October 9, 2023 • 49 mins
On this episode of Building Billions, I sat down with nine figure entrepreneur Eric Spofford. We dive deep into his struggles with drug addiction and how he turned his rock bottom moments into a business that helped tens of thousands of individuals battling with addiction.
Eric Spofford is the CEO of Spofford Enterprises. He is an entrepreneur, speaker, coach, recovered drug addict, and student of the game. At 23, inspired by his own struggles with addiction, Eric founded and operated one of the largest addiction treatment organizations in New England, which he sold for nine figures in 2021. Eric is also a seasoned real estate investor and developer.
Spofford Enterprises oversees investments in commercial and multifamily real estate, private equity funds, a media company, and behavioral healthcare businesses, among other innovative ventures. Eric has numerous accolades to his name, including testifying before the U.S. Senate, being awarded Young Entrepreneur of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration, and becoming a published author.
His success and entrepreneurial determination led him to a nine figure exit. We go through the struggles, loneliness, and low moments that shaped him into the multi million dollar entrepreneur he is today.
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:00):
I've never had a job. I mean, I was a
drug dealer and a and a stickup kid until I
got sober. 3 or 4 years in, I cleared my
first million dollars. All in all, he gave me $24 million.
That is nothing compared to the education that I got
in the several years that we were partners. Hey everybody.
S2 (00:17):
It's Brandon Dawson. Welcome back to another episode of Building Billions.
I have a special guest today. And look, one of
the things I love about this community and hanging out
with people who have proven to succeed, like my buddy
Eric here, he is not only a nine figure mindset entrepreneur,
he is a nine figure exit entrepreneur. Right? And it's
(00:39):
one thing to talk about nine figures. Oh, I'm worth
100 million. I'm this this, this is another thing to actually.
Exit and put it the cash in the bank. That's
an entirely different game. And and this guys played both
sides of the game. So I'm excited to introduce you
to Eric. I'm going to have him introduce himself where
(01:01):
he's come from what he's done. And we're going to
get into it. Eric.
S1 (01:05):
Brandon, thank you for having me. It's a real pleasure. Um,
you know, for the folks that I don't know or
don't know me, I should say I grew up about
45 minutes north of Boston. I got enrolled in America's
addiction crisis at a very young age. For me, that
was OxyContin at the age of 14, uh, which turned
into a heroin addiction, which for about six, almost seven years, uh,
(01:27):
I went through hell and I hit rock bottom on
December 7th of 2006. I've consistently been sober and in
recovery since that date, so this December will be 17
years of recovery and sobriety. And it was out of
my pain of addiction and my enthusiasm and excitement for
recovery that I started my business, which I started in
(01:48):
October of 2008 as the first sober living home in
the state of New Hampshire. And when I sold it
13 years and two months later, uh, in December of 2021,
it was the largest provider of addiction treatment services in
the northeast.
S2 (02:05):
Wow. I mean, so, you know, people talk about one
of my, uh, mentors told me in my 20s, he said, hey,
when you when you find something. And what caused the
conversation was the flip phone. I was like, man, I
love this phone. And he's like, you should go buy
the stock. And I'm like, why? And he goes, because
anytime you have a personal experience where you use something
(02:26):
and you're like, this is unbelievable. That's an indicator that
if you feel that way, a lot of people are
going to feel that way, and you should go buy
the stock and invest in it, because it's probably going
to do well. In your case. The experience that you
went through, the negative experience and of of drug use
propelled you to want to solve that problem for other
(02:48):
people once you got sober.
S1 (02:50):
That's right.
S2 (02:51):
And you went on a journey and you found your
way to sobriety.
S1 (02:54):
That's right.
S2 (02:55):
So you're like, I can help others do it. Which
is what I always tell people is the people you
should be learning from are the ones that actually have
done it.
S1 (03:03):
Lived experience and have the resume. I talk about that
all the time. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah, that's exactly how it went.
And in the beginning I had no idea really what
I was doing. I dropped out of the high school
at 15 years old in the beginning of 10th grade.
My father owned a small business, so I learned about
like small business and business principles from him. Um, but
(03:23):
I just knew that I was watching a lot of
people suffer. I grew up, you know, in an area
New Hampshire actually ended up being the worst in opioid
addiction and the leader in the country for opioid overdose death.
And so, I mean, Donald Trump, when he was running
for office, called New Hampshire a drug infested den, um,
(03:43):
which you think of New Hampshire, you think of mountains
and lakes, and it's this beautiful place to live. I
think if a.
S2 (03:48):
Little tiny state like, yeah.
S1 (03:50):
Most people don't even know where it is. They're like,
is that a part of New York? And I'm like, no,
it's above Boston. But, um, it's it really was ground
zero for the opioid epidemic for, for pharmaceutical pills and heroin.
And so I was just watching kids that I grew
up with that I loved, like family. And they were
still in the struggle. And then, you know, it was
(04:10):
just affecting my community and my entire world. And I
want to do something. The origination of the of the
business was actually volunteer work. I was going I was
so passionate about it that I was going into these
facilities that were kind of run down and run by
the state, and I was just going and connecting with
people that wanted help getting sober and that were trying.
And then in that, you know, was the idea. I
(04:34):
was like, these people need a place to go. I
could turn this into a small business. I've always wanted
to be in real estate. I want to help people.
And I pulled it all together. And so at 23
years old, with a little bit of help from my dad,
who believed in me again, after a long period of
not believing in me, I bought a three family home
in October 2008, which was an interesting time to be
(04:57):
buying real estate because the world was melting. And, uh,
and so we bought it for $150,000. It was bank foreclosed.
I got some furniture donated, I moved into it, and
then I just started charging guys like 150 bucks a
week to come stay with me. And then when they.
I lived there for two years with the guys and.
S2 (05:15):
You, you'd help them.
S1 (05:16):
I did everything with them. I taught them recovery. I
taught them life skills. I taught them, you know, how
to change their life. And that's that was the foundation
of it. But I never imagined that that would at
the time would grow into this enormous company. And it
was big at the end.
S2 (05:32):
And so, so when you sold it, how big was it?
S1 (05:36):
325 employees? We have did about 55 million of top
line revenue, and I transacted off of $13 million to EBITDA.
S2 (05:47):
So so you go from your own personal recovery to
helping a couple people at a time, doing it to
creating a business where you had over 300 and would
you say 50.
S1 (05:58):
Employees, 325.
S2 (06:00):
325.
S1 (06:01):
And we had 440 treatment beds, which turned over frequently.
And so we did, you know, between 4 and 500
missions a month. And so, you know, we were doing,
I don't know, five, 6000 lives touched a year.
S2 (06:14):
Wow.
S1 (06:15):
Yeah.
S2 (06:15):
Talk about impact.
S1 (06:17):
Tons, tons. Not an easy job. Not easy businesses, but
worth it.
S2 (06:22):
Yes, if you're lucky. My guess is, is that you
see a lot of people come through that really are
striving to make that that change that you made. And
some of them can't make the long term journey. And
then you have to see some of that.
S1 (06:36):
You have to see all of it. You have to
see all of it. And so, you know, you balance
the extreme lows of death, of overdose, of suffering, of
abandoned children, of grieving parents with the high of. The
ones that make it and the ones that do it.
And so when you see them get their year sobriety,
(06:59):
their two year sobriety coins, you know, you see them
reunify with their children, you see them get back into
the workforce, be good parents. You know, you you watch
their families who you met at a time of distress
when they came into treatment are able to, like, relax
and put their shoulders down a little bit over time.
And you see those relationships repaired. And so it's there's
(07:21):
no it's very it's black or white. These situations typically
end up terrible or amazing. Very few in the middle.
And so you have to focus on the positive and,
and work your way through a lot of the negative
stuff and kind of. Develop a tolerance to it.
S2 (07:38):
Yeah, I can't imagine. I mean, it just sounds tough.
S1 (07:43):
It was tough. Yeah. Which was at the time, there
were a lot of reasons why I sold my business.
And 13 years on the front lines, when fentanyl showed
up in America, which was probably 2013 or so. A
lot of people don't understand this, that that the addiction
crisis started with OxyContin in the mid to late 90s.
(08:06):
On the backs of that, the cartels took advantage of
pharmaceutical companies creating opioid addicts, and they started flooding our
streets with heroin, real heroin and and then as things progressed,
they they changed the game. And in 2013, around 1214,
fentanyl showed up and replaced heroin as a drug in
(08:27):
America entirely. There's not a bag of real heroin on
the streets of America in any section. It is all
explicitly fentanyl now, and so everyone today understands this enormous
overdose death crisis. It hasn't always been like that. That
happened after the introduction of fentanyl. And, um, and now
today and for some years already, overdose death by opioids,
(08:51):
specifically fentanyl is the leading cause of accidental loss of life.
It was probably 5 or 6 years ago. It surpassed
car accidents in America. Statistically, you're more likely to die
of a fentanyl overdose than a car accident. And so
when I was so close to the sun on that,
there was weeks where I couldn't make plans Monday through
(09:11):
Friday because I was at funeral services every night, like
every single night. And how do you pick and choose
which ones you go to and which ones you don't?
There were nights that I was leaving one to go to,
another to go to another, and people were just dying
at scale. And so it was that over time that
it wore me down. I got tired, and there certainly
was part of the I think that that a lot
(09:34):
of people start businesses and owned businesses like they're going
to own them forever. But businesses, like everything else, are
cyclical and have a life cycle to them. And and
that was a piece of influence for me on what
made the decision to sell.
S2 (09:49):
So I've never, uh, used drugs in my life. Like
I can't relate, I think, to, uh, and, and the
thing that I'm probably most appreciative of is that my grandpa,
who is like my the guy I was most afraid
of growing up as a kid, he was like. He
was like the man of the family. He was a
captain in the Oregon State Police. And so I always
(10:11):
wanted to follow his foot tracks and, and, and I
thought it was going to be a cop. I was
number three on the list as a cadet my senior
year in high school to go into the OSP program,
and they only hired two that year. And thank God. So,
so so I ended up having to go get a
sales job. Yeah, right. The best.
S1 (10:33):
Thing that ever happened.
S2 (10:34):
Ever happened to me. So, so so, look, um, I
don't even understand end like I get I get that there.
There's differences, but I don't really structurally understand fentanyl versus
heroin versus.
S1 (10:47):
It's 50 to 100 times more potent than fentanyl. Is
50 to 100 times more potent than heroin is. And
it's inconsistent. Heroin was a consistent product, meaning that I
would do this bag of heroin, that bag of heroin,
that it would all have the same effect. Fentanyl, this
they all look the same. This one might have the
(11:08):
potency of this, that one has the potency of that.
And then that bag has this potency and that's the
one that's going to kill you. And so it's every time,
every single time you use fentanyl it is Russian roulette.
S2 (11:20):
And is it is it like heroin comes from.
S1 (11:25):
Poppy plants? Yeah. Poppy plants. It's made in a lab.
It's synthetic. It's a chemical. It's a chemical. It's synthetic? Yeah.
It's a that's.
S2 (11:33):
Why it's flooded. Because it's easier for them to make it.
And and there's no quality control. Correct. So it's whoever
happens to make it and however they make it.
