Thomas Rodriguez - How To Create A Successful Amazon Business

Legacy of Monsters an Apple original series. The world is on fire. I decided to do something about it on November 17th. This place, it's not ours. Believe me, the most massive event of the year arrives. If you come with me, you'll know everything. I promise.

Oh, my God.

Go, go, go.

Legacy of monsters streaming November 17th only on Apple TV. Plus.

Hold music. You want to avoid it and so do your customers. So say goodbye to holdmusic and hello to faster, smarter support with Salesforce. Make service more personal and agents more productive using built in trusted AI. Then watch costs and wait times drop and satisfaction soar. Support customers in a whole new way with Service GPT. Learn how@salesforce.com ServiceGPT.

What is going on, everyone? Kasey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. On today's episode, we have Thomas Rodriguez here with us, AKA Rod, on Instagram, and we talk about his journey to becoming a successful entrepreneur. He has crushed it using Amazon fba and make sure you check him out on Instagram. And before we get into the episode, please share this episode with a friend and leave a rating and review on itunes. And with that being said, enjoy today's podcast with Thomas Rodriguez. What is going on, everyone? Casey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. Today we have Thomas Rodriguez here with us. Thanks so much for coming on the show, brother.

Glad to be here, man.

So you just flew in to Scottsdale? We're doing the interview in person and this is the first time that we've met in person, man. I'm super excited about it.

It's been. I would say it's long overdue.

Yeah, for sure. I know that we've been connected for quite some time, but I'm amazed by your story and everything you're doing with Amazon Automation. And I'm sure we'll dive into that. But we talked at breakfast. You said you're from Boston. I'd love for you to take us back to your early childhood years and overall bring us to the point where you started your first business. Wow.

Okay. Well, I'm 33, so, you know, I've been. I've been in Florida now since I was. It's been about six years. But prior to that I worked in, you know, as far as jobs and my career, I worked in the blue collar industry a lot. I've done even fast food. McDonald's, Burger King.

Yep.

Taco Bell Warehouses.

Get a little closer.

Temp jobs. Oh, there we go. Temp jobs. I've literally had more jobs than birthdays. You Know, and it's crazy, but if even, even speeding up a little, or should I say rewinding a little bit before that, you know, you're talking about going back childhood and all that other stuff. But, you know, there was, at one point, I was homeless. I was in and out of juvie at 14 years old, never graduated high school. And, you know, I didn't really know what direction I was going to go with my life, you know what I mean? Because I didn't graduate again, like I said, I didn't go to college. And I started my entrepreneur journey once I kind of got on my feet a little bit at the age of 24.

Okay.

And it was literally four or five months prior to that that I had like two jobs at the same time. And I just found out too, a couple months before that, that my ex wife, at that time, we were expecting a child, my daughter, who's eight now.

Wow.

So my mindset back then was, if, if I can't provide for myself right now and I'm struggling, how am I supposed. Supposed to provide for another human being? You know, scary times. No mom or parent or father should have that feeling of how am I going to provide for another human being? It's just, it's not a good feeling at all. So around the age of 24, I literally risked, you know, know, the credit cards that I had. I was maxing out cards. I stumbled across making money online. I didn't know anybody making money online. You know, traditionally you hear, at least back in the day, because I was, you know, really arrogant to it, and I didn't really know anything about making money online. I just. The words that you would hear, scam or is it legit or stuff like that. That, that was my mindset. But at the same time, I was also broke. And, you know, one thing I even realized back then is that you can't be broke and struggling. You gotta, you know, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta pick a struggle. Should I say, like, you gotta take a chance and if you're at the bottom, you know, the only way you can go is up, you know, so.

So you dropped out of high school?

Yeah. At 17.

Okay.

Because my mother kicked me out of the house because she was sick of me getting in trouble with the law.

Okay.

So I think, you know, looking back, it was like, how could you kick me out? We live in Boston. You know how cold it is outside right now?

Dude, I was in Boston last year.

It's. And that's why I'm happy to be in Florida now, so we don't have to deal with the snow and the cold weather. But back then it was, it was just basically a blessing in disguise, you know. And at 24, I came across cost per acquisition, CPA, marketing, and, you know, run an ad trying to get people to sign up for these free trials. Netflix, Blockbuster.

