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Speaker 3: All right, guys, welcome back. Ey L is still in Atlanta,
Speaker 3: enjoying our time out here. And this is a this
Speaker 3: is a very special episode for a few different yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 3: so dal Freeman really, dal Freeman Senior, this is gonna
Speaker 3: be an interesting conversation because so if your loyal listeners
Speaker 3: are your leader, you know that we interviewed Swimming Husky.
Speaker 3: Shout out to the whole team. So those guys have
Speaker 3: a unique pizza operation that they're running, and they're from Nashville, Tennessee.
Speaker 3: But now they have they have a shop in Memphis,
Speaker 3: they have a couple of shops in Atlanta. They just
Speaker 3: opened the Sacramento shop and that we were talking about.
Speaker 3: You know that they're more than just restaurant tours there.
Speaker 3: They have the real estate played behind it and all
Speaker 3: of that. So when we did the episode, I guess
Speaker 3: one of the guys have must forwarded to yeah, mister
Speaker 3: Freeman and turns out that he's at one of their
Speaker 3: mentors and business partners.
Speaker 4: I just learned as well.
Speaker 3: So that started the conversation of like, yo, yah should
Speaker 3: interview him.
Speaker 2: Was like he's the old Okay.
Speaker 4: So it's like all.
Speaker 3: Right, so keeping in the Nashville We've interviewed a few
Speaker 3: people from Nashville.
Speaker 4: Now out there we got snoop.
Speaker 3: Right now, go to the plane part two.
Speaker 2: You want to talk about first.
Speaker 5: So this is the first time somebody flew into the
Speaker 5: interview now commercial like literally like, hey, I'm leaving Tennessee
Speaker 5: with my plane to fly to Atlanta right now.
Speaker 4: He did. That's the first he did. He did.
Speaker 3: He flew, he flew himself private plane to the airport,
Speaker 3: did the interview, and then he's going Ferrari shop.
Speaker 4: So it might be for this.
Speaker 3: Dal Freeman so serial entrepreneur, founder of Zecon Zikon Computer
Speaker 3: computer Services and is an IT company. He actually sold
Speaker 3: to BG Staffing. I started in nineteen ninety one, sold
Speaker 3: it in twenty seventeen for twenty three million dollars three million,
Speaker 3: twenty three million.
Speaker 4: You break it down for you, okay.
Speaker 6: Twenty nineteen million cash making their stock and a three million.
Speaker 3: Dollar okay, came to twenty twenty three million, has two
Speaker 3: thousand dollars in it that you startarted with. That's a good,
Speaker 3: great return, I know.
Speaker 6: I mean there's a stock broke in here somewhere that
Speaker 6: put those numbers.
Speaker 3: Don't let that go over you, please don't, please don't.
Speaker 3: He's also the co founder of Relyant Bank. He is
Speaker 3: a real estate investor, big time real estate investor. He
Speaker 3: is the co founder of Pinnacle Construction partners. He also
Speaker 3: is a chairman of S three asset recycling solutions company.
Speaker 3: Anything I'm missing, Troy uh. He has a two dollars
Speaker 3: general he competed, he completed, not competed, completed ten iron
Speaker 3: Man races.
Speaker 4: Yes, I mean, and and he's a his stock investor.
Speaker 2: So I think we got it all.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to hit the table. So yeah, his reputation
Speaker 3: precedes itself. So first and foremost having me thank you
Speaker 3: for joining us. I was just about to say thank
Speaker 3: you for joining us, no problem. So let's jump right
Speaker 3: into it because this is an interesting conversation. I was
Speaker 3: telling you, we've never had anybody that has sold their business.
Speaker 3: We've had a couple of people that's been offered, you know, buyouts,
Speaker 3: but they haven't taken it. So you've actually built, You
Speaker 3: built a business, and then you sold the business, and
Speaker 3: now you're in the process of actually helping other people
Speaker 3: in teaching them that game.
Speaker 4: Right, So can you.
Speaker 3: Walk us through that that first process, because it's a
Speaker 3: long process. From nineteen ninety one to twenty seventeen, that's
Speaker 3: a long process. But how did what was that steps
Speaker 3: into building that business and then selling that business?
Speaker 6: So I started the company in the office the size
Speaker 6: of a closet, with two thousand dollars in savings, my
Speaker 6: wife's credit cords.
Speaker 7: You're still married to it. Rights lost a couple of
Speaker 7: credit cards a long way, but we got them back.
Speaker 6: So it went from one person to about three hundred people.
Speaker 6: And the main things that when you're building a business,
Speaker 6: you want to build stability, You want to build you
Speaker 6: want to get customs with long term contracts.
Speaker 7: You want to create a history of.
Speaker 6: Performance, and you want to build a business around people,
Speaker 6: not around yourselves, around yourself. And so what happens most
Speaker 6: of the times is the entrepreneur builds the business around
Speaker 6: his or herself. And so I built the business from
Speaker 6: nineteen ninety one to somewhere in two thousand and six
Speaker 6: or seven. I built it from ten thousand and sales
Speaker 6: to about sixteen million in sales. But I recognized that
Speaker 6: I couldn't take it any further because I didn't have
Speaker 6: the skill set. Oftentimes entrepreneurs are the CEOs because they
Speaker 6: started the company, but they were really not qualified to
Speaker 6: be the CEO. So I really wasn't qualified to be
Speaker 6: the CEO. But since I owned off the stock, I
Speaker 6: was the CEO. But I recognized one day when I
Speaker 6: built this team of great people and the sales were
Speaker 6: stagnant for a couple of years, I recognized it wasn't
Speaker 6: the people that I built around me, that it was
Speaker 6: me that was the problem. And so I fired myself.
Speaker 6: So in building a business, don't build it around yourself.
Speaker 6: Build it around people. Get loan, you know, be it
Speaker 6: for long, long term contracts. Build it around people, established
Speaker 6: long streams of revenue. So I fired myself and I
Speaker 6: hired a CEO of a company that was one of
Speaker 6: our competitors, and he had been with a company that
Speaker 6: had gone from zero to over one hundred million, and
Speaker 6: so I offered him the presidency of role at my company.
Speaker 6: And so now you got this nice little package that
Speaker 6: is not built around you that people are starting to
Speaker 6: look at and say, man, I could buy that team
Speaker 6: and that company. It's not Darell Freeman. It's actually a
Speaker 6: company that stands on its own. So he took it
Speaker 6: from sixteen million to about.
Speaker 7: Forty million a year a year.
Speaker 6: Okay, sixteen I'm sorry, sixteen million a year in revenue
Speaker 6: to about forty million a year in revenue. Our conversations
Speaker 6: would go like this. I would say, why don't we
Speaker 6: try this? I was a chairman. He would say, he
Speaker 6: would say back to me, when I tried that at
Speaker 6: the other company, this is what happened.
Speaker 7: So he came to the table with.
Speaker 6: A bunch of experience, right, And so I built a
Speaker 6: company around people got long term contracts. I had an
Speaker 6: outstanding accounting department, because you need to have numbers. They
Speaker 6: need to be they need to be numbers that are
Speaker 6: all your TC's across all your ic to be dotted
Speaker 6: every year. Even though I didn't have to. I got
Speaker 6: a certified audit. I got all our numbers outed it
Speaker 6: every year.
Speaker 7: And so.
Speaker 6: When we got to about forty million, we got it
Speaker 6: was like a We got to forty million, but we
Speaker 6: couldn't get any higher. And I recognized at that time
Speaker 6: I had the forty million dollar team. I didn't have
Speaker 6: the hundred million dollar team. It is before when I
Speaker 6: was leading it, I had the sixteen million dollar team.
