295: Getting Real with Mike Giannulis — Sanetris LLC

Are you thinking about how to grow your business with near and offshore staffing, but you're also wanting to make sure that it's reliable, cost effective and really well done. I think docsa talent is the way to go. Here's why. They don't just fill your jobs. They bring integrity, top talent, and a people first approach that's hard to find. I've known the people at Doxa talent for over 20 years now and I say that you can count on them. I have Talk to Docs of Talent and you won't be disappointed. Go to docsatant.com Bill G Again, that's doxatant.com Bill G One more time. Doxatalent.com Bill G Check it out. Today.

We're talking an entrepreneur today, hearing some of their story, their highs, lows, the challenges along the way. Listen in for a story with an entrepreneur, serial entrepreneur, and hopefully you'll learn some things about yourself in the process of hearing their story. Hey everybody, My name is Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast. We bring our show to you every week, a couple times a week really, including our tips shows. And in these shows we talk to gurus, experts, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, authors, everything to do with scaling your business, developing yourself as a leader in the process. This show is one of our Getting Real episodes and you can find all these shows and more@scalingcoach.com. Our Getting Real episodes are deep dives with entrepreneurs, hearing their stories, their experiences. Hopefully they get real with us and share some of the experience of what it took to grow their business and how they got to the place that they are. And along the way we learn some things and we discover things in ourselves in the process. These episodes then are very related to the kinds of interactions we have around the EO Organization. The Entrepreneurs Organization is a global network of entrepreneurs who come together to learn and grow their businesses in chapters all over the world. In all the continents, pretty much. Well, not Antarctica, right? But we grow and connect with each other. We have three chapters in the San Francisco Bay Area where I live. I'm president of one of them. I've been around the organization for decades now and I'm really proud. I enjoy it tremendously. It's a place that I've learned and grown and developed and had three companies in that organization over time. So they're a sponsor of these episodes and the three chapters in the San Francisco Bay Area. And if you think that you would love to have a community and a support structure and some some other entrepreneurs to help you figure your stuff out. Then you might want to check out eonetwork. So eonetwork.org, the URL right there up on the screen below my chin, there is a place to go to get more information or even to apply to be a member. It's always growing, changing. We love to meet new folks. So if you think that might be of interest to you, go check it out. Learning, connecting, forum groups, global events, regional events, all kinds of stuff. In The World of EO Entrepreneurs organization, eonetwork.org is the address. All right, so we're talking today with Mike Giannilis. And Mike joins us today from the Tampa area. He's a serial entrepreneur. He's going to share some of his story and how he got started and what he did and like all that. Welcome to the show, Mike.

Hey, thank you. So glad to be here.

Thanks for joining us. We're going to kind of go through it. Talk to us about before we, like, dial back into the past.

Right.

You are an entrepreneur who buys and develops businesses over time. It's a little bit different style of entrepreneur than say, a founder necessarily, although some of the businesses you founded talk to us about, give us a picture first of kind of what your business world looks like today.

Sure. So basically I, I have different partners and some are actually in the uk, some are here in the States. And I basically look for people that have skill sets that I either don't have or skill sets that I do have, but I can't, I don't have the time to be on that. So what, what we've done is as, as kind of, as time's gone on, we've, like you said, we've, we've launched quite a few of our own companies. But then now we've also started to acquire companies and sort of apply some scaling strategies to those. And the ones that we've done before that have done well in the last, like, year or so have been in the health industry, particularly around the ketogenic diet, and we've been able to sort of build those up. And mainly my specialty is in selling information and services and software, all of like, the intangible things. We do have a supplement company, too, and that one we've been able to scale but not, not where it should be yet. So that one's, that one's tougher.

Like, take us back to the beginning. When did you become entrepreneurial or recognize you were entrepreneurial?

Yeah, well, I, I'm one of those people that, you know and I Hear this quite a bit, as I've kind of always been that way. Like in, I think third, fourth grade or so, I actually started writing poetry some and I got. I actually got featured in my local town paper. And so I printed one of the poems that I, that I wrote and I started to sell them on my street. So as cars would drive by, I. I would like stop them and there's some kid and they're like, what in the world is this kid doing? I'd say, hey, you want to buy this? And I would actually sell it to him. And I kind of joke about it because I printed the poems at school. So I was like an early person that was using government funding, you know, to build my enterprise. It's kind of my joke. You mean you were stealing.

