Boring Businesses. Big Rewards w/ Codie Sanchez

you know how the universe repeats lessons it's like do you get it do you get it yet how many times do you want this one yeah exactly like no I'd like another face punch please building businesses in whatever way allows you to become this uplifting mechanism for a bunch of other humans you can be the elevator they stand on get some skin because I promise people burn down less houses when they own a part of them own your future because if you don't someone else will welcome to the own your future podcast thank you for tuning in today is going to be so special I have a brand new friend so many times I'm like oh it's my dear friend this is a new friend we just met for the last hour but you know when ever anybody ever tell you to read a book like read this book and then a day later someone else tells you then you get an email to read it you got to read it as you say it's the same thing with you this is Cody Sanchez she is doing an amazing job she's bought over 26 businesses from a journalist to the finance World working for some of the top companies and now buying your own businesses over 26 businesses yeah over 50 million dollars a year in Revenue now 70. 70 million dollars I was off and like that book in the last month three people have said this girl Cody Sanchez is on fire you got a meter and I've had the chance to meet you today I geeked out and watched some of your podcasts and interviews I'm so impressed with what you're doing our audience is going to absolutely love you and your number one thing is buying other people's businesses but not with a lot of capital in some cases not buying companies that need so much work and that's what I want to get into today because when I say you buy companies I think people think Corporate America hedge fund lots of money Angel Investing lots of millions raised when that's not the way you approach it and how you're helping people not only you do it for yourself that's your main business you're also now helping others do the same I am so stoked I have some questions I want to personally ask you again thanks for tuning in to own your future podcast and I want to say thank you so much today as I'm sitting here we are still we are the number one podcast in the world in our category that's because of you so follow subscribe like share but now let's get to this interview so you have buy businesses how the hell did that happen started really corporate so unlike a lot of entrepreneurs or people that I think come and speak on podcasts I was I was a fraidy cat for years so I worked in Corporate America for a long time in finance and what we do in finance and private Equity is we buy businesses but really big ones right so 100 billion dollar transaction we use other people's money aka the bank to do it typically and then we make millions billions of dollars and at some point I was kind of miserable I don't know if anybody could relate but you know 60 70 hour weeks and I didn't see an end to it you know I looked at the managing directors that were higher than me and thought I don't want I'm going to be them if I do really well that's the goal that's that's where I go and I was like I don't want it I don't want any of that they don't seem happy and uh and so I started to figure out where can my golden parachute be like how can I get out of this and what I realized is wait there's nothing that difference between a giant transaction and a little transaction why couldn't I buy a tiny business and use other people's money in order to do it and I could maybe buy enough of those where I could just cover my salary like that's it maybe that was your goal I mean and but before we go any further tell me something I've been geeking out on for the last six months is I've been an entrepreneur since I was little 17 16 I started cutting firewood and selling it then I bought wrecked cars and fixed them then I had a collision shop then I got a tow truck then I got an apartment and then building houses and then I bought Tony Robbins course and then I started writing books and like always been that guy and it doesn't mean sometimes people like oh I didn't have enough struggle or I'm not the guy that wants to sacrifice and or the girl that wants to and like we all come from different places every entrepreneur comes from a different path we all have our own but the only sorry to digress but what you just said I wanna do enough to cover my salary what I've been geeking out on I just want you to write down and put in the back of your head for talking about later is there is a career mindset that I think you get not brainwashed but you get used to compared to the call entrepreneur unfortunately entrepreneurship has gotten a bad name in recent years when it's the foundation of this amazing country that my my wife's parents can come from Mexico and by the time my wife is 30 she owns two businesses she's doing amazing things on her own where else can you do that so I'm no one so I love the word entrepreneurship it's been my whole life and I love being an advocate for entrepreneurs I know you are too I know it's your goal to create a million of them yeah right so I love it this conversation is going to be easy getting too long-winded here for career mindset versus entrepreneurial mindset I don't think there's people watching right now that don't realize that they've been programmed to be a little quieter to just look for the promotion to see oh I could get to the c-suite if I do this and I do this and I do this and if I quit can I cover my salary by do and it gives you this wrong perspective before we go any further on your journey the the woman you are now yeah what would you say to that person who's a little scared thinking I shouldn't do this because I'm safe and are you really safe it was an illusion all right all right I had to jump in here real quick to make sure that you have reserved your spot for the own your future challenge yes this is the podcast I'm talking about the challenge starting August 1st with myself Tony Robbins and some of the greatest guests on the planet it's happening for five days the first through the fifth about two hours a day it's that kind of free it's totally free and Tony and myself and our guests are going to pull back the curtain and show you how to live a life of purpose a life of passion but how to tap into an industry to succeed on a whole new level it is going to be unbelievable and I don't want you to miss it oif 2023.com always start sooner than you think do it before you're ready um you'll never feel ready sort of like you know that conversation people have with kids like you're never ready I feel like people should say that same thing to people who want to become an entrepreneur the difference maybe is like the people who want to have kids like you're never going to be ready just have the kid you're like you're never ready just do the thing yeah um great point but I actually think I'm a little different like we were talking about mutual friends we have we I have a couple mutual friends that are like I slept on a couch I lived on the floor and I do not think you have to do that no absolutely not I think that you could be a little scared and you could tiptoe your way into it and and so if I was talking to my 19 year old self I'd say start tiptoeing sooner you don't have to take a big jump tiptoe investigate exactly and don't be so afraid of the unknown yeah learn it's actually scarier to be stuck in something you don't like and be at the end of your life and go damn it I missed it yeah rather than saying let's tiptoe all right so back to your story you're you're helping doing these big transactions you realize they're doing it with big money can I do it with small money if I buy a couple of these small companies with somebody else's money can I cover my salary where'd you go from there so from there I did what most people do I waffled around cried you know didn't make changes for a bit and and then finally really I started thinking about businesses that I could do from afar the time I was running around traveling like every week non-stop two flights a week at least and um so I couldn't buy a business and run it myself I was working way too much but I found a guy who was operating a laundromat and at the time this guy who was operating a laundromat when he was explaining it to me we knew each other through mutual friends I was like wait a second like you just need a little bit of cash to operate a lot what if you run a laundromat and I buy one we could buy one from really cheap here's how I think we could structure it because he was like laundry mask cost a million dollars and I was like I don't think so because I know how to find these businesses that