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The LFG Show
Too Legit to Quit: John Krawczyk "Operation Exit" 📈
"Too Legit to Quit: John Krawczyk's Operation Exit"
Ever wondered how to turn chaos into opportunity and build something truly LEGIT? 🏆 Meet John Krawczyk, the visionary behind AXAD Capital, who’s redefining what it means to rise above challenges. From navigating the stormy fallout of **Operation Brace Yourself**, a DME (Durable Medical Equipment) scandal, to creating a powerhouse company and successfully exiting in 2023, John’s story is nothing short of incredible.
Now, as a trusted consultant, John is helping countless entrepreneurs and companies make millions by sharing the lessons he's learned along the way. His genuine approach, relentless drive, and the relationships he’s built throughout his journey make him an invaluable network connection. Not just a business success, John is a great guy to know, and his guidance is changing lives and helping others achieve their own success.
🌟 In this episode:
- How intimate conferences lead to game-changing connections.
- Why quality over quantity is the secret to a successful network.
- The rise of AXAD Capital: A story of resilience, innovation, and determination.
- Lessons on creating a LEGIT business model and thriving through challenges.
John’s journey from turmoil to triumph is inspiring—watch as he shares how to navigate life’s setbacks and transform them into a LEGIT legacy. This episode is a must-watch for anyone looking to elevate their game and build something that stands the test of time. LFG! 🚀
💡 Special Thanks To Our Partners:
Shoutout to Roofsinabox.com, where virtual staffing helps you save big on operational costs, empowering you to streamline your business and maximize profits! 💸
Sponsored by Ringba: Scale your business with Ringba, the go-to platform for seamless operations and growth. Take your business to the next level with their cutting-edge solutions! 🔥 #paypercall #GetGoated
Timestamps:
0:05
Navigating Business and Personal Challenges
Growth, Opportunities, and Challenges in Business
Next Level Business Networking and Masterminds
yo, we're legion. World first podcast here with a man, president, founder, ass at capo, john krausek. He's a legend in space. Been doing this shit for a long time, been wanting to have you on the show for a while, man. We finally got to make it happen, appreciate it yeah, good stuff, man. How's been how the show been for you so far?
Speaker 2:show's been's been excellent, excellent. Tons of energy, new people. Yeah, it's good stuff.
Speaker 1:It is good stuff. The thing with this show I noticed is that it's smaller, it's not like an ASW, it's not like a Lee's Con, but it's good. It's nice and intimate is what it comes down to. Right, right, right.
Speaker 2:And you need more quality over quantity, I feel is like it's the Wild West it is.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of weeding out. You got to do with the issues you got to talk to. Like for every 20 people you talk to, maybe one or two actually got the goods. Here you talk to 20 people, I feel like half of them. Yeah, 20 people. Yeah, like at least half of them, or whatever. So, axa man, tell us about the whole issue.
Speaker 2:You guys good, and first of all, the name is awesome, right, and when I think of axa capital, I think of that show, billions on showtime that that influenced you, right, let's talk about the whole thing. Yeah, no, I you know the. The origin story of axa is actually was out of necessity. You know my company, I adorable medical equipment companies dme, dmes and um got tied up in Operation Brace Yourself, where 26 companies kind of got tied up in some. What year was this?
Speaker 1:by the way.
Speaker 2:This was 2018. Okay, a lot of people got tied up in a conspiracy to defraud the United States and anti-kickback statues and so, overnight, my company was just banished. You know there's nothing we'll do. So I started Axe-Lac Capital and started building out a network. Night, my company was just banished. You know there's nothing to do. Um, so I started access capital and started building out a network started, you know, building up at the time was u65. We were doing a lot of u65 traffic that kind of turned into doing a ton of auto insurance. Auto insurance was great for a while and just kept on riding the waves, you know, just kept on going with the trends and just kept on riding the waves. You know, just kept on going with the trends and just following what was hot. Yeah, we killed it. You know I was able to sell, you know.
