Part 1 - How The Marines Shaped A Sales Powerhouse

Welcome to this edition of the million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell. I'm talking with Justin Brock. Hello, Justin.

Hello, Larry. Thank you for having me.

Let's talk about winning. Justin.

I'm ready to win.

Yeah, I don't know about you. You probably a monster athlete at high school and had all kind of college offers and almost went to the pros and things like that. But for, for me, I was barely to get through and be able to get on the team and start. And that was because I went to small schools. But the main lesson I got, winning is better than losing.

Definitely. Definitely. Yeah.

And once you get the taste of it, you don't want to give it up. So you don't have to be a professional athlete to be able to win.

So I'd say business or sales and marketing became my sport. I was always a, I'm a great sports spectator, mediocre athlete myself.

You know, I wish somebody had told me business was competition and it was like sports because I always had a great disdain for, for business. But until, until somebody turned the light bulb on for me and so what did you, growing up, did you have a competitive spirit? Were you in, you know what, what fired you up?

I loved basketball. I was in a music guy, so I was a guitar player. I'd play in bands. I wouldn't say I was really that competitive, honestly. I went, I did go into the Marine Corps when I was 18, but I was just kind of searching for, I would say purpose or adventure or something like that, but I wasn't, I tell people this all the time is actually getting into direct to consumer sales initially in realizing for the first time ever that the harder that I worked, the more I was rewarded, that kind of woke up my competitive spirit a little bit. So I was in my mid-20s before I really feel like I got competitive.

Yeah. And so what did you get in terms of fundamentals informing who you are before that? What did you get from school and the military and things like that?

Yeah, so I would say school. I don't feel like I got a whole lot out of school. I went to small schools too. I mean, Mrs. Rural Mississippi. You know, I wouldn't want to speak poorly to any of them, but you know, it's the rite of passage. You got to do something with that time while you're figuring things out. But the military, I definitely did learn Some things in the military, you, you were held to a high standard. So attention to detail was a big thing that I think I picked up in the military. The importance of, of truly looking at details that wouldn't have mattered to me, and I didn't think they mattered. And being held under the microscope there, being professional and the customs and courtesies of it, and then just kind of being held to a career path where you, you can't leave. Because up until that point, every job I would get, you know, I'd. I'd go into a job, I'd do a great job, but then I'd just kind of hop around and if there was something holding, like if I wanted to do something, like. I remember one time I was working at Lowe's before I went to the Marine Corps. I wanted to go to a music festival and they wouldn't let me off, so I quit. And, you know, because it was like, this is Lowe's. I don't plan on making a career out of this. I'm not, I'm not going to let it stand in the way of what I want to do. But the Marine Corps, you couldn't do that, right? That was the first time for a long period of time that they locked you in and you had to stay focused. And so I think in that process of staying focused, I did find a lot of. I've always been the way where when I worked, I enjoyed working. I never had a job that I didn't enjoy to some degree. You'd find that kind of locked in. I remember busing tables and I was like, I want to be the best guy busting tables. So it was, I wanted to do good, but I never felt the true reward until I got out of the Marine Corps and started in sales. It was just like, wow, okay. Now when I work hard, like it, it comes back to me, not to someone else, right? It was me that benefited the most. And so that, that was, it awoke a different side in my, in my brain. It kind of woke it up.

I feel like, well, we send kids to college and they come back with these hundred thousand dollar debts and some piece of paper can't get a job. And they never really learned to work. They never really learned. One of the big lies about hidden, hidden things about education is not only is everybody in there teaching ultra liberal indoctrination to the poor kids who go to college and they don't really realize it. It's like me, I listen to NPR radio for years. This is great. And then, then I Finally realized, oh, this is, this is like coming out of Moscow. I mean, they're so liberal, you know, no offense, guys.

No, no.

You can get indoctrinated. You don't even know what's happening. And then you come with a big, you know, but the big education at some point about your life is like, listen, son, you got to be responsible if things are going to be. It's up to you. And nobody cares about your whining. We all got things to whine about. And billionaires, billionaires cry too, because they got bigger problems than you, but they do something about it.

