hey this is Brian will coming at you on the show today with Jason Duncan the real Jason Duncan on the root of all success podcast had a great time today you guys gotta listen to this one it'll burn it up welcome to the root of all success with the real Jason Duncan a podcast that explores how the world's most powerful entrepreneurs unlocked success and how their stories can help you do the same a successful educator turned entrepreneur Jason has built multi-million dollar businesses that have been featured in ink magazine and Entrepreneur magazine his life's Mission now is helping entrepreneurs live what he calls hashtag the exit lifestyle introducing tedx speaker mastermind leader author entrepreneur Cigar Aficionado motorcycle Enthusiast and host of the root of all success the real Jason Duncan the real Jason Duncan welcome back to another episode I am the real Jason Duncan I've got Brian will on the show today and you might be thinking to yourself well who's Brian will well that's why you listen to the show because I didn't know who Brian will was 24 48 hours ago but I was a guest on his show the Dropout multi-millionaire just yesterday and now he's a guest on my show and this guy and I have so much in common it's really freaky and it's weird but you're going to hear a lot of this overlap in his background and my background but let me tell you a little bit about who he is because it's a guy you're going to want to follow a guy you're going to want to look up and learn some stuff from so he's a best-selling author he's a Serial entrepreneur and he's an expert in Sales Management and Consulting he's created seven successful companies across multiple different Industries he's known for his abilities he's going to turn things around he's going to tell a story actually uh where a company called him and said hey we're losing a million dollars a year can you come help and he had never done that before and they pay him a lot of money to come do it he's going to tell you that story so this is what he's really really good at he's been featured in The Wall Street Journal and USA Today for his book The Dropout multi-millionaire so we're going to have a great conversation today so please help help me welcome Brian will to the root of all success hey Brian welcome to the root of all success my man Jason thank you for having me this was awesome yeah well we uh we had a great show on your show yesterday so let's talk a little bit about your show because podcasters our podcast listeners listen to podcasts so tell everybody about the Dropout multi-millionaire I was a guest on your show the recording was yesterday probably won't come out for a while but tell us a little bit about your show first yeah so the show is based on my books I wrote a book about a year and a half ago called the Dropout multi-millionaire and it's really a story it's a it's a business book about um the subtitle is 37 lessons and how to succeed in business with no money no education and no clue and it's really my story which is coming from nowhere building companies that turned into two Venture Capital exits one private Equity exit uh I currently have three companies I own today um so it's really it's it's more soft skills in business building than it is hard skills which I talk about a lot in the book um so after the book was out it did really well we hit the Wall Street Journal in USA Today bestseller lists and so we decided to create the podcast and the podcast is you know in different interviews with different people as well as teachings on what I call these 37 lessons so that's kind of where we that's where can we kind of where we came from all right so go check out the Dropout the drop out multi-millionaire and look for the show with yours truly the real Jason Duncan and uh it's a good show Brian does a good job you know if I didn't know any better I would say he had been doing podcasting a lot longer based on just the questions and the conversation that we had yesterday so good on you Brian I appreciate that doing good out of the gate um so let's talk about this so you're a successful uh you know Dropout multi-millionaire guys a bunch of companies under your belt got a couple that you're still doing now you have a you've had a private Equity exit you've had a VC exit um so let's go back to the beginning man when did you start your life as an entrepreneur was it as a kid or did you see it happen as an adult no I I had joined the military and I got off active duty and was trying to get a job I was in the National Guard I did both the Air Force and the Army I did eight years for an H tried to get a job I did different odd jobs couldn't hold a job understanding that my background I failed out of high school my junior year managed to graduate but with a 1.2 GPA so I had no real education I had no discernible job skills and after getting fired from about four or five jobs I I was working for a landscaping company and I literally thought anybody can landscape right anybody can mow grass and dig holes so why don't I start my own business I have a terrible time working for people I might as well work for myself so that was the first company I started we built that into seven franchises around the Atlanta area before the entire thing collapsed and I learned an enormous number of lessons and then went on and started building more companies and learning along the way so that was my that was my initial company so right out of high school or college I was 20 so I got out of high school in the military got out of the milk got out of active duty when I was 20. did one year of college tried to get in because back then you could get in the college with if you've been in the military they'd let you in college so I tried it I lasted two semesters I dropped out and then tried to hold jobs for another year couldn't so that's when I started my first company Diamond landscape so so you're doing the Landscaping thing and you did you say you franchise it is that what you said I did I was I was rolling along and I had built a business that had a really good product and we had a really good Marketing System behind it and so I was talking to this guy and I said hey I might want to sell my business I'm tired of it by the way I hated Landscaping every single day for 10 years and he said well why would you sell it why not franchise it and I said I don't know anything about franchising and he said well I do and I'll charge you X number of dollars to help you franchise your company and I'm and I'm like how about you just become a partner and do it for free and he said okay so he came with 25 partner did all the paperwork set the whole thing up we franchise the company unfortunately we used the wrong lawyer who put in competing Clauses and all kinds of issues and after we'd sold seven franchises one of them decided to sue us and then when one sued us they all figured out