Fix THIS and Your Business Will Finally Scale | Cameron Bawden on Unemployable with Jeff Dudan #232

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Unemployable Podcast. I'm Jeff Dudy. If you started your entrepreneurial journey at 21 with a single truck selling pest control door to door, which led to launching five service businesses that have sold for over $100 million. And today hosts the Premium Mindset podcast and helps aspiring entrepreneurs through his mastermind, the 1% club. And if you are a wake surfer, a helicopter pilot, and a business athlete, your name can only the incredible Cameron. Welcome, sir.

Well, wow, that's quite the intro, man. Thank you.

You like it?

I like it, man. All right.

It's yours.

Makes me sound a lot cooler than I am.

I don't know about that. I'm not sure. Hey, Cameron, why do so many startups fail to scale, man?

I think the number. Well, there's. Man, if I had to narrow it down to one, it's probably their ability to delegate and to hire the right people. And then if I had to give a second one, it'd be their belief system and their limiting beliefs around being able to accomplish whatever they set forward to accomplish in the beginning. A lot of people lose that hope in their ability.

So right off the bat, who not how.

Yep.

And get out of their way.

Yeah, for sure.

How has that strategy helped you?

Well, you know, I've gone through. You know, when I launched green mango in 2010, I didn't. I didn't. I just knew that I wanted to be successful, and I didn't even know what that meant. It was just like, hey, like, let's get started with this one truck. And I want to. I want to have a lot of money to be able to have the freedom to have the cars, to have the house and to be able to go on the trips. And so I'm just going to work really hard. And then, you know, there's your year four in, and you're making the call to your partner, like, hey, let's ditch this thing. I'm not sure how anyone makes money at pest control. Right. And your belief system starts to go down. And luckily for us, no one would pay green. No one would buy Green Mango. We wanted to get $250,000 back or for the company, because that's what we owed in debt to my dad. And luckily, no one would buy Green Mango. And so I. I had no choice but to keep showing up and keep showing up. And about two years after that, I started to actually make money, and then my belief system started to crawl back up. Right. And year like six or seven, it was like we're on top of the world. I'm making half a million six hundred thousand dollars a year. I know everything about service companies. Let's launch five other companies. I went and got an investor and we were, we were untouchable, man. And so my belief system was up here. About eight months after we got that investor, we were a couple million dollars in the, in the hole of building these other companies. Four, four million dollars in debt. My investor pulled out, my belief system went to the crapper. And luckily I had eight years of this time of belief that, hey, like, something in there tells me I can do this. But I needed a business coach who I had at the time to remind me everything happens for a reason. And then I just slowly crawled out and you know, and so it's, you know, entrepreneurship is this roller coaster of doubting yourself and not having these beliefs that you can do it. And what I see when I coach people is that, you know, I refer to them as roadblocks. And if you're an entrepreneur that can see a roadblock as a detour, you're going to have success. The ones that see them as detours and just like stop right there and be like, oh, well, you know, this sucks are the ones that actually fell. And you know, I don't know where you want to go with this, but I want to share a quick story. I was talking to Tommy the other night. We were doing a podcast actually and I thought it was really cool. He was trying to increase his, his, his, his. I don't know what they call it in the, in, in the garage door industry, but basically like his time from the cell to install and with him it's really tricky because they have to go order custom garage doors. And so if anyone had an excuse not to have like same day or next day install, like Tommy would have that excuse because they like, who knows they can't store 10,000 different garage doors. Right, right. Well, he figured out a way to get same day install and it was just a way of going through the process and the system was saying, hey, 80% of our customers order this garage door. Hey, let's go negotiate our vendor that they will stock these doors. Let's go. And he went just 10, 15 steps further and I forget the exact number, but it was like 60 or 70% that he, that he increased his from close rate to install rate increase because he moved it from a 72 hour window to a 20 to same day install. And that was just so cool because like there's, there's excuses for Everything in life and in business and the ones that literally look at them as, you know, detours instead of roadblocks are the ones that have success.

Tommy shared that story with me and not only did he have to have the chops or the relationship with the supplier to say, if I wanted to make this happen, would you be my partner in this? Because we all need our vendors to go. The other thing that he had to do is he had to retrain his people on the sales aspect of it. So, hey, I, I know you would like this garage door that you picked out of the catalog. That's a three week order time and it's got these different parts to it and all of that. However, I've got basically the same door for you. It looks like this. And because we have it available to you, not only can I install it tomorrow, but I can give it to you for X dollars less. And now you've given people options and they're all good options for them and they're the best option for you.

Yep. Yeah, I, I love the story because I just thought, wow, like how many people, especially in the garage door industry or insert whatever industry of the norm and just say, oh, that's just how it is, you know, and they just go along with it. And Tommy's been successful because he's just a great example of just pushing against the grain, if you will.

You shared that you were able to change your limiting beliefs, get rid of your stinking thinking. How much of that were you able to do on your own and how much of that did you need to lean into other people?

So I was lucky enough. My dad, who, who you've met before was a, you know, was a coach, a life imbalance coach for a lot of people. And so at an early age I was coaching with my dad and understanding beliefs and, and, you know, mantras and creating this who, who am I? Statements from a young age. And so like, those principles were kind of ingrained in me. You know, I remember going and meeting with my dad every day after, after school, you know, as early as freshman year in high school and, and getting that training. But then, you know, fast forward to business life. I had, I, I made the decision to have a coach, Mark Fournier, who, who literally changed my life during this period because it was when I was going through the most changes, I was in the thick of it. And when these things were happening, he was reminding me of these principles that my dad taught at an early age. But he was connecting the dots for me and that was just Absolutely instrumental in my ability to, one recognize, okay, this. Like, here's the principle. Because there's so much knowledge out there, right? Like, there's YouTube, there's all these books, there's podcasts, all these things. But at least for me, sometimes it was hard to, like, make these connections that, okay, like, this principle means this when it's applied in my area.

And.

And so Mark was able to connect those dots, and when we go through, like, those hard times, like, that's when people learn the most. And he just. I just happened to have him during this, like, really difficult time in my life, and he was able to connect them.