That's right. And you have to, you get to the point where, you know, are we competing for the top sob story? Because, yeah, there's always going to be somebody with that's more of a victim of their circumstance than I am. My life wasn't perfect, but it certainly wasn't the worst life. And there, and most of the people that I see that are trying to play that pity card didn't have the worst life. They're, they're paraphrasing like these things and it's like, yeah, buddy, that's what everybody has to go through. Oh, your parents were hard to get along with. So what, you know, the hell up and what are you going to do about it?

Yeah, yeah, that. Welcome to life. And so the thing is that a lot of times it's the serious things, the big things that happen, that kind of, it's like, it's almost like branding. It's almost like branding. Cavill, you have a brand on you. And a lot of our early searing experiences kind of brand us for life. And at the time, it hurts like crazy. But you don't know that setting you up for success when you got in, I'm sure all the kids getting off the bus, going to Marine boot camp. You were in the Marines, right?

Yes, sir.

Yeah. So how long or how deep in before you got your wake up call and what. Do you remember how, how it came to you?

Yes. So it was, it came in. I thought the wakeup call was when we got off the bus, a Parris Island. You get off the bus, you stand on the yellow footprints and they come out and they're yelling at you and all that, and that's what they show in the documentaries. But then you enter this thing called forming days. And the first three days are forming days, and in those days, they're, they're getting you vaccinations, they're doing your medical records, they're basically doing all that stuff. So that they can really pass you into boot camp. And then you get your real drill instructors. And so after those forming days you have this time where you go, you've just done your initial strength test. So you're going and you've ran and you've done pull ups, you've done that and you come back in your PT clothes and they sit you on the quarter deck and everybody's supposed to sit on the quarter deck and in comes this guy you've never seen before. He's the senior drill instructor and he is giving a speech and it's the same speech for every one of them. And then they bring in these guys called the kill hats and the drill hats and they. My experience was they were beat red and profusely sweating and looked like they had just pounded energy drinks and steroids and man. And they would went once he turned them loose and they started. That was the point that I was like, oh, what have I done? And at 18, you know, it's different now. You know when you're. Yeah, I'm 36 now. 36, going through it would be different because you're just a different face. But when you're 18, you're still, you're a kid. And when that happened, and that's why they want you to be young because honestly it's, it's easier for them to train you as at a blank slate than when they get. So like we had a couple guys get kicked out when I was in boot camp. There were, it was mostly the guys that were like 25, 26, 27, they were, were stuck in this bad pattern. Right. But if you get that 18 year old, they could break them and then when they break you, they can rebuild you. But that breaking point was these guys came in and they scared. I mean I remember country boys that grew up on farms, tears streaming down their face and they taken like polyurethane plastic, what do you call them, canteens and they'd slam them down on the ground and they're shattering and it was like it just turned into pure and utter chaos. And now looking back on it, I'm so glad that I went through it. I love, I love the, the experience of it. But going through those times where you know, you just, they break you down to where you'll do whatever they tell you to and then they begin to build your confidence back up and after you've been through it, that it's a process that they have to get you beat down to really rebuild your identity.

Yeah.

And it's a beautiful thing, really. I actually regret that more kids don't go through it because I think I needed it and it was great for me in the long run.

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To lose and you're always those guys, you have to let them, especially when they get into those patterns. And it happens at different ages for people. But the 20s is a rough period for people because there's so many people out there. I hired a guy, we have about 52 employees. I hired this one guy, he comes in and his damn dad was telling him, don't take your 20s too serious. Just have fun and all this stuff. And I'm like, it's such bullshit. Because really the 20s is the time that if you can learn how to get serious in your early 20s, maybe I don't have a family at that point. It is such this, it's such a compounding time where you can make so much progress in the right direction, but so many people say, oh, enjoy your 20s. And then by the time they're 30, they're like, oh, I got to get serious. Well now they might have a kid or two kids or a wife. It's a hell of a lot harder to get serious when you're having to feed people and you haven't done with the last 10 years. Yeah, I see that all the time. And I, I've even put some content out there where I've tried to say things like that, you quit listening to this. Go get, go make some money. Necessarily be rich. But get your baseline covered. Enjoy your 40s and your 50s and your 60s, 20s and 30s for me is like, get your ducks in a row, take care of your lives, make something happen because you got energy and enjoy those other times, you know, and hell, that's. I don't. Nobody listens though, right?

Yeah. You can have a few years of good times in your 20s, or you can compress time frames, put some good hard work together, and have decades of good times in your future.

