Jake Fruge Jr. | The Closers Podcast #5

Jake Fruge went from dealing weed at 16 to building a $240M portfolio of companies, and the path in between will change how you think about sales, leadership, and what it actually takes to go from nothing to something.

In this episode of The Closers Podcast, Ajay Sharma sits down with his business partner and mentor Jake Fruge (JFJ Holdings) for a raw, unfiltered conversation about his childhood running from the cops, getting saved the day after his DUI arrest, breaking company records in financial services at 24, and why he walked away from a 10-year empire to build something bigger.

Whether you're a sales rep, a team builder, or a business owner trying to scale — this one is packed.

What you'll learn:

The "simplify to multiply" principle that changed how Jake trained his team (and why being too good at sales actually killed his duplication)

Why Jake says a 30-minute walk with your wife is worth more than 30 hours in front of the TV

The cold prospecting system that produced 50–70 appointments per night across 29 states

How Jake went from $0 to nearly $1M/year net income in financial services without spending a dollar on ads

The "Hit by a Bus Test"  and how JFJ Holdings uses it to build founder-free businesses

The difference between a coach and a mentor (and why it matters when you're scaling)

Jake's daily Faith → Family → Fitness → Finance → Fun structure and how he protects it

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey guys, we've got a special treat for you today on the Closers Podcast. My mentor and partner happen to be in Dallas, and so we had a surprise pop-up podcast episode with the one and only Jake Fruget. The studio might look a little bit different, but the value is just as strong. So check it out here. What is up, y'all? I am ecstatic for this sit-down today as I sit down with my partner, Jake Fruget Jr., where we're going to be talking about his background from dope dealer to hope dealer, how he's gone from basically coming from nothing like myself into this multi-billion dollar vision that he is building. So I'm really excited for this sit-down. We're going to be talking sales, recruiting, how to build a better life, what good partnership looks like, and so much more. So, Jake, I'm excited to have you here, man. Welcome to the closers podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

I am Jack, baby. I'm Jack. This is gonna be this is probably gonna be one of my favorite podcasts we've done in a long time.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

This is gonna be fun. This is gonna be fun. Let's rock it, baby. So let's start. I want to dive right in, man. I feel like people don't fully understand what it means to come from rags and go to riches, right? Can you just touch for give us 60 seconds on your background, man? I know you went to a lot of high schools growing up and your upbringing was, you know, nothing short of perfect, right? So can you just give us some of that real quick? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

So I mean, I think um, you know, I I I will say I don't really love the I think a lot of people over abuse and over overuse the rack to riches, right? Um I think it's it's it's just such a overused topic now. It sounds nice. You know, yeah, it does. It does, right? And and I think, but the problem is people don't really know what that means. Right. People use it like, oh, they might have had a a slap on the wrist and like, oh, racks to riches. Like when you really grow up, like not just me, but even like you and your story, really growing from racks to riches is a little different. And I think um I'll start with this. My favorite quote uh that has stayed with me for a long time is Bill Gates said, if you're born poor, that's not your fault, but if you die poor, it is. Right. And so that really is the rags to riches. Like you can get rags, but you can also have the riches. And so, yeah, so I was uh, you know, in the beginning of my life, um, you know, I was born into a family where, you know, my dad at the time was a drug dealer, you know, and so uh my parents got divorced at six months old, you know, and um, you know, from that point I was just kind of all over the place. I'm sorry, uh four years old. Sorry, four years old. I moved to Seattle at six months old, four years old they got divorced, and he kind of went and did the drug thing, was with my mom for a while, and then unfortunately my mom uh got uh my stepdad got injured. When my stepdad got injured, they kind of got into the pain pills and then writing a lot of hot checks to kind of you know keep up with the bills. My dad was still into the drugs. He actually was my hero for a while. I remember one time, kind of weird story. My mom said, Oh, go ask your dad to lift his sweater at a summer baseball game. And I didn't know why I was 10 years old, and I asked him to lift his shirt and he had tracks just all up his own. Probably not the best motherly advice on that one. You know, it could have been a little different approach, but it saved my dad's life in that moment. And what I mean by that is I said, I don't want to see you anymore. And he checked himself in a rehab, got clean immediately, and he became my hair for a while. Like for a while, he was clean for a long time. And my mom actually shifted, and she was the one in and out of prison. So I was going back from her to my dad, then my dad to her, then her to my dad. And um, you know, went to 19th school. I went to three eighth grades, three seventh grades. And at the time I was like, oh, we're just moved a lot. This is awesome. Sure. New talent, new friends. Jake you've never met a stranger, have you? Yeah, and that was, you know, in the time, I'm like, man, poor me. But that actually helped me in what I do now with business and with leadership and all that because in so many different environments, different classes, different types of people, black people, white people, rich people, poor people, country schools, city schools. And I had to become the new kid and meet friends so fast. What drove those moves? Uh running from the cops. Really? Yeah. So uh the movie Catch Me If You Can. Yep. Leonard, that was literally my life. So my mom, with you when you're writing hot checks and you have aliases at different banks, you know, she was a genius for the wrong reason at that time before she found Christ. Because now she's found Christ. She's my best friend of my mom through. Um, she is like the best mom, best grandmom now. Uh so you know, that was our early childhood. And that's why I believe people can change if they found Christ. And so, yeah, so we were running for the cops, so we'd be there, and all of a sudden, boom, we're gone. Like, I mean, like, literally, like, I get home from school, the U's already packed, and we're out. I'm like, okay. You know, and so that was kind of how they went. And then I got on my own at 16, finished out high school, joined the army, and kind of from there. But yeah, my childhood wasn't the best, but I will tell you, um, it's that it goes back to that quote when they interviewed those two twins that had a drug dealing father in prison. One's in prison, one's a CEO of a billion dollar company, and they interviewed them both and they said, Hey, why are you in prison? And his answer was, dude, do you not know my father or why would I not be in prison? And then they asked the CEO of the billion dollar company, said, Man, how did you get successful? He said, Well, you don't know my father? Why would I not be successful? Yeah. And so I don't believe people use their rags as either a chip on their shoulder and a reason why they can't win, or they look at, hey, I learned from my parents. Yeah, I learned love, they loved me. They did, in fact, my mom writing hot checks was to feed us. Right. You know, not the best reason, not the best decision. Right. She was doing it with the right heart. Like I don't want my kids not to have anything, so I'll just write hot checks and sacrifice myself. Yeah. And um but I'm sure she didn't enjoy running around and like running town, right? And no, and the fear. And so at the end of the day, it you could look at your situation and choose, okay, this is either what to do or what not to do. Right. I just took it as what not to do and just took on and just went after it.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

That's crazy. So, okay, let's let's fast forward now. You're 18 years old, you enlisted in the army. Tell us about that decision.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Yeah, so so I did kind of fall into the tracks, right? So the whole dope dealer, hope dealer is, you know, I'm the oldest of seven siblings, and you know, we didn't have a lot of money. And obviously, my dad at the time, like I was 16, had all my own. So I did the family business, right? I didn't know anything else. So I was dealing weed, you know, just to make some money. Uh fun fact, and this is why I knew I was good at sales, which I'm glad we're gonna talk about that, is I never did the drugs. So because I saw so my great-grandfather on we don't get high on our own supply. That's what it was. It was so my great grand great-great-grandpa died on crack, my great-grandpa died on heroin, my grandpa died on cocaine, my dad OD on that three times. So by statistics, I'm supposed to be a drug-dealing, drug-addicted prison person. Should be in prison, yeah. And so, but once again, what not to do? I saw what it did to my dad. So I didn't want to do the drugs, but I did see it as a means of necessary means to eat. So I would sell the drugs, and I remember people would ask me, man, how's this weed? And I'd be like, bro, I'll be honest with you, there's no worse to even describe how good this stuff is. I can't I can't even tell you. Oh, he's a salesman. I literally can't tell you. I mean, it's just so good. And they'd be like, Really? I'll take two grams. I'm like, bet. You know, like and I was like, Oh, I'm kind of good at selling a vision. You know, like this is this is this is really good. And so what happened was unfortunately though, one of my friends got shot in a drug deal. And uh when that happened, I said he man passed or just get shot. Wow. And so he passed, and then all my friends were now getting into from weed to the bigger drugs. I never wanted to sell that stuff. I mean they say it's a gateway. It is, it's a gateway. And and even the fast life, I agree, because it goes from grands to ounces to next thing you know, you're doing talents before you even know it. Because it's just you lead to bigger people, yeah. And then because they were on drugs, they were starting to check cars in Lafayette and they were starting to do this thing where they open the cars and steal stuff and then sell it on eBay. And I'm like, bro, I'm not, I'm not about that lifestyle. And so I just wanted to flip a couple bags, bro. That was it. Like, I was just I literally was just doing this for to eat and to buy some clothes and put gas in my car. Yeah, I had a reason for it. Um, it was full circles because now weed's legal, right? In a lot of places, and so I ended up owning a dispensary. So it was just kind of interesting how it all looked full circle. But in that time, when that sort of happened and everyone started going to jail, I was like, okay. Uh, and then I was a big sports person, I blew my shoulder in my senior year, so that's why I thought I was gonna get out of the game. What did you play? Pitcher. I was pitcher, quarterback, shooting guards, goal legs. So sports, sports was kind of my out to me in the streets. Yeah. So it kept me from my friends. They're like, hey, let's go do this, and I got practice. Yeah. And that was always my reason. Oh, I got a game this week and I can't go party with you tonight. But I would, once again, I'm just doing it for the money. Right. And um at that time when all this stuff, everyone started going to jail. I was like, you know what? I think they're gonna go to jail or I'm gonna get shot. Because I also like to fight because a hurt kid hurts people. Yep. So I would always get my aggression out. I loved fighting. And for the actual sport, I boxed, I did wrestling, I liked to fight for the sport, but also because I was hurt.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

