Financial freedom entrepreneur: the best marketing vehicle is a mobile home and the personal touch

Welcome to this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur Show. I've got Howard Deckers joining me from sunny Florida.

Thank you, James. Uh, I'm happy to be here.

Now, Howard, you're an interesting character because you sold your business where you had over 150 employees. You're on a mission now to help entrepreneurs to financial freedom. Can you just tell us about your journey? And then we're going to talk about how you're getting your new business noticed.

Sure. Well, it all starts back when I was a teenager and when my dad, who never earned more than $35,000 a year at a factory, I started working and my dad said, look, son, you got to save 10% of everything you earn. You got to do it. This is what I'm doing. And, you know, I was a teenager, like 17 years old and yeah, okay, dad. And all I wanted to do was make money. So I made a lot of money, but I never paid attention to my dad. And then I started building businesses. I had my first business at 28 and I was doing well. I had gotten married. No, I didn't get married till later, but I was doing well and I was putting everything back into the company. And then in my late 30s, I had built a couple other businesses and I was getting moderately successful. Now, what that means is I was able to buy a house on the Intracoastal in South Florida. That means I was able to buy a lot of things. But in my late 30s, my wife said to me, honey, we don't have— we're not saving anything for the future. And it hit me. And then I started thinking I was basing my whole success later on in life of being able to build this business big enough so I could sell it. But then I started thinking, what would happen if I can't sell it? What would happen if I was— I had medical imaging centers. What would happen if they changed the laws and I was forced to go out of business? So now I really started to listen to my wife. And that's when the light bulb went on to what my dad told me 20 years ago, 20 years before, is, son, you got to save 10%. So I actually started doing 10% and I actually Started building an environment of economic scarcity. And what that meant is I felt like I was broke. I was making $300,000, $400,000 a year, but I felt like I was broke because I was forcing 10 to 20% of everything I earned because I had to catch up. I was starting late. So instead of making this great income and buying stuff, I started taking it from my checking account. And putting it into a brokerage account like my dad did. And I started that at about 38 years old. Now, my dad, an interesting story is he never earned more than $35,000 a year. He started at Chrysler Corporation at age 20, retired at 55, and he didn't retire because he was financially free. He retired because he hated working in the factory. Today, my dad makes $85,000 a year. He hasn't worked in 40 years. Because he was taking 10% and investing it where that money, it's, you know, most people think my dad has over $3 million in the market right now. Never earned more than $35,000 a year, never owned a business. But so the point is most people think that you have to save $1 million. That's not what you have to do. What you have to do Is have a monthly, whether it's $50 a month, and any entrepreneur can afford $50 a month, $100 a month. I want to see $500 a month, but if somebody will start out at $50, that's fine because that little bit of money you're saving through the vehicle called compound interest and the doubling of money, all of a sudden it turns into a lot of money. And let me give you an example. If somebody has $10,000, just $10,000, and they put it in a vehicle that earns 10%, that $10,000 will grow in 35 years to $320,000. So people think that they have to save. There's no way I can save a million dollars. That's not what it's about. It's about a consistent plan. So I simply, in my late 30s, I started living more like my dad. And I started living within that environment of economic scarcity, meaning the money was no longer in my checkbook to spend, but it was going into my brokerage account and it kept growing. So basically I'm simply playing it forward. You know, this is a great little story. 3 years ago, I sold my company for millions of dollars and I hit the dream that I had when I started 20 years Prior, I got lucky. I created my luck because I worked my butt off. Okay. And I sold it for millions. But even if I had not sold it for millions, I had millions of dollars already in the market because I was putting 10 to 20% of everything I was earning. So what people need to understand is anybody, not just an entrepreneur, now entrepreneurs, We're lucky because we can put our financial freedom plan on hyperdrive because we have more money coming in than the average bear. Okay? So, but it's all the same, whether a person just has a regular job or the person is an entrepreneur, they need to figure out a way to not put everything back in the company. You know, I always had a $500,000 loan on my home. Always. That's how I'd built my company. And I would hate it when my CFO would walk in my office and close the door. I'd go, oh no, now what? She'd say, you know, our payroll was like, I don't know, $500,000 a month, something like that. And she'd say, I can't make payroll. And it would be like, damn. So fortunately, I would be prepaying that mortgage so that when I needed it, I could use it again. So entrepreneurs, we're a different breed. We're willing to take risks to get to where we want to go. The regular person isn't. So my program that I built is catering to the person with a normal job, but if they're an entrepreneur, it goes on hyperdrive. So when I sold my company, and this is, this is why I'm doing what I'm doing right now. When I sold my company, I was, I didn't have to work and I had enough money coming in every month from my investments. I've been able to go into real estate, whatever, a lot of things, and I didn't have to work. I was bored out of my tree to the point of getting depressed after the end of the first year. And that's when I put a PowerPoint presentation to teach my 17 and 18-year-olds at the time how to become a millionaire. But before I showed it to him, I said, I want you to invite all your friends over and tell them your multimillionaire dad is going to teach them how to be a millionaire. And my first presentation was a couple of years ago on my big screen TV. And I had 10 kids sitting in my living room and I blew them away. And what blew me away is they don't know, they knew nothing of what I was doing. So then I went to all of my sister's kids. Then I went to ex-employees and I was doing live Zoom. I would have 20 people in a Zoom. And then all of a sudden the light bulb went off and said, oh my God, this is my passion. This is what I want to do the rest of my life. I just want to show people how they can become financially free with a normal job. And if they're a business owner, we can put it on hyperdrive. So that's what this is all about. Now I have an online course. 7 modules of video. I only charge $97 and that $97 to not only get the course, they get me because all they got to do is schedule a Zoom and I'll be with them and help them any way that I can. So I'm not doing this to make millions. I'm doing this to help as many people as I can help because it worked for me. It worked for my dad. I've got, you know, just real quickly, a year and a half ago, One of my students, Maria, she had $40,000 sitting in a regular savings account. We put it in slowly over 6 months into the market, into index funds that pay over 10%. I looked at it yesterday. She's up $24,000 in a year and a half. That's amazing because she's done better than 10%. But so that's what I do.

