Speaker 1: You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: I've even tried to pay people employees in past, like
Speaker 2: here's one hundred dollars read this book. You know how
Speaker 2: many have done that zero? So it's one of those
Speaker 2: things you can't teach motivation.
Speaker 3: Hi'm Bob Hitman, and welcome to this episode of Math
Speaker 3: and Magic Stories from the Frontiers and Marketing. Today, we
Speaker 3: have a self made entrepreneur grew up in poverty, skipped
Speaker 3: the formal education, and eventually built his own billion dollar
Speaker 3: business from just five thousand dollars in startup capital. He's
Speaker 3: the co founder and CEO of American Financing, one of
Speaker 3: the major national mortgage companies. He's Damian Maldonado. Damien was
Speaker 3: born in Manhattan to a single mom of four. He
Speaker 3: grew up poor, as he says, his family was on
Speaker 3: food stamps even in the good times, and he has
Speaker 3: interesting thoughts on what that taught him and we'll explore
Speaker 3: that today. Although American Financing is in Colorado, Damien has
Speaker 3: moved to Puerto Rico and widened his aperture to hospitality,
Speaker 3: movies and more. He's a newly minted pilot family man
Speaker 3: dog owner and a fun and curious guy. Damien Welcome,
Speaker 3: Thanks Bob, thanks for having me before we dig in today.
Speaker 3: I want to do you in sixty seconds. Are you ready?
Speaker 2: I'm ready.
Speaker 3: Do you prefer caps or dogs?
Speaker 2: Dogs?
Speaker 3: Early riser or night out?
Speaker 2: Early riser?
Speaker 3: West Coast or East Coast?
Speaker 2: Oh? Tough one? East Coast?
Speaker 3: Colorado or Puerto Rico?
Speaker 4: Puerto Rico City or country city? Copa, PEPSI, coke, rock
Speaker 4: and roll or country rock and roll, Books or movies, books,
Speaker 4: crip or eat out, eat out call or text call.
Speaker 4: It's about to get harder. All time favorite music artist
Speaker 4: Bob Marley. First job, door to door, Avon and Candy Sells.
Speaker 4: Smartest person you know Richard Branson, childhood hero maybe Tom Cruise.
Speaker 3: Favorite sport to watch kitesurfing. Technology you can't live without?
Speaker 2: I got, say, the iPhone?
Speaker 4: Favorite holiday summer trips with the kids. Last one, what's
Speaker 4: something you can't live without my kids?
Speaker 3: Great answer? Okay, let's start with the less obvious. Flying.
Speaker 3: I've been a pilot for over fifty years in love
Speaker 3: aviation and you just got your pilot's license. What motivated
Speaker 3: you to do that and how did it happen?
Speaker 2: Well? I haven't quite finished it. I'm still working progress.
Speaker 2: But being able to do a little island hopping from
Speaker 2: Puerto Rico to the bbi's Saint Martin, Saint Bart's all
Speaker 2: that sounds amazing because we're so close to so many islands.
Speaker 3: Being up in the air, having that kind of freedom,
Speaker 3: has it changed your perspective on the world.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's nothing like flying, true freedom, being able
Speaker 2: to go from a place at the drop of a dime.
Speaker 2: I don't think there's anything more freedom than that.
Speaker 3: What have you learned from flying that you can apply
Speaker 3: to your business?
Speaker 2: I mean you have to be a very focused, dedicated
Speaker 2: and on top of your game, zero space for mistakes.
Speaker 3: Before we turn to your business, I want to set
Speaker 3: the stage by going back in time to your childhood.
Speaker 3: Clearly this formed so much of who you are. Can
Speaker 3: you paint that picture for us, the time and the place.
Speaker 2: So early childhood? You know, I was born in New York,
Speaker 2: Puerto Rican descent. My parents we lived here until they
Speaker 2: got the worse, till I was seven. My dad never
Speaker 2: left puert Rico, and then my mom went to Colorado,
Speaker 2: so we were raised there, went to high school there.
Speaker 2: We started our business there. Early on, my mom worked
Speaker 2: at the FBI as a secretary, raising four boys on
Speaker 2: a thirty thousand dollars income. Then she lost her job
Speaker 2: at one point, and when the up being homeless for
Speaker 2: four or five months, living in shelters, and at the
Speaker 2: time I was only ten or eleven. You know, we
Speaker 2: were sleeping with the homeless people in rooms of like
Speaker 2: eight or so people. So that you really look at
Speaker 2: your life really different at that point. So that taught
Speaker 2: me a lot of lessons that I wanted to make
Speaker 2: money and for me me a big thing that changed
Speaker 2: my childhood. My brother Oliver, he got me a lot,
Speaker 2: a lot of job for my first job selling door
Speaker 2: to door candy on Avon and I got a job
Speaker 2: at Toys r US.
Speaker 3: How old were you when you started those jobs.
Speaker 2: I must have been ten or eleven. And you'd go
Speaker 2: in these cars, they drop you off in some neighborhood.