I was just expressing it the wrong way. Yeah, before Chris. It's all before Christ. Right. And so I was like, man, I need to, I can't go to college now, but if college is the only way to be successful, which we'll have a conversation about, but if that's the only way I can be successful, how am I going to college if I don't have my scholarship anymore? Right. I'll go to the army. Okay. The army will pay for it. And I'll be away from all these idiots. Yep. And so I left it, went to the army for three years, came back, was in the National Guard for three years. Um, and then at that point, it's like, okay, what do I do now? And then I started the career. Okay. Yeah. And so at that point, um, I had all the I was in Louisiana, so you do your typical thing, join the oil field. Yeah. So that's the only way it makes sense because I went to college. So fun fact, went to college, went to two semesters. Okay. And they were paying for it. It's free. I was actually getting paid a thousand dollars to go. Oh, sure. That's how I'm like, this is a good thing. Is that because of GI Bill? Okay, I'm like, oh, this is this is perfect. Yeah. Paid to go to college. This is the all you get is you're gonna have a scholarship. I'm gonna pay. Right? And uh, but I remember sitting in a business class because I always knew I wanted to be in business. Okay. And I've sitting in a business class and I asked the teacher in front of everybody, I was like, Hey, so man, I mean businesses do you own because my dad, remember, he's clean at this time. So he was became a hero, he's clean. He owned a fence company, he's making 400,000 a year. Like I realized, oh man, business is the way to go. Like my dad owns a business, and I have a boss, he's the boss, wow. And so I'm like, oh, we do that. And so I go to business school. Yep. And I'm in business school, and I remember asking the teacher, hey, what business do you own? He goes, business? Man, if I own a business, I couldn't sit here and teach y'all. And it kind of shot, I thought he was joking. Clearly, he's he's a business professor. Clearly, he's joking. And like, what are your credentials? Yeah, so I was like, no, seriously, like what businesses do you own? Yeah. He was like, Oh no, I don't. I I I'd I'd rather teach. And I said, Well, respectfully, this is all in class. And this is everyone's kind of like, oh no. You know, they're doing the And you're what, 22 years old at this point? 21, 22? Probably either 20, turning 21, or just turned 21. One or the other. And um, I said Yeah, because it was actually uh early semester, so it was February. So yeah, I was uh because I dropped out in February. And I said, uh, so it was second, it was um 21. So I said, well, respectfully, if you don't own a business, like how can you teach me how to own a business? Like if you're not hiring people, you know, and you you meant it. Like that was a genuine question. I was just I was not trying to be like that douchebag in class where I just try to be the rude guy. Right. I was genuinely asking, like, well, if you've never done payroll, you never had QuickBooks, you never hired people, fired people, you never sold a business. Well, I'm gonna see from you. How am I gonna learn how to from you? And and respectfully, I didn't say this part, but I knew I was like, you make $70,000 a year, I want to be a millionaire. I don't mean that as a dig, it wasn't as an authority figure. How am I supposed to look up to you? If I'm trying to create a because at the time, seven figures. That was it, right? Yeah, I was like, if I have a seven-figure business, and so I'm like, if you never did it, you can't teach it. And I'm a strong believer in that to this day, sales. I can't learn sales from you if you never sold. Right. I can't learn a business if you don't have a business. And so I remember him going, well, that's pretty disrespectful of a question. I said, No, no disrespect. I'm genuinely that my dad owns a business, he's doing $400,000 a year. I said, I might as well just work with him and learn from him. Right. This book isn't this doesn't teach me anything. And um, and I remember that day going to the financial aid and dropping out. Man, I literally dropped out that day. I was like, I'm just gonna figure this crap out.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

I mean, you had conviction at that point too. So I'll share this just really quick. I have kind of a similar story, but I was a little bit further in, so I had more of a sunk cost. I was three years in college, and the way our business school was structured was everybody had the same base curriculum for three years, and then the fourth year is where you really like get out into your major, you know? Right. So that two and a half year mark, I take my first couple finance classes. I was a finance major because I wanted to make money. Right. Fine here, finance, I'm gonna make money, right? I get into it and I do an internship and I learn, hang on, all these guys are just tracking money. I want to make money. Yeah, I don't want to play with a spreadsheet. I want to have somebody else play with my spreadsheets, you know what I mean? Yeah. And uh, and so I I switched to an entrepreneurship major because I was again three years in, I had a scholarship, I was like, let's do the year, finish it out, right? And so I ended up switching to an entrepreneurship major, which was pretty uncommon at most colleges. Unsurprisingly, about half the professors in the entrepreneurship program specifically can run a business, right? Most of them. Most of them weren't very big, most of them hadn't broken into seven figures, but that was okay. They had enough for me as a 21-year-old to learn what I needed to learn to get outside. So basics. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's up to you to take the basics of scale them anyway. Right. But I think even as young guns, right, I'll tell you one more story and then flip it back to you. When I was 19 years old, I interned for Cummins. You know, they make the big missile engines, a big power company. My dad had a Cummins turbo. There you go. Huge power company, Fortune 200 company. I remember I get my uh my my uh my offer from them because I had just completed seven big projects during my summertime there. The average intern completes one to two projects. Right. So I'm like, dude, I just tripled the output of everybody here. They're they're they're definitely offering me six figures. Right. Even worse than that, they offered me the same as everybody else was. It was, you know, 60, 70 grand a year, something like that, right out of college. And I'm like, I just smoked everybody. I had triple the output. Why would I get paid the same? I remember coming back and talking to my college roommates and saying, I just feel like I should be paid on my output. And they were like, dude, that's not how the world works. I said, no, that's not how your world works. Yeah, what are you talking about? And so that was the first click in my brain. And so I want to bring it back because you started your career shortly thereafter in financial services. Can you tell me how'd you get into financial services? And then I really want to talk about a lot of the lessons you learned along the way.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

