Epic Network Live Event Takeaways

Because if you really want to get that deal, the way they're going to decide between you and somebody else or the way they're going to decide to allow seller financing and not ask for any cash is going to be because they have 100% alignment with who you are as a person.

How much more successful would you be if you had lunch once a week with insanely successful entrepreneurs who share their biggest secrets on how they think and achieve success? Grab your seat at the table, because this is Business Lunch with Roland Frazier and Ryan Dice. Welcome to another episode of Business Lunch, and today's a Snackable episode with Roland where he's going to get into some more tactical strategies that you can start using to live a rich and happy life. If this is the first snackable episode you're hearing, I'd encourage you to go back and listen to some of the other episodes that Roland has put out. And if you want to get notified every time we release a new episode, go to the new businesslunchpodcast.com website and we'll send you detailed notes along with every episode. That's businesslunchpodcast.com www.businesslunchpodcast.com and you can sign up for the free email newsletter where you'll be able to get all the highlights and resources from the episodes.

What I wanted to do is just after lunch while we're waiting for Roland to get back. I'd love to get some takeaways who has already had something that they've learned or they've discovered that has made them go, wow, that made a big difference.

I yeah, so I came late and was standing at the back of the room just before breaking for lunch and had the pleasure to sit down with Dan and was catching up with him and sharing some ideas, and he just put an idea that's in this huge toolbox we all have. And he was talking about doing a mastermind with this particular entity with whom I've been speaking. And it just like created this huge clearing for me. And so, you know, right out of the gate, I'm just grateful to be back in the community and, and then just being able to sit down and come clean with where I'm at, where I'm not. And for him to just kind of like just pull this great club out of the bag and say, here, swing this one.

I love that. Just to echo that point, one of my favorite ways to do acquisitions right now is what me and Roland call a bolt on business. And with a mastermind, it's an absolute no Brainer. Do any of you not know what a bolt on business is? Raise your hand if you have no idea what I'm talking about. Okay, for those of you guys that don't know, it's a small number, but for everybody else as well, it could be interesting. Find somebody who is a business owner that already has a successful business and they already have clients. Those clients are not currently being offered something that you know how to do. A good example would be a mastermind like this one in this room. A mastermind is great because you just invite people to bring everybody into a room. For those of you guys that follow me on social media, if you don't, you're more than welcome to. I just finished a mastermind in Columbia last week that was literally a bolt on business to a company that I already acquired a percentage of. The coolest thing about that is I got paid double. So the way it worked is I found a business owner, I acquired 40% of his business, and now I could have just said we should make a new product that is a mastermind, but instead I thought, what if I got a little bit greedy? And so I said to him, hey, listen, do you want to create a new product that is a mastermind? Now, this is very important because everything we do at Epic has to be ethical. I don't want to be sneaky, right? I want to be open with what I want to do. So I said to him, do you want to do this? Now, I'm only a 40% business partner. I'm not in charge of rolling out new products. I'm there to consult and advise. I told him, I think this is a good idea. And he said, I don't know how to do that. Now, I don't have to be an equity partner in his business to go up to a business owner and say, hey, do you want to hear a good idea of how to make some extra revenue? You could do a mastermind. And if they say, I don't know how to do that, this is one of the easiest equity plays you'll ever make. You just say, would you like to partner up? And we'll do it together. So with this particular mastermind, he said, I don't know how to do it. And I said, well, I can guide you through doing it. Thank you so much. I can guide you through doing it. Alternatively, we can create a new partnership on a mastermind and own it together, and I'll take a bigger equity piece this business. And he said, well, that's far more interesting to me. So Just do the math. I own 40% of an entity that owns 50% of an entity with me. That's pretty good math, guys, if you ultimately think about it. The best part is that he doesn't actually enjoy the Mastermind. I don't know why, because we literally make six figures every time we run it. And we get to stay in a 10 bedroom home. It's a mansion. But Roland doesn't let me call mansions mansions. I have to call them 10 bedroom homes. And. But, you know, so we have this thing and he doesn't like it. There's something about the logistics of organizing it that really stresses him out. So we've run it twice. We've made almost half a million dollars across the two times we've run it. It literally takes no more than a couple of hours work. And he says, I don't really want to do it anymore. And so the natural response to that was, do you, do you want to just give me back your equity? And he went, yes. So Now I own 100% of that mastermind. And this is one of the coolest things about the Bolton business. So I love exactly what Brian was saying there. This is such an easy way, especially if you've never done an acquisition, right? Because like, let's just say I went up to. Let's say I went up to Brian. Brian's doing like 700 million a year, I think I'm just guessing, but I'm assuming that's what it is. And I say to Brian, hey, Brian, I want to take 40% of your business. If I've never done a deal that size before, I could be nervous, right? Like, oh, I'm gonna get $320 million worth of equity. This is. I'm really stressed. If I just say to Brian, hey, Brian, do you have a mastermind? And he's like, no. I'm like, how about we partner together and create the mastermind? We'll use your mailing list as a launch platform. I'll do all the work. I'll organize the event. I'm gonna set up an event space. Listening to Neo. He's good at that stuff. I'm have a great event space and I'm gonna be able to pop a mastermind into it. And we own that business. 50. 50. This is such an easy way to take equity in a company. Because think about it, half the reason you guys want equity. If I sat you down and I really said, why do you want equity? You would say, well, I want money and I want leads. The reason I Like bolt on businesses is I get money and leads, and they get to keep everything that was already theirs. I'm just borrowing their assets. And I love that because the thing is, once you acquire someone's business, yeah, you'll get the leads and you get the cash, but you also get all the hassles that go with it. So the bolt on version is a really good way to do it. So. Cool. That's a good one. All right, who else? Let's see another big takeaway.

