The Money Mondays - STOP Wasting Time Brandon Stevens' Proven Business Formula REVEALED! 📈 E95

Episode Date: November 11, 2024

If you're in California or Kansas, Brandon Steven is your go-to guy for anything related to cars. Not only that, he's also successful in the fitness and F&B industries, and he's here with us to spill his secrets on how he became so successful. Watch until the end because he knows BUSINESS... --- Brandon Steven is the founder and owner of Brandon Steven Motors, a leading automotive dealership based in Wichita, Kansas. Known for his entrepreneurial success and commitment to customer satisfaction, Steven has built a reputation for offering high-quality vehicles and exceptional service. Under his leadership, Brandon Steven Motors has grown into a trusted name in the industry, offering a wide range of new and pre-owned cars, trucks, and SUVs. https://www.brandonsteven.com/ --- Like this episode? Watch more like it 👇 Dan Martell: The Man with the Cheat Code to Money: https://youtu.be/xj_y30BXEyo Men ONLY Need These 2 Simple Things In Life w/ Garrett J. White: https://youtu.be/f-iacHAO3VQ Peter Voogd & Dan Zrihen: Sales Strategies That Made Them Millions: https://youtu.be/HlT3MVS1jig What Erik Huberman Knows About Marketing That You Don't!: https://youtu.be/aN-prmzV20Y Watch ALL Full Episodes Here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs0D-M5aH-0IOUKtQPKts-VZfO55mfH6k --- The Money Mondays is a business podcast here to teach you how to make money, invest money, and donate money by showcasing some of the world's most successful people and how they do the same. Hosted by serial entrepreneur Dan Fleyshman, the youngest founder of a publicly traded company in history, this money podcast gives you an exclusive behind the scenes look at how the wealthiest celebrities, entrepreneurs, athletes and influencers make, invest and donate money. If you want to learn more business and investing while you work to improve your financial life, you're in the right place! Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@themoneymondays?sub_confirmation=1 Dan Fleyshman, The Money Mondays Learn more here: https://themoneymondays.com Watch all the podcast episodes: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs0D-M5aH-0IOUKtQPKts-VZfO55mfH6k Let’s Connect... Website: https://themoneymondays.com Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-money-mondays/id1663564091 Twitter: https://twitter.com/themoneymondays LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-money-mondays/about/ TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@themoneymondays FB: https://www.facebook.com/The-Money-Mondays-110233585203220/

My dad still today gives us the same advice, the only advice he's ever given us, and that is just keep on trucking. And so we just kept on trucking, we never had a plan. Talked to my dad today, you're seeing me all stressed out, and I come in and say, just keep on trucking. It's really good advice.

["Money Mondays in History"] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the most specialist Money Mondays in History. This is the first time, and to the most specialist Money Mondays in history. This is the first time and hopefully the only time we do this podcast, not inside of the RV motorhome, but inside of the massive, fantastic, gorgeous Gravitas membership club here in Beverly Hills, California. Twenty eight thousand square feet. We are inside the poker room, the podcast room that they built and it's freaking gorgeous. Like the quality, the content,

everything you guys have created here, the details of it is mind blowing. Okay, as you guys know on the Money Mondays podcast, we cover three core topics. How to make money, how to invest money, how to give away a charity. But because this is a very special episode and I have one of my best friends on the planet

here with me right now, we're gonna mix in about business of building a membership club in the heart of Beverly Hills take on this huge undertaking Why did he do it? How did he do it talk through the concept of building such a gorgeous place and spending three years of his life When he already has Massive amounts. I don't know 17 18 card dealerships will talk about I think he's got like 50 or 60 gyms probably more by now I don't open one just yesterday for all I know we're gonna go through all those things but as you guys know is these podcasts Average a little bit under 40 minutes because the average workout is 45 minutes the average commute to work is 45 minutes this episode will be

Between 34 and 38 minutes for your listening pleasure so without further ado I'm gonna bring on Brandon Steven to give you a quick two minute bio So we can get straight to the money first of all this is your first podcast outside of the motor home Yeah, hopefully the last just for you to give you a quick two minute bio so we can get straight to the money. First of all, this is your first podcast outside of the motor home. Yeah, hopefully the last. Oh my God. Just for you. And this is my first podcast and this is the first podcast in the Gravitas

podcast. Exactly. That's three firsts. That's a lot. That's a lot of firsts. We got to make it extra, extra good. Okay. So two minute bio.

