Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Justin Brock - President of Bobby Brock Insurance, Founder of MedicareCon | Turning $26K In Saving Into $70 Million

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Justin Brock - President of Bobby Brock Insurance, Founder of MedicareCon | Turning $26K In Saving Into $70 Million · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  slash Scott for a thousand dollars off. What has been your key to moving so fast in the beginning
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  the competition against other people that would drive me because that competition brought me to a
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  level that I didn't think that I would ever achieve or never even really conceptualize? How does a
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  Marine Corps veteran go from military service to building a multi-million dollar empire in the
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  insurance industry? Today I sit down with a man who did just that. I had seen my dad to him making
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  six figures in insurance. I thought it was always if they can do it why can't I do that? Nobody
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  wants health insurance until they're sick and dying and then they need something to pay the bill
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  but they wanted dental insurance. Justin Brock started in the U.S. Marine Corps but after nearly
• 2:15
  a decade of service he made an unexpected pivot insurance. Taking over his father's brokerage he
• 2:20
  scaled it into a national powerhouse. He didn't stop there. Built Go Guru Pro CRM and in 2024 sold
• 2:27
  his businesses for over 70 million dollars but money was never the goal. Impact was there was
• 2:32
  the vanity products that I sold and that ad it changed my entire philosophy on the internet if you
• 2:38
  just try a bunch of stuff. Eventually you can find a honey hole like that. A lot of people think to
• 2:42
  make money on social media you got to have a million followers. I would venture that you could have
• 2:47
  15,000 if they're the right following your work in quantity of days is making grand strides towards
• 2:55
  a goal then you can possibly fathom within that individual day. From writing purpose after service,
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  from marine to millionaire to mentoring entrepreneurs Justin's mission is to help others achieve
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  financial freedom. Welcome to the Justin Brock story. Welcome to success story. I'm your host
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  Scott Cleary. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast never but HubSpot doesn't
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  Today's episode is brought to you by Vanden now listen up this matters for your business
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  and today's digital landscape security isn't optional it's essential without it
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  deal stall sale cycle stretch on and scaling becomes very difficult now why because investors
• 5:39
  customers and partners all expect businesses to demonstrate strong security practices before
• 5:44
  they commit if you can't prove trust you lose opportunities so whether you're a startup founder
• 5:51
  trying to land that first big client or an established company scaling your security program
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  Vanden helps businesses of all sizes prove that they're trustworthy by automating compliance across
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  35 frameworks like sock to ISO 27001 and hip up the exact certifications your prospects are
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  currently wasting on compliance their platform automates up to 90% of the tedious compliance work
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  you went from Marine Corps veteran to selling a $70 million insurance business in 10 years
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  what has been your key to moving so fast i actually feel like you know knowing what i know now
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  and i guess everybody would start there if you started there it'd be a different
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  different answer but knowing what i know now i feel like it kind of moves slow like most of
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  that progress was made in the last five years and even as that five year window went on it was
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  increasingly more and more and more a lot of that is because i you you you develop this
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  this confidence in you know slowly in what you know as well as you know attaining you know
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  new information but i have to say from the beginning the thing that made me not settle on my
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  initial goal my initial goal is just to make you know i've like i said before 60,000 i was like
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  i got to replace my met Marine Corps income and then you know if one day i get to 100,000 that
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  would be just glorious that was my thought but what happened was i entered a space and quickly
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  would find people to compete against in the beginning that was individual agents that i wanted to
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  make sure i dwarfed their production and then that became agency owners that had more people
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  working for them or that they had recruited and then after that it became kind of marketing
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  organizations that had multiple recruiters under them so not to make it sound too much like a pyramid
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  scheme insurance always says the oldest multi level marketing or network marketing you know vertical
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  and but anyway it was really in the beginning the competition against other people that would drive
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  me and then it was the realization at different breaking points that something else was possible
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  because that competition brought me to a level that i didn't think that i whatever achieved or
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  never even really conceptualized like the idea of making $250,000 a year as a personal income
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  was revolutionary and by the time it happened all i kept thinking was why i never thought i'd do that
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  and it's not as much as i thought it was and so then and then i eventually as i ascended through
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  kind of these these friendly competitors and you know friends in the industry that i made no
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  money off of but we had great relationships i was i saw one sell his business for 50 million
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  his name was Richard Kanto and you know i was in boar boar with him right before he started the
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  talks of selling and when that happened i was like you know what we're building is that valuable
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  like and i'd never heard of ebit of multiples and never even thought about selling a business
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  who sells a business what is that so you know i know most of the people that like watch these
• 10:10
  podcasts have heard of that but it's there's these people out there that have no idea what the hell
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  that even means you know and that's how i kind of learned about it and and so i just had that
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  appetite to keep readjusting finds you know find out how to do something more about proven to myself
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  that i could do it but then when i would do it it'd be like okay there's no going back now i
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  got to go to the next level well who do you think were you competing against yourself were you
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  competing against some idealistic version of who you thought you had to be for the world your spouse
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  your parent like you have competitive nature i think that's a requirement and a prerequisite
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  to entrepreneurship think you have to be some level of competitive but who are you competing against
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  when you first started in the beginning i i was in my mind i was trying to my dad was an insurance
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  agent so my dad was he never really built it into a business he had he was a solo agent he was
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  house to house so he would go into houses so when i got on the Marine Corps i was like i had seen my
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  dad you know go from us being very poor to him making six figures in insurance over like a 20 year
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  span you know slowly but surely and so i knew it was possible to make some money in insurance right
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  um it's one thing knowing it's possible another thing knowing someone that is close to you that did it
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  but he's always kind of a hard-ass guy so when i entered it the first person i was competing against
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  was him i felt like to impress him i just had to do way more than he did and then that happened i
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  kind of you know figured out digital marketing in a way that made it very difficult for him to
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  compete was not like necessarily i was a better agent than him i just was able to figure out a
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  marketing path that led to a much more abundant outreach to me and by doing that
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  we dwarfed that production and so then it became about me but i would find people that were doing
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  more than me to quote unquote compete against but these are always like friends of mine but my
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  thought was always if they can do it why can't i do that you know it's interesting because when
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  you look for like business opportunities most people i just had a conversation about this this
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  morning most people look for technical like technological innovation and they ride a wave and that's
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  how they become successful they find something that's never been done before and they try and innovate
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  but there's another way to be successful and it's distribution it's marketing distribution
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  it's media distribution and what's so interesting and what so many people can learn from your story is
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  you went into a very old school industry is basically one of the most legacy old school outdated
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  industries you can possibly find yourself in and a little bit of marketing prowess it's not like
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  you went to school and then you were like a you know you're not like the pick a marketer a set
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  golden and Neil Patel of these guys that all they do is market all day since they were like five
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  years old a little bit of marketing and a 70 million dollar exit later that's that's fascinating
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  so when when did you first understand that media as a form of leverage and distribution was a game
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  changer for you so what the the origin is i was i was actually driving house to house doing things
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  through old school direct mailway because you first come in the old school the old guard if you
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  will you know this is how you do it so i started doing it that way and it it worked it's very slow
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  and so i was listening to productivity podcasts and i didn't again i didn't know anything about
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  marketing i was like i'll be on these long drives from house to house and so i was like i don't
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  learn something so started listening to you know sales training and then it was you know and i was
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  like my sales are are good i don't know if i'm a good salesperson but i'm closing a very high
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  percentage of these people i need more people to talk to so then it was productivity and then i
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  listened to the productivity it's like well yeah that's great but i still need more people and so then
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  eventually it was like you need marketing but i did it like you said i'm not a I wasn't a professional
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  marketer i i just had no idea but i did grow up in what i would consider the vine era when all these
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  people got really really famous the vine and then came you know the Jake and Logan Paul's and the
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  David Dobricks and in the you know youtube famous and i was one of those kids as a teenager making
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  youtube content then i joined the Marine Corps and kind of quit but that um i hadn't know you know
