How He Turned Vending Machines Into A $500K Business Debt Free

shout out to my my sons my son's mother um she she joined the team and helped me expand too seriously correct you know you are employing your son's mother correct and and and and respectfully engaged to another one correct come on what's Happening so I'm gonna answer this question up front when you were in school or when you're at the airport or when you are let's say you're out and about in the city have you ever just walked up to a vending machine and got you some Skittles got you something to drink or what about in the airport you walked up to a vending machine you actually purchased some makeup I've been seeing this stuff all around the country I'm like man is this a profitable business well I was just minding my business doing some research trying to study about what are some creative topics I can add to the show and man and I saw this uh show on CNBC I always follow them because I was talking about young Millennials young successful people who are winning and making a hundred thousand making a half a million making 300 000. and there's this young guy locally here in the Baltimore area um that was making close to about I mean I'm not gonna say how much he was making but he was making he is making not was he is making a killing in the vending machine business you guys know I stand for how do we get out of debt and how do we build wealth and really start building a legacy for our families and when I saw this I said man this is different I've never talked to anyone about a vending machine business you can literally do this on the side that ends up coming a full-time that could end up um becoming a full-time business for you I was doing the research that only 20 of the US consumers um are actually using the vending machine so when I even went deeper that is nearly a hundred million American people each and every single day are using a vending machine then let's go deeper you guys this year alone in the year of 2022 the vending machine business is a 10.2 billion dollar industry 10.2 billion dollars so the vending machines are making 10. 10.2 billion dollars how would you like just to get a hundred thousand of that maybe a million of that or you know what let's say on the side maybe an extra two three thousand dollars a month well in today's show man we're going to talk to a guy um he's going to share with his story how he is making a killing doing give uh but before we go there I want to remind you and think one of our uh today's sponsors is ethos man um you all know me as we are Building Wealth as we are eliminating debt and as we are starting to build a legacy one of the key things to building a legacy especially as a minority individual is make sure we have the proper Insurance in place what is it to build all this wealth what is it to really um do all these things here on Earth but then when we get to heaven as a Christian man we're at peace we're at Joe head we are in the best place of our life right when we look down we see our spouses 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of pennies think about it um what is it to leave your family and you go off to heaven and you leave them with nothing they say that the average black man will leave his kids and his families with bills and with benefits and the benefits are only enough to take care of partial of the bills but it's not enough to sit here and send your kids off to college to make sure that your wife doesn't have to worry about working for the next 10 years that you know she can actually mourn your passing I mean celebrate your your passing on to heaven but most African-Americans most young black couples when they die they're not leaving around health insurance not health insurance life insurance and so I want to just make sure that I deliver this message to you go check out ethos my favorite company I have them as insurance policy my producer has him as an insurance policy you need to have them as well what's fifty dollars to me respectfully saying this I'm gonna get upset you go out there and you buy chains you buy jewelry you buy nice name brand stuff you go out there and you buy a nice car I mean you you Gucci up you Louis Vuitton up but you can't spend 50 a month to make sure that your family is taken care of and just in case if you pass that's a selfish man that's a selfish woman that's a selfish person take care of your family that's truly truly being a man truly being a woman truly being a father or a mother a husband or a wife by saying hey I love you enough to think about you after I pass go to anthonyneil.com forward slash um ethos but let's get into some good news yo I got my boy uh Marcus Graham in the building today this is young man sharp young man 31 years old um uh just recently got engaged to an amazing beautiful smart intelligent woman um and he is out here winning um and so man welcome to the table bro no man thank you for having me yes sir yes sir man but let's let's get into it bro I I was watching your CNBC special hey man and just to see your journey man congrats up front and when I started doing more research on you and more research on this vending machine business I was like man this really is a lucrative business that people are really like like sleeping on correct um I want to start from the very beginning as a young black man um because you're young 31 years old you know seven years younger than me um when I started doing the research okay 20 of American people are using the vending machine right um I'm curious when you started learning more about the vending machine business what did you see missing in that business that you thought that you could provide to it that you can bring to that industry that was different from everyone else that would help you stand out um I think I mean to be honest man just really really good um customer service and personality um being being the pretty much CEO of your company you know um you kind of have a leg up than some of these other vendors um it's not often that people get to talk to the CEO of a company and since you are the CEO of the company and you know the company and you um you know can talk to them you kind of have a leg up yeah you know you kind of have a really you know big leg up most people are sending out somebody from the team to talk to companies but if your company you know it you want their services like you have a leg up wow um so I thought about that it was very important for me to never be the vending machine guy who's talking I was Marcus and stuff like that goes a long way you know so whether I may bring my kids there sometime so the next time I come where's the little ones like all of those things kind of make me stand out because I I kind of build a relationship with each of my locations man that's awesome so taking your kids how many kids you have uh three three yeah get what two girls two boys three boys three boys yeah we're about to get Levar ball going how important is that to you as a father exposing your kids to entrepreneurship um working them seeing you work especially as three young men um why do you take the time to take your kids with you out uh to to restock the vending machines uh because one day I I used to work um at a before and after school program um this was I still was working like 2019. um and I remember this little it was a little boy a little girl um and they were wearing Penn State shirts and you know the little girl said that she was going to be a doctor at Penn State and her younger brother said he was going to be a scientist at Penn State and they said that their mother and father went to Penn State their grandparents went to Penn State the uncles their aunts went to Penn State and what I when I looked at that all I can think about is just that like it's something that they just are they already know like that's something that's built in there that's something that's passed down to them that's something that's important to them so they only know that you know they're going to be successful and go to Penn State right so I thought about that in regards to my children like