Yes. Which I hate, so I probably won't even use the whole two minutes. I'm Brandon Steven. I am from Wichita, Kansas. I still live in Wichita, Kansas. People from Beverly Hills that have known me just from doing Gravitas are amazed. I still live in Wichita, Kansas. People from Beverly Hills that have known me just from doing gravitas or maize that I still live in Kansas, but I love it there. I think first I'm the father, husband. I have six kids, six amazing kids, five daughters and a boy.

I did start in the car business early on, like in my teenage years, working at a my best friend's dad's car dealership. And then I just fell in love with the car business. Then my brother and I were partners. We opened up a health club. So I think I opened up my first, we opened up our first health club in 95, and my first, no, 94, in my first used car lot, which is a little bit bigger in this room, in 95. And fast forward to 2024, we have 74 health clubs.

74? 74 health clubs. 74? 74 health clubs. We had like 60 like a week ago. Not a week ago, Dan. All right, eight days ago. And 21 cardio ships. We had 18 cardio ships last time I saw them, which was a week ago. So Dan's exaggerating again.

Okay, nine days ago. We have a couple of restaurants, we have a hockey team, we have a lot of things, but our core business are health clubs and cardiolships. That's our core business. And my advice to most people is stay in your lane, stay in your lane, stay in your lane. And then I keep going outside my lane and doing restaurants and hockey teams

and membership club. What business do I have going in the heart of the Golden Triangle and building this massive project? So it was less than two minutes, right? It was perfect. Less than than two minutes right? So you already had a steak house in Wichita that was kind of like practice right practice of this fancy steak house you built there years ago but why this why go build 28,000 square feet in the heart of Beverly Hills right next to Mr. Chow and Chip Riani and all these fancy places how did you decide you know what I'm gonna stake my ground right here in

the corner of Camden and Santa Monica Boulevard? The answer to that question is pathetic. There is no answer because I didn't plan this. It started out as I literally came to pick up my buddy Paul for lunch and they had this patio outside that was very underwhelming for where it was at and they were getting ready to put a restaurant inside in this little 4,000 square foot vacant space they had that was Wells Fargo. And I was talking to him.

I'm like, I just don't understand. It just didn't work for me. It didn't make sense. And I was like, you should put a bar. This should be like a garden bar. This should be an outside bar. I mean, look where you're at. He just kind of shrugged his shoulders like,

whatever, you're from Kansas. I'm like, what do you mean? It's not gonna happen. You're not gonna gonna put the city's not gonna prove that okay well my question to myself was how you know how would they approve it and that's literally how we started and so it started out to be 12,000 square feet and now once we started going I'm like we need this we need this that's a good idea let's do that and as my my business was growing, this was literally, this was three, this was three, 37 months ago. That's when this project started.

And I was like, I need this for my business. I need this. And that's kind of where it's kind of dwarfed to. So it's open. Time has come. We're open. Today is day number nine. Wow. Wow is right. Are you happy? Are you you happy as a business person? I get a lot of congratulations because I've been doing this for so long building this and so

people congratulate me so long and it just I don't want to say it just frustrates me it irritates me when people congratulate me because I've done nothing. We are open. We're open that's only one third of it. I built this amazing we built this amazing facility but that's only one third of it. Great service, I built this amazing, we built this amazing facility, but that's only one third of it. You know, great service and great food are the other. And the club is 95% done construction-wise. So Dan, you know me well enough to know what do I see? Everything to fix. Yeah, I see the 5% that's not done. So that's just the way I've always been. So I do need to relax. I do need to appreciate how far I've come and how fun this is. So walk me through why restaurant and not membership club like

why did you decide I'm gonna go with membership club and go that route? As it got bigger and so I started expanding here you know five six years ago my car business I started expanding to Los Angeles and as you know I build a family like in my car business my team my team to Los Angeles. And as, you know, I build a family, like in my car business, my team, my team is my team, and they're very important to me. My meetings are super important to me. And my celebration dinners with my employees are super, so it kind of dwarfed it, like, I need a space for this.

I need a space for this. There was a need for this in Beverly Hills. And so that's how it kind of dwarfed. And as I was building this restaurant and taking on more and more space, it just became a membership club. Like it became like, okay, I can't just have everyone use this comment.

