In this episode, Dave is excited to welcome David Barnett. Dave is the author of 3 Amazon best-sellers – Invest Local, Franchise Warnings, and How to Sell My Own Business. He is the owner of a very unique business, Advantage Liquidity Partners. ALP works closely with small and mid-sized business owners throughout the world to help them through the process of selling their business for the best valuation.
Dave has become so sought after that he has helped a business sell in every month for 35 months straight!
Valuing and selling a business is one of the toughest and most understood areas of entrepreneurship, so I want Dave to give what you really need to know if you ever are in a position to sell, as well as, provide some of the business wisdom and lessons he has learned from working throughout the world for so many years.
David has always been entrepreneurial. After University, he went into a corporate job, but quickly found it wasn’t for him, so he started a business in the junk removal industry. Within a few months, he made it a success. Not long after, he sold the business and as he says “I did it naively.” He learned a lot and then started a business doing finance brokerage for small-mid-sized businesses.
This did very well until 2008-2009 when financing started to grow up. He then started to get asked about helping buy and sell businesses. Naturally, David started a business for it and was very successful. One issue with the business model of brokerage is cash flow as it is up and down because of lump sum payments. At one point, this problem exacerbated itself where David had multiple deal fall through all at once and he decided to move on.
He had to make ends meet, so he reluctantly took a job and about 4 months into it, he got a call from a person selling a business asking for help. He said no. A week later, he got another call from someone trying to buy a business asking for help to analyze the deal. He found a niche in consulting with people to buy and sell their own business. And this turned into the business he has today where he helps people buy and sell businesses on their own throughout the world.
#1 thing entrepreneurs should know about valuing and selling a business?
How does an entrepreneur do the right things now to be prepared for an exit?
Biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs make when they sell the business?
Not properly taking care of working capital (example is having too much inventory)
Payables – a profitable business will accumulate cash over time and businesses will get in a habit of paying bills as they come, as opposed to making sure they are paying when the bills are due. This shows buyers that other people’s capital can finance the growth and operations of the business.
Receivables –one of the best tricks to get paid faster and on time is to put the actual date that is due instead of “net 30 or 45.” Customers will pay you sooner.
At the 21 min mark, Dave gives a great example of how the above can work and make a huge difference in a business.
How does a business owner know when it’s time to sell?
At the 33 min mark, David gives his cautions on franchises and what you should know about them
Top Lessons learned?
At the 42 min mark, Dave gives thoughts on if you are buying a business and thoughts from the buyer side.
Best Quote: "20-30 years ago, everyone wanted to be a McDonald's franchisee, nowadays everyone wants to be Ray Kroc."
David's Misfit 3:
Hello Misfit Nation! Welcome to another edition of "Lessons for Hannah!" In November of 2016, we introduced a new format that we are putting alongside our regular episodes called “Lessons for Hannah.” Hannah is my daughter and one of the main inspirations for the Misfit Entrepreneur. I wanted to have a place where she could go and learn from her daddy and his Misfit friends throughout her life….even after I am gone. If you haven’t listened to the first episode of "Lessons for Hannah," I urge you to as it gives some more background and tells the amazing story of how Hannah came to be in our lives.
"Lessons for Hannah" are short, very useful, and sometimes comical lessons, that I have learned which I want to share with you and give to Hannah to help in your lives. Because I want Hannah to have these for her life, I’m going to speak as though I am talking directly to her. These episodes are a lot of fun and if you think there is a lesson that we should include in these episodes, please don’t hesitate to send it over to us at support@misfitentrepreneur.com. We’d love to share it.
This week’s Lesson for Hannah
Hannah, honey. I want to talk to you about a secret of the most successful. As you go through life and meet people that are very successful at what they do and seem to know exactly what they need to do to stay that way and keep reaching higher levels, I want you to ask them about their goals…because I bet, they will have them written down somewhere. There has been so much studied on this topic over the years, but it simply comes down to this – those that write their goals down and make plans to achieve them are much more successful than those that don’t.
One of my favorite quotes, that I hope you will also come to like, is from the famous Greek philosopher, Aristotle, who said “Man is a goal seeking animal…his life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.” Your mother and I are living proof that this is true. Every year, we take time to write down our goals and share them with each other. It is amazing how just doing this exercise can make things so clear and give you direction.