Would you say it was the same or similar messaging that your dad was giving you, but it was just a different voice?

Yeah. And I was going, like, people listen when. When they're in a trial, right. When they're going through a problem. Like, it's a lot easier to coach someone on how to get out of it rather than like, hey, here's this idea, like, the principle that everything works out. Like, I truly believe that now where. Versus, like, when someone's trying to teach you that as a freshman in high school, you're like, yeah, sure, yeah, yeah, everything works out. But, like, when you're not making payroll and your employees are quitting and someone's telling you, hey, everything happens for a reason. It'll all work out. And then you see six months later, like, it does, you're like, ah, got it.

One of my children had a relationship setback the day before he went back to college. And it was pretty devastating. And maybe one of the reasons. And this.

He would.

This is his words. He says, you know, I was probably part of the problem with the way that I would not listen and interrupt, and he probably needed to. And I had set a beat, you know, and be a little bit more thoughtful, listen a little bit better. And. But this was the day before I was going back to school, so I got up early and I took him to breakfast.

Yeah.

And he stared at me for 30 minutes. I don't even think he blinked. And he didn't say a word. And he just. He. I'm like, he's hearing what I'm telling him now. Because I'd been telling him the same thing for three or four years.

Yeah.

Saying, hey, you know, this is. This is your role. This is. This is how our role should manifest itself inside of these relationships. And there needs to be a lot of respect. And even though you don't mean it, this could come off as disrespectful. Or whatever.

And.

But he was in a crisis, he was hurt, and he heard it, every word of it.

And sometimes those crisis is like, you know, obviously, when we learn the most, when I, When I, you know, one of the things I do every single day is I write in my journal, you know, the prayer for the day, 20 things I'm grateful for, and 20 things like who am I? Statements. And almost every single day in the grateful for section, I talk about my previous, like, trials and setbacks, because that's when we learn the most. And, you know, belief systems like it. It's not only your own belief systems, but this is why I'm so passionate about building an amazing community and being around people like you and Tommy is. Because belief is. Comes from other people as well. And so, you know, I was lucky to have a core group of friends around me that were up to the same things that I was up to. I had one buddy that was making a million dollars when I wasn't making anything. And I was able to look at my buddy Rob and be like, you know, no offense, I love you, Rob, but there's nothing special about you. If you can do it, I can do it. And there's something cool about that. You know what I mean? And so there's a lot of value in choosing your right people and your right network and just being around people that are. That are up to great things. And, you know, we could riff on that forever, but that's. That's part of a belief system for me, too. So it's not just the words that you tell yourself every single day, but it's the people you're hanging around and what you're watching and. And what they're doing as well.

Three of the most powerful words that I learned in the English language are, why not me? Other people are doing it, but why not me? And I've had that experience. That was a lesson that I learned early in life. And I was a college football player, but I didn't start playing football until my junior year in high school, but I was watching the Chicago Bears and I saw players that I perceived that I was like. And I said, why not me? So I just put my head down and I. And I went to. Walked on to a Division 1 school. Didn't work out for a couple of reasons. Went back to junior college, but I kept pursuing it, thinking that I was going to get to the NFL and I was going to get to play this position and ultimately got a scholarship out to Appalachian State University. And because I Had that ambition, but I didn't have, I didn't have straight line speed. So what I had to do was I had to break down why I had to break down why not me? And then I had to intentionally build the capabilities, which for me was I joined taekwondo for a couple of years to get more flexibility. I lifted, you know, lower. I needed, I needed speed. I needed flexibility plus power and explosiveness is speed. Right. So I had to deconstruct speed and go get the capabilities. And I was just barely fast enough to get the scholarship. And ultimately though, I moved from tight end to running back. So I was fast. I had gotten fast enough to be able to play running back at a Division 1 school. Then when I went to South Florida for Hurricane Andrew and I saw all these national restoration Contractors Serve Pro Service Master Paul Davis System, and I left there after 18 months and I said, why not me? And I set on a 25 year journey to build a national restoration franchise, which we did with 240 locations. And I sold that. And then I looked around and I looked at the great franchise platforms in our industry. First Service Corporation, you know, neighborly authority brands. All these are multibillion dollar home service platforms. And again, I just said, why not me? And now we've got five brands and we're, we're fast growing. And so I think like, and I, by the way, I'm 57 years old. I came to this realization three weeks ago when I was finishing my talk for a Homefront Brands convention. I didn't, I had never connected that dot before that it was my ambition and my ability to say, why not me? And then just be too stupid to fail and say, if, if that person can do it, then I can. If anyone's ever done it, then you can do it.

Right?

So, yeah. Hey, would you mind talking a little bit about your dad? I. I met him. He's a charming human. He's a he. I didn't know about his coaching when you were young, but I know that he's a piano player and his piano was getting tuned that day. Or el, I might've get to hear something, but can you talk a little bit about your dad and is there anything else that he did early in your life that gave you a foundation for your belief system and ultimately the success that you've had?

