The Path To An 8 Figure Exit: Think Like An Investor, Brand Builder, And World Changer #WineWithwyan

What's up, everybody? Welcome to Wine with Wyan. Welcome back, Dr. Clements. You look doctor than ever. Dr. Clement, how's things going?

Good.

Oh, someone get this man a drink. He has liquid to kiss.

Oh, my goodness. Clement, you come from the Invest. Oh, I didn't want to interrupt a sip. Those are rare and far in between. You're drinking white wine.

Why not just drink Seal piss?

You come from the investment banking world. It's partly how we connected. So how do you look at. Since you come from that big background, how do you look at the Internet business world?

Just. I was gonna say differently, but I just wanna know how you look at them, because it's different than most people.

I think it's like just thinking of it as an investment and having that and being able to separate yourself from being a manager and being an investor is probably a really difficult, but also probably a very lucrative thing that you can do. Because as you think more like an investor and as you think more about things like what can I do to make my business more valuable, they also tend to be things that make that.

One, that one, that one, that one,.

That one. Sorry, go on.

What?

Comment on that in a second. But that's the orthodontist clincher right there. That was the wisdom teeth polled right there.

They also tend to be the things that also make your lives easier as managers, because if you can go on vacation and your business grows, that's a business which becomes a lot more sellable and a lot more valuable. If you can dive into, diversify, but still be focused in a certain area, that also makes your business valuable. Instead of just like one product, a series of five, six products, so that if Amazon shoots down one or competitor shoots down one, you've still got other products. And so it's just that mentality also of like knowing that every dollar that you put in needs to have kind.

Of a bit of a return.

And. How do we say it today? Instead of generating sales, you're building what assets? And when somebody buys your company, they're buying assets. They're not just buying cash flow, they're buying assets. And comment. You said once. Value is subjective. I wish there was someone who could comment on the state of physical products being sold in the marketplace. I'm going to tap into the law of attraction and just see if there's any. See if we can maybe bring someone who knows a little bit about acquisitions of Internet businesses. Everyone think. Everyone just think of. Everyone think of really hard with me. Use the law of attraction. Corin, this is the part where you're supposed to make a noise or something.

And I will trade some.

Our resident acquisition specialist and New American.

New American.

New America.

Brand New American.

I got asked by so many people, do I have a green card? How did I get through the wall?

It was awesome.

So, Corin, you see as much deal flow as anybody I know and it looks like the market's still red hot.

Yeah.

Can you comment further?

So, yeah, we just launched a deal today, $3.2 million list price. We just sent it out to our email list. We had probably in the vicinity of 100 inquiries, had an offer within an hour, hour and a half.

This is today, right?

Just today. And we've booked three calls with buyers already. I'm waiting literally for the LOI on that offer. So, yeah, to say the market's hot, as an understatement. Yeah, there is a ton of cash. And you'll be happy to know Ryan's not paying me to say this. The clients in this deal actually learnt how to build their business from you. So, yeah, they built a brand, a real brand. People actually want to buy and they're fighting over each other for it right now.

And what is the reason why money is flowing to that deal?

It's a real brand that can be scaled.

Buyers, literally. The conversations we've had is we could take this into retail.

We could expand the off Amazon so they have an off Amazon piece that's growing and scaling nicely. They can do more of that. So that's literally what they're looking to do.

What made the buyer say this could be taken off Amazon?

The niche. The niche is so great. People actually love this brand and love the products.

So.

Yeah, yeah, it's. We've put in the. In the packet all about user generated content and how much user generated content the buyer could actually take and use is amazing.

They could take and use or.

Yeah, because they're promoting the product for free. Like people are actually out there in.

The wild because people love it so much and they're sharing about it. We were talking about your content creation and what I say, instead of being a content creator, be a content curator.

Good job. See money.

Being a content curator because your user base is already creating a ton, even if it is not about your product, about their lives and how your product would fit into their lives. And so if you just enter into that conversation and curate the content around that, that's audience building. When you said there was all this user generated content, how was it suggested that they would use it?

So right now they're using it for Instagram or social media and reviews. But the buyers, they were saying, you know, how could we take this and use what's already been there? And the user generated content is huge. They were actually saying, well, what about creating micro sites off to the side that are all about this space and the content can be around this niche and the niche is passionate, but it's not, it's not CrossFit passionate. That's all vegan passionate. They're not militant about converting you to this. If you like this niche, you'll just like it.

Do you see the market growing, shrinking or staying the same?