are kind of going a little sideways or maybe businesses that are really small but never want to be big businesses and I thought let's apply the same idea we do in private equity which is we find kind of the little guys that need some help and we either give them capital or we give them operational opportunity right right 100 and so we did that together we did my first little laundromat transaction so that was like a hundred thousand dollars that I invested for sixty seven thousand dollars a year in profit now to be clear 100 000 is a lot and now I teach people how to do deals with a lot less cash but back then a hundred thousand was a lot for me but wouldn't bankrupt me right and I did that first transaction and I was like oh this works I don't have to step foot in it I'm in Chile half the time doing deals and this tiny business works and then we bought another one and then we bought another one and then I realized everything Rhymes and we are building our own little private Equity holding company but the fascinating part about it was I I was quiet like I didn't tell anybody I was I've only been on the internet for like two years and prior to this like I was almost embarrassed like I own these little dirty businesses these boring businesses and maybe the people listening maybe you have that thing that you think you shouldn't do or that is dirty or that is boring or that somebody's make fun of you and it turns out the second I started talking about it on the internet now we have four million followers and 100 million monthly views and all talking about laundromats you know ridiculous right so that was the first deal that was a catalyst for all the other deals and I love that story so thank you and I'm going to ask more questions on it but isn't it crazy you know when people hear things in personal development change your beliefs change your life change your story change your life you're like I don't need any of that stuff just give me a good business but when you really as you get older especially and and you're doing so amazing again I mean this it's incredible what you've done you're gonna see that those little things are actually the big things that's so true what you felt about laundromats no one will care was that reality or your belief belief right and once the belief was shifted you thought what other companies what other businesses this seem a little dirty or you don't want to talk about but could do the same thing for me and really when when people say what's the secret to success there's a million things but the little things are the big things and wisdom comes from questioning your beliefs and stepping into the uncomfortable yeah and once you step into the uncomfortable solve bigger problems than you ever had before when you step back that knowledge turns to wisdom and over years it compounds and compounds and compounds and then all of a sudden you say God that person's got such great intuition no if someone says you know somebody that's got great gut instincts or good intuition it simply means they failed more than most they face their fears they question their beliefs and they know the experience on the other side that's that's wisdom gut that's Instinct and when you do it long enough it just it's like a really great on well AI is artificial intelligence we actually had it we are the founders of AI right here between our ears it's the cumulative effect of of these experiences you're going to watch this as you go and it's gonna be a fun journey and if we know each other for a lot of years I get to watch this you're going to watch things that took you months that take weeks that take days that take hours that take moments that someone goes what about this business you go no that won't work in a second you'll know it a second or in a second you'll go oh I need more info on that one right yeah well you said something when we were chatting that I loved which was that you know when we share our experiences online we turn decades into days which I you know a little light bulb you're like I'm gonna solve your issue about thinking about sharing information in 30 seconds and I was like sure let's see you know and then that line and I was like God that's exactly it and then what's so funny is in finance we are taught tactics tactics tactics you know give me the financials give me the spreadsheet all day and what I realized actually not so long ago you would be proud I think because I could see like you and Tony you you found this stuff out like 30 years ago I found it out 30 minutes ago but but I was at I was at the I gave this uh a speech and I was listening to the person before me uh give theirs thankfully and they were talking about how people physically represent money so their body if if they could have a physical representation of money what would that look like with your body and it was a group of small group of women very successful women by the way six seven eight figure women and they were like I want you to uh think about money close your eyes and then make your body a physical representation of money and so I'm like so I you know I I think money and I go money like hands up right I'm like I don't even think about it I don't say the words out loud I'm just going back like yeah I like it you know whatever and then I oh and then she says open your eyes and look around everybody else is sort of like curled up like like closed tight or just like Mommy or and it was the weirdest thing I've ever saw because then I went on and said um okay I'm gonna give you a bunch of tactics and tools because that's kind of the way that my brain works but if you if your physical body is like this and this is how you think about money I gotta give you a list I could give you the spreadsheet I could tell you every single thing to do but I kind of feel like you need to go and listen to somebody like Dean or somebody like Tony first because if you don't believe it then all the numbers won't back it if you don't believe love we ever find love yeah I mean it sounds so touchy-feely which like hurts my little Finance Soul except it's true uh yeah and so I think it's really powerful the stuff that you do when you open people's aperture larger and then they can see the numbers and they can see the tactics but before they'll just be on the internet saying well [ __ ] work no way no how whatever so then buying laundromats evolved to this is your business I mean you have a company Now 26 companies or is it more is that what it's at right now yeah 26 boring businesses I call them and then we have essentially our media company so now we have three of those uh and then we have five what I call Media accelerated companies so what I realized is there's just levels to every game right so I had that first little laundromat and then I was like huh well I could just have more laundry mats because it's the same thing and then what about car washes and then how about oh this is a landscaping company with the same Dynamic so I started building up this thing and then a weird thing happened to me in in private equity which happens to a lot of employees which is I made more money in my side stuff than my main stuff and at that point in my career I mean I'm like eight years into Finance I'm pretty senior I'm making you know a million bucks a year as as an employee I'm doing pretty well and um but I was making more on this other thing at this point I actually really liked what I did in private Equity I was I could have been an employee for a long time actually except some of the other people that I worked with got wind of how much I was making in this other stuff and I started becoming a little bit public I wasn't making any money I wasn't selling anything online I just people found out about portfolios my leadership business grew and so I got a couple of you know CNBC spots and whatever and I remember one of my partners at the time said um you know we don't we don't build ourselves we build the company we don't talk about you we talk about we and at the time I was pissed I was like I have made you yeah hundreds of millions of dollars now I kind of get it as a boss he's right I was playing with his chips and he did me a huge service which is he said you gotta pick which one do you want to do and to this this day we're great friends he's an incredible CEO like you would love him the culture he's built in finance is incredible um but I left we took a walk on the beach he said you pick I was kind of like I think you're ridiculous like you know we kind of fought and and I left and then I said hey we're gonna go our separate ways but actually I respect you I kind of get it of course but if he hadn't he didn't fire me but if he hadn't put that ultimatum on the line I wouldn't have that