The Power of Mindset: DeAnna Rogers' Business Journey

I would say I had a fear like everyone else, and it was so I could always talk to people and try to tell them how to get over their fear. But I had that same fear. And I just didn't think I could actually do it. And so I didn't do it because I didn't think I could do it. I didn't feel like I was able to. I didn't have that suave talk. I didn't have that. But I have my talk. I have the way I talk to people, but I didn't know how to do that. And, and so I kept listening and kept listening. I mean, Roland, you were my biggest cheerleader because you just kept telling me, you're like, Dana, you just need to go do this. And I, I listened to the scripts, I read the scripts, but in my voice, I couldn't figure out how to do it, but it was really funny. It's. It's called comfort and it's called you have to. I call it life Itine. I changed the word marketing because I hate marketing, to be honest with you. But life 18. Life 18 is you're living it, right? You're. You're living what you do. And, and so when you believe in something and you want it and you're passionate about it, then you'll do it. You'll. Life foreign.

Hey, everybody. Roland Frazier here with another episode of Business Lunch. And I'm kind of excited today because I haven't had a chance to do this yet. And I've got somebody who I have known, it seems like forever, certainly in all of my current iteration of business life. She has been either out there doing great things or working with us. And as a, a business partner in deals, as, you know, somebody that has run multi thousand people events, as somebody that's doing acquisitions and all of those kinds of things, I want to welcome my good and longtime friend, Deanna Rogers. Deanna, welcome to Business Lunch.

Thank you, Roland. Glad to be here.

Nice to have you here. So would you kind of tell everybody, like this is. I'd like to kind of give them a little bit of your background and then kind of how you got into your current entrepreneurial life. And then we can talk about some of the, some of the fun things I want to go through. Can you just kind of give everybody. This is the Deanna Rogers story.

Oh, that's boring. Yeah, I mean, I met you probably 18 years ago. I had an event company. I had a company called amg and Roland was a speaker out there and he actually came and Spoke on my stage. I was begging people to be like, please come. Please have faith in me. Roland had faith in me at that time and came and spoke. I was doing events in the real estate space and working with other event planners. And that was a passion of mine, was to have an event company. And then he brought me in. He was partnering with Ryan Dice at that time, and he brought me in and said, hey, we'd like for you to help us with this little event called Traffic and Conversion Summit. And so I was able to come in and work with them, and I was able to learn so much over those years. And just. Just being in the presence of Roland and Ryan and the team and growing TNC and having just a little footprint in that and being able to grow, it was so much fun. And then, you know, obviously then Covid happened, and Roland and I were traveling all the time doing events everywhere, and Covid kind of put a pause on things, and we kind of shifted and Roland created a brand new. Brand and a brand new company called Epic. And he asked if I could help him, and we support him and kind of help. Help him with that company. And I was very blessed and honored. And so I've been working with him in that part of the company for about five, six years now. Five years. And you know, it's so funny because I've listened to roland for over 18 years and I've done all that, and I know what he does. And I was really afraid to do acquisitions myself. I'm okay with, like, trying to go out and sell it for people and share it and. And run it, but I wasn't really wanting to go do it myself. Until one day he was like, d, why aren't you doing this? And I'm like, well, I'm not you. And he's like, no, but you're you. And so I've been bringing some deals to the table and asking Roland to partner with me on it. And he said yes. And so I can now officially say that Roland is one of my partners. And that just feels great. And we've been growing since then.

That's awesome. So one of the things that I like is that you kind of either. I don't know if have you ever gone through, like, gone through the courses that we do, or is it kind of just being around in terms of this is, to me, kind of interesting because we've had a few people that work with us go do deals, and we teach one of the things that we teach for those of you who don't know is how to acquire companies usually with little or no money out of pocket. And so it's always cool when somebody goes and does that. That's kind of in our inner circle, not necessarily a formal student, not somebody that came in through our marketing or anything, just somebody that was kind of around and got it by osmosis, which I think is the case with you. But I had never really asked you, have you gone through like the, the actual training with an eye towards doing it, or is it just that you've heard it so much? You were just kind of like, okay, I'm going to go do this.

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It's both, to be honest. It started out with just me being in the presence and being on the coaching calls with you and understanding and listening. And then I would start having questions and I didn't want to come and ask and seem like I didn't know. So I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to go back through myself and I'm going to dive in. And so I have. I've gone back through the myself and acted like a student and worked on my own pace. And I knew I've been around it a lot, but there was things that maybe didn't make sense to me at that time. And now that I've gone through it as a student, it makes sense as I pay attention to it. So I've done both.