And they're better times because now you can afford to do things that you would never have been able to do in your early 20s.

And it's important to know when you're in your 20s, the good times that you think you're enjoying right now is crap compared to the good times that are out there, the places you can go, the people you can meet, things you can do. And so to think that I'm going to, you know, going to get drunk on the weekend and go to a nightclub or go to a concert or get polluted or something and woo, you know. Yeah, wake up.

I completely.

And because the idea is, once you start doing things, good things happen, number one, like you said, even. Even the jobs you had. Bussing table. I did some bussing of tables when I was in high school. The thing is that you learn things. And I learned about systems from bussing tables because a restaurant owner came over to me, Gino, up in the Hamptons. Gino came over and he goes, larry, let me show you how to bus a table. For some reason, he took me under his way. Let me show you how to bus a table. He said, take your hand, go around the table once, get the big dishes, get the plates. He said, next time, go around, get the glasses. Next time around, get all the silverware. Now go to the next table. And he said, look at this clown over here. He's over here, gets a glass. This guy, he gets a plate, picks up a couple of forks. He says he's going to be there an hour and a half. And that's why I first learned about systems. And so you learn things, you get a confidence, but the confidence that comes from accomplishment, regardless if you made a million dollars from it or not, the confidence that comes from accomplishment is really something that fuels your confidence and your faith in yourself to try new things and to be able to make big income and take on big responsibility in the future. So you're in the military, and when did you start to. To get some. What was a turning point in your confidence in there?

Would you say so? I mean, several times but in the military, let's say the confidence in Parris island, they have an EGA ceremony where you, You. They. This whole time, they're building up this point. When you pass the Crucible, you get. They do an eagle, globe and anchor ceremony, and you get your eagle, globe and anchor. It's after the warriors breakfast. And it's. You know, they have this whole process, right. But before that, I think at the tipping point of the Crucible, when you, when you would see other guys drop out and you're keeping on going and you would just. It just kind of like emerged slowly. It wasn't like a. A huge breaking point. But when they put that eagle, globe, and anchor in your hand, you think, I'm going to make it out of here. I'm going to. I'm going to do this. And. And then it's funny, man. You. You get out of boot camp and they break you back down, and they're like, oh, that was nothing. Now you got to go to combat training. And so they make you small again. But you're.

You.

It's this compounding effect. The same thing. When, when I started selling, it was the first time someone buys from you. You think, wow, people will buy from me. And there's like this destiny there. And then the first time you. You say, I'm going to get into marketing. And then you run an ad and someone responds to it. Ad, you design, you set it up, you learn how to do it. Somebody responds and calls you and wants what you were advertising. It's like somehow this realization that there's not really any difference than in the. The most wealthy people in the world. And all the processes are created. You can create those same processes yourselves. You can accomplish all these things that other people accomplish. Other people aren't inherently better. I mean, obviously there's some people that just have raw talent in certain areas, but technically, most people are all playing with similar hands. And it's just the people that show up and try that actually make progress and try it again and again and again.

I haven't been fair to you, Justin, in terms of letting people know yet who you are. You've come out of. You grew up, you've had. Came out of the Marines and started. Got into a bunch of businesses, got into sales, got in financial services. We're going to talk about that. But have been very successful, and not only with yourself, but with being able to build teams and build companies that are still out there. And you've got. What are the things, the accomplishments that you're Most proud of that. You would have never thought coming up like, wow, I didn't know I was.