they could stop paying us and then they all stopped paying me and the entire thing collapsed my world crumbled around me at 29 years old oh my gosh dude that sucks pick the right partner and watch your back is the message there so uh do you do you attribute that to obviously it all comes back to you it's always your fault I mean we always have to take responsibility for ourselves I think you would say that but but did it come back to the partner was the bad choice or it was the lawyer and the partner was just innocent bystander what happened no it's me like and I would imagine in your businesses and we talked yesterday you've had some failures every time I fail if I have a magic superpower it's learning right so I learned from my failures one of the things I learned there was you need to understand some certain things within contracts and legal language and how to interpret it and make sure you get somebody else to look over your back that you're doing things correctly and I didn't do that back then I can tell you today that's never happened again every mistake I've made never happened again and today I'm not a lawyer but I'm pretty good at reading contracts and I know where I'm going to get taken advantage of because I've been taking advantage of so many times so it was your was your I mean I get that you're taking responsibility but was your partner that inept and just wasn't paying attention or did or was the or is the lawyer just that in that I think the lawyer was inept yeah yeah and you know the problem is when you're a small business and you're being sued you know the dirt little secret of being sued is nobody's gonna win it's going to cost you just as much money to fight it as you're going to make or lose and at the end of the day you have to decide if you might as well just take your lumps now or you want to spend a bunch of money I literally had a judge tell me once look this lawsuit's going nowhere you're not going to get anything what are you even doing here I said I'm here at a principal and he goes principal cost money son this might not be the best use of yours yeah well the judge was uh kind because I think a lot of people in our position I've gotta I've got a business deal now where uh a very very large company that rhymes with schmamazon at uh has has uh essentially stolen a lot of money for me and and there's no way I can get I can't get back to it I've tried and tried and tried and I've had people oh just you need to get a lawyer yeah you can't sue Amazon these guys not gonna win they're bullies they're they're I didn't think they were when I started out but that's what they are I mean their notice to me was this is our final decision and we are not likely to answer any more questions like that's it that's their decision okay how do you fight that yeah you can't because every time you call the 800 number you get some person in some other part of the world who doesn't understand anything about anything and barely can speak English you're not going to get to the bottom of it so sometimes as he said going for principle costs a lot of money and I'm not willing to throw good money after bad yeah I've got stories like that just same exact stories you and I are like I'm telling you after looking at your stuff we track well I did too start a uh a long one company and sold it but uh I did not try to franchise it and uh so therefore I guess I was more successful in the loan business
you've probably made a lot more money than I did though for a short time I like to say it went really well until it didn't yeah well I've got it I've got one of my clients that's a part of my Mastermind he he wants to he wants to franchise his business and I said okay you know we could do we can we could talk about that that's not my expertise we could talk about that and I know some lawyers in the space that do franchising and so I'm trying to slow walk him into that because I think it's a good idea in the business he's in I don't want to say because I'm going to give it away sure like the business that he's in that particular industry is franchisable and it's easy to run in multiple locations can I give you my my 30 seconds on franchising yeah and I love franchising I speak at franchises good franchises are invaluable and they give you things that you can't do as an individual but if you're going to franchise your company you need to look at the difference between franchising and Licensing franchising costs a lot of money there's a lot of legal stuff there's a lot of accounting you have to do a lot of auditing work with CPA firms and if you don't grow your franchise big enough to cover your fixed over overhead costs and if you don't grow your franchise big enough that your franchisees don't have control over you that's where you get in trouble you look at any small franchise company with less than 10 units they're controlled by their franchisees they have no power they think they do and legally they do but just like we talked about just because you have the legal right to do something doesn't mean you can effectively enforce it if all of your seven or eight franchisees decide they don't want to play ball with you right it becomes a dangerous game so if you're going to franchise in my opinion you got to blow it up to scale so that you have power uh or you should look at a licensing agreement which gives you all the same Financial benefits with all without all the legalities involved in franchising that's my two cents well I'm gonna take your two cents and cash that in for a dollar because I think that we should talk about this I think there's some people listening right now even though that wasn't the intent of the show today if we could spend just five more minutes sure on this idea between licensing and franchising I think the listeners would what I'm interested with sure if you like what is the main difference between licensing and franchising besides what you've already said so if I license my brand to you like like I'm at a restaurant chain called Central City Tavern I can license you the brand Central City Tavern and give you a set of guidelines that you have to follow and then you have to pay me my percentage of whatever deal we set up but as a licensing deal of a brand name if I franchise it I have so many legalities I have to go through I have to get CPA firms I have to do auditing I have to file the franchise paperwork it's got to be Nationwide I've got to get National trademarks I got to do all these things and by the way you got to repay for this of everything single year right and and if you don't you become in non-compliance with franchise laws and your franchisees can instantly come after you and say well I'm not going to pay you anymore because you're not in compliance you're you're opening yourself up to a lot of issues from accounting and legal that you don't have in a licensing agreement I