Yep.

You know, on all those things. Free trials, I did that for a little while.

How did you come across that type of industry? Because, I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of people that are listening to this. They get bombarded with so many things today from different people. But when you started off like six years ago, right?

Six, seven years ago, it's been eight years.

Eight years ago, the whole industry was different. Right. So how did you come across not only making money online, but marketing and this whole industry coming from someone that dropped out of high school, was out on your own at 17. Like, how does one come across this?

You know, it's crazy because back then, and maybe it's still pretty popular now, but I don't use Twitter now, but back in the day I was using Twitter pretty heavily and this guy, he was using the software to tweet to people with certain hashtags and keywords. And he sent me, it sent like a link that I got tagged in and, and again, I didn't know anything, but I clicked on it because I was curious. Yeah. So when I clicked on it took me to this website. Here's this guy with his girlfriend, a wife, and it was like, make two $300 a day from home. And I was like, what is this crap? Like, yeah, I don't know any. I don't know anything. So he had his phone number on the website at that point and so I gave him a call. I was like, dude, I just got some link to some weird looking website and I have no idea what it is. And he's like, no, I'm a real person. We talked for a couple minutes and he had to go because he was, I guess, going out. But it was long story short with that that he called me back later, he walked me through and it kind of explained the process a little bit more outside of what the video already covered. And I was like, okay, well, I have nothing to lose. I'm already broke.

Yeah.

So, you know, I took a chance. I signed up for some free trials, he made some money. I signed up, I got a link and I got, I basically with that link obviously could do the same thing on some essence. Right. Basically promote these free trials, get Paid daily. And it definitely took some aggravation. It was definitely really aggravating because I didn't know where to start. Yeah, you know, once he kind of told me, he's like, now you gotta get leads, you gotta find ways to generate traffic. So literally after about five days, almost quit. I was like, this isn't working. I got bills to pay.

Yeah.

And doing all this stuff online isn't paying my bills right now. And of course back then I didn't realize, thinking about long term, I didn't really realize, okay, well five days isn't long enough to develop the craft, to learn how to do this. So I spent about 18 to 20 hours a day at the computer, Google and every single thing you can think, reading books, trying to learn how to generate traffic. I was going on, I think it was Craigslist back in the day. People who were looking for jobs. This is how she made my first dollar online. It's like for $60 and like three hours, I found people on Craigslist who were looking for jobs. And then reverse called them and I told them about this opportunity. And again, this was just me just doing my own due diligence and just trying to get creative. So that's where I started. And I did that for, you know, four to six months. And I was okay. After a little while I was getting the rhythm. I was making YouTube videos, I was showing proof, I was showing testimonials. And then before you know it, it started kind of flowing. Yeah, it was just, you know, I was just on, on a rhythm. And then I eventually got into multi level marketing.

Got it.

Basically I, the company I got involved in basically taught people how to market. And I was like, well, that's kind of what I'm looking for. So I have to spend a little money to get this information. But I wanted to, you know, accelerate my results a lot faster and learn how to develop a craft. Because once I seen it was possible.

To make money online, became addicted.

Yeah, I got addicted. It was like a laptop lifestyle.

When did you come across Amazon? Because I know like on, from following you, Amazon, automation and something that you talked about today. Coming up on Q4 about Black Friday and how, you know, half the retail stores in the US were shut down and everything's online. When did Amazon come into your life and why did you decide to choose that business model as something that you would strive in?

