PodCrash with Matt Ebert
PodCrash with Matt Ebert
How Robert Herjavec Went from Immigrant Kid to Millions
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I'm Matt Evert. I turned one collision repair shop into a multi-billion dollar business called Crash Champions. Now I'm sitting down with people who have also built great things so you can build something of your own. Alright, Matt, we have a huge guest that's crashing the pod today.
SPEAKER_00That's great. I like I like having big guests. This would be exciting. Yeah, so Robert Herchivik is joining the pod crash, and most people know him as the guy from Shark Tank. He's the guy that sits off to the right. Yep. Um, so Robert made his multi-millions through his cybersecurity companies and uh his his company called Herchibik Group. On online, you hear a lot about Robert talking about the story where he made this one purchase that made him feel like he made it. So that question goes to you. Do you have that one purchase that made you feel like you made it?
SPEAKER_04No, I haven't made it yet. So I don't have that. I don't have that purchase. Still haven't got there, but it's a great story from him. You'll enjoy it.
SPEAKER_00So that's crazy. So you don't feel like you made it, even though you built this company from one shop to 670 $3 billion organization, 11,000 team members. That still doesn't feel like you made it. Big gold, Stanley, big gold.
SPEAKER_04Still going.
SPEAKER_00I love it, man. Well, I'm looking forward to the conversation with you and Robert.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's a good one. All right, everyone, here we go. This is Podcrash. Hi, everyone. We got a great one today. We're here with Robert Hercheveck in his home, his beautiful home here in Montana. So I'm really excited and looking forward to this one and ready to dig right in. Robert, thanks so much for doing this. Thanks for having me, Matt. So I know you've told your uh story several times, you know, but Cliff notes of it. You know, your parents left, you fleeing a country from communism, right? Yugoslavia, Croatia today. You're an only child, about eight years old. Um, they came over and really worked hard, blue-collared. Your dad swept floors, right, I think, for a living. Just wondering, you know, how their sacrifice, how that background affected your life and affected the way you go at things at work today.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, I think I guess I jumped in pretty hard with you're the blue-collar car guy. I used to, my tagline in my tech business was I am because we used to compete against like Deloitte and Touche, Arthur Anderson, and you say we're the blue-collar consultants. Okay. And what I meant by that is, you know, I think it really resonates with people because it makes people realize blue collar is not a negative. I I think it's hardworking, it's honest, it's transparent. The negative part of blue collar was I think if I was smarter or better educated, I'd probably be wealthier now. Okay. The problem was everything I learned, I learned by doing wrong. Okay. And, you know, there's a cycle. And, you know, Damon and I talk about this all the time. What's one of the keys to to really getting ahead? And I think it's adaptability. I think your ability to learn situationally. But, you know, to your point, I have an incredible life that as I get older seems more incredible to me. When I was living it, it didn't seem like a big deal because you know you're in you're in the middle of it. But my mom and dad came here when they were 37 years old. So imagine you're 37. And you uproot everything. Uh like you don't like plan and build your like you literally within 24 hours, we're leaving. One suitcase, we cross the border to Italy, we get on a boat called the Cristophero Colombo. We land in fact, when I started doing the Canadian show, one of the viewers saw me on the show and found a picture in the Canadian version of Ellis Island of my mom and dad and I landing in Halifax. Oh, how cool is that? How cool is that? But we land in Halifax, I think they had like $20, $50. They remember they had a friend in Toronto. We take the train to Toronto and we live in someone's basement for 18 months. So imagine that journey. For me, people were like, oh, it must have been so hard. It was great. Okay. You know, I'd never been on a boat. An eight-year-old that's in a batcher, right? Like, oh my god, I grew up in this little village in you know, in Yugoslavia, dirt floors, didn't know we were poor until I came to Canada, and somebody said to me, You're poor. I it really stuck with me because I didn't realize we were poor. But that was my journey. It was super exciting until I got here. For my mom and dad, I mean, imagine 37, you don't speak the language, you're on a boat, you're going somewhere, you have no idea what your future holds. And what I realized much later on, I wish I would have realized earlier, is what drove them was the sacrifice for me. Okay. And I was probably a not so nice, rebellious kid. You know, I mean, I'm 17 years old trying to fit in. My dad's this blue-collar guy wearing a Russian balaklava, barely spoke English, even though he thought he spoke perfect English, but I didn't know where I was gonna go. But man, I knew I needed to do something with my life to justify that sacrifice.
SPEAKER_04So you realized that sacrifice not at eight, but you realized it pretty early in life. I was not me then.
SPEAKER_03I was the easiest, happiest, go-lucky kid. Okay. I grew up on a farm, my grandmother raised me. We had pigs, we had, you know, like I tried to tell my kids how hard it was. And the other day I told my son, I was like, you know, when I was your age, we didn't even have running water in the house. We had to go outside to the toilet. And he looked at me and I thought I got through to him how hard that was. He was like, Oh my god, Dad, you were so lucky. You were kept alive. You got to do a bushwee, as they call it in Australia, outside. So it didn't work. When I got here, I went to school, and you know, immigrant, didn't speak the language, had no money, kids made fun of you. Okay. Then I realized, oh, hang on a sec. Not everybody here loves me. This is hard. And I think that was the turning point for me. And Cuban and I had dinner one day and we had this conversation about what did you think about when you were 12 years old? Right. And Cuban said, I wanted to be a billionaire and own a basketball team. At 12. At 12. And I was so impressed by that because I remember so clearly at 12, I just didn't want to be poor.
SPEAKER_04Now I was you, exactly. My parents didn't have any money, grew up in a really small town. I got tired of being made fun of and beat up from the clothes my mom put me in in school. I knew that whenever we went to a restaurant, I was gonna share the food with my sister. Whenever I wanted to do something, the answer was usually no, we can't, we can't afford it. So I had the same drive. I just didn't want to have money be the reason why I couldn't do something.
SPEAKER_03I hated, I always remember we we had to watch what things cost. Yeah. You know, we went to a restaurant, we went in, and my dad would say we have X amount of dollars to and I hated that. And I I understand now how hard it was for them, but I hated that. And I always said, I'm gonna get to a point one day where the price of stuff doesn't matter. Now I think I may have gone a little extreme on that now, but you know, I think in life, some people are born like Mark, where they just know they're gonna manifest destiny.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I wasn't that.
SPEAKER_04Do you try to get that mindset now? Because like I sometimes think, well, I say in business, like our business does three billion in revenue today. I I always say, like, we'll be a six billion dollar business as soon as I'm ready to run it. Like, meaning if when I'm mentally ready, when I have the skill set set ready, so I'm always learning and running to not be the bottleneck and to advance. But maybe like for you, do you then think about your thinking, well, my thing got me to here now now. I need to get what Mark's got about the way he thinks about that.
SPEAKER_03Great question, great point. So I think avoidance of pain gets you to a point of comfort. Okay, yep. Right. Like I knew I would never be poor. I knew I would not live like that. The problem was you then get to a certain level of comfort, and comfort's different for everybody. Yeah, like my dream was pay off my house, buy a used Corvette. That was it. Like that was the North Star. But then when you get there, you realize, okay, what's next? So I'm I'm not running away from something anymore. What am I running to? And I think to achieve greatness in anything in business or anything, you've got to have a clear vision of where you want to go. You can't just escape your past because eventually you get there.
