 11:55
  We need to be logical.
• 11:56
  We need to look at things and say, get empirical evidence.
• 11:59
  Does this make sense, right?
• 12:01
  Numerical.
• 12:01
  Does this make sense?
• 12:04
  Okay.
• 12:04
  So spot on there, Stephen.
• 12:07
  So, by the way, have you ever started something and realized you had a pivot?
• 12:11
  Um, yeah, it's part, it's part of it.
• 12:15
  It's okay.
• 12:16
  You just got to understand where you are and the faster you can get there.
• 12:18
  The more time you save.
• 12:20
  The pivots I've done, I've done parouettes.
• 12:22
  Yes, exactly.
• 12:24
  It's fun for a couple of years and then realize, holy crap, I'm dizzy.
• 12:28
  Yes.
• 12:28
  I gotta, I gotta land and just get my balance.
• 12:32
  Yeah.
• 12:32
  So, so it just made me think, uh, I don't, I don't want to go off on a tangent, but I could, my, my wife worked a league once, uh, we had just gotten to an ice skating rink.
• 12:41
  And it was, and this relates, trust me.
• 12:45
  All right.
• 12:46
  And she had her skates on with one of my daughters and they were out there on the ice.
• 12:50
  I didn't even get my skates on.
• 12:52
  I look over and she's down at the end, the far end of the rink.
• 12:55
  And she goes up almost like the most, it was low motion, the most elegant pirouette on her side in the air lands.
• 13:04
  It was all an accident.
• 13:06
  That was not intentional lands, but it was graceful as anything.
• 13:10
  And, and, but you broke her leg.
• 13:13
  And I say that because, and this is how it relates.
• 13:17
  When you're going through those, those situations where you have to pivot, do you want to do it fast?
• 13:24
  Do you want to do it slow?
• 13:26
  All right.
• 13:26
  You want to get it done fast, rapid iteration, right?
• 13:29
  That's because, because if you're going down the wrong direction, you want to know earlier rather than later.
• 13:34
  Yep.
• 13:34
  Right.
• 13:35
  But going, go into that defensive position, the moat, moat potential, right?
• 13:38
  Right.
• 13:39
  Moat potential is, and this is how you rate it on a score of one to 10, is how unique is your proposition?
• 13:47
  What you're delivering?
• 13:48
  How defensible is it?
• 13:50
  Can somebody replicate it super simply?
• 13:53
  All right.
• 13:53
  And if they can, well, that's not a great moat.
• 13:56
  You want to have a business model that has proprietary data, proprietary information.
• 14:03
  You want IP, intellectual property.
• 14:05
  Thank you.
• 14:10
  there's so many different ways to build a moat, but what you need to do is you need to think about, and you're right, Mike, it goes right to that exit value, right?
• 14:19
  The multiples that you can sell this business for.
• 14:23
  It has to be something where if it's a dime a dozen business,
• 14:28
  Well, you're not going to get more than a dime.
• 14:29
  I mean, you're not going to get a lot of money for it, right?
• 14:32
  But if it's a very unique, if it's that rare silver dollar, liberty dollar, right?
• 14:39
  Then you're going to get a much higher multiple for that business.
• 14:42
  Right.
• 14:43
  But there's a common misconception here.
• 14:44
  It's like, I know a lot of people are going to think, well, using AI, what's, what IP do you have there?
• 14:50
  You're just using a tool.
• 14:51
  This is what you need to understand.
• 14:53
  By understanding the right prompts and the right systems, you have so much control.
• 14:58
  over what you can do with that intellectual property and make it your content, leveraging AI as the delivery tool.
• 15:03
  That's why it said AI delivery.
• 15:06
  Yeah.
• 15:07
  AI is a partner.
• 15:08
  It's a thought partner.
• 15:09
  It is a business partner that does not require any equity, which is really cool, by the way.
• 15:17
  But if you don't, well, just going back to that, by using it, it's still, even though it's a partner, it's there, but you have to direct it.