choice yeah I wouldn't have then gone and and I even then Dean I did the the wussy thing again I went and partnered with somebody else in a private Equity Firm I went into theirs I didn't think I could do it by myself I thought I needed somebody that career mindset evolving to I can do this on my own yeah I needed a bridge and then I realized quickly oh man I'm bringing in all the money to these guys I'm bringing in all the deals why am I doing this with somebody else and then I had to have that you know how the universe repeats lessons it's like do you get it do you get it yet how many times do you want this one yeah exactly like no I'd like another face punch please and so then the same thing happened I started getting big I was in I was in private equity and cannabis and I had been a private Equity cannabis for like six months and I'm like headlining the private Equity Cannabis Conference we're getting all the deals we're doing whatever same thing with one of my partners they're like this is too much outside of the partnership we don't want to be public you obviously want to be public so pick and I was like God again pick again and I had you know I had a lot millions of dollars invested in there and so then uh I basically said again I think you guys are wrong fine and uh and then I left that private Equity Fund I finished that last fund with us and did the fundraise and was like I suppose I am now unemployable and I shall work for myself and uh but it took it took nudges and how many times do we all get the nudge and we ignore it I love that I love sorry I'm just gonna tell them it's a great second grader joke but it's a joke that somebody's in the Midwest and they live in the floodplains and it starts raining and it starts to flood yeah and uh fire truck pulls up and says hey buddy get in the truck that the flood's coming it's going to go over your house like no no I pray every day God Will Save Me So he leaves you've heard this and I love this and then it gets up to like the second window and a boat comes it's like yo yo the water's gonna go over your house get in the boat he's like no no God Will Save Me finally it's up on the roof helicopter drops the ladder he's like no no no save me the water comes over drowns and he gets to Heaven it's like dude I thought you're gonna save me he's like I sent you a car a boat and a helicopter what else do you want from me that was like but I say that as a joke I know it was you but it's everybody we all have The Human Condition it's like knock knock you're called to this way you've just been trained to think this way like when people say I I take the safe road is working for someone else safe yeah covet came we saw everything 2007 came the shift of the economy there's probably another big shift coming the economy now ai could disrupt the industry you're in there's nothing safe and is it hard work doing your own thing hell yes well simultaneously do you get to create your future your destiny control your you know I mean like it like there's a gamble of each there's also staying comfortable in a job and getting to the end of your life and go man I never went after what all these callings they sent the boat they sent the car they sent the helicopter I should have so I think at first I just want to recognize that it only took two smacks in the face for you to to jump you know sometimes there's there's people with smack marks all over them right sure I feel you I feel your pain yeah well I think the other thing you know that I like to talk about too is and I know you're the same way I could I have a business that employs hundreds of people if there were no employees no way do I think everybody should be an entrepreneur do I think it's super easy no what I actually think is that um every human should fight for skin in the game they're playing and so every person that I employ has skin in the game AKA if we do XYZ you will make more money if you bring me a deal you will get a percentage of the deal if you bring me an investor you'll get a percentage of the investor and I won't ever be able to take away that percentage of the deal that percentage of the investor you don't have to show up for work to get that and so you know I have a father and a mother my father you know wasn't wasn't immigrant you know didn't go to college smartest man I know bought business sold business after selling business but he was he would say if he was here that he was super scared at risk he was risk averse his whole life but guess what him taking maybe what he perceives is not a lot of risk or the safe route allowed me to take way more right right right and so I have a lot of respect for those people who are who want to work and build for others what I don't have respect for is if you do it begrudgingly you know if you're working in a company you hate if you're doing something you don't like that's your fault that's not the company's fault it's not the job's fault right it's perspective again yeah I mean that could shift in a moment if you say hey this is just the stepping stone to where I'm going let me be happier today so when I'm where I want to be tomorrow I could say hey that was a good experience along the way totally and you get there so much faster so getting back to so uh laundromats Evolution car washes all right I gotta do my own thing right the universe put the spotlight on you so you start your own thing yeah so where to go from there yeah so I had the businesses at that time so I was making money and so basically I took a big breath and I was like well it's January of 2020. not a great time for Cody to fully start something completely by herself Without Partners and you could say you know at that time my my business portfolio was probably doing 20 million dollars in Revenue so it was you know that paid for my stuff I could have just retired probably um but I realized the the other thing that I hadn't been doing because I was scared for a long time is like you talked about in the beginning I was a journalist way back in the day human trafficking drug smuggling crossing the U.S Mexico border seeing horrible things but learning a lot from it and I didn't pursue journalism because you know my mom said journals don't make any money why would you do that journalists are miserable the newspaper business is dying and and I went that way and so in 2020 I started writing again I started writing a newsletter and I just thought well maybe a few people subscribe and I started with this idea of people are losing their minds in 2020 right like and you can't have positive debate you can't have constructive criticism um there was nothing and so I thought I'm going to start something called contrain thinking a newsletter and I'm going to just send it to people that I think are thoughtful and I'm going to ask them to have a dialogue with me and I'm going to talk about some things and Frameworks that I think might help us as we're digesting what's happening in the world around us and that little newsletter started picking up and all of a sudden it had a couple hundred subscribers and it had thousands and right about when it had thousands I was like oh wait a second this is a thing this is something that has a characteristic that looks like a business potentially and so then I welcome to my last 30 years right I had no idea that this internet world existed to be frank I mean I was I thought internet learning yeah self-education no idea right I really thought the Pinnacle was being a Goldman Sachs like I was being a partner being in a private Equity Fund and then I realized that's an eye game and this could actually be that Wii game yeah the actual real-wheel Wii game that my CEO doesn't even have back in the day he had a team like this little team was the Wii but what if my Wii could be Giant and it could be everybody and I remember another CEO said to me once you know Cody we get rich quietly here you know we don't we don't talk about the stuff we do and I thought about that and I was like nah I think like everybody could get rich yeah and in fact if I talked about it I bet I could get rich faster and so could they because we'd just be sharing what was happening and so that little newsletter now turned into you know that four million subscribers uh not just in the newsletter across all of our media and a business where we teach people about stuff that I thought nobody cared about AKA private Equity buying businesses and we're we're still so fledgling you know I mean even though I say the numbers now of let's say we do 70 or 80 or 90 million all in um I see what's possible in this world and all the people we can talk I want to promise you at your age you'll look back when you're in it it seems like it's taken forever yeah it does