can literally license you my name and still have some control over you without having to go through all that it's a subtlety but if you look at most franchises today that start out they blow up to one 200 300 you they go like that and they know they have to do it because if you get in an argument with one out of five franchises and then he talks to his buddy and now you've got two out of five and and by the way in a franchise agreement you have to list all of your franchisees and you have to list all their phone numbers and contact information so that anybody who wants to buy one can call them and ask if you're a good guy now a three of your five or three or seven are mad at you you're not selling any more franchises because they're all going to call your guys and they're going to go don't do business with this guy he's he's doing this and this and this and suddenly nobody will buy your franchises anymore and that's what we got into I had seven and four more sold but when the first guy got mad then he got the second guy to jump in and they said hey we can sue this guy and not pay I had three when my four new friend my four new potential franchises called they were like no no we got a deal we don't have to do this and so I lost all my next four units and I ended up having to sell out to everybody and walk away licensing unit I don't have to have that kind of disclosure well why don't more people do licensing as opposed to enfranchising why is it that you don't know about licensing I think the franchise Lobby is probably holding it back huh well it's just because people don't know they just don't understand the concept of Licensing so talk to your lawyer who's an expert in franchising and Licensing tell them what you're trying to accomplish and then make a decision I had literally somebody two weeks ago she said I own a business in the dog food business I want to open one in California they want to do a franchise I said you're crazy you want to have one franchise they're never going to do what you say and there's nothing you can do about it so think about licensing instead unless you're gonna you know she said well I might do a third one I'm like bad idea so with licensing so if let's use that lady as an example so she's going to open her dog food or dog store pet supplies whatever it is in California and she licensed the name Amy's pet yeah so she licenses the name that they have to abide by certain things just like a franchise they do where you get your stuff and all that great and if they don't I just take away your license agreement and now you can keep your store but you can't use my brand my name my systems do they have to now I would imagine with a franchise you have to buy your materials through the franchise headquarters where licensing you wouldn't that's only if you're big like McDonald's can do that because they've got Trucking systems Subway can do that but if you're a small franchise no we would give you we gave you you know recommended vendors but we can't we could force you but if you're not big enough there's no point in doing that I'm not gonna open a franchise in California and then try to ship product all the way across the country from the plan if that doesn't make any sense so what uh what'd you do next so you lost your you lost your you know your franchises with all your lawn care would you yeah I went from seven offices down to I called it me a shovel in a truck I sold everything I had I had to sell my houses my cars I sold everything I had to pay my bills and ended up with five thousand dollars had to find a new house to live in went out and found a guy that would at least purchase me a house with five thousand down I had my truck a shovel in a and a Truck me and a Truck and a shovel and I went out and started doing landscaping by myself again you know the big dog write that down to the manual labor guy and really my buddy who was selling insurance at the time comes to me and by the way I had lost my health insurance because I couldn't pay the bill at the same time I found out my daughter had atrial septal defect which is a hole in her heart so now she has to have open heart surgery I have no health insurance because I couldn't pay my bill which was 130 bucks because I'd lost my company big lessons in there by the way huge lessons in business and that failure never ever leave yourself exposed financially if something's going to go wrong right covet you know covid wiped out the week it thinned the herd it did that because people that couldn't operate didn't have enough power or backing or ability to survive a downtime they all went under and this is going to happen again if we have another downturn or recession it's going to thin the hurt again I didn't I've never made a mistake again by the way so my buddy comes over he says I want to sell you health insurance and by the way you used to sell health insurance with me and I'm like dude I've sold cars I did Amway I am not selling insurance that reminds me of Groundhog Day and the guy that's trying to sell insurance to Bill Murray and he punches him in the face right Ned Neil knows Ned right that's so I'm thinking that's I'm not going to do that well he says hey man look look at my big check and I was like whatever couple months comes by he goes look at my big check this size went six months and he says look at my check and I said all right that check's big how do I sell insurance he said come with me on one appointment he didn't tell me I had to get licensed he didn't tell me I had to go through a training course getting you know he just took me on one appointment and said here's some leads go sell insurance and I'm like out there illegally selling Insurance because I didn't know any better but what I found out was that within six weeks I was the number one producer in this agency and I was out producing all 14 other guys like combined and I was like well crap I can sell I never knew that and so I literally went on a I was Landscaping during the day and selling insurance at night and I one day I was standing in somebody's backyard talking to him about a landscaping project and I folded my book up I said I have to go I got in my truck I called my wife I said I quit she says what do you mean I said I'm never landscaping again I'm never mowing my own grass I don't not going to own a shovel I'm done I hated this for 10 years I hated my failure I hated everything about it I'm done she goes what are we gonna do I said I'm selling insurance so I started an insurance agency no I'm sorry I'm going to take all this time here but real quickly I am the epitome of what we call ambitiously Lazy ambitiously lazy means I'm willing to work really hard for a short period of time so that I can slack off later and still make the money it's not too different than the Exeter lifestyle right yeah there you go it's ambitiously lazy and so here I am selling