if I teach them about entrepreneurship and ownership that's what they're going to know and it's going to be second nature to them like they're never going to have to um push theirselves to do something and talk themselves into doing this kind of just going to be a part of their life you know something that they kind of expect and just know to do yeah um so yeah that's pretty much it when I look at you man you're a black man right and it's like when we look at us why do you think were you working full-time before getting into this or are you even working full-time right now and doing this on the side like what's your position right now is this full time for it it's full time for me and has has always been full time for you no I got I it was full um I was still working a full-time job up until April 30th 2021. I got I got uh my contract was terminated for my job okay what were you doing before this I was um independent contractor uh behavioral consultant okay okay okay a lot of words but yeah I got you so did you see this being full time for you eventually or were you just doing this on the side just to supplement some income being a father you know and stuff like that I never I never saw her full time even when I was I mean even I was doing really well with it I just never saw it as full time I never even thought about um I never saw past the side hustle even when I started it it was it was just supposed to just be a little side hustle that I did until I got into real estate got you so this was a vehicle to get you into real estate yeah so like um I tell the story a lot you know um I'm about 27 and I moved back in with my mom you know wanted to save some money because I wanted to invest in real estate so for nine months I just racked up and go out and buy nothing and say the 10K uh I moved to Philly I'm like I'm about to get into real estate with my homie and I'm like damn that 10K wasn't about to give me no so I don't like let me just get it he suggested getting a machine so I got a couple machines and it was supposed to be part-time you know I I didn't foresee this um yeah I mean just to give a shout out to my fiance um I wouldn't be where I'm at you know today if she didn't tell me like yo you can turn this into a million dollar business I wasn't thinking about it like that so your fiance looked at you one day you're a woman respectfully saying this black woman yes my God she looked at you and she said you can do this and turn this into a seven-figure business correct it was I would never forget it it was last May and I had I just got fired from my job the you know the month prior and I'm just like but she was like yeah man you can make this a you know million dollar industry um and man this shows you how you know how how dope she is she she bought a book and and gave it to me uh it's called built to sell what and was talking about raising the valuation of my company different things and strategies that I can Implement you know and um yeah I read most of the book and I'm like okay and that's kind of been my focus but I'm telling you if she ain't say that and just kept encouraging me and pushing me and it just felt like once I believed her everything started to fall into place man we gotta say right there because Marcus welcome to the table my God because it's like you you talking good right here I gotta ask this question and if you don't want to answer it totally cool at that time was your fiance making more money than you in her career field no she wasn't Okay cool so she looked at you and she said hey I believe in you and her words gave you the motivation she didn't talk down on you like hey what are you gonna do since you lost a job she was like yo that's cool this right here you sleeping on it not only believe in me like I'm gonna help you so yeah yeah that was that was yeah that was in part conversation for me was she your fiance then no but see your fiancee now though yo fiance I gotta get you on the show I told him uh um that I got to get you on the show I told him before the show man um so okay cool great so you lost your job and how long were you in the vending machine business before you lost your job uh like three and a half years Okay cool so year one in the vending machine business how much money did you make probably like three four thousand dollars three or four thousand dollars yeah my first two vending machines was only making like combine like 60 a month okay cool so when I did some research they said that the average person in the vending machine business makes about 34 a week in the vending machine business but you're saying like hey the first year I did it so okay cool so that's year one you're staying true with the stats um of what they're saying on the average what'd you do year two um year two it was like five times that so it was like 25 000 um a year so what is that 25 uh probably like yeah two thousand yeah yeah so pretty much it was like because I started my business my first location was May 4th to 2018 so my business pretty much just picked up a year later but you know when you think of like the time it you know it got there because if I'm making 60 a month excuse me then I got another location and it you know it grew a little bit Yeah but nothing substantial and then like the middle of next year that's when it took off so it did get to 25 000 was kind of setting up for the following year okay okay all right so we went from okay I see you so now you surpassed what they said correct you know what I'm saying per day because now you're making about two thousand about let's say about twenty one hundred dollars that's about two thousand eighty something dollars year three which came your pivotal transitional year what what did you make that year uh like around 2 200 200 000 in vending machine yeah my business grew through the pandemic um I know it's crazy to talk about but when now that I step back um it's not really crazy when you think about it yeah yeah because most of the most during the pandemic everybody was kind of trying to step away from it because everything's closing down um but I ain't never been that kind of person you know so for me I'm like all right eventually this is going to be over you know what I'm saying so what I wanted to do is I want to try to get in front of as many locations as I could as possible so that way when it was over that they had me in their mind so what I did was I paid for my SEO specialist who um update the SEO on my website I started to run Google ads um because I just started thinking like man it's it's 19 000 cities in America uh so it's it's almost impossible for everything to be closed down and for everything to be taken um and so I started to focus on that and then I started to kind of shift my focus from where I was having vending machine because at that point in time I had an amazing student housing location which was earning which was grossing like you know 32 to 3 500 a month um you say student housing College college okay College all right so um and I started to look and I started to see like man what could what could be open you know everybody's worrying about what's shutting down but I'm like what could be open and I started to notice things like warehouses was still open you know manufacturing Landscaping because you know people they're still working on this kind of stuff and when you look at the fact that many um of them may have been going to gas stations and things of that nature and now the pandemic is kind of impacting that and they want the guy to just kind of be on size stay away from as much public like that might be the wave you know so I started reaching out to them but then also like I said the SEO specialist um increased my visibility you know if I want to give a shout out to my Man Randy G um Cherry Lube Lubin he he's amazing with the SCP local um kind of he's I think he's a VA I'ma hit you up yeah yeah so he was he's really really good with that I mean my my stuff kind of took off after um after you paid him after I paid him so so Marvin and I love this man like bro you I just I'm just honored to be across from another black man who didn't who didn't run away you one thing my father taught me was adapt adjust and overcome so you would you okay pandemic hits and you say you know what how do I adapt how do I pivot and how do I adjust and get ahead of where everyone else is thinking okay cool I'm gonna get out of the vending machine business we're not we don't have any traffic he was like yo let's let's pivot yeah and let's get ahead of it business may be slow right now but it wasn't that slow you went from twenty five thousand two hundred thousand dollars correct so that was year three into the game which was what 2020 right correct 2021 what you do uh 300. 