Speaker 6: But for me to go from the forty million dollar
Speaker 6: team to the hundred million dollar team, which was my
Speaker 6: goal goal, I wouldn't need to replace those team members,
Speaker 6: but those team members like family to me, and so
Speaker 6: I decided at that point, as opposed to bring it
Speaker 6: in a whole new team, that it was time to sell,
Speaker 6: it was time to exit. And it was a perfect
Speaker 6: point because many of our contracts were at the beginning
Speaker 6: stages where they had their most value, and we had
Speaker 6: a long history of stable customers that we had built,
Speaker 6: and we had built it even though I'm an African American,
Speaker 6: I did not build a black company.
Speaker 7: I built a quality company. And so.
Speaker 6: When you do that in the marketplace and you create
Speaker 6: cash flow and consistent ebitdah, people recognized Green. So I
Speaker 6: approached a a banker here in Atlanta and said, we're
Speaker 6: interested in selling, and we talked about the business and
Speaker 6: what it needs. You know, what needs to change in
Speaker 6: the business, et cetera. Accept and I said, hey, I
Speaker 6: can make those adjustments. And so we put the business.
Speaker 6: We went through a process with the banker. Now, choosing
Speaker 6: the banker is that's a very important decision because you
Speaker 6: want to choose the best banker for your industry. So
Speaker 6: I chose the best banker for the information technology staffing industry.
Speaker 6: A banker that was selling two or three businesses a month.
Speaker 6: I mean they were they knew who the buyers were,
Speaker 6: they knew who was who would be interested. They knew
Speaker 6: how my business should look.
Speaker 2: And so how does that search process work?
Speaker 5: Right, Like, if I'm a person that has I want
Speaker 5: to sell the company, how do I know, like this
Speaker 5: is the best person in the industry.
Speaker 7: So I interviewed them.
Speaker 4: Okay, I interviewed them.
Speaker 6: So I wanted to see who was the best in
Speaker 6: the business. So I called a couple of VC funds,
Speaker 6: uh VC people and they said, well, if we're buying
Speaker 6: a company, we normally will buy it from here. And
Speaker 6: so we found a guy by the name Alan Bugler,
Speaker 6: Child's advisor here in Atlanta.
Speaker 7: He was terrific.
Speaker 6: I mean he you know, he brought he brought the
Speaker 6: So we put the package together. He brought the players
Speaker 6: to potential buyers at the table, and we met with them,
Speaker 6: had drinks with them, talk with them.
Speaker 7: The first time.
Speaker 6: The first offer was like fourteen million dollars, and I said, guys,
Speaker 6: here's the other thing.
Speaker 7: You gotta know what your value is. I knew that
Speaker 7: wasn't the number.
Speaker 2: You walked in with it in your mindset.
Speaker 3: So how do you value Because all right, so if
Speaker 3: you if you're making if the company is making forty
Speaker 3: million a year gross gross, right, right, So how did
Speaker 3: you decide? Because I always heard this like like was
Speaker 3: it ten times the net that you're bringing in? Is
Speaker 3: that like a rough hand.
Speaker 7: No, So it varies, but it varies by industry.
Speaker 6: So in the staffing business, at that time, business was
Speaker 6: businesses were selling for anywhere from five to seven times
Speaker 6: ebitdah and that uh, income before taxes, interest, appreciation and
Speaker 6: some other.
Speaker 4: Okay, that's happening.
Speaker 6: So where they where they they.
Speaker 7: Kind of level out.
Speaker 6: You know, what the business is worth if you take
Speaker 6: out if you take out what you paid in taxes,
Speaker 6: what you paid out and depreciation, what you paid out
Speaker 6: I think I said taxes, what you put out an interest,
Speaker 6: and so it kind of puts the business on a
Speaker 6: level playing field. So you strip all those things out
Speaker 6: and find out what the actual cash flow of the businesses.
Speaker 6: And so in our business, I sold it for about
Speaker 6: five six times ibad.
Speaker 7: Uh and so that's what it was true. That's a
Speaker 7: lot of business was selling for.
Speaker 6: Now I am now in the recycling business information technology
Speaker 6: recycling business business. The multiple for ebadad sales for in
Speaker 6: this business is eight to fourteen times, so it has
Speaker 6: a chance to be way more valuable right than the
Speaker 6: first one. And so that's how you so you took me.
Speaker 6: You determine what your ebadat is and then you know
Speaker 6: in the marketplace what we're trades at. And one way
Speaker 6: you can do that is you can go to the
Speaker 6: stock market and find an IT company. You look at
Speaker 6: their stock and see where it's trading at the market cap,
Speaker 6: and then you look at their ebadah. Then you can
Speaker 6: capulate the multiple from that because what the market cap
Speaker 6: is what the company is selling at.
Speaker 3: So so you sold, all right, so five times what
Speaker 3: you were kind of bringing in that for layman terms
Speaker 3: kind of similar to that, similar to that, So you
Speaker 3: knew you had that twenty million dollar number. So when
Speaker 3: they came in fourteen the first offer, what was your
Speaker 3: response like, was it a negotiation or what? Just like
Speaker 3: fled out no good, okay, yah good? And how many
Speaker 3: other offers came before that twenty million?
Speaker 6: Officers came in different ranges And so sometimes people they
Speaker 6: may offer you that, they may say, well, hey, we'll
Speaker 6: give you fourteen million cash cash, we'll give you four
Speaker 6: million of our stock and another four million in earnout.
Speaker 6: So all I can about was cash, because if I
Speaker 6: took your stock and they didn't do anything, and if
Speaker 6: your stock is private, it's worseeness to me. Right, And
Speaker 6: if I took four million in earnout, earnout means I
Speaker 6: got to perform for a certain period of.
Speaker 7: Time to get that. Well, I didn't want that.
Speaker 6: I wanted the majority of the sale to be cash.
Speaker 7: And so so the.
Speaker 6: Nineteen million cash and a million of stock that was
Speaker 6: publicly traded that actually doubled when I had it.
Speaker 4: So and then we want to three million earnout.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the part I'm thinking about. So the earn
Speaker 2: out part, are you still working?
Speaker 5: You sell the company, but you're still working, and you
Speaker 5: have like things you need to meet, goals you need
Speaker 5: to meet to reach the three million.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna now, I'm gonna take you back to when
Speaker 6: I fired myself and hire the person the earnout. So
Speaker 6: it was nineteen million cash on April third and a
Speaker 6: milligan stopped. Then a three million dollar earnout that was
Speaker 6: over a two year period based on the company's performance. Right,
Speaker 6: And so since I had a team in place, I
Speaker 6: didn't have to go and do that performance. Because we
Speaker 6: had a team in place that was running the company.
Speaker 6: And when the when BG Staffing bought my company, I
Speaker 6: explained to them that I had a CEO and a
Speaker 6: great management team and that they ran the company that
Speaker 6: I didn't. And so they put some targets out there
Speaker 6: for us to hit, for the team to hit get
Speaker 6: to the three million.
Speaker 2: I have one hundred million dollar team, definitely the US.
Speaker 7: They hit the numbers. I got the three million.
Speaker 6: Now what I also did when I sold the company,
Speaker 6: there was a there was a group of people that
Speaker 6: had been with me for a long time.
Speaker 4: Ask about that.
Speaker 7: They built me for a long time.
Speaker 6: And I had a good friend of mine who started
Speaker 6: the company with me back in nineteen ninety one, who
Speaker 6: had retired a whole bunch of years back. And so
Speaker 6: I called them all into a room and I said,
Speaker 6: you all have been with me for a long time.
Speaker 6: I remember I just got the wire. And I said,
Speaker 6: here's a check. Here's a check for you, a check
Speaker 6: for you, a check for you, big checks that they
Speaker 6: ain't never seen before. And then one individual has two
Speaker 6: he had two small kids, and I said to him,
Speaker 6: I said, I know why.