Right now it's evolving and growing, but it's growing at the top end. So we've been talking a lot about eight figure exits. That's where the entry point is. A lot of these guys are looking for that as a minimum. So I think.

I just want to.

Echo what you just said. People are, look, you mean they're looking for a minimum to spend $10 million on a business? Right.

I wish I could show you these emails.

Sorry, what do you have that's listed at $10 million? Yeah, so. So what? We often, I think when you, when you don't have money, you think about it as like, they have money. I hope they pick me.

Yes.

But the truth is like, would you please build something worth buying? I would really like to buy your asset.

Yes.

And when you get that, you're like, oh, I'm the controller of this.

They need me, you really need me to go kill it so they can go buy my thing for $10 million. It's not like, it's not like, it's, please, oh, please give me $10 million. It's, they want your thing more than they want the $10 million because it's.

An asset and the guys at that level need to deploy the capital. So it's not like they have the cash in their pocket.

It's their job.

Their job is to get a return, earn on the capital. So then having the capital is actually a burden. They need to deploy it for a decent return. They're not going to throw it out willy nilly, but they need a return because they need the return. So it's just a different world.

Yeah. Do y' all get that, like build, like what you're building is so much bigger than what you realize is like some cash machine. So you know how this is the moment, this is it. This is where everything changes. You know how Gary Vee has the. I've solved people's Money excuse. I can just take things on Craigslist and flip it on Facebook. Marketplace, where it is. This is ours right here. Because we have one model that we do every time we're down on our luck. Turns everything around. Number one, make a list of all the influential people or people that you want to spend more time with, the people that you look up to, the people that you'd like to do more business with, the people who are ahead of you. Make a list of 20 to 50 people. Number two.

Call them. Don't text. Maybe text to set up the call, but call them. Reach out, and then Corin.

Talk about them. Catch up with them. Don't make it about you.

Ask what they're working on. Look for ways to help them. Look for ways to be valuable to them. And a strange thing happens. Opportunities just start showing up.

Yep. I never make it past 10 people, and I don't pitch on the call. Never.

No, no. You got nothing. No, you are giving. Giving until it hurts.

Yeah.

Works every time.

Yeah, that's all. It's almost like the universe has conspired for us to support one another, huh?

It's so easy that no one does it.

Boom. Sauce. That's it.

We're done. Shut it off.

Good night, everybody.

Who else wants the hot seat? I'm out of here.

You need to go get another beer. And I summon Max Kerwick to the stand.

Boom.

I was just gonna watch on my phone. Do I look at you, or do I look at the camera, or do I, like, awkwardly alternate between both?

It's more about what you do with your hands.

Okay, so hold them up here, right.

Here at different heights. That's really the secret to good. Cameron Shipman Ness. One of the. One of the big ahas that happened here over the last couple days was when I saw. It was with you, Oliver, when I saw your light come on. And the idea where you saw the person and you knew how to build the business around the core person and you just live by that message. I think you deliver that message better than anybody I know. So would you recap what we talked about in that process?

Yeah, for sure.

And without going into it in too much detail is that I really, really firmly believe that the best brands in the world are built around a specific human being. They know better than anyone else who their customer is, why they buy, the story that they're trying to tell about their life and the role that that brand can play in the story. And a lot of people teach, you know, an ideal customer or an ideal Avatar exercise. And it's kind of theoretical and it's kind of squishy, and it's, oh, you know, just think about this person and, you know, what they want and what they look like and all that kind of stuff. But when you do it at a, like, in a very focused manner, and you really orient your entire business, not just the way you market, but the products you develop and everything around that singular human being that is most predictive of your success going forward, then it adds a layer of focus that is really hard to find in the business otherwise, especially when you're selling on Amazon, you don't have clarity on who that person is.

Right.

So if you're able to really focus on that person, then it becomes much easier to decide, okay, what are the next five products that I do?

Right.

Because you know what that person's problems are. You know, where they're trying to go in 10 years, and you know that the role, or, you know, the role that you can play in that journey.

Mark's success. The man so successful they named it after him.

What's up, dude?

Not much.

So first of all, before.

Before.

Before we go into politics and religion.

Is that where you think this is going?

I do.

Yeah. Before we go into politics and religion, would you.

Would you tell me you've.

You've had some brain the last. The last day and a half?

Yeah.

So would you. Would you come in here thinking about.

My wife and I had a long laundry list of things that we wanted to know and where we thought our business should be going. We were not thinking of our business bigger than what it actually like. Like what you're saying is, I thought I was thinking big, but not thinking big like I should. Yeah. And.