S1 (11:41):
Yeah, but I mean the messaging from, from the government
I guess, is that it's coming from China and distributed
by the cartels.
S2 (11:49):
Wow.
S1 (11:50):
Yep.
S2 (11:51):
So, you know, it's, uh. Yeah, I can see why
you'd be like, oh, now we got. We're. The streets
have been flooded. It's one thing for somebody to have
an addiction and have an impact their life. It's another
thing for someone to to, like you said, play Russian
roulette every time they use. Right? Yep. Yeah. So, look,
it's a crisis. There's no question. In fact, one of
(12:11):
the reasons that Grant and I, um, partnered and acquired
and started with Ten Health was to get everybody off
of drugs, like, like, like we are huge believers that
all this stuff that's been prescribed in the medical space
is just contributing to that problem.
S1 (12:30):
The one, um, kudos on the ten health care program.
I've been with Gary for quite some time now and
you guys have changed my life. I have the whole
setup in my house. I got the oxygen, I got
the red light, I got the whole night. Um, and
so for everyone, real deal. They didn't pay me to
say this. It's been absolutely life changing. Um, but the
entire medical system is jacked, and so it's it's really corrupt,
(12:55):
and it's really messed up in America. You know, you
look at, at the health care system, the insurance companies
and big pharma and then the government, and you have
these four monsters that are that are in cahoots and
playing in the sandbox together. And then we trust our
lives to them. You know, it's it's, uh, I've been
(13:16):
in health care my entire adult life and got some
stories to tell.
S2 (13:21):
Yeah. I mean, honestly, I just I look at I'm
a little mind boggled, you know, it's like, uh, being
in health care. They'll tell you as an adult that
you can't make the choice to buy something like testosterone
or something without your doctor intervention and without all these approvals,
and you can't ship them across state lines, and they'll go,
(13:42):
but they'll let a 14 year old. Start taking stuff
that will change their hormone disposition.
S1 (13:50):
Not only that, but not only that. But you have
children much younger than 14 years old being prescribed stimulant
medication because they can't sit still and their, you know,
attention deficit by attention. You know, ADHD and this stuff.
And the parents, most of them that are that are
trusting the health care system and putting kids on these
(14:12):
medications don't realize that Ritalin and Adderall are pharmaceutical grade
crystal meth. I mean, it's it's methamphetamine. It's I don't
know how else to say that it's crystal meth. I mean,
if you drug tested one of these children that's on
medication they would drug, they would test positive for the
same thing that if as if they had been abusing
(14:32):
crystal meth. And so I mean, it's just the, the,
the pharma driven health care system, um, Americans need a
real education on what it actually is innocent. Yeah. It's
not always in your best interest. No.
S2 (14:46):
And I think especially, uh, I think a lot of
people suspicions perked up with this whole vaccination thing. I mean,
it's just crazy. It's just crazy. And this isn't a
political thing. It's just that, you know, I, I just, I,
I don't trust.
S1 (14:59):
Well, it's it's not a political thing, but one of
the giant problems that we have here is that our
health care system and health care conversations have become politicized. Yeah.
Since when did politics get into my health care? You know.
S2 (15:12):
And to tell you.
S1 (15:13):
That if you don't.
S2 (15:14):
Do what they tell you to do, you can't travel,
you can't go to work, you can't go to school,
you can't be involved in the community. I mean, this
country went a long way away from where I thought
I'd ever go in two years. Yep. When Covid hit, like,
literally like resting, people were walking on the beach in California,
but allowing riots to go on in Portland like I
(15:35):
lived in Portland. I'm like, how is it that you
could go out and have no issue rioting? But if
you go to church.
S1 (15:42):
The Covid stayed there only in the restaurants and the churches.
The the riots were protected from the Covid. So it's
only science. Brandon.
S2 (15:51):
Well, exactly. Dude. Exactly. Well, we both have the same
view on. Yeah, we saw that. Yes. Um, so look,
let's get back to business first. Business. So so first
of all, you know, congratulations, um, on recovering. Congratulations on
being committed to helping others do it. And congratulations on.
It's hard enough to build a business, let alone all
(16:12):
that influence dramatics, passion, pain. It's really hard to build
a business. Any business where that's involved as a normal
data point every day. Yep. It's one thing to have
it on occasion, but to be living in it every day.
(16:33):
So you build these businesses up. So talk a little
bit about from from your three bedrooms, right, to 325 employees.
Like what are some of the things on that journey
as a business owner? Because I talk a lot about breakpoints,
you know, 3 million, 8 million, 15 million. Like, what
(16:54):
were your personal kind of professional and financial break points
while you scaled and grew your business to 55 million?
S1 (17:01):
God, we could spend all day talking about this. Um,
you know, it's I remember employee number one, like the
the decision to hire the first guy to help me
out doing some of this stuff. And for me, I
had I've never had a job. I mean, I was
a drug dealer and a and a stickup kid until
I got sober and then and worked at construction a
(17:22):
little bit and then started this business. And so I was,
I was learning how to fly the plane in, you know,
at 40,000ft for all of it. And so, you know, I,
I started sales and, and seeing needs and services and
things that, that this population needed. And so I started
to meet those needs which grew my business. And then
(17:44):
I started to build and hire team members. And before
I knew it, I just kind of figured it out.
And in 2011, I think, yeah, 2011, I was 3
or 4 years in, I, I cleared my first million dollars. Wow.
And so net profit, I made my first million bucks,
you know, not bad from 21 years old homeless heroin
(18:05):
addict getting sober with two pairs of clothes, sleeping on
a couch to 26 years old. I made my first million.
And you know, as I grew, there were a lot
of things that I had to figure out. I had
to figure out how to create systems. You know, when
I had one facility, it was a totally different animal.
And I there were so many unexpected things from when
(18:26):
I opened to I.
S2 (18:28):
Tell, like, I have the rule of three, right? So
my rule of three is you never go from 1
to 2. You go from 1 to 3, and then
3 to 9 and then 9 to 27. And that's
true for hiring people, and it's true for opening new facilities.
I love that.
S1 (18:41):
I've actually never heard that before, and I.
S2 (18:42):
Love that. That's just from the. All the my own,
you know, buying 130 businesses and then franchising and and
licensing and then and then all the research I did
on the thousands of industries that we broke down from
2009 to 2019. Anytime I saw the average business owner
go from 1 to 2, they'd go broke. Yeah, because
it's easy in your mind to go. I can rationalize
(19:05):
to until the second one's not working and it pulls
you off the one. But if you have to go
to three, then you pause and you're like, well, I
don't have the resources to go to three, and I
certainly don't have the team to go to three, and
I don't have the systems to go to three, so
I better build on that before I go to three. Yeah.
And it causes you to think differently. Same with an employee.
You can always hire one person. But now if it
(19:26):
doesn't go right you're like, is it me? Is it them?
You need context and contrast. You hire two and one's
doing great and one sucks. You're like, it's not me,
it's the employee I got to get rid of. Yep.
But every time you just do a one off thing,
you don't have any context or contrast. And it's easy
to rationalize it. But it's hard to execute it. Absolutely.
So you went to two and you're getting banged around
(19:48):
a bit.
S1 (19:49):
And, you know, I think a key leading characteristic to
entrepreneurs is optimism. Because I got banged around as being modest.
I got my ass kicked every day growing that business.
And I went from 1 to 2 and 2 to
3 and 3 to 4. And all of a sudden,
you know, five years, six years have passed 20, 16, 17.
(20:11):
And I have a real business. I have hundreds of employees,
I have multiple multiple sites, and I'm doing big numbers
and revenue, and I'm making a ton of money. And
I don't know the first thing about a leadership team,
about an org chart, about KPIs, about systems. You know,
all of that was a foreign language to me. No
(20:33):
one had. I didn't have any mentors. I didn't have
any teachers or anyone to learn from that had participated
in business at that level. And mind you, I'm, I
live in New Hampshire. I grew up in New Hampshire.
I'm not just one of the biggest companies at this
point in the state. That's not a national chain. And
so I just didn't have really people to learn from.
And I had 20 something direct reports at that time.
(20:55):
I had everybody, I had HR, finance, each facilities executive director, admissions, marketing.
I just, you know, I had everyone reporting to me.
I had just all kind of mid-level managers and no, no,
no C-level and no top tier executives. And so one
(21:15):
of the things that's interesting that I did, you talk
about those little moments, like being number three for the police, uh,
school or whatever, that change your life forever. I always, like,
did my best to put myself in the room and
put myself around the best people. And I would describe myself,
and I would describe most successful entrepreneurs as a sponge. Right?
I like to ask more questions and listen more than
(21:37):
I like to talk, because I'm able to get a
lot of value that way. And so one of the
things that I did was I bought an incredibly expensive
to me at the time, home in New Hampshire, and
got into this neighborhood and hear those, like, tattooed former
criminal guy that owns drug rehabs moving into the most
prestigious neighborhood in the state. 2017 I'm walking my dog and, um,
(22:00):
through the neighborhood and I see one of the neighbors,
guy named a wonderful man, one of the greatest mentors
and teachers I've ever had. Um, and his name is Joe.
And I see Joe and he's all happy. Joe talking
to him. He says, man, man, I just closed my deal.
I said, what do you what do you mean, you
close your deal? So I just sold my business for
and it's his business. But it was a much I
(22:20):
had a nine figure exit. So did he. His was
much larger than mine. He did very well. And he
told me about it and I was like. And it
just sparked. I'd never met anyone that had sold a
company before. I'd never considered selling my company before. I
never I knew nothing about it and it just gave
me this, this crack. The door cracked open, this little
P call into like, oh, there's a lot more for
(22:41):
me to learn here. This guy just sold his business
for hundreds of millions of dollars. And so I just
asked him, I said, Joe, you know, would you be
willing to have lunch with me? I just want to
ask you some questions and and learn more about this.
We got lunch the next week, and, um, and that
really opened the door into my self-education process of learning
business at the level in which it takes to participate
(23:03):
in private equity, M&A and all of that. And eventually
it was his family office that invested the first three rounds.
And so it was the best thing that ever happened
to me. And, um, he bought I sold them, uh,
I sold them 10% for, at a $40 million valuation
for 4 million bucks. I sold them shortly thereafter, another
(23:27):
ten for five, and then I sold them. Uh, and
then the business valuation went up to 80 million, and
I sold them, uh. I forget the percentage is 18.75%
or something like that. It's like, um, I took another
15 million off the table.
S2 (23:44):
So let's talk about that for a second. You know, you, uh,
most business owners don't understand what happens when you take
a slug of money off the table. Yeah.
S1 (23:53):
You could sleep at night, you mean.
S2 (23:55):
And and your confidence level. And all of a sudden. Yeah.
Because it seems easier when you build faster because you're not.
S1 (24:01):
Absolutely does it? Absolutely does. It gives you confidence and
it gives you speed. Because when I was built, I
never took a dollar of investment money or a dollar
a debt. I started the business at the beginning of
the recession of 2008. Banking was shut down. And so
I just got used to making money, earn the money
and putting it back into the business. And so you
(24:24):
talked about like having nine figure value. There's a lot
difference between having a business that's worth nine figures and
having that liquidity. And and so everything I had was
in the business and all the money that was making,
I was living a very modest lifestyle for the numbers
that I was touching and all the money that the
business was making, I was putting right back in. So
every single problem that the business had, every HR issue,
(24:45):
every time we got sued by an employee, every regulatory
issue felt like I was dodging headshots in the matrix
because I'm like, fuck, if this one sticks, I'm dead.