Speaker 1:Congrats, man.
Speaker 2:In 2023. So I've been, you know, assisting in that transition for the past, you know, year and a half. It's been nice to just, you know, kind of sit back on the sidelines and just kind of watch the industry and see, you know, like, what's worth getting into next. And still helping out at AXA, doing a ton of great stuff over there, really focusing on legal, and now that we have a final expense agency, doing tons of final expense, that went really well, especially with kind of Medicare was, you know, just not a big hit this year.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It was tough for a lot of people.
Speaker 1:It was. Yeah, it was tough for a lot of people, those few guys I know that killed it man. And for us we didn't, we virtually did nothing with it Two years ago. We did pretty good with it. So there, and congrats on the exit man, that's a huge accomplishment. I mean only like I think less than 1% of companies actually get to exit their companies. So I mean congratulations on that. But I want to go back a little bit, because you mentioned the whole stuff with DME, right, and I think that's very interesting because obviously you caught it was a wave right. It was freaking, going up, going up and up and up. And do you ever feel like you were unstoppable when that was going on or what was going on through your mind and that shift from like being up here to like boom, real quickly?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say, you know, I think a lot of the marketers knew they were dancing in kind of a gray area. Some lawyers would say you know, everything is compliant. Other lawyers that were more conservative you know I want to do that and you know I'm going from just. I would say yeah, no, I felt pretty unstoppable. You know, the things were going great. It was just printing money and it really wasn't until this was April, april 2019, you know everything just hit the ground and literally you know my Did you know that was coming, or it just came out of nowhere, like overnight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it just came out of nowhere. It was coordinated, so all like 26 companies went down at the same time. Wow, and it was tough. You know it was a dark place for a while but you know, you just persevere, you keep on pushing and keep moving forward. You and my thing was I wanted to show you know the government I had pending sentencing and everything, and it took a while because of covid and luckily, you know, I was able to build access capital to the point like, okay, if I do go to prison, I have a team that is able to, you know, make sure my family gets paid and, you know, my expenses are paid. And you know, could definitely couldn't have done any of this without the team that I had. The team was just amazing, they were everything. So having that support was great, it was good.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, man. Did you feel like that gave you more urgency while you're pending being sentenced, going to prison every day, every second count, right it?
Speaker 2:pushes so hard. Yeah, took a toll on my body, you know, like the stress levels were not real.
Speaker 1:When you took a toll on your body, how exactly?
Speaker 2:First with my stomach. I had some like intestinal issues that I just almost had to get my colon cut out.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And I started doing BPC-157.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Which is a peptide.
Speaker 3:I wanted to.
Speaker 1:It's like a wonder drug.
Speaker 2:It was an offer for a peptide yeah. But yeah. So the intestinal issue where they were going to cut that out, what was the other one? I had Bell's palsy.
Speaker 1:Oh shit, I think I heard about that Half my face was paralyzed.
Speaker 2:They think from stress, but you just got to keep on moving forward.
Speaker 1:There is a new endeavor called Roofs in the Box.
Speaker 3:It's just man, from day one it's taken off. When I first started getting into the roofing industry, what was happening was my fixed costs were always there, and so for me I was looking at how can we, kind of one, save on these costs and then, two, how do I not lay people off during down times, but also maybe even the ability to pocket more money during the slow season or even the peak season. Since we've done this before, like with our Legion companies where we have virtual staffing from Argentina or Colombia, I'm like why don't we do the same thing in the construction business? Now, once we figured it out, we reduced their fixed cost by 70%, and so now during the downtime they have real seasoned veteran type of players, but during the uptime they pocket. 70% of their operational costs are now going back in their pocket, and then, when it's time to scale, you have the back end prepared, already ready to go to help them.
