Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Alex Hormozi: From Soul-Sucking Job to $120M in Revenue, How Alex Changed his Mind and Built an Empire by Age 32 | E198

Episode Date: November 28, 2022

When we are faced with a decision, to choose stability versus a dream, our brain will convince us to play it safe. We typically let our fears and anxieties prevail. Instead of settling for what is good, we should focus on what will make our lives even better. To find success, Alex had to change his mindset of what success looked like.  In 2013, Alex started his first brick & mortar business. Within three years, he successfully scaled his business to six locations. He then sold his locations to transition to the turnaround business. From there, he spent two years turning 32+ brick & mortar businesses around using the same model that made his privately owned locations successful. In 2020, he transitioned from CEO to the owner/shareholder position in these companies and founded Acquisition.com as a way to invest his own wealth (both monetary and intellectual capital) into other businesses. With all this accomplished at just 33 years of age, Alex Hormozi is the definition of Young and Profiting. Alex will join Hala for an extensive 2-part interview. In this episode, they will discuss Alex’s come-up story and his philosophy on life, marriage, money, and so much more.   Topics Include:  - Alex’s upbringing and come-up story - Giving up something good to go after something better - Why the concept of death is liberating - How a Facebook Ad workshop boosted Alex’s business - What you can do with a level 10 skillset, level 2 opportunity  - How Alex began launching other people’s gyms - Why your life partner is critical to your success - The pros and cons of marrying your business partner - How Alex navigated his rock-bottom moment  - How to operate people - The origin of acquisition.com  Alex Hormozi is a first-generation Iranian-American entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. In 2013, he started his first brick & mortar business. Within three years, he successfully scaled his business to six locations. He then sold his locations to transition to the turnaround business. From there he spent two years turning 32+ brick & mortar businesses around using the same model that made his privately owned locations successful. Alex owns a portfolio of companies under his umbrella company Acquisition.com. He’s widely considered an acquisition and monetization expert. He is also the bestselling author of $100M Offers: How To Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid Saying No. Resources Mentioned: Alex’s Website: https://www.acquisition.com/bio-alex Alex’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderhormozi/ Alex’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlexHormozi Alex’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hormozi/ Alex’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HormoziAlex/ Alex’s book 100M Offers: https://www.amazon.com/100M-Offers-People-Stupid-Saying/dp/1737475715/ref=sr_1_2?cri[%E2%80%A6]FzcCI6IjEuOTUifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=100m+offers%2Caps%2C137&sr=8-2 YAPClassic: Robert Greene on Decoding the Laws of Human Nature https://youngandprofiting.com/yapclassic-decoding-the-laws-of-human-nature-with-robert-greene/ Russel Brunson’s ClickFunnels: https://www.russellbrunson.com/hi Sponsored By:  Omaha Steaks - Visit OmahaSteaks.com and use promo code YAP at checkout to get that EXTRA $30 OFF your order. Castbox - Subscribe to YAP on Castbox today Lightstream - Go to lightstream.com/yap and apply now to get a special interest rate discount and save even more Shopify - Sign up for a free trial at shopify.com/profiting Indeed - Visit Indeed.com/YAP to start hiring now. More About Young and Profiting Download Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com   Get Sponsorship Deals - youngandprofiting.com/sponsorships Leave a Review - ratethispodcast.com/yap Watch Videos - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting Follow Hala Taha LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ TikTok - tiktok.com/@yapwithhala Twitter - twitter.com/yapwithhala Learn more about YAP Media Agency Services - yapmedia.io/ Join Hala's LinkedIn Masterclass - yapmedia.io/course Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of YAP is sponsored in part by Shopify. Shopify simplifies selling online and in-person so you can focus on successfully growing your business. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com-profiting. I definitely conformed. I definitely followed the path. It was only when I was very, very sad after I graduated college. I was like, this is it. This is all there is. It's just more of this for the rest of my life, and that was incredibly depressing to me. If I wake up every day, hoping that I don't wake up, either I can just live the rest of my life like this, or I can just die to somebody else, because right now I'm dead to me.

The internal dialogue was I have to die to my father in order to live for me. Most people don't achieve big shit. Most people are security driven. It makes sense that everybody around you will tell you not to do it. They will be right most of the time, but the thing is, you only need to be right once.

If you could fail for 10 straight years, and then on your 11th year, make a $2 million your business, you are further along than the person who made $100,000 a year that entire period of time. It's just people measure outcomes on too short of an interval, and that's why they don't get what they want. It's just people measure outcomes on too short of an interval. And that's why they don't get what they want. What is up, young and profitors?

You're listening to YAP, Young and Profiting Podcasts where we interview the brightest minds in the world and unpack their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your daily life. I'm your host, Hallitaha. Thanks for tuning in and get ready to listen, learn, and profit. Welcome to Young and Providing Podcast Alex. Thank you for having me. I'm super pumped to have you on the show. So my producer Jason, who just met offline, is the first person to introduce me to you about a year ago.

And we are always referencing your work at YAP and it is just so cool that one by one I seem to be interviewing all of my idols in business. So very thankful for you taking the time to come on the show and just really, really respect your work. So thanks for coming on. I appreciate it. We're kind of you to say. To introduce you to my yapp fam Tunie and Alex is a first generation Iranian-American

entrepreneur investor and philanthropist. He started his entrepreneurial journey running brick and mortar gyms and after taking some good advice from Russell Brunson, he ended up selling those gyms and eventually licensed his business model to start the company Gym Launch, which scaled to over 4,000 plus locations in four years. At the same time period, Alex and his wife, Lila Hermosi, bootstrapped and grew three other companies to $120 million in sales across four different industries, and in total, they have scaled and exited seven companies. And in 2020, the Hermoses launched acquisition.com with a mission to help promising internet

companies scale with their sales and marketing expertise. Their portfolio is currently making over $100 million per year and talk about couple goals young and profiting. Alex is also the author of one of my favorite books of business of all time, $100 million offers, how to make offers so good people feel stupid saying no. And he also has a YouTube channel, he hosts the podcast, the game, and is quickly becoming one of the biggest social media influencers of our time. All of this, and he's just 33 years old, so he's the definition of Young & Profiting.

And that's why we have him on for an extensive two-part interview today. So in part one of the show, we're going to go super deep on his come-up story. We're going to learn about his philosophy on life, marriage, money, and so much more. And then we'll get into some more tactical sales and marketing advice and how to leverage human behavior to design a $100 million offer. Let's talk about your upbringing. Like I mentioned, your first generation, Irene in American, your Middle Eastern like me. Tell us about what your parents were like.