Okay. And I have so many things I want to ask you. I'm going to start with the acquisition stuff and then move into more business stuff, because what you guys may or may not know is Deanna runs a pretty large part of. Of one of three main things of our business. And, and so she's really been in. In the role of building teams and doing a lot of things that I think will be of interest to the people that are watching and listening. From an acquisition standpoint, though, I want to start there. So tell me about the first thing that you did. I. I want to say it might have been the first food truck thing or was it something else? Okay. So just share with everybody kind of how that evolved and because I really want to try to help people see that anybody can do this and, and you know, you just kind of were around it, heard a bunch of stuff, and they were like, I'm gonna go try that. So will you kind of tell that story and, and let people get an eye in on it?

Yeah, I, I think I was. I would say I had a fear like everyone else. It was so I could always talk to people and try to tell them how to get over their fear, but I had that same fear and I just didn't think I could actually do it. And so I didn't do it because I didn't think I could do it. I didn't feel like I was able to. I didn't have that suave talk. I didn't have that. But I have my talk. I have the way I talk to people, but I didn't know how to do that. And. And so I kept listening and kept listening. And I mean, Roland, you were my biggest cheerleader because you just kept telling me, you're like, dana, you just need to go do this. And I. I listened to the scripts. I read the scripts, but in my voice, I couldn't figure out how to do it, but it was really funny. It's. It's called comfort, and it's called you have to. I call it life. Itine. I changed the word marketing because I hate marketing, to be honest with you. But life 18. Life 18 is you're living it, right? You're. You're living what you do. And. And so when you believe in something and you want it and you're passionate about it, then you'll do it. You'll life it. So whether you're going to the grocery store, whether you're going to the dentist, and you're sitting in the dentist chair and you're talking to the dentist about what you are doing now, that's called life fitting, right? And so getting to back to what the story is, is that my husband and I were at a food truck park and we're just sitting there and we're paying attention to what's going on, and you could actually see that the two people running this whole thing was a husband and wife team and they going nuts, right? And I was over there getting a margarita.

They're running like a place where food trucks gather or they're running a food truck or both.

No.

Well, both.

They had one that she was running, but her and the husband actually owned the whole food truck park. So there was like 20 different food trucks with, like a big main stage with, like, activity with, like, bands, right? And you could see. You could watch and see that these two people were running everywhere. And so you kind of knew who was in charge. Just because if you're a people work person, I'm. I'm a people watcher. I knew exactly that they had to be either an owner or they were an operator of that park because they were the ones doing all the things, right? And so I went up to go get another margarita and I just said, hey, do you own or operate this, because what a great, great place. I've never been here before, and this is so awesome. She's like, yeah, and I hate it. And the minute that she said that, I was like, why do you hate it? This is awesome. This is great. And she's like, girl, this is. This is horrible. And I guess I caught her on a bad day, and I was just trying to be overly friendly, and I just started talking to her. Well, she was supposed to be working, and she ended up just started talking to me. And I said, well, you know, this is so great. I said, what's your big problem? And she's like, see my husband over there? He's over here. He's doing two jobs during the day, and he comes here at night, and he's doing this, and da, da, da. And she starts going into the whole story, and she goes, we just need someone to come in and buy this from us, and we just need to get out. I used to be a hairdresser, and now look what I'm doing. And I go, you should find an investor and get someone or a partner into this. And she goes, yeah, if I could only find one. I go, well, funny thing is, my husband and I were an investor, and I just. It just, like, came out of my mouth because I've learned this from Roland, right? Like, I was like, well, I'm an investor, and this is what we do. And she's like, really? And I was like, well, can you tell me more? Should I come back? Because I know you're very busy. She's like, yeah, could you come back, like, in an hour? And so I'm like, okay, I'll stick around, because who knows where this goes? And we just started. We hit it off. So my husband and I sit there, we enjoy some music, and I go back in a little bit later, and her and her husband walk us around and start talking about the whole process of the park and all the things. And, I mean, I'm not joking, y'. All. Like, two hours from the moment that we stopped to two hours later, she's like, getting our information. Let's set up an appointment. Let's figure out how we can work together. And as we progressed through this, she kind of wanted cash injection because she needed cash. We decided we weren't going to do that, but what we could do is help them grow and scale and figure out better ways to make it to where she's not in the business, her and her husband, and figure out how we could grow that. And so we ended up doing a CFE deal at the time that was trying to make it to where we would actually have equity in it. It ended up not being that way. We ended up just doing a consulting. We started with the CFE and ended up being consulting. But what was great about was, is that I was going to have to go and meet with them for two to three hours on a Saturday, once a month, and she was going to pay $10,000. Now, where I got that was from Roland, because he kept Talking about these 10, 10 tens and all these things, and I'm like, well, our service, our cost is 10,000. I've never charged that y' all ever for someone to do that. I just threw it out there because that's what Roland told me to do. And they didn't budge. And so for a year, I was able to go on a Saturday once a month and go out there and work with these people, and I got $10,000 a month for that.

