The Main Man: How Anthony Caliendo Built an Empire Through Sheer Determination

Episode Transcript
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Voice Over (00:00):
This is iDesign Lab, a podcast where creativity and
curiosity meet style and design.
Curator of interiors,furnishings and lifestyles.
Hosted by Tiffany Woolley, aninterior designer and a style
enthusiast, along with herserial entrepreneur husband
Scott, idesign Lab is yourultimate design podcast where we
explore the rich and vibrantworld of design and its constant

(00:23):
evolution in style and trends.
Idesign Lab provides industryinsight, discussing the latest
trends, styles and everything inbetween to better help you
style your life, through advicefrom trendsetters, designers,
influencers, innovators,fabricators and manufacturers,
as well as personal stories thatinspire, motivate and excite.

(00:43):
And join us on this elevated,informative and lively journey
into the world of all thingsdesign.
Today, on the iDesign Lab,we're joined by Anthony Caliendo
, entrepreneur, internationalbest-selling author,
motivational speaker, chef andthe powerhouse behind Florida's
number one business brokerage.
From dominating Wall Street toproducing hit films and

(01:06):
launching his own food empire,the main man does it all with
unmatched drive and charisma.
Get ready to be inspired.

Tiffany Woolley (01:13):
Welcome to the iDesignLab podcast.
Today we have Anthony Caliendoin our house here, who is the
main man who has designed quitea life.

Anthony Caliendo (01:25):
Yes.

An entrepreneurial life at that.
So tell us the main man.

I'm going to give you the story of the main
man, tell us a little aboutyourself.
We'll give you kind of what ledup to the main man also.

Scott Woolley (01:37):
Okay, because you have trucks, vehicles you have
like a lot.
I'm a branding guy.
You are At the end of the day.

I say this in one of my books called the Sales
.

Assassin that I wrote.
It was my first book that Iwrote and if you're not
remembered, you're forgotten,right, and that's the problem
with most people that you needto be remembered.
You know, and when peopleremember you, you know you can
contact them five years, tenyears down the road, and they
don't forget you.
So how do you get people not toforget?

you To be unforgettable.

Unforgettable.
I'm an unforgettable guy.
So as a kid always had a dreamof being successful, grew up
with a mother who raised threekids and we were poor.
We didn't have much money.
Where did you grow up so inChicago and then moved down to
Florida, believe it or not, whenI was 12.
And my mom transferred down toFlorida and she met a nice

(02:31):
Jewish guy named Don Beagle.
He's still today the onlyJewish guy I ever met that
couldn't make money, that's afunny joke, but it's true, right
.
You know.
So you know, having a childhoodwhere you have a bad deck of
cards, right you?
Know, sometimes people don'tget lucky Like my wife and my

(02:52):
kids, who we have eight kids.
They're in a different position.
I was in a position where I hadto go out there and change my
stars.

Voice Over (03:00):
I love that.

So the only way to change your stars is to
figure out roughly what you needto do.
So my grandfather as a kid andI'm kind of going back a little
bit so you understand mymentality Sure Right, because
with every person there'ssomething inside of them that
triggers them, that makes themmove, that makes them go, that
makes them tick that moment,right yeah.
So, as a kid, my grandfathersaid to me he said, anthony,

(03:23):
your father's not around, yourmother's raising three kids.
You know what are you doing?
I said I'm 12 years old, I'm inschool.
He said what are you going toschool for?
I says what do you mean?
You go to school when you're myage.
Yeah, he goes.
Listen to me, you're a man in ahouse even though you're 12,
you know, we're an old schoolItalian family.
You need to go get jobs, youneed to help your mother.

(03:45):
And I'm like, okay, he's got apoint.
So I said well, why do you saythat?
He goes nothing againstteachers?
They do an amazing job.
They teach children that theysacrifice.
But the only thing a teacher isreally going to teach you is
how to be broke.
And I said what?

Voice Over (04:01):
do you mean?

He says nothing against teachers.
I don't want to get the wrongthing here.
You know in your head becausethey're amazing people, teachers
but they're not going to showyou how to become very
successful and to make a lot ofmoney and they're in a position
where they're probably nevergoing to make a lot of money.
But that's the life they chose.

Correct.
So the question is what?

life.
Do you want to choose?
Where do you want to go withyour life?
And I said I want it all.
I don't want to be that personwho's mad, didn't have a father
around that grew up with asingle mother, use that as your
superpower.
I didn't want to be that kid,so being when I was younger, you
know, of course I had ADD, adhd, I think I had it all, don't

(04:43):
all?

most of us, you name it, I had it all and I
feel like successful people dohave that, but they didn't label
you back then.

Correct, I wasn't labeled as a kid.
Yeah, okay.
So even though I was edgy, Iwas always didn't want to sit,
still Busy, I was always busy.
I didn't want to go to that tome about that I said.

You know, maybe he's got a point, so I come home
.

Voice Over (05:08):
I go mom, I'm quitting school, and she says
quitting school.
What do you mean?
You're quitting?

school I said grandpa told me that I'm gonna
be broke if I listen to theteacher basically, and I need to
work to help you, or to atleast help the family, or or
figure out how to how tocontribute, right?
She says, well, that's notgonna happen, you're not
quitting school, right?
So I went to school and then Irealized at eighth grade, all
the way up to your senior yearnot now, they don't do this, but

(05:32):
I was what?
13, maybe 12 or 13.
They allowed you to get out ofschool at 1030 to have a work
experience in the work program.
So I'm like, well, this is great, I don't want to sit in school.
Anyways, I'm probably nevergoing to use most of this crap
they're teaching me Totally.
So I'll go out and I'll getjobs.
So I went home and I said Mom,how about this compromise?
She says, you know, as long asyou graduate high school unlike

(06:00):
your father and unlike myselfokay, because my parents didn't
graduate high school you know,my mother had three kids when
she was 19.

So young probably, yeah, 19 years old.

So I said I'm going to graduate high school,
but I'm going to go to workexperience.
So at 12 or 13, I had threejobs.
So what were your first job ortwo?
So I was always hustling as akid.
So it started when I wasprobably eight or nine.
I mean, you're talking to a guywho was going to the golf
course you know selling lemonadeand golf balls.

(06:26):
I used to swim in the lakes atnine, 10 years old.
I swim in the lakes, grab allthe golf balls, put them in egg
cartons and then go to the golfcourse and sell them.
Okay, and then it got a littleaggressive, you know, because my
parents were still married atthe time.
They didn't separate till I waslike 10.
So one day at the golf coursemy dad's like listen, why don't
you go to the golf course andsell beer?

(06:47):
You know, I said you could dothat, you know.
so of course I didn't know, Iwas like 10 years old, so I got
my golf balls, my lemonade and acooler of beer and next thing,
you know, the golf security cameand said you can't sell beer
and my dad made a joke out of itlike it was funny, right, you

(07:07):
know, but I did it right.
So as far as kind of my career,and where is it going and how
did it start, it all started asa child and trying to figure out
how to outwork everybody.
I wasn't the smartest tool inthe shed.
I graduated high school, Ididn't go to college, but I knew
my drive and my passion and mydedication and you know it was

(07:27):
relentless, it was nonstop.

You know from.
So.
But did you want to be a boss?
Did you want to just work tomake money?
Did you have any ambition ofwhere you wanted to go?
I love selling.

I mean I used to sell waterless, greaseless
cookware door to door at 16years old Okay, greaseless
cookware door-to-door at 16years old, okay, wow.
So as a kid I always said youknow what can I do?
I mean working three jobs.
I mean I started in washingdishes Five days a week.
I worked at I'll never forget,it was here in Hollywood the
Vineyards Italian Restaurant.
Unbelievable Some people thatgrew up in that Miramar

(07:59):
Hollywood area remember that.
You remember it, I washed dishesfive days a week there, and
then on the weekends, I washeddishes at the epicurean
restaurant, which was breakfastand lunch.
Some people remember the epicyes I remember, you know, yeah
and then I worked at alouetteliquor store friday and saturday
night stocking, stocking theshelves.
So you know, as a kid I washustling right from grabbing my

(08:21):
lawnmower on my bike and pullingit behind me and knocking on
doors to cut lawns.
I mean, you name it, I hustled.
Nobody out-hustled me.
Well, you knew how to take yourenergy and channel it into
something, and that's why Inever really went to I guess you
could say the dark side.

Right.

And what I mean by that is when you grow up
in a rough area, you grow uparound people that are doing
drugs and crime and everythingelse.
You could wind up seeingyourself in a bad position.

I would think pretty quick.

But you were too busy for any of that.

That's what kept me strong, because I
occupied my time with workbecause I love to put the time
and the effort into the work andmy work ethic was insane.
But I love to have the money onme, right, okay, you know when
you don't have any effort intothe work and my work ethic was
insane, but I love to have themoney on me, right, okay, you
know when you don't have anymoney on you, when you're going
to school and the kids aremaking fun of you because you're
wearing bobos.
Do you remember that?
No the gym shoes, the blue oneswith the three stripes.