And when I was able to take that money off
the table, I was like, okay, I can I could
take a hit in the business and not have to, like,
move out of my house like I can. I have
a contingency plan with this money that's off the table.
(25:08):
And so that certainly helped. The other thing that I
don't think a lot of business owners understand is the
value add of bringing sophisticated people to the table, the value.
All in all, he gave me, I think, uh, $24 million.
He gave me 24 million bucks, um, to in those
(25:29):
three parts put together, that is nothing compared to the
education that I got in the several years that we
were partners. And the experience that I had with that,
that that was invaluable. It really was.
S2 (25:43):
This. And this is the basis and the genesis for
why we started, uh, our business, you know, uh, to
be that resource for people before they have to take
on the dilution. Yeah. And, uh, my frustration is we
help people and then help them achieve some huge results,
and they don't actually recognize or acknowledge that.
S1 (26:02):
So I'll tell you, let me speak on that for
a second. He gave me $23 million. He was in
the business for a little less than two years. We
spent together and we sold it for 115 million. He
walked with an additional 23 million. He put 23 million in.
He walked with 56, doubled his money in less than
two years. People look at that and I tell that
(26:23):
story and they're like, damn, you gave up a lot.
I'm like, did I, did I? Because I don't know
if I ever sell that business for 115 million. Without
that partnership, I didn't have the information that got us
over the finish line. I wasn't prepared to do that
in 2019, when he looked at me, a young entrepreneur,
and believed in me and wrote a multimillion dollar check
(26:45):
into my business and then took the time to educate
me and mentor me and teach me these things and
guide me and answer every. I would call that guy.
I'm not. If you're in my Rolodex and I'm learning
from you, I am not bashful. Like I will call you.
And I called that man so many times like, hey,
what do you think about this? What do you think
about that? I'm thinking this. I want to go left,
you know, just. And he was part of my think
(27:06):
tank for that two years and so. You know, God
bless him.
S2 (27:13):
And he.
S1 (27:14):
Should make that.
S2 (27:14):
Money. And you can't like for anybody that's never been
through the process. Most of sales processes fail.
S1 (27:22):
People don't. I tell them I run a coaching group
where I coach entrepreneurs. I get 80 people that own mid, mid,
you know, mid-market sized businesses. I tell them that all
the time. They think that they could just bring the
market to sell it at any given time and make,
you know, all this money. I'm like 90 something percent
of businesses that ever go to market fail because you're
not ready, you're not prepared. You don't understand what you're
(27:43):
dealing with, and you're dealing with the most sophisticated business
people on planet Earth. Like, I don't care what anyone says.
Those guys in those private equity companies were significantly smarter
than I was. And thank God I had the the
help and the team with me to navigate that process.
I mean, that process. I decided to sell the business
in March of 2021, and we closed in December. It
(28:04):
was a ten month process, and it was it was
every waking minute of the day for ten months.
S2 (28:10):
And the the quality of earnings audits, the going under
the covers.
S1 (28:14):
The due diligence.
S2 (28:16):
You're having somebody who's been through that, who can organize
the business before it happens. We did.
S1 (28:20):
Yeah. We with the guidance and and the team that
we put together, which was my partner Joe, myself. And
then the other thing that people don't understand is incredibly
important is your advisory group. And so, uh, we had
the right investment banker, we had the right M&A legal team,
we had the right tax people, and we had the
right group. We were able to create such a competitive
(28:42):
process for that business that we had. We went out
to a buyer list of 100 and something people we
received like 40, uh, indication eyes, they call them indication
of interest. Like, hey, we've we've looked at your deck.
We're interested. Here's a range of valuation that we believe
your company falls under. And then we narrowed that down
(29:02):
and took, uh, Eloise from like, the top 15. And
then we we took management meetings from nine out of
the 15 groups. We dismissed six.
S2 (29:13):
I just want everybody to listen to this because here's
the thing. I. I tell this to people, I don't
know that they believe me, but I'm going to repeat it.
I say the difference between the bullshitters, the oh, I've
got an internet company that can make you millions and
scale and grow you. And there's more of that bullshit, like,
I can spot these guys a mile away. I tell
people three questions you want to ask anybody. You're going
(29:35):
to get advice for question number one, what's the most
amount of money you've ever made in a year? Question
number two, what's the biggest thing you personally have ever built,
quantified by revenues, number of employees and profitability? And question
three what's the biggest exit you've ever had in your life?
Because I've seen people build $100 million businesses to only
get 10 or 15 million. And I've seen people build
$30 million businesses like me who got 150 million. So
(29:55):
I want to learn from the ones that actually engineered it.
S1 (29:57):
Yep.
S2 (29:58):
The best. Right? So I tell people, the truth is
when somebody has done something, they never forget it. Like
you're talking about something that happened in the past. True
or false? When you go through the grind and you're
in those moments wondering, is this going to close? Is
it not going to close? Oh, we should have crossed
(30:18):
that t oh that I didn't get dotted. Oh, that
person that I didn't get a release from is going
to sneak back and try to get a piece of
the deal now and leverage me like like when you
go through it, you never forget a detail.
S1 (30:32):
100%.
S2 (30:33):
From everything. That's all. I can rattle it off. You
said like you said, my, I remember my first employee
I hired and now you're talking about the transaction. Yeah.
And the micro details. You can tell because when somebody
when you go what's the when you ask those questions,
I was like, oh, I can't really talk about it.
That's because it's bullshit. Yeah. Because anybody that's done it,
it's going to be proud.
S1 (30:53):
To talk about 100%.
S2 (30:55):
And and I tell people that's how you flesh out
the more details somebody can give you, it means they
actually did it. And this is true when you're trying
to hire leadership and they're like, oh, I built a
company from 10 million to 100 million. I know all
about it. And you're like, great, talk to me about
the year you did ten. What did you do next
and what did you do next? And if they can't
tell you they didn't do it. That's right. They weren't
that close to it 100%. So I love this conversation
(31:18):
because man, it's like looking through a microscope. Right. And
and you and I have been through that colonoscopy. Yep.
Without getting put under. Yeah. Because you're wide awake while
it's going on because you're paying attention to it and
you can.
S1 (31:31):
Die at any time. It's like, remember that game where
they pick the bones out of the bodies as a kid,
and if you hit the walls, the buzzer goes off. Yeah,
that's what every day feels like. Like every day just
feels like this thing could blow up at any moment.
At any moment, you know it. To finish saying we,
we we successfully managed to bring that down to two groups,
(31:54):
and we didn't award exclusivity to both of those groups
until they both had finished due diligence in the business.
And so that was just an unbelievably masterful technique that
I was I can't take full credit for as a
part of it. Um, and so we had to reimburse
the runner up, the person we left at the altar, uh,
(32:17):
a portion of their fees. And if we didn't go
with them and we. But we got through the process.
S2 (32:23):
Money well spent, by the.
S1 (32:24):
Way, money well spent. Because the entire time they're looking
for leverage. And so we kept leverage. We kept them
in a competitive process until seven days before we closed.
S2 (32:33):
I try to tell business owners like, I like, they're like, oh, no,
I got my guy. I'm like, you're already.
S1 (32:38):
You're already screwed. You're so screwed. I got a guy
in my coaching program, I could strangle him because he's
already tried to sell the business one time and had
a failed process, and it was to a strategic it's
in the food and food and beverage industry. And they
they came back in the process. I'm like, you know what?
You know, this isn't for us. And they left it alone,
stuck them with $1 million bag of fees, shove legal, etc.. Right.
(33:01):
And and he came back whooped. And that was about
a year ago. And now recently he's like, no, this
other strategic they want to buy me. No. You don't understand.
They're serious about it. I'm like, buddy, do you know
what an off market deal is? Do you understand what. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Why do people like off market deals? Well, because it's
not competitive and you can get it for a good price.
(33:22):
So what do you think you are right now? You
know what I mean? And I just, I cringe at
anyone that's going to sell a business in most situations
that isn't going to take it out for a competitive process.
S2 (33:34):
Well, how are you.
S1 (33:35):
Going to get maximum value? How do you know what
it's worth? You and I have an auction process.
S2 (33:39):
Those guys are getting bullshitted, and they're and and they
don't want to pay fees. They're d and cheese. Yeah.
And they got it all figured out. This is the
problem with with entrepreneurs. I've had a little bit of success.
They think they've got it all figured.
S1 (33:52):
Yep. They don't have the first clue.
S2 (33:54):
And that's why 90 some odd percent of those deals
fail or they get so crammed down on it at
the end and they're looking at that initial check. They
give their business away.
S1 (34:02):
Yeah, because they've spent the money before they get it.
That's right. And they get starstruck. They see stars and
and you know, becoming becoming a chief executive officer, a
builder of businesses, a strategy guy that can build something
that commands that much value was one skill set. I
would say equally equally as difficult and equally as different
(34:24):
was a skill set of becoming a guy that could
package that business and successfully sell it. And the problem is,
is that that most CEOs or business owners, entrepreneurs, founders
that I've dealt with, they don't understand that they're not
well equipped for this process just because they've successfully built
a business. This is an entirely different animal. It really is.
(34:45):
And so I was grateful for that first process to
have the advisory group and the partnership group that I
had with me, and that's really what we I mean,
we we crossed on that exit like we did. So
good for the market and for what that business was like.
We really did well. And we had two horses at
the end. We picked one, uh, and then, you know,
like everything else, nothing goes right. The group that we
(35:08):
didn't transact with ended up coming in and recruiting like
half of the leadership team. This is so, so this
is litigation threats and all this crazy stuff.
S2 (35:18):
This is the thing I try to tell business owners
half the time when they're like, oh, I got a
strategic and they want to buy me and they just.
S1 (35:23):
Want to sniff.
S2 (35:24):
Sniff under your hood and.
S1 (35:25):
They.
S2 (35:26):
Should steal and poach from you and find out any
ideas they don't have. And you're stupid enough to give
them the data room because you don't know what you're doing. Yep.
And and you don't have the right non disclosures non
competes non solicitations. You don't have all those elements because
you're working with some hack lawyer in your hometown. Look
dude you and I both know and we've seen it all.
(35:48):
And so for this show building billions with Brandon it
isn't just about building $1 billion business. And I and
in my book nine figure mindset, this book right here,
it's coming to market in September. You should be pre-ordering
that right now. We'll put a link in on where
you can order that from. It talks about how to
get your mind right. Here's what. Here's what. When I
(36:09):
was building my first business, I was I mean, everyone
said I couldn't do a high school graduate. They said,
you know, at least likely to succeed. And there I am.
I get my first million, I raise, and then I
go out and get my buy, my first million dollar business.
And the next thing you know, I'm 130 million in businesses.
I acquired and and I've raised $38 million and I
listed on the American Stock Exchange at 29 years old.