Yeah.

Ryan. Just throw it back, Brian. That's where it came from. That's a good one. It's just the two of you playing games. Actually, I have three now.

Four.

The Mastermind, I think, is brilliant. I love that idea. So for me, it's clarity on applicate on the. On the criteria criteria working through imposter syndrome. And another big takeaway is really just how to get started in creating the structures and what I need to do to acquire the deal flow. I love that. Yeah. I always used to make fun of manifestation until I met John Assaraf. And then I felt really stupid for making fun of manifestation because he explained to me that I was wrong. And. And he does it really well. I won't spoil it in case you guys get to listen to him, but you should definitely listen to him. But a key component is if you're not clear about what you want, you won't ever get it right because you'll end up with something that kind of looks like it, but isn't it if you know exactly what you want? It's not that suddenly that thing's going to turn up on your doorstep. It's that you're going to say no to everything that isn't that. So when it does turn up, it's easier to say yes because you're not swimming in a whole bunch of things that you shouldn't really have said yes to. So when I realized that's all it was, I was like, oh, it makes so much sense. So I love that. That clarity of this is what. What I want. Beautiful. Somebody else? Another takeaway. Oh, yep.

I think it was Chris that said, remove friction. And I call the tail end of what you said about the Mastermind. So the way I apply that is I'm partnered with a gentleman who's already got a SaaS mastermind, which I'm a member of, and it's an industry that, you know, he's got a lot more momentum in. So I pitched him the idea. Let's start a new mastermind. Together and like you said, right, new revenue but then also tremendous. My deal flow on for me it's brokering revenue for him. He actually wants the deal flow so he can acquire it. So that's so much easier than saying hey, let's go buy a company together because that would require so much friction. But with this, he's already doing it but he's kind of doing this kind of like eh, it's kind of like a cute little thing. But I said man, this is like a seven figure business. Let me do most of the work. And it's also going to help you accelerate your M and A timetable. He loved the idea.

I absolutely love that. That's a really good one. Gentleman, have a hit. Dan.

