You Can't Afford Me
You Can't Afford Me
Rising from Rebellion to Resilience: Brent Stone's Odyssey from Troubled Youth to Entrepreneurial Triumph
Embark on an enlightening journey with Brent Stone, a true testament to the transformative power of resilience. From the quiet streets of Harrisonburg, Virginia, Brent takes us through his rollercoaster life story that sees him emerge from a troubled past marked by bullying and drug dealing to become a beacon of legitimate entrepreneurship and personal triumph. With hands-on advice from his ventures into software marketing with Funnel Force, the innovative LinkedIn tool Lead Tether, and more, Brent's experiences are not just captivating, they're brimming with wisdom for anyone eager to tackle the world of business with vigor and insight.
Brent's saga doesn't just stop at business acumen. His profound personal evolution, sparked by a spiritual renaissance and commitment to fitness, is a riveting narrative that offers hope and guidance for those looking to rewrite their own stories. The conversation weaves through Brent's darkest days to his brightest, highlighting the unexpected ways in which entrepreneurial skills can be developed and the life-altering impact of second chances. It's a conversation that doesn't shy away from the reality that the path to success is often paved with trials, transformations, and the tenacious spirit of a true entrepreneur.
This isn't just your typical success story podcast; it's a deep dive into the world of self-made success and the steps to achieving it. From the value of mentorship and hands-on learning to the art of setting prices that reflect your worth, we confront the nuanced challenges and decisions that shape an entrepreneurial journey. Our discussion encapsulates the empowering choice of firing clients that don't resonate with your values and the liberating experience of running a business on your terms. Tune in and be inspired by Brent's incredible story and the shared anecdotes that ignite the entrepreneurial spirit within all of us.
www.themrpreneur.com
Are you an aspiring entrepreneur? Are one-on-one coaching Taylor's strategies to your unique business goals. Dive into interactive workshops fostering skills essential for success. Looking for an inspirational speaker for your next event? Look, mr Pernumer. To elevate your gathering. Visit wwwdmrpnurcom to learn more and embark on your path to entrepreneurial success. Mr Pernumer, empowering your entrepreneurial spirit. Hey guys, thanks for joining us on another episode of the you Can't Afford Me podcast. First, I gotta say we're making history on the you Can't Afford Me podcast today. This is the first guest that we are interviewing at a distance. So this guest is not in Richmond, virginia, and we're playing on doing a lot more of this moving forward in 2024 with season 2. But I had the opportunity to be on this gentleman's podcast last week, a couple weeks ago, and had a blast. I was like man, we gotta connect more, we gotta talk more and said, man, I'd love to have you on the show. So this is gonna be an entrepreneur talk for sure. Today we got my guy Brent Stone on the podcast. Brent, how you doing today, buddy.
Brent Stone:Hey Sam, I'm doing great. Thank you for having me.
Sam Anderson:Fantastic man. So first tell the audience who you are and what you do.
Brent Stone:Yeah, my name is Brent Stone, out of Harrisonburg, virginia. I'm a married man. I've got two small kids, three and one. I don't sleep a lot. I like to have fun with them when I'm awake, which is pretty much 22 hours a day, and that's not because I work too much. Yeah, you know, you know it's not because I work too much, it's because I'm chasing the kids. So it's just. You know, my son. He climbs the walls, you know, I don't know how else to describe it. People are like, hey, is he really that? Is he really that full of energy? I'm like, yes, he is, and he's awesome. I love every minute of it and I'll sleep later. So that's what I tell myself. So it'll, it'll all work out.
Brent Stone:My background in business I've got a couple of different businesses. I've actually got six, so I'm only going to talk about really really one today. My Stone Co entity is kind of like my consulting, which I don't do as much anymore. I do like business funding and startup investing and some of that out of there, some consulting still, but it's like $250 an hour. That kind of thing I don't really. It's more for like helping people brainstorm and flesh out business ideas and I'm kind of like their resource for that and connect them to my connections list.
Brent Stone:Funnel Force is my, is my main focus and I have that is. That is, in the software marketing space, where we are basically creating lead generation softwares now for professionals on different platforms. So we have lead tether, which is just launched within the last 60 days and that has gone bonkers. We've been received so well by the LinkedIn community. There's also some, some, some companies that are kind of in the space that are transitioning and making a pivot, which is just making a wide opening for us. We've got a software solution for Facebook and the Metasuite as far as auto prospecting is concerned, which is taking the place of another really big company that was forced to make a pivot and we actually are a third of the price of them. So, as people are exiting that company, we're here with open arms just like come to us, come to Funnel Force. We've got a software solution. You know, just for you, that we launched last week and we have onboarded literally just because of this timing with this other business, we've started taking in more people than we even have with with our lead tether launch, and it's not because lead tether is slow, it's just because of this other. You know God's, god's timing is perfect. I mean, it was just like here you go and I don't know how else to explain that.
Brent Stone:And then we have a smart CRM that's got AI built into it for companies looking to automate their PR, their social media, and they basically bring everything down into one place where they can manage their pipelines, their business management. We've got QuickBooks coded into it. We've got a bunch of stuff coded into it already. So there's a lot of stuff that people can save on subscription costs with. I don't want to be misleading you have to still buy QuickBooks outside of this to just integrate flawlessly with it. But there's a lot of other things you don't have to buy with it that we save people into the four digits a month on the other subscriptions they'd be paying if they went through that. So that's what Funnel Force is.