Speaker 2: They give you a box, and then they meet you
Speaker 2: at a certain place. It's kind of scary. You go
Speaker 2: at a night, knock on the door. It was both
Speaker 2: of us. He was a couple of years older me,
Speaker 2: so he must have been twelve or thirteen. I used
Speaker 2: then small and then we'd do a presentation to tell
Speaker 2: you what you what to say and just small and
Speaker 2: look cute and ask for the order. So that was
Speaker 2: kind of my first sales job. And then of course
Speaker 2: we did newspapers when we were that age and my
Speaker 2: mom would wake up early we do the papers. And
Speaker 2: that was interesting because back then you have to collect
Speaker 2: the money from the customers and build door to door
Speaker 2: and say hey, it's time to pay your bill. So
Speaker 2: learning how to deliver the product and then collect the
Speaker 2: money that was an adventure. So it was a family event.
Speaker 2: It was all of us rolling up papers at six am,
Speaker 2: five am and then doing that until you go to
Speaker 2: school seven days a week. Wow, but that taught you
Speaker 2: a lot. I taught you how to work and get
Speaker 2: up early and do those types of things, which is,
Speaker 2: you know, the staple of any business person who want
Speaker 2: to succeed. But then you got a job at Toys
Speaker 2: r US as a cashier in a stocker for twenty
Speaker 2: five an hour. I remember that worked my way up
Speaker 2: to as a manager. Then started marketing health and finness
Speaker 2: clouds and that's kind of where I got my experience
Speaker 2: of sales and marketing.
Speaker 3: So you did not do a formal education did not
Speaker 3: What did you miss with a formal education? And what
Speaker 3: did you gain by not having a formal education? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Good question. I always saw my friends doing all these
Speaker 2: fun parties and that looked really fun, and I thought, man,
Speaker 2: if I could go to college, I would be able
Speaker 2: to go to all these parties. I mean that one
Speaker 2: I thought for sure. As far as education wise, I
Speaker 2: think what I learned not going was a little bit different.
Speaker 2: This marketing company I worked at when I was eighteen,
Speaker 2: right out of high school. So if you Bob, if
Speaker 2: you in the gym in Manhattan, we'd go and market
Speaker 2: it and we saw memberships five hundred to a thousand
Speaker 2: memberships in one to two months. We'd have a call center,
Speaker 2: they'd call people's schedule appointment, we had a presentation, we
Speaker 2: sell a membership, two membership, the gym would service somebody.
Speaker 2: It was a two year contract and basically I did
Speaker 2: it in thirty states and then five different countries, Australia
Speaker 2: and New Zealand, England, the Scotland. That was my sales
Speaker 2: and marketing experience. So we'd open up an office and
Speaker 2: close it down in thirty to forty five days. And
Speaker 2: that taught me all the numbers, like what was the
Speaker 2: cost per lead? What was the projections? And that's how
Speaker 2: I learned my fills and marketing experience. And I don't
Speaker 2: know if college teaches that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: And when you were doing all that, what did you
Speaker 3: imagine your future?
Speaker 2: Was? Well a book in my growing as a businessman
Speaker 2: was Antony. I was awakening a giant within. That was
Speaker 2: the first time I was like, Wow, you control your
Speaker 2: brain and I could do whatever I want and I
Speaker 2: could do whatever I focus on. So that book was
Speaker 2: the first thing that I started believing on myself. And
Speaker 2: then once I started doing sales, I put those things together.
Speaker 2: So if you know how to do cells and you
Speaker 2: can control your brain and you could go whichever direction
Speaker 2: you want, then that's magic. So at that time I
Speaker 2: was like, whoa, I'm going to be a billionaire. I
Speaker 2: figured out to formulaze. Have to work hard, figure out
Speaker 2: a system and duplicate it kind of what we did.
Speaker 3: Here. You are a young kid trying to help your family,
Speaker 3: worried about you know, your day to day living. How
Speaker 3: did you discover Tony Robbins? How did that book land
Speaker 3: on you?
Speaker 2: Again? I hade a lot of credit to my brother Oliver.
Speaker 2: He was an entrepreneur all his life and I'm like, even
Speaker 2: doing the avon ceales and door to door candy, I
Speaker 2: never done anything like that. And so he's like three
Speaker 2: years older than me. So he suggested I read that book.
Speaker 2: And once I read that book, it's a heavy duty book.
Speaker 2: I highly suggest it to people. If you do that book,
Speaker 2: it will change your life. And also not just do
Speaker 2: the book, but do the exercises in it. Sometimes people
Speaker 2: do books and read them and they don't actually apply it,
Speaker 2: and in that case, it's not going to work. I
Speaker 2: remember one of my first first class flights of my
Speaker 2: life when I was young. I must have spend twenty
Speaker 2: years old or twenty one years old, and this guy
Speaker 2: is like asking, does that book really work? And I'm
Speaker 2: like thinking enough for you, I mean, because already you're
Speaker 2: thinking it's not going to work, and for me it
Speaker 2: worked really well.
Speaker 3: So how to growing up without much shape you? What
Speaker 3: are the lessons you took from that?
Speaker 2: It made me appreciate money and look at very differently.
Speaker 2: I'm not a big I mean probably for average person,
Speaker 2: I guess I'm a big spender, but not necessarily scorging.
Speaker 2: I really respect money, and I really look at the
Speaker 2: bottom line. What's my cost per lead, what's her profit margin?
