Latest / Earn Your Leisure / EYL #105 Player’s Ball feat. Mychel ”Snoop” Dillard
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Coach, the energy out there felt different. What changed for
- 0:03Speaker 1: the team today?
- 0:03Speaker 2: It was the new game day scratches from the California
- 0:06Speaker 2: Lottery players. Everything.
- 0:07Speaker 3: Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.
- 0:09Speaker 1: Are you saying it was the off field play that
- 0:11Speaker 1: made the difference on the field.
- 0:13Speaker 4: Hey, little play makes your day, and today it made
- 0:15Speaker 4: the game.
- 0:16Speaker 1: That's all for now, coach, one more question play than
- 0:19Speaker 1: New Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco forty nine ers and
- 0:22Speaker 1: Los Angeles Rams scratchers from the California Lottery. A little
- 0:25Speaker 1: play can make your day. Peace made responsibily. Must be
- 0:28Speaker 1: eighteen years or older to purchase late or claim.
- 0:31Speaker 5: All right, guys, welcome back eyl Atlanta.
- 0:34Speaker 2: Secondician, second home. Man.
- 0:36Speaker 5: This is definitely a second home for us. Anytime that
- 0:39Speaker 5: we in the A is a blessing. So first and foremost,
- 0:41Speaker 5: shout out to the good city of Atlanta. We got
- 0:43Speaker 5: this is our second biggest market, but it feels like
- 0:45Speaker 5: home for us.
- 0:47Speaker 2: So you know, I saw somebody's that put us in
- 0:49Speaker 2: as an Atlanta based podcast.
- 0:51Speaker 5: Yeah, that was that was crazy. That was okay, Like, yo,
- 0:53Speaker 5: tag the Atlanta based podcast. Somebody was like earn your
- 0:55Speaker 5: lisha I'm like, I appreciate it, but so yeah, today
- 0:59Speaker 5: we got that. We got a definitely exciting episode. One
- 1:03Speaker 5: of Atlanta's legends, A legend in the town, A legend
- 1:08Speaker 5: in the town. Michelle Snoop Dillard. Her story is mind boggling.
- 1:14Speaker 5: I actually did some some reading on his very very
- 1:16Speaker 5: interesting story. And she's a serial entrepreneur. We're gonna talk
- 1:19Speaker 5: about all of her businesses that she owns. Got enough
- 1:21Speaker 5: time run it down right.
- 1:23Speaker 2: Now, there's so many, man, I mean, we're gonna get
- 1:26Speaker 2: into it, but this is so many. Like I said before,
- 1:28Speaker 2: if we had a meme like what a serial entrepreneur is, like,
- 1:33Speaker 2: this is the living embodyment of it. And the story
- 1:35Speaker 2: is just so crazy.
- 1:36Speaker 5: By way of Detroit, we gotta shout, yeah, that's a fact.
- 1:41Speaker 2: So in Tennessee plays a part. But we're gonna get
- 1:43Speaker 2: into all that because it's a long list. Ya.
- 1:45Speaker 5: So, restaurant, tour, nail salon owner. She's also a teacher.
- 1:53Speaker 5: She actually I just found out, used to be in
- 1:55Speaker 5: the financial services.
- 1:56Speaker 2: Industry financial advisor.
- 1:57Speaker 5: Financial advisor, so she has a bad background and investments, insurance,
- 2:02Speaker 5: retirement stuff like.
- 2:03Speaker 2: That, real estate license.
- 2:05Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure.
- 2:08Speaker 2: You had your own publications.
- 2:10Speaker 5: Yeah, for sure. And we're actually in her establishment right now.
- 2:13Speaker 5: Members Only is one of one of her establishments. She
- 2:16Speaker 5: has a couple others, Crave Restaurant, Escobar Atlanta, Escobar South Side,
- 2:21Speaker 5: uh Remedy Salon Suites, Nails Salon, and now we're members
- 2:26Speaker 5: only Crave, Crave shout out to Yeah, I said Crave.
- 2:30Speaker 5: And one of our business partners, to Change, might have
- 2:33Speaker 5: heard of him. True, you might have heard of him.
- 2:38Speaker 5: Shout out to Change. Shout out to Change. So, yeah,
- 2:39Speaker 5: this is gonna be interesting, you know, conversation. Any time
- 2:41Speaker 5: that we get a chance to talk to entrepreneurs, there's
- 2:43Speaker 5: always a blessing and people always get a lot of
- 2:45Speaker 5: value and information. So first and foremost, before we start,
- 2:48Speaker 5: thank you for joining us. Appreciate it.
- 2:50Speaker 3: Oh, thank you for having me.
- 2:51Speaker 6: It's always, you know, humbling to even be looked at
- 2:54Speaker 6: his interview.
- 2:57Speaker 3: I appreciate that.
- 2:58Speaker 5: No, So let's let's start at the beginning, because, like
- 3:00Speaker 5: I said, your story is interesting. It's like you just
- 3:04Speaker 5: wasn't born into being an entrepreneur. You had some adversity
- 3:07Speaker 5: and then you actually went to one of the best
- 3:09Speaker 5: colleges in America at a young age. And then you,
- 3:13Speaker 5: like I said, worked in the financial industry. So can
- 3:15Speaker 5: you talk about your story and like how did you
- 3:17Speaker 5: get into the the business world?
- 3:19Speaker 3: And you think we got enough time?
- 3:21Speaker 2: You know, we don't.
- 3:25Speaker 6: So just a little bit about me, as you guys said,
- 3:28Speaker 6: you know, I'm from Detroit, Michigan.
- 3:30Speaker 3: I grew up in Detroit.
- 3:32Speaker 6: I kind of came from I came from a family
- 3:35Speaker 6: of hustlers. My dad was a big trump, big time
- 3:39Speaker 6: drug dealer. My mom, her family, she kind of came
- 3:43Speaker 6: from a lot of adversity. Her mother and sister was
- 3:45Speaker 6: murdered when she was fourteen. So just grew up pretty quickly,
- 3:49Speaker 6: met my dad at a young age, had me and
- 3:51Speaker 6: my brothers, and of course being in the type of
- 3:56Speaker 6: environment you know, where your father is selling drugs, of course,
- 3:59Speaker 6: a lot of times someone the right it's made. And
- 4:01Speaker 6: so there was a situation where somebody had kind of
- 4:03Speaker 6: kicked our dory and shut up the whole house and
- 4:06Speaker 6: caused my mom to leave my dad, and so she
- 4:09Speaker 6: ended up just kind of like fleeing, wanting to flee
- 4:11Speaker 6: the whole city, you know, because she felt like it
- 4:13Speaker 6: was so many negative influences, you know, especially more so
- 4:17Speaker 6: for my two younger brothers, you know, and didn't want
- 4:19Speaker 6: to see them, you know, trying to get into the
- 4:21Speaker 6: game and things of that nature, and wanted to show
- 4:23Speaker 6: them that, you know, there were other means, you know,
- 4:26Speaker 6: to be able to make money, you know, other than
- 4:28Speaker 6: just the street life. So we moved to Nashville, Tennessee.
- 4:32Speaker 6: I already was kind of a couple of grades ahead.
- 4:35Speaker 6: So I started school when I was three, and so
- 4:38Speaker 6: when we moved to Nashville, they initially was trying to
- 4:42Speaker 6: you know, put me back into my original grade. And
- 4:44Speaker 6: so they were like, Okay, well we're gonna give her
- 4:46Speaker 6: this test, you know, to see if she can even
- 4:48Speaker 6: you know, be I think maybe I was going into
- 4:51Speaker 6: like the fifth grade or something like that. And so
- 4:53Speaker 6: when they tested me, actually tested for the seventh grade.
- 4:56Speaker 6: And so my mom was like, nah, just at least
- 4:59Speaker 6: let her be in a fit grade.
- 5:00Speaker 3: I don't put her in the third grade.
- 5:01Speaker 6: But you know, she's only you know such and said,
- 5:04Speaker 6: I think I was like eight at the time, you
- 5:06Speaker 6: know what I'm saying. So anyway, started school young, ended
- 5:11Speaker 6: up getting pregnant the first time I had sex when
- 5:14Speaker 6: I was in high school.
- 5:15Speaker 3: So I had my.
- 5:17Speaker 6: Daughter extremely young, got pregnant when I was fourteen, had
- 5:21Speaker 6: her when I was fifteen, had kind of just Kevin
- 5:25Speaker 6: as a secret you know from my whole family. Was
- 5:27Speaker 6: really just you know, a terrified kid. The family had
- 5:32Speaker 6: already been through so much, and it was just kind
- 5:34Speaker 6: of like one of them little lifetime things child where
- 5:37Speaker 6: you know, I'm holding the shit in not telling nobody.
- 5:40Speaker 6: So once my mom ended up finding out, she was
- 5:44Speaker 6: like so distraught about it. She tried to get me
- 5:46Speaker 6: to put my daughter up for adoptions, and my daughter
- 5:48Speaker 6: actually spent the first four years of her life in
- 5:50Speaker 6: foster care.
- 5:52Speaker 3: Shout out to my daughter. She actually works for my
- 5:54Speaker 3: company too.
- 5:55Speaker 6: She's goes to Georgia State Dean's List student. Uh, definitely
- 6:00Speaker 6: one of the parts of you know, my life that
- 6:03Speaker 6: I'm extremely proud of. You know, everything definitely happens for
- 6:06Speaker 6: a reason. But that was kind of like the start
- 6:09Speaker 6: to you know, the adversity you know, for me. But
- 6:13Speaker 6: even after that, you know, I ended up going to
- 6:15Speaker 6: Vanderbilt University at the age of sixteen. Shout out to
- 6:19Speaker 6: VU Commodoes.
- 6:21Speaker 2: We can't let that go. That's one of the best
- 6:23Speaker 2: business schools like in the country.
- 6:25Speaker 3: It is it is.
- 6:26Speaker 6: I actually mean I had a great experience at Vanderbilt.
- 6:28Speaker 6: I originally did not want to go, you know, just
- 6:32Speaker 6: just kind of growing up in Nashville.
- 6:34Speaker 3: I always wanted to get back to Detroit, which is.
- 6:36Speaker 6: Where the roots was, which is where the majority of
- 6:38Speaker 6: our family was. We were the only ones that were
- 6:40Speaker 6: in Nashville. You know, nobody else came there. They everybody
- 6:44Speaker 6: thought it was slow, as so did me and my brothers,
- 6:47Speaker 6: and so all three of us, you know, just always
- 6:50Speaker 6: as soon as we were able to, wanted to leave,
- 6:52Speaker 6: you know, Nashville, Tennessee. But you know, at the time,
- 6:55Speaker 6: you know, I had just you know, had gotten pregnant,
- 6:57Speaker 6: you know, my mom didn't know about it and all
- 6:59Speaker 6: of that stuff. So once that happened, it was just
- 7:02Speaker 6: like I can't trust you, girl, you ain't going you
- 7:05Speaker 6: ain't leaving this city. And then I got into Vanderbilt
- 7:08Speaker 6: and it was just kind of like how can you
- 7:10Speaker 6: turn it down? You know, And I had had some
- 7:11Speaker 6: scholarships and things of that nature, So ended up going
- 7:15Speaker 6: to Vanderbilt. Had a great experience, but my my experience
- 7:18Speaker 6: was a little bit different than how I am now.
- 7:21Speaker 6: And it's so funny because a lot of the people
- 7:23Speaker 6: that I went to college with.
- 7:24Speaker 3: You know, they're.
- 7:24Speaker 6: Always like, man, I'm like now, you know, They're like, oh, man,
- 7:28Speaker 6: I knew you was gonna be like super successful and.
- 7:30Speaker 3: Stuff like that, and I'm like, how to class? Like
- 7:34Speaker 3: how you pick that up? You know what I mean?
- 7:36Speaker 6: So cause I was literally, I literally like grew up
- 7:39Speaker 6: on the college campus. You know, you just imagine I
- 7:43Speaker 6: had never even as a high school student. I remember
- 7:47Speaker 6: hanging out with friends like maybe twice, you know what
- 7:49Speaker 6: I mean out of the whole four years of going
- 7:52Speaker 6: to school.
- 7:52Speaker 3: And you know, like I played basketball.
- 7:54Speaker 2: So I got you heard about that somes.
- 7:59Speaker 6: So I got some socialization there. But I wasn't like
- 8:02Speaker 6: your typical you know, definitely not like how I am now.
- 8:05Speaker 6: I'm a very social person, so you know, somebody would
- 8:07Speaker 6: expect like in high school, I was always hanging out
- 8:09Speaker 6: or had a bunch of friends, and I did right then,
- 8:11Speaker 6: but once I went home, you know, that was pretty
- 8:12Speaker 6: much it. I wasn't like the type that was going
- 8:14Speaker 6: to the movies, going to the mall, skating rings and
- 8:17Speaker 6: different things of that nature. So you know, you look
- 8:19Speaker 6: at somebody that kind of grew up like sheltered like that.
- 8:22Speaker 6: And then you know, I go to college, you know
- 8:24Speaker 6: that young living on the campus, and so.
- 8:28Speaker 3: I pretty much kind of wild it out, you know.
- 8:29Speaker 6: I started DJing, getting into throwing parties, messing with girls.
- 8:37Speaker 6: I mean, you name it, you name it. I was
- 8:41Speaker 6: doing it, you know what I'm saying. And so the
- 8:44Speaker 6: education part was honestly the back burner for me, and
- 8:47Speaker 6: I really, you know a lot of times I look
- 8:48Speaker 6: back on that now that I'm so thirsty for knowledge
- 8:51Speaker 6: because being an entrepreneur, you know, I have to teach
- 8:54Speaker 6: myself things.
- 8:55Speaker 3: You know, I have to get my own training, and.
- 8:58Speaker 6: You know, make sure I'm watching YouTube and different podcasts
- 9:01Speaker 6: and you know, going to seminars and different things of
- 9:03Speaker 6: that nature, because you know, I'm the boss and I
- 9:05Speaker 6: have a lot of people up under me.
- 9:06Speaker 3: So even if somebody think I'm doing something wrong, ain't.
- 9:08Speaker 6: Not gonna tell me, you know what I'm saying. So,
- 9:11Speaker 6: and I ain't gonna tell them if I don't quite
- 9:13Speaker 6: know what I'm doing, you know what I mean. So,
- 9:15Speaker 6: but I definitely, you know, do wish that I would
- 9:18Speaker 6: have taken advantage, especially going to a college as prestigious
- 9:21Speaker 6: as Vanderbilt. You know where there's so much to learn,
- 9:24Speaker 6: so many different courses and things of that nature. But
- 9:27Speaker 6: I guess it just kind of all worked out the
- 9:29Speaker 6: way that they did because I think that kind of
- 9:31Speaker 6: brought out like my alter ego, which is Snoop. So
- 9:33Speaker 6: it's like my shell versus Snoop.