• 15:27
  That's why you can train anybody on your team now.
• 15:29
  If you already have a company, you can train them how to use it properly.
• 15:34
  And they're leading that AI.
• 15:38
  They're leading that agent, that whatever it is.
• 15:40
  Okay.
• 15:41
  That's also your ability.
• 15:43
  You're leading.
• 15:45
  Right.
• 15:45
  Right.
• 15:46
  And you're creating something that, like in our academy, did AI produce the video?
• 15:52
  Yes.
• 15:53
  Where did the content come from?
• 15:54
  Well, it came from a book I wrote.
• 15:57
  And we took that book and we distilled different pieces of it and we added other things to make sure that it's going to bring you through all the different aspects of the protocol in a way that is systematized and is really going to help you to learn it.
• 16:11
  But the original content came from a mind.
• 16:15
  It didn't come from AI.
• 16:17
  AI was simply directed on how to provide an output.
• 16:21
  Right, and AI now, as we talked about, as we start to go into also trying to build a transferable system and have those things that are of high value at that sixth step on the seven characteristics, AI is how you can quickly build that system.
• 16:36
  And you don't need to know how to use it.
• 16:37
  Here's what you know how to do.
• 16:39
  Do you know how to talk?
• 16:42
  Or do you know how to communicate?
• 16:44
  And it doesn't matter what language you speak because you can do it in every language and it can translate.
• 16:50
  Okay.
• 16:50
  So people, I mean, I don't think people understand the value of this is we've talked about this before personally, the three of us, long car rides are great times to have conversations with AI and build out systems and build out ideas and validate ideas and test systems and just go through conversations.
• 17:08
  90% of the work I do on AI is verbal.
• 17:11
  It's communication I'm having back and forth because I can speak faster than I can type.
• 17:15
  I'm not paused by what's going on.
• 17:17
  I'm just in a direct conversation.
• 17:18
  Okay.
• 17:19
  And then I ask it to produce output and then I'll, then I weigh in on the output.
• 17:22
  Cause I don't, just so you guys understand this, for those of you that aren't as well known, they don't understand AI as well.
• 17:27
  I don't just say, go produce this.
• 17:28
  And it produces it.
• 17:29
  And I'm like, great, thanks.
• 17:30
  I mean, that happens occasionally, but usually not.
• 17:33
  Usually it requires multiple iterations.
• 17:35
  But as you said, the speed of those iterations, those iterations are happening over, I could have 30 iterations over five minutes.
• 17:43
  When we were talking about when we built out the tool, we had hundreds of iterations as we were going through it, reeling out like little tweaks.
• 17:52
  But those iterations were happening just incrementally.
• 17:54
  We were just going and going.
• 17:55
  We built it out in weeks.
• 17:56
  Yeah.
• 17:58
  which is an amazing tool for business owners.
• 18:00
  We'll get to that another time.
• 18:01
  But transferable systems, it's not about founder's magic.
• 18:08
  That parentheses actually should be bold.
• 18:11
  It's streaming.
• 18:12
  And I'm going to pull it back up on screen because I took it down.
• 18:15
  I mean, and I'll pull it up here for a second, but where it says not founder magic for transferable systems, that is key.
• 18:24
  Because if you are the magic in the business,
• 18:27
  You are not saleable, right?
• 18:30
  You're not replaceable.
• 18:32
  So what you need is you need systems, automated systems, agents, tools that can replace all of those things, even people, right?
• 18:43
  If you're, think about McDonald's, right?
• 18:46
  If you go to a McDonald's restaurant, what do they have?
• 18:49
  They have a whole bunch of teenagers running a restaurant, right?
• 18:54
  There's typically teenagers or people in their 20s managing.
• 18:58
  Now, maybe not as a store manager, but certainly as a shift manager and the employees.
• 19:07
  That's true, because it was that way when I worked there as a kid.
• 19:09
  It was all high school kids and then a couple managers.
• 19:14
  Can I touch on one quick thing?
