Don't Get Killed In Your Pajamas- Business Lesson | Michael Franzese

[Music] don't get killed in your pajamas anybody ever tell you that was a good business principle listen up [Music] hello everybody welcome to another sit down with michael francis you know from the time i can remember my youngest days i always had to have money in my pocket if i didn't have money in my pocket my whole demeanor would change i was always very aggressive very motivated to make money i was kind of an innate quality with me and for most of my life it worked well i mean i did fairly well you know especially in the mob years and doing okay now sometimes it didn't work you know when i got too aggressive ended up going to jail all my crimes were you know money crimes in a way uh but you know i always had to have money in my pocket so if i didn't man i couldn't sleep right i couldn't you know i just couldn't function properly my mother used to tell me you know calm down it's gonna be okay my girlfriends no if i didn't have money i wouldn't go out you know just had to have money in my pocket so for me you know it was a good thing and uh you know i learned early on there are about five basic principles there's a lot of techniques there's five basic principles that you really need to to follow in order to be successful in business and i actually wrote a book about it i think 2014 it's called i'll make you an offer you can't re refuse it was a business book and it's done quite well actually it was translated in i think 10 different countries was actually on the bestseller list in three asian countries for some reason the agents seem to like you know a lot of the stuff that i do and i've been to singapore and malaysia and japan and china love the asian people and they like what i do you know as a matter of fact i heard that the uh the biggest movie ever in china was the godfather i heard that from very reliable sources out of china so they like the mob stuff and i have a pretty big following there and they really enjoyed the book and i get a lot of uh comments from them on it but you know in it i talk a lot about what made me successful in business the principles that i learned in the mob life because that were the early years of my life that i was able to carry later on obviously i don't do things exactly like i did back then but business is business you know whether you're doing it illegally illegally you know you have principles that you have to follow and i'll tell you how um you know i really really got my first lesson and i think the first principle is this you got to have a plan you can't just go into business say you know i'm gonna be in a restaurant or really what's your plan well i'm gonna serve good food really well we uh that's kind of obvious right well i'm gonna have a good location really okay we understand that but there are a lot of other things you got to have in your plan how many people you're going to hire what's your lease going to be you know what your payroll tax is going to be what's your budget you know a lot of stuff that you got to go into i'm not going to go into all of that now but you got to have a plan and you got to follow the plan i'll tell you how i learned this 1971 i had an auto body shop i had a leasing company i had gone into business with a guy by the name of tony morano and he and i were doing fairly well my father had been away for about a year now i was involved with the italian american civil rights league but i was trying to hustle and earn a living and i was even going to college a little bit on the side i mean my life was all very complicated back then after my dad went away ended up getting in trouble got involved with the wrong guys on the street we did some shady car business ended up getting indicted that was before i was one of the wrong guys right i get indicted for grand larceny and fraud i don't remember exactly what the charges were i was young but i ended up going to trial four times i got three hung juries i was tied up for almost a year in court every single day three home jurors jurors could not reach a verdict they would always come back in my favor seven to five ten to two and but i just couldn't get them to acquit me finally the fourth trial you know halfway through we asked for a dismissal the judge dismissed the case he said i don't think any jury is going to arrive at a verdict but it held me up for about a year i was flat broke paid the attorneys had an investigator flat broke i'm like 22 years old and i had to stop my life i know what to do a guy by the name of vinnie vingo he was a street guy he's kind of involved with the league guitar american civil rights league really like me said mike i have this flea market swap meet out in uh suffolk county long island and it was being held at a uh one of the private airports there macarthur airport i believe it was a big swap meet had several hundred vendors and it was in an airport hangar um and also on the outside parking lot several hundred vendors so he said what i want you to do is i want you to um manage a place for me saturdays and sundays you're gonna have to work long hours you have to work hard 12 14 hours a day but i'll pay you well and here's your job you're going to assign the spots to the vendors they get there early it's a first-come first-served basis and you're going to assign their spots and collect their rent form they paid the weekend rent great and so it was a full-time job right i started to notice something people were coming to me some of the vendors that would come there early to say michael you know this spot works great for me can i have this spot you know next week i swear i can't really do that because you know it's first come first serve and they say i'll give you a couple hundred bucks it's worth it to me once it happened twice it happens three times it wouldn't take the money i said no i can't do that but then i'm saying wait a second let me go talk to vinnie i said this could be a good thing on the side i'm looking to earn right so i go talk to vinnie i said vinnie look i want to be honest with you these people are coming to me they're offering me money to give them good spots you know i would never do it because that's like stealing from you but what do you say you let me do that you're the boss you stay away from it i'll take the money i'll be very discreet about it i know how to handle it and we'll whack it up i said gonna do good trust me he said that's your plan and i said yeah he said that's