(36:31):
If you try to tell me anything at 29 years old,
I would have said, dude, I came from nothing. I've
got a public company on Wall Street. I've acquired all
these businesses. I've raised all this capital. I'm innovating this space.
What do you know? That's what you. That's what, 29th
(36:53):
at 31, Warburg said. Hey, thanks for all your hard work.
These documents that you didn't know what you signed. We
just liquidated your company and fuck off. Yeah. And by
the way, you get nothing because we had an internal
rate of return of 18 to 22% before you get anything.
I woke up one day. I was at the peak
of my career, May of 2001, and I was at
(37:15):
the lowest point of my life. In June 1st of 2001,
like literally a two week window where I was at
the absolute peak, like everything in my life seemed like
it was going to go through the moon. And then
two weeks later, I was relieved of command with my
company being sold without me being able to do anything
about it. Wild things can change fast in this game,
(37:39):
and that's why when you use that analogy of the buzzer,
like every day, you're living like that. Yeah, all the
way until you find that's why that exit consummating the
exit and that wire, I.
S1 (37:50):
Oh, I talk about that dude.
S2 (37:52):
How so for me, I was.
S1 (37:54):
There for me. I was in Spain.
S2 (37:56):
And my bank got the wire, got down to two
minutes before it was cut off. And it still hadn't
got the email confirmation yet. Tell me about the window
of time where you waited that last ten hours for
that wire to hit the account we had.
S1 (38:13):
You know, I don't know why in my head, closing
was going to be much more dramatic than it was.
It was a I was with nobody. I was with
my my now chief operating officer that's still with me, uh,
Lori Boudreau and we were in my conference room and
we got on a call and the lawyers were on,
and the buyer was on, and and, you know, they
just ran over some stuff and they said, all right,
(38:35):
you know, we're ready to close. And everyone kind of
sounded off and said, yep, clear to close. And said, Eric,
you you clear to close? I said, clear to close.
And it was like a six minute phone call, and
I we got off the call and I remember that
just the I probably the deepest breath I've ever taken
in my life. And I was like, oh. And then
(38:56):
I got Merrill Lynch for banking and one of them.
And so I got the online, you know, app or
whatever it is, Merrill Lynch app. And all day I'm
sitting there looking at refreshing, refreshing, refreshing, refreshing. This is
what I was. I was eating refresh. So it was
five and then 5:00 hit and I was like, no wire.
And it was like 630 at night. And I kind
(39:18):
of given up. I'm like, all right, maybe it's coming
the next day, you know? And I just picked up
my phone and went thing. And it went from a
good sized number to a, Holy shit, I've never seen
that much money in my life, you know? And that
thing hit and I was like, wow. Wow. But, you know,
one thing that's not talked about often is what happens
(39:40):
after the sale. And I think I know I would
assume that you have had similar experiences, like I made
it a couple months. People are funny. People are funny.
They think that like getting a boat and and being
on the beach and going out to restaurants and like
not having anything to do and not having anywhere to
be is being kind of retired is like the jam,
(40:02):
you know what I mean? I was 36 years old
with tens and tens and tens and tens of millions
of dollars in the bank and a house in Miami.
I'd already bought my jet. I'd already bought a big
ass 95 foot yacht. I had, you know, a giant
house up north, my my beautiful home here. And I
didn't have a care in the world. And I made
it like a couple months. I was going out at
(40:23):
night and, you know, doing all this stuff, blowing money
and and lit, like, living for the, you know. And
I was I woke up one day and I was like,
this sucks.
S3 (40:34):
I think this is.
S1 (40:34):
Terrible and I learned a lot about myself in those months.
I was like, I am not a guy that can
just do this. I need a mission. I need to
be doing and building and growing and doing something. And so, um,
you know, I did Bradlee's podcast a while back, and
he was making fun of me a little bit because
I was like, you know, Brad, I'm I'm certainly got
(40:56):
more money than I've ever had in my entire life,
but I'm working as hard, if not harder than I've
ever worked in my entire life. And he's like, you're
doing it wrong, brother. I'm like, that might be your perspective.
I feel like I'm doing it right because I love
I love this shit, I love.
S2 (41:07):
Brad, but let me tell you something. That's just that.
That's coming from somebody who has not actually experienced what
you and I experienced. Good point, because I sold my business,
but part of the deal was I did a 36
month integration and took the billion dollar company to 4.5 billion.
Then I had two years left. And they're like, you
way overachieved. Just do special projects for us. So then
I was like, okay, so I made it about a year.
S4 (41:33):
And I was.
S2 (41:33):
Running around with all my billionaire friends playing golf. Go
into your eating every night. Gained £35. Yep. And one
day I met Natalie and I were flying back. I
get emotional talking about it and I had that meltdown.
I was like.
S1 (41:46):
This sucks.
S2 (41:47):
I was at a lower point. Then when Warburg sold
out from underneath me. Yep.
S1 (41:52):
I did my brother.
S2 (41:53):
With all that money.
S1 (41:54):
In the bank. I feel you and. And the stresses of.
You want to see almost every relationship that you've ever
had change. Yep. It's all your business 100%. The fucking
loneliness of that. And then you're miserable and you got
all this fancy shit, and it looks great from the outside.
Who the fuck wants to hear you complain? Who wants
(42:16):
to listen to that? Like, who do you talk to?
You're like, what am I going to call some one
of my buddies up and be like, you know, this,
this hundred million is really terrible, you know? And so
it was really lonely. It was really depressing. I was miserable, um, and,
and I just made the decision. I was like, I,
I am a guy that has to wake up and
have a mission and go build every single day. And
(42:38):
at this point, I'm convinced I'll probably do that until
the day they bury me.
S2 (42:41):
Because you and I are so alike. I mean, we
we I just love it. Yeah. Uh, the I had
that meltdown. I'm talking. It was a meltdown. Yeah.
S1 (42:49):
No doubt.
S2 (42:50):
I bawled like a little baby. And my wife, uh,
girlfriend at the time.
S1 (42:55):
Because. Because in that moment. And I did, too, in
that moment for me, I realized that all of this
is very cool and I'm very grateful. But it's not
what I thought it would be. Yeah. And it's not
what most people think it would ever be. It's much different.
It doesn't do what most people think it's going to do.
And that moment of truth and epiphany for me was painful.
(43:19):
And yeah, I mean, well.
S2 (43:21):
And and part of it is too is I've gone
backwards that analogy of the the doctor game and the
buzzer going off. It's the boiling frog theory. You don't
really even if you're not, the stress of building doesn't
seem that hard. All of a sudden when you realize
I like I did it and now I'm the I'm.
(43:45):
I might. Pissing my life away like I don't deserve
it now because I'm not contributing anymore. Yeah. And and
so that happened at the end of 18. And that
inspired us to figure out what to do next. And
that's how we found Grant. Elena. I took all my
business stuff and said, I'm I'm going to go. I
had done ten years of research to do something bigger.
(44:06):
The other thing was, is like, I actually got to
a place like, do I really want to go do
it again? And then that's when I took the year off.
And then I felt so because it was my life's
dream to go change small business. And so we activated,
went and saw Grant and Elena at Growth. Con did
all this research on different influencers and what they did
and who we might align with, and they didn't know
(44:27):
who we were and and went to that and then
approached them. And then here we are later, literally. It
was 48 months ago. We generated our first revenue June
of 19, and we did $200,000 in June of 19.
It was me, Natalie, and one other gal that works
for us. June of this year, we did a, uh,
(44:49):
13.5 million.
S5 (44:51):
That's so cool.
S2 (44:52):
So in four years, I've built something with Grant and
Elena and Natalie. Five times bigger than what I spent
14 years building. My EBITDA this year will be 20%
larger than my revenue was the year I sold. Amazing. Imagine.
S1 (45:12):
Imagine how.
S2 (45:12):
When you actually can channel and get in the.
S1 (45:15):
Flow the the experience of of like as you were
talking about earlier, about people that know the details and
have been on the battlefield and, and gone all that.
You know, I'm experiencing the same thing now in the
company that I'm building. You know, we launched, uh, we
started it a year ago, maybe 13, 14 months ago,
(45:37):
and generated our first dollar of revenue, which for us
means a patient admitted and treated on New Year's Day.
And we've, you know, we're in our seventh month of
operation and we're in the black. We're producing even though
we we have our second and third locations in development.
And so the second time is so much faster than
(45:58):
the first. You know, one of the I heard a
quote and I'll mess it up. Uh, but it was
really impactful to me and it came to me at
the right time, because when it was when I was
going through that transition and it said, you know, it's
really dangerous for a man to climb a mountain and
get to the top and not have another mountain to climb. Um.
S2 (46:17):
That's a that's a good quote there.
S1 (46:19):
And I was like, damn, I need a mountain to climb.
And so, you know, the things that have become important
to me today are relationships and people, time and and
winning every day. And I think about winning every day
as not, you know, money and success and all these
things count in that. But like, did I live a
day today that I could be proud of? You know,
(46:41):
I went when I was like playing tennis and going
out and staying out till three in the morning and
spending money on stupid shit and and having a lot
of fun. I had a lot of fun, but I
wasn't really proud of it. You know what I mean?
It was a proud of what I was doing every day. And, um,
and so now, like, you know, um, I'm grinding, I'm working,
and and you are too. And building something to be
proud of, like what you just said about the revenue
(47:03):
growth in your business. Like, that's something like, damn, that
feels good. That feels good. Better than having the money itself.
You know.
S2 (47:09):
I think that's where I think that's an interesting thing
that we'll end the show with is, is it's the conquering.
S1 (47:18):
Yeah. It's the.
S2 (47:19):
Journey. It is not, it's not, it's the hunt and
and it's the journey. It's not when you arrive at
the destination. Because what you just said about that mountain.
S1 (47:27):
Yeah, it's, it's I, I roast guys on um, in
my comments on Instagram all the time. I'll speak up
and they always say some. And it speaks to, to
the psychology of people at whatever level you describe them at.
And they say things like, oh, with all that money,
you're not happy. I said, brother, you're the materialistic one.
You're the one that thinks money to make you happy.
(47:48):
I love the process. I love the game. I love
the hunt, the kill. You know, I'm here because I'm
having a blast. And so.
S2 (47:55):
And I know, I know for because I can just
already tell how how much you and I vibe. The
other thing is to you look at all the people
you surround yourself with and you want to go create
that for them. You want them to get to experience 100%. Yeah,
that's for me, a big motivation. How many thousands of
people can I drive in their success equation to be
able to reach the level that I reached? And I'm
(48:18):
just smart enough to know that if I get thousands
of them, I'm going to be a billionaire. Yeah, you'll.
S3 (48:22):
Be doing you'll be doing okay yourself.
S2 (48:25):
Well, look, Eric, uh, what a great interview, you know?
Thank you, thank you.
S1 (48:28):
I appreciate you having me.