Brent Stone:We are a hub for software solutions for entrepreneurs and if you're anywhere between basically, like you know, half a million dollars a year gross revenue all the way up to about 15 million dollars a year gross revenue, that's our sweet spot. We can do bigger. We were actually in the process of onboarding an enterprise client right now for lead tether which, by the time this episode comes out, that'll be done, which will thank you Jesus. That'll be awesome. It's time to celebrate, but we've got a lot of other things going on that we're really excited about, so long winded. I apologize, sam. We'll look back to you.
Sam Anderson:You're good, You're good. One thing you said there like made me instantly think of a potential partnership between our organization. So we're going to talk after this podcast, let's take it back a little bit. I always like to ask people what were you doing before you became an entrepreneur?
Brent Stone:Oh man. So when I was in middle school I was coming out of this phase where I got made fun of a lot as a kid and I was still getting made fun of. But I was like trying to figure out how to like not be the butt of the jokes and I just got into really people watching and figuring out why I was such a dork and why I was getting made fun of and I have.
Sam Anderson:I'll just pause right there for a second. Number one kids are jerks. Number two I was having this conversation with somebody the other day. It's funny the stuff that you get picked on about in middle school and high school is the same stuff that'll get you women past high school, singing how the adolescent brain works versus the adult brain.
Brent Stone:But go ahead, right, right, absolutely no. I mean for me, like at the time I was, I was just. I grew up in a household that wasn't necessarily my. It's not like my parents wanted me to eat junk food or anything, but I was like living on soda. You know, I go to friends house. I mean, you know like live on Twinkies and that kind of thing. It wasn't like that. 24 seven, but I was overweight, you know I was.
Brent Stone:I was dealing with a lot of stuff in a lot of different regards where, like, I was getting picked on. But some of the stuff that was like really, really big at the time was I was trying to figure out how do I get out of this. And so I started like people watching and trying to figure out like you know how to, how to, not. You know, basically the data that I was collecting at the time was I needed to fitness was a big deal and some of these other things, and I needed to not be such a weirdo, and you know. And so then I get into high school and then I start, you know, getting into like the drugs, and I got into like selling drugs and I got into just basically being an entrepreneur that wasn't necessarily official or ethical.
Sam Anderson:Well, I wasn't a good one.
Brent Stone:I wasn't even that successful at it. I had friends that were, but I just was wanted to be kind. Honestly. I piggybacked on their street credibility. Does that make sense?
Sam Anderson:I wasn't even a good entrepreneur.
Brent Stone:I just wanted to like oh, he's a drug dealer, he's cool, you know, like that's. That's why I did it.
Sam Anderson:I've always said this and we do not condone this type of behavior. But a drug dealer is the OG entrepreneur. Like, if you look at the business model of a drug dealer number one, when they're trying to get a new client, what do they do? They give their product away for free yeah, to get you hooked. So yeah, for free. And then they come back to you later on hey, what do you think? Oh man, that was the bomb.
Sam Anderson:Well hey, if you want more, this is what I can do for you. Yeah, Like the drug game, there are a lot of again, don't make that your product.
Brent Stone:Right.
Sam Anderson:A lot of salesmanship, because if you're a drug dealer, you understand communication, you understand supply and demand.
Brent Stone:Yeah.
Sam Anderson:You understand pricing. Like there's so many elements to that, so that's crazy. You're the first guest I've ever I've had on. That's like, yeah, you don't look anything like your past Number one. You're one of the most fit guys I've ever seen.
Brent Stone:Number two.
Sam Anderson:I can imagine in my life a guy looking like you coming to me saying hey man, you want to buy some weed?
Brent Stone:Man. You know what's crazy. I was born in narcotics and I had friends that sold cocaine and it was ridiculous. A lot of the guys that I hung out with they were blowing Roxy's before going out to parties and, like you know, bong and Four Locos is like the pregame Stuff that most people black out on. We were destroying our liver and our bodies and that was a short fraction of my life, thank you, jesus.
Brent Stone:I got saved shortly thereafter. Like literally, I found Jesus. Like the fall of 2006, when I was, you know, 18, I was, I was recently turned 18. And I was just like I was trying to get serious about life and business. And when I started my first business at 18 years old, I was like told my, my business coach that I was trying to like learn from, was like, dude, you got to clean your life up or I'm not going to help you. And I was like, okay, I didn't get saved then. I didn't meet Jesus then, but I definitely I quit the drugs, cold turkey, like I mean, there was no, there was no thing and plus, I'd already quit selling them by that point because I'd actually gotten a tip from crazy story. I mean this is really crazy, but like literally one of my friends moms got a tip because she had a boyfriend that was on the Drug Task Force unit. That was like look, your son has to stop hanging out with this Brent Stone kid.
Brent Stone:And like like named off like three other guys that were in kind of our, like our group, but because we ran underage parties like three nights a week, like keggers and the college kids would cross this little rinkety bridge in his backyard from like one of the housing complexes to our, to the yard that we were basically staying in, and like we just we charged covers and we would bring them in with the kegs. They would pay like two buck covers, dude. We'd have a couple hundred people there and like they were buying, like they were buying all the drugs. They were like like we made a profit doing it that way, like we lured them in with like a $2 cover for like free beer, you know, and then they bought all the other stuff and it was, it's terrible.
Brent Stone:Like I look back on it now and I'm just like, oh my gosh, god's grace will kept me out of prison. I mean for real, because they were, they were actually collecting evidence on me and like two other guys to try says adults once we turned 18. And this was like. I got this tip in November and my birthday was in February, just just to put it in perspective. Like, anyway, god's rich and mercy and thank you for that. You know, there's just so much there, but I'll, yeah, I just that's a crazy story, man.
Sam Anderson:All right, so after, after the drugs. So let's, let's be clear and give honor where honors do. Did you drop the weight after finding Christ?