I know you haven't really talked much about your mom in terms of your upbringing. And what was young Alex from those like growing up before you went off to college? I mean, I was a pretty quiet kid, I think, for the most part. I was, it was just me and my dad, for the most part growing up. I didn't see my mother very much.

And so that's probably why I don't, I don't mention her as much. That being said, it was, I had a mid-least in father. He was like, I got out of Iran because of school. And so, do well in school. And you too will succeed. That was kind of the path. There wasn't really like an option of not trying hard at school. Like it just, it just wasn't a door.

You know what I mean? Like, I think there's some things in America that are a little bit different. I genuinely believe that everybody can get straight A's. Now, I think the amount of effort that would be required for everyone is different, but I think given the time constraints that people have to apply themselves to school, anyone could do it.

That's just Alex's perspective on the world. I don't think it would be easy for everyone, but I think everyone could do it. And I think most people, or oftentimes oftentimes there's different things that are reinforced in their household. Like there's some people who are straight A's at football. And so that's the thing that their parents reinforce and reward. Because maybe that dad thought that he relives his football days through his son or whatever. And so that's what gets reinforced. They spend three hours a day practicing in 30 minutes a day on all the homework for all the stuff.

So anyways, me growing up was mostly quiet. I think as I got into high school, I came into myself a little bit more. I was a little bit of an angry or guy. I was more of a, I would say I was more of a lone wolf during that period. I had groups of friends and whatnot, but I wouldn't say that I was particularly close with,

you know, like deep, I'm still in touch with one guy, but that's kind of the extent of it. From there, I went to Vanderbilt, because I did decently well at school, so I was able to get in. I think I needed to get out of the house for me to kind of just be me more, because there's a lot of, I'm sure, from... And this isn't just a Middle Eastern thing, a lot of Asian parents. It's just probably just more foreign parents. It's just a little bit more pressure, I think, than is common in the American standard

to conform a certain way. And I definitely conformed. I definitely followed the path. It was only when I was very, very sad after I graduated college and I did it in three years and did, you know, I did all the stuff. You know what I mean? I was president of fraternity vice president, the powerlifting team. I did all that. And then when I got out and had my two years of mean, I was president of fraternity vice president, powerlifting team. I did all that.

And then when I got out and had my two years of consulting, it was a very miserable time for me. And nothing to do with the people and things like that. It was me. This house like this is it. This is all there is. It's just more of this for the rest of my life. And that was incredibly depressing to me.

And so that was when I had to kind of challenge the original paradigm, which is maybe the plan that was laid out for me was not my plan, but someone else's plan. I'm making progress towards a goal that I do not want in terms of my dad's viewpoint of me and my success, which was at the time all that I cared about. And so for me, it was really just not wanting to be alive, which became my kind of thing that got me to change, which I was like, if I wake up every day hoping that I don't wake up, then either I can just live the rest of my life like this or I can just die to somebody else.

I was like, because right now I'm dead to me. That was kind of the internal dialogue was I have to die to my father in order to live for me. And so that was 2012, 2013. I drove across the country, I called my dad to tell him that I had left halfway there, because otherwise I knew you would talk me out of it. I mean, very transp, I called my dad to tell him that I had left halfway, halfway there because otherwise I knew you were trying to talk me out of it. I mean, very transparently, like, my dad had had enough influence over me at the time that I literally had to physically separate myself in order to not be convinced because I knew

that if I had not done that, he would have convinced me to stay because I had tried multiple times before that to be like, I'm not going to do this, I hate this, I don't want to do it. You would always be like, you know, when I was a resident, we didn't sleep, this is just, you know, I mean, this is to, and to be fair, there's probably a certain degree that's true, you know what I mean? And he's like, just gotta get through this

and you'll get to the other side. And then I think there's an element of that that's true. And maybe I was too soft, who knows? I was like, I don't know. I really was very, very sad. And so just the idea of being free was very liberating for me. Then I went to start my own business and was very, very sad. And so just the idea of being free was very liberating for me. Then I went to start my own business and was shocked by just how hard it was

for me sleeping on the floor at my first gym. I remember having the story of the come-up and that everybody loves the idea of like, yeah, he slept on the floor. Like, it was not glorious. It was very lo and s'm. I didn't know anyone because I was in California from Baltimore, so I knew no one. And I was sleeping underneath of a warehouse where homeless people would be on top

like breaking bottles at all hours of the night. You missed a whole big party your story. So let's back up. You ended up becoming an apprentice for some guy in California. So you ended up driving where were you from Maryland to California. Like you ended up driving, where were you, from Maryland to California. Like you said, you called your dad halfway. And you decided you were gonna basically work for free for this guy, 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. or whatever it was.

And you followed this guy around a gym and you tried to learn as much as you can because you were obsessed with fitness and gyms and so you wanted to break out and learn from somebody else who had already done it. So tell us about that period of your life. So I emailed 40 gym owners because I knew from the consulting world, which is what I had graduated into, that the best way to learn is to seek out experts.

And so they have already consolidated the information because there's no lack of information in the world. Like the issue is sifting through it at this point. And so finding people who've already pre-sifted it is more efficient. So I emailed 40 guys, he was the only one who got back to me. He had a seven-figure gym, his name was seven-figure Sam. And so anyways, I just showed up at his doorstep. A few days later, he was very surprised by that.

He had a mastermind, which I joined, even though I didn't have a gym, it was for gym owners. And he said, yeah, if you join, then you'll start the gym the right way. And I was like, okay. But then I didn't have a gym, so he said, you want to work for me. So he ended up paying me as an employee, even though I paid him for a mask. Well, it was very weird. I set up.

But anyways, I worked from at the gym and he said I could be as apprentice because he didn't really have a program for me. So I just hung out the ball day. And so he got to the gym at four and he would leave at four. So he worked four to four. I would usually stay in extra couple hours until six because I didn't know anybody. So I would just hang out at the gym because at least there was people there that I kind of knew now.

I worked there for 12 weeks. It was kind of a crash course. I mean, imagine spending 12 hours a day with somebody who is a decent business owner at the time. You know, he had a seven figure business. And so there's just so much that I learned so quickly. It's more like constructs. Like I didn't know things existed.

It wasn't like I learned tactics. Like I just didn't even know email marketing was a thing. I didn't know affiliate marketing was a thing. I didn't know what a landing page was. I didn't know what ads were. I didn't know sales as a term existed. I didn't get it. And so I remember the first time somebody walked in,

he's like, oh, go sign this girl up. She walked in. So I, no training, no script, no nothing. He just said, go sign this girl up. And I came from a management consulting background making slide deck. So I had no idea what I was doing. And so the girl came in and I was like, yeah, so, uh, yeah, the gym's 129 a month, or whatever it is.

