Transcript
WEBVTT
00:00:00.020 --> 00:00:03.166
All right, hello everyone, welcome back to the show.
00:00:03.166 --> 00:00:08.785
This is James Paris, and today we have a very special guest, jason Roberts.
00:00:08.785 --> 00:00:10.852
Jason, how are you doing today?
00:00:11.359 --> 00:00:11.842
I'm doing well.
00:00:11.842 --> 00:00:12.525
Thanks for having me.
00:00:13.500 --> 00:00:14.342
And you know.
00:00:14.342 --> 00:00:22.350
Jason, to just start this show off, can you kind of tell me who you are, what you're about and what's your messages overall?
00:00:22.920 --> 00:00:27.463
Yeah, that's a big question but I'll kind of rewind it back a little bit.
00:00:27.463 --> 00:00:35.588
You know, I grew up in a small farm town in Troy, missouri, about an hour outside of St Louis, didn't have much growing up man.
00:00:35.588 --> 00:00:42.131
You know, we didn't have a lot of money my mom and me and my two brothers when I was probably 12.
00:00:42.131 --> 00:00:44.804
And so I kind of grew up, kind of grew up without, you know.
00:00:44.804 --> 00:00:51.902
I mean, my mom is a beautiful woman and she sacrificed and gave everything that she could so that my brothers and I could have a good life.
00:00:52.543 --> 00:00:59.125
But you know, I think in that that's kind of what shaped me and gave me a lot of the drive that I have to push.
00:00:59.125 --> 00:01:05.671
You know, I hated seeing my mom sacrifice and so even from a young age I'd try to find jobs and try to find things to bring in money.
00:01:05.671 --> 00:01:16.640
So I think that's kind of what gave me I don't know, maybe gave me my work ethic or gave me my entrepreneurial drive, and it also kind of empowered me to want to help others.
00:01:16.640 --> 00:01:33.361
And we saw a lot of pain, we saw a lot of sacrifice, and so I think it's really what's been, you know, what's led to a lot of my different business success, but it's also what kind of empowered me to help others and just give in any way that I can.
00:01:34.043 --> 00:01:51.605
So how did you begin to sort of grow into this capable man that was able to sort of look after his family and, at the same time, also pursue you know, your own goals in order to sort of change and make your own impact in the world?
00:01:52.085 --> 00:01:52.325
sure.
00:01:52.325 --> 00:02:00.632
Well, I, I think I think part of it was luck and and part of it was was a lot of hard work and and I guess in that too was was a lot of mistakes.
00:02:00.632 --> 00:02:05.548
You know, my mom told me when I was 18, you either got to get a full-time job or you got to go to college.
00:02:05.548 --> 00:02:06.108
One of the two.
00:02:06.108 --> 00:02:08.774
But I can't support you, you know, as an adult.
00:02:08.774 --> 00:02:13.538
And so I enrolled in college and the first job I got was at a collection agency.
00:02:13.598 --> 00:02:24.016
I don't know how many of your listeners have done that job before, but I spent, you know, eight to 10 hours a day calling on people that hadn't paid their Discover card bill in six months to a year or their Citibank card or whatever it was.
00:02:24.016 --> 00:02:33.667
And I remember even then, you know, I was going to college full time, going to school, going to work full time, and it wasn't a pleasant job.
00:02:33.667 --> 00:02:40.905
But I made like $70,000 my very first year there, at 18 years old, and so I'm kind of looking at it like you know, I didn't have any role models.
00:02:40.905 --> 00:02:43.108
I didn't have anybody that I really like looked up to.
00:02:43.108 --> 00:02:51.265
I didn't, I didn't have entrepreneurs in my world where I grew up, and you know, but at the time I was thinking I'm already making 70,000 bucks a year.
00:02:51.265 --> 00:02:52.429
All my buddies are at Mizzou.
00:02:52.429 --> 00:02:55.707
They're getting a four year degree and they're hoping that when they graduate they can make.
00:02:55.707 --> 00:02:58.484
You know that they can land a job that's paying half of what I was already making.
00:02:58.484 --> 00:03:01.308
And so I dropped out of college and I kept it a job.
00:03:01.329 --> 00:03:02.350
But I remember walking in there.
00:03:02.350 --> 00:03:03.712
It was an ocean of cubicles.