Yeah, I've been super blessed with great parents, both my mom and my dad. With my dad, my parents got divorced at an early age. And as hard as that was, there was so many great lessons that came from It. And I tell the story often that. One of the greatest stories. When I was young and watching my dad leave, I thought I was. I was losing my dad. I thought he was. You know, it's like I didn't know what divorce meant, but it seemed like when my dad was moving out, it was like, okay, I'm not going to have a dad anymore. And my dad, I'll never forget it, you know, knelt down and said, hey, I will. I'm still going to be your dad. And matter of fact, like, Tuesdays are our day. And then I got to visit him every single, every other weekend. And he said, I will be there at your house every day at 5:00'. Clock. Not 5:01, not 5:02. I would be there at 5:00'. Clock. And for like 14 years, because I was 2 years old, every day, like it was almost clockwork. Most of the time he'd show up five to ten minutes early. Before five o'. Clock. I just. I'll never forget the sound of his V8 truck coming around the corner. And I just knew I could count on my dad. And so he taught me at an early age the power of commitment and being your word. And no matter what happened, like, I literally, you know, as kids, we always forget that one time when our parents, you know, were late or, or made a mistake. I don't remember my dad being late one time. And because it was his word that I would be on time and I would be there. And that was, you know, that was one of the. The great lessons that I learned. And then, you know, for a while, like, my dad was in a really depressive state over the divorce, and watching him climb out of that and watching him, you know, rise to the occasion, if you will, and rebuild. My dad had nothing. You know, I. I remember going over my dad's house and literally not having money for groceries. We'd. We'd eat egg sandwiches on bread and, you know, and then. And then I also remember about freshman sophomore year, my dad buying a helicopter. And so it's like going from being able to have eggs to flying in helicopters with him and him, you know, allowing me to go get all my aviation licenses in high school is like, wow. Like, I've watched my dad go from nothing to this guy. And he lived the principles that he talks about that he was teaching in me. And I think that's why he was so passionate about teaching me these principles, because he was living it and he saw how valuable they could be for me at some point in my life. Obviously in high school, you know, you're dealing with, with dumb. You know, at the time they're serious, but you know, looking back, they're, they're kind of silly things. Your girlfriend breaking up with you or not high school team or whatever it might be. But he knew one day that they would serve me. And so he was teaching these, these principles because he knew that they were true. And I think a lot of you know, why I'm doing the 1% club, which is a consulting group teaching not only about my business principles, but like building a community is because there's a lot of people that don't have that. And it's really rare. And the older I get, the more rare I find it. And so I'm trying to as much as I can. It's not one on one coaching, which is the best thing, but that's just, you know, that that's not scalable. And so this is the best thing that I have to offer to give back to people with the time and allotment that I have to kind of pass forward the. These principles that I've been taught and that I've lived.

When you graduated high school, connected with your faith, you went on a mission trip.

Yeah.

And one of the things that you learned was door knocking. Can you talk a little bit about that journey and the challenges of being on a mission trip? But ultimately the lessons learned and how you applied that when you came back.

Yeah, so I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And it's not like you have to go, but it, there's a pretty strong pressure that, hey, when you turn 19, man, like you're kind of expected to go on this mission. And so those, those people that are listening that don't know what it is, is you submit your papers. First of all, you have to live, you know, worthy enough to be able to serve a mission because you're going out there and acting in the name of Jesus and of God. And so, you know, there's certain like standards that you have to live by. No drinking, no doing drugs, you know, live like a chaste life and, and all these different things. And so like it was a really cool path guardrails in high school to work towards something which was really awesome that the church does. And then when you go, you submit your papers to Salt Lake City, which is where the church headquarters are. And this is what's scary is that they could call you anywhere in the world. And for a guy like me that loves home like that Was really scary, as fun as it sounds, to learn a new language. I was like, man, I hope they don't call me to learn a new language, you know, because that would be just a whole nother trial on top of everything. But I was called to Canada, Edmonton, English speaking, which was, like, kind of cool, but kind of like, ah, you know, like, whatever. But it was difficult for me, man. Like, I'm. I was a homebody. I'm a very routine type of person. And so the mission took me out of all my comfort zones. You know, my mom, like, I've never done laundry until this point. Like, my mom, I was. I was the baby kid. And so you know what that's like. But I went out there and I was shy. I couldn't make eye contact with people. I couldn't really carry on a conversation. And this is why the mission was so, you know, amazing for me is that I got to live with people. I got to learn how to cook. I got to learn how to clean, but I got to learn how to communicate, and I got to rely. You don't get to call home. You call home twice a year on Mother's Day and on Christmas. And so other than that, like, you're alone out there, and you have to rely on your companion who you're with, and God, and then you try to get lost in the work. And so for me, I was able to, you know, develop a deeper relationship with my savior. I was able to understand, like, basic principles of how to survive on my own. But also I was able to, you know, get further down my journey of how to communicate with people and how to interact and carry on conversations and look at them in the eyes. And although, like, knocking doors for pest control or alarms or solar and all that, it's completely different than selling, you know, religion. But it gave me, like, that next stepping stone in life to kind of like, be like, all right, here we go. Like, we're growing up here. And it just. It accelerated me. I see a lot of people get stuck in this, like, party mode or can't get into, like, work mode. Like, the mission was great because it's like, hey, high school's over. Go serve your. Your mission, and you grow up a lot. And then when you get home from your mission, it's like, hey, now it's time to work. If you don't have those distinct, like, guidelines. I feel like a lot of people just kind of slowly get into the workforce and not really commit. For me, it was like, hey, this. This chapter's over. Now it's ready to go in this chapter. And for me, obviously, everyone's different, but for me, that was a huge benefit.

That ability to turn on a dime is something I've always identified, I think, in myself. My first awareness of it came in myself of a, you know, I was a restoration contractor. And you, you're out there on an, a brand new fire job. The walls are falling down, there's, there's a dead pet, the people are freaking out. They've got a, you know, can you save my wedding pictures and my clothes? And where are we going to live? And the kids have to get the gymnastics and you're just inside of all of that. And it's just really about keeping a level head and being able to move very strategically through the phases to move through that and then get back into the office to lead a sales meeting and be optimistic about that, and then go to a dinner at an association and be doing that and then move forward and say, and then at 9:00 clock at night, say, oh, my goodness, we don't have payroll covered. I need to text that insurance adjuster and see if he processed that emergency, emergency check that we agreed on last week. And you're just moving literally through different people that you need to be for others. And the task at hand. And what I realized is when I would have an unsuccessful employment, let's say, with a project manager that I would bring in from traditional construction, they were unable to be that dynamic in changing from task to task to task. I remember I had one guy and he ran $100 million projects and he would go to the job site in his dickies. You know what dickies are? Yeah, yeah, he had dickies. You know, tight belt, work boots, glasses, little cap, the whole banana. I'm like, this is the contractor's contractor. It's amazing, that big, big booming voice and all of this and three decades of experience. And he would go to the job, walk into the house, see what everything's going on. Oh, talk to the, talk to the homeowner business owner. They loved him, everybody loved him. And then he would go sit in his truck in front of the property and that's what he thought he was supposed to be doing. And then we would get a. Another call would come in, oh, we've got a water damage at the Walgreens. We got to get over there. He would get destroyed. Upset about the fact that, well, I've got to be over here because at 11:30 we're going to have the stair rail people coming By. And I'm like, it's 8:45. You know, like, you can go to four other places between then.