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  we were making it back then we didn't know con like the concept of becoming famous off of content
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  online wasn't really there for me looking back i was probably 20 videos away from having some kind
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  of break out and being some little internet celebrity but you know at the time i wasn't thinking
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  about that but i understood seeing being a small content creator as a teenager seeing you know
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  these guys that were doing it at the same time become these mega celebrities that the internet was
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  definitely you know social media was definitely the way to go um and uh so about you know about
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  really i'm close to 11 years ago now when i got into it so about 11 years ago 10 years ago i'm
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  going house to house i'm watching these or listening to this productivity podcast and eventually
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  i came across a guy who was in life insurance he wasn't doing the same thing vertical i was but very
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  similar and he was talking about his name is Jeff Root he's a good friend of mine now
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  and um Jeff he lives in South of France has a very successful digital uh brokerage for life
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  and he was talking at the time about SEO for life insurance he was popping up many sites where he
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  would have very hyper specific um uh he had one like sale term life calm but there was a
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  lot of websites that he was creating for like diabetes or diabetics that wanted life insurance
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  like and he was hacking these these uh long tail or mid mid range keywords through pretty easy
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  SEO at the time um and like it's much more difficult to crack into that now but at the time he was
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  part of that way and so i was i realized like something was going on there and then he made a
• 16:30
  recommendation at one point he was talking about something rustlebrunson said so that was my
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  intro to rustlebrunson early on rustlebrunson.com secrets expert secrets i was listening to that
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  listened to the perfect webinar and that's how i kind of got into Facebook ads because rustle
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  was talking a lot back then about Facebook ads and this was early Facebook monetization
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  you know and uh in Facebook works now but back then it was like you know it was like giving cocaine
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  to kids on there i mean it's like so so you know crazy i mean you put an ad up and people didn't
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  realize it was an ad because the entire platform had existed for years now with no advertisement
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  and so and it didn't say sponsored and so i made a page that was just just in Brock so it wasn't
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  because back then you couldn't advertise for your profile so you had to make a page so i made a
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  page but i named the page my name and then i run advertisements and then they would go viral
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  because they're getting pushed into these uh into people's feeds because their ads and people would
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  share it and like it and comment and and i was telling them to call my cell phone this is how dumb
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  the ads were and my cell phone was ringing off the hook and all it was was a dental insurance ad
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  because in my eyes i was like what what this is probably part of Russell's pitch is like what do people
• 17:49
  want to buy and they say sell them what they want then sell them what they need well people wanted
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  dental insurance because they wanted their teeth to look and feel good like that's a different type
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  of thing nobody wants health insurance until they're sick and dying and then they need something to
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  pay the bill nobody wants life insurance really you know those are harder sales people need some of
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  those things but they didn't necessarily want them but they wanted dental insurance it was so
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  as the vanity product that i sold and that ad man it it changed my entire philosophy on the internet
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  because all of a sudden i'm like i can throw up and add and spend at the time maybe 25 bucks a day
• 18:26
  and just get phone call after phone call after phone call no it's not quite as easy anymore but
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  um you know everybody like if you just try a bunch of stuff eventually you can find a honey hole
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  like that and the only thing i didn't realize is that honey hole is going to dry up and if i knew
• 18:43
  that i would have spent a lot more money a lot faster uh hindsight's always 2020 i mean but that
• 18:50
  but by the way that is like such a good lesson because i know a lot of people right now we're talking
• 18:54
  about for example like tiktok shop people are saying you can make a ton of money on tiktok shop
• 18:59
  selling consumer goods now whatever happens in uh in a in a couple days when when maybe it doesn't
• 19:04
  exist anymore in the us that remains to be seen but the point is yeah can you build a foundation
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  yes but then you have to be smart enough to figure out a diversify and how to go into different
• 19:15
  channels how to explore new things like the the process of testing and finding new like grand slam
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  marketing it's never ending and i'm sure you've gone through a thousand different versions of
• 19:26
  marketing over the course of actually building this business and even you know tomorrow you're
• 19:31
  going to see lack of performance which slightly worse performance on one of the million things
• 19:35
  you're trying right now and you're going to try a couple new things as just business it's just
• 19:38
  business it never ends i think that you have to keep disrupting and reinventing it's kind of like
• 19:43
  you were talking before this we're talking you talk about the distribution of this of your platform
• 19:48
  being on ot well i talk about ott all the time you know at that is a medium we use right now for
• 19:55
  like otto the top television advertisements through different streaming platforms and
• 20:00
  it's like television for targeted avatars so if i'm if i'm going out and i'm able to target a range
• 20:06
  an age range and i'm in medicare that's always great because you know i don't want that are 25
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  looking at a medicare ad right um but ott's been great it's like the best of broadcast television
• 20:20
  but like really targeted but these are yes and i became a junkie on advertising so you know i
• 20:26
  now i've i've done i've done and do most of these i've done radio broadcast television ott billboard
• 20:34
  campaigns um lots of different social media done some on tiktok don on linkedin i've done
• 20:41
  i've i'll try and i still use direct mail but we use direct mail now using kind of the dan
• 20:45
  kennedy magnetic marketing method where we're like trying to really high quality pieces that
• 20:50
  invoke an inbound response you know not a not a bait and switch spammy stuff because the insurance
• 20:56
  industry is full of people marketing to look to look like a government entity or using a bait and
• 21:05
  switch campaign and and i'm like if you just come up with quality marketing and quality messaging
• 21:11
  you don't have to do that and then you build higher lifetime value customers and that's just
• 21:16
  been our approach is like let's let's get clever but not gimmicky you know i mean i think that
• 21:23
  listen there's people like you that are going to come in and they disrupt and obviously i mean
• 21:28
  you look at your own success so if you if you do prioritize the customer if you have like a high
• 21:34
  EQ marketing strategy if you actually speak the problems they have no bait and switch bullshit
• 21:40
  if somebody does that it's going to work for a while until it doesn't and somebody who actually
• 21:43
  markets properly is going to come in they're going to take you know they're going to take
• 21:47
  market share they're going to clean up because that's what customers want customers are smart
• 21:50
  customers aren't stupid i mean it's kind of predatory if you're going after old people with
• 21:55
  these bait and switch tactics for sure but even then they're smart or someone in their circle
• 22:00
  of influence or their family is going to be a hey this is this is not exactly what it seems to be
• 22:05
  but yeah and that's what only you see in iron breezy it's the bait and switch marketing has
• 22:10
  plummeted the average lifetime value of the customer i mean while hours range really high
• 22:15
  but they they don't understand that like you know they people would come in with money into this
• 22:21
  industry and they'd be like oh wow i can spend two hundred dollars and acquire a customer that's
• 22:26
  worth you know fifteen hundred that's great you know and it doesn't you don't get all that right
• 22:31
  away but the the lifetime value of that customer right and the fifteen hundred is a realistic
• 22:37
  lifetime value of the customer if you can keep them happy for a long time but it's not realistic
• 22:43
  if they if they pop on a plan realize they got bamboozled and hop all three months later or six
• 22:48
  months later then you're actually losing money and so we've had a lot of these people come in and
• 22:53
  they think oh the customer for fifteen hundred let me get as many of as possible but if you go and
• 22:57
  do it the wrong way it's not fifteen hundred it's five hundred four hundred three hundred and
• 23:02
  so that's happened where it's kind of lowered the lifetime value on average but meanwhile hours
• 23:07
  have stayed the same so it's been you know it's honestly it's refreshing to see when you're in
• 23:12
  business and you see someone come in and do something the wrong way and then and then get kind of
• 23:18
  you know capitalism penalizes them for it eventually you know the free market works if you let
• 23:23
  if you let it you know sometimes they'll be like trying to add some regulation to fix something
• 23:30
  and i'm like if you guys just wait it's going to fix itself because these people are getting
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  fucking hammered on the back end because they're doing business the wrong way you know
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  these folks are going to do you a big favor check them out yeah I think that the way people buy
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  checking they're not just taking the company's word for it and that's going to completely to your
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  point sort of self regulate the market because the consumer so smart I'm I'm curious you mentioned
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  something that was interesting that's a very interesting I like that Russell Brunson quote idea
• 26:01
  was it sell them what they want and then sell them what they need why did you not just build a
• 26:07
  business selling them what they want is it too crowded like I mean you you built a business in a
• 26:12
  very unsexy industry you could have kept selling dental insurance I mean these companies
• 26:17
  do that and probably do very well so what was the the thought process and your thought process but
• 26:23
  also help an entrepreneur who's just starting out understand how they should interpret that
• 26:28
  quote for what they want to pursue yeah so I mean the the origin of me interpreting that quote was
• 26:35
  if someone reaches out or expresses interest in a product that you think well okay I can help
• 26:41
  with that product but that's not exactly what I help with then you can you just enter that conversation
• 26:47
  I think this is where where kind of sales comes in you know sales meets marketing is like okay
• 26:51
  they want to dental insurance so we talked to them about dental insurance we can absolutely help
• 26:55
  you with that this is how that works by the way we also help with health insurance
• 27:01
  Medicare and life insurance do you have medic do you have Medicare right now I was specifically
• 27:07
  targeting people for dental insurance that were close to aging into Medicare because you get
• 27:12
  Medicare when you turn 65 and retire and that kind of thing and a lot of these people would be close
• 27:17
  to that or on it and not really have an expert that's helped them navigate it and so when I would
• 27:24
  sell them the dental insurance it was the lead they lead in for me to build rapport and then I
• 27:30
  could find where they were undercover or maybe they were paying too much for something they didn't
• 27:36
  realize they were they had redundant coverages or you know or they had chosen something based on
• 27:42
  the limited set of information so the selling what they need is like finding what they don't even
• 27:46
  know to ask for so from a business standpoint there are things that are kind of commoditized like
• 27:53
  people know people are going to buy gas people are going to buy electricity people are going to buy
• 27:58
  water right you know there's there's things that people are just going to buy you know all you
• 28:01
  got to do is be conveniently there the most convenient one for them or have a monopoly on it like
• 28:06
  utility companies do but otherwise you can find the thing that they're going to buy be conveniently
• 28:14
  there to get on the phone with them and talk to them about it it's not baiting switch I can help
