Latest / Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant / How to Start a Business

Transcript

How to Start a Business · Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome The Money and Wealth with John O'Briant, a production
0:03
Speaker 1: of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Yo, Yo Yo,
0:15
Speaker 1: This is John O'Brien and this is the Money in
0:18
Speaker 1: Wealth podcast series, season two on the Black Effect Network
0:24
Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio. And I wanted in this episode, which is
0:31
Speaker 1: being recorded during Black Business Month, it's not well known
0:36
Speaker 1: that August is Black Business Month, and I want to
0:39
Speaker 1: command iHeart and Black Effect Network for focusing on it.
0:43
Speaker 1: I wanted to address the obvious, and I also owe
0:47
Speaker 1: you an apology. As an entrepreneur and a businessman, I
0:51
Speaker 1: think I've taken some things for granted, and many others
0:56
Speaker 1: have taken it for granted. I think we take for
1:00
Speaker 1: granted that people open the Wall Street Journal and know
1:05
Speaker 1: what's being said in it, these phrases, these euphemisms, these
1:11
Speaker 1: you know, what's the SEC, what's the fdi C, what's
1:14
Speaker 1: a SPAC, what's a you know, what's a leveraged buyout?
1:19
Speaker 1: And so I've tried to break down some of these myths.
1:23
Speaker 1: If you go to season one, I go through a
1:26
Speaker 1: lot of the basics, right about how what does this
1:29
Speaker 1: mean and what does that mean? And you're going to
1:30
Speaker 1: start seeing me go from industry to industry and break
1:34
Speaker 1: this down. But one thing I've never broken down, and
1:38
Speaker 1: it just dawned on me that I needed to do this,
1:40
Speaker 1: is I never really broken down how to start a
1:43
Speaker 1: business like the basics. And one of the reasons this
1:47
Speaker 1: became so powerfully important was recently I was having a
1:51
Speaker 1: discussion with somebody I love and care for and respect
1:54
Speaker 1: who is highly intelligent, and we had an actual debate
2:00
Speaker 1: about what they thought they were doing and building a business.
2:09
Speaker 1: And it took me a while to understand that they
2:14
Speaker 1: didn't understand what I was saying, and it was my fault.
2:16
Speaker 1: I had never explained, no one's ever explained it to
2:20
Speaker 1: even successful black people, educated black people, what these terms
2:25
Speaker 1: are again. And so this individual was incredibly, incredibly smart.
2:30
Speaker 1: Most smartest people I know had a history of running
2:33
Speaker 1: a really professional services contract enterprise where they got contracts
2:39
Speaker 1: for their talent, but they weren't on a payroll with someone.
2:43
Speaker 1: They were effectively a self employment project. They had no employees,
2:49
Speaker 1: They in most cases had no contractors. It might be
2:52
Speaker 1: episodic from time again when there was an event or something.
2:57
Speaker 1: They had no health insurance responsibilities, They had no payroll responsibilities.
3:02
Speaker 1: They had no property tax responsibilities, they had no balance
3:05
Speaker 1: sheet and income statement other than make sure their inflow
3:09
Speaker 1: exceeded their outflow. They had a contract with in many
3:14
Speaker 1: cases of corporation or government to provide a service. And
3:20
Speaker 1: the presumption was that's a business. Well, it is a
3:25
Speaker 1: form of business, but that's not building a business that
3:30
Speaker 1: you can sell, right And the whole point of building
3:34
Speaker 1: a business, please hear me, is to monetize it, create value,
3:41
Speaker 1: and to have a liquidity event to sell it. Right now,
3:45
Speaker 1: somebody's want to say no, no, no, no, John Walmart
3:53
Speaker 1: never sold, or Amazon never sold, or Microsoft bill Ga
4:00
Speaker 1: never sold, or Meta Facebook never sold. They'll come up
4:03
Speaker 1: with these examples. But the very fact that those companies
4:08
Speaker 1: have gone public means that they sell every day. They
4:12
Speaker 1: sold when they went public, the founder got our founders
4:17
Speaker 1: or founding family got a check, probably a big one.
4:21
Speaker 1: Probably they got a big one. And they're still getting checks,
4:27
Speaker 1: their families do dividend payments, et cetera. They still own shares.
4:31
Speaker 1: But the public is buying and selling that company every
4:34
Speaker 1: day based on its perception of its continuing success. So,
4:40
Speaker 1: whether you're a small business and it's private equity private
4:44
Speaker 1: equity literally your cousin, your father, your friend, or or
4:49
Speaker 1: a firmness in the private equity business giving you an
4:52
Speaker 1: investment private equity, or it's the public equity market going public.
4:58
Speaker 1: All right. The whole point is is they're backing this
5:01
Speaker 1: enterprise to grow it so that the leader that enterprise
5:05
Speaker 1: prize can sell it so everybody wins. Right now, you
5:10
Speaker 1: can't do that. You make money during the day, you
5:12
Speaker 1: bill wealson your sleep. In order to do that, you
5:14
Speaker 1: need compounding, You need employees, you need infrastructure, need real estates,
5:18
Speaker 1: you need locations, You need something other than you running
5:21
Speaker 1: around with a personal service contract. So I'm not today
5:25
Speaker 1: talking about what most black businesses are comprised of. Ninety
5:30
Speaker 1: five percent plus of all black businesses are effectively self
5:34
Speaker 1: employment projects. They have no employees. And so when you
5:37
Speaker 1: wonder while we are not building wealth. And I'm also
5:39
Speaker 1: going to break down in a separate podcast how to
5:41
Speaker 1: own and buy a home, that's another presumption I think
5:44
Speaker 1: we make that's incorrect. We should not assume people know
5:47
Speaker 1: the hows here, or the whys or the whats. So
5:50
Speaker 1: I'm breaking this down and by the way, being a
5:52
Speaker 1: small business owner, which is incredibly important, is very different
5:55
Speaker 1: from being an entrepreneur. They're first cousins are different and
6:01
Speaker 1: I go through that also in season one, it's the
6:04
Speaker 1: season two of Money and Wealth. So tell all your
6:06
Speaker 1: friends to download Money and Wealth and go back to
6:09
Speaker 1: season one. I'm giving you an entire university, a library,
6:12
Speaker 1: a ministry of finance if you will, in free enterprise
6:15
Speaker 1: and entrepreneurship and capitalism even invite sized chunks. So now,
6:22
Speaker 1: before I get into how do you start a business,
6:25
Speaker 1: whether it's a self employment project, a personal services contract
6:28
Speaker 1: fulfillment firm of one, or whether it's a business with
6:32
Speaker 1: that has scale, employees and infrastructure, I'm going to walk
6:34
Speaker 1: you through literally the steps of taking your dream and
6:37
Speaker 1: making it real. Okay, because I should not be presumed
6:39
Speaker 1: that people know how to do that. And that doesn't
6:41
Speaker 1: mean that somebody's unintelligent because they don't know how to
6:44
Speaker 1: do that. It means someone's taught you. It's what you
6:46
Speaker 1: don't know that you don't know that is killing you,
6:48
Speaker 1: but you think you know. By the way, I'm an entrepreneur,
6:52
Speaker 1: I'm a business owner, and I used to be a
6:54
Speaker 1: small business owner. I grew a small business into a
6:59
Speaker 1: boutique business into a reasonably sized business. I would think
7:03
Speaker 1: it's a big business because one of my businesses I
7:05
Speaker 1: sold for one hundred and twenty million dollars. Maybe it's
7:08
Speaker 1: a mid sized business by big boy standards. And then
7:14
Speaker 1: one of my enterprises is a large enterprise because that
7:18
Speaker 1: budget is you know, north of sixty five million dollars
7:21
Speaker 1: a year. Okay, So I have experienced from the smallest
7:26
Speaker 1: to the largest. But an entrepreneur is somebody who creates
7:29
Speaker 1: something from whole cloth, Whereas a businessman our businesswoman takes
7:32
Speaker 1: an existing business plan and scales it and operationalizes. So
7:36
Speaker 1: a businessman businesswoman is taking basically an existing concept with
7:41
Speaker 1: dentist office, a chiropractor office, a healthcare office, whatever, right
7:48
Speaker 1: a service and making that thing work franchise businesses or
7:52
Speaker 1: good examples of existing business plans. An entrepreneur like me
7:56
Speaker 1: is nuts and taking creating new ideas from nothing and
8:00
Speaker 1: backing them with in my case my own and others
8:06
Speaker 1: private equity. Okay, and so in some case I'm my
8:11
Speaker 1: own venture capital firm, if you will. For myself, at
8:14
Speaker 1: least that's what I happened. So let me not give
8:15
Speaker 1: you first a brief history of business and why this
8:19
Speaker 1: is relevant to you, particularly during Black Business Month. Business
8:24
Speaker 1: has always been one of the most powerful ways to
8:27
Speaker 1: build wealth in independence, in America and around the world.
