Building Your Business As An Asset With The Real Jason Duncan

Welcome back to the show. I'm your host, Phil Risher. And on today's episode, we're going to be discussing how to exit your business without exiting with the real Jason Duncan. Thanks so much for joining us today, Jason.

Glad to be here, Phil.

Yeah, I appreciate it. So. So Jason Duncan is a successful entrepreneur, business coach, author, best known for his innovative approach to entrepreneurship called Exit Without Exiting. He has built multiple multi million dollar businesses, including a highly successful energy efficiency company, featured in publications such as Inc. Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine. He's a former educator, ministry leader. And Jason's passion for teaching has now evolved into coaching business owners on how to achieve success without sacrificing their freedom. TEDx speaker, podcast, host of the Root of All Success and an authority on helping entrepreneurs regain control of their business and lives. So, Jason, can you share the story? How did you transition from a teacher to an entrepreneur? And what was your business?

So when I was a school teacher, I taught 8th grade American history and it was the, it was the love of my life. I enjoyed teaching probably more than anything that I had ever done. I was a great teacher, was the number one teacher in the county in my subject area. The students loved me, the parents loved me, administration loved me. I really planned on being in education for the rest of my life until the Great Recession kind of caught up with all the school districts all over the country. But specifically in the school district that I was teaching in was a public school district here in northern Asheville, Tennessee, in Sumner County. And my principal came to me one day and it was April of 2011. And he said, hey man, we need to talk. And I said, okay. He goes, let's sit down. I'm like, oh, this is not good. And he went on to explain the fact that he had to, he had to, he had to cut two teaching positions from the building. And unfortunately, I was one of the two because I didn't have tenure. I was the last guy hired in the building. And that was how they had to make decisions at that time. Now, I know, I understand now, they've changed tenure rules and stuff like that, but, you know, that was a sucky day. He said, you know, you're going to finish out the school year and I'll do whatever I can to help you get placed somewhere else, but I can't, I can't keep you here in this, in this school. You know, I went, after I got off school that day, I went to my wife's office and she was sitting behind the desk and she was working away. And I Didn't know it at the time, but she had had a bad day. I really wasn't paying attention to anybody else at that moment because I was dealing with my own mess. So I wasn't really being perspective of my wife's mood and her facial, you know, what she was revealing in her face and she was what are you doing here? And because it was not normal for me to stop by her office and I told her and of course then I could see it in her face. The blood drained out of her face and eyes got big and, and, and she said, what are we going to do? And I said, I don't know, we'll figure it out. That day turned into weeks and months of just trying to figure out what are we going to do. And of course at first, well, I'll just have to go into the corporate world, get a job somewhere because nobody was hiring teachers. I did apply for teaching jobs but, but I, I couldn't, I couldn't find one anywhere. So your question is, what business did I go into? Well, I had, a year prior to that I had started a company called Future Vision Energy with a friend of mine at his insistence. And we were doing energy efficiency stuff like where hydrogen generators and ethanol stills. It's crazy stuff, right? I didn't know anything about any of this stuff. It was just kind of cool. And at that time, out of sheer desperation, I was just looking for, well, I've got this energy company, what could I do with it that would actually make some money? And so I, I LED lighting came as an idea. I thought well that's kind of energy efficiency. And that's what I did. So I started looking in that and I told my wife, I said my last paycheck from the state is going to be on August 15th of this year, this 2011. I said if I don't, if I don't get a deal, if I don't sell something, I don't have money coming in, I'll go get a real job. And on August 12, I closed what turned out to be a multi million dollar LED lighting project in Middle Tennessee. And that was it. I just, here I go.

Wow. So the, the business was going into, to commercial business businesses or places and then taking their old lights that were inefficient and then getting new LED lighting in there and you were getting these commercial contracts like maybe bidding them or building relationships. Was that basically how it was?

Yeah, you got it. That's, that's. We were doing LED lighting retrofits primarily in hospitals and Large manufacturing facilities.

Okay. And so as you're scaling the business, were you the sales guy and the, the, were you taking the light bulbs out and putting the new lights in? Like what did that look like?

I didn't, I didn't do the installation, but I did everything else. I sourced it, I did the project preparation work, I did the project management work, I ordered the materials, I managed the crews. I was lucky enough to, to be introduced to an electrician here locally in the Nashville area who was very, very keen on getting involved in this business from a labor standpoint. So I just hired his crews to go do it and they were, they were fantastic. But I did everything except install the lights.

Okay, so the listeners ears perked up when you said multi million dollar commercial contract and you got it and you didn't know what you were doing.

So. Yes.

Do you have you, did you build out any best practices or like, hey, how come you'll get more of these whales? Or like what do you have any takeaways on how to get those deals?