So so I dropped out and I went back to building fences with my dad. Okay. Right. So right away I was like, okay, easiest, you know, what's it called, path the least resistance. I've been building fences with my dad since I was 13. Every summer he would pay me. Like, I remember back at 14, he'd say, Hey, I'll give you $60 a day. And at 14, you're like, Wow, that is rich. Yeah. And then the next summer at 15, it was 80. And by the time I was 17, I was getting $150 a day. Dude, that's cash. 12 grand a month if you're working. And that's good month. That's cash. It's a summer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is amazing. I come back, yeah, yeah, yeah. I come back to high school and I'm like, I'm stacked, dude. Cover bed bank. Yeah, fine. Everything. I want to have the best baseball glove and best in. I'm like, I need you, mom. I got this. I got it. And uh, so I knew hard work. That's one thing I'll say about my dad. Even when he did relapse on math, and once again, now he's it's a coffee math and all that. But, you know, even before he did that, he was my hero in the sense of I watched my dad work so hard. Yeah. Because in fencing, dude, it's brutal. I mean, it's manual labor. You're in the height of the Losing Anna's not uh a cool clinic. No, you're hot, it's hundred degrees and mosquitoes. Yeah, it's it's crazy. But it taught me a lot of like, bro, this is also I learned work ethic, but I do not want this crap. Like my dad used to always say, one thing I'll ever forget, and I might get emotional saying, but he always used to show me his hands. Okay. And he said, son. The calluses and blisters? Yeah, yeah. He'd say, son, you're one of the smartest people I've ever met. Like your brain, the way you think numbers and math, because that was always my thing. I had 35 on ACT in math. I was always math was my thing. Yeah. And he said, Son, you're too smart for this. And he'd look at me and say, Look at your hands. And my hands are like baby hands, bro. Yeah. I want to feel great. Yeah. And I just don't touch stuff. Really? And even when I built fences, I always wore gloves because I hated my hands getting touched. I'm like that too. And um, and he'd say, You see my hands? I said, Yeah, dad, you're so strong. He goes, I don't want these hands on you. Why? He said, Use your brain. That's wisdom. Don't be like your dad. And it hit me for a long time. And I said, Okay. So then I quit college because I went to college to not use my hands. Right. Went back and he said, Why are you back here? I said, Man, I just need some money. I want to learn a little bit about business. I'll figure it out. So I'm building fences and realizing I don't want to do this stuff. Right. So I do what everyone does. I go to the oil field. Right. And so I'll go to the oil field thinking, well, at least I'm making six figures a year. Like I sell this dream. And I was making good money. 21 years old. I'm making six. So she got no debt, right? You're chilling. And I'm thinking, this is the dream. And I said six months. So it's like, bro, what I did is similar to what we did with our professors. I looked at the top of the chain. Yeah. Up there, we call him the tool pusher tool pusher on the company man. Okay. And so the tool pusher, he's like an alcoholic. He'd been married like five times, had no teeth. Pretty good standard. Yeah, he's making 300 grand a year, but he's like the worst light ever. And I'm like, Yeah. And so when I looked at at 21, I'm like, if that's my pinnacle. That's my future. I don't want that pinnacle. Right. Like, if the best I can achieve is this, that sucks. Right. So what I would do is I'd go to the smoke rack and I don't smoke. Been the antichrist for cigarettes my whole life. And I would sit there, and that's where all like the service hands is what they're called, where they would be the big, like the mud engineers, the wireline tech, the e-line tech. So this is like your water cooler, was the smoke rack? Yeah. That's so I would go there and I would ask questions. Okay. Because they were always clean.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

They were always making money. And they make like four or five hundred thousand a year. Okay. And so I was like, what do you do? What do you do? What do you do? How do you do it? How do you do it? Because I know I did not want to do that. Right. So then I got the wireline job. So this is the catch. I was making triple the money now. I'm like, I'm going to make 300 grand as a 21-year-old. And then I realized that you're on 24-7 call. Like they use my I'll never forget my guy, and I say this respectfully, he goes, I don't care if you're mid thrust with your lady. If I call you, you got 30 minutes to get to the shop or you're fired. Man, who talks like that? That's the oil fill. I mean, okay. And that it's pathetic. That's what I'm saying. It's like horrible lifestyle. And I was like, Could you imagine? Yeah. And that that you can add Jeff, my uh, you know, chief of staff's here, and he was in the woolfield too, and they always said, like, your bag's packed at the door. Wow. Like you get home, you heard throw in the watchboard. But that's just the standard they owe. And you put it back to thing. Because you could literally be doing anything in the world. Church, you could be, it didn't matter what you're doing. You got to go to the shop now or you're fired. And so I quit that within two weeks because what I didn't like is someone to control my life. 100%. And to your point, I'm in the onboarding and the way they're talking to me, and the way they're saying that basically you're my slave. Yeah. Like I don't want to let myself be treated like that. With working for someone with a, you know, if I have to, even an 80-hour week schedule, that's good. But there has to be some place where I can like, yeah, respect. Like, hey, bro, I want to go eat with my wife. I don't care, you're going to work. Okay. Red flag. So leave there. And at the when I come home, now I'm on a deed. I'm just looking for anything. Okay. And I was like, I want to be home. And there was a place called Cons, uh, furniture and appliances. Okay. I actually just went bankrupt too to probably about a year ago because of the internet. Sure. But that's where you used to buy, you know, furniture stuff, and you could finance it.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

And it's a sales job. So I remember on the smoke rack, they call me. I'm like at offshore. And they call me and they're like, hey, we're doing your interview, da da da, what's your thing? You know what's your experience in sales of this would be my first sales job, but you can test me. He's like, okay, well, look, yeah, blah, blah, blah. I forgot what he said. It was like a fridge. How would you sell it? I did give some silly thing. He said, okay, well, come in for the interview.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Cool. Go to the interview. And he literally did the whole sell me your pen. And I was like, this, and I didn't even know where that came from, by the way, until I saw Movile Walter. Okay. And so I was like, okay. What year is it? Well, this is um, let's see. 200. Probably 11. 2011. So it was before the movie, but people knew about you. Yeah. Clearly, yeah. So clearly there was a sell the pen training up there. Right, right, right. And so when he goes, Oh, you're hired. I'm like, cool. And so that was my first sales job. And so I did that for six months. My second month, I was first on the the floor. And here's and here's why. Work ethic. Yeah. So there was this thing called an up system. Okay. Where it's like you're up next for the person who walks in the door. Okay. And there was like a a like a like a Ross. Leaderboard. Okay. And it was just like, hey, Ajay's first, then Jake, then Jeff, then Jacob. And then once you do it, you just keep rotating all 12 hours. Okay. And so, but what I would watch is these people flub the leads or they did they just wouldn't sit there. And you literally just stand there and you just wait. And when someone walks in, it's your term. But these people would go sit at the desk and be like, hey, you can take them up. No way. And I'm like, all day. Because you make a salary plus commission. Okay. I knew commission was the game. Right. I'm like, screw this salary sucks. So what would you make? Uh you sell a fridge, what would you make? Oh, do it. Uh yeah, on a fridge, you probably make a hundred, a hundred and fifty. If there was a spiff, you might make an extra 100, but sure. Say 100 to 200 per thing you'd sell.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Okay, so you get a couple units a day. Like it could add up a discount. Yeah. I was making 8,000, 9,000 a month. Like, you know, and working AC. You're 22 years old. And now I'm at manual labor.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

I'm like, you're in air conditioning. Yeah, this is it. I made it. Yeah. I'm like, I could do this all day long. Look at me. And then if you don't want to work, you could just go sit on a lazy boy. Just chill. Like you just chilled out. And I'm like, this is everything. Be a lazy boy on a lazy boy. 20% off of everything. I'm like, bro, my house is gonna be the most electronic house in all time. I'm gonna have everything. You have that couch. This is like what LEDs were like a sick. I remember when a 65-inch shark came out, it was $8,000. Wow. And I remember were they like fat back then or they were skinny? LEDs, but like, yeah, they were fat. I mean, when Sony hit the market, it was like I mean, so it was just crazy how now you could buy a 65-inch Sony for like a thousand dollars. So I mean, because LEDs are just every everything's yeah, yeah. Anyways, point is is uh very quickly it was competitive, and then they then they had leaderboards. Okay, and that's when I realized, oh, that's who I am. I just want to win. You're a competitor. And by by default, I'm making more money. Yep. And so in that moment, uh someone prospected me. And so that's what happened. So I was prospecting. Classic. Uh I it was a fun fact. I ended up, I was still kind of in the party scene. I was beer ponging all the time, and I ended up getting a D UI from Marty Grawl.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

And when I get a DU from Marty Grawl, I realized, I said, man, this is here, and this is the first time I ever got arrested. For all the dumb stuff I'd ever did in my life, I never got arrested until this day. And I got arrested, I'm sitting in the cell, I'm like, here I am again in jail. I like I got a terminal life for a now. I don't need I need to stop partying, stop doing everything. Man, I just need a shot. And I go to the gym and a guy prospects me at in a cold plunge and says, Hey, I just moved here. I'm looking for people a part-time income, about $1,500, $3,000 a month. Do you know anybody? Me? All day. All day. I'm already making eight. I can make three. So what do you do? He said, you know, I just sell insurance investments. It's easy, a couple hours a week. I'm like, yeah, show me the presentation. So we get to their lobby, show me a presentation. I said, that? What did you just rate? The front back piece of paper. And all you gotta do is say, This is where you're at, and this is where I can put you, and I save them money and I make money. I said, Well, how much did that make? He said, Well, you would have made $700. Wow. I said, I made $700 in this hour? And he goes, Yeah, I said, four hours a week, seven hundred dollars. That's what I make, working like eighty hours. Yeah. I said, Do what I meant. And so the next day I realized, so I got arrested. That's that 35 ACT math working for you. I got arrested on Saturday, uh, bonded out. Well, before I'm sorry, before I said that, I said I need to find Jesus. Okay. So Saturday I'm arrested. Okay. Sunday, my girlfriend bails me out. We go straight to church. Okay. I get baptized and I get saved. And that's the first day I'm gonna do it. Really? Yeah. First day. And then I let Jesus lead my life. The next day is when I got prospected for financial services. Okay. So Saturday arrested. Sunday saved. Monday prospected. Tuesday I joined. And in my brain, I said, this is where God put me. Wow. And so that conviction, that belief of like, this is literally where I'm supposed to be in this moment. I'm gonna give it everything I got. That is what just propelled me. So you have to get licensed and stuff, so you don't make money right away. So you have to start part-time. Within a month, I was licensed. My first month part-time made seven grand. First month. Now at my job that same month, which was like one of our busiest months, I'd worked probably three or four hundred hours. I made like sixty eight hundred dollars. So, like literally side by side, I worked like 30 hours a year and over 400 a year. And you made basically the same amount of money. Now, this is a salary. Oh, it's safe. What was your base? Do you remember? Uh like $4,400.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