SPEAKER_04Just taking a step back on the immigrant part of the conversation, you know, I talk a lot about blue-collar work and the opportunity in it. Um, there's a reward in trades jobs and in doing what we do, fixing cars, because you see the reward of the work of your hands. It's not just the dollars, it's not just the but from the blue-collar kind of mindset and immigrant mindset, they seem pretty similar to me. Do you think there's a difference or are they the same?
SPEAKER_03I think they are very similar. I wish I would have been better with my hands and doing stuff because my dad was so great at it. And you know, my dad was not a feely, fluffy kind of guy. He wasn't a, hey, let me give you a hug. Typical immigrant, he was like, my job is to provide. And he worked double shifts and he was never around. But one of the greatest things he did for me.
SPEAKER_04I wasn't an immigrant, and I think that's how my parents were too, by the way. I think that's maybe a generational thing.
SPEAKER_03If you generational, but I think one of the greatest things he did for me was I probably wasn't hardworking enough. I mean, I always compare myself to a guy who left the country at 37 to change his life. So I always say, I will never work a day in my life as hard as my dad worked. Okay. So I always compare it to that then. Yeah. But when I was 16, I probably wasn't motivated enough or driven enough. So my dad worked in a uh factory, like a warehouse where they loaded trucks for food. I saw these conveyor belts where they come down a conveyor right into the 18 wheelers. And he got me a job there one summer. And so I loaded trucks and I did it for 10 days, and it's dirty, it's dusty, and I'm like, this is crap. Like, I I don't want to work like this, so I wanted to quit.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_03And my dad is like, Dad's gonna say, Dad's gonna be disappointed, right? He's like, I got you this job, you're sticking it out, and I stuck it out for the summer and I made a lot of money. What people don't realize is having a skill set, a blue collar skill set is really valuable. Yeah. In especially in this economy, you know, AI is gonna disrupt a lot of stuff. It is never gonna disrupt physical blue-collar trade skills.
SPEAKER_04I say that too. Like what we do, there's too much variety in it for a robot to do it. It's not manufacturing. So 100%. Like, I think I'll be dead if it ever gets the way robots can do it. But was that your first job then? Because I was gonna ask you about your like one of your first jobs.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, my first job was delivering newspapers. And I I always feel bad because my mom had to wake up at 4 30 to drive me around. She was so nervous.
SPEAKER_04Oh, you were cool. I had to walk my ass around. I didn't, my parents weren't getting out of bed. I had to do it. And the papers, like the Sunday papers, I had two routes, and the papers were so heavy, I literally created hiding spots in bushes along the way to drop them off where I knew I was circling back because I couldn't carry them all.
SPEAKER_03I remember the newspaper was Globe and Mail, and it was great. I mean, I I did anything and everything. I was a waiter, I was probably like most entrepreneurs, I didn't have any vision of how to make. You know, when you when you're poor and blue blue collar, you don't know how to make money. Right. Like I never met somebody who'd ran a business until I was in my 20s. I think I was 29 years old when I met somebody who owned an airplane. And I remember that, like, you own an airplane. Like, how can that be? Like, is there special airways you fly through? Like, like it just I couldn't do anything that I hadn't been exposed to. You didn't imagine it enough then. You had to I couldn't expand my mind. Yeah. But once I did, I think a mind once expanded, combined with drive, is an unstoppable thing. Like once I got there, I was like, oh yeah, sign me up. Like, let's go. And then I was like, well, if we're doing a million a year, why why can't we do two? And the thing I always thought is I never I was never envious of someone else's success. Yep. Uh always it doesn't hinder yours. No. No, you can be as successful as you want, but that doesn't mean I can't be either.
SPEAKER_04You know what I learned from the paper out thing, and I didn't realize at the time was leverage. So I don't know how it was for you, but I did the collecting from the customer for the paper and then the newspaper build for the papers that they gave me. And I think they build monthly or whatever. I think it was the same. And I had some customers that would pay for the whole year because they didn't want me knocking on the door to collect the money. So in the meantime, I use that money. Now it was only a couple hundred bucks, right? It was no kind of money, but I think that's where I learned to use other people's money first.
SPEAKER_03It's funny you say that. I'm kind of I'm curious to see what you think. I built every one of my companies typical blue color with my own money. Like I never borrowed a penny. And I built my last company to 360 million with my own money.
SPEAKER_04I feel you can do that in tech though, maybe because to a degree.
SPEAKER_03Now, then I sold the business to an equity firm. We doubled within two years. Once you got some capital behind. Yeah. So now I'm like, was that smart or was that stupid? Do you know what I mean? Like, I think I think the one thing I wish I would have learned earlier, to your point, was leverage. Yeah. I think I could have leveraged other people's money to grow faster, but it was that fear because it was like my money. Now, as I say that, I also think when you've built a company with your own money, nobody understands it like you understand it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I didn't have any money. Um, but I leveraged 100 grand off a I collected a bunch of credit cards of cash advanced 100 grand grand on credit cards to buy my first business. Oh, I had no money.
SPEAKER_03You know how I got my you know how I got my first capital? So I got fired from a tech job. Okay. I couldn't get a job in time to pay my mortgage. Okay. So I thought I'll go sell something. So we're selling this thing called a Vitalink Bridge. Okay. You have Vitalink Bridge routers and stuff. Yes. Before there were routers, there was something called Ethernet bridges. And they were designed, because back then, this is before the internet, to communicate, use satellite. But the last mile for satellite uplink was an Ethernet bridge. Anyway, so I figured I'm gonna go sell something. So I found the number one product. Okay. I called in General Electric, I went in, did this tech presentation, young kid to a bunch of people. They were like, Wow, you seem so excited. Sure, we'll buy a couple. They were $60,000 for the two of them. I was so excited. I walk out, I'm like, Woo! I made a $60,000 sale. Yeah, my cost of goods was $40,000. Okay. So I basically made $20,000. So I called the manufacturer and I said, Hey, I got this sale. Can you ship them to General Electric? And, you know, I'll I'll pay you when I get paid. And they're like, Are you kidding me? You're a kid working out of your house. We're not shipping you 40 grand of equipment, and so they wouldn't ship it to me. So how'd you get it? I got back in my car, I went back to see the customer, and I said to them, I need you guys to do me a favor. I need you to prepay for this. And they were like, Are you freaking kidding me, General? Did you give them a discount or anything? Or just No. I just I was just never underestimate the power of honesty.
SPEAKER_04I believe in transparency of big completely transparent.
SPEAKER_03I looked at him and I said, if you don't prepay, I can't do this order. But my commitment is I will be there every step of the way. Okay. And unbelievably they did it. And that's how I got my first capital.
SPEAKER_04Look, from just watching you on Shark Tank, say 10 years ago, before I got to dig in and learn a little about you, I thought you were like a tech genius, right? And that's how you must have done super well. But it seems like sales is almost more credit to your success than uh than the techie part. Is that true or so true?
SPEAKER_03So, first of all, I am a tech genius. Okay, so it didn't mean to minimize it. Oh no, not at all. Cuban and I always argue about this. He thinks he's the tech genius. I'm the tech genius. Let's be real, Mark. Um but when I started, I have a degree in classical English literature. I have no idea what I wanted to be. I fell into computers. Okay. Got lucky I got into it. When I started my company, everybody I was competing with was a tech genius. They had like doctorates or masters in computer science, and I had a classical English literature degree. I knew I would pick it up because it just spoke to me. I could see it, but it took time. So I said, what can I do better than the other nine guys? Okay. And it was sales, communication, you know, and I really leaned into that. And I've always been better at sales, I think, or communication.