insurance and I'm back in the day we had to go see face to face so I would call get an appointment drive out to their house half the time they wouldn't be there if they were I'd talk to them the other half the time they weren't qualified then I'd sell a policy then I'd come back home and I'd do all the paperwork and I'd make some money along the way I said man I'm killing time driving out to people's houses why don't I just sell them over the phone so I started pitching him over the phone then I say all I got to do is come out and get your signature so I started doing that well then while I was out getting signatures I was missing phone calls because I was advertising the Yellow Pages so I said hey man if I could get somebody to go out and pick up the signatures I could stay home and sell so I started doing hired a guy named Mandy he's paying Andy 100 bucks a policy so Andy's out running around and after a while a couple more months I was like if I could fire Andy I'd make another 200 a day how do I fire Andy so I call the insurance carry I said hey would you let me do facts by the way fax was a new thing back then this ought to tell you how old I am and they were like well that's not really real I said no fax is real that you can it's a legal signature they said we'll do an experiment with you we'll let you do a fact signature see how it does within six months I was the largest agency in the country for Assurant Health and I was doing it with three people in my office two secretaries and I was out producing mgas with 500 agents in the street we were killing it this is 19.99 the internet was popping up e-health Health uh simply health and there was another one the three online insurance agencies called me and they said we hear that you are selling insurance and you're not going out to see people we want to buy you here I am like 32 years old and I have a venture capital company wanting to buy me I was like okay well can I have stock options if you remember back in late 90s stock everybody's making millions in stock options right like I started thumb.com and I made I'm a multi-millionaire in stock options that's how dumb it was back then so they buy me out it was my first sale I made one million dollars now Jason that's when you learned that a million dollars is not very much money let's take a quick break to thank our amazing sponsors for making this podcast possible [Applause] as an entrepreneur I know that you have to deal with sales on a regular basis I mean every entrepreneur does and if you aren't paying attention to sales as an entrepreneur you're not going to be an entrepreneur for very long but I've got a sponsor of this show called dub that helps you bring the personal back to sales if you want to figure out how to improve content creation and improve client trust improve your sales process decrease the cell cycle because we all know time kills deals if you want to increase client bookings and increase conversions you need to take a look at dub there's a special offer for dub for listeners to the root of all success at the real jasonduncan.com dub and that's d-u-b-b I've been using this for years I'm a huge fan and I'm so honored that there are a primary sponsor of the podcast but they have helped over 60 000 businesses around the world communicate better to make sales e easier to make sales more personal and it's built dubbed for growing teams I mean you can set up video emails you can set up custom onboarding you can do admin reporting you need around video and sales and automation dub is 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that people go oh I want to talk to that if you want to know how people do that that is exactly what story does they take your videos and they make you look like an influencer they make you become an influencer and they will post it for you they'll write the captions they'll add the relevant hashtags they put it on the platforms that you care about the most and after that content's posted they take it even one step further to boost it to your past clients your leads or anyone that you want to Target and they even have someone log into your social media profile to engage with other people's posts to drive engagement on your profile story truly takes the headache away from doing social media content from start to finish and they have a mission to help people nurture and cultivate their relationships by sharing your message digitally and they even have an app that makes it easy to upload your content and track everywhere your video is at and I've been using them for a long time and I told them I said look guys I love what you're doing I want to recommend you to everybody you need to be a sponsor of my podcast and so they're a co-sponsor of this podcast and they're also the exclusive sponsor of my live webinar series entrepreneur Master Series because they're that good I tell everybody about them so go to the real jasonduncan.com story to learn more and that's the real Jason duncan.com store s-t-o-r-y-y why are there two y's because they're awesome you'll get ten percent off your first three months if you go to that link the real jasonduncan.com story thanks for listening to our sponsors now back to the show you pay taxes you pay like you pay off I paid my taxes I paid my house off and I bought a car and I had like 50 grand left so here I am a millionaire with fifty thousand dollars and no income like it's nothing it's nothing people always think oh my God he's a millionaire okay he's got a house and a car he's broke so that was my first sale but that's how I got involved in the Venture Capital world and then we developed this next technology company that turned into uh connection which actually ended up going public and then went back private which now is the backbone for medicare.com so that was my original company so wow we then I left and I this was a crazy story he started I bought a pizza place well let me before you talk about the pizza place okay let me ask a couple questions so I too another thing you and I do not have in common I sold health and life insurance