Speaker 2: I really focus on a profit margin. A lot of companies,
Speaker 2: you know, one of these questions like would you rather
Speaker 2: have five hundred million dollar business doing ten percent or
Speaker 2: one hundred million dollars business doing fifty percent margins? You know,
Speaker 2: I've picked a small one, less risk, higher margins, and
Speaker 2: you can scale that better. And I've seen a lot
Speaker 2: of companies too that raise money, they don't really look
Speaker 2: at that bottom line still carefully, especially when you're working
Speaker 2: with other people's money, and that we've bootstrapped the whole
Speaker 2: thing the whole time. We've never borrowed a dying from anyone,
Speaker 2: so it's always been something that I've hired to myself,
Speaker 2: is really focused on those profit margins. And maybe it
Speaker 2: would have been bigger though if we borrowed money. I've
Speaker 2: seen a lot of companies that have done that and
Speaker 2: done really well. But I think being brought up a
Speaker 2: little bit more humbly. You know, I have no debt,
Speaker 2: making sure that our books are really clean. On our
Speaker 2: balance she's really clean. I'm a little bit risk adverse,
Speaker 2: so I don't know if that's a positive or negative.
Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting body's life. I talked to who's
Speaker 3: had success. There's one sort of improbable jump. It's the
Speaker 3: big jump. And I know you were talking about some
Speaker 3: of the sales jobs you had. I knew you did
Speaker 3: yard work, you did janitorial work, and suddenly you get
Speaker 3: into mortgages. How did that happen?
Speaker 2: So that was a big jump because I was marketing.
Speaker 2: I was just finishing up a promotion in Glasgow in Scotland.
Speaker 2: But I was a little burnt out. It must have
Speaker 2: been eighteen nineteen years old, maybe nineteen twenty. But I
Speaker 2: had like fifteen thousand dollars saved up in the bank.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, I'm rich. I'm going to go
Speaker 2: to La or New York. I fear out my life
Speaker 2: and see what I'm going to do next. But my
Speaker 2: brother picked me up at the airport and he's like, hey,
Speaker 2: I got your job. You start on Monday at this
Speaker 2: mortgage company. And I'm like, mortgages. I don't know anthy
Speaker 2: about mortgages. I want to go explore. I'm young. I
Speaker 2: want to go figure something out to have money in
Speaker 2: the bank. He's like, no, I put my neck out
Speaker 2: for you. You got to start here. I started out
Speaker 2: on Monday, and there was this company doing one twenty
Speaker 2: five mortgages back in the day, those twenty five percent
Speaker 2: overap reveals, which was part of the Ridge Melton or
Speaker 2: part of the reason they say this company was only
Speaker 2: doing these postcards. That was the only type of advertising
Speaker 2: they were doing. So I go from doing radio, telemarketing
Speaker 2: and all these other phones. I pitched to your CEO
Speaker 2: and I go, hey, I learned all these marketing techniques.
Speaker 2: Will you pay me sixty thousand dollars a year, let
Speaker 2: me run your call center, let me do all this.
Speaker 2: He agreed, and it worked really well. That was an
Speaker 2: average of four to five thousand dollars per client at
Speaker 2: the time, which coming from a world of nineteen dollars
Speaker 2: a month for two year contracts. I'm like, whoa. So
Speaker 2: we put the same exact techniques that we did marketing
Speaker 2: health and fitness clubs and the mortgages. You need a
Speaker 2: lot less customers. And that was kind of the you know,
Speaker 2: we're doing the math and I used love Excel and
Speaker 2: you plug in some numbers and very quickly you're like, wow,
Speaker 2: this is a this is an incredible business.
Speaker 3: You started there. How did you go from working for
Speaker 3: somebody in mortgages to your own company? I guess the
Speaker 3: word is you used five thousand dollars to startup capital
Speaker 3: to get it started.
Speaker 2: So that company I mentioned that was the one doing
Speaker 2: a one twenty five, they ended up going out of business.
Speaker 2: Wall Street stopped buying that paper, so it put us
Speaker 2: in steach o like we needed to figure out what
Speaker 2: to do. So we went on our own and back
Speaker 2: then we started as a broker, which means, you know,
Speaker 2: you close under somebody else's name, kind of by necessity,
Speaker 2: and what we learned we put into effect, and then
Speaker 2: slowly they're started building our reputation, our repertoire as far
Speaker 2: as becoming a banker and then hedging loans and things
Speaker 2: that nature and getting more sophisticated with it, which we
Speaker 2: kind of wanted to do. Anyways, by the company closing down,
Speaker 2: I don't mind working out a company, And I think
Speaker 2: this is something I tell people because nowadays everybody wants
Speaker 2: to be then entrepreneur, but obviously there's a high failure
Speaker 2: rate of that. If you find the right company that
Speaker 2: you could work at and help that company become bigger
Speaker 2: and better. You're probably better off in some cases, at
Speaker 2: least for many years than that extra risk that was
Speaker 2: a necessity. But I really enjoy building companies. It's one
Speaker 2: of my favorite things to do.
Speaker 3: You started local and you moved national? Why and how?
Speaker 2: Yeah, local is when you first started any business. Local
Speaker 2: is the best way, you know, start leaning me or
Speaker 2: you know, if you could go get money. A lot
Speaker 2: of people go and raise money. That's also a great approach.