• 28:17
  you with that worst case scenario I helped you with what you want it I might make a smaller margin
• 28:22
  on that product but then I have other things that I can help you with and I just use that that
• 28:28
  dental like we'll call the dental insurance or whatever that lead in is to I help somebody with
• 28:34
  this problem if that cost me 50 bucks to get that customer and I make 200 or 150 or whatever I'm
• 28:40
  still profitable but it's also a profitable lead flow that I can use to be like let me see if
• 28:46
  there's also this other thing that I can help you with where my margin is better and I'm not talking
• 28:51
  about you know do it and it's it's people that actually need the help so what we like they're
• 28:57
  very frequently in the way I started is I'd find people that have a standardized Medicare plan
• 29:02
  there's their supplement plans called uh they're like letters plan F plan G plan and whatever
• 29:07
  you'd find the plan that they have make sure they understood it but they're standardized so whether
• 29:12
  it's etna mutual home hall humana united health care it's the exact same covers no difference in
• 29:18
  network because they're on Medicare so they can go to any doctor they want to the takes Medicare
• 29:22
  the supplement just pays their out of pocket for them but you'd have one paying 200 when they
• 29:28
  could get it for 100 so all we were doing was identifying that they had it and they were paying
• 29:32
  double what they needed to and then getting their call staff so but they didn't necessarily know that
• 29:37
  that was possible so the selling them what they need is finding a way to get on the phone with
• 29:43
  them to build rapport so that they trust you to talk about the top the other topics and then
• 29:48
  proving to them that there is this other thing that they need to do that they didn't even know
• 29:52
  and that's why they're not going to reach out like if you just say if I just was out there
• 29:56
  all the time saying I help people with you know Medicare supplements they'd be like well I got one
• 30:00
  of those well they didn't know they're paying double the price but what's the easiest way for me to
• 30:05
  go on the phone with them and my early own and we do it different ways now multiple ways but
• 30:09
  dental insurance was just a great way to break like a wedge it was like a wedge in it was a break
• 30:14
  the ice it was a get your foot in the door yep you know it's something to be said about that
• 30:19
  because if if you if you are a good entrepreneur an ethical entrepreneur you know you know the
• 30:27
  product that you're selling offers tons of value if you don't care enough about your customer to
• 30:33
  understand all the other products or services are kind of adjacent to the main thing or the first
• 30:38
  thing that you're selling you don't offer those things I truly do believe you're doing them
• 30:41
  a disservice because they're going to get that from someone else anyways so they're getting
• 30:46
  they're getting this at a premium from someone else maybe they were bamboozled by another company
• 30:52
  if you didn't do that then you're actually you're actually doing your own customers a disservice
• 30:57
  yeah and that's kind that was that's the kind of conviction when we're built a sales team you
• 31:01
  want your you want your sales team to have a high conviction about what they do and the only way
• 31:06
  to really do that is to train them to do ethical things like if if you're if you're somebody who
• 31:11
  and I've worked with sales reps that definitely had more easily fracturable psyches where they're
• 31:20
  they can really convince themselves that something is good that isn't necessarily good just for the
• 31:25
  because it's better for them I work with people that are there's a spectrum on that right you
• 31:30
  know there's there's the spectrum where somebody's like so good where it's hard for them to even
• 31:34
  be a salesperson and it's like they can't even like they're they're buying everything from their
• 31:40
  framework and they're they may be overly cynical or something right and then there's
• 31:45
  the person on the far right side that could sell anybody anything because they're just out to make a
• 31:50
  buck off everybody we look for somebody that's on the ethical side of that but that can also
• 31:57
  really buy into like you have a set of information a skill set that you can utilize to leave people
• 32:03
  in a better place than you found them and make great and a great income doing that and when
• 32:08
  you're building a sales team if you don't have a a process and a product and a or a service
• 32:14
  that can actually do that then your sales reps a lot of them are not going to buy into it you know
• 32:20
  they're going to we're going to be like I don't I don't want to sell this shit I feel like a scam
• 32:24
  ours people do not want to people want to make money but people do not tip most people do not want
• 32:28
  to make money like fucking people over they just don't want to do you know a few do but not
• 32:34
  the majority no no everybody wants to make better money but they just they want to feel good about
• 32:40
  the way they're doing it too if I can if I can feel like I left a wake of people better than me and
• 32:44
  made a shitload of money doing it then I can go to bed and sleep like a rock yeah a big thank you
• 32:49
  to indeed for supporting success story because hiring people is one of the hardest things you're ever
• 32:54
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• 32:58
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• 33:03
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• 34:14
  slash clary a huge thank you to net suite for supporting today's episode now what does the future
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• 35:28
  that's and but like sales are like they're one of the most important positions you can hire an
• 35:33
  organization most people have a really hard time finding good sales people or hiring good sales people
• 35:38
  because you've built out a really strong sales organ I now I know you have an opinion you have
• 35:43
  sort of some wisdom on this because just what you just said what would be the advice for people
• 35:49
  who are trying to hire great sales people who don't have you know they they're just starting out
• 35:55
  they don't know what to look for they don't know how to engage the right personality kind of that
• 36:00
  balance that you just mentioned do you do anything more formal like a disc profile or like
• 36:07
  some sort of other test or what do you do when you're trying to find the right person yeah we we
• 36:11
  actually our team is as used chat GBD man to make like a really cool matrices out of the
• 36:19
  disk assessment so we have everybody take a very simple paper disk then we upload their scores
• 36:26
  into a we'll put it through a form that populates on the Google sheet that powers all these like
• 36:32
  graphs and stuff it's just funny like I don't know how useful it is but it makes us feel really
• 36:35
  cool like we have this great app but we didn't we do you as it worked out I mean as it worked out
• 36:41
  it certainly worked I've had people that before I was doing it effectively that I had in service
• 36:47
  positions that based on the data we've seen in those those disc profiles that we've moved to
• 36:52
  sales positions that they were suffering in service and we were looking at firing and they end up
• 36:57
  being some of your top sales people and vice versa so so there's definitely absolutely and those
• 37:04
  sales and service are probably like you know the most polar opposite you have your high
• 37:08
  S personalities are great in service your high D high I are really good in sales I I have my own
• 37:14
  beliefs on it the way that we sell and then because we're dealing with you know the elderly you know
• 37:19
  we try to go with like high I personalities that just bubbly you know good people good energy
• 37:26
  for ourselves people but high D personality do really well in sales my I had a video I did
• 37:32
  a interview with Sean Mike Kelly and I said something about higher you're like alpha personalities
• 37:36
  or not I don't I don't like hiring a lot of them and then of course a lot of people were commenting
• 37:41
  you know that's just because you're not alpha enough to alpha the alphas or whatever and I'm like
• 37:45
  that's because they're they they they and this is a blanket statement there's certainly some
• 37:50
  great I would consider myself I don't know I don't want to say I'm concerned about alpha because
• 37:55
  it sounds don't but like I would say that when I hire those high D personalities a a significant
• 38:03
  portion of them are those people I'm talking about with that fracturable psyche the ones that can
• 38:07
  kind of manipulate what is good based on what is good for them and they can be a little bit
• 38:14
  difficult they're great a lot of them are probably great at running a business they're great at
• 38:19
  leading a big team they're great at you know whatever but if you can find a coachable high D
• 38:25
  personality somebody that really values you as a mentor or somebody on your team some of your
• 38:32
  managers as a mentor and they but they are a highly driven person they can become one of your apex
• 38:38
  employees it's just difficult because high D personalities are sometimes very sure of themselves
• 38:45
  in a way that they become uncoachable right so high I has been a great you know thing for us
• 38:52
  but then you know there's a spectrum I tell people there's a there's the there's their EQ and IQ
• 38:58
  right so like if if they could be a high D personality but be very stupid and then he's got a
• 39:07
  stupid asshole right at home necessarily you know I don't I don't disagree with you dude I would
• 39:12
  never hire somebody that self labels them like refers to themselves as an alpha that to me is like
• 39:19
  a whole host of psychological issues if you ever with a straight face look at me and you tell me
• 39:25
  that's how you self identify I think you have a lot that you're going through like that's that's
• 39:29
  a that is a wild fun thing emotional they probably have a lot of emotional issues themselves to like
• 39:37
  feel the need to say that you can feel that in yourself like I'm confident in my abilities I
• 39:43
  can lead a team I can do these things but I've seen people that have done have accomplished nothing
• 39:48
  that called themselves an alpha and I'm like I think you mean asshole like I don't mean out like you
• 39:54
  know but you know that's just but I did catch some flat from the self proclaimed alphas on Instagram
• 40:01
  you hit the you hit the red pill community that's why yeah and I was like I was looking I was
• 40:07
  reading a couple of the comments and I was like if you're such an alpha would you be commenting on
• 40:12
  this video about this like I just can't really get like like a super mega alpha would be way too
• 40:18
  fucking a guy who a guy who has all the money in the world all the you know whatever relationships
• 40:24
  all the I guess the the stereotypical alpha male is all the money all the women all the success
• 40:29
  are you really sitting at home on a Saturday night commenting on YouTube I don't think so bro
• 40:35
  I don't know too many cool people that I look up to that have whatever they have and have it all
• 40:41
  that are commenting on YouTube on a Saturday night maybe that's just me maybe I know the wrong
• 40:44
  I feel like everybody that I know that is what it's funny like you know because you see those
• 40:50
  that type of riff raff and and I know who I am and I know what I've accomplished and I know
• 40:56
  what how I feel and how happy I am and so like I'm I'm sitting there and nobody like you're just
• 41:01
  not an alpha and I'm like I don't even care I don't know what that means I you know what I don't
• 41:07
  think anyone knows it what I am is what I want to be because I'm happy I'm enjoying
• 41:15
  man man listen you have a beautiful family you got you had a 70 million dollar exit you built
• 41:20
  a great bit like I think that this is a kind of all the things that most people aspire to achieve
• 41:25
  you also served in the core like I mean there's not too many boxes you don't check so you're
• 41:29
  I think you're good I got married in 19 so I don't have all the women I got the one and I got
• 41:34
  my daughter and that's all the women I need I think that's all anyone needs that's all anybody needs
• 41:39
  dude I think that's perfect well yeah so let's talk about let's talk about you found a gap
• 41:49
  um you found out how marketing sort of leverages that gap in the market now you're growing this
• 41:56
  business so let's obviously there's been a lot that you do there's a lot of different ways to
• 42:00
  market a lot different ways you grow systems processes people hiring all of it you do you've done
• 42:06
  all of it but what are some of the key inflection points some of the big things that contributed to
• 42:12
  the growth outside of like the running the Facebook ads at the beginning what were some other
• 42:15
  major milestones or things that happen yeah so we talked the marketing side consistently like
• 42:23
  understanding that honeyholes dry up and so when I found them I was I would spend money quicker
• 42:29
  even times when I spent money and lost a lot of it there were some broadcast TV points where I
• 42:34
  actually did lose a lot in markets that didn't convert the same as other markets but the increased
• 42:41
  willingness to do that I did go and buy some much some smaller agencies over time and I packaged
• 42:47
  them with hours so that helped me out tremendously um but I think the the scaling of the sales team
• 42:56
  was another we're talking about being able to scale internal sales team and then we actually
• 43:01
  created a lot of content online for other agents before we had anything to sell those agents
• 43:06
  because we weren't recruiting there's two ways to do things in our world you can hire an agent
• 43:12
  and so when I would hire an agent I'd take a brand new agent somebody that we would get licensed
• 43:17
  hire them all their commissions are assigned to our entity and we do all the marketing for them we
• 43:24
  pay for all their licenses all that and that's what we call kind of a career agent they get a salary
• 43:29
  plus commission so their commission is lower but they're in a controlled environment and you can
• 43:34
  take someone that isn't necessarily someone that wanted to be an insurance agent like so I would
• 43:40
  take people that were like retail store managers or have a basketball coach just different jobs cops
• 43:48
  they would come in and do these sales positions like this and they're making you know double the
• 43:53
  money they were making before in these other positions and they're very happy with that this is
• 43:57
