Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Rejection Immunity: How Bryan Ravit (aka The Sales Whisperer) Built Wealth Through Sales, Investing, and Mental Discipline

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Rejection Immunity: How Bryan Ravit (aka The Sales Whisperer) Built Wealth Through Sales, Investing, and Mental Discipline · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:10
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:13
adversity. My name is Anthony Cotispodi and
0:16
today's guest is Brian Rabbit. He is the founder and Chief
0:19
Sales Ninja of Sales Growth Mastery, a firm dedicated to
0:24
revamping sales teams through dynamic training, innovative
0:27
processes and data-driven strategies.
0:30
Brian has a proven track record including generating over $100
0:33
million in revenue while building door to door sales
0:36
teams for Vivid Smart Home. He currently offers performance
0:40
based coaching and consulting to various companies, tapping into
0:44
his gifts for training and motivating high achieving sales
0:48
professionals. Away from coaching, Brian is an
0:51
avid investor focusing on passive, cash flowing
0:55
alternative investments to create long term stability and
0:58
freedom. He is also exploring
1:00
opportunities to acquire service businesses with strong
1:04
foundations and exceptional teams.
1:06
Brian started his journey at Cutco where a life changing
1:09
sales competition sparked his passion for exceeding limits and
1:13
embracing challenges. Since then, his hunger for
1:16
growth and commitment to sharing knowledge have propelled him to
1:20
help others succeed. Now before we get into all that
1:24
good stuff, today's episode is brought to you by my company,
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AD back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
2:06
today, Brian Rabbit. Thanks for making the time to
2:08
Share your story today. My sincere pleasure, happy to be
2:12
here. So, Brian, what gave you your
2:14
first taste of being an entrepreneur?
2:17
My first taste of being an entrepreneur, I would say it was
2:19
actually selling, wasn't actually entrepreneurship, but
2:22
it was selling Cutco knives that gave me some early success.
2:26
Once I figured it out that is. And then when I was in college
2:30
at A at a Florida State University, I was in Pfizer
2:33
Mccapa Phi Sig fraternity, a buddy of mine, because I had
2:37
done pretty well and started making money.
2:39
A buddy of mine had an idea of we had we had a keg tap stolen
2:44
one too many times. So like you think of the keg for
2:47
beer. Well, the tap had been stolen.
2:49
So he thought of the idea of that peg tap lock.
2:53
So he brought it up to me and we and he's like, Hey, do you
2:56
basically do you want to fund it?
2:58
And so right then there was like, I became an entrepreneur.
3:00
So like, yes, let's do it. And we got it manufactured in
3:02
China. We got provisional patents.
3:04
And so that was my very first, first little taste of
3:07
entrepreneurship kind of blood into it from selling Cutco and
3:11
learning. From the success at Cutco.
3:13
So I think there was a mentor there at Cutco who really kind
3:16
of pushed your buttons in a way that made you more coachable.
3:19
Talk to us about that. Yeah, yeah, that that was that
3:22
was life changing right there. So Juan Ramos, still one of my
3:26
my best friends and a groom's been at my wedding.
3:29
So this is going back, you know, 20 years or so.
3:32
So I, I remember the first day I met him, I, I was at, there's
3:38
this conference and he's, he's a pretty big dude.
3:41
I'm like 5-9, He's like 6-3. You know, he's, you know,
3:44
starting quarterbacks, he's a big dude.
3:46
And we're sitting down, we're at a conference and someone's
3:48
speaking. And I just prior to that in
3:51
school and everything, I never really paid attention.
3:53
I was like, I was just always busy doing something other than
3:57
actually listening. And I hadn't really learned yet
4:00
that like learning is cool. So I'm, I'm chatting up the
4:04
storm and he looks at me and he's like, and it's a sales
4:07
conference. He's like, have you sold more
4:09
than him? And I'm like, no.
4:12
And he's like, well, then you should listen, you should take
4:14
notes. And I was just this is the first
4:15
day I've met him and he's my boss.
4:16
And I'm like, whoa, OK, yeah, seems like logical.
4:21
So I started taking notes and little by little he really
4:23
shaped me into being coachable and learning and and it really
4:27
opened up a whole whole new Ave. for me.
4:29
I mean, selling knives door to door or whatever sort of the
4:33
Cutco model is not easy. Like what were some of the
4:37
things that Juan was teaching you that helped you find
4:40
success? Yeah, so it's funny, you know,
4:45
some people might cringe when they hear me say this, but I
4:47
actually, so I've, I've been part of a lot of types of sales
4:51
and I actually think that that is one of the easier things to
4:54
sell. You start with your friends or
4:58
your family, really like your parents.
5:00
And then my mom was my first sale and and then, you know, she
5:04
referred me to her, her friends, and then also family members.
5:07
And you're literally taught to just read a script, like word
5:12
for word, literally and demonstrate the products.
5:16
And the products are really good.
5:18
And they they do a really good job of training people to sell
5:23
expensive stuff to random people when you have no experience.
5:28
And I just kind of followed what they taught me and it worked.
5:32
They had a good system and the referral networks and the script
5:37
that you needed to learn and people who did this did did in
5:41
your experience, Most of them had success.
5:43
So that that's a good question to ask.
5:45
So no. So the average person back then,
5:50
the average person, if I remember correctly lasted 4
5:52
days. Yeah.
5:55
So the average person, so they would, they would one of a few
5:58
things, right? And so they would, I don't think
6:02
it was because of lack of ability or the sale side of
6:05
things, right? That might, that might play more
6:07
of a role that I'm giving credit to.
6:08
But I don't think that's the big thing.
6:10
You know, they would run out of leads, right?
6:12
Or people that they know. Now, if someone would had like
6:16
perhaps like if someone was really, really, really growing
6:20
up in like a really rough area and knew absolutely nobody and
6:25
that was not in poverty, OK. But everybody else, my strong
6:30
opinion is if they literally just followed the approach, it
6:33
works Like there had been, I don't know if there's this many,
6:36
but I want to say, you know, maybe million, if not million,
6:38
then let's say hundreds of thousands of of people that have
6:40
done it, right. So if there's hundreds of
6:42
thousands of people that have done something and there's a
6:44
system that is really detailed, if you just work the system that
6:47
works. And you think where most people
6:49
were falling off is maybe they didn't feel comfortable reaching
6:53
out to people that they knew to try.
6:55
To sell to 100%, yeah, 100% that or they just, you know, they,
6:59
they just didn't follow the program.
7:01
So like there was literally word for word, but you would say to
7:03
ask for referrals. It worked, you know.
7:08
So yeah, I think they just didn't, didn't put the effort.
7:10
So you had some success at Cutco.
7:12
How long were you there? How long did you do that?
7:14
Yeah. And I didn't start off with with
7:15
great success there by the way. I started off as a very average,
7:19
maybe a little below average, but it was making progress and I
7:23
wound up being with Cutco or Vector Marketing is the
7:26
marketing company, same thing now Cutco is the product, I
7:30
don't know, a number of years I would say on and off for let's
7:33
call it five years. And you said you weren't
7:36
immediately successful. What were some things that you
7:39
think were holding you back early on that once you figured
7:43
out really kind of open the gates for you?
7:46
Yeah. And I, I guess it depends on how
7:47
you define success, but I, I was very mediocre, right?
7:51
Like I was selling. But it's nothing, nothing
7:53
special, that's for sure. The, the major difference,
7:57
there's actually a very specific point where I, I would call it
8:00
the lightning strike of my life. It changed everything.
8:03
And I'm happy to elaborate on that if you'd like.
8:06
But the major difference was following exactly what I was
8:10
taught, the blueprint, and really working hard.
8:14
Like really, really, really, really doubling down.
8:17
Massive difference maker. So really following the script,
8:20
really following the system, not just kind of partially following
8:24
it, not kind of winging it on some of the script, but
8:28
following the process exactly. And then what does that mean?
8:30
Like really working hard, doubling down on it.
8:33
What weren't you doing before that you started doing that?
8:36
Really, something's on fire. Yeah, and I and I can elaborate
8:40
on the on the full stories is life changing for sure.
8:43
So, but to answer your question directly, so if they were to
8:47
say, hey, you should be making phone calls between let's say
8:51
7:00 and 9:30 at night, you know, the early version of me
8:58
would maybe get on the phones at like 8850 even because I would
9:04
think that it was so important to organize my notebook and this
9:06
and that and everything other than actually taking action.
