I Asked Grant Cardone to Reveal His Marketing Genius... and he did

And we've raised almost $1.3 billion over the Internet. I had no clue what I was doing. This was not a plan. This was born out of sheer fear. I just knew I need to communicate to Pete somebody about something and hopes that somebody runs into my material.

You know, a lot of times people are like, what do I do? And they'll tell us what's working. Why don't we just do more of that?

Yeah, at some point it's going to click. This is the unfortunate thing entrepreneurs do. They just underestimate the effort required to actually get success. I just throw myself into it, dude. And try to do 10 times more than everybody else. And this is where people should start.

So becoming known was the best thing I ever did for my business. It allowed me to scale my business, but also allowed me to increase my income exponentially, which then allowed me to make better investments. And I learned all of this about five years ago from one individual who. I read his book and saw him at a conference and just started following all this stuff. So that is Mr. Grant Cardone. He is a. The number one sales trainer in the world. New York Times bestselling author, media giant on social media, YouTube, all that stuff. But he's also a real estate mogul. I'm an investor in one of his funds actually. He has $4.5 billion in assets under management right now and runs, you know, 16 plus businesses. And then also really cool thing. He has a foundation that helps provide financial education to at risk youth. So thank you so much for being here, Grant.

Really appreciate you, appreciate you being here, man, and your story. You know, it's exciting to hear that you went to an event and you're one of those people in the room that actually something happened.

Yeah.

You know, and you responded to it. And, and I, I know I've been to things like this before or listened to an audio program or read the, like the COVID of a book.

Yeah.

Like shifted me to think different and to become something, you know, different than what I was.

Yeah. And you talk a lot about this. You said back in the day you had tapes.

Yeah.

You were listening to the same tapes. Yeah. And just changing your inputs, Right.

Yeah. Well, I had to replace the tape. The, the, the, the recording that was going off in my head, you know, with some new training and information. I didn't have anybody to teach me or mentor me. This is pre Internet, you know, pre. Phones couldn't. There was no audible, there was no download. So we would buy, I bought a set of. It was a Betamax, vhs. Betamax, big giant tape set. You had to go buy another three or four hundred dollar program or machine to, to play them. And I would watch those videos every day. I paid $3,000 back then. That'd be like 12 grand today.

Wow.

And other people thought it was a scam. Like I remember a guy named Bobby Brown that I work with. Surprisingly enough, that was his name before Bobby Brown was famous, but Bobby Brown was the manager. And he says, dude, that's a scam. That guy's making money. You're not going to make any money. That those tapes were worth hundreds of millions of dollars to me because it literally got me on the path from being broke to having direction and some confidence and at least a playbook.

Yeah.

Because I had been up to that point, I'd been basically going to work every day without any kind of real direction or sense of what do I do when X, Y or Z happens.

Yeah. And what's crazy is, you know, like we talk a lot about people having that shift. Sounds cliche at this point, but that's why you invest heavily in these businesses. I mean, in these events. Right. 10x Growth Con is, is bigger than ever. It's not backing down. Like it's getting bigger. And so, you know, but what I wanted to do today was like, hey, let's get into the marketing stuff in terms of how you grew those businesses, what your advice is to other businesses and then, and what we'll do to wrap up is like now that we're making more money, how should we properly invest it? Because we talked a little bit before the show, like there's a lot of conflicting advice out there on investing.

Cool.

So going back, I just want to go real back real quick. Sixteen years we looked on YouTube last night. I go on YouTube, I pick oldest video.

Yeah.

Sixteen years ago you started making videos on YouTube.

So that's what year 2008. 2007. 2008 crash was happening.

Exactly. You're talking about real estate and you're talking about business and stuff like that.

How many views were on that video? Do you know?

The first one has more because I think people watch the first. But a lot of them just had thousand views. 10,000 views.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then once in a while you get something bigger. But yeah, I just want to know, man. 2008, this is like pre influencers.

Yeah. Oh yeah, 100. I mean nobody term yet.

Nobody's talking about content creation, content marketing.

None of that was what inspired you.

To go and start making videos on the Internet.

So, you know, it's interesting you say that, because influencer wasn't around. Like, people didn't even know what an entrepreneur was really. Entrepreneur back then meant you were out of work. You. There was even a joke.

It was a bad term.

Totally. It was a bad term. If you were a guy in a club, in a bar, and you told the girl you're an entrepreneur, she's like, oh, he's a deadbeat.

Yeah.

Like. And the term influencer did not exist. Let's see, what did not exist in Instagram did not exist. Facebook didn't exist. YouTube was brand new and nobody knew what to do with it. There was no concept of viral videos. That term did not exist. Okay, this is crazy, because net network. What was it called? What's some of these other terms?

Network marketing.

Network. Well, that was around. Right. And was taboo. Crowdfunding did not exist.

Yeah.

You know, phone. Look, phones were just literally coming out. Like, you could not. You could make a phone call, but you couldn't download. A real did not exist. A live did not exist. Like, I'm just thinking about audio apps did not exist. Right. So when I saw what happened was 2008, back to your question. The economy had crashed. I had two companies and a real estate company.

Yeah.

The two companies went from making about six or seven million bucks a year to, like, on life support, maybe a million dollars.

Yeah.

And, like, literally got destroyed because of 2008. The real estate I owned, I think at that time, 234 units is 2008. I own 230 units, a shopping center. I just sold 2200 units in Tucson.

And this is in California. You were living in California?

Yeah, I was living in California. And sold the port, sold the Tucson portfolio, made a little money there, downsized everything into san Diego. And 2008, bam, crash hits my two. The first two businesses were failing. That's where I got my money from. And then I would take the money from those business, the first two businesses, and buy real estate. Well, you couldn't buy any real estate in 2009. 10. You couldn't get a loan.

Yeah.