yeah and and recently truth truth I just got my life insurance license again because I send I talk about life insurance so much as a wealth building tool and protection asset protection I have so many people that call me about it I had a the guy that I keep sending everybody to is like dude you have to get your license yeah because you make a lot of money so I just so I just got my license so a little little uh selfish plug here if anybody's interested in properly structured whole life insurance to bank on yourself yeah the real Jason duncan.com Bank on yourself and I can actually help you with that and it's the one one of the number one tools for the wealth to use to protect your wealth anyway so you did health and life insurance yep you built the number one agency you sell out you become a millionaire but they took advantage of you yeah let's just call it what it is is they saw you coming a million miles away and you had no idea was going to happen so once again you get screwed by people who know better yeah but now pizza place what'd you do next well let me back up real quick so after they bought me out we developed this platform it was me and the CTO of this company his name was Mark and Mark comes to me and says we're trying to sell this retail platform to sell insurance to Consumers and I said Mark we should sell this to the carriers instead of us trying to sell individual policies and sell the platform to a carrier and then let them have all their agents log on to it and buy insurance from them much like today if you go to any health insurance or life insurance carrier they have a website this was our technology so I went to the CEOs 27 and I said hey I want to build this platform and he said I'm not going to support you or give you any money but if you want to try and sell it to a carrier knock yourself out so Mark and I and one Biz Dev girl we took off and did three appointments in the next six weeks and sold six million dollars worth of software SAS software that we hadn't even developed yet I was selling blue freaking sky I'm like oh yeah we can do that well we sell the six million dollars worth of software and all of a sudden I'm at my little cubicle one day and all the entire VC team comes to the board of directors office and by the way when I wrote the business plan and did it I put myself in as director of sales for this SAS company and I had gone out and sold all this software I was the lead sales guy they came in they have a three-hour meeting they come out they call me in and they said hey man you've done a really good job developing in this new sales platform we're going to throw another 6 million in we're going to change the name of the company we're going to move to a SAS product instead of a retail sales product but we got to be honest with you you don't have a college education and we can't really have you in the sales role so we want you to go back to your cubicle and do your work and we're going to hire somebody else to run this company and do sales for it and I said I literally that day I walked back to my cubicle picked up all my stuff put my coat on walked out the door and bought a pizza place
that what what is what is what people in these college degrees even back then I mean I know the college degree was a big thing back then but even today like I I was talking to somebody I don't even remember who it was but they said the similar situation they had been proving themselves into it in their role and they they were rainmakers but when that promotion came uh you don't have a college degree and so that and they lost their number one person because of some stupid the college degrees worth nothing man it's a decoration on a piece of wall hey when I got I got two college degrees right here hanging on the wall that's all they're good for me to look at and remember how much money is when I built the next company I ended up selling it to a VC firm it's called getinsure.com today they power about 10 uh State exchange health insurance exchanges under the ACA I get bought out I'm now going to to Silicon Valley once a month to meet with the Venture Capital guys and I remember when they bought me out we had this giant office in Atlanta and they were based in Silicon Valley first thing they told me is you got you built a great company this was awesome we appreciate what you've done but got to be honest with you you don't have a college degree we can't even put you on the website let alone tell anybody that you're running our Atlanta office I was like okay sounds good that was the second time I got shot down with no college degree both my children have Masters by the way oh yeah we talked about you talked about your son yeah that's pretty interesting what he's wanting to do too but uh so so the where did the pizza place come in well I bought it and it was a complete flop after six months I was you know when you're standing in the doorway your pizza place there's nobody inside I was thinking what am I doing let me go back to the insurance World which is where I came from and that's when I developed that company then we did an online Legion which was called monetize it we sold it to a private Equity Firm that was my big exit but that's also where I learned to get a mentor that was the company where I finally learned to get a mentor so what what happened when you got a mentor how'd life change so I told you I'd made the million and dotted on we were making a little bit of money and we started this next company it was prior to the second VC sale and a buddy of mine who had made millions and millions and millions of dollars left his firm they sold it he wanted to start another internet marketing firm doing Legion the subprime and the insurance space he comes to me and he says listen give me equity in your company I'll give you equity in mind I'm going to start the internet company in the back it's going to be huge I'm going to throw in 500 000 this is him and then we both owe the money back so if it fails you're gonna have to pay me back too I said okay sounds good you've done really well Steve nine months later my CPA comes into the office sits down across from my desk and he says you need to shut the internet company down I said why he goes they've already burned through the entire 500 000 they've generated zero revenue and I mean zero they're gonna bankrupt you and I was like freaking out because I don't have five hundred thousand dollars to pay this guy back I have a house and a car so the next day I go home I tell my wife I'm freaking out we got to shut this thing down I don't want to do this anymore the next day my partner Steve comes in he's a senior partner and he says hey man we're gonna invest another sixty six thousand dollars to buy some more servers and it's just going to go into the debt so don't worry about it and I said Steve like this is my big eyes Steve we haven't made any money he goes Brian it's gonna work don't worry about it I'm like Steve it's not working we've made no money if you'd make like 20 bucks I could say you made 20 bucks we've made nothing this thing's dead I'm not doing we can't do this he said Brian it's gonna work but here's my deal and by the way my friend Steve who's worth probably 20 man at the time drives a pickup truck and wears gym shorts and a t-shirt every day you'd never know he says here's the deal you give me my Equity I'll give you yours you walk away you owe me nothing I want to be your friend I don't want to have any any money between us so this is my offer to you you can walk away today and you said this this day this is Steve telling me this Steve told Ryan I will give you your Equity you give me mine you don't owe me a dime and we walk away as friends Steve telling me this and I'm sitting there looking at Steve and that ping pong Ball's like this is my out I'm out of 500 000 of debt but Steve's a multi-millionaire I'm not he knows what he's talking about I've been taking my own advice and I said okay I said Steve I'm in I said if I'm going down I'm going down with you so I'm in and he goes okay good I don't want everyone to hear that conversation again 30 days later we hit our first offer on the internet we went we went 6 million to 32 million to 60 million in Revenue sold the company for 80 million dollars 18 months later
