Mick Hunt: U.S. Business Blueprint 2024 | On The Homefront with Jeff Dudan #92

Today, I am thrilled to welcome a powerhouse in the business world, an entrepreneur, successful podcaster, motivational speaker, and a business consultant. Please welcome Mick Hunt. Hey, everybody out there. Thank you for jumping on the home front. I am Jeff Duden, and today we are with Mick Hunt. Mick, welcome.

Jeff. Thanks for having me on, brother.

Yeah, absolutely. I've been watching your podcast grow, and we got a little bit fascinated with it, so I'm excited to have you on the show here today.

I'm excited to be on as well, man, and I love your podcast as well. So I'm a huge fan. So when your team reached out, I was, like, absolutely crushed.

This one today, 100% great. Mick, would you share a little bit about who you are, how you grew up?

Yeah, man. So I am Mick Hunt, obviously. I'm a Leo. I like running on the beach. I like sand in between my. That's not what you wanted, Jeff. My bad.

Well, no, it is. I usually just get that after.

No. So, grew up in Greenville, S.C. went to college at the University of North Carolina. So I'm a Tar Heel through and through. But my journey, Jeff, man, started with a promise that I made my mom at the age of 10. And a lot of folks that know me know a little bit about this story, but I'm going to go deep with you, Jeff. So, you know, 10 years old, for 10 years, I had been watching my mom go through physical, emotional, psychological, financial abuse from my father. And at 10, I'm sitting at the edge of my bed, and I have tears running down my face, but the tears aren't mine. They're the tears of my mom, who had just suffered a horrific night, right? And so I'm sitting there and I'm telling my mom, like, leave. Like, please, just leave. Like, I'll deal with it. You and my sister go. I'll handle it. And my mom looked at me and said, no, because I love you. I'm not going to let you suffer. If one suffers, we all suffer. And that stuck with me. And so that moment, Jeff, I decided that I was at some point going to get my mom out of that torment. And I didn't know what that looked like at 10. Like, I'm not going to lie to the audience. I didn't have the answers at 10, but at 10, I made the decision that I was going to change my mom's life. And so everything that I did growing up was for that reason, was to get my mom out of that situation, to get my sister out of that situation, my brother, who Was born later to get him out of that situation. And so growing up, where I grew up, Jeff, and I know you're from this or you live in the south now. I don't know if you're from the South. But when I grew up, you saw success as either being an athlete or entertainer, right? Or a doctor or a lawyer. Like, that pretty much was what success looked like. And so I was going to be one of those four things. I was going to be a doctor, a lawyer, an entertainer, or an athlete. And so everything that I did in life was striving to be the best. Went to college, and was not either of those four things. But what I realized was that business was a way to make all of your dreams come true, so to say. So started my career as an insurance agent. Realized that I was helping someone live their dreams. You know, I tell this story, you know, he was winning trips to, like, to Paris, to it, to Rome, Italy, to Banff, Canada, to Atlantis. And then he was sending me on trips to Atlanta. Right. And I don't know if you know this, Jeff, but Atlantis and Atlanta are not the same thing. And so that sparked me to start my own business so that I could fulfill the promise of that I made to my mom. So I was an entrepreneur, business owner at the age of 27. And I've never looked back. And like, that has really driven me. But the drive really was the promise that I made my mom.

Greenville, South Carolina?

Yes.

Went to school at Chapel Hill. Now, did your sister and brother also get out of Greenville?

No. So, long story. My parents ended up divorcing my sophomore year, college, and I'm the oldest, so my sister, I think, was a junior in high school. My brother was like 5 years old. So it was one of those things where it was a later deal, but they all live in South Carolina now. Okay.

Somehow between the age of 27, starting your own business and then today you've become a very successful podcaster, a sought after speaker, a consultant, a business consultant, it looks like. Walk me through that first business and maybe the decision to make that business. And then how did that lead to who Mick is today?

Yeah, that's a great question and a great story. So again, I started in the insurance industry, so I was a sales manager for an agent helping grow that business. He had goals of being, like, the biggest, baddest agent in the country, and we made that happen. But what I realized was that I could do that for myself. So the catapult for me at 27 was proving that I could do it. And I built one of the fastest growing insurance agencies without merger, without acquisition in a three year period. Ended up selling that business at the age of 31 for several million dollars, I'll just put it that way. Wasn't looking to sell, but it was one of those things where like the Godfather movie, right? Like put a napkin on a table and I was like, yeah, if this is real, then let's go make this happen. So sold. My agency, went to go head up another large business where I just implemented the strategies that I had in my existing business. And that that company went from 50 million of revenue to 70 million of revenue in four years. And that's when I said, Jeff, you know what, I want to show other business owners how to do this. Because a lot of times we make growth and scaling much harder than it needs to be. I'm not going to exaggerate and say that it's easy, but when you focus on the right key performance indicators. I made a decision that I wanted to help business owners do this right? And so again, focus on the right KPIs. Running it like a true CEO was really what I was doing. And so I created a consulting firm. And you know, consultants kind of have a bad name, right? Bad image. You hire this company and they're going to come give you some rule books, but they don't know your business. They don't know.

