From Awed by Wealth to Massive Success

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Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually helping you discover and then live your why. And so if you're a regular listener, you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we bring on somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. And so today we're going to be talking about the why of right way to do things the right way in order to get results. So if you have this why, you believe that there's a proper and correct way to do things and that things should be done right. There's no point in skimping on details or cutting corners. To achieve success, you must follow procedures that have been proven and use systems that have been developed and shown to work over time and adjusted and corrected on numerous occasions to produce the right outcome. You know that if you create structures and processes that work, the right results will follow. You believe in clarity and simplicity, operations that run smoothly because they have been tested. You generally show up on time because that's the right thing to do and appreciate. When others respect set schedule, you embrace order and instill it in your personal life and your business. You recognize that different departments in a business have different needs. Yet there is always a right way to get things done, even if it's not your way. And that part of true leadership is bringing that out in others. And so today I've got a great guest for you. His name is Lenny Frescus. Now, Lenny Frescus is a dreamer. The notion of wealth awed him. He said, I just see these crazy things on tv and said, I'm going to do that too. Now the CEO of Freskus Company is a 430 employee operation that includes airport concessions, restaurants and boxing promotion business. Frescus dropped out of Valley High School during his sophomore year because he didn't feel he was learning marketable skills. Frescus was still a teenager when he started his first business, a landscaping business. And when he started dating Linda, his future wife, she's been the supportive and grounding force in his life ever since. Fresca's went on to acquire and ultimately sell 16 Arby's. Today, Frescas owns many different restaurants and is still the master concessionaire at the Albuquerque International Sunport and has contracts in Tulsa and El Paso as well. Approached about sponsoring Albuquerque hall of Fame boxer Danny romero in the mid-1990s, Frescus decided to try being a promoter. He he promoted his first fight card nearly 20 years ago. He made money and got hooked. Whereas he once worked with up to 40 fighters, his main focus now is former world champion and UFC fighter Holly Holm. Freskas is lightening his load around the office these days. He considers himself semi retired, but still works 40 hours a week, well below his previous average of 80 to 100, but has taken up golf and is living part time in Maui. It's a good life, he says, one even a dreamer like Fresques couldn't imagine. Lenny, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having so let's start with.

The obvious, at least for me. You were in high school and you dropped out.

Yes.

Tell us about that. What was your thinking?

Oh, that went to a history class and I flunked a test because I think I didn't know the year George Washington crossed the Delaware. Something like that.

I was real upset that I flung the test and told myself, how is this going to make me money? How is this going to make me money? Because I've always had this thing about making money and this is not going to make money. I went home and told my dad I'm going to quit school. And he said, well, if you quit school you need to move out of the house. I was 15 at the time and at that time I had already accumulated $3,000 because at that time that was a lot of money and I was able to move out. So I moved out at 15 and started my career.

That was going to be my next question is what your parents said to you when you came home with the idea of not finishing school. Because you know, how would you feel if your kids didn't want to finish school? And now looking back on it, that's what you did and obviously it turned out good for you. But didn't sound like he was very supportive.

Oh, my dad wasn't. And my mom because I need a co signer on the apartment. I had the money but they wanted to do it. So went to my mom who's still alive, told mom you don't sign for me, you're never going to see me again.

So you're already a good negotiator.

So she co signed for me. As far as just on the thing, I paid. I didn't need her to pay for me, but that's how I got the apartment.

So first business was what?

You know, when I did that, I was working at St. Joseph Hospital. When I quit that, I was working at St. Joseph Hospital. My apartment was central and the freeway, and so I just walked back and forth to work.

So you had jobs. When did you get your first job?

12 years old, doing picking chili.

Picking chili at 12 years old.

Grand. At the Garcia's chili farm there.

And so from then, you. You started saving your money at age 15, got out of the house, started still working at the hospital. And then what was your first business for yourself?

Yeah, no, I started picking chili. Then I had a job at Foodland. I don't know if you probably remember Foodland back then, it was a sakura Foodland for.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. For about a year and a half. And then I went to St. Joseph Hospital. But, you know, I lied about my age, all of them.