8:33
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about my friend my brothers Strive Masiewa, who
8:36
Speaker 1: is a Bill Gates of Africa, who's a billionaire and
8:39
Speaker 1: an up from nothing entrepreneur from Zimbabwe. So successful in Zimbabwe,
8:44
Speaker 1: they don't the government is afraid. I think that he
8:47
Speaker 1: wants to run for political office there. So we can't
8:49
Speaker 1: even go back to his own country. Not because he's
8:51
Speaker 1: a criminal, but because he's so successful. Folks are intimidated
8:55
Speaker 1: by him. But he is doing fiber optic cables throughout
9:00
Speaker 1: the African continent. He was one of the first to
9:02
Speaker 1: bring cell phones to the African continent. I believe it
9:05
Speaker 1: was the first cell phone provider in Nigeria. And he
9:08
Speaker 1: runs a multiplicity of businesses there is enormously successful. You
9:13
Speaker 1: find your hero, your shee role, whatever continent you live
9:15
Speaker 1: on and study them. Okay, So this is the way
9:20
Speaker 1: for independence. All money is freedom right and you cannot
9:25
Speaker 1: have freedom without self determination and you can eat. So
9:26
Speaker 1: you need to understand financial literacy. Hello, what we're talking
9:29
Speaker 1: about here. Financial literacy is a civil rights issue of
9:31
Speaker 1: this generation. Why I founded Operation Hope and I'll want
9:34
Speaker 1: you to go get financial coaching and counseling. Why I've
9:37
Speaker 1: raised and deployed fifty million dollars plus a year in
9:40
Speaker 1: money used for scholarships for coaching is building economic infrastructure
9:45
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred offices across the country for you to plug into.
9:48
Speaker 1: The one Million Black Business Initiative one MBB as an example,
9:51
Speaker 1: is a resource for you to plug into in partnership
9:54
Speaker 1: in that example, which shopify okay. In early America, immigrants, settlers,
10:03
Speaker 1: and freedomen alike often turned business when other doors were closed,
10:10
Speaker 1: owning a shop, a farm, or trade gay families. Not
10:16
Speaker 1: just income, but dignity and independence. For Black Americans, business
10:24
Speaker 1: was often the only path after slavery men. He could
10:28
Speaker 1: not access land ownership or fair wages. We literally worked
10:32
Speaker 1: for free. That was sort of the whole point of slavery.
10:35
Speaker 1: It was bad capitalism wasn't personal. It became personal later on,
10:39
Speaker 1: but it started it didn't start out as personal. Started
10:41
Speaker 1: out it's just bad capitalism, free labor. So they built
10:46
Speaker 1: their own when they could not get that opportunity from others.
10:53
Speaker 1: Their own for their own barbershops, beauty salons, insurance companies, newspapers,
11:02
Speaker 1: and banks. And because no one else would serve our community.
11:06
Speaker 1: People didn't want to cut our hair, so we had
11:08
Speaker 1: to cut our own hair. They didn't want to give
11:11
Speaker 1: us medical services, We had to do that for ourselves.
11:14
Speaker 1: That closed market, okay, that segregated market created wealth for
11:20
Speaker 1: those who serve with excellence, the black community in that example,
11:25
Speaker 1: because no one else would serve them, and so people
11:26
Speaker 1: who did well, we're looking for quality services, and smart
11:30
Speaker 1: black businessmen and women fulfilled that. And so thus you
11:34
Speaker 1: had Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is cited often,
11:39
Speaker 1: which became a symbol of this power. And there are
11:43
Speaker 1: other places, by the way, places in the Carolinas and others.
11:47
Speaker 1: Of course Harlem later on, but the entire communities won
11:51
Speaker 1: in South Central by the way, that was very impressive
11:55
Speaker 1: and little well known on Central Avenue. Entire communities built
12:00
Speaker 1: on ownership, ownership that happened to be black. Globally, the
12:06
Speaker 1: story is the same from Jewish merchants in Europe, by
12:11
Speaker 1: the way, who it was illegal for Jews to own
12:13
Speaker 1: land in Europe. They were discriminated against it ran all
12:17
Speaker 1: around the world for most of six thousand years, so
12:21
Speaker 1: they had to learn finance and financial literacy because they
12:23
Speaker 1: couldn't own land, so they just figured if it financed
12:26
Speaker 1: the land and undershard how the banking was not a
12:28
Speaker 1: dignified business back then, investment banking less, so being a
12:33
Speaker 1: merchant banker even less. So these folks took these businesses
12:37
Speaker 1: that nobody else wanted and became experts at that through
12:41
Speaker 1: financial literacy and through finance controlled land and businesses. And
12:47
Speaker 1: it's one of the great success stories in the world
12:49
Speaker 1: for a group that was and continue unfortunately to be
12:52
Speaker 1: hunted around the world and discriminated against. But still they rose,
12:56
Speaker 1: and I commend them for that. Goldman Sachs. By the way,
13:00
Speaker 1: did you know that half of all Jews are dark?
13:02
Speaker 1: Whole other conversation another time, that's literally true. Goldman Sachs
13:07
Speaker 1: was a guy named Goldman and a guy named Sachs
13:10
Speaker 1: who could not get a job on Wall Street. Don't
13:13
Speaker 1: would hire them, so they literally just went door to
13:16
Speaker 1: door selling financial services and built that up, slow by slow,
13:20
Speaker 1: little by little, and that became well Goldman Sachs the
13:25
Speaker 1: firm you know of today as an institution every big
13:27
Speaker 1: business was once a small one. So you have the
13:31
Speaker 1: example of Jewish merchants in Europe. And by the way,
13:37
Speaker 1: Blacks and Jews share a shared history, even a shared
13:41
Speaker 1: DNA going back six thousand years. And I will do
13:46
Speaker 1: a separate podcast just on the history of business and
13:49
Speaker 1: trade and commerce and capitalism. So come back for that
13:54
Speaker 1: and how and how crosses with culture and how some
14:00
Speaker 1: want us to all be in a constant argument with
14:02
Speaker 1: each other. So you had that example, you had Indian
14:16
Speaker 1: traders in East Africa. It has to be noted that
14:21
Speaker 1: here that bad capitalism, I promote good capitalism. Bad capitalism
14:25
Speaker 1: is where I benefit and you pay a price for it.
14:27
Speaker 1: Good capitalism is where I benefit and you benefit more
14:31
Speaker 1: in bad capitalism. Slavery, by the way, it wasn't just
14:34
Speaker 1: white European slave traders. It was Indian slave traders from India,
14:41
Speaker 1: the East Indian Company, I believe it was. There were
14:44
Speaker 1: Asian slave traders. There were, believe it or not, African
14:48
Speaker 1: folks who not slave traded from the coast, but who
14:52
Speaker 1: captured folks in other tribes in the central part of
14:55
Speaker 1: Africa and traded them monetarily. They didn't like each other.
14:58
Speaker 1: These for warring tribes. Think about gangs today and they
15:01
Speaker 1: didn't realize that were trading them in slavery. But because
15:04
Speaker 1: no one had gone beyond the coast. Really, so Europeans,
15:08
Speaker 1: unfortunately were best at a horrible business model. But bad
15:13
Speaker 1: capitalism is something no different than our communities today. You
15:16
Speaker 1: see everybody engaging in bad capitalism. I want to see
15:19
Speaker 1: more good capitalism. That's what this podcast is about. Colors
15:25
Speaker 1: green by the way that white, black or red blue,
15:29
Speaker 1: it's green. I want everybody to be able to get
15:32
Speaker 1: your share of it so you can build some wealth
15:33
Speaker 1: and build some independence and some freedom, so you can
15:36
Speaker 1: say what you like and do as you please and
15:40
Speaker 1: empower who you choose. So again you have these entire
15:47
Speaker 1: communities that were built up, and these examples from again
15:50
Speaker 1: Jewish merchants and europe Indian traders in East Africa, Chinese
15:53
Speaker 1: family businesses across southern Southeast Asia. Business ownership has been
15:59
Speaker 1: the latter of poverty into the middle class and often
16:04
Speaker 1: into lasting generational wealth. The reason is simple. A job
16:09
Speaker 1: gives you a paycheck, but a business gives you freedom.