That's pretty cool.

That's how it started. It's called life fitting.

So for. For people that don't know, CFE is consulting for equity. So that's where you're going to provide something of value to a business. In an exchange, rather than just paying you, they give you part of the business, and generally it's both. So you started by saying, my husband and I are looking for something to invest in. Right.

I said, we're investors. And I said, if they're interested in this, let's chat.

Which is great, because to me, I think that is a fantastic place to start. And a lot of people have a hard time. They're like, well, I don't have money to invest. And it's like, well, if you found an amazing deal, my guess is that you could put together money to invest. I mean, if somebody said, I need $10,000, and it's the opportunity of a lifetime and you can get $100,000 back in 30 days, you'd probably find it. So I think starting with the idea that you can do that is. Is hard for people. But. But it is really like, if you start thinking about if you really had to put your hands on some cash money, you could. But investing is much more than money. It's. It's the. The things that you know, it's the resources you can bring, contacts, connections. And so I want to talk about CPA moms from that perspective. But. But just to drill down on some of the takeaways from here, you started, just, as you say, life eating. It's basically in your, in your life, you're going to run into people. And if you see opportunities for people to do better or even just ask them how they're doing or have a conversation with them. That has led to almost every deal I've ever done. Right. And it might be two steps removed because I meet Deanna at an event and I talk to Deanna and we have a conversation and she says, what do you do? And I tell her and vice versa. And then later she says, you should meet such and such, and she texts me together with them, and then we do something or they refer somebody. But it's just being out there and being a person who is curious, I think will drive so many deals for you. So I love that that's how that originated. And then you went from, we're investors. Looks like not a great investment. But you had something to offer. What was it that you think? Because you said you hadn't done this before and you hadn't asked for that much money before. So I want to talk about both of those things that you hadn't done this before. And what on earth gave you the confidence to feel that you would be able to help her and do something in that time that you were talking with her that would be worth $10,000 a month or more to her?

Well, because when I was sitting there watching for that one hour while I was waiting for her, I was looking around the whole park and I was finding all the things that if that were mine, what would I do differently? And what are some examples? Like, for example, like, like then when she, like, well, example, like she, she had spaces open that there were not food trucks. Like, she could have had more food trucks there. There were places for opportunities to sell things that she wasn't selling. When we did the walkthrough with her, we found out that she was on leased land instead of owned land. And that leased land could let her go at any given time. I would have changed that. And they were charging her a ton of money for it. I would have changed that. Right. She wasn't charging the food trucks enough per month. Like, she could have raised that rent easily, like by a hundred or two hundred dollars and made a lot more money just by raising it a little bit. And she wasn't. Because she. They were all friends of hers. She wasn't treating it like a business. She was treating it like friends of friends and letting them all be there. That friends don't pay your bills. Right. And that. That was some of the things. Right. And then just like the bands were there, they had great bands, but it was free. What if you had a VIP section or what if you had a meet and greet? Like I learned all this from you at tnc, right? Like, what if you did things that were special that you could charge for to make more money, but they weren't because it was just all free and it was just open to the public. And I'm like, but there's ways to make money from that. And I knew I could add that.

Now you said you didn't get any pushback from them when you pitched and said 10k a month. And effectively it was probably, I think it was that you were going to meet with them and then also they could have kind of as much phone conversation with you as they needed. Is that pretty much.

They originally wanted cash, they wanted a hundred thousand immediately just to even do it to start with. And I was like. And I actually came to you and talked about it and then it was like, no, we're not doing cash injection into something like that, but here's what we'll do, right? And so, yeah, we just, we pushed back and said, this is the way we do it and if you'd like to get to work above the business, I can help you get there. And that was appealing to her because she was motivated and she was in a bad place in her life for her and her husband working so much that she wanted help and so she was willing to invest in that help.