Brent Stone:No, I dropped the weight in high school. So when I went into my ninth grade year of high school, I quit drinking soda and I started playing football and the. In the summer workouts leading up to the season I lost about 25 pounds. So, like, I was like a 160 158 pounds. After I lost that, I was, I was, I was like 180 pounds and then you know, as a ninth grade kid, lost all that and I'll carry that weight around for years.
Brent Stone:So like I was fast. So I played like I didn't have good hands but I played tight end and I played defensive end because I was fast and I could go out for passes or I could rush the quarter back. I wasn't like a skill player by any means and I didn't start. So, for what it's worth, you know, I did work hard and I was asked if I wanted to move up with some of the guys at the end of our winter Jb season ended that year to move up to like varsity and do some of that. But it wasn't because I was skilled, it was because I had a good work, ethic and Anyway. So for what it's worth, you know, I had my, my, my football then and now.
Sam Anderson:But leading up to that, like you know, that's interesting that you were having all these entrepreneurial Characteristics built into you and you didn't even realize it like sure number one.
Sam Anderson:And I've been doing a lot of work on this and I'm on my own personal journey like I've been an athlete all through middle school and high school. And then COVID happened. We started having babies and the weight started. I've got first off. Nobody ever tells you when you get your wife pregnant that you're also gonna gain weight alongside. She wants the late-night dairy cream cream, one you can't look like.
Brent Stone:Definitely getting a butterfly. Your butter finger blizzard because like how are you gonna turn that down? You know what I mean.
Sam Anderson:So I'm like a couple friends starting to say to me like me putting on a few pounds here and there, bro, like I was, like whatever, I'm back on my journey with that, but We'll start in somebody. The other day was actually one of the upcoming podcast episodes where people in business can typically Command the room a lot better and they're closing more deals. When you physically take help, take care of your health, because If that guy pays that much attention to his health, he's in there working out, he's putting the right foods in his body. That's somebody I can trust with my business, because if you're willing to take the time to deal with those details in your life, it's gonna translate into the business world and then the drug game for whatever. It is Like just hearing you talk about putting on the party like dude, that is an entrepreneur to the core, like hey, because that's some deep thinking for a high school student.
Brent Stone:I mean I can't take all that credit. I had about two or three other buddy, we all cook. It was a mastermind. It was like a business mastermind.
Sam Anderson:I got you, but still like the thought process of hey, we're not gonna make our money on the front end where we're charging two bucks for people to get in the value ladder. Yeah, where the real ROI is gonna be is once we get them in the room. Then we can upsell them on. So, dude, you had all this work down your head so at this point you didn't realize that you were doing anything.
Sam Anderson:On the entrepreneurial Love right yeah, so following the drug game you, you were able to escape the, the CIA and FBI coming down on you. We weren't that?
Brent Stone:big, but I Definitely think I would have gotten prison time at least. I mean at least a couple of years. I mean I don't know what evidence they had or didn't have, because literally a Guy God protected me, shielded me I literally stopped Distributing. But then by the time like December, january came around, I also go to parties but like I was just like not doing stuff around where I typically did. The stuff that I did I still used, but I wasn't like Blatantly using in public and that kind of stuff I like. Really I kept it down.
Brent Stone:Then I got, I started my first business in March and I'd never heard anything out of law enforcement after. Like I'd no one. No, I didn't get tailed. I drove. I drove a lime green Honda Civic that had a house of color $3,000 paint job I didn't pay for. I bought the car that way, had a carbon fiber hood, 18 inch wheels. It looked like Brian's eclipse. Off the first, fastened the furious and I had the same engine management like flip-up display. The sound system definitely cost more than the car I could. You know, I was really proud of that, like it was much ridiculous setup. So it wasn't like they couldn't find me. Yeah, I was here some birds, 50,000 people. It's not like you know. So like for whatever happened, like tell me that's not God, like I just I don't know, like I mean.
Sam Anderson:Thousand percent. Yeah, I had some situations like that nothing on that level, but there were definitely some times in college where I my butt should have been in jail.
Brent Stone:Oh man.
Sam Anderson:I mean think about how much different your life would be today. Oh things in that direction. Man so you found a mentor. He told you he's not gonna work with you until you get your life right. You start a business up in March. What was that business?
Brent Stone:So that was my network marketing business. I started the amway business at the time. It was called a quick start because amway changed the name for like a short couple years in there, but amway network marketing business and I'll tell you, sam, you and I have connected a little bit on our on our history here that business taught me more about just networking and sales than even some of my sales jobs, because at the time I had to work other jobs to fund my business. I was still in high school, so I would get up in the morning and I would wash dishes at a local diner at like my dad God bless him, my parents are awesome my dad gave me a ride at like 4 30 in the morning to go to a diner wash dishes to make, you know, $6 and a quarter an hour. It probably would have been more profitable for my dad just to pay me the money and him sleep in then to like you know like.
Brent Stone:My dad was an entrepreneur, he owned a business, you know Like he was working the hard hours anyway and then he was gonna do that for me like man. My dad was awesome. Anyway, I was making six dollars and a quarter an hour to wash dishes. And then I got promoted to be, you know, line cook and I did this stuff, but I was doing it early in the morning that I would go to school. I had a buddy pick me up from the diner, you know, on the way into school and then I would do football and then after football practice on during football season, because out of season I would just go right to work and this is high.
Sam Anderson:Well, this is high school.
Brent Stone:Yeah, this is high school, yeah dude the work ethic right there.
Sam Anderson:First off, I Don't think you could pay most high school is a hundred bucks. To wake up at four o'clock in the morning.