Well, my teacher equipment supplies.

Let me do it. She was like, here, you can print, you know, 20 of them here. So I was able to print them. So I was able to, you know, so basically it was in an early example of who. Of who, you know. Right. And so I was able to put those at school, but that was kind of like early, early times. And then as I actually got older, one of my. Kind of odd, but the very, very first thing I did when I turned 18, as I got a credit card, and the very first thing I bought with that credit card. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Hold the credit card. Yeah, the poems, let's say with the.

Poems for just a second. How old are you back then? Like third grade, fourth grade?

Eight, nine years old?

Kind of. Yeah, yeah.

So eight, nine year olds. Some of them write poems. Quite a few write poems on, like, on the bathroom wall. That's a different.

Yeah, it's a different one. Yeah. Mine were.

You're writing them down, you're printing them off, and then you're hustling, like starting to sell.

Yeah, trying to sell them. Yeah. And I, I didn't sell my. I think I probably sold four or five. But I do remember one, my favorite one was the woman stopped and she was like, what do you want? You know, and I gave it to her and she was like, that's actually very good. And she liked it. Yeah. I was like, yeah. You know, that was, that felt good because I could tell she was kind of upset that I, like stopped her on the street, which I would never do that now. When you're a kid, you don't know. I'm just like, hey, stop. But, but yeah, so to kind of drop it back and then. Yeah. I. So the, the very first thing that I, that I ever bought with a credit card or something when I was 18, which they should never do that. I can't believe they give kids that they turn 18, you get like all these, you know, things in the mail. But I ended up buying the curl sheets. No money down real estate program was the very first thing that I ever bought into. And then that led me down some crazy real estate stuff that I was trying.

But you bought a get rich quick real estate course with your first credit card.

Yeah, very first thing I ever did. Yeah.

That's like meta. You're.

I know you're working. Yeah. So I, you know, I tried that for a while. I actually had a few deals that almost went through, but they kept falling short. And I kind of just like stopped. I realized now that I've gotten older that that's when I should have pushed through. You know, I didn't, I was young and back then I didn't know I had like two or three deals in a row that fell short. Like the day of, you know, I'm like sitting there going, I'm about to make five grand. When you're 18, that's a ton of money. And then, and then it would, then, oh, they walk through. They didn't like this or they, you know, it all just fell, fell through. And so I stopped it. Then I ended up going away for college to a small town in Illinois. And it was a Bible school actually. And what's insane, there is a friend of mine there, I, that I stayed with. We ended up launching a Bible dairy goat farm. So this is what I did when I was 19. And here's what's crazy, okay. We, we bought 500 goats, okay. And all the goats were all pregnant and they all had kids within about one month time frame. So all I did for just like a month and a half straight was just pulling out kids, pulling kids out. And then because of that, then we had to bottle feed all these animals. And I'm not like a farmer guy. I'm not from this, you know, that kind of stuff. And that was quite an experience. And ultimately my name wasn't on anything. I wasn't like, I guess a true owner. We were going to save me for the expansions, but the government actually stepped in and because we couldn't get a treatment plan that the government signed off on. The. Who is it? The FSA and the usda, OSU was through the epa. It was all, you know, all those government agencies and they basically, they put, they froze all the funds and then we couldn't feed the animals. They started breaking out. And then the crazy part is my.

CIA did some stuff.