This one really resonated with me because I feel like I kind of live life like a game and I just feel like that's when it really opened up my, my eyes is when I just like hey, everything in life's a game. Just figure out how to play it. And at the end Jake, Ron was talking about if you want to play a bigger game, make sure you know how the game is being played. And I think that's huge. When we try to, I call it leveling up. Each phase of trying to level up your life, it was just kind of cool to say, hey, you better know the next game that you're playing if you're trying to level up and just study the rules and so you can play it well and win. So. So I thought that was cool.

I love that. And you know, I'll echo that as well. I'm big on game playing. Anyone that knows me, you know, I own a game store and a bunch of gaming brands. One of the things that's been really key for me is if I want to get good at a game, whatever it is, whether it's martial arts or a board game, I always find whoever's best in the world and I align my soul with them and I spend as much time with them as possible to hear how they play the game. That way when I compete against other people, I may not be able to beat best in the world but. But I'm damn good, right? Compared to the average person, I'm really, really good. So I really love that. And this is a moment for you guys to recognize you've taken that leap by being in this room. Imagine how many other business owners today are going out there and learning how to create sales using TikTok dances. I guarantee you that there's a program out there teaching people how to dance on TikTok and make sales from it. Instead of doing that, you guys are learning how to acquire a. A business that makes its money from a guy dancing on TikTok. It's just. It's a meta move. So I, you know, really want to congratulate you guys on doing that. One of the best things that ever happened to me was recognizing that Roland was going to be my mentor versus any of the other people I could have chosen, as far as I'm concerned, because, like I said, he is at that meta level. But where a real value comes from, you guys, is for whatever reason, most people don't recognize how amazing Roland is. And I think that's really a superpower that everyone in this room gets to utilize. I was thinking about this the other day. You know, we'll talk about this later, but Roland's fee to consult is kind of a flat rate. And if you know the fee, that's where it is. And I know in my personal network, I have a lot of people that would kill to work with Roland, but I have no idea how to hire him. And of course I do. And I'm. I literally. I was like, you know what I'm gonna do next week? I'm just gonna send a message out to my entire mailing list and say, me and Roland have decided to get together and offer you a consultation together. This is our fee. And I'm just gonna double Roland's fee because I know what it is, and I'm like, if you want the two of us for a day, this is what it's gonna cost. And I was like, there's so much power in leveraging what an expert knows, and being able to utilize that is so key. So, like, you said, like, playing the game, right? If you know what someone like J Cron's knowledge is worth, you can be like, yeah. I was hanging out my friend Jake1 at this event the other week, and here's what he said. By the way, if you want to hire me and jcron, right? You know that it's like. It's like I always tell everyone that, you know, when it comes to NHL, you know, me and my partner actually have the highest score across anyone in the NHL. Do you guys know that? It's me and Wayne Gretzky. The two of us together, we slay every single time. It's a really powerful tool that everyone in this room, you've got access to. So, like, really? Even I'm like, man, I don't leverage that enough. Like, you know that I can do that. Cool. Somebody else. Let's get another takeaway.

I have a couple of takeaways, but the one that just keeps resonating with me this entire time that we were at lunch, I was just thinking about, this is something that JCon actually started with, and that's about purpose and internal purpose. So I ask a question, and the one thing that I was struggling with the most coming here is, well, how do I pick? It's like, I'm a kid in this huge. Like, in the restaurant with this huge menu, and I just want to eat everything, you know? And I want an e commerce business and a website and an agency and this and this and this, and how do I pick? And so it was a really good step forward when you guys answered that question, where, well, you can actually have more than one acquisition criteria. Just be specific about what you want. But then the internal purpose idea took that to a completely different level, which is, well, I want to find something where I see this huge opportunity to take this to the moon. And honestly, I don't really care if it's an E commerce business or a factory. It's just not what I do. I help businesses for a living, but I want something that I can take to the moon. And with this internal purpose, I've already justified coming here.