Why was that?

Why were you.

Why were you not thinking as big as you could?

Because of just the information that's out there. Right. You're consuming content and you're learning one way of doing things. But I guess I was too zoomed in, kind of just to keep your. The terms that you're using. If you're looking at your business while you're in it, instead of looking at it holistically, you really can't tell how you should be doing your business and what it's capable of and what an investor would see as valuable, because what you hold valuable while you're in it is not what it is from a high level.

Yeah. Were you thinking about building an asset to sell previously?

That's the funny thing. I would say that, yes. I'm looking to build a sellable asset. If you had asked me that when I first came here, I'd have been like, yeah, for sure. But what was. What's going to make it sellable is not what I was doing. You know what I mean? So this whole experience kind of turned everything on its head, and I feel like, good thing I came, because I'd have been wasting a lot of time doing things that were not going to help me achieve what I want.

And what's different now? What did you see differently?

I'm seeing that I'm serving a person.

I'm not serving Amazon. You get so caught up in the numbers, and, you know, what's selling good and has Amazon, which is a sales channel, has invalidated you as a business and your products that you forget. Like, you know, I have a real human on the other end of this transaction who's buying my product and having an experience with it. And inherently beyond that, things become valuable when you can get more people to see that. What that person is saying, yeah, what's.

What's different moving forward, I'm focused on.

That person, you know, and we have a customer we know we're selling to. I think that's one of the unique.

Things about our product. And we're going to focus on that person and what they want, give them what they want. We want them to know exactly what they're going to get after they get our product. And we're going to make it apparent to them when they experience it. They're going to tell us about it. They're going to tell the world about it. Won't excite them.

Would you clap that up right there? Good work.

Okay, you want to talk politics and religion? Sorry, I'm a little drunk.

I didn't say that.

I'm a little.

I'm a little.

I mean, okay. So the question was, what's the biggest problem facing the world today? And immediately I said pain.

So I'm a huge believer in the phrase that hurt people. Hurt people. Mm. And I think we have a lot of us walking around in society today, and we're basically doing our best to cope with pain that we don't speak about.

And.

The analogy I always give people is like, I used to play football in high school, and my head would be ringing, and every time I got hit or every time I. I laid a hit, it would hurt tremendously. I finally built up the nerve to talk to a teammate about it. I was just like, man, my head is killing me. And it doesn't stop when I leave practice. It's always hurting. And he was like, man, all of our, like, you get, you get used to it. And I was like, really? This is like intense, like, discomfort. And then I always use that analogy to say, like, it's kind of the same thing. We all have experienced pain or hurt in our lives, and we walk around and we end up hurting other people along the way. And we're compensating for that hurt in our lives in different ways because we're all into different, different people, but nobody ever talks about it. Yeah, but that stuff is so cyclical, right? I read a stat in African American community. They saying, like, 75% of people of children are born into single parent households. 75%. And I'm like. Then you read another stat that says, like, you know, having a stable household by like age 30 or waiting to have kids to that point could dramatically increase your chances of wealth. And then you start, like, that's connected. Like, poverty is a problem. Having kids early is something that's definitely prevalent in that community. And how many men are just hurt trying not to be their dad, end up being their dad who hurt them? And then it just. The cycle repeats and it's just cyclical. And I don't think anything's an accident. I think hurt people, hurt people. We don't talk about it, and then we've got everybody just walking around, just hurt.

So what I mean, I have zero disagreement, and I wonder what perpetuates that. The only thing that I have been able to identify is that we just feel so disconnected from one another. So we feel like we're on our own. I'm curious what you think.

That's a little. That's a heavy question. But I would say I'd start by saying it's getting worse. It definitely has something to do with how we interact with one another. I mean, think about it. We're speaking less a conversation like this. I haven't looked at my phone in a few hours. It's awesome. But how many people have their heads down in their phone? And we're communicating, we're saying whatever we want. Doing that anonymity through text and things of that nature. We're not truly communicating with one another and being honest and open about deep things. Like, do any. Like, I often ask people, like, how many truly meaningful, deep relationships do you have you mentioned quantity over quality. As far as your relationships, you don't need like millions of more friends. You need deeper. Like, that is huge.

Like, I don't need to meet more friends. I just need to go all in on the people I already love.

Exactly. And I think we need more of that, because what's perpetuating this pain is the. Is the silence. And so anything we do in our society that limits our ability to build relationships with one another or just simply to communicate our pain will absolutely exacerbate the problem. And there's nothing worse than just hurting individuals and just moving on through life, and they have to deal with that. Actions have consequences, and we completely destroy ourselves in the process. By the way, we here in the Western world, we deal with different pain than people in other parts of the world.