00:03:03.712 --> 00:03:06.318
If you've ever seen a call center, that's essentially what it was.
00:03:06.318 --> 00:03:13.021
I remember walking in there every day and seeing people that were 30 years old and 40 years old and 50 years old and 60 years old.
00:03:13.021 --> 00:03:18.241
I remember thinking to myself I don't know why God put me on this earth, but it wasn't for this.
00:03:18.241 --> 00:03:18.782
You know what I mean.
00:03:18.782 --> 00:03:22.725
It wasn't to live in this ocean of cubicles for the rest of my life.
00:03:22.725 --> 00:03:31.235
There's got to be something more, and I think that's kind of what motivated me to start my own business and start down that path.
00:03:36.840 --> 00:03:42.540
So, when it comes to your business as a whole, would you say that you were naturally an entrepreneur, or were these skills that you sort of had to gradually develop over time over the course of your years?
00:03:42.540 --> 00:03:44.804
You sort of had to gradually develop over time over the course of your years.
00:03:45.465 --> 00:03:48.969
You know, I think I'm naturally a risk taker.
00:03:48.969 --> 00:03:53.475
I think I'm, I think I have some of the tendencies that you could call entrepreneur.
00:03:53.475 --> 00:04:05.300
You know, for anybody that's read the book the E-Myth it talks about, everybody has an art type and that art type is either entrepreneur, manager, technician, and you know we call ourselves entrepreneurs if we open a business.
00:04:05.300 --> 00:04:09.937
But, like that art type exists and we're all predominantly one of those things.
00:04:09.937 --> 00:04:18.706
So I would say, if you were to look at it, you know I would bounce between artist and entrepreneur and I think I grew more as an entrepreneur.
00:04:18.706 --> 00:04:25.833
And when, you know, when I think of entrepreneur, I think somebody that's capable of creating a business that runs, whether you're there or not.
00:04:25.833 --> 00:04:29.607
And for my first 10 years of business we had 100 employees.
00:04:29.607 --> 00:04:31.350
I grew a big company.
00:04:31.350 --> 00:04:36.187
But I don't know that I would say that I was my own definition of entrepreneur.
00:04:36.187 --> 00:04:37.920
I was an absolute slave to that business.
00:04:37.920 --> 00:04:39.625
I was at the office at 5.30 in the morning.
00:04:39.625 --> 00:04:41.009
I left at midnight most nights.
00:04:41.009 --> 00:04:46.120
I sacrificed all the reasons why we open a business so that we can have freedom.
00:04:46.120 --> 00:04:50.470
I sacrificed every freedom that exists.
00:04:50.470 --> 00:04:52.413
I mean I sacrificed my own health.
00:04:52.413 --> 00:05:05.966
I didn't eat good, I didn't go to the gym, I worked 80 hours a week, I missed birthdays, I missed family events, I messed up relationships, all trying to do the right thing or I would have said at the time I was doing the right thing, but I think I was.
00:05:05.966 --> 00:05:11.665
I was on that path of if I work really, really hard right now, then someday I can have this great life.
00:05:11.665 --> 00:05:16.987
And you know, there's nothing wrong with working hard, but tomorrow isn't always guaranteed.
00:05:16.987 --> 00:05:23.610
And so you know, I, when you have 12 hours a day to do something, you tend to take 12 hours a day to do something.
00:05:23.610 --> 00:05:27.800
And so that was kind of my life and my world.
00:05:27.800 --> 00:05:30.646
And so it wasn't until that.
00:05:30.666 --> 00:05:32.451
You know, 07 came.
00:05:32.451 --> 00:05:40.064
You know we had, like I said, we had close to 100 employees, we were doing around $20 million a year in annual revenue, and I'm not saying, hey, look at me, I'm saying that that's what life was.
00:05:40.064 --> 00:05:43.930
And then 07 came and it wiped me out.
00:05:43.930 --> 00:05:45.492
It wiped everybody out.
00:05:45.533 --> 00:05:51.411
From 2007 to 2010, I went from being a multimillionaire to virtually homeless I mean really homeless.
00:05:51.411 --> 00:06:09.351
And it was kind of amidst that that a mentor of mine came and said Jason, you think you're really special because you're good at business and you're able to do these things that make money, but I know all kinds of guys like you that sacrifice everything that really matters so that they can have a business that functions.