So Amazon came shortly after I quit multilevel marketing. I was in multilevel marketing for 16 to 18 months. Give it maybe a little bit More. I actually had some success and I met a lot of good people that I surrounded myself with. That really helped my mindset develop, you know, just a deeper understanding of how to invest my money. Yep, spending your money on things that are going to make you more money and stuff like that. So in 2014, I stumbled across, you know, the whole Amazon dropship. And first it was really ebay. And I was like, okay, well ebay is great, but Amazon's a bigger platform than ebay. So I was like, okay, if I could do this on ebay, I could figure out how to do this on Amazon. So a lot of the stuff that I learned was just through my own trial and error. Like I didn't have a mentor to teach me, I didn't have nothing. Like that was just through my own blood, sweat and tears trying to figure this out. I literally wanted to break my laptop about 30 times, like non stop. It was frustrating. And before you know it, like if you were to speed up just a little bit of trying to do the Amazon in and out, it was about a year, year and a half. I was really perfect in the craft. I was hiring people overseas to manage my store for me. And then I started showing off my results, like on my social media. I was like, you know, it's not going to hurt. Just show people, inspire, motivate. Yeah. Before you know it, people started hitting me up like, can you teach me? So I was like, no, no, I'm good. I want to kind of, you know, just do this. I, I don't really want to teach. But then people kept asking and asking. I was like, okay, well it's multiple streams of income. At the end of the day, no one ever really has one stream of income. You, you have multiple streams. That's what you're supposed to do. So I started teaching. It was great. Did that for about two years. Had a lot of success for people who I taught going on making money on Amazon themselves. And then I realized I did that for a little while and it's been about two and a half years now for the automation part. I realized back then that a lot of people are also lazy. You know, a lot of these people, they wanted to learn how to make money, but they didn't want to put in the work.

Yep.

So then the idea of like, okay, well I have a team that's automating stores for me. What if I could put some type of system or program together that can just do the same concept for people who just want to pay for a done for you service, they don't have to find the products, list the products, ship them out, handle the customer service to do any of that. And then before, you know, Amazon Automation was Blossom. It's been a little over two and a half years now and we're having a lot of success with it, building the infrastructure better and better constantly, every day. We have a lot of clients having a lot of success with it and it's awesome. I guess the best way to, you know, kind of really break down my service is just, it's no different than property management. Like somebody buys a villa, condo, apartment building, they hire property management, handle the legwork totally for it to work. Yeah, exactly. And so the person that owns it can be on the beach of the world. They could do whatever they want. It's the same concept with my service that people are basically paying for a storefront that's literally done by me and my team of now six plus years. So very cool.

What is the key to becoming successful on Amazon? Right. I mean, there's thousands of people that are millions of people that are selling on amaz. What, what separates people that are successful at it versus people that work on it and then just give up?

If you're not talking about the obviously the automation part of people just trying to learn it themselves is Amazon is a different type of beast. Obviously. We all know that. Everyone's constantly shopping, like right now, like you said, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, things are pretty much being shut down. And your grandmother and your mother and everybody's now shopping online that wasn't really comfortable shopping online maybe like seven, eight, nine months ago. Now they're forced totally shop online. So I think the biggest difference that separates the people who are successful and not successful is just the consistency. Because I think like any business or if you go to the gym, somebody goes to the gym, they don't get the results. In two weeks, they quit. So it's the same thing, I think with Amazon. People come in here and think Amazon's just going to be okay. I'm going to list two products and I'm hoping to be rich. It's not always like that. It still takes work. And I think the people that are doing it and real successful at it, they, they, they found what works and they stuck with it over a period of time.

Yep.

And anyone else, if they quit after two weeks, it's probably because they, they didn't understand the fact that business has ups and downs and that's where you have to, you know, obviously develop your mindset.

Love that. How have you seen the transition, especially earlier this year, when Amazon as a company has been thriving during these times? How have you, you felt the shift in the market as someone that's, you know, does Amazon automation works with a lot of clients. Like, how has the last eight months been for you and what changes have you seen for people that are out there looking to start a store and sell on Amazon?

I've noticed, you know, when the whole Covid, you know, happened right when, when this whole pandemic happened, it was, it was like, okay, a lot of businesses are going to take like a hit right now. And I, I thought that was about my business too.

Yep.

But the total opposite happened. Literally the business was already booming. We already had a lot of happy clients making some incredible profits. But ever since it happened again, like I said, it forced people to shop online, which then therefore obviously tripled a lot of my clients results even faster. So in, in some essence, obviously, I feel for what's going on in the world. It's crazy. You know, nobody's really happy, obviously going on. But it did the opposite for my business. It actually helped excel my business on another level for my clients. So I could, I could truly say that I know my clients are happy. Yeah, yeah, for sure. They're making with the service. But it, yeah, it's done the opposite.

That's very cool. I found it fascinating because you said you were homeless, right? What age were you homeless?

17.