SPEAKER_04It's not always the best product that wins, even if you had the best product, it's how it's sold. It's never the best product that wins.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's the sales product. You know, and that's another blue-collar immigrant thing because I used to believe that. My parents would say to me, don't be arrogant. You don't need to tell the world about yourself. If you're great at something, the world will find you. You know, that's a typical Eastern European immigrant thing. And what I learned is there is no genius in the darkness of a basement. No one's coming to find you.
SPEAKER_04I've learned that too, because I but that was really hard for me. It doesn't serve me well in a business setting because people need to understand your confidence and what you're good at. And if you can't tell them, but you could be awesome. They're not just gonna.
SPEAKER_03You know, kind of. But I find if people don't think you're confident enough in yourself to believe in yourself, yeah, they're not gonna believe in you. That's a fine line.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I still err on the I think don't get loud. I don't by loud, I don't mean loud. I I don't do it loud enough yet. I'm still there, so I'll get there. And I think it was because a little bit of my upbringing was all against, you know, like my parents hated sales and they they thought money was not kind of evil, like it was just it's amazing how the upbringing affects you, even even though I've worked really hard at like overcoming those roadblocks, like it's still in there.
SPEAKER_03But don't you think most people that aren't in business hate sales? Like the minute people know they're being sold to, their back goes up. I do. If it's cheesy, like gimmicky sales, like use car salesman kind of thing.
SPEAKER_04But there, I'll give you an example. We we struggle like with I struggle with this in my company because it's primarily insurance pay, so we don't have to get the customer to spend money because the insurance companies don't spend, they have their deductible. And I would love it if a plumber walked in my house to fix something and he said, Hey, well, I'm here, I noticed this. Do you want me to fix it? I would be so Thankful, thank you for not letting the pipe explode a month from now or a year from now. Thanks for telling me about it, and please fix it. My team will be like, I'll be like, What about the scratch in the dent that are right next to what we're fixing anyway? Did you ask them if if they want to get that fixed while it's here? And they feel like it's an upsell, they feel like it, they don't view it as it's being helpful, they view it as it's kind of being pushy. And it's I view it as like, no, that's just asking to be while we're in here working, we can do this a lot cheaper now for you. If you you might not have ever thought about it because it does cost money, but it can be done a lot cheaper while we're at it now. And my team doesn't view it as helpful, and I wish they would.
SPEAKER_03I think it's really hard because most people I had a really hard time with sales because to me, sales was the use car salesman, it was arrogance. What you realize is everything in life is sales. Everything. I mean, you're talking about an upsell. The magic is getting people to realize that it's value add, right? Salespeople add value and make things easier for others. Bad salespeople push you into something that you don't need or don't want. That's the difference. I don't think that's sales. I mean, in my business, it never was sales. Now, I I think it's also a fine line because you know, sometimes you have to create the need because the consumer may not realize he needs it. You know, to your point, a person has a scratch on their car. So how am I going to get him to fix that other scratch? Is it vanity? Is it safety? What appeals to that person in order to fix that other scratch? Right. Because you think about it, if they have a scratch and they haven't fixed it already, they probably don't care enough about the car. So is it a safety thing? Like, why wouldn't somebody fix a scratch on the car?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I do think that maybe they don't care about it enough. But I also know that people are busy, it's inconvenient, like they might not have known a body shop person. So I view it as like just at least ask.
SPEAKER_03They're there anyway.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, right. Yeah, like we have a salesman's dream situation. We have somebody with a wrecked car that needs our help, a wrecked car in the parking lot, and they're standing in our lobby. Like any sales person would say, This is a dream, a dream situation. How do you how would you let them leave? And and it's still tough to get people in the sales smart.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. But everybody in the company is in sales. Like that was our thing. You know, funny, you just remind me when I started the company, I refused to put a title on anybody's business card. Okay. And so we never this is a long time ago, obviously, when people had business cards because nobody has a business card anymore. And we never had titles. And customers would sometimes say, Why don't you have a title? What's your role here? And I would say, My role is to do whatever you need me to do. Nice. And same with the engineer, same with customer service. Our job is to serve. And I think when you have a serve mentality and the clients pick up on that, it becomes an open transaction, an honest transaction. I think when when people think you're selling them, their backs are up. They don't want to listen. And that's what we always try to think about in our business was how do I get through that subconscious barrier? Because when I walk in, you know I'm there to sell you something.
SPEAKER_04Yep.
SPEAKER_03You don't think you need what I want to sell, and you probably don't want to buy it, and you probably want to get rid of me right away. So, how do I break that right away and get to a feeling of trust?
SPEAKER_04Love it. You went really quickly on the college thing and what your degree is. It seems like college was more important to your dad for you to finish than it was to you. Is that the case? And did you find it benefit in college at all? Like you picked that major why, and what's the benefit in what you did?
SPEAKER_03I have a great story on that. So you're right. I'm the first person in my dad and mom's generation to ever go to college. And my dad was the youngest of 15. And his father, my grandfather, died while my mother was carrying him in the womb. My dad was the toughest human being in the world. And so the typical Eastern European, it's all about education. So I was going to go to university. I never had a choice. In my household, it wasn't like, okay, what are you going to do after high school? It's like, you go to university. And somehow my godfather talked my parents into talking me into taking advanced algebra in university. So I went to university to be a lawyer. I failed algebra and I couldn't be a lawyer. So because you need algebra to be a lawyer. You need marks to be a lawyer. Okay. And my because I failed a course, I'd never failed a course in my life. I didn't have my marks weren't high enough. Got it. So I said, this is stupid. I'm going to drop out. I'm just going to, because you know, university, nobody cares if you show up. I'm just going to, you know, I'm just going to go to a job and make some money. So I go home. One day I'm sitting on the couch. Second day I'm sitting on the couch. Third day, my dad comes home in between two shifts at the factory. He's walking from where he works, comes home, take a shower, get some food, and go back for a second shift.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_03Sees me sit on the couch. Comes up to me and says, uh, but you do home. I'm like, ah, university, not for me. I'm gonna drop out. Comes up to me and keep in mind my dad's not a feely fluffy kind of guy. Comes this far away from my face, says, Look, love you. You know, go back, kill you. Bury body. I'm like, yeah, I'm going back. So I go back and I'm sitting there and I'm like, what am I gonna study? Like I can't be a lawyer now. What am I gonna do? And a friend of mine was never in class. So I said to her, What are you studying? And she says, classical English literature. I'm like, how does it work? She goes, You show up on Monday, they give you an 800-page book, you come on Friday and tell them what you thought of it. I'm like, sign me up. And that's why I took classical. Funny thing is, I think it really helped me. Okay. Because the key in any business, no matter how technical, is communication.
SPEAKER_04Every day I see it.
SPEAKER_03Because I was competing against a bunch of engineers.
SPEAKER_04Communication sense of urgency. I say those are two qualities you gotta have.
SPEAKER_03Everybody I compete with assumed that having a better product would win the day. I had to communicate the value of any product. Yeah. If the consumer can't see the value of it, you cannot assume the consumer will do the hard work and learn why your product or service is better. And so I think English really, really helped me. Interesting.