Speaker 2: But I think if you start local and you figure
Speaker 2: out your market and you figure out how to scale
Speaker 2: that it takes a lot of risk from going national.
Speaker 2: So for us in our industry is very it wasn't
Speaker 2: back then, but it's very regulated. Though. You have to
Speaker 2: get a Colorado license in this case, and then you
Speaker 2: have to get another license. But national is the only
Speaker 2: way to go. I mean America, where obviously is from
Speaker 2: my opinion on an entrepreneur basis the best country in
Speaker 2: the world. And if it works in Colorado, it'll work
Speaker 2: in California. It works in California, it's gonna work in Florida.
Speaker 2: So scaling, I mean, every market's different, so you have
Speaker 2: to adapt to each market. But by being able to
Speaker 2: do successfully in one you know, you hit the whole country,
Speaker 2: but you have to be set up for that, and
Speaker 2: that's a different animal.
Speaker 3: So I got to know you because you were such
Speaker 3: a big user of radio to build your business. How
Speaker 3: did you discover the power of radio and give us
Speaker 3: a clue about how you use it?
Speaker 2: What was crazy? When we first started our company, we
Speaker 2: used to do outbound tall marketing because that's the world
Speaker 2: I came from. So I know how to set up
Speaker 2: call centers and that world is really good. But I've
Speaker 2: never as a consumer. I hate getting tallmarketing calls right
Speaker 2: as I'm sure we all do. So I didn't love
Speaker 2: doing that because this used a tough business on your employees,
Speaker 2: and also customers don't like that, and it's kind of
Speaker 2: a forceful sell. I don't like high pressure cells. Call
Speaker 2: turners are very hig pressure. Especially abound telemarkets is high pressure.
Speaker 2: So my old mentor, actually his name is Dave Simpson.
Speaker 2: He used to work at the National Finish Corporation. I
Speaker 2: called him and I was like, looking for marketing ideas,
Speaker 2: and he goes, you know what could be interesting is radio?
Speaker 2: I go, really, I don't know. He goes, I found
Speaker 2: this guy in Denver. His name is Mike Rosen and
Speaker 2: he's on a fifty KOA. They just lost one of
Speaker 2: their companies, so they have a slot for a financial
Speaker 2: company and do you want it? And I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: how much is it? He's like three hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: dollars for a sixty second spot. I'm like what that
Speaker 2: is so expensive? And I couldn't believe the cost at
Speaker 2: the time. Back then, I was paying the tall markets
Speaker 2: ten dollars an hour, so I'm like, that's thirty five
Speaker 2: hours for a week. Let's say call it day generated
Speaker 2: twenty leads. So I'm like, well, is this radio spot
Speaker 2: going to generate me twenty leads? And what it did
Speaker 2: was it generated maybe, I don't know, somewhere around five
Speaker 2: or six. And I was like, oh, that's not that great.
Speaker 2: But then after we saw our conversion ratios and the
Speaker 2: loan amounts. Once we saw the numbers, we literally switched
Speaker 2: from outbound tell marketing to inbound call center in one
Speaker 2: month and got rid of all the call center activities
Speaker 2: and we just went straight to radio and we just
Speaker 2: did the math reverse engineered it. It was an amazing
Speaker 2: experience because I didn't think that was going to work
Speaker 2: that well, and the loan amounts were better, the quality
Speaker 2: was better, and especially with micros AND's endorsement.
Speaker 3: So what did marketers not understand about radio?
Speaker 2: I think from my experience and talking to a lot
Speaker 2: of people, you'll do a two or three month program
Speaker 2: instead of like doing annually. I think the consistency of
Speaker 2: being out every day, I think is really important. Which
Speaker 2: I don't think a lot of marketers understand that.
Speaker 3: You don't build a business like you did without great management.
Speaker 3: What are your core beliefs about running a great company?
Speaker 2: Now? Have the right people is essential, and sometimes you
Speaker 2: outgrow them and you have to maybe either replace them
Speaker 2: or demote them, or sometimes it can be promoted. But
Speaker 2: it's all about the team. I mean, a business to
Speaker 2: me is nothing but having the right team. If you
Speaker 2: don't have that, you can't grow a business. I've heard
Speaker 2: these companies where they go, you know, we don't even
Speaker 2: do any marketing, and all I hear is like, wow,
Speaker 2: you're staying small, and I imagine that you're doing most
Speaker 2: of the work. And I think, to build a great business,
Speaker 2: and you know there's small business that aren't great, but
Speaker 2: if you really want to grow it, you have to
Speaker 2: hire a team. I mean you have to be able
Speaker 2: to trust those teams. And a lot of times my
Speaker 2: salespeople or my mortgage consultants are they could do it
Speaker 2: much better than I could, and I'm much I rather that,
Speaker 2: you know, I haven't done it in many years. Customer
Speaker 2: service is our main focus. Always do what's right for
Speaker 2: the customer. The team second, because if you don't have
Speaker 2: the customers, you don't have a team.
Speaker 3: So the corollary with this talk a little bit about
Speaker 3: company culture. What does it do for you? How do
Speaker 3: you build it, how do you use it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think culture is very important. I read a
Speaker 2: lot of books, and I still read a lot of books.