9:09
And maybe I would stop a little early because I would have this
9:11
excuse or that excuse, right? And then just all of the little
9:16
things not fully applying myself, you know, whereas
9:19
eventually it was like to the T. OK, so let's hear about that
9:23
lightning strike moment. Yeah, it's probably one of my
9:26
favorite stories to tell. Yeah.
9:28
And I don't know if you've seen the background, but I got a
9:29
pretty big trophy, actually found it the other day when we
9:31
moved and stuck in my office. I still have it.
9:34
So I believe this is 2004, 2005. And so I had sold at this point
9:41
is number of years on and off and I was in college.
9:44
So at that point I was coming back for the summer.
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I had sold about $17,000 of kitchen nights up to that date.
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Very average. It it was over a long period of
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time, I might even be generous when I say the word average.
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OK, so then, oh, so when I went to college, actually it would be
10:04
before that I actually got fired from my my manager and nobody in
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the whole world gets fired when you're selling Cutco.
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It's performance based Commission only.
10:15
They will hire anybody. OK.
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And no one gets fired. Well, I did.
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And I, I think the manager, I think the manager that I had at
10:23
the time, I, I don't know that he had the best management
10:26
skills at that point, but basically I missed one meeting
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and I wasn't performing that well.
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And he's like, all right, well, you don't need to come anymore.
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And I was like, well, so Fast forward and I wound up coming
10:35
back and my, my mom had moved when I was in college.
10:38
So he's under a different manager and then a a different
10:41
manager again. And so I at this point promoted
10:44
to an assistant manager because he needed one, not because I had
10:47
actually like earned it, OK? Not because I earned it.
10:50
And the guy who had fired me, he was actually my boss's boss.
10:54
And I'm my manager, but my manager's boss, OK.
10:57
And there was this huge competition, the 10K push.
11:01
So basically think of it as like the Super Bowl of sales.
11:06
It was like it was a big deal, you know, once a year.
11:08
And any assistant managers were put on the 10K alliance.
11:13
And what that meant was you were expected to sell $10,000 over
11:15
the course of two weeks. Now two weeks.
11:19
So prior to that, I don't know if I'd ever sold $2000 in a
11:23
week. And if I had, it was once ever.
11:28
So this is a big. Stretch for you?
11:30
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
11:31
This is like, like the most I'd ever sold in two weeks was
11:33
probably 2, maybe 3000 at best. And so we go to this all day
11:38
meeting and they're talking everything you got to do all
11:41
about it, how, how to do this. Everyone was going to go
11:44
towards, it's called push, like a push competition.
11:47
Everyone's supposed to sell $10,000 if you're an assistant
11:50
manager, right? So at the end of the meeting, I
11:52
go to the guy who and if I remember correctly, Juan, as
11:55
well as the guy above him who had fired me.
11:58
We're we're next. And I said, hey, I just want to
12:00
talk to you real quick. He said, yeah, what's going on?
12:02
I'm like, hey, I'm not sure if I can sell $10,000 in two weeks.
12:09
And like I, I don't know if I can do that.
12:11
And he's like, were you listening?
12:12
And I'm like, yeah, he's, I'm like, I know there's a 1010K
12:17
push and he's like, you missed it.
12:20
Then I'm like, what do you mean? Like I heard everything you're
12:23
saying and I just wanted to be honest.
12:24
I don't know if I can do it. And he's like, then you missed
12:26
the whole point, the whole point of the meeting.
12:28
I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, the point of the push
12:31
is not to sell $10,000. It's for you to put in the
12:36
$10,000 worth of effort, the 10K effort.
12:41
And it's not about like how much you sell.
12:43
It's about who you become while you strive towards it.
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I still get the chill say thinking of it and I'm like,
12:50
he's like, look, if you don't sell $10,000 but you give your
12:52
very best, you get a 10 out of 10.
12:55
That's success. You just got to do your part and
12:59
it's probably going to work out anyways.
13:00
But regardless of what the results are, you do your part
13:03
and you win that. That's, that's how you measure
13:06
success in this. Like, all right, well, I, I can
13:09
commit to doing, I can commit to the effort.
13:11
I can commit to the effort. And I was like, I felt good
13:13
about that, right? Kind of dropped the, dropped the
13:15
concerns. So I did exactly that.
13:17
It was the first time in my entire life that I'd ever
13:20
applied myself completely. And I'm going to guess since I
13:23
was, I don't know, 21 ish, something like that.
13:27
Maybe it was a little younger, about 20.
13:30
And I, I've been like pretty good at certain things, but I'd
13:32
never really, really like dominated at anything.
13:36
And so sure enough, I set up, I got ready.
13:39
It was going to be the push. They said to do everything ahead
13:41
of time, get an oil change, everything.
13:42
I mean, get everything out of the way.
13:44
Haircuts, like all you do is from like 7:30 AM until 9:30 at
13:49
night, all you do is either you're making phone calls to
13:53
schedule appointments, you're driving to an appointment, or
13:56
you're doing the actual appointment.
13:58
And I was all in. I told everyone I knew, you
14:00
know, everybody knew, like I'm gonna disappear for two weeks.
14:04
And the only way you're gonna see me is if you're buying
14:06
knives from me, then I A. 100%, literally, yeah, 100%.
14:10
So I, I got off to a a really good start and I and I put in
14:16
massive effort on the phones and this and that and I absolutely
14:20
dominated. So after the first week, you
14:23
mind? I don't even know if I'd ever
14:25
sold $2000 a week after the first week.
14:27
At the end of the week I was at over $9000.
14:31
Wow, yeah. And he was like, holy shit,
14:34
right. And I, I don't want, want, want
14:36
listen, I'm at over 9000 and he's like, I know I'm like, what
14:39
if, what if I do it again? And he's like, you're not going
14:44
to men. You got lucky.
14:46
Like you did great. But like, come on, let's be
14:49
realistic. And I'm like after that and I
14:52
was pissed and I slammed his door like I'm surprised like it
14:56
didn't fall off. I was so angry.
14:58
And that was his full attention intention, full intention
15:01
because I went in the other room and I made phone calls for the
15:04
next like 8 hours straight like non-stop.
15:07
And I was so fueled. And that's exactly what he he
15:09
was. That's what ending on doing.
15:11
And it worked perfectly. And then I went on a vengeance
15:13
and I did. I sold over 9 grand a day, 0999
15:16
in a day, 9 grand the following week.
15:18
And then so the competition came and like, unlike everyone's on
15:23
stage. And it's like, So with Cutco, at
15:26
least the way they used to do it, is everybody gets a trophy.
15:30
So if you're #10 or lower in most competitions, maybe you get
15:35
some type of participation trophy, whatever.
15:37
Well, if you're number like 30 or 35, you're getting something
15:42
there. At least that's the way it was.
15:43
So I never even got last place, no matter how many people they
15:46
gave the competition to, right? So at this point, they're
15:50
calling everybody on stage and they do like a countdown.
15:53
And I wasn't in the room because I was still on the phone.
15:57
Outside of this huge conference making phone calls, I'm like, I
16:00
got to sell another one. I got to sell another one.
16:02
It's not over. It's not over.
16:03
It's not over. This was you were like hooked.
16:04
This was like a drug for you at this point.
16:06
It was absolutely a drug. Absolutely there's a drug and I
16:09
was addicted and I loved it. I don't know if I realized that
16:12
yet, but it absolutely became a drug for me.
16:15
And so, so anyway, so I get on stage late and I wound up
16:20
winning number one out of everybody out of like over 1000
16:23
people. And I had like, you know,
16:25
standing ovation and this and that.
16:27
And it was insane because I was so far from being the best, so
16:32
far from being the best. You know, I remember another guy
16:34
that was on stage with me. His average sale was like over
16:37
1000. Mine was less than half of that.
16:41
But I carried with me my badge of honor, which was this piece
16:44
of paper. And every time I made a phone
16:45
call, I put a little tick mark and it was the ugliest piece of
16:47
paper in the world. I wish I still had it, you know,
16:50
I, I frame it, but it was just I, I won because of effort.
16:53
I tried harder than anyone, multiplied by a bunch, so I won.
16:57
I still remember to this day I sold $18,362.00 worth of worth
17:02
of knives. I won #1 and then I backed it up
17:04
again a little bit later. And so they changed everything,
17:07
changed everything my whole life.