And so then, you know, it says you also started a landscaping business.

Yes, and then I started a landscaping company at the time, I was actually working for the city at the time, as in the city sanitation department. And I had started a landscaping business because I had to work night shift there. I worked the swing shift. So I did landscaping during the day and that at night. And that's how we started Aero Landscaping was the name of the company. And started that when I was close to 17. I was still 16, but around 17. And we grew that, too. We had about 110 employees.

Wow.

We landscaped approximately about 40 yards per week.

Oh, my gosh.

So we had quite a production going. We did cedar fences, block walls, grading, landscaping, irrigation. You name it, we did it, you know, but we had quite a. We had quite a crew. And then got tired of not getting paid and not making a lot of money and working really, really hard, because that's a tough, hard business on your back. And I got burned on one job that was for about $250,000. I gotta get into the cash business.

And so I. And my life while I was doing this. My wife was still going to high school, and I'd take her to lunch. I'd pick her up for lunch at Bally High School and take her to lunch. I'd take her to Mac Steak in the rough, two Arby's. And I told her, one of these days, I'm gonna own. We're gonna own one of these. And she said she'd laugh at me.

So, you know, that the dream came true, what I told her. So we landed up owning everything I had told her that we would. And that was when she was only in 11th grade at that time.

Wow. So how did you go from not knowing a lot about landscaping to building a landscaping company like that?

I started just mowing lawns and rototilling. That's all. How I started was just mowing lawns, Just mowing lawns and rototilling and then just to learn by myself on the sprinklers and the grading and just kept on learning and learning and learning.

So back then, did you have strict guidelines and systems and processes like you do today?

No, I didn't really know what I was doing. I was.

What I call now, a checkbook operator. I had money in the checkbook. I was okay. And I didn't really care about, you know, as long as I had money to make the payroll and do that, I thought I was doing okay. Didn't have the understanding of the business concept yet. Then I applied for my first Arby's in 1983. I was the first Hispanic to get an Arby's. And that's the only reason I got it, is because I was. They didn't have one Hispanic in their system and they were getting heat from the federal government. At that time, there wasn't any Hispanics at all in the Arby's franchise system. So they gave me the franchise. Bought the franchise. It was $35,000. So that was great. Bought the franchise. Now I gotta get the money to build a building.

So to build a building back in the 1980s, an Arby's is approximately 500 to $600,000. So I went to the. I used to take care of all the Maloof properties. I was real good friends with Maloofs. I used to take care of Joel, Gavin, all the whole Maloose family stuff. Oh, no problem. They're going to. First national bank is going to do the deal for me. No problem. Well, that didn't work out.

At 23, they thought I was too young to borrow a half a million dollars. So I continued to go to every bank in town and in the state. And I went to 17 banks and got turned down 17 times.

Wow.

On the 18th time, I went to Phoenix and found a place called Franchise Finance Corporation of America. They lent me the half a million dollars at 18% interest.

Gosh, that would be criminal today.

That would be criminal today. But, you know, I was hungry. I wanted to do it.

And so you agreed?

I agreed.

You know, I had 23, but I just remember all the lectures I got from every Banker. When I was going through the process. You're 23. Do you even know how much a half a million dollar is? You know, I really didn't really. I just had this dream. I just wanted to open. I didn't know. So anyway, everything goes up. We get the money, we open our first Arby's. And we open at 7 in the morning. And we open in Las Vegas, New Mexico. The first one going breakfast, seven o' clock in the morning. And there's not one customer. Nobody comes. Oh, no. I got by 10:30, I sold two cups of coffee. And I'm like, oh my gosh, what did I do? Go outside at 11 and.

Besides myself, what's going on? And 15 minutes later, the whole town came and we set records that Arby's had never seen.

Oh, my gosh.