A question you may have is, “That’s great dad, but where do I start? Do you a process for setting goals?” The answer is yes and you will find it in the book I wrote a long time ago, The Ten Year Career. You can also find a video of me discussing it and some materials to help you online at the link in the show notes page of this lesson. But, and this important, I want you to understand, no, I encourage you, to come up with your own process of things. Use my process as a base, but add your own flavor to it…make it your own.
Hannah – setting and writing down my goals has been one of the best habits that I have ever created in my life and I know it will help you on your journey tremendously. So, write your goals down, go after them, and turn your dreams into reality. I can’t wait to watch you do it. I love you, Daddy.
Click Here for a Link to the Goal Setting Resources from the Ten Year Career
Best Quote: "Man is a goal seeking animal...his life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals." - Aristotle
Misfit 3
n this episode, Dave is excited to welcome Mike Koenigs. Mike is a serial entrepreneur, 10 time #1 best-selling author, speaker, and interactive online personality and entertainer.
Dave first met Mike almost 10 years ago when he was on the cutting of building your brand online with video. Mike, liternally pioneered video marketing and a host of other online marketing mediums. Just about every personality from Tony Robbins, Paula Abdul, and Hollywood A-listers like Richard Dreyfus have sought out and worked with Mike. He’s won the marketer of the year award, sold 2 businesses to publicly traded companies, and is a very active philanthropist.
This episode is really a special treat as Dave and Mike go deep into a number areas from Mike's background and amazing story to what he sees coming in the future (that you absolutely need to aware of), and some of the best advice you get for building a business and brand online.
Connect with Mike on Facebook: @koenigs
Email Mike: mikekoenigs@gmail.com
Mike grew up in a small town in Minnesota. Mike learned at an early age to be self-sufficient and love to make stuff. He did not do well in school because he is a very kinesthetic learner.
He started coding at 14 years old and was a young hacker. He started his first business at this time, but was always interested in movies and music. He took this love and started an online advertising agency called Digital Café, one of the first online, interactive businesses.
Mike started using video on the web years before Youtube ever existed. He figured out how to hack search engines and video search engines to get traffic. He turned this into a “push-button” system called Traffic Geyser and secondary texting product called Instant Customer.
Mike was diagnosed with cancer in 2012 and had to make serious changes to his life. He sold some of his businesses, got through cancer, and then started again, becoming a multi-time best-selling author and building a new set of businesses.
What was the tipping point of success? Mike had a low point where he was over $250,000 in debt, went through a divorce, and living off of credit card checks. It was at this time that friend of his introduced him to Tony Robbins. Mike took everything he had left and joined Tony’s programs and went to an event. Within 6 months he had turned his life and business around and a year later, a billion dollar firm bought his company. Mike says he found a great mentor and invested in himself and was willing to take a radical risk.
Ironically, a few years later, Tony came to Mike for help in setting up his studio and marketing online.
“Find mentors you resonate with and then go head first, take the big risks, and trust your heart and your gut”
Traits of high performers:
“What about you right now is standing in the way of becoming the new you? What is it that keeps you frozen in the place you are?”
Pay attention at the 16 min mark as Mike talks about detachment for freedom.
Mike talks about how important it is to stay in the game and how important it is to develop business management skills.
At the 25 min mark, Mike talks about the evolution of doing business online and gives his advice for those starting out today.
Mike says one thing he has learned the hard way is that turtles always win because they don’t wear themselves out before they play the long game
At the 34 minute mark, Mike talks about the revolution of video marketing and how it is changing everything and gets into what is coming and how you can take advantage.
Core skills you need:
Innovation and leadership will always be needed.
You must be able to rapidly prototype something, get it in front of a market, and test it.
Things to focus on and make part of your strategy and spend your time:
#1 thing needed for a successful product launch?
Best tips to grow an audience or list?
Biggest NOT TO DO in building your brand online?
What is the biggest lesson learned from your cancer experience?
Best Quote: “The more insulated you get from the customers on the ground level, the more you lose touch. And once you get insulated, you don’t have a sense of what reality is any longer.”
