Why Owning Multiple Businesses Is A Red Flag

You see someone on LinkedIn with five businesses, a book deal, a podcast, and a speaking career. You think they're successful. Juming Delmas thinks they're broke.

In this solo episode of the Un-Traditional Entrepreneur Podcast, host Juming Delmas makes his most honest confession yet — he is a walking red flag. He opened three businesses in four years. And in this episode, he breaks down exactly why that was a mistake, what he's doing to fix it, and why owning multiple businesses before your first one is established is almost always a sign of financial fragility, not success.

Using Jeff Bezos, Oprah Winfrey, and Elon Musk as case studies — with real revenue data — Juming shows exactly how long the world's most successful entrepreneurs focused on one business before expanding. Jeff Bezos made $1.6 billion before starting Blue Origin. Oprah waited 29 years before writing her first book. The pattern is clear.

Topics covered:
- Why multiple businesses in the first 5 years almost always means you're broke
- Split focus equals split results: why your first business needs your full attention
- Jeff Bezos, Oprah, and Elon Musk — when they actually started their second businesses
- Why writing a book, starting a podcast, and booking speaking gigs are all businesses
- Branding confusion: how multiple brands with no clear story kill your credibility
- Financial drain: why business is too expensive to split across multiple ventures
- Burnout and mental overload: what running multiple businesses actually costs you
- How social media creates the illusion that serial entrepreneurs do it alone
- How Juming is restructuring his three businesses into one parent brand strategy
- Why one strong business can fund multiple dreams — later