you know what my life would be like if I had listened to me instead of Steve that day now there were five Partners I made like 12 million in that deal my life would be completely different I would not be sitting here talking to you I wouldn't be a consultant to billion dollar companies I wouldn't have done anything I've done in my life and it all came down to one decision and that decision was to say I'm in I'm going to listen to you instead of me because you've had success and I haven't and if I'm going down I'm going down with a guy who knows what he's talking about I have a tattoo today that says I'm in to remind me of that and I told you yesterday my mentor just passed away he just passed away about three weeks ago but he changed my life my children's life my grandchildren's life created generational wealth for my family because of one decision and I tell entrepreneurs all the time you need to listen to somebody who has been there and done that and quit taking your own damn advice who you are is who you are who you are got you where you are and if where you are isn't where you want to be then you need to find somebody who is where you want to be and you need to listen to them and not you check your ego and get a coach that's my pitch all right that that so what we need to do is pull that out so glories that part right there there's my editor she needs to pull that spot out that's that's your mic drop moment from the from the show today that's really good I think I'm going to title The Joe quit taking your own damn advice
I like that well I think I think one of the things that I teach my clients and and my mentor taught this to me of course intuitively we all know it we just need someone else to tell us like quit taking advice from those unqualified to give it sometimes you're you're the person that's unqualified to get it but I tell you who's who's a lot of times unqualified to give it but we don't want to admit it is for us guys it's our wives for the wives it's your husbands for for the kids it's your parents the parents it's your kids like we listen to our our family members because we trust them and we love them and we know that they have our best interests in heart but there is a difference between us as entrepreneurs and them as non-entrepreneurs and the way we see things and process things and the way we understand risk they're not typically qualified to give that type of business advice but then as you've pointed out in this story quit taking your own damn advice sometimes the things that we think are best or not and we need some outside perspective that's why a coach and a mentor is so vitally important that's why I have a mastermind that's why I'm a coach that's why I'm part of a mastermind have a coach I love I love this so now now Brian you're at the point where you've sold you've sold this company how many years ago was that that big exit we sold that one in 06 and then the insurance agency that I was running when I sold that when we sold an 08 to another venture capital firm that's one that's called get insured today so I haven't had a job I had to get up I haven't had an alarm clock in 16 years so what do you do now what keeps you busy you know after that I started doing consulting this is a great story so I just sold the second company and I'm I'm called my friend Steve because he'd started another company I said Steve I'm going to come back to work with you and he said I don't really have any jobs and I said I will work for free I will sit at a desk right beside you if you will teach me this internet stuff because I was a part of the company but I was running my insurance company while he was running the internet side that's a good tip by the way I was willing to work for free just to get the education and so I was in I walked into the office one day and my phone rings and I pick it up and it was the chief sales officer of a multi-billion dollar insurance company her name is Laura and Laura said hey Brian how are you and I was like oh hey Laura why are you calling me she said listen you know you built this thing and you've sold it and as an insurance carrier we've built our own direct to Consumer call center up in Minneapolis and right now it's doing about 75 million dollars in Revenue but it's losing a million a month will you come up and tell us what's wrong and I was like uh sure she goes how much money do you want I said I have no idea she goes I tell you what I'll give you a hundred thousand dollars for four days I was like yeah that sounds about right I'll I'll be up there next week and I got the phone I walked into Steve's office said Steve I just got a call they offered me a hundred thousand dollars for four days I'm already a multi-millionaire let's be honest but I had never been offered a hundred thousand dollars just to go talk to somebody for four days he goes well you're an industry expert you've sold two companies that's the way it works so I did that we turned them around they ended up paying me 750 000 over the course of that year to turn that we turned it from a loser to the most profitable division that that company had then I got a call from another company and then another company and I started doing this corporate Consulting in sales and Sales Management and direct to Consumer space so I did I probably trained a thousand sales people over 10-year period my teams have sold billions of dollars a year in Insurance in the direct to Consumer space and then I started I I do what a lot of people do that make a lot of money I thought I'm gonna buy a bar because that'd be fun you know like have my own cheers place I'll be Sam alone behind the bar so about a bar it lost money so I bought four more because that's what you do when you lose money and then I got rid of the first one and then started making good money and that's how I got into the restaurant business I have a small chain of restaurants now and then I started another company that we sold to a call center out of India and then I got into politics I sit on city council I ran for election year and a half ago I got elected uh so I do that now and then I started doing consulting so I've launched a podcast I wrote the books by the way uh and now I'm launching my own Mastermind so I'm literally following your