Lost $65M OVERNIGHT: Here’s What Dan Fleyshman Did Next!

Most entrepreneurs work harder when they should be thinking bigger.

In this episode, Brad Sugars sits down with Dan Fleyshman to break down what actually drives growth at every level — from your first million to building a $100M business. This is a no-nonsense conversation about why sales cure everything, why demand must come before structure, and why doing low-value work is one of the fastest ways to cap your growth.

They unpack the real shifts required to scale: raising capital the right way, building an ecosystem that pulls major players toward you, hiring executives who’ve already done it, and letting go of the tasks and people that can’t take you to the next level.

If you’re serious about scale — not just staying busy — this episode will challenge how you think and how you operate. Subscribe, share it with someone who says they want $100M, and press play.

About Dan Fleyshman:
Dan Fleyshman is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, social media mogul, philanthropist, and speaker — and holds the distinction of being the youngest founder in history to take a company public. By age 23 he had sold over $15M in apparel and launched the “Who’s Your Daddy” energy drink into more than 55,000 retail stores and military bases. He later built one of the top online poker brands worldwide, co-founded the 100 Million Mastermind Experience, and has invested in 40+ companies across tech, consumer products, and media.

About Brad Sugars
Internationally known as one of the most influential entrepreneurs, Brad Sugars is a bestselling author, keynote speaker, and the #1 business coach in the world. Over the course of his 30-year career as an entrepreneur, Brad has become the CEO of 9+ companies and is the owner of the multimillion-dollar franchise ActionCOACH®. As a husband and father of five, Brad is equally as passionate about his family as he is about business. That’s why, Brad is a strong advocate for building a business that works without you – so you can spend more time doing what really matters to you. Over the years of starting, scaling and selling many businesses, Brad has earned his fair share of scars. Being an entrepreneur is not an easy road. But if you can learn from those who have gone before you, it becomes a lot easier than going at it alone.

Please click here to learn more about Brad Sugars: https://bradsugars.com/

Build a Business That Gives You More Time, Money & Life:
Get The $100M Playbook: https://go.bradsugars.com/100m-playbook-ebook

Transcript

Welcome And Stakes Of Sales

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Sales cures off the sales and the marketing and the hype of like look at my brand, look at this. We did a NASCAR deal, the main Utah State Fair, where the brand, like marketing caused demand. Monster Rockstar Red Bull. That was my arch nemesis, 800 pounds. Monster Rockstar Red Bull. And I got Costco to drop rock stuff. They actually came back to Costco, paid them 2.5 million to take me out. Like energy rewards. I've been living in Malta, built up this poker site. Fifth biggest poker site in the world. Netting. Net net six figures a week.

SPEAKER_03 0:27

Alright, 100 million, that's the goal as an entrepreneur. Dan Fleischmann another$100 million entrepreneur. Welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 0:35

Buddy, I want to start with first and foremost the losing money making it back story.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Yeah.

The Poker Site Collapse On Black Friday

SPEAKER_03 0:41

Tell us a bit more about that story because I think it's a great lesson for people about resilience and what it takes.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

It was April 15th at 10, 10 a.m. I was at the Bellagio Casino. I get a phone call from Dan Bulzarian. Where are you? I'm like, I'm at the Bellagio. He's like, why aren't you in Malta? Because I had a poker site based in Malta. And I'd been living in Malta, built up this poker site, fifth biggest poker site in the world, netting, net net, six figures a week, five employees at five grand a month each. That's my total overhead. I'm living in an apartment in Malta by myself and just crushing. We have tens of thousands of players coming into the poker site. I fly into the Village because I'm about to have a meeting at the Hard Rock with this guy that invented the slot machine loyalty card. Got it. Sold it for$440 million. He owned Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, the licensing to all slot machines. Rich, rich, right? I have a 12 o'clock meeting with him, 10-10 in the morning. I just lost a$65 million company in one phone call.

SPEAKER_03 1:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

And I walk into this meeting and he goes, Man, you look like somebody died.