• 19:16
  Think about that, though.
• 19:17
  Not just them.
• 19:17
  Let's use Chick-fil-A as an example in addition because one of the things they did is they realized that we could turn things around even faster and go back to the way McDonald's was originally started, which was that fast turnaround of all the food because it was made exactly the same.
• 19:29
  No matter what location you went to, it was always the same.
• 19:32
  That is the definition of a transferable system.
• 19:34
  That is why these restaurants, whether it be like my wife was saying the other day, I can go to Chick-fil-A.
• 19:39
  The line can be 30 people long, and I'm in and out of there in five minutes every single time.
• 19:44
  without exception.
• 19:46
  And it's just like they just took the system, tweaked it a little bit to fit their structure.
• 19:51
  Yeah.
• 19:51
  And now you don't go beyond, I would say, I would estimate that almost depending on where you are in the country, but if you're in any semi-populated area, you don't go two to three towns without there being a McDonald's without there being every, like I'd say every like five to 10 towns now, like they're adding a lot more Chick-fil-A's now, but let's go back to McDonald's and what Ray Kroc built.
• 20:11
  was that repeatable system, that transferable system.
• 20:14
  So people could go and they knew what they were going to get every time.
• 20:17
  They knew what the taste value was going to be.
• 20:18
  They knew what the speed value was going to be.
• 20:20
  They knew the experience, what they were going to get.
• 20:23
  And the consistency and transferability of that system is what led to McDonald's being everywhere while McDonald's restaurants owning the real estate behind it, which led to a whole nother system.
• 20:37
  That's right.
• 20:38
  But bottom line is...
• 20:39
  Which is brilliant, by the way.
• 20:41
  Brilliant.
• 20:41
  But again, transferable system that produces exceptional results for the people that were looking to either acquire it or go there.
• 20:50
  Yeah.
• 20:50
  It's exactly what it says in the protocol.
• 20:53
  Go ahead, Stephen.
• 20:56
  If you're looking at that annual leverage and the true independence system,
• 21:01
  and utilizing the tools inside the Forge Academy.
• 21:06
  And it's really to build your business.
• 21:09
  And it's really unique to you.
• 21:10
  And I almost call it like the American dream.
• 21:14
  We each have our own unique dream and the extreme leverage and personal freedom that we can get by utilizing AI can really help us achieve that.
• 21:25
  And I just mentioned it, I'll hit on it briefly.
• 21:29
  And it's really on what that American dream means, whether you're born here and you have immigrated from across the globe.
• 21:35
  It represents that sacred light to building something of lasting value to control your destiny and affect your family.
• 21:42
  And that old path to the American dream really required decades of massive capital, armies of employees, but the new era, it rewrites those rules entirely.
• 21:53
  And to really point out, the real freedom isn't just in generating the revenue, it's building a business that can run smoothly without you being,
• 22:02
  as the owner, as the builder, having to cast a shadow over everyday decisions.
• 22:08
  That's what we're building here.
• 22:09
  And you can use AI as your true co-founder.
• 22:13
  You just hit something, Stephen, I just wanted to say really quick.
• 22:15
  So let's say you do that $10 million exit.
• 22:18
  Do you want to start another company that you have to build from scratch and you have to – no.
• 22:23
  You've already created the systems that work.
• 22:25
  Now you're going to be able to advise others.
• 22:26
  You're going to be able to come in on other companies.
• 22:28
  You're going to be able to help create these systems for others.
• 22:31
  It doesn't even matter the industry.
• 22:33
  You'll have industry-specific knowledge.
• 22:35
  You'll have specialized knowledge within that industry.
• 22:38
  But that knowledge applies to multiple industries.
• 22:42
  All right?
• 22:42
  So the value that you get out of that by building that system, it's not – I mean, it is initially –
• 22:48
  But there's one objective.
• 22:51
  But the value that it's going to provide you for your lifetime, it's unprecedented.
• 22:57
  And I think a lot of people don't capture that until they've stepped out in different industries.