Speaker 2: One of the companies I really Enmires virgin The culture
Speaker 2: is extremely strong, and I read his books and I
Speaker 2: learned how he did it, and then I put my
Speaker 2: own little magic into it. Zappo's is a great company.
Speaker 2: You know. I've taken my manage been teamed there three
Speaker 2: times to go see how they do it. They show
Speaker 2: you around how it works, and they've been voted one
Speaker 2: of the best companies work for nationally many years in
Speaker 2: a row. I've met Tony Heish and he has a
Speaker 2: book called delivering happiness. I think learning from what a
Speaker 2: lot of companies do and implementing it for your own
Speaker 2: company is very important. But it's everything. It's you know,
Speaker 2: you're spending more time with your coworkers sometimes and your
Speaker 2: own family. So I want people to want to come
Speaker 2: in and work. You know, with this new COVID and
Speaker 2: this hybrid model, we're doing three days a week at
Speaker 2: the office, we were less than that. I prefer being
Speaker 2: in the office all the time, but I do believe
Speaker 2: a lot of work life balance. But I think having
Speaker 2: people wanting to come in to do the work rather
Speaker 2: than you know, when we first started the business in
Speaker 2: ninety nine, if somebody was late, I'd be watching that,
Speaker 2: and I was a little bit too strict, and I
Speaker 2: think that was old school culture. Were now like, you
Speaker 2: show up half an hour late, hour late, just work
Speaker 2: the extra hour, just somehow make it up, and as
Speaker 2: long as you're in your numbers, we're good. Those are
Speaker 2: the things that I think are really important to give.
Speaker 2: The teams nowadays expect to have both life balance, and
Speaker 2: I agree with that, but also very much into the
Speaker 2: customer service and hitting your numbers. We don't have good
Speaker 2: customer service if you're not hitting your numbers, you're going
Speaker 2: to go out of business.
Speaker 3: So you've hired great people. How do you look for people?
Speaker 3: In any words of wisdom on the interview process.
Speaker 2: I really focused on people that are hungry. I love experience,
Speaker 2: but if you have a great experience but you have
Speaker 2: bad attitude, it's not the right fit. If somebody is
Speaker 2: negative and it's not looking for a solution based you know,
Speaker 2: I've had people that complain, but you know, what's the solution?
Speaker 2: How do we fix it? And do you want to
Speaker 2: be part of the solution. If you just want to
Speaker 2: complain and not help solve the problem, that's that's a
Speaker 2: real problem. So I think in life, in personal relationships
Speaker 2: and in business relationships, you always have to be focused
Speaker 2: on how to fix every single problem. And we find
Speaker 2: people all over the place, indeed online people that leave
Speaker 2: end up coming back to American Financing. We really pride
Speaker 2: ourselves in that we've been voted one of the best
Speaker 2: places to work in Colorado many years in a row.
Speaker 2: And it's our goal to want people that want to
Speaker 2: be there. And then you know, if somebody doesn't want
Speaker 2: to be there, hey, let's talk about it. Part as friends,
Speaker 2: because we don't know what's your future looks like, and
Speaker 2: maybe you want to be back, maybe you don't, but
Speaker 2: we always want to have a really good relationship with
Speaker 2: people that are there or that are no longer there.
Speaker 3: More of Math and Magic right after this quick break.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Math and Magic. Let's hear more from
Speaker 3: my conversation with Damian Maldonado. You built an amazing business,
Speaker 3: but there were certainly big bumps in the road along
Speaker 3: the way. The recent high interest rates, i know, had
Speaker 3: a huge negative impact on the mortgage business in general.
Speaker 3: How did you navigate that adversity and how do you
Speaker 3: navigate all those mumps in the road.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was extremely challenging. I mean the whole industry
Speaker 2: as a whole when rates went up historic speed, it's
Speaker 2: never happened before. Went from you know, three percent all
Speaker 2: the way to seven and seven plus even eight percent,
Speaker 2: So the whole market fell ninety percent. So we had
Speaker 2: to do layoffs about ninety percent of our people, which
Speaker 2: was really devastating people that have been working there for
Speaker 2: over ten years and even longer. It was very, very tough.
Speaker 2: But if you don't survive, then the whole company goes out.
Speaker 2: Of business. So when you get into that mode, which
Speaker 2: I hate to say it is kind of survival mode,
Speaker 2: and I think, you know, mentally, it's really draining because
Speaker 2: you have to keep yourself going while you're doing these layoffs,
Speaker 2: and so it was it was a challenge. But then
Speaker 2: we focused on our numbers, and before we did that,
Speaker 2: we tried to put the pedal on the gas and
Speaker 2: try to market and do all the things that we
Speaker 2: know how to do, and that didn't work, so we
Speaker 2: ended up taking some pretty big losses the last couple
Speaker 2: of years. It was really challenging, but you know, focusing
Speaker 2: on writing out the storms sort of speak is what
Speaker 2: we did. And now rates recently gone down, so we're
Speaker 2: back to hiring mode. A lot of the people that
Speaker 2: were there before are coming back, which is bringing a
Speaker 2: lot of great energy. They're excited to be there. The
Speaker 2: team that was there already is like, we're getting back
Speaker 2: to we call it AFC two point zero.