when you're 50 and you look back like I did all that before 36 holy [ __ ] like that's just the way it works like when you're in it's like what we are two years in four years like you say it out loud you're like oh I'm gonna be quiet I'm four years in we're at 90 million I I so true right and perspective is everything you know it's amazing I was in um you get bit by the bug and this is what I tell I've had this conversation with our mutual friend Alex hermosi and Pace morby was just here not that long ago and and some other but I've had this conversation with everybody with Tony Robbins with Matthew McConaughey he wrote green lights yeah I loved it I got done reading green lights I'm like oh this guy's deep I agree like he's been journaling for 30 years yeah he saw patterns follows the patterns lives a more successful life realized Hollywood wasn't the best place to live for a family moves like saw patterns right just does cool stuff I read that book I'm like this guy needs to have a course this guy needs to teach more he got bit by the bug yeah we became friends I'm like you could take a book is very inspirational yeah of course is transformational so remember that language you read a book when's the last time you read a book and like literally shifted your life you usually read a book you're like I love that you tell three friends and you go on with life yeah yeah you get a course pay a little more you do more work there's exercises and if you actually do it you start implementing it it's true and then sometimes you want to take it further and go man I loved the book The course was incredible I need a coach I need somebody to hold me kick my butt keep me accountable give me the homework that's our industry and and what do we do I shared that early with you you're like you know when I started sharing what I know or selling a course or doing a training you're like my my thing what I said to you was is what would it be worth you to go back with what you know now at 36 years old if you don't mind me sharing that no no um what would it be worth you to go back and spend a day with your 20 year old self yeah a lot I said millions yeah which is true right so you take your 16 years you put it into a 500 course then you feel bad sitting 500 bucks it's like no you just saved somebody a decade of angst and worry I mean I always share that and I said that to you what I love about the entrepreneurial journey is I get to appreciate the invisible if you're just starting your journey I know what you're going to experience and some of it tell and it's worth every bit of it the sleepless nights and all like all that's part of this amazing journey so when I see you at 36 doing what you're doing I know all the mistakes you had to make I know all the times you questioned yourself I know all the times other people questioned you I know you probably had to look a loved one in the face and say I understand what you're saying but this is my life not yours I know all of those pieces and when you could take out Sharon and it was Tony's words decades and days when you can take that 16 years and give somebody the collapsed version and go no no don't go that way please don't go that way go this way that's this industry it's why I love it that's why I'm doing this podcast it's why I write books it's why Tony and I partner in Matthew you and I did this together and we got other cool stuff coming it's because you get to allow you shorten people's learning curves and you get them from to where they are but here's the cool part about your business when you teach it you get exponentially better yeah I see people who are good at marriage and they start teaching marriage and they take their marriage to a whole other level right you see somebody who's teaching financing they start teaching it and you watch their own business go to another level I watch Pace morby he's I know he's a friend of yours he was in real estate started teaching real estate he built this tribe now his deals come from his tribe that's right right and he's exponentially grown it's the same thing probably happened with you it when you say it out loud you go oh before I say that is that 100 right is that my perspective if I'm going to teach this if I'm going to be responsible enough and it sharpens your pencil do you feel that happening oh 100 I also think um the world is now public record like everything that you think is now out there publicly you know if I say something and it's wrong I'm gonna hear about it 30 seconds on the internet 100 million people are going to review the stuff that I say and so I don't profess to be perfect at everything and the Beautiful part about the internet is I'll quickly learn if I'm wrong and I think some people don't want to get public because especially in finance we think if anybody finds me out if they realize I don't know this then you know it's over game over and what I quickly realized is no way this is like free learning for me actually of course all of these humans who are going to come in and tell me one way or the other and the cool part is in in this industry and because we're talking about it and and many of the people who watch are part of our family and Mastermind family you don't have to be the master at all you find your swimming Lane and go deep and if someone's better at you know real estate or investing in bonds or stocks or like you find the expert in your lane and that's what's great about the internet you find somebody that you believe has the same values as you they treat their relationship the same as you they communicate the same they swear they don't swear they drink they don't drink they party they don't part like you get to pick the person who's doing the thing you want yeah who's a chapter ahead a year ahead a decade ahead and you get to let them Forge the path right there's somebody bloody that has forged the path before you you can figure it out on your own or you can learn from the sweat and tears that they they had well the other thing that I think you've realized in business overall way before me but um is when when I buy and build businesses I get to bring along my favorite humans with me so like my dad was at the meeting right before this my dad is part of our Acquisitions group you know my mom did our accounting back in the day I hired my brother into his first job and paid him out his first six figures for one of my businesses you know um and and then a lot of the people that are in my businesses are friends and I have pretty high expectations so I set it up front really well which is super important if you're gonna hire friends and family you know it's like here's the expectations for the business here's how I'm going to communicate you have to determine if these two things will fit you and if it doesn't work you're gonna know ahead of time but then we are going to part ways and you have to be comfortable with that but I think building businesses in whatever way allows you to become this uplifting mechanism for a bunch of other humans you can be the elevator they stand on and that is really powerful for me so if I think about the impact I can have by buying my next couple hundred million dollars in businesses which is still like crazy but you know that's the goal right we build hundreds of millions of dollars of businesses and and invest in hundreds of millions I'll never be able to do as much as a collective audience can so like I think and you know I talk about this until I'm blue in the face sometimes but I really think that humans in our country right now are bit of a turning point because I think that you see all around you you're in real estate you know you know one out of four single-family homes was bought by large institutions last year we live in neighborhoods where our our neighbors don't own their homes that's a new phenomenon and that same thing is happening in businesses 25 to 30 percent of small businesses are owned by the biggest 10 companies in each sector wow and so if we even take the idea that I'm having a great time I love buying businesses it's super amazing for me I think we as a society if we can all help the next human get a little bit of equity get a little bit of ownership they got skin in the game they got skin in the game that's what you said earlier and that's the whole game so so I loved this conversation up until now about your journey thought process behind it listen we all start there's so many people thinking I could never buy a business and maybe that's not your jam maybe you just want to be a coach or or start a pizza restaurant I I don't know but know that the same philosophy of you buying the big businesses when you worked working for you know the finance compared to you buying the little ones