S2 (48:29):
Yeah, absolutely. And I know you and I are going
to do some things together. Uh, we don't know exactly
what that is yet, but we are definitely going to
do some things together. Hey, if you liked this interview,
if you found it informative, um, educational, interesting. Leave a review,
you know, share it. Uh, like it? This is what
inspires me to continue to do these shows, and it's
(48:51):
what inspires a guy like Eric to show up and
come spend time with me. And maybe you learned a
lot if you were listening into this thing, you know,
in the process from two guys that have been there
and done it and, uh, that, that our pocketbooks will
show that we're not bullshitters it's not what we say,
it's what we did. And so if you want to
know how to get your mind right, to get your
(49:11):
money right and achieve a nine figure exit, then you
first got to achieve a nine figure mindset, because it
really is going to be about what's going on. Going
on up there. Thank you for joining me, Eric. Thank you.
Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for
joining me on another episode of Building Billions with Brandon Dawson.
I've never had a job. I mean, I was a
drug dealer and a and a stickup kid until I
got sober. 3 or 4 years in, I cleared my
first million dollars. All in all, he gave me $24 million.
That is nothing compared to the education that I got
in the several years that we were partners. Hey everybody.
S2 (00:17):
It's Brandon Dawson. Welcome back to another episode of Building Billions.
I have a special guest today. And look, one of
the things I love about this community and hanging out
with people who have proven to succeed, like my buddy
Eric here, he is not only a nine figure mindset entrepreneur,
he is a nine figure exit entrepreneur. Right? And it's
(00:39):
one thing to talk about nine figures. Oh, I'm worth
100 million. I'm this this, this is another thing to actually.
Exit and put it the cash in the bank. That's
an entirely different game. And and this guys played both
sides of the game. So I'm excited to introduce you
to Eric. I'm going to have him introduce himself where
(01:01):
he's come from what he's done. And we're going to
get into it. Eric.
S1 (01:05):
Brandon, thank you for having me. It's a real pleasure. Um,
you know, for the folks that I don't know or
don't know me, I should say I grew up about
45 minutes north of Boston. I got enrolled in America's
addiction crisis at a very young age. For me, that
was OxyContin at the age of 14, uh, which turned
into a heroin addiction, which for about six, almost seven years, uh,
(01:27):
I went through hell and I hit rock bottom on
December 7th of 2006. I've consistently been sober and in
recovery since that date, so this December will be 17
years of recovery and sobriety. And it was out of
my pain of addiction and my enthusiasm and excitement for
recovery that I started my business, which I started in
(01:48):
October of 2008 as the first sober living home in
the state of New Hampshire. And when I sold it
13 years and two months later, uh, in December of 2021,
it was the largest provider of addiction treatment services in
the northeast.
S2 (02:05):
Wow. I mean, so, you know, people talk about one
of my, uh, mentors told me in my 20s, he said, hey,
when you when you find something. And what caused the
conversation was the flip phone. I was like, man, I
love this phone. And he's like, you should go buy
the stock. And I'm like, why? And he goes, because
anytime you have a personal experience where you use something
(02:26):
and you're like, this is unbelievable. That's an indicator that
if you feel that way, a lot of people are
going to feel that way, and you should go buy
the stock and invest in it, because it's probably going
to do well. In your case. The experience that you
went through, the negative experience and of of drug use
propelled you to want to solve that problem for other
(02:48):
people once you got sober.
S1 (02:50):
That's right.
S2 (02:51):
And you went on a journey and you found your
way to sobriety.
S1 (02:54):
That's right.
S2 (02:55):
So you're like, I can help others do it. Which
is what I always tell people is the people you
should be learning from are the ones that actually have
done it.
S1 (03:03):
Lived experience and have the resume. I talk about that
all the time. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah, that's exactly how it went.
And in the beginning I had no idea really what
I was doing. I dropped out of the high school
at 15 years old in the beginning of 10th grade.
My father owned a small business, so I learned about
like small business and business principles from him. Um, but
(03:23):
I just knew that I was watching a lot of
people suffer. I grew up, you know, in an area
New Hampshire actually ended up being the worst in opioid
addiction and the leader in the country for opioid overdose death.
And so, I mean, Donald Trump, when he was running
for office, called New Hampshire a drug infested den, um,
(03:43):
which you think of New Hampshire, you think of mountains
and lakes, and it's this beautiful place to live. I
think if a.
S2 (03:48):
Little tiny state like, yeah.
S1 (03:50):
Most people don't even know where it is. They're like,
is that a part of New York? And I'm like, no,
it's above Boston. But, um, it's it really was ground
zero for the opioid epidemic for, for pharmaceutical pills and heroin.
And so I was just watching kids that I grew
up with that I loved, like family. And they were
still in the struggle. And then, you know, it was
(04:10):
just affecting my community and my entire world. And I
want to do something. The origination of the of the
business was actually volunteer work. I was going I was
so passionate about it that I was going into these
facilities that were kind of run down and run by
the state, and I was just going and connecting with
people that wanted help getting sober and that were trying.
And then in that, you know, was the idea. I
(04:34):
was like, these people need a place to go. I
could turn this into a small business. I've always wanted
to be in real estate. I want to help people.
And I pulled it all together. And so at 23
years old, with a little bit of help from my dad,
who believed in me again, after a long period of
not believing in me, I bought a three family home
in October 2008, which was an interesting time to be
(04:57):
buying real estate because the world was melting. And, uh,
and so we bought it for $150,000. It was bank foreclosed.
I got some furniture donated, I moved into it, and
then I just started charging guys like 150 bucks a
week to come stay with me. And then when they.
I lived there for two years with the guys and.
S2 (05:15):
You, you'd help them.
S1 (05:16):
I did everything with them. I taught them recovery. I
taught them life skills. I taught them, you know, how
to change their life. And that's that was the foundation
of it. But I never imagined that that would at
the time would grow into this enormous company. And it
was big at the end.
S2 (05:32):
And so, so when you sold it, how big was it?
S1 (05:36):
325 employees? We have did about 55 million of top
line revenue, and I transacted off of $13 million to EBITDA.
S2 (05:47):
So so you go from your own personal recovery to
helping a couple people at a time, doing it to
creating a business where you had over 300 and would
you say 50.
S1 (05:58):
Employees, 325.
S2 (06:00):
325.
S1 (06:01):
And we had 440 treatment beds, which turned over frequently.
And so we did, you know, between 4 and 500
missions a month. And so, you know, we were doing,
I don't know, five, 6000 lives touched a year.
S2 (06:14):
Wow.
S1 (06:15):
Yeah.
S2 (06:15):
Talk about impact.
S1 (06:17):
Tons, tons. Not an easy job. Not easy businesses, but
worth it.
S2 (06:22):
Yes, if you're lucky. My guess is, is that you
see a lot of people come through that really are
striving to make that that change that you made. And
some of them can't make the long term journey. And
then you have to see some of that.
S1 (06:36):
You have to see all of it. You have to
see all of it. And so, you know, you balance
the extreme lows of death, of overdose, of suffering, of
abandoned children, of grieving parents with the high of. The
ones that make it and the ones that do it.
And so when you see them get their year sobriety,
(06:59):
their two year sobriety coins, you know, you see them
reunify with their children, you see them get back into
the workforce, be good parents. You know, you you watch
their families who you met at a time of distress
when they came into treatment are able to, like, relax
and put their shoulders down a little bit over time.
And you see those relationships repaired. And so it's there's
(07:21):
no it's very it's black or white. These situations typically
end up terrible or amazing. Very few in the middle.
And so you have to focus on the positive and,
and work your way through a lot of the negative
stuff and kind of. Develop a tolerance to it.
S2 (07:38):
Yeah, I can't imagine. I mean, it just sounds tough.
S1 (07:43):
It was tough. Yeah. Which was at the time, there
were a lot of reasons why I sold my business.
And 13 years on the front lines, when fentanyl showed
up in America, which was probably 2013 or so. A
lot of people don't understand this, that that the addiction
crisis started with OxyContin in the mid to late 90s.
(08:06):
On the backs of that, the cartels took advantage of
pharmaceutical companies creating opioid addicts, and they started flooding our
streets with heroin, real heroin and and then as things progressed,
they they changed the game. And in 2013, around 1214,
fentanyl showed up and replaced heroin as a drug in
(08:27):
America entirely. There's not a bag of real heroin on
the streets of America in any section. It is all
explicitly fentanyl now, and so everyone today understands this enormous
overdose death crisis. It hasn't always been like that. That
happened after the introduction of fentanyl. And, um, and now
today and for some years already, overdose death by opioids,
(08:51):
specifically fentanyl is the leading cause of accidental loss of life.
It was probably 5 or 6 years ago. It surpassed
car accidents in America. Statistically, you're more likely to die
of a fentanyl overdose than a car accident. And so
when I was so close to the sun on that,
there was weeks where I couldn't make plans Monday through
(09:11):
Friday because I was at funeral services every night, like
every single night. And how do you pick and choose
which ones you go to and which ones you don't?
There were nights that I was leaving one to go to,
another to go to another, and people were just dying
at scale. And so it was that over time that
it wore me down. I got tired, and there certainly
was part of the I think that that a lot
(09:34):
of people start businesses and owned businesses like they're going
to own them forever. But businesses, like everything else, are
cyclical and have a life cycle to them. And and
that was a piece of influence for me on what
made the decision to sell.
S2 (09:49):
So I've never, uh, used drugs in my life. Like
I can't relate, I think, to, uh, and, and the
thing that I'm probably most appreciative of is that my grandpa,
who is like my the guy I was most afraid
of growing up as a kid, he was like. He
was like the man of the family. He was a
captain in the Oregon State Police. And so I always
(10:11):
wanted to follow his foot tracks and, and, and I
thought it was going to be a cop. I was
number three on the list as a cadet my senior
year in high school to go into the OSP program,
and they only hired two that year. And thank God. So,
so so I ended up having to go get a
sales job. Yeah, right. The best.
S1 (10:33):
Thing that ever happened.
S2 (10:34):
Ever happened to me. So, so so, look, um, I
don't even understand end like I get I get that there.
There's differences, but I don't really structurally understand fentanyl versus
heroin versus.
S1 (10:47):
It's 50 to 100 times more potent than fentanyl. Is
50 to 100 times more potent than heroin is. And
it's inconsistent. Heroin was a consistent product, meaning that I
would do this bag of heroin, that bag of heroin,
that it would all have the same effect. Fentanyl, this
they all look the same. This one might have the
(11:08):
potency of this, that one has the potency of that.
And then that bag has this potency and that's the
one that's going to kill you. And so it's every time,
every single time you use fentanyl it is Russian roulette.
S2 (11:20):
And is it is it like heroin comes from.
S1 (11:25):
Poppy plants? Yeah. Poppy plants. It's made in a lab.
It's synthetic. It's a chemical. It's a chemical. It's synthetic? Yeah.
It's a that's.
S2 (11:33):
Why it's flooded. Because it's easier for them to make it.
And and there's no quality control. Correct. So it's whoever
happens to make it and however they make it.
S1 (11:41):
Yeah, but I mean the messaging from, from the government
I guess, is that it's coming from China and distributed
by the cartels.
S2 (11:49):
Wow.
S1 (11:50):
Yep.
S2 (11:51):
So, you know, it's, uh. Yeah, I can see why
you'd be like, oh, now we got. We're. The streets
have been flooded. It's one thing for somebody to have
an addiction and have an impact their life. It's another
thing for someone to to, like you said, play Russian
roulette every time they use. Right? Yep. Yeah. So, look,
it's a crisis. There's no question. In fact, one of
(12:11):
the reasons that Grant and I, um, partnered and acquired
and started with Ten Health was to get everybody off
of drugs, like, like, like we are huge believers that
all this stuff that's been prescribed in the medical space
is just contributing to that problem.