  more than they ever thought they'd make in a controlled environment no risk um and so you can do
• 44:03
  that and that's what I did first or then you could do the brokerage side and what that means is
• 44:07
  like you're taking on the people that are getting the lion share the commission and you're making a
• 44:12
  small amount of override over the off of their production they write a policy if they make a hundred
• 44:17
  bucks you might make 10 or 20 um but your job is to recruit them in train them motivate them
• 44:24
  whatever so we started creating content online for agents basically because Gary Vaynerchuk said
• 44:31
  uh that's why he started doing it and he said you know just put content out and see what happens
• 44:35
  you know um so we started doing that and we built this pretty large um especially for our niche
• 44:40
  online community right now is uh 15 is a Facebook group so we started has 15400 health insurance agents
• 44:47
  in there um and that group led into us doing conferences and um like many workshops and kind of
• 44:55
  creating that entire value ladder for that group which eventually became a value like kind of a
• 45:02
  value ladder where some of them would ascend to moving their insurance contracts through our
• 45:07
  organization where we made override under production which makes us invested in their success right
• 45:14
  so that that that social organic social media organic youtube actually did play a huge part in
• 45:21
  some of our evolution as well but i do and now it's like a niche community building that's really what
• 45:27
  it was and i think that's an interesting thing so a lot of people think to make money on social media
• 45:32
  you gotta have million followers or whatever i would venture that like you could have 15,000 if
• 45:38
  they're the right following you can do really good i mean and that could be like one thing here's a
• 45:45
  mark that i missed though right so we're we're we're marketing direct to consumer two people going on
• 45:51
  Medicare i started making the agent community and i'm um i started building youtube content for
• 45:57
  them i think we're like a hundred k youtube subscribers now but the um all that content was going
• 46:03
  out towards insurance agents while we were growing a sales team that marketed direct to consumers
• 46:08
  and we would use our direct to consumer efforts to document what was working and what wasn't
• 46:13
  working for the agents so it was like we were we were practicing it and then preaching it versus
• 46:19
  you know just preaching it you know which does happen um but what i where i missed the mark was
• 46:25
  at the same time a friend of mine decided well i'm gonna make a facebook group for the consumers
• 46:30
  her facebook group for the consumers is like 200,000 Medicare beneficiaries in there and she
• 46:35
  just gets hell our referrals off of this thing now i need one thing to do that at the time i was
• 46:39
  sitting there making an agent group um and then i went back and tried to make a consumer group but
• 46:43
  there's waves there's timing with stuff so like you know what i would tell people like you
• 46:49
  remember when clubhouse popped up and people or there were people that were getting famous off
• 46:53
  a clubhouse really quick right now threads is the thing you know and it's is it a big thing i don't
• 46:58
  know but you gotta you have to throw hell marries into platforms and and and concepts on platforms
• 47:09
  when they're new to get that wave because that facebook group wave is i not see it's gone but like
• 47:16
  for that exact niche we're so far ahead of any competitors that it would be difficult to catch up
• 47:21
  you know and now you know you get pops up a health insurance agent facebook group now once someone
• 47:28
  finds their group through an invite they then say well what other groups are they and then hours
• 47:33
  being the biggest continues to absorb so every time someone starts to come and compete now
• 47:37
  ours just gets bigger and bigger and bigger so we probably have 15 to 20 agents a day right now
• 47:42
  just joining that facebook group organic just keeps compounding and just keeps compounding and then
• 47:47
  though then eventually some of that revenue just starts to trickle into you because they see the
• 47:51
  value i curious if you're trying to build a community because now you have your friend that built
• 47:56
  the community of the actual individuals that you said a 200,000 person community that's the
• 48:02
  different kind of content and different kind of value add but if you are trying to create a
• 48:08
  community around professionals in your industry what's the value add that you give them like what do
• 48:13
  you give these agents that they they not only like to consume the content but they also want to
• 48:19
  bring their business over to you like how much do you have to give them so i think what worked for
• 48:25
  us in the beginning of the community building was that we didn't have any ask like i would say
• 48:31
  for a solid year in the beginning when i built that community and i know that's tough but that's
• 48:36
  what Gary Vee was saying he was totally right on this stuff for a year i didn't sell him anything
• 48:42
  i didn't ask him to go to an event i didn't try to recruit them i just put stuff out there i just
• 48:47
  basically what and i was still at the time selling interest so we started it in beginning of 2018
• 48:53
  i had a small sales team we were growing we were probably i would say we were grossing maybe a
• 49:00
  couple million a year at this point and probably had five or six employees at the time and
• 49:07
  but i was still selling you know i was still like hyperactive and which also meant that i
• 49:13
  was living through what they were living through daily but i was doing it a higher scale than most
• 49:18
  of them and i would just put that out there here's what i did today here's a snag I ran into here's
• 49:23
  a problem and and then they would start they would start putting their problems up or what they had
• 49:29
  done so it would be they'd put their wins they'd put their problems and we were just encouraging
• 49:33
  everyone to share that share wins share problems and then anytime they had a problem i was their
• 49:38
  answering and so in the beginning it was it required an immense amount of time for no payoff
• 49:43
  from me but i kind of looked at it as a hobby man i was like an outlet you know i was working all day
• 49:49
  and then in the evening i'd sit on there and just talk to these people so instead of watching netflix
• 49:54
  i was going to dam facebook community every night talking to insurance agents about what we had done
• 49:58
  that day and that um it just built a lot of rapport now that facebook community i don't post
• 50:06
  in there personally ever now we have a marketing team i have a couple of videographers we have a
• 50:10
  filming day you know once a week i film content they put it in there and they pull up popular posts
• 50:16
  so i do video answers to them but we still just share practical content of here's what we're doing
• 50:23
  in marketing here's what we're doing so i think what what they're after is just
• 50:28
  somebody that feels like they're actually going through the same struggles that they have or they
• 50:33
  have been through them being open and transparent and sharing the information ahead of time and i
• 50:39
  think that's like gary v inter truck the original i think the original const book was thinking
• 50:43
  to thank you economy and it was basically like you know the economy is changing to do business with
• 50:49
  people that give them information they used to it be like you know insurance agents were like hey
• 50:54
  you can sign up for a free consultation well no shit that's a source nobody's signing up for
• 51:01
  your free consultation you know tell them give them the answer to their question and if they like
• 51:08
  your answer and they like how you gave it to them then they're probably going to come back to you
• 51:12
  for more answers and eventually you're going to build rapport um and so i think that's really the
• 51:16
  main thing is people are just looking for transparency ahead of time um and then uh and then
• 51:21
  another thing to notice is you're not going to be everybody's cup of tea and that's okay like um of
• 51:27
  that of that even of that 15,400 agent group if three thousand of them you know choose to do business
• 51:36
  with us i'll make plenty of money like i don't need i don't need all 15,400 of some of them might
• 51:42
  think i'm you know maybe they don't want to do business with a dude maybe they want to do
• 51:45
  with a woman now where you really get good is when you you facilitate you have those people so like
• 51:52
  if i have a person who has a different attempt to be gendered but like if somebody has a different
• 51:56
  personality type than me and then i partner with them and then i addify them then some people are
• 52:02
  going to be drawn to that person but i'm still connected to them so i still have a leg into that
• 52:06
  revenue as well so instead of being like narcissistic and thinking like everybody should like me
• 52:12
  who cares you know who cares build you know who i notice does this what i mean we're talking about
• 52:18
  insurance but these lessons are very applicable and now i'm just thinking about other other notable
• 52:23
  people to do this very well uh Dave Ramsey does this very well because he hires all these different
• 52:29
  content creators and he puts them under the Ramsey brand and they all have their own audiences and
• 52:34
  they all have their own content style and they all have their own super loyal followings and he
• 52:39
  kills it a lot of people have trouble i think it's an ego thing saying don't just follow me there's
• 52:47
  other people in the world that you can listen to as well but listen if you don't like Dave Ramsey
• 52:52
  you got like i think three other three other guys that i know of that you can go listen to all
• 53:00
  their content and it's all kind of adjacent it's all kind of finance faith family style content
• 53:07
  but if you don't like his personality you got three or four other options and all of that like
• 53:12
  make no mistake all that feeds back to his brand so it's smart it's very smart and and just the
• 53:19
  the absolute immense amount of value that you give people and you don't expect anything in return
• 53:25
  like i'm thinking about as you're saying this i'm thinking about maybe i should start a facebook
• 53:30
  community for helping people learn how to podcast or solve their podcasting problems because then
• 53:36
  they're going to listen to me who's maybe a little bit more advanced than them a little bit later
• 53:40
  on in my journey and i'm not going to get anything out of them immediately but they're going to
• 53:46
  become huge fans of i guess me they're going to talk about my show to all their other friends
• 53:51
  that ask hey what other podcast should i listen to so you're going to see this trickle down effect
• 53:54
  eventually i mean very very smart yeah i mean like there's so many things that came back to us
• 54:02
  so one thing that started happening is all these agents around that they might be in West Virginia
• 54:08
  or they might have been in you know i don't uh milwalki or wherever they're at you know they're
• 54:14
  like different areas of the country and they would get a referral somewhere that they weren't
• 54:19
  licensed and instead and you know we kind of made it known that we were licensed in all 50 states
• 54:24
  and instead of getting that license and going through it they started referring them to us and
• 54:28
  now at this point our agency here where we have i have uh 52 and w2 employees and on 21 of them are
• 54:35
  agents internally their right business are all over the country and um they refer those to us we
• 54:41
  probably get a couple hundred just three referrals that are like a hundred percent sign-up rates a year
• 54:46
  and it's not tons but it's when you do the math on it if you look at those as all around $1,500
• 54:51
  in lifetime value times 200 with no calls for acquisition it's just like free revenue um but we get
• 54:57
  that we've uh we've started we created that value letter or we'll have kind of a free workshop that
• 55:02
  we'll go around and do these cities um we'll fill them with 50-75 people and we just go and add value
• 55:07
  to them then that's that teeters them into like signing up for our big conference we do each year
• 55:13
  as we do one big Medicare event for Medicare focused agents this is about last year's 1,256 agents
• 55:20
  they they'll buy a ticket to that even that event is not made to be super profitable because
• 55:25
  we spend a ton of money on the event but once they're there they'll sign up for software products
• 55:30
  with us they'll join our hierarchy they'll come to bigger workshops that we charge 5,000 for
• 55:36
  which those are profitable but very profitable events um so and a lot of that too like once we had
• 55:42
  the audience and we started getting the audience going um you know you just look at like the way that
• 55:48
  other people have set that up you could look at the the card don't like the way the card owns
• 55:52
  set that up the way Patrick David set his up like oh and you just talked about Dave Ramsey I was
• 55:57
  trying to think who else does that Patrick that David's doing that a lot um he's just a lot of
• 56:03
  other brands and pouring into the like Adam in his office and Vinnie and then his CFO like he's
• 56:11
  really pushing those other brands to try to grow their presence so there's there's there's
• 56:17
  several people I think it's the it's an ascension from the ego of like I have to be the guy like
• 56:25
  the real guy is the guy that facilitates a lot of other guys and gals that are fault leaders
• 56:33
  yeah I think it's a it's a smart plan I mean that that's sort of uh you know a little bit more
• 56:38
  advanced once you've built a community or built an audience or built the following but it's it's
• 56:43
  I think it's an important thing to think about because you don't have to do it all in your own
• 56:47
  if you're trying to build an audience there's multiple ways to do it and maybe helping other
• 56:52
  creators influencers industry leaders sort of separate themselves out from the pack and be thought
• 56:58
  leaders in their own right maybe that's just a a way to fast track the audience and the community
• 57:04
  that you're trying to build which is like listen at the end of the day I don't care if people
• 57:10
  discover my show or I'm sure you don't care where your leads come from I don't care if it's from me
• 57:16
  I don't care if it's from you know my my mom talking about my show to somebody at the grocery store
• 57:22
  I don't care who talks about it you're looking for the end result like that's really it you want
• 57:26