And you want to sign up and she was like, yeah, I have to just, I just have to, I don't have my credit card with me. I just have to go get it. I was like, okay. And then I walked out two minutes later and I was like, yeah, she's going to sign up. He was like, you closed her in two minutes and I was like, yeah, I guess. He's like, you got the card and I was like,

no, but she's gonna show me back. She said she's just gonna go get a critical. He's like, ah, like, and it was like a bunch of guys around. They all cracked up because I had no idea how it worked. And so, I feel like dude, if you don't get the card, you didn't close. Anyway, I went to a workshop for a weekend.

It was like $3,000, which was a tremendous amount of money for me at the time. They promised that you'd make $10,000 by day in the weekend. I did not make $10,000 by day in the weekend, but they taught Facebook marketing. And this is 2013. And so I came back to Sam and I was like, hey, we should try this stuff. I think it's going to work. He said, I try that. It doesn't work.

And I was like, just give me a grand and I'll test it. So he said, I'll split the profit with you after I make my money back. And so I ran the ad the way I'd learned at the workshop and made $6,000. And I'm sure it was worth it, gave me $25,000. And that was kind of like the beginning of my taste in the marketing. And during that period of time, I was looking for my own location. That was like far enough away from his thing that I wasn't going to compete, you know what I mean? But close enough that I could still be there, so I went to Huntington Beach

and found an old warehouse on Gothard and Talbert, and that's where I started my first time. That's so cool, what a great story. And so I want to talk about giving up something good to go after something better. I feel like this is such a big lesson. I can relate because when I started my company, everybody was against me. I had a great corporate job. I was running a marketing department at Disney Streaming Services. Everyone was against me.

My boyfriend of 10 years, so I thought I was going to marry, was so upset with me. I had to break up with him to start my business. I moved out, and that's when everything took off from me because I felt like somebody was stepping on my neck and I finally was like released from it. I'd love to talk about why it's okay to leave something good to go after something better and what you learned from that. This is a really, really deep topic that I like a lot. And I don't think I've talked as much about it as I really like to.

I think the hardest decisions in life are giving up good for great. And I think oftentimes what makes it hard is that your good is someone else's great who's casting their projection onto you and saying, why would you give up great? And so it's really just about expectations and standards that we set for ourselves and like not buying into people's dreams about you that are smaller than your dreams for you. And so I think it's really just continually trading up dreams as you realize what you can do.

Because like my dreams now are significantly bigger than they were 10 years ago. And it's the scariest thing to do is to trade what you have now. It's basically trading the one in the hand for the two in the bush. So it's going counter the traditional common sense that people espouse. And most people are security driven. Most people don't achieve big shit. It makes sense that everybody around you will tell you not to do it. Because for most of them, it wouldn't make sense. And many times you will fail. They will be right most of the time. But the thing is, is you only need to be right once. And that's

the piece that I feel like is missed, is that they will see someone try something on their own and then fail and then say, see, and then they will confirm their bias, rather than thinking, well, if I do this a hundred times, I only need one time to be successful to be set out for the rest of my life. The biggest cost is time against expectations that we have for ourselves, or rather that we adopt from other people. And so this is for the listeners. If you could fail for 10 straight years and then on your 11th year, make a $2 million

of your business, you are further along than the person who made $100,000 a year that entire period of time. It's just people measure outcomes on too short of an interval. And that's why they don't get what they want. The goals that they have, because they measure with such a small interval, they can't see success anyways. Right?

It's like you can't make a billion dollars in a year. It's just not gonna happen. Like, no, I don't think there's anybody who's made it from zero to a billion in a year. I could maybe, nowadays, you know, but like, it's, but if you extend it on 10, anyone can do it. And also, people don't understand your experience, what you've done for yourself, you know, what failures you've had in the past, how you've learned, and sometimes these big hard jumps

actually have the most rewards. So let's go down a little tangent. I think this is a great place to talk about nihilism. So you are an eyelist and at this point in your time in your journey, we'll got back to your journey. You weren't one, but you are now. And you don't let other people, people's beliefs really impact the way that you move. And so I'd love to understand what nihilism is because for me, it was sort of a new, like not many people talk about it. And what is it that you like about being an eyelist? And how does this philosophy enable you to take on your dreams without worrying about what other people think?

Yeah, I'm glad you asked. Most of because like, I don't really like the label of nihilism. In general, I think it's just, I've got on an interview and someone said that and I was like, sure. But like, Nile, I think it's Greek or Latin, comes from Nile, which means nothing. But it really just means that you don't believe that something has inherent meaning. And so for me, that's incredibly liberating because it means that we are devoid of circumstance. Nialism people ascribe meaning to that word, which is by and large negative. I reject the term. I just inherently believe that things don't have inherent meaning and that we choose the meaning things have.

It is not mean that I live a meaningless life. It means that I choose the meaning that I want to ascribe to things. So I don't inherit the meaning that my father gave to having a job. I choose to ascribe my own meaning to that. And so all that happens from a behavioral standpoint is that we're changing the meaning of circumstances. And so it gives us a lot of liberty to live life as we see fit. And a lot of that comes, at least for me, big picture because I have the belief that when I die, people will come to my funeral, people will argue over my belongings, over who gets what, people will think that some people shouldered more of the responsibility of dealing with my funeral and my death than other people. Some people will not be able to make it because something came up.

And two months, three months, two years after I die, I will never be mentioned again. And so if people are not going to even care to show up to my funeral, why would I let them have any say over my life? Yeah. For me, a lot of it was unlearning projected judgments that I believed people had over the actions that I was taking when they weren't even thinking about me at all, nor do

they really care. Like, you get a hater comment, it ruins some person's day, but like, they don't really care about you. Like they don't care. And even the very few people who really care who might actually speak at your funeral, like how many people are actually going to speak at your funeral, probably not many. Even then, those people are going to go home, they're going to look at their to-do list, they're going to move on. And so it's like you have this whole life and the whole time we're catering it to a lot of beliefs that other people have about us and we don't take actions and we put things off for years, decades, because of judgment that isn't real, it's made up.

And it's just hard to unlearn that. Believing that things don't have inherent meaning and then that we have the choice to ascribe whatever meaning we want to things has been very liberating for me in terms of how I can approach business, timelines that I can ascribe, how I see marriage, like, you know, all of these things. It's so interesting to me because we talk about death a lot on this podcast, because a lot of business people bring it up. I had Robert Green on the show,

and he talks about the law of death denial. And that's all about people avoid the thought of deaths because it scares them. But really, when you think about your death, it can help motivate you to accomplish your dreams. And you're giving us a whole other perspective, like thinking about your death to realize that nothing is that big of a deal. And who cares what other people think? You should just do your own thing and do what you want in the moment. All this stress, all these problems that we have, they don't matter.