Brent Stone:It wasn't every day. I will say it wasn't every day, it was probably like three days a week during the week, and then I have like a Saturday morning shift.
Sam Anderson:Yeah, I mean you probably can. You probably can pay a high school a thousand bucks a month to wake up at 4 am One day. So the work and this is the core of what I'm trying to get to is that entrepreneurs Aren't made, they're born.
Brent Stone:Yeah.
Sam Anderson:You have. This is in your gut, like if you become an entrepreneur. There are some element in your past that led you to where you are today. But I truly believe entrepreneurs aren't are made. They're born. It's just a part of our DNA that we have in us. So you're getting up 4 am, so go wash dishes, go to school, football practice, rent some repeat every day. Where you, outside of quick star when you, so you're like 17 at this point.
Brent Stone:So basically I got done with the the diner Probably fall like of 2005. I started a job at busing tables at Outback Steakhouse around December 2005 and then I one of my co-workers started talking to me about the idea. He was a bus boy as well and he talked to me about the idea probably in like February and it took me like two weeks to get on this dude's calendar that he was working with and that guy ended up becoming the guy that he put me in touch with, became my business coach, and that was that was awesome, because that guy taught me everything right, and I Mean not just, not even just in like business, but he was. He was teaching me like hey, straighten your life up. Like, basically, I'm not gonna help you unless you straighten your life Up.
Brent Stone:There's a lot of good things that came out of that. Plus taught me how to build on my work ethic and structure my time time management skill. But really, to get over myself, I was fine talking to you if you're my best friend man. I spent hours in my car trying to decide if I was gonna get out of my car and walk into Barge Noble and just start up one Conversation. I was terrified.
Sam Anderson:Oh, I was terrified but then I so for those, so those people who aren't familiar with and wait quick, start network marketing, blah, blah, blah. Yeah One, I will tell you, the script in the model hasn't changed one bit since me and Brent have been out of this. Because the second I'm in Walmart. I remember I was like where's that flying to? I think I was flying to Atlanta or something. So the night before I'm at Walmart getting like all the you know miniature toothpaste and deodorants and all that stuff. Yeah, walks up to me like man, you look real familiar, like oh, yeah, like.
Sam Anderson:So the script hasn't changed at all. But, to your point, probably one of the most valuable lessons I got that changed my life for my mentor and quick star was he told me to, because at the time and quick start is a big system where you're seeing all these married people, you're seeing all these couples, you're seeing all these relationships. So if you're a single guy in this system, it's almost like you know, we rarely, we never, see a president that's single, like they're always married. So it's like that kind of thing where it was like you haven't completed everything until you put a ring on somebody's finger and you're doing this as a team, moving forward. So you're always looking for those things. So I'm one of the single guys in the group sure and.
Sam Anderson:My mentor gives me some of the best advice ever. He says, sam, this is what you need to do. You need to sit down With the pen and paper and he's like Don't like, try to keep this in your head, write this down on paper, because there's something magical that happens here, and I want you to write out every quality Characteristic of your ideal make hmm, that's good yeah and the list was probably.
Sam Anderson:I mean, I got pretty in-depth. I think the list was about 45 things on my list and some of that's, you know the physical stuff, but it's more like who the person is yeah, yeah and Ultimately, what that does.
Sam Anderson:When you create that list, it shows you the type of person that you need to be in order to attract that person into your life. So, like, if you're like, if you're making your list and you're like, well, I don't, I don't want to marry a woman who smokes, but you're smoking 12 packs a day, where you're not gonna attract the person who doesn't smoke if you're smoking 12 packs yeah, it was all these things and ultimately so I made that list, probably when I was 22 somewhere around there, and I kid you not, my wife hits 95% of everything I had on that list. That never. It was years later, like 10 years later, before we met.
Sam Anderson:But that list that I wrote you put things in motion, allowed me to become the man I needed to be to attract a woman like that into my life. And I believe is the same with everything across the board, whether it's your business writing out your goal, because then you can see if this is what I'm trying to accomplish. Let me work backwards from this. What is it that I need to do in order to complete?
Brent Stone:that thousand percent.
Sam Anderson:Yeah, the skills that you get in network marketing in particular. And weigh, a quick start was in value.
Brent Stone:Oh my gosh you may.
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Brent Stone:You know it was. It was a really cool system. Like I came in at such an impressionable age, sam, like I, I came in at an age where I I it's not that I believed it more than like you or other people I just what I did, is I just Something? I don't know if it was like one of the giftings God gave me or if I, I don't know, I was tired of going to bed hungry, like because I guess I here's what I didn't want to do.
Brent Stone:I didn't want to keep calling my parents After I left home and being like, hey, I need to bail out, because, number one, they wouldn't have done it anyway, but, two, I wanted to show them that I made a good decision because before I signed the dotted line, I told my dad I was gonna do this and we got into this like Yelling match about how network marketing was in a real business and I told him I was gonna be successful and he, mind you, he had his own company that was Is evaluated pretty high back in like the mid-2000s. He had a master's in business, a PhD in business. He like did all this stuff the academic route and he put it into practice. He had, you know, 55 employees at his computer company, software Distribution company, all this stuff, and I'm like that, like I respect everything that you've done, but network marketing is a real business. Like you just haven't seen what I've seen.
Brent Stone:Right, right, right, you with me, and so he's like, he's like Whatever, and so we got into this yelling match and I'm so like embarrassed, even say this now, because my dad's awesome, you know he put up with so much junk that I gave him in high school and they didn't know about like 75% of the bad stuff that I was doing. And they found out about it after they heard me on like talks, because I have like CDs and MP3's out in the education system about like my background now and they're so proud of me now but like the time they didn't know, they didn't think I was gonna do anything with my life because all they Solved this punk kid that blared bass. You know rap, you know rap music in their net. You know a little suburban neighborhood at 2 am when I'd come home from parties smelling like Cigarettes and alcohol and everything else. They're like you're not gonna be successful in network marketing. I'm like I I've changed and they're like right, right.