Yeah.

You know, and I. And I think as business owners in particular, like, you've got to be. You've got to be able to switch your focus, get dialed in, be who you need to be in the moment all the time.

Yeah, absolutely.

I've got. I heard you on another podcast talking a little bit about how you transitioned out of the mission, and you came back and you were thinking you were going to go into the real estate business in 2009, which was a bad idea at the time.

Right.

But I was fascinated with that transition that you made into Green Mango pest control.

And.

And the fact that door knocking is still a huge thing in this country, which I really didn't realize. I don't get a lot of people at my house. Maybe I'm not home all day, and I'm just not there to answer the door. But talk to me a little bit about how you translated that door knocking, which you have people come up to you and want to speak to you about the word. I've had that, you know, people walking around the neighborhood, and those people come to the door. That was you. Black, black suit, thin tie.

Right, Right. That's right.

Two men in black coming at you without the little. Without the pen. But. And, but, but, you know, talk to me about how that experience translated to your ability to start not only Green Mango, but four or five other service businesses and the customer acquisition impact that it had in your strategy.

Yeah. So when I got home from my mission, I was. I was looking for a career, and my dad, I mentioned I started to notice in high school he was having a lot of success financially, and it looked like he was having a lot of fun because what he would do is he would show people large parcels of land in the air, in the helicopter, and it was like, wow, man. Like that. You can fly helicopters, show people land, make money. Like, that's what I want to do. So from 16 to 18, I went and got all my aviation licenses, went and, you know, took the real estate exam, went to school, did all that. And so I was ready to go. But I got home from my mission in 2009, and if you didn't have any money, then that was like the worst time to get into real estate. And I actually, I kind of was upset with my dad at the time because it was kind of like the first time my dad let me down. I was like, hey, dad, I'm home. I'VE done everything you've told me to do, right? Where's this, like, guidance for going to make money? And it was the first time in my life that I didn't have the next phase planned out because everything before that it was like, hey, go to junior high, go to high school, try out for the basketball team, get your arrow of light, get your Eagle Scout, get your aviation licenses, get your real estate. And then it was like, I came home, where do I go? And it was really a hard time for me and a lot of missionaries when they come home because we have this experience of knocking doors. We get recruited to go sell door to door for service companies, mainly pest control. Solar was popular, still is. Alarms, you know. And so naturally, I think I was just another number when I, when I came home, you know, I got recruited by a couple buddies. And at first I was like, pest control? Like, what, what do you mean, pest control? And that's when I first was introduced to residual income. And when I like. And I still, even when they taught me what it was, it was like, okay, cool. But again, up until this point, I've never worked for anyone in my whole life. I didn't even understand, like, how important money was or, you know, like. And so residual, like, yeah, that sounds good, right? Like the principle sounds right. And Jason Wallen, who, who worked for Moxie, that he had a program where if you came out and knocked doors for him for a certain amount of years, if you sold a certain amount of accounts, he would then consider you to open up a branch with him. And for a while I was like, I'm going to see what this is like. And so for six months I just, I didn't make any money from them, but I just shadowed my buddy Dusty, who taught me how to recruit. And how to recruit was fun because it was throwing the parties, it was doing basketball tournaments, it was taking guys out to steak dinners. Jason was like, here's the credit card. You know, go spend whatever you want on fuel in the airplane or helicopter. Like, it's on me. And so I was just like, wow, there is money in pest control. Like, what is this? You know?

Okay, that was a, that was a pest. So were these commercial accounts you were whining and dining?

No, these were like 19 year old other salesmen. Like, I was like, just returned from their mission.

Oh, you were, you were recruiting salespeople?

I was recruiting salesmen. Got it. So like one of my favorite things that we did, we did this basketball tournament where we got 100 guys there and Moxie was the. Was the sponsor. And after the tournament, it's like, hey, this is what we're doing this summer. You can go out and make 50 grand this year. Like, are you interested? And then they become a lead. And then we had nurture them. And, you know, and so it was just this amazing, like, in like eye opening experience, that one, like, there's money in pest control. But two, like, there's a clear path here for a career.

So you were converting. You were converting accounts.

Yeah. And so I was.

Oh, go ahead, everybody. Everybody had pest control in Arizona. You got to have it.

Yep.

By the way, Scorpions, there's a. Come on, man. You really.

They're the worst, bro.

Can you spray for those?