SPEAKER_03 1:47

Something died, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

His name was Edward Fishman. He was in his 80s, and he I said, Turn on the TV. So he turned on the TV, and there it is, all over ESPN, CNN everywhere. The FBI had seized full tilt poker, poker stars, all my competitors. I logged in my website, nothing happened. I didn't get in trouble, nothing happened to me. So I manually pay back 41,000 players the next four days instead of about to get a wire on the 19th, April of the 19th, instead of April 15th, lose 65 million.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

I'm not bit or anything.

SPEAKER_03 2:20

You know, I I teach business owners you're gonna have an exit from your business. Either you kill it, it kills you. Right. Or you get it to run without you, or you get to sell it for something. That's we're all gonna have an exit. That one was just a little more sudden than fast. You probably want. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

By the way, I will say this. It's the best thing that ever happened in my business life. Yeah. Because from that moment, never put my eggs in one basket again. I became an angel investor in 43 companies. I started throwing my live events, I started my charity for the homeless, I started this, I started that, I started speaking, everything started when I lost everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:56

Yeah. I think that sometimes getting it, and I won't say it was easy that first time round, but getting that success sometimes stops our innovation. Yeah. Like that loss demanded Dan innovate in life, in self, in everything. Why do you think it is people don't demand innovation of themselves? What is that?

Paying Back 41,000 Players

SPEAKER_00 3:20

They say they sit on the floor and cry about it. I had every right to cry, right? I just lost 65 million. April 19th, I'm supposed to go to Costa Rica with a bunch of models, do a photo shoot and poker pros, and I rented out a whole resort called the Gaia Resort. I had it all lined up.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Instead, I could have sat on the floor and cried about it. And by the way, some of my competitors are dead or in jail, and some of them committed suicide.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Because it was billions of dollars lost. Right? And for me, I just wanted to fix it. I wanted to make sure that all 41,000 people that didn't withdraw, there's hundreds of thousands of players, but 41,000 I had to manually pay back. 2011, try it now, but 2011, it was like the ice ages, right, for technology. And because of that, being immersed in trying to fix the situation instead of crying about it, once that week went by, I didn't have emotion about being sad. I just had to figure out what was going to be next, which was all the everything else.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

I remember as a young man when I had my business partners decide that they liked my money more than I did.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

I got those stories too for you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

I moved back in with my parents, which you want to have a humbling experience is like hey, mom. Yeah. Um, but I remember my dad just came and said, listen, make a list, start at number one. I said, I don't know. He says, You've made millions of dollars, yes? I said, yes. He said, do it again. Right. Not not complex. I hadn't lost the knowledge. Sure. Lost the money. So let's we do three layers of business here on the podcast: getting to your first million, getting to your first ten, and then scaling to a hundred sort of thing. Let's go back to what's something that you thought when you first went into business that you'd argue against today? Like when you're a young man, starting getting your first million, what would you argue with that today, and how would you teach it different to yourself and to others?

SPEAKER_00 5:02

So my first million, I was 17 and a half. And it was here in Las Vegas at the Magic Convention at the Venetian Hotel. And I couldn't even get my business card to get inside. I couldn't, I didn't have an idea to get inside the convention. I'd just sneak my way in. And we wrote over millions of.

SPEAKER_03 5:15

Magic, by the way, is the clothing convention here in Vegas.

From Loss To Diversified Action

SPEAKER_00 5:18

It's 1999. The booth next to me is Damon John's Fubu brand.

SPEAKER_03 5:22

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 5:23

On my left is Sean John. So Diddy had his brand. He launched the same show I did in 1999. Sean John also became a multi-billion dollar company. And I'm in a 20-feet booth in between these two million dollar booths next to me. And we wrote a million dollars in orders. And I remember my my older brother and my partner's dad called us, and when we told him, Oh my god, we got over a million dollars in orders from Nordstroms and Miller's Outposts and Mervyn's and all these brands, blah blah, they said, pack up and come home. It's a four-day show. And on the first day, we wrote a million dollars in orders. And we both like separately, what are you talking about, right? And uh it was because of what you're exactly thinking. We weren't ready. Didn't have a manufacturer. How was I gonna make a million dollars in orders? I literally didn't have a manufacturer. I made my t-shirts for the booth at the by the beach in San Diego at a print shop. How was I gonna make denim? And so the I'd say is oftentimes I'd like to people just get started and get out there, but you also have to have things set up. Yeah. And the 17-year-old version of me had nothing set up. I just knew that I had a funny catchphrase, who's your daddy? That's what I was selling. I was gonna get a big booth, 20 feet, not 10 feet. I was gonna spend four grand, not two grand. Like I thought I knew everything, so I was 17. And so now I'm obsessed with telling entrepreneurs about setting up shop. Corporation, your LLC, your website. What if someone wants to pay you? What's that contract look like? Just the basic setup shop before you go out there.