17:08
So here's something that that always fascinates me is trying
17:12
to understand. Are people born with this kind
17:17
of drive inside of them or can anybody like, like, are you
17:23
special because you're born with it or can anybody develop this?
17:29
And what I'm hearing from you is it, I don't know, maybe it was
17:35
inside of you, you just hadn't unlocked it yet.
17:37
What? What's your opinion now?
17:39
Yeah, it's a good question. I've actually asked.
17:42
I've asked. I've even messaged on like
17:44
Facebook, like old teachers of mine because I was a really
17:46
like, I was a bad kid. I don't know if I can say bad
17:49
kid. I was a troubled kid, I'll say.
17:51
And I've even messaged them on Facebook, like asking them like,
17:54
Hey, did you know I was going to be successful?
17:56
Or did you think I was going to wind up in jail?
17:57
You know, and I was like as my mom and my grandma and I don't
18:01
know that I really understand clearly, like what I was like as
18:05
far as drive as a kid. But I think what you said is, is
18:07
really on point. It hadn't been unlocked yet.
18:10
And I think ultimately just comes down to priorities.
18:13
And sometimes you kind of need something that can fuel you so
18:18
that you can run with it. And, and that was my first
18:21
instance of that. But I think ultimately, you
18:25
know, I always knew I, I wanted to have a lot of money.
18:28
And then I, I found like a vehicle that, you know, was it a
18:33
ton of money back then? Yes, you know, compared to, you
18:36
know, now isn't known, but you know, as a college student, I, I
18:40
tasted it. I, I made half of that by the
18:42
way. So I made 9 grand in two weeks
18:44
as as a college student. You know, I mean, so to answer
18:47
your question that I think, I think people have drive or they
18:51
don't and then they kind of pay attention to that or they pay
18:55
attention to other things. So no.
18:59
Answer Answer for. For somebody that's listening,
19:02
that's maybe in one of two spots, right?
19:05
They're that person who's wondering if they've got it in
19:07
them. They're they're trying to find
19:09
the unlock or maybe they're a manager or a coach and they're
19:14
trying to help other people or or even a parent.
19:16
They're trying to help unlock this in their kids.
19:19
I mean, you've trained countless number of salespeople now.
19:24
What advice do you have? Ask me the question again.
19:29
So you're asking. Basically like how how do you?
19:32
How do they unlock it? How do you unlock it?
19:34
Yeah. Let's let's assume for a moment
19:36
that we're assuming that it's inside of everybody, right?
19:40
And maybe it is, maybe it is, and I don't know, but let's
19:43
assume that it is. How how do how do they unlock
19:45
it? How do they find it?
19:46
How do they push that button? Yeah, it's hard.
19:48
It's hard. I think.
19:50
I think there's a few ingredients that really make the
19:52
difference. The first thing is really
19:54
connecting with the person and having a certain level of
19:56
rapport, right? So Juan was my close friend at
20:00
that point, right? We, we were boys.
20:03
Even though he was older than me, he was my boss and all that.
20:06
Like we were close, right? So we had a certain connection.
20:09
There's trust, OK? I knew he cared about me, right?
20:13
So I'd say that's one ingredient that needs to happen.
20:15
Another thing is you need to believe or the person who you're
20:19
coaching needs to believe that you're qualified or credible.
20:23
So I believed that he knew better than me.
20:26
So therefore I would listen. Right, So that's another thing.
20:31
And the other thing is it's really got to be different.
20:33
I remember he used to always tell me how it was different for
20:36
each person because the way he would tell me, the way he would
20:39
talk to me, he would never like he would say like if I spoke to
20:42
this about this person, they would cry.
20:44
But he's like, that just makes you mad and you take more action
20:46
and you're not mad at me, you're just mad to prove me wrong,
20:50
right. So like really catering it per
20:52
person, which can be, you know, tricky, but that that's I'd say
20:56
those three things. What if?
20:58
What if somebody's trying to unlock it inside of themselves?
21:03
Then you got to be honest with yourself.
21:06
Do you really want it? You know, I, I know a lot of,
21:09
I've got a lot of friends and you know, I know, you know,
21:14
multiple circles, right? And there's certain people that
21:19
that I love them as people, but like, you know, every year
21:21
they're like, I'm going to do blank.
21:23
And it's like, you want that for them, you know, maybe even many
21:27
times think that they are capable or know they're capable,
21:30
but you know, they're not going to do it.
21:32
And the difference is, is like, what are you willing to
21:35
sacrifice in order to achieve it?
21:38
Right. So like during the same two
21:40
weeks, if we go back to the Cutco example, and there's a
21:42
million others, I was willing to sacrifice everything within
21:46
those two weeks in order to do to do the very best that I
21:51
could, right? But there's a lot of other
21:53
people that didn't, you know, most people didn't.
21:57
So it kind of comes down to that.
21:58
It's like, you know, like, what is the person going to do?
22:00
Are they so many people? I know they're like, oh, I want
22:02
to get out of debt or I really like to save up for a house.
22:05
And I'm like, Hey, you should work, you know, like work more
22:09
like work on Saturday. And they're like, well, no, no,
22:11
that's you know, that's time for, you know, me and my spouse.
22:13
And I'm like, that's cool. You, you get, you totally have
22:16
it's your life and you get to, you know, live it, however is
22:19
perfect for you. But that means that person is
22:22
going to get more of that balance, which is cool.
22:25
Where's the other person who is grinding on Saturday is going
22:28
to? They're going to get, they're
22:30
going to get what comes from that.
22:31
Yeah. Tell us about the door to door
22:34
sales teams that you've built. I mean, that's a hard job for
22:37
somebody to do. What's what's your approach to
22:40
that's? Hard sales.
22:41
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
22:43
So that that's hard. I agree.
22:45
You said forgive me because I thought you said what's the key
22:48
to? What was your approach to
22:50
finding success? How?
22:51
How did how did you make that work?
22:54
How did I make that work? Well, it started off, I guess
22:57
you could say it started off the same as me learning to tell
22:59
Cutco. My manager had a script, right?
23:04
I watched him do it for two days.
23:07
I got the script, I learned the script.
23:09
I did what he said to do, and then I had challenges and I
23:13
asked him and then he gave me solutions.
23:14
Then I asked him and then he gave me solutions and I asked
23:16
him and gave me solutions. And then I learned it and then I
23:19
applied. So I followed what was proven
23:23
right and I kept seeking people who are way better than me to,
23:27
to get answers from, right? So just being hungry for the
23:31
answers. And then I outworked everybody.
23:34
And then I applied that same exact thing to teaching others,
23:38
right? What are you selling?
23:41
So I, I worked for Vivint. Vivint.
23:44
So selling home security systems smart home, OK.
23:48
So you're knocking on somebody's door and they, they're, you
23:52
know, they're like, oh, this guy, you know, this guy looks
23:54
like a sales guy. I don't want to talk to him.
23:55
I'm just going to get rid of him.
23:57
So you got to overcome that. You got to.
24:00
Yeah, like a whole way to just even sort of start the
24:02
conversation. And what what percentage of
24:05
people do you think once you sort of found your groove and
24:08
you were good at it, what percentage of people were
24:12
actually buying from you? So should we count somebody who
24:20
opens the door and slams the door as a person if we do?
24:25
Yeah, yeah, I, I So if I might even like, how many doors do you
24:28
have to knock on to make a sale? Yeah.
24:31
So like at my, you know, at my peak, I would say like 1010
24:35
doors whether they answered or not.
24:38
And you'd make a. That sounds like a really high
24:40
percentage to me. Yeah, at my peak, right.
24:43
But really, key times, there's other scenarios where I'd say
24:45
like 20, right? So you know, I'd say 20 would be
24:51
average 10s, like I'm crushing it and these are just touching a
24:54
door. And if I go to the door twice,
24:57
that comes as two, right? So I would say overall, if I'd
25:01
say about somewhere between 7:00 and 9:00, that's called eight
25:04
people answering the door. Regardless of if I was able to
25:07
save my pitch or not, they just opened the door.
25:11
I was able to sell them wow consistently.
25:13
And that includes if I go to somewhere twice, it counted
25:16
twice. That's that actually sounds like
25:19
an incredible close rate. How does that compare to like
25:23
your peers that you were working with?