So I loved it. I fell in love with the business right away. We were bringing in cash, handover fiscal. But again, I still didn't understand business. I was still just operating on a checkbook. I had money in the checkbook. Great, let's open another one. And another one and another one. And we landed up. We're opening three restaurants. Averaging. Opening three restaurants a year. Arby's restaurants all over the state and in Texas, in El Paso. So that's how we started in the Arby's business.

And you ended up with 18 of them.

15 Arby's and one Taco Bell.

And now they're gone.

We sold those. Yeah, we sold those in 1990 when we got the. We ran the State Fair for 15 years where we had the racetrack, the Tingley Coliseum. That's where I used to put on concerts. And that's where I put on Danny Romero. There is. Because I was selling alcohol. My main focus on putting concerts on and boxing events was to sell liquor. Ah.

So for those of you that aren't in Albuquerque, we have kind of in the middle of our city is our fairgrounds. And there's. There's a racetrack there. That's where we have the fair. There's. What else is there?

15,000 seat Dingley Coliseum, Manuel Lujan Building. I mean, just 110 acres of every state fair that everything the state fair would have, you know, and we were in charge of the entire thing.

So you sold all your restaurants to take over that or to. Because you didn't know.

We sold that. We sold the restaurants. And then that opportunity came and we bid on that, on that opportunity, and we won that opportunity.

Which then led you into promoting.

No. Yeah, that led me into promoting and then that led me into the airport concession business, because that's a concession business.

Ah, okay. So for those of you that don't know, one of our local fighters that became world champion, what, how many times?

Twice.

Twice world champion was a gentleman named Danny Romero. And so he, you, you guys worked together, you promoted.

He was. The very first fight I ever did was with Danny. Yes.

And I remember when he and his father came over. So right now we're sitting in my office here in Albuquerque and about, gosh, I don't know how many years that was ago, he and his father came here. They were raising money for their first fight, and we donated. I don't know what it was, $500 or whatever they asked us for. He and his dad came in here and that was probably for one of his first fights. I don't know if that was before you or during your time or how that, how that worked, but when you started working with him, what level of fighter was he?

He was just an up and comer. He was, he was a hot prospect. He had already had, I think five or six fights. Don't recall, but he was just there. He was in build up mode.

Okay.

And I really didn't know anything about the business at that time, so I kind of really got a good.

Lesson on that, on that event because they, you know, I didn't know how about matchmaking, stuff like that. So dad brought in a very easy opponent that he knocked out in, in one round. So I learned a lot in that event.

What's the biggest lesson you learned in that event?

That you take control of who people.

Are fighting because they want tomato cans.

So Danny Romero, I wouldn't say tomato can. That's not proper term. Opponent.

Opponent. Okay, so Danny Romero, for those of you that don't know, was. His nickname was Kid Dynamite. Kid Dynamite, because he was like the little mini Mike Tyson.

Right.

He knocked everybody out and so. And then came along his nemesis.

Yeah. Johnny Tapia.

Johnny Tapia. So if you're not familiar with these two, go back and look. You can go to YouTube and see some of their. These two in action. Danny Romero was the little Mike Tyson. Johnny Tapia was the. I don't know who he'd be.

Johnny Tapia.

And Johnny Tapia was his own. You know, he wrote a book called the La Vida Loca. I mean, he was.

He was certifiably crazy. Do you think? Or was he certifiably a genius? One of the two.

Johnny had his, his demons. Johnny was a very, really good person. You know, Johnny gave me five stints in my heart.

So you can thank him for that.

Huh? I have heart disease. Thank Johnny for him.

So is there a lot of pressure on the promoter for these fights?

Oh, well, it's a different type of promotion when you're doing hbo, Showtime and the big network espn. When you're working with the TV production company, it's a completely different, different monster. And then when you're just doing a club show because people don't really understand every, all the moving parts in the back and in the front and everywhere else. And so when you go to a TV production, it's even just times 100 because every single thing has to be perfect. And the producers and every producer, because they have so many producers, everyone's looking at that, everything is perfect. So, yeah, it's a lot of pressure.

How many boxing events have you done?