• 23:01
  And they're like, wait a minute, this applies here.
• 23:03
  Yes.
• 23:05
  Exactly.
• 23:05
  And it's really in chapter one, AI as a true co-founder and showing you how multi-agents can swarm across and handle research, copy, support, analytics for a fraction of the cost of traditional staff.
• 23:21
  Yeah.
• 23:21
  Yeah.
• 23:22
  Or time from us.
• 23:24
  Yeah, and those systems are what people are looking for to get to step seven, which is that clear path to one to five million ARR with under 10 people.
• 23:30
  Now, you can have more than 10 people.
• 23:32
  I don't care if you're bigger.
• 23:34
  Okay, if that's – but we're trying to keep it simple.
• 23:36
  If you can grow this thing to 20 million with 20 people, congrats.
• 23:40
  Great for you.
• 23:41
  What we're saying is we have a simple goal here.
• 23:43
  And then if you're generating that one to five million revenue when you have the systems, that's where the multiples come into play.
• 23:49
  And that's where you start hitting that $10 million exit off those numbers.
• 23:55
  It's exactly.
• 23:56
  Yeah.
• 23:57
  And when you when you have a business that has annual recurring revenue, ARR, right.
• 24:03
  Monthly recurring revenue.
• 24:06
  It's it's not a one time.
• 24:08
  It goes back to what we talked about, I think, in the last episode, maybe the episode before.
• 24:11
  When we're talking about that monthly, right, you've got revenue coming in.
• 24:15
  What is that lifetime value of that client?
• 24:18
  right when you've got revenue that's going to come in month after month after month year after year after year think about how easy that is to sell we the three of us know a gentleman he uh built a company now this is most of what we talk about is his traditional business but there's all sorts of different types of this franchise is out there there's network marketing business there's all sorts of different things right uh we all know guy named ed i won't say his last name here but ed built a primerica business
• 24:46
  which is life insurance and that type of stuff.
• 24:48
  But it's a network marketing, direct sales type of company.
• 24:52
  Good company, not knocking them in.
• 24:54
  It's just a really good company.
• 24:55
  But he built a business there and he sold it.
• 24:57
  I'm not sure how long it took him to do it.
• 24:59
  Probably a good 10 years anyways.
• 25:01
  But he built a business and he sold it for over $10 million.
• 25:04
  Walked away and retired.
• 25:05
  He's a young guy.
• 25:06
  He's in his 40s now.
• 25:07
  He retired when I think it was in his 30s.
• 25:11
  Now, he came out of retirement because just like all of us, we couldn't spend all of our lives on the beach.
• 25:15
  We've got to get stuff done.
• 25:16
  We've got to accomplish things.
• 25:18
  But getting to that path in whatever avenue you're pursuing, whatever type of business you're pursuing, it really comes down to having that clear path, first of all, and understanding that when I can have annual recurring revenue, revenue that's going to keep coming in,
• 25:36
  Whether I got a new client or not, those old clients, they're sticky.
• 25:40
  They don't want to go away.
• 25:41
  I talked about the Aservia Go, which is a tech company that I launched years ago.
• 25:47
  And this is the stickiest device I've ever had.
• 25:52
  To repeat this, I would do it in a heartbeat.
• 25:55
  And not just because they would stick a double-sided tape and put it on any tables and food courts, but because customers never wanted to let it go.
• 26:05
  as long as it was going to work, they wanted it, and they're willing to pay for it.
• 26:09
  And that's the type of business that you're looking at.
• 26:11
  That is annual recurring revenue, because it's just going to keep coming in.
• 26:16
  As you add more customers, that revenue builds, and that is very easy to sell.
• 26:22
  All right, if you're going to buy a business, think about it, if you're going to buy a business, would you like a business that's already built, that is easy to grow, and what has been built is going to continue to stay there and not go away?
• 26:35
  Would you want that?
• 26:37
  Right.
• 26:38
  But also, you don't need the owner there.