Brent Stone:Yeah college is your direction. I'm like college ain't my direction and so like that's just how that went down and it was a lot, a lot. The volume of that was a Lot higher. If you get where I'm going, I was just like I'm gonna make this work. So I was like Gonna make this work plus.
Brent Stone:A lot of my friends were like Not to my face, but like we're like man, you know what Brent's doing. And I was like I don't know if I grew up in a bubble. I had no idea what network marketing even meant. But everyone was like MLM, this. And I'm like what does that even mean? I'm, I started a business.
Brent Stone:Do you want to make extra money? And like I just went down this. You know, I just went down this path and I literally it took me like nine months to get over my thing of like talking to strangers, because I was hired to sit in my car four hours and I was wasting time and I just got to the point where I was so upset with myself I just started going and talking to random people. I made like five contacts a day after that and it wasn't like every day, but like I made time hours every day to go out and prospect and and I Just did it and so I don't know, there's just a lot there and eventually we put hundreds of people in business and I think after like 18 Months I had like business in like 15 different states and I got recognized nationally at 18 year, 18 months after I got started in business.
Brent Stone:And then after that we hit, we Grew even more and so like there's, there's some stuff I. What I'm not saying in there which I will tell you is that I backslid my business after I qualified at a certain like nationally recognized level. I backslid in my business and and when I was like 20 years old, I just burn out. After the two years of grinding hard, I burn out. And then I got my feet back underneath of me and I started going at it again, probably like a year later. But I still went to meetings, I still did all the things that you're supposed to do, but I just Totally burn out and then and then I got back into it and I did it smarter the next time.
Sam Anderson:So what? Let's stop on the prospect. Yeah, and number two this is what I like about the format of the show. I did not expect the conversation Going this direction, but I'm so glad that it did. Um, number one, dude, I think we're separate. Like me, we may not be the same skin tone, but like there are so many similarities with our stories, I'm like my mom got some explaining, but the prospecting thing, that is literally person I interviewed for the podcast earlier today. She was a sales coach and To me, that is probably the most valuable skill set that anybody can ever pick up, because if you know how to sell something, you will never go hungry a day man.
Sam Anderson:And it's. It's the when you're backed up against the wall, when guys who have strong guys or girls who have strong sales backgrounds. I'm sure you've experienced two where there was weeks where, like payrolls do, and it ain't in the bank, do you have three, four days to make this happen and somehow or another we always figure it out. But that prospecting piece with you know MLM and quick start and things like that, that was probably my break, biggest breakthrough as an entrepreneur, because that scared the living crap out of me.
Sam Anderson:Going up to a stranger in the grocery store or the mall or Kroger or whatever and Just striking up a conversation, yeah, the biggest fear, like this person just being like Get away from it. And when you realize like huh, that's happened to me a few times and I haven't died yet. So like yeah, this isn't that bad because it was. Often you get a few knows, and then the next person you talk to was like so excited to talk to you in there Coming to the meeting next week and they're bringing two friends, like all that stuff. So it's interesting to see that because you skip college. But you only went to college In business, the school the school of lead generation, because that's what it was.
Brent Stone:More of an education there then you ever would have gotten going to a four-year yeah yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong I've got some friends that have some fancy degrees and and I can appreciate some of that, and I've learned, like this is this is.
Brent Stone:This is a tough topic for me because I never want to be offensive to people that, like, really put a lot of weight on Investing in education and all of that, because there's listen, I want I want my surgeon that operates on me to like have been Summa cum laude, you know, 0.3 GPA. Like I want them to know exactly what they're doing. But but, like, if I'm going to, you know, if I need someone to organize like all my like audio video stuff, I'm calling you because, like you, the entrepreneur nature, you've investigated every avenue of how to put together all the things that I need if you're solving my problem. I already know, even if you were a D plus student or C minus student, that the entrepreneur has figured out all the things that can go wrong and they've basically created a solution for the client, because they can't hang their hat, they can't.
Brent Stone:They can't hang their hat on a degree if they don't got it so like, so I. I got a, produced results somewhere for people and if people Look to a degree as a result, it's different than if you don't have that, so like I don't have that, so we got a produce.
Sam Anderson:I'll say, I'll say what yeah but, jordy, if it should not, be oh man the value of a degree has? Completely, yeah, I do believe that there are certain professions were, like you said, a surgeon, doctor, lawyer, teacher. You need absolutely. But majority of people. If you have an understanding of what field you want to go into, number one get a paid education. So if that's not an internship, it's like starting at the ground level of a company, that's in an industry that you yeah being.
Sam Anderson:start walking the floor, start working the mailroom, you're gonna be Made aware of the conversations, of things that are going on and you're getting an education along the way and at the same time, you're getting paid.
Sam Anderson:I mean, I'm going as far to say this like I listen also through professions of people that need to go to college. One of those I mentioned you don't actually have to go to college, it's an attorney. What do you have to do becoming an attorney? You just have to pass the bar. You don't have to have a college right now.
Brent Stone:Granted, someone that did that catch me, if you can have. You seen that oh.
Sam Anderson:Dang. Yeah, the dude passed the bar. I've said that, yeah.