SPEAKER_03 6:47

Yeah, the that balance of demand and supply. If you're a br and this is the challenge for a lot of business people, though, because I'm gonna flip this back to you. You're a genius at demand, right? Most business owners, their genius is supply. Right. They're 80% supply focused and 20% demand focused. Right. How did you become a genius at demand rather than supply? And what can people learn from that, especially to that first million?

First Million Lessons At Seventeen

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Sales cures all. If I get sales, my investors are excited, my employees are excited, my other clients are excited because I tell them about I have other chain stores. So if I say I got Miller's Outpost, Murbins, and Nordstrom's, and you're at Macy's, you want to buy from me, don't you? Yeah. Because my competitors bought for me. Sales cures all. So I would go out there and just the sales and the marketing and the hype of like, look at my brand, look at this. We did a NASCAR deal. We're the Salt Lake City, the main Utah State Fair, we're the brand. Like marketing caused demand. When I did the Utah State Fair deal, it was Coca-Cola for 16 years. And they switched to a little energy drink for two years, two-year deal. How did I do it? I didn't have the 1.8 million they wanted per year. I got$3.6 million a year from Smith's grocery store. Smith's grocery store bought$3.6 million. I netted$1.8, gave that to them, and I made it for Smith's. You get tickets to the fair, you get four of them for$20 for every four-pack, which is only$8, at the store. So you spend eight bucks, you get$20 tickets, and you get the drinks. They did like$11 million in sales. Yeah. Right? And so the little engine that could to fight with things, and my my long-winded answer is by creating the sales and marketing, everything else starts to fall in place and it forces you to level up.

SPEAKER_03 8:30

Yeah. Most people hustle at the start on doing the job. You were the opposite. Your hustle in the beginning was the sales and marketing. Yes. Was that just a mentality or decision? Was it just your nature? Which way?

SPEAKER_00 8:45

So I was trying to do everything I could morning, noon, and night.

SPEAKER_03 8:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

And so I knew that if I had sales, I could go out and get more investors. I knew if I had more capital for investors, I could do more manufacturing. I knew if I did more marketing, people would be more excited by my product. More people about products, I can then get into the other chain stores. If I could do that, I could create customer demand. I was just building it as I was going. So I don't have like a rocket science answer. I was 17, 18, 19. When I finally launched the energy drink, I was 23. I took it public on the stock market at 23 years old. I had no idea what that meant. Zero, actually zero.

SPEAKER_03 9:21

But there's something you've said in your answers that you just say naturally, and most people don't get it. You were bringing on investors from day one. For sure. Most business owners try bootstrap it, hustle and grind. They go through that. Share with me the mentality of bringing on investors, other than, well, I didn't have any money, I had to.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

So I had the sales, and I can go get the sales. Here's the problem. In the beverage space, or food and beverage, that whole category. Let's say you get an order from Costco for$1 million. Great job, Brad Sugars. You got a million dollar order from Costco on January 1st. You don't ship to them until March 1st or April 1st. So it's 90 or 120 days. You're putting up the 500k to make the million dollars of product. Once they receive it, let's call it April 1st, it's net 30, net 60, or net 90 when they pay you. Let's say they love you, it's net 30. That means May 1st is your first chance of getting a payment. But Brad, your drinks are actually really good. And they start to sell through after two weeks. Hey Brad, guess what? You're getting a West Coast regional buy of$5.6 million, Brad. You got to come with$2.8 million. You scrambled and mortgaged your house for the first$500K. You haven't been paid yet. I knew we were going to be great in my mind. And so I was going to where the puck was, right? The hockey hockey theory. Wayne Gretzky. And so I knew I was going to be in tens of thousands of stores. And I needed a lot of capital to do that. And if I didn't do it, none of it would ever happen. And too often you see these brands like, why did this snack company or cookie company raise$18 million? They needed to survive. Literally for air, for the retailers, because they were doing so well. If you suck at your business, the capital is just going to burn on your overhead. If you do great, you are going to need a war chest of capital, especially in food and beverage, and that's what my life was the first 10 years. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:10