(09:15):
They were called bobos theybasically you'd get them from
the the blue light in Kmart,where they'd have the little
blue light, you know thing, in abin with Bobo's shoes.
So they even made a song withit and they used to sing it to
me as a kid, so I didn't want tosing the song because I'm such
a horrible singer.
But, people that are listenersthat grew up in the 80s.

(09:36):
They know what Bobo's are.

So at what point was it where your career started
to shape?
Because you're a best-sellingauthor, you're selling
businesses, you've produced amovie, started a movie.

You're diversified.

You've written a couple of books.

Voice Over (09:54):
You're educating and teaching people.

I mean you've got a cooking show, so at what
point was it that kind of yourlife and your direction, kind of
?

started to form when I got past that high
school education and realizedthat I wanted more.

You were free a little bit too.

You know, I actually started in the health
club business okay, right, and Imoved back to Chicago and tried
to basically have arelationship with my father, and
that didn't work.
He wound up, unfortunatelygoing to prison.
Have a relationship with myfather, and that didn't work.
He wound up unfortunately goingto prison for a long time and I
was on my own.
Now, now I'm in Chicago and I'mon my own, so I'm working in
the health club business sellinggym memberships at 18 years old

(10:37):
.

You know, I hear so many people because I
love podcasts, which is how Istarted this, but I feel like so
many sales entrepreneursstarted selling gym memberships.

It's crazy.
In the 80s it was huge.
I mean I would sell amembership for Chicago Health
Clubs At the time we had 26 gymsin Chicago and I would sign you
up for 36 months on a contractwhich was financed by another
company.
So you would finance amembership for three years at
like $60 a month and get freetanning, unlimited racquetball,

(11:10):
and we would sit there and wewould basically have you sign
these contracts for three yearsNow $10 a month and you can
cancel when you want.

I don't even understand how they stay open.
To be honest, it's so true.
Different model.

But the health club business molded me because
I worked 12 hours, 13 hours, 14hours a day.
They put me in a rough gym tostart and then, you know, I
started just beating everybodyin sales.
I just crushed everybody.
I was a young kid.
So one of the top managerssupervisors said you know, I'm

(11:45):
going to give you an opportunityto manage a gym.
He goes you're just amazing,I'm going to give you a gym, but
it's in the worst area ofChicago.

And I said thank you very much.

He goes you're going to go to Evergreen Park.
I went Evergreen Park.
Evergreen Park in Chicago isclose to the jail and all of the
gangs, every gang you canimagine in Chicago, goes to that
gym.
So I'm like so you're going toput me in a gym that's the worst
gym in Chicago and I said youknow what I'll take the

(12:17):
challenge.
That was what molded me to whatI am today.
It was that challenge at anearly age that they gave me the
worst possible gym you couldimagine, and I wound up going
there and I turned that gymcompletely around.
I got everybody on my side andI wound up remodeling the whole

(12:38):
gym.

Wow, they loved me.
So did you have a partnershipin this, or mainly just I was?

working for a company as a W-2 employee and as
a sales rep and I was given anopportunity and it was a
horrible, horrible opportunity,but it was an opportunity.
So if I can prove myself whatwas going to happen next, yep,
so that's kind of where it led.
I wound up at 19 buying myfirst house okay, at 19 years

(13:04):
old In Chicago or here InChicago Right over the border in
Indiana Okay.

It's a little cheaper.

Okay, I remember I bought a $72,000
house at 19 years old, you knowso.
Then I bought a limo for shitsand giggles and had fun with my
friends, and then I boat, youknow.
So I wound up making money andI wound up, you know it was
funny because I had a spendingissue.

I was going to say was that your drive?

to.
I just wanted stuff that Inever thought I would have.

So you know those were your bars that you
set for yourself.

The more I spent, the more I wanted to make
.
Correct Right, so they used tocall me Kelly Spendo.

Yeah, like Caliendo, but Kelly Spendo.
Yeah, like Kelly Endo, butKelly.

Spendo.
That led into me actuallybecoming a supervisor running
gyms six gyms At 23,.
They sold Chicago Health Clubsout to Bally, okay, and then
Bally bought them out.
And then the guy who molded mehis name is Al Phillips I'll

(14:04):
never forget him, the guy thatmolded me, who abused me.
You can't do this shit nowadays.
But this guy he took a liking tome because of what I did that
he didn't think I could do, andhe mentally abused me, right?
What I mean by that is we wouldhave 25 managers of men and 25

(14:27):
managers of women, and thenevery night we'd have to get on
a call and do our numbers right.
Well, I was in the worst gym inthe city right.
And he would just abuse me overthe phone, right, he'd just like
Kelly Endo, do me a favor.
He was English, right, so I'mnot good with his accent.
He would be like, you know, dome a favor, lock the doors and

(14:52):
shove the keys up your ass,right, you know, and, and and,
go home and don't come back.
And I was like what over thephone.
I'm like embarrassed, right,and then we show up for a
monthly meeting and he wouldannihilate me again, you know?
I mean, was there a reason hefelt and his mentality?
was that if he could create thatfire to make me mad enough to
want to produce, so he waspushing you.

(15:12):
It was his way, but his wayworked.
Okay, could I do that now?
People would cry now, if I saidthat they would go in their
home and say oh my God, thatcannot happen.
But that's the differencebetween sometimes the world has
changed.
Everybody wants to be nice.
There was no nice.

Either produce or go home.
That was it.
There was no discussion aboutit.

So the pressure as an 18, 19-year-old
kid was massive, because I wasthe one that was, but you
handled it well.
I learned that I can accept itand I can turn it right.
I can overcome it and turn itinto something positive because
I did not like to be embarrassed.
To this day, my own childrenwhich I have eight children to

(16:01):
this day my own children knowthe last thing they want to do
is embarrass me in front ofanybody.

Voice Over (16:07):
Okay, that's like your.

I said listen.

I've embarrassed my whole life as a
kid.

Voice Over (16:11):
Wow.

You know, as you can tell, I'm, you know,
probably six inches from being alittle person, I'm sure Right,
you know some Italians are, soof course you get picked on as a
kid.
And then I got some crazyEnglishman abusing me mentally
to try to get me to produce.

I mean, it sounds like a horror story, right, but
you overcame it and youachieved what you were, and
that's the difference between,in my opinion, winners and
losers, right.

Which is why I wrote that book, the Sales
Assassin, that first book that Iwrote, the Sales Assassin.

Was he the assassin?

I was the sales assassin.
Okay, what happened was as a kid.
One day I was like 21, and Iwas with a group of people and
they were kind of snobby.
It was the north side ofChicago, wealthy people, right,
and they're like you know well,what do you do?
And I said, well, I'm a gymmanager.
They're like you know gymmanager.
So you're just a salesman,right, is that what?
You are, a salesman?

(17:05):
And I'm with some doctors,attorneys, I'm just a young kid
and I go no, no, no, I'm not asalesman, I'm a sales assassin.
There's a difference.
And that's how the book wasformed, I called myself a sales
assassin, skipping oversomething.

You know, at 19 , I opened up my first martial
arts school which is anotherreason.

So was that your first entrepreneurial?
The first entrepreneur was mydojo, right Okay, which was
called the Asian Fighting ArtsAcademy.

Joe Gautier, which I'll have to send this to
him because he loves when I talkabout him, because he was an
amazing person.
But how did you jump to thatwhen you were involved in
martial arts?

I liked it.
When I was a kid, I didwrestling.
I was a kid, I did wrestling, Idid judo, I did some kickboxing
.
So I always felt like I wantedto really get involved in that.
And then one day, this GreenBeret, joe Goytier, from the gym
comes up to me and says do youwant to open a gym with me?
Well, I had some money.
I was a kid and I said, hellyeah, let's open up a little gym

(18:02):
.
And we rented a little facilityand started the gym and had
great success with it.

And that was your first leap.

That was my first real leap into starting my
own business at 19 years old.
Did you leave the health club?
Of course not.

That was just a side little hustle, you were
used to having a lot of irons inthe fire.
Obviously that started in highschool when you were juggling
three jobs.
It started as a kid, I mean.

I have to stay busy, right?
It's kind of like you know ashark in the ocean, right?
Believe it or not, if a sharkstops swimming, what happens to
him?
He drowns.
Okay, known fact.
They have to keep swimming.
You can't just you know mostsharks have to keep swimming.
So you know that's kind of how Ifelt, you know.
But you know some of the thingsthat were put into my brain by

(18:47):
this Al Phillips guy who youknow tortured me, you know
mentally, you know I mean I'llnever forget.
You know this is a crazy storybut it's great for the listeners
to hear because this story is.
One day he's sitting on hisit's like 5 in the morning and
he's on his uh couch watching tvand drinking some coffee before
a monthly meeting and he'swatching the uh the channel

(19:10):
where there's like animals, likeanimal planet or something like
that and he, he sees a leopardright and he and he tells his
story to us at the, at theactual event, with all the
managers, and he goes.
You know, I was watching tv thismorning and I thought about all
you managers and I seen aleopard.
And I saw this leopard whostarted crouching back in the

(19:30):
woods right and he's looking atthis deer right and all of a
sudden he sees this little deerand he comes hopping along and
all of a sudden the leopardcomes out, grabs the deer and
starts eating the deer yeah,pounce.
So I thought about all of youpeople here as managers You're
not leopards, you're all prey,you're all deers, right.