16:14
Speaker 1: A real business it can scale, which is what I've
16:18
Speaker 1: been discussing so far. In this podcast. It can be
16:23
Speaker 1: passed down. It creates assets, not just income, and you
16:28
Speaker 1: make money to today you build wealth in your sleep.
16:31
Speaker 1: That's why today when we talk about financial literacy, wealth building,
16:34
Speaker 1: and independence, we can't leave business out. Starting a business,
16:40
Speaker 1: even a small one, is still one of the most
16:43
Speaker 1: proven ways to move from surviving to thriving, to winning,
16:47
Speaker 1: to controlling your narrative. And in my case, where four
16:51
Speaker 1: hundred employees employing others and empowering others. So now let's
16:56
Speaker 1: get into let's get into the substance of this. So
17:03
Speaker 1: every big business started small. Amazon started with books in
17:07
Speaker 1: a garage for you by you. At Fubu started with
17:12
Speaker 1: forty dollars and a sewing machine. The brother who founded
17:15
Speaker 1: that just called me a great guy. Operation Hope started
17:19
Speaker 1: with a man with a mission. That's me. You don't
17:23
Speaker 1: need a million dollars at a fancy office or even investors, right,
17:28
Speaker 1: you just need clarity, courage, and the first step. I
17:32
Speaker 1: never started with business loans. By the way, I have
17:35
Speaker 1: some what I have lines of credit and things like
17:38
Speaker 1: that facilitations for which is facility facilitating cash flow payment
17:41
Speaker 1: haven't come in yet. So I have a credit line
17:44
Speaker 1: that pays the bills until the payments from a growing
17:48
Speaker 1: business comes in. Yeah, and I had even I had
17:54
Speaker 1: one facility, a couple hundredion dollar facility for business that
17:57
Speaker 1: I had recapitalized with some other partner. That was two
18:01
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars, the largest credit facility that was done
18:03
Speaker 1: for a person of color for more than a couple
18:07
Speaker 1: of decades, so said Black Enterprise. And that was non
18:10
Speaker 1: recourse that I mean, there was no personal guarantee. But
18:12
Speaker 1: when I started businesses, I did not start businesses with loans.
18:21
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I did have credit cards and things like that,
18:24
Speaker 1: but I didn't get like a proper proper loan. I
18:27
Speaker 1: didn't grow it based on dat growd, based on hustle.
18:30
Speaker 1: So the step one is the idea in the mindset.
18:35
Speaker 1: So damon John who I decided Foo booze founder who
18:38
Speaker 1: I just traded message with this weekend. Really great guy.
18:41
Speaker 1: He started selling hats he made with a forty dollars budget.
18:47
Speaker 1: The hustle you have in your neighborhood can become your
18:50
Speaker 1: blueprint for entrepreneurship or or into or small business. You know,
18:54
Speaker 1: don't wait for the perfect idea. Start where you are
18:57
Speaker 1: with what you know search in research that Damon John's
19:02
Speaker 1: story is quite inspiring. He's still growing in building businesses
19:07
Speaker 1: to this day. Step number two research and validation. So
19:12
Speaker 1: step number one was the idea in the mindset. Okay,
19:15
Speaker 1: and the Bible says, there's no vision that people perish
19:19
Speaker 1: and I love that. I have a whole thing I
19:22
Speaker 1: do for myself. I have a graph that that created.
19:28
Speaker 1: That's vision, mission, purpose, passion, strategy, plan, execution of the plan,
19:46
Speaker 1: tactics to dos to Don's assessment, evaluation, reimagination, based on
19:52
Speaker 1: the based on the assessment of what just happened and
19:57
Speaker 1: whether it needs to be improved or not. Like a
20:00
Speaker 1: software up grade, reset, refine the business plan, wake up
20:06
Speaker 1: the next day, and execute on the refined business plan.
20:09
Speaker 1: So you should never just be getting up and doing
20:11
Speaker 1: what you did yesterday. You should always should be trying
20:13
Speaker 1: to improve yourself. You should be in a constant state
20:18
Speaker 1: of software upgrades, active software upgrades. When you got the phone,
20:22
Speaker 1: if you have an iPhone like I do, when you
20:25
Speaker 1: got the phone, my phone is a sixteen Pro. Within
20:28
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks, iPhone was pushing to you a
20:31
Speaker 1: software upgrade of sixteen point one, sixteen point five. I'm
20:34
Speaker 1: now in eighteen something. I believe software software series, even
20:39
Speaker 1: though the phone is sixteen pro iPhone realizes there is
20:44
Speaker 1: no perfect and so they got to don't wait for
20:46
Speaker 1: something that's perfect, get it out there in the marketplace,
20:48
Speaker 1: get people to buy into it, and keep upgrading your
20:51
Speaker 1: software as you go. And so the current software is
20:53
Speaker 1: eighteen six point two. Eighteen point six point two, all right,
20:56
Speaker 1: not eighteen eighteen point six point two? What's your personal
21:00
Speaker 1: software upgrade? And are you keeping track of it? Are
21:03
Speaker 1: you constantly obsessed with kaisan as they say in Japan?
21:07
Speaker 1: Constantly improving? I am. I'm obsessed with knowledge and I'm nosy.
21:13
Speaker 1: God gave you two ears and one mouth. You listen
21:15
Speaker 1: twice as much as you talk. I'm nosy. I want
21:17
Speaker 1: to know everything about everything, just like my friend Quincy Jones.
21:20
Speaker 1: I late Quincy Jones share with me one of his gifts.
21:25
Speaker 1: So all my business has started with being nosy, doing research,
21:28
Speaker 1: having a vision, not being emotional, being passionate and purposal
21:31
Speaker 1: and ever you make an emotional decision is going to
21:33
Speaker 1: be a bad one. So don't make a business. Business
21:36
Speaker 1: is not personal, okay. Capitalism is a gladiator sport. I
21:39
Speaker 1: want you to take the emotions out of it. Yes,
21:41
Speaker 1: passion is going to be necessary, but take the emotions
21:43
Speaker 1: out of it. Step number two. Research and validation of
21:48
Speaker 1: fruit prep service. One woman began asking church members if
21:51
Speaker 1: they pay ten or fifteen dollars for home cooked meals.
21:56
Speaker 1: She had fifteen orders the first week and grew from there. Uh. Now,
22:02
Speaker 1: if you ask ten to twenty real people, not just family,
22:07
Speaker 1: if they would actually pay for what you're offering, and
22:12
Speaker 1: then you if they say yes, you might have a business.
22:15
Speaker 1: But a business, an innovation, an idea without a customer,
22:19
Speaker 1: a paying customer next to it is not a business.
22:21
Speaker 1: That's my friends, Jim Clifton of Gallops quote. An innovation
22:26
Speaker 1: or a cool idea without a customer, a paying customer
22:29
Speaker 1: next to it is not a business. A lot of
22:31
Speaker 1: people running around I see with business cards and least
22:35
Speaker 1: for LEAs Mercedes and a least office space, and nice
22:39
Speaker 1: clothes and and going to lunches and dinners and again
22:42
Speaker 1: the business cards had CEO on it, and they're going
22:44
Speaker 1: to cocktail receptions and they make some phone calls, they
22:46
Speaker 1: have some meetings, and they have a PowerPoint presentation, and
22:50
Speaker 1: they think that that's business, and that's not that's busyness.
22:53
Speaker 1: That's not business. That's business. You got to be the chief.
22:56
Speaker 1: Hustle officer chief, get it done, officer chief. I get
22:59
Speaker 1: up in the morning, stayed up late at night, and
23:01
Speaker 1: I outwork you, outrun you out and out hustle you, officer. Right.