  more revenue more followers even though it's a little bit of a vanity metric you want more of
• 57:32
  x result find a way to optimize for x result there's more than one way to do it but
• 57:37
  okay let's talk about let's talk about you know you've scaled this business now
• 57:44
  you sold a majority stake for 70 million you retained 49% of the business so help me understand
• 57:54
  what drove you to sell what was the offer who approached you why did you actually we can start
• 58:01
  there and we'll go into all the other stuff yeah yeah so the so I mean you know I had that
• 58:05
  friend that had sold his business and then after I had continued to grow our operation I
• 58:13
  continued to have other friends and acquaintances that I would see exit when when an industry like
• 58:19
  when certain industries hit this kind of like this stride where private equity starts to flow
• 58:27
  through them for sure to become an appetite and it can be a little bit of a domino effect you'll
• 58:31
  start to see a lot of businesses partner with p firms and then they'll develop a platform company
• 58:36
  so in in our industry there's a couple of platform companies and these are just the way I view
• 58:41
  that is they're just companies that by other organizations platform them meaning kind of take
• 58:50
  some of the redundancies the legal the accounting the you know IT whatever off the table HR
• 58:57
  and they can take smaller to mid-size businesses and then say okay now you can grow without the worry
• 59:03
  of that you focus on sales marketing whatever it is you do and so in our business that was what
• 59:10
  happened there was some platform companies that came in and so some of them started approaching us
• 59:14
  in the beginning and then I had a buddy that sold to a to a carrier I mean he sold to Humana
• 59:23
  and so and the the multiple of the valuation he got when he did it was far beyond what most
• 59:31
  of these organizations were paying and so I decided hey I'm gonna I'm gonna talk to them and he's
• 59:36
  like yes you'd be a great fit and we started talking and then Humana decided that they weren't
• 59:40
  buying distribution anymore because that was a big buy that they had just done and they wanted
• 59:44
  to get it under control and they were in a talk later what that point I had kind of gotten
• 59:50
  it we were at we were three years in the abide administration was heavily regulatory to us
• 59:55
  and I kind of gotten into this in heat mode where I was like man I'd really like to entertain
• 1:00:00
  it all for at this point and there's a lot of psychology of selling a business like you know I feel
• 1:00:05
  like people probably I or some books on it but I feel like I could write a book on now like the
• 1:00:10
  the ups and downs of how many times I was like I'm I'm screwed I'm not gonna sell this I'm not
• 1:00:15
  dealing with this bullshit you know but I went out and found a group that did retained equity buys
• 1:00:20
  they wanted to buy a majority equity but they did not want to buy 100% of anybody because they
• 1:00:24
  wanted their principles to still have skin in the game so they wanted people that would voluntarily
• 1:00:29
  take less for the back end opportunity and they'd craft the back end opportunity to be very
• 1:00:35
  attractive like more attractive than the front end opportunity but I wanted to make sure it was a
• 1:00:40
  way that I can take enough off the table to like set my family up to make sure you know no matter
• 1:00:46
  what happens especially considering we're in a market that is under a little bit of scrutiny from
• 1:00:52
  the federal government or you know from the senate finance committee and stuff with being
• 1:00:56
  private health insurance you kind of never know I mean I have my suspicions that we're gonna be
• 1:01:01
  around for walks I don't need to have a viable alternative that they can afford currently but
• 1:01:06
  but anyway when that was what I wanted I wanted that security but I wanted to still be in the hunt
• 1:01:14
  in the game you know because I enjoy growing the business the team members that I've built are
• 1:01:18
  amazing they're like family to me so I wanted to keep going and I knew that my business wouldn't
• 1:01:24
  thrive very well if I was like selling and just hopping out the way some people do so anyway
• 1:01:29
  that when the company that bought into this is called a mirror life their platform going to be
• 1:01:33
  around for a long time in our space but they started doing mergers and acquisitions a few years back
• 1:01:38
  they bought a hundred companies now so they're in our kind of in our similar space and they'll
• 1:01:45
  probably take on more capital and buy some more now that Trump was elected and that is not so
• 1:01:50
  neither here nor there that's just the way it is it's it's a it's a good sign for our industry
• 1:01:54
  right now because it's a little deregulation for private health insurance markets is probably on
• 1:02:00
  the horizon but why would you not want to get out completely I mean you looked you looked for
• 1:02:06
  somebody who was looking for somebody to stay on yeah I if the I considered doing like if the
• 1:02:14
  humana deal would have came through it was so much money that it was it was such a high multiple
• 1:02:20
  that was being floated at the time it was difference and so we're we were at 10x without a 1x
• 1:02:27
  earned out which was probably like right at what I was expecting our industry to be for a company
• 1:02:33
  my size they were offering 15x on a rolling forward 12 for a hundred percent of the company
• 1:02:40
  where that was the floated idea so it was it's just so much where you'd almost be stupid not to
• 1:02:46
  have taken it because it was so many more years of earnings up front and so anyway when you know
• 1:02:53
  I didn't really necessarily want to sell a hundred percent I enjoyed what I'm doing but you
• 1:02:57
  know with business man it's like 90% of the time I love it and then 10% of the time I'm like oh my
• 1:03:03
  god I gotta deal with this you know and so it depends on the time they catch you when you're on
• 1:03:08
  none of those 10% days you'd be like man I'll take 6x just take you yeah but you're on a
• 1:03:14
  you know when you're on that high man most of the time you don't want to do that you want to keep
• 1:03:18
  going it's fun it's interesting I know some people that they do that it was 15x EBITDA I'm correct
• 1:03:25
  yeah yes yeah that was that was going to be theirs on rolling forward 12 so they were projecting your
• 1:03:31
  growth rate 12 months in advance and then paying you on all up front damn dude oh listen you're not
• 1:03:40
  hurting I got the I ended up getting the 10 plus one that that publicly traded organizing and
• 1:03:47
  the difference is if you get a publicly traded organization that buys you their accounting is
• 1:03:52
  just so much more wonky you know it's not the same so they they can technically afford to pay more
• 1:03:58
  you know but they just they just get in their accountings like 606 accounting and I don't
• 1:04:04
  pretend to even understand all that but they they can do a little bit of voodoo math that I don't
• 1:04:08
  quite understand I think that's how I think that's pretty much how Enron got in trouble but
• 1:04:15
  hey but you know they probably bought some companies that that guy got out and he didn't do
• 1:04:19
  anything wrong so no no I'm sure I'm sure some people made money off Enron yeah definitely
• 1:04:27
  no I was I was just thinking about like all the different opportunities right like you could have
• 1:04:32
  taken that 15x with a 12 month and then waited till the non-compete expires and then just start
• 1:04:39
  right back up again or you can just keep building the thing you're building I think that it's very
• 1:04:43
  personal like you mentioned before there's a lot of emotion and psychology that goes into exits
• 1:04:49
  and doesn't really matter how much you listen to podcasts or read books I think that there's a lot
• 1:04:55
  of the lot of emotion tied up into selling the thing that you basically it becomes part your
• 1:05:02
  business becomes part of your identity so that that definitely impacts your judgment is there any
• 1:05:09
  advice that you give an entrepreneur that is having offers just some things to think through
• 1:05:16
  some things and it doesn't have to be business it could be family it could be anything whatever
• 1:05:21
  whatever thoughts you went you know that you've had since entertaining exit yeah I mean I'm in
• 1:05:26
  the big ones that seem maybe too obvious are like you know any just with anything when you're
• 1:05:34
  can you get a control your emotional range so like don't you know don't implode a deal over
• 1:05:42
  you know something you don't like that someone said like if you're going through that process
• 1:05:46
  and there's multiple lawyers involved in mergers and acquisitions professionals you're going to
• 1:05:52
  it can be it can get a little exhausting there's just so many variables and details you know
• 1:05:57
  depending on the deal but you know once you what you're in the tens of millions of dollars like
• 1:06:02
  that's not going to flow from you know one body to the next without you know a lot of scrutiny
• 1:06:08
  typically so so just kind of take it one try to the time and and decide if it's best for you
• 1:06:14
  it's it is a very personal decision if somebody like this people have come to me and they'll say hey
• 1:06:21
  I'm getting all for this you know should I take it and I'm going to tell you I never could tell
• 1:06:27
  somebody shouldn't take it you know part of that is because I don't want the blood on my hands
• 1:06:31
  of me telling you not to take something your business imploding and then being like just a
• 1:06:36
  rock caught me out of taking this deal and now I'm broke you know a burden the hand is worth
• 1:06:41
  to in the bush now at the same time that's the advice I give other people because I'm not you
• 1:06:49
  I'm not you you know and I did have 100% offers and I did turn those down for retained equity so
• 1:06:54
  my retained equity could plummet and I could look up and be like man I'm shorted you know
• 1:07:01
  I'm shorted 50 60 70 million dollars or whatever it is because and I that I could have had
• 1:07:08
  but I'm taking a gamble on myself right there's other people that'll take even a bigger gamble
• 1:07:12
  where they wouldn't have sold any of their company and I think you have to look at your business
• 1:07:16
  though you can look at this framework from the Boston Consulting Group where they talk about
• 1:07:21
  the four types of businesses it's a the cash cowl the star the dog and I can't remember the other
• 1:07:29
  one but there's like four categories you can google this like but it's a quadrant of
• 1:07:35
  based on what market you're in and how big you are as an organization within that market so if
• 1:07:41
  you're the dominant shareholder of the market you're in and it is a growing market you're considered
• 1:07:48
  a star if you're not the dominant shareholder but you're growing in a market that is still growing
• 1:07:55
  you're a cash cow on the other side of that quadrant you get markets that are shrinking once
• 1:08:00
  you're a market that's shrinking and you're the biggest one in the market this is a shitty company
• 1:08:07
  like you should fit out but as soon as boss no I just I just googled it so you have dogs cash cows
• 1:08:12
  question marks and stars yeah so dogs are low market share low market growth question marks are
• 1:08:20
  low market share high market growth cash cows are high market share low market growth and stars are
• 1:08:26
  high market share high market growth I've never heard of this chart before that's amazing yeah it's a
• 1:08:30
  cool look at like should I sell should I not that I should I go even if you're going into a new
• 1:08:36
  vertical you know do I want to go into it like you you know I would it's not necessarily that you
• 1:08:43
  wouldn't go into a vertical that's not growing anymore if you had some sort of you know way to to
• 1:08:48
  grab up a bunch of the existing market share but I mean really if you have a if you have a
• 1:08:55
  sophisticated or out of the box way to grab market share in a growing market and that's going to
• 1:09:02
  be your biggest opportunity so when I was looking at it I started looking at is my market growing
• 1:09:09
  and is and and how big am I in this market so I was not the biggest but I was one of the faster
• 1:09:17
  growing ones in our market and the quest the the the not to use the certain question mark in
• 1:09:23
  conjunction with that but the question mark for me personally place is our market growing and
• 1:09:30
  you know fortunately and fortunately I mean we we're in a market that's heavily tied to the
• 1:09:35
  federal government contracts here with Medicare there's there's federal contracts involved
• 1:09:42
  and so it kind of depends on who's elected like I hate this like I never want to be the guy that's like
• 1:09:48
  you know I love I love the feedback from like the cardones and those guys that say you know
• 1:09:54
  the government is never going to make or break me however it can certainly have impact and the
• 1:10:00
  bigger you get the more it can especially when you're participating in a market that is that's
• 1:10:05
  heavily regulated by the federal government you know so and I would soon grant would agree with
• 1:10:11
  that now when when you own you know billions of dollars worth of apartment buildings there's
• 1:10:16
  there's clearly he does believe that because he got involved in politics pretty heavily this last
• 1:10:21
  cycle I think that is funny at that is very true government doesn't impact me but I'm
• 1:10:30
  gonna go on the campaign trail I'm gonna start speaking maybe maybe the government just makes
• 1:10:36
  it a little bit easier depending on which way it goes I hope they get out of my way
• 1:10:41
  yeah exactly I think I think most business owners inherently are not libertarian in the
• 1:10:49
  traditional definition but libertarian in the in the definition of I wish I could just
• 1:10:54
  ethically and responsibly build a business without too much heavy-handed government oversight now
• 1:11:00
  obviously I get why regulation exists and protects people but sometimes just because the government
• 1:11:06
  is the government and it moves slower than innovation and it moves slower than my god it moves slower
• 1:11:11
  than almost anything regulatory doesn't catch up with reality and that's when there's friction
• 1:11:17
  that's when I heard a lot of the regulations we were seeing in the industry last year 2024
• 1:11:22
  they're coming out with regulation based on data from 2019 but any insider would know that data
• 1:11:28
  is so antiquated now like it's not relevant to the current landscape and because it moves so fast
• 1:11:35
  and but government officials are you know the and some of these people are appointed to
• 1:11:42