And so everything was on freeze, like, and. And I'm sitting here dying, dude. Like, you know, the most of our business with was with car dealers. Half of the car dealers In America, there's 20,000, 9,000 of them went out of business, literally in a period of, I don't know, 15 months. Devastation. I told my wife, I said, we're going to go broke. I was newly married, just. We had a baby on the way. And I said this. We're going to go broke, dude. I'm telling you, we're going to go bankrupt. So the. The crazy thing is, the bank. I owed a bank $58 million. They failed.

Wow.

New bank comes in and calls the loan because everything was in default now. And I'm sitting here. A guy named Gavin visits my office and he says, you should get on Facebook and YouTube.

Yeah.

And I'm like, get the F out of here, dude. I don't have time for that. I'm. I'm here. I'm freaking sitting here drowning. Right. I literally booted him out of my home office. The guy leaves. I can hear the gate close. And I hear myself say, you're so negative. You're such an old man. Okay. Now, at that time, because I'm thinking like an old guy. Like, I don't have time for that. Just rejected the idea immediately. And that is what kind of lit the. The light. The bulb. The bulb went off and said, you just sound like some old guy rejecting the concept of a new idea.

Yeah.

And that has always been a warning to me. And so what I did was I immediately, that day, started a Facebook account and a YouTube account. Okay. Myself, I went in there and just figured out how to do it, which was daunting by itself.

And the videos are actually pretty good. Like, the quality. You could hear you like.

Oh, yeah.

If you knew anything about video, dude.

We knew there was no team. I had three people on my team. We have a thousand employees today.

Yeah.

So we had. You know, back then, I had no clue what I was doing. None. I just knew this was free. I had no money.

Free attention.

It was free attention. And. And I needed attention because I was in one sector. Right. No one knew me. And this is when I started understanding the problem I had created was I was too dependent upon too small an audience. There's a warning to everybody listening. Like, you can have a good thing. If you are dependent upon your audience. You will know it. You will know it when you start to feel resentment toward the customer that is actually paying you. Like, if you've ever. Like, there's a big car convention in town. Fifteen years ago, I resented these car dealers because I was dependent upon the car dealer.

Yeah.

And I needed their money so bad. And so when they pay me, it was a weird kind of phenomenon. But when they paid me, I was like, they were never grateful, never happy about it. I never gave them enough value. They always wanted a deal. And so I would resent the business. It Wasn't because of them. It was because I was dependent upon them. And I knew that.

And that's a good thing because I noticed a lot of people who we see at these events and that we coach and mentor, they're mad at the people that refer them business. They talk shit about the customer.

Yeah.

The people that send them deals, the builders, all these kinds of things. It's almost like a tell. It is that you don't have enough customers.

That's right.

You don't have enough business.

That's right.

And so that's a great point. So then you start doing this stuff, the content. And, and at what point did like you say, okay, I'm gonna flip the switch and go big? Because.

Yeah.

You know, in 10x like rule, when you're talking about that you were doing media, you talked about just the volume of output that you guys were doing even back then 10 years ago.

Yeah, but, but there was no plan here. Right. So there was just, there was just, you know, you said something we, when we sat down today about you guys are built different.

Yeah.

And this was all fear based. Like there was no intelligence here. I know. I don't want anybody to think, oh, Grant Cardone had this idea that he was going to become a marketing whatever phenomenon on the Internet. Like, this was not a plan. This was born out of sheer fear. Like I need to communicate to Pete somebody about something and hopes that somebody runs into my material. And I just knew that I had. No one knew me. And if no one knows you, if you're, if you're the Tarzan of the jungle and you're by yourself, you're just, okay, big deal. Nobody knows you. There's no, nothing going on. And I was this giant in a small industry and when that industry failed, I could, I couldn't take care of my family.

Yeah. So it's like visibility beats ability.

Yeah, exactly.

Like you could be really good at that one thing. But yeah, it doesn't matter.

Best known beats best. And, and, and that's what. I wasn't spending money in advertising. We weren't buying ads. We, we knew. No one knew me outside of the industry. There was me and another guy in this one in the automotive industry that were kind of the, the leaders. He spent more money than I did. I spent no money on advertising. I was buying real estate.

Yeah.

And he would, he would double down his business. So he was always a little bigger than me.

That makes sense. So then, and then one thing, like when I said built different, you know, it's not not really. It's kind of like when I would see all the things you do and how they get bigger and bigger. You're like, I'm gonna do a fund. All of a sudden there's billions of dollars in this fund. It ain't like this is not small boy stuff. You know what I mean? Like, so I feel like.

But it all started out small, right?

Yeah. It started off with just one deal, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So it started out, you know, started out one industry, you know, and then we took it and just.

Yeah.

Today we're probably in, I don't know, 30, 30 or 40 industries today.

Yeah. And I think this is the problem. People have a, you know, they look at people like yourself and they're like, I want to do what Grant's doing. I want to do this. Yeah.

I want to go have a jet.

Yeah.

They want the plane today.

But like, let's go back to what you were doing then. And you're posting videos and trying to buy, you know, trying to get known in your market and trying to get.

No one out there out of my home.

Yeah.

Okay. We had three employees, all of which, except for one of them, was useless.

No Rolls Royce. No, no.

There's no roles, bro. Are you kidding me? There was an old Hummer. It was a, it was an eight year old Hummer. The, There was no office, there's no Grant Cardone, there's no logos, there's no 10x, there's no books, there's no plane. I'm flying commercial. Yeah. And I'm flying coach. I'm not asking anybody to feel sorry for me or cry, but like, you know, even when I'm making a couple million bucks a year, but I'm not spending it.

Yeah.

I'm burying all of it in real estate, which you can't get to, you can't get to the money.

It's locked up.

Is locked up. I'm you, I'm trading Marriott points to stay places. I'm traveling 250 days of the year, knocking on doors, cold, cold doors, trying to build a business. I still, I still do a lot of that stuff today.

Yeah.

Right. So we come to Vegas. I'm doing this event tonight, speaking at this dinner tonight, but we, then we stack it with a bunch of other stuff around it. Right. So that we're not.