Speaker 7: You're working, because he was my age. You know why
Speaker 7: you're working.
Speaker 6: You got two small kids. You're working because college fund,
Speaker 6: et cetera, et cetera. I said, what I want you
Speaker 6: to do is you go home to your wife and
Speaker 6: you find out from her what it's going to take
Speaker 6: to send your two kids to college. These kids for
Speaker 6: eight ten years old. You go home and find out
Speaker 6: what's going to take to send them to college. I'm
Speaker 6: back tomorrow and let me know what that number is.
Speaker 6: He went home, He came back, tell me what the
Speaker 6: number was. I told myself, go in his office and
Speaker 6: cut the check for that number. When you build a
Speaker 6: business around people, you got to take care of your people,
Speaker 6: and you got to realize that the people that are
Speaker 6: on your team, they.
Speaker 7: Are the ones that make the company valuable.
Speaker 4: It's not you.
Speaker 6: So you see all you see a bunch of companies
Speaker 6: today where they built the companies around them themselves.
Speaker 7: You can't grow that way. When everything has to flow
Speaker 7: through you.
Speaker 6: It's hard to grow, and it's not you're not building
Speaker 6: value because if you want to go sell it, they
Speaker 6: know that if you if you get hit by a
Speaker 6: bus tomorrow, you that the party's over. But if you
Speaker 6: build a team that has value.
Speaker 5: Can we go back just for a second, because I'm thinking,
Speaker 5: and I guess in twenty twelve, when you decided, like,
Speaker 5: in order for this company to grow, I need to
Speaker 5: set back to find myself. What's that process like? Is
Speaker 5: it like a you have to like weigh these things
Speaker 5: in the mirror. It's like, because I don't imagine this
Speaker 5: is like an ego check or it's a humbling experience.
Speaker 7: That's That's the other thing. You don't need to have
Speaker 7: an ego as an entrepreneur. You have confidence, but you
Speaker 7: don't need to have an ego. So I knew, now.
Speaker 6: Mind you, at sixteen million a year, I had a
Speaker 6: great lifestyle. I had a plane, but it wasn't I mean,
Speaker 6: I had.
Speaker 7: A little plane. It wasn't a plane I got now,
Speaker 7: but I had a little plan.
Speaker 2: I was thinking, like I had a car but okay,
Speaker 2: But but.
Speaker 7: It was a comfortable lifestyle.
Speaker 6: But for the people around me to grow and to develop,
Speaker 6: I needed to grow that company to help them grow
Speaker 6: and develop.
Speaker 2: You got you.
Speaker 6: You know people that have been with you for ten years.
Speaker 6: One start out as a junior accountant. For me to
Speaker 6: need a CFO, I need to grow that company so
Speaker 6: she could grow into that role. And so growing a
Speaker 6: company for me was more so about the people than
Speaker 6: the money. When when I sold the company, now I
Speaker 6: told you I started with two thousands and savings.
Speaker 7: My payroll was two My payroll was a million dollars every.
Speaker 2: Two weeks in ninety one.
Speaker 6: No, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, it was a million dollars every
Speaker 6: two weeks. It was about the people, and so we
Speaker 6: ran a company that was about the people. I'm doing
Speaker 6: the same thing with Street Recycling Solutions. It's about the people.
Speaker 3: So when you walk away with the twenty million, a
Speaker 3: couple questions I have about.
Speaker 4: That, it's good, I assume.
Speaker 7: So I'm gonna do it again way more.
Speaker 3: I believe. I believe what is the strategy to mitigate taxes?
Speaker 4: Is that? Or you just have because it's like ordinary
Speaker 4: income right now?
Speaker 6: No, it's not ordinary income. It's uh, it's tax capital games.
Speaker 6: It's like a stock cap. Okay, but you do. But see,
Speaker 6: you go through all that math in your head when
Speaker 6: you set the number twenty million, and whatever the number
Speaker 6: you set, you set that number in your head, and
Speaker 6: then you go through. You meet with your turney and say,
Speaker 6: this is what the deal looks like. You meet with
Speaker 6: your accountant. This is what the deal's look deal looks like,
Speaker 6: and then they tell you at the end of all
Speaker 6: of that, what you're going to have. And then you
Speaker 6: go to your wife and say, Okay, this is what
Speaker 6: it's going to be, and you realize that you're set.
Speaker 6: Like if you can't go out and do stupid stuff,
Speaker 6: but if you go out and make reasonable investments, you're good.
Speaker 6: Your kids are good. And if you make reasonable investments,
Speaker 6: their kids are good. And so it wasn't a big
Speaker 6: It wasn't a and for me, unlike somebody who gets
Speaker 6: a big contract to play some sport, I had accumulated
Speaker 6: over the years all the things that we had wanted,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean, I didn't I didn't have
Speaker 6: to go out and buy another house. We already had
Speaker 6: a house. I need to go out and buy a
Speaker 6: car if we already I mean, all the things that
Speaker 6: we had wanted, all the we had ran it. We
Speaker 6: had lived a pretty simple lifestyle. I mean, I had
Speaker 6: to plane this big, but I could have afforded a
Speaker 6: plane this big, but I didn't. And so that's the
Speaker 6: other thing is stay in your lane. You always stayed
Speaker 6: in our financial lane, even though our lane may have
Speaker 6: been this big we lived in this part. So even
Speaker 6: today I stay in my lane. People said, well, why
Speaker 6: don't you buy jet? I ain't in my lane.
Speaker 4: Yeah I got.
Speaker 6: If I brought a jet I got, I might have
Speaker 6: to think about the few costs I might have to
Speaker 6: think about it.
Speaker 7: The plane I got, Now I have to think about it.
Speaker 3: And you stayed on what after you sold the company's
Speaker 3: we still with him?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 6: So I had a two year out, so to sign
Speaker 6: a two year contract with them to be on their
Speaker 6: team for two years. It turned into it's a It
Speaker 6: turned into it turned out to be a great relationship
Speaker 6: because their CEO and me similar attitudes towards people. That
Speaker 6: the company is built on people, and so it's a
Speaker 6: great partnership. So when they when the two years were over,
Speaker 6: they said, let's do it again. And then three years came,
Speaker 6: they said, let's.
Speaker 7: Do it again.
Speaker 2: Is it the same CEO that you brought in?
Speaker 6: No, this is the CEO of the company that bought
Speaker 6: my company. O. Now, the cool part about the people
Speaker 6: that were.
Speaker 7: On the people that were on my team.
Speaker 6: Most of them are still there and they've taken on
Speaker 6: more responsibilities.
Speaker 7: So when this company went out and.
Speaker 6: Bought other companies, they asked my CEO to run those companies.
Speaker 2: Let's been ton, let's spend ton.
Speaker 7: So so it's all about having the right people on
Speaker 7: your team.
Speaker 5: When when you had and correct me if I'm wrong,
Speaker 5: did you you own the land that the company was
Speaker 5: on or you know, because that's that's that's the other
Speaker 5: play to it, because it's like, yeah, you stall the company,
Speaker 5: but you're still on the land.
Speaker 6: Yes, And so Zach Clark spent a number of years.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 6: Well, first of all, at the beginning, I couldn't buy
Speaker 6: anything right right, right right. We were paying our office
Speaker 6: space one hundred and fifty square feet. Our rent was
Speaker 6: one hundred and fifty dollars. Then I moved to the
Speaker 6: National Business Incubation Center, where we stayed.
Speaker 7: For five years.
Speaker 6: Kind of a low rent incubator, help us grow kind
Speaker 6: of place. Then when we left there, I bought a building, yeah,
Speaker 6: in North Nashville over the other projects. And people are like, well,
Speaker 6: why would you buy all? That's because I wanted to
Speaker 6: be an inspiration to the people in this neighborhood and
Speaker 6: so and.