00:06:09.351 --> 00:06:12.146
He said what would be really impressive is you could build.
00:06:12.146 --> 00:06:20.547
You know, if you could change more lives and you could help more people, if you could build your businesses even bigger in three or four hours a day as opposed to 12 hours a day Now.
00:06:20.547 --> 00:06:21.588
That would be impressive.
00:06:21.588 --> 00:06:32.230
And that was really kind of what shifted me into really becoming an entrepreneur, even though I had created businesses up until that point.
00:06:32.879 --> 00:06:36.935
What do you think is the difference between a good sacrifice and a bad?
00:06:36.975 --> 00:06:37.216
sacrifice?
00:06:37.216 --> 00:06:38.600
Good question.
00:06:38.600 --> 00:06:46.334
I would answer that by saying what is your mission, what is the vision for your life?
00:06:46.334 --> 00:06:46.555
What?
00:06:46.555 --> 00:06:48.545
What do you really want life to look like?
00:06:48.545 --> 00:06:51.983
If you could wake up in the morning and have life however you wanted it?
00:06:51.983 --> 00:06:52.665
What?
00:06:52.665 --> 00:06:53.608
What would that look like?
00:06:53.608 --> 00:06:58.990
And then I would say you know, make your decisions based on on what your vision for your life is.
00:06:58.990 --> 00:07:06.516
And so, if you're making decisions, you're either making decisions that are moving you closer to that objective or you're making decisions that are moving you farther away.
00:07:06.516 --> 00:07:16.310
And so, when you say sacrifice, I would say you know, if you're doing something that's moving you closer to the life that you desire, you know, then that would, that could potentially be a good sacrifice.
00:07:16.310 --> 00:07:17.862
There's, there's caveats to that too.
00:07:17.862 --> 00:07:31.206
But if you're, if you're taking time away from what matters and it's not moving you closer to that life that you want, or that that, that vision for your life that you want, um, I would say that could be a bad sacrifice what was sort of the next step?
00:07:31.627 --> 00:07:35.858
how did you begin to now start your journey as an entrepreneur?
00:07:35.858 --> 00:07:40.596
What was sort of the first thing you did when you began your goal as an entrepreneur?
00:07:40.596 --> 00:07:42.040
Was there a planning stage?
00:07:42.040 --> 00:07:43.665
Was there a business plan?
00:07:43.665 --> 00:07:49.708
Were there mentors that sort of guided you along, or their friends or family that supported you?
00:07:49.708 --> 00:07:51.533
Those types of things?
00:07:52.940 --> 00:07:55.745
There are now, james, there wasn't then.
00:07:55.745 --> 00:07:59.454
I mean my decision making process at that time.
00:07:59.454 --> 00:08:08.235
You know, I was 21 when I opened that first company and I was at the collection agency and one of the guys that I worked with at the collection agency he left and he got in the mortgage business.
00:08:08.235 --> 00:08:11.627
He made really good money, made well into the six figures his first year.
00:08:11.627 --> 00:08:16.168
And he was telling us about it and I mean as a 20-year-old kid at the time, 19-year-old kid at the time.
00:08:16.168 --> 00:08:23.992
I remember I mean my decision-making process to become an entrepreneur was $200,000 a year is better than the 70 grand that I'm making right now.
00:08:23.992 --> 00:08:30.802
And helping somebody buy their first house sounds like more fun than calling somebody on their delinquent Discover card.
00:08:30.802 --> 00:08:35.764
And so I called down to the state of Missouri and I said, hey, what does it take to open a mortgage company in Missouri?
00:08:35.764 --> 00:08:37.129
And they said we'll send you the packet.
00:08:37.129 --> 00:08:44.948
And they sent me this big, thick packet in the mail and I spent a couple of weeks going through it and there were two things that I didn't have out of everything that it required.
00:08:44.948 --> 00:08:46.990
You got to remember this was year 2000.
00:08:46.990 --> 00:08:51.316
So the rules and regulations around mortgage companies and banks were drastically different than they were now.
00:08:51.316 --> 00:08:54.369
But the two things that I didn't have was 50 grand in cash.
00:08:54.369 --> 00:08:59.140
They were only required $50,000 in liquid cash reserves and a million dollar surety bond.