compared to somebody thinking they couldn't even buy a laundromat yeah but they want to start a coaching or whatever business it's all the same philosophy what I love about doing this podcast again I shared this with you earlier my team's been asking me for five years to do it I've just been putting it off because if I did I want to do it right I want to have a great guess ask good questions but I hope what people are getting from today is the common threads of all successful businesses yeah right you're sharing some of the same stuff might last 10 guests have shared in completely different worlds in completely different Industries at all levels of success but the common thread or some of these things we're talking about and I and again if you never thought you'd want to buy a business maybe you will after this podcast but know whatever it is you want to do it's the same stuff it's just the stuff and we all face The Human Condition and we all face doubts so I love that but I'd love to go a little deeper on what you do yeah because I think I think we talk about how you got here and what you do but maybe a little deeper I started off by saying how could possibly buying a boring business could be a replacement from maybe a bootstrap startup um so I'd love to talk more about that and then question I wrote down is what are three things that you see in a business where you get that tingles like oh we're buying this one like you don't even say like if you're in a room and the owner is there you have to work really hard not to smile you know that feeling like like they say well we're doing this we're doing this no we haven't done technology and you're just like oh my God oh my God I want this right now like if your husband if your father's there you're like texting them under the table like dude shut up I am buying this business so yeah there actually are three things maybe there's four but I'll go three okay the first very first one is I call some there's something called the fax machine test that I do which is basically I'm writing business I hope you're writing this down at home exactly if you see a business and there is a fax machine in it or there is a landline that is in use or there is like a a scanner that looks like it was built in the 80s I immediately my little Spidey senses go up because it tells me oh my God this is the most unoptimized business of all time all of us in our generation are like there's this thing it's called text message should we maybe use that so the fax machine test the second thing so behind on technology kind of exactly all right number one behind on technology okay the the second thing that gets me all hot and bothered is uh when they talk about in the business that they uh have a lot of profits that they make typically but the problem with the business is that they don't like to pay taxes on it so they sort of they do a lot of spending inside of their business and the reason why I like that so that's basically just if you have a business that does a hundred thousand dollars in profit let's say they're paying their car payment they're paying right right so they start to do these things they're called add backs and the reason why I think that's interesting is this is slightly technical but basically what it means is that when you are buying the business you get a discount because they put a bunch of stuff into the business that shouldn't have been so their profits aren't very high got it so you're basically looking how much are they making really versus how much does the IRS think that they make because of how they play to the business and now I get a deal it's like a Bluetooth special totally different right then the third thing that makes me really excited about a business is when the operator starts to tell me things like I call it the one month policy but like yeah well you know I went on a vacation uh last year for a month I climbed the the Kilimanjaro Mountain you know and the reason I like that is because that means he doesn't have a job he has a business somebody else had to run the thing yeah while he was gone so every deal I do I always say what do you do when you're not working do you have a what do you like do you have hobbies Mount by that's not a mountain bike over there what was the last mountain biking vacation you go on and that was they're like I don't leave I'm here God forbid I left this business would go under you're like yeah you're like I'll be right back yeah yeah or maybe that's a great business for somebody who really wants to run a business but not me yeah and so you have the one month policy you have basically bottom verse Top Line and you have the fax machine test and those three things get me a little tingly well good yeah you know I figured that you did um and I love this and and I love the fact of when you say a boring business it's just kind of the Hidden businesses the things that you drive by every day and also I heard you say because I I again just getting to know you I geeked out this morning and listened to some of your interviews and there's something you said that I thought was powerful is so many times especially in in the European culture it's generations of hand the business down to the Next Generation and more at a generation where the kids don't want dads or mom's business is that true very true I mean there's actually a thing I haven't talked about very much yet which is if you go to Japan right now there is an agency one agency that is completely dedicated to trying to find people to buy other people's businesses there's an entire governmental agency because there is a disaster in ownership transfer literally people do not want to buy these people's businesses and so one of the newly minted uh billionaires in Japan is a guy who created an algorithm an AI algorithm to try to find all the business Sellers and get them to business buyers right and using Ai and varying ways to do it and so this happens so frequently that you can't imagine and I've mentioned this story once before but actually there was a plumbing company here in Arizona where we are today that was owned by one of my family members and the reason I even really started thinking that I could do this at scale was because this family member of mine had a had a company that was doing millions of dollars in Revenue millions of dollars in profit and when he went to retire because he was in his 70s he just shut the business down because he had no idea he sharecropping family he built the business up from nothing he was a plumber then he built the plumbing business and he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to shut the business down because spoiler alert nobody tells you it costs money to shut a business down and so this business which could have been sold for let's call it six seven eight ten million dollars got shut down because nobody he didn't know that he could sell it and nobody came wow and knocked on his door so I think sometimes people listen to this stuff and they think well you're taking advantage of sellers or how do you get the deals at that price it's like no no you are buying when you buy a business you are buying work don't get it twisted like I don't believe in purely passive income you know real estate like there's no there's no such thing and by the way if you're the type of thought it's a great idea I mean the only passive income is when you have a ton of money and you give it to a financial advisor and that financial advisor pays you out theoretically or dividends right that's that's it yeah and there's still stocks bonds that's it but that type of money makes money takes money to make money and so that realization that we are now doing more tick tocks than we are you know trade jobs yeah is actually a shining opportunity just like probably every chaotic moment in history this is so great and I love talking about diverse topics because it stretches people's minds yeah yeah right it's true I'm sure you have girlfriends or new people that you meet and they're like wait a minute you do what oh yeah you buy and I'm sure people are probably like is that what your dad did yeah or is that what your husband does it's like no no I'm bringing my husband into this business I'm trying to get his feet wet like or whatever oh my gosh yeah actually we were like speaking on that so I was at the NASDAQ um and I was going on to talk about public equities at the time because I wasn't investing my name is Cody right kind of androgynous name and I'm there with my husband he's like this Burly dude ex-navy seal you know and uh and he's standing next to me but he's in a suit in time and I'm in my suit and they like come up to both of us for me to go you know on stage and they're like talk to your husband