Mike's Misfit 3
In this episode, Dave is excited to welcome Audria Richmond. In this show, Dave and Audria debunk the myths about Millennials, because Audria proves that many things you’ve heard about them and their views on work, etc. are just not true.
Audria is the owner and CEO of Building BIG Brands Agency. The company’s mission is to empower and strategize with digital entrepreneurs, small business owners, creatives, executive leaders, and industry influencers to develop a profitable personal brand. They do this with a signature framework called the “Seven Phases."
Audria has won numerous awards, been featured in the Huffington Post, Business Insider and other news outlets and recently released her first book, “Are You Ready for the YES?” in January, which is already a best-seller.
But, above all of this, there was one thing that really intrigued Dave about having her on the show and that is that she was able to take her brand from local to global in 60 days and create a 6 figure income in her first year in business!
www.audriarichmond.com
Connect with Audria across all social media with the handle @AudriaRichmond
Audria started off as a part-time professional photographer in 2008 while also working as flight attendant. She borrowed a camera to start and took some online courses, self-teaching herself how to be a professional. She quit her job in 2009 with no money saved because she knew it would cause her to hustle harder.
Her photography business started to grow and she began to outgrow the Memphis market. She then started adding creative services and graphic design. She then created and published a magazine called Love New Art in which she could show her work and the work of others that were not getting the attention they deserved.
She then came to a cross-roads. She has done well with her photography and graphic design, but had priced herself really low to get business. She made the decision to become a true professional and charge the rates her work was worth. This didn’t go over well as she had trained clients to be used to “deals” from her.
At this point, she had exhausted any money she had and had to take a job again. During this time, she self-educated on online marketing. She got to a point where she was ready to go on her own again and published an online video on branding. Within 2 weeks of putting up the video, she started getting responses from people all over the world. In fact, her first online sale was a lady in Singapore. And then within her first 60 days, she had made $20,000.
At the 7 min mark, Audria goes through the steps she took to do go from local to global in 60 days.
At the 17 min mark, Audria talks about millennials and how they are mis-understood. She discusses how they utilize technology to succeed. She also talks about how people need to “meet them where they are” and understand the psychology of millennials before making up their mind. Millennials can adapt to change very quick and that is an asset in today's world.
At the 19 min mark, we talk about Audria’s 7 Phases Framework:
What is one thing in each of the 7 phases that people need to do to be successful in that phase?
Advice for those just starting online?
At the 27 min mark, Audria talks about what is working right now on social media and what is working with live video. Advice for entrepreneurs?
How do you stay relevant? Become an insider instead of a reporter. Find the new trend that people are talking about and insert your expertise into it.
Best Quote: Become and insider instead of a reporter
Audria's Misfit 3
In this episode, Dave is excited to welcome Dinesh Kandanchatha . Dinesh is a serial entrepreneur, consultant, and investor. He has built over 13 businesses and exited 3 of them – one for over $200 million, and has built an extensive global network that he uses to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses.
As Dinesh will tell you, he initially went to university for sciences, which lead him to a career in software. It wasn’t long before he realized that his pay would hit a ceiling. You might say that the reason he got into business was the money. He saw the sales guys driving Porsche's and Jaguars—and wanted in. Little did he know that his passions were in unlocking a business' potential, which goes far beyond the sale.
A big lesson he learned in the early days is that money is a measure of the value you create for customers, not an outcome. An MBA later, and after PHD from the school of “hard knocks,” Dinesh has been able to create a ton of value with some amazing entrepreneurs throughout the world.
www.dineshk.com
Clarity.fm/dineshkatwork
Dinesh started out in the sciences following a typical route of going to be a doctor. But decided to do something that no one in his family had done which is go into business and entrepreneurship. As he says, he was blessed to be able to live his passion as his job.
His first business was huge success that was quickly built into 7 figures and he was able to exit through a purchase. He then had a few startups that did not pan out before starting his most successful business which was bought by a larger competitor for over $200 million in 2010.
Since 2010 he has been doing investments and advisory to early stage companies helping them scale and position themselves for success.
Biggest challenges small and mid-size businesses have?