You guys packed the whole day today.

Yeah, exactly. So we're not depending on one thing. And this is the unfortunate thing entrepreneurs do, they just underestimate the effort required to actually get success. And then Once they get a little bit, then they take off. I didn't. Anytime I get a little something going, I just lean into it.

Yeah.

And try to get more out of it.

And you talk like, I mean, I know you had a history with drugs and then you got over it, but like, now your drug of choice is this.

Yeah. Success, 100%.

Like, it just drives.

Which. On the, on the. Rather than using drugs, I'm like, okay, I'm going to go use work, which I think, you know, a job is just a really, really, very important thing for people to have. I've seen people. I was writing, I was writing a post on X this morning about, you know, when you. When somebody loses their post or their job or their purpose, dude, they decline. So their health declines, their mental abilities decline. They get envious and jealous of other people. And so I just pushed all that energy that I had, that problem I had with drugs and pushed it into. Pushed to becoming a good salesperson and then a good manager and then a good coworker. And then I started learning about finance in the auto industry. Became, you know, just obsessed with that.

Yeah.

And then I just throw myself into it, dude, and try to do 10 times more than everybody else. And.

And it works.

It's going to work some. At some point it's going to click.

Yeah. And I think a lot of people, if you're on that journey, like, you know, you, you just need to do more. You know, a lot of times people are like, what do I do? And they'll tell us what's working. Why don't we just do more of that? You know what I mean? Like, I'm doing content. And then if I showed you how much content produced, I know what you're going to say, you need to do more. Like, you need to push out more content. And. Because it's working. Right. So it's just a matter of ramping it up. So right now, when you're looking at the future and you guys are, I mean, you got studios, you got. I think you just launched a TV show.

TV network.

Yeah, TV network. And, and all these different things in the media space. Right. Are you still looking at media as a big opportunity as we're in, I mean, you know, 15 years later.

Yeah, look, I mean, you know, we. 16 million people follow me. We think there's another 10, 10 times that, maybe eight to 10 times that, that know my name.

Yeah.

On social platforms. But how many people live in India? 1.3 billion.

Billion. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, nobody knows me.

Yeah. So if you think about worldwide, what was America? Three hundred and something million people. Yeah.

330 million people that are, you know, you know, that are. Have obesity and.

Yeah.

And, and. And like, completely, like many of which are given up on the whole game. Like, there's other countries that are, like, completely committed to the bag and the game and success, even more so than Americans today. So, you know, our goal is to get to educate people around the world through entertainment. But the channel is 10X Studios on YouTube and we're producing four TV shows there this year. Real Estate King Undercover Billionaire behind the Scenes, how to Get Rich in America. What's the other one, Jared? Oh, Rise and Fall of American Companies, where I tell people, okay, this is what they did right, this is what they did wrong. The great American Speak off is a fifth show we're working on, looking for the next great.

Yeah, I saw an email from Pete Vargas on that. Yeah, yeah.

And there's one other. Jared, what are we working on? There was one other show we're working on. Oh, yeah. I'm bringing back another show called Whatever it Takes and Turnaround King. So we got that happening this year.

Yeah.

Because. Because people want to be entertained. I mean, that's not going to go away. Yeah. And education's failing people. So if we can combine entertainment and education and start telling stories about entrepreneurs that have been successful, that may be. CNBC won't cover.

Yeah.

You know, your story's gonna. Your story would be a very compelling story to tell to people how you actually made it.

Yeah. And that's what I found is my kind of rags to riches or whatever. And it's not that crazy. I mean, many people have had a similar story, but that's my number one asset in marketing. You know what I mean? Like, I talk about that story and people want to work with you.

Yeah.

And so it's just about putting it out there. So, you know, when you talk about, you know, putting out so much media and you guys are doing it at this high level, like, what's the goal? The goal is just to get more attention, just become known to even more people than you already are. And then. Then is that. And then is it. Do you have. The goal is to get more people to invest in the funds, or is it. Or is it just to get the attention?

No, number one, you know, when I'm gonna go back and. And say 2008, 9 and 10, there was no plan. In 2020, there was still no plan.

Oh, really?

No. Like four years ago, in fact, four months ago, there was no plan. So at the end of 2023, we still didn't like, just keep doing what we were doing, dumping lots of content. But in reality, we have failed as a company. Compared to what? The strategic way to drop content in. Right.

Yeah.

Like you do an interview, like you're similar to me. I'm just going to do the interview. Right. But we missed all the thumbnails. We miss. Yeah, the, the, the, the, the big p. The, the big clickbait stuff. You know, the titles. And we just go into a lot of stuff. I'm. We're going to stop doing that this year.

Yeah.

And we're going to get much more. What's the word?

Intentional.

About the videos, about the content. That's why we're pushing everything off my YouTube channel onto 10X Studios.

Yeah. You talk about thumbnails, Mr. Beast. They test like 200 thumbnails like before they.

Yeah. I mean, I've never tested 200 thing, but.

Yeah.

And, but that being said, it has worked. I mean, we've raised 1 point, almost $1.3 billion over the Internet for Cardone Capital. We sold a billion, $1.2 billion worth of products and services over the Internet. Tickets, books, digital download.

Would you say that the investment in your personal brand has been your. The highest roi? I mean, not. Or is this real estate now? Right. As you've gone into the fund?

Well, all the businesses work together. There's not a business that, you know, they all sit on a hand, so if I move my pinky, my thumb's going to respond. They're not. These businesses aren't separated. So 10x. Right. If I'm rocking 10x 10x health also benefits.

Yeah.

Cardone Ventures benefits. Right. So, you know, is the brand the most important thing? I don't know if the brand's the most important thing because you can't really make a brand.

Yeah.

Very quick. Brands take time.

Yeah.

You know, it's like brands aren't promotion, they're not advertising, it's not marketing. Marketing is the plan for the advertising or the promotion or the publicity stunt or the pr. But brand is something seared.

Yeah.

