How To Go From BROKE To Millionaire In ONE YEAR! | Dan Young & Allison Maslan

Did you know that pain often could be a really good thing? No, I am not crazy. But the gifts, the blessings of pain can change your world for the positive for years to come. Learn how right here, right now, on the Scale or Fail show right now.

If you are not taking advantage of all these opportunities out there, you know this window is not going to come around for another decade. But we're sitting right in the middle of the greatest opportunity of the decade. Think about what your competition is doing, watch what they're doing, see the pains of your consumers and pivot, right? Write down the process, do a test, do an ab test, right? See if this works. Adjust, pivot, adjust, and then boom, suddenly you'll dial in the formula and then you're like, great. And pretty soon you just, you dominate. You dominate the market.

Welcome to the Scale or Fail show. I am your host and serial entrepreneur, Alison Maslin. I love all things business and Scale or fail is all about helping you to make that entrepreneurial road easier. Moving from entrepreneur to enterprise. And today I am so excited because talk about someone that has been able to take that leap to many, many times. I have got Dan Young and he has quite the story here that he's going to share with you to make the road a little bit easier and a lot more fun. So Dan Young is a creator, investor, mentor and entrepreneur. Dan's passion is to share his experiences on maximizing financial, physical and psychological well being. His online, retail, cloud, manufacturing and real estate projects have generated hundreds of millions in revenue and employed hundreds of US based employees. He is doing the good work out there and several of Dan's companies have been included in the Inc. 500 fastest growing companies in America. So you are a busy guy, Dan, doing amazing things in the world. I'm sorry, appreciative that you took the time to be on the show today.

Thank you for having me on, Allison. I really appreciate it. I'd love to help everybody out there as much as I can.

Yeah, I want to talk about that because I know that's a big part of how you operate. And so that's how I operate too. And that's why we got connected in the first place. And so you have an amazing story and I think it's especially relevant right right now with COVID and a lot of business owners are being forced to be more resilient, more adaptable than ever. Can you share how you started out in the business world?

Yeah. So I grew up in Los Angeles, California. My dad was a janitor at first and became an Artist. My mom was a bank teller. Immigrants from China didn't speak English and their village got burned down. And they came to America and became American citizens and learned the language and got things going. When I was a teenager, I didn't see my parents that much because they were working. Seems like every day almost trying to make things happen. And we were poor. I remember my mom crying because we couldn't pay the bills and food stamps and counting change and they changed drawer to buy food. And it was, it was, it really instilled into me kind of the need to be able to help my family. So I started selling T shirts at Venice Beach, California, and knockoff sunglasses, you know, and things got pretty cool. We were able to make quite a bit of money doing that. Then I got into my rowdy teenage years, gotten big, big trouble. Partying too much, doing too much. And then came to Salt Lake City, Utah, where my sister was working at the university here. She adopted me for 30 days and then booted me out.

And then I was like, I had enough.

So I dressed. I started going to the swap meet on weekends and trying to hustle and make some money there. And I was also working at Radio Shack in the mall.

Oh, my gosh. Radio Shack.

Yeah. So the swap meet was interesting. And I would sell like, like pepper gas and brass knuckles and nunchucks and pots and pans and just kind of everything. But I wasn't selling that much. I was making maybe like $100 on a whole weekend. It was terrible. But then I watched this late night commercial about those Ginsu knives. You know those knives that cut through anything?

Yes, I remember those commercials.

So I decided I need to put on a show. So I get my karate gi and I am a yellow belt, which is not that high. But I put my karate gi on and then started doing like kung fu action stuff while I was selling. And then I made $1,000 in a day and then 2,000 the next day.

Oh, my gosh.