Yeah, so that's another key, right. We talk about the motivation. They are either a motivated seller to sell the business or they're motivated because something is putting pressure on them that's not what they want. And you have the ability to potentially offer them the thing that they do want. In this case, it was kind of a freedom from the business and maybe a little bit more profitability. Right. Do you know how much were you able to Quantify over that 12 months what you were able to do for them benefit wise?

I don't know the exact numbers. I do know that in the first couple months because they actually ended up moving. Life got in the way with them on some other things. So things got transitioned and they actually ended up selling. But I know that in the first couple of months we added rent increase to the food trucks and we got revenue off of, off of it as well. And we increased just that piece. She got an additional, I think she was getting an additional 9,000 more on that, just the rent alone that she wasn't getting. And then we got the revenue piece I would say she probably got a little over when it was all said and done. She probably did 2 to 300,000 more than what she was just in that initial part. Just the couple of tweaks that we did.

So if you think about that, she invested over 12 months 120,000. And let's say she got back. Let's say she only got back 200. Right? So 120 to 200. She made $80,000, which is basically, I think, a 60% return on her investment with you, but also because she sold it and businesses sell for a multiple. That extra, you know, that extra 80,000, you know, net, which was really more because it was 200. Right. So, so if we take your cost off because you were in a continuing cost and we say you've added 200, not 300, let's just go the low and say you added 200 and the business sold for a multiple of. Let's say it was a really low multiple of three. Right. That's $600,000 more that she was able to get in terms of selling the thing. Plus the couple hundred that she got, which netted her 80 profit. You're about 680,000 in value for the investment of 120. That's a pretty daggone good return on your money, right?

Yeah. And they were happy. Like, they were really happy. And I actually felt good at the end of the day. Like, I enjoyed getting to meet with them and, and get to help them. It was, it was a fun project. It really was.

That's really cool. Okay, so the second. Let me see. So the, in terms of the, the points of disbelief for you, one was.

Did you have a concern about being.

Able to add the value?

So I have the skill set. I love events. So I had that event background in me. So what I was seeing was the event things that I could add. And I knew for a fact that on the actual execution part of growing and scaling it, I had you, if I needed to come and ask, like, I knew who was in my wheelhouse, so I wasn't scared of that piece. But, um, so I felt comfortable. I felt comfortable knowing that I could go in and do that.

Okay. And you bring up an excellent point, because even if you don't have the skill directly you had, you felt like you had it. But just in case you had some backup people you could go to. And that's something that everybody that's thinking about doing something like this should be thinking about, because you have the skills yourself or you can access other People that have the skills, and there's plenty of people out there who are selling their skills by the hour. And even if it's a thousand, let's say that Deanna had brought somebody in for $1,000 an hour and had them spend 10 hours helping her figure out how to optimize this business in the first month. That would have been all of her first $10,000 payment. But then all the rest of the time would simply be executing those things and kind of touching base. And, and let's say that she still needed two hours a month of those people's time at $1,000 an hour, which is crazy. It's not going to be that much. I'm just giving you a crazy example just so you guys can see. She would still be 8,000amonth ahead or roughly 100,000 over a 12 month period and not have to even have any of the knowledge herself. Just having the ability to make the connection and tell people of what's possible and then find the resources together to bring to the table. That's. That's really the value. So, okay, so that's, that was not so much of a challenge for you. What about the amount of money that you were asking for or the fact that you hadn't done this before in terms of like, did they ask you, you know, well, how many, how many times have you come in for $10,000 a month, Deanna, and helped a business like ours and you know, let us talk to all those people and prove that you've done this. How, how did, how did that happen or not happen?

Well, I mean, I went in. It's my personality. I'm kind of bubbly and I'm talkative and I'm very chatty. And so I kind of, I leaned in on that. Piece of my skill set is that I can actually make friends with people. And I just said, look, I only work with people that I really like and enjoy. I don't have enough time in my day to do anything other than maybe one or two clients a month. So if you want to work with me, I'd love to choose to work with you as well. I know that I have people in my pipeline that we can help make this happen. If you want to believe in me, I believe in this, but you got to believe in me too. And it was just really more of. I had to psych myself up. Right. And I did practice in the mirror a lot before I did it. I did.

So. So you didn't really get any of that. Show me what you've done before. Let me talk to people references kind of stuff, right?

Not on that one. I did not. Because I had already convinced her, just with the few things as I was walking around of what I could do. And she's like, oh, my gosh, this is great. So I'd proven it.