(19:50):
And I looked at him and I wentand he said especially you,
kelly.
And I said, oh shit.
So not only am I prey, but hesingled me out of 50 managers.

I'm not.

Bambi.
So he just, I think he liked meso much that he had to
constantly pressure me and getme to a point where I would boil
, but it sounds like that everytime he did, you exceeded.

So he was a pivotal person in your growth.

He really was the person that basically
challenged me.
And if you're not challenged Imean you have to look at it If
you're not challenged by peoplewho are above you, how are they
going to make you great?
How are you going to becomegreat?
How does somebody become great?
It's just wake up and say I'mgoing to be great.
No, it doesn't work that way.
It's a series of things that gothrough your life that basically

(20:40):
mold you to who you're going tobe for the future.
So what did I want to be?
Well, I basically mold you towho you're going to be for the
future.
So what did I want to be?
Well, I wanted to be a father.
Right, I wanted to have abetter father because I didn't
have one.

Be a better father.
I wanted to be a husband.

I wanted to do everything that wasn't right
for me.
Oh, that's amazing.
That was right for family,right To give what I didn't have
.
Was I mad about it?
Was I angry?
Yeah, you know, even now, mykids and my wife will sometimes
call me an angry elf right,funny story I don't know if
you've ever seen elf, but that'sfunny.

Yeah we have many times.

So, yeah, was I called an angry elf sometimes?
Yeah, because I was always alittle bit mad of not having
what I wanted as a child.

Right, and that was just a normal family.
I think that's normal too, in away, we all want what we don't
have.
We do, and we have to channelthat into pushing us instead of
a pity party.

You're right, and it's good you say that,
because for listeners that arelistening, that's where you have
to challenge yourself.

Without a doubt .

If you want it bad enough, how are you going
to go get it?
It's so true.
There are people that get lucky.

Voice Over (21:45):
I've seen a lot of lucky people be at the right
place at the right time and allof a sudden it does happen it
was never going to happen to me.

No, I understand, and it probably
hasn't happened to you guys, butit doesn't mean that you can't
get to that same end goal.
I mean, I felt like, the sooneryou, as as soon as you realize
that you really are in controlof where you end up.

Yes, yes, and that's also the issue, because
everybody wants to blameeverybody else for their own
problems their own issues.

Yeah.

You know they always want to put it on
somebody else.
You know, the only person thatgets in the way of you is you,
is you Right?

And people don't accept that Well, it's not you,
it's your head, it's your head,so going into the Sales Assassin
.

And how that book started, you know, was
about basically mindset, mindpreparation.
What made me me and how can Iwrite a book that's different
than any sales book?

And the.

Sales Assassin was a book that was completely
different.
It was an out-of-the-box way ofthinking of sales.
It was about creating, you know, the mindset and the mind prep
and the goals and everythingthey don't really teach you in
sales 101 books.

Most of them I don't even have the patience to
read.
So how many years later doesthat book come out?

So that book came out in 2000 and I think 15.

Okay, okay um many years later, many years
later, you were already you know, I was already a sales assassin
in many different fields youknow, and you know.

It just came to a point where you know that
book needed to get written.
It needed to get written for mylegacy, definitely I was able
to get it out a kid who didn'thardly barely finish high school
but now write a book.
But there was a lot of reasons.
You know.
We had Crystal Harvey, who wasmy business manager, who was an
amazing writer and she couldtake me and put me in a book.

Right.

I couldn't do that.
I can't.

I'm not a writer, you know what I mean.
So somewhere along the way youlearned to collaborate and
delegate as well.
Yeah.

Delegating.
I've been good at delegating.
I've never been such amicromanager guy because if
somebody could do the job.
They need to figure stuff out,just like I figured out stuff.
Right, I can't be babysittingpeople.
True, here's your task, gofigure it out.
Yeah, right, and that makesthem a better person.
You know, because that's kindof what was had.
Was said to me Well, anthony,you need to get your numbers up.

(24:07):
Okay, well, how do I do it?
Okay, well, if, if, if that wasthe case, your numbers would be
up, I don't know exactly howyou do it.
You just need to figure out howto do it Right In Chicago.
What's next?
What happens next?

Because that's your first entrepreneurial
business.

So when Bally bought it out, you know, I had
an opportunity where the mainguy who abused me my whole time
as a kid, al Phillips, said tome he goes, anthony, I'm going
to go partner withSchwarzenegger, we're going to
build World.

Gym.
We're going to build world gyms?
No way, arnold Schwarzenegger,arnold Schwarzenegger.

Voice Over (24:42):
No way, we're going to build world gyms.

I go get the hell out of here, you know, and
he goes.
So this guy ended up going yes,I'm selecting you out of
everyone to manage the gym forus.

So he liked you.
Even though he was rough withyou, he respected you.
That's it.

If anybody can overcome anything, who can get
kicked in the face a milliontimes and come back?
I was like you remember as akid weeble wobbles.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you'd knock me down, I'd
wobble back up.

You'd knock me down, I'd wobble back up.

But that's a good lesson that anyone listening
should think about.
They should.

It's about never giving up, Just don't quit
right, just don't quit, nomatter what happens, don't quit,
you're this close you are.
So when that happened, I wentto the.

Well, a lot of that skill comes from being a
good salesperson, because a goodsalesperson is getting that
door slammed on them and everytime that door gets slammed it's
an opportunity for another doorpossibly to open.

I mean, think about it.
Is it their gift of the gab?
What makes a great salesman?

I mean think about it.
Is it their gift of the gab?
Maybe no, I?

think it's the consistency, the persistency,
correct?
Is it their ability to hang inthere when things suck and
aren't going their way, to beable to figure out how to make
it happen?
There's a lot of great salesmen, but they're never going to be
great entrepreneurs.
True, they're just good atsales.
True, I was good at marketingand sales.
So when I got the job for WorldGyms, he said to me look,

(26:10):
anthony, we're going to open upthis gym on Montrose Avenue off
Lakeshore Drive in Chicago.
It's going to be amazing.
I said man, I can't wait.
Arnold Schwarzenegger showed upto the opening.
I got to go to the ArnoldSchwarzenegger Classic every
year.
I mean, here's a 23-year-oldkid sitting in Ohio at the
Arnold Schwarzenegger Classicwith Lou Ferrigno, franco

(26:31):
Colombo, sergio Olivia.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, louFerrigno More passion.
Here I'm at a table rightsitting here and I'm just a
young kid, right.
So now I got a lot of fire.
Second gym we opened acrossfrom the Mercantile Exchange on
the river in Chicago.
I killed that.
I ate that gym up All the guysfrom the.

(26:52):
Merc with all these badgeswould come over and they had all
the money and they would pay infull.
Pay in full, pay in full.
We didn't have enough.
They had so much cash and werocked that gym.
After the second gym I wassupposed to get some kind of
like equity, right?
Okay, now it's 24 at the timeor 25.
Um, that didn't happen, so Irefused to do the third gym

(27:16):
because I wasn't going to beused right now I love you, but
that's enough.
Now it's my turn.
Okay yeah well, you know how itgoes.
Some people are just tight withtheir wallet.
They don't want to give youwhat you should deserve.
And here's another lesson Ifyou don't get what you deserve,
move on.
Yeah, move on, don't stay, thatlittle I left a business that I

(27:36):
loved, that I was the best at,but I realized it wasn't going
to take me where I wanted to go.

So where did you move on to?

It's funny.
You say that I was across fromthe Merc, so what do you think
happened?
I get all these guys that willcome in and say, listen, you
should be a stockbroker.
I said what's a stock?

What do you mean?
What's a stockbroker?
Did you teach yourself that?

I don't know about being a stockbroker.
What did I do?
Okay, you've got to get aSeries 7.
Oh shit.

Back to school.

This is the hardest, second hardest license
to pass.
First is the bar probably.

Voice Over (28:09):
Second is the.

Series 7.
Right.
So I said this is going to bedifficult.
And here is Did you end upgetting it?

Voice Over (28:17):
I wound up getting it after the third time.

And if I didn't pass and I passed it
right with a 70.
If I didn't pass it the thirdtime, I had to wait a year, I
believe.
Oh great, at that time I didn'thave a job, I had money in the
bank.
I was losing everything.
Were you married?
Yet no Car got repoed, oh jeez.
I mean it was behind onmortgage payments, had to give
up everything.

(28:39):
I wound up sacrificingeverything that I did just to
prove a point that you couldpass that test, and the point
was I'm going to pass this damnthing.
I'm not going to give up andI'll never forget when I passed
it and I got my Series 7 licenseand then my 63.

Now what?

I went into the firm and I just started
annihilating it, you know?
I mean, I just Cold calling andall that Cold calling you know
cold calling a guy and gettingon the phone and basically
introducing myself to him, Didyou?

enjoy that.

Oh man, it was probably one of the funnest
things.
It was so amazing to get peopleto send you money.
You never really met them.
You've got to try to make themmoney, right.

Voice Over (29:19):
You can't just continue to lose their money.
They're going to leave you.