Speaker 3: We were talking about your moved Puerto Rico. It's got
Speaker 3: great weather, terrific tax benefits, but I doubt that's why
Speaker 3: you moved. What was your motivation?
Speaker 2: So I moved to Puerto Rico for kite Turfin, so
Speaker 2: where it goes very windy. Ten months are the year
Speaker 2: is wendy, so perfect conditions for kitesurfing. And that was
Speaker 2: the goal, is the kite surfing. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 2: I didn't move here for taxis at all. After you know,
Speaker 2: talking to all my friends and everybody's talking about it,
Speaker 2: I ended up going that route, but it was a
Speaker 2: year and a half after I got here. It's two
Speaker 2: and a half three hour flight to Miami, so it's
Speaker 2: still close, and we got direct flights there everywhere. And
Speaker 2: the culture is very nice. I mean, the people are nice,
Speaker 2: they want to get to know you. It's a really
Speaker 2: great place to live. But I came for that. And
Speaker 2: now we're building businesses here and we're starting to do
Speaker 2: some of our mortgage operations here. We're building quite a
Speaker 2: few different things here. It's a great place to be.
Speaker 3: I gotta sort of taken a side here. What got
Speaker 3: you so interested in kite surfing?
Speaker 2: Well, I was in a well actually two thousand and eight,
Speaker 2: me and my kid's mom. We're not one no longer together,
Speaker 2: but we ended up getting the second home in Miami.
Speaker 2: I'm in the voting Palace over there. In twenty third
Speaker 2: in Collins and I'm looking out the back and I
Speaker 2: see some of that kitesurf from the beach and I'm like,
Speaker 2: what is that? And that was the first time I
Speaker 2: saw it, But then once I started kiding, and it's
Speaker 2: just it's very meditative. You could, you know, fie on
Speaker 2: the water, you could do amazing tricks, you could jump
Speaker 2: really high. It's a great sport. You could really clear
Speaker 2: your brain. And I highly recommend it for anybody that's
Speaker 2: interested in any sport water sports, skiing, snowboarding. I love
Speaker 2: sports in general, but doing kay surfings is a whole
Speaker 2: different animal.
Speaker 3: So your Puerto Rican background, that's clearly important to you.
Speaker 3: How has that culture influenced your own company's culture management?
Speaker 2: Well, Puerto Rico, so I've been back for six years.
Speaker 2: I came here to open up kay surfing schools. We
Speaker 2: bought a little boutique hotel, Nuna Uno. It's a little
Speaker 2: bit challenging to do business in Puerto Rico, or very challenges,
Speaker 2: very political, it's hard to get permits. We basically took
Speaker 2: that same things that we learned from all the other
Speaker 2: businesses and we put it here. So in restaurants, for instance,
Speaker 2: you have a really good GM or a really good chef,
Speaker 2: And in our case, we went up with a really
Speaker 2: good GM to make sure that they're taking care of
Speaker 2: the quality of the food. But same principles apply, having
Speaker 2: a really good team, focusing on the customer service, and
Speaker 2: adding a lot of value.
Speaker 3: You're doing some TV movie, podcasts production. Tell us a
Speaker 3: little bit about that.
Speaker 2: So we're building a media company. So I've met quite
Speaker 2: a few people doing movies here, like Malin Akerman, and
Speaker 2: she did three movies while I was here, and I
Speaker 2: learned about there's great tax credits for that. You have
Speaker 2: forty percent tax credit if you're filling from out of state,
Speaker 2: and then sixty percent of used Puerto Rican staff. That's
Speaker 2: a great benefit in itself. Plus is a great place
Speaker 2: to film. So the studios are going to be ready
Speaker 2: for movies, projects that I think are cool that I
Speaker 2: maybe want to invest in, maybe not, I don't know.
Speaker 2: But we have space for about forty people in rooms
Speaker 2: where they could just come with their team and film,
Speaker 2: and then also podcasts. We love that space. We love radio,
Speaker 2: We love podcasts.
Speaker 3: You travel a lot. Why travel? What does it do
Speaker 3: for you?
Speaker 2: You know, traveling makes you look at the world with
Speaker 2: a very different perspective. You know, I recently went to
Speaker 2: India last year, and when you go to India, it
Speaker 2: gives you a respect for the world, how the world lives,
Speaker 2: and how lucky we are to be in America. But also,
Speaker 2: you know a lot of people in India were very
Speaker 2: happy and didn't have much, and that I really get
Speaker 2: an appreciation for that.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about that story. You've got a great story.
Speaker 3: Sure a lot of kids look at it at you
Speaker 3: and say, I want to do that. What advice do
Speaker 3: you have for kids from circumstances like you grew up
Speaker 3: in who dream of having what you have.
Speaker 2: I always have the same advice, which is really simple.
Speaker 2: I mean, read books. I always recommend three books, and
Speaker 2: these ones and Disorder you go, Awakening Giant Within, then
Speaker 2: Rich Dad, Poor Dad, which you know, is a very
Speaker 2: simple book on how to look at money and then
Speaker 2: think and grow rich. And then from there there's a
Speaker 2: lot of others. But if you start with the base
Speaker 2: like that, and I wish they taught that in college
Speaker 2: or high school, it would be amazing. Teaches you about
Speaker 2: positive thinking about how to be motivated. So if you
Speaker 2: start with the base like that, and you actually apply it.