The Un-Traditional Entrepreneur Podcast with Juming Delmas. Real talk. No filter.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Yo and yo, what's going on, everybody? Welcome. Hi, I am your host, Jameen Delmus, to the Untraditional Entrepreneur Podcast. And just a reminder, we are now shifting brands from I'm just here to listen podcast to the untraditional entrepreneur podcast. I'm your host, Jameen Delmus, and today we got a very, very, very interesting topic today. Mm-hmm. Why owning multiple business as a business owner is a red flag? Today we'll be diving into some of these red flags, some of these motherfuckers who are here just running multiple businesses thinking this is a great idea. You know, fuck it. Let's dive right in. So today I'm gonna go over like six, six, six, six reasons why running multiple businesses is a red flag. Um, firstly, thank you y'all for tuning in. So, you know, right now we currently have 62,000, I think 63,000 subscribers on YouTube. If you guys are watching this, please hit the subscribe. Don't just hit the subscribe, but also hit the notification button so that you guys are notified when our shows are coming out. All right, so let's dive in. All right, so first thing first, red flag. Um, you know, to be fair, I'm not gonna lie, I am a walking contradiction um when it comes to red flags. I mean, or uh all owning multiple businesses, and I am a red flag as well, too. Shit, fucking I'm a red flag. Uh um, and the reason why, you know, uh, you know, I'm a walking red flag is because I fucked up in that same situation where I started multiple businesses um coming into the business world. There's nothing wrong with owning multiple businesses. The problem becomes when you own multiple businesses and you are just now starting out as a as a business owner. So that's where the real problem comes in. So here I'm just gonna kind of be honest. So I fucked up in that realm. But you know, to be fair, I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna lie. Like, I used to think people running multiple businesses mean they, you know, they have money. Now I know that people who run multiple businesses, especially if they are like um like beginner businesses or whatever the case within the first five, 10 years. I think in that realm, I think, you know, to be fair, them niggas are broke. The motherfuckers are super broke. And you already know how I am about broke people and broke businesses and shit like that. People love the fluff. But I fucked up and made that same mistake by opening multiple businesses without first, you know, making sure that first business is established. And again, I'm a yeah, I be tearing their asses up on LinkedIn. Go on LinkedIn, right? All when you go on LinkedIn and you see all these people uh with their successful accolades and shit like that, or they're talking about some. I I I gotta run a successful business. They all this shit. You already know how I feel about book writers. You already know how I feel about speakers and and wealth coaches and shit like that. You already know how I feel about those guys. Go on LinkedIn, see all these people with all these motherfucking jobs, all these different businesses that they have under their belt. The motherfuckers are broke. I don't say all of them, but I will say most of them are broke. As much as they try to claim that they're not, they are. I was talking to a guy who's trying to get services with our business man. And you know, when you've been doing this shit for a little bit, you can kind of identify the broke people, people who just be talking, people who just be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, red flag number one is when a motherfucker can come to me and tell me they're writing a book. Right? That's red flag number one. I don't give a fuck. You come to me telling me you're writing a book, that's a red flag for me. Red flag number two is when because technically, book your book is a business. That's still a type of business. That's still a type of business. Um, another type of business is podcasting, that's still a type of business. But now people are being smarter about podcasting and say, hey, look, I'm gonna use podcasts to elevate my brand. You know, I won't put a focus heavily on podcasting until I start monetizing, but I want to use this podcast as a marketing initiative to market my parent brand until I get the parent brand where I want it at. Then I can start really putting focus on the podcast itself. All right, those motherfuckers are smart. So I'll give them that. So utilizing your podcast to market your current brand. But then there's like people who write books and people who are talking about something they want to get paid as speakers and things like that, like like or public influencers. Like, I mean, come on, come on. What are you, ET? You know what I mean? Like, come on, you gotta like be for real. Be for real. And and and and I had a guy who came to me about services. Shit was crazy as fuck. He was crazy. He wanted services because what he was talking about was he's some type of, he's been in some type of cleaning business for X amount of years. Like, I think he's been in the cleaning business for like 11 years, 11, 12 years. He's his only employee, red flag number one. He's his only employee. He has no team, he has nothing behind him. And again, if you've been in business five plus years, you should already have at least a small team. If you've been in business 10 years, you should have at least a decent mid-scale team. You've been in business 10 years and you're your only fucking bit, you're your only fucking employee. Get the fuck out of here, man. You're fucking broke. I knew this coming out. Talked about all his accolades, all his success, all what he was doing, how he's got this business, how he's working on this business, how he's now writing a book. Now he wants to start a podcast. All right. First of all, you you got too much shit going on to be talking about a successful business. One, your first business can't be taken off because you're still the only employee of that business. You don't make enough money to pay other people to run that business. So I don't want to hear shit you gotta say. To be fair, I be talking all kinds of shit in my head when I be going through these motherfucking consultations with clients. I be talking shit, talking shit. Of course, I don't come out and say it. Now, if they come out and be honest and say, if they come out and want me to be honest, I'm gonna be honest. I'm like, I don't think you got it. Like, to be fair, you got too much shit going on. You got too many businesses, you got too many hats that you're wearing. And too many hats is a red flag. I'm a fucking walking red flag. But see, I got smart with my shit though. You know what I'm saying? So I'm gonna talk about a little bit of ways how you can get smart with it. All right, so red flag number one on why businesses, why having multiple businesses a red flag is I I put together, I came a little bit prepared, so I'll just be coming on here talking shit. So number one, number one starts with split focus equals split results. 