Might have been, yeah. And then. And then ultimately the craziest thing of all is the government came in and actually repossessed the goats. So, you know, I joke about that because, you know, everyone has the story. I was it my goats? Yeah. You know, very few people can say they had a goat repossessed, you know, so that was all around age 19, 20. And so those were my early failures. And I think that that's on the way. Finally, around age 24 is when things finally started to kind of kick in. I would go to school off and on in between. Then I had a job at Walmart. Just very, very, you know, from scratch type. Type stuff. And around 24, I actually started a cell phone store that I was able to buy for my. My mom had just refinanced her. Her house she gave me. I was able to borrow about 20,000 from her. Got this little store, made about 12 grand a year. I thought I was rich, you know, because I was like, first like real income and. But I kind of knew that it wasn't going to go anywhere. So in late 2006, I sold it to my cousin, actually for like break even. And I had about five months of capital saved up and I moved to the online space and I started writing ads. And I attracted the interest of a person from my home, hometown who read my site, my blog site, which in 2006, time frame, it was a lot to get that online. It took me days, you know, and she actually emailed me and she said to me, she was one that said, hey, I think you'd be a great copy writer. And I was like, that's awesome. Thanks so much. Yeah. What. What is that? You know, I never heard of that. And that's when I kind of found out about the whole ad space and that you can write ads. And I didn't. I honestly didn't know that was like a job that anyone had. I don't know why, I just, just didn't ever think of it. So she offered me a job. I went to go work for her and she owned a personal development company, so she sold a lot of like, personal development, inspirational stuff and all those things. And my job was to like rewrite those ads, update those ads. And she was just starting to go online at the time. I was like 24, 25. So she was like, hey, you're young, you do it. So I was like taking her, her offline world Online. And I slowly built up a name for myself so that people started to contact me, say, hey, could you write for me? And then I had one guy say, hey, would you partner with me? And I was like, whoa, this is crazy. So I told her, and I think she was like, oh, crap, this guy's gonna go. And he's young and he's good. So she ended up making me a minor partner. So I got paid more and I was pumped. And that went on to about 2010 or so and had a great experience. I mean, I wrote ads every day. I would get told how bad it was and had to fix it. You know, it was definitely like that improvement time. And I learned all about, like, marketing and, and operations and even some finance because she had a small company. And over time, she's put me over it more and more and more. So, you know, I was doing all these things, but it came out of cost because I really sacrificed my health. And I ended up getting really, really big. I mean, peaking out at over 500 pounds. I was like 540 pounds. And so I actually applied for a weight loss TV show that aired on. On ABC. And then they picked me for the show, which is incredible. Out of like 10, 000 people, I was like one of the eight. And I got to spend like a year getting myself back in, you know, shape and stuff. And I. And I lost. I went from the beginning of the Show, I weighed 493 pounds. Funny story there. I actually, I recall when I weighed in for the tryouts, I was like, oh, no. I lost weight because I watched 540. I was afraid I was too small to be on the show. And here I was, you know, 493 pounds. And I was afraid. I was, you know, I hope I'm not too skinny, you know, which is really insane. But. But I went all the way down on the show. I. In one year, I lost. I believe it was 220. 200, was it? 238 pounds. I think I lost. I was like, pretty insane. This is back in. So that that show aired in 2012. And then I kind of went back to the Internet stuff and started to find different people that I had been friends with at the different company. And I was able to kind of make partnerships. And then I started creating marketing systems for direct response companies that would need, like, marketing things for their different clients. And I did that for about four or five years and went through. Went through a lot of drama there. I talked on this before, but with some other shows But. But had a lot of, like, partner issues and. And a lot of things. And that was one of my big takeaways, is really finding the right partners and the right people that you can trust and, you know, stay with forever. And it took a lot. I felt like I was on. I felt like I was on Game of Thrones. It was like every six months, there was like a new partner being kicked out or forced out or bought out or. Yeah, it was always this crazy drama. And it's like, who's gonna end up on the. You know, at the end? Like, who's gonna be the. It was more like musical logo chairs, you know, so it was a lot of, like, politics and all this crazy stuff. And I didn't. I did not like that at. At all. It was.

It was a Game of Thrones and business. I don't normally equate. There's not usually a little guy trying to kill me. I'm not trying to marry a girl with dragons or sleep with my sister.