As Dinesh says’ there is no magic bullet in changing the role of a founder to give them the time they need, but he does discuss how important it is to have a schedule and daily plan that allows for that time. He suggested asking “why?” Asking why you do things the way you do. Asking why things are working the ways they are. The key is to not provide the solution at this time, but to ask the open question and then figure out how you can leverage those around you to help create the solution. Dinesh recommends just an hour a day 5 days a week, but the results can be massive.
Dinesh’s Advice for Growth Hacking and Growing Sales:
As the 18 min mark, Dinesh gives his thoughts on how to get off the fast start and good start to the year as an entrepreneur:
At the 24 min mark, Dinesh talks about raising capital, busts a lot of myths you may have been taught, and what entrepreneurs should know.
At the 28 min mark, Dinesh talks about what entrepreneurs should know when exiting a business.
At the 33 min mark, Dinesh talks about how to manage a fast growing business and cashflow to keep it growing. “Cash is king. And if you have to sacrifice growth for cash, sacrifice it.”
At the 36 min mark, Dinesh gives advice for those just starting out and great general advice for anyone
Best Quote: "Run the business like you are never going to sell it, but always build it to be sold."
Dinesh's Misfit 3:
In November of 2016, we introduced a new format that we are putting alongside our regular episodes called “Lessons for Hannah.” Hannah is my daughter and one of the main inspirations for the Misfit Entrepreneur. I wanted to have a place where she could go and learn from her daddy and his Misfit friends throughout her life….even after I am gone. If you haven’t listened to the first episode of "Lessons for Hannah," I urge you to as it gives some more background and tells the amazing story of how Hannah came to be in our lives.
"Lessons for Hannah" are short, very useful, and sometimes comical lessons, that I have learned which I want to share with you and give to Hannah to help in your lives. Because I want Hannah to have these for her life, I’m going to speak as though I am talking directly to her. These episodes are a lot of fun and if you think there is a lesson that we should include in these episodes, please don’t hesitate to send it over to us at support@misfitentrepreneur.com. We’d love to share it.
This week’s Lesson for Hannah
Hannah, sweetie. I want to talk to you about this amazing thing we call life. We live in a big world that gets smaller every day because of technology and the growing connectedness of everything. We are bombarded by interruptions throughout our day, from email to social media to push notifications from apps on our phone, to numerous other shiny objects. And I have no doubt that by the time you listen to this, it will have probably gotten worse, but definitely will have changed.
So, what does this have to do with life? Well, you only get one of them (at least as of now, we’ll see what happens over the next 20 years) and your goal should be to maximize every moment of it. I didn’t truly realize this until your mother and I brought you home and you started to grow. Every day brings something new and exciting. Life is truly about the experiences you have and the daily adventures that you get to unfold. It’s not about things. Years later, you won’t remember the fancy car as much you will remember an experience you had with it. My best advice to you is to seek out new experiences, travel to remote places, and see and feel the world firsthand…not through an app or VR or some other medium.
This doesn’t mean that you don’t have to work very smart and hard to be able to give yourself the ability to do this (your mom and I will teach you as best we can to create your own success and the ability to fund the life you want), but it also doesn’t mean that the best experiences require a bunch of travel and money either.
And that is true point. Amazing experiences are all around you every day. Just hearing your contagious laugh and watching you figure something new out is so precious to me. Watching you learn to ski or swim and do these things on your own is just as good as visiting Hawaii. The key I want you to realize is to make sure you stay open in your life to see and be present for all the wonderful things and experiences you will have, big and small. Don’t get so obsessed with work or a vision that you don’t take the time. I’ve made that mistake and thankfully have had the right people in my life to wake me up from it. I’ll leave you with this….As Ferris Bueller said “Life moves pretty fast…if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you just might miss it.” Don’t miss a thing in this amazing journey we call life, honey, I love you.
In this episode, Dave is excited to welcome Bedros Keuilian. Bedros is a best-selling author, speaker, and high performance consultant. You may have heard of him or no doubt have followed someone or bought a product in which his systems and processes were used.
Dave has been fortunate to spend time with Bedros and experience his wisdom and insight first hand into how to build a high performing business. But, as Dave mentions, the thing he loves most about him, is that he is not just a “consultant” giving advice, he’s in the thick of it and in the trenches every day himself.