Brent Stone:He ran from the FBI for so many years faking his careers and he just Learned along the way. He passed the dude, passed the bar, and people are like, oh, if I'm gonna be an attorney, I go to law school. Actually, you just have to be incredibly Like. You have to be incredibly intelligent, of course, but like, but yeah, yeah, the night go to college and pass the bar.
Sam Anderson:You basically yeah yeah, but for everything. If you want to learn, I Would challenge somebody, and I'd love to have some my own podcast talking about this. I bet somebody that's taking Spanish lessons on YouTube will learn the language much more effectively and quickly than if they took. I took five years of Spanish throughout high school and college and all I can say is Los Pantalonese. I've got, though Grossiest like I got a few words. There's no way you could dump me off in Spain and I could yeah.
Sam Anderson:But a person who can learn that information on their own. We have access to stuff. They're probably gonna love Spanish at a much more efficient rate than someone that's being forced.
Brent Stone:Oh my gosh.
Sam Anderson:I got my whole thing here. Here's I'm gonna give you my dream, because me and you may end up here's my dream of what university should look like. It should the same thing because I believe the experience that you get in college and like you and I've talked, I dropped out of college at the junior level but the experience that I got from college One you're getting to figure yourself out, learn yourself. It's your first time out on your own. You're gonna let your hair down, get all the stupid stuff out the way that you can so that you can finally be an adult. I think it's great for that.
Sam Anderson:The networking my first four business partners were all guys that I've met in college, so the relationships that I got there. But here's how I envision college in the future. Remove the lecture hall, no more classes and everything is just based on internships. So let's say, in a six-hour period, monday through Friday, you have classes instead of classes, you're going internship, but everything else is still the same. You still got friends. You still got sororities. You still got dorm halls, you still go eat at the D-hall, you got all these student body counselors. You got all that stuff.
Brent Stone:Just remove the classroom and Insert internships and I wish you start that university. We should start it.
Sam Anderson:Dude, at the end of a four-year experience there was no doubt in a student's mind Exactly what they want to do, because you've tried a variety of so many different things that by. It gets to graduation, you are not only do you already know what you want to do, you're probably already being primed by the business that you want to go work for, because what you totally decrease the on-ramp training time period for a business which decreases their overhead.
Brent Stone:You come in as a $12 an hour intern or whatever the minimum going rate is for an intern. Now, you know, if you're bringing a college kid into work for you basically they're already trained you can just, I mean, put them in payroll. I mean I guess they're probably already in payroll if you're paying them as an, as a paid internship, like there's no, there's no on-ramp, and so you're saving your first three weeks of just them. I mean people can say what they want. Someone's worthless starting a new job for the first four weeks. I mean, say what you want like absolutely like. People are like no, that's not true. They, you know, I'm like, look to the business. As far as cash flows concerned, they're worthless. Now, are they human? Am?
Sam Anderson:I Christian? Do I love people? Yes, but like, at the end of the day, the business is taking a risk hiring somebody.
Brent Stone:My wife is basically acting CEO and CEO of our healthcare. We have a dental company corporation and I'm like we she had a girl. We were like four staff members down for a long time. She hired multiple people for these positions. This year's been wild. It's like this post COVID weird People first off. This year has felt like eight months already, oddly, I agree with that.
Sam Anderson:That, that's absolutely a fact. Let me tell you this this girl shows up and like like a week after that.
Brent Stone:That's absolutely a fact. Let me tell you this this girl shows up and like like a week into the job, two weeks into the job, she just doesn't like show back up again. I People are like businesses can just afford to hire random people and I'm like you know how much time she put into training someone when she's already like all this other outgo and loss of production because we're down staff members and all this stuff. It is absolutely a risk for a business to hire people Like anyway, sorry we get on the soapbox, but it's just like, it's just crazy To hire an employee to train an onboard employee. It costs someone.
Brent Stone:I used to do recruitment specific advertising when I was in the advertising business. I learned this from a guy that has sold hundreds of millions of dollars of recruitment services out of Florida. I'm trying to think of this guy's name oh man, it's going to come to me. Anyway, he literally talked about the cost involved and this was backed by data from some of these big research companies. Let's say you pay someone 30 grand a year, because that's not even a real number anymore, but let's say back in the mid 2000s when $30,000 a year was like a good income or whatever part-time income or whatever. So you're hiring a college student for 30 grand right out of college. Let's call it 40,000. You multiply that by a fraction and the fraction was like 0.25. It was like you take that number, okay, so there's 10 grand, so it's going to cost you $10,000 in downtime resources to hire them. Advertising, basically get them in the door. You factor all the stuff in. It cost you money to hire that person and train them. Then you're also oh yeah, you're paying them.
Sam Anderson:And you may lose clients in the process. That person is just starting if they have direct contact with clients.
Brent Stone:And people are just like, well, yeah, but it's a business, they got money and it's like that's such the wrong mindset to have. If you want the little guys to win, you got to make it a little bit more incentivizing for these little guys to stay in business, Because now it's like people are raising the minimum wage and doing all that. You do realize that's going to negatively impact business. Sorry, I'm going off on these tangents that probably don't even no, no, no.
Sam Anderson:I'm with this, because then, when we have to increase our prices and clients are complaining about price, who can afford that? I can't afford the cars less like what the overhead is and a lot of people just don't. First off, if you're listening to this right now and you walk past an entrepreneur, just hug them give them a kick anything more. We go through a lot People just don't realize, because I remember when I first became an entrepreneur maybe two, three months in business people think I'm holding them in the dough.
Sam Anderson:They just hear a business owner or entrepreneur and they're like oh, sam's loaded now, bruh, I was making 30% less than.
Brent Stone:I was making in corporate America.