Yeah. I think that it's great that you are in a business that demanded capital. A lot of people go into business that doesn't demand capital, so they never learn how to raise it. They never learn to be good. Just touching on that for a second, I've always said to people, raising capital is the same as selling anything. It's just a sale. You're going to meet with a bunch of people and you're going to sell them a, you're going to pitch them an idea and some will buy and some won't. Thoughts on raising capital?

SPEAKER_00 11:37

So the first round is friends, family, and fools. Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_03 11:43

Throwing fools in the end there, yeah.

Becoming A Demand Machine

SPEAKER_00 11:45

The the friends, family, and fools because they're gambling on you. Yeah. You might have the best product. Let's just use the energy drink. Brad has this amazing energy drink. He knows someone at Costco. That's all fine and dandy. You have to bet on that person that they are what I call ride or die. When you get that capital. So for when I say to people, if you're gonna raise money, you better know you're gonna work on this thing. How can you find out? Taste it. Go try. Go to the chain store, go to the convention, go to magic, etc. Sell your clothing, sell your drinks, sell your whatever your products are. And once you know that people believe in that product and they're actually willing to buy it, you should for sure raise capital.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

Because you are now in an uphill battle. If you go there and no one wants to buy it, please don't raise any money. Because you can't change customer habits. People have to want to buy your water, your books, your product, your coaching, anything. They have to want to buy it. No amount of marketing is gonna make them reorder something. Meaning, I can get my drinks onto a shelf once. If it doesn't sell through, that's it. If someone buys and they taste the drink and it doesn't taste good, that's it. No amount of marketing gets past bad product.

SPEAKER_03 12:52

Yeah, I can think of a few of those. Of course. Especially sports energy drinks market. It's like, yeah, some famous guy who boxes, he made a sports energy drink and it's awful.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Billions in sales and then has an 80% drop. Yeah. Right. Because it's just not good. Yeah. So I'm a dear friend of his, but we've watched it happen. It's the proof is there. Right. The quality of product has to be there.

SPEAKER_03 13:13

I I know that, like, because for us, Action Coach, 32 years doing this. Why? Because our coaching works.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:21

You know, it's we don't have customers with 20 years because it didn't work. They're here because it works, type thing. And so that's that. All right. So your first million, you gotta hustle your butt off, you gotta be amazing, you gotta do all that stuff. Part of that lesson of the capital is the 10 million, because it's rare you're gonna scale. Scale needs capital. It just does. Human capital, financial capital, intellectual capital. Let's talk about bringing in intellectual capital. Are you a fan of agencies stuff? Where where do you because for speed, intellectual capital? Talk to me through that one.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

So I like to work with agencies in certain categories that are category-specific. Because you're never gonna have someone as good as them because they don't spend as much money as them. Meaning, anyone that I always see these people post on Facebook and everywhere. I want someone with five years experience that spent over a million dollars a month and blah blah blah. They don't want to work with you.

SPEAKER_02 14:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

They can sell four grand a day of freaking couches and pillows and napkins, let alone why would they work for you for you're whopping 12 grand a month? No. Rather, an agency that's got 42 guys like that, that is paying them all six figures each and giving them equity, they have wisdom of the crowd. Yeah. Because they've got 62 clients, they're spending 100 million a year. They've got so I like hiring agencies that have proven track records, not small agencies. No offense. Small agencies, you can't do at scale. You don't you just haven't spent the money.