300. so 2021 you went up a hundred thousand we're still over it correct the world was halfway open halfway closed yeah you still pivoting still seoing you're still putting things into it 2022 this year where you at we're gonna hit a half a mill a half a million dollars yeah I'm gonna give a shout out to a couple I listen I have one location like it's it's amazing like people can't believe that it's possible um but man I I maybe I don't know man maybe I'm just lucky but I don't think so but let's just say I am lucky I got I got an amazing location um that's a gaming uh 24-hour gaming you know they have about four hundred people there um every day and that location they just earned 9 800 last month um but the beauty of that location is that they have four other locations that they gave us and you know because of my team doing such a great job so they gave us uh one in you know in Detroit um that one earned about 5600 last month um Connecticut um that one is about 4 000 last month and then we have two in New Jersey that we're actually going to be putting in towards the end of the month so if you're talking about one that's gonna do like 120 000 you know so just those combined is is killing them plus you know some of the other you know student housing things of that nature like when you and it's not like I like I those locations sorry those locations by themselves are running up a couple hundred thousand plus you know I have 20 other machines you know so how many machines total do you have like 23 right now so it's not hard to like isn't when you combine those it's not hard to get to that number um it's just that I think that I hit a lick um but I do credit my team my team for my my sister who's my main staff okay um I moved her from home to come work with me and and then you know once everything was set in Philly um where I you know whereas at I was able to move to Maryland you know she she take care of everything in Philly Delaware and New Jersey um um shout out to my my sons my son's mother um she she joined the team and helped me expand too seriously correct you know you are employing your son's mother correct and and and respectfully engaged to another woman correct come on yo bro like how do you feel being a young black man successful today making a half a million dollars a year and then what like realistically what do you see yourself doing next year with this vending machine business um definitely Crossing seven seven figures um um my one of my most important things I want to do is to pay my sister six figures so I'm wanting to join the six figure Club um looking to expand to more States because like I said when Pennsylvania Delaware New Jersey Connecticut Michigan um Maryland actually I just sold uh location um my last location in Maryland uh selling for nine thousand dollars um so but you know we'll kind of keep on growing into different states because now we kind of have that structure um set up um you know people like man this you know have some vendors that kind of hating on me right now when they see my story come out today there's no way he only works under such hours a week but it's true when you have a team like I have a team so how many hours do you work a week what do you mean um really I want to say about four hours a week with the vending machine business like his other stuff I do you know online or other things but like when it comes to my vending machine business um I have one location in PG County that I stocked it took about it take about two hours and you know a day but I only stocked it once a week I throw in the extra two hours because you just you know never know whatever miscellaneous stuff can happen but when I have a team in Philadelphia I have a team in Connecticut a team in Detroit um there's not much for me to do I have an assistant who takes care of some of the back-end stuff it's not hard to see why I'm only with this business I'm not Hands-On now two years ago man my life was this that's everything every day every day um but when you put systems and processes in place to where you can only work about four hours a week correct so if anything was to happen to me my business is going to continue to function at a great you know um great and I listening I'm probably gonna credit her a lot throughout this this disc um interview but my fiance you know I'm saying she talked about that like if anything happened to you you want these things to be in place so your your business is able to you know stay afloat and do well you know so that's you know teaching my sister how to take care of interviews and manage things you know to go on them and lock down locations you know teach them you know my staff how to fix this or to work with that and or this kind of product and evaluate you know so that way you know I go on vacation every month yeah me and my feeling so we go on vacation every single month every single month two so Thursday we're going to be heading to uh San Fran watch basketball game you know what I'm saying last two weeks ago we was in West Virginia on a hiking trip before that we went Orlando where we was at a little bit we go every month Miami every month you know I'm saying up and you ever do anything out of the country uh my birthday is New Year's Eve so we're gonna be in Cancun come on man my man said my birthday is New Year's Eve me and the baby girl going to Cancun right man come on yeah so I'm able to do that man dude I love it I love it I love it um and I want to talk about because I'm hearing a lot about family like you just literally shifted my whole Trend but we're gonna say this after because I want to give some people some practical stuff to venings-wise but we're gonna come back to this family side of things because I hear I hear you're like me you're really into family yeah um and I don't want to talk about that but someone watching right now what is the best way to get into the vending machine business like where do you start like what's the very first thing that they need to look into to start getting into the vending machine as a side hustle uh first things first is to not buy a vending machine for real yeah that's the first mistake that people make so that they buy a vending machine and then try to find a place to put it and then they contact me like I got a machine I don't know where to put it and that's the first thing you don't do okay what you want to do is maybe you want to scout the kind of place you don't want to go to because you really want you only want to buy a machine once you have an agreement with a place to put it if you want your machine to be location specific okay so say for instance you know you buy a a beverage machine and then you're shopping around you find a place that wants services but they want snack machine or they may want a combo machine or it may be a luxury you know apartment and you have them a machine that will fit into a car shop um you know so it's those kind of things are important you know so you don't want to buy a machine you know I'll be seeing some people in the vending machine business who who sell content or do this kind of stuff and they'd be like step one buy machine no they set you up they say you have to fail yeah you don't want to buy because also you might have a machine and it doesn't fit through the door or it doesn't fit into space like you want to wait until you get that meeting you Scope it out you know how many people gonna be there because what if I have a big machine and there's 