So like $50,000 a year. $50,000 a year. Yeah. And I'm like, well, this is nothing. You either sell or you don't eat. But I'm like, but the math I did was, okay, if I made, I remember the first sell I ever made in insurance. I made $683.76. Okay. And I I walked out and I was there 30 minutes because I was so nervous, I was rapping the presentation. I was like, twister. And he was like, yeah, I'll take it. I was like, what? You want it? He was like, yeah. And what were you selling? IULs, life insurance. Okay. Just term insurance. Term insurance. Yeah. Term insurance. 20 year, 10 year, whatever. Yeah. Whatever they needed, whatever the analysis term and invest the difference. That's all it was. Okay. And so at the time I was just in insurance, got my investment license later and et cetera. So I walked in my car and said, okay, even if I go on 10 appointments a week, nine of them say no. 700 a week, that's still 3,000 a month. I can live on that until I figure this out. Yeah? Yeah, it's not balling, but I can live on that. And I'm like, You probably had some savings at this point too. And in my head, I'm like, there ain't no way I'm closing one out of 10. But I already knew, I already knew myself's ability to this tuck. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

I was like, bro, this isn't. Did they give you some training too when you joined? Or not really?

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Yeah, you go you go into real training. So you take them to your friends and family and you watch them do it. You get paid to watch them. So you're like shadowing. Yeah, shadowing. So I'm like, this is a joke. It's more gonna sell a fridge than this crap. Yeah, yeah. Because these people are spending 400 a month, you're gonna give it into it for 100 a month. This is easy. Like they have to, they have to be the one that does it too. You are giving them some protection in the event they die. That's what I'm saying. So I'm like, this is a joke. And so then I just dove headfirst. Like, I mean, I was like, this is it. I cut off all my friends, all the parties, all the drinking. Just went for it. And I just said, I'm giving it literally everything I got, to where if I give it everything I've got and do everything they say, then it can't be my fault if it doesn't work. It's my teacher's fault. And that's a key. Most people do not follow advice and blame the person. What I always believed was, I'm gonna do everything you say for 90 days.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Everything you say. I mean, if you say don't wear a khaki, wear blue pants. Okay, I'm gonna get blue pants. That's that's literally my brain. It's like I'm gonna do everything you say. So if I fail, it's not on me. It's your teaching. But if I if I don't, then if I don't listen to you, I'm always gonna have this what if? Well, what if I wouldn't listen to them? Yeah. Because then it's on me. Yeah. Right? And so I did everything, and so we got promoted to district manager within uh 21 days. I went to division manager in 40 days, regional manager in 92 days. So look, here I am now regional manager. I've got like probably a couple hundred people on my team already. This is 90 days in. I was recruiting machine. I mean, I'm just I'm so because I'm so happy. I'm like, it's like when you find Christ. Yeah. Well, it's about every fire. You're on fire for fire for Jesus. And the key is to set on fire for Jesus forever. Right. That was my gift. I stayed on fire from the day I started to literally the day I sold that business. Wow. Every presentation felt like my first presentation. Every new recruit felt my first recruit. Every promotion of a leader was my first lead. I never could do that same repetition with the same excitement 10 years later. Wow. Most people, they're only excited. They get bored why they're excited. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

And then they can't project that excitement. So do you I want to drill down on that because I think if if like we could extract that and plant it into other people, that would be the most valuable gift on planet Earth besides the Holy Spirit. Right? So like is that something that you feel like uh was natural in you, or you feel like there was a choice there, or something you had to intentionally work on? Like, can you talk about that? And how would how would you package that up?

SPEAKER_00 26:27

You know, it's a good because now it's just who I am. So it's hard to question today is that's who I am.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

And here's why I'm asking too is for people that are leaders and they want people under them to continue to have that fire.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

You have to be able to project vision for the person. Okay. So vision, okay. I knew what I wanted. So if I knew this vehicle can get me what I want. And the cool thing about this business is there was no limit. Right. So the bigger I make my team, the bigger I, the more m money I make. So I didn't have a spot. Now, a lot of careers, unfortunately, like when we're just talking to our sales guy out there, he was like most careers, they have like, oh, you're gonna be here no matter what, you're here for a year. Right. Well, that kind of sucks. Right. But at the same time, you can't just use that as your excuse. You have to be able to look and say, okay, I'm gonna be fired up. And I and this doesn't, this doesn't just relate to business or income. This is your marriage. This is your fitness journey, this is your faith journey, this is everything. You've got to be able to be on fire for Jesus when it's bad and when it's good. Right. You're gonna be on fire for your wife, whether you're in a tough season or a great season. Yeah. And as a leader, it's up to us to stay on fire. Right. And so in in business, I stayed on fire because two things. One, I was always competing against myself in the lead board. And then two, I always knew I'm not done yet. Like, I always believe God has something more for me. And if there's room to get it, I was failing him by not going get it. Right. And so to package it up, it's find out what you really want in life and vision boards, vision cards, same thing I've taught you. Yeah. Most people don't even have a vision of what they want. Right. So therefore, they're just mundane.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

They don't, they don't, they don't, they're not chasing me. I said this to another investor yesterday because I was asking him, hey man, like, where do you want your business to go in 2026? Because he did two deals last year. Yep. And he was like, I want to do more deals this year. I'm like, cool, so three. Right. And I'm like, checking him. Because I'm like, what does more mean, man? I need you to drill down. If you don't have a vision, how do we manage to success? We don't know whether you achieved it or not, which I learned from you, by the way, right? So um, this is this is super valuable. And I feel like there's a ton of concepts in here that I want to make sure we are uh we got to drill down fast. So just put it to 40. So, Jake, let's drill down on recruiting and sales, right? These go hand in hand. For people that don't know, can you just explain how your income was driven on recruiting and sales while you were in financial services? Because again, we have mostly real estate audience here. So I want them to understand what you're explaining here.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Yeah, so so in the engine in any and it's not just insurance investments, in any real broker-dealer relationship, real estate, uh like a trip traditional real estate brokerage, realtors brokered. Agents, right, right, investors and a and uh you know, senior investors, you know, junior investors, any type of broker-dealer relationship, right, there's an override built-in. Right, right. So if I own a Keller Williams brokerage and all of my agents are out there selling houses, I'm getting a percentage of those sales, right? Uh uh either from a bonus structure or just literally every single deal. Right. And so in this broker-dealer relationship is the more licensed agents. Now it didn't matter. So the multi-level marketing is a separate thing. Multi-level marketing is I get paid literally on recruits. Every time I recruit people, I get these bonuses for recruiting. Um in a broker dealer relationship, I don't get anything for recruiting. They have to become licensed and actually make a sale. And when they make a sell, I have a percentage built in because I'm the broker. Yeah. So they get their cut of that sale and then I get my cut of that sale. So it really requires you to become a leader because you don't just recruit them and like, all right, I'm done. Yep. Yes, I've got to recruit you, I've got to nurture you, I've got to inspire you, I've got to teach you, I've got to keep you long enough. So I we used to say recruit, train, retain. I've got to retain you long enough for you to see a check. Right. And it's no different than secession properties for us. Right. We've got to recruit you into our sales floor. We've got to train you on how to sell these D's and these airs. Then we have to keep you long enough to see that first check to know this is real. Right. And then I'll teach you how to duplicate that and then convert your sales cycle faster to where you see these checks faster.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