17. Like during this transition of becoming successful and having to struggle across your journey, what advice do you give to young entrepreneurs today that are, you know, listening to this podcast, just starting their journey, because you've really had the ups and the downs and you've lived it and you've learned through it. So what advice would you give to someone that's starting their journey today, especially during 2020, where things are a lot shifted than they were before.

So I guess the advice that I would give anyone is that, you know, and some of it's going to sound real cliche. So it's, it's not. A lot of times people ask me, what's the secret to success? And it's, I'm not going to say anything. That's always going to be like, oh, my God, I've, I've never heard that. I've never heard that before. That's insane. It's usually just something that people overlook. Right. So in my opinion, it's, it's, it's just about consistency. And like I said, it really just falls. I really stick with that word, consistency. Because if, if you're not, if you're not going to be consistent at something, you're never going to get good at it. And if you do something long enough, you're never to going, you know, six months, a year, two years, you're eventually going to develop a craft and you're going to get good at it. Doesn't, it doesn't matter how many times you fail, you are going to fail your way forward. It's just inevitable. Yeah, totally. And I would recommend anyone that's watching this video is to, you can either do it the hard way and learn a lot of this stuff yourself.

Right.

Which is obviously one of the ways that I did a lot of this. But obviously the other way to speed and excel your results is to hire someone who's already done it. So paying for a coach, a mentor, somebody who's already getting the results that you want and by doing so, you're literally going to shave off a lot of time from the learning curve. But again, if for some people that are on here, if you don't have a lot of capital to begin with, obviously maybe doing it yourself upfront so you make a little bit of money so you can afford the person that you want to pay for mentorship. I wish I paid for a mentor back in the day, like on like a larger scale.

Totally.

I paid for somebody like I know when I first started, but it was more for motivational, like mindset stuff. And you know, one thing I know now is that your peace of mind will always become before your piece of pie, you know.

So do you mean by that that.

You have to make sure that your mindset is in order before you worry about making the money? Because if you, if you have even a little bit of money but you don't know how to spend it, you don't know where to spend it, or you don't know how to really put in the good work ethic. I mean, just going to be a waste anyway. Totally. Make sure that your mindset is there and you're willing to put in the work.

What did you do early on to develop that mindset when you were coming up?

So that multi level marketing company that had gone in, they actually had what they call an inner circle product and basically it was kind of like podcasts on some level. It was them bringing on some of the top earners and people who could tell their stories. And I would be on these calls every Monday listening to these calls to stay motivated. And when I wasn't doing that, I was reading some Books at the time. And on top of that, then I was watching like Eric Thomas, Jeremy, Love Eric. Yeah, Listen to a lot of them on YouTube, which is obviously free, and just watch their videos and just study what they're talking about and doing. Because again, motivation doesn't last.

Right.

You know, that's why they recommend. Totally.

Yep.

So but at the end of the day, that's, that's what I did and I think if I didn't have that, I don't know if I would have had the courage to keep going. Because you need the motivation and you need to surround yourself with like minded people. Not people who want to party every weekend who have nothing going for them, but people who, who are on the same mission to grow, build empires, change lives, change the world, whatever their vision is. As long as you're with those people that are on that same track.

How have you been able to just build that culture and that network of people in your life? Because you know the quote, I love it. It's like your network is your net worth. Right. And for me, building relationships, doing things like this in the podcast, like that's what I'm motivated by. How, how did you do that early on? Right. Like for me, three years ago, four years ago, when I got into all of this, like social media is the platform. I know that you've been crushing it building your brand, but I became obsessed with building a brand, making key relationships. And that's what's taught me so many lessons, is through the people and the conversations. But for you, when you started, how did you find those people to, you know, ask questions to and the mentors outside of the company that you're working for, but just independently. Right. Like what was your go to?

So back then I utilized obviously my Facebook a whole lot. I would add a lot of like people that I would see comment on other posts, I would join these Facebook groups. And yes, the company that I was a part of was really good for motivation. But what I also did to take a step even further outside of that was I would go to events and I would start networking, I would start talking. Even if whatever they're saying, I'm not really grasping, I'm just, I'm trying to listen, I'm trying to really take everything and absorb everything and, you know, try to communicate with as many people as I could on the social media platform like Facebook. That really helped me just kind of understand the circle I wanted, the circle I needed, you know, the fakes from the real and stuff like that. But that really Again is again cliche. You definitely have to surround yourself with like minded people. So if you have some money, you go to events, you, you, you read books and if you do that, like, I mean everything I'm not going to say is going to become easy. Yeah, by any means. But it will give you at least that proper mindset to hopefully continue to push forward.