Yeah, we were the first. Yeah. So there's a cool story about that, but I'll get into that. Like, before even that, though, like, we were just trying to get. Jason was just like, hey, I need 50. It was like 50 guys in San Diego by May 1st, when college ends, right. And the summer begins. I need my team out there. The Nor, the door knocking season usually goes from, like May 1st till end of August, whenever school starts again. Right. It's different for everyone. And so it was like, okay, I had a lot of fun. We were doing all these tournaments. And right before summer, I was your worst nightmare because I bailed on going out. So I went and recruited with Dusty, all these people. But I found that, hey, I'm not wanting to do this model that Jason was offering. Like, I want to just go start my own thing. And so I stayed back and I started a detailing company washing cars in Arizona. My buddy Dusty went out and worked for Moxie. We both had good summers. Like, I figured out that I didn't want to wash cars in Arizona heat. Dusty was like, hey, Moxie's great, but I want to start my own pest control company. And Dusty had about four years of knocking doors for other companies. And he's one of the greatest salesmen you'll ever meet. He's like, hey, I'm gonna start this company. I'm gonna call it Green Mango. And I'm like, that's the dumbest name ever. I'm good. I don't want to do this anymore. And probably over two months, he just kept. He just kept hitting me, hitting me like, let's do this. And because I didn't have anything else, I was like, fine. Like, let's go. And we started with one truck. And we had for six years, we were doing door knock. Like, we ran a door Model which is go out, try and get 15 to 20 guys and knock doors. And that's where my dad came into play as an investor because, you know, pest control accounts don't cash flow the first year. And so you need some money. And, you know, at first we went to him and gave him 5% of Green Mango for a $65,000 investment. And of course that wasn't enough because, you know, we were able to sell a ton of accounts. And we ended up going and ultimately giving up 20% of the company for 250 grand. And after six years, it was like, okay, this is a cool model. We have 5,6000 accounts. But it's just, it's exhausting to wine and dine these guys. And we didn't know how to delegate the person that you were, you know, speaking of going to the job, you know, being. Trying to show up for your wife, trying to show up for the employees, trying to show up for the customer. That was us. We were wearing every single hat. And it's exhausting because we didn't know how to delegate. And finally, you know, we figured out like, hey, let's get into more of a traditional marketing. We had a huge breakthrough. Our customer referrals through radio and a couple other things that we were doing. And we just said, hey, out with the door knocking for right now. Let's go all in on this. And then we were lucky enough that it paid off. And so we went from one truck to 150 trucks in one of the biggest companies in Arizona. And it was just this crazy journey. And you know, we've made every single mistake under the sun and building that as you, as, you know, as you do, because we just. I've never worked for anyone else in my whole life. And so, you know, there's a lot of great things that come from that. But, but with me being a visual learner, like a hands on learner, like, I think one of the greatest things I could have done is went and worked for someone because I could have seen the things that I liked and what I didn't like, but because I didn't get that opportunity, I had to go through trial and error. And, you know, that's why I feel like I, I've seen a lot in business and why I've, I feel like I'm, you know, I don't know there, I don't know everything, but I've, I've seen almost everything. With, with operating five companies, it's, it's been a journey.

Ultimately, you started four or Five other service businesses on the heels of that success. And you sold Green Mango.

Yeah.

Ultimately with your. With your partners and investors and all of that, which was a incredible exit. When you thought about starting another business, what makes. What makes a good one? What makes you say, yes, we can be successful in this? Is it recurring revenue? Is it margins? What are the characteristics of something that gets Cameron excited about starting a business?

At the time when I started those five other companies, I didn't do the homework enough. I think that's a huge mistake that people make is they just. They. They just do the math in their head. They're like, oh, this guy's charging a thousand bucks. He can't be into it more than 200, so he's probably making 800 bucks. And then he gets going and it's just. It's a mistake that a lot of business owners make. Even today. You know, when I sit down with a business and I see their margins and their route values per day and they're doing $800 routes, $900 routes, and I do the math with them, like, bro, you're never going to scale this thing at these rates. And so for me, what excites me is one, the margin. Like, it has to make sense. Right. The margins have to be there. I love residual income businesses. I don't like when, you know, insurance I hate. You know, I don't like the restoration world. I was in the glass world. We were dictated by the insurance companies of what we can charge and what we can't charge. I've had to learn that lesson the hard way. I want to be in control of my pricing structure. And then it's people, man. Like, so in every company that we started, I went out and got a managing partner that was an expert in that industry. We brought the finance, we brought the marketing, and we brought the systems to the table. We didn't want to be the jack of all trades thinking, like, we could go into the carpet cleaning industry and be the best carpet cleaners when we don't know anything about carpet cleaning. So I went and got a partner that had experience, years and years of experience of running other carpet cleaning businesses. Same thing for pools. And so it was just a like. And even then, like, there's some people. And this is the other thing that I learned is there's some people that want it more than others into. And there's different levels. And even, like a guy like Tommy, what Tommy's willing to sacrifice to get to where he's at. Like, I wasn't Willing to go and do what Tommy does and sacrifice the time. The time with the family and. And things like that. And so that's okay. And so managing expectations with business partners, and that goes all the way down to employees. And that's why an offer letter is so important. Spelling out exactly what you expect from that person is just making sure everyone's on the same page. And so if you can bring all those things together, the income, the pricing structure, the right people, the right team and expectations, that's what gets me excited about going into a business and investing it or running it.

You've had success with Green Mango and also now Coconut Clean using clubs or loyalty programs.

Yeah.

Talk to me about the Coconut Club and what makes a loyalty program successful and sticky.

Yeah, so the pest control residuals, that's kind of like. That's just the norm. So we didn't have to create anything new there. But with carpet cleaning, when we started it, it was like, man, like, the norm is, is that when you go out and clean your carpets, or if Jeff went and got his carpets cleaned, the stats would say that you wouldn't see that carpet cleaner again for another 24 months, and that's just not okay. And so we created what we called the Coconut Club, which is we come out once a quarter, and we give a huge discount, so there has to be value. So with the continuity program of coming out every quarter, every month, whatever it might be, there needs to be a huge value add, and there needs to be bonuses. And so these aren't the pricing, but let's say Your couch is 250 bucks. The average sofa is 250 bucks to get cleaned. If you're a Coconut Club member, you get it for 99 bucks. You get free spot and spill treatment. Right. Which means, hey, if your kid throws up in the middle of the night, which we've all had, are you paying 250 bucks for the. For the guy to come out and clean that thing? No. We give you free spot and spill treatment. So that's a huge value add that we sell to the customer. So a discount in pricing and valuable additions that you can sell or bonuses is what makes a great offer, in my opinion. And to my knowledge, we're the only carpet cleaning business that has been able to figure out this model of how to get sticky, reoccurring customers to see us not once every 24 months, but once every three months. And so what I love about it is that we're able to increase the customer value within the year, but also the Stickiness of that customer because now because they paid a initiation fee, they have this loyalty to you that they're not going to go out and get Stanley Steamer or Zerorez or anyone else because they're committed to you. And you know, Restoration Hardware does a really great job at this. Your wife's probably a member of.

Yes.

I think it's funny because I just sit back and you and I are probably the same. Like we see everything in the lens of a business. But my wife is like, no, we have to order from Restoration Hardware because I'm a member. I've already paid the initiation fee. And I'm just laughing because it's like, you know their prices for non members. Cool. Like, but the membership pricing is what they really want to sell it at at the end of the day.

Yeah.