So like some people, some of the 16 million that follow and then this other, I don't know, 80 million or 100 more million. People that know me all know me for different reasons.

Yeah.

Some people know me because I show off my plane. Some people know me because I just ordered a armored Humvee and they're like, oh my God, the guys. He's gonna go get into the Damn bunker business, right?

Yeah.

Some people know me because of 10x. Some people know me because I'm a sales guy. Some people know me as a marketing guy. Some people know me as a real estate person and don't know anything about all that other stuff.

Yeah.

Some people know me because I'm in a defamation suit with a guy for $100 million. So some people know me because of what negative things other people say about me on the Internet.

Yeah.

I don't. All those are brands, by the way.

But you talk a lot. You get a lot of, I think, from the influencers that I follow. You get more hate than other ones, and it's because you just always speak your mind. And so I know part of that is just who you are. You just call it like it is.

You just.

You just Straight shooter. But is this. Some of it is a marketing thing. Right. Like, you want. You like. It seems like you like the controversy when someone's hating on you, but it's not.

It's not. It's not a game for me. I'm not trying. I'm not trying to do this for marketing. Like, we don't sit and think, okay, I'm going to. I'm going to push on this dude to get more marketing.

Yeah.

I'm just going to push on the guy because I don't agree with him.

Yeah.

And if I don't agree with somebody, these guys can tell you to work with me, dude. I just tell. I'm. Boom. That ain't gonna work. Like, that's not gonna work. That's ridiculous. That's dumb. That doesn't make any sense. You know this thing that you talked about earlier about three guys speak from a stage and they all have different advice on investing.

Yep.

I'm like, I ain't listening to any of you guys. Okay.

Yep.

Because I don't want to be you guys. I want to be something else. So I don't know why exactly I create the controversy. I do. One is, I do speak my mind. I'm not trying to get marketing to do that, but I'm just trying to understand what's true for me. And then when you drop in something that's not true for me, I need to chat. I'm challenging myself. Not really you in the beginning.

Yeah.

You know, like, you say you need to save three months of money, and I'm like, okay, why do I need to save three months of money? Like, I'm challenging everything I've been told my whole life. And I'm like, this is stupid. Why would I keep money that's going down in value for some freaking emergency that hasn't happened? All I'm going to do is basically fund an emergency.

Yeah, and that's a great point.

Happen.

You talk about, like, wouldn't debt be better for that? Like, that's what credit cards are for.

Before I go to what's right or wrong, I'm just going through my head like, I'm challenging myself. When Dave Ramsey says, you need three months, or whoever says this, the uncle that says, you need three months, or the millionaire next door says, you need three months or six months, the same as. And I'm like, that's stupid, dude. Why would I want to save money in a. In a bank?

Yeah.

And I'm running through this in my own head, and then I blurt out, this is stupid. This is crazy. You know, and then. And when I blurt it out like that, it becomes controversial. Like, even right now, I'm trying to figure out why this happens to me. Why do so many people not like what I say?

Well, it's also politics, right? You talk about, you know, dumb stuff the government's doing. Like, I mean, this has to be the time period where we see the dumbest shit from the government. I mean, I don't know I've been in politics that much, but in the last three years, I'm like, these guys are. Are dumb. Like, I feel like it's just a level of incompetence I've never seen before. And so it's not about politics, like, what side you're on. This is dumb shit, you know, so if you say it, a lot of people seem to be offended by that these days, you know, So I think that just comes to the territory.

Yeah. And. And, you know, I mean, that's one piece, you know, their rightness, their bias. My bias is being challenged, so I'm going to defend it. And then the other thing is, you know, when you start stacking successes and you start moving away from people that you were once, maybe peers or competitors with, and you start moving away. There's a period when you're moving away from them that. That they're like, oh, my God, he's getting ahead of me.

Yeah.

That causes some friction. Once you leave them completely, like, wham. You're in another realm that drops off. And then they're like, I always knew you were, man. I'm so proud of you, man. Yeah. You weren't saying that, like, a couple years ago, you were freaking kind of hating on my you know, so I think some of that's just natural, dude. Just natural envy and jealousy and.

Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. So then when you talk about the now obviously being known, it doesn't matter what industry in, you got to be known. So you know, doubling down is that you talk about doubling down on content and media when you're looking at businesses that you invest in. Because I know you guys have Cardone Ventures and you guys look at a bunch of different businesses throughout the year. What type of businesses? Because I know, I think I read you had 16 plus businesses that you guys are running now.

Yeah, I think what is there now, Jared? 20 plus 24.

So what type of businesses are you investing? What are you excited about? Or is it really just based on the operator? Anything that fits, Anything that works.

Really? Really. I mean it is the operator. But does it fit for us? Like I can't, I'm not going to go. No matter the operator. I am not going to get involved in big pharma. Let's say big pharma came to me and said, bro, we got it by D D, you're a perfect fit. We're going to 10x people's depression. You know, I'm like, yeah, that doesn't fit for me. So I'm not doing it. So there's that. The moral piece. I don't live in California because of a moral issue.

Yeah.

It's not a financial issue. It's like I'm not going to live in a place where I can't agree with. I'm not going to do business. It was somebody I can't agree with. I don't care how good the operator is. Then the third, the third filter is going to be does it fit with what I'm saying? Like we're going to, we're starting an investment firm right now. That's good. That I think is going to be massive. Yeah. And we try to, we try to create that relationship where whatever I'm talking about, I'm sitting here talking to you. I can also talk about rebellion marketing and other options and choices where people could actually start moving away from the Merrill Lynches and the fidelities.

Yeah.

These giant trillion dollar slave masters and, and have alternatives that democratize the little guy and put the little guy back into play.

Yeah.

And so there's got to be a fit. Right. So we did a health business. We've done H vac business. We've done ranches, 10x farms and ranches.

And when you look at the businesses you're investing in that are doing like.

I'm doing like I just bought two big Humvees. Okay.

Yeah.