30 people there or if I have a small machine there's 300 people there right you know what I'm saying so you don't do that that's the first things you want to do um you want to find out where you want to get your machines from that's important because once you have an agreement with the place you want to be able to give them you know a timeline of when you're going to deliver the machine okay so if I know that if I go to this place over here it's going to take three weeks this place is going to be one week this way places gonna be six weeks I've already known you know what they may have in inventory I've already known you know the process how long did it take for it to be delivered yeah so I can you know relay that to the location um you also want to kind of just think about what areas you want to service and also you know what kind of businesses you want to Target like we are getting the location is great you know I'm saying so if you can get a good location no matter what the uh industry is you want to do it but some people have certain niches you know I have a mentee who's she primarily focuses on um through the housing and I want to give a shout out to my array because uh you know you can read about it in the Business Insider um but also she is locked down hope I can tell her she just locked down like a government contract you know um two buildings 10 machines you know that's major for her and I love to shout her out because she graduated college in May of 2020. and she's got 10 vending machines with the government man she made a hundred thousand last year you know so at 24 23 last year 23 running vending machines yeah man and she's doing that full time or part-time full-time full-time and she was able to Branch off and start a home inspecting business um so you know shout out to her shout out to her but um yeah certain people have you know you know you know niches like they want to be in certain places yeah so figure out what kind of industry you want to be and you want to be in hotels you want to you know motels you want um Landscaping manufacturers different kind of warehouses you want business offices you know you want you know things of that nature you want to figure out what kind of places you want to go to um and you know those those are pretty like the important stuff to to kind of get in there figure out what kind of car you know car really you want to put on the machine some because card readers are essential you know this is not optional at this point in time it's not yeah um if you see a vending machine in a business that looks like it's a good spot does it have a card reader I suggest you go in there and say Hey listen we got we got Better Business for you um Better Business for you and uh I was trying to solicit that you know so like I'm about to open up a studio location right so I hit up two of Marcus I need a vending machine in here um do I get a portion of your proceeds in my in my place of establishment for me typically no okay um because we are service providers that's one of the biggest misconceptions about the business is I see people saying what about the rent what about the you know the utilities what about the commission and you know eight to nine times out of ten you won't be paying any of those things ah because you think about it right um you really assume the rest with everything um I buy the machine um I which leaves me open to vandalism which doesn't happen which which rarely happens but also you know they say it could happen right um or it doesn't get used like that I'm on the hook for this amount you know for this machine yeah um I have to buy the product you know if the product goes bad I have that's on me you know buy the car of it I have to pay for delivery so you know I'm providing you a service [Music] um you know so typically you won't have to pay any commission or any rent or any utilities things in that nature there are cases where you you know you make you know so like I'm not going to say that's not going to happen but most times you won't um you may pay a flat rate if I was in if I had to pay commission for like my locations um I would try to do it on a tiered basis which is pretty much um it allows me it protects me you know so the more money I make the more money you make you know so for me it's like if I make x amount of dollars you know I pay this amount of percentage if I mean you know so for me my threshold is 500 okay a month you know um that's what I encourage people for me at this point in time 500 really wouldn't be anything because I employ people now so I want specific type of locations yeah so my locations need to be like to earn 2500 a month plus because I'm gonna have people employees employees you know so um if anything you know um you know but yeah so pretty much like you know you may it depends on the type of business you know so if you have a business that has like a hundred plus people in there that may be a place where I would be interested in paying commission like if I had to because the volume is there no it also depends on how many days a week you know you're going to be open or the hours of operation like those kind of things factor into what I believe can be like very high grossing yeah to where I can pay you commission you know because um it's really just a luxury you know and that's that's why you don't really have to pay you know any commission typically because they just wanted to be electric they want to make sure they don't pay anything that's why if you go on my website you know you will see on there say request a free machine because some of these you know companies pay vendors but we're like no we'll bring everything set it up we collect the money and you guys should use it yeah um so it's kind of you know an even trade in my opinion you know and it's it's funny I'm thinking about like I remember I was at the barbershop and I um put money in a vending machine and then give me my stuff and I said hey bro I need my money back it was like call that number right there and he was like I was like well wait it's in your shop and I gotta call them I'm gonna get my money back right now and um he was like hey man it's not my machine you know what I'm saying it's it's theirs and you got to call them and when that does happen how does that process happen like how do you get that person back their money how do you even confirm that they even put money in it um well typically most people aren't trying to you know trip over the dollars yeah or two dollars and if they and if they are then actually I'm like it don't matter because they actually needed it yeah you know no one who has said well be tripping over a dollar right you know I have somebody try to do a refund for 50 Cent we accidentally price it at 50 Cent as opposed to 150 and they still wanted to be 56 so but um what I used to do was and I still kind of do it but leave petty cash so chained to 15 ones at the location okay so that way if someone loses a dollar things of that nature um you know they can go right to the point of contact you know office and get reimbursed that helps a whole lot when it comes to oh frustration so um when you do things like when you're solving a problem like that they're less likely to complain yeah you know where they're not going to go to the head person and say man this machine keep eating my dollar blah blah and then and that's going to make the point of contact all right we need to do something about this but I'm just say hey I lost a dollar oh no problem yeah that's cool yeah um but even with that you're still pointing the point of contact in the middle of something and for them that could be frustrating to them yeah so what we do now is we put QR codes in our machine so we eliminate the point of contact and we just have a we have a direct communication with the consumer so that way they scan the QR code they fill out you know the location that they're at you know the the the option so that way we can see if it's a specific option that keeps on having a problem and we you know we whether they last four digits of the card they use if they use a card or if you