I just walked you through and showed you that gorgeous, it's called the poor room, the conference room. Like this is a gorgeous room that I need for myself, which means other businessmen also need that for themselves. And that was not gonna be just open to the public. It needs to be just exclusive to our members. So as you're building it, it's getting bigger, it goes from 12,000 square feet to 20,000 square feet.

You build this retractable roof in the middle of Beverly Hills. You build this huge patio. But then you started talking to me about like cars hanging from the ceilings and like, well I guess there's some extravagant parts, like why do those things? Do you think it matters to members?

Do you think it matters to the brand? Like why did it click click in your mind like I'm gonna hang a fancy car from the ceiling I Like being I like people to tell me no and then to overcome and I love the challenge like nobody everyone says you can I mean literally everybody my designers everyone says you're not gonna be able to hang an 18 foot f1 car From the ceiling and sound silly it sounds. And then now with that there's all kinds of sponsorships. Like I get to wrap the car. It's going to be a Red Bull car. I just found that yesterday. I'm doing a deal with Honda Racing Club. It's going to be a

Red Bull car. 18 foot, hanging from the ceiling, actual Red Bull car. Why not? Right? I mean, that's a separate room. That's called the vault Later we're gonna sell that I'm gonna sell naming rights to that room. I built a huge so to get Beverly Hills for me to prove to drive a car through the Curve up to the curb into the building was a whole nother task a whole nother world But why not why not have a place where people could unveil their cars whether you're buying a car whether it's a f1 unveiling whether it's bit.ly releasing their new model that's what that room's for come to find out we've only been open for nine days that rooms been written out three nights it's not even done it's like it's the room that's the

most incomplete and it's been the room that people want the most so that was the last last edition and on the wine side of it talk us through it seems like people can actually leave their wine here They can store their wine here. Yeah, so that was something I did not know Advice from Paul who's my buddy hit that with this building? He's like brand there's a huge need for wine wine storage in LA people will pay whatever for wine storage. I'm like, yeah, okay Sure enough. So we built these almost 400 wine lockers I don't know if you know the other memberships that we're doing what we call GEM, gym memberships,

which is, we only sell a few of them, they're lifetime memberships. With that lifetime membership, you also get a lifetime, I mean like a huge 12 by 12 wine locker by Biometrics. So you walk up, you put your thumbprint in it, and the wine locker comes out. It's a gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous room.

That room won't be done for a month. But we just started renting out those wine lockers and they're almost sold out. So to the entrepreneurs that are out there, I want to open a restaurant. Obviously not necessarily a 28,000 square foot one, but let's say they're 2,800 square feet. They want to open up their first thing.

What was advice you would tell them when they're first planning like? Not to do it. Not to do it. Not to do it. There you go. Not to do it. That's probably not a good answer.

Ask me again, I'm sorry. No's probably not a good answer. Ask me again. I'm sorry. No, it's a great answer. By the way, I've been going very hard the last year saying most people should not be entrepreneurs. They're not built for it. They don't realize that they're trying to be the entrepreneur because they heard someone fancy on social media say, you should just tell your boss that you're going to quit and go become an entrepreneur.

They don't realize that you're not going to make money for one, two, three, four years even when your business makes money. Let me explain it real quick guys. Let's say Brand and I decide to start white-t-shirts.com. In white-t-shirts.com, Brand and I crush it. We put in $100K each to start it. We got $200 grand in capital. We go do $1.5 million in sales our first year.

Brand and I should be happy right does anyone know out there How much money the brand and I pull out out of the 1.5 million sales zero rhymes with zero Because what happens well 50% of goes to the cost manufacturing production shipping 12% is gonna go to the marketing 5% on the paid ad spend we're gonna get a convention booth. We're gonna have staff we have employees But then for year two we go from 1.5 million to 4 million dollars. We crush it. Brand and I freaking crush it. Guess how much Brand and I pull out?

Negative. Negative, exactly. You know why? Because it's working. So if your business sucks, you're not gonna make money, and if it's working, you pour all the money back in and you take on debt or investors or loans or something to scale the business because it's working. You didn't get paid. Year one, year two, year three, etc. And so when I tell people

that it's hard for them to grasp. They just see fancy numbers on social media like, oh they did four million in sales. That's gross sales. That's not net profit. And you as the entrepreneur or CEO are dead last to get paid from staff, from vendors, from lawyers, accountants, leases, and everything in between, they're all first and you are dead last. And even when you're dead last, you're probably not going to get paid. All right, but I digress. So Brandon Steven. There's an exception to every rule.