No. I mean, there's a poem, I always forget the name of it, but it's like a, it's an Egyptian king or something like that. And there's this, this head that's buried, there's a poem, I always forget the name of it, but it's like a, it's an Egyptian king or something like that. And there's this, this head that's buried, it's sort of worn with time, 5,000 years old, you can imagine the noses off, you can barely recognize it. There's an inscription on the side and it says, here lies, so and so, who I'm loosely paraphrasing, who ruled everything that the eye could see. I obviously don't know the name of the thing.

And so here's somebody who was king of the world, or the known world at the time. And we, not even 100,000 years later, but a few thousand years later, don't even know who they were. I talk to entrepreneurs a lot too, and they're like, I want to leave a legacy. But when you zoom in on that,

it's like, for what? Kids get. But like when you zoom in on that, it's like for what? Kids get ruined when you give them too much stuff. So that's kinda out the door. If you wanna go like extended time horizon, the earth is gonna disappear when the sun gets too big. And so like everything that we're doing is just a stimulus for us to stay busy while all of our material needs are completely taken care of.

I see it as liberating. Many people see that as dark, but I think a lot of times it's just because people don't want to confront that. The sun will get big enough and eventually evaporate all the oceans in the earth or we'll be no water here. That's what's going to happen. We can be on multi-planetary species, Elon can kill it, who knows? You know what I mean?

Yeah. Yeah, and I'm glad you went over that because that was a huge interview that millions of people listen to. So I'm glad that you over that because that was a huge interview that millions of people listen to you So I'm glad that you cleared that up. That's great Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors Young and profitors do you have a brilliant business idea? But you don't know how to move forward with it going into debt for a four-year degree isn't the only past to success Instead learn everything you need to know

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Well, my first gym I was sleeping on the floor. Very fortunately, I had, I was supposed to open it with a partner, not Sam. Sam was going to be like a minority partner as like an advisor kind of thing. And he set me up with another guy who was in the area. It's the disguise in the mastermind. You guys should just merge your gym.

He is a tiny gym. You want to have a bigger gym. You could start with his clients. You could split it, whatever. Which is by the way, not a good way to start a partnership. But I said, sure, I don't know anything here. My advisor, I'll do that. And the night before the lease was supposed to get signed

and we're gonna put the deposit down, he couldn't come up with the money. And so I actually had to take on the whole thing, which I wasn't really financially prepared to do. So I ended up going from thinking I was gonna have like $25 or $30,000 saved up to having five. When I opened a gym with no customers in a place I didn't know and at least that was $5,000 a month.

So I had one month of basically savings for this business before I would not have money. The gift that that partner gave was that he was the one who told me to go to that workshop. He's like, we should do this marketing workshop and by chance, the thing that that guy taught in 2013 was Facebook ads. Like, I have been extremely lucky many times in my life,

and this is one of them. It's crazy because something as small as that, if I hadn't gone to that workshop, the recommendation that my advisor had given was that I should just run Groupon's to get customers because that's what he was doing for his gym and it was working. But in Huntington Beach, there was 10 times the gym density

compared to where he was. And so every gym, there was literally three gyms on the same block as me. And so when I ran a group on nothing happened, if I had not gone to that workshop, I might not even be in business. Like I might have just gone back to corporate world and had to like come back with my tail between my legs

as I would have failed. So I'll go on this quick tangent. Like my plan B was that I would strip and drive Uber if I couldn't make it because I figured I could make probably 250,000 a year doing that if I needed to. And then I could start again because once I was out, I was like, this is what I want to do. I knew even though it was hard, I liked the freedom. I knew that I enjoyed that.

So anyways, did the workshop, I learned about Facebook marketing. That was what allowed me to sell my first 27 customers, which paid my first month's rent. The next month I paid more and we had $5,000 a month in revenue to the business for the first, I think, 7, 8, 9 months somewhere in there. I didn't know employees were a thing. So for me, I thought like a business was, you pay the rent, everything else is yours. And that's pretty much how I ran it when we were, you know, starting out. But quickly,, quickly, I was like, I, I cannot, like, I was not sleeping much. I was doing the billing and I was doing work in the leads. And I thought all eight of the sessions every day. And it was just very, very hard for me.

I was very tired. And so then I found out that you could hire people to do some stuff, but I still slept at the gym so they would still get in there four o'clock in the morning. Anyways, so it didn't find me a lot of sleep back, but at least I, you know, I didn't have to teach all the sessions. But yeah, from there, five month month nine or 10, I was able to get a manager in and I had a fully out-outfitted facility. And then from there, we were able to open the next location at month 15, and then open a new location every six months after that. And the big claim to fame was that once I got better and better at marketing and sales,

I was able to open each location at full capacity on the first day. And that's what ended up springboarding into the next thing. That's awesome. How much do you scale that up? You had like six six of them or something? Yeah, it's six locations. So I opened a new location every six months. And so you're three.

I had six. That was roughly where I was. And I think honestly, I never added up the top line between all of them. I know my biggest one did 600. So it wasn't like a huge business in terms of, I mean, each look, my biggest location did 600. And so anyways, I got to this weird point where I wasn't needed.

So I had managers at each location, they could all sell, like the locations were working, I was making okay money. I had a nice little condo that looked fancy, so I felt like, felt cool. And so anyways, I went to go to this another marketing conference. It was trafficking in version years ago.

And a guy named Russell, right, got up there and was selling people on internet marketing. And I was like, man, this is really interesting stuff. But he wasn't allowed to pitch, so he did his whole pitch webinar and then just didn't close. It was very weird. And so I was like, very slow to this opportunity,

but there was no call to action. What happened? Nothing. I just kept living my life, but I was like, that was very weird. And so I was like very slow to this opportunity, but there was no call to action. What happened? Nothing. I just kept living my life, but I was like, that was really cool. A year later, I'm up at night, nothing to do. And so I was like, you know what? I wonder what that guy, maybe I should do some of that stuff.

And so I just Google his name. The first page that comes up is his application to be in his mastermind. This is again, six, seven, I mean, a while ago. I apply, they call me up. I paid the money. And they were like, oh, yeah, I mean a while ago, I applied, they called me up, I paid the money. And they were like, oh yeah, there's tons of gym owners here. And you'll like, you know, lots of people go to, I was the only brick and mortar business owner in the room.

But anyways, I went up there and I was like, here's how I open my gyms, you know, profitable day one. I don't have to put any money down. Like I pre-sell them to pay for them, like I had this whole strategy. And after I broke down, like everyone was silent and he was like, you shouldn't be running James Mann. And I was like, I had this whole plan to be America's gym, like United Fitness was the brand.