Yeah. Yeah. So not. None of that part, more the. The palace intrigue part. You know, like, you heard what this person said. You heard this one said. And there was always some kind of drama going on and. But that. But we were able to kind of slowly cut it down and, you know, then probably the most painful chapter was going through a lawsuit. And that was really hard. And I can't talk about it all because you know the terms of it all, but it was very, very tough and. And super expensive. And it wasn't even a company that I owned. It was a company that got dragged in. They got sued, and I got like a third party dragon. And anything that we earned, we basically agreed to turn it over. That was really, really hard. Cost at the end of the day, millions. And so, you know.

So what was your hometown? Where did you come from?

From a small town called Tarpon Springs, Florida. It's a Greek town. So my dad is actually from Greece and he came here in, like the 70s. And so I was born, you know, the early 80s. And. Yeah, so he's. So this town is actually like a predominantly Greek town.

Son of a Greek immigrant in Florida and who got really big at one point and. And then lost a bunch of weight, went through a whole bunch of things. Why. Why do you think you became good at copywriting? Why do you think that was a thing for you? Why. Why is that an area of expertise and passion?

Yeah, I think it's a few things. There's actually. Because I do teach some people to write ads and More just people that I'm friends with or that I enjoy, you know, that I help out. And I think there's. There's two or three big ones. I think the biggest one of all is that you've got to be better at selling than writing. There's. There's a mistake that. That is all about how to write. And it is true, if you write well, you will do okay. But if you know how to sell, and that means what are the emotional points that you're trying to hit or, you know, what problems are you trying to solve? I'm pretty good at thinking, like, how do people think? What do people want? And also, it's kind of weird, but I think part of my whole backstory is, is growing up, and even now, to this day, I've always had to deal with a stutter. And so I was. It's always like, for me just to talk is like a job, because I have to, like, be spinning in my head thinking of the words that I can't say, that I can say. Could I say this? How could I say this? So I would. I would have to learn. As I talked, if I wanted to say the word rock, I might be thinking, you know, stone and pebble. And it's going in my head as I'm. As I'm trying to speak. So when I. Whenever I could just write, it felt so free. It was like, I can say whatever I want. My fingers don't stutter. You know, it's kind of like that. And. And I think also I learned how to say the same thing in a different way. And. And you know, many times when you. When you write ads, that's all that, that. That it is. You're. You're taking something that's may have been said a thousand times before, and you're slightly tweaking it. And then one more big piece is that I love to learn, and it's you. Have you done the strength finder stuff? The strength founders test? So, like, my top thing is achiever, and my second is learner. And I think third or fourth is, like, input. And. And so I read all the time, and I actually recall it pretty well. I'm not, like, you know, awesome at it, but I can be trying to write something, and I'll be like, oh, yeah, what was that thing I read six years ago? And I'll go find it. Yeah. And then somehow it just pops up in my head at the right time. And I've seen that most people that are. That are very good at copywriting they're very good at kind of like tying two or three things together, saying, well, I read this thing once, I saw this study, and I saw this TV show, and maybe there's a way to link all that up. Like me talking about Game of Thrones, you know, like, it's just this unique way.

Yeah, well, like, learner and input are highly related. Achiever is really about hard work, putting in the time and relishing that. And I definitely hear the relationship. And then knowing that you did poetry as a kid and later copywriting and that you have a speech issue or concern. Right. And that you're managing. I mean, you do a pretty good job managing the stutter.

I actually went to a school for it. Yeah.

I mean, you can hear a little hesitation here and there, but, like, it's really strong and, and putting yourself out there public speaking in this way, I think is really cool. Even applying to be on a TV show, being large and, and then having this in your background is really awesome. There's a great deal of courage that you can hear in all of that.

That is not, I think, for me, it's just, I think it's the achiever side of me. Yeah. If I get told I can't and I want to even.

You'll throw yourself into it.

Yeah. Yeah.

Interesting. If you think about your career so far as an entrepreneur, what do you think has been your luckiest break?

Yeah, man. Good question.

Biggest break, you know?

Yeah, I think my biggest break has probably been honestly meeting the right people at the right time because I am very people focused. And I don't think I would do well if it was like just me, but I had through the middle. What do they call the teens? I guess the 20 teen years. That's how, you know you're getting old. It's like, think about it. But, you know, the tens. Yeah, I, I, I had like, you know, we, we had up to seven to eight, nine different partners kind of cycle through everything. And there was one guy in particular who, who I became pretty good friends with, and he was like the only one at the time that was kind of calling things out that I felt should have been.