Well, I tell you what I told, what I told my wife. Consultants are, is somebody that you pay so much money to tell you what you already know to do, but you've paid them so much that you will actually do it.

Yeah, exactly.

And there's accountability, right?

Literally. And that's what I and my team become. We become, we like to say we're your chief revenue officer, your outsourced chief revenue officer, but more importantly, we're your accountability. We're going to make sure that the things that we're going to accomplish are the things we actually are going to accomplish and do it together. But that's been my thing. Jeff is really helping businesses become who they are. But it all goes back to my core principles of I made promises, right? And so I talk to business leaders about what's your real why? Not, not the superficial why, but I call it your because. What's your because, what's that real reason that you're doing what you do? And let's do everything around that. And so that's been who I've been, Jeff, since the day I started.

Okay, Nick, who's a typical client for you, what do they look like? Just is it 5 million, 10 million, 20 million in revenue or what's it look like?

Yeah, so I'd say typically anywhere from small, say 3 to 5 million revenue. But then I have a couple of Fortune 500 companies as well. Different dynamics. But, but I can tell you the problem that we solve or where most people are looking to hire me or my team, it's really, you're stuck, you're stuck with how do I grow and more importantly, how do I attract the new modern customer and then how do I provide that experience? Because Jeff, all of us are the modern buyer now. Right? Like when, when people hear modern buyer, they immediately think age. Well, that's not the truth. Right. Like we all buy differently. My mom now, Jeff, buys her groceries with an app and just pulls her car up and has them delivered to her car. Right. My mom's not a 20 year old, my mom's not a millennial or whatever the new generation is, but that's how we all buy. And so I help businesses, we really help businesses that are stuck with this new modern buyer. And then more importantly, once they are a customer, the experience that they should have.

Yeah. So million dollar business. It used to be that $1 million businesses were the absolute hardest size of business to run because you don't have enough revenue to hire real qualified middle management. You don't have enough revenue to hire a seasoned, experienced executive team. But yet you still have all the functions of a billion dollar business. You've got sales, accounting, finance technology. And if you can't pay attention, if you're just inside of a business like that, and Maybe that's a 3 to 5 million dollar business today and you don't have your head up on the horizon, especially now with AI and how fast things are changing. And you know, there's things that I literally looking at things today for our business, that used to be a four month project with a project manager, with some technologists assessing and integrating some software technology into something. And at the end of it you would have this outcome. And we were all doing those projects. Maybe it's a hundred or $200,000 project to get this thing implemented. And then I'm on the phone with somebody, you know, an ex naval military intelligence officer who's been working in AI for three years, and he's like, here, this does everything. I can install it in a week and it's $300 for your whole company. And I'm like, okay. And it does it all. So like if you're not out there, I'm spending more and probably 50% of my travel time is split between recruiting the right people to lead our businesses and then out there figuring out who's got that customer acquisition cocktail that includes intelligent consumer engagement, you know, ranking who's how to identify out of the massive list of potential customers, who are the five star customers, who's engaging right now, who's ready to be talked to. And I'm telling you, it's, it's every month I'm finding something new. So if you're a 3 to 5 million dollars business owner and you're just like, you know, I'm really comfortable. I got another 10 years to retirement. I just want to keep doing what I'm doing. You're at risk right now, like you are at big risk of being either made obsolete or somebody coming to you and saying I'm going to give you pennies on the dollar for your business because it's, it's, you know, or we're just going to, going to roll you over and take it.

Totally agree. I totally agree. Like, I actually just spoke two weeks ago on that very similar topic, Jeff, where I told people literally what you just said. If you're not evolving, like our technology and AI is evolving, you probably won't be here in the next three years. Because if you're not trying, trust me, other people are. And what Jeff and I are not saying is AI is going to replace humans. That's not what we're saying. But those companies that don't utilize AI, those are the ones that are going to get replaced. Or maybe it's not AI, but maybe it's machine learning, but something. If you're not using some type of advanced technology in your business, you're not going to make it and you're not going to attract what I'm going to call the modern buyer. Right? Like you're, you're, you're missing customers that you never knew existed. But more importantly, they don't know you exist either.