the plan and i said he kept saying that's the plan i don't know why he repeated himself but for some reason from that moment on the plan the plan the plan i knew that i had to have a plan when i went into business was a silly thing like that that stuck in my head i'll tell you what happened later on a lot of times the vendors would come to me and by the way we started that they'd come to me a couple hundred bucks here a couple hundred bucks yeah we started doing really well you know i had 10 15 20 guys that would come to me all the time and i'd give them the spots that they want they'd give me a couple hundred bucks here and there then the vendors started to come and talk to me you know michael if i had a few extra dollars i can buy more merchandise i'm doing so well here thank you for giving me that spot i wish i had more money so now i'm thinking another thing another part of my plan vinnie these guys are looking for money i got a captive audience they come to me every week i know who they are i got their address they're not leaving me they like me i said what about uh this idea how about we lend them some money we charge them one percent two percent three percent whatever the market will bear every week i said they'll be happy they can't go to a bank most of these guys don't have credit i said and we'll make money on the interest that's your plan that's my plan he said you got it before you know it we're and half of the place there i'm doing it it's not vinnie everybody's doing well i never i ne nobody ever missed the payment because i had a captive audience before you know we're making a couple of thousand a week me and vinnie he thought it was brilliant i'm happy i ran that market for about two years just saturday and sunday two days a week i was making more money at that time you know as a 22 year old kid than you can imagine you know several thousand a week so but that's when it drummed into my hands so number into my head rather number one you gotta have a plan no matter what it is write out the plan stick to the plan think about it get advice you know you know research other companies or other businesses uh that that are doing well see what their plan was put it down in paper and force yourself to follow it now obviously at times market changes things happen you got to make changes but you're going to mostly stick to your plan if you've got to throw your whole plan out the window then something was wrong to start and something was wrong from the beginning so first number one technique or number one principle you got to have a plan number two this may sound crazy but it's don't get killed in your pajamas what do i mean by that tell your story i'm sitting in a social club with my boss in my cup of regime at that time i was straightened out maybe about a year and we're sitting down with having coffee i'll never forget and we start reading the paper and the boss is reading the paper tom de belly he's passed on now and he looks at it and he starts laughing he's oh my god he said look this guy got killed another maid guy got killed in his driveway while he had a bathrobe and slippers on he went down to get the newspaper just like tony soprano remember he used to go out in his bathrobe but i remember my boss saying this guy got killed at 11 o'clock what the hell was he doing in his bathrobe at 11 o'clock he said was he a late late riser he said to me michael don't ever wake up late guys that wake up later never successful in this life and you know what i never forgot that now i'm an early riser it doesn't matter what time i go to bed if i go to bed three in the morning i'm up at 5 30 6 o'clock what do i do in the morning it's nice and peaceful do my emails i get a lot of stuff during the night because i'm dealing with people in other countries all right i get a lot of business stunts quiet time two hours three hours whatever wherever it is and then i get on my day but i was always like that you can i never saw a guy successful that woke up late after 11 12 1 o'clock forget about it first of all you're lethargic you can't even think straight maybe there's an exception if you have a very successful nightclub and you're out all night you know but 10 o'clock that's about it you get up after 10 o'clock i think you you're thought to have issues don't get killed in your pajamas you got to wake up early get your juices flowing get your mind going in a good way sleep at the right time me i i don't require a lot of sleep i was never that way but you must wake up early don't get killed in your pajamas that's principle number two number three cut to the chase good mob expression what does that mean don't have a lot of clutter in your life if you're in an office and you've got a desk and you've got papers all over the place you don't work that way don't have a lot of clutter in your life you got to simplify things you know mob guys used to make me laugh i had one guy in particular remember jerry zimmerman okay he used to say this all the time he used to say you know i don't make money michael i take money that's what do you mean by that he said well i believe that the money in somebody else's pocket really belongs to me i just got to figure out a way to get it now that's not the right thing and i'm not telling you that our job is to make money not take money but he says i simplify i just figure out how i can get the money out of his pocket and put it in mine because it rightfully belongs there a lot of mob guys thought that way you know how do we how do we rob this guy quick you know how do we bankrupt this company whatever it is they wanted to get the money in somebody else's pocket and put it in theirs but cut to the chase no clutter no big elaborate scheme get it done quickly and you know what i believe in that i try to simplify things as best as i could i figure out what my plan is and i go for it as simple as possible can you want a good example of that one of the most successful businessmen that we know okay warren buffett the oracle of omaha brilliant guy multi-billionaire he simplifies his life and his business in a big way i'll tell you number one he arrives at his office almost every morning at about 8 30 a.m no later 8 30 a.m he has no clutter he uh um he has no computer on his desk he'd always want to get distracted looking at computers he don't look at emails that's not his thing no emails he rarely attends meetings doesn't go to meetings he has one expertise and that's trading in stocks and that's what he