Yeah.

And we had a different person on the team again, I'm not trying to be vague, but I don't want to call individuals out or anything, but. No, it's fine.

You know, we, his name is Mike, but, you know.

Yeah, so. So we had.

In Baton Rouge.

Yeah, yeah. So we had a certain partner that was trying to, to force him out because I think he was Finding a lot of things that were going on that shouldn't have been. And they justified it by saying we're going through a hard time so we're not going to take, we can't afford them. So I actually stepped up and said, you know what, cut my salary in half and give half to him and I'll take the other half. And that was the best thing that I ever did because that guy and I have went on now to form multiple seven and eight figure companies. And I think back to that day when it was like a few thousand bucks for me at the time and he was able to stay. And you know, we, he did end up uncovering a lot of bad stuff that we were then able to fix. And that was a, a big thing for, for me. I think if I hadn't have done that, I don't really know where I'd be at. And then, and then even going into, after going through all the lawsuit stuff, you know, I was able to get to partner with a guy from the UK and we were able to scale a company 5x in like one year year, which was insane. I was really, really, you know, it's big growth. Yeah. And I was. And it was a good sized company. It was, it was around just shy of netting seven figures. So wasn't like going from like 50 to 250, you know. But yeah, so that was, that was very cool. And now we're being able to kind of sell out of that. And you know, I always knew I would bounce back. Right. And think it would happen quite so fast, I guess.

Well, I hear, I hear the you, you said people, but then I also heard you being like generous and great with people and caring about people and that, that made that, that those people. Relationships pay off that way with you.

Yeah, it's, it's definitely true. I, I think that I, I definitely am good. I think with people. I'm very friendly. Probably like too trusting, you know. That's what's also good about the guy that I partner with. He's like super skeptical, you know, so I'm always like, I'm always like, it's fine, it's great. He's like, double check it, you know, so it's, it's good in, in that way because I actually am going through a book right now and I, it's so cool. There's this idea of exploration versus exploitation and they don't mean that in like the negative way, but they mean it by capitalizing on what you have. Right. And life, business, all of it is actually a combo of those two things. Right. If you even think back to when you were younger, when you were trying to find your spouse, eventually it was all about exploring, who am I going to date? And then do you risk it and say, I'm going to take this one. Maybe there's someone else out there. Right. So everything goes back to exploring versus exploiting. So you, you, you got to find that balance. It was crazy. In the book, there's a computer scientist who actually made it into a formula and. And he proposed to a girl only because she matched the formula and she said no. That was good too.

But clearly his formula was missing an element. Attraction or connection.

Yeah, something like that. But. But, yeah, so. But I think that's a big key as well. And this is a good principle is, you know, you. When you want to test out things, every test you do comes at a cost. Right. That cost is potential loss of sales. Like right now with our new company, we're doing a lot of like trying out things. They call it an AB split testing. Yeah. And you know, right now the one is kind of struggling and I watch it and I'm like, oh God. You know, and I'm seeing sales that could have been there, but they're not. That's the cost. And now I have to give it time, but. And then that's kind of the way things are. So that's. We have to always kind of toe that explorer versus exploit and all that to say I think he's more the exploit and I'm more the explorer. So we kind of balance out.

So talk to me then. If that's been. If your lucky break is about being. Having great timing and great friends, what do you think has been your biggest failure, mistake, challenge in that world, Right.

In your career, right.

In your business world.

Yeah, yeah. I think honestly, truthfully, is relying on counsel that I shouldn't have probably, but because it, it got me in. Into trouble because of. Of ads that I wasn't even over that we had an attorney to check out and sign off on and those were the things that ended up getting us in that lawsuit.