So that's when I got into Wall Street.
I made a lot of money, I wasvery successful, super
successful, but you know, that'sIn Chicago, yes, in Chicago.
And then we moved down toFlorida and we moved the branch
down here, which is how I cameback here another time.
So I wound up coming back hereagain.
But what made you come?
To move to Florida the firmdecided they were going to
relocate to Florida.

Oh, okay.

They shut their New York office down and
their Chicago office.

They're like look, we're all going to Florida
.

We're going to go enjoy ourselves.
And they picked the top 25 guysand we came.
Okay, it was a great learningexperience, but I learned how to
be a trader.
I learned how to do options.
I learned stuff that I couldn'thave learned this in school.
Correct, okay?
So to this day, I'm still a daytrader.
I still trade my own accountevery day, every day, and I have

(30:17):
good days and bad days, and myemployees all know, because they
can tell that the market's notgoing well, you know.
But look, I've always been arisk taker.
Okay, and being a risk taker, Iwill give it all up to take
risk if I believe in what I'mdoing and if I lose, I'll shake
it off and I'll start over again.

Go again.

So I don't really care.
The money is not what motivatedme, and a lot of people might
think that, no, I could careless about money.
I can't take it when I'm dead.
Yeah, I can't take it when I'mdead.
Yeah, okay, what am I going todo with it?
Just give it to my kids, giveit to my family, okay, maybe
that's motivation, but I'm notgiving them nothing.

They're going to earn it.
But do you have a wife at thatpoint?

No, I didn't get married until I was 30.
Okay, so at 30 years old, I hada goal, and here it goes
assassin.
This was even goals that I setfor my life, right?

Did you write these goals down?
They were always in my head.

I always knew what I wanted to accomplish.
I was methodical on figuringout like a surgeon.
You know what I wanted?
And I said, when I turned 30, Ihad a child at 18, 19, 19 years
old.
Unfortunately, I didn't marryher, but I raised a child, okay,
so I had a child young, okay.
And then at 30, I said, look, Iwant to get married, you know,

(31:28):
and I want to have a son.
Right, I already had a daughter, Right, so I want to have a son
and give my son what I didn'thave.

Yeah, right that was my goal.

Well, now I have five sons and three
daughters.

Unbelievable.

What a blessing you know, so you could
see that it's aboutgoal-oriented and you can't
always reach your goals?

Do they work with you?

You know, I had my daughter working with me.
I had my sons working with me.
The problem with them workingwith me, with my own children,
is I am too aggressive and Idon't accept any laziness or any
.
You've got to move as quick asI move and not many people can
do that.
So my kids are all successful.

(32:10):
My daughter's in college herthird year to be a nurse,
practitioner nurse.
My other daughter's going to bean attorney.
My other two sons are mastermechanics.
They've been at Honda sincethey're 18.
They run pretty much at.
My One son, giovanni, is atjetscom.
He's one of the top jets brokerfor a massive company at an

(32:30):
early age.

Wow.

My other son sells health insurance.
So they all kind of have that,so they all have that fire in
them and that drive in them andI don't give them anything.
I mean, I had the ability to doa lot, but I choose not to
because I will not allow them tothink you don't want to rob
them of that either.
No, because they have to learnhow to stand on their own.

Two feet yeah.

You know I mean I watched my mother
struggle to keep food on thetable and a roof over her head
and cry at night when I was achild and I never wanted their
own person and be able to takecare of their own responsibility
.
My children don't call me formoney.
They know they would rather,you know, get it from a friend

(33:16):
than have to call me.
Okay, because I'm going to givethem the riot act and say what
are you doing wrong?

Voice Over (33:22):
What's the problem?
What's the issue?

You know, because I'll dig it out of them
Remember what I do for a living.
Now is you know, I load my gunwith ammunition.
So in my book the SalesAssassin, the first book I wrote
, we say silent and listen arespelled with the same letters.
So you have to learn how to besilent, which is tough for me
because I'm nicknamed the mouthof the South Right and then you

(33:46):
have to listen.
So that's one thing that I tryto stick to.

So you're a stockbroker?
You're selling stocks?
Yes, but I'm guessing from whatI'm hearing from you.
At some point you woke upwanting to change that.

I did want to change that because I became an
option trader.
And really what happens whenyou become an option trader and
a trader you become kind of ajunkie.
To a certain point you wantmore.
It's no different than doingdrugs or alcohol when you're
addicted to something, itbecomes an issue.

Yeah, it's a problem.

So you know, I was addicted to the gamble, I
was addicted to the high.

It is legalized gambling.

But, as you're raising a family and kids and a
wife.
The question is do you want tolose them or do you want to move
on?
My choice was to move on and Istill trade for myself today.
Right, you know, but havingthat weight on my shoulder that
was so emotional and so bad toraise a family it just wasn't
worth it.

for me, it wasn't conducive.
No, it wasn't.
So did you make like an exitstrategy from that to like be
able to fill your cart withsomething else?
I?

did you know I made money.
I tried different things.
I started you know a company.
I started a couple companies.
I had a lead generation company.
Okay, you know that leadgeneration company you know was
very successful.
You know, at the time it wascalled Lending Hope, it was like
Lending Tree, and then it wasall subprime and we had probably

(35:17):
60, 70 people on the phonegenerating leads.
Wow, and we'd sell those leads.
So many things that I've donelittle things here and there,
but that kind of propelled meinto the lead generation
business, which I thought was afun business.
So when you say lead like emailsor databases, at the time this
was a little bit before emails Imean opt-in emails kind of came

(35:38):
along and I got into that too.
It's a whole other story butthe marketing.
And then I became a mortgagebroker.
So after getting all theseleads and selling leads to New
Century and Agers andCountrywide, they would buy
$50,000, $100,000.
With the leads off me, I meanit was a big business.
It still is the lead generationbusiness.
So then we're getting to themain man now.

(36:01):
Okay.
So as basically the mortgagebusiness was propelling and I
was growing, and I started inthat business with an idea that
I'm going to generate some of myown leads, to actually generate
my own mortgages, building yourown brand.
Building my own brand andbuilding my own mortgage company
.
So then I would have a leadgeneration company which would

(36:22):
now feed the mortgage company.

It was a no brainer, it was a no brainer.

So I started that.
And then one day a guy comes tome out of the blue, some guy, I
don't really even know him.
He goes Anthony, hey, I heardyou're in the mortgage business.
I want to be an investor.
I said you want to be aninvestor?
Okay, well, I was on WallStreet.
I'm like what do you got?
He goes I'm going to give yousome money.
I go you're going to give mesome money.
This is getting better.

Voice Over (36:46):
You know, I'm not going to kill anybody.
You know I'm Italian, but I'mnot going to do that.
He goes no listen.

I want you to go on the radio and I'll pay for
advertising.
And I said, okay, let me, try.

Go on the radio to promote your mortgage, to
promote the mortgage company.

So one day I'm on I think 560 QAM, okay, and
Howard David at the time is oneof the guys and he does the ad
for the mortgage company that Ihave right now and says you got
to call the main man, you got tocall my main man, the main man,
Anthony Caliendo.

I got it.

And it stuck, okay, and I said you liked what
you heard.

That's awesome actually, I love that, so I
became the main man on accident.

And then we bought 1-800-THE-MAIN-MAN
themainmancom and then I startedrunning the ads.
Okay, and everybody knows who'sin Florida for the last 25
years, knows my voice.
Hey, south Florida, it's themain man, anthony Caliendo.
There's almost no deal, I can'tclose.
So everybody knows my voice.
It's powerful on radio.

Yeah, you do have a good radio voice.

All the endorsers know me.
You know, I mean everybodyendorses me, from Joe Rose to
Paul Castronova.
I mean I've had Hank Goldberg,neil Rogers, I mean you name it.
I've had people endorsing me.
Recently I just had Hannityendorsing me on 610.
Oh, very cool who actually didmy commercials, you know, which
was great, Because it's great tohear, like you know, Hannity

(38:09):
calling me the main man.
He's telling people to call mymain man, the main man Anthony
Caliendo.
So whether you're on the leftor the right, I don't really
care, but bottom line is it iskind of cool, right, you know,
no matter who it is.
So that main man was created,you know, on accident.
But it stuck.
And then as that mortgagecompany grew and as I started to

(38:30):
propel and I became the topbranch in the country for this
branch Okay, I think at the timeit was Acceptance Capital
Mortgage and we became thenumber one branch in the country
and the mortgage meltdownhappened.

Right so 2008,.

I think I had 160 employees five offices.
Yep.
So the main man was spending$100,000 to $150,000 a month in
advertising.

Unbelievable.

Official mortgage company of the heat,
the Dolphins.

Oh, that's so.

You'd go into the arena and you'd see the main
man all around the arena.
So, the advertising, and themain man blew up right.
But then everything blew upright.
The whole market blew up, themortgage meltdown blew up, you
know, and the main man blew upright, but then everything blew
up, right, you know.

Voice Over (39:14):
The whole market blew up, the mortgage meltdown
blew up, you know.

And I sat there and went.
I'm in trouble okay, I got allthese leases.
You know, obviously, you knowwhat's going to happen.
You start getting I mean theywere closing banks.
I would move the deals to onebank.

Voice Over (39:31):
They would shut down .
I moved it to another bank.