footsteps I'm two years behind you Jason well it sounds like you've got a lot more zeros in front behind you than that than me man so congrats on what you've built man this is this is phenomenal what do you think the keys are to how you've unlocked success what keys did you use to unlock all this great success so I consider myself to be an expert and this is why I keep saying you and our track and like I've listened to your podcast I've listened to your reels and you and I teach the exact same things right I I believe that I am really good at building companies that don't need me right and there are certain things you need to understand if you're going to do that which is you got to replace yourself in every role as your company grows you've got to be building blocks of lifestyle and income you got to be willing to make less money in the short run so you can make more money in the long run and this is what I've done so when I build companies I build companies with people that I allow to that I train that I allow to fail so that they can learn to be the person they need to be so that they can replace me in different aspects of the company right nobody's ever going to be as good as you running your company but you can put people in there that can do a good enough job that you can buy your time back exit without exiting I mean I'm telling you um and that's what I've done like my restaurant chain I've got restaurants I don't even go to I've got people that run them this cell phone right here I have apps on here I can run my entire company from this cell phone in a ski lift I like to joke that I'll run down I'll get in the ski lift look at my phone answer a question get back on the ski lift and go back up I've been in Park City this is day 32 right I'm not in Atlanta and then I bought real estate Investments and all kinds of other stuff but uh there are certain things you need to understand in building a business and building and solidifying business and growing a business and then building it so that you can exit it yeah so one I think one of the key takeaways there Brian is that you know we've got to learn to get ourselves out of the weeds of daily operations the law of the architect which teaches as a universal law that we as the architect of the business the founder of the business it is our role to set the vision communicate the vision and build the asset that's it anything beyond that we should be delegated or eliminated you can't do everything and that makes your company more valuable it makes your life more livable and that's exactly what I teach of course you've been following me my exit without exiting book just came out I mean that's exactly what we're supposed to do and I love that you say that is your key to success is getting the hell out of the way like quit taking your own damn advice get the hell out of the way it's time to let the company grow up and be its own thing and that provides you money long term now let me ask you a another question kind of on that in that same similar vein how does how does Brian will Define that word success this is a this is a good question and I'm going to give you a couple of of good answers in my opinion 6 success to me is as I just said I haven't had an alarm clock in 16 years success to me is being able to own a company run it and make the money without having to go there and be there I have an office I actually own the entire building but we have a office within the building I don't even have an office in my own office don't have a desk when if I do show up I have to sit in the conference room because there's no place for me to sit down right success and this is a favorite part of my life is that I can go anywhere I want and do what I want and still run my companies because I have set processes and systems in place that allow me to be at 30 000 feet in uh looking down on the organization and providing strategic guidance that's what I do so in the business to me that's success in life and this was what my first Mentor taught me when he was worth millions and I wasn't I said Steve what's it like being a millionaire and he said Brian when you go to a restaurant I don't look at the menu prices if I go to a sports game or a theater I get the best seats in the house I don't worry about what things cost I don't need to have a Ferrari I don't need to have you know a Bugatti I don't need to have a 20 million dollar house I do what I want when I want where I want and I never worry about what it costs so sex to me is taking my kids over and walking the Great Wall of China for two weeks success to me is running with the bulls in Spain with my children success is being able to live the life and do the things that everybody says they're going to do but they never do and you go out and do it because you have the ability to do it because you set systems up that allow you to do that that's success to me and you know what's the ironic about this is that is that if we analyze what people who make like middle class people who make less money versus the people like what you just described people like me and you like which one of us is more focused on money which one works for money which one is money focused yeah and it's the middle class we're not like money works for us we don't work for money that's the difference now let me ask you this so based on that definition of success that you just gave do you consider yourself to be a successful person successful yes have I achieved everything I'm capable of in life no and that's why I keep going there's some more things I want to do to me business is a hobby it's what I do for fun helping people is my new hobby building this Mastermind look you know this number Jason seventy percent of people that start a business are gonna fail they fail for the same reasons and it's not the technical skills as I like to say and I always use Joe the plumber as an example if Joe the plumber starts his business Joe's business will not fail because Joe doesn't know how to plumb Joe's business will fail because Joe doesn't know how to be a business owner and that is 90 of failure they don't know what they're doing I tell people this all the time if you've never run a successful business you don't know what you're doing and you need to find somebody who does to help you or you're going to fall into that 70 statistic that's just a fact there's so many people out there my new mission in life with the with the Dropout multimeter podcast and the force multiplier Mastermind to find those people that are struggling and help them not fall into the statistics