00:08:59.140 --> 00:09:03.549
And what I didn't know at the time is the surety bond is pretty easy to get if you have decent credit.
00:09:03.549 --> 00:09:05.052
So it was really the 50 grand in cash.
00:09:05.100 --> 00:09:09.071
So I spent that next year, from age 20 to 21, saving up 50.
00:09:09.071 --> 00:09:10.284
I mean, I live like a hermit.
00:09:10.284 --> 00:09:15.429
All my friends are going out and partying and having a good time and I'm just staying home trying to save every dime that I can.
00:09:15.429 --> 00:09:26.345
And on April 15, 2001, that was my last day ever working, you know, working for someone else, but working, you know, working for someone else.
00:09:26.345 --> 00:09:28.316
But to say to say, I had a plan, man, I mean, I woke up that first day in the spare bedroom, my condo.
00:09:28.316 --> 00:09:29.461
We didn't have an office, didn't have anything.
00:09:29.461 --> 00:09:36.961
It was just me, excuse me, and I had this like weight on my shoulders of, oh my God, what did I just do?
00:09:36.961 --> 00:09:41.988
You know, I spent that whole year trying to figure out how to open this business and I spent very little time.
00:09:41.988 --> 00:09:45.331
I didn't know how to run a business, I didn't even know how to take a loan application.
00:09:45.331 --> 00:09:48.240
And here I have already quit my job and I have bills and I have all these things.
00:09:49.663 --> 00:09:55.533
But you know, I think we as human beings, we we tend to take action.
00:09:55.533 --> 00:10:01.289
You know, when they say when, when someone is is either faced with dying or succeeding, they tend to succeed.
00:10:01.289 --> 00:10:04.416
And that's why that's where the burn the boats, you know, comes from.
00:10:04.416 --> 00:10:09.508
And so I didn't have a choice, you know, I mean, I had to figure it out.
00:10:09.508 --> 00:10:22.437
Some of the hardest people that I coach or consult are people that have, you know, golden handcuffed jobs, six figure corporate America jobs, and that check comes every other Friday, whether they exert a ton of energy or not.
00:10:22.437 --> 00:10:31.544
And so sometimes that transition, it's more difficult for the person who's in a good place than it is for the person who's in a tough place, because when we're in a tough place we tend to show up for ourselves.
00:10:31.544 --> 00:10:34.903
So that was kind of the beginning of that journey.
00:10:35.543 --> 00:10:40.296
So when you were sort of living like a permit, as you would say.
00:10:40.296 --> 00:10:46.798
What important lessons did you sort of learn when you were cutting back on costs?
00:10:46.798 --> 00:10:54.904
Were there any certain types of financial skills you learned, any types of new perspectives you gained when looking at the outside world?
00:10:54.904 --> 00:11:06.734
Did this experience sort of help you to be better with finances in the future, or was it more of a psychological change that occurred after this experience?
00:11:07.139 --> 00:11:13.962
You know I learned this lesson twice, James, but one of the biggest lessons that I got is debt is the devil.
00:11:14.023 --> 00:11:19.274
I mean, debt is bad, and we can have the whole good debt, bad debt argument.
00:11:19.274 --> 00:11:32.501
I'm not meaning that per se, although even that there's arguments to be made there too but when I got my first condo when I was 18, 19 years old, I did probably what a lot of young kids.
00:11:32.501 --> 00:11:51.163
I got credit cards and I bought a big screen TV and a stereo and I ran up 10,000 bucks on credit cards and I realized real quick, man, it's hard to save up money when you've got too much expenses going out, and so part of that that beginning part of that hermit was just taking all my bonus checks and paying my debt down to zero.
00:11:51.163 --> 00:11:54.152
Once I didn't have any debt, it became pretty easy to save up money.
00:11:54.152 --> 00:12:02.721
I learned that lesson again in 2007, when the market collapsed and I lost everything and my crazy, I didn't have credit card debt.
00:12:02.721 --> 00:12:05.605
I didn't have a ton of debt.
00:12:05.605 --> 00:12:11.491
But when there's more money going out than there is coming in, it doesn't really matter how much you have in savings.
00:12:11.572 --> 00:12:34.525
If you've got debt, it can put you in a rough place interested to ask, but are you one of those people that dislike using credit cards and you might just totally just avoid using them altogether, or what type of person are you when it comes to the usage of credit cards?