And so the people that do pay double. Great. But the people that are paying the 50% off. Right. Like they're happy at that rate anyways. And then they bought loyalty and so Coconut's no different. So our 50% pricing really is where we need to be from a profitable side from a company and the people that aren't members paying 50% more, whatever the numbers are, 25% more. Like we're happy with that and it's still a great deal. But we're trying to lock in loyalty from the customer base.

Yeah, yeah. My dog sleeps on a Restoration Hardware cloud couch. It's great. It's great stuff. But they next level man. Yeah, it is. It's next level stuff and it's next level price as well. So green mango, coconut, What Exotic fruits. You have an exotic fruit theme sitting out there which you obviously didn't pick up in Edmonton or Phoenix. What makes a great brand to you?

Consistency. Right. Like the messaging is clear, but whatever. Even if it was the craziest brand in the whole world, I think staying consistent. And I learned this because I'm not a. I feel like I've learned a lot about branding, but when I started I wasn't a brand guy. What I brought to the table with my partnership with Dusty is my ability to create systems and processes and be able to stay focused and the follow up within that procedure. Right. So I'm much of like an operator. Dusty was the wild brand visionary type of guy and so what I learned from him at an early stage is that everything from top to bottom. So bottom. So even our fonts that we use in our email addresses or if we were going to send out a card to a, to a, to a customer, like it Was consistent. Our green, like green was a major color for us. Right. So many companies have a different shade of green on their trucks versus the website versus the uniform. What are the color? Like what is the branding guidelines? To me, if you can create this brand guideline and then stay home to it, the customer can't. If you're like me as you understand what looks good but you can't describe why it looks good and there's a lot of customers out there that are like us in knowing that. Right. And so when you're consistent with the truck, you're consistent with the website, you're consistent with the leave behind folders and the uniforms with the technician comes up, the customer's like wow. Like everything just fits. I don't know what it is about it, but it just fits. And so that's what makes a great brand to me. The ones that have five different trucks, five different logos of green, their uniforms, like it's an off gray. It's, or it's like, you know, whatever. Like that's what frustrates me when I, when I look at people's companies and see like wow. There's. You have no, you have no brand presence or loyalty within the industry because you're all, you don't even know what it is.

Yeah, that's fair. Your startup formula includes finding a who first. Who who's a subject matter expert and has demonstrated success and expertise in an industry. Then probably through your hype farm marketing company, but installing marketing systems and processes. But the third leg of the stool is the people. When you have 150 trucks, I don't know if that's a one man truck or if there's trucks that have helpers. You've got dispatch, you've got staff, you're probably a 250 person company or thereabouts at that size. What is your leadership style as you start to scale a team that you know is going to have to have exponential growth and then how do you build an intentional culture so that it all fits together?

So I had to learn this the hard way. I, I was burning through technicians like crazy right off it. I was burned through everyone. You know, like man, my solution was I just need to pay more. Like any inefficiency that I have will make up for it because people only care about money. I was so wrong. I tell the story about being at a Diamondbacks game, sitting in a Dutch brothers line, right? Because I was losing so many people. I was always in recruiting mode and I saw this girl working the calendar and as business owners, you can just tell when people have it, right? And you're like, man, like, this girl stood out to me. Long story short, I pitched this girl to come work for me. My pitch was all about how much money she could make. She politely declined the job offer because she said, I make minimum wage at Dutch Brothers, and I'm here because of the culture. No matter what you offer me, I'm here because, like, I like being here. And so it was just like this light bulb moment. Selfishly, I was thinking to myself, okay, I can have this amazing culture, and I don't have to pay all this money. Like, I was paying 4, 5, 6 dollars above the normal rate because I was making up for all my bad habits and bad things that I was doing. Not intentionally, but it wasn't an area of focus. Right? So the next day, I literally remodeled our whole office. We got the soda machines, we got the massage chairs, we got the basketball hoops. We brought out the snacks. And it was like, we're gonna focus on culture. And that's what we focused on for three years. And finally it was able to turn around and we became this company that was fun to work for. The second part, which is instrumental for me, Jocko talks about how you can only manage up to seven people at once. Anything over that, comms get lost. People's lives, you know, are lost. And so why is it different for employees? Why is it different for companies? So this costs a lot of money. I mean, think about this. You give a manager a BONUS for every seven people, you have 150, 200 people working for you. That's a lot of managers.

Right?

But the point is, is hiring people and retraining them is a lot more money. And when you start out your company, like, it's got all the vibes of a small business, like, everyone's working together. It's a brotherhood. Why should that have to change just because you become this 150, 200 employee company? It doesn't if you do the. If you obey by the rule of seven. And so I was able to learn that probably eight, nine years in. And when I implemented that, I was able to get back to that the early days feeling of green mango and people were a lot more sticky and people were having fun, and I wasn't have to overpay for people. And. And, you know, so that's. My leadership style is lead by example, make sure there's not too much on the plate. And that's a. Like, you know, there's so many other Things. But that's a great starting point for people that are listening to this podcast that are feeling like, man, my people are leaving my people. I can't manage my people. It's like, man, you know, how many hats are you wearing? How many people are you managing? Right.

So if I was a Green Mango technician, who would I report to?

So we had field managers.

Okay.

And then we had field managers report up to branch managers, and then we got to a point where we would have two separate branch managers because, you know, they can only manage seven field managers. And then the field managers had seven people underneath them. And that it just made a great org chart, too. Very clean.

And then you had like an operations executives that the branch managers came up into.

Yep.

All right. Who reported into you?

So my coo. And at the end, I actually had Evan, who, you know, come over and help me out with Green Mango. And he was in instrumental in bringing it all together. And that was one of the hardest days of my life. When I sold Green Mango, I got up in front of the entire company and let them know that we'd been acquired. And right before that, when we start our company wide meeting once a month, going over all the numbers, we do the anniversaries, we do the Google, like, highlight the Googles, the greatest text. And the energy in that room, the passion, the commitment, the excitement for other team members as we had announced their names, it just brought me to tears because it was like, man, we worked so freaking hard to get here because three years ago, when someone would, you know, have an anniversary, it'd be like a little golf clap, you know, now the. The. The room's, like, roaring.