love it man well I'm gonna give you the last word as we as we get ready to sign off I want everybody to know that they can find Brian will at brianwillmedia.com you can follow him on Instagram Facebook LinkedIn YouTube you just look up the Dropout mm which stands for multi-millionaire the Dropout mm on any of those platforms you can find him so Brian I want to give you the last word like what what advice would you give to the listeners the entrepreneurs out there that are still struggling don't know they haven't figured out the things that you figured out yet to become successful what's your advice all right this is my favorite story that I end most podcasts with uh what kind of phone do you have Jason I'm a Google pixel guy so I have an iPhone right most people have iPhones I think iPhone is run by Apple Apple computer is run by who do you know the CEO of Apple is Tim Cook Tim Cook runs the largest company on planet Earth one of the most profitable companies in the world he's clearly a really really really smart guy would you agree with that Yeah Yeah Tim Cook has almost every major corporation well every major corporation almost all middle class corporations have what's called a board of directors now a board of directors is a group of people from different industries that all come in and they meet once a quarter much like they do with apple and so once a quarter the board of directors comes in to meet with Tim Cook now what do the board of directors do in your opinion well they're supposed to direct the CEO in his role right they give advice so I like to say they all come in once a quarter and you've got all kinds of different personalities in there from chemical companies to Al Gore to higher education people it's crazy the different but none of them are by the way in computers and software and they'll come in I like to think they sit at the big table in apple and they yell at their Jimmy John's Subs and they're cracking them up and they're like all right Tim what's going on at Apple and he goes oh my God you know Foxconn in China is a problem and we're having issues with getting the cell phone done we're having political issues over here and we're having you know unionization issues over there and the factory and he tells them all his problems and they also you know what based on our experience based on what we've done based on everything we know these are the suggestions we're giving you on what you need to do to guide Apple to move it forward and after the meeting they'll go home and Tim takes all their suggestions and he applies them to Apple when he moves the company forward does that sound about right
probably a version of that okay Jim Cook needs people to help him make decisions in his business what makes you as a young entrepreneur think you don't even need one person yeah get a coach get a coach so true that's my final sword that is so true well Brian it's been a pleasure uh having having you on my show today it was fun being on your show yesterday maybe our shows were released about the same time right now this one's scheduled to go out at the end of the month uh maybe our shows will come out at the same time so if you haven't listened to the Dropout multi-millionaire podcast make sure you go check that out follow Brian will at the Dropout mm on all the social platforms YouTube Instagram Facebook LinkedIn all that stuff so Brian thanks for being on the show today man Jason it was freaking awesome I loved it well there you have it another very successful entrepreneur about his story to success and uh you know like I said at the intro you know I didn't know who Brian was 48 hours ago and now I I found a cool dude a friend a colleague somebody that I have a lot in common with and I and I'm learning some stuff from him and I hope that you're learning some stuff too I think what I what I heard him say is he called himself ambitiously lazy which I I find very interesting I love I love that idea because I think that I'm probably like that too nobody would ever accuse me of being lazy as a matter of fact I've been accused of being the most laid-back ambitious person or laid back and driven person he ever met so lazy is probably not the right word but I get the sentiment I understand I want to build something I want to put run hard and fast and then let it run on its own uh we had some interesting conversation there at the beginning about franchising versus licensing so if you're in a position where you're not really sure what you want to do reach out to Brian not that he's going to give you legal advice but I think he's probably got some real life exam samples and some some some cautionary tales about whether you should franchise or license and his advice on to us and his his definition success about not having an alarm clock he and I we haven't talked about this either but I don't set an alarm clock either you've heard me talk about that and I love that part of my life so we also have that in common but not worrying about what it costs and just being able to to do your life on your own terms isn't that what we all want so thank you for listening to the show please make sure you've rated us and subscribed to the show the root of all success just continues to rise in the ranks because of people like you listening to the show so thank you for taking the time to listening and if you haven't watched this on YouTube go to youtube.com the real Jason Duncan now before I quit this show I have one more announcement to make this is my new book Exit without exiting it just came out early in March and it is now a number one international best-selling book it is the exit exit without exiting how to live the exit lifestyle sooner than you ever thought possible how do you sell your business or how do you exit your business without selling it you see so many people think that you can't live the exit lifestyle until you sell it well in fact that's not true and and Brian and I talked about it on the show today about the key to being successful in business is being able to get yourself out of the weeds this book tells the story of Edward a story of Cheryl and a story of James three fictional characters that I created to illustrate what it's like to live the exit lifestyle and also what it's like not to do it right so thank you for listening to this show as I hope that you'll tune in again next time when I talk with another very successful entrepreneur but until then remember I am the real Jason Duncan
thank you for listening to another edition of the root of all success with the real Jason Duncan if you've enjoyed this week's episode visit therootofallsuccess.com to access the show notes and other helpful resources follow Jason on social media at the real Jason Duncan are you an entrepreneur who feels Trapped In The Weeds of daily operations not experiencing the freedom you thought you'd have as a business owner want to know the way out take Jason's free exit Readiness assessment to see how close you are to getting ready to experience true freedom and success as an entrepreneur go to am I ready to exit.com today that's am I ready to exit.com see you again next time here on the route of all success [Applause]