Boxing events? I've done over 100. But you know, shows we've probably done close to about 150 because we've done, we did a lot of music shows. We did each do exclusive music at the state fair for the Hispanic Heritage Days. And every musician that you can think of that came through the ranks, including the Sparks, and everyone has came through the Frescas Productions ranks of getting showcased in New Mexico. You know, Lorenzo Antonio, the Sparks, Gonzago, any of the up and coming people that were in music were there. We promoted Tierra Amado, Jorge Santana. Just the list goes on and on. How many we, you know, we promoted.

And are you doing less and less of that now?

We're just doing about two year now. Okay, we're just doing two years. We just did one couple weeks ago with the local kid named Matt Griego, who is by, you know, the same weight class as Danny Romero was really nice kid and we'll see what, what, what, what. The future lies for him.

So you got into boxing promotion, concert promoting, but then you got into some UFC stuff, right?

Well, I didn't really get into the UFC until Holly really had cleaned. Holly holm, she was 20 time boxing champion in 140, 147, 154 pound division. So she, there just wasn't any women for her to compete with. There was no competition for her, so she felt unchallenged and she had her own choosing. I didn't want it because I had this big fight for her and they had been jacking us around and she said, you know what? They forget it, we're going to ufc. And you know, I've always supported anything she's wanted to do because it's her dream, and her dream was to become the UFC champion of the world. And, you know, my job was to make it happen.

Yeah. So for those of you that don't know, Lenny is Holly Holmes promoter, and has been for how many years?

I was her promoter. UFC is her promoter now. I am her agent.

Her agent. Okay, so you met her how many years ago?

She's been with me for 17 years.

17 years. First of all, what's it like to promote a world title fight? I mean, I.

That.

Is it different level of everything?

Oh, yeah. Depends what kind of world title fight you're talking about. Boxing, ufc.

How about boxing first?

Boxing. Just, you know, it's a lot. First of all, you got to get your fighter to that point to where they can fight for a world title. So there's a lot of time and investment in. Into that. You know, unfortunately, I would say that 75% of all boxers that I that signed with me got their opportunity. Whether they won or not, that was their issue. But I did get them their title fight.

Wow.

So a lot of excitement because, you know, if they win, there's a lot of. There's a lot that comes with. Along with being champ. You know, you got TV rights, there's a lot of licensing. There's just a lot of stuff that comes along with it. And then MMA is a totally different ball game because I'm just an agent and I negotiate with the UFC and Mr. White.

So I've always wanted to ask you, what is it like negotiating with him?

It was pretty. If you want some good reading, go back and Google him and myself, and you'll get some fun reading.

I remember that. I remember that. So for our audience, give us the Cliff Notes version of that.

I was negotiating because, again, I've been in this business for longer than he has.

So I knew what my client's worth was. And they're used to just having people be excited about signing with them. And so it took me two years to negotiate a contract with them just because I demanded the right deal for my client for Holly. And, you know, I'd ask for seven figure paydays, and they'd say, you're crazy, you're a lunatic.

But I could say, you go back and read all of that, got everything that was asked for.

Yeah, that's what's awesome, because I remember. I remember when some of that came out in the news and some things that he said about you and not so flattering, but when you look at what actually Happened turned out perfect.

Yeah.

And Holly's one of the highest, if not the highest paid UFC fighter, right?

Yeah, I would say Amanda's higher than her now, the champion, but she's. She's. For years, she's not only female fighter, she's one of the highest paid UFC fighters, period.

That's awesome. For those of you that aren't familiar, and I can't believe you wouldn't be familiar with this, but Holly Holmes is the one who knocked out Ronda Rousey. Ronda was undefeated, the darling of the usc. Holly came in and knocked her out. And that fight, that highlight has been viewed how many Times now on YouTube?

Last time I looked, it was 65 billion.

65 billion times, yes.

Not million billion.

So that's got to be one of the highest watched anything of all time.