100%. Every business needs full attention in the beginning, marketing, operation, finance, and team building. When you try to build two or three at once, none of them ever reach their full potential. You end up being the bottleneck, not the boss. This is so true because I always equate business ownership as like having a baby. Like you, like it's it, like it's extremely hard to run a business and not treat it like an infant, like an infant. Like the business cannot sustain itself, the business cannot take care of itself, the business cannot do on its own. The business needs your support, your nurture, your food, your shelter, your everything in order for it to run. So, this is what I learned about business ownership. The what I learned about business ownership is this it is extremely fucking expensive to be a business owner. It's extremely expensive. I don't know why I didn't think of this before when I start before I started my business. Now, don't get me wrong, if I still decided to come back in and do the business, I'll still do it. But here's the deal running a business is fucking expensive. Running one business is expensive. So when you meet a motherfucker who talks about something he has three or four businesses, five businesses, and he's been in business like two or three years, who the fuck are you? Elon Musk? No, you're not. People who are talking about multiple businesses that they own are fucking broke. So when you walk past them, know that they're broke because know that running a business is extremely expensive. The biggest overhead expense in a business is going to be paying employees, paying people, not the rent, not the electrics, not the subscriptions, not the contractors. It's going to well, contractors are paying people, but I'm talking about paying your people, people. That's going to be your biggest expense. So that is extremely expensive. Do the math. Some people get paid$50,000 a year to do a job. That's$50,000 of expenses that's coming out of that company's bank account. That right there is a big ass expense. And then you got three of them motherfuckers. Now you got$150,000 coming out of your business account. So for three people, right? That is an extremely expensive ass businesses are expensive. I don't know why the fuck people think opening your business is like super, like getting getting an LLC is easy. That's the you know that you know, people think I got the LLC, I'm in that. No, getting that part is easy. Running the motherfuckers is extremely hard. It's like an infant. You can the big the business needs your guidance, just like the baby. The baby needs it until it gets to a point where it can sustain itself. And it's really like a baby when you think about it, because like really children don't really start really coming somewhere independent around until they're about three to six years old. I really feel comfortable when they're like five or six. I feel a little bit comfortable with their slight independent. I don't have to look as hard as I was looking when they were two and three, right? Especially one. Um, when they say terrible twos. So it's just it equates to the same thing. It's similar to that. Um, so when people talk about they got multiple businesses, that's a red flag. All right. Section two there's no foundation, no scalability, right? Most people start a second business before the first one is even stable or automated. A business should be able to run without you before you start another one. Otherwise, you're not an entrepreneur, you're a firefighter in three different buildings. Why that's true, right? So I'm gonna be 100. So I told you guys I had a plan because I fucked up. I'm a walking red flag. I'm a walking red flag because I own three different build businesses. But let me tell you how I'm now restructuring that business, right? So starting with number one business is my digital marketing agency, which what I have as a business. Here, let me show y'all this shit. This is my business, right? Um share my screen. Uh bada bing, bada boom, bada bow, boom. All right, this is like my business right here, right? It's a digital marketing agency, J Dubbin Studios. We do podcast, marketing, digital, blah, blah, blah. I ain't here to sell you guys shit. What I'm showing you guys is this is my business, right? This is my bread and butter. This is what this is how I pay my bills. This is how I pay. This is where most of my team is at. I started this business in 2022, right? So now we're in 2025, going into 2026. So my business will be four years come January. And we've already crossed over six figures, et cetera. These are some of my clients, these are the businesses that we work with, et cetera. So this is like my business, right? This is where I should have stuck it at. I should have stopped here. I fucked around and opened up another business in 2023, and that was a nonprofit organization. So I decided to do that because I was excited. You know, again, I talked to you guys about running a business, it's expensive. Running a business is not a cheap thing. Business owners, it's business ownership is expensive. You have to be okay with that. Coming into a business, you got to be okay with understanding that businesses is gonna cost a lot of money. Okay, about a bing. All right, so opened that business in 2023. Then I fucked around and opened up another business in 2024. Oh, listen, I'm with um look, I am on a learning journey with you know as business owners because I'm still an infant, I'm still a kid business. I'm four years old, right? I'm not five, six, ten years old. I'm still an infant business, but I'm paying people and I make over six figures as a business. So we're we're we're aiming now to be this, you know, uh$250,000 business. So we're you know, we're we're about 90,000 away, right? So you know, but still here, we're growing. Uh, you know, so now I'm on the challenge of getting to 250,000. So that's so I fucked up by opening a third business, and that third business was my goddamn podcast. Now I did start the podcast off as a single business, right? Started it off as a single business separated from the other businesses. So now I got my digital marketing, then I got my nonprofit, then I got my podcast. So I had to come in and reconstruct, right? Gotta rebrand, reconstruct, redo shit. And one of the biggest things I was running into was like, how do I tie all of these businesses together? Because right now, trying to run three different brands, three different ways, three different audiences, I'm not gonna get no motherfucking wear. My business is gonna crumble. So I've been working on a strategic strategy on executing that thought process. Hey, y'all gotta see this shit. I don't make this shit up, right? You gotta see this. Let me see. We have just here, I'm just here to listen to podcasts. That's the podcast. Y'all don't know about the podcast because you're listening to this. This is another reason why I'm going to be uh, it's a stuff to be sharing. Okay, this is another reason why I'm going to be pivoting the way I do business. Here's my podcast, right? Boom, who that good looking man is, right there. That me, that me, right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bet. So I got the I'm Just Here to Listen podcast, to which I've explained to you guys. We're now rebranding it now to the untraditional entrepreneur, and this is the reason why. Um, so the plan is to obviously, so you can see all this here. I had a lot going on. I mean, we I mean the website's great. Did it, we're killing it, right? We're killing this shit. So I fucked up when I was like, all right, bet two different brands, two different audiences, two different whatever. Whatever. And then the second business, I mean, the last business was called um, it's a it's a it's a nonprofit business called Infinite Spectrum. This focuses on autism, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:02