Speaker 7: Plus I bought the building. It's our building.
Speaker 6: I'd rather have a place that I own in my
Speaker 6: neighborhood or our neighborhood, then be renting at some twenty
Speaker 6: five story office building in the middle of downtown.
Speaker 7: I want to own it.
Speaker 6: Where I grew up my family, there was five groups,
Speaker 6: five families, my mom, her sisters.
Speaker 7: We were all renters. I don't want to rent. I
Speaker 7: don't want to rent. I don't want to read nothing.
Speaker 7: I don't want to read a car. I don't want
Speaker 7: to rent nothing.
Speaker 6: And so, yeah, we bought the building, and then we
Speaker 6: outgrew that building, but I kept it, and.
Speaker 7: Now it's least we bought another building.
Speaker 4: I kept it.
Speaker 6: The company that bought my company stayed in it for
Speaker 6: a year, paid me rent for a year, and then yeah.
Speaker 2: That's amazing, that's incredible.
Speaker 4: Love it. That's it. That's the key.
Speaker 6: But I'll tell you a funny story about that building.
Speaker 6: So they stayed in it for a year, and then
Speaker 6: I decided it wasn't a good decision.
Speaker 7: I decided I was going to sell it.
Speaker 6: So I bought it for six hundred thousand, put three
Speaker 6: hundred thousand dollars in it. So now I got nine
Speaker 6: hundred thousand in it. I decided in twenty seventeen, after
Speaker 6: two thousand twenty eighteen, seventeen eighteen that I was going
Speaker 6: to sell that building. I put on them work for
Speaker 6: two point four million, and a guy came and said,
Speaker 6: I'll give you two million for it, take it or
Speaker 6: leave it.
Speaker 7: I didn't like the way he talked to me. I
Speaker 7: told him to get lost.
Speaker 6: He talked to me as though I needed to have
Speaker 6: the that I need, like I needed the money, like
Speaker 6: it was a desperate And then I got there thinking about, man,
Speaker 6: all these years I've been buying real estate, why should
Speaker 6: I start selling now? So now, my daughter on vacation
Speaker 6: at our home in the Bahamas last week, she came
Speaker 6: up with a new mission statement, which is the Freemans
Speaker 6: ain't selling nothing no more real estate wise, that's our
Speaker 6: new mission stake. We ain't selling nothing. State was because
Speaker 6: real estate you think about when you have kids and
Speaker 6: they have kids, and they have.
Speaker 7: Kids, it's easily you could easily pass it down.
Speaker 6: So yeah, so where was that Chrumbin was located the
Speaker 6: corporate office now in our sellite office.
Speaker 7: We didn't own those spaces all right.
Speaker 5: So in that process, and I'm thinking, when does the
Speaker 5: Pinnacle Construction Partners come in?
Speaker 2: Because if you're buying the real estate and maybe you're building.
Speaker 5: It was that the vision like I'm going to have
Speaker 5: a construction company in the event that I body spaces.
Speaker 6: No Pinnacle construction company came out of a large there
Speaker 6: was a large convention center being built in Nashurally. I
Speaker 6: can't think of the year that it was two thousand
Speaker 6: and seven, two thousand and eight. And so me and
Speaker 6: a friend of mine named Michael Carter, we pursued that
Speaker 6: opportunity with another company, and the other company thought that,
Speaker 6: you know, they thought that we started the company just
Speaker 6: to be a part of that build process, to be
Speaker 6: to be like the minority partner. And I said, I'm
Speaker 6: not starting any businesses to be a minority partner, just
Speaker 6: to be a minority partner. So we didn't win that deal,
Speaker 6: but we hired a great CEO to run a company,
Speaker 6: and then.
Speaker 7: We didn't win that, But we want a whole bunch
Speaker 7: of other things.
Speaker 6: And so that business has been in business since two
Speaker 6: thousand and seven and it's located in our building.
Speaker 3: So yeah, So the Slim and Huskies play, like you said,
Speaker 3: we talked about this with them. But Ray Krop and
Speaker 3: the founders when he said that McDonald's when he felt, well,
Speaker 3: somebody enlightened him, like McDonald's isn't a burger company, it's
Speaker 3: a real estate company. So can you talk about that
Speaker 3: just a little bit more like as far as how
Speaker 3: you enlightened the guys and how that's your play where
Speaker 3: it's like, even if you sell a business, you still
Speaker 3: own the real estate and then that company will have
Speaker 3: to pay you, so you still make money even if
Speaker 3: you sell.
Speaker 4: So you talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So when I met the Slim and Huskies, guys,
Speaker 6: first of all, brigant, process driven, way more process driven
Speaker 6: than me. I mean, these guys are about the nuts
Speaker 6: and the boats, the t's and crossing the t's and
Speaker 6: dotting the eyes.
Speaker 7: These guys are solid. And so when I met him,
Speaker 7: we started talking.
Speaker 6: I said, guys, you know, yes, you're in the piece
Speaker 6: of business, but you're really in the real estate business,
Speaker 6: whether you know that or not. And so why don't
Speaker 6: you know, why don't we schedule some time to visit
Speaker 6: my home in the Bahamas, will fly down on my plane,
Speaker 6: talk about your strategy and where it is, and you know,
Speaker 6: come up with a real estate play.
Speaker 4: And so.
Speaker 6: We did that, and so now we own three buildings
Speaker 6: and we've signed long term leases with the operating company.
Speaker 6: And so now they're running from themselves. I mean, and
Speaker 6: it's a great play in the event somewhere down the
Speaker 6: road fifty years, one hundred years, that they sell that
Speaker 6: company and they still own the real est. They don't
Speaker 6: have they don't have to sell the real estate. They
Speaker 6: just sell the company and continue to get the rental income.
Speaker 6: So they're making money twice, making money on the pizza
Speaker 6: like McDonald's making money own the hamburger, and they're making
Speaker 6: money on the real estate like McDonald's making real estate.
Speaker 6: So when you see a McDonald's franchise z that don't
Speaker 6: own the real estate, I mean, they're just McDonald's is
Speaker 6: sending them supplies for burgers to sell so that they
Speaker 6: can pay McDonald's rent.
Speaker 7: I mean that's I.
Speaker 3: Mean that they have to pay the defeat, which is
Speaker 3: like a million dollars something like that, just to open
Speaker 3: the franchise, and they have to pay the rent.
Speaker 6: And then McDonald's every so many years can come to
Speaker 6: you and say, hey, we really don't like this location
Speaker 6: no more. We're gonna shut this location down. You are
Speaker 6: a business, but if you don't own the real estate.
Speaker 6: I mean, but if you own the real estate, you
Speaker 6: can say, okay, McDonalds, y'all, you all can go. I'm
Speaker 6: gonna put something else in here. That's why I like
Speaker 6: owning everything everything.
Speaker 3: So talk about that triple net lease. What is a
Speaker 3: triple net lease?
Speaker 6: A triple net least, I'll give you, as I told
Speaker 6: you guess before when I walked in. I don't talk
Speaker 6: about anything that I hadn't done. So triple at least
Speaker 6: triple at leases. So a tripple at least is For example,
Speaker 6: I owned a couple of Dollar General stores. Right, I
Speaker 6: owned the building. I don't own the operations, own the
Speaker 6: building and the land. Right so I signed at the
Speaker 6: time the leases were twelve years. That twelve years remaining
Speaker 6: with option for another twenty years after the twelve and
Speaker 6: so in that lease agreement it says that Dollar General
Speaker 6: is responsible for the maintenance. So if there's something goes
Speaker 6: wrong with the building of waterline break.
Speaker 2: Erness, what's up?