Going to be able to do that, man. Most notably recently we did have an exit, a partial exit event where we were able to sell the company. It's kind of an enterprise, so a few different companies, but working together and enterprise values as at $70 million. Earlier this year, we sold 51% of that value to 70 million. And when I started, when I got out of the Marine Corps, I was just trying to make $60,000 a year. But at each level this kind of new horizon would open. And it's a beautiful thing about business is some people I think, think you have to come into business with like this grandiose idea. But my idea of what was possible would just evolve one layer at a time and then you'd see something someone else was doing and you're like, well, if he can do that, I can do that. And then see the next level. If they can do that, I can do that. And, and so recently getting that valuation and seeing like the reality of that level of money exchange hands and it doesn't, it didn't stop there because now in my head it's like now I feel like I could build these companies faster in similar sectors of the same one. I did retain my 49% equity because I believe we'll end up making double what we made on the first half on the second half by growing it. But that's been kind of that ultimate thing. But in the process, you know, building a team and having a culture where people work for me, that they actually are prosperous and making more money than they made elsewhere, but also happy and, and being able to kind of instill in those people like that teamwork makes the dream work mentality, especially in a small town like Tupelo where I feel like there's not a lot of great opportunity, it's been really rewarding to see that. And that's something I didn't know that I would even care that much about. But it's been a huge win to see other people benefit from the things that you're doing, not just yourself. It's been pretty, pretty eye openening experience for us. That next thing that I think has just been extremely vital in our, in kind of my. The way I perceive our success is that sale was great, but in the process we built an awesome team. We have a, a slew of 1099 contractors that work with us and a great brand in our sector. But the 50 employees, 50 plus employees that work in our offices that have an opportunity to work somewhere that they enjoy making more money than they've made in the past. That's been a rewarding experience for me to see that. I, I didn't realize I would enjoy so much.

Talk me about now. You know, one thing is you pick these things up in the military, they don't even realize it, but it's like the idea of progressing up the ladder. It's always obvious who the sergeant one level above you, you might be just soldier than a sergeant. And then I forget all the different levels. Staff Sergeant, Master Sergeant Senior. And then it's really easy to look at that and say, I'm working harder than they are. Yeah, they're not that bright.

I saw that several times.

And so you're almost forced to. If you've got your eyes open, you're almost forced to. I think the fact that you can see it tells you you need to move up. Because there's certain people don't don't see it or when they do see it, they don't what it doesn't bother them as much as it bothers people like us.

Yeah, it's kind of like the military. We use the word like on our sales team, for instance, we gamify the sales. So there's always like scoreboards where it's. If you see that John is in the call center and he's got 12 sales and you're Tucker and you've got six and you think, why the hell does John have more than me? He's an idiot. You know, they do that in the military. You know, their entire rank structure and billet structure is, is very gamified and you don't really think about it. Because in the typical corporate world, yes, there's raises and titles and all that, but until you get to like the upper echelon where you're at like C suites and director positions, you don't start thinking about it of like climbing the ladder at the lower level when you're like in an entry level position. But in the, the military it's ladder climbing right from the start. It's Private, Private First Class, Lance Corporal, Corporal Sergeant, Staff Sergeant, Gunnery Sergeant. And when, when you're looking at, yeah, I would have people I got out as a sergeant, you know, came in as a private and then and got out as a Sergeant. And when I would see people ahead of me that I was like Jesus or, or even my peers that like I just knew I was so much better than I was, like, I have to put distance between me and this guy because he's an idiot or he's lazy. And then, you know, it also did help. I did have leaders when I was in the military, and I probably really haven't thought about it before how much it helped, but I had. There were officers I worked closely with officers. I was an operator. So I would do a lot of, like, scheduling and training and documenting those processes. And I would work under the operations officer who was a major, and then he had some captains and lieutenants that worked for him and that commonly the majors that I worked for would bring me in, even when I was pretty young in that in the military, and tell me that, you know, that they saw that I was. Had capability of leadership even above the enlisted guys that were over me at the time. And so it started making me think, like, it's not that you didn't think that already, but you wondered if you were just full of shit. And then they would kind of give you that. That push to be like, no, you're. You're definitely got more potential than some of these guys. And so it was nice to have someone objectively believe that you were capable too. So.

Yeah. And so for young people getting ready to go in the military, think about areas you can get in that will give you that kind of exposure to the brass and also to skills like you're at operations planning. I know my father was in the Air Force and he was in logistics, and he dealt with the general all the time. And those skills. The skills and the experiences and also the contacts.

Yeah. A lot of people, when they're choosing a job, obviously you have your infantry side and a lot of people are thinking that way. And then. And then some people are looking at the job that directly translates to the real world. But like, the thing about logistics and operations is it might not be that on the outside there's like this exact verbatim job title that's the same. But conceptually on operations, you're learning people skills and managerial skills and that attention to detail and. And planning, like really, really planning. So I do think it was helpful. There were times in the military I thought when I was thinking more job oriented, like, how would I. How would this apply to the real world? Because there wasn't a similar job, but it actually is the most applicable in business because it's all of those same things. Managing people and making sure that there's a process.

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