00:12:34.525 --> 00:12:35.429
May I just ask?
00:12:36.072 --> 00:12:36.855
I'm not a fan of it.
00:12:36.855 --> 00:12:51.274
I mean I have an American Express card that's paying full and so I use that for points, I use that to live, but you got to pay the balance in full every month and so it kind of keeps you disciplined and not overspending.
00:12:51.274 --> 00:13:01.620
When I got wiped out, I did not use any form of credit for 10 years Nothing, not any credit at all, and I like nice things.
00:13:01.620 --> 00:13:09.214
But what it taught me was, if I want a $100 thousand dollar truck, it's not the $2,000 a month payment that I need to figure out how to come up with.
00:13:09.214 --> 00:13:14.721
If I want a hundred thousand dollar truck, I need to figure out how to come up with a lump sum of a hundred grand so that I can write a check for the truck.
00:13:14.721 --> 00:13:16.465
And if I can't write a check for it, I can't afford it.
00:13:16.465 --> 00:13:23.273
And that was a shift from my old million dollar house.
00:13:23.273 --> 00:13:25.375
I just need to be able to pay the $6,000 payment.
00:13:25.375 --> 00:13:27.307
If I want a truck, I need to be able to pay the pay.
00:13:27.326 --> 00:13:30.610
You know what I mean, and I think that's how the majority of America lives.
00:13:30.720 --> 00:13:40.953
I mean 78% of America lives paycheck to paycheck, and that's almost 8 out of 10 people that we get financial advice from or live in check to check.
00:13:40.953 --> 00:13:53.869
You know they couldn't replace a transmission in their car if it went out without using credit, and I'm not making those people wrong.
00:13:53.869 --> 00:13:55.653
I'm just saying that that's what keeps you on the hamster wheel.
00:13:55.653 --> 00:14:04.881
I've helped a lot of people transition from corporate America into entrepreneurship, and one of the very first things that I do with them is we create a debt elimination plan.
00:14:04.881 --> 00:14:14.294
And what I mean is if you didn't owe your mortgage and you didn't owe car payments and you didn't have credit, if you didn't have all these bills, it would be really easy to quit your corporate job.
00:14:14.294 --> 00:14:18.687
The reason why most people can't quit their corporate job is because they're afraid of how they're going to pay the.
00:14:18.687 --> 00:14:27.100
They're afraid of how they're going to pay for the credit that they've accumulated up until this point in life how they're going to pay for the credit that they've accumulated up until this point in life.
00:14:29.840 --> 00:14:34.296
So to just pop back to where we had this conversation before and again, that all is some really good advice that a lot of people can take away from what you said there.
00:14:34.296 --> 00:14:36.846
But go back to you.
00:14:36.846 --> 00:14:50.495
When you first started to run your business, what was the market demand, what was sort of your big target audience and how did you know that you had a desire or a need in the market?
00:14:50.980 --> 00:15:10.292
Yeah, so when I, when I opened that first company, which was a mortgage company, it was 2001, which, if you remember or not, that was kind of the beginning of when interest rates really started to drop and really honestly, for the last since 2001 until now, interest rates have been low really.
00:15:10.292 --> 00:15:15.152
I mean, that was kind of the beginning of when you saw interest rates go from eight to seven to six.
00:15:15.152 --> 00:15:16.202
You know what I mean.
00:15:16.202 --> 00:15:17.187
That was the beginning of it.
00:15:17.187 --> 00:15:27.687
So if you just showed up to work and worked kind of hard, you could make good money because interest rates were dropping and the whole United States was refinancing as a whole.
00:15:27.687 --> 00:15:33.488
But I remember, even being 21, I remember thinking at the time what if interest rates go up?
00:15:33.488 --> 00:15:39.559
Okay, great, Interest rates are low right now, but are we going to base our whole business model off of a shift in the market?
00:15:39.559 --> 00:15:40.881
That seems kind of crazy to me.
00:15:40.881 --> 00:15:50.293
And so my focus began, you know, became purchase money doing loans for people that were buying houses, because people buy houses.
00:15:50.293 --> 00:15:54.085
Whether interest rates are 12% or whether they're 2%, people buy houses like that.