That ain't me. That is not me. Hang on, that is not me. That that don't even look like me. That don't even look like me. So infinite spectrum. Oh, mine's just called infinite spectrum foundation. There we are, right? That's me right there.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

People, these businesses try to copy you, but because that's our shit. We was doing this shit first. Nobody had that, but now these guys copying us.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

We should do like a cease and desist, but they're gonna be nasty.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

Anyhow, this is the second, this is the third business, right? This is a non-profit organization. Nonprofits are extremely hard. We fucked up because we wasn't even prepared on our uh on our uh what do you call it? The our quarterly meetings, our annual meetings, the whole nine yards. We was tripping. We was fucking tripping. So now I had to come together, sit down, and really try to restrategize the entire process and how do I tie them all together? Because I, as a business owner, don't want to be a fucking red flag like everybody else who runs multiple businesses. So my objective now is to collapse both businesses, to which is why I decided to rebrand my organization, my podcast to the untraditional entrepreneur because it still ties back to the parent business, which is JDS. So, all you guys who got multiple businesses, I guess what I'm basically fucking saying is find a way to parent all the businesses or pair all the businesses together because it's a red flag. All right, bullet point number three branding confusion, right? Here we go. You confuse your audience when you push five different brands with no clear story. People don't know what you stand for, and if they can't define you, they won't buy from you. Consistency builds credibility, chaos kills it, right? And we're a digital marketing agency. Well, my dumb ass. How would I not think? So, as you could, as you can see, I'm still growing as a business because this is the business part. How the fuck do you not know that you have to be three different people with three different brands unless you can be three, unless you can be the same person on all three brands? That's the objective. So now I'm working on becoming all three people with all three brands. This is who the fuck I am, as you guys can see, the untraditional entrepreneur. I am that. I am nowhere near a traditional entrepreneur, but I am an entrepreneur. I do not believe in fucking corporate jobs. I do not even like corporate style. Even when I interview people, don't come up with a to me with a buttoned up shirt and a suit and tie. Fuck that. The question is, can you get the job done? Because I'm untraditional, and sometimes people gotta bend the rules. I don't even like the way untraditional. I mean, I don't even like the way traditional shit happened, anyways. It's too stuck up, too, you know, it ain't me. So I have I was battling shit, trying to figure shit out. I wasn't doing that. Now I am who I am as an entrepreneur. Now the objective is to tie all three businesses together. All right, let's uh, you know, bullet point number four. Financial drain, right? Oh, we talked about this. Shit's expensive, right? You're dividing resources, time, energy, money across ventures that can't fund themselves. Instead of re-investing profits into growth, you spread yourself thin, paying for multiple overheads. One strong business can fund multiple dreams later. Focus now, diversity, I mean, diversify later. Listen, this, this, this, this is these are bullet points that I piece together because as I'm learning why having multiple businesses is not a good idea, these are the key points that I talked about. Because I'm a walking red flag. I'm hoping some of you other business owners can come out there and say the same thing, right? Which some of y'all won't, because you're so you're so invested in making people think that you have a lot of money because you own multiple businesses. I don't know why. Even I was a believer of that, believing at one point in time that if you own multiple businesses, that means you got a lot of money. Yeah, if you're Elon Musk, I mean think about Jeff Bezos. Like, he started he started Amazon, he put a he put a focus in that and stayed on that. Let's pull up, let's let's share my screen real quick. I want to see, I don't know if anybody knows if Jeff Bezos has a nether breaker. But I'm curious because right now it would make sense for Jeff Bezos to have another business. Does Jeff Bezos got another wife? Probably his wife got a lit. Oh my god, wow. Okay, so here it says, yes, Jeff Bezos has another business. Uh, he has other companies, including Aerospace, Blue Origin, the major newspaper, the Washington Post, and he manages um many other investments through the venture capital firm Bezos Expeditions. Okay, so that makes sense. Jeff Bezos has already established Amazon. Amazon is an established organization. Amazon is does not need Jeff Bezos to run it. Jeff Bezos has people in that business that does it himself. And so therefore, Jeff Bezos owns multiple businesses because this is something you know that he does, right? He has already established Amazon as the parent company. So he's like, fuck, all right. Um I, you know, I'm gonna continue to grow this business, but I don't need to spend as much time in this business as I have before. So why don't I find a way to grow my business? I mean, or why not I venture out into other things? So now Jeff Bezos is the owner of Washington Post, Blue Origin, and he manages many other investments under his um company name. Now, see, this is a smart move, you know. Now I guess the question is uh see the the real question is how to ask the right question.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