25:26
Not the best. If we look at everybody, I'd say
25:28
it's not the best, but it's a lot better than it's top 1% for
25:32
sure. But so many people that I knew
25:35
were super skilled, super skilled, whether it's from a
25:39
management standpoint or from a personal sales standpoint.
25:43
But so many of them I would crush, but I would outwork them.
25:48
I would outwork them by far, you know, so they might be getting
25:52
in the car at like 8:00 like a normal person, you know, 'cause
25:55
it's starting to get dark. That's pretty reasonable.
25:57
And I would be knocking on doors till 10:00 at night, you know,
26:01
pitch black dark. And but it's just, it's hunger,
26:04
you know? And so aside from out working
26:07
folks, what is it that you or other folks who were successful
26:11
were doing well that the people who struggled weren't?
26:20
Being coachable, seeking guidance, right.
26:23
So every. So one of the things that was
26:25
really interesting is so, yeah, I had a core group of top people
26:28
that was really close with. And one of the things I noticed
26:31
is every one of us would very, very quickly reach out to the
26:34
others for help the moment we felt like we were struggling and
26:39
us struggling might be man, I sold one a day the last two
26:43
days. It's like, this is horrible
26:44
because it's not fun going door to door.
26:47
It is fun when you're cranking, right?
26:50
That's a lot of fun, right? But it's not fun, you know, just
26:54
knocking door to door, right? So or like if someone didn't
26:57
sell, right, it's like we would reach out to each other like
27:00
right away, like we need to solve this.
27:01
Like I'm freaking out, right? This is horrible, right?
27:04
Where someone else might go like a week or two before reaching
27:09
out for help, you know what I mean?
27:11
And it's just like constantly seeking better, better, better.
27:13
And it's like so many times, you know, there'd be a scenario
27:15
which like, well, we're even though I had perhaps was the
27:19
number one in the office because I always leading from the front.
27:22
And that's especially, I think that's always important, but
27:24
especially in door to door because it's so challenging that
27:27
like, you know, I'd ask, like raise your hand if you listen to
27:29
a sales audio this morning and there'd be very few people and
27:32
it's like my hand would be up. But that doesn't make any sense
27:34
if I swore more than them. If anything, it should be the
27:36
other way around. But I think it was actually
27:37
because, you know, whoever the people who are the best or doing
27:40
the best perhaps might be, might be a better way to put it.
27:44
I think it's it's typically because they're sharpening their
27:46
axe. They're working on it.
27:48
You know they're. Identifying sort of gaps in
27:51
their game and they're looking for a little bit of coaching
27:53
from their peers or their managers on how they think
27:56
improve. Yeah.
27:57
And I think that applies to everything.
27:59
Like if you really want it and you're constantly seeking
28:02
whatever it is, you're going to improve, you're getting better.
28:05
And then if you do it a whole lot, whatever it is personal, it
28:08
could be a personal thing or it could be business.
28:11
You're you're going to make a lot of progress.
28:12
And then if you just let that compound, it works.
28:18
Tell us about the boot style, Boot camp style, moving out of
28:23
state to eliminate distractions, kind of a approach that you guys
28:28
took. Yeah, it's kind of like a like a
28:30
money making fraternity or sports team or, or really
28:34
positive cult. So I'm not sure which one to
28:38
properly to accurately describe it.
28:40
So I worked with a lot of a lot of young people somewhere a
28:44
little bit older and you know, it's, it's hard and people would
28:47
want to quit and it's and it's easy to get distracted and we'd
28:51
work really long hours, a lot of them in summertime was 80% of
28:56
the sales. So what we would do is we would
28:59
move out of state and we had, you know, company that furnished
29:03
housing, right for 4 1/2 months. I'm a little bit crazy.
29:06
So I'd always do an extra month. So it's 5 1/2 for me.
29:08
Some, some others would as well. And we would go to a different
29:11
state just about every single summer.
29:14
Sometimes we went somewhere twice, but usually it's a
29:16
different state every year. And we would all move there at
29:20
furnished housing. And then Monday through Saturday
29:23
we were, we'd have meetings and then sell all day long till 9:30
29:27
at night, plus three more doors. It's that actual little bit.
29:29
It's like one extra wrap, right? And then Yep, so then we do
29:33
something fun and we all went as a team.
29:35
And I think it made it so people would quit.
29:37
It's easier to focus with less distractions.
29:40
They didn't have friends, family there except for like us, right?
29:42
And then you've kind of become a family.
29:44
So you get really tight. And then the other thing is when
29:48
you hold all your friends and family that you're going to
29:50
Colorado and you live in Florida or Texas, whatever it is, and to
29:54
go do something for the summer. And then it's really hard.
29:57
It's like you just hold everyone, you're going there for
29:59
the summer. So to quit like it's kind of
30:02
like, man, they're quitter, right?
30:05
So I think it would, it doesn't mean nobody would quit, but it I
30:07
think it made it so they wouldn't quit as quickly and
30:10
because of it, they would then finally catch their stride and
30:14
start selling. And I really believe anyone can
30:17
do it as long as they don't quit prior to figuring out how to do
30:22
it or learn how to do it. It just takes some people.
30:25
To comment we're slower. Yeah.
30:27
It's an interesting comment you made there.
30:28
I really think anybody could do it.
30:31
Do you like extroverts? Extroverts.
30:34
People with sales experience. No sales experience.
30:37
Absolutely, 100%. I, I actually many times
30:42
preferred to have somebody with no sales experience because then
30:44
they didn't have any bad habits to teach them from scratch.
30:46
They knew that they needed to learn.
30:48
But yeah, I really believe, I think most things, most things
30:55
anybody can do if they just put their mind to it, are willing to
30:59
put in the time, the effort and learn, especially if they have
31:02
someone who's willing to teach them.
31:03
You know what target is if you don't have someone that's
31:06
willing to teach you. But now with today ChatGPT and
31:09
AI and everything online and you can learn from anybody, so many
31:12
masterminds and this and that. And so tell us about the
31:16
performance coaching that you offer.
31:19
Yeah, so that's actually kind of happened like accidentally if
31:22
anything. And so right now I'm doing some
31:25
performance based coaching. So there's a few different
31:27
companies that they reached out like hey, we're doing high
31:30
ticket sales. So one of them is like business
31:32
acquisition boot camp. Another one is SEO.
31:35
And they're like, you know, we're we're not closing as well
31:37
as we could. And I'm like, OK, well I could
31:40
probably help. And they're like, you think so.
31:43
And I'm like, well, yeah, 100%. And so, you know, so basically
31:48
we worked out a deal so that I help them.
31:51
So by me helping them close better, you know, I get a piece
31:54
of the pie and they win, I win. So yes, based on results, it's
31:58
fun. Can you say more about like the
32:01
approach that you took or or that you'd like to take if it's
32:05
appropriate, pick one of the the clients and sort of talk through
32:09
as like a case study or if not, sort of in more generic terms?
32:14
So one of them is the exit school, exit school to business
32:18
acquisition boot camp. I know you know, Amy Walker and
32:22
a great organization. So the they, they had, I don't
32:26
know the exact numbers, but they, they had, the sales
32:28
weren't, weren't big at all. They had very, you know, few and
32:31
far between and they had a great product, great value.
32:34
What's their product? What?
32:35
What are they selling? So they sell, they sell many
32:38
things, but the initial core offering, the initial 1 is
32:41
basically it's like a three day business buying boot camp.
32:43
So learn how to buy a business in three days.
32:46
It's virtual. It's not expensive at all.
32:49
And it's like 5 grand. And, and yeah, it, it's worth,
32:54
it's worth much more than double that, right?
32:56
And I've done multiple programs and it's great.
32:58
So anyways, so as, so they, they weren't closing, but they just
33:03
weren't explaining it enough. There's, there's certain sales
33:05
principles that if you apply them, it works for anything,
33:08
right? So, so, yeah.
33:10
So I listen to a call and I'm like, OK, I, I see, I see
33:15
there's like, let's call it half of the things are good.
33:17
The other half of the things we've got to remove that or
33:19
change that or this and that rescript it restructure.
33:22
It is a big thing, right? You're saying this and then, you
33:25
know, confused mine say no. So let's make that clear, right?
33:27
Let's build more value. Let's explain this better.
33:29
Let's put it in terms of the, of the person who you're speaking
33:32
to, like, what do they care about?
33:34
And then I started integrating AI and then and that's that got
33:38
pretty fun. So.