And I'm asking that because I think that that is one. It's one of the things that I hear a lot, and you hear a lot, I think, from people who are trying to go into acquire businesses or do consulting or consulting for equity is people are like, well, show us all the deals you've done. I mean, I can't think of the last time that I've been asked that question. Not because I don't think. It's because I'm out there and have a public Persona. Because a lot of the people I meet don't know anything about that. Right. I'm Internet famous. 17 people know who I am, you know, so it's not like I walk out and people are like, oh, my God, you're the guy that does the businesses. So. And same for you, right? So why do we not get asked that question that terrifies most people that are just starting out, getting in this? It's because you go in number one and you're confident. Number two, you're confident in yourself. Even if you have doubts, you can present to yourself as confident and step into the Persona of a confident version of yourself. But then after that, it's that you just start by helping you have a conversation. You're real, you're not selling, you're having a conversation. Right. So I think that's like a huge, important difference, that if I'm out there and I want to, you know, to do deals, I'm going to talk to everybody. I'm going to meet you, Deanna, and we're going to. I'm going to say, you know, so what do you do? Tell me about what you do. I do events. Great. You know, how's that going? It's, you know, it's going pretty good, or it's been slow. It's like, you know, oh, that's, you know, and then you're going to. You're going to find out where their pain is just in trying to be a helpful human being. And then when you start identifying things that. And your identification might simply be picking up on the things they tell you. What's not going well in your business? Oh, we're having a hard time getting people in. Ah. So you really, you know, if you could get help with your marketing. That'd be pretty cool.

Yeah.

Okay. Yes, it would. You know. Well, have you tried this, that, or the other? Now, to do that, you have to have some minimal level of knowledge about the thing that you're trying to do, but pretty daggone minimal, you know? Have you tried Facebook ads? You know. Oh, yeah, we have. The agencies are terrible. So, you know, so. Really? So you think all you need is a good agency and then you'd be there? Oh, yeah. If we could just find one of those. Great. Well, now I've got something I could potentially help them with. Right. So that, like, if you go from that angle, I don't think you really ever get people saying, well, give me your resume and a proposal and seven references. That just doesn't happen. It's. You assume that you're going to help them because you just start from helping them. You start here at, like, I've already been hired to do this. Not back here. Would you please consider giving me enough time to pitch you on working with you? And then. Yeah, but you did. You did pitch.

Right? But I always say, so here's what I will do. We can start this next month. Why don't we change this stage here? Like, I've just assumed it. I just assumed.

But you didn't start there. You didn't walk in and say, hey, person that owns the event. I see that you own an event. My name is Deanna Rogers, and I want to talk to you about the possibility of me helping you with this business based on a consulting deal that. Where you pay me $10,000 a month.

No, that's.

That's when somebody says, walls up. How can I defer? I can defer by saying, write me a proposal. Show me your references. Tell me all the times that you've done this before.

Right.

That's. That's when you get that resistance. You leap the resistance wall when you start as a friend who is helping, not as a vendor who is selling. Right, Right.

And the one thing that I always say, just for anyone listening, that might help them. I always. Because y', all, I love having Roland in my back pocket. I use it all. I'll say I have a business partner and a team behind me that if I don't know the answer, I can promise you I'll get the answers together. We're going to make this happen. And so, like, it takes away the fear of them thinking that, well, maybe you've never done this before. They don't even think that because I can tell them I mean, I have a business partner and a team around me, and if I don't know the answer, I'm going to find the answer. I say it that way so that I'm convincing them that I may not know everything. And I know I don't know everything, but I know I have the people in my corner that will know everything at some point.

Yeah. Okay, cool. So that's. To me. And the challenges that you hear people have when they're trying to get into doing these types of deals, a lot of it is just doing exactly what you did. You're out there in the world and you're talking to people and you're observant and you're curious and you want to be helpful. That's going to lead to more deals than pretty much anything else that I can think that you would do. Now, we have lots of people. We have cold call systems and outreach software and scripts and all that stuff, and we have lots of people that do that. That's not my favorite way to do it, but it is effective. So if you're not a people person and you're not somebody that is charismatic and feels good and comfortable talking to people that you don't know or you don't have any particular skills that you feel that you can bring to the table, I'm telling you, you do. But let's say that you believe you don't, then that cold outreach does work. It's just. It's a different process. So it, you know, we have people. I was talking to. Deanna and I were talking to somebody yesterday on one of our group calls that's doing LinkedIn outreach and getting all kinds of leads. Just hold LinkedIn with a script. And they're doing it consistently. They're doing 25 outreaches a day. I think they said they've been doing it for about a month, Deanna. And they've had, you know, like maybe 15 conversations and 6. Lois. And, you know, two or three deals that are coming through. So that's. That works for people that don't like to do what you're talking about doing. But you and I are kind of the same in that is just, you know, I can't help myself but see opportunities missed in businesses. And. And the cool thing is, is that it's really easy to see because you're not in the weeds of the business. Right.