Speaker 3:Like lift off, depending on what state you're in, you're averaging at about 12.5% on what you pay out on taxes, insurance F, like all the different insurances that you have to pay out, right? So, yeah, you don't have to pay out unemployment, you don't have to pay out bike insurance, medicare, social Security the things that business owners have to eat. Roofs to Box is not just limited to roofing or home improvement companies. You can use it for any services, right? You can use it for IT. We use them internally for data cells, for hygiene, for analytics. It doesn't even matter what the vertical is. It's like business in a box at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:Pretty much, yeah, yeah, so that's crazy. I love that. That's the DNA of a true entrepreneur, right? No matter what the fuck gets in your way, you're going to figure it out, right, and that's really that's what the inspirational story, that's what it comes down to. Thank you, yeah, that's good stuff. So let's fast forward. Right, you get through that. You build Axe Act Capital. What's you kind of mentioned it before. I mean, now that you're you exited the company, you're still involved, but not in that. What's your like day-to-day, like, I would imagine, maybe more high level thing, like high level deals, like what's life after exiting?
Speaker 2:Really, people come to me all the time. Like you know, I just point people in the right direction and make some introductions and, you know, just try to try to help people out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and as far as like the company, right, I know when I first met you, I didn't. I don't know when I met you. I've met you many years ago. I don't think you guys were doing legal at the time, or were you?
Speaker 2:No, probably in the last two years.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Heavy in NBA. Yeah, you know, and torts, torts are great, but it's just the budgets come and go.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's the whole thing is like. Can we get something consistent? If we have a consistency we could, it'll be great, great to play.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Meso-Citadel-Yama has been halfway decent. You know, just getting a pipeline of those. If you can get one close a week, you know those pay out pretty significantly.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's a tough one though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's tough. Why the shift to legal? Like, what made you decide to get into that? Because, okay, I think when I first met you guys, you were doing the insurances still our ACA final expense, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:At the time, camp Lejeune was just we, just we crushed it, yeah, and then just started learning about the other tour stuff people were working on and made some relationships, you know like MTMP, and just started pumping out deals.
Speaker 1:How was that show for you? I saw you guys there. You had it was Axe, not Legal. Is the name of that right Axe Lawsuit, oh, axe Lawsuit, okay.
Speaker 2:It was a great show, yeah, max. Lawsuit okay, yeah, yeah, it was a great show, yeah, great show. Tons of lawyers.
Speaker 1:It's a different animal, right, it's not like one of these shows man. I mean, it's hard to penetrate that show man, you know. Yeah, you got to come to that one in a blazer for real.
Speaker 2:For real A blazer or a suit? Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was definitely. There weren't a lot of lead gen guys there, you know, and I think what it is is one of those things where you can't fake it, right. Right, these lawyers are sharp and maybe that intimidates a lot of people, but I think it's fucking good. It creates kind of like a barrier to entry, but lawyers are not marketers. That's true.
Speaker 2:Let them be lawyers. They're bad with technology. If you can have a package that you have a CRM for, you have a whole case management system for them. Their whole workflow. Basically, Then they really like you. They want to do what they're good at. They like us to do what we're good at.
Speaker 1:The one thing, though you got to really be on your shit, because they all talk to each other, right. So if you burn one, you're done. I heard about a guy at that show what stupid numbers are like 10, maybe 60 million a year and I don't know what the hell they did. I remember the story did something wrong by one guy. Boom out of the industry hasn't made a dime in the industry in like five years, but imagine, you know 50 60 million a year of revenue every year. You're in and you're out, and then bam one up and bam, you're out.
Speaker 2:Right, it's crazy yeah, that's yeah, not significant, you know, but their licenses are at stake. You know they're and they probably lost. You know, if there's fraud, you know they don't get that any of that money back. Right, I'm like it's um you got to be careful.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about that, though, because I'm seeing and I'm hearing this happens a lot. So we do some tour, we don't do a huge amount. We have some campaigns we're doing that are working pretty decent for us, but what I'm hearing is that there's a lot of coach calls right All this shit.