That are EMP protected. I'm probably going to do a deal with. With a plan B kind of Humvee armored and non armored for. For to plan for those people maybe that follow me that want some protection again against an event happening.

Yeah, that's.

So that's a fit, right?

Yeah.

So I'll put you on the list for.

That'll be cool. Yeah, I like it. And then there's a lot of things that fit with what your, your, your interests are as well. I noticed like a lot of things you're into and those types of things. But when you look at the actual businesses, why they're not growing, I think like this would be super helpful for people who are running that business or building their, their teams and all these things. What is the mistakes you're seeing these people make like that you guys can help with. Because I know that's, that's one of the things why people partner with Cardone Ventures and you're allowing them to scale. Because even in my personal thing, like we hit a level of success. And then I realized this isn't shit. You know what I mean? Like, I thought, I thought if you made a few million bucks, you'd feel like rich.

Yeah. Yeah.

But I feel scared.

Yeah, totally.

I don't feel like I'm. I can just go blow money.

Yeah.

Like I feel like.

And then looking at you, you weren't even happy.

No. It's a weird feeling. Zero goal.

I got a goal. You hit the goal. And the moment you hit the goal, the couple million dollars, you're like, oh, now I'm scared. Is that, Was that the experience?

Exactly. So I mean, it feels better than being broke, but at the same time, like, I don't feel like at ease that you can just chill out.

So now you have a responsibility. Right. It's like having a million dollars are like having a bunch of kids.

Yeah.

You know, you didn't have any kids. You were single, doing your own thing. Next thing you look up, you got three kids. You're like, shit, I'm responsible. You know, in fact, there's surveys done today that kids are kids growing up today are saying, I don't want a kid and I don't want a marriage and I don't want a house and I don't want a car. Not because I can't afford them, because it forces me to be responsible. A couple million dollars is a new responsibility that most people are not prepared for.

So why do so many people stop there?

Yeah. So, so to the first part of your question is, you know, where we help people is number one with the think, okay? Like you think 2 million's a big deal. And, and, and if you had somebody around you saying, bro, stop, stop. 2 million a month. Yeah, let's go to 2 million a month and let's build it. Okay. And I get you thinking about. Because it's easier to make $20 million a year than it is 2 million. Like, I know nobody's going to believe this. This is your big clickbait.

Really?

Okay. Billionaire says, easier to make $20 million a year than $2 million. And I'm telling you it is.

How. Explain that.

Because you need people, man. You can't. You're not going to make 2 million, $20 million without people. You need to add people. People are not a problem. Okay? So there's a math. There's an equation to moving from 200 grand to 2 million to 20 million. There's people issues, there's operations. How do you scale through all that? How do you market? What do you sell? What products do you sell? But there's basic math in that process. That's the super wealthy. They. They don't. They don't do things the way we do things. Oh, I got to add little. I got to get 200. I got to take baby steps. Real estate people do this too. I got to buy single family, and then I got to buy a duplex, and then I got to buy another duplex. And you don't have to do it like that. You could actually skip to the good stuff. That Instagram, that Instagram song where it says. Can we just skip to the good part? Yeah, yeah, to the good part. Right. So what we do is we help the Cardone ventures. We help people skip to good part.

That's huge.

And get through the. The. The painful.

So you can. There are shortcuts in 1000%. Okay.

Like in real estate, the shortcut is you don't buy single family. You don't buy two units, you don't buy four units, and you go raise money to buy 40 units.

Yeah. And that's the mistake I made. So I'll just tell you personally, I put. So I made some money. I put some money into, in the beginning into. Into one of your funds. Then I bought, over the last five years, six or seven single family homes.

Yeah.

And they're rental properties.

Yeah.

And I feel like I did that wrong. You know, I feel like I Should have just done something different. But at the same time, those properties have appreciated. I got some tax benefit from it. Yeah, but you know what I mean, like it's, is it, is it wrong right now?

You're worried about them right now. Like, like even as you tell me this story, you're like, I got these six homes.

Well, the reason why you felt that energy is one of them's been vacant for three months because I can't find a tenant.

Yeah. What's wrong with the other five?

They're rented. But you know, they could go vacant.

They could freaking see. You're worried about him right now. Guy loses his job, boom, he's bouncing.

Yeah.

Or he doesn't bounce and he stays and doesn't pay.

So someone worse, someone like me, worried.

About those five deals you're in with me.

I don't never worry about them. Yeah.

Which is, is so important for people to know because you have zero attention on the investment you made with me. I pay you every month.

Yep.

There's probably $200 million worth of equity based on the. No, the smallest number is what? 120. $120 million worth of equity. We're partners on you. It requires no attention or energy.

So if we, if we had the time to do the math, do you think it'd be better to put it in there 100%? So if I took these six properties.

With me than you would owning. You would make more money with me as a 1% ownership in a fund with me than you would make owning 100% of those six deals, or any deal really. Because one, I have scale. Two, I can operate things for less than you. Three, I'm going to buy a much better asset like the stuff I own. If your shit goes up, dude, the stuff you're in with me is going to go up four or five times. Really, for every, every little incremental growth you get. But most importantly, you don't have to worry about my investments, which means you can go create on your business.

Yeah.

And, and I think people don't understand, dude, when you try to create on a business. And, and, and, and you're like, I'm gonna go create today. Monday morning, I'm going to go create and grow.

Yeah.

And you have to compete with six single family homes in your head. You can't get them out of your head. And you're worried about that one guy that's out the five. What, what happens that takes. It robs you of creativity.

Yeah.

Right. So what I do with my money like, if, if this money it. Let's say I sold this Fiji bottle and somebody gave me $1 million. I would take the million dollars, the entire million dollars and go invest it. I have no bottle. I haven't. I don't have a bottle anymore.

You don't keep 100 grand and I don't, I don't have a cushion?

No, dude, I don't have any of it.

You just put. Park it all.

Zero.

So this is your concept of make yourself broke.

I break. I break myself a couple times a year, sometimes four times. Oh, yeah, 100%.