And, nah, he was just like, you have a level 10 skill set in a level two opportunity. And this was Russell Brunson ClickFunnels, right, just so the listeners can clear- Yeah, this is years ago. This is before he was Russell Brunson ClickFunnels of the lore that he is now. I think Clickfunnels is maybe doing like a million bucks a month then. Like, I mean, it was, you know, it was, I think year two, you're 18 months into clickfunnels.

It was very, very young. It's one of these. He said that, but, you know, I, I'm a big believer, like if someone's, if someone's further, because he was much further head than me when I was in the mastermind and he said that and I was like, well, if I'm not, if I paid for advice, I'm not going to listen to it. I'm going to just burn my money. And so I took the advice. And and he said that and I was like, well, if I paid for advice, I'm not gonna listen to it, I'm gonna just burn my money. And so I took the advice and so he said, you should start teaching people how to do what you do. And so I took that not quite as literally,

he probably meant it. So I started doing gym turnarounds. So I started flying out and launch other people's gym, did that for almost two years, did 33 turnarounds, we'd fill the gym up 30 days, that was the offer. It was free to them. I would just keep all the upfront sales. I'd make about 100 grand every 20 days doing that

just on my own, no employees. I was like, this is chill. I like this better than just running the gym. So I was like, so I got really good at the marketing sales. And I would say that me running all my gyms, I got very good at sales, but where it really got one from like, I just got so many reps in during that period of time.

I mean, I was taking 20 plus one to one consoles a day, every day. And like, when you have that kind of level of transactional sales over and over and over again, like, there's a depth of knowledge that you learn, you learn when to pause, you learn when to shift, how to say certain things, how to, like, just how to shift tone. Like, there's just lots of things that you intuitively learn just from that many repetitions. I got pretty good at and then I got pretty good at teaching it because I had I had to have a team of guys who could start doing it Cuz we started doing like two three four five six times a month that we'd start doing these these turnarounds for Logistically got really difficult flying people out guys said their wives were threatening to divorce them because they weren't home And like all that kind of stuff and so I need to have a different model

There's like many terrible instances during this period of time. I like lost my money. I had a partner stole everything. I had to start from scratch again. Like I could go on going into it. But yeah, let's pause here because I do want to talk to you about the sales experience that you got. So would you say that you learned most of it on the job

or were there certain books that you were reading and what were you really into at that time period? Because I think sales is one of the most important skills that any young professional can have. Agreed. Yeah, the ability to persuade. And I would just say persuade in general because marketing and sales like marketing is really just sales done at that scale. Yeah, marketing and sales. Yeah. No, I wasn't really consuming anything. It was all done just the first time I bought a sales training program was after I like it was when I had a team of sales guys. I was like, you know, this would probably be a good

idea to add it in, but at that point, I'd already done like 4,000 closes. So I was, again, a lot of this stuff, I didn't know the terms for it. I just knew I needed to get somebody to give me money, you know what I mean? And so that was like, this is how I have the conversation that gets the most people to say, yes, that's all sorted in it. That's so interesting. Well, part two of this we're really going to get into some of those sales and marketing strategies. So, this was around the time you met Layla, right?

Yeah, this is, I think within one month of me joining Russell's thing was when I met Layla. You have some unconventional views on marriage. And I have a few questions. First of all, let's talk about why your life partner is so important to your ultimate success. I mean, I think that people either are contributing to your goal. They're taking away from it. I think a lot of people compromise on their partners because they're convenient rather than thinking,

like, is this person going to make it more likely that I achieve my outcome that I want? And so, you know, for me, Laila was the first to be fair. I hadn't dated that many people because we were pretty young when we met. But she really, really, not only wanted to encourage the dreams of like participate. And so I think a lot of times

entrepreneurs will make compromises on, okay, well, I'll do this, but then I'll do your thing this weekend or whatever it is. And so like the nice thing with Layla is that she never really tried to change me. And so I probably wasn't that changeable. I would've just presented someone more for making me do things I didn't want to do,

or asking me to do things I didn't want to do. And so it was really just a new construct. I just got out of like a basically on and off relationship that was a five year engagement that we ended up calling off. And I had no desire to get into anything. I was like, I'm going to do me and you can like roll with if you want. And so like our entire first few months of dating was just, I'm going to work all day, you can work next to me. That was what we

did. From the day we met, like the next day I called our boss, like, I'm working all day if you want to come after your shift. And so she just worked with me. And that's what we did. And this really hasn't changed. Like we went from like first date until today with very little changing in our relationship. It was just, it was very easy. And so that's been even running a business together. Like I think because we had such low expectations getting into the relationship,

it made candid conversations much easier. And I was like, hey, I think it was, you know, six months in, I was like, you're a little cold. For this to work, I need you to be less cold. And then she was like, okay. And that was it. Like literally never again. Like Laila is one of the most fast-changing people. I've ever, actually not one of. She's the fastest-changing behavior person I've ever met. It's almost freaky. If I'm like, she used to say, you know when someone laughs and they're like, you're stupid. You know, like, you know, that girl's gonna say that. She said that to me they're like, you're stupid. You know, the girls will say that.

She said that to me once, like early on, and I was like, I don't like when you say that. I was like, I just don't like being cold stupid even if it's a joke. And she was like, oh, okay, never did it again. Like, if you define learning as same condition new behavior, like if you haven't changed your behavior with the same condition, you have not learned.

And intelligence is speed of learning, which is speed of behavior change. So in that way, Layla is incredibly intelligent. Like her ability to change behavior is insane. And so that's also why I think she's been such an adaptable COO or rather CEO now. She's really CEO of acquisition.com. I just, I make the content and write the books, but like she's really the one running everything. I think you gotta, there's so many ways to have marriages. This is what worked for me, and I am weird. If we're defining weird as not standard,

like different from the average, like I am not the average, and so my marriage is atypical. And so this is just what has worked for us is that I like working all the time, and I wanted someone who would work all the time with me, because if I didn't, then I wouldn't see them. And then we would drift apart

because I'm getting way different stimuli from my life than they are. And here we're gonna adapt to the things that were exposed to all day. And eventually we're gonna look at each other and be like, oh, we don't know each other. And some people that's exciting. To me, you might as well be a stranger

and I can just keep doing what my own thing. So probably contrary to that, that's just how I see it. Now, it's very interesting stuff and I'm sure because she was so smart and, you know, had her own thing and very career driven, you obviously respected her a lot. So how did that respect factor play into you being attracted to her and wanting her to be your wife? Yeah. So two separate things. So from a respect standpoint, she was the first goal that I respected professionally. And so that was new for me.