- 9:36Speaker 3: So but anyways, I graduated from Vanderbilt at twenty.
- 9:40Speaker 2: And like that, I mean that's in president of Solf, right,
- 9:43Speaker 2: like you're saying to yourself, like just now, like I
- 9:45Speaker 2: really didn't play attention to the academics part, but like
- 9:48Speaker 2: you graduated with a degree.
- 9:50Speaker 6: And I mean, when I tell you I was bad man,
- 9:52Speaker 6: Like I my GPA was not the highest. I probably
- 9:54Speaker 6: graduated with like a two point seven gpa.
- 9:56Speaker 2: Like that's good enough to get just ski.
- 9:58Speaker 3: It up out of that thing. You know what I'm saying.
- 10:00Speaker 6: I went to summer school, had to go to summer
- 10:02Speaker 6: school every single summer, wanted to go to summer school
- 10:06Speaker 6: every single summer because I loved being on campus and
- 10:09Speaker 6: you know, doing what I wanted to do in.
- 10:10Speaker 3: Partying and all of that stuff.
- 10:12Speaker 6: There's not probably not one black student that went to
- 10:15Speaker 6: Vanderbilt doing those four years that I was there.
- 10:17Speaker 3: That don't know who I was.
- 10:20Speaker 6: But yeah, so after that, like I said, I was
- 10:23Speaker 6: twenty when I graduated. I wasn't even old enough to
- 10:25Speaker 6: have a drink. When I went to college, I didn't
- 10:26Speaker 6: even have my driver's license. My friends taught me how
- 10:29Speaker 6: to drive. I literally got my driver's license the week
- 10:33Speaker 6: after I graduated from from college. But and so after that,
- 10:39Speaker 6: and so then I also got my daughter as well.
- 10:41Speaker 6: So you know, it's like, now it was time to
- 10:44Speaker 6: be a mother and decide what I was gonna do,
- 10:47Speaker 6: and you.
- 10:47Speaker 3: Know, all of these different things.
- 10:48Speaker 6: And so immediately after that, my great grandmother she had
- 10:54Speaker 6: always you know, kind of talked about and you know,
- 10:57Speaker 6: her financial advisor.
- 10:59Speaker 3: You know, and she was always the one.
- 11:01Speaker 6: In the family who had, you know, the most money,
- 11:03Speaker 6: and you know, she was always talking about her assets
- 11:05Speaker 6: and kicking people out the wheel and who she was
- 11:08Speaker 6: going to lead this to and lead that to. And
- 11:10Speaker 6: so this financial advisor was somebody she kind of put
- 11:13Speaker 6: on the pedestal. And so I kind of said to myself,
- 11:15Speaker 6: but maybe that's something, you know that I.
- 11:17Speaker 3: Should get into.
- 11:17Speaker 6: You know, my degree was in economics, and so you know,
- 11:22Speaker 6: I was just like, Okay, let me check that out
- 11:25Speaker 6: and so, you know, to be a financial advisor, you
- 11:26Speaker 6: have to get your Series seven sixty six licenses and
- 11:31Speaker 6: your life and health insurance licenses. And so during the
- 11:34Speaker 6: time that I was studying for those licenses, I ended
- 11:38Speaker 6: up working at a very popular club in Nashville that
- 11:43Speaker 6: was owned by It was just like kind of one guy,
- 11:45Speaker 6: his name was Moe, who owned a lot of the
- 11:47Speaker 6: you know, lounges.
- 11:48Speaker 3: And clubs there.
- 11:49Speaker 6: And so I kind of said to myself, I said,
- 11:51Speaker 6: I said self, I said, you know, you should work
- 11:53Speaker 6: in this, you know, this club lounge environment, because you're
- 11:57Speaker 6: never going to be in an environment like this ever.
- 11:59Speaker 6: Again a little did I know that I would end
- 12:01Speaker 6: up owning you know, several of them myself, decades going
- 12:05Speaker 6: down the line or whatnot. But anyway, so I worked there,
- 12:09Speaker 6: and I just felt like I was always you know,
- 12:11Speaker 6: going to Vanderbilt. You know, you think that you're going
- 12:12Speaker 6: to be in this corporate, you know, lifestyle. Most of
- 12:15Speaker 6: my friends that I went to school with, everybody was going.
- 12:18Speaker 3: To graduate school except for me.
- 12:20Speaker 2: You know.
- 12:20Speaker 6: They they all had kind of come from two parent
- 12:23Speaker 6: households and their lives were planned out, you know what
- 12:26Speaker 6: I mean. They knew coming into their freshman year that
- 12:29Speaker 6: I'm going to law school after this. You know, I'm
- 12:31Speaker 6: going to doctor at school after this, or I'm going
- 12:33Speaker 6: to get my PhD. Or whatever the case may be.
- 12:36Speaker 6: So for me, you know, I had already had a child,
- 12:39Speaker 6: and you know that I didn't grow up like that,
- 12:42Speaker 6: So it was just like just for me, graduating from
- 12:44Speaker 6: Vanderbilt was kind of.
- 12:45Speaker 3: Enough, you know what I'm saying.
- 12:47Speaker 6: So anyways, ended up once I ended up working there,
- 12:52Speaker 6: once I got my licenses, I transitioned into this corporate
- 12:55Speaker 6: lifestyle and uh was basically, you know, had to dress up,
- 13:00Speaker 6: wear suit to work every day.
- 13:03Speaker 3: I'll never forget. I hate I HAE got my nose
- 13:05Speaker 3: pierced in college. And the guy was the white guy.
- 13:10Speaker 6: In the name of the company it was American Express
- 13:12Speaker 6: Financial Advisors.
- 13:13Speaker 3: So they were super uppity.
- 13:15Speaker 6: And so I remember the very first day, you know,
- 13:17Speaker 6: I walked in and you know, I'm thinking, I'm looking
- 13:19Speaker 6: good and I'm in my you know, I was, I
- 13:21Speaker 6: was dressed real feminine back then, you know.
- 13:23Speaker 3: So I'm in a little.
- 13:24Speaker 6: Nice little blazer skirt and stuff, and you know, he
- 13:27Speaker 6: walk in and you know, he's.
- 13:28Speaker 4: Like and immediately made me.
- 13:31Speaker 2: Take that thing out I don't.
- 13:37Speaker 6: And so so anyways, I did end up enjoying that
- 13:41Speaker 6: experience because it taught me a lot. It taught me
- 13:44Speaker 6: a lot about finances, It taught me a lot about
- 13:45Speaker 6: the stock market. It taught me the importance in saving
- 13:50Speaker 6: a lot of like the basic financial principles that I
- 13:53Speaker 6: used to this day. That that has helped me get
- 13:55Speaker 6: to where it is that I am. And I was
- 13:58Speaker 6: very successful in doing it, you know. So they that
- 14:00Speaker 6: was kind of a career that was more so independence.
- 14:03Speaker 6: You know, you really didn't necessarily have to clock, and
- 14:06Speaker 6: you did kind of have to come in at a
- 14:07Speaker 6: certain time, but you really kind of made your own
- 14:09Speaker 6: schedule and had your clients and different things of that nature.
- 14:11Speaker 3: And so I was becoming very successful at that.
- 14:15Speaker 6: But they ended up closing that particular office in Nashville,
- 14:20Speaker 6: and so when they did that, we had the opportunity
- 14:23Speaker 6: to either stay to either stay with the company moved
- 14:26Speaker 6: somewhere else, or to open up your own, you know, office.
- 14:29Speaker 6: And so at the time I was also working on
- 14:32Speaker 6: getting I had started invested in real estate, and so
- 14:36Speaker 6: there was a guy, a black guy that I'm really
- 14:39Speaker 6: close with to this day. He was probably about I mean,
- 14:43Speaker 6: if I was twenty one at the time, he was
- 14:46Speaker 6: probably maybe thirty four or something like that. But anyway,
- 14:50Speaker 6: he was very real known. He had bought up a
- 14:52Speaker 6: lot of property in Nashville and things of that nature.
- 14:55Speaker 6: And so somebody had put me in touch with him,
- 14:56Speaker 6: and they was like, you know, you should go work
- 14:58Speaker 6: with him, you know, in his office. You know, he'll
- 15:00Speaker 6: really help mentor you and things of that nature. Shout
- 15:04Speaker 6: out to Lee Mallette, and so I ended up going
- 15:06Speaker 6: and working with him. His wife was a dentist. She
- 15:09Speaker 6: had a dentist practice right below us. And so he
- 15:12Speaker 6: ended up encouraging me to get my real estate license,
- 15:16Speaker 6: and then he actually let me, him and his wife
- 15:18Speaker 6: let me sell their like two million dollar home, you know.
- 15:23Speaker 2: And so anyway that that's your first deal.
- 15:26Speaker 6: That was my very first deal, and so that gave
- 15:28Speaker 6: me a nice chunk of money. I ended up, you know,
- 15:31Speaker 6: furthering myself into that. And then so I was doing
- 15:34Speaker 6: a financial advice and I was doing a real estate.
- 15:36Speaker 6: This is around two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine,
- 15:38Speaker 6: where you know, you got this stock market crash where
- 15:40Speaker 6: those are like kind of two of the worst industries
- 15:42Speaker 6: to be in at that time. And then also at
- 15:46Speaker 6: that time in my personal life, I had kind of
- 15:49Speaker 6: got like my first girlfriend that I really actually cared about,
- 15:52Speaker 6: and she had a very very wild side to her.
- 15:55Speaker 6: Shout out to the Scorpios, but she had a very
- 16:00Speaker 6: wow side to her.
- 16:01Speaker 3: And it it kind of brought out a lot.
- 16:03Speaker 6: Of that college you know, that college snoop if you
- 16:07Speaker 6: and Yo and so her and I. At the time,
- 16:10Speaker 6: you know, so I was making money, I was doing well,
- 16:13Speaker 6: and so I said to myself, you know, I need to,
- 16:16Speaker 6: like the three people that I spend the most time with,
- 16:19Speaker 6: I should be making money with them. And so, of
- 16:21Speaker 6: course the main one was her. She was modeling and
- 16:24Speaker 6: different things of that nature. And so I said, you know,
- 16:26Speaker 6: I was like, you know, we should do a calendar together.
- 16:29Speaker 6: You know, we should get twelve of the hottest women
- 16:33Speaker 6: in Nashville.
- 16:34Speaker 3: And let me tell you, that was hard to find.
- 16:38Speaker 4: I'm like, to Nashville.
- 16:40Speaker 2: We got some people in Nashville. Yeah, yeah, shout our
- 16:43Speaker 2: voice and the Huskies.
- 16:45Speaker 6: Oh yeah, yeah, Clinton, Yeah, Clinton, those are That's that's
- 16:49Speaker 6: our feeling. But yeah, so I was like, you know,
- 16:53Speaker 6: we should do this calendar and so we did. I'm
- 16:56Speaker 6: the type of person that like, if I can dream it,
- 16:59Speaker 6: I can make it come true, you know what I'm saying.
- 17:01Speaker 3: And so we did this calendar.
- 17:04Speaker 6: We called it, uh we named the Wet Dimes and
- 17:06Speaker 6: the Key, and so the models were called the Wet Dimes.
- 17:08Speaker 6: And so first I formed a model management company and
- 17:11Speaker 6: I had all of the girls that were in the
- 17:13Speaker 6: calendar signed to my management company.
- 17:16Speaker 3: And then so we did this calendar.
- 17:17Speaker 6: We produced it, and you know, I think we our
- 17:19Speaker 6: first batch was maybe like five thousand calendars, and so
- 17:23Speaker 6: the calendar came out nice and everything, and so then
- 17:25Speaker 6: it was like, okay, well.
- 17:25Speaker 4: How much would you say? How much it was on
- 17:27Speaker 4: the calendar? Forty dollars?
- 17:28Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 17:29Speaker 6: And then now we also did it behind the scenes DVDs.
- 17:32Speaker 6: So we got really wild while we were calendar. Always
- 17:36Speaker 6: a lot of alcohol around and a few other things,
- 17:39Speaker 6: and so we filmed everything that was happening, and so
- 17:42Speaker 6: we also had the DVD. I think the DVD was
- 17:44Speaker 6: twenty five and so then it was just like, okay, well,
- 17:47Speaker 6: how do we get this off the ground. You know,
- 17:49Speaker 6: we gotta now, we gotta sell them, you know what
- 17:51Speaker 6: I mean. I invested all this money into this calendar.
- 17:53Speaker 2: How much was the investment into the calendar?
- 17:55Speaker 6: And so I would say I probably spent about seven
- 17:58Speaker 6: thousand dollars into this project. Now, mind you, I was
- 18:01Speaker 6: still a financial advisor in real estate, but at this time, child,
- 18:04Speaker 6: I'm no longer interested.
- 18:05Speaker 2: In This is now snoo This is full blown stoop.
- 18:07Speaker 6: Now this is full of blown snoop. This is two
- 18:09Speaker 6: thousand and eight, two thousand and nine. Ain't nobody trying
- 18:11Speaker 6: to invest with me? People are losing their houses like that. Also,
- 18:15Speaker 6: at the time, I had also owned six investment properties
- 18:18Speaker 6: that's probably about twenty three, you know, and I own
- 18:21Speaker 6: the house that I was living as a really nice
- 18:22Speaker 6: house on the golf course. So I had definitely, you know,
- 18:26Speaker 6: made a small success for myself that I would end
- 18:28Speaker 6: up losing everything.
- 18:29Speaker 3: Very shortly thereafter.
- 18:31Speaker 6: So we did this calendar, and so then it was like, okay,
- 18:35Speaker 6: now we have to push it. So then I decided, okay,
- 18:37Speaker 6: well what we'll do is I'll start We'll start promoting
- 18:41Speaker 6: nights at different venues and I'll have the wet Nimes hosts,
- 18:44Speaker 6: the girls always bring everybody to the party, and then
- 18:48Speaker 6: I'll have them in there selling the calendars, and so
- 18:50Speaker 6: that's what we did, and that was how I became
- 18:52Speaker 6: a promoter and started to get into the hospitality industry
- 18:56Speaker 6: and see the behind the scenes of the hospitality industry.
- 18:58Speaker 6: And so I'm always the type of person like I
- 19:01Speaker 6: want to be at the top, you know what I mean.
- 19:03Speaker 6: So it was like, Okay, I'm the promoter, but you know,
- 19:06Speaker 6: I'm always having these conversations with the lounge owner or
- 19:09Speaker 6: the club owner, and so that kind of made me
- 19:12Speaker 6: want to know what it was like, you know, to
- 19:14Speaker 6: be an owner. And so I ended up shortly thereafter
- 19:18Speaker 6: opening up my first spot in Nashville at the age
- 19:21Speaker 6: of twenty four.