Love that. How often do you go back to Boston?

Not as often as I should, I'll be honest. Like, I'm a little spoiled now because of the, the Florida weather. Yeah, yeah. Where it's sunny. Only thing we have to worry about is what, hurricanes.

Okay.

Stuff like that.

Is that the only other place you've lived outside of Boston?

Yeah, I, I was born and raised and I've been in Florida now for about five, five, six years and I really don't miss the cold. I think, I think if anything my blood is thinned out a little bit so that if I go out there, I'm just, I can't handle it. Yeah, it's been too long.

Would you ever move somewhere else or is Florida your spot?

Well, I do have two kids, you know, both of my ex wife and my dog. My daughter's eight, my son is two. And you know, I've always had this vision. Obviously it's kind of hard to do it now because me and my ex wife share joint custody of the kids. But if it was up to me, I would literally like bounce around from a spot every three to six months. I would go to Thailand or China or Hong Kong. I would just like travel, hop. Like that's like, that's something that I've thought about for years and obviously after I thought about it, obviously I had a kid and yeah, I can't obviously do that now. I have responsibilities as a parent, but I definitely would. But again, I'm a little more restricted just because I have two kids.

As a parent, like, what's your mindset towards educating your children? Especially now with like raising kids as a successful entrepreneur, like what's your get? Not game plan, but how do you think about that? Right. Because for me, I have a brother, he's 26, he has a kid, she's four now and I'm an uncle and I, I've just seen her grow over the last four years. And it's interesting because, you know, the modern education system, I learned nothing. What I'm doing today in school and to see how, you know, colleges are changing to zoom and how the entire economy shifted this past year, it's fascinating to Think about, like, the next generation of kids and how they're going to be thinking about education. So as a parent, like, what are you doing to prepare your kids? Or have you thought about that at all?

I've thought about it, and I'll be brutally honest, I'm not as proactive as I should be, you know, because I think as a parent, sometimes we always keep thinking, oh, we got plenty of time. We got. Yeah. I do try to educate my daughter, like, when we talk about certain things, or sometimes I pick her up from school to get the kids that are looking at my cars like, oh, nice cars. And my daughter, oh, he likes your car. And this and that. And, like, and I try to educate her. It's like, as much as I like my nice toys and the stuff like that, I try to educate her, though, like, and. And ask her questions, like, what does she want to do when she grows up? What do you want to be? And her answer is always changing because she's still. Yeah, totally growing. But I do try to educate her, you know, like, with the systems. Like, for me, I personally don't believe in college. Just obviously I didn't go. And I just. I just feel like, to be honest with you, like, if unless you're going to learn a profession like a nurse, a doctor, a lawyer or something that you really have to go to college for, it's not necessary. And I try to explain that to my daughter, but I want her. If she wants to go for those things, then I'll support it. Like, I'll support it if that's what you want to do, if you're passionate. But I do try to educate her a little bit on just a little more entrepreneurship and building businesses and, you know, but again, I tell her, at the end of the day, it's. It's still your responsibility on what you want to do. And at 8, you know, I mean, some kids might get it, but, you know, it might take another good year or two before certain things start to really click. Like, you know, as far as what she wants to do, for sure.

Do you have any daily habits that you do every single day, or what does your schedule look like?

Honestly, as much as I would love to say that I'm as proactive and have a set schedule, I don't. And that is one thing that I can say that I'm not gonna say I've struggled with, but I am trying to get a little more organized because, you know, obviously I have systems in play that obviously contribute to my business and stuff, like that. So things are getting done regardless.

Yeah.

But certain things, like getting up at a certain time, making sure I do the gym at this time.

Yeah.

Read at this time and do this and that. That is something that I could truly say that I haven't been as organized as I wanted to.

Totally.

And it is something I am trying to kind of really lock down a little bit more efficiently because I can see if you're a little more organized in certain areas, it might make your life a lot easier.