Bedros is the founder and CEO of the fastest growing indoor fitness boot camp franchise, Fit Body Bootcamp. He’s known as the hidden genius that the experts turn to when they want to create and launch successful digital info products, best-selling books, and high level coaching and consulting services.
Bedros is best known for his ability to help his clients quickly establish expert and authority positioning and become the predominant brand in their field.
His sales, marketing, mindset and business systems are the secret weapon used by thousands of successful digital marketers, best-selling authors, coaches and entrepreneurs who want to reach more high paying clients and customers without the use of unpredictable marketing tactics.
www.bedroskeuilian.com
Connect with Bedros on Facebook
Bedros has an amazing story. His father was a communist and part of the communist party in Armenia. It was not so much by choice, but by necessity. But, In 1980, his father saw an opportunity and decided to escape his family from communist Russia, who Armenia was under at the time, and flee to the United States. Bedros’s father wanted his family to have opportunity, but more importantly wanted to keep his sons from having to join the communist red army which was required at the time.
So, he found a way to put together $25,000 and escaped to Italy and made their way to the American consulate. Bedros was only 6 years old. They made it to the US 11 days later and settled in southern California…flat broke and not really knowing any English.
As Bedros says, he very quickly became the bread winner for the family at 6 years old…but not in the way you think. All his family members got multiple jobs working for less than minimum wage and Bedros’s job in the evenings was to go to the local grocery store where they dumped the expired food out back in a dumpster. His father would hoist him where he would find food that was still edible for the family.
In the first few years, they lived in 14 different apartments and got kicked out of most of them.
It was the experience of having to persevere and break through resistance that helped give Bedros what he calls the Immigrant Edge. Which he describes as the experiences that help create an almost “suit of armor” that helps you to be able to go through anything because you’ve had to overcome so much to just survive. It’s the ability to break through any adversity that comes your way that gives you a tremendous advantage in the game of life.
At the 10:20 mark, Bedros discusses his philosophy for building a business and what he calls the unfair advantage of “time collapse.”
At the 13:20 mark, Bedros talks about how you can get access to the people/influencers that can help you grow your business exponentially. Specifically here are the actionable steps:
Elements of a great pitch?
At the 21:30 mark, Bedros talks about building a brand and what it takes to be successful.
Tips for maximizing social media?
At the 30:00 min mark, Bedros talks about the discipline and routine needed to build a high performing business and brand.
Advice for starting out online?
Secrets that you share with your $100k Mastermind group?
Favorite Book: "Outwitting the Devil" by Napoleon Hill. Bedros's advice is to listen to it on audio.
Best Quote: “People don’t want to deal with your brand, they want to deal with you. They want to see the face behind the brand and the message and meaning that they are carrying. People will buy your brand because of you.”
Bedros's Misfit 3
In this episode, Dave is excited to welcome Russell Nohelty. Russell is the founder of Wannabe Press and host of the Business of Art. Wannabe Press makes weird books and novels for weird people. The company helps people in making the most beautiful and beautifully printed books in the independent market. The Business of Art, helps creatives build better businesses by embracing their inner salesman without feeling negative about it.
It was the latter that intrigued Dave most about having Russell on the show, as one of the areas a lot of people struggle with is sales and selling – even though, discuss in the episode, it should be one of the easiest for people.
Russell is a true Misfit entrepreneur, owning several other business in addition to Wannabe and the Business of Art, and he regularly speaks throughout Los Angeles to groups like the LA Writer’s Society, Scripter’s Network, and at dozens of other conventions throughout the country like ComicCon in San Diego.
www.russellnohelty.com
www.thebusinessofart.com
Russell fell into being an entrepreneur because he couldn’t stand the way the businesses he worked at were run. He went on to build his own companies, but by the time he was 29, he had 4 failed businesses. When he analyzed why he kept failing, he realized that it was because he was not able to sell. He thought he would “build it and they would come.”
So, at 30, he decided he needed to learn to sell and did all sorts of jobs from selling Aflac to advertising to cell phones/plans. Along the way it clicked and Russell learned a few things that worked. As he says, “If you believe in the product and you provide value, then you can sell things without feeling gross about it.” If 2015, he went back out on his own and started Wannabe Press. The Business of Art Podcast sprung from this.