Well, the, Yes, I mean we, we actually, I, I, everything I was doing was looking for big deals. So there was another, another story. That particular first, that particular project that I got on August 12 was a regional hospital here in Middle Tennessee. And the re. The way I was able to get in is that my business partner at the time, who was a minority business partner, like 5% owner of the business. And he was really only there at 5% ownership because he had loaned me some money to get the company started with my other friend a year prior to all this. But he knew the CFO at this hospital. And so that was the intro that was necessary for me to get to the table. And then from that point forward, you know, I just kind of took it and ran with it. So knowing people, of course, is a really important thing. Leveraging those relationships, looking for who you know, because your net worth is going to be your net work. And so I had to leverage my network. The next deal, big significant deal we got, was with a large clothing manufacturing company that, that everybody would know the name of their own television all the time. They're a huge international company and they had a large distribution center here in the Middle Tennessee area that I drove past literally every day. It was in my town and I thought they probably have a lot of lights. And so I, I, I just cold called them. Like, I literally just, I'm driving my car down the street and I stopped at a red light, I googled their name and, and like on the seventh or eighth page of Google. I found a phone number because they like their, their distribution center is going to have a phone number list. But I did find a number and I called it and the guy answered, he said it. That was how he answered the phone. So I had found an internal number and I said, man, I've got a crazy question for you. I said, you know, I live here in the town and I drive by your building all the time. It's huge. What's an electric bill in a place like that? And he hung up on me. And that's like, well, I'll just call back. So I did it again, did the same thing, thinking, I'll get, you know, one of the other 50 people in the IT department. Later I learned there's only two guys in the IT department. So I got the second guy and I did the same thing and he put me on hold for what seemed like an eternity. And, and he comes back and he says, you need to talk to. And he gave me a lady's name, I don't remember her name. We'll call her. Sarah. You need to talk to Sarah. Here's her phone number. So I called Sarah. Sarah didn't answer the phone. She. So I got her voice message and I said, our voicemail. And I said, sarah, my name is Jason Duncan and I live here in town. I got a weird question for you. I just was talking to somebody or whoever the guy was in IT department, he told me to call you and I left a sales pitch question on a voicemail. Don't do that. But I did it, I did it anyway. And I honestly feel I'd forgotten I had done that. Two weeks pass and I get a phone call from a guy named Eric and he said, he goes, hey, my name is Eric and told me his last name. He goes, I'm with. And he told me the company's name. And he said, I understand you're asking questions about our electric bill. I'm like, yeah. And then the gig, the jig was up. I had to then tell him why I was calling. Yeah. And so I explained it to him and he was intrigued. He said, yeah man, come on in, we'll talk. And that turned into another multi million dollar, multi state project.

Wow. So the big takeaway is don't be scared to just call people. It's not some big scary thing. And also be a little persistent. Just because you get hung up on or voicemail, you know, shoot your shots over and over again and eventually someone's going to call you back or Something's going to happen. Good. From it sounds like.

That's right. Well. And too many people. And this is where I work with my clients now. And my mastermind that I lead. We were just talking about this in our chat group this week, is that what assumptions are we making about other people that turn out to be incorrect, and it keeps us from doing what we should be doing. And one of the guys in our group, he was talking about, you know, I've made assumptions way too many years on what the prospect is going to think or say in response to my call. They may, you know, he, he said, I have this perception that they're going to be annoyed by me. They don't want to talk to a salesperson. They're not interested in what I'm selling, and I have to overcome all that. He goes, when I change my mindset to say, you know what? I don't know what they think. I don't know what they're expecting. I don't know if they're just bored and are ready to talk to somebody, so I'm just going to do my deal. And then once he started changing his mindset, his business changed.

That's right. And I think business owners can appreciate this in the age of AI automation, which I'm all about that it's something to get a call from another human being that's like, hey, I got a crazy question, weird question for you. Like, do y' all have this problem? And it just sounds real and natural and organic. It's like, oh, this is refreshing to talk to another human being that might have. Be able to solve my problem.

Yeah, that's for sure. I mean, we're all, as you said, we're all human, and we all want to interact with people and in a meaningful and valuable way. We don't want our time wasted. So as long as you're not wasting people's time, they're going to let you talk to them.

That's right. Okay, so you, you got these deals, you start growing your business, and what happens? I mean, are you working a hundred hours? You don't know how to manage your time? Like, how do you, you know, you're doing five, six million dollars? What does that look like as far as your growth?

Yeah, so the, the, the short answer to that is, yes, I was doing all those things. I was working a lot of hours. I was doing everything. But, but the other side of it, Phil, is that I always knew that the most important thing was my family. I had had two small kids at the Time and a wife, of course. And, and you know, they were, they were my world and they were more important than business. So I did, I wasn't a neglectful father or husband, but I was very, very busy.

Yeah.

And, but, but the other side of that, and I've been, I've been thinking now because, I mean, this many, many years later, and we're talking 14, 15 years later, my kids are 24 and 22 now. My daughter lives out on her own with, you know, with a roommate and my, my son still lives with us, but, you know, we're, we're practically empty nesters. I mean, he's, he's an adult. We don't really have any interaction with him other than there's an adult living down the hall in another bedroom. But, but I've got to thinking about like, what, what would have been different had I not been an entrepreneur? Like, had I not lost my job in the school, what would my family like be different? Would I have raised my kids different? Would I have interacted with my spouse differently? What, what would have been different? And I, and I'm sad to say and admit that, that even as much as I paid attention to the fact that they're the most important thing, I didn't, I did miss stuff. And I regret that I miss things because in the pursuit of just trying to make it, in the pursuit of trying to make bills and pay the, you know, pay bills and not in the pursuit of becoming a millionaire, because I really didn't have. That wasn't even on my radar. Although I did become one as a result of this. That wasn't something I was aiming at. I just wanted to survive. Right. But in the pursuit of building something, I think I lost something that I can never get back. And I, and I regret that. And that's really why I started the Exeter Club, because I don't want to make sure that, that, that kids, the kids of the clients I work with don't ever have to have, don't ever have this feeling and the clients don't have that feeling that they miss something.