Yeah, for sure. What's your mindset on building teams? Obviously, you brought your team out here to Scottsdale and we talked at breakfast. I was like, that's super cool that you travel with the people that you work with, because that's how you create culture, I would say. But what's your thoughts on that building team and just a culture with inside your organization?

I think, I think I wouldn't be, I think my personal brand wouldn't be where it's at without my team. So bringing my team, you know, around. And they were obviously friends and family before I started really building like more systems and infrastructure and play. So to me, it's, it's a key. It's, it's, it's, it's just like one umbrella. So, you know, if you're, whatever business you're building, I mean, you definitely have to have a solid team. You can't.

Yep.

You can't do it by yourself. You need other people who have different knowledge, different areas of expertise, and just good people that you can actually. That you want to be around.

Yep.

So, I mean, that's, that's my feedback 100.

Has that always been, like, from building teams and just, you know, having people believe in the vision, especially when it comes to building a personal brand. When did that shift happen for you when it comes to like, hey, I can't do this alone. I need people to build with as an entire, not only organization, but just as a tribe. Like, what was that shift for you when it comes to team building?

So I've been obviously building, let's just say my automation empire, business Amazon automation for about two and a half years now. And for quite some time I was doing this by myself. It was probably about a year, you know, almost. Probably about a half, give or take. And I was doing it by myself. And I thought I had everything under control. Right. You know, but before you knew it, my infrastructure, I started to outgrow my prior infrastructure and I'm like, I can't do this, you know, so obviously I had a Meeting with my team and again, they weren't my team at that moment, but we all had a discussion. They brought certain things to the table that I was like, you know what? I need this. Yeah. At the end of the day, but because they were already friends and family first, you know, I was a little hesitant because I'm like mixing business and friendships totally. There's a lot of people who, it. If they don't have the right circle, it could just be torn apart just like that overnight. Yeah, I've seen it. So they've been working with me now for about 13, 14 months and it's definitely been one of the best things.

Very cool happened to the brand. What's been the biggest lesson you've learned in 2020?

Man, you know, I've always believed in multiple streams of income. Always for the last seven years. But I haven't always lived by it, especially when I was just starting to. Just getting started. Now I have about 3, 4 streams of income outside of obviously my main business. Yep. I think one of the biggest lessons, if we're talking from a business aspect, is that definitely never have all your eggs in one basket because totally, you know, we have brick and mortar businesses going out right now and just so many things, even the real estate, you know, environment, it's like, even that's like kind of like tanking for a lot of people right now. So it's like you have to always diversify. You know, as far as like family, friends is like, don't take anything for granted. You know, we got everything going on now. Some people can't even travel overseas to see certain people that they love that they want to spend time with. So, you know, freedom is just, it's a, it's a precious and priceless. Yeah, man.

And you've done some traveling. What is it? How many countries have you been to?

Quite a few. Quite a few.

Okay, plus 20 plus. What have you learned from traveling? Because I know the first time I left the country when I was, I think I was 15, I went to China. It was one of the most mind altering experiences for me. And I'd love to hear from you. Being over 20 plus countries and traveling all over the world, what have you learned from that and what are the takeaways that you've gotten from those experiences?

I would say, like some of the takeaways I've taken is just, I like to travel just because life's too short for one. Like, like I said, I. I just turned 33 last month.

Yeah.

And life goes quick. It Goes quicker than your 20s, you know, it's just, it's really fast. For me, one of the biggest takeaways is just seeing the different cultures and the, the people out there. Like just how everyone and culture just moves and acts different. You know, I've been to so many different countries where like the people, they treat you like royalty, you know, like I remember like Thailand. Like I, that's one of, one of my favorite experiences is like people out there, they just, they treat you so nice like and it's, I don't know, it's just an incredible experience. Even with my, my service. I went to Bangladesh where part of my team is at. Well, my whole team should I say. And you know, a lot of the errors over there is really poor. Yeah, it's really warm. So you would think, at least this is how I thought back then, like, okay, I'm gonna go out there and a lot of people are going to be upset. Like, you know, like they maybe they don't really, I'm not gonna say have much to be happy for. Obviously they have the health and the family and stuff like that. But certain environments that I went to, it just, it actually shocked me of how many people were able to help each other in need and help and it was just really eye opening. Totally that like a culture and come up, you know, in a country like that where it might not be, it might not be enriches or anything like that, but people can come together and form unity.