Oh, wow. Okay.

So you said, hey, man, you like. How do you guys have this hustle? I'm always broke, bro.

Yeah.

I break myself. Okay. I break myself financially.

And that keeps you hungry.

I break my ego. So. So I'm like, I don't have any followers. Okay. I'm not a. I'm not a star. I'm not an. Like the, you know, the Internet calls me. What does it call me? A celebrity influencer or something?

Yeah.

I'm like, I'm not that. I go to zero. And because I go to zero, I'm going to build a new audience. Right. Because I'm always trying to build to something the next thing that makes sense.

This is like the part where you talk about making money in business, making that your number one priority. You got to get more cash flow, make more money, and then just park it in stuff you can't touch and let it be.

Move it. I'm liquid. When you. I get the million dollars. I'm liquid. I take the liquidity, I move it. I no longer had the bottle of water. That's the asset that I had.

Yeah.

Now I have a million dollars. I'm going to take the million, dump it into something non liquid illiquid. I want to go from paper to a building where I can't touch the money.

So when you. You guys train.

So. But. But this leaves me zero again. So now this is the new me. And I look up and I'm like, I don't have a bottle to sell. I don't have any opportunities, and I got to go hustle. This is what people do wrong telling you people, they go sell something, they get some money and they put some Gucci's on their feet. This stupid. Don't do that. What you do is you get some money, go buy some Gucci stock. If you believe in the shoes, go buy the stock. It's a better deal and be broke again and go back out and do the sandals on like Jesus. Okay. Knowing that you're an investor in Gucci, but you're still wearing some old dumbass sandals that nobody cares. Okay. Clean your toenails up, but don't worry about your shoes, man. And then go hustle another four or five hundred bucks. However you do that, your job, a bonus. You're an assistant, your salesperson, a plumber, contractor. Go hustle another 400 bucks. Bang, park that money and go do it again.

That's the process. Okay? That's. That's the formula.

Yeah, that's the formula. Stay broke.

Stay broke. And then the part is stay broke.

With money and start building assets.

So at what point can you. Do you think it's okay to start spending money on like cars? When all this.

When, when this, this pot over here starts throwing you money every month and it should distribute cash flow every month.

Yeah.

So I don't invest in anything that doesn't cash flow. I got a little bit of bitcoin. It doesn't cash flow. Yeah. I don't regret buying that. That's cool. But, but I'm not. I'm going to only invest in things that spit off some passive income. The passive income is how I buy my shoes.

Yeah.

Okay. So I'm going to. You know, the six homes that you have, you could live off the income of those. But the problem with those six homes, again, is you're worried those people are going to move out.

Yeah, well, that's what happened. One of them moved out.

Yeah.

And it's a luxury property and I've been had it for. Listed for rent and nobody's re.

So you're. You're right now across your portfolio, you're 85% occupied.

Correct.

Okay. For me to lose, I would have to lose in my portfolio. I'd have to lose 45 people per building to be at the same place you are.

So the one off vacancies don't bother you?

The one.

The one off, like the one offs of like this. This person left. This person. It doesn't matter because you have scale.

Dude, If I have 400 units and one person moves out, I don't even know anything happened. I'm like, yeah, it was a non event. And this is where people should start. Okay, you should start with 32 units. That is the perfect number. Your first deal should be 32 units. You should look for a property where the rents are 1000, but they should be 1200. They're 200 too low. If you can move, if you can find that deal in your marketplace, it's probably 1970, 1980 built guys probably owned it 10 or 15 years. He didn't raise the rents because he doesn't need to. The rents are a thousand. You raise them to 1200, you'll make a $1.2 million on that deal. As soon as you move the rents without doing anything, that's it.

Okay, so then people who are first focus is like, okay, increase your marketing, make more money, get more customers, build your network, hire people, do all that stuff. And then at the same time, yeah, put the deals, put the funds into these deals. Now if you're saying if you don't have, if you can't find the deals, just partner with people who can find them. Right.

I'm 100%. No, no, no. Real estate deals. If we're talking about real estate now, I think we. Yeah, that's what I'm getting into, real estate. So no real estate is owned 100 by anyone. Nowhere in the world. No one owns all the real estate except maybe the Vatican. You know, if you're dealing with property taxes, a bank, investors, you're always going to have tenants. The tenants. Right, the tenants are a partner in a real estate deal.

Yeah.

So there's no such thing. I thought when I started, when I was 30, 30 years old, I'm going to own, I'm going to be the owner. It's not, you can't be the owner. You have a bank involved in most cases you have property taxes involved and you have a tenant. So now what I do today is we take, we have partners, we have 13,000 partners in our real estate. We own four and a half billion dollars worth of real estate. Going to 10 billion. The goal is to go to 10 billion in the next 12 months and then 100 billion in the next five years will be the largest apartment owner in America and do it with everyday people. So like some of your buddies that, you know the syndicate deals, you know, many of those guys are going to big institutions to get their funding, that's a partner. Or you go to Fannie Mae to get a loan, that's a partner. And then you have, you know, 40, 40 tenants, those are partners. So I would just tell everybody, quit thinking about you're going to own it all partner about having partners and investor partners. Or you be the passive investor with a guy like me. How much you put in the 100 grand? Yeah. So what are you getting every month, 500 bucks? Yeah, 600 bucks.

And then at the end in December, I get more for some. Yeah, that's like the end of the.

Year, we throw off a surplus.

I thought that's a Christmas bonus or something you guys get. That's it. So that, I mean, so that is the formula. And when you talk about putting the money into these deals, a lot of, you know, that's the advice. Like somebody will say, hey, just go buy. The real estate guy will say, go buy some duplexes and triplexes and you're.

Or flip a deal or. Yeah, do the burr things.

Yeah. But these things like end up taking your eye off the ball in terms of now you're dealing with. That's another business. You know what I mean?

No, that's another job.

That's not a business.

Okay. The burr is a burr.