  head up bodies and organizations that they don't really have any experience in that
• 1:11:47
  you know that's an issue so yeah regularly and yeah and I would say that I'm very much libertarian
• 1:11:55
  because I you know I was definitely a Ron Paul Rand Paul guy as I've gotten older and pay more
• 1:12:01
  taxes and stuff I get why people get pushed to the right yeah but I get when you have them
• 1:12:07
  genuinely a you know leave me alone get out of my way lower taxes you know but you know
• 1:12:14
  that that definitely I guess is rightly I'm probably right leaning libertarian but I don't want
• 1:12:20
  I hate to be too aggressive on any of that because I don't want to be associated with some of the
• 1:12:23
  far right stuff either like it's like yeah a big thank you to indeed for supporting success story
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• 1:15:04
  Scott clary I get it no and by the way I think that's an important point like most I think most people
• 1:15:10
  who are successful are libertarian and they're fiscally conservative and they're socially liberal
• 1:15:15
  in the sense that I don't care what you just leave me alone yeah that's really it just leave me my
• 1:15:19
  money and my family that's an 80% Americans feel that way and then now they get us all arguing about
• 1:15:26
  the way this 10% feels and the way this 10% feels and we're all in the middle like oh my god what's
• 1:15:31
  going on yeah I think I think that's actually pretty accurate Twitter Twitter is not
• 1:15:37
  representative of the majority of Americans oh my gosh man yeah you get a Twitter and read it I was
• 1:15:43
  reading it I I don't go down the rabbit read it the whole I read it is great we've really
• 1:15:50
  hit it it's funny because you know recently the United health care CEO murder yeah that's in our
• 1:15:56
  our mystery he was and the the kind of vitriol that has come out and they eat the rich mentality it's
• 1:16:04
  like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg like Mark Zuckerberg comes out with this kind of like where he
• 1:16:09
  swings back and centrist you know on um free speech and stuff right and I'm kind of like he
• 1:16:15
  he took a 180 yeah I've recently I'm sitting there thinking hey good for Mark but then you read the
• 1:16:20
  comments and you're like they're right-wing people and the left-wing people just both hate him but
• 1:16:25
  for different reasons and it's like this you know and I'm like you know if you're that wildly
• 1:16:30
  successful there's just going to be a group of people that just you know hate you and then we saw
• 1:16:36
  that with the the United Health Care CEO murder because I know a lot of people that know knew him
• 1:16:41
  this is a guy that grew up in Iowa farmed down worked his way up as an accountant graduated
• 1:16:48
  about a Victorian of a local high school this was not like silver spoon you know Roth's child
• 1:16:55
  becomes it but that's the way they paint it and actually the guy that killed him did grow up
• 1:17:02
  I know it's actually ridiculous yeah it's it's it's absolutely and say I I researched the
• 1:17:09
  the the CEO I can't remember what's his what's his name? Brian's on yeah so I researched his
• 1:17:14
  background and it's actually a very humble yeah it's very humble obviously super humble
• 1:17:19
  American story like you know boat straps like like like good family grew up on the farm
• 1:17:27
  becomes valedictorian becomes a CPA works as a private accountant you know in the private market
• 1:17:33
  gets hired at a you know lower mid range job at United Health Care works as white to the ranks
• 1:17:38
  by working hard showing up and everybody I know that knows him was like he's just a super nice guy
• 1:17:43
  very relatable but by position this rich kid this guy that's kid that grew up rich thinks he's
• 1:17:51
  evil and I'm just like oh my gosh like I don't I don't get it and then people celebrate that
• 1:17:55
  and I'm just like this wild stuff no that was disgusting some of the some of the things that I saw
• 1:18:02
  and that's not even defending you know necessarily you know I know that there are problems
• 1:18:06
  with private health insurance like I'm absolutely not oblivious to that like there are there I
• 1:18:10
  think that some of it's overstated like I know people that so many people that work in these
• 1:18:14
  companies and the people that work in these companies are making the claims decisions and stuff
• 1:18:19
  are like normal middle lower middle class middle class people they're not sitting there saying
• 1:18:24
  yep let's kill Mrs. Jones to save money on the claim now is some of that happening by proxy
• 1:18:30
  and bad process I really think it could happen for sure like I'm not like like I'm not an idiot but
• 1:18:39
  but I think that this idea that the billionaires and the millionaires and the powers that be
• 1:18:45
  or orchestrating this plot to get the little guy is it's not really true man it's just
• 1:18:52
  but what happens is that message that message it's social fuels a lot of this social media
• 1:18:59
  fuels a lot of this so what happens is somebody sees something that is you know this idea
• 1:19:07
  just pisses them off and they echo that idea on Twitter or Reddit or whatever and because
• 1:19:13
  of algorithms and echo chambers the people that see that idea all kind of think the same way
• 1:19:19
  so then your message and your anger and your vitriol is almost reinforced and just in your
• 1:19:25
  mind justified because you think everyone else around you feels the same way and it just it's
• 1:19:30
  this flywheel of negativity and a like you to worry about echo chamber gives them the confidence
• 1:19:34
  to say things so now you have people that would have never said that even though they thought well
• 1:19:39
  maybe but then they see somebody else say it and then they're now they have this reinforcement
• 1:19:44
  up like well I can say that too and then it becomes like nuts if I mean you're you're obviously
• 1:19:50
  in sort of in this industry I didn't even think to take the conversation there but maybe you
• 1:19:56
  have some ideas because I don't have any because I'm so far from this industry I don't know anything
• 1:19:59
  really about fixing it or obviously a lot of emotion and ideas came to light because of this
• 1:20:06
  because of the CEO's murder because of his murder do you have any ideas about what could be done
• 1:20:13
  to sort of fix either the actual industry or public perception about the industry like there's
• 1:20:19
  obviously something broken whether or not it's it's real or it's perception something's off yeah
• 1:20:24
  yeah no so there's definitely some shortcomings it is a highly politicized and I think that this
• 1:20:30
  is important it's a highly politicized niche because private health insurance is a very
• 1:20:38
  is a very conservative concept it's like hey we believe that bureaucracy and governments are
• 1:20:43
  inefficient we should allow private markets to compete in health care to try to drive the
• 1:20:48
  cost down because we're we're having a budget crisis on Medicare and so federal Medicare
• 1:20:54
  federal health insurance and these subsidies whatever it's costing us too much let's see if we
• 1:20:59
  can get health insurance so that health insurance companies are are initially tasked sort of with
• 1:21:04
  reducing overall health care costs there's a couple of ways to do that there's not pay as many
• 1:21:10
  claims but the other way the long term way and what's actually being tried to happen is is value
• 1:21:18
  base care or health maintenance which is where you take people and you get earlier diagnoses of
• 1:21:24
  symptomatic stuff that you can treat before it becomes a bigger more expensive issue and this
• 1:21:30
  requires the entire health care system to kind of work together but they're not really working
• 1:21:35
  together you have like a lot of these rural hospitals that will complain that the value-based care
• 1:21:40
  system doesn't fit their revenue cycle so anyway but it's it the problem with this is is that the
• 1:21:49
  and I hate to say it this way because and this is what I think Paul I could probably get away
• 1:21:53
  say it politicians can't say it the American public is wholly unqualified in total to chime in on
• 1:22:01
  the concept because Congress and and the evolution of the health care industry has made this
• 1:22:07
  shit too fucking complicated for most people to really grasp but the problem is when you have
• 1:22:14
  the federal government saying hey let's take initiatives toward value-based care where you get
• 1:22:19
  people better earlier and save the money to save us money but we're also having to force you
• 1:22:24
  into only spending this much per head to be profitable then there probably are things with like where
• 1:22:30
  are we losing money I don't think that there's a lot of claims that are getting denied when people
• 1:22:35
  are terminally ill now when I say that yes it happens we're talking about anecdotal things we're
• 1:22:41
  also seeing people I believe spread lies or stories online to try to get clicks because let's say
• 1:22:48
  all that's coming out and I want to be a famous TikTok influencer I could go move up with a
• 1:22:53
  woe is me story especially if I'm a young lady and I talk about my mom dying or whatever and I say
• 1:22:59
  it was blah blah blah very easy to go viral on one of those stories in the heat of all that moment
• 1:23:04
  and then all of a sudden it looks justified I think a lot of those weren't even true
• 1:23:08
  as a matter of fact I believe most of the claims denials are they come down to a couple things
• 1:23:14
  you know the guy that killed the United Health Care CEO by the way didn't have the United
• 1:23:17
  Health Care never had it before I'd the other thing is the the a lot of their denials when they say
• 1:23:26
  United Health Care has 32% denials they're only that's only using Obamacare as a sector so it
• 1:23:32
  didn't use any Medicare plans it didn't use Medicare supplements Medicare advantage and use private
• 1:23:36
  health insurance it used Obamacare so but then I take the Obamacare some of those denials are
• 1:23:41
  because they hadn't met their deductible so it's not a true claim denial it's you still have you
• 1:23:46
  have $1,000 deductible we haven't met yet some of those denials where you are not insured here
• 1:23:52
  well that's not it actually even being included in the statistic you know um so when they float
• 1:23:57
  this 32% claims denials it's like we're not even viewing real numbers here but so if somebody calls
• 1:24:05
  united and they've never paid united a dime in their life united says yo you're not a customer
• 1:24:12
  we don't know who you are and that's considered a claim denial so the way what happened is let's say
• 1:24:17
  let's say you had united but you changed to blue cross blue shield and when you went to the hospital
• 1:24:24
  you forgot that or somebody else pulled out the cards you were an emergency and they gave them
• 1:24:29
  an old united card when they filed a claim and then united says well they're no longer a customer here
• 1:24:37
  they're not a unite they're not a current united health care customer they filed out at the
• 1:24:41
  hospital as a claims denial so that's it's a bullshit and I'm not saying that's all of them but
• 1:24:49
  that is a factor in that 32% yeah but but if you're gonna cite data the data has to be good yeah
• 1:24:56
  and there's side there's the problem with data is if I'm if I'm the Wall Street Journal and
• 1:25:01
  I'm writing an article about this I want the data to be shocking you know media has to
• 1:25:08
  the media is competing with the national inquiry or type headlines and so they have to come up
• 1:25:15
  with shocking shit and if there isn't enough shocking shit we have to paraphrase it in a way to
• 1:25:21
  make it seem more shocking than maybe it is yeah no I listen that's why that's why I think the
• 1:25:29
  healthiest thing the average person can do is just limit themselves to you know as much traditional
• 1:25:36
  media and social media as possible I don't think it's healthy for most people because you have
• 1:25:40
  all these messages just really just fucking with you yeah I try I try I say try don't
• 1:25:46
  like the word try but I turn off as much news as I can I mean there's definitely periods where I
• 1:25:51
  watch it and I get sucked back in because there are things that are important in the world but like
• 1:25:56
  I you know sometimes I wonder if I just was completely oblivious to ever to all social media
• 1:26:02
  and all the news all the politics and just live my life with my family you know I'd be happier
• 1:26:11
  I think most people would be yeah I think most people would be I think that there's the media
• 1:26:16
  just creates a ton of fear and anger on a big thank you to indeed for supporting success story
• 1:26:22
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• 1:26:27
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• 1:27:58
  all you need average okay I want to I want to really understand a little bit about the exit I think
• 1:28:07
  that's interesting for for people that have never gone through one before because obviously that
• 1:28:11
  changes your relationship with money with with wealth so you sold 49% I mean I could talk to you
• 1:28:19
  about health care all day but I also want to talk about money it's also a fun topics so you sold
• 1:28:22
  40 you sold 51% you retain 49% so that was a nice check a nice wire how did it feel when that
• 1:28:32
  came in what what was the emotion surrounding all of that you know think that I've watched a
• 1:28:37
  Ryan pinnative you would bring in dulce before talking about it so I was so I've told several people I was
• 1:28:42
  kind of wondering how I feel but he had talked about how he felt like and he kind of had that now
• 1:28:48
  now what moment and and I did have that you know it's it's not like a really real feeling
• 1:28:53
  so that the platform company that bought into us when they sent the wire they called me for
• 1:28:58
  congratulatory like the deal is closed we've sent the wire congratulations you know call and so
• 1:29:04
  that was kind of like okay now what well then I just go on the bank and I'm I mean it's just
• 1:29:09
  what anyone would do I'm refreshing the bank accounts we're just waiting for it to show up and
• 1:29:16
  one time I refresh it in the for they did it in two wires to a couple of different accounts just
• 1:29:20
  because it was multiple entity type of transaction then that first one came through and it's
• 1:29:25
  you know more money than I'd ever had in the scene in the bank and I had you know I had a
• 1:29:30
  business that was doing volume so we had um you know we've had a couple million dollar balance in
• 1:29:34
  there before but this was way more than that and then you know in that first one hit um
• 1:29:40
  I you know I immediately was like I got to figure out what to do with this money now