- 19:22Speaker 3: It was called the G Spot. I actually have it
- 19:24Speaker 3: tattooed on my neck.
- 19:27Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 19:28Speaker 6: That was how I lost all of my money because
- 19:31Speaker 6: number one, you know, the club, we just we didn't
- 19:34Speaker 6: do it right. I didn't know anything about doing venues
- 19:38Speaker 6: at the time. The people that I was working with
- 19:40Speaker 6: for kind of crooks, apparently they didn't know anything yet.
- 19:42Speaker 5: So like when you say you didn't do it right,
- 19:43Speaker 5: because we haven't really covered the night life yet, like
- 19:46Speaker 5: we interviewed, shout out to Kenny Burns.
- 19:47Speaker 4: That's our.
- 19:49Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, but as far as we have an
- 19:51Speaker 5: interviewed a club owner, Yeah, I don't think.
- 19:54Speaker 6: I didn't have like the right licenses a license. Yeah,
- 19:57Speaker 6: we pretty much. I just opened up the door.
- 19:59Speaker 4: On some ghetto like we're open.
- 20:01Speaker 2: Initially that was like the dream, right, It was like, yo,
- 20:04Speaker 2: I want to get into this life. Yes, right, So
- 20:07Speaker 2: like now the wet dimes that the club thing. Did
- 20:10Speaker 2: that become a tour or like because I was trying
- 20:12Speaker 2: that out?
- 20:13Speaker 3: We did? We did.
- 20:13Speaker 6: We went to various cities and went to Birmingham, we
- 20:16Speaker 6: came here to Atlanta, so we also went to other places.
- 20:19Speaker 3: And what we would do is put up to.
- 20:20Speaker 6: The strip clubs like in the parking lots and stuff
- 20:23Speaker 6: like that and get the calendars off. And I would
- 20:25Speaker 6: always take my girlfriend and maybe a couple of other models.
- 20:28Speaker 6: I used to these models come to my house three
- 20:30Speaker 6: days a week. They had to work out. Some of
- 20:32Speaker 6: them lived with us.
- 20:34Speaker 3: I mean those was the days. Yeah.
- 20:41Speaker 6: So anyways, ended up doing my first spot with some
- 20:45Speaker 6: people that just you know, were not good business people.
- 20:48Speaker 6: I didn't have good business practices. At the same time,
- 20:51Speaker 6: myself wasn't as familiar with you know, the licenses and
- 20:54Speaker 6: the requirements and things of that nature that were required
- 20:58Speaker 6: to be legally open.
- 20:59Speaker 3: And Asheville at the.
- 21:00Speaker 6: Time was not a city either that promoted black businesses,
- 21:05Speaker 6: especially not the way that Atlanta does. So I ended
- 21:08Speaker 6: up losing my entire investment and that spot was shut
- 21:11Speaker 6: down within about two months.
- 21:13Speaker 2: About how much money we lost.
- 21:14Speaker 3: I lost forty thousand dollars also at the same time.
- 21:19Speaker 6: So remember I was telling you I had all these
- 21:20Speaker 6: little rental properties and stuff. Well, a lot of the
- 21:22Speaker 6: people that were in those rental properties they couldn't pay
- 21:25Speaker 6: their rent and things of that nature. So I had
- 21:27Speaker 6: like one last property and I ended up turning that
- 21:30Speaker 6: into a spot called the Kitty Cabin.
- 21:32Speaker 3: I don't know if y'all read about that.
- 21:34Speaker 2: I did not.
- 21:34Speaker 3: I did not, But I actually did that with my homegirl.
- 21:38Speaker 6: She don't mind if I talk about it, but her
- 21:40Speaker 6: name is Brooklyn Tanker. She was on that reality show,
- 21:42Speaker 6: her whole family, the Tankards.
- 21:45Speaker 3: On one VH one. But we did that together, and.
- 21:49Speaker 6: That was a spot where we would have like girls
- 21:50Speaker 6: dance and kind of do a few other things. And
- 21:53Speaker 6: so that's why I got shut down. The time door
- 21:59Speaker 6: was kicked in, and so it was a lot man
- 22:03Speaker 6: it was a lot that I went through. And so
- 22:05Speaker 6: after that, you know, both of my sources of income
- 22:07Speaker 6: was shut down. Of course, the lady I was dealing
- 22:11Speaker 6: with was gone by the enshall. I'm dried up, I
- 22:13Speaker 6: ain't got no money, that isn't going right.
- 22:17Speaker 3: And so exactly.
- 22:19Speaker 6: And so at that point it was kind of like,
- 22:21Speaker 6: you know, what am I going to do? And so,
- 22:22Speaker 6: you know, to be honest with you, I kind of
- 22:24Speaker 6: went back to something that I knew they kind of
- 22:26Speaker 6: helped me get through different times, which was, you know,
- 22:29Speaker 6: being in the streets myself selling drugs things of that nature.
- 22:33Speaker 6: And once I had kind of hustled up on a
- 22:35Speaker 6: little bit of money, I had met some guys that
- 22:39Speaker 6: had an idea, had kind of put me on an idea,
- 22:41Speaker 6: which was these mugshot newspapers that were very popular at
- 22:45Speaker 6: the time. So I don't know if you guys had
- 22:47Speaker 6: seen them, but they were those newspapers that used to
- 22:49Speaker 6: sit on the counter and the gas stations. They'd be
- 22:51Speaker 6: right up there, and they came out weekly and they
- 22:54Speaker 6: had mudshots of people that had been arrested, and they
- 22:57Speaker 6: were like, you know, we should do something like this.
- 23:00Speaker 2: And so my story is so long, this is, this
- 23:03Speaker 2: is this is the face it.
- 23:06Speaker 6: So came up with face It with a guy that
- 23:08Speaker 6: I was associates with at the time.
- 23:10Speaker 3: He was from Detroit.
- 23:11Speaker 6: And when I tell you, a lot of people from
- 23:13Speaker 6: Detroit are crooks, and I.
- 23:15Speaker 3: Can say that because I.
- 23:16Speaker 6: Am from Detroit, and you know, a lot of them
- 23:19Speaker 6: are just super slick. And so anyway, this guy we
- 23:23Speaker 6: had got this little paper off the ground, didn't take
- 23:25Speaker 6: us no time to get it going, and I mean
- 23:27Speaker 6: he was so excited. He had never had his own
- 23:29Speaker 6: business before. And when I tell you, the MF just
- 23:33Speaker 6: started stealing out the gate.
- 23:35Speaker 3: I mean like it was just like, could not trust him.
- 23:37Speaker 6: Because what we did was we would have somebody put
- 23:40Speaker 6: the publication together, it would come out, and then you
- 23:42Speaker 6: have to go to the stores and collect your money.
- 23:45Speaker 6: So of course, like if I'm not right there with him,
- 23:47Speaker 6: you know, he doesn't necessarily have to be honest. Then
- 23:49Speaker 6: he started changing the banking password and information and stuff
- 23:52Speaker 6: like that, and so almost immediately I was just like,
- 23:55Speaker 6: you know what.
- 23:56Speaker 3: You can have this.
- 23:57Speaker 6: You know, I'm not no amount of money is you
- 24:00Speaker 6: know my piece? I'm not about to be fighting with
- 24:02Speaker 6: you daily. You know, at first I kind of came
- 24:04Speaker 6: to him with tears in my eyes, like, you know,
- 24:06Speaker 6: like dude, please don't do this, Like this can be
- 24:07Speaker 6: a big business together, you know, like I have a
- 24:09Speaker 6: daughter to feed. You know, I was only when they
- 24:11Speaker 6: had kids at the time. I'm like, I got a
- 24:13Speaker 6: daughter to feed. Like, you know, I'm really putting in
- 24:16Speaker 6: a lot.
- 24:16Speaker 2: Are you the business business mind behind these ventures? Because
- 24:19Speaker 2: I'm thinking like this right, so, like you're the one
- 24:21Speaker 2: creating the LLC everything. So even a publication, that's something
- 24:24Speaker 2: that we've never spoke about before. How what's the process
- 24:27Speaker 2: of even doing that? Like what's the startup course to
- 24:29Speaker 2: even do it?
- 24:30Speaker 3: It's not a really big startup costs.
- 24:32Speaker 6: You know, the main thing that you're going to pay
- 24:34Speaker 6: for outside of setting up the business, it's going to
- 24:37Speaker 6: be actually having a publication printed. So that's you know,
- 24:41Speaker 6: really your main costs. You know, I would say we
- 24:45Speaker 6: probably got that in mind. You I pay for all
- 24:47Speaker 6: of it because I was the one in the money
- 24:48Speaker 6: with the money. I was in the streets, you know
- 24:50Speaker 6: what I'm saying. So I think we probably get that
- 24:53Speaker 6: going with maybe just like five thousand dollars. So I left,
- 24:57Speaker 6: I totally I let him have it. I left left it,
- 25:00Speaker 6: let him have faced It. I started researching, Okay, where's
- 25:04Speaker 6: another city I can put me money in, and so
- 25:06Speaker 6: then I went to Knoxville and I started caught up
- 25:09Speaker 6: in Knoxville, and that ended up being very successful. Then
- 25:13Speaker 6: I went to Western Kentucky. I done another edition there.
- 25:17Speaker 6: I went to South Florida.
- 25:18Speaker 3: I done it.
- 25:19Speaker 6: Not South Florida, North Florida. I'm sorry, Tallahassee, Saint Petersburg.
- 25:23Speaker 2: Caught up different from from face It.
- 25:25Speaker 6: Yeah, it's the same idea, but it's a different publication
- 25:29Speaker 6: because remember I let old boy.
- 25:30Speaker 2: You can have it, Okay, gotcha?
- 25:32Speaker 3: So I had an audition.
- 25:35Speaker 6: So I ended up having five different editions, and then
- 25:38Speaker 6: ended up moving here to Atlanta, Georgia, and doing it
- 25:41Speaker 6: here in Atlanta as well, changing.
- 25:43Speaker 3: And so and so.
- 25:45Speaker 6: Anyways, it was doing okay, but it just it never
- 25:48Speaker 6: made me a lot of money.
- 25:49Speaker 3: You know. I never made more.
- 25:50Speaker 6: Than like sixty thousand dollars a year, you know, doing
- 25:53Speaker 6: this paper. But I also really didn't have to do much,
- 25:55Speaker 6: you know, I maybe worked two or three days, you know,
- 25:58Speaker 6: out of the week. And so how I ended up
- 26:01Speaker 6: getting out of that is there was a white guy
- 26:04Speaker 6: that was up under me that I had. It's kind
- 26:06Speaker 6: of the face of the company, you know, because you
- 26:08Speaker 6: got these funky jewelry towns and stuff. You know what
- 26:10Speaker 6: I'm saying. That there's gonna be some stores that he
- 26:13Speaker 6: can get in that they won't let me.
- 26:14Speaker 4: And you know what I'm saying.
- 26:15Speaker 6: So he basically ended up turning on me. You know,
- 26:18Speaker 6: he wanted to do a paper hisself. You know, I
- 26:21Speaker 6: never knew it, but there was something he had wanted
- 26:23Speaker 6: me to.
- 26:23Speaker 3: Change the name of mine too.
- 26:25Speaker 6: I guess he thought that it would make it more commercial,
- 26:29Speaker 6: you know. And so long story short, there was one week.
- 26:32Speaker 6: It was after I moved here, and there was just
- 26:34Speaker 6: one week where like all of my employees quit on me.
- 26:37Speaker 3: And one week, you know.
- 26:38Speaker 6: So it was like Monday, the graphic designer Tuesday, a
- 26:42Speaker 6: couple of the managers Wednesday, the people that lay the
- 26:46Speaker 6: paper out Thursday, the people that delivered the paper and
- 26:49Speaker 6: didn come Friday.
- 26:50Speaker 3: You know, this manager he quits.
- 26:52Speaker 2: So you leave Tennessee to come to Atlanta. Within the week,
- 26:56Speaker 2: everybody in Tennessee has left you.
- 26:58Speaker 6: Now within a week, I would say this was probably,
- 27:00Speaker 6: I believe within like the first.
- 27:01Speaker 3: Six months of me being here.
- 27:04Speaker 6: So then I go there that following week to see
- 27:07Speaker 6: what's going on. You know, of course I have no
- 27:09Speaker 6: staff at this point, so I have to go and
- 27:11Speaker 6: do everything myself and also see like, wow, all these
- 27:13Speaker 6: people in Clinton, what's going on. I going to the
- 27:16Speaker 6: first store, and of course I see a mine ain't
- 27:19Speaker 6: even on the shelf. No more, they done took mine
- 27:21Speaker 6: off the shelf. I don't know what he didn tell now,
- 27:23Speaker 6: but it's another new paper with this same name that
- 27:26Speaker 6: he wanted me to name mine. And of course he
- 27:28Speaker 6: had my list of stores when I was paying him
- 27:31Speaker 6: to carry the paper, so he was able to come
- 27:33Speaker 6: in and undercut me. And so I ended up just
- 27:35Speaker 6: letting them have it because there was just no way
- 27:37Speaker 6: I could beat him in that city, you know what
- 27:39Speaker 6: I mean.
- 27:40Speaker 3: I wasn't about to move there. I didn't.
- 27:41Speaker 6: I was starting to grow to really become in love
- 27:44Speaker 6: with the city of Atlanta and wanting to kind of
- 27:47Speaker 6: get into some different things here and so, and especially
- 27:51Speaker 6: like I said, I wasn't even making more than like
- 27:53Speaker 6: fifty five or sixty thousand dollars a year.
- 27:56Speaker 3: So I ended up letting him have it.
- 27:57Speaker 6: And after that I ended up starting my party bus
- 28:01Speaker 6: company with the girl that I was dating at the time.
- 28:04Speaker 3: We started a party bus company together.
- 28:07Speaker 6: It was super successful, but I hated it, just like
- 28:10Speaker 6: I hated I didn't like that paper because I was
- 28:13Speaker 6: somebody who had been arrested in different things of that
- 28:16Speaker 6: nature myself. So I never even like felt comfortable telling
- 28:18Speaker 6: people what I did for a living, because you know,
- 28:21Speaker 6: it's just like I could be in this ship myself.
- 28:23Speaker 2: You could on the cover of the papers. I'm listening
- 28:28Speaker 2: to the story, right, and even when I was reading
- 28:30Speaker 2: the story, I'm like, you face betrayal once, right and
- 28:34Speaker 2: still recovered, came back. You faced it again and still
- 28:38Speaker 2: came back. Like what what was it that inside of you?
- 28:41Speaker 2: That was just like, you know what, I gotta keep
- 28:42Speaker 2: going because like I can imagine that too.