know they have cash app you know venmo PayPal if they use cash and we can just send it to them right away so even them they're not even going to even get an opportunity to complain to this person if they're getting refunded like that um so that's kind of how we we work right now um dude like when I when I when I listen to you I I don't hear a brother Samuel let me get the bag what I hear a brother saying is let me let me set up the process and the systems correctly yeah so I can get the bag and create a healthy experience for my customers as well not just the customers who are buying from me but the customers who I'm also placing the vending machine in correct so it was like this way you have a healthy relationship with the people um where your vending machine is sitting in and then also you're creating a healthy environment uh for that your customers who actually purchase from you and and I like that because it kind of reminds me like of the of the Chick-fil-A method but it's a Chick-fil-A with vending machines and I mean that's just that's just solid um and I love that do you offer courses um online courses or or one-on-one coaching on how to get into the vending machine business um I do have a course I do have a course that I offer which you know people can find that you know um www dot marcusgram.digital okay um And in regards to online coaching that's something that I'm looking to launch in the new year it's been something that's been requested over the past couple years yeah I'm not gonna lie I've been nervous about doing it you know uh because it's very important for me like you said that the experience is very important for me to provide like tangible things you know I don't want to just Chase it back um you know I've always lived with you know my name is my name it's the only thing I'm gonna live with and die with and I never want no no no no money or nothing like that to muddy my name so I wanted to take time to kind of create something that I feel will be tangible for you know the people that will be in the program yeah so once that's how I you know put it out but man I love it yo we're gonna drop his website in today's show no shake him out man he's been all over the news with his success as a young Millennial and so we're gonna drop his social media on there and you're gonna uh we'll drop his website so he can check it out and check out his course uh but but bro one of the things that I've noticed from you which I just got to commend you is is you you give credit to your fiance right now um who you've just said hey I'm gonna spend the rest of my life with you uh you have three kids two of them are yours and one of them are hers and I commend you and you said like I have three um two of them came from me in my past situation one came from her past situation but you're like but I have three kids and then I hear you say like hey I employ my son's mother and I'm like whoa you like you you still have a healthy relationship three y'all two can still work together you know what I'm saying and so what I hear from you is that you are a young 31 year old black man who's about family yeah and I I just and then when I and I'm always listening right I've I've learned as I'm interviewing people to listen what they're saying listen to what they're not saying you work four hours a week but you and your fiance go on a vacation every single month correct that's a family man and you know what I'm saying I'm like you take your kids with you to refill some of your vending machines that's a father why is family so important to you um man could I come from poverty you know and when I have stuff now but I didn't have it before but I've always had a family um that's that's the truth you know like even with my success um I've never felt like I I had like I do this for my family because I want to but it's not because I feel like I have to um my family never made me feel like I have to take care of them they've they've been always like hey man get far away from here you know work you know do this for yourself like they've always been big on that which in turn makes me want to do things for them because I don't feel the pressure of having to uplift my family I'm doing it because I love them they've always been supportive of me they've always told me I was going to be somebody you know they didn't know exactly what but since I was a kid they always said you're going to be special you're going to be something you're going to be successful and they've always you know kind of protected me you know you know how like you know back in the day you know somebody be the the guy that can play basketball real well you know the drug dealers and then we'll be like Hey listen get out of here you know you're gonna be the one to make it out yeah that's always how my family has been for me wow um you know my mom my pops my pops is not my biological father um it's the only father I've known yeah so even when they split they have they have been friends you know they were together for about 20 years and they split into this day you know they're they're still friends so having a healthy relationship with my son's mother is not you know abnormal that's normal for me you know because we all have one common you know oh and that's to love our children yeah to put them in the best position you know and I don't I'm a person that really believes that you know I'm not able to really be the father that I want to be if I don't care about my my son's mother you know um yeah I think about it you know that's real hey I think about you know I have friends right and they have you know fiances and they have you know wives and they have girlfriends I respect them yeah I was because yeah that's my homie oh that's your girl oh that's my sis so how can I not adopt that to my my sons who I love and that's your mom like you love her that much so I love her you know what I'm saying so how does that Dynamic work with your current fiance was that a hard discussion up front when y'all first connected or was she like supportive of it uh there's always boundaries that's that's important that's good you know boundaries is very very important um but my fiance is uh a very um amazing person an empathetic person a compassionate person um you know communication is very big with her um but you know she loves my sons and that again is like uh you know want to be have a great relationship with her you know what I'm saying so it when you taking care of stuff and you are being respectful when you're doing things like I don't have any negativity because um I respect my son's mother to do it to engage in anything that's going to create a problem because I love my sons that much you know I'm saying I can't love them and and disrespect or have a problem with someone that they love so much that just that they don't go well together I mean this generation is changing man I was um talking to a young lady man and she was telling me that her her son's father um helps her with her business and he has a whole nother you know situation at home I was like wow I'm seeing this more and more that it's like like black men are starting to step up to the play like hey even though we're not together I still want to help you in because as my son or as my child's mother it only helps me to help you win correct because if you're not winning that impacts my child and that impacts me and that impacts me so let me help you in so it can impact our children and there's no drama there and and I love that mindset and I wish more black men or more men in general could be like yo let's let's help each other in but I love the boundaries that that you and your fiance clearly have to set to protect y'all's relationship correct but it's like you can't really be tripping y'all going on vacation every month yeah we spend a lot of men we spend a lot of time together you know yeah which is which is important but like yeah boundaries like that's important like having boundaries you know um and and when you have that it you know it allows it allows trust it allows a lot of stuff it allows a lot of things to just kind of fall into