How many years after Amazon and Jeff Bezos start another company? See what you got.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Look at that. Six years after. Blue Origin. Six years after Amazon in 2000, following Amazon founded. Amazon was founded in 1994. And look, so then he bought the he started another business in six years after, right? Six years after, and then he also purchased the Washington Post in 2013, which was 19 years after Amazon was founded. Okay, good marathon now. Hmm. Almost 20 years after he started his first business, he opened up two other businesses, right? He's not opening up a business one every once every year, one every two years. And I'm certain he didn't open up another, you know, uh Blue Origin while he was still the face of Amazon and managing Amazon by himself. I'm certain he had a team before he bought that secondary business. He you he he got the business to a point where the business could financially support itself without the presence of his work. Why? Because running a business is expensive. You have a lot of overhead. All right, let's do the math on this, right? You we talked early, we talked at one point about one of our one of the discussions we talked about was um broke business owners because I truly believe that business, a lot of business owners are broke and they're putting on the facade like they're not, especially business owners who don't have a team. If they don't have a team, they're broke, trust me. Um, and I ain't talking about a team of interns. So when I'm looking at uh Jeff Bezos and his his process, right? You look at how is this gonna work for me and my company? Same thing for me. I fucked up, but I but just because you started a business don't mean you have to stop that shit. I mean, unless it makes sense. For me, it doesn't make sense because I know a way to maneuver because I've gotten to a point where I don't necessarily have to work in my company anymore. I've gotten to a point where I'm slightly overseeing shit and I'm not doing the actual work myself and I'm hiring people to do the work. So now I could put a focus on the podcast, which the podcast is married into the company. So I'm using the podcast as a way to help market my parent company instead of treating it as its own separate entity, making its own separate income. I could use it as a marketing machine to power my primary company. So now that takes care of both of those businesses because the first business is operating on its own, using the podcast as a way to parent and push. I mean, using the pop podcast as a way to support and push the parent business instead of making it his own business, merging it with one and using it as a subsidiary of the primary business. And now I can focus on the nonprofit, right? So these two businesses take care of themselves as long as I continue to make content for the podcast. The podcast stays alive. As long as I continue to make content for the podcast, the podcast further feeds the business with content and video related things. That's that's the game plan of what I'm doing. Because if you fuck up and you open up multiple businesses, own it first, own it and say I fucked up. I probably shouldn't have done this. Don't try to own it and make it seem like you got a lot of money when you fucking don't. I know you don't. So stop playing. You don't bring in all of this money because you want multiple business or you write a fucking book. I ain't gonna go on myself, but y'all already know how I get when I when people start talking about their books. Okay, so the next thing is Jeff Bezos started his business six years after his primary business. He had six years, that's almost over, that's almost, that's almost a decade to focus solely on his business, where he worked day in, day, day out on his primary business. Okay, that's the first thing. Then he started his Blue Origin business, which I don't know what the fuck that is or what it's about. Let's find out what is that with in 2000. Blue Origin.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

I don't know what that's about.