Yeah.

And that's why I do it. It's just like, It's my passion.

Howard, yeah, it's a lovely story. Rather than, you know, trying to make millions, you help millions, which is, you know, fantastic. And as an entrepreneur, I absolutely hear you about paying everybody's salaries before my own. I spent many, many years. Can we then just turn to how you are starting to promote the, the new, you know, Howard, if you like, because You've obviously been successful in your medical imaging business. This is now a rebrand, isn't it, for you as an individual? It's a, it's a, you've got a domain expertise through personal. How are you getting the word out? Because you've got a wonderful story, but as we know, that's not enough, is it? How are you getting people to know about it?

Well, um, you know, I'm doing everything and anything I can to get the word out. Facebook advertising, Instagram. I love being guests on Other people's podcasts. You know, people keep telling me, you got to do your own podcast. Look at, I don't want a job. Okay. I don't want a fricking job. You know, one of the reasons why I went to 100% evergreen on a course, I'd have 20 or 30 people on my screen and every week I'd have to do another. All of a sudden I had a job. I, that's not, I'm not doing this to have a job. Okay. I'm doing this because I love it. I didn't love having to work anymore. So that's why I went evergreen. I am a big RV guy. I might've just got back from a 3-month RV road trip by myself, solo trip, had my Harley and my Jeep with me. And I visited 6 different states, 15 different cities. I'd stay there a week. I'd play pickleball every morning, you know, pickleball is sweeping America. It's an amazing social sport. You just show up and you play. Everybody I meet, I hand out my business cards and I met a lot of people on this last trip. When I go to a restaurant, when I pay my bill, I put my card on there and my card, it's really simple. Really simple. Just has my picture and my, if they take their phone and put it on this, it'll go right to my webpage, howarddeckers.com.

Yes.

And they'll find out about it. So it's, it's just a combination. Do I have the magical answer? Absolutely not. I'm nowhere near Tony Robbins or, or, well, who's the other guy? Dave Ramsey. He's been doing it for 30 years. I've only been doing this for 20 years. I'm moderately successful. I have people taking my course. I love when I was in my RV, I would love it when somebody would request a meeting. And I'd go in and log in, like the RV in the background. And when I, you know, sometimes they get stuck because when people leave my course and this is, I don't know anybody else that's doing this. Their financial freedom plan is set up and running on autopilot. It's taken $10, $50, $100, $500, or $1,000 out of their checkbook. It's putting it into a brokerage account that's in their name. Nobody makes any money on that. Including me. The only money I make is $97 in taking the course, and then it automatically, a couple days later, invests in index funds, which are low risk. That's 500 companies at once, and they've averaged 10%. So a person might get a little confused setting it up, so they'll schedule an interview, and then I'll just sit here In 15 minutes, I am up and running.

So it's, uh, so you've really built a mobile business, but also what sounds great is you've, you're going to people in person, which in this day and age of digital is almost sort of, uh, whether counterfactual is the right term, uh, um, hindered by COVID, or are you able to get out and about?

Fortunately, I'm living in Florida. I have a conservative government here that Didn't get crazy with the mandates. They didn't get crazy with, man, we've been open in restaurants for, we were hardly even closed for restaurants. And, you know, and we have the lowest, one of the lowest states in the nation of COVID new COVID cases. So fortunately, yeah, but that's when I was doing Zoom. That's when I was doing live Zoom. But then I put the evergreen, so it's been easier with an evergreen.