23:05
Speaker 1: An entrepreneur works eighteen hours a day to keep from
23:09
Speaker 1: getting a job. So and there's the last one paid
23:14
Speaker 1: and the last one to walk out and turn the
23:15
Speaker 1: lights off. I mean, I used to sleep in my
23:18
Speaker 1: office quite literally, the shriff's apartment when I lived in
23:21
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, and when I worked in Los Angeles and
23:25
Speaker 1: lived in Malibu, California, the sheriff's apartment in La County
23:28
Speaker 1: Shares apartment. They told me one day when they saw
23:30
Speaker 1: me in the convenience located the convenience store AMPM Mini
23:34
Speaker 1: Market where I got gassed on my way home when
23:38
Speaker 1: I finally finished my day of work and drove home,
23:41
Speaker 1: which is often two three in the morning, four in
23:43
Speaker 1: the morning. The sheriff saw me one day going the
23:47
Speaker 1: AMPM Mini Market and they said, oh, there's the sleeper.
23:51
Speaker 1: I'm like, excuse me, yeah, we call you the sleeper.
23:55
Speaker 1: What does that mean as you're the guy who pulls
23:57
Speaker 1: his car fore side of the road. That is very
23:59
Speaker 1: dangerous to do this, and you go to sleep in
24:02
Speaker 1: your car and we come and check on you. I'd
24:04
Speaker 1: be so tired from working all day and doing meetings
24:07
Speaker 1: all night, and then sometimes they wouldn't take a nap
24:11
Speaker 1: in my office. I'd get in my car and I'd
24:12
Speaker 1: drive home. I went to sleep in my office overnight.
24:15
Speaker 1: I'd want to convey I want to go home and
24:18
Speaker 1: take a shower and put in a fresh set of clothes.
24:21
Speaker 1: I drive from West Los Angeles where my office was
24:24
Speaker 1: at the West wait Gate, the Westwood Gateway complex at
24:28
Speaker 1: Little Santa Monica and suppovid of Boulevard. The building is
24:31
Speaker 1: still there. I was on the he floor. Brian Group
24:33
Speaker 1: Companies was where we were located. I'd drive from there
24:37
Speaker 1: down the four or five Freeway to the Santa Monica Freeway,
24:43
Speaker 1: up PCH Pacific Goa's Highway to Malibu, and on the
24:50
Speaker 1: halfway there to get exhausted and to pull off the
24:52
Speaker 1: side of the road. You know, you start seeing three
24:54
Speaker 1: three lanes and there's only two, and you remember you
24:57
Speaker 1: roll down the window and you have to wet your
24:59
Speaker 1: wet your your finger and put it on your eyelids,
25:03
Speaker 1: some saliva on your eyelids, and then open the door
25:06
Speaker 1: window and put your head outside the window. That was me,
25:08
Speaker 1: all right, don't laugh. You know you did that, you
25:10
Speaker 1: know you've done that. It just I just did it
25:12
Speaker 1: coming home from my office. You might didn't come home
25:14
Speaker 1: from a club. Who knows. But and I was completely sober,
25:18
Speaker 1: like no, I've never I don't do drugs, don't drink,
25:21
Speaker 1: so that those are not my things. But I worked.
25:23
Speaker 1: I was a workaholic. I was an alcoholic. I worked aholic.
25:25
Speaker 1: I was a passionateholic. Anyway, these the minute, these these
25:29
Speaker 1: Shares officers said they knew me by reputation, I was
25:32
Speaker 1: a sleeper. I knew I had to change some things.
25:34
Speaker 1: That either a robber was going to kill me or
25:36
Speaker 1: I was gonna kill myself by working myself to death.
25:38
Speaker 1: So I'd need some more balance. But that is what
25:41
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur. That's an example of an entrepreneur's commitment. And
25:45
Speaker 1: I didn't get a paycheck back then everybody got paid
25:47
Speaker 1: but me, I just had. I was fueled by my
25:49
Speaker 1: vision and my passion and my NonStop hustle and again,
25:53
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur or a small business owner takes no for vitamins. Okay,
25:58
Speaker 1: let's now get into number three business structure and legal bases, right,
26:03
Speaker 1: And I go through details of this in another podcast
26:06
Speaker 1: when I discuss the different legal structures for starting a business,
26:11
Speaker 1: So please go there and check that out. Cleaning a
26:19
Speaker 1: service founder started with just supplies, but in ALLC, a
26:25
Speaker 1: limited liability corporation, gave her contracts with offices and property managers.
26:35
Speaker 1: So filing an ALLC turned her hustle into a business
26:39
Speaker 1: others could trust. My point is the difference between somebody
26:45
Speaker 1: with a good idea and good hustle and a proper
26:49
Speaker 1: businessman or businesswoman is paperwork. Proper paperwork. I want you
26:58
Speaker 1: to be. I want you to get obsessed with the details, right.
27:04
Speaker 1: I want you to get obsessed with your accountant, get
27:09
Speaker 1: obsessed with what to figure out what an income statement
27:11
Speaker 1: is and a balance balance sheet. Remember, we had this
27:14
Speaker 1: young man who wanted to come in and start a
27:16
Speaker 1: business and operation Hope, and we were helping him. He
27:19
Speaker 1: asked for help. He used to be a drug dealer,
27:21
Speaker 1: to be really blood and he was trying to transition
27:24
Speaker 1: his life. And I commended him for that and wanted
27:27
Speaker 1: to help him with this transition. And he had already
27:33
Speaker 1: paid money to lease a restaurant location and had already
27:40
Speaker 1: bought a burner for the restaurant, so he was already
27:43
Speaker 1: all in at least the facility had bought some of
27:47
Speaker 1: the equipment stoves, burners, et cetera. And then I asked him, okay,
27:52
Speaker 1: so tell me about tell me about your your balance sheet,
27:59
Speaker 1: and he's like, what's that? That was like, excuse me,
28:04
Speaker 1: Like he had the hustle, but no one told him
28:07
Speaker 1: the business basics, right, So you need if you're going
28:10
Speaker 1: to be a proper business person, you need an accountant.
28:12
Speaker 1: You need at least access to a lawyer. You need
28:14
Speaker 1: somebody to review your contracts. You can use artificial intelligence,
28:17
Speaker 1: by the way, in the short short term, but don't
28:20
Speaker 1: just rely on AI. You need you can have AI
28:23
Speaker 1: for eight percent of the work and get a lawyer
28:24
Speaker 1: to sign off on what AI is telling you to
28:26
Speaker 1: make sure it's tight and right. You need an accountant,
28:29
Speaker 1: you need a bookkeeper and or account and or a bookkeeper.
28:33
Speaker 1: You're at some point you need a controller, somebody to
28:35
Speaker 1: run the money with your oversight inside the business. At
28:38
Speaker 1: some point I have a chief financial officer. I have
28:41
Speaker 1: audited financial statements that people can trust my businesses because
28:44
Speaker 1: I'm audited financial statements. Just like this lady. This LLC
28:48
Speaker 1: limited liability corporation gave her respectability because it gave her structure, paperwork,
28:52
Speaker 1: independently reviewed that people can trust. You really need to
28:56
Speaker 1: have your books and records and a budget in place
29:00
Speaker 1: for your business. Otherwise again, it's not a business, it's busyness.
29:05
Speaker 1: You need to make boring sexy like you need to
29:07
Speaker 1: have And if your account's trying to hang out with
29:09
Speaker 1: you at the club or at social events, you need
29:11
Speaker 1: to get rid of to get a new accountant. You
29:13
Speaker 1: don't want people who want to hang out with you. You
29:15
Speaker 1: want people who want you to be set up. They
29:18
Speaker 1: don't want to hang out set up properly. I'm in.
29:22
Speaker 1: So a limited liability corporation is cheap and easy and quick,
29:28
Speaker 1: and even if you want to do business with your
29:31
Speaker 1: family members, you should have a limited liability corporation and
29:35
Speaker 1: everybody should sign the Dott line because when things get messy,
29:38
Speaker 1: when things don't go well. There's two times when mess
29:40
Speaker 1: happens in a business. When things go incredibly well, money
29:44
Speaker 1: out of the blue changes people. There's a lot of money,
29:47
Speaker 1: and unfortunately I've seen it in my own situation. People
29:51
Speaker 1: I thought I knew, I realized I didn't know at
29:53
Speaker 1: all when money showed up, and they think they should
29:55
Speaker 1: have a piece of it, even though I made it titlement.