SPEAKER_02 26:20

Him and Elon Musk is really going neck and neck. This is like an aerospace, American space technology company. This is like SpaceX. So these guys are like neck and neck. So he he he another rich motherfucker trying to go into space. Blue Origins trying to understand space and things like that. Okay, cool. Whatever. I mean, that's pretty big to go from Amazon to trying to build a head a space headquarters. That's I mean, you had to be doing well.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

I'm curious how much money did Amazon technique and is the first six years.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

Okay. Look at this shit. I mean, let's be I mean, goddamn, look at this. Okay, in 1995, Amazon brought in five hundred and eleven thousand dollars in 1995. In 1996, it brought in 15.7 million dollars. These are the first two years. In 1997, it brought in 1.6 million in net. Um, that was that a decline. IPO made of that of that year. 1998, it brought in under 1 billion dollars or 600 million, and in 1999, he brought in 1.6 billion dollars. So total revenue between the six years before he started his SpaceX, he brought in 1.6 billion dollars. So, in other words, Jeff Bezos did not open his other company until he brought in$1.6 billion. Why the fuck are all these people on LinkedIn talking about all these businesses they run? I know they ain't bringing in no damn$1.6 billion. This man first started his secondary business at$1.6 billion. This business was well doing doing without him. When this business said Jeff Bezos, it says Jeff Bezos, who? Who is that? The first six years you bring in$1.6 billion. That's fucking impressive. We're not even that shit. We can't even cross$250,000 in the first three years. Well, so we're, you know, I mean, we're over 150,000 with our first three years, within our first three years. The your first year and um second year we brought in 100,000. Every year we're increasing. So I'm being honest with people because I ain't around here acting like we billionaires and millionaires. My my objective is to talk to people who start a business because there's certain people out here who we just can't relate to these million dollar motherfuckers. I got people who can relate to me who like maybe making 20, 30, 40, 50,000 and trying to get to 100,000 as a business. I could talk to them motherfuckers. People who are in a million dollars, get the fuck out of my channel, don't even look. We need it. This ain't for you. People who listen, you're you know, it wasn't for you either. Get out of here. But, anyways, we're we're going through this process together. My man made$1.6 billion within his first fucking six years in business. But and that's before he started his secondary business. That's a big, big jump. All right, now let's look at how much money he made after the first 20 years in business. So before Jeff Bezos started his third business, he was already bringing in$182 billion with his primary company. What does that say? That says a fucking lot. That's what that says. That says that all of these guys who start these multiple businesses and these books and these other avenues, they're starting these things with no real substance, with no real credibility. There's no credibility behind your brand. Nobody gives a fuck that you wrote a book. Don't care. Like, I mean, you're here a hundred and what? You're here at a hundred and this, I mean, this man's at$1.6 billion in the first six years before he started his second business. I wonder when did how old was Jeff? Oh, what so when did Jeff Bezos write his first book?

SPEAKER_01 31:11

If he wrote a book.

SPEAKER_02 31:34

Okay, so it says Jeff Bezos did not write a conventional first book about his life or business early in his career. Rather, his first book, in a sense, was the business plan for Amazon, which he wrote in 1994 during a cross-country drive. This plan led to the founding of Amazon as an online bookstore. Look at that. And in his first year, he brought in$500,000. Right? Um, while there are many written um books about Jeff Bezos, such as Brad Stone's best-selling the everything store, Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon 2013. The first book he actually put his name as an author was Collected Writing and Shareholder Letter titled Invent the Wonder. The Collector Writer of Jeff Bezos, which was published November 16, 2020. Jeff Bezos didn't write his first fucking book until 20 years after he started Amazon. At this point, he was a$168 billion company when he wrote his book. So, you know, this is what pisses me off about broke-ass business owners and people putting up this facade. Everybody's not meant to be a business owner, and that's fine. Be that. He had, and correct, Angela, he had a whole lot to share at the time of his growth. He had he had something to show people. Like you he had something to present to people. Not only the knowledge and skill set, he had time put in to it before he said, All right, let me write a book. Let me teach people how I did this shit. You know what I mean? Not not coming to me saying you can't afford$1,000 a month or$500 a month, but you want to write a book and help us help let us help promote your book. Like, what? What the fuck are you talking about? Like, uh sometimes I gotta let these business owners like like get real, bro. You like get fucking real. Get real. Nobody wants to pay attention to that shit. Like, come on. When you think about these heavy hitters like Jeff Bezos, like, come on, let's be real. Here, let me look at one more guy. Um, I would like to look at a black billionaire.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

Okay, I got one. How much money did Oprah make? Five years of her show.

SPEAKER_02 34:44

Everybody knows Oprah. Everybody knows Oprah Renfree. Right. Oprah's earnings for her first five years are not precisely itemized, but she was making approximately thirty million dollars annually in her 30s, and her net worth grew significantly during that time, reaching an estimated$340 million in 1995. Her first five years would include the period of 1986 to 1991, a time of rapid growth of her show and production company, Harpo Production. Okay. Hmm. She was making$30 million within her first five years, right? Like, we ain't making that shit, right? I ain't making that. And there've been there's businesses who are, and congratulations to you guys, but then there's I'm I'm talking to the businesses who these delusional entrepreneurs who are doing shit. Like, obviously, like what I'm saying to you guys is either reset or or find something else. Like reset the process. If you're in business for 10 years and you're talking about you're your only owner, you got to get out of here. If you're in business for five years and you're talking about you're the only person that works in your company, you got to get the fuck out of here. These guys are talking about their first five years running multi-million dollar companies. And I'm certain that they did not do this by themselves. When did Oprah write a first book?