focuses on every once in a while he'll get advice from somebody that he trusts you know he'll run something by him good idea but he eliminates all the clutter in his life he cuts to the chase and for him obviously it's been very successful that's what you got to do cut to the chase get rid of the clutter simplify things in your business you'll see you'll go a long way number four you got to have a crew got to have a crew people used to say to me all the time michael you're a brilliant businessman i'll be the first to admit i'm not a brilliant businessman warren buffett is more brilliant than i am you know there's this uh you know job was a lot smarter than me you know a lot of guys out there are smarter than me in business they made more money than me but i did have two talents one of them was this i knew how to choose a good business opportunity back in the day people used to come to me all the time and they still do now you got to see all the business propositions i get from a lot of you out there and i appreciate that send them to me you know and we'll talk about it maybe i'll get involved maybe i won't you know i try to simplify things i pretty much have tunnel vision right now on the things that i'm doing but send it to me you know i'd love to give you advice maybe i'll get involved maybe i won't but i knew how to choose a good deal because back in the day i'd get hit all the time to the point where i had to have a a set meeting place every monday night i had a club out in long island i should tell people if you want to propose a business opportunity to me come to the club monday night we'll sit down we'll talk if i like it you know i'll make a decision at that point in time whether to go or not and i used to do that so i knew how to choose a good deal number two i knew how to hire the right people and motivate them to do the right job because there's a lot of things that i don't like to do i'm not good at other people will do it better than me so i always believe you do what you do best you delegate the rest but in delegating the rest you got to delegate them to the right people to write qualified people and then the trick is to motivate them to do the best job in your behalf on your business okay so you got to have a good crew around you doesn't mean you have to have a lot of people your crew could be one person but it's got to be the right person and it could be 10. and when somebody isn't working right for you you weed them out you don't always make the right choice right away especially if you have a big business you know you're always going to have people that you know are just not going to do the right job and you weed them out but you do the best you can you gotta have a crew number five you gotta have a consolieri now what is a console area in the mob he advises the boss on certain mob matters but you know what his real job is the consul yuri is really a liaison between the men the soldiers and the boss if you've got a gripe you don't go to the boss you allegedly go to your consulary and say hey consuelieri you tell them what your problem is the problem with that is that the conciliary is always hand-picked by the boss and if you go to the concierge with a problem about the boss it's not going to work out well for you you know i mean but that's allegedly what his position is but obviously it's really not the way he advises the boss to also kick things around with him and it's an important position in that life in business very important to have somebody you can run things by you don't want a yes man you want somebody that's going to tell you straight out this is a good idea well this is a bad idea and he's going to give you the reasons why he's going to give you advice now you may not take it you may be smarter than him but at least he may alert you to something that you didn't think of or he may turn you off totally on the deal say look i did my work on this it's not a good idea don't do it and then like i said if you follow his advice it's up to you but you've got to hire somebody qualified as a consultant to give you information that you can process and allow you to render a decision on whether you want to move forward or not on a certain business opportunity or a certain thing within your business very very important so you got one you got to have a plan number two don't get killed in your pajamas don't be a late riser number three cut to the chase no clutter you don't want that simplify things get to the point right away number four you gotta have a crew you gotta surround yourself with good people remember what i talk about with accountability you got to be accountable to good people and good people have to be accountable to you remember you're only as good as the people you have around you the crew you have around you and remember this too lie down with dogs you're going to get fleas it applies in business too you got the wrong people around you you're going to have problems it's not going to work out number five you got to have a consulary you got to have somebody you can kick around things with get advice from in my whole life my dad was my conciliary about the mob life i talked to him dad what do you think about this what do you think about that he had knowledge he was in that life a lot longer than me he was a good student of the life he gave me a lot of good advice helped me out during that time got to have somebody in business that you can use and throw things at so that you can get good advice back now in my book i talk about a lot of other things people i'm just being i'm giving you the bare bones if you want this book you can go on amazon and buy it it's on all the you know social media sites if you want an autographed copy from me you go to store.michaelfrancis.comstore.michaelfrancies.com and i'll autograph a copy for you if that's important to you i usually don't sell things but you know that's you know it's it's a good book people i mean you'll get a lot out of it i guarantee i've got nothing but great comments back from it so that's that um remember this no magic formula in business you gotta abide by certain rules there's no magic formula you gotta play by a good playbook and hopefully i lay it out for you in this book and really that's it for today so be safe be healthy god bless [Music] you

Channel: Michael Franzese

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Id: JmW80sCbnYU

Length: 18min 59sec (1139 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 02 2020