And I was like, wait, people. If you entertain them and can educate them, and then, you know, they'll buy your products, you know, because you're making their lives better, you know, making them laugh. So that went really good. Then I went from that Radio Shack in the mall and I worked at this place called Silo, which is like a best buy. Yeah, 5,000 sales reps. And I was like, still one of the bottoms. Like 4,000, 923 out of 5,000 is terrible. But then what I did is this. I looked at the top performers and then I went and offered to buy them lunch, and they were like, you're cool, Then we'll show you how to do this. And within 90 days, they're kind of top sales rep out of 5,000. So now it was like, okay, making 100,000 here, selling on the weekends, making a couple hundred thousand a year. This is incredible, right? So then they went bankrupt. I had no job. And then I asked my manager, can I get your database of customers? And I cold called every single one saying, hey, if you bought a computer at Silo, I'm going to honor your warranty forever. First year, lost 25,000 in the red. My wife was like, what are we doing here? Just get a normal job. And then the next year, we did a million dollars plus. And that was. That was the story. So I became a millionaire.

Wow. And so when you call. You called them up and you, what, you were selling them the insurance on it, or you were at. You were selling them the computers.

Well, let's pretend you bought a computer from Silo, which is like a best buy. I called you. I'm like, hey, Alison, I know you bought a computer there, but they're no longer in business. But my name is Dan. Here's my pager number if you need any help. I'm honoring your computer warranty forever, so just page me.

Wow.

And so I'd fix people's computers on site. They come to my little office and little spot, and then we start hiring people. And then it just got crazy.

I love it. Yeah. So, you know, you are the. It is. You are just that entrepreneurial spirit to the core. Resilience, ingenuity, and stick to itness. And also the biggest thing that, for those of you listening, is that you learned to sell. And so that's a gift that you can take anywhere. You know, even when the company goes under. The company might have gone under, but they're not taking that skill with them. And so you were able to. I mean, what I know from mentoring business owners, and I'm sure you know this too, those that have those skills to sell, I mean, you just go so much further.

You could even survive the zombie apocalypse if you knew how to sell or if it went road warrior, you. As long as you could sell and find people's problems and solve them, you know, you'd be all right.

I know. I was. Some kid was recently telling me that he was taking candy. He would buy candy bars from 711 and sell them to his friends at school, you know, for a profit, you know, so you can. You can always find a way. And I also love what you said about that. You created a show around it because people do want to be entertained. And a good friend of mine has run the Del Mar racetrack for over 40 years in San Diego. And he said once he realized we're not in the horse racing business, we're in the entertainment business, and he treated it like that, they became, you know, one of the top tracks in the world. So that's you. You figured that out and created his show. So those of you listening, how can you apply what Dan has done in your own business to add more entertainment, you know, for people, so. So that you attract them? That's awesome.

Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah. So in that first year when you lost, how much money did you lose in that first year?

A little over 25,000 in the red. I had to take my money out of my IRA account and pay the tax penalty, and it was terrible. It was probably more than 25 grand.

And so most people would do that. They would have that happen. They go, oh, I'm done. I'm, you know, I lost that money. I'm going to just. I'll go get a job. What was it that, you know, that kept you going, that helped you turn that loss into a win inside of you? What do you think?

Well, the big thing is this is having people feel abandoned from buying something and, you know, having that void, like, feeling like they lost something.

Right.

I say that all anxiety comes from loss less than never.

Right.

So when people have those feelings of loss, less than never. So my job was to just fulfill that missing void and pain they had, and I truly believe that they would reciprocate.

Right.

And the cool thing is, you know, a few customers said, this is the most amazing thing. You're crazy doing this. But I really appreciate it, and I'm going to tell everybody about you. And so, you know, I could start seeing the referrals coming in. So that negative 25,000 quickly started becoming the next year, right after people realized, hey, this is cool, it's refresh cycle. They started buying, and the revenue started going. And then I saw the trajectory. Then I was like, okay, this is working.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you built trust, and a lot of sales is around trust. And also, you were smart enough to go to this company and get their database, which I can't believe another company didn't come in and buy that, because that's the value. Right, that they had built all those years.

Yeah, they were done. They pulled out of the US they were owned by A European company. They were like, we're done with America. So I'm like, okay, well, we'll help these people, you know.