- 28:44Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying, what you're gonna do, lay
- 28:46Speaker 6: down and die, you know what I mean? Like you
- 28:47Speaker 6: know cause if you quit, then you know you know
- 28:50Speaker 6: where you're gonna end that, you know what I mean.
- 28:52Speaker 6: So it's just like you have no choice but to
- 28:54Speaker 6: keep going. And I had always been inspired by just
- 28:58Speaker 6: different people successful stories. There used to be a show
- 29:01Speaker 6: back in the day call behind the music that I.
- 29:04Speaker 2: Just it's okay, yeah, we know that.
- 29:09Speaker 6: And so all of these super successful people that you know,
- 29:13Speaker 6: everybody is inspired by, they have a story. Everybody that
- 29:17Speaker 6: is successful has been through these things.
- 29:19Speaker 3: You know.
- 29:20Speaker 6: Nobody just has this perfect story, you know, unless you
- 29:23Speaker 6: know you are genetically and blessed. Genetically blessed. And what
- 29:27Speaker 6: I mean by that is, you know, you're born into
- 29:30Speaker 6: being Michael Jackson's kids, or born into being Beyonce's kids
- 29:34Speaker 6: or something like that. But you know the rest of
- 29:35Speaker 6: us have had to really work to get where we are.
- 29:37Speaker 6: And you know, you're gonna go through some things, you
- 29:40Speaker 6: know what I'm saying, And I feel like the more
- 29:42Speaker 6: that you go through it prepares you for the level
- 29:45Speaker 6: of success. You know that God is going to allow
- 29:47Speaker 6: you to make it too. And I've been through even
- 29:50Speaker 6: more things than those, you know, even as being successful.
- 29:53Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
- 29:53Speaker 6: I've had people that work for me to try to
- 29:56Speaker 6: get my trade secrets, you know what I'm saying, And
- 29:59Speaker 6: know that you know, they're just gonna try to open
- 30:00Speaker 6: up their own restaurants, stealing reservations lists and menus, different
- 30:04Speaker 6: things of that nature.
- 30:05Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
- 30:06Speaker 6: So those things continue to happen now now as often,
- 30:09Speaker 6: you know, because I truly have like a great team
- 30:12Speaker 6: around me now, you know what I'm saying.
- 30:13Speaker 3: But that type of stuff is just a part of
- 30:16Speaker 3: the game.
- 30:16Speaker 6: You know. In my younger years, it didn't feel well
- 30:20Speaker 6: and I took some hits, and you know, I was
- 30:23Speaker 6: discouraged and probably kind of went through some lightweight depressions
- 30:26Speaker 6: and stuff like that, because after that newspaper thing, I
- 30:28Speaker 6: really did not know what I was gonna do. I
- 30:30Speaker 6: was in that same girlfriend's boutique. My daughter was outside
- 30:34Speaker 6: selling bottled waters. I was inside selling five dollars smoothies.
- 30:37Speaker 6: And now I have a restaurant on that same street
- 30:40Speaker 6: right down the street, you know what I'm saying. It
- 30:41Speaker 6: just really didn't know I had made some T shirts
- 30:44Speaker 6: and selling those, you know what I mean. It just
- 30:46Speaker 6: really did not know what I was going to do next.
- 30:49Speaker 6: And you know, the Nika time I had a house,
- 30:51Speaker 6: I was flipping that seld and we ended up buying
- 30:54Speaker 6: a party bus, and that that was the first business
- 30:57Speaker 6: that I ever owned that made that grow over six figures,
- 31:01Speaker 6: you know what I mean, party bus, And so it
- 31:04Speaker 6: was called party bus kings based here in Atlanta. A
- 31:08Speaker 6: lot of people kind of met me from that first
- 31:10Speaker 6: original business. But I always wanted to get back into
- 31:14Speaker 6: you know, promoting or owning my own you.
- 31:16Speaker 3: Know, lounge or something like that.
- 31:17Speaker 6: So with that party bus company, I just started saving
- 31:20Speaker 6: as much money as I possibly could.
- 31:22Speaker 3: I went one whole year and I never.
- 31:24Speaker 6: Bought a new nothing, a new shirt, a new pair
- 31:27Speaker 6: of pants, a new pair of shoes.
- 31:29Speaker 3: I mean, I felt totally poor.
- 31:31Speaker 4: You know how much did you say?
- 31:33Speaker 3: I had a whole different Virginia.
- 31:34Speaker 6: Probably that first year, I probably saved about forty thousand dollars,
- 31:38Speaker 6: and so I had that. I stayed glueding to that
- 31:41Speaker 6: party bus business for about two years. I used to
- 31:43Speaker 6: drive the buses myself on the weekiands gave up a
- 31:46Speaker 6: lot of weekends to do that got to the point
- 31:49Speaker 6: I hated drunk people. But after that, you know, I
- 31:54Speaker 6: was blessed enough to I had moved to right around
- 31:57Speaker 6: the corner from here Arborn Avenue and Jesse Hill, and
- 32:00Speaker 6: there was a little spot that was available that I
- 32:03Speaker 6: eventually leased, and I turned that into the Hookah Hideaway.
- 32:06Speaker 6: So that was my first project here, and it was
- 32:09Speaker 6: a cornerstone of Atlanta.
- 32:12Speaker 3: It was one of really one of the.
- 32:13Speaker 6: First real after hours you know here in the city
- 32:16Speaker 6: of Atlanta. And so I did Huka Hidaway. And while
- 32:21Speaker 6: I did Huka Hideaway, I got a lot of success there,
- 32:24Speaker 6: and I decided I wanted to do another location. I
- 32:26Speaker 6: ended up doing Posh Ultra Lounge and making experienced a
- 32:30Speaker 6: similar situation of backstabbers and things you knows nature uh
- 32:34Speaker 6: huh again. But at the same time, I also was
- 32:39Speaker 6: looking for a spot here in Atlanta. So I was
- 32:41Speaker 6: looking for a location here in Atlanta. And when I
- 32:45Speaker 6: first moved here, I was enamored by the street, Peter Street,
- 32:49Speaker 6: because it was right there in Casterlebury Hill, and coming
- 32:52Speaker 6: from Nashville, I really wasn't used to seeing like a
- 32:54Speaker 6: lot of black owned restaurants and bars right next to
- 32:56Speaker 6: each other. So this was a street of black owned
- 32:59Speaker 6: restaurants and bars and that had good walk up traffic
- 33:02Speaker 6: and things of that nature, and so I really wanted
- 33:05Speaker 6: to own something over there. So I went and looked
- 33:06Speaker 6: for a spot over there. And while I was there,
- 33:11Speaker 6: so I applied for a spot and a couple of
- 33:14Speaker 6: days later I had a trip to Jamaica. So I
- 33:16Speaker 6: went on this trip to Jamaica. Long story short. When
- 33:19Speaker 6: I come back, I'm going through customs and a custom
- 33:23Speaker 6: officer comes up to me and kind of like grabs
- 33:26Speaker 6: me by the army was like are you mi?
- 33:27Speaker 3: Shehall Dillard.
- 33:28Speaker 6: I'm like yeah, And this was only maybe like my
- 33:31Speaker 6: second or third time even going out out the country.
- 33:33Speaker 3: So I'm just like, what is this about?
- 33:35Speaker 6: So anyway, it takes me to the back, tells me
- 33:37Speaker 6: there's a warrant from o arrest in Nashville, Tennessee. And
- 33:41Speaker 6: so he's like, you know, do you know what this
- 33:42Speaker 6: can be about? And I'm just like no, not at all.
- 33:44Speaker 6: I'm like, I mean, I did used to live in Nashville, Tennessee.
- 33:47Speaker 6: And he's like, you know, well, there's this printing company
- 33:50Speaker 6: that has a now so when this newspaper shut down,
- 33:53Speaker 6: you know, they didn't put the last the money that
- 33:57Speaker 6: was collected into my account, and so the check that
- 34:00Speaker 6: I had wrote that printing company and ended up bouncing
- 34:03Speaker 6: at the time, I didn't have money to cover it.
- 34:05Speaker 6: That I des I just go on with life. I
- 34:07Speaker 6: figure it's fine. But you know, white people they don't
- 34:09Speaker 6: play upout they they had filed or warn't for me,
- 34:13Speaker 6: and they was They was like this girls gonna We're
- 34:15Speaker 6: gonna get her one day. So anyways, I ended up
- 34:18Speaker 6: going to Clayton County Jail and I was there on
- 34:22Speaker 6: no bond. They were waiting to see if Nashville wanted
- 34:25Speaker 6: to come pick me up, and they said that they did,
- 34:28Speaker 6: and so I stayed in that jail for about two
- 34:31Speaker 6: and a half weeks waiting on them to extradket me
- 34:34Speaker 6: to Nashville, Tennessee. So at the same time, I'm still
- 34:37Speaker 6: trying to check on business affairs because mind you, I
- 34:39Speaker 6: still down the Hookah hadaway at this time, I'm still
- 34:43Speaker 6: in process of new and posh Ultra lounge and invested
- 34:46Speaker 6: in that spot. And I've also, you know, had put
- 34:48Speaker 6: in an application to get a spot on Peter Street.
- 34:52Speaker 6: So I ended up calling that realtor one day. He
- 34:55Speaker 6: has no idea I'm calling him from jail, and so
- 34:57Speaker 6: he didn't even hear the story until I told it
- 34:59Speaker 6: in an interview two chains as well. And so anyway,
- 35:03Speaker 6: I called him and I'm like, hey, you know, I'm
- 35:05Speaker 6: just calling a check on that spot.
- 35:06Speaker 3: You know, and he was just like, you know, well,
- 35:08Speaker 3: you know.
- 35:08Speaker 6: Unfortunately that when they don't really want another lounge, you know,
- 35:11Speaker 6: in that location. He was like, you know, but there's
- 35:14Speaker 6: another location right down the street. He was like, you know,
- 35:17Speaker 6: it's not really right there, you know, right by that
- 35:20Speaker 6: other stuff that you wanted to be at. But he
- 35:22Speaker 6: was like, you know, it's right down the street. It's
- 35:23Speaker 6: a nice location. He was like, you know, and it's
- 35:25Speaker 6: actually owned by a popular rapper. You know that's you know,
- 35:30Speaker 6: from here in Atlanta. And you know, he said that
- 35:32Speaker 6: he heard about you, he knows about the who the Hideaway,
- 35:35Speaker 6: and he's interested in going into business and being business.
- 35:38Speaker 3: Partners with you. And I was just like, I'm like,
- 35:41Speaker 3: wait a minute, now, you know what I'm saying. I
- 35:44Speaker 3: know that. And so I was just like, well, who
- 35:47Speaker 3: is it?
- 35:48Speaker 6: Cause you know, to me, just because you say it's
- 35:50Speaker 6: a popular rapper, it doesn't mean I want to do
- 35:52Speaker 6: business with him, because you know, some people aren't smart,
- 35:54Speaker 6: they aren't good business people whatever.
- 35:56Speaker 3: And so I'm like who is it? And he was
- 35:59Speaker 3: like two chains? And I was like okay.
- 36:02Speaker 6: You know, because when I had moved here, I really
- 36:04Speaker 6: liked his music and I felt like he was intelligent,
- 36:08Speaker 6: you know what I mean.
- 36:08Speaker 3: So I was just like, okay, how much the sounded that.
- 36:12Speaker 2: This is the phone call from jail.
- 36:14Speaker 3: I'm in jail, and so that's crazy.
- 36:16Speaker 6: Shortly thereafter, it's time for me to go back up
- 36:19Speaker 6: to my little cell, and I remember telling my salemate,
- 36:22Speaker 6: who I'm cool with to this day, I was just
- 36:24Speaker 6: like Grandma's to open up a spot with two And
- 36:29Speaker 6: I know she probably didn't believe me because I'm Marvin's
- 36:32Speaker 6: doing one of them, that I own a spot card
- 36:33Speaker 6: the Hook Highway and all this, and you know, people
- 36:35Speaker 6: be lying in.
- 36:36Speaker 2: Jail, you know what I'm saying.
- 36:39Speaker 6: So anyways, I ended up being extra dighted. They picked
- 36:43Speaker 6: me up like a couple of days later, give me
- 36:45Speaker 6: to Nashville. Once I get to Nashville, all of the
- 36:48Speaker 6: charges are mysteriously jobed dropped. So I just sat in
- 36:51Speaker 6: this jail cell for two and a half weeks for nothing,
- 36:54Speaker 6: after riding a paddy wagon like this, chained up at
- 36:58Speaker 6: my arms and my to the floorboard and right and
- 37:05Speaker 6: so get up there. They dropped the charges and so
- 37:08Speaker 6: I immediately go back to Atlanta that same day, and
- 37:13Speaker 6: two days later I met with two chains at so
- 37:16Speaker 6: they had the bet awards. He flew back and the
- 37:18Speaker 6: following day we met at the Hookah Hideaway, and I
- 37:22Speaker 6: remember like that whole night I couldn't even really like sleep,
- 37:25Speaker 6: and I really just meant like starstruck or nothing like that.
- 37:27Speaker 6: But I knew that like if we ended up doing
- 37:29Speaker 6: this spot, then it would be like life changing for me,
- 37:32Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying. And so I was already
- 37:35Speaker 6: doing like really well for myself, but I knew that
- 37:36Speaker 6: this would get me to, you know, that next level
- 37:38Speaker 6: of success. So I remember meeting him and like the
- 37:41Speaker 6: Hookah Hideaway, like it's probably not even as large as
- 37:46Speaker 6: this one little room.
- 37:47Speaker 3: It was maybe a thousand square feet.
- 37:50Speaker 6: So they had a little kitchen that like, you know,
- 37:53Speaker 6: was using deep fryers, you know, to cook.
- 37:56Speaker 3: They didn't even have a real kitchen or nothing.
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- 40:49Speaker 6: I'm like, if you think it's too small. If you
- 40:51Speaker 6: think it's not you know, commercial enough, you know that.
- 40:54Speaker 6: I so I just thought of my hand, well, I'm
- 40:56Speaker 6: gonna just show them the numbers because we was.
- 40:57Speaker 3: Moving at the trap.
- 41:00Speaker 2: Jump.
- 41:01Speaker 6: And so anyway he comes in and we had just
- 41:03Speaker 6: immediately have a connection. A lot of people kind of
- 41:06Speaker 6: say that like we acted like he actually caused me
- 41:08Speaker 6: twin but like a lot of people kind of say
- 41:10Speaker 6: that we acted like and stuff like that.
- 41:11Speaker 3: We immediately had a connection.
- 41:13Speaker 6: And it was like he was trying to sell hisself
- 41:15Speaker 6: to me, like, yeah, so I got these rappers at
- 41:17Speaker 6: the time, Fresh rest in Peace, he was alive, you know,
- 41:22Speaker 6: young Dolf, a couple of other people.