Speaker 2:Not only that, there's just a lot of consumer fur. Just think about the consumer.
Speaker 1:They're trying to make a quick buck.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean they'll alter documents and like nothing that the like we did. Nobody did anything wrong. They responded to that and they knew what they needed to say to. But eventually it catches up with them. Like the people send them fake medical records, like these aren't your medical records. That's so good, right yeah?
Speaker 1:Yeah, they think they're going to get away with it, right.
Speaker 2:I mean, these guys, they got forens messing around, yeah, yeah, but a lot of guys they didn't even think at like that angle, yeah, and they got burned. You know, everybody's got burned.
Speaker 1:So so NBA, let's talk about that, right. I know this is accurate. I remember, because we did an NBA campaign a while ago where we were calling on leads, NBA leads, and we returned the transfers. I remember back then hearing that every day, 17,000 people get into car accidents in America.
Speaker 2:I heard it was 33,000.
Speaker 1:You're at 33,000? Wow, so I heard that it could be right, especially in Florida. These people drive like shit, man, those that come from Jersey and New York. Man, I lose my mind over here. Man Fucking, they don't use their turn signals. Man, everyone's on the freaking phone right now. So you're right, it probably doubled since I started doing this Fucking bad. But anyway, with that being said, it's a good vertical, but it's also hard to crack because it's not like ACA or freaking Final Expense. We got guys showing us their chests over here. We got some Diddy shit going. Yo get the chance. You got this guy with Diddy shit. Get the fuck out of here. Fuck you, phil. We got some haters trying to hate us. I love you, man. Anyway, that's your old partner too, right, that's my dad.
Speaker 2:Phil is a great. No diddy, shit right, I would have never done it without him.
Speaker 1:Thank you, phil. Did you get that on camera? Or he disappeared? He got nervous. Anyway, what the fuck were we accidents? So, um, the bottom line is that, yeah, the payouts are good, right, but it's like a, it's a needle in a haystack. 30, there's nothing. There's nothing soft.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of qualifiers, you know. If it's been, you know, over six months, you know they don't want those deals. They don't want soft tissue. It'll take some soft if it's. You know, there's a lot of like variables that they have to look at like this this case is worth it or there's nothing here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the benefit is that it's like you know, I know MassTour, you got some high payouts. I've heard of payouts. We had a campaign and our cost I think it was like $47,000, $55,000 for a retained case. But for NBA it depends. It goes by state higher right, right, right in florida I can pay out 2500 oh, wow which is above average.
Speaker 2:So it's uh, it's an attractive offer I had no idea. I need some traffic to it geez, all right guys, you're listening.
Speaker 1:Nva send them your traffic 2500 in florida. That's pretty insane. How much is in california? I don't have a california I've heard I can do like five, six really damn things have changed, because whenever when I did it, I could have swore it was like $800 to like $1,800. Maybe I was getting a shitty payout, I don't remember, but that was years ago, man. I think that was right around COVID time. So the dynamics may have changed, I'm not sure. Yeah, probably yeah. So what works, man? Someone's running traffic to you. What makes a good?
Speaker 2:partner for you in terms of for NBA, for torts or anything that you're running. What do you look for for a good partner? If it's a transfer, somebody that is just consistent, that communicates and is sending over when the league comes over. Make sure you ask the qualifying questions. They're there for a reason. Don't waste people's time. If it meets up with the criteria the lawyers they close. On average, 50 to 60% of what comes. Wow, as long as it meets the qualifiers, they're closing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So Even if it's not, it shouldn't be a ton of money. It's a hard lead, but if you can get solid calls through, we can. We'll expand to more states too.
Speaker 1:Are you seeing a rise in fraudulent leads? How do you combat it?
Speaker 2:In MDA. Mda hasn't been bad In tort. We've seen a rise in ride share. There's a lot of consumer fraud doing. They need to send in the receipts. They photoshop the receipts oh, wow. I think a lot of fraud has kind of went away. When a lot of people don't do transfers, there's tons of fraud in transfers. But yeah, that's really, when a lot of people don't do transfers anymore, there's tons of fraud in transfers.