Yeah, well, so you've obviously come very far from those days. And then you got into. What was the next business that you got into after that?

So that company was called PC Laptops, Retail locations, selling computers, fixing computers. And then the next iteration was technical support services. So we started doing support for the US army for helping soldiers. When they would come back from the military and retire out, the army would issue them with government funding, a computer. And a lot of these soldiers have PTSD and other things going on. And so they needed patient people to help them walk through how to, like, get on Facebook and get in their email and things like that. So we started doing that. And then we started an online company called Xidex X I D A X about a decade ago. And that was to solve the problem that people had in finding good computers to do streaming, gaming, social media, production, all those kind of things. And then it just. It blossomed to our software company, which is Storage Whale, which does online backup and then real estate and all these other things. It's just almost like everything started connecting together. So.

Yeah. Yeah. And so what is it that you love most about being an entrepreneur? What do you think it is that just keeps you going, keeps you creating?

Well, there's a big need in that the world has pain at all times. Like right now during COVID it's greatly enhanced. And so all I believe you have to do is find people's pain and help heal their pains.

Right.

And people will reciprocate. I mean, truly, if you do it with good intention, honesty, energy, intelligence, you know, all that, people see that and they will talk about it to other people. And so that almost just finding those pains. And if you can bring a little smile and joy to someone's life, like, for us, computers, it's like they can work, they can play video games, whatever they want to do. That is. That's such a great feeling. And, you know, with the computers we saw, we see people, different companies, for example, we saw the movie studios, and we sell the video game studios. And seeing the newest video games the kids are playing, we're like, hey, that was made on our computers. This is so cool. And that's entertaining people. It just feels good to make people happier. That's my big driver.

Yeah. Leading from the heart for sure. And that's the way I love to operate. What do you think that I know you talk and mentor with a Lot of younger business owners. What do you think are some of the big mistakes that or misconceptions that they have that holds them back in creating the success they want and hitting the revenue goals that they want?

You know, the big thing is people not planning out correctly the framework and the processes to run a business. So, for example, let's say someone's really good at making cookies or something, right? That doesn't mean you're going to be a good entrepreneur.

Right.

And so I always say it's about developing. It's like a video game, developing that whole team. Whether you're running all the roles in the beginning, right. And then hiring in filler later to help you, that may be people that can do things better. But everything is a system process, right? So. And it's consistency and cadence. And the biggest thing I think young entrepreneurs really miss, though, is correctly planning. So if they want to sell cookies because they're good at making it, they're like, well, let's just sell cookies. But just making sure their framework is right.

Yeah, I think that's true. I mean, we talk about that because we help business owners scale. And you can't scale if you're the one doing everything. You know, you're going to run out of hours. And if someone is. Is baking cookies, for instance, and they're like, oh, I love cookies. So I want to build a business with cookies. And all of a sudden they are like baking cookies 24 7. And then they're, I don't like cookies so much. I'm kind of over it. Right. So you definitely need to work on replacing yourself in these different areas so the business has room to grow. But yeah, I see that all of the time. What were some of the growing pains that you went through, you know, or maybe have even been going through in the last few years? How did you get through them?

The biggest growing pain I would say, though, is hr, human resources.

Right.

So staffing correctly and putting the right people in. Because over the last three decades of running businesses, the number one mistake I did is promoting hiring and promoting the wrong people and not putting the processes in place. But there's three pieces. I believe that when you're hiring or finding a business partner, wherever it is, that you need to have energy, because people love energy and energy drives, you know, an entrepreneur's company, all companies, integrity. So they can't be evil. You can't hire vampires. You need unicorns.

Right.

And intelligence. So if people don't have the nuts and bolts mentally for their particular task, you Can't. It's hard to compensate. So you need to have those three things to be successful. And, you know, I hired people that could sell, for example, had a lot of energy, and I. And at one point, I hired some people that didn't have great integrity.

Right.

Yeah.

Caused fires. So they should have partnered with those people before. Instead, when I was dumber, I would promote those people, and that would just wreck the whole culture, you know, because people. Yeah, Good people, don't like that. So I had to quickly part ways, you know, with those and find people to fit the role.