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Speaker 6: Proof get damaged. They're responsible for paying that. They're also
Speaker 6: responsible for paying the taxes. So if the taxes go
Speaker 6: up from ten thousand dollars this year to twenty thousand
Speaker 6: next year, they're responsible for the taxes, and they're also
Speaker 6: responsible for paying the insurance.
Speaker 7: Triple net leaks. They're going to pay for the maintenance,
Speaker 7: the insurance, and the taxes. You're going to get every
Speaker 7: mind it's a check.
Speaker 4: So why would somebody do that?
Speaker 3: Because it's like to my brain, at least the landlord
Speaker 3: is not what is The landlord is not responsible.
Speaker 7: For anything nothing. I'm not responsible for anything.
Speaker 4: Why would the tenant? Why would a tenant do that?
Speaker 6: The market allows that, I mean they they they all
Speaker 6: their stores are triple that least. So when you look
Speaker 6: at the Walgreens or Dollar General, a lot of them
Speaker 6: have triple net least triple that leases.
Speaker 2: Those locations have to play into that in that process well.
Speaker 6: And so in the case of Dollar General, they picked
Speaker 6: their locations where they want to be and oftentimes they
Speaker 6: don't hire a developer to go build a building right
Speaker 6: where they wanted, and then an investor like me will
Speaker 6: come and buy the building from the developer. So Dollar
Speaker 6: General owns a bunch of they don't I'm sorry, they
Speaker 6: have a bunch of stores that they least they don't own.
Speaker 4: M hm.
Speaker 6: So there model is not like McDonald's.
Speaker 3: Like even Walmart. Don't think Walmart owned they did you
Speaker 3: think about this? They just leased to space.
Speaker 4: Least to space.
Speaker 6: So for example, uh Me and some French coach founded
Speaker 6: the bank. We started the process in two thousand and four.
Speaker 6: We opened a bank in two thousand and six. The
Speaker 6: first two buildings that we built for the bank, we
Speaker 6: owned them. And so I mean we put that as
Speaker 6: a part of the perspectives that the board, some of
Speaker 6: the board members will owned the buildings. So we owned
Speaker 6: the buildings for the first several years. And then once
Speaker 6: we went public that that transaction, we needed to sell
Speaker 6: the buildings because it looked like we were we had
Speaker 6: both our hands and.
Speaker 7: You know we were.
Speaker 6: It didn't look well to the public guy because now
Speaker 6: we became a public company. You know, you don't want
Speaker 6: to be on the board and getting a check from
Speaker 6: the bank for rent and so. But initially we before
Speaker 6: when we were private, we own the buildings, two of
Speaker 6: the buildings.
Speaker 2: So the CEO of the Dollar Generals that you own
Speaker 2: is Rod McDaniel.
Speaker 6: No, no, no, no, se I don't remember, yeah, because
Speaker 6: I'm thinking think about this. Yeah, I own two dollars
Speaker 6: general stores. I do nothing with operations, Okay, I'm not
Speaker 6: responsible for anything, nothing but going to the mailbox on
Speaker 6: the thirtieth to get the checks. When you sign a
Speaker 6: trip on at least you're responsible for You're not responsible
Speaker 6: for responsible for anything. So there's the CEO of Dollar General,
Speaker 6: some man or woman in Nashville that's running one hundred
Speaker 6: dollars general stores and they're sending a checkout to each
Speaker 6: Dollar General store owner every month.
Speaker 7: But they're doing they're managing the operations.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: No, So I was saying from the standpoint of like
Speaker 5: when you did that Donald Generaldsdal and even the slim
Speaker 5: Huskys things. The people that you're working with are guys
Speaker 5: that you've been mentoring, Yes, right, and so, and one
Speaker 5: of the toughest things to do in starting a business
Speaker 5: is getting funding and so like yeah, it is you
Speaker 5: kind of you know, streamlined that process by creating Aliant Bank, yes,
Speaker 5: and so like now when you have your mentors and
Speaker 5: they want to start a business, it's like, hey, I
Speaker 5: got a place for you guys.
Speaker 2: Can you talk about like the thought process behind that or.
Speaker 6: So starting the bank, it was starting the bank was
Speaker 6: a unique opportunity. A friend of mine named Farzane for
Speaker 6: those in the van or came to me and said, Hey,
Speaker 6: we're looking at starting the bank. Would you be interested
Speaker 6: in being and being involved with it? And I said,
Speaker 6: I said yes, And I said, this is how much
Speaker 6: capital you need to have to put into the bank
Speaker 6: to help get the started. And at the time, I
Speaker 6: think it was two hundred thousand dollars in investment from
Speaker 6: all the members and minimum. And so I did that.
Speaker 6: But the the cool part about that is when you
Speaker 6: have influence or ownership or co founder of a bank,
Speaker 6: you can make certain things happen. Now it's got to
Speaker 6: I mean, people have got to be credit worthy. But
Speaker 6: so much in banking has to do with relationships and
Speaker 6: who you know and understanding the process of how loans
Speaker 6: are done. And so since I've been at Relife Bank,
Speaker 6: they've never told me no every So when I was
Speaker 6: go out and do deals. I knew that I knew
Speaker 6: how to structure the deal to how the bank would
Speaker 6: like it, and we go out and do deals. And
Speaker 6: then with my protege, it's like the slim and husky guys. Uh,
Speaker 6: just walk the walk them into the back and say, hey,
Speaker 6: these are good people. These guys are good people. They're
Speaker 6: going places, they're smart, they know what they're doing. Let's
Speaker 6: give them a shot.
Speaker 5: So after that happens, it's like a border approval and
Speaker 5: things like that happen.
Speaker 6: So Uh, each bank, each bank works differently, but depending
Speaker 6: on the size of the bank, you can have an
Speaker 6: executive loan committee. So maybe me, you, the three of
Speaker 6: us on the loan committee, and then you got the
Speaker 6: the loan officer. She will bring the loan to us
Speaker 6: and we will review it and decide whether we're going
Speaker 6: to fund it or not. But since I am pour
Speaker 6: owner of the bank or co founder of the bank,
Speaker 6: I know exactly what they're looking for.
Speaker 7: And I also have one of the things.
Speaker 6: One of the five seeds of credit or five seas
Speaker 6: of banking to get a loan is character. And if
Speaker 6: I vouch for your character, you may have some deficits
Speaker 6: in your credit. You may not have any cash or
Speaker 6: not enough collateral, but if somebody will vouch for your character,
Speaker 6: that will go a long way. And here's the thing
Speaker 6: that here's what I tell small business people all the time.
Speaker 6: Even if you don't have a banking you don't have
Speaker 6: a loan with a bank, or you don't need a
Speaker 6: loan with the bank, what you should do, at least quarterly,
Speaker 6: you should have three bankers that you take out the
Speaker 6: lunch just to get to know them and just explain
Speaker 6: to them what your business is. Even if you don't
Speaker 6: need any money, explain to them what your business is
Speaker 6: so that you all can get to know each other.
Speaker 6: Because people do business with whom they like, and for
Speaker 6: them to like you, they've got to know you. So
Speaker 6: banking is very personal. That's why that's why you know, uh,
Speaker 6: John can called the bank and say, hey, John, Hey,
Speaker 6: I want you to this is John. I want you
Speaker 6: to know my friend Jim is coming to the bank
Speaker 6: for a loan. This is his relationship. And so I
Speaker 6: tell I tell you know, young folks who are if
Speaker 6: you're not trying to get a bank relationship, if you're
Speaker 6: not trying to get a loan, take some time and
Speaker 6: build a relationship.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: So what what was the process of you actually like
Speaker 3: developing that bank, Like was just a bunch of cars
Speaker 3: coming together and say okay, we want to build a
Speaker 3: bank by an existing bank and just renamed it.
Speaker 4: Like I'm sure there's a lot.