33:40
Can you say more about that? How are you integrating AI?
33:42
Sure. And I said there, there's a lot
33:45
of excitement. I'm I'm kind of obsessed on a
33:48
certain degree with AI and I just, all that can be done with
33:51
it. So what I was doing is I was
33:53
listening to a sales audio that would take me like an hour.
33:56
I'd take a lot of notes. I'd get on the phone with the
33:59
salesperson, let's call for an hour, I'd give them coaching and
34:02
then they would improve. And then that would happen again
34:05
and again and again. And I'm like, well, this is
34:08
great because it's working. This is not great because it
34:10
takes so much time, right? But like I know it works.
34:13
So when I was with chat 50, I'm like, you know, can you be my
34:17
brain if I give you my Oh, and we had been recording the, you
34:24
know, AI note taker to record zoom calls, right?
34:27
And then I had my notes written and then one of the guys at
34:30
those coachings asked if he could record the coaching calls.
34:33
I was like, sure. So then we had those he he
34:36
wanted to be able to listen again, but I'm like, wait a
34:37
minute. So I got all this transcribed.
34:39
I uploaded and I said, Hey, could you be my brain?
34:42
Like I, I didn't yet realize like, was there a method to my
34:44
madness? Because I'd also just done this
34:46
for an SEO agency, right, to help them start selling more.
34:50
And it was like, there's some similarities, but it's
34:52
different. And it, and of course, chat 50
34:54
of course said, yes, I'm like, OK, cool.
34:57
So if I upload a transcript, can you tell me if they do or don't
35:02
do these things? Like, yes, can you use my word
35:05
and can you use my coaching style?
35:06
And like little by little, I kept tweaking it and tweaking it
35:09
and tweaking it and as far from done, but basically the whole
35:11
goal was to be able to have it. So now we've got it set up so
35:14
it's automatically sending transcripts, right?
35:17
It's spitting out things based on my coaching style, the
35:20
everything that I teach and like all the improvements that need
35:23
to be made. Some of its principles, some of
35:26
its wording, like structure, There's all these things, right?
35:29
And then it's giving me like, think of it as a scorecard at
35:32
the end of the day. So that that helps.
35:34
And then the other thing I created, which man do I wish I
35:37
would have had this for door to door because there was a lot
35:40
more reps and the one of the most effective things you can do
35:43
is role play with somebody, but it takes a lot of time.
35:47
So I created a different AI agent that can role play with
35:50
sales reps like you can. So there's two different modes.
35:53
One of them is the full sail start to finish and it'll give
35:56
feedback and then you can make it like beginner, amateur,
35:58
advanced and like keep increasing difficulty.
36:00
The other ones like objection drilling, so stuff like that
36:05
and. That AI think is that a is that
36:08
a voice agent or? Yeah, that one's a voice agent.
36:11
Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of cool stuff
36:13
there. I think eventually, you know,
36:15
I'd love, I was talking to a buddy about it the other day.
36:17
I'd love to create, you know, some, some high ticket like
36:20
video avatars that look and sound like people that are, that
36:24
are selling, you know, converting perfectly.
36:28
So there's a lot of opportunity in this space.
36:30
Yeah, it's interesting. I had a conversation with
36:32
somebody recently about this, about, you know, sort of these
36:35
AI sales reps. And here's the feedback that I'm
36:40
hearing is the, the reality is not meeting the hype.
36:48
Like it's the, the tech is interesting and it's fascinating
36:51
to have this back and forth conversation.
36:53
But just sort of like when you interact with ChatGPT, like
36:56
sometimes it gives you stuff that's a little weird or wonky
36:59
or a little off or would sound weird to a human.
37:02
Like there's, there's some of that.
37:04
But here you are, you're in the midst of it.
37:06
What what do you think about where the state of the tech is?
37:10
Well, I think there's some truth to that.
37:13
I also think there's some very advanced things that not
37:16
everybody's aware of, and I also think that it's not done yet.
37:21
Of course, but where we are today, do you think the tech is
37:25
good enough to do that? I'm actually waiting for a
37:30
response from somebody who's like crazy skilled from like the
37:33
engineering part and then I think I'll have a better answer.
37:37
That being said, I don't know if it's there yet, but it's let's
37:41
just say it's not right. Like a month from today.
37:45
That could be different. Yeah.
37:47
So it's exciting. It's it's not it's not far from
37:49
out there. There's certain technology that
37:51
is making it better. You know, you got to eliminate
37:53
the latency and like certain things.
37:55
But the other thing is if it's so much cheaper that you can
38:01
also be wrong. So it doesn't even have it
38:03
doesn't have to convert as well as a human right.
38:06
So if you're paying out X dollars for salesperson and you
38:10
don't have to pay that Commission and all you're paying
38:12
is data, right? Like, you know, if you can
38:16
generate leads in a in a meaningful way.
38:17
So there's a lot of exciting things, yeah.
38:20
So we've heard you talk a lot about how much you outwork
38:24
people, your work effort is it sounds like second to none when
38:31
our whistles a little bit on some of the strategy that you
38:36
maybe just pick like one big thing that when you've got a, a
38:40
coaching client, here's a a giant lever that you can pull
38:43
for them so that people listening or like they're really
38:46
wrapping their heads around what Brian Rabbit can do.
38:49
Can you pick a category so I can give you a an answer?
38:54
I guess sales is too too general.
38:57
We, I, I'll answer it this way. Tell me if this answers the
39:04
question and we can answer it with sales.
39:07
But I guess you look for the gaps.
39:09
So you look for the gaps like what's what's not, what is not
39:14
taking place yet or not taking place as well yet, right?
39:19
Or what kind of objections are they getting, right?
39:22
So everything is a symptom of something else.
39:25
Maybe that perhaps that's the answer that would be most
39:27
helpful. So if you are having a symptom
39:30
of a certain objection, right, well, there's a root of that
39:33
like why are you getting that? There's a reason, you know, it's
39:36
either because it's something you're doing or not doing,
39:39
right? So you have to figure out, well,
39:41
what should you do or what should you stop doing?
39:44
Did that answer the question? A little bit, I think.
39:46
So. I think what you're saying is,
39:50
you know, say you've got an 8% close rate and you really think
39:53
it should be 15, right, or 20. And So what you want to do is
39:58
you want to go back and you want to study.
40:01
Hopefully you've got transcripts or maybe you've just kept good
40:03
notes on here's the objections that you know, top five
40:07
objections I typically run into. And so then you want to look at
40:11
those objections, you want to look at their sales script,
40:14
their sales process and say, OK, how can we fix these objections,
40:20
right? Either you're saying something
40:22
that is causing this objection to pop into somebody's mind, or
40:27
you're not saying the right things that when they just
40:29
naturally have the objection that you don't have a way to
40:32
answer it. Is that roughly the right?
40:35
Yeah, that correct that it's to say the same thing you just said
40:39
in a different way. It's also patterns and sometimes
40:43
it's sometimes it's the words, sometimes it's the sequence of
40:49
the words or the the aspects of the sale that can actually
40:52
really move the needle a bunch, you know, and it's sometimes
40:56
it's something what's happening before the sales interaction
40:59
that can be a massive difference mover.
41:04
Before the interaction. So the sales call is arranged
41:09
somehow, it's been scheduled, but before the salesperson and
41:13
the prospect actually talk, there's some kind of
41:16
communication that can take place.
41:18
You send them APDF for a video link or something?
41:21
Like, yeah, perfect. So like, let's just say it's
41:23
it's a Zoom call, like a high ticket sales environment.
41:25
Yeah. So you send them, you're giving
41:27
them things related to credibility, give them content
41:31
ahead of time, right, videos. They've got a chance to learn
41:34
more about you, right? So they know more about you.
41:36
They feel more comfortable. They know that you're an expert
41:38
because they just heard you do XYZ.
41:41
So in that environment, that could be the case.
41:43
Another thing it could be, you know, whether it's reviews,
41:48
right, something as simple as reviews or like in door to door.
41:52
One, one thing that would make a massive difference is you could
41:58
like I would place my, my signs, you know, think of like ADT
42:02
sign, right? Then it was orange sign.
42:04
I would place them strategically.
42:05
So it was very obvious if someone's driving to the
42:07
neighborhood, you can't miss them.
42:09
So that would create some curiosity.
42:10
Plus we I'd get social media posts all throughout the
42:12
neighborhood from every person that I sold.