SPEAKER_04I heard once that you your first computer job, you offered to do it for free.
SPEAKER_03I was 21, and uh so somehow I thought I wanted to be on TV and be really famous, and I got a job at a TV station.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_03And I was like doing video editing, and I sucked at it. And and so they gave me another job. And so the station I worked at got the rights to the Winter Olympics in 1984. So, because the other two networks didn't want them. So really, they weren't fighting for them, they didn't want them. So this little this little network called Global TV in Canada got the rights to the Winter Olympics, which were in Syrie of Yugoslavia. Okay. And I'm just like editing and doing crappy, mundane jobs in the back in this newsroom. And the head of news says, Where the hell am I going to find somebody that speaks Croatian by tomorrow? And I'm in the back and I put up my hand and he looks at me and goes, Do you work here? And I'm like, Yeah. And he's like, You're the field producer for the Olympics. Oh, wow. A week later, I'm in Sarville, Yugoslavia with an entire film crew field producing the Winter Olympics. That's awesome. Awesome. My head becomes this big. Okay. Like I'm 19, I'm the producer. I think I'm the next Martin Scorsese.
SPEAKER_04But it's not because you're a good producer, it's because you can speak the language.
SPEAKER_03I got lucky. Never underestimate the power of luck in business, right? So I come back and I think my life is made. I can't get a job. You know, I'm living with a friend of mine. I can't pay my rent. He's paying my rent. I feel really guilty. I'm like, what am I going to do? Like, I was this amazing producer. Now I can't get a job. My friend has a doctorate in computer science. And I'm like, oh my God, computer people are so boring. I'm a TV guy. He goes for an interview and he comes back. We're having a beer. He didn't get the job. He's telling me about it. And I'm like, oh my God, this is so boring. Guy started this company. He was head of IBM, blah, blah, blah. I'm not even listening. And then he says, the starting salary is $35,000. This is 1984.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_03I'm like, hang on. And they guarantee you a job. I'm like, sign me up. Can I can I call them? So I talk my way in an interview. And you either have to have sales or computer background. I have neither. And I'm in an interview for like 10 minutes, and the guy's looking at it, thinking, how did this guy even get here?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, he doesn't qualify to be in the either one.
SPEAKER_03Okay. And you can tell, you know, he's about to get up to ask me to leave. And I had this moment where I was like, if I don't get this job, my life is over. Like, I have to get this. And as he's getting up, I look at him like, you have to hire me. And he laughs. And I said, You have to hire me. I'll work for free. And he looks at me, and this is a startup. And he says, Kid, if I hire you for free, I can't depend on you. And in the in all the bravado I could muster, because it wasn't me back then, I put out my hand and I say, You can depend on me. And I got it done. And he looks at me and he puts out his hand and he says, Okay. And I say, one caveat if in six months I can do the job you would have hired me for, you'll pay me what you would have paid me with the experience. He's like, sure. So I get the job and I run out and I'm like, woo! And I'm like, oh crap, how am I going to pay my rent? Yeah, you still need six months before you get any money. So I drive down to the fanciest restaurant in Toronto, which was called Remy's, and I got a job as a waiter. Okay. So for the next six months, I'm getting up at like three, four in the morning, reading everything about IBM mainframes, working nine to five at the company, like reception, packing boxes, but listening and learning to the other people, taking them out for lunch, asking them a million friggin' questions. Why'd you say that on the phone? Why didn't you get that deal? What happened? And then from seven till one in the morning, working as a waiter. That's great. And that's how I got in the computer business.
SPEAKER_04So um similarly, I wrecked my car when I was 16. I needed to learn how to fix it and found somebody in town or knew the gentleman in town that was a auto-body man. And I asked, and he worked in his garage at night, and I asked him to show me how to fix my car. And he did. And he did, and then I went and kept helping him with other cars and and did it for free. Now, after high school, I ended up getting a job at the body shop he worked at, but I did that stuff for free to learn it. And you don't hear a lot of that in the world today. Do you think that young people today would think that idea is crazy?
SPEAKER_03I think the the challenge really is around social media. Meaning, I think the general feeling is that wealth and business can be accelerated. Right? Like everybody's on Instagram. That's the social media makes it out. These guys they go from zero to a hundred million, they're flying around in a private jet. And I think what that's done to the Gen Z or younger people is it's made it seem easy and accessible. And so people want it quickly. What I think people realize probably as they get older is you have to be great at something. I mean, you were great at fixing cars.
SPEAKER_04Not so much I'm like an overnight success 30 years in the making, and I wasn't a technician for very long because I wasn't that great.
SPEAKER_03But you knew how to do it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You know, I used to say I would never run a business where I couldn't do every job in that business.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I have done every job. Whether it was well or not is a different subject. But yeah. What was your first car? Um, so I had a 40 XP, which is a little two-seater kind of escort, but I wrecked that one so bad it wasn't fixable. And then I had a Chrysler laser, which is similar to a Dodge Daytona, and that's the one that I wrecked that I've when you made some money.
SPEAKER_03What was the first nice car you buy?
SPEAKER_04So I've been look more like the the house painter that needs whose house needs painted. I never invested a lot of money in cars and stuff. One because I needed every dime I could get to keep funneling back in the business and grow it. And then now I'm getting to where like I kind of want to get some of the cars I always dreamed about, but I also feel like I might be the midlife crisis guy driving it now. So we'll see how it goes. But I've never I know you love cars and I've always admired them and loved them. I just never brought myself to spend the money on them yet.
SPEAKER_03I love cars, I love cars, and uh my first car was uh 1987 Mazda RX7.
SPEAKER_04Okay, that was with the rotary engine, piston ninja goes boing, boing, boing, but the Mazda goes, hmm, was the commercial, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You know why I love cars? People always uh think it's some kind of a mechanical, I'm not very mechanical. When I first came to Canada, my dad and I are walking down the street, and we see this thing coming down the road. Now keep in mind, Yugoslavia, the hottest car was a Yugo.
SPEAKER_04Okay, yes. I remember those cars.
SPEAKER_03Right, yeah, yeah, crappy, crappy, yeah, communist. Two doors, weren't they, or did they have four doors too? No, they were two door with four seats. It was awful. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04In in the late nine uh 1990s in Texas, like I think they were like in like early 90s, those were probably like four thousand dollar cars, a Yugo. Super cheap.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. They couldn't give them away at one point. And we see this car coming down the street, and I say to my dad, Oh my god, what's that? And my dad says, You no mind that Cadillac. Okay. And I'm like, What's a Cadillac? And he's like, You no mind, that for rich people. Okay. And it was so meaningful to him. You know, in Eastern Europe, in a communist country, Cadillacs were the gold standard, the 1950s, the El Dorados and all of that stuff. And I was like, smitten. I love cars ever since.