Right. So it was no different insurance and investments. It was the same concept. I need to recruit you, train you, retain you. And then pour in that belief, pour in that vision that you can do what I do.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Because if you don't believe, you can do it. So, quick excerpt on that is I used to think I needed to have the best presentation in the world. Right? And I took pride in it. My presentation was so good. It was 45 minutes long. I I was almost at 95% close rate. No one could say no. And I used to get in the car and these guys, these agents would go, Man, dude, you're unbelievable. And be like, Hell yeah, I am. And I thought that was a compliment. Okay. What they were really saying is, I could never do that. Interesting. Because think about it, they're saying, like, dude, you're unbelievable. I don't believe I can do what you do. And I realized I heard from someone that said you simplified and multiply. Okay. And said You simplified and multiplied. Yeah, that's like my mentor said, dude, you're too complicated. No one thinks they can do what you do. You're too good. But if you can make it more simple, and then now you can have similar a forklift driver go, I can do that. I could do that. Just like the guy in the hot tub for you. 100%. That's the compliment. Yeah. So the compliment when someone gets in the corner and be like, is that all we do? We just close my eyes. That's so easy. Yeah. I want that. I'm like, so I used to even purposely stutter during presentations. I've done this presentation two times. I could close my eyes and but I would personally be like, and I mean the rule is 76. I mean, sorry, the uh the rule is 72. And I would do it on purpose so the guy I'm training goes, I don't have to be that good. That's good. And so that's what I need to do. So in any in any business, any leadership employee, your job is to get the people below you to believe, a belief system that I can succeed here long term and hit all of my goals inside of this man's goals. Right. And that is where it all starts. So I learned that in Fire Israel Services, that's why we succeeded. And we ended up recruiting over 40,000 people. Wow. We had over a thousand licensed agents. I was in 29 states before I sold the business. And that's what led me into mergers and acquisitions was systems recruiting sales and teaching that through others. Right. That's incredible. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Let's talk about prospecting for a second. Okay. Because you didn't spend a dollar on ads ever, right? Have more leads to this. You never bought the one dollar leads. You never bought any of that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

Zero.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

So how did you go about give us both your mental frame when prospecting? Because that means most of your leads were cold, right? 100% of your leads were cold, right? A cold lead means they they don't know what you're doing. You're you're just calling them up basically and saying, hey, let's talk shop, right? So talk to us about both your mindset when prospecting and then how you actually engineered and went about it. Was it referrals, word of mouth, I'm sure a little bit of everything, but like walk us through some of your systems that you had.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

Yeah, so it's recruit and train. Okay. So my job was to recruit a person, yep, and then say, I need to train you. And the best way to train you, because you're probably not as good as me in the sense of you're not gonna go call cold people, you need to call warm people. Yeah. So you're unlicensed, I get paid to train you, you get a bonus to watch. Okay. So what you're gonna do is you're gonna run a list of 25 people, your aunts, uncles, cousins, moms, dads, best friends. Sure. And you're gonna call and say, Hey, I'm in training right now to get my financial license. I need to see 10 presentations before the promoted district manager. Can I come over with my trainer and show you what I'm doing? That's all you need to say. Okay. So what I would do, I would call prospect first. So everywhere I go, I'm looking for personality, I'm looking for grit, I'm looking for smiles. Okay. Because at the end of the day, you need someone that's good with people. Yeah. So what I would do is I'd come, hey man, nice shoes. Where'd you get them? Oh man, I got them from Dell's. Okay, cool. You're from the area? Yeah, I'm from the area. Man, look, the reason I'm asking, man, you got a great personality. What do you do for work? Blah, blah, blah. Oh, okay, awesome. Is that what you plan on doing forever? What do you like about it? So whatever they say they liked about it is what I'm gonna use as my angle. Nice. I like the money, or I like the freedom, or I like a major, or I like people, whatever the case is. Got it. And I would simply just say, hey, my look, the reason I'm asking, man, look, I own a financial brokerage here in the area. I'm always expanding. And dude, you got a great personality. I look to work with people like you. Do you ever keep your office open and make about 1,500 to 3,000 a month part-time? That was my line. Easy. They say, Yeah, I said, awesome. Look, man, I ain't got time to talk about it right now. Why don't you write down your number? Because back then I'd ever didn't say it. I just, hey, write down your number and I'll give you a call. That was it. I leave. I get to the office, and my next four-hour block was just calling everyone that I just got done prospecting. And I just set appointments. Back then there was no Zoom. So you send them at the office or at a Starbucks or whatever. Yep. I drive there, do the presentation, recruit them into the business, and then from there, write you a list. Let's call them. I'd help them call. You call them with them. Yep. Right there in front of me. Yep. Hey, I'll help you. Here's the script. I had the script made. You, them, you, them, you, them. I was that's why we scaled so fast. Everything was systemed. Yeah. Like literally everything. Color-coded, system, every. You cannot just read the paper. Right. That's all you gotta do. And um, even if they stumbled, I'd have the phone, hey, this is Jake Medlock, I'm less training. Bottom line is your nephew's a little nervous. He's got to get a financial license. Right. I need to be there with him to train him. You might if we come over Thursday or Friday, six or eight o'clock. That was it. And we'd go over. Now I'd walk in, we'd close the deal, he'd get paid, and then we say, Hey, your guy's actually, you know, uh trying to expand. You only list five ants. Can you run a list of 10 referrals you think would also benefit from this as well? Yeah. And I'd get referrals from him. But if he quits those from our referrals, if he stays, he goes sell them, I get paid. Yeah. So either way it was fine. But the mindset was unless I have a six and eight, I'm out in business. Period. So I need a six and eight every single day. That was my own philosophy. Then I taught 10, 20, 30, 40 people to think that. Now I had to teach them to train 10, 20, 30, 40. You actually know we have 50 to 70 appointments a night, every night. Like literally, to the point where we had a full-time dispatcher essentially that we would write all the appointments on the board, and then the dispatcher would go and call all of our field trainers, because I was training trainers and say, hey, can you cover the six and eight with Ajay? Yeah. Okay. Boom. And they'd write his name. Hey, uh, Stephanie, can you cover Jacob's appointments? Yeah. And we would just send out people. We'd meet at the office and it'd be like 50 people would go out in the field and train people all night long.

SPEAKER_01 36:05

That's nuts. So this happened for you pretty quickly, right? Like in terms of you went from furniture salesman to multiple five-figure months very quickly, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:13

Well, is it 50,000 my first year learning it? Okay. Next year, 90,000. Okay. Next year, 360,000. Okay. And then it just never skyrocketed.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

And I ended up almost at a million a year. Wow. Net income. And then you so what were you at four or five, six years before you exited? How long was that? Ten years. Ten years. It spent a decade in financial services. You exited, you're what, 29, 30 years old, and you get a multiple seven-figure check.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

Yeah, it's crazy, man. It's uh it's an interesting story. So basically, you know, we became top in the country. Yep. You know, we were crushing it. Our team, so we're in Lafayette, Louisiana, with a population of 80,000 people, median income of 30,000. And our company, our our team name was Champions. Set you up for success, huh? Our team name was Champ Nation. And so we we had a culture of we went, period. Was that set by you? Oh, yeah, of course. Like there's no, I'm not showing up to so we had an event every quarter where they'd go over the top brokerages and give awards. We ain't going there to lose. Like I wanted you haul for trophies. Like that was our mentality. And so we actually said it was a decade in dominance. We literally dominated forever. And um, and so what we would do is we would go there and we'd expand and we'd win. And what happened is we I ended up breaking the company record for the and this is a publicly traded company since 1977. And we broke the company record for the most money ever made in the first year as a broker. So my 24-year-old kid I made 360,000 my first year. Okay. And so now they're flying me all over the country. What's your systems? Teach the systems, teach the systems, creating influence. Yep. And then what happened is about 27, 28, single-no kids, I'm getting killed with taxes. Okay. Slaughtered in taxes. Yep. It's active insurance. There's no write-offs, there's no depreciation. Totally. Um, and so I'm just getting killed three, four, five hundred thousand dollars in taxes. Brother saying something, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

And so um, at that point, I started giving money away to friends that had businesses because it's a write-off. So I'm like, hey, I want to be a partner in your business. Here's a hundred grand. Oh. I want to be a part of here's a hundred grand. Interesting. So I didn't have seeds right as now J exactly. I got into emergency acquisitions really by accident. Yeah. By divine, by God. But by I didn't think that's what I was doing. Right. And all of a sudden, some of those businesses started hitting. And then in 2021, one of those businesses went from zero to thirty million in nine months. So we blew up in the econ world. And now making two to three hundred thousand a month part-time. Oh my God. Like just literally that'll break your brain. Yeah, I'm doing a hundred hours over here training a 29 state firm, yeah, making 80,000 a month. I'm making 200,000 a month in business. Yep. And I said, okay, I think I like that. The problem is that broker dealer got pissed off because of the influence. So they call me into their office and they're like, hey. Makes them look bad, right?