42:15
So everyone's talking about how happy they are.
42:16
They met me and they did this and they did this, right.
42:19
And, you know, in most environments with door to door,
42:22
everyone just saying negative things.
42:24
So all of a sudden everyone's saying positive things, right?
42:27
You're just doing a good job making people happy Then like
42:29
you're spreading that, right? And then, you know, like, yeah,
42:34
the best way to handle an objection is before it comes up.
42:38
So that could be wording, that could be anything, but it's like
42:40
what happened first. Don't wait necessarily for the
42:45
client, the prospect to say, hey, I don't like having cameras
42:51
in my home. You know, I don't think I want
42:52
your security system. You address that right out of
42:56
the gate. Hey, you know, a common thing
42:57
that we hear is that some people don't want cameras in their
43:00
home, and here's why it's a good idea.
43:03
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
43:05
And then if you understand the reasoning even behind that, then
43:08
you can say most people are there thinking, well, I don't
43:09
want anyone to see me. So I just want to rest assured
43:11
that everything's private, secure.
43:13
Da, da, da, da. Yeah.
43:14
Interesting. And for you to provide this kind
43:19
of performance based coaching, how well do you need to
43:21
understand their product or their industry?
43:27
Less than I think most people would think.
43:30
Much, much, much less. It matters more.
43:36
Who's buying this? Why are they buying this?
43:39
Like what's their, what have they experienced generally
43:45
speaking prior to this, right? That stuff matters depending on
43:51
depending on the type of sale, right?
43:54
But the, the actual product doesn't matter as much.
43:59
It's more of like just understanding this is what moves
44:02
the needle because you could have the best product or service
44:05
in the world, but if you're not articulating it correctly, the
44:09
value might not be received by the prospect.
44:14
Yeah, right. So it's like, how are they
44:17
receiving it? You know if value is higher than
44:19
price, people buy every time as long as they physically can.
44:24
Do you have any data you can share?
44:26
Mike took this client from X conversion rate to Y conversion
44:30
rate, I'd say. Generally speaking, very
44:37
generally speaking, yeah, it, it varies, right?
44:43
I'd say somewhere between 10% lift, which would be pretty low,
44:49
like really low to like 3 times, you know, so that someone's at
44:52
10% closing, maybe you get them to 30, maybe you can get them to
44:55
60, you know, so it depends. So it really varies.
44:59
And I hate when someone won't give like quantified numbers.
45:03
It's like, well, there's an average, right?
45:04
But it, it's like such a widespread wide spectrum.
45:07
But yeah, overall I'd say more than 9 out of 10 times there's
45:11
massive improvement that could be had.
45:14
And you know, it make it makes sense to optimize.
45:16
You know, you want to optimize, optimize, optimize, optimize in
45:19
every aspect. And sometimes you just need an
45:21
extra. You need someone who that's all
45:24
that's their specialty or just somebody who that that's the one
45:28
thing they're focused on because it can be hard as a business
45:30
owner. You've got 100 hats to wear,
45:32
right? Like how much, you know,
45:33
sometimes get somebody on it and can see some huge results.
45:36
So maybe 50% improvement if I had to give a straight answer.
45:41
It just depends. Substantial.
45:44
Yeah, that's massive. So Brian, you are having a lot
45:48
of fun in the sales world. You know you got hooked on the
45:51
drug back at Cutco when you found some success there,
45:55
continued with Vivint. You're doing a lot of
45:57
performance based sales coaching now for clients.
46:02
Clearly this is a happy place for you.
46:04
You're all lit up. I can tell there's a lot of
46:05
enthusiasm, excitement, but you've got another happy place
46:09
too. Tell us what else that you're
46:10
working on now. Sure.
46:12
And, and The funny thing is the performance based sales coaching
46:15
and consulting and partnerships, it's actually a, a pretty small
46:19
piece of it that just kind of something that just happened
46:21
because I kept getting asked. I'm like, OK, fine, I'll help.
46:25
And so, yeah, that being said, my, my happy place, as you said,
46:29
is definitely I, I loved investing.
46:31
I'm obsessed with alternative investing specifically.
46:35
What does that mean? What is alternative investment?
46:38
So alternative investing is if I had a simplified, I'd say
46:42
everything other than the stock market, I'm sure I'm invested,
46:45
you know, in the stock market at least on some degree, but a
46:48
really small degree compared to most as far as a percentage of
46:52
portfolio. So alternative investments, to
46:55
give some examples, usually with private equity of some form.
46:59
So it could be real estate, OK, it could be privately owned
47:03
companies, whether that's early stage like venture capital or
47:07
later stage, right? Like traditional private equity,
47:11
hard money loans, you know, all sorts of asset class in real
47:15
estate, cannabis, you name it. So there's there's quite a few
47:19
examples, but things that are not publicly traded on the stock
47:23
market just to generally speak. And how are you finding these
47:26
opportunities? So it started off with I joined
47:30
one of the one of the best decisions I've ever made is
47:32
actually joining the lifestyle investor mastermind.
47:36
There's a great book as as well. I'd highly recommended by Justin
47:39
Donald and it's a high net worth investment mastermind.
47:44
And when I joined, I didn't know I, I joined, I was one of the
47:48
originals and I didn't know it was 2020 and I didn't know
47:52
anything about investing at all. Not at all.
47:57
I knew I always wanted to be a investor eventually, but I
48:01
didn't actually know anything about it.
48:02
And so they have deal flow quite a bit and then they, they spend
48:07
many hundreds of thousands of dollars to vet deals and due to
48:10
diligence to make sure they're good and meet certain standards.
48:15
And then they also educate you on it.
48:17
And then also tax savings a big thing.
48:18
So that was my my entry point and then I got hooked.
48:24
And so it's through this mastermind that a lot of these
48:26
opportunities come up. That's how it started, yeah.
48:30
So I get a lot of deal flow from that.
48:32
And actually now I, I, I lead a, a small group.
48:35
So lifestyle investor it, it's expensive.
48:37
At the time of the recording, it's, it's $55,000 a year to be
48:40
a member, just just to belong. And so I actually started a
48:44
smaller group as well with just some of my friends that were
48:46
like, hey, I'm not going to spend that much and I don't want
48:48
to put as much time, but I do want to see deals.
48:49
But that's where the deal flow started.
48:52
And then I've done a lot of deals.
48:54
And so then I get more deals sent to me from these sponsors.
48:59
Think of it, the company is raising the money and then also
49:02
friends or friends of friends and that kind of thing and just
49:07
just being, getting more and more connected in this space.
49:09
And you know, like recently I was actually, I'm an advisor for
49:13
the company and I raised a little bit of money for it.
49:15
I just invested in a company called Feel 30 men's health
49:18
brand. So just to give you an example,
49:21
I, I met the founder, Thomas from the lifestyle investor.
49:24
He was a member, right? And then we kept in touch and,
49:28
and then he says raise money and then, you know, kind of putting
49:30
the deal together, which is pretty cool.
49:32
So how many investments would you guess that you've made?
49:36
I had a guess you'd say around 50 close to it.
49:41
How do you keep track of them? I think that's the most common
49:45
question I get actually. Excel.
49:48
Excel is the answer, but there's also.
49:50
I've also invested in a great company called Copia and they're
49:54
doing some really, really, really cool things.
49:57
Advanced. It's software for high net worth
50:01
individuals and institutions to track because alternative
50:06
investing. It's not like you can just log
50:07
in a fidelity and see it all. You know, the it's, it's not as
50:11
organized as that and there's a lot of moving parts and there's
50:14
a lot of tax, you know, a lot of K ones, a lot of forms to get.
50:17
And then it's like, how is it doing compared to projections
50:20
and different asset classes? And it goes on and on and on.
50:23
But yeah, it all starts with just rows in Excel and then more
50:28
columns then. How often, how often are you
50:32
sort of checking in or getting updates from each of your
50:35
investments? Yeah.
50:35
So it depends on the deal. I'd say some of them will send
50:38
you like monthly, monthly updates like here's the return,
50:42
here's this. Some things are a lot more cut
50:44
and dry than others. Like I'm in, you know, a handful
50:48
of hard money loans. I can elaborate on any of these.
50:51
So that's like pretty cut and dry.
50:52
So I'm getting a report every month.
50:54
There's other things that I'm in that I'll get reports quarterly.