Sam Anderson:And that's after I got things like rolling and then with more responsibility with more responsibility, load, so you're stressed to the max, you're making less.
Brent Stone:And everyone's like, oh, you're loaded, you can afford to. And I'm just like, gosh, go run a business, go work food service, go work as a server, then go start a business, because then you get your customer service skills. And then go start a business, go try to get a loan when you've got no income to start a business. All these things people think they just take for granted when they go and apply it your business.
Sam Anderson:But this brings us back full circle to what?
Sam Anderson:we were saying at the beginning Entrepreneurs are born, they're not made. Because what idiot like us would say hey, I'm going to give up working for this guy for 40 hours as a nice strong salary, health benefits, 401k, and I'm going to go out and do this on my own. I'm going to take on more stress, I'm going to double the amount of time that I have to work, I'm going to work for 80% less than what I was making before and I'm going to do it with a smile on my face. Yeah, that sounds like a great life. We are maniacs, dude. Anybody who signs up for entrepreneurship. We are crazy, we just are. But at the same token, we wouldn't have it any other way.
Sam Anderson:This is not the life we chose. This life chose us. So I often spend a lot of time talking people out of entrepreneurship because they're like man I want to do what you do my first question is why Okay, now we got your.
Sam Anderson:Why? What are you willing to give up to do it? Are you willing to sleep in your car? Are you willing to go on a debt? Are you willing to lose friends? Are you willing to, like, kill your social life for the next two years? Are you willing to do all this? Because these are all the things it takes. And then, even after doing all, that there's no guarantee that you're going to make it.
Brent Stone:Man, you want to hear one of the best quotes I've ever heard, just kind of like right in line with what you're saying. All right, so it was like this meme and it was like this guy, this mechanic, working on this Rolls-Royce engine and it was like it was obviously a Rolls-Royce engine, it was like a V12 out of a Phantom or something like this, and the guy's like the mechanics in there and also the mechanics in like a collar, like a white collar, doing this, and it's like, listen, you're not paying me $350 an hour based upon me doing your oil change. And it's like you're not paying me $350 an hour because I spent 30 years working on Rolls-Royce's to work on your Rolls-Royce, because I guarantee you you can go pay someone a lot less than $800 for the oil change or $1,200 for the oil change If you go down to Jiffy Lube. The only problem is that they might jack up your Rolls-Royce.
Sam Anderson:And then you're going to have $20,000 worth of repairs that you're going to have to make because you didn't want to spend $350. Yeah, per hour.
Brent Stone:And here's the thing. And what people don't understand is like you're not paying that because they're price gouging you. They're actually saving you money because of their expertise. You invest with the service you need to solve your problem so that you don't have bigger problems later. And that's what a lot of entrepreneurship has taught me over the years and that's why someone would want to come to you. It's like you've got the expertise. It's kind of like what I was saying earlier. It's like you've investigated all the things that could go wrong around solving this client's problem with Enzo Media and you have that stuff figured out. So that's the big thing where people don't. They don't appreciate it because it's not like we're hanging our hat on a degree. It's not like we're hanging our hat on some type of big name. It's like, oh gosh. This is another thing too, when you're doing sales for a big company.
Brent Stone:I was snowboarding or skiing out in Seambo, colorado, last fall. I say fall because around here there's no snow but out in Colorado there is. Actually, this was about a year ago this time, maybe last year, and I'll wrote this lift up with a Red Bull sales rep and I'm like that's pretty cool. You sell energy drinks and I'm like. I sold energy drinks because of excess with Amway and all that, but it was way different because nobody liked that. I mean, the drinks tasted good but people weren't excited about that.
Brent Stone:But you know what, when you're spending all this branding power as a corporation to brand the product, well man, when you show up at a party and you're holding a Red Bull, that's cool because everyone's programmed.
Brent Stone:But when you're trying to represent your own thing, like me, walking around with an excess, people are like man, you weirdo, why do you have that? I'm like, it's my business and as an entrepreneur, when you're starting your own thing, you have to have enough guts to go out there by yourself and hold your can up of whatever and say this is me and a lot of people. That keeps a lot of people from being an entrepreneur. People tell me oh, funnel4, that's a cool name for business, and sure, but honestly I didn't know if that was going to be received. Well, when Glenn and I came up with the name for that company, I was hoping that it was going to be cool. We put people into your sales funnel, whatever. But people, I was rolling the dice, like, literally I'm like, and then I'm going to back it up. I got a smile on my face and a straight face say, hey, I'd like to serve you with our Funnel4 services and do all this stuff, and people just don't get it.
Brent Stone:Yeah, and names don't matter when it comes to starting a company, because you think of something like what did Google mean? Before Google's David meeting.
Sam Anderson:What was Exxon before Exxon? Those names mean absolutely nothing till you add value in it. I got a story to attach to what you said in terms of like you're bringing somebody for their experience.
Sam Anderson:So I remember this was me and my wife's first home. We built a brand new condo from the ground up, all brand new appliances, blah, blah, blah. They were maybe in the house for a year and a half, two years. And these are the new washing machines where, like you just push buttons, like it's not knobbed up like that, like you just push buttons. So one day I guess I thought I was the incredible Hulk. I went to start the washing machine and I pushed it way too hard and the button went like all the way in on the machine. So then I'm like I'm an entrepreneur, I'll figure this out. Let me go to YouTube. And I go to YouTube and then it's like, yeah, detach this from the motherboard and do Exxon. I was like, whoa, wash machines have motherboards. Now I was like I'm not about to do this, Let me call the guy.