Do you tell Timmy, I know you're right, but tell me what you mean.

So I often tell people this, right? Suicide. Like, we hear a lot about suicide here. That's like a privilege of the West.

You don't hear or see too many people killing them in the most impoverished situations in the world. You know, personally, if you ask those people you know, or you talk to them, or you really observe people that in our minds are like, you got nothing coming for you. There's no opportunity. Your life, for all intents and purposes, it sucks. There's nothing coming for you here. I'm the best thing that's happened to you in all of your years of living. You have every reason to kill yourself, but we do that here with plenty.

So what do you make of that in terms of depression and suicide rates? What do they do differently?

Okay, so then that's gotta tell you something.

I like how every time I ask Microsoft, she's like, oh, I. I got you.

Our happiness is not dictated by Definitely not your stuff.

We have to start looking, I think, as a society, existentially or outside of your internal. If you're looking for that happiness. Happiness isn't the highest ethic.

Isn't the highest ethic.

No meaning. Like, you'll run into a lot. I see tons of phrases on Instagram and stuff like that. The point of life is to do whatever makes you happy. Get up, do that every single day. Life doesn't work that way, in my opinion. It doesn't. And there's no way you could be happy every single moment of your life. Life is very dynamic. And if you're going through life thinking that every moment is supposed to be this moment filled with happiness and joy, you're in for a huge surprise. You know what I mean? And so if these people. I'm talking about the happiest people I've ever met, have nothing, nothing. Can I say one more time, I.

Was hoping you would nothing.

I walked into a woman's.

Place one day. She had, like, in the Philippines, she had, like, four or five kids. And her home, if you want to call it that, was all clothing, shirts on the floor and, like, just clothing covering a roof. And she had no idea where her next meal was coming from. And I had, like, three bags of rice on my shoulder. And, like, I came and, like, that was everything for her. You know what I mean? And she was happy. She came to, like, church the next day and, like, thanked me and, like, like, then there's people just jumping around, shout. You turn some music on, and they're just dancing and shouting like, it's. Why are you so happy? There's nothing here. I can't wait to go home, you know? And it's just. It blows your mind. We got it all wrong here. And that's the. That's one of the things. I just think that if you're looking for it in yourself and you're not thinking about, like, kind of like you just said, right. You're in a pinch. You're in a bad place. What is.

What do you.

What do you seek to do?

Give to somebody else.

Give to somebody else. And then what happens?

Magic shows up?

Something comes. Something comes your way? For some reason, we live in a universe that is very much has reciprocity coded in somehow. And when you give out, you receive.

So if I want to be happy and I want to receive and I want things, maybe I need to.

We're so lost in our own stress and our own pain. As you would say it, the only way that we know how to give is in the marketplace. The funny thing is that we zoom outside the marketplace and just start thinking about giving. The marketplace rewards us. And we, We. We forget this because we're lost in our own stress.

The whole concept of business, the more value you provide to your customers, what are you going to do? They're going to give you their money.

Yeah.

You'll get, get, get, get, get all day as long as you.

Yeah. And people focus on the. On the getting first. How do I reverse engineer the getting?

Exactly.

That is given like a mother trucker. That's what.

Yeah. It almost says, like, oh, it's a universal principle. What else can I apply this to? And that's pretty much where I come at it from.

You're a good man, Marks.

I appreciate it. Yes.

Everybody, thanks for watching Wine with Wyan and letting me invade your thoughts and world for a short time. Proud of all of you for building something that is way bigger than you realize right now. And what's really exciting is I do this knowing that two years from now, the changes that happen in your business, in life, are bigger than anything that most of you can even imagine right now. And I've just seen it way too many times to doubt it. So I'm just excited for all of you, man.

Thanks for hosting this.

I got a plug in. This guy right here knows what he's talking about. I know there's a lot of information online and things you can get into. I've been down that rabbit hole, and I can say consistently that Ryan Moran's content has definitely changed me. Capitalism conference. When you start hearing him talk about it, start thinking about how to get yourself there. We're talking about transformative events that will change the way in which you approach your business. And honestly, I'm here. We're talking about things that are just transforming your life. So shout out to you, Ryan, you know you have a heart for the people. Not everybody with your means is doing what you're doing. So keep going, man.

For real.

I'm serious.

Thanks, bro.

Thanks, buddy. I appreciate you. Thanks for hanging out with us. Good night, everybody.