50:58
And then there's certain companies like Green Coffee
51:00
Company, they're the largest privately held Colombian coffee
51:04
company set to IPO within the next few years.
51:07
They're dominating. And so they're sending updates
51:09
it seems like daily like, hey, we just made a new partnership.
51:11
Hey, we just did this. Hey, we just did this.
51:13
But most of them are are less frequent than that.
51:16
You know, like yesterday I got an update from a mobile Home
51:18
Park fund that I'm in the quarterly updates in those
51:22
apartment and there's a lot of things.
51:24
Is there a space or a couple of spaces, industries that you're
51:28
particularly excited or interested in right now?
51:34
Yes, but it it also for me right now I'm I'm going to be
51:39
investing quite a bit in privately held companies with
51:43
the goal of cash flow and potentially A roll up, putting a
51:48
bunch together and selling them for a pretty big exit.
51:50
That's that's that's that's where my attentions are about to
51:54
be going in a major way. But overall, you know, I'm also
51:58
very bullish on on crypto, Bitcoin specifically and you
52:02
know, AI and it just there's so many asset classes and it's
52:06
like, at first I just thought of like real estate as a whole,
52:09
right? I just didn't know better.
52:10
And now I'm like, OK, real estate.
52:12
Well, wait a minute. We can break that down into the
52:14
quite a few different categories, right?
52:16
So mobile home parks, I've been bullish on that for for a while.
52:21
RV parks, I think there's a space for that as well.
52:24
So depends on what the goal is is the real answer.
52:28
Say that again. It depends on what the goal is.
52:32
Is the real answer. For instance, if someone wants
52:34
cash flow like passive income, right that they should really be
52:39
looking at different investments then for someone who's like,
52:42
hey, I want massive growth. Right.
52:44
OK. So pick, pick, pick each of
52:47
those buckets, Brian, and what would you recommend for somebody
52:49
in each of those buckets? Well, I'm, I'm not a, I'm not a
52:56
financial advisor, so you should speak with your financial
52:58
planner. OK, So what?
52:59
What would you do yourself if you were in categorizing
53:03
yourself in one of those buckets?
53:05
I would start by learning, you know a lot of these investments.
53:08
The minimum is 50 grand, 100 grand or more.
53:12
So I'm very bullish on quite a few things, But for someone who
53:16
hasn't done it, I'd be really hesitant to be like, hey, go
53:19
invest in them because, you know, whatever.
53:21
What I would say is start by learning.
53:23
You can join masterminds. I think that's a huge, huge
53:26
thing for me. It's been great Start perhaps
53:28
with reading the book lifestyle investor.
53:30
I didn't write it. It's amazing though, and, and
53:33
maybe even before or after that, start by getting really clear
53:38
with what you want and it matters where you're at.
53:40
Like you know, how much money somebody has, Do they need the
53:43
money soon? Right.
53:45
So like for like for me, because I've been looking for the right
53:48
business to buy and really the right opportunity to pounce on.
53:52
What's mattered a lot for me over the last couple years is
53:54
liquidity. So I haven't been willing to
53:57
lock up my money even when I see a great investment, right, which
54:01
is painful for me, but you know, but there's, it's where you at,
54:05
you know, in your in your life, right?
54:08
So that's going to change. And then I'm going to be all
54:10
about locking up money for the right deals, you know, So if you
54:13
don't necessarily care about liquidity, right then.
54:17
So what space do you want to do this roll up in?
54:21
I'm definitely open minded, but I've got I've got a few things
54:24
going that if you had to say, Brian, place a dollar bet.
54:27
What's it convenient, right? Only a dollar.
54:29
I'm not a gambler but I I'd say roofing if I had a guess.
54:34
Roofing. Interesting choice.
54:36
Yeah. And so, and there's a lot of lot
54:40
of industries, right that I've been looking at.
54:43
So I'm, I'm not married to that. But the number one reason I
54:46
would say is I can apply door to door sales skills, right.
54:50
So that's that's a big bonus. I mean, it's still fragmented.
54:54
Private equity is buying them up right at at decent multiples,
54:59
but I think, you know, the bigger you, you can grow it
55:01
pretty damn big, right with sales teams like like just like
55:07
I've had before to like massive numbers because it's, you know,
55:11
roofs are expensive compared to, you know, small cheap widget.
55:15
So that's part of it. And the other thing is what's
55:18
really interesting to me. I was talking to a buddy about
55:20
about this the other day, who owns a roof, a company
55:23
potentially getting involved with it actually.
55:25
And so it, when you look at alarm sales or solar sales, like
55:32
major door to door industries and even some pest control, the
55:37
leadership and the organizations, there's a good
55:41
amount of them or there's at least one or multiple that are
55:44
really on point. They really have their systems
55:47
in place, amazing leadership, you know, incentive trips, you
55:51
know, where they send people around the world or Mexico or
55:53
whatever, you know, swag, you name it, like really well oiled
55:57
machines, like, you know, big, big, you know, billion dollar
56:02
companies. But that I've seen there's not
56:05
really anything like that in the roofing space, which is into
56:10
which is interesting. And you know, when, when one of
56:14
the things I've learned is when you build a company, if you want
56:16
really, really good sales people, you have to be willing
56:19
and able to pay really good money, right?
56:24
And yeah, I, I shattered somebody for a few hours and he
56:29
was 7 hours and he, he made like a little over 13 grand.
56:33
And he's like, yeah, that was like kind of smaller than usual.
56:35
And I'm like, that look pretty easy compared to what I've seen.
56:38
So I was like, that's kind of interesting, you know, But
56:40
ultimately I'm not, I'm not married to the TV industry.
56:44
All right, let's shift gears. Brian, I'd like to maybe dive
56:47
into a serious challenge that you've overcome in your life.
56:51
How'd you get through that? Would you learn?
56:54
Which challenge, man, the yes, I've had a lot of challenges.
56:59
So the first one that comes to mind is I'm really grateful and
57:05
you know, can humbly say that I I've done really well
57:08
financially at this point, but that wasn't always the case, you
57:13
know, So, you know, even though, you know, right now, you know,
57:16
I'm multimillionaire and I say that humbly, hopefully to
57:18
inspire, you know, not to brag, but to inspire others.
57:21
But, but I can also say with the goal of inspiring is at a
57:25
certain point I had $100,000 in debt, you know, so I would say
57:30
that was one of, that was one of the, one of the big challenges.
57:33
And that's the first one that comes to mind.
57:35
And, and just to kind of elaborate on that a little bit.
57:38
I, I had started a DVD kiosk business.
57:41
Think of like Redbox, like a DVD rental machine, right?
57:43
Like ATM, but for DV DS. And I raised money from it from
57:47
a head fund manager that I met from selling Cutco, really close
57:50
friend of mine, Mark, Awesome, awesome guy.
57:53
And, and actually now I invest with him, which is kind of cool
57:56
and very cool actually. And so at first it wasn't
58:00
working and it wasn't working. And what I mean by that is it
58:04
wasn't making money. So at a certain point he's like,
58:08
when he calls me, he's like, hey, Brian, it's looking like,
58:10
you know, I'm looking at the numbers and just, they're not
58:12
good enough. Like, and I've been receiving
58:15
like a small salary. This is this is very early 20s,
58:18
like right out of right out of college.
58:20
And he's like, you know, so like we it's OK, but like it's I put
58:24
my blessing on. It's like, it's OK if this
58:26
doesn't work. He's like, I knew that
58:27
investing, but I invested like I'm OK either way, right?
58:30
And I was like, thank you, but I'm not done yet.
58:36
He's like, what do you mean? I'm like, I haven't failed.
58:39
Like I'm not going to quit and I haven't failed.
58:42
He's like, he's like, yeah, but the business doesn't support
58:45
paying you. And I'm like, OK, no problem.
58:48
Let me see if I can figure this out.
58:50
And then I went for quite a while working without income,
58:55
right? And I didn't have a bunch of
58:57
money set aside, right? That's why I'd raise money.
58:59
And I kept going, kept going, kept going.
59:02
And I wound up accumulating a good amount of debt while doing
59:05
it. And, and The funny thing is I
59:08
eventually figured out the figured it out and we just had
59:10
to change a few things and it was making money.
59:12
But at that point I kind of, we were about to raise more money.
59:15
That was the, the whole plan. And then I'm looking at numbers.