I love that. I'll give them a. A little bit of a takeaway that I think might be beneficial off the back of that. One thing that we started doing on our own company is we sat down with our staff and we started sharing with the staff our company's purpose. And it wasn't like to provide more of this to these people within this. It wasn't. It wasn't a sales message. It was one simple thing we just wrote on the board to help people. And I was like, that's my purpose in life, is to help people. I was telling Roland at lunch. I was like, I messed up.

I.

Do you guys want to hear a deal that I messed up on? Yeah, it's pretty bad, but not really. I was at an event, and my buddy phones me, yo, Adam, are you free? I'm like, yes. And he goes, all right, listen up. I'm in a negotiation right now. I turn around to the guy and said, I have to go to the restroom. He's offered me $7 million for my company right now. He's expecting me to take it. I don't know what to do. Should I take it? You're the only guy I know. And I said to Roland, and I knew at that point, I was supposed to send across an NDA and a contract and tell him what my fee would be because I knew I was going to crush it for this guy, and I didn't do any of that. And I haven't had the answer yet from Roland because I'll be honest with you guys. I don't know what I should have done because he's a friend, and I didn't want to, you know, while he's in the restaurant, be like, I'm sending the paperwork now. So I said to him, okay, why is he offering 7 million? He goes, well, that's what he's got. You know, he's got 7 million. I was like, okay, tell him the company's worth 14 million and here's how. And I justified why it's worth 14 million. And tell him you'll take 7 million for 50% and the two of you will run it together. I was like, or 51 or 49, whether you want to be hands on or off. And the guy's like, holy, that's just so genius. Thank you so much. Gets off the phone. I then get a text message, like, 20 seconds later, holy crap, he agreed. I just got 7 million coming to me. And I was like, I can't wait to get my. I didn't get a check, so I'm still waiting. But anyway, so that was my. That was my mistake. But again, I don't really value it as a mistake, which gets to my point. I was saying to you guys about. About help. The. The reason I don't think of it as a mistake is simply because I want to help people. I don't want to turn around to a guy that I've been friends with and I've sat on flights and gone on vacation with and turn around to him and be like, in his time of need, Aha. Now's the time to sign the contract. You know, I don't want to be that guy. And I also didn't want to phone him up afterwards and be like, hey, by the way, I hooked you up. You know, make sure you sort me out. Instead, I don't even feel regret about it. It's why I'm kind of laughing about the story. I'm not like, man, I'm really bummed I didn't get paid. It doesn't matter to me. I make so much money, like, I don't really care. Like, what was he going to give me, like, quarter million? Half a million? A million? I don't know. Probably not, but I don't care. What I really care about is I help people. And so with my staff, I shared this story. The only thing I really care about is helping other people. It means more to me than anything. And I find that the more I help people, money just flows. It just keeps coming anyway. And I'm sure that guy is going to hook me up in the future. When you tell your staff, that's your motivation. It gets your staff. Like, our staff, like, almost cried and came to me. I'm so happy to be part of this company. I was like, man, I've given you guys one staff member. I doubled your pay. You didn't cry then, but now you're crying, like. And it's. But it's really powerful if you do get that purpose. But go a step further, when you're trying to acquire a company, tell them your purpose as well. Because if you really want to get that deal, the way they're going to decide between you and somebody else or the way they're going to decide to allow seller financing and not ask for any cash is going to be because they have 100% alignment with who you are as a person. So, like, the big TV deal that I'm doing, that's the power. He says, I want it to be you because I know you care about my brand. Because he knew I was a fan, right? So he's like, I know you care. Like. Like, yes, you might fail a company, but are you gonna fail a company? You are fanatical about the brand. No, you can't allow yourself to. So when you're doing these negotiations, make sure you let them know that purpose. So that's a great one, Dan.

My big takeaway was really just to really refine the criteria for acquisition.

So love it. And what is your criteria for acquisition now?

So my criteria was to acquire local service businesses in the one to $3 million range that have sort of stopped growing, that want to grow, that have 10 to 15% net profit. And something else that I wrote down.