30:00
Speaker 1: But also when things go badly, folks get amnesia. I
30:04
Speaker 1: didn't say that, I didn't do that, I didn't guarantee that,
30:06
Speaker 1: I didn't promise that. Or when you loan somebody some money,
30:10
Speaker 1: they get amnesia. They don't want to pay it back,
30:13
Speaker 1: but they certainly want some of the profits. So you
30:14
Speaker 1: just want to have this all documented. So it's again
30:18
Speaker 1: is A friend of mine told me she likes math
30:23
Speaker 1: because it doesn't have an opinion, right, And so I
30:27
Speaker 1: want you to to just be a non emotional and
30:32
Speaker 1: mathematical and business like and have your paperwork in place
30:39
Speaker 1: so you don't have to have these petty arguments with
30:42
Speaker 1: anybody or disagreements. Step four, Plan and money. A mobile
30:59
Speaker 1: car wash entrepreneur started with buckets, soap rags and under
31:04
Speaker 1: three dollars investment. By the way, so did I that
31:08
Speaker 1: this is also my example. I started one hundred business
31:11
Speaker 1: ideas between age twenty from age ten age twenty twenty,
31:15
Speaker 1: most of them failed spectacularly. Going to give you a
31:17
Speaker 1: news flash, by the way, don't be embarrassed. Get embarrassment
31:20
Speaker 1: out of your dictionary, right. All that failure is an outcome.
31:22
Speaker 1: It's just an outcome to an experiment. It's not defining
31:26
Speaker 1: anything about you. It's just this thing didn't work. Take
31:29
Speaker 1: no for vitamins and understand this success has a thousand
31:33
Speaker 1: mothers and failure as a bastard child like. No one
31:36
Speaker 1: claims the failure, but no one remembers it either. Once
31:39
Speaker 1: you succeed, everybody wants to own that, right. I mean, so,
31:43
Speaker 1: just don't obsess about your failures. It's just the outcome
31:45
Speaker 1: to an experiment. It's just a moment in time. Keep
31:47
Speaker 1: it moving. It's hard to hit a moving target. Just
31:50
Speaker 1: keep it moving. And so this mobile detailing business, clearly
31:55
Speaker 1: it didn't work out or would be still doing it,
31:57
Speaker 1: but it was something I did at a moment, and
31:59
Speaker 1: it's something you do to start out as a whole
32:02
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff. I've even read my different books that
32:04
Speaker 1: go through up from nothing in the minmo. These different
32:07
Speaker 1: books explain financial literacy for all Some of the books
32:09
Speaker 1: that I the business that I started. So the key
32:13
Speaker 1: is that this person kept their plan simple. Washington cars
32:17
Speaker 1: per weekend, charged twenty five dollars each, earned two hundred
32:22
Speaker 1: fifty dollars extra cash flow. Eventually this grew into a
32:25
Speaker 1: mobile detailing business with employees like don't overcomplicate it. It's
32:31
Speaker 1: just that simple. There's no flossing you notice in any
32:35
Speaker 1: of this. Right Number five Branding in presence. So Etsy
32:45
Speaker 1: jewelry seller invested in a twelve dollars domain name. Domain
32:50
Speaker 1: name is is what you select? Is you know Joe's
32:54
Speaker 1: jewelry company? Is what uses your online presence? It's real
32:58
Speaker 1: estate on the internet? Okay, domain name, a twenty dollars
33:02
Speaker 1: logo on a logo production service, right, and you probably
33:08
Speaker 1: do it on ai now for free and free. Instagram
33:12
Speaker 1: customers found her online, not in a store Shopify. That's
33:17
Speaker 1: where I recommend, by the way, our partner for one
33:19
Speaker 1: MBB a simple professional look, built instant credibility. And while
33:25
Speaker 1: she had a business, and she's on the platform of Etsy,
33:27
Speaker 1: which is trusted and respected, and she had her business,
33:32
Speaker 1: her business and documentation properly done because well, in this example,
33:36
Speaker 1: she went through operation hope. Step six sales and marketing. Right,
33:41
Speaker 1: So tutor turned a small business owner. They posted free
33:46
Speaker 1: math tips on TikTok build trust, then offered twenty dollars
33:51
Speaker 1: an hour tutoring lessons. Within months, had twenty clients. Right.
33:57
Speaker 1: Your first customers will often come from your network, you know,
34:01
Speaker 1: relationship capital, that's what I call it. Then you can
34:03
Speaker 1: expand with digital tools from there. Again, keep this simple number.
34:07
Speaker 1: Seven operations in customer service. A barber working from home.
34:13
Speaker 1: All right. My barber is Keith Williams, who's a mobile barber.
34:17
Speaker 1: I used to have a shop. Now he's a full
34:19
Speaker 1: time firefighter, but he also does a part time business.
34:22
Speaker 1: And I'm one of his clients and I pay him
34:25
Speaker 1: a premium to come to my house. And he's so
34:26
Speaker 1: dependable I wouldn't go with anybody else. So focusing on
34:30
Speaker 1: showing up one time, clean cuts, clean and clean, proper hygiene,
34:37
Speaker 1: clean equipment, consistent pricing right, Never try to gouge your
34:42
Speaker 1: clients any consistency and they need to believe they're getting
34:44
Speaker 1: of value. And in this example, his clients referred to
34:50
Speaker 1: others because of his utter professionalism. So consistency is a
34:55
Speaker 1: superpower in business. Please write that down. Consistency is a
34:59
Speaker 1: super power in business. People will pay for what they
35:04
Speaker 1: can count on. Now, some people are now listening to
35:08
Speaker 1: this and saying, what's the price that I am now
35:11
Speaker 1: stopping at step step seven before to step eight. Some
35:15
Speaker 1: people are saying, well, what's the right price I should
35:17
Speaker 1: set my product for? And how do I know what
35:19
Speaker 1: the right price is? And all that? And oh, I
35:22
Speaker 1: don't want to overcharge somebody. Don't worry about overcharging somebody.
35:25
Speaker 1: The market will tell you when enough is enough. When
35:27
Speaker 1: you set a price and people throw their nose up
35:29
Speaker 1: and sorry, roll their eye lets you and go girl,
35:31
Speaker 1: you got your mind? You can you know you've charged
35:33
Speaker 1: too much? Back it down a little again, do some
35:37
Speaker 1: test discussions. But again, you're not taking advantage of people.
35:41
Speaker 1: You're selling a product of service which alleviates a pain,
35:45
Speaker 1: creates a solution. All capitalism is is solving problems. Let
35:49
Speaker 1: me tell you what a capit table is. The capitalism
35:52
Speaker 1: table is right, not a cap table. The capitalism table
35:54
Speaker 1: is in negotiations so you feel better about getting to
35:57
Speaker 1: the right price, and so you'll feel like you're gorging
36:01
Speaker 1: people or taking advantage of people, or they're taking advantage
36:03
Speaker 1: of you. Let me explain this to you. So on
36:06
Speaker 1: the one side of the table in this negotiating table
36:08
Speaker 1: is the capitalists, the producer of the product, and the
36:10
Speaker 1: other side of the table is the consumer, the buyer
36:13
Speaker 1: of the product. To typically black people are unfortunately just
36:15
Speaker 1: the consumers. The capitalist job, please hear me. The business
36:21
Speaker 1: owner's job is to extract as much money as they
36:25
Speaker 1: can in negotiations from the person sitting at the table
36:28
Speaker 1: on the consumer side, while giving them the least value
36:33
Speaker 1: in return. That's the capitalists, the business owners. The entrepreneur's job.
36:38
Speaker 1: They've got a product of service, something they've created, something
36:41
Speaker 1: they control, something they're offering. Their job is to get
36:44
Speaker 1: the most value out of that that they can from
36:47
Speaker 1: a paying customer while giving the least value in return,
36:51
Speaker 1: so they earn the biggest profit. Now somebody's in there going, oh, John,
36:55
Speaker 1: that's so ruthless. That's horrible. No, it's just business. But
36:59
Speaker 1: let me here's the other the second part of the story.