• 1:29:45
  like what where do I put it because like all I kept thinking was like oh my gosh the FDIC only
• 1:29:50
  ensures this account up to 240 thousand which is this you know most people never think about that
• 1:29:55
  but like once you get it and you're like I got a you know something crazy is going to happen
• 1:30:00
  and this is right around the time that all that um silicone valley bank stuff was going on so I'm
• 1:30:05
  like hyper alert to it so anyway so then I started talking to kind of um um you know money managers
• 1:30:11
  and um different routes to try to get it out diversified put some in real estate syndication but some
• 1:30:17
  in equity index phones and then I put some in um in a rich and paying fund that like puts it
• 1:30:25
  in multiple CDs with multiple institutions so that all of them are backed up to that FDIC
• 1:30:30
  insurance amount I mean I just kind of went on that mission and I did spend I did splurge a little
• 1:30:36
  bit when we went in bottle amber guinea I bought a new watch I did some you know stuff that you
• 1:30:43
  just did I could have afforded before but I just never thought I just didn't want to afford it
• 1:30:47
  like I was like I'll do that when I'm like really rich you know and um all that stuff was like
• 1:30:53
  fun for a minute but I had that Lamborghini for five months and sold it like I just I just didn't
• 1:30:58
  it was like it was fun for a minute and then the fun wore off of it it was just I was not like
• 1:31:05
  uh something I then you're driving a Lamborghini to target and you're wondering why yeah it's
• 1:31:08
  just seemed like I made it it made me a lot of friends because like you drive places and people
• 1:31:14
  don't want to talk to you about it but then you know I just uh I don't know it did did change my
• 1:31:19
  relationship with money because you buy these things and somebody told me the other day you uh
• 1:31:26
  buying it's getting it is more fun than having it so you know and that's why we go back to work
• 1:31:32
  right that's why people that make money like you don't like how many people do you know that are
• 1:31:37
  very wealthy that don't work anymore none like literally zero and I've interviewed people that
• 1:31:42
  have had hundred million dollar plus exits that are on paper billionaires um all of them work
• 1:31:52
  harder even though they'll never have to work again in their life they could live off the interest
• 1:31:56
  obviously you you know people very similar to me um and they all work and they all work a lot
• 1:32:02
  yeah that's the thing you in it's it's because you realize the most gratifying thing you've
• 1:32:08
  ever done in your life is creating something whether that's a product or a team or momentum or
• 1:32:16
  an idea whatever it is so you so you splurged then you sold some of the things that you bought
• 1:32:22
  and where where do you sit now in terms of your relationship with money where do you because
• 1:32:29
  also another another idea is just because you're a good operator or a good entrepreneur doesn't
• 1:32:35
  mean you're a good investor either I think that people lose a lot of money when they first have
• 1:32:39
  that windfall when they first get that wire because they have no idea what they're doing yeah I was
• 1:32:43
  afraid of investing it I went hyper conservative I mean I I had I had already read uh money
• 1:32:50
  master the game by Tony Robbins and he you know he had interviewed I think it was a jack vanguard
• 1:32:55
  who talked about people people can't like nobody can tie in the market you know and so
• 1:33:00
  um you know taking money they he had talked about equity index funds and so I went and put a bunch
• 1:33:05
  in equity index and um you know there's I have friends that have sold there's like oh I made
• 1:33:10
  this in Bitcoin I made this and that and I was like that's great I'm so happy for you like I'm
• 1:33:15
  never like I'm not a I I'm not gonna be jealous because you won because I avoided the potential
• 1:33:23
  walls so I'm it's funny how aggressive I am when betting on me and my businesses things I can
• 1:33:28
  control and understand versus investments I did do some real estate syndication which is still a
• 1:33:35
  pretty safe bet because it diversified over like apartment buildings and stuff so um everything
• 1:33:40
  I've done is and then like I said a bunch of CDs man how much how much for conservative can you
• 1:33:46
  get them that's pretty much that's about as conservative as you can be what kind of um
• 1:33:53
  if you look at sort of your portfolio even being hyper conservative this is more just a smart
• 1:33:57
  investing lesson for people what kind of returns can you get on your money with a very conservative
• 1:34:04
  portfolio portfolio excuse me like what you built yeah extremely conservative you could say and
• 1:34:10
  this is like I'm talking cash on cash um five to six percent the very conservative right now and
• 1:34:18
  that's because where CD rates and stuff are right now now that change in the future but I would say
• 1:34:24
  you know a lot of people will give you these like other higher numbers but like real estate syndication
• 1:34:29
  when you look at total return it's different because you're talking about tax advantages you're talking
• 1:34:36
  about um potential for um um you know then to refine and cash out refi part of that there's like
• 1:34:44
  all these different very you're talking about future exit value increased rents so like you might
• 1:34:49
  look up one day and be like oh that investment did 20 percent but what I'm talking about is true
• 1:34:54
  cash on cash that you could live off of and I would say you you would do be at the four and a half
• 1:34:58
  to six percent range uh of just basing it off of that you know I am and I know that somebody's
• 1:35:04
  gonna watch this and be like that's crazy you get 10 15 20 I'm not saying you can't get that I'm
• 1:35:08
  just saying like if you're talking about truly safe cash on cash that's where it's really do you
• 1:35:13
  live off uh interest you don't dip into the principal anymore or how you how have you structured your
• 1:35:18
  life I'm probably after that first few months of like taking some trips with the family uh I
• 1:35:24
  probably spend less I spend less now than I did the year before I sold the business I don't know why
• 1:35:29
  I really don't it's like um I don't really understand I don't know it's like it it came into focus that
• 1:35:36
  like we just decided we wanted to really pile that money up and like and then you there is this
• 1:35:43
  thing that happens where there are some stuff there's some things that you want to do that are so
• 1:35:49
  extravagantly expensive that you're willing to like live you know what would still be a cushy lifestyle
• 1:35:58
  like to save for the extremely extravagant like experiences like you know renting mega yachts
• 1:36:06
  in the Mediterranean for three weeks in the summer and stuff you know those are things that
• 1:36:10
  you know that I don't have enough money to do that you know all the time I don't I don't have
• 1:36:15
  yacht ownership money or private travel money everywhere but if I want to take one badass trip like
• 1:36:22
  that every couple years all I got to do is not be an idiot the rest of the time you know yeah
• 1:36:27
  that makes sense I think that you know I think that lifestyle creep is a big issue when people
• 1:36:36
  start to make that kind of money if they're not smart and you just have to be careful you just have
• 1:36:42
  I mean any amount over say 15 to 20 million I would say less than that you can you can screw it
• 1:36:52
  up pretty easily if you're not careful but any amount over 15 to 20 million after tax depending
• 1:36:59
  on you know how much you get tax if you invest that properly you should you should always be able to
• 1:37:04
  live off of the interest from that from that investment yeah even even guys are not monthly expenses
• 1:37:10
  are certainly less than the the conservative interest on our well look at I probably I probably
• 1:37:19
  on a typical month I don't know we probably spend 30 30 got thousand a month and then you know
• 1:37:26
  which I know is like out of touch for some people but like in the in the grand scheme it's not a you
• 1:37:30
  know but and then there might be a month where we spend a hundred you know but like you know but
• 1:37:37
  then it like I'm always thinking like when you tip toe into like when I tip toe into what is
• 1:37:43
  possible I think I don't think because there's a lot of people like you're saying lifestyle creep
• 1:37:49
  it's like they it can be really expensive to fake being a billionaire and and these people will buy
• 1:37:56
  all the watches all the cars all the stuff and all the sudden it's like technically you're doing
• 1:38:00
  really well but you're spending so much on extravagant things that you're overall solvency of
• 1:38:06
  your lifestyle and the peace of mind you have this suffering and so I'm like I feel like I have
• 1:38:12
  enough now where it's like why not feel content like I'm not content in my because money isn't a
• 1:38:23
  part of the the goal anymore then it might be like a score metric but like because it's not a part
• 1:38:29
  of it I can be content in what I can afford in my lifestyle while being aggressive toward the
• 1:38:35
  pursuits of my future business endeavors right like that that's kind of where my relationship
• 1:38:41
  with money is right now and I'm not saying it won't change again because it always changes like
• 1:38:45
  things just change in your psyche and and you might you know hit different strides but I'm in the
• 1:38:50
  stride right now where I'm enjoying being at home with my dogs and my family and just not having
• 1:38:59
  to worry about money at all like that's in that's you know and and and this is more speaking to
• 1:39:05
  the people that maybe have made money or are going to make money or making a lot and may sell in the
• 1:39:09
  future it's a different you know audience and I hope that there's a part of this audience that
• 1:39:13
  sees that and understands that that there is and I think that I was going to say one thing like
• 1:39:19
  I mentioned like 15 to 20 million and total exit value or total check size but the reason why I'm
• 1:39:24
  talking about those numbers is because say you had a 10 million dollar exit I don't want to see
• 1:39:28
  listen sometimes no matter what I do as a disclosure this conversation will seem out of touch but if
• 1:39:34
  you have 10 million dollars and you have and it's taxed and say you walk away with I don't know like
• 1:39:41
  say six million or something like that and you do very conservative investment in that like 4%
• 1:39:46
  and you're really only making about 240 to 150 thousand dollars a year which is a good it's great
• 1:39:52
  but the the point of this game is to not have to dip into the principle so that you don't have
• 1:39:57
  a clock on your money right that's really the goal sorry I didn't mean to interrupt that's wanted
• 1:40:01
  to point out why I was saying those numbers right is and like you know the the goal like my goal at
• 1:40:08
  one point became like potentially the exit but the heck I wasn't even thinking about the true wealth
• 1:40:16
  and it's funny because all this information's out there in like Napoleon Hill books you know like
• 1:40:21
  or upper Kiyosaki or what like these people have already outlined all this rich dad portad
• 1:40:26
  stuff and like the the ultimate wealth person is the one who's the investor that's just living off
• 1:40:31
  of the proceeds but I never really thought about it I guess I almost stupidly thought me as the
• 1:40:35
  business owner is I'm the investor but that's not the investor like that's I'm I'm the driving
• 1:40:41
  force behind that business in my you know I might have employees and they do really really well
• 1:40:46
  but I'm still like this driving force and true investment is syndication equity index
• 1:40:52
  back portfolios maybe I have some ownership in a business but I'm not even like manage I'm just
• 1:40:57
  like yeah I'll just invest in your business and you kick me back to proceeds but the true
• 1:41:02
  investment and so it has gotten to the point where I have like these I do have some superficial
• 1:41:07
  goals where you know I have like I have superficial goals of like passive income monthly you know like
• 1:41:13
  and I've talked to a lot of guys like like Grant and I'm Brandon Dawson and you know just Patrick
• 1:41:22
  bed David these are all people that have had large exits or just a mass large portfolios and
• 1:41:28
  um you hear some of some of what their what their past the income is at this point and it's like
• 1:41:36
  you know yeah that's what I want you know when you hear people that are making a cup you know
• 1:41:40
  two or three million dollars a month offer the conservative cash on cash return you're like
• 1:41:45
  shouldn't I don't even know that I would spend it you know like I don't know it's a weird thing and
• 1:41:49
  it is a superficial like talking point to the to the outside looking in and I'm sure that
• 1:41:55
  this is why some of the people are like eat the you know eat the rich but the point is like you
• 1:41:59
  want enough money to be able to like I want to be able to give money and I want to be able to
• 1:42:05
  go places and I want it's a freedom aspect of like doing thing it's freedom it's if something
• 1:42:11
  happens then you can take care of it if it is emergency medical you can you can give back you can
• 1:42:16
  donate and also I think the inverse idea you're talking about after the exit the inverse idea which
• 1:42:25
  I think is a comforting idea is to have an exit like this it does not take your whole life
• 1:42:32
  it takes a lot of work at a lot of perseverance it probably more work and time than you think it does
• 1:42:38
  but you were 10 years you were 10 years to a 70 million dollar exit and it could have been more yeah
• 1:42:46
  when you figure shit out first of all you only have to figure shit out once you really don't have
• 1:42:50
  to figure it out I mean multiple times you can if you want some people I think most billionaires
• 1:42:55
  have a little bit wrong with them because they keep trying to figure out new ideas and make new
• 1:42:59
  businesses work but you really don't if you figure it out once you're basically set for life
• 1:43:04
  most things that you'd ever want to afford you can afford right not everybody wants to buy an NBA
• 1:43:09
  team or the jets like most people are just happy living in a nice place take care of their family
• 1:43:15
  take care of their parents go on trips just comfort it doesn't it's not like out of touch and I think
• 1:43:21
  the audience hopefully my audience in particular understand how close it can be if they find the
• 1:43:27
  right product or the right idea and they put a little bit of work into it that's really the
• 1:43:31