Mr Sanchez right this way and they start motoring him he's like oh no no no no no you know it's her and the guy didn't mean anything by it but um I do think it's helpful sometimes to see a human that doesn't look like a traditional private of course it does person buying these businesses all right so okay so boring businesses are kind of the ones you drive by yeah the opportunity to do the same concept for something really low could allow someone who's dying to be an entrepreneur that if they want to bootstrap they should but if they want to enter they have other options yeah and there's businesses out there and you help people with that I love that you created a newsletter and later here make sure you tell everybody how to find you in fact how do people find you share now I think the best place is contrarianthinking.com that's our next letter love it go check it out please um so you can buy a boring business you could do some creative financing you help share that so we won't go deep on that today um I love that think and and there's three things that you love the fax machine a little behind on technology um using every dollar they possibly can to pay their personal stuff so they don't pay much on taxes but if that goes away that becomes profit yep right ebitda right exactly where that is and then the third is that they go on vacation they leave and the business can run even if they weren't there I love those three things what about snapshot financially you look at a plumbing company they make a half a million dollars a year net profit um do you think to yourself three years five years is there is there a quick I know this is what you do if you bought 25 companies and do 50 million Revenue you have a really deep algorithm but the back of the napkin you're sitting down and they tell you it hits the three things you're like oh that's all solid solid solid they made a half a million bucks last year 560 the year before 490 the year before yeah what are you thinking in your head I buy businesses for three to five x profits that's what I figured yep yep and typically I can get them for two to three x with structuring the deal right and this is where you know this is where the real money is made and then people start to like you know like doing out is when I start talking terms so I won't talk too much but what I would say is if you want to make real money and you don't speak the language of Finance AKA terms it's not gonna [ __ ] happen like you need to speak the language of finance and money if you want to make money you guys talk about that all the time and so um the 101 language is like savings you know versus spending versus whatever the 505 language is deals and so if I want to buy a business that does five hundred thousand dollars in profit I would broadly say somewhere between three and five x but I would try to get it for which means two times three exactly I would try to get it for two to three and the way that I would do that is by messing with the terms so instead of giving you you know 200 to 300 000 right now today I might say them how about I give you 500 or 500 000 but I'm gonna give it to you over 20 years or how about I instead of giving you 5 five hundred thousand dollars I give you two hundred thousand dollars but you get to participate in some of the upside potentially yeah I love it right so simple but people don't know it but here's the thing you just took the same negotiator I did when I was 19 to buy my first real estate deal yeah and you're just applying it to a different seemingly something bigger and and here's the thing once you stretch yourself do you know why I believe just listening to you why I believe it was so easy for you to transition into that no because you were doing multi 100 million dollar 20 million 50 100 million dollar deals yeah so when you got down to a 200 000 you're like oh this is a joke you were like probably thinking yourself I wish I could do more even though someone that can't do their first deal is like he did a hundred thousand dollars right exactly it was just perspective you you got you were looking at these big deals so when you downgraded for your own even though it was a monster to somebody starting yeah it was so it was perspective and I love I love seriously I love that you're sharing what you know that I believe it's the reason Tony and I created Mastermind it's why we do a big event yearly it's why we help people get in this space I believe everybody who has life experience if they die with that knowledge in their head they're doing the world of disservice totally and the only reason Tony and I created Mastermind to help people do it is because we've been friends for a decade I golf twice a year with Tony it's the only time I golf it's the only time he golfs and and we've been talking about doing something together I'm like you know were such good friends everybody wants to do business with you let's just say buddies you don't need me I don't need you but one day we're on a golf course and we said if we're gonna do something what would it be and Jim Rohn if you know anything about the person amazing change Tony's life he went Tony went to a seminar when he was 17 years old he spent 47 bucks to go Jim Rohn filled his head and life was never the same Tony did that for me when I was 27 years old I bought his course and I said what's the thing that changed both of our Lives I said I I'd be asking you if you want to supersize that burger if I didn't get into personal development like that's I don't mean that disrespectful but that's what I felt right yeah and we both were like man if we didn't learn from other people who already forged a path where would we be it's so true so why don't we help everybody unlock their life experience and help somebody because wherever you are somebody's starting off where you used to be that's very true and that's how we can help change this world traditional education has not kept up we know that it's it's it just I'm not knocking it just needs it needs to grow it's growing linear and the world's growing exponentially right yeah so anyway that's when I I see somebody like you who's done so well in your you know in your life it was very structured and then you got kind of pulled into the newsletter and you realize the impact you were making and by sharing you all grow I love that because you're entering my industry and you're helping people and it's a lucrative incredible business all right can I tell you one thing yeah yeah so there's this graph that I'll send to you afterwards in case anybody wants to see it but basically going back to that University thing I tried to understand why why I kind of started to feel like University was a waste of time even though I went to Georgetown for Masters have a PhD All That Jazz but and I so I started looking at the data and the data basically shows that the average graduation uh payout for a college four-year college degree um they make about 47 to depending on how you calculate at fifty four thousand dollars a year that has grown basically not at all in the last 30 years so pretty much you make the same amount now moving cost of school now the average cost of tuition Plus board is 172 000 and so the the relative value has basically completely eroded into the negative for University degrees and so the data shows why you know how that's like a Trope everybody talks about now we know that the universities haven't caught up no no we can see the data when you go to the numbers you see actually categorically by the only measure that most people don't go to university just you wouldn't pay 170 000 a party for four years plus people wouldn't you know and so you can see very linearly that you don't grow I mean I was talking to one of your people here who went to ASU which is where I went to school you know really Harvard of the West I think yeah Harvard of the west but uh he's in there smiling yeah he's like Cody um but when I went to ASU it was if I hadn't been obsessed with learning I would have gotten very little out of that school like sorry guys you know I had to get three Majors is what I graduated for and I graduated a year early in order to do my college thesis to to like extrapolate enough value out of it and yet somebody could go through one of your programs or they could go to you know unconventional Acquisitions and what we do and they can make a hundred X in one year right where was that we were learning curve yeah it's painful for me the university thing it is because I think that could be beautiful I think the institution complete overhaul yeah it needs a complete overhaul and that's why it's the lowest college entry right now than in the history of the United States at least um just did you know did you ever