Of course. There's an exception to that as well. And I do agree completely with what you said, not everyone is meant to be entrepreneurs. And that's not a negative thing. You can make so much money working for a company like myself where we actually enhance you being an entrepreneur inside of our company. When that company already has the infrastructure, already has all the things you need to expand your database, which in essence is your business inside of my company, our company. And that's what I've done inside my car

business is I've enabled great people to market inside my company, our company. And that's what I've done inside my car business, is I've enabled great people to market inside my company. Instead of doing everything you're talking about, building on infrastructure, having all these resources, not having the funds to advertise and market, IT funds. There's so many things inside of my company that an entrepreneur could come in and just expand his business inside, which is good for some people.

And some people want the pain. How'd you know I was finished? They want the pain. They want the pain. And some people will just get lucky and have a great product that costs very little, and they get to produce a lot of income off it, and they get to take money home right away. But I would definitely say that's the exception to the rule. So some of you listening, after I went on my tirade about entrepreneurs hard you definitely did by the way very passionate

I can see that yeah, I just I see a lot of people get stressed out and And I don't want society think that you should just quit your job I think you should save up money Have six to twelve months saved up in your piggy bank because you're probably not gonna make money for a long time even when it works It's interesting you see the word stressed out I'm 51. I've been open up my own, I opened up my first business that 11 years old. Wow. And it's crazy and I kept on opening and I'm still opening. And I'm still stressed out like it's crazy my poor wife and my kids see

me stressed out all the time and some people will come up to me and say gosh celebrate relax and a true entrepreneur just is not, it's just never, it's always, I remember somebody told me 25 years ago, an entrepreneur in Kansas, a real estate guy that I just immensely still admire, he kept on saying, Brandon, it's just more zeros. And you're right, it's just bigger zeros. But the things that stress me out now

would have literally murdered me 25 years ago. And the things 25 years ago that stress me out now are like nothing to me. So it's it's just they just get bigger and the stress unfortunately gets bigger. So employee number two, four, seven you can live a really good life there's nothing wrong with not being employee number one imagine think about this be realistic employee number four at your car dealerships or employee number four at your gyms. They make good money, right? Great money, but does not mean they're not stressed. Of course, because if they're there and they're that high up inside of our company

They are like us they want more they see the five percent. That's not done They see the 12 percent that was that was they could have got they should have got and they see the crumbs what they don't have To pay your rent your insurance your payroll your liabilities your lawyers You didn't exaggerate it, but I think the people that are that high up that have been with me for 30 years They fill it with me. I love that. Yeah, I love that and that's I just rate people I want people to be okay being employee number four getting some equity and making six figures a year Sometimes that's even better for sure because you do get to go home at night and have a different the mill tastes better So your sleep you do get a better night's sleep. I would say for sure

Okay, so the tirade is over from that part of it. I'm guessing you're gonna come back to the tirade though Well, yes and passionate about it On the investing side of the world, you've chosen to invest a lot of capital into this project, 20,000 square feet. When you're making investment decisions, whether it's real estate, more car dealerships, more gyms, a massive location in the middle of Beverly Hills, how are you thinking about it?

Are you talking to other people, is it our advisors, our partners, friends, or is it you on a whiteboard like, okay, this is my crazy plan, this is what I'm gonna do? Are you talking to other people is that our advisors or partners friends or is it you on a whiteboard like okay? This is my crazy plan this one. I'm gonna do yeah that $25 whiteboards cost me a lot of them. Yeah, I don't I didn't I did not do very good job of investing in this bar So I would definitely tell everybody everything I did in gravitas. She should not It's gorgeous though