SPEAKER_03 14:48

Well, that's for us, like we go to an agency and we got a thousand offices around the world, and I'm like, all right, so if I send all thousand of my people to you, how will you handle that? And they're like, Yeah, we can. Okay. Of course not. Thank you very much. We need to find someone that can scale with us and have and and then they've got to have the capital to scale with us too. So I think that's important. So where do you hire internally rather than agency?

Why And How To Raise Capital

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Yep, so people that have to live and breathe the company, right? I want a COO, sometimes I want a CEO for if I'm not running the business. Um I need as true someone to handle accounting. If it's not an accounting firm, I want a real CFO. Um a lot of times the the main thing I'm looking for is I want sales, but I'm open to sales agencies. Uh they're a bit disposable because they're hiring and fine all the time, so I'm open to agencies because a lot of times it's replaceable if I have a good product. Like me selling action coaching, I can do that in a heartbeat because hire eight guys, four of them suck, four are good, one's a superstar, whatever. Like I can burn through it. Um internally, though, I need someone that's the administrative assistant that lives and breathes us. I need someone that's the CEO that's operating just us, does nothing else, is not a consultant, just lives and breathes us. And so I want my C-level executives to be my main. A lot of the people here in the administrative are interchangeable. Yeah. Because if they are not bringing in sales or making an impact for me, I'm not as concerned. But I do want my administrative assistant that's dealing with my C-level executives that they are right or die. Yeah. And I want to pay them higher. Yeah. Because I want them to not leave me.

SPEAKER_03 16:25

Yeah, it's interesting. They pay peanuts get monkeys, sort of thing. 30% more money, and you get someone who's twice or three times as good.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

And they don't leave. You know, you don't want to waste months trying to hire someone new.

SPEAKER_03 16:36

It costs so much money when someone leaves. You know, I remember doing a speech in Dublin, and the guy after me was Sir Richard Branson. It was like, yeah, the Australian convict and sir, like, and someone asked him, you know, do you ever worry about training your people and they leave? He says, No, we train them so that they can leave, but we run a company so good that they want to stay.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

For sure.

SPEAKER_03 16:55

And and that's a big thing. You mentioned sales agencies. We have sort of a rule of thumb. If you need a large team of sales, we'll hire in-house because you can. You can burn through four or five and and keep the rest. But if you need one or two and you build on one guy or one gal and they leave, your whole sales is done. Let's then talk about um the distinction. The you know the old what got you here won't get you there. For sure. Getting to a million versus getting to ten. What are the things you have to change dramatically to go from superstar at one to getting to ten?

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Your emotions with those people.

SPEAKER_03 17:34

Letting go? What?

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Because a lot of times you're hiring your friends and your uncle and your dad and your brother to get you to a million, and they can. It's really rare they can get you to ten million. Yeah. And I pinky swear, none of them will be there at a hundred million. Yeah. You might not even be friends with them, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_03 17:49

Yeah, I found that you generally have to demote people as you scale the business, and if you're not willing to demote people or move them to the side, or uh uh people give people a C-level executive title well before it's needed.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Because titles are free.

SPEAKER_03 18:04

Yeah. Yeah, but they're not free when you go, okay, my CMO at 2 million a year spend is definitely not my CMO at 100 million a year spend.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

No, and they should they shouldn't be and they couldn't be. They don't have the experience for it. And people are like, oh, but this, but that, but they've been with us from the beginning. That's all fine and dandy. IPinky swear it, they're gonna go get another job just fine because they got the experience, and go get them the best approval, stamp approval from you to go get them another job. They cannot, should not be your head of sales or your CMO when you're going to 100 million. How do they know how to deal with outdoor marketing, buying billboards, and buying bus stops, and buying freaking Super Bowl commercials? How? No, you know what they've done? They've run Facebook ads for you and some TikTok ads. Yeah. How do they know about SEO and Google and SEO? Like they don't know, they can't spell SEO.

SPEAKER_03 18:52

But even hiring agencies, like a CMO at that level has worked with a dozen agencies. They probably come in and go, yeah, we'll use this guy's for that, these guys for that, these guys for that. Rather than let's guess. Right. You know, you don't go to Rome and get a tool guide that grew up in Philadelphia. You know, you go to Rome and get a tool guide that they were there. Um what's something that gets you to 10 but stops you getting to a hundred?