see the stat that um 82 percent I think it's 82 percent of people or no 78 of all people who get a degree don't use it so many don't use it 50 of the people who do use it don't like their job so 78 right is it's like 14 of people who get a degree use it and actually like it right it's like oh it's like so I think that's why this industry the self-education industry knowledge industry whatever you want to call it it's one of the fastest growing Industries in the world right now heading towards a billion dollars a day right now and they expect it to be a trillion a year by 28. because people are realizing I could go to school for eight years I could try to get in my first deal I could mentor to somebody I could do a 10-year run or I could work with this Cody girl who's already been there oh my God she shares all of this which she learned in 16. I mean it's just when you say it like that you're like duh like would somebody please have hit me over the head a few years ago all right I want to get to some other questions and that that are just part of what I love to ask is you unbelievable your confidence your Clarity and where you're going what you've achieved when somebody sees someone like you doing that and there's a lot of women watching this right now especially that go God damn it I know I'm meant for more yeah but yeah and I think when they see someone like you like well confidence courage nothing bugs her she's not scared of anything what's something that bugs you when nobody's watching that no one would expect or scares you I think the real question is what doesn't um I'm scared all the time still um which is funny because my parents are like really like we don't ever remember you being scared and perhaps I just don't project it yeah um but inside of here all the time of course there's a little bit of fear but you know some of the stuff that scared me that maybe would surprise people is um even just you know I was sitting talking with one of my uh one of my friends the other day um actually and uh he's a he's a billionaire uh you know probably like what some of those conversations you've had with Tony and uh and we're sitting on his compound overlooking the lake in Austin it's beautiful 60 million dollars like it's so great and he's a former hedge fund manager his name's Bill Perkins and um basically I'm walking with Bill and uh Bill invites me over to his house and I'm and I'm a little late so now I'm stressed because I got lost so I'm like Bill I'm so sorry I'm here um you know I will get out of your hair right out of this he's like well he's like you're the reason for the day don't worry about it it's all your time I'm like no no you don't have a lot of time I'll be here he's like stop you're on the agenda today I'm like why and uh and he's like well I think uh that perhaps you have been investing in small businesses for so long that small has infected your thinking I was like painful also why and he's like uh you own this portfolio of small businesses and that's great but I don't think that's anywhere near enough for you and I think that you still are thinking like that employee you were working for somebody else 10 years ago and he's like I just have more zeros which allows me to see wider than you do and so I think my biggest fear is actually that I stop having conversations like that and that I don't take action and you know when I was in in finance I remember leaning into the uncomfortable right what is that moment where you decide wherever you are where I decide I'm not going to keep going because I'm scared I don't think I can maybe I need somebody else to do it and I see that in so many humans that it scares me I'm worried is it contagious and that's what I don't want to have happen I want to be in a room as often as possible the littlest human the smallest so that I can keep sort of reaching for the next thing and not just monetarily because categorically like I mean you see my outfit I'm wearing like sneakers driving my mom's car here you know I stayed with my parents last night like I I don't really care about the money but it's somehow like at the end of your day remember that um oh gosh who is it Hemingway who said like at the end of the days when I show up at the Pearly Gates I want to be their bruised battered sliding in and saying that was a hell of a ride exactly the last thing that you ever want is to get to the end of your life and meet the person you could have been oh yeah isn't that awful Alex sits in the wrong that version of me she that Cody lived inside me yeah that'd be awful that uncomfortable feeling that I said no to like that I think that's I think that trumps all other fears when someone says I'm afraid of failing are you afraid to get to the end of your life and go and I missed it what's scarier yeah can I ask you a question yeah well I mean you this is your industry like personal development um getting humans to their fullest potential I know how to get a human to buy a business if they sit with me I can teach them how to do that and I can make sure if they listen to me that unless they're not a hard worker the probability of success is very high what I can't get people to do is like believe in themselves and what I can't get people to do is to change their habits like why do you think it is that there are so many humans out there you can just see it in their eyes that they're not achieving their potential that they're not healthy that they're not reaching like why what is that and is there a way to change it will it change yeah that's really it's what I obsess on every single day it's it's um and I don't want to go back to the basics but in in most cases if you think about it we're only as good as our past experience if we keep living it right yeah so as crazy as this sounds there's insecurities there's actions there's stories there's past experiences that shape all of us right you you fall in love with the perfect person and they're Unfaithful and they leave you and all of a sudden men or women are bad forever and it's hard to get out of that pattern your parents tried their own entrepreneurial business and went bankrupt and you had to move schools in seventh grade you're trying to be an entrepreneur but deep down there is that Vault of no it'll ruin your whole life so I believe all of it is and and my advice for you would be it if you teach if you look at anything I've taught or anything Tony taught so what I think we've been able to do well is get people to believe in themselves by shifting their identity yeah and then give them the tactics so they can implement it in their life yeah so as you continue to educate and I'm not talking about getting into personal development you don't have to be a personal development experts spend time enough time for them to really identify their identity and what drives them right what drives them away what drives them forward what is the story what is the belief I know this sounds like personal development 101 but in 30 years of doing this it all comes back to if you believe Henry Ford said if you believe you can you will if you believe you can't you won't and when people are just dabbling they are waiting for it to go wrong it's like having the headache thinking it's a tumor and you Google tumor and headache you find it in two seconds when someone's going into a business dabbling they're like this is going to fail this guy I'll try it I'll listen to what Cody said but it's going to fail gonna fail first thing they see they fail like see I knew it I knew this you know people like me don't buy businesses it's like you already set yourself up for failure so I think the best advice I could give you on that is I've always been trying I wrote a book called millionaire success habits yeah I've always just tried to get people to go upstream and realize hey what happened Upstream yeah that makes you think this way what happened in your life and if you stick with that story what has it already cost you and what will it cost you so I'd love to challenge you to have a new identity a new belief a new thought and and there's a million things we do on that we make someone find that thing that held them back project out 10 years and say what if it keeps holding you back how will you feel if you're still doing the same thing because of that story is that story worth it we go through a process of helping people find a true why I mean everybody's purpose why but really like why the hell do you want to start a business why do you want to do your own thing and not because I want more money dig deep it's like my dad wasn't there for me when I went to bed at night and I don't want to do that for my kids like when you find that think about it as a toolbox of Leverage yeah and all I