Yeah, I, I, something that I struggle with a lot. I have a daughter who's two and it's the part of being present, like you could still be at the dinner table without being at the dinner table and like being participating in conversation and being present with them that I think when you're so in the day to day, how am I going to pay this? How am I going to hit payroll? How am I going to do that? It can be Overwhelming. And you're not even present with your, you know, in the actual state of what you need to do.

Yeah, that. That's. There's a lot of wisdom in that, because we. We can be present physically and absent emotionally and in every other way. And I think spouse, kid, all that. Yeah. And I think. I think that's probably a lot of what I. The regret that I feel. And it's not overwhelming sense of regret. I mean, I have a good relationship with my kids and my wife, but I. I have this sense of regret that there was a lot of times I wasn't present only because I was not. Not that I. Again, I wasn't trying. I wasn't chasing Lambos and yachts. That's not. That's a lot of the Instagram guru crap that we see. I wasn't doing that. I was just trying to make sure I made the bills. I mean, let's think about this. I made three grand a month as a teacher. I wasn't making any money. And when I started the business, I was making zero a month.

Yeah.

And so, like, it was a race to get the three grand. I just had to get to three grand, which today is like, I have. I have one interest payment on one loan that's more than three grand. It's just crazy. It's different. But I. But chasing the three grand. And then. And I remember saying to my business partner pretty early on, like, I want to get to 10 grand a month, because I never made that much money ever. I mean, I'd made not even a third that. And I thought, I just want to get to 10 grand a month. And of course, that came and went and surpassed it. But, yeah, they're being physically present is one thing, but are you really disconnected from the pursuit of whatever you're trying to chase as an entrepreneur, to really sit back and go, you know what? I'm fully present and accounted for in my family.

Yeah. And from what I know about your story in 2019, that was the most challenging year of your business in life, and things came to a head or something. Can you explain what. What happened or how that. What all happened and how you kind of came to this exit without exiting?

Well, 2019 pales in comparison to what happened in 2023 and 2024.

Okay.

And that's why I need to redo my book, because there's more crap to tell.

Well, I'm familiar with 23, 2024, and I. And I'm curious to talk to you about that, because you haven't Said too much about it. So open that can of worms. But I'm curious. 2019 was. Was another one.

Well, so I don't talk a lot about what happened in 23 and 24, except in vague, vague stuff. I. I'm not comfortable enough yet to dive into actually what happened because it's so painful. There's still. There's still crap going on. As a matter of fact, my intern is sitting off camera right now. We were talking a little bit about this this morning because part of he's here to learn how to be an entrepreneur, and I have to tell him the crap. Like, this is what happened. And we talked about all the financial problems, everything that happened as a result of what went on. But in 2019, up to that point, I had lived what I would consider a very charmed life. No losses. I mean, the people who had passed away in my life were supposed to pass away. You know, grandparents, people who were elderly. I never had. There were never any loss of somebody dying early or. Nobody got cancer. Nobody. Like every. Everything that I experienced in terms of a negative was expected and appropriate, Although sucked like, but expected and appropriate. So my. I live in a charm life. When 2019, I had three things, big things happen. I had a business partner that I was mentioning earlier who. Who I had to terminate a relationship with, which blew up the company. And I was able to save the company at the time, fast forward ended up losing it. But that's a whole nother story. And that was the 23, 24 crap that I had to deal with. But I was able to save it. I was able to stave off bankruptcy and everything else that might have happened in absence of my just sheer determination to keep it going. We lost money for the first time that happened. I had a family issue that happened that I wasn't prepared for. And thank God everything has since worked itself out. Everything's fine now, but at the time, it was. It was worse. It was the worst. And then I had a best friend, former now screwed me on a business deal. Like, all of that happened in the same year. What's weird is that the best friend who did what he did knew the other two stories. Like, he knew because he was walking with me in those other two stories. And yet he consciously chose to do what he did to me. So I had a triple whammy happened in 2019. And I remember, you know, going through 2019, getting to the end of 2019, going, holy crap, I survived. And it's like, okay, 2020, man, this is gonna be great. We're bouncing back, everything's good, and then doggone it if the world did not decide to just implode in 2020. So we really. 2019 was the beginning of the end. I didn't know it at the time, but it was the beginning of the end. We never recovered. 2018 was my best year in business I'd ever had. Made more money than I've ever made and still haven't eclipsed that since. In 2019, everything started going off the rails. We started building back, and then Covid had another thing coming. So, yeah, it's been a. It's been a tough ride, man.

So the. So the exit without exiting framework, you got through 2019 and were you like, okay, I need to figure out how I need to get out of this, because it's not sustainable, or how did this come about?