SPEAKER_01 38:43

Yeah. Especially you're the guy, right? They're putting you on stages. You're the guy, and it's like, wait, what, he's making money over here now? Literally the exact board meeting.

SPEAKER_00 38:51

They're like, hey, you've been our 30 under 30 top guy for six years. Yeah, all the influence, and now I call them the OWLC, the old white man leadership council. They're mad because their young agents are wanting to do what you're doing and not sell insurance. And now so it wasn't selling away, it wasn't doing anything wrong. It makes sense, but it's causing distraction. Sure. And I was like, bro, it's in an 18-wheeler. I'm not selling away. It's just I need to write off stuff, dude. I'm gonna kill in taxes. Right. And he was like, well, look, you have we're gonna have to have you have two options. You either sell your firm and leave. Or you shut all your other businesses down. Like, well, what? I joined this business to not have a boss. Right. I joined this business to be my own owner. You didn't help me build this. I built this by myself. Literally from scratch. And I said, uh, and but I loved my agents. Bro, I loved my agents. I had such strong relationships with them. I didn't want to leave. You like to build a culture? A culture. I built this was this was all I knew. You cut me open, all you saw was Chet Nation bleed out. Like that's I lived it every day for 10 years. Yeah training at 9 a.m., three three night trainings a week, Saturday trainings. Like this is all I did. You know, seven days a week, all I did. Yeah. And so uh took about eight months, but my attorney said, Hey, look, you can fight them. You you're you're gonna win. But it's gonna cost you a million dollars. They're gonna bleed you out for three years. Your firm will probably lose all its value by that because you're gonna be distracted. Probably just need to leave. So sold it for uh multi-million dollars, uh, and then I left. And I said, Okay, now I'm retired. Making $200,000 a month, I got two million dollars in my bank account. I'm good. And um, and literally I was like, what do I do? You know, I'm retired. And I said, I'm gonna watch TV. And I said, okay, cool, watch TV, 37 minutes, I came out of retirement.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

I said, bro, there's no way. You got a show and a half inches. There's no way, bro. I'm like, this is I have no purpose. Finish the first episode of Breaking Bad. That's just like, all right, this ain't it.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

And I had no, I had no purpose. Yeah. That killed me. So that's when I realized money isn't the answer because I had all the money at that time in the world. Like, dude, I'm bawling. Right. I'm like, I have expenses of 20 grand a month, but I get 200 grand a month. I'm like literally balling. Yeah. And you still have the income from all of your other investments. And I'm miserable. I'm like, this sucks. Yeah. I need to build something again. And so I was like, man, I want to go start even getting more businesses. And so that's what started to happen. Now I'm like, okay, let's do more business. I drained the whole two million dollars. I'm like, within four months, I'm it's gone. Wow. Because I didn't want to be comfortable. Yeah. And I lost probably about a million five immediately. Like gone. Funny how that happens. Funny how that happens.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:11

And unfortunately, uh and fortunately, we were in the e-com space when the Amazon stores were booming. Right? At this exact same time, my broker dealer sends a complaint to FENRA to try to snuff me out, and I get smoked with FINRA. Now I'm in a $300,000 lawsuit. Oh my gosh. 50 hours of deposition, eight-month trial, and they were saying we were selling away. Well, we we smoked it. Right. We're not selling away. It's a freaking 18-wheeler. Right. Like we're it's e-com stores, yeah. Insurance or investments. Long stores try to beat them, but you know, it's still even out there publicly on AWC of like, hey, Jake Fruget made, and it says Jake Fruget made $33 million in another business. The broker dealer said he shouldn't do it. He said, I'm doing it because I believe that's why we named JFJ Holdings Just for Jesus. Because I'm not working for you ever again. I did this for God's calling. Right. And so you told me to pick one or the other. Well, you're saying pick my stuff. But God put on the heart, I got something bigger to go do. Yeah. And so while I'm fighting this lawsuit, I'm still scaling these companies. Wow. Unfortunately, it was in the Amazon. We grew it and we blew it. And as you know, what happened during COVID? Amazon stores chew up. Yeah, and then literally overnight they changed gone. And so we went through lawsuit hell. It was amazing. And that's when I did realize what real business is. Like, this is business. We didn't demand letters and I was just, and so eventually we ended up, we fixed the bleeding and we ended up selling that company. But it was brutal. I'm still to this day dealing with some of that stuff. Wow. Because it wasn't my brain. It was, I was in just one company. I was really just the salesperson of that company. Yeah. I literally just sold. Like that was my job. I didn't even understand the operations of that business. You expect the partners to fulfill. I did my job. And and to my partner's um expense, like they couldn't. Like the industry changed. Like at the end of the day, it changed. Yeah. Amazon wasn't doing what they were doing. Digital real estate wasn't digital real estate no more. It just was it is what it was. Right. It was like NFTs. Oh yeah. And then they're worthless. Like it's like, what happened to all the crypto teachers? It's yeah. It went worthless overnight. And so, you know, at that point, I realized what real business was. And then I said, you know what? I want to do real business. And we started scaling and partnering with people like you and taking those systems and the leadership and training and going in and scaling companies.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

That's that's great. I so and and let's let's start talking about uh JFJ with our last you know 15 minutes here because um when you and I met, right, we started working together as uh mentor mentee, right? Where um for for me uh favorite mentee, by the way. For the record favorite mentee, by a lane slide.

SPEAKER_00 43:39

Hands down, the most coachable person I've ever met with.

SPEAKER_01 43:41

That's my goal, man. That's my goal, because uh dude, I'm young and stupid and I don't know it all, you know. And so when we met, I was like, okay, this guy, you know, you said something so wise to me when we were talking about mentorship. You were like, a coach is somebody that you're trying to get a skill from. Yep. A mentor is somebody who you can swap lives with, and you'd be jacked about it. Yep. And I was like, let's see, this guy's got, you know, multiple companies under him. He's got leadership. He's obviously making money. Loves Jesus. Loves his wife. Looks interesting, right? Yep. He's getting jacked, right? So it was it was like, okay, this this seems like somebody who I'm aligned with in every way you were um on stage at the event we met with, talking about how uh you were you were given money to fight human trafficking. I had just thrown in gala to fundraise money to fight both human trafficking and victims who had been through it so they could heal from that trauma. You know, so it was like, we're just we're aligned, right? So, anyways, we met, mentor mentee, and um man, it was one of those things where I've been in this like uh, you know, seven-figure top line, uh multi-six figure gross profit, you know, multi-six figure net for a couple of years. And I'm like, dude, I know how to make some money. I'm in my 20s, I need help scaling leaders. I don't know how to do that, right? And clearly that's something you had done, and that's where we got talking and it made sense for us to become partners at Succession Properties, but we're growing that now. But talk to me about what companies you like working with, and what are kind of the first couple of things you guys do when you're scaling companies, like those pitfalls you see people in and how you overcome them as you sort of grow growth. Yeah, great question.

SPEAKER_00 45:16

You know, JFJ Holdings, it was funny because at first it was you know, at the end of the day, I believe you have to put your airplane mask on before you put out some someone else's. Right, right, right, right. So at first it was like, man, this is what I can do to eat, you know. And then I realized very quickly I needed another team because yeah, I didn't know all the answers. Yeah, I knew I knew enough about each, you know, when we at JFJ Holdings, we believe first off our core values are serve build lead. Serve build lead. That's our core values. Yep. Serve the business owner, build the business, lead the teams. Like that's it, right? Like we want our vision is to have a thousand founder-free businesses at the end of the day. Our goal, that's what we're chasing. We want to create, help, scale, partner with a thousand founder-free businesses. Where if a founder dies, the business still grows. Hit by the bus test. Doesn't matter. Hit by a bus test, right? And so I started building a team. I spent three years going around the world, traveling to all these conferences and masters. I spent about a million five on mentorship and coaching and events to go find people that were better than me at the areas I wasn't. So we have five pillars: financial department, systems and operations, automated marketing, sales and leadership.