Speaker 6: Of yeah, it's it's uh So I wasn't the brains
Speaker 6: behind the bank. I would say I was in. I
Speaker 6: was an investor in the bank. You know, I went
Speaker 6: through the entire process of getting the charter raise, helping
Speaker 6: raise the money, putting the money in, helping to hire
Speaker 6: the management team. Because to start the bank, you know,
Speaker 6: you got to go to the state and let it
Speaker 6: give them a business plan, and then you got to
Speaker 6: tell them who you're going to hire, and then you
Speaker 6: gotta tell them how much money you're planning to raise.
Speaker 6: And then you got to go hire those people. Even
Speaker 6: though you don't have any money. You got to go high.
Speaker 6: You got to raise a little bit of money, see
Speaker 6: money to hire the hire the team. And then you
Speaker 6: go back to the state and say, hey, I've hired
Speaker 6: this management team. Here are our processes and procedures. And
Speaker 6: then the state will say, okay, we like your team,
Speaker 6: we like your processes. You said you're going to raise
Speaker 6: twenty million dollars, go back up and raise, get the
Speaker 6: twenty million dollars, put it in an escrow, and then
Speaker 6: come back to us.
Speaker 7: And all the.
Speaker 6: Time you're paying those people that you've hired, but you
Speaker 6: hadn't opened the bank yet. You go back to the
Speaker 6: state and say, hey, we've We've got the money we
Speaker 6: said we're going to raise.
Speaker 7: It's in the escrow.
Speaker 6: And then the state said, okay, we'll give you a
Speaker 6: charter to start the bank in our case January six,
Speaker 6: two thousand and six. And then it's not that simple,
Speaker 6: but that's kind of yeah, but it takes money.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the fact.
Speaker 3: So outside of everything else that you need to know
Speaker 3: your your stock investor as well. Yes, he was telling
Speaker 3: us that you you brought Apple at a crazy price
Speaker 3: years ago.
Speaker 2: Screenshot.
Speaker 3: It's really so can you can you talk about that?
Speaker 3: As far as I know you said your value long
Speaker 3: term investor, but how important is it to diversified and
Speaker 3: not put all your in one basket? And yeah, can
Speaker 3: you talk about like what inspired you to purchase Apple
Speaker 3: into two thousand and seven?
Speaker 7: I got on my phone, Yeah, I got you got
Speaker 7: I got it in my mind.
Speaker 6: It was two thousand that was on will on vacation
Speaker 6: and they won't vacation in France, and what you said
Speaker 6: it wasn't sleep. And I was up on the computer
Speaker 6: buying stock. But I like buying stock in companies that
Speaker 6: I see in use all the time. You all talked
Speaker 6: about this. I mean, if you if you're on your
Speaker 6: Apple phone all the time and you don't own Apple,
Speaker 6: that's a problem.
Speaker 7: I mean, if you mean, if you.
Speaker 6: If you got Amazon boxes stacked all over your house
Speaker 6: and you ain't you don't own Amazon, that's a problem.
Speaker 6: And I don't own Amazon's. But if you using if
Speaker 6: you got Nike shoes and niked its like in that.
Speaker 6: So I try to buy companies that that I see
Speaker 6: people using all the time. I mean, like Facebook. I'm
Speaker 6: an investor in Facebook, then I'm investor in We talked
Speaker 6: about uh, some diffidence stocks.
Speaker 7: But I try to.
Speaker 6: Buy things that I see people using all the time,
Speaker 6: and so I may do a little deep do this
Speaker 6: little research.
Speaker 7: But if I see people own the Apple all the time, was.
Speaker 3: That your was that your best because you said you
Speaker 3: brought the fight? Was that your was that your your
Speaker 3: greatest stock?
Speaker 7: Investment was crime was I told you I put two thousand.
Speaker 4: Stop stop.
Speaker 3: Probably have a five dollars cost basis in Apple, because
Speaker 3: I mean, is it that one something now? But that's
Speaker 3: that's not true price because it's split a few times
Speaker 3: so apples that you can really say it's like almost
Speaker 3: four hundred and fifty dollars probably if you would have
Speaker 3: taken taken away to split. So to have five dollars
Speaker 3: cost basis at four hundred and fifty dollars value.
Speaker 7: I have it, my wife has it, my four kids.
Speaker 5: Have it right, right, So that's part of the story
Speaker 5: to it was like you didn't just buy it, just
Speaker 5: got the memory. You said it was three thousand years
Speaker 5: in the photo. It was like, Yo, you bought something
Speaker 5: for you, you bought something for your wife, you bought
Speaker 5: something for your four kids.
Speaker 2: It's like, and you've gone through two splits, not just one, because.
Speaker 6: It's just I've gone through a bunch of splits, got
Speaker 6: through a bunch of splits. So generational yeah, So and
Speaker 6: that's how I look at every transit I do. I
Speaker 6: look at it through a generational lens. So the first
Speaker 6: thing I asked you guys when I first came in here,
Speaker 6: what's your plans? I look at a generational lens because
Speaker 6: at some point you need to exit. You need to exit,
Speaker 6: and so being an entrepreneur. Being an entrepreneur is like
Speaker 6: being at a crap table and you're doing well. You
Speaker 6: got all your chips stacked up real high. Everybody sees
Speaker 6: your chips. It's, oh yeah, man, those guys are doing great.
Speaker 6: Got a new range rover.
Speaker 4: That you know.
Speaker 7: Those guys are doing great. The chips are stacked up.
Speaker 7: But until you do this, you hadn't really won.
Speaker 6: Because you have seen people at the crap table whose
Speaker 6: chips are stacked up, shout out whose chips are and
Speaker 6: they didn't do this, and the open here or two
Speaker 6: thousand and eight hit, but something happens. So that's why
Speaker 6: you got to plan the exit.
Speaker 3: So let me ask you this as far, especially like
Speaker 3: for being a black business own. A lot of times
Speaker 3: people feel like there's two sides to the coin. And
Speaker 3: like if we if we always sell our businesses, we
Speaker 3: don't have the legacy brands of the Walmarts and we
Speaker 3: can't build those names sold. Did they well, they're publicly,
Speaker 3: but they took a bunch of chips off the thing
Speaker 3: they did, but they but they still the kids still
Speaker 3: have a large state sold. So the big question is
Speaker 3: how do you feel about that? Like because like I
Speaker 3: have no problem with about it, I said, there is
Speaker 3: I've heard that from other people like that, especially black businesses,
Speaker 3: that maybe it's not the best idea to sell because.
Speaker 6: Okay, it ain't personal. Yeah, and I didn't have a
Speaker 6: black you can't you can't have. I had a great business.
Speaker 6: Can happen to be owned about black guys and so
Speaker 6: and as a as a father for happily merrit man.
Speaker 6: When you look at you talked about diversification. When you
Speaker 6: look at your nest egg and it's ninety percent in
Speaker 6: one company, that's dangerous. Yeah, that's dangerous. And so my
Speaker 6: chips were stacked and I didn't want something to happen.
Speaker 6: I didn't want to go out and hire another team
Speaker 6: to take me to one hundred million.
Speaker 4: And so.
Speaker 7: Business is not personal, and we got to quit thinking of.
Speaker 4: It that way.
Speaker 6: You want to do a great job, you want to
Speaker 6: hire great people, provide them great opportunities, but at some
Speaker 6: point you need.
Speaker 7: To exit because most of us go out of business.
Speaker 7: Let mean, think about it, think about it. So people
Speaker 7: came to me and said, man, I can't believe you
Speaker 7: sold your company. Why did you sell it? I said,
Speaker 7: twenty three million.
Speaker 2: Dollars, twenty three million reasons.
Speaker 7: But here's the deal. Some people came and said, why
Speaker 7: did you sell it?
Speaker 6: And then some other folks came and said, how did
Speaker 6: you sell it?