Sam Anderson:So I do a quick Google search, find a guy who can come help me out, arrives to my house promptly, show them where the washing machine is, and I'm like, hey, man, here it is. Here's the problem. I'm going downstairs to watch TV. Just give me a holler. When you're done, I go downstairs. I think there was like some basketball or football game on and I'm just sitting there chilling thinking, you know, maybe by halftime or something like that, the guy will call me back up there.
Sam Anderson:Five minutes goes by, hey, mr Anderson, I'm done. So I walk upstairs and he's like, yeah, here was your problem. You know you had to do this. And blah, blah, blah. I did this, we're good to go. That's 75 bucks, cool. Wrote him, wrote him a check or Venmo'd him, whatever it was, went to the bedroom and told my wife, hey, repair guy fixed the washing machine, like he's done already. And she looked at me. She said, already, he just got here. I was like, yeah, well, he fixed the problem. She was like, how much you paying? I said it's 75 bucks. She said you paid him 75 bucks to work for five minutes. I said no, that's not what I did at all. I paid him. We had a problem. I paid him to provide me with this solution.
Brent Stone:He did it.
Sam Anderson:He did it. Does that? Should I pay him more money if it takes him three hours to fix our washing machine versus five minutes? Actually, I appreciate him more the fact that he wasn't disturbing my Sunday afternoon when I'm trying to watch Pittsburgh Steelers kill on the field, and this guy was in and out. Paid him 75 bucks and moved on. So that is such a crucial thing where entrepreneurs have to understand you get paid off of your experience.
Sam Anderson:The longer you've been in this industry, the better you get. It should require more money. So one and this is something I think we all struggle with I personally struggle with it is raising your prices. Every time I've raised my prices, there's been this little devil on my shoulder saying I don't know, like you know, you're going up, you're going to lose some clients. People aren't going to spend as much money with you. Blah, blah, blah. Every single time I've increased prices, not only has that led to an influx of clients, but it's led to an influx of better clients. The higher my price points have got, the less dumb phone calls I get from people complaining about something, because the people that I give discounted prices to are calling and complaining about every little thing. The clients that I charge the most money to thousands per month that we charge them. We're here for them, and then you know why.
Brent Stone:Because they know they're paying a premium for you to handle their problems. They're not worried about micromanaging, they're not worried about the little things I mean. Like I don't know if you follow Alex Hormozzi at all. I like his stuff.
Brent Stone:He talks about not how a hundred million dollar leads, but a hundred million dollar offers. He's like charge as much money as you can so you feel good about fulfilling the service. People give better customer service and your customers will tell other people about the experience because you can afford to give them the experience. You cut your. If you cut your wrists on trying to give the lowest price, not only are you going to go out of business, but you're going to hate fulfilling for your client and people like I heard Grant Cardone say this too. I'm not like here's the thing. Like Grant Cardone said oh gosh, oh, what was it? It was, it was so good. Like literally like you want to charge so you can make money because it's benefiting not only me as as the person selling the service, but you have buy-in as a client and actually I learned that even before Grant. Like that was, that was an, that was an AMOI thing.
Sam Anderson:Like, basically, oh yeah, cause, if you give someone away for free people don't value like put on an event right now and make it free.
Brent Stone:They're a bunch of people that.
Sam Anderson:RSVP and sign up and then the accurate date comes. They're not going to show up, they just charge five bucks for that event per ticket, and people will have a conundrum. They'll say you know what, man, I really don't feel like going this thing. But you know what I did pay a few bucks, so it'd be, it'd be cool.
Brent Stone:Absolutely Not to go Right.
Sam Anderson:Absolutely yeah and yeah.
Sam Anderson:That mentality of just when you're looking at that level of client it is drastically changed my business, because when you're charging too little for your service, I will tell you the biggest thing that it does for the entrepreneur Hate is the wrong word you begin to you have to stain for that client, like because you realize the work that you're putting into it is not the amount that they paid you. So you're just bitter at the fact that somebody got over you and you're having to do all this work and you're not making the type of money that you want to make.
Sam Anderson:But when you set those prices, when you set a standard, the level of clientele that starts to come your way is just insane, because they do value your opinion, like if somebody's paying me three grand a month you gotta believe they're listening to what I have to say.
Sam Anderson:If I was charging 300 bucks a month, they probably feel like they know more than me. But they don't feel like dealing with all the little details and they'd rather just have a minion that they get it correct. That's not business. I'm in If you hired me and I'll fire a client if you're not going to take heed and I'm not saying I know it all, but you hired us for a reason and if you're not willing to follow the game plan and the strategy that my team has said for you we're not the company you need to be working for.
Sam Anderson:And that is one of the most powerful things that you can do as an entrepreneur is firing a client. I'm not saying look to do that. Don't go down your list right now and be like who can I fire? But if you're dealing with someone and this whole reason I got in entrepreneurship is because I hated working- with people that I didn't like and I said when I became an entrepreneur, I'm only going to work with people that I want to be around.
Sam Anderson:That goes for employees, that goes for clients, that goes for partners, I mean. But that's just good for your like.
Brent Stone:I mean truly, it's good for, like, your overall well-being, because then you get to love what you do versus like being you know, hey, this is a client list. Now you're handling this force at a major corporation. We're just going to shove this client list down your throat. You got to service everyone on the list. This is your territory, this is your list, this is your XYZ. You got to manage it now. Now you don't have to do that. It's like as an entrepreneur, you're just like okay, well, I'm going to work really hard, and the stages are it's like I'm going to work really hard, get paid, nothing. I'm going to work really hard and then I'm going to like start getting paid, but I'm going to like have to, you know, like, work into this and learn my skill set. Then, as you start getting that experience, it's like then you start raising your prices and then you just keep raising them until you get the level of clients you want.
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