Yeah, well, for the state of New Mexico, because I got called into the state regulator's office to see if, whether my program was legitimate, if I had a legitimate, if my production company was legitimate. And I said, okay, I've only brought Johnny Tapia, Danny Romero. And then I pulled out the stats on that and I showed him, you know, this is what we produced for New Mexico, highlighting New Mexico, and I don't think anybody has ever done this.

Wow. They agreed with you.

Yes.

So let's shift gears a little bit. You then went and took and started in concessions at the airport. So you own or run or have all the restaurants at the Albuquerque Sunport International Airport?

Yes.

So what is that? Like, how many restaurants have you got there? I know you spend a lot of.

Time there in Albuquerque. We have nine, and we have nine restaurants, and we subleased two of them to some locals. And then we have El Paso and we have in Denver also.

So you took me behind the scenes one day over there and kind of showed me how you run things. And I was blown away, to be honest, by your systems and processes and how you manage things and how you keep track of things. And how did you develop all of that?

Well, through the years, I mean, we've opened over 200 restaurants, so we've dealt with numerous, numerous, numerous franchises. And every franchise has its unique thing that they do. So, you know, over the 30 some 40 years that I've been in business, I've kind of picked and choose what things I like and have developed our own systems, and it's just pretty much mathematics. I mean, it's all math.

What do you mean by that?

There's not a single thing that you can do in a restaurant that doesn't have a mathematical calculation to it. Everything has a mathematical calculation.

Like for example, give us an example.

Flip on the light switch.

It's a cost.

You got kilowatts running.

And you track that?

Well, now I don't track it. Back in the day when I was doing Arby's, I used to track gallons that we use per day of water, BTUs of gas, kilowatts of electricity every day. In the fast food business, it's called penny profits. And so you learn penny profits. And every single penny, whether it's giving you too many ketchup packets or too many napkins. And that's why if you go through a drive through, you usually don't get that stuff because they want you to ask for it. That's penny profit. That's all you make on fast food.

So you. Was that something Arby's taught you or is that something you did on your.

Own, that Arby's teaches you that? I mean, all the franchises kind of have, you know, two packets you go with an Arby's thing, one package you go with the ketchup. And we put that. But sometimes people ask for extra and the cashier just grab a handful and you'll end up with 15 packets in the bag and you'll lose money on the deal. It's on condiments.

So when I saw what you were doing there, I mean, you have systems like I'd never seen before with cameras and people are keeping, you know, every so often they have to check in with you and, and all that. Is that common in the food business or is that more just your thing?

That's more my thing. I don't think too many people do that. But yeah, we, we keep berries, keep track, what we call theoretical versus actual. And everything is just in this business, especially when you're in the liquor, you really have to control every single thing. So we have liquor gun systems where won't release the liquor until they bring it into the register. You know, then every manager, I use a thing called the briefcase analogy. So I have a lot of money in every single restaurant. So when we choose the manager that is going to take the ownership of that briefcase, we sit him down and we explain to him what the responsibility come with. Carrying that briefcase generally is between a million and two million dollars worth of investment. So we take that lightly. So who he hands that briefcase onto when his shift is open, it's his responsibility to make sure that he knows who he's handing off my briefcase. So that's Kind of my analogy of how I talk about my restaurants. They're responsible for every dollar in that briefcase, every single thing that goes in that briefcase. We give them a little briefcase with business cards in them. And that's just the way I want them to think that everything is they're responsible for. It's their store. We try to empower managers to make decisions right there on the front lines too, where there's an incident. If customer just, they're walking by and they see a customer just make a face, taking a bite, then they should immediately go over there and take care of it and say, what can I fix for you? Fix that problem. Because it cost me more money to deal with a complaint if they don't fix it at the store level.

When somebody comes kind of take us through, you know, that's a lot of responsibility. So take us through a new hire coming through to work with you, because I know you sit with every single one of them and you instill your philosophy. And how would you describe that philosophy?

Well, they have to come into our office and they have to sit down.

For a minute and hold on. You have how many employees right now outside of what's going on? But typically how many employees right now we're in the middle of the coronavirus problem.

But our pandemic, generally speaking, we run anywhere between four to 600 employees.