Like I would say actually everything I should that I did you should do the exact opposite I started out with a great plan. I was gonna make it small my budget I'm embarrassed to tell you guys this I'm gonna tell you my budget for the first 12,000 square feet was 13 million dollars and I Spent two months Value engineering with my team two months to get it from 13 million to eleven point four and I'm like I was really proud of myself I signed the contract let's go 11.4 million now it's ironic that we got from 13 to 11 for not 11 that's not round off to 11 yeah and we're at 37 million dollars is

what I spent and guess what I'm still going right you still have 5% to finish but I'm so happy that I got it to 11.4 by spending two months to value whiteboard says 11.4 So back to your aunt your question This is a horrible investment idea like I and then when I got it down to 11 I was gonna get 20 partners friends of mine and say this is gonna be a passion project for all of us We're gonna build this great thing and we're gonna use it for ourselves And then as it got bigger and it got bigger the number got to 23 million I was for sure that 23 million I'm done I went ahead and talked to some of my buddies about it

I said here's what we're gonna do and I said we're close and I'll get I'll get the information to you when we get closer and meet the number got so big that I just said I can never bring somebody else to end as a partner in this deal and so I own 100% of it unfortunately why I say I my brother and I have partners we own 100% of it unfortunately while I say I my brother and I are partners we own 100% of that. Interesting enough Rodney my partner my brother I kept on telling him for the last you know 16 18 months you need to come to LA to see what you're doing. He's like I'm busy you got that part. I'm like you need to come to LA to see what we're doing and as the numbers got

bigger he came last week. Oh finally three years later. Yeah, and month 36 he came by he had dinner Oh, that's nice. Good. He loved the food. It's fantastic Okay from an investing perspective When you have infinite options because you are surrounded by so many people Relationships you travel a lot. How do you decide between real estate stock market investing companies, outside of just investing in your own business? So I know a lot of people, you know a lot of people, we have a lot of friends, we're very passionate with our friends.

One thing I'll tell you is when you're in the position that we're in, everybody comes to you with their new idea of investing. If it's not once a week anymore, it used to be once a week, people would come to me and say, hey, I want you to invest in this. And now it's not as often because people know very clearly that I do not invest in other

people's business. I know that you're very good at that. I am not. I've done it a lot in the past and I'm tell you I'm zero for whatever. That's not true. Maybe I'm one for whatever. I have decided, Rodney and I have decided we're going to invest in us. So we're going to invest in projects we do.

I have no problem spending an infinite amount of money borrowing it or in my own capital of a car dealership or a health club because I know for certain that I will win. That's not arrogant. It's because we have a solid processes. We have an incredible team that's been with us, number four employees. They've been with us since the 90s. So we have confident in our team for our two core businesses,

health clubs and car dealerships. We know for sure that I can go buy a car dealership that's broken and fix it. That's not arrogant. Trust me, it's really not arrogant because it's just a prudent process and it's the team that we've built, the teams we've built. We know for sure that we can go into market for health clubs and we're going to do very well. Health clubs are a little different because it takes us years to curate the market but we're good, we're really good at buying the real estate and then putting the best health clubs in the best places. So real estate is it's interesting because we're in the car business and the health club business but we own all of our facilities. Oh wow. So

we're really real estate developers but not really. Like the McDonald's model. Yeah but for car dealerships. Interesting enough that Gravitas is the only thing in the world that I don't own I'm leasing this space which is very just very Frustrating that I spent all that money on least space The developer if you're listening brand would like to buy this building at some point not now. I should about it 2021 right it was worth a lot less after I spend all this money. Yeah Okay, so When you have brother focusing on the gyms your self-focusing on the cardio ships. Where does the trust come in? What point you're like?

You know what? I'm not gonna play around your business You're not playing around my business you obviously listen to each other because your brothers But how do you get someone to stay focused on their thing? That's never there and I still help Rodney and he still helps me is like it's hard like Rodney is the face of the health clubs, and I'm the face of the cardio ships, but It's interesting enough. We are both in the same business. It's about retention. It's so much cheaper and so much better for us to spend money retaining a customer and retaining a team member versus hiring a new team member and trying to get a new customer.