Speaker 2: I guarantee you're going to be successful the challenges. You know,
Speaker 2: I've even tried to pay people employees and past like
Speaker 2: here's one hundred dollars read this book. You know how
Speaker 2: many have done that? Zero? So one of those things
Speaker 2: you can't teach motivation. And I have had some people
Speaker 2: do it and they've become successful. And I'm not saying
Speaker 2: those because of those books. I'm saying they were already
Speaker 2: going to be successful because they would read the books.
Speaker 2: And I don't think you need college. I don't think
Speaker 2: you need any of that. If you google any subject
Speaker 2: you want, you're going to find a person that did that,
Speaker 2: and it's been there, done that, read their biography, ideally
Speaker 2: autobiography and the amount of information you know gained from that,
Speaker 2: and do it like you're starting it. Do it like
Speaker 2: you're going to college. That is your college. And I
Speaker 2: guarantee success. If you read and you apply what you learn,
Speaker 2: and you keep reading and you keep learning by that,
Speaker 2: you're going to find a mentor latch onto that person.
Speaker 2: Ask a lot of questions, and you're going to find
Speaker 2: another and it just gets you down this path that
Speaker 2: when I love this line when the student's ready to teach,
Speaker 2: you will appear. The way you get ready is by
Speaker 2: having the knowledge to even know what question is to ask?
Speaker 3: What advice do you have for entrepreneurs who are at
Speaker 3: that stage where they've been building the company and building it,
Speaker 3: they're still trying to bring it across the finish line?
Speaker 3: What advice helps them?
Speaker 2: I think main thing is, you know, really watch expenses.
Speaker 2: If you could bootstrap it, bootstrap it, and once you
Speaker 2: have your systems down, then maybe go ask for many
Speaker 2: if you have to at all. I started accompanying with
Speaker 2: five thousand dollars credit card. Me, me and my co
Speaker 2: partner started with five thousand credit We never had to
Speaker 2: use the credit card that was our backup. But I
Speaker 2: got paid five hundred dollars a week if we had
Speaker 2: the money, and she got paid nothing for years. So
Speaker 2: we really bootstrapped it, and a lot of times our
Speaker 2: employees were making more money than us. It takes a
Speaker 2: lot of tenacity or a lot of guts to say, okay,
Speaker 2: well geez, I'm gonna ride this out. I remember one
Speaker 2: of my good friends, carry Hacker, came in with a
Speaker 2: check of twenty thousand dollars. He's like, look, at my
Speaker 2: commission for this month, and at the time, I'm making,
Speaker 2: you know, two thousand dollars a month, so he was
Speaker 2: ten x and what I was making. I was like, jeez,
Speaker 2: I should just go get a job. You know, that
Speaker 2: pops in your head and I'm like, no, We're doing
Speaker 2: this for the long run. But you can't help to
Speaker 2: think that. But we made our company into a billion
Speaker 2: dollar operation, and that had I gave up, that wouldn't
Speaker 2: have happened. But that didn't happen for years. It took
Speaker 2: a long time to make the first million dollars. And
Speaker 2: when I say million dollars, I'm talking a million dollars growths.
Speaker 2: A lot of people use that term really loosely, like
Speaker 2: what is what is making a million dollars? It's not
Speaker 2: making it yourself net or is it your company? Because
Speaker 2: when your company first makes a million dollars, you take
Speaker 2: out your expenses, you might only have forty thousand dollars net,
Speaker 2: and that is your first million technically, right, But you
Speaker 2: only made forty fifty thousand dollars. And that's a great
Speaker 2: accomplishment because if you could do that, then do ten
Speaker 2: now ten million, and now was four hundred thousand if
Speaker 2: you have those kind of margins. But then you figure
Speaker 2: out how you work on your margins and just stay
Speaker 2: lean and mean and tweak and tweak.
Speaker 3: So what advice do you have about navigating work life
Speaker 3: balance You mentioned it earlier, or maybe even work life integration,
Speaker 3: depending on how you look at it.
Speaker 2: Well, I've changed my mind on some things. When I
Speaker 2: first started becoming successful and making good money. I read
Speaker 2: you know, this four Hour work Week, which you know,
Speaker 2: it's a great book, but I don't suggest it or
Speaker 2: recommend it anymore because it kind of got me a
Speaker 2: little bit lazy. And those things work right if especially
Speaker 2: if you're successful. Yeah, you could automate some things. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but I think this hunger that the reason like Elon
Speaker 2: Musk and the Mark Zuckerberg's of the world, and they
Speaker 2: don't have to work right. They could retire a long
Speaker 2: time ago, but guess what, they haven't because they get
Speaker 2: conspired by it and they didn't take their foot off
Speaker 2: the gas at all, and they're innovating and doing amazing things.
Speaker 2: So I think just not getting too comfortable, which can
Speaker 2: happen with success. And a lot of people say, oh,
Speaker 2: do your passion, Well, that's great, advice, but whatever, your
Speaker 2: passion doesn't pay. And they everybody said, oh, you can
Speaker 2: figure out how to make money in your passion. I
Speaker 2: don't believe that. I first say, first figured out how
Speaker 2: are you going to make the best ROI, and then
Speaker 2: implement your passion.