  other side of that I actually wanted so badly to like reach this audience one time like if you
• 1:43:40
  could just get into the heads of the 18 to 25 year old you know because it's a different point
• 1:43:46
  of maturity and there's some of them some some kids are an 18 already thinking about the shit
• 1:43:50
  some of them is 20 about 26 27 before they start to really think about what am I going to do with
• 1:43:55
  my life and and I just want to find that kid at the like I'm taking my life serious like that
• 1:44:00
  point like and I embark on that journey and you just get them to understand that if I can get a
• 1:44:06
  if I could build a landscaping business that's doing you know they get a yard an amount of
• 1:44:13
  yards and projects where it's doing you know let's say a million in EBITDA and I can get you know
• 1:44:19
  it to 7x or whatever and I make 7 million and let's say I keep 75% of it I got 5.25 million
• 1:44:26
  and then I sell that and I make let's call it 6% cash will cash I make 315,000 let's say I did that
• 1:44:33
  I started when I was 18 I worked for 12 years fully intentionally 30 years old I could sell that
• 1:44:39
  I can make 315,000 a year for the rest of my life that's not a superficial goal but there are
• 1:44:45
  many people that will work for 25 or 30 years to make 100,000 150,000 and what I'm trying to
• 1:44:55
  tell you is that with the if you if you could just program the intention that of doing it it's not
• 1:45:02
  like you would know everything right away because most people that do this don't know everything they're
• 1:45:06
  just constantly learning what they need to to take the next step but if you could learn enough
• 1:45:11
  to do that you could build it in a simple business model landscaping HVAC these trades or service
• 1:45:19
  based businesses right now are trading at such high amounts I mean you know how many people that
• 1:45:24
  have crawled around and shit for the last 20 years being a plumber making a quarter making
• 1:45:30
  200 or 250,000 a year because plumbers make good money but now are realizing so many of them I've
• 1:45:38
  got a freaking business here that I can make you know five 10 15 20 million dollars off of
• 1:45:45
  and these are not superficial amounts if you think about putting that money back and then
• 1:45:49
  living off of it the thing that's really superficial or or or or I don't know if it's superficial but
• 1:45:54
  it's fucked up is pretending that you can work a job making 60 or 70 thousand dollars a year
• 1:46:01
  your entire life paying to social security save up half a million dollars and live for 20 years
• 1:46:07
  in retirement and be peaceful it's gonna be fuck I talked to these people I built my entire business
• 1:46:12
  talking to these people that were living off of social security and had tiny nest eggs and
• 1:46:18
  that and it's stressful because even if they pay their house off and they pay their cars off
• 1:46:22
  10 years in retirement the callers are falling to pieces they need a new roof
• 1:46:27
  and don't have any money for that shit and so then either the kids were helping out which puts
• 1:46:31
  us done do strain on them they're liquidating any investments they have there's no legacy involved
• 1:46:35
  in their life at all and this is the American condition because you're told that the pursuit of
• 1:46:43
  wealth is too much and I'm like it has to be 70 million dude like but you could build something in 10
• 1:46:51
  years that makes you more money than your entire 30 year 40 year career did you know yeah it's
• 1:46:58
  I think that that's why this edge these conversations are important because it I mean you don't
• 1:47:03
  have these conversations when you're going to school and if you don't come from a family who's
• 1:47:07
  entrepreneurial you kind of look at I don't want to say you look at like wealth as if if it's like
• 1:47:14
  for other people but to a degree you do because we don't have any millionaires in the family we
• 1:47:20
  don't have any people that exited companies in the family so I don't even know where to start maybe
• 1:47:25
  it's not for me and that's there that's that's the wrong idea because it's not that far away it's not
• 1:47:31
  it's not let a lifetime of work away and I think that you know when you when you break it down like
• 1:47:37
  that it becomes very it conceptually becomes very manageable you can start to understand okay let's
• 1:47:42
  get started let's figure it out and it doesn't doesn't take a Einstein let's say you wanted to be
• 1:47:48
  a missionary and you wanted to just witness to people all the time spend 18 to 30 building the
• 1:47:53
  landscape and coming to sell it and then the then the interest would finance your family's life
• 1:47:59
  while you go and do charity work or whatever you want so like it's almost like
• 1:48:04
  whatever affects you want to have in the world could be financed by a debt like dedicated
• 1:48:09
  decade that's a good flow in it this dedicated decade to getting my fucking you know house in order
• 1:48:16
  so that I can spend the rest of my life on adventure or charity or for calls or whatever you know
• 1:48:23
  I've actually found that building a business in itself helps a lot of people because people
• 1:48:29
  got to work somewhere they've got to make money they have to have opportunity and when you build
• 1:48:33
  a business you know these billionaires get to a point where nobody likes them you know but like
• 1:48:38
  in the pursuit like how many jobs is Mark Zuckerberg Jeff Bezos Elon but like people have helped
• 1:48:45
  the world and they get shit on but it is what it is you know so I'm sure that yeah I'm sure
• 1:48:54
  they're not complaining but I get it I get it listen I just hope that some people that are listening
• 1:49:01
  to this who you know are sitting on the fence are younger take these words the heart and they
• 1:49:07
  use it as inspiration to go build something incredible and understand that it is not you know out of
• 1:49:12
  reach but um yeah so we spoke about a lot what did we uh what did we not go into I'm just I'm
• 1:49:20
  thinking now we spoke about everything that you've achieved after your exit sort of the journey
• 1:49:24
  and the come up what did you what did you what was the most surprising thing that you experienced
• 1:49:32
  or you learned after achieving sort of financial freedom or success what was something that you didn't
• 1:49:37
  expect hmm I didn't expect you know some of what we're talking about earlier I didn't expect
• 1:49:48
  what my heavy desert like I didn't expect to have such a desire to keep working um not that I
• 1:49:55
  thought that I wouldn't work but I thought I would feel a little bit more um relief in the
• 1:50:00
  intention and then I realized that that that drive wasn't money that drive was something else
• 1:50:05
  inherent um I didn't expect um I didn't know how to expect for my employees to react or my
• 1:50:16
  my family you know like how different family members would react um and it's actually been
• 1:50:22
  overwhelmingly positive and I think that's a testament to the people that you're at you have a great
• 1:50:26
  relationship with um that you've helped will be overwhelmingly happy for you if you have people in
• 1:50:32
  your life that aren't happy for you that have that kind of you know sentiment negative sentiment
• 1:50:38
  towards it probably not worthy of even being in your life at all um so I I didn't know I wouldn't
• 1:50:43
  say that I didn't expect it but I didn't know what to expect from family members and employees but
• 1:50:49
  it's been overwhelmingly positive and but I do I think that that is because I have spent a lot of
• 1:50:55
  time especially with my team members and people that work for me have always tried to help them
• 1:51:00
  anytime they need help I've always tried to be there financially for them and stuff and so I
• 1:51:04
  don't I think I've kind of like earned that good will with them that you know good for JB I know
• 1:51:10
  he's always got my back so yeah yeah no that makes sense last thought on this when you do get that
• 1:51:19
  check and now your minority uh shareholder in the business your minority owner how did you
• 1:51:26
  set your company up your team up so that um there wouldn't be any any negative after you give up
• 1:51:35
  control because that's the biggest concern that people have it's if if I I built this baby from
• 1:51:40
  scratch now someone else is running the ship I don't have control over what they do so I was very
• 1:51:46
  thankful that I had friends that I had built in the industry that had sold to this particular
• 1:51:52
  platform company or before me and I was well aware that as long as you were growing and making
• 1:52:01
  money and not doing anything criminal that they would stay out of your way um there have been some
• 1:52:09
  I've learned a lot I mean that man you want to get a PhD in high-level accounting
• 1:52:14
  celibus in this man because like I we had to convert from cash to a plural accounting I've learned
• 1:52:19
  how compound annual growth rates work I've learned I had a great law euro my side and so we were
• 1:52:25
  just reading through tons and tons of that um but like on the back end I've learned a lot about the
• 1:52:31
  conversion of approval accounting and I've learned a lot about things like uh uh working capital
• 1:52:38
  contributions it's just these concepts that like at the time you're going through it and you're just
• 1:52:42
  like you know whatever and then later on you're like okay how did I know that I would have done
• 1:52:48
  this differently or glad I didn't do that now that I understand this like there's a lot of
• 1:52:52
  faults like that um and but like they haven't thankfully you know they still let me steer the ship um
• 1:53:02
  you know there's there's certain things like they have a legal department so like there's
• 1:53:07
  things that I used to just willy-nilly sign off on that now they want to run through a legal team
• 1:53:11
  which probably protects me but it is a little bit slower than I'm used to because when you're running
• 1:53:17
  a small and rapid growing business that you're at the helm of and you're the ultimate decision maker
• 1:53:22
  you can make decisions quick and you can move fast and swift um and it's kind of like we're still a
• 1:53:28
  really fast little tugboat um but we're but we have a chain connected to a huge barge and we're
• 1:53:36
  kind of like you know having to get permission to unleash that chain every now and then so
• 1:53:42
  no that's good that's that's also very smart I mean if you if you are if you are selling I mean
• 1:53:48
  I think the the quote is companies the best companies don't get sold they get bought right and if
• 1:53:54
  you if you position yourself properly so that you do have people that are interested in you do
• 1:53:58
  your due diligence as the seller as the entrepreneur and choose somebody who you've checked their
• 1:54:04
  references they're not going to destroy your company they're not going to destroy the livelihood
• 1:54:08
  of your employees it is a very important idea that if you get too excited about selling and you
• 1:54:13
  don't do your research like these are real things that can happen yeah so just be aware of them
• 1:54:18
  told me when he sold that that selling your business is a lot like sending a kid off to college
• 1:54:26
  and so um and he sold a hundred percent so but the that the same concept even even an idea is like
• 1:54:33
  you there's a such an emotional attachment to what you built that even if you sell a hundred
• 1:54:38
  percent you do not want to sell it to someone that's going to ruin it because these are people's
• 1:54:44
  people that you care about work there or this should be and you know that's everybody I know
• 1:54:49
  this built a business cares about the people that work at their business so um you just don't want
• 1:54:54
  anything bad to happen to it of course okay where can people connect with you uh what do you want
• 1:55:01
  people to know what in terms of non entrepreneur where can they consume more content where can they
• 1:55:07
  learn more about what you're doing um if you want to actually if you're in the industry and they
• 1:55:12
  want to work with you where did they go so give people a couple reference points yeah I mean
• 1:55:17
  you know made one of the main places we're trying to grow is instagram instagram.com slash the
• 1:55:21
  Justin Rock or at the Justin Rocks what I should say uh youtube.com slash Justin Rock and then
• 1:55:28
  just straight to Justin Rock.com okay cool and and when they go there um what kind of content
• 1:55:34
  are they going to see what what uh what type of education do you put up yeah we we put a lot of
• 1:55:39
  stuff like on youtube right now it's some of it is is very specific to just business owners selling
• 1:55:45
  business that we're trying to be more broad not just completely um niche down for the insurance
• 1:55:50
  industry um but we do a lot of insurance industry stuff there too because that's where a lot of our
• 1:55:55
  audiences comprised of um instagram same thing we do try to put up some funny stuff as well to
• 1:56:01
  keep it uh lighthearted um but that's what we're doing it's it's very business uh and uh in
• 1:56:07
  insurance industry mix 50-50 amazing um last question I like to ask so you've had you know great
• 1:56:14
  great life great career built incredible business if you had to distill some of the most important
• 1:56:21
  lessons that you've learned over your life and the the lens that I I try and put this through is
• 1:56:28
  if you can only pass this one lesson on to your kids because that's the most important lesson
• 1:56:34
  that you've ever learned what would that lesson be um it's a marathon not a sprint that's uh that's
• 1:56:40
  been the big the big thing guiding light for me when I got out of the Marine Corps and came into
• 1:56:45
  the industry my dad told me that and um it has it has proven true now I try to I try to I have
• 1:56:52
  an adaptation that I say it's a marathon not a sprint but you can be a Kenyan in the marathon
• 1:56:58
  you know you can run it as a pace setter and run it really fast just just know that you're having
• 1:57:03
  to set a pace where you can finish a long race I have many people that I work with that um really
• 1:57:10
  burn themselves out quick trying to you know sprint to the finish line and not knowing the
• 1:57:16
  compounding effort of daily time and pressure just you know and it's a marathon not a sprint is not
• 1:57:24
  a cop out to relax it's just understanding that you know your work in quantity of days you know
• 1:57:34
  over time like every day making progress one foot in front of the other is making much bigger
• 1:57:40
  grand you know strides towards a goal then you can possibly fathom within that individual day
• 1:57:48
  every little thing that we do is is really getting us so much further because it's it's compounding
• 1:57:54
  effort