say is I don't know exactly which one does it but I will dig into imagine getting to the end of your life and meeting the man or a woman you could have been imagine if you stick with this same story you're going to be the same person in 10 years imagine not living into who you're supposed to be imagine you'll end up like your parents imagine you'll end up maybe your ex-husband who told you you're a loser maybe he was right you just gotta find the thing and that's the reason we do so many different angles is because it's like no I don't care about my why that's too I don't care oh I'm gonna end up like my dad screw that I'm going all in you know what I mean like it's just you just gotta find the thing to get them Disturbed yeah with their own inaction and that's that's the game that's what we work on every day is because if I get someone Disturbed with their own inaction I know they'll go through the course they'll do the thing they'll do what they want if they get stuck in their head they get jammed up they go back to their old ways and they don't even realize how many people watching right now are listening right now how many times have you had a dream a thought or a belief and you said I'm doing it this time I'm finding love I'm losing the weight I'm starting the business and then you don't even know when you drifted back into your old you oh yeah you just got gave up on the dream so I love disturbing people I love poking them and go hey you said you wanted to start buying businesses you got the blueprint if this is the blueprint that works and you want to do it hmm what's the denominator that's not working it's you so that wasn't a specific answer no but just approaching ways to find the belief that's holding them back and helping them craft a big enough compelling future that it pulls them forward yeah that makes sense interesting yeah we um I think we also you talked about past experiences you know when I think about when I was younger the experiences were really positive um and I had an incredible childhood but you know that childhood of mine can I get you some water that was the water that went down the wrong way oh no I hate that um so when I was younger I think I had a lot of stories about um you know why I needed my dad for a lot of things for instance in a positive way like in an incredibly positive way but that led me to bad Partnerships like I knew that I had to redo Partnerships and totally learn how to partner up with somebody and I think a lot of people this is one of the things that I obsess on with humans is and you know this very well but I obsess on humans choosing the right Partners to go through life with from a business perspective yeah I don't know about marriage and otherwise I've done oh well you know well thus far hopefully but um but when it comes to businesses I see so many humans partner with whoever's in front of them not set the terms not start with the end in mind not write a prenup to their business and what people don't realize if you go to venture capitalist and you ask them what are some of their top three things while why they would invest in a business or another one of the very first things is they want co-founders why that doesn't seem like a great idea to me most people get divorced because they make them set parameters for the divorce that could potentially happen and they know that entrepreneurship is so hard it's likely one of them will fail or want to be done but the other one won't and so if you think about that in every business venture that you do you've partnered with a ton of people you know partnership is really really powerful but it's really hard and so the past experience of me thinking that I needed my dad everywhere led me to partner with other men that I immediately thought were as great as he was and then realized oh not everybody's my dad I've got to be a little bit tighter I've got to be a little bit more thoughtful I got something I want to ask you tell me so we all can have a perspective guilty a charge of feeling like an underdog right but the one of the biggest realizations I wrote a book called the underdog advantage and I'll tell you why I wrote it one of the main reasons I wrote it is I did live in a trailer park as a kid I didn't have money I I was the sleep on the floor kind of guy right yeah um my nephew who's my sister's my only sister's son works for us Tanner he's now rco runs is amazing 30 years old runs the company unbelievably well he comes in he's five years with us and he is just killing it and we're sitting around one day and he said you know why I'm probably not successful think about this perspective he's I'm probably not going after my own business or not as successful as I could be because my wife wasn't my life wasn't so hard like your mom like my mom my sister and you Uncle Dean like he's like my parents were good they were amazing I got no complaints I went to a good college I had a happy freaking life so it made me realize that he felt like an underdog because he had a great life or some of us feel like an underdog because we had a struggled life and really all of us can manifest the thing right and and I don't want to diminish his thoughts I mean that's the way he felt and and it was probably more of when he first started and we shifted that into power for him on a different belief because of that he could start off with some people he could start off on third base right and but just saying that is you came from a great childhood that doesn't mean that you can't have that that you needed you need pain and sleep on the floor to be successful and I think that's such a great lesson today no matter where you come from if you're the one thing I know if you're listening to this podcast is you know you're meant for more yeah and that's a common denominator Republican Democrat Christian Muslim it doesn't matter none of that matters you're meant for more that's this Common Thread and the way to get more is to find somebody who's done what you've already done model what they do take uncomfortable action and I'm so glad that you are not not only the success you've had but you're sharing it with others I think it's absolutely amazing uh any any last words before you go I'll end on a ridiculous note my yeah my husband uh and I used to have a joke that he ripped off from a comedian and changed a little bit because he was a Navy SEAL and it was he had a tough upbringing and so he always says to his parents you know thanks for thanks for [ __ ] me up enough uh to be on abcl but not enough to be a stripper like we just gotta shut it off right there yes this is gonna be like you really shared that on a podcast um but I I thought that same perspective he came from a really tough childhood I came from either a perspective where I'm a very glass is overflowing at all times or you know so I lost a sister when I was younger you know my parents had a lot of trouble and struggles financially but thankfully they imbuted me this like idea of positivity but um yeah I love that line I'm always like Chris we should not lead with that at cocktail parties so so wherever you are I do think good bad Struggle No struggle struggle whether you see it or not I don't know about many things but I do know that I haven't met a human yet who can't be an owner and so whether that means you own something for somebody like you in your business or they own a whole business by themselves get some skin because I promise people burn down less houses when they own a part of them and if we all did that we'd have a better neighborhood I love the mission yawn I love all you've accomplished wanting to create a million is it a million entrepreneurs I love that goal and uh I just know you're gonna achieve it so appreciate you having you this has been fantastic thanks for being a part of the own your future podcast wait one more time how do they find you oh contrarianthinking.com or Cody Sanchez and all the interwebs go find her this was so intriguing I learned a lot I love it and make sure you subscribe follow share it with someone you know who needs this see you next time Independence

Channel: Dean Graziosi

Views: 18,366

Keywords: Dean Graziosi, Dean Graziosi interview, Dean Graziosi motivation, success principles, self improvement, self development, personal development, motivation, inspiration, motivational video, inspirational video, money, how to become a millionaire, wealth, how to build wealth, Main street, American businesses, Codie Sanchez, entrepreneurship, how to make money, made in america, private equity, wall street vs main street, wall street, business advice, success, women in business

Id: w0QiEgGDJcI

Length: 62min 43sec (3763 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 16 2023