S1 (12:30):
The one, um, kudos on the ten health care program.
I've been with Gary for quite some time now and
you guys have changed my life. I have the whole
setup in my house. I got the oxygen, I got
the red light, I got the whole night. Um, and
so for everyone, real deal. They didn't pay me to
say this. It's been absolutely life changing. Um, but the
entire medical system is jacked, and so it's it's really corrupt,
(12:55):
and it's really messed up in America. You know, you
look at, at the health care system, the insurance companies
and big pharma and then the government, and you have
these four monsters that are that are in cahoots and
playing in the sandbox together. And then we trust our
lives to them. You know, it's it's, uh, I've been
(13:16):
in health care my entire adult life and got some
stories to tell.
S2 (13:21):
Yeah. I mean, honestly, I just I look at I'm
a little mind boggled, you know, it's like, uh, being
in health care. They'll tell you as an adult that
you can't make the choice to buy something like testosterone
or something without your doctor intervention and without all these approvals,
and you can't ship them across state lines, and they'll go,
(13:42):
but they'll let a 14 year old. Start taking stuff
that will change their hormone disposition.
S1 (13:50):
Not only that, but not only that. But you have
children much younger than 14 years old being prescribed stimulant
medication because they can't sit still and their, you know,
attention deficit by attention. You know, ADHD and this stuff.
And the parents, most of them that are that are
trusting the health care system and putting kids on these
(14:12):
medications don't realize that Ritalin and Adderall are pharmaceutical grade
crystal meth. I mean, it's it's methamphetamine. It's I don't
know how else to say that it's crystal meth. I mean,
if you drug tested one of these children that's on
medication they would drug, they would test positive for the
same thing that if as if they had been abusing
(14:32):
crystal meth. And so I mean, it's just the, the,
the pharma driven health care system, um, Americans need a
real education on what it actually is innocent. Yeah. It's
not always in your best interest. No.
S2 (14:46):
And I think especially, uh, I think a lot of
people suspicions perked up with this whole vaccination thing. I mean,
it's just crazy. It's just crazy. And this isn't a
political thing. It's just that, you know, I, I just, I,
I don't trust.
S1 (14:59):
Well, it's it's not a political thing, but one of
the giant problems that we have here is that our
health care system and health care conversations have become politicized. Yeah.
Since when did politics get into my health care? You know.
S2 (15:12):
And to tell you.
S1 (15:13):
That if you don't.
S2 (15:14):
Do what they tell you to do, you can't travel,
you can't go to work, you can't go to school,
you can't be involved in the community. I mean, this
country went a long way away from where I thought
I'd ever go in two years. Yep. When Covid hit, like,
literally like resting, people were walking on the beach in California,
but allowing riots to go on in Portland like I
(15:35):
lived in Portland. I'm like, how is it that you
could go out and have no issue rioting? But if
you go to church.
S1 (15:42):
The Covid stayed there only in the restaurants and the churches.
The the riots were protected from the Covid. So it's
only science. Brandon.
S2 (15:51):
Well, exactly. Dude. Exactly. Well, we both have the same
view on. Yeah, we saw that. Yes. Um, so look,
let's get back to business first. Business. So so first
of all, you know, congratulations, um, on recovering. Congratulations on
being committed to helping others do it. And congratulations on.
It's hard enough to build a business, let alone all
(16:12):
that influence dramatics, passion, pain. It's really hard to build
a business. Any business where that's involved as a normal
data point every day. Yep. It's one thing to have
it on occasion, but to be living in it every day.
(16:33):
So you build these businesses up. So talk a little
bit about from from your three bedrooms, right, to 325 employees.
Like what are some of the things on that journey
as a business owner? Because I talk a lot about breakpoints,
you know, 3 million, 8 million, 15 million. Like, what
(16:54):
were your personal kind of professional and financial break points
while you scaled and grew your business to 55 million?
S1 (17:01):
God, we could spend all day talking about this. Um,
you know, it's I remember employee number one, like the
the decision to hire the first guy to help me
out doing some of this stuff. And for me, I
had I've never had a job. I mean, I was
a drug dealer and a and a stickup kid until
I got sober and then and worked at construction a
(17:22):
little bit and then started this business. And so I was,
I was learning how to fly the plane in, you know,
at 40,000ft for all of it. And so, you know, I,
I started sales and, and seeing needs and services and
things that, that this population needed. And so I started
to meet those needs which grew my business. And then
(17:44):
I started to build and hire team members. And before
I knew it, I just kind of figured it out.
And in 2011, I think, yeah, 2011, I was 3
or 4 years in, I, I cleared my first million dollars. Wow.
And so net profit, I made my first million bucks,
you know, not bad from 21 years old homeless heroin
(18:05):
addict getting sober with two pairs of clothes, sleeping on
a couch to 26 years old. I made my first million.
And you know, as I grew, there were a lot
of things that I had to figure out. I had
to figure out how to create systems. You know, when
I had one facility, it was a totally different animal.
And I there were so many unexpected things from when
(18:26):
I opened to I.
S2 (18:28):
Tell, like, I have the rule of three, right? So
my rule of three is you never go from 1
to 2. You go from 1 to 3, and then
3 to 9 and then 9 to 27. And that's
true for hiring people, and it's true for opening new facilities.
I love that.
S1 (18:41):
I've actually never heard that before, and I.
S2 (18:42):
Love that. That's just from the. All the my own,
you know, buying 130 businesses and then franchising and and
licensing and then and then all the research I did
on the thousands of industries that we broke down from
2009 to 2019. Anytime I saw the average business owner
go from 1 to 2, they'd go broke. Yeah, because
it's easy in your mind to go. I can rationalize
(19:05):
to until the second one's not working and it pulls
you off the one. But if you have to go
to three, then you pause and you're like, well, I
don't have the resources to go to three, and I
certainly don't have the team to go to three, and
I don't have the systems to go to three, so
I better build on that before I go to three. Yeah.
And it causes you to think differently. Same with an employee.
You can always hire one person. But now if it
(19:26):
doesn't go right you're like, is it me? Is it them?
You need context and contrast. You hire two and one's
doing great and one sucks. You're like, it's not me,
it's the employee I got to get rid of. Yep.
But every time you just do a one off thing,
you don't have any context or contrast. And it's easy
to rationalize it. But it's hard to execute it. Absolutely.
So you went to two and you're getting banged around
(19:48):
a bit.
S1 (19:49):
And, you know, I think a key leading characteristic to
entrepreneurs is optimism. Because I got banged around as being modest.
I got my ass kicked every day growing that business.
And I went from 1 to 2 and 2 to
3 and 3 to 4. And all of a sudden,
you know, five years, six years have passed 20, 16, 17.
(20:11):
And I have a real business. I have hundreds of employees,
I have multiple multiple sites, and I'm doing big numbers
and revenue, and I'm making a ton of money. And
I don't know the first thing about a leadership team,
about an org chart, about KPIs, about systems. You know,
all of that was a foreign language to me. No
(20:33):
one had. I didn't have any mentors. I didn't have
any teachers or anyone to learn from that had participated
in business at that level. And mind you, I'm, I
live in New Hampshire. I grew up in New Hampshire.
I'm not just one of the biggest companies at this
point in the state. That's not a national chain. And
so I just didn't have really people to learn from.
And I had 20 something direct reports at that time.
(20:55):
I had everybody, I had HR, finance, each facilities executive director, admissions, marketing.
I just, you know, I had everyone reporting to me.
I had just all kind of mid-level managers and no, no,
no C-level and no top tier executives. And so one
(21:15):
of the things that's interesting that I did, you talk
about those little moments, like being number three for the police, uh,
school or whatever, that change your life forever. I always, like,
did my best to put myself in the room and
put myself around the best people. And I would describe myself,
and I would describe most successful entrepreneurs as a sponge. Right?
I like to ask more questions and listen more than
(21:37):
I like to talk, because I'm able to get a
lot of value that way. And so one of the
things that I did was I bought an incredibly expensive
to me at the time, home in New Hampshire, and
got into this neighborhood and hear those, like, tattooed former
criminal guy that owns drug rehabs moving into the most
prestigious neighborhood in the state. 2017 I'm walking my dog and, um,
(22:00):
through the neighborhood and I see one of the neighbors,
guy named a wonderful man, one of the greatest mentors
and teachers I've ever had. Um, and his name is Joe.
And I see Joe and he's all happy. Joe talking
to him. He says, man, man, I just closed my deal.
I said, what do you what do you mean, you
close your deal? So I just sold my business for
and it's his business. But it was a much I
(22:20):
had a nine figure exit. So did he. His was
much larger than mine. He did very well. And he
told me about it and I was like. And it
just sparked. I'd never met anyone that had sold a
company before. I'd never considered selling my company before. I
never I knew nothing about it and it just gave
me this, this crack. The door cracked open, this little
P call into like, oh, there's a lot more for
(22:41):
me to learn here. This guy just sold his business
for hundreds of millions of dollars. And so I just
asked him, I said, Joe, you know, would you be
willing to have lunch with me? I just want to
ask you some questions and and learn more about this.
We got lunch the next week, and, um, and that
really opened the door into my self-education process of learning
business at the level in which it takes to participate
(23:03):
in private equity, M&A and all of that. And eventually
it was his family office that invested the first three rounds.
And so it was the best thing that ever happened
to me. And, um, he bought I sold them, uh,
I sold them 10% for, at a $40 million valuation
for 4 million bucks. I sold them shortly thereafter, another
(23:27):
ten for five, and then I sold them. Uh, and
then the business valuation went up to 80 million, and
I sold them, uh. I forget the percentage is 18.75%
or something like that. It's like, um, I took another
15 million off the table.
S2 (23:44):
So let's talk about that for a second. You know, you, uh,
most business owners don't understand what happens when you take
a slug of money off the table. Yeah.
S1 (23:53):
You could sleep at night, you mean.
S2 (23:55):
And and your confidence level. And all of a sudden. Yeah.
Because it seems easier when you build faster because you're not.
S1 (24:01):
Absolutely does it? Absolutely does. It gives you confidence and
it gives you speed. Because when I was built, I
never took a dollar of investment money or a dollar
a debt. I started the business at the beginning of
the recession of 2008. Banking was shut down. And so
I just got used to making money, earn the money
and putting it back into the business. And so you
(24:24):
talked about like having nine figure value. There's a lot
difference between having a business that's worth nine figures and
having that liquidity. And and so everything I had was
in the business and all the money that was making,
I was living a very modest lifestyle for the numbers
that I was touching and all the money that the
business was making, I was putting right back in. So
every single problem that the business had, every HR issue,
(24:45):
every time we got sued by an employee, every regulatory
issue felt like I was dodging headshots in the matrix
because I'm like, fuck, if this one sticks, I'm dead.
And when I was able to take that money off
the table, I was like, okay, I can I could
take a hit in the business and not have to, like,
move out of my house like I can. I have
a contingency plan with this money that's off the table.