And I think it was probably one of the keys of our relationship is that it was based on respect rather than chemistry. The second part was kind of like what you alluded to with like the attraction part. I wasn't like super, I mean, I was attracted and she's pretty obviously, et cetera, like there's that, but I didn't have like a romantic, I wasn't like, oh my God, I'm

getting subbed on my feet and neither was she. So we honestly were just like buddies. Like we liked the same stuff and so we just did stuff together all the time because we enjoyed doing it together more than alone. And then it got to the point where it was, where our employees and Jim launch started saying, hey, what happens if you guys break up because because we were married and the business was scaling like crazy. And I said you know we should probably deal with their concerns and get married and my proposal to her was hey what do you think about getting married and she said that sounds fine and I said okay then I'll we should I'll get you a ring. And I said, okay, then we should, I'll get you a ring. And so we went together to the store literally after I said that we got the ring 45 minutes later back home.

I said, I guess we should call a church, call the church six days later, we were married. And then we didn't take off the day of our marriage and we didn't take off the next day. We just showed up the next day of work and I'm like, Hey, guys, we're married. So all of your concerns about the stability of the business are gone now. You can keep working and everything's fine. And it was like, that was it. You know what I mean? And since then we didn't do a wedding. We didn't do a honeymoon. Again, it will work for me. I'm just saying like that worked for me. My vibe.

Yeah. And so you guys are obviously a power couple that a lot of people are looking up to. And I learned from you that people who have businesses together that are married only have a 10% divorce rate, which I think is pretty incredible. So what would you say are like the pros and cons of marrying your business partner? And the other question I have is, do you feel like Layla fills in your weaknesses? Or do you feel like you guys are more similar

and kind of just help each other accomplish the same goals? This is really interesting. So even the way that you phrased the question, I thought was cool. So I recommend marrying your business partner. I don't recommend trying to make your wife your business partner or rather your spouse your business partner. So we already were business partners.

And then I married her. And it worked. And people ask me, what happens if you got divorced? We probably still run the business together. Because I never want, and neither of us would want this, for the other person to get a free ride. You know what I mean? Like, she doesn't get special treatment because she's my wife.

She is CEO of the companies that we have together because she's the best CEO. She's amazing. Like, you look at the tracker, she's amazing, she's fucking knows how to run businesses. That's why she's CEO. You know what I mean? I have so many entrepreneurs who are like,

how do I get my wife to want, like, dude, you're trying to change somebody. They don't like it. That's it. That's fine. But don't try and make her who's not Laila into your version of Laila. She has to be her.

And I think to a great degree, a lot of, and this is, again, this is counterculture, but like, I do think people pick wrong. I think people use the wrong assessment to judge whether or not they're going to have a good long-term relationship. When I say good, I would say that's going to be minimum strife, maximum achievement of

your personal goals for both people. Yeah. And I think people think about marriage differently. And so for me, marriage was, is this somebody, again, that's going to support my long-term goals and am I going to support her long-term goals? And for us, our long-term goals were a lot, which honestly was rare and weird. I didn't actually expect to see anybody who want to do the same thing as me and work as much as I do.

But I did. I'm very happy and very lucky that we found that. I just't actually expect to see anybody who want to do the same thing as me and work as much as I do. But I did. I'm very happy and very lucky that we found that. I just think the reverse you get in trouble. Yeah. And would you say that she has strengths where you're weak? Complimentary skillset shared values. So I think, was it a mission values lifestyle?

So these three have to be the same, and then you want complimentary, so different. So it's like, we want to go the same place, we want to get there the same way, and we want to have the same stuff happen in between. Right? So mission, values is how we're going to behave, lifestyles what we do in between. Right? Like we like all, like, or you can say interests if you like that. Those have to be aligned in my opinion for it to just be maximally fun. The complimentary skill sets is if she did the exact same thing as me, one of us wouldn't be necessary. And we've also gravitated that way,

because when she came in, she was top salesman. So she came in, she was top salesman at 24 at one of the top locations in the country. So she used a savage at closing. But the requirements of the business required, I was like, well, I'm gonna still sell, because that's what I'm gonna add, and I was older, and it was my,

when I started, it was my business, so I called the shots. But so she just, again, so adaptable, like laylick and learn and change her behavior like that. And so she was like, I'm gonna be an operator. And so then she just went all in, she books, the courses, the podcasts, the masterminds, the workshops, she just, all the stuff she consumed

was different than the stuff I consumed, which was cool because then we got to talk about different stuff. And like at the end of our days today, like every day, we download, it's like, what were your meetings? end of our days today, like every day, we download. It's like, what were your meetings? We just go through each other's calendars. Oh, how is that meeting?

How is that meeting? How is that meeting? And so we download at the end of the day, we do a walk for an hour every day. That's our download. And so, yin and yang, I think it has to make sense like that. Otherwise, one of you isn't, I've seen the entrepreneur assistant wife or husband.

It's tough. It's tough. I think you have to have equal power. And that's rare. It's rare because it's usually uncommon for both people to be like equally yoked. You know what I mean? You want both people to tread the same way

and it's hard to find that. If you want to do rare shit. Talk just about that. How did you meet her? Bumble. So I swiped right. Swiped right literally and swiped right in terms of right and left.

Swiped right. right, swipe correct. She was an Iranian girl and was into fitness and when I met her on our first age, she really wanted to talk about business all the time. I'm like, well, this is great. I don't have to pretend to like what you like. So this is so much more efficient for me. And so we talked for like four hours only about business and I was like, this is great. And then she was telling me what her dreams and aspirations were and she had big dreams and she wanted to open a gym someday at the time, I think I had five, I had five or six a camera.

And I was like, let me just leapfrog you. I already know what you're about to try and do. I know all the failures. Just like I already have, like the ones that I have, I'm starting this new thing, you should do it with me. She didn't really believe me yet because I hadn't even started it yet. So it was just kind of like an idea, you know, right on her. And she had built up her own personal training business,

like a roster of clients. And so she had her own thing going, but I was like, well, I'm gonna do this. And so I went and I launched three gyms came back, I processed like a hundred grand in front of her. And she was like, what the hell is this? And she ended up processing it with me. And she was like, is this legal? And I was like, yes. And she was like, what the hell is this? And she ended up processing it with me. And she was like, is this legal?

And I was like, yes. And she was like, okay, I'm in. So she ended up quitting and joining me there. Because she knew it's like, there's product market fit. There was a viable, like people wanted this and I was good at it. And so that's when we started flying around doing the launches together.