It's easier to retain a health club member. You know, anybody that's just come to work out, everyone who comes in, right, Roger? They come in and they get all excited to work out for the first, and they do for the first six weeks, seven weeks, and they go crazy. And then they start to work less. That's where we come in. We're like, hey, listen, we've built the software. We know that Dan came in an average of three times a week. And now it's two times a week. And now it's one time a week. Well, we're going to spend the money to retain Dan now. Let's give Dan a personal training session. Let's get Dan back in here and try to keep Dan as a member. Same with the car

customers. People come to our dealership, nobody wants to shop for a car. I mean it's really, it's like they actually equate it to going to the dentist going to the car dealership. It's scary. People hate going to the car dealership. We tried to change that where people come in. We try to make it more of a personal experience where you're self-professional, you're self-professional, you get to know them and you need to know The manager and that's the easiest and best way to retain a customer and guess what it's also the best way to retain a team I spent my whole life building the culture

Building the culture around take making sure your environment's perfect if you do that and your customers fill it from your team You win So when you build a place like grab it to us Or you build a chain of gyms or can chain of car dealerships is there an end in mind you build it with? Exit in mind or you build them as legacy for the family like what do you what are your thoughts? It's a great question Do you have the answer my job? I was hoping you have answered because I don't We talked about a lot. It's tough because our kids are getting older now Rodneyney's, you know, we have Rodney's three of his kids, four of his

kids now working in the gyms. I have three of my kids now working in the business. It's interesting. It's like because we don't, we didn't do a good job of, we didn't do a good job of thinking about legacy. We just started working. We kept working. We kept on plowing for it. My dad's still today gives gives us the same vice the only device He's ever given us and that is just keep on truckin and so we just kept on truckin We never had a plan. I've talked to my dad today. You're looking at your see me all stressed out It's really good advice So I don't have a great answer about legacy. Yeah, okay. Let's go to the charity side of things Why do you think it's important for businesses? So let's say that car

dealerships, gyms, or someone out there has a restaurant or insurance agency, why should they have some type of charity component if they have to or not? Why should they have some type of charity component for their staff, investors, partners or vendors to be able to see? I don't know if I have a good answer to why they should. I've seen a lot in this realm. Like, not only did, I would say not only did, I used to be hit a lot about, and like people would always come to me and say, don't donate, donations, donations, donations. And I never said no.

I hated being the guy that said no, but I didn't enjoy it as much. Writing a check to me is not that big of a deal. I don't mean that negative way, like I never got great pleasure out of it because I never really saw the effects of it. So about 15 years ago, I had a poker tournament in Wichita, Kansas for kids.

At the time it wasn't called GIFT, which is GFFT, Genesis for Fitness and Tennis, but it was just for these underprivileged kids. And I saw my team, my staff couldn't wait to volunteer their time to help. They just couldn't wait. They loved to see me passionate about helping. Now it's this huge foundation that we started, but it's only for local, local kids. And I get a lot of, it's pretty rewarding, that's all I can tell you. It's pretty rewarding. For an example, we give

shoes to kids every year. It used to start out as a couple hundred and and we ran out. And then now it's a couple thousand pair of shoes we give kids to these underprivileged areas in Wichita. My mom goes all the time, and she cries every time. Kids have, it's amazing, it's sad, but it's still amazing when you give somebody their first brand new pair of shoes. Now, Dan, we're talking about somebody that's 13 or 14 years old,

and they get their first brand new pair of shoes. Now, Dan, we're talking about somebody that's 13 or 14 years old, and they get their first brand new pair of shoes. And it just blows your mind of how the things that we take for granted. So they answer your question, how is it important? I don't know if it's important for everyone, but it was amazing when now, how much of our team, our big team, they look forward to volunteering their time

because they got that same feeling inside when they see it. Yeah a lot of people think about charity they think about money they think about the initial reaction what Brandon said was like just writing a check but charity really is more about the time and energy, the passion. Which is more important. For sure. Unbelievable. Because you can do those type of things like most of the charities that we've created are about people going out and giving out backpacks to the homeless or giving toys to kids or doing Thanksgiving food drives like it's not about You don't see me doing like hey We're raised one million dollars and ding ding ding ding ding like we don't do that stuff like we do

Hey, we want you to do a toy drive in your city We want you to do backpacks for the homeless we want you to go do a tipping dinner and tip surprise tip staff like Give away your clothes in your closet like our stuff is not about money the things that I post about It's about people replicating for their own version. What do they like? What do they want to see and then you find the thing that you like? You might have done three or four different charities before finally like wait This is the one that all the staff likes. This is the one that you individually like What about the family side or are the kids that were involved in charity stuff do they like anything in particular? Yeah they do they've been

part of the foundation that we've done forever and you know doing all this and being in Wichita for my whole life and a lot of these other foundation I volunteer some my time for other people's stuff and events and I'll stumble along a family that's like wow sometimes a family will blow your mind like like he's working two jobs. She's working two jobs I got five kids at home and they're barely cutting it and so I'll just very anonymously will go in and just and help the family and It's always take my kids with me and then it comes to the point where one year you do it in the next year