Speaker 3: If you could go back in time, what advice would
Speaker 3: you give your eighteen year old self.
Speaker 2: Oh, my eighteen year old self, I would say, read
Speaker 2: a lot of books, which I did, read a lot
Speaker 2: of books. Work really hard and don't stop. And when
Speaker 2: you do get successful, stay focused on your families, Stay
Speaker 2: focused on making sure that you keep what's most important,
Speaker 2: and don't get distracted by the money, which I think
Speaker 2: can happen to people you stay and humble and learning
Speaker 2: from the mentors, the people that you really admire. Look
Speaker 2: what they do. Use that as a learning tool as
Speaker 2: someone you want people you admire do that. And also
Speaker 2: your circle. Make sure you're surrounding yourself with the right people.
Speaker 2: Some of my best friends are my team members, and
Speaker 2: because we have the same visions and we work together,
Speaker 2: and we work hard, and it's fun to make money
Speaker 2: and grow businesses with your friends. That's more fun actually
Speaker 2: than most things in life.
Speaker 3: I think Math and Magic is about exploring both sides
Speaker 3: of business and marketing, the analytical and the creative side.
Speaker 3: We end each episode with our guests giving a shout
Speaker 3: out to their personal favorites for the greats on both
Speaker 3: sides of the equation. So who gets your nod for
Speaker 3: the best math oriented business person? Someone who sees it
Speaker 3: through the numbers.
Speaker 2: So one of my first mentors, I know he's not
Speaker 2: the best industry or anything like that, but he started
Speaker 2: a company call is Dave Since and started a company
Speaker 2: called National Fitness Corporation. That's where I learned how to
Speaker 2: do myself as in marketing. He did this production sheet
Speaker 2: that I still kind of use now as very sophisticated now,
Speaker 2: but back in the day was just how many leads,
Speaker 2: how many customers you got, what was your conversion ratio?
Speaker 2: And how do that? How many you ended up becoming
Speaker 2: a cell? And then you do matts. For instance, on
Speaker 2: a week, if you had seven days of cells, add
Speaker 2: those up divided by seven time jab by seven industry
Speaker 2: projection and you could do the same for by four
Speaker 2: weeks or whatever. That little formula right there has been
Speaker 2: a big reason why we've been successful in all of
Speaker 2: our businesses. That math equation was amazing for me, and
Speaker 2: there was many others, but to me, that's business, one
Speaker 2: on one.
Speaker 3: Who gets the nod for the best creative the power
Speaker 3: of an idea.
Speaker 2: You know, I would have to say from examples I've heard,
Speaker 2: is Steve Jobs, I mean, to me, would be the
Speaker 2: most magical magician. In two thousand and seven when he
Speaker 2: introduced the iPhone, that was magical and he ended up
Speaker 2: disrupting many industries. But now we can't even walk out
Speaker 2: of our doors without somebody staring at a screen. And
Speaker 2: it's for better or for worse, and it's an amazing innovation,
Speaker 2: but we are stuck to our screens like nothing else.
Speaker 2: So that was a very magical thing that he did,
Speaker 2: and at the time it was revolutionary, is still a
Speaker 2: revolutionary and it became the standard. So I really admire
Speaker 2: what he did in industry. Is an amazing businessman and
Speaker 2: that's something that changed the world.
Speaker 3: Damien, You've got an amazing and inspiring story, and the
Speaker 3: good news is you still got so much ahead of you.
Speaker 3: Thanks for sharing it with us today. Here are a
Speaker 3: few things I picked up for my conversation with Damien. One,
Speaker 3: don't get too comfortable with success. Even when you're on
Speaker 3: top of your company or your industry, you shouldn't take
Speaker 3: your foot off the pedal. There's always room for improvement
Speaker 3: and innovation. Plus, you never know when the economy could
Speaker 3: take a downturn, and honing your survival instincts is essential. Two.
Speaker 3: Education could take many forms. Just because Damien didn't go
Speaker 3: to college doesn't mean he didn't seek out knowledge and lessons.
Speaker 3: There's so much to be gleaned from books and mentors.
Speaker 3: That is, as long as your mind is open to
Speaker 3: the idea that they have something valuable to teach you.
Speaker 3: And absorbing information isn't enough. Need to be adamant about
Speaker 3: applying it to your life and your leadership. Three. Being
Speaker 3: risk adverse doesn't mean you can't grow. In today's world,
Speaker 3: risk take is often applauded for the big payoffs, but
Speaker 3: Damien's humble origins led him to take a bootstrapping approach
Speaker 3: to business. He's living proof that's sticking to your own
Speaker 3: financial means doesn't have to limit what your business is
Speaker 3: capable of. Instead, being conservative can help you perfect your
Speaker 3: business wobble at a local level. Then when you're ready
Speaker 3: to expand, you do it. Right, I'm Bob Pittman. Thanks
Speaker 3: for listening. That's it for today's episode.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to Math and Magic, a
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Podcasts. The show is created and hosted
Speaker 1: by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Sydney Rosenblum for booking
Speaker 1: and wrangling our wonderful talent, which is no small feat.
Speaker 1: The Math and Magic team is Jessica Crimechitch and Baheed Fraser.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Ali Perry and Nikki Etour. Until
Speaker 1: next time,