Now, my gyms kept running, but it was very clear that as I left, like they weren't doing as well without me like being there, there's just all the intangibles. And so I ended up selling those and just going all in on the launch thing, put all my money from the sale. I mean, I've filled the store before,

but I'll tell it to your audience quickly. I had all the sale of my gyms, went all in on gym launch, started launching gyms, doing well with that. One of the gym owners I launched with was like, dude, you should be owning all these gyms. Like you're literally filling them up and you're leaving all this money on the launch, started launching gyms, doing well with that. One of the gym owners I launched with was like, dude, you should be owning all these gyms. Like you're literally filling them up and you're leaving all this money on the table,

which by the way, most dangerous term in business is leaving money on the table. It's okay to leave money on the table because you will fuck up the big money that's in front of you by trying to chase a little money that's still on little tables. Anyhow, he had bad credit, so I signed the lease, I fronted all the money for locations,

we were gonna split them 50, 50, of course, that's the terrible deal for me. I'll do all the work front, all the money, and then we'll split it. But I didn't know anything. So anyways, he was supposed to come in after I launched the first jam, with him that was number six, and I crushed the launch, and he was like, hey, man, I'm going to keep running mind. You got that one. And I was like, whoa, I'm doing launches now.

That's not my business. You were going to come behind me. We were going to launch open two, 3, 4 gyms a month and own them all. And then it kind of rapidly spiraled down from there. And then he thought he accused me of stealing. So then he took all the money out of the account. I went to go line for line with him.

He was like, I haven't taken any money out of the account. Like it cost money to open a gym. And when he didn't want to look at the financials, that's when I knew that he, that was just a line. That was just like a strategy. And so I basically lost everything. So I lost all the money that I had had from my own gyms and lost all the money from that gym.

But the thing is I still had a gym. So there's no money to run the gym and I didn't really have any money. So I just had whatever was in my checking which every month basically I couldn't sell anymore because I didn't want to keep the gym open because he wasn't going to run it. So my savings just got drained.

If you have payroll rent, everything and you can't make new sales in a new gym that does never current revenue, really, really tough. And so I got drained almost of everything. And then I started doing launches again, sent Layla out. She did a launch in her own, first solo launch. Crushed it still has the record to this day, did 240 sales in 28 days, made me a hundred grand.

And that basically helped me pay off all of these debts of refunds that I had to do for people who bought a year and all this stuff like upfront. I just refunded everybody their money, which just came out of all the money that I had. The one thing I had to coach at the time and he was like, just do right by everyone and you'll be able to get out of this. And so I was really good advice. And so I just, I did right by everybody. Like, no employee was unpaid. Every client I wanted a refund got a refund and I was able to just like walk away on skate. And so I was at ground zero again.

We did another launch. So the 100, the first 100 grand went to cover all the refunds and stuff. We did another launch to kind of like recapitalize ourselves. It's like, okay, we can go make another 100 grand because I was kind of like, we make a 100 grand on every launch. And so we went to go do a launch.

A guy said he had a baby on the way. He was just happened to be in the neighborhood of the gym that we were gonna launch of all places in the entire nation. A guy reached out to me. He crushed it. All of a sudden, we're not getting the deposits. Even though I'm processing all this money

and I'm like, where the hell is the money? Call the processor up. Standard annual thing, you'll be getting your money soon. Call it again two days later. same thing, and then finally, it's been 10 days since I'd had a deposit. Imagine anybody who had no stripe, not getting deposits, but still processing money. I was like, dude, I need this money, what's going on?

And so I called Christmas Eve and I said, I'm not getting off the phone until you send me my money. And turns out, they can keep your money. And I had no leverage. And they said, you will get off the phone because we're not sending you the money and we're gonna hold it for six months because of regular activity

because what I was doing was processing money from all over the nation through what used to be my brick and mortar gym's processor. I didn't know how it worked. So I just was, I was running like credit cards from Virginia through my Southern California local gym processing account. They're like, what is going on here?

So it seemed irregular so they held all the money. But my sales guy had, that the guy who had done it, I owed him like $22,000 in commissions. And I had $23,000 left after all the refunds and everything that I had done. And then that got me to my last $1,000. And so that was my rock bottom moment.

I screen-shot at it. After every day, four years or five years or whatever it was, I was my rock bottom moment. I screen-shot it. After every thing, four years or five years or whatever it was, I was like, wow, I have literally nothing to show for it. That's tough. And was this around the time where you got your DUI and gotten to a car accident? So my mother went to the hospital for tough stuff. I got in the head on DUI, 60 miles an hour on highway, walked away, crazy, nothing, walked away, walked out of the car, the car is crushed. And then I lost all my money from my partner. And so that was all 90 days.

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That's masterclass.com-profiting. That's masterclass.com-profiting for 15% off an annual membership. Masterclass.com-profiting. Yeah, and so what I found was really interesting when I was researching your story. You didn't mention it, but you also had like a dental and chiropractic agency, I think, at the time, and you were like running these gyms, you were doing your gym launch business,

and you hired an attention coach. So what does a attention coach teach you about having to focus and make decisions? Well, like the one output of the entire time that I had with him was just untangling loose attention. It's like I was just spread so thin. So I had all these things that you just alluded to at a car, a tractor agency that I had a couple clients, I had a dental agency that I had one client. I had my five gyms from home, I had the new gym, and then we had gym launches that were going on basically paying for all of my stupid mess ups during this period of time.

And he's like, you have no power. You're so spread thing that you can't accomplish anything. And so what it was was that I was not confronting many hard conversations. So I would do any, I would start another business, I would avoid. There was all avoidance. So I didn't want to have hard conversation with partners. All I partners at all of these things. And for most of them, I was the, I don't want to say the bread winner,. I partners at all of these things. And for most of them, I was the,

I don't wanna say the bread winner, but I was the one who was bringing it in. So I ended up just partnering with people because I felt insecure about doing things on my own. This is where partnerships have to be long term. Like, even if this is a side note, like if you have the opportunity to get 50% of a business that you know you're not gonna contribute 50% to,

don't take it. Because two years from now, they will resent you and it will not work. So there's no point in getting the short money because it's going to blow up in your face and really ugly. And so I learned that on the opposite side, being on the receiving end of that. And I was like, I will not do this to anyone. And so, anyhow, every day you would ask me the same question, which is what is your attention on? And so, piece by piece, it was just every day we would just start peeling back all the things

and just removing things from my life until there was basically nothing left but one thing. Layla and I went on like a six week break up. Basically she went to go launch a gym and I was like, I just don't have head space for this. Fundamentally we talked every day, but like, from attention standpoint, I was like, I can't do with anything. I had too much on my plate and so I broke everything down to nothing and then just rebuilt with a few things that mattered. And I think that since then, that has despite my proclivity for wanting to do more things, it has been the hardest, hardest one character trait I have is being able to focus by far. Yeah. So let's get back to Jim Launch. You start this company.