SPEAKER_04Now you ended up getting there's a story around Cadillacs with your dad I was gonna ask you about because you ended up getting him one, right? I did. In the end, is that the story because he told you don't even look at that? That's yeah, don't even look at that. Love your big great son, don't look at that. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So you uh you ended up buying him one? I did. Many years later, you know, I'd uh make a little bit of money. Okay. And uh I'd bring a car over like the RX 7, and I'd, you know, an old Mercedes, and I'd bring it over a Corvette, and I'd say, Hey, what do you think? And my dad loved cars, and he'd look at it and go, Oh, he's beautiful. No catalog. And then one day when it made a little bit of money, I uh call him up and I say, Hey, let's go for a ride. I'm building a fence. I'm the least handy guy. So we're driving around, I pretend I get lost, and uh we go in a coffee shop, and I'm like, Oh, I don't know. He's like, You idiot, get the map. And I say, There's a Cadillac dealership across the street. Let's go have a look. So he's like, No, and so finally we do, we walk across the street, and it's this massive dealership, and there's only one car in it, Cadillac Sedan Deville, in that pearly white that only Cadillac makes. And we go up to it, and I say, Why don't you sit here? Okay, and he's like, No, my pants are dirty, I can't. I'm like, come on. So I open the door, he sits down, and he puts his hands in the steering wheel, and it just hits him. And I don't care who you are or what's important to you, there is something that tells everybody they've made it. Could be a better education for your kids, you know, it could be art, could be a home, could be a jet, could be to my dad. If he ever got to a point in his life that he could afford a Cadillac, he'd made it. And all that pain and suffering and being made fun of would have been worth it.
SPEAKER_02And he puts his hands in the steering wheel and he's like, and I'm like, what do you think? And he's like, it's good.
SPEAKER_01And he says, fun day. And I flip the visor and I give him the keys, and I say, Today's the day. Oh, that's awesome. Best.
SPEAKER_03I mean, look how emotional I get about it. Still, still, and that was how many years ago? Best thing I ever bought. People say, with all the wealth that you've created, what's the greatest thing you've ever bought? And people expect me to say, you know, a big mansion or a jet or a company, and I always say a cat like Sedan de Villa for your daddy. And that's that is the power of money. It is not about the stuff that you buy, it's about the ability to make the dreams of the ones you love come real. The lives you can change. Yes, yeah. And forget the fact it was Cadillac. That Cadillac changed my dad's life. Yep. That Cadillac made him feel like all that suffering was worthwhile.
SPEAKER_04Love it. Love that story. That, by the way, is what I say was is the kind of like side benefit of the business that I never expected now that we've gotten big is seeing the life that we can change through cars that we give away to people in need or through careers, people advancing through the company having careers they never dreamed of. We even did a lottery for our employees for for a couple years, um, where we, you know, a hundred grand we give away to the handful of employees. And like seeing the life-changing stuff was like something I never expected that we were able to do as a company. It's pretty awesome. Like, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Don't you feel like you are the custodian of that company? Yeah. That you are responsible for the betterment of the people that work with you. That's what it's all about. It's amazing. 100%. You know, it's funny. I never, and not because I read a management book or a leadership book. I never ever said, You work for me. People would say, I work for Robert. And I always corrected them. I said, You work with me. Yeah, I says and it wasn't like a management, you know, like today, people read this stuff and they they fake it. I just don't think you can fake authenticity. That's what I believed in my company. I loved my company. I loved my company. Like when I walked in, I saw the name on the door. I created that. Like I I created the opportunity for this team of people that we got to work together. I mean, I just I I loved it. And it's funny when you share the same emotion. I agree. When I sold it to equity, it took me a while to realize it's not my company. And the equity guys. I sold to are great. They're fantastic. It's an $80 billion huge global fund, but it's a job. Like they're doing a job. This was my life.
SPEAKER_04See, even though I brought in equity, I still feel it's my I I have a partner to answer to. I view him as a partner, but I left a lot in. I don't know. Um, so my whole farm is still bet on it, even though I brought equity in.
SPEAKER_03But no, I still own a big chunk of it. And I think I think I could have everything.
SPEAKER_04You're the I bet you you're the biggest individual. Meaning a private equity is a bunch of investment money that they're custodians of. But as far as an individual with something at risk, I bet you're still the biggest.
SPEAKER_03For for sure. At least that's the case for me. It's hard to complain because, as you know, you build a company and you create incredible wealth and value on paper, but you have no money. Yeah, it's not in your pocket. That's right. Yeah, it's like it's so funny because you're like, oh my God, I'm so rich on paper. Gosh, why do I have this big mortgage? Um and so it's really nice to get liquidity on a personal level. And I think I could have done a better job of working with equity. I I think the thing I did wrong was I expected everybody else to bleed for the business like I was bleeding for the business. Interesting. Like even the people that work for me, you know, like people used to say, Oh, you know, this is uh work life balance. And I'm like, work life balance. Oh yeah. Are you kidding? Don't get me started. We are all in. And I would never ask somebody to do something that I wasn't willing to do. Yeah. So if we had a meeting at six, I'd be there at four. If we weren't making our numbers and the early morning meetings were at eight, then they got to 7:30. And if we didn't, then it got to seven. But I would be always there for it. And I think as you get bigger and you realize we had a 1,100 employees at the end. Okay. How many do you have now? 11,000. Almost just shy of 11,000. Did you find you have to get to a point where you realize not everybody is going to bleed for the business? And for some people, it's just a job. And that's okay. Yeah, you have to, otherwise you'll drive yourself nuts. I drove myself nuts.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah. First off, like 20% are gonna be awesome, 20% are gonna suck. That's how I feel like it's the 60 in the middle that you try to make better and then push the ones at the top. And then I also have come to realize look, a lot of people just give things half-ass effort. Like they give they're there to get through the day. Right. And no matter what you say or do, like, they're there, unfortunately. Like, but I don't ever treat anybody like they're just somebody there to get through the day because you have higher hopes. But in the end, I'm not surprised.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think my expectation is always that you can do better. I can do better, but I've had to realize not everybody has the same drive I do. And that's okay, as you know, 11,000 people, a thousand people.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it would drive me nuts if I walked in a building and the and I know it was a light bulb out. Uh there would be something that would bug me. Well, I 650 locations across. I promise you, I have hundreds of light bulbs, thousands of light bulbs out. I would literally be in a nut house if I made that my mission and never have that happen. It's so funny, man.
SPEAKER_03I called that uh I call that the two-stapler uh management rule. When I first started the company and uh, you know, we were getting going, we needed a stapler. So we bought a stapler, and then like a week later, I'm walking through the office and I see a stake, second stapler, and I lost my mind. I'm like, why do we have two staplers? Why can't we share a stapler? We're wasting money. Eventually, you got to get to a point where you can't care about how many staplers you have, you know. When you get bigger, I have no idea how many staplers we own. 650 locations. If you're worrying about light bulbs, you're probably worrying about the wrong things. That's right.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so how did all this all this history and and everything? Nothing in here screams Shark Tank to me. So how in the heck did you end up on Shark Tank?
SPEAKER_03So I've been on different versions of Shark Tank for about 22 years. I'd done the American version. Yep. I'd done the Australian version, I did the Egyptian version this year, believe it or not. Oh, really? I didn't even know that was there was one. It's huge. The show runs in 54 countries, but it's huge in Egypt. How I started was on the Canadian version, which is called Dragon's Den. Okay. So one day I'm sitting in my office, I'd sold my tech business for I think $35 million in the 1990s, which was a lot of days. A lot of money that's like, I made the front page in the newspaper and typical immigrant. What I do with my money, I bought the biggest house in Canada.