So here's something I'm observing right now, like a, a forest fire or a fast moving brush fire in the mountains, right? The winds are just right. That's what I'm seeing in acquisition of small businesses right now. Because the, the compelling argument that you can make that if you put your business onto this platform and we put these tools around it, that it is going to drive five times the value than you're able to drive in keeping it yourself and driving it yourself. And I'm seeing like the roll up game right now. And it doesn't almost matter. It's like if you have customers in any business, service industry, insurance industry, any of those things, there are people that have constructed these, these migration implementation platforms and they can, and so they can pay you a lot for your business because it's worth many times more than that when they get it onto their system. And you know, and I don't know, you know, I, I said I probably shouldn't say this, but that's when I go ahead and say it. Mick. So I used to work with a guy, right, and he, he's, you know, we're in Huntersville north, and this guy was a second generation real estate guy, residential properties, commercial properties. So their family was in Huntersville when there was nobody in Huntersville. So they just bought farmland and they bought houses and they bought buildings and they just ended up with lots and lots of property. And this guy was second generation. So they've been accumulating property for 30 or 40 years. And you know, you can imagine stuff you bought in the 50s, you know, if you still owned it today. And you know, he said to me, he said, and he said this like 10 or 15 years ago, he said, jeff, there's just no more stupid farmers left. And I mean, he made. And you know, that sounds horrible to all the farmers out there, but you know, well, actually that's just Bill Gates, but you know, he owns all the farms now. But. Sorry, Bill. But you know, he would say, I mean, it was, the point was, is like, I mean he did a same day he had a family friend and she was a German lady and they owned this beautiful piece of property. And you know, he had been eating Sunday supper with them and all of that kind of stuff. And you know, he went and bought that property from this lady for $200,000 and did the same, same day, close to a developer out of Atlanta for 3 million bucks, you know, and it's like, and you know, and I mean, did he take advantage? I probably. But he had the connections, he had the context to do it. And you know, it's, and my son said to me the other day, you know, and, and you know, we're business builders, we're blue collar guys, we build businesses. And then, you know, private equity comes in and makes the real money on our lifetime work that we do. But the, the, the sophist, you know, how many people are out there right now that say, hey, my business is worth $2 million. And somebody comes in and offers them four, right? And they're like, this is the greatest and it's a great deal for them and they take it. But it was really worth 12 in a, in a different platform, looking at it from a different view, with different tools, it was worth, it was worth more. And I think this value creation through acquisition from a technology enabled position is, like I said, it's a wildfire. And I'm seeing it very quietly start to kick up in different industries, in different markets. My question is, is what's the earth going to be like after that's done? Because a very few people are going to own a lot more of everything. So. And we see it in real estate with the private equity firms, you know, started some years ago, decided we need to own all the homes in America. Thank you to the sponsor of today's episode, WindowHero. With WindowHero, it's time to start those exterior home projects that you've been putting off, like pressure washing your home's exterior or cleaning your gutters. No need to do it yourself. Leave it to the experts at WindowHero to clean your home or business. Visit www.windowhero.com for your free estimate to today. That's www. WindowHero.com. now back to the episode.

And that's what's going on in the insurance space as well too, right? I mean, I'm sure you can see it. I don't care where you're at now. But go out and look and see how many nationwide state farm allstate agencies you see now compared to just even 10 years ago. It's not as many, it's not as many private equities coming to the insurance space. And the, the exclusives, the independents are all now parts of big conglomerates. It's almost like college football and realignment. Right. Like soon there's just going to be like two or three conferences. I feel like that's how the insurance industry is going to be and probably the real estate industry. Right. Like there's going to be like three or four big private equity companies and you're going to belong to one of them.