The people.

To me, being a consultant is the easiest job in the world because all you have to do is go in and point out things that are wrong. I think that's what we all do in our daily life anyway. It's like, you know, what's wrong with this? Amber doesn't have enough ketchup. You know, what's wrong with their. You know, they don't have enough staff. You know, okay, great. You can. Now you've identified things at a restaurant that you can talk to the restaurant owner about that could help them improve. And maybe they say, I know, I know you know, but. But it's like those problems have. Those problems are symptoms of something else, and then identifying what the something else is and helping them fix it is what kind of what consulting is. But I. I wanted to talk about that first. And then the pricing. You just basically took it from what I said, you know, just do, you know, do 10, 10, 10, 10. $10,000 a month or 10% of distributable profits, whichever's greater, and 10% of the company. Okay, so the second deal that I want to talk with you about, and I. Probably because of time, I want to talk maybe just about deals this time, but then I want to come back and talk about the, you know, the stuff that you're doing with the companies. The second one was. Let me ask you this before I get into this. How much experience and skill do you have at doing bookkeeping and accounting?

Zero. And I didn't do well in college. Math. I. I hate math, actually.

Okay. And how long have you been a cpa?

None. Zero.

You're not a cpa?

Nope.

So you now and. And I, with you as your partner in the deal, have an interest in an accounting company that is getting their accounting company, which is basically. Well, I'll let. I'll let you talk a little bit about the business. But then I wanted. I wanted. I just kind of wanted to establish. Deanna has no formal accounting training. She does not and never has worked as an accountant. She's not a cpa. And yet we have a deal that she's brought us into for a company where you would think maybe that you needed to know a lot about that stuff. So will you talk a little bit about that deal? And then I got a couple of questions for you.

So a couple of months ago, and I don't like math. It's my worst thing. I didn't do well in college with it. And so you asked me if I would ever want to look like. If your acquisition criteria was bookkeeping, I would say absolutely not. Right. But the thing about life 18 is when you talk to people and they know what you do, they're on the hunt for you because they like you. Right. And so this happened to be one of those situations where someone that knew us was like, oh, they knew across this bookkeeping company that might need a partnership to grow and scale it. And because they know us, because of life fitting in the way and us talking about it, they brought it to us. And I was able to look at it, and it was a good deal. And so we were able to get into that deal doing the same thing. It was a CFE model, and we went in at that. And at first it probably didn't look like it was going to go, and now it's a go. And it. I. I absolutely love it, and I absolutely. I see the vision of where it is, but I have nothing to do with bookkeeping or accounting at all, but I know how to scale a business. Right.

So. And so that was the confidence that you had going into this. Is that. Is that I'm. I'm business agnostic. I can help this person grow even though it's the most boring business in the world. Accounting that I don't know or like.

Right. I. I know events, I know Mark, I know. I know how to do masterminds, I know how to do coaching, and I know how to grow and scale a business. That's all I needed to know.

Yeah. Which is. Which is a lot, by the way. Okay, so. So. And this came as a referral, Correct. Somebody referred the business to you and said, this might be something. Okay, great. And then how did that conversation go with the business owner? That turned in like, like, so you were referred as maybe somebody that could help them grow the business. Is that correct?

Correct. Right. They needed someone that would have some of my background skill, and so they. They thought my name and they brought it up.

Okay, great. And so how did that initial conversation go?

I called the owner direct rather than going through the three ways. And I remember I was at a Mexican restaurant having breakfast on a Saturday morning, and I called her direct and said, I just want to get out of the middle of all this, and I want you and I to chat and see. And I used. I used Jonathan Kronstadt's tacos and tequila verbiage. And I said, so I'm at a Mexican restaurant right now, and I'd like to do tacos and tequila over the phone. Is that okay with you? And she laughed, and it just kind of broke the ice. And. And then we just started talking. And then a cat found out that she was in music, which. Then I brought you in. I was like, oh, well, one of my partners, he's massively into music. And it just. It changed the direction of the conversation versus it feeling like I was trying to pitch myself to her.