- 41:24Speaker 3: He was just like, yeah, I got this going on,
- 41:26Speaker 3: that going on. You know, me and you together, you
- 41:27Speaker 3: know we're gonna And.
- 41:28Speaker 6: So he basically just felt like, yeah, if you can
- 41:30Speaker 6: do forty some thousand a week at this little.
- 41:33Speaker 3: Spot, ain't no telling what.
- 41:35Speaker 5: So you was doing forty thousand a week out the
- 41:36Speaker 5: hookah lounge after hookah, how how was you doing?
- 41:39Speaker 2: That?
- 41:39Speaker 6: Was liquor or liquor and food and we were staying
- 41:43Speaker 6: up on the six o'clock in the morning.
- 41:44Speaker 3: We used to I mean it used to be like
- 41:46Speaker 3: a street block party every single week.
- 41:49Speaker 2: But what's I mean? This is the I feel like
- 41:50Speaker 2: this is the the mecca of black business, right, But
- 41:53Speaker 2: what is that process like to even get a lounge? Like?
- 41:56Speaker 2: What are the things that somebody has to do in
- 41:58Speaker 2: order to even the first thing that you need to do.
- 42:01Speaker 6: Is number one, you want to find a dope location.
- 42:03Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying that I'm gonna have good
- 42:06Speaker 6: parking that you don't have to put a lot into
- 42:08Speaker 6: depending upon your budget.
- 42:11Speaker 3: You know.
- 42:11Speaker 6: Secondly, you have to get a building permit to even
- 42:16Speaker 6: do whatever construction or whatever you're gonna need to do.
- 42:18Speaker 6: You've got to get your liquor license. You've got to
- 42:21Speaker 6: get your food permit. You have to get a business license,
- 42:25Speaker 6: putting your menu together, staffing funding, you know, all of
- 42:30Speaker 6: those things. So it's a lot that comes into it.
- 42:33Speaker 6: And Who Can hide Away is where I really learned
- 42:35Speaker 6: the tricks of the trade. I would say, who Can
- 42:36Speaker 6: hide Away? And then that first Escobar because that first
- 42:40Speaker 6: Escobar was my real first restaurant, and so when we
- 42:44Speaker 6: first opened, I mean it was super packed and a
- 42:48Speaker 6: lot of it based off of his name, and you know,
- 42:50Speaker 6: of course, he doesn't know anything about the restaurant industry
- 42:54Speaker 6: at all, you know, even still to this day, Like
- 42:56Speaker 6: he asked me the other day, what was a bar back?
- 43:00Speaker 6: And he says, you know, he gives me my credit.
- 43:02Speaker 6: That says, you know, I wouldn't have none of this
- 43:03Speaker 6: shit if it wasn't for you, you know what I'm saying.
- 43:06Speaker 6: He knows I could do this without him, you know
- 43:08Speaker 6: what I mean. You know, his job is to be
- 43:11Speaker 6: two chains and to promote you know, heavily.
- 43:13Speaker 3: You know what we have going on.
- 43:16Speaker 6: But we just came in and just really worked well together.
- 43:20Speaker 6: The trust is there, the respect is there. And I
- 43:24Speaker 6: had the time to be able to really learn the
- 43:26Speaker 6: restaurant industry, to learn how to put a good team together,
- 43:29Speaker 6: to learn how to value people. Just learning so many things,
- 43:32Speaker 6: you know what I mean, and taking a lot of
- 43:34Speaker 6: the things that I had learned, a lot of mistakes
- 43:36Speaker 6: that I had learned in some of those former businesses,
- 43:39Speaker 6: you know, and put those into what I have today.
- 43:41Speaker 6: And so fast forward, like you guys said, we've got
- 43:45Speaker 6: the two Escobar locations. We're about to do Esco Seafood
- 43:48Speaker 6: on Edge with that right around the corner from here,
- 43:51Speaker 6: I ended up deciding to close who can hideaway voluntarily?
- 43:54Speaker 6: So I had a five year lease there and I
- 43:56Speaker 6: decided not to renew my lease and just closed that
- 43:58Speaker 6: spot for several different reasons.
- 44:00Speaker 3: Number One, the area.
- 44:01Speaker 6: Had a lot of crime. There was a lot of
- 44:03Speaker 6: crime in that area. It got to the point we
- 44:08Speaker 6: were just getting such big crowds of people. It kind
- 44:11Speaker 6: of scared me, you know what I'm saying, especially in
- 44:15Speaker 6: that crime infested area.
- 44:16Speaker 3: The spot was really small.
- 44:18Speaker 6: I had already talked him into doing this spot members only,
- 44:21Speaker 6: which I knew I wanted to be after hours as well,
- 44:23Speaker 6: and I felt like would replaced that on more of
- 44:25Speaker 6: an upscale level. And just you know, sometimes you have
- 44:28Speaker 6: to know when the gig is up and when it's
- 44:29Speaker 6: time to walk away from something, you know what I'm saying.
- 44:32Speaker 4: So but yeah, so let me ask you this.
- 44:36Speaker 5: So we in the day and age of COVID nineteen,
- 44:38Speaker 5: which you're a serial entrepreneur, but all your business is
- 44:41Speaker 5: are brick and mortar. Atlanta is different from everywhere else
- 44:43Speaker 5: in the country because it's still open and nowhere else
- 44:46Speaker 5: is really open. It's kind of amazing if you think
- 44:48Speaker 5: about it. But how have you been able to manage
- 44:52Speaker 5: during COVID like you got any of right, because honestly,
- 44:55Speaker 5: what I heard from party promoters is that it's actually
- 44:57Speaker 5: up in like Atlanta, like right, Like the revenue was
- 45:00Speaker 5: up because everybody's coming from all over the country to
- 45:02Speaker 5: go party.
- 45:03Speaker 6: And that is exactly what's happening. We're you know, I
- 45:07Speaker 6: probably travel every two weeks, you know, so during this
- 45:10Speaker 6: I've been to Cabo, I've been to Toulone, I've been
- 45:13Speaker 6: to I just got back yesterday from a trip from
- 45:16Speaker 6: La and Vegas, and there's no city right now like Atlanta.
- 45:20Speaker 3: You know, you wouldn't even think we was going through
- 45:23Speaker 3: a pandemic here. Yeah, see nothing, y'all have my mask,
- 45:28Speaker 3: but yeah, you know it.
- 45:31Speaker 6: It makes Atlanta a hot spot. Like I get a
- 45:34Speaker 6: bunch of friends coming in from Philly tomorrow. So it
- 45:36Speaker 6: was crazy because when we shut down, you know, I
- 45:39Speaker 6: was of course very scared and nervous. You know, I
- 45:41Speaker 6: had never been in a situation where my businesses could
- 45:44Speaker 6: shut down from anything other than you know, lack of
- 45:48Speaker 6: whatever on my behalf, you know what I'm saying. So
- 45:51Speaker 6: to just be told that and then you don't know
- 45:53Speaker 6: when you can open a Union. It just was a
- 45:57Speaker 6: very very scary time. And so then when the governor
- 45:59Speaker 6: allowed us to open, it was just crazy because I
- 46:02Speaker 6: felt like it was going to be slow, you know,
- 46:04Speaker 6: I feel like it would be like a slow start,
- 46:07Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying. But literally, our cells at
- 46:10Speaker 6: every location are up by about thirty five to that
- 46:15Speaker 6: Escobar Downtown location I'm talking about. When we closed, we
- 46:17Speaker 6: were doing eighty thousand a week. We're doing like one
- 46:19Speaker 6: hundred and forty thousand a week. Now. We've got so
- 46:22Speaker 6: many out of a lot of it is out of
- 46:24Speaker 6: town or you got a lot of Philly, a lot
- 46:25Speaker 6: of Detroit, a lot of people from Miami are starting
- 46:28Speaker 6: to come up.
- 46:29Speaker 3: Miami currently has a curfew now they got to go
- 46:31Speaker 3: to bed at eight pm.
- 46:33Speaker 4: Really, that's crazy.
- 46:35Speaker 6: Yeah, So it's people in Atlanta are extremely blessed. You're
- 46:40Speaker 6: seeing people buying g wagons every other day, you know,
- 46:45Speaker 6: are jugging, they getting these.
- 46:46Speaker 3: People, They're getting these fraudulent SBA Long. Yes, the fact
- 46:51Speaker 3: stimulating this city.
- 46:53Speaker 6: You know, I think Atlanta is going to be one
- 46:56Speaker 6: of the only cities that's not gonna, you know, have
- 46:58Speaker 6: any you know issues, you know, come next year, because
- 47:02Speaker 6: a lot of these cities are going to be broke,
- 47:04Speaker 6: you know, next year because a lot of these cities,
- 47:07Speaker 6: like one of the reasons why Governor Kemp said that
- 47:09Speaker 6: he opened the state up is because we have so
- 47:12Speaker 6: many business owners here, and the business owners here pay
- 47:14Speaker 6: so many so much in taxes, you know, like I
- 47:17Speaker 6: have to pay back all of the taxes from everything
- 47:19Speaker 6: that we sell. Then we have three percent alcohol taxes
- 47:23Speaker 6: that we have to pay, so you know, they taxing.
- 47:25Speaker 3: Us twice, you know what I mean.
- 47:26Speaker 6: So for restaurants and lounges not to be open, and
- 47:29Speaker 6: that's where a lot of the money is coming from,
- 47:31Speaker 6: to pay the roles, to pay the teachers, you know
- 47:33Speaker 6: what I mean, and things of that nature. You know,
- 47:35Speaker 6: that's really going to hurt a lot of these other cities.
- 47:37Speaker 3: So it is, really, it is.
- 47:40Speaker 6: It's just amazing that like this one little city in
- 47:44Speaker 6: the country. Now I think Houston is also similar, but
- 47:47Speaker 6: not as many people are traveling to Houston, you know
- 47:50Speaker 6: what I mean, because Atlanta is already a place that
- 47:52Speaker 6: a lot of people be wanting to come to anyway,
- 47:54Speaker 6: you know what I mean. And then so just the
- 47:56Speaker 6: fact that we're open like this, and then you have
- 47:58Speaker 6: so many choices of rest staurants and lounges and things
- 48:01Speaker 6: like that to go to. We have definitely felt the
- 48:04Speaker 6: effect of being one of the only cities in the
- 48:07Speaker 6: country country that's open.
- 48:08Speaker 2: I feel like when when people watch the news and
- 48:10Speaker 2: they see Texas the numbers going up, it kind of like,
- 48:12Speaker 2: we're not going to go to Houston. I have a
- 48:14Speaker 2: question about this though, because this is a unique place.
- 48:16Speaker 2: Members only. It's here, but above us is Remedy Sweet Salon.
- 48:20Speaker 3: Remedy Salon se Sweets.
- 48:23Speaker 2: So when you were looking for a property, were you
- 48:25Speaker 2: looking for a multi level or a mixed use property
- 48:28Speaker 2: to have this vision come to.
- 48:29Speaker 6: Similar I was only looking for Remedy Salon Sweets just
- 48:32Speaker 6: to do on my own. I just felt that was
- 48:34Speaker 6: an easy business model. You're basically like a landlord with that.
- 48:38Speaker 6: So I have twenty two suites up there, and you know,
- 48:41Speaker 6: you've got stylists, estheticians, last texts, different things of that nature,
- 48:46Speaker 6: and they rent out their own suite and they pain rent,
- 48:48Speaker 6: you know, once a week. And so I was only
- 48:50Speaker 6: looking for that. And then that same landlord that I
- 48:52Speaker 6: was on the phone with in jail, he was the
- 48:55Speaker 6: one that found me that, and then he was like,
- 48:57Speaker 6: let me show you this spot downstairs.
- 48:59Speaker 3: You know you may like this. And you know I
- 49:01Speaker 3: came down here and saw this, and I was just
- 49:03Speaker 3: like this might be cool.
- 49:04Speaker 5: You know.
- 49:05Speaker 3: I hadn't done another lounge in like two years.
- 49:07Speaker 5: And so that was how I so a couple of questions.
- 49:11Speaker 5: The nail salon business is a really big business and
- 49:15Speaker 5: it's been a lot of sweet sweets.
- 49:18Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's different. So like how it's set up
- 49:21Speaker 2: is like because I obviously I have a wife and
- 49:23Speaker 2: a daughter. Is like, there's a bunch of suites that
- 49:25Speaker 2: have different businesses inside that pay you rent, should have
- 49:28Speaker 2: their business, the landlord, a bunch of businesses.
- 49:31Speaker 5: But it's sor right, But it's what exactly is is
- 49:34Speaker 5: nail salon.
- 49:35Speaker 6: Is a barbers slash texts instetisician just everything.
- 49:42Speaker 2: Have a barber shopping there.
- 49:44Speaker 4: The last how big? How big is the space as.
- 49:47Speaker 6: Big as this spot is the exact same spot this spot,
- 49:49Speaker 6: so about thirty four hundred square.
- 49:51Speaker 5: Feet Okay, So like just like there's a bunch of yeah, okay,
- 49:57Speaker 5: so that's an interesting model.
- 50:00Speaker 4: Thinking they have that in New York.
- 50:01Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah they do, they do. Yeah, I was gonna
- 50:04Speaker 2: say the last check thing is something that's.
- 50:05Speaker 5: Well, the last chech thing is is is a pandemic
- 50:08Speaker 5: within itself. Theyre going too far with that, then theyre
- 50:12Speaker 5: going to business thought mank on their eyes and all that.
- 50:17Speaker 5: But even with okay, all of that stuff is still
- 50:19Speaker 5: service based businesses where it's like people, especially black people,
- 50:22Speaker 5: they get their nails done, they get their eyelashes done,
- 50:24Speaker 5: they get their haircuts, stuff like that. And for a
- 50:26Speaker 5: long time, especially the nail industry is run by people
- 50:30Speaker 5: that's not black, and that's been a big thing. So
- 50:33Speaker 5: was that part of your decision making, Like you knew
- 50:35Speaker 5: that you know there was a need for it, and
- 50:38Speaker 5: did you think being a black business owner did that
- 50:40Speaker 5: come into play, Like, you know, I might as well
- 50:42Speaker 5: do it. They might support me more than the alternative.