37:01
Speaker 1: On the other side of this is the consumer. Guess
37:03
Speaker 1: what their job is. Consumer's job is to pay the
37:07
Speaker 1: least amount that they can from this capitalist producer in
37:12
Speaker 1: negotiations while extracting the most value from that capitalist in return. Now,
37:20
Speaker 1: is that person predatory? Is that person unfair? And here's
37:25
Speaker 1: what happens in most good negotiations, right, everybody leaves that
37:29
Speaker 1: table slightly annoyed. That's a great negotiation. Everybody leaves the
37:34
Speaker 1: negotiating table slightly annoyed because nobody got everything they wanted.
37:40
Speaker 1: So in Africa and developing countries in Latin America and Asia,
37:45
Speaker 1: in India for sure, trying to go I missed someplace
37:51
Speaker 1: in the back country of Australia. I'm sure you'll tell me.
37:55
Speaker 1: If I'm a Caribbean I missed in and maybe East
38:04
Speaker 1: Eastern Europe. Small shop owners, all they do is haggle
38:11
Speaker 1: over prices. They negotiate, and they literally think about when
38:14
Speaker 1: you're someplace traveling and you're haggling over prices with some merchant,
38:18
Speaker 1: and it's sports for them. It's like they got the
38:20
Speaker 1: thing down to with science and they're trying to figure
38:25
Speaker 1: out what the price pain, promise, value proposition. Sweet spot
38:31
Speaker 1: is with the customer. When you go to Walmart or
38:35
Speaker 1: you go to Amazon or wherever it is you shop,
38:38
Speaker 1: the price is already predetermined. The market researchers have already
38:41
Speaker 1: figured out, here's a brush. It solves a problem with
38:44
Speaker 1: nappy hair or kinky here or whatever. Here's a brush
38:47
Speaker 1: or comb, whatever, a toothbrush, and here's what the market
38:51
Speaker 1: has already said, it's going to pay for that, So
38:53
Speaker 1: that the price is printed on the business. Fascinating printed
38:57
Speaker 1: on the product, or now you have a barcode, but
39:00
Speaker 1: it already knows that. Okay, the average person is willing
39:02
Speaker 1: to pay this because the promise the value is much
39:06
Speaker 1: more than the pain of the cost, and so the
39:09
Speaker 1: transaction happens. But in development countries it's an active negotiation.
39:12
Speaker 1: Now give you a funny little story. I'm doing a
39:15
Speaker 1: deal which I can't talk about at the moment, but
39:16
Speaker 1: one of the major investors in this deal is a
39:19
Speaker 1: very big for an institution, very sophisticated, like a huge,
39:22
Speaker 1: huge institution, and my partners were negotiating with them, and
39:26
Speaker 1: after I introduce them on the rates of return on
39:30
Speaker 1: this investment, and it got back to me that my
39:34
Speaker 1: new partners in this new business were just mortified. They
39:37
Speaker 1: thought they had offended the new investors and they really
39:41
Speaker 1: thought this deal was done, like this was going to
39:43
Speaker 1: fall apart. And we're talking about millions and millions and
39:45
Speaker 1: millions of dollars and more importantly a really important partner
39:48
Speaker 1: and friend of mine. And John, we know we don't
39:51
Speaker 1: want to find you. We didn't want to fend them,
39:52
Speaker 1: but we can't do what they're saying. And what they're
39:54
Speaker 1: saying is right around the edge of you know, lunacy
39:57
Speaker 1: whatever and says that. Al Now, I know these people,
40:01
Speaker 1: let me call right, But I was prepared, preparred. I
40:04
Speaker 1: was prepared for this all to fall apart. So I
40:08
Speaker 1: called what email? First, Hey, can I talk to you?
40:11
Speaker 1: Called my friend, got him on the phone, and I explained.
40:14
Speaker 1: I explained, I explained, I explained the situation very delicately, diplomatically.
40:21
Speaker 1: This is one or two times I remember where I'm
40:23
Speaker 1: glad I didn't pop off. I'm glad I listened before
40:25
Speaker 1: I decided to pop off, And now I'm glad I
40:27
Speaker 1: didn't get emotional about this because because I would have
40:30
Speaker 1: been wrong and I would have destroyed a great business.
40:32
Speaker 1: So the guy listened to me and he and he laughed.
40:35
Speaker 1: I said, why are you laughing? He said, John, we
40:37
Speaker 1: were just playing with him. I said, what do you mean.
40:39
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, just negotiation, like we're just we're just
40:41
Speaker 1: messing with him, like we're just trying to figure out
40:42
Speaker 1: what we can get. I mean, of course we're committed.
40:45
Speaker 1: We just you know, we're in. We just want to
40:47
Speaker 1: figure out how much we can get out of them
40:49
Speaker 1: to our advantage. I mean, it's just it's business and sport.
40:52
Speaker 1: These guys were just bored. This is what they do.
40:55
Speaker 1: Like I said, call on, you should be you should
40:57
Speaker 1: be ashamed of yourself. You petrified these folks. I went
40:59
Speaker 1: back and pats it up, gout of the way, and
41:01
Speaker 1: they finished negotiating their deal. And it wasn't personal, right,
41:06
Speaker 1: And these were rich people on both sides of this negotiation. Right.
41:12
Speaker 1: There's another time that I almost screwed a big business deal.
41:18
Speaker 1: I had asked the founder of Shopify. I can tell
41:23
Speaker 1: this story. I've said it publicly before. Toby Luki, great guy,
41:26
Speaker 1: second richest man I believe in Canada, Really great guy,
41:29
Speaker 1: good friend. I had asked him after George Floyd's murder.
41:34
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I had spoken for him for free doing
41:37
Speaker 1: town hall relationship capital. Sometimes what you get is less
41:41
Speaker 1: important than what you give. In fact, I've always felt
41:44
Speaker 1: that that giving is more important than getting in fact,
41:46
Speaker 1: whatever goes around comes around. If you give, you tend
41:49
Speaker 1: to get, and if you're just focusing on getting, you
41:51
Speaker 1: don't get anything except showing the door at some point,
41:54
Speaker 1: because you're transactional, if you're a taker. Okay. So at
41:58
Speaker 1: the end of this presentation by one of the wealthiest
42:01
Speaker 1: men in the world, I didn't he like he realized
42:04
Speaker 1: I did this for free. I just gave a town
42:05
Speaker 1: hall to his employees about what happened with George Floyd's murder.
42:09
Speaker 1: And he really appreciated that. This was me, of course,
42:11
Speaker 1: twenty twenty and he's like, what can I do to
42:13
Speaker 1: be helpful to you know, Black America. I'm like, well,
42:18
Speaker 1: I don't know how many create an a million new
42:21
Speaker 1: black businesses in America. And he's like, hmm, send me
42:25
Speaker 1: something on that. So I said, okay, So I hung
42:28
Speaker 1: up the phone and when typed up something. Never let
42:31
Speaker 1: he's a business truth, he's a golden rule. Never let
42:34
Speaker 1: the perfect be the death of the good. Don't let
42:37
Speaker 1: the perfect be the death of the good. I didn't
42:39
Speaker 1: wait three months, three weeks to write a proposal. Haven't
42:41
Speaker 1: written have it? No? I just knocked it out quickly
42:45
Speaker 1: and it was good. Enough and send it to him
42:48
Speaker 1: before you forgot about me and start focusing on something else.
42:51
Speaker 1: Don't let the perfectly death of the good. Don't enable gays,
42:54
Speaker 1: don't don't admire the problem forever. Right, get to it.
42:57
Speaker 1: Right is the end of the story. Can we please
42:59
Speaker 1: start there? So? Anyway, I sent this this proposal to him.
43:02
Speaker 1: Heard nothing. Days go by, a week goes by almost
43:05
Speaker 1: two weeks. So I sent him an email. Hey Toby,
43:08
Speaker 1: Dear Toby, I really appreciated the time I've enjoyed our
43:12
Speaker 1: time together in the town. I appreciate you asking how
43:14
Speaker 1: you do what you do to help. You probably got
43:16
Speaker 1: busy distracted running a global business. Thank you so much
43:19
Speaker 1: for even offering of being interested in trying to help
43:23
Speaker 1: Black America to come up from self self determination. I
43:25
Speaker 1: realized you to get back to me, and you probably
43:27
Speaker 1: just didn't know. You want to be uncomfortable, so you
43:30
Speaker 1: want to tell me no, don't worry about it. We'll
43:31
Speaker 1: do something down the road. But thanks for being considered
43:34
Speaker 1: and caring. Dear, signed John Bryant sent the note by email.