You do it now It's like they're part of your deal like you just do that and my kids do that for me now my assistant God bless you because she doesn't like she or like she handles all and like every once while sure tell me hey listen this person I just found out is struggling I'm like send up to this fog whatever and like we just do random stuff and that's all anonymous and it's like as bad as it is I get a lot of pleasure that makes me feel good about me I don't say wasting money but some of the silly things that I do waste money on it makes me feel better when I get to do that for somebody else

Last question we didn't really cover about when the concept of the membership club. How do people apply for membership clubs? What does a company look for when they're thinking about how to curate because there's different types of membership clubs There's obviously that chains like so house that are around the around the world then there's some smaller format ones that are like restaurants mixed with a health club or something like walk us through the concept of like People being onboarded. What's the concept of membership club in general? It's been interesting and I don't want to say that we're figuring it out as we go, but we're kind of figuring it out as we go I Know what I don't want to be how about that? I don't want to be snobs

I'm trying to bring Midwestern hospitality into gravitas. I'm being like, I just, you saw me downstairs. I told Seth that I'm going to be the front door all night tonight and I will be at the front door all night. And the only reason I'm going to be there tonight is I want to make sure that nobody comes off the street and our hostess says, oh, we're membership only. And they're going to say it the nicest, sweetest way as possible. I want to shake their hand and say, Oh man, welcome to gravitas tonight's night number eight or nine. Let me show you our club and we have to be respectful of our members. We're not going to be given tours, but I want to make sure that they feel like we're not snobs. I know that Beverly Hills is Beverly Hills and everyone deserves that sense of exclusivity. And we're going to have that. We're definitely going to have that.

But we've been fortunate where we've got a lot of applications in. And right now, we're only approving referrals. So like if you're a member, you can refer somebody, then we're going to look at them and treat them. But everyone else has kind of been on the wait list. And we're going to open that up here in a couple weeks. I just want to get open, make sure our food is great, which it is great. Our services is out, it's incredible. So I'm really comfortable now to start letting members in. Can you talk about the pricing? Yeah, it's very, very, very affordable.

I didn't want to go crazy high. I wanted to appeal to me at 20 years old, 25 years old. We could have for sure. But this place you could have, and this is a gorgeous thing. I didn't want to be that. I didn't want to be about the money. I wanted to it like I told

Some of the other day this club represents everything that I needed and almost all of my stages of my business life and my personal life Yeah, there's a whole sports bar right there. Yeah, right as we walk through here. Yeah, so it represents all that So it's only it's 2500 a sign up, which is cheap. That's one time you feed its initiation fee and it's 5500 per person I know everyone told me y'all you don't have spousal memberships in LA. I'm like why? Why? I want the wives here. Yeah. I want the wives to be able to come without the husbands. Let's face it women get shit done. Yeah. And women plan things. Yeah. And we show up. Right. Exactly. And women are they have opinions and they have no problem expressing their opinions and we need that here and so so it's 7,500 for spouse

for a year yeah is there corporate versions also no not yet not say there won't be but we still have any corporate right now Brandon Steven I have a question I ask everyone that comes on the podcast and I've never ever gotten the same answer I don't think I'm gonna get the same answer in this case as well So you're a healthy guy, so hopefully it takes a hundred years 200 years with modern technology Maybe you'll have bionic arms and bionic different organs and you survive to 162 years old

but unfortunately at some point you pass away and Gravitas maybe it ends up being in 20, 30 cities for all we know. Maybe there's hundreds of car dealerships, maybe there's hundreds of gyms. You build this multi-billion dollar legacy and it's finally time to pass away. What do you leave to those six kids? What percentage? What a great question. And I haven't heard you say it before but it sounds different when you're sitting right here. If I was to ever write a book, I would call, I would title it, I Started With Everything.