- 50:46Speaker 6: The beauty industry is very popular here, so it was
- 50:49Speaker 6: kind of like a no brainer to me. I was
- 50:51Speaker 6: really just looking for like some good daytime money that
- 50:54Speaker 6: would be headache for it, because doing the restaurants is
- 50:57Speaker 6: very stressful. It's a lot of details. You know, it's
- 51:00Speaker 6: one of the hardest industries to be in. There's a
- 51:03Speaker 6: lot of people. You know, your money goes through so
- 51:04Speaker 6: many hands before it gets to yours. So you've got
- 51:08Speaker 6: a lot of room for theft there. And there's just
- 51:11Speaker 6: so many different things you know, that you have to
- 51:13Speaker 6: you know, like with these restaurants, I literally I probably
- 51:15Speaker 6: get about two hundred emails a day. We got group me,
- 51:20Speaker 6: like in this group me right now. I've only been
- 51:22Speaker 6: sitting here with you guys for this little short period
- 51:25Speaker 6: of time and I probably have a million messages.
- 51:29Speaker 4: As you see, that's for the restaurant.
- 51:31Speaker 3: These are all for the restaurants. Only one. It's this
- 51:33Speaker 3: one little Remedy Saligne, you know what I'm saying.
- 51:36Speaker 6: So I wanted something that would be some good headache
- 51:41Speaker 6: free and that girl that manages Remedy Salion Suite, she
- 51:44Speaker 6: rarely ever caused me, but some good little headache free money.
- 51:48Speaker 6: I knew that it would be successful because like also,
- 51:50Speaker 6: like I said, I do those business consultations, So I
- 51:52Speaker 6: got a lot of people that I've helped do businesses
- 51:55Speaker 6: and things of that nature. And so a lot of
- 51:56Speaker 6: the girls that came there, they said they wanted to
- 51:58Speaker 6: be there so they can kind of be around me.
- 52:00Speaker 6: I do free business consultations for the sweet owners to help.
- 52:04Speaker 3: Them improve their businesses.
- 52:06Speaker 6: But you know, we live in a city where in
- 52:09Speaker 6: this city, you know, people are really interested in their appearance.
- 52:12Speaker 3: You know, I'm wanting to things of that next.
- 52:16Speaker 6: And salon suites have become more and more popular because
- 52:18Speaker 6: people wanted to get around the salon away from the
- 52:21Speaker 6: salon model. Like me, Like when I get my hair braided,
- 52:24Speaker 6: the girl actually comes to my to my house. But
- 52:26Speaker 6: before I was able to find somebody that would do that.
- 52:29Speaker 6: I love going to a salon suite because I don't
- 52:31Speaker 6: like talking to a lot of people when I go
- 52:33Speaker 6: to the salon, you know, and especially now that I'm
- 52:35Speaker 6: more well known, you know, people are gonna be asking me.
- 52:37Speaker 3: A bunch of questions and all of this stuff.
- 52:39Speaker 6: And then like during these times of COVID, people would
- 52:42Speaker 6: rather get those services. Then in a salon swite, it's
- 52:45Speaker 6: just you and that one person versus being around a
- 52:47Speaker 6: bunch of people in a busy salon.
- 52:49Speaker 2: Now I'm thinking about it, like you go to one,
- 52:50Speaker 2: you actually go to a salon suitek regular because Buzz
- 52:53Speaker 2: has a barbershop, but.
- 52:55Speaker 5: Because you go to the barbershop on a Saturday and
- 52:57Speaker 5: it's like a bunch of random people talking about non
- 53:00Speaker 5: since they're lying and stuff. So me, it's just like
- 53:03Speaker 5: I don't got time to be waiting, Like you know
- 53:05Speaker 5: what I'm saying. Me and my barbera shout out the bubs.
- 53:07Speaker 5: We got a special relationship. I go to every Thursday,
- 53:10Speaker 5: nine o'clock in the morning, Give me done, and I'm out,
- 53:13Speaker 5: like you know what I'm saying. So that's actually but
- 53:14Speaker 5: it's COVID is actually interesting too because it's like, now
- 53:17Speaker 5: from a safety standpoint, it's a lot safer to just
- 53:21Speaker 5: be you and the person that you're dealing with, whether
- 53:23Speaker 5: it's nails, whatever, as opposed to like five hundred people
- 53:27Speaker 5: just like just waiting. Well, let me ask you this
- 53:29Speaker 5: as far as the clubs and the lounges, because Atlanta
- 53:31Speaker 5: has a bunch of clubs and lounges, and I always
- 53:33Speaker 5: wonder what makes one club popular over the other club right,
- 53:37Speaker 5: because it's like so many clubs open and close all
- 53:40Speaker 5: the time. Obviously, you know it's marketing and you have
- 53:44Speaker 5: a big name attached to it with change, But in
- 53:46Speaker 5: your opinion as a club owner, as a lounge owner,
- 53:50Speaker 5: what separates the elite clubs lounges from the ones that's
- 53:55Speaker 5: just struggling.
- 53:57Speaker 3: I think it is number one.
- 53:59Speaker 6: Like so, like mine are a little bit different, even
- 54:03Speaker 6: though we have the association with chains.
- 54:05Speaker 3: Probably that the only one that that really makes a
- 54:08Speaker 3: difference is that Escobar Downtown location.
- 54:11Speaker 6: But like I don't base mine off of celebrities and
- 54:13Speaker 6: different things of that nature. So, like you know, you
- 54:15Speaker 6: have a lot of these clubs that their main thing
- 54:18Speaker 6: is they have to book artists, you know what I'm saying.
- 54:21Speaker 3: I never get into that type of stuff.
- 54:23Speaker 2: You know.
- 54:23Speaker 6: I like to provide a good vibe, a good atmosphere,
- 54:26Speaker 6: in good food, you know, at my establishment.
- 54:28Speaker 3: So mine are more lounge based versus club based.
- 54:31Speaker 5: You know.
- 54:32Speaker 6: With the clubs, a lot of times they only open
- 54:34Speaker 6: two three days a week, you know, and you can't
- 54:36Speaker 6: afford to have no off night, you know what I'm saying.
- 54:38Speaker 6: But when you up at seven days a week, you
- 54:39Speaker 6: can afford for one or two nights to be slower,
- 54:42Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying. So from my spots, people
- 54:46Speaker 6: primarily come for the food and they come for the vibe.
- 54:48Speaker 2: Yeah, I got it. I mean, speaking of the Basketball lounge,
- 54:51Speaker 2: it's like one of the craziest stories part of your
- 54:53Speaker 2: stories that I thought was like, Uh, the Basketball family
- 54:57Speaker 2: is trying to fight you for the name. Huh, Like
- 55:00Speaker 2: what is that even about?
- 55:01Speaker 3: Crazy?
- 55:03Speaker 6: And I think that happened during the pandemic. We were
- 55:06Speaker 6: on TMZ a lot. We were in the Shaved Room
- 55:08Speaker 6: a lot. The moment that we decided to open up
- 55:11Speaker 6: our lounge to open Escobar back up.
- 55:14Speaker 3: It was a really big deal.
- 55:16Speaker 6: Two Chains got drugged for it, you know what I mean,
- 55:19Speaker 6: just like because you know, a lot of black people
- 55:22Speaker 6: were kind of like, you know.
- 55:23Speaker 3: Oh, you know, they shouldn't be letting y'all open so soon,
- 55:25Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, like they trying to kill
- 55:27Speaker 3: the black people. He only kimp only doing it because
- 55:31Speaker 3: he wanted to kill the black people.
- 55:32Speaker 6: And then you know, we had our mayor shout out
- 55:35Speaker 6: to our mayor, Keisha Lance Slots.
- 55:38Speaker 3: Who was very opposed, you know, to the businesses opening.
- 55:41Speaker 6: She actually contacted us and asked us not to open.
- 55:43Speaker 6: And you know, so we had already made a decision
- 55:46Speaker 6: to open, and that was on the Shaved Room. Two
- 55:48Speaker 6: Chains got a lot of shade for that, and so
- 55:50Speaker 6: then we decided not to open. We ended up feeding
- 55:52Speaker 6: the homeless, using the restaurant to feed the homeless for
- 55:55Speaker 6: a couple of weeks and then we opened back up,
- 55:57Speaker 6: and so all of this stuff was just detailed, you know,
- 56:01Speaker 6: on Shade Room and on TMZ, and I think that
- 56:05Speaker 6: that's what got the attention of the Escobar family.
- 56:07Speaker 3: And I just think they kind of fishing for something.
- 56:10Speaker 2: Yeah, I read it. I'm like his brother, like what
- 56:13Speaker 2: this is crazy?
- 56:15Speaker 3: Apparently, I ain't care. I just went to old Mansion.
- 56:21Speaker 4: The irony of it, that.
- 56:26Speaker 6: Article had came out that Friday. I was into loan
- 56:28Speaker 6: that Monday at this man mansion, kicking it.
- 56:32Speaker 2: This is a general right here.
- 56:35Speaker 5: So as far as your business model, like you got
- 56:38Speaker 5: a bunch of different businesses, do you look to say, Okay,
- 56:41Speaker 5: I'm just I'm good at this, so let's just open
- 56:43Speaker 5: more lounges, more restaurants, or like, what's your what's your
- 56:46Speaker 5: strategy to like when you keep opening new businesses?
- 56:49Speaker 4: Is it kind of like just piggyback off.
- 56:51Speaker 6: I feel like I have the blueprint down and I
- 56:53Speaker 6: can continue to do this, you know, as long as
- 56:55Speaker 6: I pick the right locations. I just feel like it's
- 56:58Speaker 6: like no stopping me, you know what I mean. Like
- 57:02Speaker 6: because so like, for example, I had originally wanted to
- 57:06Speaker 6: expand into like the South Florida area, and I'm glad
- 57:09Speaker 6: that I didn't because now like this is a good
- 57:11Speaker 6: time to like kind of like look at this pandemic
- 57:13Speaker 6: and see how various cities you know, are operating. So
- 57:15Speaker 6: now for me, I would expand to like a Houston
- 57:17Speaker 6: or something like that. So like if something like this
- 57:18Speaker 6: ever happened again, you know, I know.
- 57:21Speaker 2: Like how to move. So I mean, prior you said
- 57:26Speaker 2: or previously you said that the restaurant businesses a headache
- 57:29Speaker 2: in itself, So then why over more restaurants?
- 57:32Speaker 3: Because I love it.
- 57:33Speaker 6: I make great money, really really good money, more money
- 57:38Speaker 6: than I ever thought I would make in life. I
- 57:40Speaker 6: make with most people make in a year in one week,
- 57:43Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying. So when you're doing something
- 57:45Speaker 6: like that, you can't help but to continue doing it.
- 57:49Speaker 6: I continue to find good people and good help. I've
- 57:51Speaker 6: turned my businesses into a full fledged company, Dealert Hospitality Group.
- 57:56Speaker 6: I continue to learn how to do things properly in
- 57:59Speaker 6: the right way, to avoid lawsuits and different things of
- 58:03Speaker 6: that nature. And I just feel like as long as
- 58:06Speaker 6: that I have help and I have different people in
- 58:08Speaker 6: different positions, like I said, I go out of town
- 58:11Speaker 6: every two weeks, you know what I mean. So, and
- 58:14Speaker 6: I'm opening three businesses.
- 58:15Speaker 4: At the same So what's the deal of hospitality group?
- 58:17Speaker 4: I saw the T shirt.
- 58:18Speaker 6: Yeah, so that's my hospitality group that pretty much houses
- 58:21Speaker 6: all of the restaurants. So I have a corporate office. Well,
- 58:26Speaker 6: shout out to my videographer. She's one of the individuals.
- 58:30Speaker 6: They are my director of operations who's basically right up
- 58:34Speaker 6: under me, so he manages the he so the gms,
- 58:38Speaker 6: they manage.
- 58:38Speaker 3: The actual restaurant. They manage all of the.
- 58:40Speaker 6: Employees in the restaurant. My director of operations, he manages
- 58:45Speaker 6: the GMS, and I managed the director of operations. Some
- 58:48Speaker 6: of the gms don't even have my telephone number.
- 58:50Speaker 5: It's interesting because I feel like you're a very interesting
- 58:53Speaker 5: person because you have a street side, but you also
- 58:55Speaker 5: have a corporate side as well. Like you went to
- 58:57Speaker 5: one of the best colleges in America and you actually
- 59:00Speaker 5: were financial advisor, so obviously you have business like not
- 59:04Speaker 5: only just street business, but like general business. But then
- 59:07Speaker 5: you know, you obviously were in the street as well
- 59:09Speaker 5: for a certain period of time. So be like your
- 59:12Speaker 5: business minde as you just broke down. I don't really
- 59:14Speaker 5: think that there's probably too many restaurant tours or club
- 59:17Speaker 5: owners or promoters or whatever that actually have like a
- 59:20Speaker 5: board of directors, like like a set corporate instructure like this.
- 59:24Speaker 3: The white ones.
- 59:25Speaker 4: But that's what I'm saying. As far as like I mean,
- 59:27Speaker 4: and a lot of you know, the black ones.
- 59:29Speaker 6: They really don't want to pay the money, you know
- 59:30Speaker 6: what I'm saying. Like I make about eighty thousand dollars
- 59:33Speaker 6: a week. I could make one hundred dollars thousand dollars
- 59:35Speaker 6: a week, but guess what, I rather take that eighty
- 59:37Speaker 6: and have me a life to go live.
- 59:39Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. And I enjoy providing opportunities
- 59:42Speaker 3: for other people.
- 59:44Speaker 5: So was that something that you came in the game
- 59:46Speaker 5: right away with that business mindset like, Okay, I'm gonna
- 59:48Speaker 5: have this structure.
- 59:49Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 59:50Speaker 6: I always knew that I wanted to once stand who
- 59:52Speaker 6: could have the way one was successful. I knew that
- 59:54Speaker 6: I wanted to do more, and I knew that I
- 59:56Speaker 6: would need more people to help me, and so I
- 59:59Speaker 6: researched that and found out what positions I would need.
- 1:00:02Speaker 6: What's the name of them with their job description is
- 1:00:06Speaker 6: and just as I started making more and more money,
- 1:00:08Speaker 6: I started replacing myself in different areas because guess what,
- 1:00:12Speaker 6: Once upon a time, I was doing all of this
- 1:00:14Speaker 6: stuff on my own my phone.
- 1:00:15Speaker 3: You see, my phone ain't run.
- 1:00:16Speaker 6: I want since open here because that's what don't Nobody
- 1:00:18Speaker 6: had my telephone number, so that's the only way they
- 1:00:21Speaker 6: can reach me is that group me or email. But
- 1:00:24Speaker 6: I was just having this conversation with my girlfriend because
- 1:00:27Speaker 6: I had seen y'all standing outside and I was like,
- 1:00:29Speaker 6: is that them?
- 1:00:29Speaker 3: I was like, why are they standing outside?
- 1:00:31Speaker 6: Way?
- 1:00:31Speaker 3: Ain't nobody helped them? And so I'm just like, it's
- 1:00:33Speaker 3: more there, And so I was just like I was
- 1:00:35Speaker 3: on her. I was like, I was like, dang, I
- 1:00:37Speaker 3: wish I had more numbers. She was like, baby, you
- 1:00:38Speaker 3: ain't getting mom got my telephone numbers.