SPEAKER_04Okay. And it made the front page. Was that like a third of the money? Or yeah, it wasn't eight million dollars. Third to taxes, a third to a house?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'm like, uh oh. How come I have no more money? Oh, yeah, I bought an eight million dollar house. Um, so I get a call from the National Network CBC, and they said, We'd like you to come in for a meeting. And we're having a meeting, we're talking about anything and everything, and I have no idea where this meeting's going. And halfway through, they're like, We want you to be on a TV show. I'm like, What? And they tell me about this TV show out of the UK called Dragon's Den. And I'm like, Oh my god, I'm gonna be famous, I'm gonna be a big TV star. This is great. So I said, What's next? I'm thinking we're gonna start filming tomorrow. I didn't realize I had to audition. Oh, okay. They didn't tell me I was auditioning. So I said, show up tomorrow and we're gonna do like a little, you know, like a little test.
SPEAKER_04And you're thinking that this is show and filming then?
SPEAKER_03Like I'm thinking we're actually showing up to film the show. So I show up and there's four other people there, and five chairs, and they say, sit in the chair, and I said, What do I do? I said, These people are gonna come through the door, tell you about their business, you know, just do your businessy thing. Okay. Like, oh, okay. So first couple comes out, guy next to me starts talking, doesn't stop for a second, and I'm thinking, shit, this guy's really aggressive. Second couple comes out, I start asking a few questions, guy next to me cuts me off and takes the conversation a completely different way. And I'm thinking, oh my god, this guy is so rude. Third couple comes out, I start asking questions, guy cuts me off, I stand up and say to him, if you cut me off one more time, I'm gonna take you outside and beat the crap out of you. That was Kevin.
SPEAKER_04Oh, it was Kevin. I was joking that it was Kevin. I met Kevin.
SPEAKER_03Okay, and I hear Cut and the producers are like, those are the two guys. And that's how Kevin and I both got on the show, and then they filled the other people around us.
SPEAKER_04Okay, and then when they brought it to the US, they brought you guys to do it.
SPEAKER_03They brought the show to America, they hired Mark Burnett to do it. Kevin was on it. I didn't even know there was an American show. They started filming it, and it wasn't clicking. Okay. Mark Burnett was watching it, and Clay Newbell, who's our producer, was like, just it's not the chemistry, something's not right. He happened to be in Vancouver and saw the Canadian version with Kevin and I. Saw me on it and said, We have to get the nice guy to come up. Uh-huh. So they called me out of the blue and they said, We're starting filming Shark Tank. If you can get here by tomorrow, you're on the show. And that was it. And that's how I got on the show. That's great. 18 years later. Still going strong. And Damon and Barbara were there day one. So imagine this. It's Kevin and I, who'd been doing the same format for four years already. Barbara and Damon, a guy named Kevin Harrington. Okay. So we go to film, so it's Damon and Barbara, Kevin Harrington, Kevin and I. First pitch comes out, and Kevin and I are like, boom. And Damon's like, holy shit, what is going on? Because it's so full on. Yeah. But to Damon's credit and Barbara's credit, they got it. Like it's smart people figure it out. Smart people figure it out. To Damon's incredible credit and Barbara's, what they never tried to be was something they're not. Yep. Most guest sharks.
SPEAKER_04Again, the authenticity thing.
SPEAKER_03You can't fake authenticity. And that's the thing. It's such a hard format. People come on the show and they in their mind have this vision of who they are and they act. And I think that's one of the reasons Shark Tank works, is Damon. I mean, you know Damon, he is exactly what you see, isn't he? Yeah. And so is Mark, and so is Kevin, and so is Barbara and so am I. And it's so authentic. And when they started doing it, they didn't try to be something they weren't, they just were themselves and the audience caught up.
SPEAKER_04It clicked. So when you're getting all the pitches you've seen over the years, like I didn't realize until I got to know Damon and he let me come, you know, to the set one day. I didn't realize like you don't get a pre-read of what's coming in. Like it's it's your first hearing of the business when it's when it's being presented. What do you look for? What makes for a successful pitch to you?
SPEAKER_03So we talk about this a lot. As you know, you were you were at filming, so there's a lot of downtime after pitches, and we're all pretty good friends. And but yeah, competitive too. Very competitive, very real. But what do five business people talk about when you're not filming? Business. And the one thing we all disagree about what makes a great pitch. We all agree what makes a bad pitch. And the one thing we agree on is you can tell a bad pitch within the first three minutes. So, as you said, we know nothing about him, doors open, people come out. I think the first thing is the subconscious, how you stand, how you project yourself. Okay. Like you come out and you're like, hi, I have this great business.
SPEAKER_04Like, we're so busy, there's so many pitches. They might not they might even be awesome, but again, how are you gonna have confidence? They're not they're not projecting.
SPEAKER_03How do I know? And I don't have time to get to know them. Yeah, you know, it's not like I'm sitting there waiting for you to come out. You'll find this interesting. I think it was in the third season. This guy comes out, and none of us were really listening. And uh he could tell. At least he know, at least he was aware, not I mean he was aware to know that he'd lost us, and I think he said to Mark or Barbara, hey, you're not listening to me. And I was like, Oh, hang on a sec. It's not my responsibility to listen to you, it's your responsibility to be heard. Did you say that to him? Yeah, I did, and I think that's really true. Like, I'm not gonna do your job for you. You have to make me want to hear, and so I think it's that subconscious. I think the second part of it is how you look, is it consistent with the product you're trying to sell? You're selling me a gaming fun product, and you're coming out and you're really miserable and you're not smiling. Like there's a disconnect subconsciously about what you're trying to pitch. You're selling some fun, you better be smiling. I think if you get past that, then we're pretty open to it. Okay. You know, for me, I think I love sales because I don't I don't have time to build a business anymore. So sales is your proof of concept, and I think we all love sales.
SPEAKER_04So as soon as you hear the numbers and hear that there's a little traction, yeah, I want to get more interested. You know, I've heard you recently talk about AI, and you're super excited about AI from what I can tell. And you made a comment, and I want to make sure I understood it right. You indicated that the consumer part of AI is probably kind of going like there's not longevity in that, it's more in the business side of AI. Is that did I hear that right? Is that what you meant? And what did you mean by that?
SPEAKER_03I think all great technology goes through three phases. Okay. And I think you have the consumer. So look at the internet. You have the consumer phase where at the beginning of the internet, people were actually selling browsers, AOL, internet exploration. You have to pay for people, don't realize you have to pay for a browser.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Today, you pay for chat GPT. The consumer side will cease to exist within the next 18 to 24 months. It'll be part of something else.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_03So you won't pay for chat GPT. It'll be bundled within something else.
SPEAKER_04And you're also not going to start your own consumer because they're already going to have the Google one or the Apple one or so.
SPEAKER_03The second phase will be what do I do with those? So once I have the browser, once I have chat GPT, what am I going to apply it to? And it's all those applications, nursing applications, um, customer service. You know, somebody calls your business in the future, you probably won't have a customer service organization. You'll have an AI customer service organization. We're already developing one to help in the call center. Yeah. Right. So a friend of mine owns a gold's rolled out already, actually. Yeah. And he's using Claude GPT to develop his own Salesforce type product. He's literally programming with no programming knowledge using AI. So I think that's the next phase. But the long-term phase is the picks and shovels. It's the infrastructure part of it, the data of AI. So we're big believers in companies like Databricks, Snowflake. I mean, Databricks just raised the valuation at I think $80 billion and stuff like that. And so it's always the infrastructure. And you look at today in the internet world, you've got Palo Alto and infrastructure companies like that.