Yeah. Brrrr. And fix and flip. All that stuff.

Fix and flip. These are jobs. Don't kid yourself. You're not an investor if you're a flex and fix and flipper, okay? If you're doing single family homes, you are not an investor. You are a manager of a piece of property. You collect checks, you fix the property, you paint it. You cannot afford a manager. Now you're an investor with me. You don't paint anything. You hadn't even been to the properties, bro. Yeah, there's no way you've been to all four.

So this, this is a good concept. It's like I should want to be an investor. I don't want to be an investor. Who cares about being an owner?

You don't want to be an entrepreneur. You do not want to be an influencer. You do not want to be a boss. Okay? I'm telling you, this is. Skip to the good stuff. Be an investor.

You know, be Buffett.

Be Buffett. Okay? Buffett's a perfect example. He made for $508 million as an investor at Coca Cola last year. The. The top guy at Coca Cola made 58 million.

Wow.

So Warren Buffett made 500 million being an investor. He's never in the operations.

Yep.

Okay. And the CEO that runs the company made 50 million. Who you want to be? Do you want to be an investor? You don't want to be the owner. You don't even want to be the CEO. You don't want to be the top guy in the company.

So entrepreneurship is kind of the means to the end of, you don't want.

To be the entrepreneur. You want to be the investor. You know, I see people with their little shirts on. I'm the boss. You're stupid, bro. You're a slave. Like the super wealthy. Look at the Boss and say, what, an igmo?

Yeah.

You don't want to be the boss.

Okay.

You, you don't want to because you're still in the business.

But you guys teach a lot of people, like people that come to 10x, these are all small business owners. Like these are businesses we're doing is.

We'Re building their business now because, you know, back to this, I buy, I buy a building. Yeah, no, I got some money for this and then I buy building. I converted the money to a building. So now I'm broke over here, but I got this building. And then I do it again. Boom. And I got a second building. Okay. Now I'm going to start building this portfolio up over here that's taking care of me while I'm building this. I have all my attention on the, on the grind over here for the money. But the reason I'm grinding money out is to invest in myself. I need to be better, faster, smarter, better picker of people. And then I'm going to invest the money in that business. More marketing, sales, operations. And then when there's money left over, maybe I'm a sunglass company and I'm selling more sunglasses. Any surplus, I'm going to start dumping into these real assets over here. These give me a bunch of tax write offs.

Yeah.

Against this earned income. I'm broke all the time, but I'm starting to build up assets over here, but I'm broke over here. So I'm not buying the Pateks and the Rolexes and the, the Rolls Royces and showing off and yeah, I'm just, I'm low key over here and I'm burying everything over here.

That's it. And that when in one day, one.

Day when this starts spitting off.

Yeah.

Then I'm like, okay, I want to, I want, I want some Gucci's. I'll buy them out of this.

And then the other event, like all the things that you guys do in the, in the business side, you're not taking your foot off the gas there at all in terms of that.

Yeah, we may, we may be toward the end of our, our 10x growth conferences.

Really?

Yeah. We're discussing whether we will continue that in the Future. We have one coming up here in April. April 2nd, 3rd and 4th. It's almost, we're 90 sold out right now. The, the lineup is freaking ridiculous of people that we're bringing in.

Yeah, it's always crazy.

Look, when you see this list, when you see the first two people that speak the first morning you're gonna be.

Like, bro, this is Miami, right?

Yeah. How did he, how did he get these guys?

Yeah.

So we do three days there from the first speaker to the last day, the last guy that speaks on this, on the third day. Like, these are, these are people you can't, you cannot get to get on a stage. So. But we're thinking about winding that down. That, that either we don't sell tickets in the future and it's just for our investors and partners and it won't be open to the public. So.

Yeah. And I, I think one thing that we can kind of get into at the end of this interview is like, this is a big thing I learned from you and maybe could. You can help a lot of people with this. So I remember kind of inquiring about an event, the 10x event, like going to it. This is like three, four years ago. And some dude text me back. And then that dude, he wouldn't leave me alone. Like, he called he dm, he found me on Instagram. He sent me a voice memoir.

Yeah.

And then he eventually, like, he's like, dude, there's some deals. We're going to close you on this.

Yeah.

So here's what I thought when I first started putting together events and marketing and things like this. I thought, you build it, they will come.

They don't.

They don't come. Like, we have to close people. And when they're there, they're going to have a life changing experience. It's going to be awesome. So I really believe in the product.

Yeah. Yeah.

But people weren't buying it. So what I found is like, sales is still vital.

Yeah.

To this whole thing. And I feel like a lot of people just let it go. Like, they do the marketing, but they don't close people.

Yeah.

Working with them.

Yeah.

So can you talk like about that part? Like, you guys are pretty aggressive with the sales stuff.

Yeah, well, you know, I'm an aggressive person, so. Yeah, you. That runs through the organization. And then we don't leave it up to you to buy something because people.

Just kick the can down the road. Especially today.

Nobody have confidence in themselves, man.

They can't pull the trigger, man, I.

Want to do it, man. I want to do it. I want to do it. Oh, I got to get a nanny. I got to travel. I got to get on a plane. Okay, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. But they don't get around to doing it. Like, and so what the company does your. Whoever the company's Trying to market whatever they're marketing, the sunglasses or an event, they're going to lower the price to get you to come. The guy still doesn't make a decision.

Yeah, okay.

And then you start thinking, oh, man, I need to tell them more about the event. I need to tell them who the speakers are. I need to bring more talent in. That's not, that's not going to get them to do it either. We don't even tell people who's going to be at the event. And we sell.

That's great.

Event.

Yeah.

Every event is over.

That's brand well. And they trust that you. You come through. Always.

Yeah, yeah. But again, that doesn't mean they trust themselves, the consumer. The biggest problem with closing a consumer is they don't trust themselves. Nothing to do with me. Oh, man, I went on the Internet and I saw this bad review. Whatever, bro. This ain't about me. It's about you. You're the one. The drug addict. The drug addict didn't go to the treatment center because he's like, man, I don't, I don't know if it's going to work.