- 1:00:43Speaker 6: But yeah, but if that wasn't the case, I wouldn't
- 1:00:46Speaker 6: be able to do things like do these interviews. I
- 1:00:48Speaker 6: wouldn't be able to do things like do business consultations.
- 1:00:50Speaker 6: I wouldn't be able to be a mother.
- 1:00:51Speaker 3: To my daughter.
- 1:00:52Speaker 6: You know, I wouldn't be able to be in relationships
- 1:00:54Speaker 6: and not be stressed free. But because my phone would
- 1:00:58Speaker 6: be ringing off the hook with every issue and problem.
- 1:01:01Speaker 5: I think it's important to highlight, especially for black businesses,
- 1:01:04Speaker 5: because they said, like COVID nineteen has wiped out fifty
- 1:01:07Speaker 5: percent of black businesses across America. It's like a economic
- 1:01:11Speaker 5: crisis and a lot of them with brick and mortars.
- 1:01:13Speaker 5: But a reason why I think a lot of businesses fail.
- 1:01:15Speaker 5: It's a variet of different reasons, but a lot of
- 1:01:17Speaker 5: times there's a difference between having a hustle and having
- 1:01:19Speaker 5: a business. And it's like you're hustling, you don't really
- 1:01:22Speaker 5: have systems in place, and I feel like, you know,
- 1:01:25Speaker 5: you like kind of breaking that down explaining that can
- 1:01:28Speaker 5: kind of give people some idea that you can't just
- 1:01:31Speaker 5: do everything yourself, like you can't be the rest of
- 1:01:33Speaker 5: our owner and then wipe the tables and then fry
- 1:01:35Speaker 5: the fish, like you know, at first, you gotta do
- 1:01:37Speaker 5: what you gotta do. But it's important to reinvest in
- 1:01:40Speaker 5: your business. And I'm pretty sure that's one of the
- 1:01:42Speaker 5: reasons why your businesses have been successful. It's not just
- 1:01:46Speaker 5: because like you said, you know, it's popping and you
- 1:01:48Speaker 5: got you know, two chains and you've got the buzz,
- 1:01:50Speaker 5: but you got the business structure. Business structure down. So
- 1:01:54Speaker 5: can you just kind of just tell people how important
- 1:01:56Speaker 5: that is, because, like I said, there's a lot of
- 1:01:58Speaker 5: entrepreneurs that listen to.
- 1:02:00Speaker 3: You know, you have to have your systems in place.
- 1:02:03Speaker 6: And one of the things, you know, my director operations
- 1:02:06Speaker 6: one of the things that he brought to the table.
- 1:02:07Speaker 6: And it was funny because he was just my publicist
- 1:02:09Speaker 6: when I first met him. There was another guy that
- 1:02:11Speaker 6: was supposed to be my director operations that kind of
- 1:02:13Speaker 6: stabbed me in the back and ran off and opened
- 1:02:15Speaker 6: up his own restaurants and stuff. But he came in
- 1:02:18Speaker 6: and kind of listened to everything I was saying and
- 1:02:20Speaker 6: put it on paper, you know what I mean. So
- 1:02:21Speaker 6: now we have job titles and job descriptions all on paper.
- 1:02:24Speaker 6: We've got a company manual. So it's just like it's
- 1:02:27Speaker 6: so much easier to bring people on, it's so much
- 1:02:28Speaker 6: easier to replace people. We know what everybody is supposed
- 1:02:31Speaker 6: to be doing with their hours need to be, with
- 1:02:34Speaker 6: their pay needs to be you.
- 1:02:35Speaker 3: Know what I mean.
- 1:02:36Speaker 6: And so that's another reason why I'm able to open
- 1:02:39Speaker 6: up so many businesses at one time.
- 1:02:41Speaker 3: You know, even these I did three in one year.
- 1:02:43Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
- 1:02:44Speaker 6: I did, I did Crave, I did this spot in
- 1:02:48Speaker 6: Esco South all in the same year, you know what
- 1:02:50Speaker 6: I mean. And then this year during a pandemic, I'm
- 1:02:52Speaker 6: doing two remedies and Esco Seafood. And it's because not
- 1:02:56Speaker 6: only do I have all these people on the team,
- 1:02:58Speaker 6: but we got these systems in place.
- 1:02:59Speaker 3: So it's like everybody know like they already was doing stuff.
- 1:03:02Speaker 3: I ain't even told.
- 1:03:03Speaker 2: Them the manual.
- 1:03:08Speaker 5: So you have a manual like McDonald's, like absolutely, because
- 1:03:12Speaker 5: the people don't know that, Like you open a McDonald
- 1:03:14Speaker 5: you just can't wing it like they got even how
- 1:03:16Speaker 5: you fold the follow the franchise rules.
- 1:03:19Speaker 4: That's interesting. How many employees do you have?
- 1:03:23Speaker 6: I just did an interview before y'all, and I was
- 1:03:25Speaker 6: trying to think about this. I would say, uh, maybe
- 1:03:29Speaker 6: about three hundred.
- 1:03:30Speaker 4: Three hundred.
- 1:03:31Speaker 2: Really it's franchising something you're thinking about in the future. Yeah, good,
- 1:03:36Speaker 2: that's all right. So I know that creating the night
- 1:03:39Speaker 2: life or the after hours lounge was an old goal
- 1:03:43Speaker 2: of yours. What's the new goals?
- 1:03:47Speaker 3: My new goals are more like personal goals.
- 1:03:49Speaker 4: Man.
- 1:03:49Speaker 6: I want to get married, I want to have more kids.
- 1:03:52Speaker 6: I'm looking about my dream house between now and the
- 1:03:55Speaker 6: end of this year. That's actually a really big mind
- 1:03:59Speaker 6: of talking about that. The day he was like, you know,
- 1:04:00Speaker 6: that's the only thing you miss and you know it's like,
- 1:04:03Speaker 6: you know, your dream house or whatever.
- 1:04:04Speaker 3: So I want to do that and.
- 1:04:08Speaker 6: Just you know, be able to continue to like have
- 1:04:12Speaker 6: opportunities for other people and give back, you know what
- 1:04:14Speaker 6: I mean. I'm in a place to really be able
- 1:04:16Speaker 6: to give back to people and not have to worry
- 1:04:17Speaker 6: about how this is going to be paid, how this
- 1:04:20Speaker 6: is going to be paid. And for so many years
- 1:04:21Speaker 6: that was my life, you know what I mean, a
- 1:04:23Speaker 6: lot of us years I couldn't really travel, you know,
- 1:04:26Speaker 6: the way that I wanted to because I didn't have
- 1:04:27Speaker 6: these systems in place. So a lot of mine is
- 1:04:30Speaker 6: more so, you know now focusing on my own personal
- 1:04:34Speaker 6: goals because I gave so much of my life to
- 1:04:37Speaker 6: you know, opening and running these businesses.
- 1:04:39Speaker 2: So I mean, speaking of giving back, I know, I
- 1:04:42Speaker 2: don't know if it has it started your own nonprofit.
- 1:04:44Speaker 6: Yeah, it's called Her Impact Foundation, and so we do.
- 1:04:47Speaker 6: Like right now, we're doing a backpack drive that's going
- 1:04:50Speaker 6: on into.
- 1:04:50Speaker 3: The end of the month. We've collected over one hundred.
- 1:04:53Speaker 6: Backpacks field with school supplies and different things that nature.
- 1:04:57Speaker 6: I'm going to donate some laptops to some schools as well,
- 1:05:01Speaker 6: you know, because I know that you know, now they're
- 1:05:03Speaker 6: switching to the you know on and you know a
- 1:05:07Speaker 6: lot of these kids, you know, they don't have their
- 1:05:09Speaker 6: own laptop, you know what I mean, And so some
- 1:05:11Speaker 6: of the schools are trying to provide them, and some
- 1:05:12Speaker 6: schools have the budget for him, and some don't, especially
- 1:05:15Speaker 6: with you know, what they've experienced, you know, with COVID.
- 1:05:17Speaker 4: So we do that.
- 1:05:19Speaker 3: We feed the homeless all the time.
- 1:05:22Speaker 6: We do uh Friendsgiving during Thanksgiving, we do a charity
- 1:05:27Speaker 6: during Christmas.
- 1:05:30Speaker 3: For my birthday.
- 1:05:31Speaker 6: I actually we had to cancel it because my birthday
- 1:05:33Speaker 6: is April third, so it was right in the midst
- 1:05:34Speaker 6: of this. But I turned thirty five this year, so
- 1:05:37Speaker 6: I was going to take thirty five young women upstairs
- 1:05:43Speaker 6: and you know, pay for them to be pampered, you know,
- 1:05:45Speaker 6: up there. And so I'm always just kind of like
- 1:05:48Speaker 6: trying to think a little different things that I can
- 1:05:50Speaker 6: do to give back and you know, make my impact.
- 1:05:54Speaker 5: That's that's like just being in Atlanta, since we're in Atlanta.
- 1:05:58Speaker 5: I want to just speak about this afleet. It's like
- 1:06:00Speaker 5: it's different city, like compared to anywhere else, Like we're
- 1:06:03Speaker 5: from New York or anybody else anywhere in the country.
- 1:06:06Speaker 5: Can you just speak about like how like to me,
- 1:06:08Speaker 5: it's encouraging, Like I come to Atlanta and it's like, oh,
- 1:06:11Speaker 5: this is the largest dump truck company owned by a
- 1:06:14Speaker 5: black guy, or this every every business is black owned business,
- 1:06:17Speaker 5: like you know, for what's your thoughts on the city
- 1:06:20Speaker 5: of Atlanta? And yeah, maybe you know, like we were saying, you.
- 1:06:25Speaker 6: Know, I'm not originally from here, so I've been living
- 1:06:27Speaker 6: here it'll be eleven years, you know, the end of
- 1:06:29Speaker 6: this year, and I was I was just you know,
- 1:06:31Speaker 6: extremely inspired. You know, like I never had a business
- 1:06:35Speaker 6: that made millions of dollars, you know before I moved here,
- 1:06:38Speaker 6: and the ones that I had at other than that
- 1:06:40Speaker 6: newspaper company, I couldn't even get form legally because of
- 1:06:44Speaker 6: you know, some of the racism and things of that nature,
- 1:06:46Speaker 6: you know that I was experiencing in the city hall
- 1:06:49Speaker 6: and different things of that nature. So to come to
- 1:06:52Speaker 6: a city like Atlanta, number one, I had never experienced it.
- 1:06:56Speaker 6: Just a city where you know, you're seeing so many
- 1:06:58Speaker 6: black people driving luxury vehicles. I wasn't even used to
- 1:07:02Speaker 6: even happening to vallet all the time trying to be cheaper.
- 1:07:10Speaker 6: Another thing about it is that you know other black people,
- 1:07:13Speaker 6: instead of hating on these people are actually inspired, you know,
- 1:07:17Speaker 6: like given on my I G I get tons of
- 1:07:19Speaker 6: messages daily of just you know, people telling me how
- 1:07:22Speaker 6: inspired they are a boy me and different things of
- 1:07:24Speaker 6: that nature. And you know, I'm kind of a loud,
- 1:07:26Speaker 6: flashy person, so of course every now and again somebody
- 1:07:29Speaker 6: is hating or something like that, but you know, you
- 1:07:31Speaker 6: really don't give much of that. And a lot of
- 1:07:33Speaker 6: the people here that are successful, they really support each other.
- 1:07:36Speaker 3: You know, most of us know each other.
- 1:07:40Speaker 6: I got one of them group meets right now is
- 1:07:42Speaker 6: all of the club owners and restaurant owners. You know,
- 1:07:45Speaker 6: we came together at the beginning of this pandemic because
- 1:07:47Speaker 6: we didn't really know how we was gonna make it.
- 1:07:48Speaker 6: We didn't know it was gonna turn out like this.
- 1:07:50Speaker 6: We didn't know they was gonna start giving out money
- 1:07:52Speaker 6: like it was applicis.
- 1:07:54Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying.
- 1:07:57Speaker 6: I didn't know that, you know the city was going
- 1:07:59Speaker 6: to open back up and that we were gonna be okay.
- 1:08:01Speaker 6: You know, we still had this group me and help
- 1:08:02Speaker 6: each other out, you know what I'm saying. So I
- 1:08:06Speaker 6: think that's a big thing. You know, it's a lot
- 1:08:07Speaker 6: of inspiration here. There's a lot of events and seminars
- 1:08:12Speaker 6: and you know, people that are successful they put together
- 1:08:17Speaker 6: you know, like a little different things for people other
- 1:08:20Speaker 6: people to be able to come out and learn how
- 1:08:22Speaker 6: they can be successful as well. So I never had
- 1:08:25Speaker 6: stuff like that in Nashville, never even known of things
- 1:08:28Speaker 6: like that in Nashville.
- 1:08:29Speaker 3: But here you got stuff like that going on all
- 1:08:31Speaker 3: the time.
- 1:08:32Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's crazy.
- 1:08:33Speaker 5: Like our mutual friend Alex good Energy, so you know,
- 1:08:36Speaker 5: him and his whole crew missed two weeks out him
- 1:08:39Speaker 5: five hundred shots to all of those guys, and I
- 1:08:41Speaker 5: think every week they like Neo Davis, they meet like
- 1:08:44Speaker 5: once a weekend. They just shared different ideas And I
- 1:08:46Speaker 5: was just telling my friendship more, I'm like, Yo, this
- 1:08:48Speaker 5: is dope, like because like.
- 1:08:49Speaker 6: A lot of I just paiged five thousand dollars to
- 1:08:51Speaker 6: do him five hundreds class next.
- 1:08:53Speaker 4: Month, Okay, And I'm like, I don't know, I'm still learning,
- 1:08:56Speaker 4: still learn Yeah, but.
- 1:08:57Speaker 3: I got money, but he ain't spending he is he
- 1:09:00Speaker 3: and it's coret, but.
- 1:09:03Speaker 4: It's no man's power. It is power in that.
- 1:09:05Speaker 5: And it's like, you know a lot of times, especially
- 1:09:08Speaker 5: coming from New York, were like real cynical people where
- 1:09:10Speaker 5: it's like.
- 1:09:11Speaker 2: No trust herself.
- 1:09:12Speaker 4: Trust.
- 1:09:14Speaker 2: We really got a New York state of money.
- 1:09:15Speaker 5: That's a fact. And even with the music, I could see,
- 1:09:17Speaker 5: like I think that's really helped Atlanta. It's like they
- 1:09:19Speaker 5: work together, and it's the power in that instead of
- 1:09:22Speaker 5: just trying to be cliquish, like trying to find fault
- 1:09:25Speaker 5: in what this person is doing, Like, we go a
- 1:09:27Speaker 5: lot further if we move as a unit.