SPEAKER_04For us, I see the opportunity for it to assist administratively.
SPEAKER_03Uh, it's not going to fix the cars for us, but administratively, it's going to make so many techs well, you're in a great business because you're in a you're in the perfect business to leverage AI for the benefit of the consumer without eroding the core value of your business. Right. Because the core value of your business at the end of the day, forget all the stuff, is you're fixing someone's car. Yeah. Like that. They're helping people. Yeah. I mean, that is the core value of the business. Not every business is like that. There's a lot of businesses where AI will be able to replace their entire core value. Um, oh, interesting. Telemarketing companies. Like, like cold calling. Uh, there's a lot of those kind of businesses where AI just do it and businesses cease to exist.
SPEAKER_04A lot of this white-collar stuff. Uh but I think I see it for service businesses like ours, even in home services or auto, like in a lot of it with baby boomers retiring and stuff. It's gonna be like I think it's gonna make roll-ups a lot easier to happen. I agree. Yeah, it's so exciting. Now I want to.
SPEAKER_03What do you think the fundamental difference is between a professional CEO and a founder?
SPEAKER_04I've had to learn um a lot. So I I have to, in a way, report up now, right, to a board and to debt investors, and like you never had to do that as a founder, but I am the founder, so I don't view them differently. I just view it as growth that I had to do to appeal to a bigger audience, and I feel like I have to sell myself a lot more to others to others than I used to.
SPEAKER_03I wish I would have had that maturity sooner. I think I wish I did two, like 1500. Just kidding. You know, like I I used to I think when you have your own business, like like think, you know, we got to 300 plus million, it was my cash. Only you. Like at the end, our payroll was 80 something million. And that sounds great. Very respectable though. And by one bad quarter, we could be out of business. Like, and I don't mean we could be out of business. Oh, it's a bad quarter. Like, I could have lost my hat.
SPEAKER_04That's why I went and found private equity, because I didn't have the means anymore to like one thing goes wrong and it'll be over.
SPEAKER_03That's why I found private equity. But the thing the quality I think I over-leveraged was my instinct. And so I was definitely afraid of inertia. Because every one of my competitors I saw in tech would overanalyze. And by the time they acted, you were already done. I was already done. Yep. Speed matters. And I always thought, even if I'm wrong, I'll course adjust.
SPEAKER_04So that's how I act as a founder. What I've learned as I get big is I have to explain my plan B so people don't think I'm gonna run it off the cliff. But to you where I always in my head know I'll adapt, quit worrying about it, and now I have to explain.
SPEAKER_03I I think to your point, when I brought on equity, my ego had a really hard time with that. Okay. You know, because I was like, oh, we should go left. And you know, they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, the board would be like, whoa, why are we going left? And I would be like, Are you actually questioning me? Now that's great. 99.9% of the time I was right and we should have gotten left. But I I could have done a better job of explaining. Because what I realized is when it's your money, it's okay to be wrong with your money. But when it's somebody else's money, you're the custodian. Yes. And when you're the custodian, you know, equity, it's not their money, it's pension plans, it's retirement. They have to justify the investment. And I think I was a little too, you know, gunslinger. Let's just go. You should just trust me because I know what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_04But I was that way in um butt-heads with a CFO that I had that really, it's what really helped me understand. Like, did some personality testing and stuff like that. That you starts doing and start a personality grow. And then I understood. So you have a risk-averse person running your mind, right? Um as a CFO, like that's inherently them. They're risk averse. And then you got me who's all risk. And I'm like, I get it now. I am keeping him up at night, driving him insane because I'm not explaining like what's plan B or what how do we put the brakes on this? Or how like it helped me to understand it.
SPEAKER_03Let me ask you this. I mean, you're in your 50s now, you've built an incredibly successful company. I'm sure you have a lot of friends when you were growing up that may not have made it for whatever reason. When you look back, what do you think is the characteristic between people that have made it and those that haven't?
SPEAKER_04The drive and the willing to take risk and bet on yourself.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I agree.
SPEAKER_04I think I think it's it's the ability to believe in yourself regardless of willing to have nothing if you have like most people are well, I need the cushion or I need the like I I didn't make money for decades.
SPEAKER_03I always think I was lucky I didn't make any money in my twenties. Yeah. Because I would have never taken the risk. I think I think that the greatest time to take a risk is when you have nothing. Because when you're at the bottom, you don't have far to fall.
SPEAKER_04And I think life is always a roller coaster of some sort. And I almost feel most comfortable when it when the roller coaster is at a bottom point because I'm never like, oh, how much worse can it get? But I am like, it seems like we're getting to where like things gotta go the other way at some point. Like, and now I feel like we're we're at the bottom, we're about to go up. When you're at the top, you're always I'm always worried about okay, what's gonna go wrong? What shoe's gonna fall? When it when they've already fallen, now I feel like I'm more in control. Like I can control now the the climate.
SPEAKER_03You'll find this interesting. I had this again, Mark conversation one day, and um I always think, what could I have done to have built a bigger company?
SPEAKER_04What does Mark tell you?
SPEAKER_03Like, why did I build a billion dollar company, not a $10 billion company? Like, what was wrong with me? And I had This really interesting conversation with Mark that I think answered it for me. I'm highly risk-oriented, but also highly risk averse, meaning I never wanted to go backwards in life. So every time we made a decision, I wanted to make sure it wasn't going to kill us. Do you know what I mean? Like if I was placing a bet, like I worked so hard to get to this level, I never wanted to go back here. To nothing. I was willing to go back a little, but I never, I was deathly afraid of losing everything.
SPEAKER_04Because you the determination to never be poor.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I just I can't go back there. Yeah. So Mark says, not me, man. Every decision I made, I bet everything on the line. I'm still too. And and I'm like, every time you made a bet, did you expect it to work out? And he's like, 100% of the time. No any margin for failure. And I admire that so much because you know, like in my business, I was like, okay, we're doing this, let's go. But if it doesn't work out, we'll adjust. And I admire that so much about him because he's like, oh no, man, we're going. What if it doesn't work out? It's gonna work out.
SPEAKER_04If I ever get to meet Mark, I'll have to because I feel like I think like that, but obviously not to the degree that's so, or quite obviously, so I'll have to talk to him about that if I ever get to meet him. Um, and to go back on your question, I also think the difference is dreaming that big in the first place. I feel like I spend half of my days getting people to think bigger, to think of like not what it is or a little bit better than forget a little bit better than last year. Like, what could it be? And like, why aren't we shooting thinking for that? And I feel like I'm pulling a train on that mindset always.
SPEAKER_03I always say if I would have dreamt bigger, I would have been more successful. And you know, in my company, we did a lot of MA. So I bought in the last company, I bought 13 companies on the way to building the company. And one of the tricks I would use when I meet the founder is uh I'd always say, Hey, tell me what you guys are gonna do next year. Okay. And there was no, there was no bad answer, but there was only one right answer. And the right answer was the founder or CEO who could give me a specific target.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_03Our goal next year is 6.5 million. That's our forecast. Are we gonna get there? We're sure it's not gonna try, but it's 6.5 million. The bad answer was we don't really know. We'll see how it goes. Yeah, you have to have a plan. Yeah, I'm like, if you're not committed to growth, you're committed to failure. Like you just you can't kind of stumble into growth.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, right. So that's probably gonna answer the question, like just a few rapid fire questions. I was gonna ask probably what do you think entrepreneurs of small business entrepreneurs should be obsessed over that they're not? And it might be that, I don't know, but uh their growth.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Show me a small business that's in trouble, I'll show you an entrepreneur that's in trouble. Show me a small business that's growing, and I'll show you one friggin' driven together entrepreneur.