Yeah. So 2019 taught me something, because in 2019, that was the first year where me, that Jason Duncan, I wasn't fully present in the business, making sure things happened. So for nine years, I had been the guy. I had been. I'm the CEO, the number one salesperson, number one admin guy. Like, I had a team, a really capable team. 12, I think we had 12 or 15 employees at the time, and they were all very capable. We had four department heads that were doing a really good job. But I was still. I was an owner manager. I'd moved out of owner operator. Was in an owner manager. There's three tiers of entrepreneurship that I teach in the Exeter Club. There's owner operator tier one, owner managers tier two, and then owner investors, tier three. And I was an owner manager and. But it still relied on me, right? Well, in 2019, I took my eye off the ball for the first time ever because I was fighting with a former business partner trying to stop lawsuits from happening, stop. Stop bankruptcy from happening. I was trying to stop the bleeding on the cash. You know, the cash was going out. Well, why did all that happen was because I wasn't there. So when I realized that, it was like, oh, crap, this is not sustainable. And for the first time in my life, it ever occurred to me, because I didn't have. I had a business coach, but he had. He'd not really clued me in on this. It was the first time I realized that any business that relies on a single point of failure, which is in most cases, the entrepreneur is susceptible to death at any moment. And that could be because the owner dies. It could be the owner gets sick or the owner doesn't pay attention. For a full year like I did. I took my off the ball and we lost money for the first time in nine years as a company. We had been profitable since the very first year and here we were losing money. Why? Because of me. And so I decided at that point, I have to figure out how to get out of this business. And I asked my business coach, hey, can you help me figure out how to sell the company? I didn't know anything about that. I didn't have an exit strategy. And he said, no, like, how's that possible? I know that this year has been bad, but we're a seven figure bottom line company. We've been doing really, really well. We had one bad year. Surely that doesn't negate everything. He goes, no, it doesn't. It does affect it. He said, but the reason you want out is the same reason nobody else will want in. Yeah, I mean, think about that. He said, you want out because you're the main guy and nobody else wants to buy it because they don't want to be the main guy. And I thought, it's like, okay, what do I do? And that's when Exit without Exiting was developed, although not fully formed, but it had a gestation period over the next year or so. I was like, okay, I can figure this out. And in 2020, I had a plan to let my leadership group at my company kind of take over the reins more and more and more. And then eventually I would step totally away. And then eventually I'd sell the company. And that was the plan. Covid severely interrupted it. And then there were some other nefarious activities that happened without me knowing about it that caused the ult. The demise of the company. But. But yeah, that's how it was born. That's how this idea came about.

Yeah, I think you hit on a lot of points that people are scared of, which is one key man, take my eye off the ball and everything crumbles. And they're like, okay, that's scary to me because this is my livelihood and everything that I've built. And then on top of that, then you don't have anything to replace yourself. You don't have systems and processes to come in and replace and you don't know what to do. And you ask people like your coach, and they're like, I don't know, dude. So what it, so what it. What did you come up with? Like, what is the game plan that people need to implement in their business to replace themselves and exit without fully exiting?

So it took a lot of A lot of trial and error. Of course. My first, you know, the first attempt at Exit without Exiting was successful and it worked the way that it needed to in the way that I wanted it to. And the reason it didn't ultimately pan out long term is because I made a mistake again taking my off the ball on something. And so that, that probably is the, the through line in all of this is that you, you can't take your eye off the ball even if you exit without exiting, which is what I teach and I advocate for and nothing will ever change that is that you have to put in place the protocol to, to check in on certain key metrics on a regular basis. And I simply didn't do that. And that's what ultimately led to the demise of the company. Now what I have since developed is an entire framework called XOS Exitor Operating System. And for those that are familiar with EOs, they'll be familiar with the idea. EOS is about how to run a company better. And that's great, but it stops short of, well, how do you run a company that increases in value and doesn't require you? Well, that's where XOS comes in. So I work hand in hand with EOS implementers to help implement EOS and xos. And XOS starts with delegation. You got to learn to delegate. And then it's about hiring. You're assembling your support squad, making your support squads good on staff, then your A team because your A team is going to be the, the people that are going to run it in your absence. And then you're going to set up the right systems and automations and then you're going to develop a passive profits machine and then you're ready to exit without exiting. And once you get there, you have the ultimate choice. You can choose to sell or choose to keep it. It depends on what you really want and where you want to go next.

I love that. And I just jotted some stuff down. The first thing I want to hit on is the eye off the ball situation. So since that was two pain points that you face with Eye off the Ball, the check inside of things. Is this like having those KPIs every week or month that you're saying, okay, as long as these things are good, the company should grow. Is, is that the premise behind it?

Well, I think there's the main thing. If I had to, if I had to boil it down to one thing that every entrepreneur needs to watch is your finances. You need to be watching your finances like a hawk. Because ultimately, you are the one that's going to be standing or falling as a result of those finances. I was talking to Carson, my intern, today at lunch. We were talking about the fact that entrepreneurs, by and large, make a significant amount more than their employees. And I have. I make no bones about that. If I make a million dollars and my assistant makes 50,000, I have no. That doesn't bother me whatsoever. Why? Because I took all the risk. Because if something falls, it's. I. I'm the one who goes bankrupt. I'm the one who loses everything. My assistant or any other employee. I'm just using assistant example. They get a job the next day like that, there is no risk that they're taking that's equal to the risk that I take. Which is why I don't mind taking out, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars where I'm only paying, you know, an employee tens of thousands of dollars.

That's right.

So.

But.