At the 7 min mark, Russell talks about failure and how he learned to overcome it, even after failing 4 times.
At the 15 min mark, Russell discusses sales and why a lot have trouble embracing it…and what you can do about it. He discusses how to remove the fear of rejection and how selling truly is a numbers game – and if you can embrace that, then selling becomes very methodical and much easier.
Russell says 1 out 10 will buy because they love you or your product. There is not much you have to do to get them to buy. Another 1 out of 10 will never buy from you, no matter how good at selling you are. And the other 8 in the middle could buy, but need you to help them understand why they should.
Tips on gaining interest and engagement from 8 in the middle:
Tips on developing a funnel:
How do you talk to more people?
Advice for approaching a Facebook group?
In person?
At the 33 min mark, Russell talks about the importance of following up and the value of a coach and the resources readily available to you today to become a better sales and business person.
Resources to help in sales:
What are the triggers that someone should focus on to elicit more sales? (Top 6)
Best Quote: “Many people think creativity is going to carry them into success and that is not true. Having a great product is the entry. If you can make something fantastic, then you can compete, but that doesn’t guarantee success. What does is the ability to take what you’ve made and to sell it one to one and one to many.”
Russell's Misfit 3:
In this episode, Dave is excited to welcome Natalia Wiechowski. Also known as Think Natalia, the Middle East’s leading Edutainer. Natalia is an award winning, bilingual public speaker, impression management coach and digital influencer. She has won excellence awards throughout the Middle East, Africa, UAE and everywhere in-between. She has been featured in Cosmopolitan, Yogalife, Link magazine and others.
But what is interesting is she never started out to do any of this. In fact, at age 15 she was one of only two competitive soloists in a new category – Discodance – on the competitive German dance scene. She danced at international championships and music concerts with audiences of up to 12,000 people. She did this for many years and while completing her studies.
So how then did she end up going from being a top competitive dancer to working in the Middle East to gaining over 100,000 followers worldwide in less than a year and half and becoming a top influencer, speaker, and coach? We find out in this episode!
Natalia started out of college and took the first international position she was offered in the UAE. She spent 3.5 years there and had some success, but wanted something bigger. So, in her 2nd job, she initially hit the mark. She was very successful, won all kinds of awards, and made a lot of money, but something was missing. She was exhausted and found herself getting sick over and over again. It was after enduring this for a while that she quit her job and took a 9 month sabbatical.
As she says, she had hit emotional and physical rock bottom and had to take a break and detox her whole life to find who she really is, what success means – essentially her true purpose.
She changed her routines, her habits, and the way she approached life. She immersed herself in learning and growing herself. She also changed how she approached her social life. She started a blog and started to do more social. People started asking her to help them do what she was doing. She did a lot of early work and consulting for free.
It was through doing this that she figured out who she really was – A public speaker, a coach, and digital influencer. She set her focus on those 3 areas and cut out everything else.
Natalia says that there was no one thing that really crystallized things for her. It was a series of things.
At the 7 minute mark, Natalia talks about belief and how she changed the way she thought and how she approached things to change how she did things and change her results. She gives several examples.
Natalia shares a great quote “People act according to their level of awareness.” And explains how this can impact people, both in a bad or good way, in their lives.
She says that some people think that “If they blow someone else’s candle, theirs will shine brighter,” and that is not the case.
At 12 min mark, Natalia talks about the steps she took to make her vision a reality. First, she had to forget everything she had ever learned and then had to redefine everything. Then, she began to educate herself in the areas to develop her new beliefs and then test what she learned to see if held true. She shares multiple examples of how this testing worked and didn’t work. As she says, she “failed herself to success,” through this process.
Natalia talks about taking action and how striving for perfection is not a good thing. She talks about having the courage to start, even when you are not fully prepared. She mentioned that starting automatically puts you ahead of others and not being afraid of looking foolish is critical because you won’t know everything or have everything perfectly aligned.
At the 20 min mark, Natalia breaks down her 3 main areas of Public Speaking, Coaching, and Digital Influencing and gives advice for the how to be successful in each. She says that there are specific things that work across all areas and really for anything.
She breaks it down this way
Thoughts on personal branding/impression management?