Yeah.

And it's all. And it's like. And it's all those little things that we worked on, and it's. It's special when you have it. If you're listening to this podcast and you announce a win from another, from another co worker, and it's kind of just like this polite, like, you know, clap. You're missing out, man. Like, something needs to change with what you're doing, because if you can have that in your organization, everything else transforms and follows. I'm talking about sales, contact rate, close rate, retention of customers, of employees, everything. And it's just. It's. It's a. It's a special. It's a special thing to watch.

Those are clearly things to shoot for. What's the short list of things that you won't tolerate?

Or is it a short list, man? Evan says, I've gone soft and Lenient lately, man. Wow. I'm huge about being on time. Honestly, like if a meeting starts late, I'm like, it's probably unhealthy. I refer to my things as sacred rhythms. And so with each department I have a sacred rhythm that that department needs to adhere by. And for me, and I learned a lot of this again from Tommy, is that like, hey, everything needs to be documented. There needs to be a system and process for everything. You have clear expectations. And the main thing needs to be the main thing. There's a lot of companies out there where there's a hundred main things and bonuses are given for like 30 different items. It's like your people are confused, you're confused, you don't even know what the main thing is, right? And so for me, I've kind of gotten soft in the sense of like not worrying too much about what the technician's boots colors are. I let the field manager worry about that and it's still important. But it's like the thing that I care about is seven week rotation. That's what drives everything at Green Mango. And so if, so if we're not on seven week rotation, like that's where I don't, I have a short fuse if we're not doing things right.

So what is a seven week rotation?

So for us, what we learned at Green Mango is that if we're on a bi monthly schedule and we bill our customers after each visit, if the holidays come, if there's a rain delay, and we go from an eight week rotation, which is every two months, to a nine or ten week rotation, you do the math on 30,000 customers times, you know, it's the difference of servicing them six times a year versus like four or five times a year.

Okay, so you're talking around frequency of.

Being in the home frequency. And so you do that times your average, you know, rate per service. I mean for us it was a difference of $4 million swing, for better or worse. So we went from an averaging nine and a half to ten week rotation on the year to a seven week, and it meant in the positive another additional $4 million in revenue. And that was like being able to identify that, hey, this is our main thing. And of course how we get there, you know, it's an iceberg effect of what it is and everyone needs to fall in line with what we need to do. But like everything was talked about seven week rotation for us. There's a lot of companies out there, as I consult that don't understand their, their lifetime value. Let alone their annual contract rate and all the. All the contingencies that happen or could go wrong to where they don't. They don't actually collect that, that and that revenue that they have. Contract. It's one thing to say, hey, you're gonna pay me $2,000 this year. Right. And then to actually go bill $2,000. A lot of. A lot of companies don't do it if they're missing it. You're smiling, so I know you have a story there about it.

No, no, I was just moving. I'm moving into franchising now. So now after building all these direct businesses, you're taking your first foray into franchising. And as a coach, I'll say without saying numbers.

Thank you. I made that mistake before.

Without saying in numbers. Talk to me a little bit about what you're learning about the franchise industry and maybe the differences in building a franchise model versus building the direct models that you have in the past.

Yeah. So Coconut is almost nine years old. I started it with, you know, the same way that I started all these other ones. Went and got a managing partner, and we went from, you know, zero to $5 million in revenue really fast. And about four years ago, we had four of our top guys come to us and say, hey, we're either going to be your competition or we're going to become your partners. And at the time, I was getting. I was like, really beat up. This was in 2022. Like, this is in the thick of. For, like, crawling out of the $4 million in debt and some partners kind of letting me down. I. I was, I'm sure I was letting them down, but they were letting me down. And it was just like, man, like, we got to get out of this. I didn't want to have any more partners. And so franchising, whether it was right or wrong, was the answer to say, hey, we don't want these guys to be our competition. And I hate watching good talent walk out the door.

Right.

And so it was. It's, again, whether it was right or wrong, but it was like, hey, let's go create a franchise for these guys. Which just was like, a lot more work than we thought. You know, 100 grand later, FDDs going through everything, sitting with lawyers, it almost took a full year. We launched our franchise model, and again, without sharing numbers, which is just wild that you can't share those. All those things was like, these guys had astronomical success within their industries within the first two years. Like, whatever it took us to accomplish in Three years. They did it in a year and a half under our guidelines. And that's what's so special about franchising. As I've gone deeper and deeper into it. I'm speaking to the king here. Is that, like, your rate of your. Your potential success rate of having a turnkey system from a business that actually works? There's a lot of franchise frauds out there, but out of a company that's been around for nine years now, who has a great record, who's literally listed out all the branding. Like, we talked about branding, like, dude, our. Our branding guidelines of who we are and the access that you have, like, it's. It's amazing, right? The Coconut brand is phenomenal. You have that day one. All of our systems of the coconut club of how to clean, what to clean, all the mistakes that we made. You get that as a franchisee. And so it's been so fun to watch these guys go out there and just kill it and. But after four is like, hey, there's all the horror stories as a franchisor. Like, let's sit back and learn what we don't know. Like, let's try and get in the rooms with guys like you to teach us about all these different things, because we don't want to get sued. We don't. You know, I was on podcast sharing numbers. Like, Cameron, don't. Don't share those. You can't share those numbers unless they're in fpd, you know, and a huge learning curve. But what's cool is it's been four years and now we're like, okay, we don't know every. We certainly don't know everything, but, like, we have a pretty good grasp on things. Like, let's go. Let's go open up the floodgates again.

Right?

And we've sold three already this year. And what's amazing is, besides talking about these on podcasts, I. We don't. We don't have any brokers. We don't pay any ads. We don't do anything. We get between 60 and 90 inquiries a month to buy a coconut franchise. And so it's not. And you know this better than anyone, it's like, it's not about the ability to get leads. It's ability to choose the right person to go out and become. They are your partner. And that's what I'm learning more and more financially. You're not having to, you know, guarantee the truck like you would with the other partners I have, I've had, but you are their partner. To make sure that they have success. And so it's been fun to learn that side of things. And, you know, I'm all about mentorship. I want to be around the people that built things and get to where I want to be, that. That I've walked the path that I want to walk. And that's where, you know, we were introduced and why I'm excited to do, you know, stuff with you and Tommy and. And just other people that are like, man, you can just get all the lessons without the scars. And I'm. I'm huge on that.