But ultimately, what I'd say, Phil, is if I had to narrow it down, what do you have to keep your eye on is your finances. And. And frankly, nobody taught me that. I didn't know that until I had left, exited my company. Honestly, I did financial reviews once a month with my team, but I didn't know what the heck I was looking at. Nobody ever taught me how to read a pnl. I didn't even know what P and L stood for for the longest time. I didn't know what a balance sheet was. That didn't. Didn't make any sense to me. But now, golly, dude, once a month, my bookkeeper prepares those docs and we have a meeting and we go through them and I look at percentages. I'll say, hey, we had this much income, and then historically, we've spent on this line item, 5% of revenue on this line item. But this month, it's 8. Why. Why is it 8 this month? Because that's nearly double what. What's happening there? Oh, well, we misclassified something. Okay, good. Change that. Fix that. Or it could be, well, you spent X number of dollars. No, I didn't. But right here we have the. Well, somebody spent it. They weren't supposed to. Then I go find it and I cut it. Where before, back in the day, I wasn't paying attention to that. I would just look at how much money did we bring in? How much money did we spend? What's left? Great. Move on. That's not gonna. That. That's not keeping your eye on the ball. That's. That's not at all it. You've got to be very, very, very diligent at keeping up with your finances. I'm also a big advocate of the profit first bookkeeping methodology. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but Mike Michalowicz wrote the book Profit first many years ago. He's been on my show a couple times. Love the guys. He's a genius when it comes to stuff like that. But, you know, me logging into my bank account right now and being able to see how much is an income, how much is an opex, how much is an owner comp, how much is the taxes, how much is in profit. I could see that really quickly and go, okay, we're good. We've got enough money in there. Where before we just had one bank account and it's like, okay, we got 100 grand. That's fantastic. But what I didn't realize is that I needed 102,000 for. For, you know, for payroll or something, you know. So profit first bookkeeping, and then paying attention to your P and L in your balance sheet. I think that's so critical for entrepreneurs, no matter what stage of business you're in, whether you're ready to exit or not.

I agree. I want to unpack this a little bit, so keep your eye on the ball. Mostly financials, I think you hit it, which is manage your numbers based off percentages. So if you use a P and l in QuickBooks, you can run it based off percentages and see the percentage of that expense versus your revenue. And if you have everything broken out by percentages, you'll be able to know very quickly if this is going to be working or not. And your cash flow in those specific buckets.

You got it. That's exactly right.

And a lot of people just go into their checking account every day and see what that dollar amount is and make decisions off of their feelings when they don't know what's actually forecasted for expenses.

Yeah, well, you know what's funny is I meet with my accountant and I meet with my bookkeeper once a month, just reviewed, you know, P and L balance sheet, and she asks questions about, you know, hey, we had this, this five hundred and something dollar expense come in on this. What was that for? You know, just to classify things. And then I meet with my accountant and my bookkeeper together once a month. And part of that meeting literally is here, the credit cards that need to be paid this month, here's the debt payments that need to be paid this month, here's payroll that needs to go out. How much should I pay? Because I want to pay down debt aggressively because I hate debt and I wish I'd never gone into any business debt but, but I'm trying to mitigate that and pay it down quickly. And we meet, we have a spreadsheet that shows how much cash is available and what debts paid out or what bills are still due, whether it's payroll or whatever. And he says, okay, put an extra five grand on that visa this month or put, you know, you've got, you need to earmark certain amount for your, for your whatever on this month. And hey, just watch this. And dude, since I've been doing that, I don't fear any of this. I don't fear it anymore. Where before it was like, oh gosh, I gotta pay bills, you know, what's going on? Well, now the profit first and meet with my people. It's, it's easy.

Yeah, I think one of the big things, the owner manager that you mentioned before, to get to that owner investor, if you act like an owner investor would, which an owner investor, an investor in anything would know the numbers on a monthly basis. If they were investing millions of dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars of their hard earned money, they would, you better believe they're going to know the numbers on whatever they're investing in. But a lot of times people don't know the numbers of their own business and that's their biggest investment.

Yeah, well, and here, here's a, here's a nuance to that that I think you probably will appreciate. There, there is a, there is a false notion that I believe a lot of people are being taught online, whether it's Instagram or YouTube or TikTok or whatever. And this idea of knowing your numbers and they say, you better know your numbers. I agree. We just had, we just illustrated why you should and the fact that you should. But here's where, here's where there's a nuance to that that I think is unhealthy and is actually having the opposite effect from what people think they're trying to do. And there's a popular, popular creator I follow, I'm not going to say her name because I like her stuff, but she, she tells the story about meeting a billionaire and the billionaire questioning her, how much money did you make last month? And she goes, oh, about, and she gives a number, he goes about, you don't know your numbers. And the whole point of her telling the story was you got to know your numbers to the Point where if you can't recite that it was $102,592, and not just there's about a hundred. Like, you're. You're not doing it right. And I believe that makes more people go, well, then I'm not interested. I just don't. Like, I can't remember all that. So when I say, know your numbers, I'm saying, hey, have an understanding of what your numbers are doing. Look at those percentages. But if somebody grills me at a dinner meeting, how much money did you make last month? I say about 100 grand if that person pushes back. And, well, if you don't know your numbers and you're never. Shut up. Listen, there are some savants among us that can memorize that and know that crap. And you know, it was $102,519, that's fine. But you could. You can't tell me that you got to know that granular level. I think that's ridiculous to even expect it. So I think people like her. I'm going to say her name, but are promoting this, and they're missing the point. They're swinging the pendulum way too far to one side. Look, entrepreneurs like Phil, you got people that follow you.

Yeah.

Know your numbers. That doesn't mean you got to know it to the penny or to the dollar. But you better well know it. Because if I say, how much money did you make last month? You're like, man, I have no idea. That is not the right answer, dude. You better know it. I know. Like, I'm not going to say it, but I know what my monthly recurring revenue is. I know it's not where I want to be, but I know what it is. But if you came to me and say, phil, and you're coaching me and you say, hey, Jason, what's your monthly recurring revenue? I'm like, I have no idea. That's unhealthy. That is way unhealthy. Very, very unhealthy.