00:15:54.085 --> 00:15:56.109
That's just part of our economy.
00:15:57.270 --> 00:16:09.611
And this was this is also a really good lesson in business, because one of the guys like I don't know if he was a mentor or not, but an associate that worked at a different company I said well, how do you get realtors to send you business?
00:16:09.611 --> 00:16:21.923
And he said well, you take rate sheets and you get a box of donuts and every Friday you go around to all the different real estate brokerages, all the different realtor offices, and you bring them the donuts and you give them your rate sheets and eventually, after you do that for a while, they'll throw you a bone.
00:16:21.923 --> 00:16:23.283
Eventually, after you do that for a while, they'll throw you a bone.
00:16:23.283 --> 00:16:24.044
You know, they'll give you a try.
00:16:24.044 --> 00:16:27.248
And I remember thinking to myself like that seems horrible.
00:16:27.248 --> 00:16:34.296
Like that I mean that I feel like a beggar, I feel like I'm running around begging people to give me a check and that just, it just seems crazy to me.
00:16:34.296 --> 00:16:45.260
And that was really kind of what taught me that if you want to ask somebody for something, that's OK, but make sure you're giving them something of value first thing.
00:16:45.260 --> 00:16:46.807
That's okay, but make sure you're giving them something of value first.
00:16:46.807 --> 00:16:50.682
If you're giving somebody something of value, you have the right to ask for something in return, but if you're not giving anything, then you're a beggar.
00:16:50.743 --> 00:17:05.692
And so I actually hired Tom Ferry, who is now probably one of the biggest realtor coaches in the country, but I hired him as a loan officer to coach me on how to be a top producing realtor and he taught me all this really cool stuff.
00:17:05.759 --> 00:17:09.406
And then I would hold this meeting once a month and I'd invite all the realtors in the community.
00:17:09.406 --> 00:17:13.210
They could come for free and I would teach them what Tom Ferry just taught me.
00:17:13.210 --> 00:17:23.807
And so I helped this whole community of real estate agents grow their business exponentially, and by doing that it created, I was giving them something of value.
00:17:23.807 --> 00:17:26.809
It became a more even relationship.
00:17:26.809 --> 00:17:28.666
I was helping them grow their business.
00:17:28.666 --> 00:17:38.400
They were referring me their buyers that need to get pre-qualified, and I've really operated every business that I've created and the ones that I consult for off of that model ever since.
00:17:38.400 --> 00:17:46.769
Like find a way to bring more value to your client than anyone else and they'll be loyal to you forever.
00:17:46.769 --> 00:17:51.932
If you're just only providing a service that anyone else can provide, then there's no real difference.
00:17:51.932 --> 00:17:53.826
You're only as good as your last transaction.
00:17:53.866 --> 00:17:56.366
You know when did you get this idea from?
00:17:56.366 --> 00:18:03.394
Was this an original idea from you or did you adopt this from your mentor or someone else?
00:18:04.119 --> 00:18:06.788
You know, I don't know the clear answer to that.
00:18:06.788 --> 00:18:14.829
What I can tell you is that, even from the time I was a young kid, my mom used to give me trouble, because she would always say why are you always paying for your friend's food?
00:18:14.829 --> 00:18:16.563
Why are you always paying for your friend's gas?
00:18:16.563 --> 00:18:20.142
Why are you always, you know, why are you always letting all these people take advantage of you?
00:18:20.142 --> 00:18:21.444
And I didn't.
00:18:21.444 --> 00:18:23.709
I didn't see it as them taking advantage of me.
00:18:23.709 --> 00:18:40.881
I saw it as it was something that made me feel good to do, and so I think it was probably that, plus mentorship, plus just seeing how the world works and understanding that when you do more for others, people will tend to return that favor and do for you.
00:18:40.922 --> 00:18:45.628
And I just saw this, I saw this whole culture, at least in the loan officer business, of of just.
00:18:45.628 --> 00:18:49.795
They were just trained to go run and beg realtors for loans, and so it was.
00:18:49.795 --> 00:19:00.063
It just made sense to me of like just just in life in general, right, like if somebody does something for you, try to try to find a way to pay them back, try to find a way to do for them.
00:19:00.063 --> 00:19:11.574
And so it just kind of made sense from a business standpoint of like I don't really have the right to ask these real estate agents to just refer me all their buyers, like what you know what I mean.