Yeah. And I think, I think so seems to be the way of the world. And I just don't know, I don't know what's on the other end of it when so much wealth gets accumulated in such a small place. And you know, I think historically, you know, the middle, when the middle class shrinks in other countries, it's usually not a good thing. Yeah. So, you know, so that's what we do. I mean, like there's really three Things we care about at home front brands. And part of it is, you know, financial security, economic freedom for families on Main Street USA through business ownership. Businesses are a hedge against inflation. Business owners, business ownership lets you take care, take advantage of the tax code so you can, you can be very tax efficient with your earnings from a business not only when you sell it under capital gains, but also when you're building it. Take advantage of all the deductions that you get there and you know it'll, and it's going to move with inflation. So if prices go up, the prices in your business go up. If wages go up, your wages go up. But at least you have a hedge. Businesses are a high class asset, as you found out. And so we care greatly about giving families the opportunity to participate in business ownership. And it doesn't have to be the only thing that they do, but it can be one of the things that they do because business are a high class asset as part of anybody's portfolio. Then the other thing we care about is children. We're committed by 2037 to give away a million books to children. And we've partnered with Ben and Candy Carson and Carson foundation to build reading rooms across the country. We're building two this year. We want to build two or three or four, as many as we can every year with, with the Carson family in schools. So home front brand reading rooms. And then we care a great deal about transitioning veterans. So we are partnered with Operation Homefront where we support transitioning veterans anything that they need. Patriotism is way down in this country and the military is about 60% of where they need to be in terms of volunteer people signing up. And it's a military is a great option for many, many people, especially with the technology today that you can learn and all of that great stuff. So those are the things that we care about. That's what gets us out of bed in the morning here at Homefront Brands. And but the business, like, you know, it's, it's build a, build a business for you, build a business for your family.

I love that. I love that. That's amazing. So I, I know Jeff, you're the interviewer, but I've got a question for you though.

I just took over the interview. I forgot. I thought I was on your show for a minute.

Hey, we'll repurpose it or something, who knows, right? But knowing what I know about Homefront Brands and the, the values that you place, where do you think the biggest challenge is for the family or the person that's like, I want to start a business, but I don't know if I can. What do you see as the biggest challenge?

Look, you just have to commit and you have to decide that that's what you want to do. You can say it's economics, but man, getting into a property service franchise is not expensive. You can, I mean, there's all kinds of different ways to fund these things. You can fund them through a rollover of 401k. You can get an SBA loan. You can, I mean, some of our fees are so low, you can put things on credit cards. But it's really just about deciding that you're at an inflection point, which usually has three things around it. Number one, people. People that you're responsible for. People that you care about, your mom, your brother and your sister. People that you want to do something with or sometimes even people that you want to get away from. But it's always, there's always a people component to an inflection point. Then it's an adventure or an opportunity to do something different, to bet on yourself to do something great. And then there's a risk of loss because generally if you're going to focus on something new, something's got to come off your plate and you got to. So you have to make a. You. Ha. It's just really this conscious decision of I'm going to trade this potential future of my life for this other potential future for my life. And then you run the scenarios and you just say, is it worth it? But the deal is, it's like I used to coach little kids in football and the deal was this. We ran a very autonomous program. I taught them everything. In the first third of the season, we coached them the last third of the season, the middle third of the season, and then the last third of the season, we turned the team over to the kids and we let them be autonomous. And man, dude, they were, they were warming up loose just like a college team. And they weren't doing push ups or we didn't have them lined up in lines, but man, they played fast, loose and for each other. And we won more championships than we lost. So, you know when you can get people that are playing for themselves and for a purpose and for the people, person to the left of them and the person to the right to them, anything is possible in this life. So, you know, that's what it has to be. You've got to be committed to building this business. You might not like every piece of it. Nobody does. There's things you have to do. But it always comes down to can't or won't, right? Either. You know, very, very. 99.9% of the time, it's not can't because people can do it. It's just they won't do it. And so that's where that commitment piece comes in. Our businesses work. I mean, they work. They work great, you know, until they don't, you know, and. And it's usually because you've had a genius attack and you've tried to make this your business in your way instead of doing it our business in our way. But of course. So that's. Yeah, that's, you know, so come. It. It all comes down to that first step of. Of making a commitment and making a decision and all of that. And then. And then, you know, you've got to. Because you never know what are the decisions and the roads and the challenges that are going to come up. You just have to realize that it's not fatal. And, you know, chaos will be the norm, and you've got a lot of learning to do, but over time, you will build the muscles and you will build the muscle memory, and you'll start seeing things not for the first time, but for the second, third, fourth, and fifth time, and you'll know what to do. And then. And then it. And then it comes down to, you know, once you establish a beachhead, then it becomes who, not how. Like, who do you put on your. The.

The.

Your ability to scale anything is gonna be directly correlated to the people that you can put around you. And. And. And that's that. So we work them through, like. So that's what I love, man. I'm a coach. I love working them through these phases. But like, I went back to the football analogy. I would teach these kids, you know, once you step across that white line onto the field, you cannot recontract. You cannot decide not to tackle. You cannot decide not to jump on a loose ball. You cannot decide that to walk when you need to run. Like, it's. The decision was made when you saw. When your parents signed you up, you know, and if you decide, like, it's so, you know, you have to shut the door to a failure behind you, and you've just got to burn the boats and, you know, move forward with it. Which comes back to the whole commitment thing, like, and. And that's what life is, man. It's just about picking the right opportunities with the right people and then making sure that you execute on those things. So which you Know, if we want to transition over to this, I'd love to talk about the MC Factor philosophy because we, we, we four pillars of it. And I really am very interested in a couple of these. But if you don't mind, would you share a little bit about that? Because I've got some specific questions, but what is that? Never. I don't want to never answer an unasked question. So I'm not going to. I will, I will, I will see, I will see what I can learn from you on, on these four pillars and then I'll maybe have a couple of questions that are just nagging at me.