place you know yeah um what does your fiance do I'm curious for a living what's a career field uh she's in Tech she's in Tech a black woman in Tech yeah she's in Tech how long she been in Tech um well well before I know her years I probably like 2016 2017 kind of thing wow and and has has what she her career field in Tech has that impacted you and helped you in a certain kind of way to help your business expand yeah yeah I mean listen man she's very big on structuring organization you know like I've been doing this vending machine thing so I know things like the back of my hand but she's like you know if you want to you know step away from having to do certain things like you have to make it so that someone else can easily be you and do these things so as you know as of right now today she you know we were working together on some things you know so she's helping like even when it comes to some of the digital things that I sell when um I do a free webinar every Wednesday like she she built a lot of this stuff almost all of it let me stop saying a lot she built all of this stuff for me man um you know so she's a brilliant mind um yeah she's yeah she's she's great man listen two things number one I want to say there's nothing like a strong woman beside a strong man you know it's like Eve was made to be the help mate of Adam the woman was was made to be a help mate to men and I think oftentimes men are intimidated or sometimes men are intimidated by successful strong woman like your woman and I'm like but that's crazy because it's like everything that she has on the inside of her is for you if you treat her right and love her right correct and because of that look at where you are today you you you lost your job she looked at you and said listen when I got your back too you can do it and we're gonna do this thing together and you ain't gonna slack with me and today you make it a half a million about to make a million dollars next year yeah and I'm like to me that's the kind of woman that every man needs and I believe that there are a lot of ladies out there like that especially within the black community I love all communities y'all know that but I I just when I I get excited about black love and black partnership and black wealth building and black Legacy uh because I mean yo it's powerful and see like y'all like see they put it camera back on him see over here smiling that man over here smiling yo I got me one boy now the funniest part about it is I always laugh that um man she admit she initially like like dumped me she wasn't she wasn't for you bro because like but I respected because listen she told me I wasn't courting her enough and she was a hundred percent because I never had to do that you know you know I I never had to do that I was with my son's mother for a while we was in college yeah yeah you know prior to that I mean I had no money we weren't doing stuff but yeah but she like she knew what she wanted she knew what she deserved and she was like hey this is what I want and you know so you know we're gonna be cool you know um but you know I ended up doing I started sending her flowers and things of that nature with you know um so yeah so would you say would you catch yourself would you classify yourself as an could answer that question listen his woman is in Tech and and I got to bring this up because you all know me and I gotta I wasn't gonna go there but I'm gonna go there today um his woman is in Tech and I do believe that Tech has become like the New Black career uh it's only about two percent of African Americans are in the tech field and I told myself and my team's like yo we're gonna push the tech industry and the content creation industry as a stream of income to help you get out of debt to help you start Building Wealth to help you start going after your dreams to help you start building legacies because when I did the research the two Rising careers that are producing multi-millionaires OR tech industry it's the tech industry and the content creation space and so I partnered with an amazing organization called Bethel Tech and Bethel Tech um is just powerful nine month program it's gonna cost you about 14 to about 15 16 17 000 to get into the program they're gonna give you a fifteen hundred dollar scholarship right uh just for being a part of my tribe but then within the next month nine months you're gonna learn everything you need to learn how to be how to do coding how to do websites how to get into anything in all things Tech and within a matter of nine months you could be making six figures plus I met a young guy who makes 700 000 a year in the tech industry what and so listen I want to go check them out go to anthony.com forward slash Bethel Tech again that is Anthony o'neill.com foreign okay cool Anthony o'neill.com forward slash Bethel we'll make sure to put them in the uh show notes today but as you can see you know Marcus girlfriend uh well fiance I'm sorry uh my sister um is in the tech industry and clearly I mean look at them but then the next when they get married man they're making they're gonna be making over a million dollars in Combined income that's crazy income and you could be there too if you're not happy with your career maybe you want something different maybe you want more income maybe you even want more freedom to where you can work from home listen the tech industry is where you want to go go to anthonyneil.com forward slash Bethel and I promise you you'll enjoy it you know bro when when I look at you I I see that you're not only a family man but I'm like man listen you you really have it seems like you've balanced like you're working four hours a week you're taking your wife out I mean your future wife out you know at least once a month y'all go somewhere how are you balancing you know running the business and being a family man therapy therapy therapy yeah I go to therapy um I go to therapy once a week um so this is my fiance and we also do couples therapy once a week what um so you're in therapy two times a week yeah huh yeah there was a moment where I wasn't in therapy and I wasn't doing good mentally this year I always try to be transparent about those things yeah because even though you know I have the vending business and all that I'm just I'm a person yeah so um but you know being back in therapy and not just being in therapy for having a a great therapist yeah has been very helpful for me and a lot of you know fashion and stuff like that what is one thing that over the Sierra that you because I'm huge on therapy like I'm I promote therapy on this channel um a lot at least at least once or twice a month what is one thing that you've walked away that from therapy that's helped you become a better fiance a better father and a better man um forgiveness forgiveness from past hurt from yeah just or just past hurt this even current selfie just that like somebody would do something to me or say that that I wouldn't do or say to you so I'm gonna hold on to it it would bother me like you know yeah but um I've learned to to forgive yeah um and would you say forgiveness is more for them or more for you for myself for myself forgiveness has been more for myself um I hold the law I just I Hold On To The Past a lot you know I've been you know uh but that's definitely something that I learned um and I appreciate it because my man begins should be giving me homework that my therapist like yeah read this go through this so that is that has definitely been something and and also just being able to like you know work on just acknowledging you know the positive and things you know because sometimes like we may think about what someone doesn't do and we don't never really focus on what they do and I think that um we forget we forget that even adults need positive reinsurance you know we do it for children but adults need positive reinsurance you know sometimes something as simple as thank you for you know freaking taking the trash out wow because that you know I don't oh you know what I'm gonna take the trash out yeah yeah yeah because I'm saying yeah so like things like that you know just