You basically start licensing your business model. So talk to us about how, company, you basically start licensing your business model. So talk to us about how, why is that such a scalable opportunity for the new entrepreneurs out there? Like, why is it better to take something and teach people how to do it rather than trying to do it one by one? So just big picture, I don't think it's necessarily better. I think that it has faster scale. Like for example, we have a handful of companies in our portfolio that are brick and mortar,

so I had a company recently that was an agency for photography studios. And they had a very good model for growing photography studios. And I was like, and he was like, hey, I wanna do what you do with Jim Launch. But there were a couple of key differences in the business in terms of how it would cost to start up. The nature of the service itself

is one time versus recurring, et cetera, et cetera. And it made more sense for us to actually own all of them. And then compound by adding more locations every month so we open like four locations a month right now. And so if I knew then what I know now, real, real, acquisition.com might not even exist. I might have 200 gyms. But the thing is that my operational skill set at that point

wouldn't have been able to scale that business. It is easier to scale something that has more leverage. So media has leverage, software has leverage, capital has leverage, like one person can raise a billion dollars, one person can write code and a billion people can use it. One person can make a video like this and a million people can listen to it, right? There's leverage there, limited input, unlimited output. With labor or services, right? Like you have to be able to operate people. And so I didn't have that skill set. I think that now we have a team, etc., like we could do something like that. But then I didn't have it. And so given the skill set I had at the time, me switching

from brick and mortar operations to licensing it, and basically taking a fraction of the revenue I was able to make other people, I was able to scale that much faster. And so I could help 4,000 gyms make an extra 100 grand a year in profit, and then take a percentage of that profit. So realistically, I would be able to take probably 25 to 30% of the added profit to the facility through my licensing. They would win, I would win, and that's the nature of capitalism. And so that was the trade off. Now, a licensing business or any business has value in so far as the future revenue is stable and predictable.

So the reason that I like brick and mortar a lot of times for scaling is that if you count the locations, almost like customers, if you think about it like that, they're not going anywhere. And so it's like every time you open a location, it's like you can bank on the fact that they're going to just deliver 150,000, 200,000 dollars, 400,000 dollars a year in income to the main business. And then we just reallocate capital and keep doing it, which is why it's such a nice and scalable business. That's why franchising versus licensing, franchising those

contraction more iron clad. You're in for 10 years, there's a lot of law that protects the franchise or to make sure that they can collect on that for 10 years. Licensing, it's much less so. And so, anyways, not to go into a big engineer, but the main point is me switching from brick and mortar to licensing made up for the fact that I was not as good at operating it because my constraint was my operational ability, not my marketing and sales. And the product that I was selling was marketing and sales.

I was really good at marketing and sales and then the thing I sold was marketing and sales. And so, like I was better at teaching marketing and sales than I was at weight loss experiences. So if, like, I was better at teaching marketing in sales than I was at, like, weight loss experiences. So, if you just think of quality of the product, like, the marketplace valued, making $100,000 a year in extra profit, far more than Susie values,

six weeks of group training and losing 20 pounds, far more. And so, I was able to switch my vehicle that I was selling, and that was a big part of why I was able to make a lot more money. Talk to us about how you started acquisition.com. Oh yeah, so I mean acquisition.com started in 2021. The first company we took on was 2020. So June of 2020 I think was the first company we took on which is that photography business.

We also took on a personal training certification business we took on a publishing business in 2020. Those three businesses between the three of them added over a hundred million a publishing business in 2020. Those three businesses, between the three of them, added over 100 million a year to those businesses in total. And so we thought, hmm, we should do more of this. And so once we had that as like, okay, we have a workable model here where we can just take all the knowledge we have of scaling our companies. And the reason 2021 was so was boring and difficult for me was because I had to sell three companies. And the recent 2021 was so was boring and difficult for me was because I had to sell at sold three companies. So for anybody who's ever sold like going through a big sales process

is a year. And you usually don't change much in the business. You don't want to do anything crazy. And so there's just not a lot for me to do. So I just had to sit there and mind you, they made money which then gets into the whole meaninglessness thing. But I just had to sit and wait. And so acquisition.com and these companies that I was working with on the side took my focus. And to the point that we were making earlier about focus, I know myself all enough to know that I have to do one thing. And so, I needed to exit these companies so that I could focus full-time on acquisition, but I wanted to just have a quick test in the water that it worked. And so, once it did, then we sold December 24th of 2021 as the day that the last deal closed

and the 25th. So Christmas day, we were working on acquisition.com. And so I started making content in 2021 because again, I had extra time. And so I was just making stuff and people seemed to like it and then everything really took off in 2022 when we brought in a team and editors and all that kind of stuff. And yeah, now we have 16 companies in the portfolio. And we do, we take minority, minority interest in businesses, the average company we have right now it is about 17 million a year with margins above 35% as a portfolio average. And so yeah, so our goal is just to get as many of them as we can over 100. And then it's really the founders because we're minority partners.

We're 20 to 30% equity holders in those businesses. Man, oh, man, young and profitors. Another epic episode in the books with Alex Hermosi. Alex Hermosi is somebody we at Yacht Media are pretty damn obsessed with, because he's so smart and his perspectives are super interesting, especially when it comes to sales and marketing. Part one of this episode was all about Alex's super inspiring rags to riches come up story and all the lessons that came with it. And I hope you enjoyed it. We have part two coming out and that's going to focus on his

tactical business strategy. So mark your calendars because next Monday, it's gonna be released and you guys can stay tuned for that one. Thanks so much for listening to another great episode of Young and Profiting podcasts. And if you learned something new, if you found value in this episode, share it with a friend, share it with a family member, put it on social media.

And if you guys like YouTube and watching your podcasts on video, all of our episodes can be found on YouTube. You guys can find me on LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok at Gap with Hala. And big thanks to my amazingly talented team at Gap Media. I couldn't do this without you guys. I appreciate you so much. And again, Gap fam, don't forget, part 2 with Alex Ramozi comes out next week and we're

going to talk about sales marketing and all of his core principles and his best-selling book, $100 million offers. This is your podcast princess, Halataha, signing off. Are you looking for ways to be happier, healthier, more productive and more creative? I'm Gretchen Ruben, the number one best-selling author of the Happiness Project. And every week, we share ideas and practical solutions on the Happier with Gretchen Ruben podcast. My co-host and Happiness Guinea Pig is my sister Elizabeth Kraft. That's me, Elizabeth Kraft, a TV writer and producer in Hollywood. Join us as we explore

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