Right. And can you just tell us then how, which platform are you using for your evergreen course?

ClickFunnels.

So ClickFunnels is the lead magnet. Is that also a platform like Thinkific or Udemy for hosting the course as well?

Yes. Yes. That's where I was. Yeah, that's where I'm hosting it through ClickFunnels. And now I have, I have a new webpage built. I haven't always been using howarddeckers.com. I was using— I have a company called Howard Deckers School of Success, but I changed that and now I'm marketing howarddeckers.com. So I'm directing— I used to direct people to my ClickFunnels, but now I'm directing them to my webpage. And then when they click, that takes them to ClickFunnels. So that's how I'm doing it. Now I know there's other programs. I'm using ClickFunnels because I hired a consultant. When I first started, I paid him a lot of money to build my ClickFunnels.

And— And has that been successful? I mean, ClickFunnels and Russell Brunson is obviously in his own right now, one of these celebrity CEOs, isn't he?

Oh yeah. It's, yeah, I couldn't have done it without them. Now I could have used another portal, but I only use ClickFunnels because the consultant said, and now that it's all built, it's good enough for me. And you gotta remember, I'm not sitting here having to earn money. I don't need to earn money. I've made millions of dollars and I've got millions of dollars working for me that send me money every month. So some people, if they were doing this to make a million dollars, they might look at other vehicles and change it or whatever, but I don't care. All I want to do is deliver my information to the student. And then be there for the student through Calendly, calendly.com, and they can schedule the appointment with me. That's all I care, you know.

Well, but it sounds like you've got a good sort of ecosystem of promotion through Facebook, the, the online courses on ClickFunnels and using Calendly to schedule appointments for you.

Correct.

And you're doing direct and you're doing podcasts. Are you doing as well sort of media relations work?

No.

Or group conferences or anything like that? No.

You know, I'm, I'm talking about, you know, my initial vision when I told you I did that presentation for the kids. I have a background of public speaking. Okay. I used to speak to 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 people. I used to teach 'em how to be successful in multi-level marketing business. So that's what I first envisioned. I envisioned that I would be doing these seminars, pack a hotel room, and I didn't want to do Zoom, but I didn't have a choice because of coronavirus. And then I started loving it after I got used to it. It was like, wow, I love this, except it became a job. So now I just do Zoom for support. But so anyways, I can— I can't remember the rest of the question.

No, no, no, no, that's great. We're just looking at the architecture that you've built is really nice that you've got an evergreen course and you've got deal flow coming in through ClickFunnels. And are you having fun making money doing what you're passionate about? Right. And ultimately as an entrepreneur, that is kind of the dream and it's not even a job. It's just the dream, isn't it? Because then you're, you're not working, but also you're not struggling with cash flow, which Frankly, some of them you're still on.

And I could do this whether I'm in Asheville, North Carolina, you know, Austin, Texas, Detroit, Michigan, no matter where I am. I have my RV set up with 3 big screens. I took out a couch and I got a really nice RV and I got 3 screens so I can do everything in that RV that I have here. And, you know, so it's really, it's It's a lifestyle by design. However, I didn't design it to be like this, but now that I got there, then I had to say, well, what do I want to do? And I want to travel the United States and I want to teach people how to become financially free because I don't want to be bored. Okay? I want to teach what I know works. And if people will follow my lead, I'm telling you, they're good. They can have $500,000 in 30 years. They could have $800,000. They could have $1.5 million in 30 years. But if they continue to do nothing and they continue to do what I did in my 20s and 30s, keep spending everything that comes into the household, they're not going to have anything. You know, it's funny.

It's just really a cautionary tale. So Howard, I'm mindful I only have 20 minutes of your time. So if you want to find out about you, where can they come?

Just simply go to howarddeckers.com and that's my name. Last name is D-E-K-K-E-R-S, just howarddeckers.com. They can get a half-hour free training there. They can get a lot of, and my half-hour free training will give them some great information. And then if they choose to take the course, it's only $97, and I promise it'll be the best investment they ever make, you know, and there's a money-back guarantee, the whole shot, you know, whatever. So all they need to do is have the dream of one day being financially free. I'm the first step of getting there.

Howard, and on that note, I thank you for joining me from what sounds like a wonderfully free An entrepreneurial lifestyle. Thank you so much, Howard Decker, for sharing with me today on the Unnoticed Entrepreneur Show. Slightly different content than normal, but actually a really good sanity check for those of us that are all working hard on how we get to a stage where one day we're not having to work on anything that we don't want to work on. So thank you.

Well, you're welcome. And I really appreciate your time. And I have, I always have fun when I do these. I love it.

Well, no surprise. You're a wonderful character. Thank you so much for joining me today on the Unnoticed Show.

Thank you.