SPEAKER_01 46:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

I obviously was very good at the sales and leadership. The other three I could do, but not I was not as good as what I was here at what I found now who are good, like my CO Christina, as you know. Yeah. And so when I looked at that, I said, okay, I need to create another team. And so JFJ owners are like, well, I need two. There was me and Christina. There was me, Christina, Brandon, there was me, Christina, Bernie, Jeff. And I just started adding people to it and then building the the hands and the feet under them, the joxes, the families, et cetera. Right. And so what at first it was like, hey, I just want to run a bunch of the business I already have. And I was like, man, I really want to scale this thing. Right. And, you know, as you know, you've got to start any business with core values. So we have the server ability, but my core values is faith, family, fitness, finance, funds. Something I'm very psychotic with you about. Yeah. I don't care how good secession property does, how much money you make if you have a horrible marriage. Yeah. I don't care if you create all this wealth, if you die of bad health. Right. Like, and so that is what it all boiled down to. And I needed to find leaders that also value those same values. And so at JFJ Hodies, what started as hey, we're just going to help some businesses were like, hey, we're really doing this thing. So we have two options. You know, we find businesses. I I paid uh my mentor, Jeff Hoffman. I give so much credit to him. He, you know, I paid him multiple five figures a month for a long time, and he almost became a dad uh to me, where he poured into me, he wrote a book called Scale. I suggest everyone read it. Um, in the early 2000s, or maybe even late 90s. Uh, he was the creator of Priceline.com or the CEO of Priceline.com, they're 70 billion dollars. Jeez. Uh then he Who'd they sell to? Uh don't even know. I think it's SpeedyF unless he sold another company for 50 billion and another company for 40 billion. So he has 180 billion under his exit belt. So he he probably knows a thing or two more scaling in some companies. And he is who taught me how to pass the hit by bus test. Okay. That's what JFJ Holdings was built off of, which is we literally our tag run is we help you scale so you can sell. Okay. Period. Because at the end of the day, so many business owners get stuck. They are the bottleneck. Okay. And they don't know how to get out of the way. They hit a ceiling. It could be 3 million, 8 million, 20 million, but they hit a ceiling where whatever they they don't know what lever to pull next because they've never built it from the jump to pass the hit by bus test, which literally means if you get hit by a bus, the business still grows. Right. And I learned that from him. And then I got Christina. Christina's my CEO. She had a business called SOP Factory for a decade. Very familiar. Unbelievable. Yeah. And for three years, we spoke on stage together for three years. I said, hey, you're going to be my CEO. You're going to be my CEO. You're going to be my CO. And she said, You can't afford me. You can't afford me. No way. So she's making seven figures doing SOP factory. She's crushing it. Yeah. I said, You want to keep doing that or you want to go make billions together and change the world? Like that was, I finally pulled it on. I said, Right enticing vision. Yeah, you can get we can make billions together, but we can literally help the world. We can help thousands of companies that we partner together and build this together. Right. She finally came on board and we started going in and scaling businesses. And what I've seen, just like with you, you are just like where I was, where you are great at what you're great at. Right. And so many times CEOs do either what they suck at doing and they like to do, or they do what they're good at doing and they hate to do. And so they're always stressed out versus just living in the one quadrant, which is I love to do it and I'm great at it. Right. Because they have to wear all these hats. Right. And so what JFJ Holdes does is we come in and we go, what's all the things you suck at or you don't like to do? And we delegate literally everything every single thing of it. We come in and we systemize, we do a gap analysis first, what's all the gaps in the business? And then we literally put the systems and the operations and the processes in place to fill all those gaps. And then we now, once we go from there, then we go to monetization, we build out the marketing and the sales, and then we start hiring and building people into the business to replace the strategy. And then now our top of the board, I'm partner with you. We're always here for as a board meeting to actually do the strategy. And now, okay, what does the session need? Let's build the process system and hire the person for it. Let's build the process system, hire the person. And we just keep doing that. And so we look, we're very agnostic. We're in 22 different sectors right now. We're over 30 companies. And you know, this was literally, we call it BK and AK, like before Christina already had some businesses doing about 40 million a year. And then now those businesses we exit those companies. But from before Christina, yeah. That's what we say. It's hilarious. Yeah, because after Christina, like, okay, this is like Ferrona. It's not just Jake. Like it's not just me over here dreaming. It's like, okay, she started putting even my business system to bring in the Jeffs and the Brandys and all the people. Like, I didn't have a system for them. It was kind of like, let's just go, ah! Yeah. You know, and so after Christina from scratch, as of zero, like zero dollars. We've been doing this now for three years. And by the grace of God, I'm a very stretchingly realistic goal setter. So if we if everything goes right, all the stars aligned, everything happens this year, we'll do about with no new acquisitions or partnerships, we'll do about 240 million. Wow. $100 billion. 80%. We had about 200 million, no new acquisitions. Right. And that was three years. And it's because all of the businesses we partner with, we get them to where they're scaling themselves automatically. So now we're growing by multiplication. Right. And in literally just the last six weeks, we partnered with over six companies, added 60 million to the top line like that. And so that's the one option is we either partner with you like we did with you, because I only partner with people I align with. There's three things. Can I have fun with you? That's step one. Easy. Well, lie, that's step three. Step one is we'll create a we'll we'll create a ripple effect. Yeah. I don't care if you just want another McLaren. That doesn't bother me. What are we gonna do with the money we make together? Yeah. Are you capable? Clearly capable. Right. And can I have fun with you? I don't chase PLs no more. You know, everyone says, Oh, look at the numbers, look at the numbers. That's better on the horse. Right. Who's the jockey? Yeah. I partnered in the beginning stages, my pitfall was picking PLs over character. That makes sense. When I started picking character like yourself, you might have smaller numbers, but I can work with you and train who you are, get behind who you are, what your values are, your marriage, the mission you have, who you are as a leader. I'll build that all day and we will go 20 times farther. Or if I don't want to partner with that person, but we still see their gaps, then we just have the services, which is like, hey, we see you need marketing. We'll build it for you for a consulting 12-week disc. You need operations, you need a podio built out. Okay, we'll do it for X amount of money. I don't want to partner with you, but I do want to help your business because we we want to help business owners.

SPEAKER_01 52:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:06

So it's a service. Or we partner with you and we become the C-suite and help you build that overnight.

SPEAKER_01 52:12

Makes sense. So I I want to tell a story too because um, you know, I think just you you mentioned marriage a lot. You're obviously madly in love with your wife. It's like, yeah, I've been waiting to get to this part. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is fun. Business is cool, but yeah, business is awesome. Well, Faith Family Fitness Father is. I'll share. Uh man, some of my favorite early mentor mentee conversations were just how to be a better husband. Because, you know, when you're when you're in growth mode for your business, it's easy to let every other priority in your life like just take the wayside. You know, faith, I'm like, bro, I haven't read my Bible in two months, right? Um, whereas now I spend a lot of time in the mornings in in a lot more prayer, in a lot more scripture. Uh, my marriage, like, just intentionally, you know, it was the first season I got in an office. And I remember, you remember the call? I had Jacob on there too, because I was like, I was on the call everyone, bro. Like, we don't know what the hell we're doing. Yeah, dude, like, yo, our wives are not happy with this right now. And it's like, yeah, because you're getting in the office at 8 a.m., bro, spend some freaking time with your wife in the morning and be more efficient while you're in the office. And, you know, one of my favorite tips I learned from you ever, and and I don't even know if you remember telling me that. I'm sure you do, because you have a crazy memory. But it was when you get home, when you walk in the door, you don't do it on the phone. So I'll sit in the garage for 45 minutes finishing a phone call. So when I walk in, I greet my wife with a hug. And that has been one of the it's so simple. And and it and like there's little ways to do it too. If I have to take a call while I'm at home and we're in the living room together, I got, hey, babe, I gotta take a call, I'm going to another room, right? Like, cause you don't want to communicate this is more important than you, or yeah, I'm home, but you're still not my priority. Right. And so it's all these subtle things, but I have just seen this intentionality. I've got the new reps in here. So, hey, babe, I like it's it's a little bit of a heavier work week. Tell me which morning we need to prioritize like a good two-hour block, just you and me for that tomorrow morning, you know? So I'm seeing it when it's it's you know, priorities aren't always like a daily thing for me. I'm more of like a cyclical, right? So if I know Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday are gonna be heavier work days, great. Wednesday night, when's a good day morning? Let's go get lattes, let's go for a walk, but you need to balance out the intentionality in somewhere else in your life. So, anyways, I want to give you credit for that in front of this camera and also let you know it's been a huge impact to my marriage. I see some some cylinders going off. What do you want to share?