I had one guy move to four banks.
I felt so bad for him I go look, you're bad luck to a good
hunting dog.
I'm sorry but I don't know whatto tell you, man, because every
bank closed.
I mean, you know, from NewCentury to World Savings to, you
know Country Ride.
They were just down down down.

Voice Over (39:48):
It was a domino effect.

So, at that time I was at a position where
what do you do now, man?

Voice Over (39:55):
I've got to reinvent myself.

I've got to reinvent myself.
I have to start over again.
And when you make money and youlose it all, and now you're at
a position where you have togive it all back to start
something else.
And then obviously, there'slawsuits, there's leases you're
negotiating.

It lawsuits.
There's leases, you'renegotiating.

It's a nightmare.
Employees, are you having tolet people go?
It was horrible, right?

It's just a horrible feeling to see you get
up, you're dealing with a lot ofnegative energy.

It's a lot of negative energy, but I had Al
Phillips.
I can handle anything right.
When.

Voice Over (40:26):
I was a kid.

I had that guy beating me up, so I wasn't
about to beat myself up, beatingme up, so I wasn't about to
beat myself up, right?
So?
So, anyways, I got through thatprocess and I remember, as a
kid, my dad, you know, he was inthe food business, right in the
olive oil business and in theItalian cheese business.
Go figure, an Italian in theolive oil and that's a full
circle moment too.
Yeah, so I said to him becauseat this time I actually started

(40:50):
talking to him again and we werejust having a discussion I said
you know what?
I'm going to get into foodbusiness.
I'm going to become a foodbroker, stock broker, mortgage
broker, option broker.

I got food.
Now what the hell?

man, you know you eat it okay that's a totally
different business, totallydifferent game.

So I said I'm going to get into food business
right.
So at the time there there wasa plant in New Jersey that he
actually did all the sales forin Chicago.
They've been partners.
They knew each other for manyyears, when the company started
in 1983.
And I went and I met with thepeople and I said look, I'm
going to come in.
I'm crazy, I'm a maniac, I'mgoing to come in.

(41:27):
You guys have been around for25 years, 20 something years.
I go, I'm going to come in.
You guys never did a food show.
You don't do any marketing, youdon't have a website, you're
just a manufacturer whomanufactures cheese.
I said I'm going to come in andI'm going to rock and roll this
place.
So what do I do?
I get the phone number1-800-BIG-CHEESE.

(41:48):
This is an Italian cheesemanufacturer, but a cheese
business.

I mean a perishable item, that.

Yes and no, because we dry cheese so it
becomes shelf stable but it isperishable.
Knew nothing about the foodbusiness and knew nothing about
the cheese business.

I buy 1-800-THE-BIG-CHEESE.
You must have enjoyed cheesethough.

I enjoy food because my father was a chef and
we loved to cook and we lovedto eat we grew up in a very
Italian family where food wasthe happiness of the family.
So I said, okay, well, let mestart over.
So I start over.
I buy the phone number1-800-BIG-CHEESE, and then I
make a bobblehead of myself.
I made one with the main man.
I make a bobblehead of mestanding on a wheel of cheese

(42:28):
like Captain Morgan.
That says Anthony Caliendo, thebig cheese, 1-800-big-cheese.
I make 500 bobbleheads in China.
They ship them to me and I sendthem out to all the top
executives in the country in thefood business.

What kind of executives?
Grocery stores we're talkingabout?

grocery stores , manufacturers, you name it
right, so I send out thesebobbleheads and all of a sudden
I'm on the phone callingcompanies qualifying and I
realize the food business neverhad a guy like me in it.

Never.
There's a lot of industriesthat you don't realize that are
like that.
Yes, I mean mine's like, myindustry's like that too.
It's ready for a littleshake-up.

It's ready.
You know it needed a guy likeme to come in to shake it up.
And I shook it up, man.
I mean I went, I did food showafter food show after food show,
not only in the country out ofthe country, you know in Dubai,
you know in China, in Germany.
I mean I traveled all over andI did food shows all over the

(43:25):
United States and the boothwould come up.
I made a 10 by 10 booth.
They paid for it.
I went to the shows and Ibecame the big cheese Selling
cheese and in five years I tookthe company from probably 18
million to over 40 milliondollars 40, 50 million dollars.
So I built a massive residualbusiness.

(43:47):
So what was wrong with what Iwas doing?
Nothing, it was the marks.
I realized that if you're goingto get ahead, you have to build
something in my opinion,residual.

Yeah, they say, you want to make money when you
sleep, correct, and that was mydream.

And this time we had fax machines.

Voice Over (44:05):
So I said look.

I'm going to sell so much cheese that I'm
going to wake up and people aregoing to fax orders and I'm
going to come in and they'regoing to come in, and boy did
they.
First year I did $3 million.
Second year I did $6 million.
Third year I did $9 million.
So I broke the barrier ofactually taking something I knew
nothing about, created a brand,the Big Cheese, marketed myself

(44:31):
and basically had to go outthere and get the accounts, but
the food business didn't havesomebody like me.
I mean.
I'm relentless on the phone,you know.
Take in mind I was relentlessin the health club business
relentless in the brokerage.
I'm a relentless guy, will notgive up on you.
If you give me an inch, I'mgoing to wear you down until you
give me an order Just the wayit is In inch.

(44:52):
I'm going to wear you downuntil you give me an order Just
the way it is, in a professionalway that.

I'm not annoying, but I'm persistent.
So were you going to an officeat this time?
I had my own office.

I had a little tiny office that was on Linton,
over here and Dixie, in thatlittle building there, that was
maybe smaller than this tinyoffice here.
Okay, you know, and that's kindof how we started.

So are you an organized individual in terms of
your you know?

your calendar.
I'm completely a mess.

I am the most unorganized person Because from
what you're talking about andthe amount of sales that you're
doing and being relentless andcontinually calling and calling
to get the sale.
You got to be somewhatorganized.

I'm good at figuring out the persistency.
But it's all paper.
We print the paper, we put itin front of me.
I make my little notes, I keepcalling and calling and calling
until I decide I'm going tothrow it in the garbage.
But the thing about the foodbusiness was interesting.
Nobody told me no, Nobody evertold me no.
Wow, so there was no resistance.

Now you take a great salesman and you do well
off of resistance.
Actually, I enjoyed resistance.
I didn't have any.
I was actually pissed.

I'm like, can somebody just tell me?

Voice Over (45:59):
Yeah, shut the door, Anthony.
Go screw yourself.

Don't call me ever again.
Not once, not once, becausethey never knew when they needed
me.

Okay, so I was persistent, but you also must
have been selling a good productas well.

We were selling a product that obviously
people needed Okay, it was aniche product that not everybody
does.
We perfected the art of customblending cheese.
Okay, we would custom blend thecheese based on price and
quality.

So, like cheddar and horseradish, only
Italian hard cheese.
Okay, parm.

Ramada, just Italian hard cheese.
Why Italian hard cheese?
Okay, parm Ramado just Italianhard cheese.
Okay, why Italian hard cheese?
Because it doesn't mold asquick, gotcha.

Voice Over (46:35):
Okay, so it's longer shelf life.

We can dry it down, you know so.
And then there's differenttypes, right?
You know when they're gettingserved Parmesan in the prison,
you think that's all realParmesan.

Voice Over (46:45):
No, it's too.

There's alternatives, there's imitations
.
So we became very good and thebest and to this day we still
are the best at custom blendingthose products for price and
quality.
Now I still sell tens ofmillions of dollars a year in
that cheese business.
Okay, I built the residualbusiness, which allowed me now

(47:08):
to do what?
To bring the main man back, who?

was sitting on the shelf.

Okay, just waiting, just waiting for the
ultimate time to come back out.
Right, you know when is hegoing to come out?
So at the time I had somebodythat I always kind of looked up
to and I watched him, and thatwas Andy Cagnetti from
Transworld, who was a businessbroker.
He owned an unbelievablecompany with a lot of branches
and I said, you know, I've doneit all I could imagine how

(47:36):
incredible I would be at this.
I didn't realize how hard thisbusiness was when I got into it.
Okay, and we'll talk a littleabout that if you don't mind.
It is the hardest business andsales Food Anybody no, okay.

The business brokerage Gotcha Selling
businesses, selling businessesLike a franchising?
Nope, or is that somethingdifferent?
Nope, okay.

We're talking about.

Let's say, you're a design company and you
say to me Anthony, I want you tosell my business.

So a person who owns a pizza place a laundry mat
.

I understand, okay, it could be anything.

A bookstore.
There's so many businesses outthere.

A dentist's office I mean, I've never
realized how many businesses areout there.

Right.

Because, I've seen them all, sold them all and
done it all.
Okay, I mean, I had a guy callme from the radio and says
you're never selling my business, main man, and I said, well,
that's a challenge, let's getstarted.
And I said you do what.

Voice Over (48:29):
He goes, I service microscopes.

I go what do you mean?
He goes.
I go to universities andhospitals and I service the
microscopes.
Unbelievable.
I said that's a job.
That's amazing.
It turns out the guy's nettinglike $300,000 a year servicing
microscopes.
I said, oh my God, what am Idoing?
You know, this guy's making aton of money.