Speaker 1:But yeah, no, that's really no TCPA complaints in over a year and a half since I cut back. Yeah, yeah, so cool. So listen, now that you exited, right. I mean I know we talked a while I was in Colombia a couple months ago. We had a conversation, man, you were looking for like investment opportunities, that kind of stuff, man, what do you think? And you've also caught waves before, right, so I guess it all ties together. I mean, legion's all about the waves, catching these waves, man, what do you think is the next? What's percolating right now, what could be the next wave and what kind of opportunities are you scoping out?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I like the telehealth platform idea. I hear a lot about telehealth. I hear a lot about that and I like to be able to sell, you know, different products. You know, I think peptides are a huge up and coming thing, but there's just FDA issues with taking cash or credit card payments, which I'm sure there's solutions out there for being creative, but that's something I'm looking into. I'm very interested in home services. I think there's a lot of opportunity there. I'm starting to look at some appliance repair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I heard good things about that. It's pretty hot.
Speaker 2:And that kind of transitions, that kind of reads you in so many different directions. Yeah, a lot of those calls turn into like an HVAC call.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And there's a lot of hedge fund money in there too, so we follow the money.
Speaker 1:That's what it comes down to at the end of the day, Cool Listen. So what's the future? Hold man, I mean.
Speaker 2:The future hold. It's going to be a good 2025.
Speaker 1:It's going to be a good year. I feel like there's euphoria going around 2024, I don't know how for you, but a lot of guys who was like fucking, some guy got wiped out out of business. Some guys just like came from, like the almost came back from dead, the death. Right, we had a wild year and it's strong, thankfully. But I feel like there is a euphoria going on in 2025. Yeah, some good energy, definitely good energy, good shit man. So, last words, anyone trying to get in the industry? Man, they're brand new industry. What's your advice to them? Just keep pushing forward.
Speaker 2:You know, just just always be persistent. Just you know you're going to get tons of no's, but just keep on, keep on moving forward and then you're eventually. It's a numbers game. You know somebody's going to talk to you.
Speaker 1:Somebody's going to work with you. You know what it's. So it's so fucking true. You can have a bad day or bad month, but it's just going to turn, you know, as long as you keep doing, the pipeline starts building. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And once that pipeline's built we can kind of sit comfortably.
Speaker 1:You reminded me there's a book always be prospecting right. There's like always be closing, but always be. And it's true, no matter how well you're doing, if you're not, you don't have, you're not, probably the team's not, you're gonna get fucked, because that that pipeline is, and no campaign lasts forever. There's always, and it's like life is, there's death right to a campaign. So if you're not prospect, your team's not prospecting, you're fucking yourself. So you'd be riding, riding high and high, like look, look at solar, solar was hot as fuck, got dry, man. So good thing that we pivoted into the other stuff. But you got to always be prospecting because you don't I mean, you just never know adapting pivot is really where it comes out to well, good shit. I'm glad we finally got to do this. You know, good shit, pleasure, yeah, access, capital. Hit it, my man, john, we're gonna put in your information here. People want to hit you up. You know good guys willing to give advice, willing to fucking make it happen. Man, let's fucking go. Good shit, man. You said now we got to do it. Get ready to level your shit up.
Speaker 1:With the LFG show. We travel the globe to bring you heavy hitters from all walks of life. We've been talking some serious business, from the best digital marketers, government contracting experts to top athletic and celebrity doctors We've got it all covered. We're talking to guys with cash in for billions with a, b and the best thing is we're just getting started. So hold on tight. We're about to crank it up a notch. Get ready for next level networking and masterminds within the LFG community. Scare money, don't make no money, or honey. Hit the subscribe button, drop a like, leave a comment and let's fucking go. I'm out.