Speaker 4: Difference a difference to difference.
Speaker 7: It's a difference.
Speaker 6: How did you do it? That's my question. How did
Speaker 6: you do it? Not why did you do it? It's
Speaker 6: very obvious. I started a company two.
Speaker 7: Thousand dollars twenty three million dollar evaluation? What would you do?
Speaker 4: What we're talking about?
Speaker 2: That's not even a question that.
Speaker 4: We're talking about.
Speaker 7: But I had I had one lady. She was all
Speaker 7: over me. She said, well, why did you do it?
Speaker 7: He's black owned company, and blah blah blah. I just said,
Speaker 7: twenty three billion dollars. Do you not understand?
Speaker 2: So and so?
Speaker 7: Here one more thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So when.
Speaker 6: I got you, when the company was a sixteen million
Speaker 6: dollars and I realized I wasn't the person to take
Speaker 6: it to the next level, and I need a search
Speaker 6: to find the best person to run the company. He
Speaker 6: was a white guy. So how the white guy run
Speaker 6: this company. Now, my CEO at the time was black,
Speaker 6: my CFO was black. VP yourself is white. So I
Speaker 6: had a diverse team of folks. But people ask me,
Speaker 6: why did you hire the white guy to run your company?
Speaker 7: Because he's the best, he's the best.
Speaker 6: If you got a chance to hire Bill Gates to
Speaker 6: come run your company, we just said, now, I'm not
Speaker 6: gonna hire Bill because he's white. No, hire the best people, period.
Speaker 6: And if you do that, and I tell white people this,
Speaker 6: and I tell Black people this, If you hire the
Speaker 6: best people.
Speaker 7: You're gonna get diversity. That's gonna happen.
Speaker 6: Look at look at sports. They go out and find
Speaker 6: the best people. That's why you got diversity. You're finding
Speaker 6: guys from all Overseas coming to play ball here. You're
Speaker 6: gonna get diversity. So I had a diverse team because
Speaker 6: my focus is on quality. So a couple of stupid
Speaker 6: questions over the years for me, why'd you hire the
Speaker 6: white guy because she's the best.
Speaker 7: And look what happened. We won a championship.
Speaker 6: And you still trying to figure out how you gonna
Speaker 6: make your next move.
Speaker 4: You have it. So the four phases of business.
Speaker 3: This is interesting, you said, the idea, the startup phase,
Speaker 3: the run and grow, and then the sell. So because
Speaker 3: I think a lot of times most people they just
Speaker 3: start a business and it's like they don't really have
Speaker 3: any plan of like like when you met up, you're
Speaker 3: like what you're playing? Like how you playing on selling this?
Speaker 3: Like and a couple of people have actually asked me
Speaker 3: that before. So do you think every what's your advice
Speaker 3: for business owners that's just starting? Oh maybe just already
Speaker 3: like as far as like real evaluating and having those four.
Speaker 7: With the end in mind? Okay, star with the end
Speaker 7: of mind, where do you want this to be?
Speaker 6: If you build a house, you got a vision of
Speaker 6: what you want that house to be, start with that
Speaker 6: in mind. Sto with what you want that business to be.
Speaker 6: Start with you know, uh, who don't want this business
Speaker 6: to what company? Don't want this company to be? Like oftentimes,
Speaker 6: what we do is we create jobs for ourselves, our businesses.
Speaker 6: It's a job for us. I mean if we don't
Speaker 6: go to work that next day, nothing happens. Most of
Speaker 6: us start businesses. Most businesses just have one person working for.
Speaker 7: The owner.
Speaker 6: So start with. A friend of mine named Scott Source says,
Speaker 6: start with how soon. Can you replace yourself and hire
Speaker 6: a bunch of good people. Start with that. Start with
Speaker 6: the understanding that you ain't the best person for the job.
Speaker 6: Start with the seven bigger people in the world. I
Speaker 6: guarantee that somebody better than you to do it.
Speaker 7: Start with that's build it around the people. Start with
Speaker 7: in my company, I would never sit at the end
Speaker 7: of the table at the board table.
Speaker 6: Strut with shrinking yourself so small that the people around
Speaker 6: you can perform that you don't overshadow them. Strut with
Speaker 6: stretching them and pushing them out front. And they ain't
Speaker 6: got to always they ain't got to be in the
Speaker 6: meeting and saying oh yeah. Under Daryl's leadership and under
Speaker 6: Darl's leadership, stuck my team knew not to ever do that.
Speaker 6: It was all about them.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So can we can we go? And that that's
Speaker 5: a lot of valuable advice. Can we talk about three? Yeah,
Speaker 5: because if I'm listening to you to say that, I'm thinking, like, so, what's.
Speaker 2: The vision for this?
Speaker 4: Because this is.
Speaker 5: So we're growing this business and obviously the evaluation so
Speaker 5: obviously that the playoff is gonna be bigger when we
Speaker 5: sell this.
Speaker 7: So you asked me before we started, you know, not
Speaker 7: to hit the table.
Speaker 6: Sorry, you asked me, why do I invest in businesses?
Speaker 6: And I have a philosophy, and that philosophy is I
Speaker 6: bet on the jockey, not the horse. I bet on
Speaker 6: a jockey because there are some people who are winners,
Speaker 6: regardless of any regardless of the situation you put them in,
Speaker 6: They're gonna find a way to win.
Speaker 7: They gonna find a way to win. There's some folks
Speaker 7: that you know, you're like, man, oh, he won again,
Speaker 7: he won again.
Speaker 6: So I bet on the jockey, not the horse. Street
Speaker 6: Recycling Solutions. I met this young African American CEO. At
Speaker 6: the time, he was twenty eight. They had four hundred
Speaker 6: thousand dollars in revenue, four employees, and I said, man,
Speaker 6: he's good.
Speaker 7: And I could mentor him. He knows the industry.
Speaker 6: He had a seven thousand square foot warehouse seven thousands
Speaker 6: small for recycling. So I invested about twenty percent of
Speaker 6: the company. I went back and bought another thirty one
Speaker 6: percent of the company. I went back and bought another
Speaker 6: now owned sixty four sixty five percent of the company.
Speaker 6: He owns a percentage and a couple other guys, but
Speaker 6: I'm the majority shareholder of the company. I needed to
Speaker 6: get majority on the ship so that when I spoke
Speaker 6: in the boardroom people would listens different.
Speaker 7: But he was good, and so today in mentoring him.
Speaker 6: Over the last years, it's gone from four hundred thousand
Speaker 6: dollars in sales.
Speaker 7: To now it's about two and a half three million
Speaker 7: dollar company.
Speaker 6: From seven thousand square feet that we were renting, you know,
Speaker 6: I would have never rented.
Speaker 4: I came.
Speaker 6: We're no longer renting. We bought a seventy five thousand
Speaker 6: square for.
Speaker 2: Whose seven thousand and seventy five thousand.
Speaker 6: Seven thousand to seventy five thousand. Our warehouse is bigger
Speaker 6: than the football field. We have signed four or five
Speaker 6: fortune five hundred companies to be our customers during COVID.
Speaker 6: Since March, the company has no debt outside of the
Speaker 6: debt for the real estate, no operational debt, and lots
Speaker 6: of cash. He is killing it and everybody needs it
Speaker 6: recycling and medical equipment recycling.
Speaker 4: In my mind when I was, I.
Speaker 6: Was everybody every corporation needs that. And he's the only
Speaker 6: one in that space that looks like him. So why
Speaker 6: can't I push him to the time.
Speaker 4: So where are you at now as far as your career.
Speaker 3: I know you have the charitable foundation, your family foundations.
Speaker 3: At this point in your life, are you more focused
Speaker 3: on still building businesses or helping people or combination of Like,
Speaker 3: what's your what's your twenty year plan?