Yeah. And the percentages are another thing. Like, you don't have to know the exact dollars, but just know, okay, my. My overhead is this percent. My profit is this percent. It's a very easy way to kind of have a grasp of the numbers that are circulating.

Well, yeah. And there's so many line items in your. In your panel. Your OPEX is good. And most of your percentage of income is going to be decimal points like point four or point eight or something like that. There's no way to remember. Remember all that. But. But I Should know in benchmarking to say, hey, last month we did, our payroll was 10% of income or whatever the number is. Okay, well, if payroll all of a sudden is 50%, dude, there's something wrong. Either your payroll went way up or your income went way down. That's the only two options there. Well, if you didn't hire anybody, what does that mean? Well, that means your income went way down. And, buddy, you better be looking at it. Take me back to 2019. Had I been paying attention the way that I'm talking about today, I would have seen early. I would have seen by the end of April. I would have known before we got done with the, you know, we're moving into quarter two. I would have been like, hey, guys, percentages are way off. And I could have, you know, worst case scenario, laid people off. You know, I could have shuttered expenses. I could have done a lot of things. But at the end of the year, because I didn't pay attention, lost a million dollars. That's a lot of money because I just wasn't paying attention.

Yeah, I completely agree with you. Percentages are huge, and it could prevent a ton of. Of missed opportunity and lost revenues. So let's say someone is like 1 to 5, 1 to 10 million, and they're like, okay, exiting without exiting. Sounds nice. I want to. I don't want to fall into that trap of being the key man, and I want to be able to grow my business while being that owner, investor. You kind of outlined here, this XOS system, out of all the things that you said, you know, delegate, build this a team. Is there something that someone should start with or what should they do to, like, begin?

Well, the first thing they got to do is your mindset's got to be right. There's a thing called the hero syndrome that I talk about in my book, and I believe it's something that affects a lot if not every single entrepreneur, and that is that they buy into and believe the hustle and grind mentality, and they believe that that's a lifestyle, not a phase. And I believe hustle and grind is a phase. Every entrepreneur has to go through that phase. But. But what happens is so many entrepreneurs go into that phase and then commit to it as a lifestyle that, hey, man, it's all about the hustle and grind. No, it ain't. Listen, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, they hustled and grinded early, but they don't hustle and grind anymore. And I don't care what you say about Elon, like, I get it. He worked. He's a. He's a freak. And he works a lot of hours, but he's not hustling, grinding the same way. The dude is trying to sell T shirts online. We're not taught. This is completely different mentality. Hustle and grind. Hero syndrome affects people by making your business dependent upon you to save the day every time something goes wrong. And just like I've illustrated in my story, if the business depends on you, what happens when you're not there? If you're not there to save the day, you lose the business. Now think about it this way. If a farmer had a horse, and he loved his horse, and the horse gives birth to a baby, a foal, you know, gives a baby horse. And he says, I love my horse. I want to make sure I take care of his baby. And so as soon as the baby horse is born, he picks that horse up and he says, I'm going to make sure this horse has everything it ever needs. And he carries that horse with it every single. Where he. Every place the horse goes. He carries it to eat. He carries it to. Out to the pasture. He carries it to the shade, he carries it to water. The horse never, never walks. The farmer does it. Now, as that horse grows, the farmer looks kind of silly carrying this huge animal. And his neighbor looks across the fence, he says, man, that's kind of silly. Why are you carrying this big animal around? He goes, well, I love my animal. I want this horse to be taken of care. Care of. He goes, well, yeah, but look what it's doing to you. It's crippling you. You can't. You can't move like you used to. Can move. You're. You're. You're hurting now. And if you set that horse down and left it alone, it's going to die. It doesn't know how to walk. Well, that's exactly why a lot of entrepreneurs treat their businesses. They treat it as their baby. They. They show up mentally at the beginning as the hero, and they. They carry it everywhere it goes, and they never put it down. And then when they decide, okay, this is hurting me, I need to put it down, they go through what I went through. They lose a lot of money. They nearly lose the company. And then when they finally set the business down and walk on its own, it's not able to. And that's not good. So the hero syndrome, the first thing people need to kind of come to grips with is this mindset. You got to shift your mindset from being the operator to the aspiration of being an investor.

So once they shift that mindset, the hustler has to die. The leader has to be born. Investor has to be born. Is it like, hey, don't come to me with your problems anymore. You got to figure it out. Put your, you know, now you have a layer of managers in between you, all those things, or how do you go about setting that forth with your team?

Well, it needs to be explained to the team why you're doing it. I believe that part of delegation is explaining why something needs to be done and it's, it's understanding, listen, I need you to do this. And here's why, here's why this is important, because if you do this, then all these other things can happen as a result. If you do this, then I can do this. You know, our job as the entrepreneur is to be the architect of our business. And the architect is supposed to do three things and three things only. Set the vision, communicate the vision and build the asset. That's it. Everything else needs to be delegated out. You should not be the operator of your business. You get a lot more time back in your schedule, you get a lot more energy back and your asset can continue to grow. If I'm going to be an investor in an apartment complex, I can't go collect the rent, mow the grass, trim the bushes and unclog the toilets. That's not how investing in an apartment complex works. That's other people have to do that stuff. If I insist that I have to do it, I will only be able to buy one apartment complex. Probably won't manage it very well.