00:19:11.574 --> 00:19:14.477
Like why do I, why do I even have the right to do that?
00:19:14.477 --> 00:19:25.752
But if I'm, if I'm actively helping them grow their business, if I'm taking an agent from two million a year in revenue to 10 million, I don't even have to ask them to send me their business.
00:19:25.752 --> 00:19:30.729
They're going to want to send me their business because I'm actively participating in theirs, and that, to me, felt more like a partnership.
00:19:30.729 --> 00:19:35.679
That, to me, felt more like a relationship as opposed to a one-sided relationship.
00:19:35.679 --> 00:19:57.027
This person is the holder of all the value and this person, you know I guess I adopted it, I learned at an early age we get paid in life by the value that we bring, and if you want to get a raise at your corporate America job, if you want to earn more money in your business, if you want whatever, find a way to bring more value.
00:19:57.126 --> 00:19:58.881
Find a way to bring more value to your client.
00:19:58.881 --> 00:20:02.010
Find a way, find a way to bring more value to the world and your income will increase.
00:20:02.010 --> 00:20:15.823
People talk about living, wage, jobs and you know all the stuff that's going on with McDonald's and this and that, and I understand, like we all got to start somewhere, but I don't know that that the the person that's doing the franchise at McDonald's.
00:20:15.823 --> 00:20:25.016
I don't know that that was meant to be a job that should support a family, and I'm also not discrediting that, because I had that job when I was in high school too.
00:20:25.016 --> 00:20:34.394
I'm just saying that if we want to get out of that, if we want to find a way to increase from that, we've got to find a way to increase more value.
00:20:34.394 --> 00:20:35.055
You know what I mean.
00:20:35.055 --> 00:20:38.190
We've got to find a way to bring more value to whatever it is that we're doing.
00:20:41.700 --> 00:20:43.865
So what would you essentially teach the people you were working with?
00:20:43.865 --> 00:20:49.261
Would you teach them how to also bring value when running their real estate businesses?
00:20:49.261 --> 00:20:57.743
What exactly were you offering to these people to make it maybe less traditionally, as you would put it?
00:20:58.945 --> 00:20:59.827
In that first business.
00:20:59.827 --> 00:21:03.721
I mean, what I was really doing is I was learning.
00:21:03.721 --> 00:21:25.973
You know, the coach that I worked with taught me how to taught me as a realtor which I was not a realtor but they taught me as a realtor how to generate more business, how to generate more leads, how to make the phone ring, how to market correctly, how to increase inbound response, and so I would then, in turn, teach that to the whole community.
00:21:25.973 --> 00:21:27.259
We'd had this meeting once a month.
00:21:27.259 --> 00:21:32.122
That started out with 20 or 30 agents and within a couple of months there was over 100 people that would come every month to my office.
00:21:32.122 --> 00:21:36.131
I just held this free meeting and I coached them for free.
00:21:36.131 --> 00:21:37.821
I taught them how to prospect better.
00:21:37.821 --> 00:21:39.165
I taught them how to have sales conversations better.
00:21:39.165 --> 00:21:40.471
I taught them how to prospect better.
00:21:40.471 --> 00:21:42.317
I taught them how to have sales conversations better.
00:21:42.317 --> 00:21:43.967
I taught them how to lead gen better.
00:21:43.967 --> 00:21:48.951
I taught them everything that I could possibly teach them to grow their realtor business.
00:21:48.951 --> 00:21:50.724
That's essentially what I taught them.
00:21:51.508 --> 00:21:57.519
Excellent, and as you continued running this business, how were the growth stages?
00:21:57.519 --> 00:22:01.930
How did this business begin to scale over time?
00:22:01.930 --> 00:22:08.051
And as this business started to scale and grow more, what types of adjustments did you make?
00:22:08.051 --> 00:22:10.964
What did you do specifically to deal with that change?
00:22:11.547 --> 00:22:12.568
It grew fast, james.
00:22:12.568 --> 00:22:17.672
I mean it was every day that we came to the office there was more demand than there was the day before.
00:22:17.672 --> 00:22:29.872
So we went from the spare bedroom in my condo to an office with 20 or 30 people and then we had to get, we had to knock out the wall and get the get the space next to us and then we expanded into there and it grew.