Actually, there's a really key phrase in there that I love that I didn't really hear in anyone else's acquisition criteria. Can you guys name it? What was the one piece he added that's stagnant and looking to grow? That is the only acquisition criteria I've heard so far today that included the reason they may want to sell. That one criteria is the actual one I care about more than anything else. I really want to make sure that I know why the person wants to sell, because that right there is when I Know how I can get in on it. So I love that. That's a great one.

Yeah, the big one for me. And it's probably just a reminder of. Of what I learned in the process was crappy little deal. So I took epic right when Covid hit. You were my.

I remember, dude.

Yeah, Johnny Vegas.

That's right. I remember 100.

And. And so anyways, I bought a small property management company. 10 cabins. I only paid 50k for it, which was like a 1x. And I broke my back on that thing for like a year and then finally shut it down. Like I wasn't even going to try to sell it because it wasn't worth. You know what I mean? So I just shut the whole thing down. So I definitely got to this time around, try to do a bigger deal.

And first of all, welcome back, dude. Good to see you again. I know John from. From previous industries as well, which is awesome. So I'll tell you guys, another bad deal. Another talking about a crappy little deal. This one came to fruition in December. It was one of the companies I was working with, and they were doing just under seven figures. I'd owned them for 102 years. Year one, got an amount of money, you know, percentage of profit, 40% of profit. Year two, I recognized I hadn't been paid for nine months. And, you know, just like J. Cron says, know your numbers. I do know my numbers. And, you know, I'd allow it to slip for a few months. So I contacted the guy and I was like, you know, what's going on here? And we open up the numbers and he sends me a check for $1600. I'm like, what's this? And he's like, well, that's a percentage of all the profit. I've been plowing all the money back into the business. And I was like, didn't you spend a month on vacation in San Diego with your girlfriend? He goes, yeah, but that was like, for me to find myself in my business. I was like, oh, that was a business expense, was it? And he's like, yeah, that was a business expense. I was like, I see how this is. I was like, unfortunately, I'm going to be shutting down our partnership. I'm going to be, you know, closing it down. And he said, why? And I was like, if you. If you really want to know, I'll tell you the truth. I was like, at some point, you stopped honoring the agreement. But here's what I really did with this, and I love doing this. I. I took that entire Case study. And I shared it with every single other one of my business partners. Every single one of them. I said, hey, guys, I just closed down a partnership. I want you to know why. And I explained to myself, because he didn't honor the agreement. I was like, should I have got paid more than 1600? Absolutely. Should it have been 400,000? Probably not, but it's somewhere between there. I was like, and the fact is, this guy stopped valuing our partnership. So I ended it with him. And then I showed them a list of what he lost access to, mailing list, clients, network, a whole bunch of stuff that he lost. And I said to all my partners, at this point, this is at the end of 2022. If any of you want us to close down our agreement, now's the time to do it. If any of you are like, I'm not sure about this. I don't know if I want to do it, now's the time. I was like, because I'm going to hit you really hard in 2023 because of this event. I'm going to be on top of you. I'm going to be making sure that, you know, I'm getting what I'm supposed to be getting. And I'm going to be pushing you guys harder than you've been pushed before. I've mostly just been available to you. Now I'm going to be like, hey, you should do this. You should make sure this is happening, happening. And if you don't like the idea of that, this is the time to leave. So I have this one partner. His name is Linnell Beckles. I think he's awesome. He's a. A powerlifting coach to Olympians, or it used to be. And now, now he does fitness stuff. He's the guy that helped me get in shape. And he said, adam, can I have a private meeting with you? And I was like, oh, this is it. This is like my favorite business partner. And I'm like, this is it. We're done. We're over. And he sat down with me and he presented a four hour presentation on how he's going to grow the company in 2023 and you. And he said, please don't get rid of me. And I was like, I love you just as much. So anyway, that was my. That was my story.

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