Yeah, I mean, you're laying it all out there and everyone as you're saying, this is like, I'm carrying this big horse. I got all this stuff, I'm doing all this stuff. So inside of your coaching program, you walk people through, like they come in and you do an assessment of what they're doing and then you help them go through this process. Is that how it works?

Yeah, as a matter of fact, we have, we have six coaches on, on our team. We have a cpa, we have an investment banker, we have an attorney, we have a wealth manager and we have a mindset coach and then me. So there's six of us that work with our clients. So everybody who comes in the Exeter Club spends the first 90 days doing what we call kickstart consultations. And they get to meet one hour, one on one, with each of coaches in a certain sequence and they Go through all their books and finances, make sure everything's tight there. Then they get in a. Every, every member of the Exeter club gets a business valuation. So if you want to know how much your business is worth, that's what we're going to show you. Like your business is worth X number of dollars. And then we're going to, you're going to meet with our attorney and get a full business structure review to make sure your structure is correct and legal and you're doing all the right tax things. Then you're going to meet with our wealth manager to see what do you need to do to leverage your business as the biggest asset that you own to, to, to create generational wealth long term. Then you're going to meet with our mindset coach and our mindset coach is going to help you understand all this stuff and like, how do you get your head wrapped around the fact that you're got to prepare your business for your exit? And then my job is to meet with you and synthesize all of that information and put together, I built something called the X plan framework that shows people how to understand all of this information to put together the right plan. So when you come into the club, that's where you start. And of course we have a lot of other resources that are available, but that is huge. And we're actually in the early stages of developing a partnership. It's not solid yet. We don't have the ink sign. It's not the inks, not on the paper yet, but, but we're developing a partnership with some other service providers that are going to be exclusive access for our members only, that are going to help with executive placement. For example, let's say you learn this and you're like, whoa, I need an operations manager. Okay, well, we're, we're about to partner with a great company to help provide that service for our members. So our whole job as a club is to get people prepared to build a business as an architect, as an investor, rather than as an operator.

Yeah, I love that because so many business owners, they're kind of piecemealing this together. They got a tax guy, potentially. They're like, I know I should be doing this over here. But it sounds like when they come in, it's like, okay, these are all the stuff that you need meet with these people, come up with a game plan when they learn about this. A team. Okay, well, I don't have a good ops person. I don't have. I'm over here in this five seats over Here. And you're kind of picking these things off and helping coach them through that process. It sounds like.

Yeah, it's, yeah, it didn't start that way. I mean, when the Exit Club started, we have no idea. Like we just knew that a mastermind was important and we need to figure out how to do this. But it's morphed over time and last year our membership tripled. This year I'm wanting to double membership and obviously the more people you add, the more synergy comes in and the more help you get. Because we have a very active private chat group that's members only. They get to talk and ask questions. We have discussion questions every week. It's, it's just getting better every day. Like this. This is, I believe, and I'm biased, I believe this is one of the best masterminds an entrepreneur can join in the United States of America. If you're doing 3 million or more in revenue, then we need to talk.

Yeah. So 3 million more in revenue, does it matter like team size or anything else, EBITDA number or anything? It's just like you got these problems we're going to help them solve.

Yeah. So most of our, what we found over the years of doing this is that our members who are doing mostly between 3 and 50 million in revenue, that's kind of our loose thing. Or if you're less than that in revenue, as long as you got 300k in bottom line that you know net profit, you can, you can come in. Because we have several members who aren't doing 3 million, but they're in a high margin industry and they've got a really strong bottom line. And the reason we require that is because there's an investment not only in the club, but there's investments that you're gonna have to make. This doesn't happen for free. You can't build a business as an asset and not spend any money. And so if you're struggling like I had, I had a guy I met with the other day, he responded to an ad that we had on Facebook and he scheduled a call and he was so excited, but he just, he couldn't afford to do this. He doesn't have the resources available. So what he needs is, is another organization, another coach. I'm not saying I couldn't help him. That's just not what we're designed to do. So he needs another organization to get him up to a place financially where he can now make the investments in the 18 that he needs to hire the systems that he needs to put in place. And of course, the ability to afford being part of the exerclub.

Yeah, that's right. And kind of full circle on this is if you run your business on percentages, you can look at percentage for self development, for professional development, percentage on marketing budgets, whatever that looks like. And then as your business scales, you'll have the money set aside to invest in these types of things.

Exactly, exactly. And you should. I, I have a coach. I'm a part of a mastermind. Like I, I, I believe in this. I wouldn't, I, I think everybody needs a mastermind. Everybody needs a coach. You know, I used to, I used to say, and I still believe it. I don't say it as much out loud as I used to. But like every entrepreneur needs a bookkeeper and a business coach. Day one. As soon as you start the business, that's what you need. Because if you don't have a bookkeeper, you're not going to be able to pay attention to the money. And if you don't have a business coach, you can't see what you can't see. And what you can't see will kill you.

That's right. Most people don't go to school to start a business from scratch and then scale it up. And they don't have the roadmap to scale this exact business. Which is why a business coach is perfect. Because they're going to help you. They've been there, done that kind of thing.