SPEAKER_00 54:24

Yeah, because I want to touch on that just a slightly, you know, I believe in faith, family, fitness, finance, funny. I I know right now on marketing and all that, people say that for the t-shirt, call me mug, they don't live it. Right. They got you, they're preaching God on stage and doing cocaine in the bathroom. They're talking about their wife and they're banging their receptionists. Yeah, right. Like it's just it's I've seen so many meet your hero monets that are unfortunate. Like, I wish I would have never met them and just listen to YouTube only. Right. And, you know, the reality is I am so madly in love with my wife, it's like absolute and like literally, I would literally give everything I have away tomorrow, as long as she's still there. And now we have our four month, five about to be five-month-old daughter. Yeah. Like, you you have to have Jesus first, because I can't even be anything for my wife without Jesus leading me first. Right. Jesus leads me first, I lead my wife. Second to faith, that's why we're I am second on my wrist, because I am second, I'm second to God, I'm second to my wife in the sense of I serve her, I lead her, but I serve my wife. Right. And, you know, at the end of the day, without her, I'm nothing in the sense of I don't have that versus Jesus, but her, she just makes me so happy. But so many people miss it. They go build this wealth. And so the tip is you don't just do faith, family, fitness, finance every quarter. I made a commitment two months ago, uh two years ago, that every single day I do faith, family, fitness, finance fun. So a quick view of my schedules. In the morning, I wake up God first. After that, especially now with my daughter. Oh my gosh. That's our time, dude. Every morning she wakes up, she's in the bed, and she's she's just putting her hands on my face, she's feeling my hand, my beard, and she's just looking at me and I'm just loving on her and I'm praying over her, and I'm, you know, affirming her, and I'm you're a genius, you're a champion, you're a princess, you were loved, you were strong, you were everything. And I'm just pouring that over her. And then I spend time with my oh, then I go to the gym, and then I come back and I spend time with my wife. And I don't take that first appointment till 11. Sometimes 10, if it's a mandatory. If it's at nine, I have to make a hundred grand or I'm not doing it. Right. Like, period. And so Faith Family Fitness is right under the whip. And then I have my finance and I am all in. I mean, you know me. When I lock into I don't eat, I'm just like, I'm locked in. Yep. And then I have the rest of the day for fun. It could be paintball, it could be pickleball, it could be basketball, it could be golf, whatever. I have that. But it needs to be every day so I don't burn out. And I love what you said. Here's the point it doesn't look the same every day. Right, right. Some days I don't even have but two or three appointments. So I get to spend more time with my family because God just gave me some off time. Yeah. But some days, bro, I'm from 11 to 11. Yeah. And it might happen that way. Yeah. Yeah. But I have always, because it's every day, my wife never gets mad at those days because I've still spent that time with her. 100%. But she also knows who I am, that she's first. So on the days I don't have a lot of appointments, I'm pouring into her. And I say this is what I say to Jeff all the time. So many people, well, I spend five hours with my family after work because I work nine at five. No, you were on TV watching Sports Center, drinking a beer, you were with there with your family. You weren't with your family. I can spend 30 minutes with my wife of unintentional time and laughing and joking and walking with her in the neighborhood and asking her about her day and ask her how she feels and asking if that can be a better husband. That 30 minutes is better than 30 hours in some relationships. So what I meant to when I met you, two of your goals was I want to pray with my wife once a week. I remember. Said, once a week? Once a week. What the hell are you talking about? Once a week. That needs to be twice a day. Yeah. Do not leave without a kiss and don't go to sleep without a kiss. Right? Do not leave without praying and don't go to bed without praying. And then you were like, Yeah, let's uh let's scratch that go off right now. Yeah. And you started doing it. Boom. Your family started getting better. It was on fire. I said, dude, I said, how much time do you spend with your employee? Oh, 30 minutes, I'm training them. I said, How much do you give your wife? Oh. Yeah. Well, I mean, we do date night. I said, Yeah, that's if you want to be average. Right. Pick a time every single day. Right. Every day do something with her. Yeah. And I love what you said. Now it's even even more intentional. We got blocks that we but if people would just do that every day, they would never have that burnout. 100%. And so, you know, that's why JW Holta, yes, we scale businesses, we scale capital, but we really scale people. Right. Every person in our business, we get their faith, family, fitness, finance goals. What is your goals? And you have to have fun. Yeah. And so, yeah, it's uh mentoring you has always been a dream of mine. It's been the greatest thing because you actually listen and try my best. And it's creating results. Right. And that's what it is. So I know you got to start wrapping it up, but you know, I I could do this. And I think we need obviously an episode two, because I think we had, you know, time limit here. But I I really believe that I want to come back out in Dallas and really pour into the the actual instruments, increment, um, increments of building the business, but really hone in that faith, family, fitness, finance fun as well. And I think that we could really inspire some men to be men and be leaders. 100%. Um, you know, like I said, this is kind of an intro, but I think we do a deep dive, deep dive next time. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 59:00

We'll get some case studies, we'll have some fun with it. Jake, I wish we had more time. Man, you and I could talk probably for 12 hours straight, wake up, do it again the next day for another 18. Um, this has been so valuable to everybody that's that's listened in. If people are interested in working with you, right, scale in companies, either through partnership or service, how can they get a hold of you? How can they reach out?

SPEAKER_00 59:19

It's a great point. So I just want to end with three things. We scale people, scale businesses, scale capital. Scale people means obviously I do mentorship like I do with you. I'm very selective, like psychotically selective. Yeah. Um, me and you, it was like an interview we did like a month and a half of kind of talking about it, talking about it. And then I had that trip. Then you had the trip, and then we started. Um, so I do mentorship. I take home probably 10 people a year, cops. Um, and so if that's you reach out to me on Instagram, um, you know, just shoot me a DM at Jake Frugier Jr. Uh, you can go there, or you can go to Jakefrugier jr.com and you can, hey, I want to be mentored or I want to, you know, get on and we can talk about that. That's the scaling people side. It's not just your business. We're gonna scale you as a human. Right. The scaling capital is if you've got capital out there and you want to get some cash flow, you want to get some tax write-offs, we've got about four or five entities in JFJ Holdings. We've got four or five entities in JFJ Holdings uh from oil field funds to real estate funds to secession properties, we've got JV and we've got trust deed funds, we've got trust structuring, we've got a CPA and a tax firm to help your taxes, we've got uh fractional CFO to get more money back in your pocket. So if it's about, hey, I got money or I make a lot of money and I want to keep it, reach out, go to jfjholdings.com or DM me what your what your need is. We'll hook you up with the right entity in the portfolio. And then lastly, once again, it's jfjholdings.com if you want to scale your business. Go to jfjholdings.com. Hey, I want to work with them or I want an appointment with them, or once again, shoot me a DM at Jfrugie Jr. Um, and just say, hey, or Jfrugie Jr.com. Hey, I want to scale my company. And what what you'll do is you'll get on with one of our people. We typically look for people that are already at seven figures, right? Uh, as far as partnership, you need to be at seven figures and then we'll partner. If you're under seven figures, we have all of those different services, consulting, and those entities. We have a marketing company, we have an SOP company, we have an AI company. We can direct you to the company you need in the season that you're in in your business. It might not be JFJ Onis, it might be one of our independent companies that we've actually acquired that can actually help you. And so that's what it is. Scale in you, scaling your money, or scale in your business. I'd love to help you. And just make sure I want you to know, only work with us if you align with us. Because I'm only gonna work with you if I align with you. So make sure we have the same values, you want the same things out of life, and you believe we could have fun together. I'd love to work with you. And if it ain't me, it could be one of my teammates or one of our other CEOs, like Ajay, who's one of our partners. We have 32 partners. It might be one of them that can actually mentor you or walk with you or even partner with you and scale this business in. But I will say in with this um, there's no one I've worked with truly, and I mean this, and I don't say this to everybody. It is such an honor, not just mentoring. That was one piece, but now being your business partner and taking secession properties to the next level, it is such a blast watching this and you know, with working with your heads, you know, head of your operations with Jacob and and all of your sales team and building this thing out in Dallas. It's just been an absolute blast. And I'm telling you, this will be an eight figure company within the next 12 to 18 months. And I believe that we will take over this space, zero question, uh, and bring so many people with us in the process. Absolutely. And so this has really been a blast, and I really just can't wait to that next episode. It's gonna be friggin' awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:14

It's gonna be awesome. Thank you so much, Jake.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:16

No problem, baby. Good to see you. Help.

unknown 1:02:18

But