43:40
Speaker 1: He responds and says, John, what are you talking about?
43:42
Speaker 1: And I said yes, excuse me, yeah, I said yes.
43:45
Speaker 1: I said, we'd do it. Well, I went, it was
43:48
Speaker 1: in my spam folder. Always check your spam folder. His
43:53
Speaker 1: commitment two lines, you know, was in my spam fold
43:56
Speaker 1: That became Then I started working with his right arm
43:59
Speaker 1: to I call him Toby. I it is Toby. Why
44:03
Speaker 1: tob Y who now is on the board of Shopify,
44:06
Speaker 1: great guy, and Harley Finkelstein who's the president of SHOPIFAI
44:11
Speaker 1: and all these heroes. And she rolls at Shapafi who
44:14
Speaker 1: I now counts as friends and who are great great
44:20
Speaker 1: people helped me to to develop a and Kaz is
44:30
Speaker 1: also another guy. The great guy there Ordan has helped
44:32
Speaker 1: me developed one hundred and thirty million dollar business on
44:36
Speaker 1: that two line email from Toby and then then they
44:39
Speaker 1: came back and committed another sixty million dollars last December
44:42
Speaker 1: because it was going so well. We've created nurtured supporting
44:44
Speaker 1: advance through the one Million Black Business Initiative, four hundred
44:48
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand black businesses since George Floyd's murder, which
44:52
Speaker 1: there's only three point two million black businesses in Americas,
44:54
Speaker 1: who has about twelve percent of all black businesses, which
44:56
Speaker 1: is fantastic, And why they're doing this is they're doing
44:59
Speaker 1: it out of some charity or some goodwill or some
45:02
Speaker 1: crazy you know. No, they're doing it because it's good business.
45:06
Speaker 1: Right that they've got two three percent of black shops
45:10
Speaker 1: had black shops on the Shopify platform, and they want
45:13
Speaker 1: ten percent of black shops. They want to grow their platform,
45:15
Speaker 1: and they see this is a legitimate, profitable, emerging market
45:19
Speaker 1: and they can do well and do good at the
45:21
Speaker 1: same time. Good capitalism, that's exactly what we want it.
45:26
Speaker 1: We don't want charity, we don't want handouts, right, we
45:28
Speaker 1: want to hand ups. Right. So there's an example of
45:33
Speaker 1: I'm glad number two. I didn't pop off and get
45:35
Speaker 1: emotional and go, oh you're a racist, and oh you
45:38
Speaker 1: don't want to do anything in the first place, and
45:40
Speaker 1: I'm just wasting my time, And I mean I would
45:43
Speaker 1: have just tore my whole rear end. I'm glad I
45:46
Speaker 1: shut up and just was gracious. And remember how my
45:49
Speaker 1: mother raised me and said thank you to the man
45:51
Speaker 1: for being considerate. Now we're dear friends, by the way,
45:54
Speaker 1: and Harley's on my board, and Kaz and I work
45:57
Speaker 1: altogether our time, and me and Toby wirre good friends.
46:00
Speaker 1: And Toby and I raise cars together. We will be
46:04
Speaker 1: raising guards together. And one MBB is a great partnership
46:08
Speaker 1: with Shopify and Operation Hope, and we're helping a lot
46:10
Speaker 1: of people and doing well. I'm doing good, filling my mission,
46:13
Speaker 1: and they're getting a good feeling for what they're doing.
46:16
Speaker 1: But they're also getting the prospect of future customers because
46:18
Speaker 1: five or ten percent of all these Shopify candidates who
46:22
Speaker 1: get a free account become long term customers of Shopify.
46:25
Speaker 1: And wouldn't that isn't that a win win situation. The
46:28
Speaker 1: fact that investments We just gave twenty five thousand dollars
46:32
Speaker 1: one MBB scholarship packages which includes legal support, accounting support
46:38
Speaker 1: with professionals for a couple of hours, marketing support, technical support,
46:43
Speaker 1: Shopify account for free. So I think it's a dollar
46:47
Speaker 1: a month for six months basically for free if you
46:50
Speaker 1: get your first sale. Those financial second one by the way,
46:54
Speaker 1: assistance with setting up your free domain name, free website,
46:59
Speaker 1: payment system, delivery systems, a business plan, financial coaching from
47:04
Speaker 1: Operation Home. I'm just like a member at the moment.
47:07
Speaker 1: It's a complete package worth twenty five thousand dollars. A
47:10
Speaker 1: program grant we just signed for those we appointed. We
47:14
Speaker 1: allocated for of those two earn your leisure at their
47:19
Speaker 1: investments recently, and people went wild. And it was wonderful
47:23
Speaker 1: to be able to do that for folks who wanted
47:25
Speaker 1: just wanted a shot at self determination. But all that
47:27
Speaker 1: came from me making sure I read my spam folder
47:33
Speaker 1: back to to how to start a business step number eight.
47:37
Speaker 1: So we just covered operations in customer service step number eight,
47:41
Speaker 1: Growth and scaling. Right, So the lawn care business start
47:44
Speaker 1: with a lawnmower. Hello, I use lawnmower. I'll go buy
47:47
Speaker 1: a new one from who. If you can find a
47:50
Speaker 1: use lawnmowork go, you know, go on on these online
47:53
Speaker 1: marketplaces and find a used dependable lawnmower if you can
47:56
Speaker 1: go buy one if you want to for the home
47:58
Speaker 1: depot where for that's new to get a warranty on
48:03
Speaker 1: it if you do that. But if you start with
48:06
Speaker 1: the use lawnmore after six months, reinvest the reinvestor profits
48:10
Speaker 1: into a second more hire. You know, you can hire
48:14
Speaker 1: a teenager in the neighborhood. Within two years you have
48:18
Speaker 1: five on your crew. Right. See that's compounding, right, don't
48:22
Speaker 1: chase flash scale what works, reinvest profits, build and repeat
48:29
Speaker 1: rents and repeat, keep compounding. All right, So with real people,
48:37
Speaker 1: they all started small and they build big. Your idea
48:41
Speaker 1: doesn't need to be perfect, It just needs to be
48:43
Speaker 1: started one step at a time. Turns a dream into
48:48
Speaker 1: a business. Doctor Dorothy Hypt once told me, John, I
48:52
Speaker 1: like you because you're a dreamer with a shovel in
48:54
Speaker 1: your hands. Here's my challenge to you write down one
49:00
Speaker 1: business idea today and take one action this week. Just
49:04
Speaker 1: those two things. Whether it's registering the name, calling ten people,
49:09
Speaker 1: setting up a free website, or calling Operation Hope and
49:14
Speaker 1: signing up to one MBB and or a whole financial
49:17
Speaker 1: coaching and counseling or a smart business program. Just start somewhere. Okay,
49:24
Speaker 1: So I'm going to give you now a peek into
49:31
Speaker 1: ten businesses that you can start for under one thousand dollars. Again,
49:35
Speaker 1: I'm really trying to make this really practical for you
49:38
Speaker 1: and getting it at a level where you can pick
49:40
Speaker 1: it up no matter who you are, where you are,
49:42
Speaker 1: whether you have a full time, part time, and you
49:44
Speaker 1: have a job. By the way, don't go quit your job,
49:47
Speaker 1: start a business and being all this emotional stuff again,
49:51
Speaker 1: don't give up your own shoes. You get some new
49:53
Speaker 1: ones that make sure new make sure the new shoes fit.
49:55
Speaker 1: Let your nine to five. If you're lucky to have
49:58
Speaker 1: a great job, let your nine to five which has
49:59
Speaker 1: helped insurance and benefits and all that stuff that your
50:02
Speaker 1: nine to five job, financier, five to nine, dream rite
50:07
Speaker 1: then down. Okay, businesses you can start for unto thousand
50:14
Speaker 1: dollars examples. Here's some AI leverage future focused businesses content
50:21
Speaker 1: plus AI micro agency. Use chat GPT, which I'm the
50:26
Speaker 1: co chair of the AI Ethics Council with my buddy
50:29
Speaker 1: Sam Altman, who's the CEO of Chat GPT. I use
50:31
Speaker 1: chat GPT mostly I love it. Use chat GPT, Kenva
50:37
Speaker 1: and cap cut to help small businesses create social media posts, captions,
50:42
Speaker 1: and videos. Startup costs two hundred bucks, laptop software subscriptions.