Speaker 4: Starting up today?
Speaker 6: I told you that I have several port of jays,
Speaker 6: and I tell all of it.
Speaker 7: If I can't help you add a megan or two.
Speaker 6: Or three million dollars to your personal fans and statement,
Speaker 6: or if I can't help you make a million dollars
Speaker 6: or two million dollars, I shouldn't be your mental We
Speaker 6: should just be friends. We should just be drinking buddies.
Speaker 6: So my goal is to create a bunch of millionnaires.
Speaker 6: That's my goal. I got a friend and ask you
Speaker 6: who created?
Speaker 5: So?
Speaker 7: He created? He created so many millions we can't even
Speaker 7: count them. Include think myself.
Speaker 6: He helped with me. My goal is to create a
Speaker 6: whole bunch of millionaires. That's my goal. The other thing,
Speaker 6: as a race to charity, we've donated my wife and
Speaker 6: I we've donated at least a half a million dollars
Speaker 6: to various charities. Next year, I'm gonna step my charity
Speaker 6: game up and why does why does that mean something?
Speaker 6: I want to be winning and giving. I want to
Speaker 6: be winning and giving because I grew up poor and
Speaker 6: I know there are a bunch of people that need help.
Speaker 6: And so why do I keep investing in businesses to
Speaker 6: help help to make money and help people grow. But
Speaker 6: also it gives me more dollars to give the charities.
Speaker 6: It gives me a chance to be more charitable. And
Speaker 6: so I got a friend named the Costa Jenkinson. I
Speaker 6: talk with the Costs all the time, say hey man,
Speaker 6: my charity games, I gotta I gotta kick it up.
Speaker 5: So you you had a obviously illustrious career, a lot
Speaker 5: of success, but there has been some failures, and so yes,
Speaker 5: can we talk about the American Addiction Center and some
Speaker 5: of the business biggest lessons we've learned from.
Speaker 6: That American Addiction Centers took that company public and with
Speaker 6: a group of folks in two thousand October twenty fourteen.
Speaker 6: Very tough space it was. It was in vogue during
Speaker 6: that period of time, and then as insurance companies changed,
Speaker 6: as reimbursements change, it was devastating to the business. And
Speaker 6: so in that transaction, I think I lost between one
Speaker 6: and happened two billion dollars, and so that's my point.
Speaker 6: You gotta get in and get out. But we had
Speaker 6: a bunch of opportunity. There were a bunch of opportunities
Speaker 6: back then when things are in vogue to get out
Speaker 6: and so, but it's a tough business and there ended
Speaker 6: up being a bunch of addiction center companies that went
Speaker 6: out of business, and so I learned a lot from that.
Speaker 6: I have learned more from when the businesses stuff've been
Speaker 6: involved with or not doing well. I learned more during
Speaker 6: that period of time than when they're doing great. Because
Speaker 6: when everything is great, you don't have to look under
Speaker 6: the covers, you don't have to check the engine they're
Speaker 6: doing it's great. But when things aren't going well, you
Speaker 6: got to dig in and find out where you're losing money,
Speaker 6: find out where you're not efficient. And so the Magic
Speaker 6: Addiction Centers was a great concept, but I lost a
Speaker 6: ton of money, didn't hurt them.
Speaker 4: It's out good you have it, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 3: It's been a pleasure of How can the people follow
Speaker 3: you on social media know you got a YouTube series
Speaker 3: when you actually interview people on.
Speaker 7: When do you guys come up in the plane with me.
Speaker 6: So I have a cockpit conversations where I take people up.
Speaker 6: We're successful, We talk about business concepts. We may talk
Speaker 6: about real estate, we got every checking. Take people up
Speaker 6: who are in corporate America, C level folks, talk about
Speaker 6: how they got to where they are. Just some inspirational stories.
Speaker 6: That gives me a chance to fly my plane and
Speaker 6: interview great folks. And then I'm on Instagram Dell Les Freeman,
Speaker 6: Sor and I also do a thing called OG free
Speaker 6: Game Friday.
Speaker 9: I saw that og free Game Friday, and that's you know,
Speaker 9: I don't I've learned a lot because people have poured
Speaker 9: a lot into me.
Speaker 7: This is not a I mean, I'm not a real
Speaker 7: smart person.
Speaker 6: I've had some success, but it's because of people who've
Speaker 6: taken interest and said, hey, I'm gonna help you. And
Speaker 6: so I used the Internet and I used to copy
Speaker 6: conversations to whatever they poured in me. That has some
Speaker 6: value to be able to put it back out into
Speaker 6: the space. So it's just what I like doing it.
Speaker 6: And I admire what you all are doing because us
Speaker 6: you're bringing some real nuggets and you bring some real
Speaker 6: meaningful information appreciate that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I appreciate I told you that when we met downstairs.
Speaker 5: I'm like, I've known people my whole life and they
Speaker 5: know what we're doing and have never reached out to
Speaker 5: say anything. And you heard one episode, and like, I
Speaker 5: can guarantee once a month you're gonna send me something inspirational,
Speaker 5: whether it's you in the cockpits or it's you on
Speaker 5: the island.
Speaker 7: To give you the real stuff.
Speaker 4: Next time, I think you handle Man.
Speaker 2: Now we're gonna be we're gonna be in the picture together.
Speaker 6: That okay to come down to the island, man, Yeah,
Speaker 6: we gotta take my plane down.
Speaker 4: We gotta come read the boat either.
Speaker 2: Bamas, yeah, bahamas, I got a pictures.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't expect anything. I wouldn't expect it. I wouldn't
Speaker 3: expect any paradise island.
Speaker 4: I'm on my way.
Speaker 7: Not paradise.
Speaker 4: That sounds accident boom. I've been.
Speaker 7: Island is nice.
Speaker 4: We're gonna take it, Okay, I've been. I've been a
Speaker 4: nasal sound.
Speaker 7: And you look at me when and you fly with me,
Speaker 7: you gotta take your shoes.
Speaker 2: Off straight to the clip.
Speaker 4: You're gonna we're.
Speaker 7: Gonna drive the car right up to the plane.
Speaker 4: I'm ready, man, I'm ready. If we didn't have market Monday,
Speaker 4: I would be right now.
Speaker 3: I don't tip me with a good time. I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: I definitely appreciate it. I'm sure the audience appreciates it
Speaker 3: as well as uh. You know, it's always good to
Speaker 3: get first hand information from people that have experience and
Speaker 3: have done it. And you know, there's no better way
Speaker 3: to learn than to actually learn from somebody as opposed
Speaker 3: to like doing it in theory, like you actually did
Speaker 3: it in real life. So a thank you for joining us,
Speaker 3: and thank you for just being generous, because it's another
Speaker 3: form of charity as well. It's like, you know, being generous.
Speaker 3: You don't have to fly to give free information. So
Speaker 3: that's that's a form of mentorship and definitely a way
Speaker 3: of giving back.
Speaker 4: So appreciate that. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you the mentor.
Speaker 7: I'll tell you what, I'm humble.
Speaker 4: Thank you, guys, thank you man, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2: Troy housekeeping it on shout everybody on pitcheon dot com.
Speaker 2: Y'all know that's our product, paid program. Everybody that's been supporting.
Speaker 2: We greatly appreciate it, y'all know.
Speaker 5: T five members, y'all get access to eyl University, the
Speaker 5: number one online school in the world. That is a
Speaker 5: big facts of Shout out to the earners out of there,
Speaker 5: and shout out to everybody that's been supporting the merch.
Speaker 2: We are greatly appreciated. We got some new stuff on
Speaker 2: the way.
Speaker 3: Yes, So thank you guys for rocking with us. We'll
Speaker 3: see you next week.
Speaker 4: Peace.
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