What do you think I mean by that? Or do you know what I mean by that? I have a version of what I think it is. So many success stories you hear and they always start with the same thing, oh I started with nothing. I started with literally everything I needed, both in my business and my personal life. My parents gave it to me. My grandparents gave it to me. My grandparents on both sides of my family gave it to me. I mean, I am extremely lucky to be raised the way I was. When I was raised by my dad, I couldn't wait to go to work at his dad, my grandfather's car wash. I just, I mean, I'm talking about nine, 10, 11 years old. I couldn't wait to go work there because the whole family worked there

because they worked hard. I couldn't wait to go to my grandparents' house for Christmas to set up the Christmas decorations. It was, because it was open to the whole city and the whole city, during all of December, you could wait in 20 minutes in line to get to my grandparents' Christmas place, but every single night we had to work to keep this

thing going and I just couldn't wait to do it. It wasn't about the money, it was about I didn't want to be out and work by my grandparents or my uncles or my brothers, my dad especially. And then they taught me how to be a good person all the time. You know having integrity is not situational, which unfortunately a lot of people think it's a situational thing and I learned that early on. I don't know if I was rich or poor growing up. I don't know. We didn't know. It wasn't about the money. It was about being together with family. My parents made it very, I don't know if they did it, but we always wanted to be with our cousins and our uncles and our aunts. Still today, we are with our cousins, our uncles and aunts. My kids are today, their best friends are their cousins and their uncles and

aunts. And so the best thing they gave me was that, the ability to know good from bad, which is a big deal. Because a lot of people will know the difference, but they choose bad, which is scary. But my parents taught me everything I needed about being a good person and with that became the work ethic. I remember my dad used to take us out of school. He used to come to grade school and get Rodney and I out of school because he had self-service car washes and they would freeze up and he needed hands to get him to not freeze up and so we just didn't know any better. I mean that's just what we did. We worked and we loved it. So literally I started with

everything. So if I could give my kids something, I think I've done that's just what we did. We worked, and we loved it. So literally, I started with everything. So if I could give my kids something, I think I've done that, my wife has done that, is they have that same goodness inside their heart and that same work ethic. All right, so if people wanna come to Gravitas, apply to Gravitas, walk us through, how do they find this place, how do they apply? I want everyone to take a tour.

I don't want people to sign up. It makes me sad. I was just, a friend of of mine came in when I was walking up here for this I saw Lee and I said he's like oh I was explaining the floor to him because the floor has all these lines It's a travertine floor and has all these lines in it and they go like this and I'm like, oh, you know, that's To scale the streets of Beverly Hills and you can see all the names and like all three of them like oh my god I made me sad because I spent so much energy and time to make that and there's so many cool things like that in this restaurant that are

specific to Beverly Hills I want everyone to take a tour I don't want people to sign up to go I'm already a member I'm like I've done I've not done my job he's a good friend of mine but I'm like he should be taking a tour so I want everyone to take a tour you can go to gravitas.com gravitas Beverly Hills calm either way you get to the same place and you can apply and then it's gonna ask you to take a tour the best thing you do is go there and just say request a tour or you can come in you know come in during the day and just take a tour from 2 to 4 is probably the best for us. How was your first podcast?

I went fast, is that 40 minutes? Yeah. Oh good. I don't have a clock but I can tell you it's 40 minutes. I'm not good about talking can tell you it's 40 minutes I'm not good about talking about myself, so it's good. You actually have me talk about the company and stuff which is All right guys as you know the whole concept of the money Mondays is we all grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money I think it's rude not to talk about it I think it's a problem in our society people who can't talk about FICO scores and loans and if their friend borrows money for rent, what should they do to get it back? Should they sign a contract? Should they lease a car or buy a car?

There's so many questions people have because they turn 18 years old and we just throw them out into society And they don't know because they didn't learn in high school And they're not even learning in college what to do about money. They can't spell IRS. They don't know how to pay their taxes They don't know how to open a bank account They don't know how to manage a budget anything because we think it's rude to talk about it So it's important for us on this podcast for you guys to like, comment, subscribe, share it. As you know, we've been running this ad free. We want you guys to enjoy the experiences. We have a 93% listen through rate because of this. We're

not sitting here reading these two minute long, three minute long commercials. I want you to enjoy these experiences, especially with someone like Brandon Steven, who's built up in multiple verticals, these huge companies. These are the type of podcasts for you to share with your friends, talk with your staff, talk with your family, talk with your followers about money. So visit us at themoneymondays.com and we'll see you guys next Monday.