So you mean like making claims that weren't.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That works. That were signed off on, but I didn't personally review it and I should have. It's on me. At the end of the day, I should be more involved. But you. When you're. And I think people don't realize that when you're over a bigger and bigger and bigger company, your time is like just you're you're in every area. And you know, because my, my main job was like keeping the ship on, you know what I mean? As opposed to operating one department. And so you bring people on and you kind of trust them and, and you have multiple sources to verify. But at the end of the day you're, you're still responsible. That's the thing I'll say to any company is like matter what you're responsible. No matter if you had you ended.

Up running some ads that didn't fly and you get you in trouble cause a bankruptcy lawsuit. What, what kind of what happened and, and what pain did it cause you?

Yeah, basically. Yeah it did, it did cost everything we had to. We had to bankrupt the companies a bunch of corporate. It basically took a 25 million dollar a year company and just gone, you know, and super, super painful. This is a few years back now.

But that's a good one for our folks to get wrap their head around because we've all made expensive mistakes. That's a pretty expensive one. A 25 million dollar company gone because of a lack of oversight.

Right.

Not being fully responsible and having sufficient controls in to make sure that something went well, was managed well. Right.

Yeah. Well just, it was more or less basically having someone in that signed off on it that should have maybe done a more thorough job. Yeah.

You know, and there's a lot of oversight depending on the kinds of things that you run into. Look, if you deal with health and fitness and that kind of thing, there things that people put in or do to their bodies. Right. There's a lot of, there's government controls, there's things that are okay to say and not okay to say.

Yeah in there. And, and it's, and it's more, it's, it's more strict than you would ever think. It's actually way more strict than you would ever think. There's a lot of requirements and, and actually one of the interesting sort of side effects for, for me through all of this is I actually learned how much I actually love law, which is very weird. But I actually really, really enjoyed it and I've been taking it like for fun on the side law school classes. Not for, not real ones yet. But so my goal in the next year or two is, is actually.

What do you mean not real ones?

Like, I mean I'm not like, I'm not like in a school, I'm not like taking an actual class in a school. I'm doing like auditing.

Taking them casually.

Yeah, yeah. But I, one of my goals is Actually trying to in the next year or two, selling one of the companies and then actually going to law school because I really enjoy it and I really want to help give back and help people that go through hard times like that. They don't have a way to defend themselves. Thankfully, everything that I was involved in was just, you know, civil stuff. It sucks and blah, blah. But there's a lot of people that get charged with like, really serious things. There isn't really anyone there for them. And I kind of want to be that sort of pain in the side that they go, oh, crap, Mike's on this case. Dang it. Because I don't want it to be easy, you know, and that's kind of.

Well, there's a number of areas like that really to be thoughtful about. But think about your business, right? If you deal with people's money and interacting with people's families and I mean, there are a lot of places that could get you in trouble if you don't pay attention and if you make expedient choices and you're sloppy in your business, that. That can come back and bite you.

Yeah, yeah. There's no, you know, there's no. I'm trying again, I'm trying to be ju. Petitious in the way I say things. But yeah, it's. It's also kind of like once you're on the hook, there's no way out because then there's enough laws out there that every company. One of the things the attorneys said all the time is every company, I could hit them with 20 things because there's so many laws. That is kind of like it says, kind of like speeding. You say, like everyone speeds while I get stopped. It's kind of like that. And that's what they said to us. And they said the biggest thing is, yeah, there's not a single company that's 100% got it down. That's why you'll see every year, every year some big company gets hit for millions of dollars of fines. And there's always some thing, you know, and. And their job is to make it sound good. So it's always going to be kind of drummed up and, you know, but at the end of the day, it's. It's a lot of it. They call it regulatory capture. And it's a way for government agencies especially to pocket some more cash. I think they are doing it with good intentions. Like I would never said they're not, but I think that many times they're not business people. They're high they're like highly compliant. So their view is like you didn't check every box and you're the worst person ever. You know, there's no, it's like facing up against like going through like a divorce. Everything you do or say is, is viewed in the worst light possible, you know.

So now in thinking of as your career has developed and grown, what do you suppose is a superpower, a talent that you have that, that's unusual.