So what's your first business?
You decide you're going tostart selling businesses.
What's the first business thatyou sold?
What did they do?
You know?

I have to remember I sold so many now that
I've sold businesses that Ihave to say nobody else would
ever have sold.

And do you have any personal attachment to them
?
Yes, I do.

Some of these people I sell business with I
still go fishing with.
I still talk to.
I built relationships Becausethink about what I do right now.
I take a person who might haveowned a company for 30 or 40
years, or 20 or whatever theamount is, and they're
passionate.
And they love their baby, right?
Yep, they might not be the bestperson to run their own company
, and I'll tell them that, right, Because people sometimes keep

(49:31):
their company where they want tokeep it, where they're
comfortable keeping it Correct,right?
So if they're doing a milliondollars a year, and they're
comfortable doing a milliondollars a year, even though they
might be able to do $5 millionor $10 million, they don't want
to or they don't know how to Inmost cases, they don't know how
to scale it yeah.

They don't know how to leverage, which is a
whole other part of businessgrowth.
They don't know how to dointegration through acquisitions
.

They don't know how to do vertical
integration, and I didn't knowhow to do all this stuff,
neither you know, so Irealistically didn't even know
how to read a damn tax return,you know, so I have no
accounting experience, so thisbusiness was the most
challenging business I've everdone in my life.

And vast.

But where did you wake up going?
Today I'm going to start abusiness of selling businesses.

So what happened was that one time, a
long time ago, I helped a friendyou know who was selling an
optical center and I said listen, I got a lead company right and
I'll generate some leads andwe'll try to find a buyer who
buys your optical center.

Right.

And he tried to sell it for two years.

Unbelievable and.

I said I don't want anything, OK, I'm just
going to help you.
Right?
He became a friend of mine, youknow, and I said let me just
try it, and I bought data and Icreated this fax campaign and I
sent it out to all the opticians.

It was by accident.

Wow, and I got a call and I sold his company,
you know, and I got a buyer,they took care of it, he got an
attorney, they got an attorneyand they did the transaction.
So I didn't generate anycommission off of it, I just did
it to see if I could do itRight.
And at that time I said man,and it didn't hit me at the time
.
What hit me at the time waswhen the cheese business I got

(51:10):
to a point where I got to whereI think I was going to plateau
and I was starting to lose alittle bit of passion.
And I said, okay, let me dosomething else.
And then I looked at AndyCagnetta's company, which has
great company, and I said youknow, I think I could sell
businesses.
What did I have to do?
I had to get a license.
Here we go again.

You need a license to sell In 35 states.
You don't need a license tosell businesses, but of course
in Florida, you do.

You could go to New York and sell a business
and don't need a license.
You could go to New Jersey andsell a business and not use a
license.

But in Florida you have to have a license.
Well, to cut hair in America,you have to have a license.

So I said, oh, God, I've got to do and I'm too
old for this shit.
I don't know if I can do it.
Man Is there actually a schoolto sell businesses?
No, as a matter of fact,there's no questions on the damn
real estate test about sellinga business right, I don't think
I had one question about sellinga business.

So how do you get?
Is this a form you got to fillout?

You got to take the state test to become a
realtor to A license.
You need a real estate license,you need to be a sales
associate.

Oh, my God.

That's crazy, you know.
So that's kind of how itstarted, right.
So I'm like, okay, well, I'mgoing to get a license.
I got a license, started acompany.
We got a broker, because youhave to be qualified, you have
to have a broker, and that'skind of how the main man came
back again, you know, um, and itstarted, you know again, as I'm
going to bring the main manback here, I am back on the

(52:36):
radio again, back advertisingagain really, but you had those
skills I did and I had theconnection but you had those
skills, but now you're sellingbusinesses.

Now I've started a lot of businesses in a lot of
different industries yes, andthere's a learning curve for
each one of those.
But every day you've got a lotof businesses in a lot of
different industries yes, andthere's a learning curve for
each one of those, but every dayyou've got a new business
that's probably calling you oryou're reaching out to, so you
have to be going through alearning curve almost every day,
or every time a new clientcomes in.

Every single day.
I say right now, by selling anenormous amount of businesses
already, I can actually say Iknow a little about a lot.

That's awesome.

Okay, because I know how businesses tick.
I don't just look at theirfinancials.
You've got to understand I'mthe guy that digs, okay, which
is why I wrote that book how toFlip your Biz and Cash Out.
Big it took me about.
That's your second book.
No, that's my fourth book.
Fourth book okay, my big ittook me about.
That's your second book.
No, that's my fourth book.
Fourth book yes, my second bookwas written with brian tracy,
called cracking the code tosuccess okay that book was

(53:38):
written with brian tracy and um,the sales assassin, my first
book.
Brian tracy endorsed it oh,that's a great name to have
endorsing your first book, ohyeah yeah, if you want to ask me
how that happened, boy, this isanother story.

I could keep going, but I know we don't have
a lot of time, but there's somuch information, but that story
was as a kid I was 16.

I was selling waterless, greaseless cookware
door-to-door with a display case.

Waterless, greaseless cookware yes, it's
crazy right.

Nuts, right, I'm selling.
And there was a Brian Tracyevent.
Well, I had to pay like $250.
Yep, well, I saved up $250.

And you were like I'm going.

And I went to a Brian Tracy's my first sales
seminar.

Wow, so I had a business, a television
production business.
I had 24, 25, 26 salespeople inthat production company Every
year when Brian Tracy and ZigZiglar would come yeah, one of
my favorites.
I would take everyone to go seeit For the whole day.

It's great.

Sometimes it was two days.

It was like the beginning, like in an arena,
yeah, and that's what happenedto me, because I basically, when
I went to that Brian Tracything, I realized I'm going to
be a salesman for the rest of mylife.
This is what I want to do.
So I sent a letter to BrianTracy telling him the story that
I was 16 years old.
Okay, I sent him a nice letter,we got his information in
Canada, we sent him a copy ofthe book and, believe it or not,

(55:00):
he sent it.

He read it.

He read the book, he sends a letter back and
he goes.
Unbelievable book.

That's amazing.
I will endorse your book on thecover.
That's amazing.

So that was kind of like an unbelievable win
, right?
Because now I've got a bookcoming out with Brian Tracy
endorsing it.
Huge as a kid who didn't havethe college education or the
skills.

So you know after that, but you really did
have the skills.

I had the skills, but I didn't really have
what a lot of people have and Ialways wanted right.
I would love to win the skills.

I had the skills, but I didn't really have
what a lot of people have and Ialways wanted right.
I would love to win the college.
The organization, I guess, iswhat you're.

I could have cut some of my time down by
understanding a lot of thingsbecause school does help.

I went to college for four years and got a degree
, but I learned more in theextracurricular things that.
I, I did working clubs that Ijoined and other things that I
was doing.
That's what you learned.

That's what I learned On the job experience
and learning.

Correct.

And you have to learn from your mistakes
right, totally you know yourlosses right.
It's your losses that make youstrong right, it's when you lose
.
You know that makes you strong,so you know.
So after that book, his agentcalled me.
Well, after the sales assassin,the agent called me and said
look, we're going to write abook with Brian Tracy Cracking
the Code of Success.
You in, I said I am in, sowrote a book with him.

(56:19):
After that got a call fromanother agent with Jack Canfield
who wrote Chicken Soup for theSoul.
Oh, I love that one and wewrote a book called the Recipe
for Success with Jack Canfield.

So now, here I am.
Now you're an author, now I'mon the cover with Jack Canfield
and Brian Tracy.

So would you promote these books?
Yes, like you'd be going on theradio, you would be.
You know what those books arereally used, as I guess you
could say a business card rightit shows my ability to be around
very successful people thatbelieve in some of my ideas and
my concepts, of what I say andwhat I've written Right.
So so it's great.
You know you can't get rich offbooks.
You know I mean you don't get.
You know there's not a bigpayday and people think they can

(57:01):
God bless because it's so hard.
Ok, I hope you can.

Right, yeah, well , there's one or two every year,
but they become, you know, yeah, but it's not.
But it's not like the old daysthey're not.

You know, they're not giving you checks
now no, you're right, they arelike business.

So it's the same like the music business.
It's not like that anymore.
It's not like that anymore.
Yeah.

You know.
So I mean, if you get lucky,you get lucky.
I really never cared how manybooks I was going to sell.
I cared about my ability to beable to constantly challenge
myself, to go up to that nextlevel, okay and to put myself in
a position of strength bybasically showing that I have
the support of very successfulpeople.
You know, it just makes me lookmuch more attractive right yes

(57:42):
yes.
So after about three years ofdoing the business brokerage and
bringing the main man back andpeople will call me up and go.
Oh, I've been listening to youfor 25 years.

Voice Over (57:51):
You've been selling businesses for 25 years.

I go well.
I've been marketing for 25years.
I did mortgages and businesses,but I had great success and I
was able to figure out what wasthe problem with selling
businesses.
What was the issue?
And to this day it never ends.
There's continuously roadblocksand obstacles that you have to

(58:15):
be able to see 10 miles down theroad before that deal gets
blown up and for some peoplethat think that you don't need a
business broker to sell abusiness, jump in a lake.