Yeah, it's. It's really amazing to continue to expand your horizons, expand your thinking with new people. I mean, I've just, I've taken so many notes here from this podcast. Just, you know, and, And. And if you're, if you have humility, it doesn't matter. I mean, I've got a few years on you. I got a few decades on you, probably, but at the end of the day, I'm like, here's somebody that I'm here to learn from today. And I hope that in doing this podcast, that's really the goal. I mean, we had. We had one on AI that you need to listen to. We did it. I think we dropped it last week, but it's going bananas. And people, it's. The guy just gave away such incredible stuff on how to actually use AI and gave his method away. And I sent it out to all of our employees here at Homefront Brands, and I told them, this is mandatory listening, and you need to come back to me and tell me exactly how you're going to use this methodology. And the responses have been incredible. They're like, oh, my gosh, it's so simple. But I never realized that that was the formula that I needed to use. So that was a guy named Jeff Woods. G E O F F. But it's still Jeff Woods. But it's probably, what, episode 226, 227Jim? Something like that.

Cool.

25. Yeah, I highly recommend it. And look, and that's the thing is if you have an abundance mindset, and if you're ambitious, then the more that you can give to other people, the more opportunity that you can create. And that's what I really like about you, giving partnership to people that can help you. So you start a new business and you find a subject matter expert, and right off the bat, they have ownership. Correct?

Yeah, for sure.

So they. They have an opportunity to do something that they hadn't been able to do. Where They've worked so they can take all of this hard earned lessons and, and subject matter expertise, bring it to you and now do something that's going to change their life if they can build that business to be successful. And of course, you've got the, the secret sauce and the marketing and the systems and the process and the capital to be able to really accelerate the business in that way. So it's just. Life's good, man. I mean, life is so good.

I pinch myself every single day, man. It's amazing.

Yeah. Cameron, it's about time for us to tug gently on the reins and nuzzle this podcast towards the barn. But if. Tell people if they want to get in touch with you, either for Coconut or for the 1% club, which we hadn't really talked about, and I'll give you a minute, if you want to talk a little bit about what that is, maybe you should. Or Hype Farm, your marketing company, tell people how to get in touch with you and then maybe if you want to touch on the 1% club. Up to you.

Yeah, man. Thank you. So, yeah, my Instagram is cboden B A W D E N. We have a website out there, camboden.com, if you're interested in Hype the One Percent Club. It's just hype farm.com. but yeah, I mean, look.

And that is spelled H Y P E P H A R M. Yeah.

Thank you. It's so I'm so used to it that, you know, farmers spelled P H A R M now.

Yeah. Well, you gave me. The last time I was out there, you gave me like the coolest hat I've ever, I ever had. So I look at it. So I have it prominently displayed. So I look at the spelling every day.

I appreciate that. Yeah. No, really. I think what's special about High Farm is I didn't sell green mango thinking I'd get into building a community. But I just, I've been given so much and there's been so many people that have mentored me that I wanted to give back. And so really quickly, everyone has asked me for time and because, you know, I didn't, I don't have unlimited time throughout the day. It first started with like, hey, here's a link. I'll jump on once a month and answer people's questions and I'll do it for an hour long. And that was my way of saying yes to people when they'd reach out, as opposed to just being like, no. And it's just organically, over the past Year, you know, formed into this amazing community with a bunch of different people that are up to a lot of great things. They're all entrepreneurs from $500,000 in revenue to I have a guy that does over $200 million in revenue and it's just everywhere in between. But the biggest thing is we're trying to build a community. So each month I get on there and I give a business principle in a form of a playbook. So it's very like doctrinal of a principle that worked for me and then an application of how to go do it. And I'm just having a lot of fun with it. So that, that's Hype Farm. Coconut's phenomenal. If you're interested in an amazing business that has residual income with a great brand and great systems in place, you know, come to coconutcleaning.com coconutcleaningco.com and there's a link there for people to fill out for franchise inquiries. And yeah, we, I mean I, I love to connect with you and love to, you know, hear what you're doing and see if we can help you out. So.

Fantastic. All right, I've got a curveball for you and then I got a fastball straight down the middle. You ready?

Let's go.

All right, here's the curveball. Gun to your head, something you care about, deeply at risk. You have to start a new business in 30 days, which is not a problem for you, but it can't be something that you're currently in right now. Where do you see the opportunity in the market? What new business would you start if you were forced to do one within 30 days?

I would get into the H Vac business because it's the closest thing to what I know. And there's a, I know the margins are there if priced appropriately. And so that'd probably be the, the easiest barrier to entry for me with the highest, you know, opportunity of success.

All right, easy peasy. Fastball right down the middle. Cameron Bowden, if you had one sentence to make an impact in somebody's life, what would that be?

One sentence, probably you are worthy. I think a lot of people have self doubt in this world and it's the, it's where we started, man. It's the belief factor. A lot of people think that they're not worthy or they're not capable. And there's a lot of people, I mean everyone is. And so you just got to find that. And so I love that everyone's always worrying about if they're okay. If you know they're enough and all those things. And it's sad, and I've certainly suffered from that, which is why I'm probably so passionate about it.

It's one of my greatest lessons in life that before I could expect others to respect me, I needed to respect myself. Hey, that's mine. We both got one.

There you go, man.

Cameron, this has been awesome, man. Thanks for coming on. I all. Every time I'm with you, I want to be with you more.

No, I really appreciate our friendship, and you've helped us so much already, man, and so thank you. Seriously.

Absolutely. Thanks for being on.

See you, buddy.

All right, hang on now. This is Jeff Duden. We've been here with the incredible Cameron Bowden, and we have been on the unemployable podcast. Thanks for listening.