unknown 36:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 36:32

But her first book deal for a memoir was reportedly for a very large advance, possibly one of the largest in publishing history. While the exact figure for her first book isn't available, she earned millions from her media expire, becoming a millionaire at 32 after the show became nationally uh syndicated. First book. We're looking at about 2015. Let's do the math. She started this business back in 1986. That is a very what's that, 1986. That's 2015. I don't want to, I don't want to be wrong. Let me see something. 215. That's 29 years before she wrote that next book, before she wrote her book, or even started dibbling, dabbling into book writing, right? So again, multiple businesses doesn't make sense. Writing these books doesn't make sense. Like start focus on one business. If you do have a business and um you have a primary business, figure out a way to marry any other businesses that you have outside of that. If you can't marry the two, stop it, stop it, right the fuck now. Focus on your other business and stop teaching us how to be fucking wealthy if you're not wealthy. Thank you. All right, the fifth one, because we have six, so we thought we talked about uh six. All right, so the fifth one is burnout and mental overload, right? So every business brings stress, multiple businesses, multiple stress. You stop being creative because your brain is always on survival mode. When everything needs your attention, nothing gets your best energy and strategy. Okay. Burnout mode. I'm pretty sure most of you guys can relate to burnout mode because we all burn out. And yes, business ownership is a burnout. Like when I hate when people like, thank God it's Friday. If I ever hear a business owner say, Thank God it's Friday, I know he's broke. I know he ain't real. I know he ain't legit. I know he don't know what the fuck he's talking about. I know this. Because for business owners, there is no thank God it's Friday. It's thank God I'm going to bed tonight. That's what it is. Like it's not no, it's an everyday grind, every day, all day. I'm here on a Sunday. I'm here on a Sunday for people who are watching this later on. I'm here on a Sunday night doing a recording for our my podcast. Uh, this is work for me. This is work. This is education. This is what it's about. This is what we bring to the table. This is what business ownership means. And and guess what? After this podcast live is over today, tonight, I still have more work to do. It doesn't stop here. I'm putting together a whole strategy ecosystem plan for the primary company because I need that because we are hiring on a UX designer this week, and we're hiring a digital marketer in two months. Like, I'm sorry, a month in a month. So when when you're talking, so when I'm sitting here listening to business owners think I'm talking about some Thank God is Friday, I'm like, what the fuck does that even mean? What does that mean? What does Think God is Friday mean? I don't get to sleep in on Farcay. I wake up about four or five o'clock in the morning every fucking morning, trying to get it. And here I am, still just crossing slightly over$100,000. And that's the work that's putting in that kind of work. So what type of work do you think you have to put in on other shit, right? My my objective here is burnout. Like you have to find a way where you don't burn out. How don't I burn out? Because I don't burn out. I like I've gotten to a point where my body has adapted to the workload, right? How do you not burn out? I'll I'll give you mine, but then I'll look it up. Like I'll look it up for you guys here on the web and we can see why people don't burn out. So why don't I burn out because my because my mindset will not allow me to do so? Because my future won't allow me to do so. I always think like I always think of it like this here. You know, in 10 years, what is 10-year future me going to say to present me? Is he gonna say good job, or is he gonna say, dude, why the fuck didn't you just go in there and do it? And I want the 10-year to be, you know, a good job. I want the 10-year to be building legacy. Everybody talk about retiring at 65. Why the fuck do I gotta retire at 65? I don't have to retire at 65. Why not I retire at 45? Why not? My when I started this business, I wanted to start off saying I want to retire by the time I'm 45. I should be able to run a business, make a stream of income. By the time I'm 45, I shouldn't have to work. If I'm working, it's because I want to work. And even when I'm 45 and able to retire, I'm still gonna work because at this point I have conditioned my mind to do so. People who burn out, they burn out for multiple reasons. They burn out because they they have multiple businesses, they're trying to do multiple things, they they're trying to learn multiple, multiple skill sets instead of having people do it. So many people come to us and say, Man, you know, I think I could, I can, I can I could do social media. I could post social media. Let me explain something to you about social media. All right. And this is why this is how I know the the the level of intelligence of a lot of business owners that come to me. When they're like, you know, I could we do our own social media. I post my own social media. Posting social media does not equate to marketing. That is not accurate information. Posting on social media does not equate to marketing. Why? Because an eight-year-old can post on social media, a six-year-old can post on social media, and because they're posting on social media does not mean they are marketing, right? So let's start with that first starting out. That is not marketing, posting on social media. Marketing is understanding, you know, the way I look at marketing is the best way to do this is you have to understand human behavior. That's what marketing is. Understanding human behavior. But even as a business, you your job is to operate that business, not to necessarily understand human behavior. You hire people who specialize in understanding human behavior. Your job when you're operating a restaurant is not to understand how books work or not to understand uh tax laws, etc. Your job is to hire people who know about tax laws, who will educate you, who knows more about it than you, and have ye have hired them to do the job so that you can continue to run the business. There's no way you can do all these jobs. You're supposed to hire people who are smarter than you. And if they're not smarter than you, then you need to re-evaluate your company. For me, I know what time it is, right? So burnout happens because you were trying to do the job yourself and you're the smartest person on the team. That's why burnout happened in your company because you want to do everything, but something is being spread in. A true entrepreneur does not do tasks, they figure out strategies and systems that work so that they don't have to do it. That's the whole objective and goal of entrepreneurship. There's a difference between an entrepreneur and a boss, just because you have Three or four businesses does not make you a fucking entrepreneur. That makes you an owner of three businesses that you had to go to the state and pay maybe$150 to get your business registered with the state. That does not make you a business owner. That makes you a registered business owner. That doesn't make you an entrepreneur. So, you know, I think that oftentimes people think that, okay, I got this business, I can go open up another one. Again, business ownership is extremely expensive. So running multiple, so these guys waited till they got into the multi-hundreds of millions. Jeff Bezos has a billion dollars before they decided to open up their secondary company and their third company. To me, all these people who have multiple businesses, go on LinkedIn, just go on and look at some business owners. Look at some of these businesses. Like they have too much going on. And so when somebody comes to me and tells me as a business owner, our services is too expensive because we charge$1,000 a month, you couldn't pay$1,000 a month for an employee. You couldn't do it. The average minimum wage is$15 an hour. That's$2,400 a month. Even if you have that, that's$1,200 a month that you're paying a part-time employee. So when people are explaining to me they can't afford services, you don't need to be in business because you you don't understand the art of business. Business is about delegation. I understand if you're saying that you have multiple things, people you have some other services, people have this, but if you're just saying that you don't have it, that's a problem for a business owner. That's a fucking problem. You don't have it.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