50:50
Speaker 1: AI enhanced enhances productivity, but human creativity plus local relationships
50:56
Speaker 1: make this valuable. You're not going to be put out
50:59
Speaker 1: of business, by the way, by a You're going to
51:00
Speaker 1: be put out of business by somebody who can run AI,
51:04
Speaker 1: by a business, or out of your job. That's another
51:06
Speaker 1: podcast another day. I help do a whole series on AI.
51:10
Speaker 1: UH number two AI Resume and career coaching services help
51:15
Speaker 1: job seekers use AI tools to rewrite resumes, cover letters,
51:20
Speaker 1: and prep with mock interview bots. Startup costs basically free,
51:25
Speaker 1: just marketing and your time. AI is a tool, but
51:29
Speaker 1: people still want human guidance and encouragement. This is a
51:32
Speaker 1: really good business ledges that that one is like almost
51:35
Speaker 1: anybody can do that and everybody, and it's gonna be
51:37
Speaker 1: so needed. People know people, people are willing to accept AI.
51:42
Speaker 1: They really have no clue what it is. Right nine
51:45
Speaker 1: is my friend Van Jones would say nine percent of
51:48
Speaker 1: black folks don't know a thing about AI, but nine
51:51
Speaker 1: percent of white folks don't know a thing about AI either.
51:54
Speaker 1: As equal opportunity to discrimination, we're all a little bit lost.
51:58
Speaker 1: But the curious in the nosey and those who execute
52:02
Speaker 1: on that nosiness win. Number three e commerce microstore with
52:07
Speaker 1: AI marketing start a drop shipping drop shipping shop business
52:13
Speaker 1: or Etsy digital production a product store. Use AI to
52:17
Speaker 1: design product descriptions, logos, and ads. Startup costs by five
52:22
Speaker 1: hundred dollars for samples, website and marketing. Number four AI
52:29
Speaker 1: power tutoring, math, writing, eesl coding. Parents want tutors, but
52:38
Speaker 1: you can pair your teaching with AI practice worksheets and quizes.
52:42
Speaker 1: By the way, just if you're in the hood, go
52:44
Speaker 1: to the suburbs, right. Just find folks who go to
52:47
Speaker 1: places where there's a seven under credit score community, an
52:49
Speaker 1: upwardly mobile community. Not saying that doesn't exist where you live,
52:52
Speaker 1: by the way, I'm just saying this is the easy
52:54
Speaker 1: thing for you to do. Go some place where you
52:56
Speaker 1: have stable families, high credit scores, jobs, careers, but don't
53:00
Speaker 1: have a lot of time, but they want the excellence
53:02
Speaker 1: for their kids and become a tutor for their kids.
53:07
Speaker 1: Startup costs virtually zero zoom zoom marketing, et cetera. Do
53:12
Speaker 1: this virtually. That's also another great business. Number five. AI
53:16
Speaker 1: driven research and data assistance for local businesses. Example, help
53:21
Speaker 1: a local realtor or contractor pull neighborhood trends, pull neighborhood
53:26
Speaker 1: trends right, market reports and customer insights with AI tools.
53:31
Speaker 1: Startup costs three hundred bucks. Just marketing yourself basically AI
53:36
Speaker 1: resistant immune trades and services. Okay, these are things that
53:42
Speaker 1: you can do that AI won't put you out of
53:44
Speaker 1: business doing in three to five years. Mobile card detailing
53:48
Speaker 1: and car washing mentioned that earlier. AI cannot wash your
53:51
Speaker 1: car at least not yet. Robots aren't here yet, always
53:55
Speaker 1: in demand, hard to automate scale and it's scalable. Her
54:00
Speaker 1: costs as I said earlier, about five hours for supplies
54:03
Speaker 1: seven uh residential cleaning services. I love this business. AI
54:09
Speaker 1: can can schedule, but can't scrub toilets. It is immune automation. Okay,
54:16
Speaker 1: starter calls tune in bucks for supplies. My mother did
54:21
Speaker 1: this business, by the way, back in growing up a
54:23
Speaker 1: competing she she was a janitor right, she had a
54:28
Speaker 1: janitorial janitorial business, and then she was a she was
54:31
Speaker 1: a contract enitor for the school I grew up in.
54:33
Speaker 1: Was like, come on, mam, I see you at home.
54:35
Speaker 1: Why are you here? She like when she got laid
54:36
Speaker 1: off from Ecdonald Doullad's aircraft between contracts. She was a
54:40
Speaker 1: fabricator for seats and in airplanes seats I fly on today.
54:45
Speaker 1: By the way, when she got laid off because she
54:49
Speaker 1: was between contracts, she wouldn't go and get on welfare.
54:52
Speaker 1: She goes to my school and find out whatever job
54:54
Speaker 1: was available when she'd take it because she wanted to
54:55
Speaker 1: be near me. Drove me nuts, But my god, I'm
54:58
Speaker 1: so thankful. My mother loved me into excellence. She was
55:03
Speaker 1: a security guard, she was a janitor. She was like, Mom,
55:06
Speaker 1: you just you had a different uniform every week. She's like, yeah,
55:09
Speaker 1: but I'm still your mother. I'm gonna kick your butt.
55:11
Speaker 1: You mess up. Imagine, can't get out, can't get away
55:14
Speaker 1: from your mom. I just love my mother. Just tell
55:16
Speaker 1: me she loved me every day. Make sure you tell
55:18
Speaker 1: your kid they loved every day. Number eight lawng cair
55:24
Speaker 1: yard work service mowing heads, trimming, snow shoveling, depending on
55:29
Speaker 1: the region. Started. Costs about one thousand dollars with used equipment.
55:34
Speaker 1: Number nine. This was a great business. I know a
55:36
Speaker 1: good person who did like twenty seven thousand dollars a
55:39
Speaker 1: month on this business. Mobile notary service with remote work
55:43
Speaker 1: and legal paperwork still requiring signatures. Notaries are in demand.
55:49
Speaker 1: Startup costs. I just used notary two weeks ago. By
55:51
Speaker 1: the way, it started costs two hundred bucks. Three hundred
55:53
Speaker 1: dollars for certification and supplies. This is a great business.
55:56
Speaker 1: By the way, notaries. Number ten. Personal fitness and wellness coaches.
56:01
Speaker 1: My wife is a wellness expert. By the way, Shatra,
56:04
Speaker 1: this is a hybrid model. So AI can give exercise plans,
56:07
Speaker 1: but it can't motivate people like human coaches. I get
56:11
Speaker 1: a lot of knowledge from AI, but my wife is
56:14
Speaker 1: the absolute expert that I trust because I know she
56:18
Speaker 1: cares about me and she's able to communicate in the
56:20
Speaker 1: way that i'm that I can hear and listen. Again,
56:22
Speaker 1: once again, AI is not going to replace you. Somebody
56:25
Speaker 1: who's using AI and technology will add. AI can give
56:32
Speaker 1: AI generated custom plans as a bonus for clients startup
56:36
Speaker 1: costs which is certifications which are really optional and mostly marketing.
56:42
Speaker 1: So some of these ideas lean into the AI future.
56:45
Speaker 1: Some are immune to AI. Either way, you can start
56:48
Speaker 1: these with less than a thousand dollars and build something sustainable.
56:52
Speaker 1: The key isn't just choosing the idea, is taking the
56:54
Speaker 1: first step today. This is John O'Briant. This is money
56:59
Speaker 1: and wealth. This is Ben How do you build a business?
57:03
Speaker 1: Just start? PhDs are good, PhDs are better. This is
57:08
Speaker 1: a silvil rights movement, from civil rights to silvil rights,
57:13
Speaker 1: from the streets to the suites, from protesting to partnering.
57:19
Speaker 1: I'll see you the finish line. I'm so inspired by
57:23
Speaker 1: this time and your place in it. Let's go tell
57:28
Speaker 1: your friends about this podcast. Subscribe today John O'Brien I'm
57:31
Speaker 1: Out Money and Wealth with John O'Brien is a production
57:48
Speaker 1: of the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from
57:51
Speaker 1: the Black Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
57:56
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. The dep