Okay, so everyone that and everyone has to come meet with you.

Well, everyone comes to the office for an orientation. I don't, I meet every single one of them. I don't physically anymore. I can't meet every single one anymore. But everyone goes through the same process. They come in and they have a four hour orientation in our office talking about our values, what our story, our values and being ambassadors. We're ambassadors to the cities that we represent. We're the ambassadors to Albuquerque. We're the ambassadors to El Paso. We're ambassadors. You know, we've been in San Antonio, Tulsa. We've been over a lot of things, but we take it very seriously. And when somebody gets off a plane in one of the, in Albuquerque, we're the ambassador. We're the first thing they see when they come. We're the first people they react with. Our restaurants are dirty. They see that they're not attractive. That's what they see. So when they come into New Mexico, Denver, El Paso, whatever, that's what they see. We're also the last one they see out. So we make a major impact on if a person has had a bad time here in New Mexico at Least we can try to save them, be the last one out, you know, making a great experience for them, a great opportunity for them. And by the way, make sure you take your red and green chili with you when you go. So it's a responsibility that we instill in every employee. If we don't feel that that employee can be a great ambassador for our company, then they usually don't make it out of the four hours. We have a 90 day policy where they can't enforce the policies that we have. Then we mutually part ways after 90 days. So we give everybody 90 day fair shake to make sure that they enforce our policy and understand that we are the leaders in New Mexico. I expect my company to always be the leading industry leaders in anything we do. We're supposed to, we have the highest standards, we set the example for the restaurant industry in New Mexico. And that is always what my goal has been, is to be the top leader of the restaurant industry of New Mexico.

And you are very hands on as well. I mean you're up at what time do you get up every day?

About 3:30. 4.

3:34. And you're at the airport by when?

Depends on the day, you know, just depends on the day. But every day is different. I can get there at 4:30. I can get there some by 6:30.

But you're hands on.

Well, I get up early and I start watching cameras. I mean so with the technology nowadays I. My first thing is to get up in the morning, make sure everybody's open.

See at your house you have cameras up or screens up?

Yes. Yeah, we have a couple hundred cameras in every. Throughout Company Wide. So just revolving. I watch other people watch real tv. I watch reality TV every day. Every day.

So you know what's going on, you know, if they're open, you know if people are doing what they say they're going to do and it's. And they know it too well.

If I don't, if I see something I don't like, I just click a button, take a picture, send it to the manager, say guy's not wearing a hat. This goes up using proper. Whatever they get it. And then you can see a phone, the phone ring at the store because the district manager is calling him and then he's on the cameras, he's watching. You'll see them all scattered.

So there's a certain way things have to be done.

Everything has a procedure. Every single thing in our company has a procedure.

And by doing that you've been able to do what. Why are procedures Processes and systems so.

Important because it keeps organization, it keeps your organization, keeps your people together. And again, I couldn't do this by myself. My daughter, she's kind of my right hand girl, my daughter Liana, she helps me enforce all of these policies and keeps all these people on their toes and makes sure that, you know, every single person in policy is being enforced. On top of that, she helps me with every different policy in every different state because we're in three different states and everything has different laws and regulations. So we're having to stay on top of different unemployment laws, Texas, Colorado, Mexico. So there's different regulations in all three states.

So if somebody comes to your place in your restaurants, they're going to get a consistent experience.

We sure they're supposed to. That's the goal. Yeah.

So how does policy, systems, processes affect the team member, the employee? How do they feel about that? What does that do for their level of expertise, their level of confidence?

Well, again, like we said when they initially are started, that's what they are instructed, trained to do. To treat every customer like they're royalty. I don't care who you are, it could be the biggest celebrity in the world. To me, I treat everybody the same. Every customer is just as important as the next customer. And that's what we instill in our employees. And we have some great employees that just follow that. Really beyond a shadow of that. I'm very proud to say that we're in the restaurant business. So yeah, we have our issues. Just like any restaurant. As I tell my managers, show me a perfect restaurant and I'll go show you something wrong with it. Because we're always striving to do better in one way or the other. Whether if it's not cleanliness, product quality, if it's not enhancing the personal hygiene, if it's not making the facilities look better. There's always something that can be improved on in any restaurant, in any, not only in any restaurant, in any part of our lives, in any part of our homes or whatever, there's always opportunity.