SPEAKER_00 19:17

So what gets you to ten is you going out there and just calling. You can just get the sales, go to the conventions, go to the trade shows. The systems and operations, convincing the clients that you had at 10 million to scale with you. Meaning, if I go get into Costco, Ralph's, Bonds, and Albertsons, and I want to go and get to 30 more chain stores, the business is gonna go bankrupt. Compared to all store buy from Costco, all store buy from Ralph's, all store buy from Bonds, the four that I had, all store buys from them can get me to 100 million. Better than getting to 30 chain stores, that's gonna cause complete disarray. Shipping, trucking, systems, operations, net 30, net 60, net 90, all different terms. Every single Chain store needs its own marketing program. I gotta do point of sale displays for them. I gotta do uh, you know, the newspapers that come to your house, the coupon ads, I have to do outside marketing, I had to wrap vehicles, I have to do so much stuff around one Costco. If I go try to do it for 30 different brands of CVS and Walgreens, everybody else, I'm literally gonna go bankrupt. And so going from 10 million to 100 million is typically with the same clients, just going all in with them.

Product Quality Beats Hype

SPEAKER_03 20:25

It's an interesting strategy. So it's really do something once, get great at it, and then but have customers that can take you to that. Let's go backwards a step. Most people don't think of doing business at that level, the big companies sell into a Costco, selling to those sorts of things. How did you get comfortable with that in the beginning, or was it just natural for you?

SPEAKER_00 20:46

So I wore the brand every single day from 17 to 23. When the energy drink launched and we went public, I carried the drinks with me literally everywhere. Like I would have it in my pocket. A 16-ounce can, one pound, was in my pocket at all times. I would have an energy shot, a little five-hour energy size shot in my pockets, in my car. I didn't care if I was warm, I'd bring you ice. I carried my brand literally every morning, noon, and night. I if I was at a funeral or at a wedding, it was in my car. And then I would slip it into the wedding afterwards and bring it out for during the party. Like I always had it. And so what made me comfortable was everywhere I went, I talked about it. I was at the car wash, I promised you we're getting in the car wash. I stopped at the gas station, I talked to the manager. Everywhere I went to the restaurant, the bar, the nightclub, the college, everywhere I went, I talked about my product. Everywhere. So when I was talking to talking to Costco, it's the same thing. And by the way, if you walk into Costco and you're already in 406 stores in the area, guess what you're getting into Costco?

SPEAKER_01 21:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Because the security guards know about you, the secretary knows about you. Like, I made the ecosystem know about me because I would take over a market before I even walked into the big chains.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

That ecosystem theory is something that's amazing that I don't think people understand. Give us more depth on that. I think that's really important.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

I got a perfect fun story for you. So I really wanted to get into Walmart, obviously. It's the holy mecca of chain stores. For context, if you get a four-way of t-shirts, so four t-shirts, it's an$11 million opening order for four t-shirts.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Got it.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

That's back then. Imagine now, it's gotta be$20,$30,$40,$50 million, right? And so I wanted to get into Walmart. What did I do? Before I set up the meeting, I sponsored the high schools within 10 miles, because guess where their parents are?

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

They work in Walmart. Yeah. Right? I sponsored Limo buses for their prom. I sponsored the football teams. I sponsored the baseball teams. I actually was sending care packages to all of the main players on the football and baseball teams. The basketball teams, I put coolers in the locker room before I even called Walmart. Guess what? I actually didn't call Walmart, they called me. Everywhere they went. And I only bought two billboards to exit to get into Walmart Corporate headquarters.

SPEAKER_03 22:54

Oh, that's perfect.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

And on the way out, I'm serious.