learning to you know to to engage in more positive reassurance um about things this dude said forgiveness and focusing on the things that they do do I was on uh live early this morning and I was like man you know we got to stop pointing the finger at the other person saying you're not doing this you're not doing that you're not doing this and start saying you know what one what are you doing like as far as in yourself and start celebrating the other person yeah and one thing I've learned from therapy too as well is one was I wouldn't say forgiveness because I I never really I was never really big on holding grudges but I wouldn't forget you know what I'm saying like if you did me wrong I ain't gonna hate you but I won't give you the opportunity to get close to me again but that's also a part of the Forgiveness yeah so yeah I thought the same thing I thought the same thing that it was like I forget but I don't forget but some of that is a level of not forgiving yeah and that's when she told me she was like ghost today is a level of grudges yeah and she was like you you know you're healed when when you even get around him the name comes up and it doesn't bother you anymore and I'll be like you're right and then I had to really realize like man some of that stuff was holding me back from even being a better person of me and trusting someone else correct you know because I used to go in relationships um and just be like man I'm tired of being a good man I'm tired of of all right let me do this all right let me do that and my my therapist was like no you continue being a good man you just have to one forgive the ladies who've hurt you in the past used you in the past Did You Wrong in the past because Anthony you've done people wrong in the past yep yeah yeah so it's like so so she was like so you can't get upset with people who did you wrong when you've done ladies wrong in the past I'm a villain in someone's story and I've always accepted that like I'm for all some a villain to someone always all of us and she's like so when you accept that you got to forgive yourself not just for you gotta forgive in two areas forget the people who hurt you and then forgive yourself for hurting someone else because you me at the season of my life I'm like dang I did do her wrong and then I get scared then I go into relationships and I'm not being being my true self now because it's like wait I don't want to mess up I don't want to do that so when you can really forgive it frees yourself that's right to just be authentic all the way around because I'm fearful I'll hurt her the way I heard that person in the past and I'm like dang I ain't forgive myself yet and so that now this person can't truly experience me because I'm walking in fear damn yo that's hard because like when I say that's hard I mean that's that's that's that's some dope to say because you that pretty much happened to me even in my relationship I'm in right now you know like I I didn't forgive myself and when you say it out loud that's exactly what it was so my fear from not hurting her I may have not even been my best self and absolutely it's not even my best self I might not been my true self yes you know and that's not allowing her to understand that's some real could I experience that like we've talked about those things in therapy or those things you know but it's like hearing they verbalize that way is exactly what it was and and those are the things that I had to work through nah it's real bro that's why I go to therapy I mean I you know I have no shame in my game saying um go to therapy because I think you know when we experience this kind of success right I don't know about you because you actually had your woman when you started making this kind of money but I I have not had a true relationship since I've really been experiencing this success so I'm like uh so like level of success brings a level of of demons and devils and thoughts inside of your head and I'm like dang wait I gotta and so literally my therapist walks me through I go to a therapist once a week as well um because I just want to make sure that when I do get into my next relationship I am not the healthiest because I don't think you'll ever you're always going to be getting healthier you know because like I want to make sure that I am the healthiest I can be today mentally correct because I want to be the best husband I want to be the best father I want to be the best friend I want to be the best leader with my team you know um and I want to create a space in a place where we all can be honest and I'm not I'm quickly looking at myself you know because I want to make sure that I'm healthy so you guys man I mean if you all want to look into therapy um um I don't know if CJ can put on the screen but I want you to go check out um anthonyneil.com forward slash betterhelp we've partnered with them for the year 2022 because I told them I was like Hey I want to be able to provide African-Americans affordable um um opportunities to go see therapist and so that's who I use and so I would encourage you to go check them out they're going to give you 10 off this month we wasn't even going to go there I didn't know his brother's going to say that you know listen I go listen I've had different therapists to different networks and the therapist I have right now is to better help and she has are you serious it's been the best therapist I've ever had for real I promise you like and I thought that maybe like could I have bad access I had I had a few like not good expenses on Better Health okay something like damn that's probably what but this therapist has been the best Immaculate and here's the thing too with therapy I've had a few I've had a few therapists and it didn't work but it's like you you gotta keep going until you find that one and there's nothing wrong with with with with that because it's like hey I've had several Banks some of them didn't work then I found that one it just worked you know and so you got to really identify and from here's what I found will work for me when it came to therapy as a man is I don't want a therapist that makes me feel like I'm right all the time correct I want a therapist that's challenging me not saying that I'm wrong all the time but challenging my thought process is it like have you ever thought about it could be it's not saying that it's not this exactly well just make me think because you know because that's going to allow me in certain situations to be able to maybe approach them differently like I'm using my relationship as an example just because when you're in a relationship you're around someone and something is happening your initial thought can be this yep but my therapist is challenging me to be like have you ever thought about the possibility that and it's like um damn it like it could be right and it has a house a couple therapy for you because I mean y'all are engaged now but how long have y'all been going to therapy as a couple um we had a different couple therapists at first we've been with him for I don't know maybe four or five months four or five months wow how long y'all been engaged um 10 months 10 months Okay Google cool man listen and has it helped the relationship yes it's helped it's helped with the relationship I think the individual therapy is really weird because like we're individually working on one another and then being able to come in and I don't mean that every session is the best yeah yeah I feel it it'll say anything but yeah there is a level of uh growth in communication that continues to come from that you know because we come from two different backgrounds we come from we're two different genders we have two different experiences like even being black we both have two different experiences when it comes because she's a black woman and I'm a black man so those expenses are completely separate the workplace our experiences are separate you know what I'm saying like a lot of that kind of like it's different so it's a lot of unlearning that we have to to go through you know I know as a man there's a lot of unlearning I had to learn as a man