SPEAKER_04Love it. And what do you think is the hardest that you've seen for founders as stuff starts to scale? What do you think the challenges and and scaling I have this problem?
SPEAKER_03Letting go. I used to control, huh? Yeah. I used to say I am the best salesman in our business. And then one day I'm like, hang on a second. If I'm the best salesman in our business, how am I ever going to sell the business? Like, how are other people gonna be great at it? The job of a founder at a certain point becomes to create other leaders, not to be the only leader. And I learned that probably too late.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, to some degree, I might still be learning it. Um, but I always have tried to put smarter people in the room than me or people have done it that I haven't like it's kind of been the hack of growing quick, is to surround yourself with people who have been there, done that if you can. Asking for help, I've heard you talk about um a little bit, and I feel like that's been difficult, maybe in some ways for me. It's very important and powerful to ask for help sometimes. Um, why do you think people struggle maybe, especially entrepreneurs might might struggle with that? And why do you think that it's key to to understand to know when to do that?
SPEAKER_03I think it's I I mean, think about a typical blue-collar entrepreneur. You've done it, you've done it with the power of your own will. You've had to create everything around you to be successful, and I think asking for help is often seen by us as weakness. Yeah. But I also think you've got to know yourself. I I I ran a highly stressful big business, just like I'm sure uh you do, but I knew when I got to a point that I needed to, you know, disconnect. Okay. Like I would run hard for a very long time. And then one day I'd be just like, oh, I'm crashing. Like I'm crashing. You could sense it. I could sense it.
SPEAKER_04I look back at like maybe a year or so ago, and I think I was in a burnout phase and didn't realize it.
SPEAKER_03But looking at it now, I think it's And we realize when you're like that, you're not any good to anybody else. And then everybody's different. Like for me, it's working out and running and all this other stuff I do. But I think when you have the ability to understand yourself, you can you can get over that.
SPEAKER_04What's the l lesson that you would say you learned the hard way? The hardest lesson you learned?
SPEAKER_03Scaling and letting go. Like letting other leaders like grooming other people for the business in the right way, like like giving other people that opportunity. I probably held on uh too much. And I think again, it's the blue collar. You know, when when you have everything on the line, if it fails, you're done. I think I think there's immense pressure uh that it probably didn't handle really well. I could have been better at.
SPEAKER_04One last thing I wanted to ask you about because I think it's uh um very interesting is you've commented on selling and uh if nothing else, sell joy. What do you mean by that? Because it was helpful for me to hear your conversation around that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, look at you. You are a nice guy, you have a great smile. It makes people want to be around you. The thing about business, uh at its fundamental core, inevitably, business is a human relationship. You know, you you have a massive business and you deal with insurance company, and it's it's a lot of process, it's a lot of systems, it's a lot of scale, but inevitably for the really big decisions, it's gonna come down to a human relationship, whether you see it affect the customer, employee, or partner, right? Yeah, how does your person fixing the car deal with that consumer? How does your person to sign up an insurance company deal with the insurance company? How do you deal with the equity guys? And what I learned early on was all my competitors were hardcore techie guys. Yeah, they'd go in and talk about how great the technology was, and nobody remembered them. I said, because I wasn't very technical, so I said, if you have nothing to sell, sell joy. You may not have remembered the product I was selling, but for sure you remembered me. And what you remembered about me was that I made you feel good. And the purpose of any meeting is to get the next meeting. And what I tried to do was when I got into the meeting, I just wanted to make sure that when I called them again for a follow-up, they were gonna have a pleasant experience. That I brought a smile to their face and they give me that opportunity. I mean, eventually you have to actually fix cars and I had to have great technology and all that stuff, but joy keeps you in the game. And it's not just you as the founder, it's all your the people that work with you. It's everything, it's the sign on your wall, it's the receptionist, it's you know, like the I'm a super easygoing guy, I'm a great guy to work for 98% of the time. But if you're rude to a customer, no tolerance for it. God help you, like zero tolerance for being rude, zero tolerance for not following up, and zero tolerance for excuses. Like if you're gonna tell a customer you're we're gonna get to you by five in my company, we got to by four.
SPEAKER_04Yep. You know, like double your excuse for not. I believe you're spot on with this for sure. It's kind of the classic of a different version of the whole people are gonna forget what you said, but they're gonna remember how you made them feel. Always right, same thing. Yeah. So one final question. The the way we end this uh podcast, and again, thanks so much for doing it. Podcrash. Podcrash, yep. Yeah, is uh a podcast. By the way, Paul's naming a podcast Podcrash. Yeah, that I'll have to tell you that story about how the name of the company of Crash Champions, but it was uh one of those once I finally heard the name, like I'm I'm the type like when you're shopping, like once you see what you want, there it is. Like no name more. Hundreds and hundreds of names I didn't like, but once I heard that one, I'm like, yes, and I felt it would be memorable and different. And then yeah, when we were naming this, of course, with the name Crash Champions, Podcrash fit right in. But we're all about championing people. Um, I told you about the side effect of doing good for others, changing lives. And so given the microphone in front of you the opportunity, if you were going to champion a person right now, who would it be and why?
SPEAKER_03Gosh, I'm going through a phase where I'm so laser focused on my kids. And, you know, like 90% of my energy is trying to be a better father. I understand that. Be present uh for them. And everybody I meet, I try to give back, you know, like I try to spend time and spend energy with everyone. I think if I was gonna champion anybody, I would uh champion my kids. I mean, I just it's it's the phase of my life that I'm in. I love it. That's great. Um well or Damon, because he needs a lot of help.
SPEAKER_04We'll make sure he watches this part. We'll make sure we'll put it right on social media.
SPEAKER_03Because he's the only guy shorter than me on this show. On the show?
SPEAKER_04Damon's been a real blessing for us to have connected with him. You know, it's the classic seeking out somebody who's good at something I'm not good at, and he's been a real help to us. I'll tell you. Heck, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for him.
SPEAKER_03I'll tell you the thing that I really I have so much respect and admire admiration for him. One of the greatest quotes he ever gave me was I asked him, what is the definition of a great brand? And he said to me, a great brand is one where when the consumer experiences it, it is consistent with what they thought of it before they did. Understood. And I thought that was so great. Because how many brands you have this expectation of, and then you go in the store, you experience the service, and it's kind of like, eh. But a great brand is when you think, oh my gosh, I'm gonna walk in, get my car repaired. It's gonna be great. The service is gonna be awesome, and you get there, and it is.
SPEAKER_04Yep, that's why Crash Champions were heroes for people in a time of need. Like, and that's what we want it to feel like. And that's a great brand. Love it. Thanks again, Robert. Thank you very much, Matt. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. If you want more podcrash in your life, which of course you do, make sure to like, follow, and subscribe to us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. Catch you next time.