- 1:09:29Speaker 2: I feel like your legacy is being cemented like this.
- 1:09:31Speaker 2: Your story is incredible. Tell me how it feels now
- 1:09:35Speaker 2: that your daughter's coming of age and is she interested
- 1:09:38Speaker 2: in running these businesses? And how proud of you to
- 1:09:41Speaker 2: hand it down to her.
- 1:09:42Speaker 3: She's going to do it. I'm extremely proud of that.
- 1:09:45Speaker 3: I'm extremely proud of her.
- 1:09:46Speaker 6: I'm almost about to like she had a couple of
- 1:09:48Speaker 6: two years now, but yeah, because you know, she originally
- 1:09:52Speaker 6: kind of wanted to do her own thing, and I
- 1:09:56Speaker 6: didn't talk her out of it or anything like that.
- 1:09:59Speaker 6: But she started off just having a job doing the
- 1:10:02Speaker 6: social media and so just being around and you know,
- 1:10:06Speaker 6: of course, like when I come home, my business had
- 1:10:08Speaker 6: comes off. So you know, I'm not telling her about nothing.
- 1:10:11Speaker 6: And so she didn't even realize like how people looked
- 1:10:14Speaker 6: at me or viewed me until she started working for
- 1:10:17Speaker 6: me and being in the businesses.
- 1:10:19Speaker 3: And now she just even admires me more.
- 1:10:22Speaker 6: Of course, you know, she knows that I'm her mother,
- 1:10:23Speaker 6: but you know, she realizes like who I am and
- 1:10:26Speaker 6: what I've done in the platform that I'm one, And
- 1:10:29Speaker 6: you know, she's proud, you know, to wear a Dealer
- 1:10:31Speaker 6: Hospitality Group shirt that's her last name, you know what
- 1:10:34Speaker 6: I'm saying, and to have a company that you know
- 1:10:38Speaker 6: can be passed down to her you know. So that's
- 1:10:41Speaker 6: really that's the best thing about it, you know what
- 1:10:43Speaker 6: I mean, that's what you do it for, so that
- 1:10:45Speaker 6: this is something that can feed generations to come, you
- 1:10:48Speaker 6: know what I'm saying. So definitely like extremely proud of that,
- 1:10:52Speaker 6: and she's really good you.
- 1:10:54Speaker 3: Know at it already.
- 1:10:55Speaker 2: She's social media.
- 1:10:56Speaker 3: Yeah, she runs all of the social media. It doesn't
- 1:10:59Speaker 3: run my personal I'm like.
- 1:11:00Speaker 2: I'm like I was on yours.
- 1:11:03Speaker 4: The businesses, the business businesses.
- 1:11:05Speaker 3: All of the business ones.
- 1:11:06Speaker 6: And then she's also started so she just turned twenty,
- 1:11:09Speaker 6: but she started doing like learning, you know, some shift
- 1:11:13Speaker 6: lead managerial things, close and open the restaurants and different
- 1:11:18Speaker 6: things of that nature.
- 1:11:19Speaker 5: That's a feeling that I really wish everybody could feel
- 1:11:22Speaker 5: at least one time, Like you know, it's just a
- 1:11:24Speaker 5: it's a proud feeling as a parent. Like I have
- 1:11:25Speaker 5: a son, he's nine, and you know, he played basketball,
- 1:11:28Speaker 5: and so we rented a house in La, the whole
- 1:11:31Speaker 5: the whole podcast crew, and we had we was in
- 1:11:34Speaker 5: our families in La. So I'm trying to work out
- 1:11:36Speaker 5: with him, like on his game while we're in La.
- 1:11:40Speaker 5: He's like giving me push back, like I don't want
- 1:11:42Speaker 5: to work out, dada. So I'm telling I'm like having
- 1:11:44Speaker 5: a conversation like you if you want to go to
- 1:11:45Speaker 5: the NBA, because they always tell you want to go
- 1:11:47Speaker 5: to the NBA. I'm like, you want to go to
- 1:11:48Speaker 5: the NBA, you gotta practice every day, like you're not
- 1:11:50Speaker 5: just going to get there by accident. So he's like,
- 1:11:52Speaker 5: I don't want to go to the NBA anymore. So
- 1:11:53Speaker 5: I'm like, all, you don't have to. I'm like, so
- 1:11:55Speaker 5: I might, So what do you want to do? He's
- 1:11:56Speaker 5: like I want to do what you do. So you
- 1:11:58Speaker 5: know what I'm saying, It's like it's a dope feeling
- 1:12:00Speaker 5: and so exactly, I'm like, all right, you get to
- 1:12:02Speaker 5: play video games about entrepreneurship and you know, it's dope
- 1:12:07Speaker 5: to make money and it's dope. But it's like the
- 1:12:10Speaker 5: family legacy is extremely and it's something that you know,
- 1:12:13Speaker 5: it's it's one thing like you can't pass a job
- 1:12:16Speaker 5: down to your family like you can, but you know,
- 1:12:19Speaker 5: it's it's always politics involved. You know, you got a boss,
- 1:12:22Speaker 5: so it's like if you are the boss, the sense
- 1:12:25Speaker 5: of pride that your children have and you it's a
- 1:12:29Speaker 5: little different, you know. So that's something for people to
- 1:12:31Speaker 5: think about.
- 1:12:32Speaker 2: And our kids, I mean, they're always around each other,
- 1:12:34Speaker 2: so like they hear that conversations like my dad is
- 1:12:36Speaker 2: on YouTube. It's like a big deal of them. It's
- 1:12:40Speaker 2: it's like it makes it really proud because they look
- 1:12:41Speaker 2: at Aaron a Lisia like is this and it is
- 1:12:44Speaker 2: like we're not working for us when.
- 1:12:45Speaker 3: They ask, you know, when people ask them are.
- 1:12:50Speaker 5: Exactly yeah, nah, Snoop. That's it's been a pleasure. Anything
- 1:12:57Speaker 5: that you would like to make the people aware of
- 1:13:00Speaker 5: or let them know what do you have anything going on,
- 1:13:02Speaker 5: new business ventures, anything like that.
- 1:13:05Speaker 3: Like that talked about the new business ventures.
- 1:13:06Speaker 6: But you know, if anybody wants to find me, I'm
- 1:13:08Speaker 6: on Instagram and who is Snoop? Like I've mentioned, I
- 1:13:12Speaker 6: also during the pandemic, I filmed uh six different courses,
- 1:13:17Speaker 6: three of which are free courses. I would highly recommend
- 1:13:19Speaker 6: I literally beg people during the pandemic to invest in
- 1:13:22Speaker 6: the stock market because a lot of the stocks were down.
- 1:13:25Speaker 6: I knew that this was a man made recession and
- 1:13:28Speaker 6: that as soon as the economy started to bounce back,
- 1:13:30Speaker 6: as it's starting to do that, there would be a
- 1:13:32Speaker 6: lot of earnings and so definitely encourage people to, you know,
- 1:13:36Speaker 6: invest and just get that knowledge. There's so much knowledge
- 1:13:39Speaker 6: out there, and YouTube is definitely one of those places
- 1:13:41Speaker 6: to go to. But my course site is courses dot
- 1:13:44Speaker 6: Who is snoop dot com My website just to kind
- 1:13:48Speaker 6: of hear more about my story, my businesses and the
- 1:13:51Speaker 6: things that I have going on is who is snoop
- 1:13:53Speaker 6: dot com?
- 1:13:53Speaker 3: As well as Dialer Hospitalitygroup dot com.
- 1:13:56Speaker 5: What's your what's your We didn't get a chance to
- 1:13:57Speaker 5: talk about that is what's your st for stock investing?
- 1:14:01Speaker 5: You have a such strategy or so, I'm a long
- 1:14:03Speaker 5: term long term by a hole.
- 1:14:05Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't do a lot of the.
- 1:14:07Speaker 6: I'll reinvest my dividend. I also have a financial advisor.
- 1:14:11Speaker 4: Okay, okay, So I have quite a bit of.
- 1:14:13Speaker 3: Money, almost a million dollars in the stock market.
- 1:14:15Speaker 4: So any particular sector like tech, tech or.
- 1:14:19Speaker 6: One thing that I will encourage people to do, Yes,
- 1:14:21Speaker 6: tech tech is definitely. Tech is big right now, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Test, Tesler,
- 1:14:27Speaker 6: of course, Tesla.
- 1:14:28Speaker 3: Those are some of the main ones. But it's a
- 1:14:29Speaker 3: lot of other little ones like Gap stock is good
- 1:14:31Speaker 3: right now?
- 1:14:34Speaker 4: What else?
- 1:14:35Speaker 3: There's a there's a lot of different ones.
- 1:14:37Speaker 6: I've done good with a few of the airline stocks,
- 1:14:39Speaker 6: you know what I mean. Especially for somebody like me
- 1:14:41Speaker 6: that's going to buy and hole, not day trading, day traders.
- 1:14:45Speaker 3: You have people to do options. You got one of
- 1:14:47Speaker 3: my boys.
- 1:14:48Speaker 6: I don't know if you guys know, Black Robin Nashville,
- 1:14:51Speaker 6: who owns Minerva in the weekend, but.
- 1:14:54Speaker 3: He hit me like snoop, you do options. I made
- 1:14:56Speaker 3: seventeen grand a day off.
- 1:15:01Speaker 4: Options is the way, and.
- 1:15:02Speaker 6: So I'm always looking for new things as well, you
- 1:15:06Speaker 6: know what I mean. But for somebody like me that's
- 1:15:08Speaker 6: as busy as I am, I don't have time to
- 1:15:10Speaker 6: sit and do four rex time to sit and do
- 1:15:14Speaker 6: day trading. I you know, sometimes have time to look
- 1:15:18Speaker 6: up a little different stocks and stuff like that. But
- 1:15:20Speaker 6: I utilize my financial financial advisor. But two things tips
- 1:15:24Speaker 6: that I do want to get people before I get
- 1:15:26Speaker 6: out of here of ways that you can save and invest.
- 1:15:30Speaker 6: One of the ways to save that I did is
- 1:15:33Speaker 6: number one, cut your debit card up. So a lot
- 1:15:36Speaker 6: of times, like when people go out or they go places,
- 1:15:38Speaker 6: you know, you get their debit card and you just
- 1:15:40Speaker 6: get to swiping, you know what I'm saying. But like
- 1:15:42Speaker 6: you go out, you know, go to the ATM, take you,
- 1:15:45Speaker 6: you know, one hundred two hundred dollars out the bank.
- 1:15:48Speaker 6: I don't know much fun you're trying to have for
- 1:15:49Speaker 6: the night. And then once that's over, you ain't got
- 1:15:51Speaker 6: your debit card. You have no way to even be
- 1:15:54Speaker 6: able to spend more money, you know. So that's that's
- 1:15:56Speaker 6: a really big thing, you know, it's the hardest part
- 1:15:59Speaker 6: is saving your first one hundred thousand dollars.
- 1:16:01Speaker 3: But once you do that, it's so much easier.
- 1:16:04Speaker 6: You know, you'll see your money continue to accumulate and
- 1:16:07Speaker 6: kind of almost get to the point where you're kind
- 1:16:09Speaker 6: of obsessed with it, you know what I'm saying.
- 1:16:12Speaker 3: So you know that's that's definitely one thing too.
- 1:16:15Speaker 6: On the investment side, one of the ways that I've
- 1:16:18Speaker 6: been able to accumulate my portfolio to get as big
- 1:16:21Speaker 6: as it has been is that I automatically invest each month,
- 1:16:24Speaker 6: and so that's what I call paying myself first. So
- 1:16:27Speaker 6: I make sure that it comes immediately out of my
- 1:16:30Speaker 6: checking or savings account and goes into my investment account,
- 1:16:34Speaker 6: and you know, you get to the point that you know,
- 1:16:36Speaker 6: you don't even miss it, you don't even see it.
- 1:16:37Speaker 6: Of course, you know you want to do your budget
- 1:16:39Speaker 6: first and see what it is that you can afford
- 1:16:41Speaker 6: to actually invest. But those are just two things that
- 1:16:44Speaker 6: I want to leave y'all with, as well as the other,
- 1:16:47Speaker 6: you know, knowledge we just talked about. But thanks for
- 1:16:50Speaker 6: having me, guys. I appreciate meeting y'all. I watched a
- 1:16:56Speaker 6: couple of the episodes and so it was like earn
- 1:16:59Speaker 6: your leader. I normally don't do things on Friday, and
- 1:17:01Speaker 6: especially not this late, so I was just like, Man.
- 1:17:03Speaker 3: I gotta do that.
- 1:17:05Speaker 2: I appreciate it. Thank you for having appreciate you.
- 1:17:07Speaker 4: Man, choice some housekeeping night.
- 1:17:08Speaker 2: Yeah. Shot everybody on patreon dot com that is proud
- 1:17:11Speaker 2: to pay program. Obviously. You know tear four and five members.
- 1:17:13Speaker 2: You have access to e y l University, the number
- 1:17:16Speaker 2: one online school in the world. We have our book
- 1:17:19Speaker 2: club there that's hosted by myself. We have breaking breat
- 1:17:21Speaker 2: sessions with our brother MG, the mortgage guy, and the
- 1:17:24Speaker 2: group has just grown.
- 1:17:25Speaker 3: Man.
- 1:17:25Speaker 2: A lot of investment tips in there. I know we've
- 1:17:27Speaker 2: been driving some gems in the options game. So shout
- 1:17:30Speaker 2: everybody that's on there, and shout everybody that's supporting the merch.
- 1:17:33Speaker 2: We are going to be dropping some some some really
- 1:17:36Speaker 2: cool things in the very near future. Look up.
- 1:17:39Speaker 5: Shout out to Atlanta once again. He was doing an
- 1:17:41Speaker 5: eighty five South show yesterday. Yeah, the bros. They had
- 1:17:45Speaker 5: some jokes. I can't wait for that. Shout out to them, man,
- 1:17:50Speaker 5: And yeah, once again, make sure you subscribe like comment
- 1:17:55Speaker 5: on Apple, Spotify YouTube. All of that tele a friend
- 1:17:58Speaker 5: to tell a friend, and yeah, we will see you
- 1:18:01Speaker 5: guys next week.
- 1:18:01Speaker 2: Happy birthday to ob brother jamal Man. Happy birthday, Broth,
- 1:18:04Speaker 2: Happy birthday Man Atlanta. That's right, we're going to turn
- 1:18:07Speaker 2: up tonight, so we need a spot. We don't need
- 1:18:09Speaker 2: a spot. We're going to but we talk after this.
- 1:18:11Speaker 4: As a fact. We see ya next week.
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