I would think you do.

You need that independent person, but can you
also help people like you weretalking about?
People have the skills wherethey can.
They got a nice, successfulbusiness but they can't take it
to the next level Scaling.
Can you help a person, findthat person to bring them in,
maybe as a partner and sell part?

of the business.
That's not something that Iwould focus on.
I'll tell you why, you know.
First of all, obviously I can'tcontrol what people do in their
decisions.

Right.

So if I'm not mentally and financially
involved in the business, itdoesn't make sense for me, right
?
Because I can't control what'sgoing on.
If you can't control what'sgoing on, you're normally going
to not have control.
Correct, and not having controlmeans it's a disaster, right?
Okay, I'll give you an example.
If I don't manage the buyer,the seller, the banks, the

(59:11):
accountants, the attorneys, if Idon't manage the whole process
of the whole deal from start tofinish, keep people moving, stop
the garbage.

Keep the egos out.
You know, I become apsychiatrist.

Voice Over (59:24):
I got emotional issues, I got timing issues
kills deals.

I got attorneys that want to kill
every deal.
No offense to your attorneyslistening, but you guys are
crazy sometimes.

Voice Over (59:32):
Yeah, okay.

You know, at the end of the day the seller
wants to sell a business and thebuyer wants to buy a business.
The problem is there's too manyemotions and too many people
involved to screw up a deal.
So a lot of times a deal willdie three or four times before
it even closes by mistake.
Okay, I can't tell you thethings that have come up in the

(59:54):
end that are disasters for adeal, and I've overcome so many
of them.
It's so impressive for me toactually say say this right now,
because I put myself up againstattorneys who've been closing
business for 20, 30 years andthey couldn't figure it out.
How does a kid like me figureit out who doesn't have a
college education?
Because I am the master atfiguring out what is the problem

(01:00:16):
and how do I solve it.
I don't rely on them to solveit.
I don't rely on the buyer tosolve it, the seller to solve it
, the attorney to solve it.
The account I figure out how tosolve the issue.

Tiffany Woolley (01:00:25):
I'm a problem solver.
I'm solution oriented in mywhole vibe of how.
I I'm like, just give mesolutions.
I don't want to hear any moreproblems.

Scott Woolley (01:00:36):
So are you selling businesses just in
Florida, or are they all overthe country?

Anthony Caliendo (01:00:41):
Well, I can't sell all over, but my focus
obviously has been in Florida.
You know, because I'm here Ican go meet people, I can go to
their business.
I find myself— so is that animportant aspect of selling a
business it is.
We're launching now throughoutthe state of Florida.
Right now we're sellingbusinesses out throughout the
state.
Right now we started kind ofgoing out of the comfort zone of

(01:01:02):
just South Florida.
I wanted to be in a positionthat, until I'm really really
comfortable with everything I'mdoing, that I'm not going to
really expand the way I want toexpand.
The problem is I can't hireanother Anthony Caliendo.
It's impossible.
There'll never be anotherAnthony Caliendo.

Never.
Well, you made yourselfunforgettable.

Correct and a lot of people can't do what I do
.
So for me to just hire a bunchof people and try to train them,
it'll never be the same.

How many can you work on selling at a given
time?

I mean on average I'll have anywhere from
10 to 15 deals on average.
Okay.
And what's the length of time,but I might have 30, you know, I
might have 30, 35 listed, right, so I have more listings.
But the problem is, even thoughyou have more listings, you
have listings that obviously aregoing to go quicker based upon
the listing.

(01:01:53):
The bigger the deal, thequicker it usually goes in most
cases, unless it's a mess and Ihave to clean it up, which
happens a lot of times.
At the end of the day, whatpeople sometimes don't do and
business owners don't do andthis is the biggest problem,
which is why I wrote that bookhow to Flip your Biz and Cash
Out Big.
I took all the problems and allthe issues and all the reasons

(01:02:14):
why businesses don't sell.
Believe it or not, eight out of10 businesses won't sell.
Can you imagine what are thetop two reasons of why?

Voice Over (01:02:22):
I'm going to give you.

But can you imagine if eight out of 10 homes
didn't sell?

No.
Or eight out of 10 real estateno, yeah, you don't even think
that.
Can you imagine?

Eight out of ten won't sell.
So why is that?
Yeah?
Why does somebody work 30 yearsand never even think about how
to exit their company?

Yeah, that's pretty profound.

Okay, and that's a majority of business
owners, not only that,accountants and sometimes even
their own owners.
They don't show what theyshould.
Show through the profits of thecompany sometimes the right way
, and it's not illegal.
Sometimes.
Show through the profits of thecompany, sometimes the right
way, sometimes, and it's notillegal.
Sometimes they're taking moredistribution.

(01:02:58):
Sometimes they're paying offexpenses through a company.
All small businesses do it,there's nothing wrong with it.
Okay.
But when it comes time to sella company, do you have
everything it takes for a buyerto want to buy it, right?
Is that company running onlybecause of you?
And I've sold companies thatonly run because of the owner,
that's got to be tough.

It's a very tough one, but you know, I
always say there's an ask forevery seat.

You just got to find the right, ask right,
you know.
So, in a nutshell, it'sunderstanding the business and
them understanding what they'redoing wrong.
I don't sugarcoat anything.
I am the most brutal, you know,right to the point in your face
type of guy.

And if you don't sugarcoat anything, I am the
most brutal, you know right tothe point in your face, type of
guy and if you don't like me,don't deal with me, but if you
don't like what I say, youlearned that from back in your
days at the health club withthat guy.

If you don't like what I, say then don't talk
with me, because I'm going totell you what you don't want to
hear, like it or not.
And then I'm going to tell youhow to fix it, and then I'm
going to tell you how I cansolve it.
And if you're not going tofollow every direction, that.
I take and you're not going tolisten to me, then you don't
need me, and I use this analogysometimes If your neighbor right

(01:04:02):
, one day your neighbors, godforbid.
I hate to say this, butsomebody got shot at your and
they say that you did it.
You're the neighbor that youcame and you shot him and you
killed him and you know youdidn't shoot him right, you
didn't do it right.
But you get arrested and nowyou got to prove yourself right.
Do you think that happens inthe real world?

Yeah, you better believe it does happen,
yeah, probably more often thanyou want to.
So what do you?

do you go hire the cheapest attorney.
You know, Well, that's how Ifeel with business owners.
Their life is on the line.
They need me more than I needthem, and that's a fact, because
I know what I need to do to getthem to the finish line and how
I need to get them to thefinish line, and you're not

(01:04:42):
going to go pay the cheapestattorney.
So I tell people don't evendiscuss my commissions yet until
I understand the deal and whatI think it's going to take to
sell it.
And even if I think I couldsell it, I will pay for myself
because I will get more moneythan any other broker because of
my ability to obviously figureout how to get your financials

(01:05:03):
to look better and increase yourprofitability and show you how
to do things differently.
And I pay for myself.
So, clients don't usually arguewith me on my commissions.
Do I charge more than everyother broker?
In most occasions, I do so whyis an?
attorney charged $900 an hourand another one charges $300 an
hour.
It's their experience, it'stheir ability to get the job

(01:05:26):
done and have the reputationthat allows them to make more
money.
Right, why do people get moremoney?
Well, what did they do?
Well, this is what I did mywhole life.
Everything I've done my wholelife has got me to the point to
do what I do right now.
And I am the absolute best atit.

Such an interesting facet of business,
so one of the two biggestsituations you run across in
trying to sell a business.

First is financials.
Okay, First is financials.

They situations you run across and
trying to sell a business.
First is financials.
Okay, First is financials.
They want to make the money butthey don't want to show the
money.
Okay, if I said to you right now, if you had to pay $20,000 in
taxes right now, what would yousay to me?
I don't want to pay $20,000 intaxes.
That's the first thing you'dsay to me.
Correct, I need you to write acheck for $20,000.
Anthony, I'm not doing it.
No, you are doing it.
Here's why If you write thatcheck for 20 grand, I'm going to

(01:06:13):
get you another 200.
You're going to net 180 forwriting a check to 20.
You want money now?
If you answer no, then have anice day, because you're not as
smart as I thought.
Right.
So, obviously, adjusting theway you're doing your financials
, the way you're making money,the way you're taking money, the
things that you're doing,obviously we have to get it

(01:06:36):
sellable, because buyers andbanks look at one thing they
look at bottom line, they lookat what I call and this is why I
wrote this book, because Idon't call it EBITDA right, we
all know what EBITDA is rightEven people that aren't that
talented heard the word EBITDA.
Most people will never know whatEBITDA is.
Even business owners that Italk to don't understand EBITDA.
Okay, they have no clue how toread their tax returns or

(01:06:59):
understand EBITDA.
No clue.
Let's just say probably nineout of 10.
How do you like that number?
Is that crazy, crazy, okay.
So what do I do?
I create what I call net ownerbenefit.
I call it NOB.
The net owner benefit is whatthe person is truly making from
their company.
I'll give you an example Ifyou're paying a car through your
company and the buyer's notgetting the car, that's an ad

(01:07:24):
back, right, you know, if you'repaying your health insurance or
you're paying.