Yeah. So I think, and this is something that I just found out about myself in the, in the last probably year or two is I'm, I'm actually pretty good at productizing knowledge and putting that into a sort of a funnel process. So you know, a lot of people nowadays know about like a marketing funnel and they're going to have an opt in page and then a sales page and maybe an order bump and maybe one upsell or whatever kind of like the front end type stuff it's called. I'm, I'm pretty good at being able to like meet someone who's an expert in some field and breaking down everything that they know into a full business funnel. So I'd say well, let's go ahead and let's, let's have you write an ebook about this and that would be your front end and we'll get some opt ins and then we're going to have these emails that go out, then we're going to send them to this webinar and then we're going to have them get on a call and then you're going to sell them this and, and after six months of that and then you're going to sell them this. And it kind of just appears in my head when I meet someone and I guess I've, I've been at it now for going on.

You start to organize it like online marketing business.

Yeah. From A to Z, you know, and then, and then I, because I like to do things too myself, I've learned a little bit of everything. And you know, I found something really crazy. You know that saying jack of all trades, master of none. Here's a crazy thing. That's not the actual quote I found out. The actual quote is something to the effect of a jack of all trades. And master of none is still better than a master of none. And that really changes it, right? It does. And, and I think that so for me like I, I would get frustrated whenever I would get stuck. I hate getting stuck. I hate not being able to get things done. That's my, I'm sure achiever side. So I've learned a little bit of programming. I've learned how to use Google Tag Manager. I've learned how to use spreadsheets and, like, build out my own stuff, you know, like, and I enjoy it. Like, I don't do things that I don't enjoy. Thankfully, I enjoy. I mean, I guess I do sometimes, but generally speaking, it's things that I like and I want to get into. And. And so that's also probably one of my skill sets, is I don't stop. You know, I mean, I'm not gonna go, oh, well, I can't figure that out. It's just not me. So I'll go figure it out. And that's.

So if that. If those are some of your standout skills, what do you suppose is your Achilles heel or weakness? What's the thing that, like, tends to get you in trouble again and again?

I think the. Probably the biggest thing for me is I. I don't like repetition. I don't like repetition. This little joke. No. Yeah. I. I don't like doing the same stuff over and over and over. Yeah, well, you could bring it out. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't. So it's. For me, it's very much a struggle to have, like, repetitive things. Like, I don't. I'm not the guy to come in and do the same job again. Again, I'm more of like a strategist. Figure it out. I don't mind execution, and I can do it to a certain point, but I'm very much about, like, let me get in, figure it out, teach it to someone else and move on. So I've never had the, what I call the entrepreneurs curse, which is I'm the best at it. I do it so good, no one else can ever do it like me. So I'm going to do it every day. Not me at all. I think that's why I've been able to scale companies, because I don't have that now that, like, problem. You know, a lot of people that I meet, they're like, well, Mike, I'm the best one at it. No one can do it as, you know, like, like me. And I've always operated under the idea that someone can do it as, you know, 80% of what you can do. Great. That's awesome. Give it to them and roll on.

Before we.

I want.

I got a couple more questions for you. Let me remind our listeners that our sponsor for the Getting Real episodes is the Entrepreneurs Organization, and they sponsor, you know, sponsors these episodes in the Bay Area. Because really, this is the kind of conversation, getting to know people, learning from each other, noticing yourself and the stories that other people share is one of the core things that we get when we share with each other and work in our forum programs. We also have learning events and fun things and that kind of thing. But a chance to learn and grow together with other entrepreneurs as you work on your business is sort of core to the EO Entrepreneurs organization. So get more information or apply to join@eonetwork.org We've got three chapters in the San Francisco Bay Area. We'd love to. To see you there. So what advice would you give your younger self? If you. If you could go back and advise the younger Mike, what would you say?

Yeah, I think one of the biggest ones, and this is probably, even for me now still is probably my biggest issue, is patience. Patience. Be a little more patient in all areas. I know I, again, I think it's that achiever side of me. I just want to get it done. And I think that I've got to learn, you know, to probably just slow down some sometimes and. And I think also probably enjoy life a little a bit more. I really like business and I really enjoy that, but of course, not everyone in my life does. So I've got to, like, do some things that I can relate to other people with. You know, it's very hard when you meet people. It's like, well, what do you do? And you try to explain it, it becomes a big thing. And. And most people just want to hear, oh, I do X. And that's it, you know, and for me, I would love just to, like, talk about it all day. So it's probably why I need to join something like EO to get around people that are more like me.