And then you found personal points of connection. Right, which is something we talk about.

Exactly. And so it pulled us in, and then we were able just to talk. Like, we had been friends for a long time, although we literally had just spoken for the first time on the phone. And that's how we started.

Okay. And so she was actually looking for someone to help with the business, maybe to hire as a consultant. Is that kind of how the initial approach was for her from her standpoint?

No. Originally she just wanted to sell it outright. She wanted one buyer. She wanted to sell it, she wanted out.

She was looking for you to buy the business?

Yes. Yes.

Okay. And then how. So. So how did that go? You guys are having your tacos and tequila virtually and hitting it off. And then she says, so you gonna buy my business or what? What happens?

So she said, well, these are the numbers that I want. And I said, great. Can you. I said, the third party has not sent me the P. Ls yet. Can I get a copy of all that just so I can take a look at it? And she said, yeah, I'll make sure I send that to you. And so then I said, the way that we do that is normally we don't just go in and buy that. But I said, but if I look at everything, is it okay if I do a call with you on Monday or Tuesday and and us come back to the table with some options? That's what I said.

Yeah. Okay. And so then you got. You looked at the numbers and such. Did you decide that you didn't want to really pay for the business at that point? And to turn the conversation. Or how did. How did you move from she wants to sell it to you to you're going to kind of do a consulting for equity deal?

Well, I didn't think at the time we wanted to just buy it outright. And so that was an option we put as the three options. But the first option was, is that we want to do a CFE deal. And this is the reason why. And this is in your best interest why? And that's what I said. So when I. When I did it that way, it made sense to her.

Okay. And then she had a need for some quick cash, some significant quick cash as well. Did that enter into making the deal happen?

So again, that goes back to the whole tacos and tequila conversation. That was what was really important to me was that when you start talking to someone as a friend versus it feeling like a pitch, like Roland just said, they're willing to tell you more details than what. Than what you would get in just that conversation. So I was able, because we connected on a level, I was able to get more information out of her to know what her true pain points were, not just what she was saying on paper or not what she just said on a zoom meeting. Right. And so I think that was what. Was what broke the ice for us is I found out what her true pain points. And then when you get behind that, there were layers and layers and layers of other true pain points, and I got to get all of that. So that gave me the information that I needed to be able to go back and say, here's what I honestly think we need here, and this is in your best interest. And this is why I know for a fact, if we come in as your partner, I know we can turn this around. And I knew with confidence, because I knew all of her pain points at that point, she would never have ever given that to somebody that literally just said, I want to buy your business, and here's. And walk through like, that never would have happened.

Yeah. And that's true most of the time, especially in terms of if you want to do a deal that isn't all cash. Right. A traditional deal like that, you have to spend some time, you have to invest some time, some time getting to know the people and, you know, and building rapport and kind of getting the inside story. Okay, so, so along those lines, there something happened to where she said, oh, my goodness, I need to have. Right. Really fast, within like 10 days or 30 days or something like that. Is that correct?

Correct. So she needed X amount of dollars. She needed it very fast within the next week or two. And. And that was the reason why there was a pain point there. Right. And so we came. I was thinking about it over the weekend, talked with some other people, and came back and said, okay, here's. Here's the option. If you choose option one and we're doing this consulting for equity, here's what this looks like. What if we did a web. Can I go ahead and say this?

Okay.

Yeah. Okay. What if we did a webinar and we helped you with this webinar? I mean, I know how to do a webinar with you. We can help you with this webinar. What if we help you with this webinar and you get that X amount of dollars Then will you agree to these terms? Because at first she wasn't really wanting the terms. She wanted out and she wanted cash. She wanted cash now. And so I said, well, if we, we figure out, to figure out how to put a band aid on this bleeding cut right now, would you, will you sign the terms and we'll do a CFE deal? And she said yes. So we had two contracts. So we did the first one and said, okay, we're going to do a webinar and, and we're going to go to your list. And we, we did the whole thing and we got 2 1/2 x what she asked for. So let's just say she was asking for $100,000. We got her to 250,000, which by the way was a lot more than that on one webinar.

Yeah, that, that, that tends to make somebody pretty happy and, and take the walls down to moving forward. So, and the other thing that I think is important here is that that was money that was already sitting in her list that you didn't have to go out and run ads, you didn't have to, you know, create money out of nothing. You basically said, let me look at the resources that you already have and let's see if we can create an opportunity to generate what you are looking to generate. And it worked really, really well. Correct?