(25:08):
And so that certainly helped. The other thing that I
don't think a lot of business owners understand is the
value add of bringing sophisticated people to the table, the value.
All in all, he gave me, I think, uh, $24 million.
He gave me 24 million bucks, um, to in those
(25:29):
three parts put together, that is nothing compared to the
education that I got in the several years that we
were partners. And the experience that I had with that,
that that was invaluable. It really was.
S2 (25:43):
This. And this is the basis and the genesis for
why we started, uh, our business, you know, uh, to
be that resource for people before they have to take
on the dilution. Yeah. And, uh, my frustration is we
help people and then help them achieve some huge results,
and they don't actually recognize or acknowledge that.
S1 (26:02):
So I'll tell you, let me speak on that for
a second. He gave me $23 million. He was in
the business for a little less than two years. We
spent together and we sold it for 115 million. He
walked with an additional 23 million. He put 23 million in.
He walked with 56, doubled his money in less than
two years. People look at that and I tell that
(26:23):
story and they're like, damn, you gave up a lot.
I'm like, did I, did I? Because I don't know
if I ever sell that business for 115 million. Without
that partnership, I didn't have the information that got us
over the finish line. I wasn't prepared to do that
in 2019, when he looked at me, a young entrepreneur,
and believed in me and wrote a multimillion dollar check
(26:45):
into my business and then took the time to educate
me and mentor me and teach me these things and
guide me and answer every. I would call that guy.
I'm not. If you're in my Rolodex and I'm learning
from you, I am not bashful. Like I will call you.
And I called that man so many times like, hey,
what do you think about this? What do you think
about that? I'm thinking this. I want to go left,
you know, just. And he was part of my think
(27:06):
tank for that two years and so. You know, God
bless him.
S2 (27:13):
And he.
S1 (27:14):
Should make that.
S2 (27:14):
Money. And you can't like for anybody that's never been
through the process. Most of sales processes fail.
S1 (27:22):
People don't. I tell them I run a coaching group
where I coach entrepreneurs. I get 80 people that own mid, mid,
you know, mid-market sized businesses. I tell them that all
the time. They think that they could just bring the
market to sell it at any given time and make,
you know, all this money. I'm like 90 something percent
of businesses that ever go to market fail because you're
not ready, you're not prepared. You don't understand what you're
(27:43):
dealing with, and you're dealing with the most sophisticated business
people on planet Earth. Like, I don't care what anyone says.
Those guys in those private equity companies were significantly smarter
than I was. And thank God I had the the
help and the team with me to navigate that process.
I mean, that process. I decided to sell the business
in March of 2021, and we closed in December. It
(28:04):
was a ten month process, and it was it was
every waking minute of the day for ten months.
S2 (28:10):
And the the quality of earnings audits, the going under
the covers.
S1 (28:14):
The due diligence.
S2 (28:16):
You're having somebody who's been through that, who can organize
the business before it happens. We did.
S1 (28:20):
Yeah. We with the guidance and and the team that
we put together, which was my partner Joe, myself. And
then the other thing that people don't understand is incredibly
important is your advisory group. And so, uh, we had
the right investment banker, we had the right M&A legal team,
we had the right tax people, and we had the
right group. We were able to create such a competitive
(28:42):
process for that business that we had. We went out
to a buyer list of 100 and something people we
received like 40, uh, indication eyes, they call them indication
of interest. Like, hey, we've we've looked at your deck.
We're interested. Here's a range of valuation that we believe
your company falls under. And then we narrowed that down
(29:02):
and took, uh, Eloise from like, the top 15. And
then we we took management meetings from nine out of
the 15 groups. We dismissed six.
S2 (29:13):
I just want everybody to listen to this because here's
the thing. I. I tell this to people, I don't
know that they believe me, but I'm going to repeat it.
I say the difference between the bullshitters, the oh, I've
got an internet company that can make you millions and
scale and grow you. And there's more of that bullshit, like,
I can spot these guys a mile away. I tell
people three questions you want to ask anybody. You're going
(29:35):
to get advice for question number one, what's the most
amount of money you've ever made in a year? Question
number two, what's the biggest thing you personally have ever built,
quantified by revenues, number of employees and profitability? And question
three what's the biggest exit you've ever had in your life?
Because I've seen people build $100 million businesses to only
get 10 or 15 million. And I've seen people build
$30 million businesses like me who got 150 million. So
(29:55):
I want to learn from the ones that actually engineered it.
S1 (29:57):
Yep.
S2 (29:58):
The best. Right? So I tell people, the truth is
when somebody has done something, they never forget it. Like
you're talking about something that happened in the past. True
or false? When you go through the grind and you're
in those moments wondering, is this going to close? Is
it not going to close? Oh, we should have crossed
(30:18):
that t oh that I didn't get dotted. Oh, that
person that I didn't get a release from is going
to sneak back and try to get a piece of
the deal now and leverage me like like when you
go through it, you never forget a detail.
S1 (30:32):
100%.
S2 (30:33):
From everything. That's all. I can rattle it off. You
said like you said, my, I remember my first employee
I hired and now you're talking about the transaction. Yeah.
And the micro details. You can tell because when somebody
when you go what's the when you ask those questions,
I was like, oh, I can't really talk about it.
That's because it's bullshit. Yeah. Because anybody that's done it,
it's going to be proud.
S1 (30:53):
To talk about 100%.
S2 (30:55):
And and I tell people that's how you flesh out
the more details somebody can give you, it means they
actually did it. And this is true when you're trying
to hire leadership and they're like, oh, I built a
company from 10 million to 100 million. I know all
about it. And you're like, great, talk to me about
the year you did ten. What did you do next
and what did you do next? And if they can't
tell you they didn't do it. That's right. They weren't
that close to it 100%. So I love this conversation
(31:18):
because man, it's like looking through a microscope. Right. And
and you and I have been through that colonoscopy. Yep.
Without getting put under. Yeah. Because you're wide awake while
it's going on because you're paying attention to it and
you can.
S1 (31:31):
Die at any time. It's like, remember that game where
they pick the bones out of the bodies as a kid,
and if you hit the walls, the buzzer goes off. Yeah,
that's what every day feels like. Like every day just
feels like this thing could blow up at any moment.
At any moment, you know it. To finish saying we,
we we successfully managed to bring that down to two groups,
(31:54):
and we didn't award exclusivity to both of those groups
until they both had finished due diligence in the business.
And so that was just an unbelievably masterful technique that
I was I can't take full credit for as a
part of it. Um, and so we had to reimburse
the runner up, the person we left at the altar, uh,
(32:17):
a portion of their fees. And if we didn't go
with them and we. But we got through the process.
S2 (32:23):
Money well spent, by the.
S1 (32:24):
Way, money well spent. Because the entire time they're looking
for leverage. And so we kept leverage. We kept them
in a competitive process until seven days before we closed.
S2 (32:33):
I try to tell business owners like, I like, they're like, oh, no,
I got my guy. I'm like, you're already.
S1 (32:38):
You're already screwed. You're so screwed. I got a guy
in my coaching program, I could strangle him because he's
already tried to sell the business one time and had
a failed process, and it was to a strategic it's
in the food and food and beverage industry. And they
they came back in the process. I'm like, you know what?
You know, this isn't for us. And they left it alone,
stuck them with $1 million bag of fees, shove legal, etc.. Right.
(33:01):
And and he came back whooped. And that was about
a year ago. And now recently he's like, no, this
other strategic they want to buy me. No. You don't understand.
They're serious about it. I'm like, buddy, do you know
what an off market deal is? Do you understand what. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Why do people like off market deals? Well, because it's
not competitive and you can get it for a good price.
(33:22):
So what do you think you are right now? You
know what I mean? And I just, I cringe at
anyone that's going to sell a business in most situations
that isn't going to take it out for a competitive process.
S2 (33:34):
Well, how are you.
S1 (33:35):
Going to get maximum value? How do you know what
it's worth? You and I have an auction process.
S2 (33:39):
Those guys are getting bullshitted, and they're and and they
don't want to pay fees. They're d and cheese. Yeah.
And they got it all figured out. This is the
problem with with entrepreneurs. I've had a little bit of success.
They think they've got it all figured.
S1 (33:52):
Yep. They don't have the first clue.
S2 (33:54):
And that's why 90 some odd percent of those deals
fail or they get so crammed down on it at
the end and they're looking at that initial check. They
give their business away.
S1 (34:02):
Yeah, because they've spent the money before they get it.
That's right. And they get starstruck. They see stars and
and you know, becoming becoming a chief executive officer, a
builder of businesses, a strategy guy that can build something
that commands that much value was one skill set. I
would say equally equally as difficult and equally as different
(34:24):
was a skill set of becoming a guy that could
package that business and successfully sell it. And the problem is,
is that that most CEOs or business owners, entrepreneurs, founders
that I've dealt with, they don't understand that they're not
well equipped for this process just because they've successfully built
a business. This is an entirely different animal. It really is.
(34:45):
And so I was grateful for that first process to
have the advisory group and the partnership group that I
had with me, and that's really what we I mean,
we we crossed on that exit like we did. So
good for the market and for what that business was like.
We really did well. And we had two horses at
the end. We picked one, uh, and then, you know,
like everything else, nothing goes right. The group that we
(35:08):
didn't transact with ended up coming in and recruiting like
half of the leadership team. This is so, so this
is litigation threats and all this crazy stuff.
S2 (35:18):
This is the thing I try to tell business owners
half the time when they're like, oh, I got a
strategic and they want to buy me and they just.
S1 (35:23):
Want to sniff.
S2 (35:24):
Sniff under your hood and.
S1 (35:25):
They.
S2 (35:26):
Should steal and poach from you and find out any
ideas they don't have. And you're stupid enough to give
them the data room because you don't know what you're doing. Yep.
And and you don't have the right non disclosures non
competes non solicitations. You don't have all those elements because
you're working with some hack lawyer in your hometown. Look
dude you and I both know and we've seen it all.
(35:48):
And so for this show building billions with Brandon it
isn't just about building $1 billion business. And I and
in my book nine figure mindset, this book right here,
it's coming to market in September. You should be pre-ordering
that right now. We'll put a link in on where
you can order that from. It talks about how to
get your mind right. Here's what. Here's what. When I
(36:09):
was building my first business, I was I mean, everyone
said I couldn't do a high school graduate. They said,
you know, at least likely to succeed. And there I am.
I get my first million, I raise, and then I
go out and get my buy, my first million dollar business.
And the next thing you know, I'm 130 million in businesses.
I acquired and and I've raised $38 million and I
listed on the American Stock Exchange at 29 years old.
(36:31):
If you try to tell me anything at 29 years old,
I would have said, dude, I came from nothing. I've
got a public company on Wall Street. I've acquired all
these businesses. I've raised all this capital. I'm innovating this space.
What do you know? That's what you. That's what, 29th
(36:53):
at 31, Warburg said. Hey, thanks for all your hard work.
These documents that you didn't know what you signed. We
just liquidated your company and fuck off. Yeah. And by
the way, you get nothing because we had an internal
rate of return of 18 to 22% before you get anything.