Yeah, man. So, you know, you probably know this, but Les Brown, motivational speaker, is one of my personal mentors. Les and I have like a father son relationship. We talk literally four to five times a day. We start our morning talking to each other. We talk to each other right before we go to bed, like that's the relationship that we have. And part of what he saw in me were my core beliefs and my core principles and anyone that's ever worked with less, he's going to give you an acronym. And he was like, Mick, what you're saying is that you have the Mick factor and everything that you've been able to do, you've done it because mental resiliency and mastery. So the M. Right imagination and innovation, the I character encouraged the C, knowing yourself and the power to keep going, the K. And so to me that embodies not just a leader but also just, I'm going to say a great human being. Right? Because life is about humans being humans. And so I like to impart the MC Factor as a way to always give your best in the situation that you're in. I never tell people that your yesterday's best should be your today's best. Right? Like if Jeff wakes up and he's not feeling 100%, I can't expect him to be who he was yesterday, but I can't expect Jeff to give me the best version of Jeff that he can today. And so that's what the MC Factor does. It reminds me that, hey, there's things that I've got to make sure that I do. And in order to be the best again, going back to that 10 year old me, in order to be the best, in order to be the kid that made straight A's or the kid that was going to be a first round draft pick or the kid that was going to be a doctor or a lawyer, I had to have mental resiliency. I had to master something, right? Like Bruce Lee says, I fear not the man that practices, you know, over 10,000 kicks. I fear the man that practices one kick 10,000 times, right? And so you've got to master something. And that goes into what we do with executive coaching as well, too. Like, what's your business really going to be? And are you going to keep the main thing? The main thing? And then, as you know, Jeff, with business, especially in today's world, imagination and innovation is huge, right? Like, you can't stay the same. And as, as things evolve, you have to evolve. And so if you're not using your imagination and if you're not using innovation to your advantage, you're not going to be there. And then with courage and character, you just, you hit it on the head. It was like I almost asked you that question, right? Like, you've got to have the courage to take the first step because you're never going to take the first step until you take it. And sometimes that takes courage. And then character to me is like the most important thing. Are you really going to have integrity with what you do? It would have been very easy for me at 31 years old to be a multi, multi millionaire, to forget who I was. Right. And I think for a lot of us, we go through that phase, whether it's relationships, whether it's business, whatever. There's always moments that challenge us and challenge our character. And for anyone listening, don't think it's not going to happen or it hasn't happened, right? But are you really going to be the person that you say you are and then that leads to know who you are, right? Like, you've got to know that you have greatness within you. As Les Brown would say. I probably owe him $20 for saying that today because that's his deal. But then more importantly, keep going because life is going to. Life is going to life, right? Like life is really going to smack you at some point and how do you respond? And are you going to keep going? And if you were to ask me, Jeff, what separates good from great? Because I hate, I hate when people try to quantify, you know, here's average, here's good, here's great, here's exceptional. Those rungs on the ladder aren't equal, right? Like the rung between good and great is really like this. It's not right here. It's not this small little step. But the difference is people are battle tested and they keep going. And at some point you're going to come on the Other side. Right. And so to me, that's what the MC factor really is. It's the core pillars that can make you the best version of you every single day.