• 26:39
  You have the systems in place.
• 26:40
  So the owner can clearly walk away without having to stay on as COO just to make sure things go right.
• 26:45
  No, you built the system.
• 26:47
  It's transferable.
• 26:48
  Okay, you're already established, clear recurring revenue.
• 26:54
  You can sell it and you can walk away unless you want to stay and you want to build it bigger.
• 26:58
  But again, the goal is a very short, and I think people need to really realize this.
• 27:03
  Three to five years is not a long time.
• 27:05
  That's 36 to 60 months.
• 27:06
  It's not a long time.
• 27:08
  If you have children, think about how past the last five years went.
• 27:12
  Okay, especially if they're younger.
• 27:14
  Like, it's like, but those years go by like this.
• 27:18
  If they recently got married, then all of a sudden, look where they are now.
• 27:20
  Mine aren't there yet.
• 27:21
  Mine are still like between 12 and 20.
• 27:23
  But I see it every day from different sides.
• 27:26
  Right?
• 27:27
  That was probably the best advice my father gave me.
• 27:29
  He said, you know, stop along the journey and take time to smell the roses because it's pretty remarkable.
• 27:36
  Wow.
• 27:37
  That took me back.
• 27:39
  My oldest is now 32.
• 27:43
  Well, actually, I shouldn't say that.
• 27:45
  She's going to be 32 later this year.
• 27:47
  And I look at it and like, we've got five kids.
• 27:50
  She's the oldest.
• 27:51
  But it seems like she was just born a couple of years ago.
• 27:54
  Yeah.
• 27:54
  Time flies so fast.
• 27:57
  She might as well make the most of it.
• 27:58
  Right.
• 27:59
  Right.
• 27:59
  I mean, that's true.
• 28:00
  Yeah.
• 28:00
  Yeah.
• 28:01
  Right.
• 28:01
  You know, my oldest son's 39.
• 28:03
  Let's get three kids.
• 28:04
  Another one in the way.
• 28:06
  My daughter's 37.
• 28:07
  Four kids.
• 28:09
  Goes by fast.
• 28:10
  Real fast.
• 28:11
  Yeah.
• 28:12
  Younger son.
• 28:13
  He's 24.
• 28:15
  He already did four units in the army.
• 28:19
  Ian completed college in under two years because he did so much online work.
• 28:23
  And now he's on his way to medical school.
• 28:26
  How do you do that?
• 28:27
  Yeah.
• 28:29
  He's actually leveraging a system in his mind that he's built to be able to get stuff done efficiently.
• 28:34
  That's how he's able to do in years what takes others decades.
• 28:38
  And that's what we're saying here.
• 28:41
  You know what, Mike?
• 28:41
  Thanks for bringing that together.
• 28:43
  Really?
• 28:44
  True.
• 28:45
  Yes.
• 28:46
  Yeah.
• 28:46
  Yeah.
• 28:47
  So let's wrap this up with this piece because we just went through all seven characteristics over the past.
• 28:51
  I don't know how many episodes we took to go through these, but they all matter.
• 28:56
  Right?
• 28:56
  What you want to do is you want to be scoring every single one of these, whether you have a current business that you're scoring and you're saying, how good of a business do I have that where I could literally have myself replaced and sell this in a matter of a few years or a great exit.
• 29:15
  Or if you're considering starting a business and you're thinking about the different businesses that are on the docket, like which, which one should I start?
• 29:21
  Right.
• 29:22
  Uh, and you look and say, okay, well, what does it rank in all of these?
• 29:25
  And make sure you've scored each one and put some notes.
• 29:28
  Why did you score it a seven?
• 29:30
  Why did you score it a 10?
• 29:31
  Why did you score it a one?
• 29:32
  Right.
• 29:33
  And when you get to the bottom, if your total score is 50 or higher,
• 29:39
  Then you're going to go to the next phase of Fortfire Protocol, which is doing a 72-hour test.
