Episode 249: Bloom Where You Are Planted with Business Leader Bryan Clayton

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weddell. And before we get started, if you want to know exactly how to win again and again, go to Wydell on winning.com webinar now to watch something I've put together for you. Now let's get going into this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind.

I'm here this afternoon with Brian Clayton. Hello, Brian.

Larry, how's it going? Great to be here.

I am looking forward to this. Brian is a winner. He is the CEO and co founder of GreenPal. And folks, that company is averaging 1 million in revenue a month. In fact, 20 million annual revenue for 2020. Amazing. And growing 200% yearly. He's been other businesses. GreenPal is current thing, but in the past he was ex owner and founder of Peachtree Inc. And their annual revenue was 10 million. So he's not new to business. This new business we're getting to explain it to, it has a platform, has over 1500, I mean 150,000 vendors and 1 million homeowner users as of November of last year. So there's a lot of lessons Brian has learned about not only creating a company, getting off the ground, but reaching the market, reaching a lot of people, taking your message to the masses. So we're going to dig in and Brian, welcome. And why don't you tell us, you know, I want to see about, see how you got to this point. But tell us, what is Green Pal all about?

Wow, Larry, that was a hell of an intro. I appreciate it. And calling me a winner, that pumps me up. You know, I really, I feel like business is the thing that can give us all the path to become a winner and make something of our lives. And so I, I'm glad that, you know, you were kind enough to say that for me. You know, I've been in business for 20 years. I've been in business in one industry, the landscaping industry. I've seen it from every angle. You can see it from my current business. GreenPal is kind of like the Uber for lawn mowing. So if you're a homeowner, rather than calling all over Craigslist or Facebook or Yelp looking for somebody to come cut your grass, you can just download our app and get hooked up with a good lawn mowing service in less than a minute. And we've been at this eight years. Started off very slow and humbly. It was really tough getting this marketplace going from scratch. But my two co founders and I stuck with it and now we're here in eight year eight where eight year overnight success, like you said, doing, doing over $20 million a year in revenue and growing exponentially every year. And so it's starting to work, it's starting to take off. But it didn't start that way. It was really, really, really tough in the early days. And, and it was kind of just our relentlessness and unwillingness to give up is what got us through that time. Before that, I actually, like you said, had a landscaping company. It was a, it was a business I started when I was in high school, actually as a, as a way to make extra cash. My, my, my mom and dad got tired of me hitting them up for money and they said, hey, I tell you what, you want to go mow the neighbor's grass? And I did. And luckily that just stuck with me. I had like 10 customers that first summer mowing yards. And I stuck with that little lawn mowing business over a 15 year period of time that built it into one of the largest landscaping companies in the state of Tennessee, where I live. Over 150 employees, over $10 million a year in revenue. And in 2013, I was able to get the business sold to one of the largest landscaping companies in the United States. So 20 years in business, starting out in a blue collar kind of type of business and then transitioning into a tech entrepreneur. I've seen a lot, I've learned a lot. And every year it feels like I'm evolving into a new person every year too. And that's one of the things, things I love about business.

Yeah. Now you might be the best example I've heard of, of where the phrase bloom where you're planted.

Exactly. You know, it doesn't really matter what kind of business you start so long as you stick with it and you go all in. And you know, I have found over the years, the least glamorous your business idea, the greater your chances of success. And the lawn mowing business is definitely one of those. It's a challenging business, it's a hyper competitive industry, but it's one, if you work really hard and work smart, you can make something of yourself. And I'm lucky to have been given the opportunity to be exposed to entrepreneurship at such a young age. And it just stuck with me. And it, I feel like business can be the thing to give us the path to make something of ourselves. And it certainly has helped me do that.

Now why do you think that the less glamorous it is, they have a better chance of succeeding? Because less competition, I think, you know.

Your businesses that are seemingly glamorous and fun and enjoyable to be in are probably. It's oversaturated. And so, you know, I mean, you want to go out. Let's say you want to be a movie star, you want to be in the music, or, you know, I'm in Nashville, Tennessee. And so we have. We have a thousand country music singers moving here every month, and every one of them wants to be the next, you know, Luke Bryan. And the reality is 99.9% of them won't make it. And so whereas if they would just start a home cleaning business, they could. They could, you know, be a millionaire in five years. And so it's like, if you're willing to just do something that is pragmatic, that solves an actual need for a customer and willing to stick it out for a decade, you can make something of yourself in business, certainly. And I think the problem is a lot of people just don't want to be seen at the bottom, and that's what prevents them from getting started.