So these are pretty high pressure careers or jobs and industries that you've been in. It feels like to me, how has that affected your health and you over time? And I mean, those seem like that's a lot of pressure. Promoting concerts, restaurants, doesn't seem like it gets much more than that. And maybe I'm wrong, that is.

But you know, I deal with it pretty. I've been doing this for an awful long time, so it doesn't, it's just normal to me. It's just the way it is, the way of life. My dad instilled to me, instilled a really, really great work ethic in me. And I know he still watches me that you better have your butt working or else. So, yeah, my dad had a big part of installation of my work ethic. And I still feel to that day, I still feel guilty. I mean, I still feel guilty if I'm out. You know, my wife gets mad at, why aren't you? Why are you going to work on Christmas or why are you going to work on Thanksgiving? Because if I expect my employees to do that, then I should be there on their side with them. And so I won't ask my employees to do anything that I won't do. We're right now on the front lines with this contravirus and I'm right there on the side in front lines with them cooking. Again, I won't ask any of my employees to do anything. I believe very highly in leadership by example. Awesome.

Last question. I know we're kind of running out of time here, but I've always wanted to ask you, or I've always wondered this, you know, you've negotiated with. This is totally different subject, but you were, you've negotiated with the ufc, with White, and you've negotiated with other boxing promoters that are the big names in promoting. What's it like? Take us through what it's like to negotiate with one of those guys or gals. And you know, is it like in a boardroom or is it in a. Where is this? How does that, how does that go? And what's it like? Do you just sit there and listen, let them tell you everything or how does that typically go?

Well, to be honest, I thrive on negotiating.

I've seen that.

You know, I thrive on it. It's something that I. One of the few books, the Art of the deal by Mr. Our President Donald Trump was a big inspiration in my negotiating tactics early in my career. And I really follow the practices of that. Every single thing in life is negotiable, everything. And those are the practices that I've taken. You've always tried to leverage a deal to the maximum that you can leverage a deal. Every deal is different and you have to understand the deals, what's in the deal. And one thing we want to do is, you know, what I have learned later in my years, because earlier in my years, it was all one sided, one side. I just want to get every single penny off the table. Through the years, I've matured a little bit. And it has to be a fair deal for both parties. You know, it has to make sense for both parties. Except when you're negotiating with people that got, you know, you know, there's just buku bucks out there and you got to try to get every single penny you can. So whether it's negotiating with Wendy's, Dunkin Donuts, any billion dollar company, those are the guys that I like to negotiate with because they say we don't do that and everything's negotiable.

So how do you get them to negotiate with you? What's your process? What have you learned overall? What can you tell our audience that's been one of your secrets to negotiating so.

Well, having something unique opportunity to offer them. I have unique opportunities to offer them. Airport are unique opportunities. I look at it as sampling. I sell to them. Samplings. When I'm in an airport, I'm sampling product for you. I have no knowledge if I sell you, if you eat, if you try a certain. I'm going to give you a perfect example. A Rio Grande brewery. We put a local brewery in the airport and their sales have taken off because of all the brewery that they sampled. They sampled our beer at our restaurant and their retail sales. So there's an aftermarket effect of everything that we sell. And bueno and chile, we try to really concentrate on helping locals out. 90% of everything we buy is local. So we're very, very big into trying to help our local economies keep that money turning inside of them. So it's exciting. I enjoy it. I mean, you know, there's different. Guys negotiate differently. Getting back to your point, I mean, it's. Don King negotiated different. Bob Arum negotiated differently. Dana White negotiate differently. They all negotiate differently. You know, so you gotta understand how to negotiate with each one of which their favorites are. And there's always a different way to skin a cat. So if they say no to something, you go to another thing and try to switch it to a different avenue that they'll make them feel like they got something, but you got something.