Thoughts on building a following?
3 secrets of Influencing that others don’t talk about:
At the 30 min mark, Natalia talks about how she works across the different social media platform and manages content.
Biggest challenge as an entrepreneur?
Natalia still seeks out coaches and mentors to hold her accountable and help her grow in areas that she feels she needs work.
At the 37 minute mark, Natalia discusses the systems and routines in her business and how they help her productivity and success.
At the 40 minute, there is a great discussion on the mental and physical roller-coaster of being an entrepreneur and how to cope with it.
Best Quote:“Some people think that if they blow someone else’s candle, theirs will shine brighter - and that is not the case.”
Natalia's Misfit 3
In this episode, Dave is excited to welcome his long time business partner, adopted brother, and all around damn good guy, Erik Mueller. Erik is the founder of Grasp Technologies, a multi-time INC 5000 award winner that has averaged over 50% growth per year for almost a decade. In addition, he has been honored as one of the Top 25 Most Influential Executives in the Travel Industry, and is credited with creating the first graphic reporting system for the travel industry.
Erik is one of the main inspirations for the Misfit Entrepreneur as he is a former musician who is a self-taught programmer, turned business owner. He has had an amazing journey from being a self-taught programmer with a vision to transforming to a true CEO of a top performing company. Dave knows as he has been there along the ride for every step for the last decade.
At early age, Erik had a natural ability for programming and bought his first computer at the age of 10 and started to build games. As Erik notes he has always been drawn to the arts, especially music and photography. In fact, he went to college for photography and cinematography. But never completed it. At this point, computers still weren’t a big thing in the business world and he didn’t know that he would ever really end up on that side of things. Instead, he was in a band and did every type of odd job. He was big in the punk rock scene.
At one point, he got bored and decided to do the exact opposite of what anyone thought he would do and he went into the US Army. He says he loved the experience. It gave him discipline. It challenged him to push himself. And it made him realize that he can overcome major barriers.
Once he got out, he got a job at the State of Ohio, but it was not for him. He went back to odd jobs and music. He had a music studio in his basement and a gentleman came in, who worked at Bank One, and saw Erik programming Asteroids on his computer. He mentioned to Erik that they were looking for a programmer to come in and automate some large reporting that they were struggling with. He interviewed and got the job. It was this endeavor that allowed him to create the first graphic reporting system for the travel industry. Of course, doing this while playing in his band at night.
As things grew and got even more corporate, Erik decided it was time to move on. He started his first company, an IT services company, which shortly thereafter spawned Grasp Technologies. He started building the initial Grasp solutions and worked on funding, but then the dot com bubble burst and 9/11 followed shortly after. So, he just continued on building and working the business from there.
At the 9:50 mark Erik talks about becoming a CEO and the transition and realizations he had to go through.
Erik talks about “aha moments” and how there isn’t just one that happens on the journey, but many. You reach a plateau and then bust through it and then on to the next one. And each new level you get, there are “aha moments” and amazing things to discover and do. Erik says he seems to see it as an every year thing in which your challenge yourself to new levels.
At the 18:20 mark, Erik talks about overcoming obstacles and how each challenge you over makes it easier to overcome the next one. He talks about how to bust through your fears and how to let go of the past that may be holding you back.
At the 21 min mark. Erik talks about staying true to yourself and how in reality the more successful you become, the more your true self and value get amplified. As he says, “People that are a$$holes become bigger a$$holes and people that are good just become that much better.”
Biggest challenge as an entrepreneur? Letting go and trusting your team. Giving up the control so that your business can truly grow.
Erik recommends the book Scaling Up as a good blueprint of how to create a great business. The other one he recommends is Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy to help with learning to prioritize correctly.
Best piece of advice for a new entrepreneur?
How do you measure personal success? What does success mean to you?
Staying competitive in technology, are there best practices that are relevant today?
Hardest part in growing a company?
Do you have a coach? Who do you look to for advice?
Will computers and AI take over the world and our live?
Will VR get to a point where people cannot distinguish between reality and lose themselves in it?
How will VR impact travel?
Best Quote: "Great ideas aren't anything, unless you have great people that execute on them and make them happen."
Erik's Misfit 3