there's a lot of that uncles and older cousins that taught growing up that just without an adult like that ain't that ain't right you know so it's like it's a lot of stuff that from you know your childhood to being a teenager to being an early adult that you experiencing you know you don't you don't really know that those things impact you until you are sometimes in a relationship and you're kind of having a constant mirror to yourself you know so it was so funny man I was just talking to a young lady and I was like man listen I could say something and it could come off negative and I was like but it's not negative because that's just my experiences but then I had to remind myself like yo wait her experiences could be totally different and and when she hears that it was negative correct but then my experiences it wasn't negative so it's like you got to come together I mean with two people which is why I think couples therapy is good I always told myself like when I get into the next relationship before I even get engaged I'm going to get in couples therapy not because something's wrong it's because I want it to be right no that's why we went we didn't go like we were going to go into a couple stairspeed before no not before getting engaged because we wanted to get a couple of therapy before being married okay because we didn't want to be um we wanted to be proactive and not reactive we didn't want to go to couples therapy because something is happening we wanted to build something yeah that would be strong you know yeah um so you know we lollygagged you know went ahead but then it's like we locked in and we we've been at it and sometimes I don't want to be there I'm still mad about something before but it's helpful man like it's very it's it's very it's very very helpful it's very helpful man listen man I wish I had a two-hour show my team is pointing at the club man we are coming up on that time to where we need to wrap it up uh one quick question before we go out what's what's non what's one goal you have for next year that has nothing to do with your vending machine business um I want to I want to retire my mom um I'm gonna retire my mom um how old is she my mom is 56 56. and how much money do you need when you say retire it's on my payoff home are you talking about I wouldn't be able to send my mom x amount of dollars every month to live off of so she can live like what does retire your mom mean I want to be able to um because she owns her own home okay um I want to be able to um I don't know maybe like five thousand dollars a month that's that's the goal let's go man I have um one goal is uh I'm not for 2023 um but I do want to eventually pay off both both sets of my parents home so I have two biological parents and two other parents I'm like you I the first man that I knew physically was my quote unquote stepfather um but he is my father and my biological father was in my life from day one though so it was like um but but of course my mom married my stepfather and so as I could visually remember that and then my my other mother managed every bit of my mom and I'm like man I'm blessed to have four parents and I wanna I wanna position them to where they can enjoy my dad just retired my biological father just retired so both him and my mom are staying home you know they just chill and I want to be able to pay off their home so they can really enjoy all their money you know and and I work hard now because I'm like you and we'll end this show guys um it's so funny because they hear me say this all the time which is why man I dude you Marcus keep that up bro because I said my mom and other father got married at the South of the Border didn't have a wedding they didn't have a honeymoon I'm gonna see the South of the Border that's in between North Carolina and South Carolina they went to the Mexicans and the Mexicans just did a little quick 30-minute situation and they're going moved out of California with my dad was stationed at Camp Pendleton moved into a one bedroom uh Studio Suite about 400 square feet our couch was our bed our bed was our couch and then never had a wedding never had a honeymoon growing up you know unfortunately we lived paycheck to paycheck you know we we didn't do family things we didn't do family trips at Disneyland we didn't do I didn't see my parents just leave for themselves and go out to over here just to get away for the weekend because we couldn't afford it and I said man when I get married uh the first year every month we're gonna go somewhere every quarter we're going out of the country where every quarter we're gonna have a honeymoon every month we're just gonna get away like go to Dallas go to New York and just chill have a getaway weekend when we have kids I'm taking them out of the country at least two times a month because I want I want to provide an experience I want to provide a privilege for my family and I think more black men need to be thinking like us because I'm like you told me man me and my fiance already get out of town every single month and that just lets me know that's that's just setting up the black family differently yeah and that's why I tell my team like yo I want y'all to be making you know uh multiple six figures with me so you can do these kind of things with your family because as black men as a black family I think it's our responsibility to position our kids to win and and to really build a healthy relationship with our spouses so I I I salute you my brother and thank you for coming on to the show and rather the black white hispanic Puerto Rican I don't care what you are at the end of the day we all need to bust our butts um so we can have this Financial Freedom and financial options and the vending machine could be another Avenue to help you pay off debt this vending machine could be another Avenue if you're out of that to help you start building wealth and help you start building a legacy so you can have these kind of experiences with your families and I mean that man I can't wait to tell my wife eBay go ahead and schedule every weekend where we going you just let me know I'll we'll cut the check there's no issues there we got the money all right base quarter where are we going where are we going out of the country we're going to Israel we're going to London all right babe this quarter will be taking the kids uh well this year we're taking the kids to Israel and you know let's take them to Greece let's let's provide an experience um for our families and for black people we need to stop settling to be um complacent and just be okay with the okay or good life nah man I want to have an excellent experience and an excellent life with my kids so listen we're going to drop all of Marcus information in today's show notes and I want to thank you all for watching the show make sure y'all check out um all of my uh sponsored partners with us today check out betterhelp get that therapy check out Delta Tech get into a career field that would allow you the financial means to do what you want to do to get out of debt and make sure that you get life insurance so that way as you're building this as you're building this true wealth if something was to happen with you um in your life your family will be okay let's be wise with what we're doing let's be good stewards of the opportunity in the season that God has given us Joshua boy Anthony O'Neill thank you so much for checking us out and rocking with us we'll see you on the next show peace out [Music]

Channel: The Table With AO

Views: 67,805

Keywords: anthony oneal, money, budget, how to save money, personal finance, debt free, how to budget, how to make money, how to get out of debt, Dave Ramsey, earn your leisure, black wealth, how to pay off debt, finance, retirement planning, credit card debt, bitcoin, building black wealth, Union Church, graham stephan, grant cardone, financial education, minority mindset, financial freedom, cnbc make it, vending machine business, on the job, career management, side hustles 2022

Id: ur9Mgxe411Y

Length: 65min 49sec (3949 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 31 2022