Totally.

So it was just eye opening. Just if people, more people even today now come together, just so many more things can get done.

Yeah, Bangladesh. How was it over there? I've wanted to go, I've heard great things.

The food was great. A little different. Yeah, definitely a little different. It was really beautiful. Especially the places that I went over there and again I was over there just a little over a year ago and it was just, I mean besides the long flight. Yeah, you know, but the experience itself was great. It was beautiful and the people were just amazing. Totally nice.

What's your thoughts, like internationally working with people remotely? I do the same as well. Like, what's your advice to entrepreneurs that are looking to expand their team internationally? Especially nowadays you don't have to be have a physical office. Right. So what's your experience there?

Well, we started this business about six years ago, or should I say with my team. Obviously automation's only been, it's been around for about two and a half years, but with the same guy that I've been working with, we've been expanding to the point point where we have over 400 VAs right now.

Wow.

So we are constantly evolving, constantly adding offices, new laptops, more people making sure the infrastructure over there is sustainable and keeps, you know, keeps growing so that we can keep elevating our brand over here as well. So that within itself has just been a tremendous experience. And one of the reasons why I chose Bangladesh is obviously because obviously I was already working with this guy before this automation empire even started and I seen what he was already able to do for me and he already shown that I can trust him. We've been building a good relationship together and it wasn't, you know, obviously back then I wasn't anticipating on what I'm doing obviously now, but they didn't. They also don't have a lot of opportunity out there. So the fact that I can like even. They just sent me a post yesterday of six years.

Right.

They gave me a post with just a bunch of the team members on the background. We posted.

That's cool.

My group, and they're just talking about that, thankful and grateful for six years. And it's been an incredible experience because even they're saying like, you know, without you we wouldn't be able to feed our families, you and the team and everything like that. And to me that's life changing over here in the States, there's so much opportunity.

Yeah.

Over there it's, it's really limited. So the fact that I can do that and give back to a country that doesn't already have a lot to begin with. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's beyond the money to me for sure. It's something way bigger than that.

What's your thoughts on not only giving back, but getting to the point where you can give back and you have the financial certainty to provide for other people. It's like you have this responsibility. What was the shift for you? Right, because when you're coming up, it's like you're focused on you. You have to get your money right, you have to make sure your family's good. But now having the opportunity to help other people all over the world, what was that shift for you of thinking? Because it's a mental thing. Right. Like you have, once you check one box, you're on to the next. Right. So for you, what was that giving back mentality and where did it come from?

I guess, I guess when, when I've looked back on just kind of where I came from, I didn't Have a lot growing up. Right. I was broke. You know, my mom did the best that she could. My father was really not in the picture at all. So my mom was obviously trying to do as much as she can to try to raise me, get me the stuff that I wanted, whether it was materialistic, you know, and stuff like that. The mindset shifted because there was a point when I joined that multi little marketing company, I was making five figures a month. So I thought I was like, you know, I mean, like, I thought I was, you know, like, damn, I'm doing it.

Yeah.

Soon as I wanted to leave that company because they made some shifts and some changes in their company that I just. Certain things didn't align with me anymore. And I was like, okay. So I really timed out and I really didn't do anything for the next six months. And then I saw my income start drastically going back down. And again, keep in mind, when I was making that money, like, I didn't know how to act. Yeah, I was new to money. So when you're new to money, you don't. You spend it on dumb stuff that you don't need to spend it on, especially when you're young, you know. But once. Once I eventually started getting back on my feet and realizing. And I didn't go back to broken, but to me, that fear was there. I think that helped shift that mindset because I'm like, okay, like, I did all that for me. Like, all that. How much money did I spend?

Yeah.

On stupid. Countless things that didn't do anything for my bank account, didn't do anything for my life, didn't do anything for my kid's life. Hell, it didn't really do much for anybody else. Once I started getting back on my feet, I think that's kind of where the shift happened. Like, maybe do more for the world and then more will potentially come back to you. And even if you don't do it for the reasons of more coming back for you, you're still doing it and you're giving out good energy and good vibes to the universe.