Yeah. Gosh, you. You really hit the nail on the head. I think that especially those business owners that are growing and scaling, they're like, yep, been there for sure. And it is learning to get clear on what your values are. I mean, you got clear on what those values were and hiring to those. But in the early days, we don't know. You're like, oh, they can sell. But then it's causing all this negativity in your company and not the kind of dynamics that you want. So that's a good lesson, definitely, to learn early on. I remember hiring somebody who was great at sales, and she was. I mean, it became a battle zone between her and, like, three other employees. And then she came and said, you know, everybody is against me. And, like, wait a minute. You're the common denominator here. So, you know, there's a point. We have to take responsibility. So, yeah.

My wife always says, dan, if everyone's a jerk, who's the jerk?

Yes. It's time to look in the mirror. And we all have to do that. Right.

We all need to do a check once in a while.

Yeah. Or if you're just. If you find yourself talking or stressing about an individual so much, you're like, okay, wait a minute, I got to do something about this.

Yes.

So now when you have. So that you scale to a million and then beyond a million, how do you determine, like, okay, because here we are about to start a whole other. A new year. You look at the new year ahead. How do you set up your goals, Dan? I mean, how do you visualize, oh, this is where I would like to be in another. Do you have complete clarity on where you want to go, or do you just go, you know what? Let's just see where it takes me.

Clarity. Written clarity is really the most important thing. And, you know, there's a technique I use. It's called what do you. When. How. I was taught to that by a mentor. And what it is to break it down is what do you want to do, why you want to do it, when do you want to do it and how. So what, why, when, how? You got to be very clear on those objectives. And one thing that I did is what I do is I just look at who I want to be. So let's say so right now, when I pick my mentors, right? My mentors have to be worth at least 1000% more than I am in the areas of finance. If they're a financial mentor, physical strength, right. And health or personal development and spiritual well being.

Right.

And if they have a balance, even better. It's hard to find those unicorns that have everything. But all I do is I ask them clearly, well, what do I need to do?

Right?

And they spell it down, I write it down, I document it, and I go through my what, why, whens and hows and I put deadlines on it. And you know, all the work that we do, all the calls, the zooms and everything, whatever we're doing all day and working 12 hours a day, every day, you know, for doing that really only equates to making maybe three major decisions a day. Really. The rest is filler. So even an entrepreneur like myself, oh, dad's hustling, he's making millions, blah, blah, blah. I'm really only truly laser focused, working maybe a couple hours a day, truly. The rest is like when people are going busy, it's like, yeah, whatever, man. Really, people are dinking around, checking their phone, doing all this junk, but actual execution is very. It doesn't take that much time, right?

Yeah. And we waste, right, so much time. I mean, if you really break it down, you could probably, if you were 100% focused and you were doing what you needed to do, if you take that 12 hour day for most people could probably get that done in half the time.

I'd say even my efficiency level right now is maybe 10%. 90% of the energy goes out of the flute to wasted things.

Right?

Yeah.

And people go, really? You only work 10% of the time? Really? I mean, truly accomplishing and making the boat go faster, those things that really matter, maybe 10% of the day.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I love that. Thank you for sharing that tip. And that's exactly how I operate as well, is to get super clear on that big picture vision. I don't always know how it's going to happen, but I do know where I want to go, what I want the team to evolve to how many clients that we want to be Serving, you know, all of those things, how you want to spend your day, what is it that you want to manifest? So I think that's, that's, that makes sense. I mean, it's like if you, if you want to get to a destination and you get into an Uber and you don't tell them where you want to go, you're not going to get very far.

Exactly. Definitely agree. That's huge.

Yeah. So what do you think is key? I mean, with everything going on right now, Right. This has been, you know, we could give this year all kinds of adjectives, right. And it's definitely not the year that we thought we started with. What I do feel like there's the gift in going through this year of COVID is that we see how resilient that we are. But what do you think is so key for business owners to know how to thrive in changing times like these, when things pop up that we don't expect?