Imagination is an interesting piece. You don't hear a lot about that. But you said something. I read this book, how Google Works, and this is an older book and it's been out for a while and they talk about smart, how they built that company on smart creatives. And as I think about AI and the ability to fix code and do all this stuff, a lot of engineering, a lot of coding type stuff is now getting, getting easier for more people to do through these tools. So smart creatives who can think about the question as opposed to the mechanics of working through to getting to an answer, are, are the ones that are really going to be able to leverage these tools? So from an imagine. So I find it interesting that you have imagination in here and I wonder if you could just talk a little bit deeper about how you encourage your clients to access their imagination and maybe how it impacts their leadership.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I tell people this all the time, like, your vision will show you where you want to go. Imagination is actually how you get there, right? Like, Jeff, to use a football analogy, we know if we started the 20 yard line and we're going to the end zone, our vision shows us how to get there, right? We know where it is, but our imagination is what takes us to the end zone. Right, exactly. Because. Because nothing's going to be as simple as going from point A to point B. And so for me, that's what imagination as a leader has to be a core principle. Imagination for a business has to be a core principle because you always have to evolve, right? Like if everything were easy and simple, everyone in this world would be built, would be billionaires. Right? But the one thing that most billionaires have in common, Jeff, is that they had imagination to get to where they were. Right? Like I don't know any billionaire, number one. I don't personally know a ton of billionaires. I know a few, but all of them were creative and used imagination to come up with a new answer to a problem or a new question that maybe doesn't exist yet. And so like if you talk to a Daymond, John A. Mark Cuban, they're all going to tell you they didn't solve today's problem. They solved the problem that nobody's thinking about. And to me, that's what imagination is, is the ability to see steps beyond steps. And for everyone that's listening or that's watching, like, literally for your business, for your personal life. What is the solution that you're providing that no one's thought of? Because to me, that's the essence of true imagination.

You know, it's in. To see things clearly in the future and to have the conviction to pursue them today. There's a Chinese proverb that says brilliance is. And of course I'm going to butcher this, but, you know, the, the, the ability to, to look like a fool amongst the crowd and to withstand it, like brilliance is, you know, you've got to be the first one to see it and you gotta be going after it. And most people are gonna, you know, how many, how many of these stories to hear where we had 120 private funding meetings, venture capital meetings, and nobody would fund us, and now it's, you know, now it's Uber or something like that, right? So you gotta, you gotta be able to stand among the crowd and see it. So we're doing this thing. So one of my buckets, when I sold my business and I, I, I tried my best, Steve Jobs, and I wrote up four pillars on the four squares on the whiteboard. And I said, you know, when Jobs came back and, you know, they were in 100 business lines. And he said, we're just going to do these four things. And that's when he came, they recruited them back and he built Apple into what it is today. And so, you know, I had a bucket on my future imagination, and it was called intellectual property, just ip. And, you know, it's okay. What is that? Well, it can be a podcast, it can be a book or two, it can be trademarks, it can be speaking. But now there's all these little tools out there, like where they're either blockchain tools or they're IP repositories where you don't even have to file a trademark or a patent. You can just put the idea in there, and because of the blockchain, it'll prove that it was your idea on this date. So, you know, so I'm building, I'm building my team around me, assistants and, you know, specialists and stuff like that so that we can really, we can really pursue this ip. But when I have that conversation in a meeting and I'll say, hey, we're going to use this tool and we're going to use that tool, we're going to use this tool, and, you know, here's all the little things that I want to put in there, and we're just going to start protecting all Everything that we come up with, we're just going to start protecting. It might be 100 bucks to, you know. You know, I came up with this little phrase, cash is king, but equity is the kingdom. Right. I'm like, well, right, right. That's a tweet for sure. But, you know, and. And I've been saying it, and. And now people are playing it back to me, and I'm like, oh, I should probably. I should probably protect that because I. Unless, you know, there's a chance I heard it somewhere, but I don't think so. So I. Anyway, so. But we're in this room with a diverse set of people, and they all start coming up with saying, I had this idea about this, I had this idea about that. So. And it's just a. A whole fun time of people telling you all the inventions, all the ideas, all the things they think the world needs that don't currently exist, that they can't find anywhere online. And it's. They're everywhere. These like. But people don't act on them, they don't write them down, they don't protect them, and they certainly, you know, don't. Don't say, you know what? I'm going to give up something to go after this crazy idea that could be the next RJ45 connector that plugs a phone into the wall where the guy made billions of dollars, you know, because he had the patent on that or who knows what it is, you know, and it's. It's. So these, you know, I. The ideas that people can imagine are flowing in and out of our people's brains every day. But the conviction to actually say, you know, that's a business, because that's a. That's a future need that people have. It's fascinating. So I love. I. And I think today more than ever, I think creativity and imagination channeled the right way, paid attention to, can create dividends for people.

No, I agree with that a thousand percent, because I think one of the challenges today, especially with, I'm going to say the generation younger than us, Jeff, is that if it can't go on TikTok and go viral, they don't consider it to be a. A great business idea. Right. And to me, it's. There's. There's money in the mundane. That's why I tell people there's money in the mundane. So. So be mundane.

What's the most viral thing you've ever done, Mick, do you got anything that ever went viral?

Nope. And I don't even try to Think of anything to go viral either. Like, I. One of my most viewed podcasts is with Les Brown. Like, that's the only thing that's going to go viral. And it wasn't even me. It was Les doing something silly. But, like, I'm. I've never tried to do anything viral. I don't pay attention if something has gone viral. Like, I don't know.