Yep.

And all you can do from there is just hope that, you know, the stuff that you keep putting up back out, the good energy will come back to you.

Love that. Speaking of giving, I want to bring up. You're giving away your Rolls Royce. Talk to me about this. That this is a bold statement, that when you told me this, I was like, what? We got to talk about this.

So we. I've had my Rolls Royce for about, you know, about a Year and a half.

Okay.

I haven't really drove it as much as I should have, you know, and one of the reasons, I'll just start with why, Because I know people that are watching this video, you might ask why? And obviously we, you know, end in the year almost 2020. Huge benefit obviously for me as a business owner is a tax write off. Right. A tax benefit by just giving it away. That's a huge benefit. Yep. And the second reason is, is that we have over 570 clients of Amazon Automation. Right. I've done prizes, I've done giveaways to them, whether it's cash, whether it's discounts off their store, like the percentage split that they have to pay us per month. I've done a lot of different stuff. Never given away a car though.

Yeah.

So for a lot of the people who push my service, a lot of the people who are have my service or, you know, new clients, I thought why not do something and just give back? So that's obviously one of the reasons, really the two reasons that I really wanted to do it is again, tax benefits and the fact that I can do something more and give back to current clients. Yeah.

How are we going to pick the winner?

We are going to put all the names because we obviously have this on all spreadsheets and CRMs and stuff like that. We're going to put everything in there. We're going to put it in a bowl. We're going to do a live Instagram. Live.

That's cool.

And we just shot a video yesterday making sure that we show the title because last thing I wanted was people to be like, oh, it's not legit, it's not real, it's a rental. Even though it's been on my Instagram for the last year and a half. So that's a long rental, you know. But at the end of the day, you know, using it just to, to promote awareness obviously for my service and to give back to people, it's just a no brainer at the end of the day.

That's so cool. So whoever you pick, they're just gonna get the keys to the Rolls.

They're gonna get the keys, they'll get the title, I'm gonna fly them out personally. We'll obviously document so people can see it.

Yep.

They'll get everything signed over, they can take it. And obviously my hopes with that is that somebody doesn't just get it and they just stunt and drive around in a car like that, which is over almost a half a million dollar Vehicle that I'm hoping again in hopes that they take it and maybe keep it for a couple days, a week, two weeks, whatever. But then trade it in so they can get the value of that car, which is still worth a very high six figures.

Yeah.

And then do something good with it. Whether it's invest into another business for sure. You know, apartment units or buy more stores, whatever they want to do, it's obviously going to be their money for sure. So do whatever they want. That's, that's my only hope that somebody doesn't just try to keep it for like a year. And again, it's theirs. They can do whatever they want.

Yeah.

But that's my hope. That's cool with it.

So very cool. I'm excited. When's the giveaway going down? I'm excited to, to watch you guys do this.

We are running the giveaways currently and it's going to run for probably till about December.

Okay.

And then the winner will probably come out in January.

That's a good Christmas gift or New Year's gift.

Nice way to start 2021.

Yeah, for sure. Well, Thomas, I just want to say that real quick before we wrap it up, where is the best place for everyone to stay in touch with you and to get involved with not only the giveaway with, but just to follow along your journey from this point on.

Very active. On my Instagram @t rod, a lot of people pronounce it trod. It's T Rod. So it's T R O D. And that's where we're pretty active. But we are trying to diversify our social media to keep expanding as well. We just enjoy giving the value to the people, whether they buy the service. They don't. We just want to give value as much as possible. Just kind of like you're doing with the process. It's just giving value and hopefully even a little bit of the nuggets that you get from this podcast. Hopefully you do something life changing with the information that maybe what that changes your life on any level.

Love that. And everyone watching or listening, make sure you go follow T Rod on Instagram. I'll make sure to link it down below. And with that being said, I will talk to you soon.

Legacy of Monsters an Apple Original series. The world is on fire. I decided to do something about it on November 17th. This place, it's not ours. Believe me. The most massive event of the year arrives. If you come with me, you'll know everything, I promise.

Oh my God.

Go, go, go.

Monarch Legacy of monsters streaming November 17th only on Apple TV.

Plus.