SPEAKER_03 22:57

Oh I know you're serious. That's perfect.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

I got pictures of all of this. And so they thought I was everywhere. I'm a top 10 energy drink in the world because in their mind they saw me everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

And they finally and they called me. And I went there, and the meeting's a lot different when they call you. Because they're getting pitched the other 900 drinks in the market. Remember, Costco, Walmart, these they really only carry three or four brands of any category. Monster, Rockstar, Red Bull. Monster, Rockstar, Red Bull. That was my arch nemesis, the 800-pound gorillas, Monster, Rockstar, Red Bull. And I got Costco to drop Rockstar for me. And I got Walmart to place me instead of Rockstar. Rockstar had a they actually came back to Costco and paid them 2.5 million to take me out. Like energy drink wars.

SPEAKER_03 23:40

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's a fun thing in any product or any business that you're in. That's going to be the case. So um 100 million.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 23:50

What what is it that most people don't realize about getting to 100 million and above?

Ten Million Needs Systems

SPEAKER_00 23:56

So that's been my life since 2019. I created 100 million mastermind experience. I use the word experience. We're going to our seventh year now. And the whole concept was I'm going to bring in guys that are doing 10 million or more to get coached by guys doing 100 million or more. Because it's a huge difference. The whole point of your podcast is that difference. When you get into that place, you need to go kidnap the best executives you can. You want to build the best, just keep using energy drink, go get the vice president of a monster. You want the best CMO? Go steal the CMO of Red Bull. Point blank. Go kidnap the best person from your competitive field. And often it's the number two or three at that place because they're capped.

SPEAKER_03 24:37

Yeah, they can't get the CMO role. They're junior. Yeah, they're the next guy down, next gal down. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

And when you do that, what's really interesting happens is you'll usually get one to four more that come over. You'll get one to four more executives that come over, or staff members or supporting roles that come over. And so oftentimes I'll get someone to come to the company and I get three more people from that company. It's really fascinating what happens because they're capped or they've been there for three, four, five, ten years, and they're frustrated, or you know, it happens in corporate culture, and then I do everything I can to keep them.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

And by doing that, the people are what scale my companies, right? I'll give you a quick example. My elevator studio, my agency, for the first nine years, from 2011 to 2020, every caption, every post, every contract, every wire, I did 110,000 posts. You saw Kim Kardashian post the product, I wrote the caption. I mean, I'm taking the picture. I dropped the fashion of a dress off for her. I'd go to Taiga and Kylie's house, drop off. I drove there. I'm not kidding. I drove there and dropped off. Hey, you want to post about this book for Brad? I wrote the caption for Brad. I did the contract with Brad. Brad wired me the money. I did the contract with Kylie. Like, I did everything. I hired a CEO, 30 years in the game, named Joey Carson. He was the CEO of Bunham Murray. So he created Real World, Simple Life with Paris, and all these big shows. Way above my pay grade. My company's doing 18 million. I'm gonna pay this guy mid-six figures, give him a big chunk of equity, and I've never sold a piece of equity. I owned the whole company, and still too to this day. Went from 18 million to 60 million that year. I started the 100 million mastermind that year. I started speaking to her that year. Everything happened the year because I finally unshackled myself from the office, and my ego thought I had to do everything. Went from 18 million to 60 million because I got to go out there and bring in more clients because now I'm on stage. I wasn't in the office 19 hours a day, 16 hours a day, 14 hours a day. And so the going from 18 to 60, that happened, the same concept of 10 to 100, that happened literally because I brought in a CEO to replace me. And I I became the face of the brand, and he became the actual operations.

Deepening With Fewer Retail Giants

SPEAKER_03 26:43

Love it. I remember when I first retired myself when my daughter was born, and I was like, I'm done running the company. And and uh I went and spent four years being a dad running charities. And uh the company grew faster without me running the damn thing than it was. Why? Um because our goals were based on market penetration, not based on Brad's desires, Brad's goals. You know, so I love that factor. What's one thing that business owners should stop doing? What's the one thing that they should all just stop doing that's killing their profits or it's killing their growth sort of thing? What do you notice?