You know the quarterback, Sam Hartman, who played for Notre Dame?

Yeah.

I. I had him. I went down and the day before the draft, I went down, and he's a family friend, so I went down and did him. I. The one clip that went viral wasn't my core audience was, does Sam Hartman have a girlfriend? That was. That's the most viral thing we've got.

I don't know.

What does it get? 3, 400, 500,000 views? Something like that? It's. Yeah. The answer for those wondering. Yes, he does. So save yourself the.

You just ruined.

Yeah, save yourself the. The pain of going to find that clip. So when is it you came to understand that because could be more powerful than.

That's a great question. So I don't want to be cliche and say when I was 10, but I would say literally halfway through my first business, when I kept going back to the more success I have, the better my mom is going to be. Right? My mom is my why also, right? But it was because of promise that I made. It was because I didn't want to let her down. And to me, that was more powerful because I had to look myself in the mirror every day. Right. And did I let my mom down today? Did I give my best? Right? When you know what your why is, it's awesome, right? Like, I'm sure everyone's kids are their why. Everyone's spouses are their why. Right? But why? Right? So. So what's the true reason? You know, like, if you ask why five or six times, you get to the actual answer, right? Like, yeah, I'm sure you've done this with your kids, right? Why? Why? Why?

I'm saying that right.

But. Well, that six or seven is your actual because. And so that's why I like to go deeper. And I actually do this exercise with businesses that I coach as well, too, is we get rid of mission and vision statements at your business, because most of the time those statements were created by a marketing firm or marketing company or marketing consultant, and no one on your team really embraces or they're not really impacted by your mission and vision statement. And honestly, this was a Harvard Business review study, only 8% of customers even know a mission or vision statement of one of the top brands that they, that they work with or that they do business with. But a because statement can be powerful. So we actually have businesses go through a because statement exercise and we really boil it down to what's the real reason that your business does what it does for its consumers. And that should be your because statement. You don't need a mission statement. You don't need a vision statement. I could probably guess everyone who's listening that owns or works at a business. I could probably guess within 5 words what your mission and vision statement is because most of them all sound the same, right? But if I told you, Jeff, we do what we do at Premier Strategy Box or at Mick Unplugged because results matter to our customers, that means something, right? Because results matter because somebody gave a darn. Right, like those are less an example of one that one of my clients changed theirs to because someone gave a darn. We could start this charitable foundation that we have that gives back to veterans and servicemen and women because someone gave a darn. You're going to remember that as a consumer, you're going to connect with that. If I say our mission is to be the most sought after real estate agency in the country and we have a vision to be the leader in our community, which I'm sure everybody that's listening, you have something like that in your mission and vision statements. I promise you that that doesn't resonate with anyone. And I promise you no one on your team can recite them either.

Dude, I really, really like that. Yeah, I like that a lot. That makes a lot of sense.

Like when I go, when I go speak, I'll say, okay, who's the business owner here and who are the employees? And raise your hand, right? If you're the business owner, don't look at me. If you're an employee, look at me. Can you recite your mission and vision statement verbatim right now? And hardly anyone's hands go up and I say get rid of them, right? Like don't put them on your website. Like, if they don't connect with you personally, if they don't give you chills when you think about it, get rid of them.

Yeah. So we have a vision statement and it's long. Our purpose statement is embedded within it and it's impacting future generations. And we do that by the three things that I mentioned earlier. So that's tight. But I wonder what the because would be. You Know, like, why. Like, why does it matter that we impact future generations? What would be, you know, if we did a because statement exercise?

Because your legacy matters. Right?

Jen, call Easy IP and before Mick does and get that.

That's my gift to you, Jeff.

All right.

But knowing what I know about Homefront Brands, though, right? Like, you do what you do because legacies matter or because your financial legacy should matter. Right, But.

But, yeah, but it's more than just.

Financial along those lines.

It's more than that.

Right?

Yeah, I, like, Like, you know, I am impulsive, but that might work its way into the deck or some. You know, I'm definitely gonna do it. Do an exercise. I'm definitely going to look at that.

Well, thank you.

Thank you so much. And it's Christmas in July, right?

Because Christmas happens every year.

It does. Okay, got it. Because Christmas happened. That could be somebody's because statement. Like the. What is it? Franklin Ministries. Have you ever done that, where they pack up all the boxes up here? That's halfway between you. That's down in Fort Mill, I think, right? Yeah.

Yep.

We've done that as a family. That's pretty cool. What's.

What is that?