Talk about that.

You know, when you're starting a new business from scratch, it's humbling, it's hard. Nobody cares. It's really difficult. You're working on really is operating on faith, and there really has to be a fire in your belly to be in that business. I get asked a lot, do you think entrepreneurs are born or are they made? And people ask me, like, how do I know I'm ready to start a business? And I think if you have to ask that question, you might not be ready because you, you should be thinking about it nights and weekends. You should be working on it nights and weekends. You should, like, get up early on a Saturday morning so you can carve out time to work on your business. And I think if you have that fire in your belly and you don't care about being seen at the bottom, and you're willing to do that for as long as it takes to manufacture that success, then you will be successful. And I think another piece of advice that gets tossed around a lot these days, that's not necessarily. That's not just doing people a mis service is the follow your passion advice. For me, you know, I've never been passionate about grass cutting. I've been passionate about winning. I've been passionate about creating opportunities for people that work for me and my business partners. I've been passionate about progress and creating something from scratch and seeing it be birthed and come to life. That's a lot of fun for me. But I've Never been passionate about grass cutting. So if I had followed the advice of follow your passion, I may not have ever gotten started and, you know, 20 years into business, I may not have had a business. I may have been working for somebody else. And so I think the follow your passion advice is misguided. I think if you got to be passionate about winning in business, you got to be passionate about improving your station in life, and business is the vehicle to do that.

Hey, listen, there's a lot of information online, but there aren't a lot of people who have actually done something. In my case, I've actually built a successful business that's accrued over $5 billion.

In assets under management and has done.

Well even during trying times. Now, if you want to know exactly how I've done this, go to Whiteellumwinning.com webinar Now, I've compressed a decade of learning into five short weeks. Just for those of you who want to give yourself an incredible advantage and are tired of waiting and watching others move.

Yeah, we probably need to think about that for I think that could help a lot of people because the thing you hear and the thing that I've even said, you know, that I thought it like, find your passion and pursue it. But you have people like Mark Cuban who says, you know, find your passion and what you can get good at that you can make money at.

Right.

You know, Right. You've got to have. You've got to have a skill that is marketable. And if you do want to go out and be a. Let's just say a golfer, you know, I want to get on the tour. Well, first thing, you got to go out to your local club and you got to. Your name has got to be on the wall for all the records. You got to have won every tournament, and you've got to be playing to a minus five. Okay.

That's table stakes.

Yeah, that's. That's the starting point, you know, and so you want to be actor. Great. You know, you want any of the creative type things like you say everybody wants to do it. And so chances are you're not going to. Going to hit gold right off the bat, even if you turn out to be a great, you know, like Shawn Connery was a plumber.

Right, Right. Yeah. And, you know, maybe, maybe, yeah, maybe you're not going to be a golf pro, but maybe you can create the best online system for training caddies, or maybe you can figure out a way to market a certain niche product, a certain kind of club better than Anybody else can. Or maybe you can figure out a way to do Instagram marketing for golf courses better than anybody else can, because, you know, golf, like, there's a way to stay in the kind of that zone of what. What you're interested in and make money.

Yeah. You know, the thing is that I may have. I may have hit it, hit something here. Plumbing might not be a bad thing, because I think Sting the singer was a plumber, too, when he started.

Absolutely not. That's my. That's my. Yeah, that's one of my. I guess one of my beliefs is that, you know, I get. People come ask me all the time. They say, you know, I want to start a business, but I don't have access to capital, therefore I can't get started. And then I'm like, well, what's your business idea? Well, you know, I want to open up. I don't know. I had somebody say, I want to open up this new bowling alley theme concept. And. And I think it'd be really cool. It'd be different, and I think this is why it would fit in the marketplace. But I need $10 million to do it. And I'm thinking, well, okay. Have you ever had a business before? No, I'm working a job now, and I hate it. I'm like, okay, well, maybe you start a small business that you can start with no money, and you do that for five years, and you put $100,000 in the bank, and then you have a track record, and then you can go raise the money for this type of idea. And one of those businesses could be a plumber, could be a house cleaning service. Anything in home services is approachable. So I think a lot of these businesses that are often overlooked, that are just not glamorous, are just dismissed as not feasible. Or.

Or go get a job in that industry.

Exactly.