So here's the great thing is just learn to love pain. And during these times, you know, I'm almost 50 years old, you know, in a year. And the one thing that I've learned over the years, I wish I could tell myself when I was younger, though, is pain is opportunity. And every decade, about every 10, 8 to 12 years, right? About every 10 is the average, the world goes to crap. Y2K.com bubble 20078 or 8, right? Covid, this is normal. It's the normal cyclical piece of life. But the greatest opportunity happens during the cyclical cycle that we're seeing right now. So, and the reason being is this. Let's say you have, I don't know, a million business owners in the world or more, right? The thing is, 75% of them are scared and they go into retreat and they put their head in the sand. Well, that's great because that means you got 75% less competition. That's when you need to go on the war path, right? And really look for what the pains are and then solve those problems because that's when the most wealth is made. What's crazy is, like, during COVID I've been making now, like every two months the same as I'd make annually. And not to brag to you, but to impress upon you guys that because all the competition's head is in the sand, this is just like shooting fish in a barrel. Like right now, if you're not taking advantage of all these opportunities out there, this window is not going to come around for another decade. But we're Sitting right in the middle of the greatest opportunity of the decade. So the advice is this. If you're a business owner, think about what your competition is doing. Watch what they're doing, see the pains of your consumers, and pivot, right? Write down the process, Do a test, do an AB test, right? See if this works. Adjust, pivot, adjust, and then, boom, suddenly you'll dial in the formula, and then you're like, great. Then if that formula works, dump more ammunition behind it. So scale, dump more scale, dump more scale. And pretty soon you just. You dominate. You dominate the market, right? And it's not tough to do. It's just to be courageous. You have to practice being courageous. And being courageous needs to be on your goal list, right? And as simple as that. And I'm thinking about this for, like, what I'm doing, whether it's our retail businesses, online businesses, stocks, real estate, commercial development, multifamily unit, whatever that we're doing now, we're making crazy revenue in all those areas because we're just making sure that the team. And I say we. Our teams are executing with that clarity. And if you've got team members who are holding you back and being fearful, talk to them. Sell them the dream, get them redirected. If you can't, get them bought in, goodbye. Put someone in who will get that done for you, you know? But you've got to be courageous, and you've got to execute, and you got to get rid of the vampires and promote your unicorns, you know?

Yeah. Wow. This is so powerful. I love this. I want all business owners to hear this. We've been saying this since everything went down in March. And like you, we're having our best year ever. And I'm so, so grateful. And, you know, within our business community, Pinnacle Global Network, our clients are having their best years ever. Many of them are having record months because we're keeping them in this bubble of yes. Tap into the opportunity. Tap into the demand. Do not unplug or plug into to the positivity. So, yeah, that is so powerful. And embrace the pain, because the pain is opportunity. Somebody told me, Dan, that. And I don't know what the word is, but in Mandarin, challenge and opportunity are the same word. And so it is. It's like that silver lining, but you have to look for it, you know? And it is true. These cycles that we go through, it's.

A rainstorm, when it's pouring rain, people are like, oh, no, I'm getting wet. It's like, no, just get your buckets Out. This is freaking. There's so much water and you need water. Like capture all this opportunity that's raining on us now. I mean, it's crazy. I see friends in the restaurant business 100% up in revenue. I see friends in the car business 100% finance mortgages. I mean, I'm talking insurance salesman, it doesn't matter. I have friends in every sector that are up 100% plus percent because they've dialed into this courage mentality and set their goals clear like you're talking about and execute. I mean, you have to just proactively engage. You know, it's not. I know it can be tough because like there are hiccups, right. And there's didn't work and you know, but great. Spit out all the blood when you get smashed in the face and all your teeth and you know, grow new ones. Get some veneers put in.

Right, right.

Go forward, you know.