That's a fucking problem, right?

SPEAKER_02 45:42

I've been in business four years in January, three years as of currently, right now. And we can afford that more than that, right? I don't mind taking myself a pay cut. The biggest thing that fucking business owners make the mistake of is not understanding how to cut their expenses. The easiest way to be a business owner before you even start a business, cut your fucking expenses. You cut your expenses, you're able to run a business and you're able to maneuver money the way you need to because you're not drowning in overhead shit. All these cars that you buy, all these jewelry, all this other stupid shit that you buy, shit's pointless. It's worthless. You don't fucking need all of that shit. It's a pointless expense. Pointless. Get you a hoopty. Who fucking cares? Who fucking cares? I own a 1997 Ford Ranger that does wonders. Had to replace the motherfucking motor in that motherfucker. You guys want to see what a 1997 Ford Ranger looks like?

SPEAKER_03 46:39

I'll show you what that shit looks like.

SPEAKER_02 46:53

Here we go. Bam. That's my baby right there. Look at that. That's my baby, but it's white. Let me do white. Because at the end of the day, look, that this is okay, mine don't even have the like the secondary window. This is what my truck like looks like right here. Like right around this. I call them mater, right? And it looks like this with no tint. I spent$3,000 last year putting in a brand new motor for this truck. Who fucking cares? I'm not here to impress the fucking world on what the fuck I have. I don't need you to judge me by my car and say, oh, he got a nice dry arc, he got a nice so-and-so. Okay, I don't give a fuck. I don't care. I'm not here for that. Um, you know, this is a paid-off truck. I try this truck all the time. I do also own a 2016 Sierra, and that too is white. And that's what that boy looked like, right? So this is what my truck looked like. I mean, my rims are slightly nicer than that, but whatever. But you know what's crazy? Well, this is what it is. This is my truck here with the tents. This is basically my truck at a nutshell. Um, here's a here's an even better picture. Bam. Look at that. That's that's basically mine, right? But that's paid off. I don't make payments on that either, right? Because at the end of the day, I'm not here to impress people. I don't even drive this truck a lot. I bought it used. It was like 20,$27,000. I bought it used. Give a fuck. I'm not here to impress people. That truck is paid off. So is my Ford Ranger. My Ford Ranger is my primary vehicle. I drive the Ford Ranger more than I drive the GMC and very happy about that shit. Because I don't give a fuck about impressing people right now. I'm trying to get my overhead low. I'm trying to get my overhead low so that I can afford my business so that when the time comes, when I'm able to buy what the fuck I want to buy, I can buy what the fuck I want to buy. That's what I can do at the end of the day. You know what I'm saying? So you know, when I talk about all these business owners who have these nice ass vehicles, I'm like, they're broke. You pull them up in the Mercedes biz and you've been in business for three years. I know you're broke. That biz is at least$900,$800 a month. Come on, stop playing. Stop playing. You should be like, you shouldn't be buying shit like that. You should be focusing on putting that money because that$900 you could have gone toward paying somebody to help grow your business. So you don't have to do certain shit. But your dumb ass decided, I'm gonna, I'm I want to look good to fly, especially black people. I don't know why the fuck black people do that. Like they want to look good in front of people, so they gotta buy a car with payments and say, I want to look good. I want people to think I got money until you sit your ass in a meeting with another business owner trying to grow your business and scale your business, and you sitting here telling me your ass can't afford X amount of dollars. Get the fuck out of here. You can't afford it because you're spending$900 here on this vehicle, you spending another$800 on another vehicle, then you spend another$500 on a motorcycle. Come on, that's why you can't afford it. It's because you are delegating your fucking money to the wrong things instead of delegating it to the things you need to grow your business. That's why your business isn't fucking growing. That's why your broke ass cannot afford services, or you can't afford to have a team because you are too busy worried about the way you look instead of growing your business and scaling. I ain't about to be 50 fucking years old running a business and can't afford$500,$30,000. I ain't gonna do that. I should be able to afford easy$60,000 a month a month at this point. If I ain't doing it, take me back, take me out. My objective in 10 years is to be able to have$60,000 every month to go toward expenses. I should be able to do that easy. And we even if you do the math on that, that's only like six, seven hundred thousand dollars. It's not even a million. So in 10 years, you should be doing something like that. All right, my last point, and then we're gonna wrap up, right? My last point on why having multiple businesses is a red flag. Social media lives. This one's gonna be a good one here, right? So online serial entrepreneurs make it look so easy, but they have but they have teams, like but they have teams funding or investing. Most beginners copy that image and end up failing privately while pretending publicly. Focus isn't sexy on Instagram, but it's the secret ingredient in every real success story. I just talked a little bit about this. Social media is another bad motherfucker, right? People get on social media and flaunt they ass off as if they are doing so well, as if they are doing extremely better than you than than when you saw them. And in reality, they're fucking broke, extremely broke. So maybe you missed this point here because I'm gonna say this again, right? Most beginners copy the image of a successful business owner, but end up failing privately while pretending publicly. Online serial entrepreneurs make it look easy, but they have teams funding or investors. Again, online serial entrepreneurs make it look easy, but they have teams funding and or investors. So they make you think that they're doing this shit on their own when they're not. They're not, they have a team. So all these entrepreneurs that's trying to map this shit out and do this shit on your own, this is why you're broke after five years. This is why you're broke after 10 years in business because you were fooled by what was shown to you on social media of individuals thinking they you thinking that they're doing it on their own, but they're not telling you the secret is they have a team. They have a team that helps grow their business. You are trying to do it all by yourself, and that's why you look silly as hell. Stop opening multiple businesses until your business has gotten to a point where it can sustain itself. If you have opened multiple businesses, figure out a way to marry the two or the three or the five or whatever. Writing a book is considered a business, or doing a podcast is considered a business. Getting speaking gigs is considered a business. Um is considered a business. These are considered businesses. Like if you're doing these things, you're in business, period. So now you have these multiple businesses on top of each other, and you're trying to manage all of them. When you need a team, a speaker has a team, a speaker has a marketing team who markets their content and you know manages their social media. A speaker hires a videographer who follows them around constantly, capturing footages of moments of their success. They're paying that videographer to walk around to do the footage for them. They're not just going up getting to these events and having speaking gigs. They are literally paying people to do this. So while it looks easy on social media, understand one fucking thing. It's not easy, it's not easy being an entrepreneur, it's not easy running one business. It takes an extremely amount of your personal time, of your family's time. Like you're just not gonna have time as a business owner, and you have to be around people who understand that you have to get to a point where you have reduced your expenses, your personal expenses, in order to afford your business expenses. You have to reduce your personal expenses to be able to afford your business expenses. And your business expenses, your primary expense is going to be paying out people. Stop being broke. That's the secret. There's nothing more to it. The more money you spend out, the more money you have to figure out how to make it. But money, you know, you know, spending money makes money. That's the truth. Until you get to a point where you're comfortable with where you want to be at. I ain't sitting here making it seem like I'm this multimillionaire. What I'm saying is I don't got to do my, I don't got to do much in my company, but overseas shit. I pay other people to do the job, hire other people to do the job, and that's the fuck it. You know, I fucked up. I'm a white, I'm a red flag walking, but I'm a red flag that's now turning into an orange flag that'll eventually turn into a yellow flag, that'll eventually turn into a green flag, because I have identified the mistake that I have made, opening multiple businesses. So, to be fair, two of those businesses are going to suffer because my primary focus is the primary business, because that business is going to be the one that's going to fund where we need to be at. Most of my advertising initiative dollars should go to one business. And all the other businesses are gonna have to grow organically on their own until this business gets to a point where it, you know, where I which is there, I don't need to be there, but I'm not making the money that I want to necessarily make. Most people are like, six figures, bro. You make six figures. Yeah, I do. But here's and that's not a lot to me. Here's the fucking sad part a lot of these business owners don't make six figures. A lot of these business owners don't even make$50,000. And that's fucking sad. And they don't make it because they the moment they get a little bit of check, they spend that shit on some stupid shit like jewelry and cars and shit that they can't afford. I can at least afford that and still live a comfortable life. Cigars are expensive shit. I smoke cigars, I know it's an expensive hobby, but hey, shit, fuck it. I smoke cigars, I can afford that. I'm not living above my means. I just showed you what the fuck I was driving, 1997 for a ranger. I don't care. I drive, I can do that, but I can live a comfortable life. I can own multiple houses because to do that, right? Anyhow, don't get don't get it mixed up with multiple streams of income, though. Right? Multiple businesses does not mean multiple streams of income, right? Think about it. Let's do the math here. I can own more, I can own one business and still make multiple streams of income. People talk about stock, people talk about real estate investment, those are other streams of incomes that can happen. But when you start writing a book and try to promote the book, like come on, bro, come on. That's a job, that's a business. That's a business. You're a book writer, you're an author, whatever. That's a business. And if you ain't got these kind of motherfucking accolades like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey, sit your ass down. People ain't really listening. They're not. All right, anyways, that's all the time that I have for the show today. I hope you guys enjoyed that. I hope you guys learned something. I hope that as we begin to grow as a rule, as a team, it's ownership. Just because you see somebody and even you meet them on a first date and they say, Yeah, I do this, I do that, I do this, I do that, and they got all these jobs, businesses, they're broke. Don't come in here thinking that this person is about to come up here and take care of you. They're not. Because oftentimes people who are making that kind of money are already married. You can't really be successful necessarily without having the right person, right, the team member that's gonna back you. I'm your host, Jameen Delmus. Thank you guys for tuning in to the untraditional entrepreneur. We'll see you guys.