You know you're paying a bunch of stuff for your
car.

You're paying a bunch of stuff through the
company, right?
So I have to figure out whatthat true net owner benefit is
to that company and then I do myvaluations.
And then I do that for free, bythe way.
I value the company and if Ithink I can sell it I list it.
But I will not list a companybecause somebody tells me.
I had a guy the other day.
He tells me well, this is whatI want to sell for.
I said hold on a minute, don'ttell me what you want to sell

(01:07:51):
for.
I'm going to tell you whatyou're going to sell for when I
get all this information.
And if you don't want to sendme all that information, I can.
So true, you know because theyjust don't understand.
Everybody thinks they got theprettiest baby.

Of course.
Oh, my baby's the most gorgeousbaby in the world.

No, your baby's ugly right now.
Okay, it's not an attractivebaby, and I'm the guy to say it,
right.

Yeah.

So I got to make the baby prettier.
Right, it's funny because somany of these all, but it's true
, if you just be, honest withpeople and be truthful and just
tell them what they're doingwrong and why they're doing it
wrong and how to do it right.
But they don't know, they don'tunderstand.
These people that own thesecompanies have given their life

(01:08:35):
to some of their employees,their dedication, they've raised
their families.
How can I tell them thatthey're doing everything wrong
when they've raised theirfamilies and they're doing a lot
?
I need to explain to them whatthey need to do to get out.

Yeah.

Okay, not that they're doing it wrong, but
they don't know how to do it anydifferently Because nobody's
taught them.
So I become the teacher.
Right Now, I'm the teacher,okay.

So that's kind of where I'm at right now, but I
don't think most business ownersare aware or realize that your
service exists.

I agree, that's true.

I actually think that it should be is most people
that are in business shouldcome see a person like you at
least a few years in, to helpthem guide for their business.
No doubt about it.

I know, and is there a mentoring side of you?
There is, you know.
I haven't really had.

You know, what I tell them is this Look, I'm
going to give you my free book,okay, I'm going to send you the
link.
Or send you a free book, yeah,when you read it, call me back,
okay, if you don't, and I stillhelp them of course, but it's

(01:09:50):
always great if they read thedamn book.

They understand my mentality.

That book was written for them to understand
on what we need to do to get tothe finish line, because it's
all about the finish line, isn'tit?
It's kind of like, you know,being a designer.

You know being a designer is an artist.

You're an artist.
Well, you're an artist in whatyou do.
I'm an artist in what I do.

You're a designer as well, because you're
designing a plan.
Deals Helping people sell theirbusinesses.

I mean, I am doing the art of the deal every
day you are.
Every day I'm doing the art ofthe deal.

And it's fascinating that you do now get
to have such a differentperspective for each of these
businesses.
Like you get to almost startfresh every time you're bringing
a new business to market.

Yeah, it's exciting.

It's fun, it is yeah and it's different.
That's like so different.
It's never the same, correct?

You know, so it's always a challenge.

There's a lot of and you recently designed a
television show, Chef.
We got the trademark not toolong ago.

The concept is me having fun with chefs and
celebrities.
Being I love to cook, we go out, we go to restaurants and
celebrities.
We just did Paul Castronova'shouse at his house.
We just did a number oneItalian restaurant in Orlando.
I go out now and I cook withchefs.
Which people can see on YouTube,and then they eat my cheese,

(01:11:08):
okay, and my olive oil Becauseobviously I'm in the olive oil
business, caliandofoodscom, socheese and olive oil, so I'm
still in the food business everyday, right right, you've just
been collecting these businessesalong the way.
So this is kind of a passionatething for me to try to go out
there and have fun.
But the whole idea is to exposethe chefs, make new dishes,

(01:11:31):
have fun, and then we eat thedish and we go oh my God, that's
chefed up right.

So it's a fun thing to it, right?
So?

don't be surprised in the next couple of
years.
I have people all over thecountry going oh my goodness
this is chefeduffed up.

This is just shuffed up.
That's one of the goals.
I love that the future looksbright, that way, I know we're
getting short on time.

If you guys want to ask, me any other
questions?

No, we really appreciate you coming in today
and going through all of this.

Great energy, Last thing we need to talk about
which I think is important toend on is the movie I was just
going to ask you, right.

So you produced a movie, you started the movie,
yes.
So here's a dream as a kid,right?

You're a little Italian kid, growing up
in an Italian family.
What do you watch as a kid?
Of course you watch Goodfellas.

Of course you watch the.

Godfather, you watch those movies.
So as a kid I always said look,I want to be in a movie one day
.
Who doesn't want to be in amovie?

I don't care what anybody says.

I want to be in a mafia movie.
So in 2020, COVID happens.

Everything goes to crap.
Perfect timing to build a movie.

I wind up being in this little movie set
as an extra right, you know,called Gravesend, and I meet
some guys and Amana Sante, whofilmed the movie Gotti, and you
know some other guys and one ofthem comes up to me and says I
got a great, great movie concept.
We did a web series called MobKing.
We had four series.
You know, we obviously don'thave the funding right now.

(01:13:01):
And I said you know what Ialways wanted to be in a movie?
What would be better than meactually funding the movie,
controlling the whole thing,okay, and then rewriting the
actual script okay, with mycharacter, okay and then

(01:13:22):
basically filming a movie andthen figuring out how to sell
the movie?
One of the hardest things in themovie business is to make money
.
There's no doubt about it.
Everybody invests in movies.
Nobody makes money.
So I figured, you know, this isa dream come true.
If I make my money back, it's aplus, if I break even, it's a
win.
Okay, I said I'm going to makea movie.
Crystal Harvey, who became theline producer who manages the

(01:13:43):
back end, she's the one thatkind of wrote all these books
and she's been around for 16, 17years With you yes, I said
you're the line producer.
You run everything, you manageall the back end, because I
don't do back end, I'm front endright.
I have three ladies that workfor me now me now that work with
me now Crystal, carla andClaudia.

And it takes three seasoned women, you know.

Just to keep up with me.

Three seasoned women, and we're not talking
about?

we're talking about seasoned women.
These girls are amazing, rightHard working, Amazing.

Good juggling.
You have a good team behind you.

So after COVID , the only state that was open
was Florida.

So I said, okay , we're going to get everybody
cheap, we're going to geteverybody cheap.

We're going to bring them down from LA and we
got some amazing actors.
You know James Russo, who wasDonnie Brosco, and Django
Unchained.

You must have had the best time so it was an
amazing time.

You know a guy , ciro DiPaggio, who kind of
dreamed this up, who actuallydid 19 years in prison, who came
out, who decided he's going tomake this movie and it was his
idea, and it was about a guy whowent to prison for 19 years and
then came out and the familytried to kill him.
Okay, so nice, isn't that?

wonderful Right?

So I said I love the concept, so anyways, we
made a movie, okay.
You shot it in Florida, shot itall in Florida Killed three
people in my house in my truck.

Oh my gosh, you know , I mean it was amazing Amazing
actors, amazing story.

It's a mafia drama, a family drama.
It's not your typical.
Let me go collect my moneymafia movie.

Yeah.

You know, it's really kind of a very on the
edge on the edge of your seatwatching the movie.
So, anyways, we filmed it, wefinished it.
I went to the AFM American FilmFestival in California.
I bought all the advertising.
I controlled the whole thing.
What I mean by that iseverywhere you walked in that
place was Mob King.

(01:15:33):
They had no idea who Mob Kingwas or who I was, and we
dominated it.
And then, we wound up signing adeal with Gravitas, which is a
very big distributor.

Yes, it is who took.

Mob King on.
So where?

can people see it now?
Amazon Tubi Pluto, I mean ondemand.
It just launched on May 2nd in99 territories.
Oh, amazing In 16 differentlanguages on May 2nd of this
year.

Were any of your kids extras?
Yes, three of them.

First scene my son's in the jail scene.
My mother loved that.
You know what are you takingafter your father.

You got your son in prison now I'm like
that's a movie, you know youknow, my Isabella was my
daughter in the movie.

She was in a scene.
You know my son Giovanni was onthe yacht in the movie.

It's so good.

Yeah, it was an amazing story, but there's an
accomplishment that I neverthought I would be able to do in
my life.
I never thought I was going tobe able to produce a movie and
star in a movie and sell a movie.

And you did it.

And that's what I mean If you dream it, you
could achieve it.
You really can.
The problem with people is they.
They just don't believe intheir dreams and they don't have
to follow them.

You have to go out, you just not and you just
can't give up.

I mean, I mean , it is you just have to get
back up.
Be that bubble yep, but it'sbeen great to be on the podcast
thank you so much for having us

thank you, hope you guys had fun no charge for
the entertainment okay, greatthe eye design lab.

Yeah, and we will get you some caliendo olive
oil and some cheese, by the way.

I look forward to that.

All right, so we're going to drop that off to
you guys.

Amazing, all right, great meeting you.
Thank you for having me.
It's been great to be here.
Awesome, thank you.

Idesign Lab iDesign Lab's podcast is an SW Group
production in association withthe Five Star and TW Interiors.
To learn more about iDesign Labor TW Interiors, please visit
twinteriorscom.

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