EO Tampa. Go check out EO Tampa. They've got a group right there where you are. They'd love to meet you and get to know you and that kind of thing. And you might find that, in fact, you could share about all those things that you deal with as an entrepreneur, that it's not typical. In fact, some of the challenges and problems that you face just sound like bragging to other people. So, yeah, getting around a group of people that it's okay to share with and who've also made similar mistakes and.

Grown from them, and that was a big thing that there was. Whenever I have met other people that own companies, probably what shocked me more than anything when I was going through all the lawsuit stuff, literally every, like, employee type would Be like, oh my gosh, that's so scary. Whatever. But every business owner was like, oh, in 97, oh my God. They always had the craziest story that I was like, well, shoot, I guess I'm not that bad. I mean, they all had like, just crazy stuff.

Yeah.

You know, I can't think of a single person that didn't have some lawsuits. Crazy story that they, you know, were able to share with me and at least made me feel like, okay, well, you know, I have had one guy say, if you, if you haven't been sued, you haven't done good. It was kind of his, you know, his whole angle. I was like, well, I don't know.

I have stories. My friends have stories. My clients have stories. We've all had lawsuits and cases and things like that. It's, it's part of the, part of the process. I mean, some people have more than others. Yeah. And that's usually because they're jerks and they're trying to get over on other people instead of playing living a win win life. But, but for sure there's something there. Yeah.

Yeah, that was. Yeah. That's my biggest thing for me, though, is to go back and chill out some more and maybe not push so hard because I've worked pretty much every day for, you know. Every day.

Yeah. Well, we're, we're running long in the show here now. Let me let our listeners know to find out more about Mike and his work and that kind of thing. He's got a groovy little website. He's got some new stuff on the way, so you want to check it out. He's got a new copywriting business, AI fueled that's on the Way that he was telling me about before. It's not quite ready, but maybe by the time this show is on, it'll be there and you can put something on this website. But only one mic.comonlyonemike.com I actually have six or seven mics in this office. Yeah, there's only one. Mike.com is where to go find out more about Mike. And I want to give a shout out to the one only, Verne Harnish, who is not only the author and creator of the Rockefeller Habits and the Scaling up framework that I use to help companies grow, but he's also founder of the entrepreneurs organization that I've been a member of for decades now. He's my mentor and just a great source of learning and growing in the world of entrepreneurship. Big shout out also to Lucy Summers off camera here working, keeping our show going, keeping our guests prepared, things distributed, that kind of thing. Thank you Lucy. And to the folks at Podfly Productions who get our show prepped and out the door each week, Alby Burge on audio editing, Ein Codena show notes, Tim McGowan proofreading everything, and then that team for getting it all out the door each and every week. The good folks at podflight Productions thank you. If you'd like more information or to drop us an email, that kind of thing, you'll find us@scalingcoach.com our email is info scalingcoach.com if you've got a request, feedback, you want some more information or something like that. If you'd like to find a coach in your area, we've got 200 coaches around the world who help companies grow and scale on a regular basis. I work with a handful of companies at a time in detail. We get to talk to many of them and people like that right here. So thanks again everyone for listening, for watching. We'll talk to you next time. Keep scaling up. Bye bye.

Now.

Are you ready to turn your goals into daily wins? You should check out our scoreboard software Powered by alignment, it's the official software for scaling up. With Scoreboard, you'll get an AI driven coach for priorities and KPIs and it'll help keep your team focused on what matters most. With Align, you can track your goals in real time and you'll even see results on the go. With their mobile app, you can rest easy knowing that Align has world class onboarding and support to set your team up for success. This is really more than just software. It's what I actually use to manage growth in our scaling up client teams. Unlock clarity and results with Scoreboard by Aligned. To try it now, go to aligntoday.com Bill G One more time. Aligntoday.com Bill G that's aligntoday.com Bill G Check it out and try it now.