Right. So she already had people. She also, she also had, in that webinar we upsold the people that had already been sold the year before into this upgraded package. So it was her existing list. It was just sitting there, right?

Yeah, almost. And almost every business has that kind of thing. Okay, so then after that, what happened?

So we've built the trust at this point. We did what we said we were going to do and I think that was really important. And we over delivered. I think that's the key. We went above and beyond what we even said we were going to do. And I mean I took late night calls just to make sure she was ready to go. How can we help? How can we support and because we were able to prove the value and she trusted us at that point, she had no problem signing that agreement like two days later to be able to say, okay, I'm ready to be your partner, I'm ready to give you equity in my business. Because if you did that, imagine what you'll do here. I just, I earned the trust.

And that's a business that is profiting historically around roughly what in terms of.

Dollars of profit, profit, profit. It's doing about a million And a half a year right now. Yeah.

So that's pretty cool deal that you were able to get into because you were curious, because you were friendly, because you had some skills or access to skills that could. That could benefit that person. So if we were going to wrap up, kind of like if you're talk. Because you talk to a lot of people who are coming into consulting for equity or acquisitions, and if you were going to basically say, hey, look, based on these two deals and everything I've done, everything I know, everything I see, what are the biggest things that stand in people's way of being able to do this stuff and be successful with it?

Mindset. Big time. I mean, I fell in that myself. And then that first one gave me the confidence that I needed. You know, just getting out there and doing it, it's just like anything but I. I think I had to believe in myself. And I knew that I had the people like you behind me that was pushing me and saying, deanna, you can do this. I had. Y' all were my biggest cheerleaders. I knew I had that. I just had to do it. I had to get comfortable. But again, it's the whole life, right? Like, the whole life fitting piece is it's everyone you talk to, your dentist, your hairdresser, they all know people. Everyone knows. And as long as I'm a talker and I am not afraid to explain what I do and I'm passionate, I think it's also, you must be passionate and not be like, here's what I'm doing. I can change your business. Like that. To me, that is as you.

Right.

It's like, really, you. You want to change my business? Like, no. Like, I can help you change your business. Like, you have to be passionate and excited. And when they see that you believe in yourself and then they're going to know that you're going to believe in them. And I think that the energy that you can bring to somebody is helpful in knowing that they can. They can trust you. And they want to work. People want to work with people that they like. And I think that's the key, is that if they like you and they trust you, then they're willing to give you equity in their business because they want to work with you every single day. That's number one. Number two is, I would say, repetition of follow up. I can't tell you how many times people are like, well, I sent out an email last week. I sent four. Oh, okay. And what did you do today? And it's like, I Don't know. I'm like, oh, my gosh. Okay, so here's how this is going to happen. And I told someone this yesterday on a coaching call. I was like, it may take 100 no's or 99 no's before you get that one yes. And every single time I get a no, I'm like, dad, gum it. I'm that much closer to the yes because I'm at 94 now and I'm at 95. Like, I know that it's okay to get that. I actually embrace the no's because I know it's getting me closer to the yeses. It's also allowing me to practice on the nose so that I actually get better for the yeses. So I'm okay with that. And I think what people do is they're like, they try something one time, then they stop because they just think it failed. And it's not failing. It's just called repetition. You just got to keep doing it every single day.

I love it. Anything else?

No, I just think you got to get out there and life a team. You got to get out there and do it, you know?

I love it. So if. If anybody wants to reach out and find you, have conversation or anything like that, what's the best way for them to. To connect with you?

You should definitely connect. You can reach me at Deanna D E A N N A at EpicNetwork. That's my email. I check it. No one else checks it. So you can safely send me an email. You can also, believe it or not, I give out my cell phone and I love chatting to people. As you can tell, I'm a talker. And so My number is 512-797-5100. I love talking to people, and I actually enjoy helping people get to that next experience like I did here in Epic.

Do you like calls or texts better or what's that?

I love. I love text. I love text. And then I'll call. Like, let's text back and forth. Let's start and then we. Then we'll just pick up. I'm a big. Let's text me. Let's talk, and then let's pick up the phone and call. I. I am not a zoom call person. Let's just call each other. Let's just talk.

I love it. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to be here today. It's such a joy to get to work with you every day, and I excited for anybody that's watching or listening here to get a hold of you and have a conversation with you because there's so many good things to talk about.

Thank you.

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