Do you remember the name of that?

I don't.

Franklin. It's Franklin Graham, Billy Graham's son. And they're packing up that they. And you pack up all those boxes and you send them all over the world for Christmas. Yeah, yeah, we did that. That was pretty cool. That would be great. Well, fantastic. Boy, I enjoyed that so much. I've lost my train of thought. I'm all in. You got me all in my belly button now, Mick. I'm thinking about our business. That's not supposed to be thinking about yours, but I guess that's. You know what. But that's a testament to what you do. What a perfect example of, you know, great advisory and great consulting right there in real, real live action. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So as you imagine your future from here, what types of things do you put in that picture?

Yeah. So, you know, the reason I moved back home, you and I, we've talked offline. Right. And part of it is I have nieces and nephews now. And so, you know, I'm such a family person, if you can't tell. Family means a lot to me. And it's my driver. And so being able to be closer to them and then coming back to the community that, I'm going to say shaped some of the ideals that I have, and just being able to be active in a community that I care About. And so for me, the future is really just continuing to impact individual lives and businesses through whatever avenues that I can, whether that's building online communities, whether that's doing things in podcasts or bringing some of my friends who have been guests on my podcast to actually come speak or just show up at places.

Right.

Like, I feel like being a giver and being a servant leader never gets old. And so that's what my future is going to continue to do.

Coming from Raleigh, which is a fast growing Cary, Raleigh area, fast growing Greenville was one of the fastest growing towns and counties in United States for it.

Doesn'T look like it did when I left.

No.

When I was 18.

No. Lots of businesses, beautiful downtown area. You got the river there. All kinds of stuff going on. We would stop. My daughter went to Clemson and. Oh, sorry. Well, you know. Yeah, I know it, I know it. So my, my son married a Tar Heel and we went to the graduation, what, two years ago maybe. She's in pre med now. She's at Wake Forest Medical School. And I think it was when I think you went to the national championship, but I think you didn't quite finish right.

I like that.

But you ran out of time, Mick. You didn't lose. You just. You ran out of time. But the great thing about that team was they had no expectations of making it that far and they just went on a run and just really threw some, I think some great guard play. And you know, I think I remember the season well.

I do too. You know what I remember most about that season and probably what I'm most proud of, Jeff. And I'm going to get real emotional when I say this. I'm going to come into the mic and I'm going to look Jeff in his eyes. We beat Coach K in his last game. To all my dookies out there, that season went very well for us.

Well, you know, so you don't. You, you, you. So Clemson's just. You have casual dislike for. But Duke, you're actively, you act.

There's. I don't use the word hate often, but the four letter word that goes with hate is usually Duke. So that goes.

All right. Well, we shoot for fair and balanced reporting here on Homefront Brands, but you know, when it comes not except when it comes to college sports in the Carolinas, which is huge. So. But yeah, I mean we would on our way back from visiting her, we would always stop in Greenville and there's just up to something going somewhere town. And I'm sure you're going to find a lot of. Yeah, I don't think now your client base because of your affiliations that you. That you have with Les Brown and others. I mean, are you working nationally or do you try to work to where you can comfortably and easily get your hands on people?

We're internationally for sure. For sure. So we have. We have clients in eight countries and three continents. So, yeah, we. We're out there. And I have a team, so it's not just me. Like, I promise you, I'm the. Purposely, I'm the least smart person on my team, so we have a great team that does amazing things. And, you know, Covid introduced the world to remote meetings, and so it makes it a lot easier for us to do what we do.

Awesome. Well, fantastic. Mick, is there anything else you'd like to cover before we jump off here today?

No, I just appreciate you having me on. Like I said, I've been a fan for a very long time, so this is. Is like almost bucket list for me to be on here with you.

Well, that's very kind. I appreciate it. And you've got a new fan in me. I think this has been great. I really appreciate it. I got a lot of respect for what you do and how you do it. And, you know, maybe we can find a way to work together. I can certainly, if I understand who your clients are, you know, as I'm. As I'm knocking around this world, maybe I can make some introductions for you and vice versa.

Insane, I was going to say same like I reciprocate. So to me, again, back to being good humans. That's what good humans do.

So 100% last question for you. If you had one sentence to make an impact in somebody's life, what would that be?

Keep your inner circle tight. Keep your inner circle tight. I will. From experience, I will tell you, everyone, that's for you, isn't always for you. So. So make sure you keep your inner circle tight.

Got it. Perfectly said. We'll end on that. Mick, thanks for being on.

Thank you for having me.

All right, this has been Mick Hunt with Jeff Duden, and we have been on the home front. Thanks for listening.