SPEAKER_00 27:23

Something that you mentioned earlier. They're literally wasting hours of day doing mundane stuff. The$20 to$100 an hour things, how dare you do that as a CEO? Like, how dare you sit in meetings for three hours each? I don't allow three-hour meetings with eight people in it. That's not a three-hour meeting, that's 24 hours. You got eight of my staff for three hours each. Why is my marketing guy sitting through three hours? Why is my sales guy sitting through three hours? Say their piece for 15 minutes and get out, go work. Say your piece for 22 minutes and get out, go work. We waste so much time in these things. And so when you think about, oh, I'm just being efficient, I'm sitting in on every meeting, I'm doing every one-on-one meeting. I'm what are you talking about? You think you're worth 40 bucks an hour? Like, why are you dealing with the phone call for this? Why are you why are you calling Wells Fargo for this? Like, what on earth are you talking about? Your value should be hundreds of dollars an hour, hopefully thousands of dollars an hour, and at some point, tens of thousands of dollars an hour for the company. If I was an investor in your company and you're literally doing two hours of blah blah blah, what? Two hours of blah blah blah is ten hours a week, 40 hours a month, 480 hours a year of blah blah blah. If you're worth thousands of dollars an hour, four hundred times four. It frustrates me so much.

SPEAKER_03 28:37

And so that's my hourly rate. If it's not gonna be worth me being in something for that, then why am I even worried about it, sort of thing?

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Like, do you mow your own lawn? No, never. How dare you mow your own lawn?

SPEAKER_03 28:46

Since I was at 22, I set a$25 an hour rate that if I could pay someone less than$25 an hour, I would never do it again for the rest of my life. So obviously that rate's a little higher today, but you know, but the concept is the same.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

Like if you if you believe you make hundreds of dollars an hour for your company, how dare you spend$25 an hour of your time mowing the lawn, cleaning the pool, etc. Okay. People are and people are proud of it, like I still mow the lawn, I still clean the pool. You are literally paying to do that. Hundreds of dollars an hour. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:17

Yeah, I had a guy one time tell me he enjoys mowing the lawn. I'm like, it's just because you don't have a yacht. You know, it's it's more fun doing bigger toys. And if that's your best toy, your lawn mower, then let's change it up. Alright. Final question. What's the price of success? And would you pay it again?

SPEAKER_00 29:37

The price of success is a lot of your relationships. The people that don't understand you or won't put up with you and won't fight with you, like it's typically you know, wives, husbands, uh, children, close friends. If they don't understand that you're just wired that way, um, you're gonna lose the relationships.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Yeah.

Building Local Ecosystems To Win

SPEAKER_00 29:54

And some of them are gonna fade away, even if they understand you. But would I do it again? Yes, because of my greater purpose.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

And my ultimate goal is if I go do these things, uh I will help the world. And I also say this I would resent some people in my life if I stopped.

SPEAKER_03 30:11

Yeah, if you held yourself back because someone else didn't feel comfortable. I remember years ago, and I'm sure you've experienced this, whenever I go to a sporting event, I buy a suite rather than tickets because then I can bring 16, 20 friends, sort of thing. And and one of my buddies just kept saying, I can't go. I'm like, dude, why not? He's like, I I can't afford it. And I'm like, I don't ask you to afford it. Right. You know? And an opposite friend who, if we go out for big steak dinner sort of thing, he won't put his hand in his pocket because he can't. Right. Right? But if we go out for lunch and it's sandwiches, first gotta pay.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 30:46

And he's smart like that. He picks it up where he can, sort of thing. So yeah, that's a real interesting observation. I I like it. I like it a lot. People want to give to your charities, learn more with you. Where's the best spot?

SPEAKER_00 30:57

So we throw the world's largest toy drive. The website is Trina'sKids.org. 10 cities, a quarter of a million toys. I buy half the toys. Some friends buy a lot of toys. Sean Kellagie bought 120,000 toys. And so that's my passion project for the last 12 years. Uh, social media is all just Dan Fleischman on every single platform. Got it.

SPEAKER_03 31:15

And it's Flashman with a Y. Yes. All right, Dan. Thank you, brother.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 31:20

Thanks for joining me on the Hundred Million Dollar Podcast. If you've got value from today's episode, make sure you've subscribed and share this with all of your friends. Never miss a strategy that could change your business and your life. And remember, the fastest way to scale is to learn from those who've done it. That's what this show is all about. See you on the next episode.