I woke up one day. I was at the peak
of my career, May of 2001, and I was at
(37:15):
the lowest point of my life. In June 1st of 2001,
like literally a two week window where I was at
the absolute peak, like everything in my life seemed like
it was going to go through the moon. And then
two weeks later, I was relieved of command with my
company being sold without me being able to do anything
about it. Wild things can change fast in this game,
(37:39):
and that's why when you use that analogy of the buzzer,
like every day, you're living like that. Yeah, all the
way until you find that's why that exit consummating the
exit and that wire, I.
S1 (37:50):
Oh, I talk about that dude.
S2 (37:52):
How so for me, I was.
S1 (37:54):
There for me. I was in Spain.
S2 (37:56):
And my bank got the wire, got down to two
minutes before it was cut off. And it still hadn't
got the email confirmation yet. Tell me about the window
of time where you waited that last ten hours for
that wire to hit the account we had.
S1 (38:13):
You know, I don't know why in my head, closing
was going to be much more dramatic than it was.
It was a I was with nobody. I was with
my my now chief operating officer that's still with me, uh,
Lori Boudreau and we were in my conference room and
we got on a call and the lawyers were on,
and the buyer was on, and and, you know, they
just ran over some stuff and they said, all right,
(38:35):
you know, we're ready to close. And everyone kind of
sounded off and said, yep, clear to close. And said, Eric,
you you clear to close? I said, clear to close.
And it was like a six minute phone call, and
I we got off the call and I remember that
just the I probably the deepest breath I've ever taken
in my life. And I was like, oh. And then
(38:56):
I got Merrill Lynch for banking and one of them.
And so I got the online, you know, app or
whatever it is, Merrill Lynch app. And all day I'm
sitting there looking at refreshing, refreshing, refreshing, refreshing. This is
what I was. I was eating refresh. So it was
five and then 5:00 hit and I was like, no wire.
And it was like 630 at night. And I kind
(39:18):
of given up. I'm like, all right, maybe it's coming
the next day, you know? And I just picked up
my phone and went thing. And it went from a
good sized number to a, Holy shit, I've never seen
that much money in my life, you know? And that
thing hit and I was like, wow. Wow. But, you know,
one thing that's not talked about often is what happens
(39:40):
after the sale. And I think I know I would
assume that you have had similar experiences, like I made
it a couple months. People are funny. People are funny.
They think that like getting a boat and and being
on the beach and going out to restaurants and like
not having anything to do and not having anywhere to
be is being kind of retired is like the jam,
(40:02):
you know what I mean? I was 36 years old
with tens and tens and tens and tens of millions
of dollars in the bank and a house in Miami.
I'd already bought my jet. I'd already bought a big
ass 95 foot yacht. I had, you know, a giant
house up north, my my beautiful home here. And I
didn't have a care in the world. And I made
it like a couple months. I was going out at
(40:23):
night and, you know, doing all this stuff, blowing money
and and lit, like, living for the, you know. And
I was I woke up one day and I was like,
this sucks.
S3 (40:34):
I think this is.
S1 (40:34):
Terrible and I learned a lot about myself in those months.
I was like, I am not a guy that can
just do this. I need a mission. I need to
be doing and building and growing and doing something. And so, um,
you know, I did Bradlee's podcast a while back, and
he was making fun of me a little bit because
I was like, you know, Brad, I'm I'm certainly got
(40:56):
more money than I've ever had in my entire life,
but I'm working as hard, if not harder than I've
ever worked in my entire life. And he's like, you're
doing it wrong, brother. I'm like, that might be your perspective.
I feel like I'm doing it right because I love
I love this shit, I love.
S2 (41:07):
Brad, but let me tell you something. That's just that.
That's coming from somebody who has not actually experienced what
you and I experienced. Good point, because I sold my business,
but part of the deal was I did a 36
month integration and took the billion dollar company to 4.5 billion.
Then I had two years left. And they're like, you
way overachieved. Just do special projects for us. So then
I was like, okay, so I made it about a year.
S4 (41:33):
And I was.
S2 (41:33):
Running around with all my billionaire friends playing golf. Go
into your eating every night. Gained £35. Yep. And one
day I met Natalie and I were flying back. I
get emotional talking about it and I had that meltdown.
I was like.
S1 (41:46):
This sucks.
S2 (41:47):
I was at a lower point. Then when Warburg sold
out from underneath me. Yep.
S1 (41:52):
I did my brother.
S2 (41:53):
With all that money.
S1 (41:54):
In the bank. I feel you and. And the stresses of.
You want to see almost every relationship that you've ever
had change. Yep. It's all your business 100%. The fucking
loneliness of that. And then you're miserable and you got
all this fancy shit, and it looks great from the outside.
Who the fuck wants to hear you complain? Who wants
(42:16):
to listen to that? Like, who do you talk to?
You're like, what am I going to call some one
of my buddies up and be like, you know, this,
this hundred million is really terrible, you know? And so
it was really lonely. It was really depressing. I was miserable, um, and,
and I just made the decision. I was like, I,
I am a guy that has to wake up and
have a mission and go build every single day. And
(42:38):
at this point, I'm convinced I'll probably do that until
the day they bury me.
S2 (42:41):
Because you and I are so alike. I mean, we
we I just love it. Yeah. Uh, the I had
that meltdown. I'm talking. It was a meltdown. Yeah.
S1 (42:49):
No doubt.
S2 (42:50):
I bawled like a little baby. And my wife, uh,
girlfriend at the time.
S1 (42:55):
Because. Because in that moment. And I did, too, in
that moment for me, I realized that all of this
is very cool and I'm very grateful. But it's not
what I thought it would be. Yeah. And it's not
what most people think it would ever be. It's much different.
It doesn't do what most people think it's going to do.
And that moment of truth and epiphany for me was painful.
(43:19):
And yeah, I mean, well.
S2 (43:21):
And and part of it is too is I've gone
backwards that analogy of the the doctor game and the
buzzer going off. It's the boiling frog theory. You don't
really even if you're not, the stress of building doesn't
seem that hard. All of a sudden when you realize
I like I did it and now I'm the I'm.
(43:45):
I might. Pissing my life away like I don't deserve
it now because I'm not contributing anymore. Yeah. And and
so that happened at the end of 18. And that
inspired us to figure out what to do next. And
that's how we found Grant. Elena. I took all my
business stuff and said, I'm I'm going to go. I
had done ten years of research to do something bigger.
(44:06):
The other thing was, is like, I actually got to
a place like, do I really want to go do
it again? And then that's when I took the year off.
And then I felt so because it was my life's
dream to go change small business. And so we activated,
went and saw Grant and Elena at Growth. Con did
all this research on different influencers and what they did
and who we might align with, and they didn't know
(44:27):
who we were and and went to that and then
approached them. And then here we are later, literally. It
was 48 months ago. We generated our first revenue June
of 19, and we did $200,000 in June of 19.
It was me, Natalie, and one other gal that works
for us. June of this year, we did a, uh,
(44:49):
13.5 million.
S5 (44:51):
That's so cool.
S2 (44:52):
So in four years, I've built something with Grant and
Elena and Natalie. Five times bigger than what I spent
14 years building. My EBITDA this year will be 20%
larger than my revenue was the year I sold. Amazing. Imagine.
S1 (45:12):
Imagine how.
S2 (45:12):
When you actually can channel and get in the.
S1 (45:15):
Flow the the experience of of like as you were
talking about earlier, about people that know the details and
have been on the battlefield and, and gone all that.
You know, I'm experiencing the same thing now in the
company that I'm building. You know, we launched, uh, we
started it a year ago, maybe 13, 14 months ago,
(45:37):
and generated our first dollar of revenue, which for us
means a patient admitted and treated on New Year's Day.
And we've, you know, we're in our seventh month of
operation and we're in the black. We're producing even though
we we have our second and third locations in development.
And so the second time is so much faster than
(45:58):
the first. You know, one of the I heard a
quote and I'll mess it up. Uh, but it was
really impactful to me and it came to me at
the right time, because when it was when I was
going through that transition and it said, you know, it's
really dangerous for a man to climb a mountain and
get to the top and not have another mountain to climb. Um.
S2 (46:17):
That's a that's a good quote there.
S1 (46:19):
And I was like, damn, I need a mountain to climb.
And so, you know, the things that have become important
to me today are relationships and people, time and and
winning every day. And I think about winning every day
as not, you know, money and success and all these
things count in that. But like, did I live a
day today that I could be proud of? You know,
(46:41):
I went when I was like playing tennis and going
out and staying out till three in the morning and
spending money on stupid shit and and having a lot
of fun. I had a lot of fun, but I
wasn't really proud of it. You know what I mean?
It was a proud of what I was doing every day. And, um,
and so now, like, you know, um, I'm grinding, I'm working,
and and you are too. And building something to be
proud of, like what you just said about the revenue
(47:03):
growth in your business. Like, that's something like, damn, that
feels good. That feels good. Better than having the money itself.
You know.
S2 (47:09):
I think that's where I think that's an interesting thing
that we'll end the show with is, is it's the conquering.
S1 (47:18):
Yeah. It's the.
S2 (47:19):
Journey. It is not, it's not, it's the hunt and
and it's the journey. It's not when you arrive at
the destination. Because what you just said about that mountain.
S1 (47:27):
Yeah, it's, it's I, I roast guys on um, in
my comments on Instagram all the time. I'll speak up
and they always say some. And it speaks to, to
the psychology of people at whatever level you describe them at.
And they say things like, oh, with all that money,
you're not happy. I said, brother, you're the materialistic one.
You're the one that thinks money to make you happy.
(47:48):
I love the process. I love the game. I love
the hunt, the kill. You know, I'm here because I'm
having a blast. And so.
S2 (47:55):
And I know, I know for because I can just
already tell how how much you and I vibe. The
other thing is to you look at all the people
you surround yourself with and you want to go create
that for them. You want them to get to experience 100%. Yeah,
that's for me, a big motivation. How many thousands of
people can I drive in their success equation to be
able to reach the level that I reached? And I'm
(48:18):
just smart enough to know that if I get thousands
of them, I'm going to be a billionaire. Yeah, you'll.
S3 (48:22):
Be doing you'll be doing okay yourself.
S2 (48:25):
Well, look, Eric, uh, what a great interview, you know?
Thank you, thank you.
S1 (48:28):
I appreciate you having me.
S2 (48:29):
Yeah, absolutely. And I know you and I are going
to do some things together. Uh, we don't know exactly
what that is yet, but we are definitely going to
do some things together. Hey, if you liked this interview,
if you found it informative, um, educational, interesting. Leave a review,
you know, share it. Uh, like it? This is what
inspires me to continue to do these shows, and it's
(48:51):
what inspires a guy like Eric to show up and
come spend time with me. And maybe you learned a
lot if you were listening into this thing, you know,
in the process from two guys that have been there
and done it and, uh, that, that our pocketbooks will
show that we're not bullshitters it's not what we say,
it's what we did. And so if you want to
know how to get your mind right, to get your
(49:11):
money right and achieve a nine figure exit, then you
first got to achieve a nine figure mindset, because it
really is going to be about what's going on. Going
on up there. Thank you for joining me, Eric. Thank you.
Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for
joining me on another episode of Building Billions with Brandon Dawson.
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