And it doesn't matter if you're mopping the floor in that industry. If you get in the door, you can move up. You know, if you're the greatest mopper and sweeper they've ever had, you know, one thing always happens. People look at these big industries and corporations and things like, it's like a glacier. You know, it's like a huge, monstrous thing. Like, it's concrete, but it's not concrete. Glaciers are not concrete. They are melting all the time. And chunks. If you've ever been on that Arctic cruise, they take you up close, close to those glaciers. There's chunks of ice falling off all the time, and there's openings. There's Openings in every business every. Because people get a year older, they get sick, they move away, you know, and then they do dumb things. And so, you know, if you get into a company that's in the same arena that you like and it's a good company, well, the worst thing to happen is you can learn and you can find out if you really like it, you know, and you can ask. You're in an arena where you can ask questions, you can strip them blind asking questions. How about this, how about that? And you know, and be a low level person. Just be interested, you know, be engaging and you can learn. You get yourself a college education in this thing and, you know, you might find it's not as big a thrill as you thought it was going to be, but you might find yourself learning things that's going to save you all kind of money. Maybe you don't need that $20 million or whatever, 10 million or whatever you thought. He's like, I could bootstrap this thing with boom, boom, boom.

Right.

So there's ways to climb that ladder. But it is interesting that you started off, you know, when I started off, you know, I've told people before, I just. The main thing I wanted, I wanted to be my own boss because my father was in the military. I didn't realize what was happening to me at the time, but we moved 27 times by the time I was 21. And I just lived in mortal fear of the mailman because any letter that he brought could be the one that was moving us to the other side of the earth. Have to uproot the family, get rid of the friends and go. And, you know, and so I just wanted where that wasn't going to happen to me. And, you know, I really didn't care what I did. But, you know, you have to go with your motivation. As you grew up, you were obviously developing some strong motivations about doing well, moving up, pushing things to other levels. Maybe it was not in your head to have a business of your own, but it kind of came to you pretty quick. Talk about what you were thinking about and what got you on this track to where you made this such a success. You know, you stayed on track to where you could make it such a success.

Yeah. You know, I love that story that you just told about what your why was for getting started. And it was really being in charge of your own destiny. And I think a business can be the thing that lends us that. It may not feel that way, particularly in the early years, but really you are in charge of your own destiny. And I think that, like, every one of us that starts a business and gets it going and achieves some sort of level of success, has some sort of why, has some sort of reason why they are doing it other than money. And for me, that has evolved over the years. You know, when I first got started, you know, it was. It was. I just needed to make extra cash. And then I started building it, and then I thought. I thought, man, I just want to make this the biggest, most profitable, most successful landscaping business in my. In Nashville, Tennessee. And it was almost kind of like I had a chip on my shoulder that I really just wanted to prove that I could do it. And I had this idea that I wanted to retire by 30, and I just was willing to work my butt off as hard as I had to make that happen. And that was a lot of the reason that got me through those first two or three years. Working seven days a week, working 14 hours a day mowing yards and doing bookkeeping and sales and stuff at night, and over and over and over again for years until I started to build out a little business around me. And then as I did that, I started to realize, wow, okay, now I've got like 10 or 20 or 30 people working for me, and now I'm responsible for their livelihoods. And if I screw this up, there's like 10 or 20 families that won't have a livelihood or a paycheck if I mess this up. So then kind of the reason behind it kind of evolved a little bit. And I saw myself as kind of like the shepherd or the pilot of this thing, and that was kind of fun to experience that. And so I think if you're doing business right, the reason why you're doing it evolves every four or five years. And you, as a leader, as a manager, as the founder, evolve every four or five years or faster. And that certainly has been the case for me as I grew that company and sold it and started my second business. I then started to realize that business is the thing that causes me to learn more and do more and level up almost. And it's kind of the vehicle that comes. Causes me to be a better human being, more humble person, better leader. And that without it, then I get really sloppy and I get out of shape, I get fat, I put on weight. So it's like business is the thing that causes me to fire on all cylinders and be like, level up in every way in my life. And so I have to have it. And so that's kind of how it's evolved for me.

Well, you know, this is some really useful ideas and subjects that we all have to sort through, and I really appreciate you sharing your insights on that.

If you enjoyed what you've heard and are dead serious about finding out for yourself exactly how this works in the real world, I've taken the most valuable business lessons I've learned over 40 years and put them into something for you to watch. Go to whiteellawinning.com webinar now and in order to move up as fast as possible, I'm Larry Widell and I run the Million Dollar Mastermind. Go Go.