Yeah, well, we have people's attention now more than ever too. Right. Like people are still so they can hear. Usually people are running all over the place and it's hard to grab them and get their focus. So you definitely have a more captive audience, that's for sure. So, yeah, thanks for that. Now you give a lot back through mentorship. Why is this mentorship important to you? And why do you think that others should have that give back mentality?

You know, everything that we, I believe everything that we have is a lease from our creator.

Right.

And what we do within that maybe hundred years on this planet, maximum or whatever it is is really what denotes, you know, what we did with it, what the gift we had of life. Right. And so, you know, one thing is this. When I mentor through the, either the podcast or virtually wherever it is, a couple things happen. One, it helps the students, Right. Scale where they can scale to. And that is like philanthropy in a sense. But the second thing is kind of sounds a little selfish though. But the more that I transfer that and help people, the better I learn and the strong more I level up. So in fact the self benefit is actually greater than the give by, I believe, a thousand fold. And it's just a law. It's like investing in humans builds reciprocation, you know, and, and so it's not just a selfless thing. And it's not like you're giving it away from my. Giving it away for free. It comes back, I mean, yes, so much.

Yeah, that's so powerful. And you're making such a difference in people's lives. It's so Rewarding. So incredibly rewarding. And they take that and they. They pay that forward. So the ripple effect is magnanimous. So, and when you work with these mentees, what are some of the things you really want to make sure they know to be successful? Like, if you look at those core principles of success that you feel like make. Give them the biggest, my. The most mileage. Can you share some of those core principles?

But I talked about is having that integrity, energy, and intelligence level, you know, and people have to be very honest with themselves and that if they don't have high energy because they have, you know, whatever's causing them not to have that higher, maybe they're eating too many hamburgers or something.

Right.

Like, you need to fix that because you can't do it without energy. If you don't have the intelligence level, it's because you're not studying enough, you're not watching and mentors out there or reading books and those kind of things, you know, and your integrity, boy, that's something mama taught you, you know, and you just got to have your integrity dialed in. Treat others like you would want to be treated. I mean, that's as simple as a golden rule, right? Like, yes, it's simple. Be honest, do what you say. And you should be so honest with people that if you do a handshake, that's just as good as a 300 page contract, even though people want the contract straight. But your word should be as good as what you know.

Yeah, that's it. That is a big one. That is. That is our number one core value in our company. Do what you say you're going to do. Do what you say you're going to do. And even for us, if we have made a mistake and it costs us financially, if we said we were going to do it, we do it anyway. We take the loss.

Yeah.

And that's like what you did in the early years. You said you were going to do it, you held it, and it always comes back. But that's how you want to be treated too, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Oh, my goodness. This is. Well, I could go on and on, Dan. I think we're in alignment with a lot of things. So what are some exciting things that you're working on now? What are you looking forward to in the next year?

The big things, obviously we have our companies that are scaling and real estate projects, all kinds of fun stuff. So the big thing is Dan's Millionaire Code podcast. And if you guys aren't following Dan's Leonard code, it's on Instagram and then there's a link to podcasts and you can find us everywhere. But really is transferring more that what I've got up here and the experience I have to those students out there, you know, that's the big thing. And then helping them, you know, as they have obstacles and things like that. You know, a simple question is a lot of times people just, it always comes down to is, did you write down your goals and are you executing? Do you know why you're doing it? Right. Did you set deadlines? It always kind of circles back to that.

Right?

That's a big thing. So what I'm looking forward to is helping as many people achieve what they dream about and help them get busy with it.

That's beautiful. Helping them figure out their what, their why, their when, and their how.

Yep, you got it.

That's perfect. Well, listen, Dan, thank you so much, so much for being on the Scale or fail show. I know that I'm inspired, so I'm sure those that are listening as well. If you haven't subscribed yet to the Scale or fail show, do it so you can get notified of all these amazing episodes and learn from people like Dan Young. And if you have not read my book yet, scale or fail, why have you not done that yet? We have it on audible as well and it will change the way you approach your business. Until next time time we will see you on the Scale or fail show. Get out there and elevate yourself because you are worth it. Bye, everybody.