Yeah.

You know, the guy doesn't call the girl because he doesn't think he can get her. It's him. It's not her. Right. So people need to understand, look, your consumer has no confidence in themselves. If they did, they would have called you and bought a ticket. But they didn't.

They didn't buy it on the landing page. They just put their information.

You shouldn't even need a landing page. If they had complete confidence and knowingness of their future, they should call you up. Grant Cardone, I want to go to your next growth conference. I want to be on the front row and I'll pay, whatever. Because you'd have confidence in the miracle.

So this is the part where you guys invest a lot in closing people and pushing.

Yeah. Well, yeah, because I know they don't believe in themselves. So my, my team's job is to make sure they believe in themselves.

I feel like their follow up, like the follow up strategy is we're going to do business together or someone's going to die.

Exactly. But other companies, other companies, they don't even have a sales team.

Yeah.

And they're like, call the guy back. Don't bother him, though. Tell him we don't sell stuff. My guys are saying, yeah, we sell stuff now. Cardone Capital, we don't sell anything. We tell people about the investment.

That's an invitation.

But we aggressively tell people about the Investment, Right.

Yeah.

I want to remind you. Here's a text message. Let's schedule a call. Like, it's very aggressive to the point of where you're like, man, you're bothering me. Okay, so you don't. You think I'm bothering you? But we thought we were doing a service.

Yeah.

So tell me to quit bothering you. We will, but until then, I'm going to keep doing a service because Grant said he believes in you and your family more than you believe in you and your family.

Wow.

So I let you down, dude. I. I owe you a personal apology that my team didn't keep calling you back and you went and put that money in those six deals.

Yeah.

Because you should have put that money in another deal.

Yeah. I mean.

Yeah, looking back, that was fun for.

Fun for.

Yeah. I've done 19 funds since then, and you hadn't invested.

Well, nobody hit me up exactly. You know what I mean? Well, I think Ryan texted me a couple times. He's like, hey, man, we got a deal.

Then we moved on to the next deal.

But it's. You got to cut through the noise. You know, it's not. That's an invitation.

But we aggressively tell people about the investment. Right?

Yeah.

I want to remind you. Here's a text message. Let's schedule a call. Like, it's very aggressive to the point of where you're like, man, you're bothering me. Okay, so you don't. You think I'm bothering you? But we thought we were doing a service.

Yeah.

So tell me to quit bothering you. We will. But until then, I'm going to keep doing a service because Grant said he believes in you and your family more than you believe in you and your family.

Wow.

So I let you down, dude. I owe you a personal apology that my team didn't keep calling you back, and you went and put that money in those six deals.

Yeah.

Because you should have put that money in another deal.

Yeah. I mean.

Yeah, looking back, that was fun for.

Fun for you.

I've done 19 funds since then, and you hadn't invested.

Well, nobody hit me up.

Exactly.

You know what I mean? Well, I think Ryan texts me a couple times. He's like, hey, man, we got a deal.

Then we moved on to the next deal.

But it's. You got to cut through the noise, you know? It's not like people. I mean, if somebody would have closed me, I think I would have done.

It, you know, 100 if somebody would have just stayed with you. Now, that's the other part. You Know, like we. Right.

That takes people.

The biggest problem I have in my company right now is we have more leads. I hate to say this, I'm ashamed to say this. I have more leads than I could. Than I can respond to.

That's a good.

These guys are cutting back our advertising because we can't respond to the people.

Wow.

So we got to solve that problem. So. And you're.

That's why you're hiring?

Yeah, we're hiring people. We have, we're about a thousand employees right now across the real estate and the educational business and Cardone Ventures. So we're hiring. How many? 100. Brian, Jared. 150 in house.

Yeah.

And we'd like to get another 250 to 500 remote. So anybody that's interested that's watching this GrantCardOne.com forward slash remote. But you need to be self disciplined, self trained. If I got to manage you, don't even hit the link because this isn't for people that need to be babysitted.

That's it. Well, guys, you know what this is? This is incredible. Like, I think anybody who's watching, listening, you know, you should take yourself to one of these events. I put on events. Grant puts on events. And, and really just expose yourself to thinking bigger. Like, that's what we talked about today. I think everything that we talked about today, you talked about doing a exponentially bigger level. And the big takeaway I had was man age. Let's just do what's in front of us. Like you, I say, hey, what's the plan? You said there is no fricking plan.

Yeah, yeah.

We can always do, like, tactical things a little better.

Yeah.

But just taking the action is more important than trying to get caught up in the details. And then the part that I really liked was like, we can skip steps.

Yeah.

I don't have to like, go from 3 million to 4 million. Like this baby steps that I've been doing. Yeah, you can Skip to fucking 20.

Unless you're surrounded by people that take baby steps. Because, you know, if you, as the CEO of the company needs to like, like, I keep a lot of my thoughts private to my people. We have a target with the guys with our team. But my. Some of my targets are private.

Yeah.

Because they're, they're like, you know, they're. They're so big, if I share them, people can be like, bro, come on, you thinking too much of yourself now.

Yeah.

Okay. And then, and then that. And some of it's so big. Like, I don't want to even talk about it because if I talk about it, like, I'm like, I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to do anything I've ever done.

Yeah.

So. And the people listening, you guys, you, you're not going to know how to do everything. You need a plan. I'm not saying you don't have a plan, but while you're planning, somebody needs to be making a phone call and getting you out of the. The moment of being broke.

Yeah.

So you can start funding the marketing and the other people and some assets.

Yeah. And don't worry about having three months savings plan.

Yeah. Well, that's just stupid.

Yeah. That's it. Well, thanks so much for being a grant. We appreciate you. And then if you, I mean everybody that's in our audience already follows you and I'm sure we'll be looking forward to bigger and better things. I'm glad you're not taking your foot off the gas.

No, I'm not, man.

That's it. Thank you.