So when you're gonna walk into the room with Don King or Bob? Well, Don King. Is he still promoting? Yes, he's still promoting. So you're going to walk in with Don King for the first time. Have you studied him? Have you. What have you done walking in that room? Or what did you do when you were walking in that room to negotiate with him? How did you get the deal you wanted?

Well, no, when I dealt with Don, he called me up and asked me to Get a deal done for him.

Okay.

So he was trying to get the pit for Fight, for hbo, for Johnny Tapia, and they refused to rent him the pit. So he called me up to help him. Okay, get the. The pit. So that's when I negotiated. My deal with him, is, okay, Don, I'll do that. This is what. I'll get the deal done under these terms. So ultimately, Don, you still owe me $4,000.

You never forget.

So.

But one of the other, you know, because in my mind or in my thinking, you know, these guys are these big personalities, and they're. They're. You see them all the time on the. At the different fights, and they've been through this thousands and thousands of times. Do they walk in cocky? Do they walk in? Do they have their own game? Have you studied them? How do you know what to do?

Well, I mean, you know, I don't need to talk. I think everyone knows how Dana Hyde is. I don't need to. Yeah, I mean, I don't need to say anything, but, you know, me and him are all good now. He respects me. I respect him. I think he's the greatest promoter of all time. I just told him that at the last fight. I told him, jane, I know we have our differences, but this is really hard for me to tell you this because I've worked with every promoter in the world, but he is the greatest promoter of all time, including Don King, Bob Arum. Nobody has done what he has done. So I respect that about him. And he had a vision that he saw, and he went after, and it was pretty mind boggling how him and Lorenzo Fortia. And that's when I was negotiating with Dana. Dana got so frustrated with me, he stopped negotiating with me, and I had to negotiate with Lorenzo Fertilla. So I actually got my deal done with Lorenzo, who was the. The owner of the ufc. So that's how I got my deal done, because I couldn't. I couldn't get what I wanted with Dana, so.

And I can imagine he didn't like your style.

No. Either.

Because my perception is that you don't say a whole lot until you say what you have to say. It's not a. You're not the boisterous screaming, yelling, no, I don't.

I'm more silent and go away. They're in a hurry, and I'm not in a hurry. I'm never in a hurry to get a deal done. You let them. You always let them think about your offer and stew about it because, you know, when you're negotiating. You always put time frames on stuff and you always try to get certain things in those. So always have a time frame of whatever you're negotiating so that you only give them so much time to think. Give them time to think, but only so much. Don't let them overthink the negotiate.

And so then they got to get back to you and you just add another thing to it. I'm trying to picture how it all happens, you know, and you just. Because I've never been in those types of negotiations. So for you it's pretty common. You've done it many, many times in many different areas for a lot of the listeners and for myself, it's not something that I've ever done. I haven't had to negotiate, you know, that size of a contract.

Yeah, I mean a lot of it's not done in person. A lot of it's done on, you know, just on, on emails and offers going back and forth and until they only really talk to you in person the first time when they're whining and dining you and trying to get you on their side and you know, then they wine and dine you and do everything. But, and that's, I think what one of your listeners need to understand is every salesman, and it doesn't matter what it is, they're always going to tell you and do whatever after you sign that paper, it's always a different story.

You know, I have to say that in, in my life experience, 75% of the people, only 25% of the people will continue that type of follow through, follow up. That's the kind of attention they gave you before they got the deal. After they get the deal, 75% of them will, will drop off.

Well, Lenny, thank you so much for being here. I know I've asked you all kinds of different types of questions and I appreciate you sharing what you've been through with our audience. So I'm looking forward to getting out and playing some golf with you soon and winning some matches this year.

Please, we gotta win.

Lenny is actually my two man golf partner at our, at our country club club. So we get to play against a lot of other players and we, we've had some mixed reviews. So this is our year.

We got to do it this year. Yeah.

Lenny, thanks again for being here.

Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.