• 29:46
  I'm not going to tell you what that is in this episode, but you're going to want to be around for the next episode because you're going to start to learn about a 72-hour test.
• 29:53
  Remember, rapid iteration.
• 29:55
  This is how you get there.
• 29:56
  We've got to find the right spark to ignite our forge.
• 30:02
  Let's pick the right spark, and this is the way to do it.
• 30:05
  You want to go through.
• 30:07
  Total all the scores, all the totals, and out of a possible 70, if you've got a 50 or above, and if you've got three different or 10 different business ideas, score them all.
• 30:19
  All right?
• 30:20
  The ones that are not at least 50, get rid of them.
• 30:22
  It doesn't matter.
• 30:23
  Don't even think about them.
• 30:24
  Go to the ones that are above 50, and those are the ones that we're going to take a 74 test on.
• 30:29
  Let's take a look and see, is one of these the right one for you to start on?
• 30:36
  And that's the way we get to the $10 million exit because everything, everything is focused on that exit.
• 30:43
  One quick thing there.
• 30:44
  If you're on step six and you look at transferable systems and you don't have them yet, and that's what's keeping you below that 50, that's why you have in there what it says about 40 to 48, refine.
• 30:55
  If the transferable system is the issue, well, you're going to get that from working with us.
• 31:00
  We're going to be able to turn that into a transferable system.
• 31:03
  You're definitely going to be part of the protocol.
• 31:05
  Yes.
• 31:06
  So we're going to be able to fix that and fix that in relatively short order depending on what you're willing to put in.
• 31:13
  But there's an opportunity for you right there to pursue it and make this something special.
• 31:17
  That's what we're trying to help you build.
• 31:19
  Yeah.
• 31:20
  You don't have to replace the business.
• 31:22
  Yeah.
• 31:22
  What you just hit on there, you don't need to figure it out alone in the dark.
• 31:28
  Plug into the Forgefire Network and charge forward together with us.
• 31:32
  Yep.
• 31:32
  Yes, indeed.
• 31:33
  Yes, indeed.
• 31:34
  So we will catch you in the next episode.
• 31:37
  Hope you're having a phenomenal day and, uh,
• 31:40
  Let's get one.
• 31:41
  One very quick thing.
• 31:41
  I just have to add based on what Steven just said, well, fortune together with us.
• 31:46
  If you guys have time right now, what I highly recommend you do is go to forgefire.com forward slash survey.
• 31:52
  We're offering a boatload of bonuses and that's going to open the, as, as we get this bigger and as more and more announcements start coming out soon, it's going to put you in the pool to get even more bonuses and you're going to have the opportunity for that.
• 32:02
  But the most important thing is it's a survey.
• 32:04
  That's going to make you think about your business.
• 32:06
  And they ask you questions that are personal about your business, not about you, you,
• 32:09
  but about how you build a business, et cetera.
• 32:11
  Just go to the survey and check it out.
• 32:13
  It's going to ask a lot of very important questions.
• 32:15
  You're going to get a bonus from that.
• 32:17
  And then on top of that, we're going to go back and look at that information and make sure as we're structuring this protocol that's already built out and already in place, but if you bring up something to the table that we didn't think about or we need to make sure that we're touching, we're going to build that in and we're going to address it to help make sure those questions get answered.
• 32:33
  Well said.
• 32:34
  And by the way, that's forgefireprotocol.com forward slash survey.
• 32:38
  Yes.
• 32:39
  All right.
• 32:39
  That's the address.
• 32:40
  So yeah, take the survey and we'll see you in the next episode.
• 32:48
  That's it for this episode of the Forge Fire Protocol podcast.
• 32:52
  Take at least one step from today's episode while the fire is still hot.
• 32:57
  Don't let the insight cool.
• 32:59
  Our goal is delivering real value for you and your business.
• 33:03
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• 33:15
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• 33:23
  Head to forgefireprotocol.com and sign up now to step in to the full forge.
• 33:30
  Because we are forged in fire, built for legacy.