Yeah. And business coaches are just like anything else. They're a bunch of them that suck and they have no idea what they're doing. And anybody and their mama can be a business coach. But then there are really, really, really good business coaches. And those are the ones you need to find and you get what you pay for. Like, generally speaking, if you're only paying a few hundred bucks a month for a business coach, yeah, you're probably going to get what you pay for. So you need to, you need to invest appropriately and it needs to be within reason. I mean, if you're only making a million a year or 2 million a year, revenue wise, you know, spending 50 grand a year on a, on a mastermind or a business coach, probably not a wise decision. But then again, like if you have a strong trajectory, and by the way, exercise club does cost 50 grand a year. I just want to make sure everybody, I wasn't telling you that, that because of it, because of us. But you know, if you have a strong trajectory and you're growing pretty fast, then maybe it's time to step up to the plate. I had one of our last members that just joined. He is a. What I will I call a single shingle. Right? He is just a him. Nobody that. No, no employees. And his revenue is nowhere near the revenue numbers, but he's in a very high profit margin business and essentially every dollar he brings in, he gets to keep. Yeah, but. And when I met with him, you know, that was a concern I had. It's like, dude, I can help you.

Yeah, but.

But can you afford the help? And so we started talking about it and I said, well, where are you at today financially? I mean, I have to ask these questions because I got to know how I can help you. And he told me, I said, well, where are you going to be six months from now? And he said, and that number was nearly triple. I said, oh, okay. So it's moving pretty fast. He goes, oh, yeah. He goes, I need to. I need to prepare for this as we get ready to grow. I can't wait until I'm there. Because he wants to hire people. He wants to hire an assistant. He needs to hire people on staff to help. And he looked at the Exeter Club as one of the ways to help him get there quicker than he could on his own.

Yeah, I love it. Well, man, this has been great. I really appreciate all the wisdom that you dropped and the insight, and you're just open book, which is like something that I appreciate so much. Like, you share the hardships and the problems, and in a coach, like, that's something that you need someone who's not. It's just all. Not all, you know, rainbows and sunshine, but, like. No, I've been there, man. I know this is tough stuff.

Well, I, I appreciate you saying that because for a long time I struggled when I was going through my hell in 2023, at the end of 2023, we had a. We had a workshop with our. With Exeter club, and we had it at my office. And part of what we do in our workshops is we do a live hot seat session where everybody gets, you know, an hour or so to, to really just open up what, what issue or opportunity are you dealing with? And I had not at that moment shared anything about my struggle. They had not. Had not shared anything. I'd kind of kept it close to the vest because my fear was if I tell people that I'm in the midst of losing a business, that I would be looked at as a failure. And how can I pay you money to join a mastermind when you don't even know how to run a business. Those are all the false ideas running through my brain. And one of the guys in the, in the, in my group, to his credit, he, he looked at me and he could tell something was wrong. Goes, man, Jason, you, you never go in the hot seat. Would, would you like a hot seat today? That's right. I never do it because, I mean, yeah, I'm the facilitator. I'm not going to take time for my clients and for the. And I, and I said, well, you know, that would be nice if you guys don't mind. And I, I, I said, you know, screw it. I'm going to be very vulnerable, transparent. I'm going to tell the whole story. Get. And for the next two and a half hours, those guys let me just throw up. Like, I just puked everything. Like, this is what I'm going through. And my fear was that they would look me and go, what a loser, man. I can't believe I'm paying money to be a part of this guy's group. And instead, what happened was they looked at me and went, wow, like, you're not, you're not superhuman. Like, you screwed up, too. Like, you understand this. You're going through the same crap I, although different details. You're going through the same crap we're going through. Now, I want everybody to understand I didn't do that for that response. As a matter of fact, I didn't want to do it for the very opposite reason. But once I did and they responded the way they responded, I mean, the help and the prayer and the texting me, hey, man, how you doing? Is everything going okay? And of course, the next two or three months after that, I was doing. Playing cleanup mode and getting through some of this stuff. And, and, dude, I, I think being vulnerable and transparent is, is necessary for all of us to a certain level. Listen, I don't want to know what your color underwear you got or, you know, your bathroom habits are. That's not interest. Not interested in that. But, but if, but if it affects the way you're operating your business, we need to talk about it. We need to know what's happening. Are you having trouble in your marriage? Is something going on at home? We need, we need to know because we can't help if we don't know.

Yeah. And your greatest setback is going to eventually be your greatest strength to your story, your ultimate story of what you tell. That's going to be the difference that a lot of people can't say that they had that experience and you can't. And that's a unique thing.

Yeah. The rewards that we experience in life are directly proportional to the barriers that we had to go through to get there.

That's right. So where should people go to get in contact with you, learn more about you? Should they read your book? Should they go to a website? What does that look like?

Well, if. If any of your listeners would like a copy of my book, I'll be happy to give one away for free. You just got to pay shipping and handling, which is five bucks or whatever. Go to therealjason duncan.com freebook therealjason duncan.Com free book. Just pay five bucks or whatever. I can't remember. It's five or six bucks anywhere in the continental United States. We'll ship it to you and get it. Get a free copy. And while you're at the website, poke around, look at the mastermind there. It's right at the top menu. Just click on Exeter Club and read about it. We'd love to have you. We got plenty of room for more folks. We're trying to double this year, so bring it.

Awesome. Well, thanks, Jason. It's good to learn more about your story and build this relationship with you, and I just appreciate all of your wisdom and insight on everything.

Thank you, Phil. It's been an honor.

You got it.