59:19
And then I realized, you know, Netflix and every way we stream
59:23
video, I'm like, that's going to be bigger tomorrow, not smaller.
59:27
And I, I felt like it was unethical to actually raise more
59:30
money with something that was like, I was literally making
59:32
projections like, well, what if they go down?
59:33
I'm like, who raises money when they think the industry's going
59:36
like a different direct? That's, that's not the right
59:38
thing to do, whether whether we can raise it or not, because the
59:40
numbers are pretty good, right? I just, I didn't think it was
59:43
the right thing to do. So ultimately wound up pulling,
59:46
pulling the plug on that. And I had accumulated a good
59:48
amount of debt. I think it was a little less
59:51
than that, but right around, you know, 100 grand or not that far
59:54
from it. And, you know, ultimately it
59:58
taught me like tunnel vision and focus.
1:00:01
So when like I, I, I wish I still had it.
1:00:04
I remember taking a screenshot at a certain point and the
1:00:09
screenshot was of my bank account being negative and I
1:00:12
saved it as never again. And I dated it.
1:00:14
I don't know what the date was. And like, I can remember that
1:00:17
like, like typing hard on my keyboard, never again, you know
1:00:19
what I mean? And so it was this funnel vision
1:00:23
though just staying focus and I was able to keep operating and
1:00:26
it was actually really valuable. And then on the, you know,
1:00:29
eventually it was like I moved on, started nothing.
1:00:31
Another thing, another thing right and paid off and.
1:00:34
So you were $100,000 in debt. Was there any thought about
1:00:38
bankruptcy? Was it that kind of a situation?
1:00:41
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And my family, I think they were
1:00:46
even encouraging it. They're like, you know, they got
1:00:48
this, got this and have an amazing family, but none of them
1:00:52
had done what I want. None of them had achieved what I
1:00:55
want to achieve, right? And I think it's important, I
1:00:58
said earlier, it's important to like learn from somebody who's
1:01:01
credible and qualified, not just who loves you, but that's a
1:01:04
piece of it. But they also have to be
1:01:06
qualified, right? So they had encouraged that.
1:01:08
So I'm going to. So I actually did speak to a few
1:01:10
bankruptcy attorneys and I'd asked them and what, you know,
1:01:14
they all said the commonality. I think I spoke to two or three
1:01:16
of them. They said, well, the reason to
1:01:18
do I'm like, should I follow that?
1:01:20
Like, I don't know. And they're like, well, it
1:01:22
depends. I'm like, what does it depend
1:01:23
on? They're like, it depends on
1:01:24
whether you believe you're you can get out of this or not.
1:01:28
Basically like are you screwed or not?
1:01:30
And I'm like, no, no, I'm like you.
1:01:33
Believed you could get out of it.
1:01:34
I knew I'd get out of it and how.
1:01:36
Did you get out of it? What are what were the changes
1:01:38
that you made in the business to level?
1:01:40
Things It wasn't because of changing the business.
1:01:41
It definitely wasn't because of that.
1:01:44
No. Well, could we wound up not
1:01:46
raising money? I wound up, but I wound up
1:01:48
taking OK. I so I actually kept operating
1:01:51
it for a while. Like after I was done with it, I
1:01:55
just told Mark, I'm like, hey, could you ask me when they were
1:01:59
having a conversation about me raising money?
1:02:00
He's like, what happens if like it doesn't work?
1:02:02
Like do I just get a bunch of machines and I'm like, I'll run
1:02:05
it for as long as I physically can, even if that means without
1:02:08
money. So I did so, but that was like a
1:02:10
really minimal time at that point to it was relatively easy
1:02:14
to do that, you know, but you said, how did I get out of it?
1:02:18
So I wound up, I did a lot of different, different things.
1:02:22
I wound up owning my own home security company for a bit
1:02:24
before I really crushed it with Vivint.
1:02:26
And so that that helped. I started paying it off very
1:02:29
aggressively, like take time with that.
1:02:32
And then, and I got some good advice as far as like you're
1:02:37
paying off the, the highest, you pay off the highest interest 1st
1:02:40
and then you can actually negotiate quite a bit.
1:02:42
And so I made some pretty, pretty ridiculous offers and got
1:02:46
them accepted. And you know, it's all business.
1:02:49
And you know, for anyone who's in debt, listen to this, you
1:02:52
should know if you don't already know, the worse it is, the
1:02:56
better it is for you. And what you mean by that is if
1:03:00
you're a little bit behind, like you owe all of it, right?
1:03:03
If they've already sold off the debt, maybe just sell it off for
1:03:06
2530 five, $0.50, right? But like at a certain point they
1:03:10
think that you're never going to pay and they just keep selling
1:03:12
it off to someone else and it winds up being $0.10 on the
1:03:15
dollar or less. So if they collect 15 or $0.20
1:03:18
on the dollar, they just doubled their money, right?
1:03:23
If I can double my money like that all day long, right, as an
1:03:25
investor. So I was thinking of it like
1:03:28
that at the time, but I was thinking like, Hey, I knew they
1:03:30
got it cheaper, you know, and a friend of mine, my wife's actual
1:03:33
boss, he Fahim, he's actually the one who told me that.
1:03:38
And he had boss way back when the, but anyways, he said, yeah,
1:03:44
just make crazy offers. I'm like, really.
1:03:45
He's like, yeah, just try it. I'm like, all right, I don't, I
1:03:48
don't mind getting rejected. And sure enough, they accepted,
1:03:51
accepted, accepted it. So I was just paying it off,
1:03:52
paying off, paying off. And then when I, when I came to
1:03:54
Vivint and I started, you know, making some really good money
1:03:57
right away, then then I just wrote a few checks and it was
1:04:00
done. And part of that debt, by the
1:04:01
way, the worst part of the debt, the worst part was I borrowed
1:04:06
money from my mom and my mom didn't have the cash to loan me,
1:04:10
so she took out a loan for it. Oh.
1:04:12
Wow. Yeah, so that I there's no deal
1:04:15
shaving that I never missed a payment ever.
1:04:17
And that was like that was like I had to pay that.
1:04:21
But yeah, so I got through it made me stronger.
1:04:23
And you know, if you if you think you can or you think you
1:04:27
can't be the way, right so. I like that.
1:04:30
I've just got one more question for you, Brian.
1:04:32
But before I ask it, I'm going to let listeners know the best
1:04:34
way to get in touch with you, which is you can find Brian on
1:04:38
LinkedIn. Brian is Bryan and Rabbit is
1:04:41
RABIT, so Brian, Rabbit, you can search for him on LinkedIn.
1:04:46
Also. Rabbit, RABIT, Rabbit
1:04:49
Investments with an S on the end of it.
1:04:51
rabbitinvestments@gmail.com. And we'll include links to that
1:04:55
in the show notes. Also, as a reminder, if you want
1:04:58
to get more employees access to benefits that won't hurt them
1:05:01
financially and carries a financial upside for your
1:05:05
company, reach out to add back benefits.com.
1:05:08
And finally, if you'll take just a moment and leave us a comment
1:05:10
or review on your favorite podcast app, we will be forever
1:05:13
grateful. So last question, Brian, you and
1:05:17
I reconnect one year from today and you're celebrating something
1:05:20
big. What's that big thing you hope
1:05:22
to be celebrating? I'm going to give two things if
1:05:27
I can. The first thing I'm most excited
1:05:29
about is my daughter, my daughter, Gemma Noreen.
1:05:34
She's, she's due to be born October 25th.
1:05:36
So we'll see when she decides to arrive.
1:05:38
But I'm really fired up about that.
1:05:40
So it's my first kid and she, she might be my little Princess.
1:05:44
So super fired up about that. And so that's the first thing.
1:05:48
And the second thing is hopefully I'll have either
1:05:53
partnered or purchased or invested in something that's
1:05:56
going to be that's going to ultimately result in eight
1:05:59
figure exit. And I'll be going all in on that
1:06:01
and probably easing up on the other things.
1:06:03
That's that's the real goal. I'm excited to pour my heart
1:06:06
into something again and really build, build, build that.
1:06:09
That's that's fun for me. Brian Rabbit, I'm going to be
1:06:12
the first to thank you for sharing with your time and your
1:06:14
story with us today. I really appreciate it.
1:06:17
My most sincere pleasure. Thank you.
1:06:19
Folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories
1:06:21
podcast. Thanks for learning with us
1:06:23
today.