Digital Social Hour - Getting Acquired by Berkshire Hathaway, Rich vs Wealthy & Company culture I Vic Keller DSH #457

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

Vic Keller comes to the show to talk about getting acquired by Berkshire Hathaway, the difference between rich and wealthy & the importance of company culture APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://forms.gle/D2cLkWfJx46pDK1MA BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] SPONSORS: Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My mindset is that you don't ever want to test market things with capital because when you're talking about capital, when you're talking about debt, whether it's a bank or an individual's, that's somebody else's money. And I've just found that you really don't want to mess with other people's money or their family if it's used the right way. And I think that in today's world, the more you can do without debt is strong. Yeah, I agree. It's tricky once you get friends and family involved. Wherever you guys are watching this show, I agree. It's tricky once you get friends and family involved. Wherever you guys are watching this show, I would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe. It helps a lot with the algorithm. It helps us get bigger and better guests,

and it helps us grow the team. Truly means a lot. Thank you guys for supporting, and here's the episode. Ladies and gentlemen, Vic Keller in the building today. My man, how's it going? Going good, man. How are you, Sean? Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Man, you've got quite the story. Selling companies to Warren Buffett, getting acquired by Berkshire Hathaway. I'd love to hear how that happened, man. Well, I don't think it's as interesting to hear really how that transaction happened. It was really the path to what's most interesting is just how I built those businesses. And, you know, as a young guy with no capital, no resources, just a lot of passion and vision and drive, and I wanted to build great companies. And I'd been studying and just kind of reading, deconstructing success for many

years, reading books that were written, gosh, about great legends like Warren Buffett, but also, you know, guys like Richard Branson and people that knew how to build brands and systems and processes and just a student of it. So I did that and I was having the time of my life. I started my first company when I was 24 years old and had no idea what I was doing. I had no resources, didn't know how to raise money.

As a matter of fact, I never raised money. My way of raising money was just to sell and just go out and sell all day. And if we needed more capital, that meant I needed to close more deals. But after I started my first business, I kind of got in a cadence. And every time I had a fun idea, it seemed like I was starting a new company. And, you know, I remember people ask me kind of early in the process, maybe five, six years in, hey, do you ever plan to sell your business? And I'm like, this is the most fun anybody could ever have. I mean, I'm finally making money, having a good time. And I was like, you know, I don't think I'll, I don't think I really ever want to sell

these businesses. I want to do this forever. And through really a unique set of circumstances, I had a business partner that was not actively involved in the business, but was just a fantastic partner. And he had a big business and through a unique series of events in 2015, all of my operating companies were acquired by Berkshire Hathaway and got to carry that awesome flag of being a Berkshire Hathaway company. And, you know, I think it was fun. I mean, it was an amazing time and it was a great accomplishment. But what I think it was really mostly impactful for is all the people on my team. I had all these people like my buddies when I'm 24 years old that I'm like, man, I'm going to go start this business. I can't really pay you anything. And we're going

to go sell into this industry. And they're like, Vic, you're crazy, but I'll go do it. And the ones that stuck around, which were most of them. Yeah. In 2015, all of a sudden, you know, we went from just energetic, passionate people that were selling into an industry and building companies to, you know, we kind of had this stamp of maturity of having that great, you know, mantra and slogan and probably the most powerful brand in the world, in my opinion, under our brand, which said, you know, a Berkshire Hathaway company. So it was fantastic. I think the, the path of how we got there, um, was, was by no accident. Um, it was really just all about the people that I surrounded myself with. You know, I was one of these guys that when I was a young man, um, you know, I took notes from people that were successful. And one

that I always heard people say is surround yourself with people smarter than you. Right. And I thought they meant it. And so I really spent, you know, all those formative years of building my businesses just trying to find people. It wasn't all about IQ. Sometimes it was about EQ. I mean, just people that had a lot of passion and drive and understood how to be, you know,

compassionate in what they did and get fired up about it. And next thing you know, we've built a series of companies. And, man, it's the funnest thing ever for me is to build businesses. Incredible. I just love it. And, you know, if I always tell the story, if somebody invited me to go play, you know, a round of golf on a Saturday morning at the most fantastic golf course in the world, and I love to play golf every once in a while. Um, but if they asked me to do that or said,

Hey, let's get in a room and let's figure out how to build massive enterprise value. Let's scale a business. Let's build a great team and let's take something to market. Um, it's like a love story, man. I mean, I just fall in love with the process of helping people build businesses. And, uh, Hey, that's really what I get to do. So I love that a lot of fun. What are you building this year? You know, this year, I'm kind of back to my roots. So I decided in 2000, and I would say 19 is about when I exited the Berkshire Hathaway organization. And when I left, I had this model, I was like, you know, I'm gonna, I've been starting, I started 14 companies over the course of about 10 years., I had this model. I was like, you know, I'm going to, I'd been starting, I'd started 14 companies over the course of about 10 years.

Wow. And I had this passion for that, but I was like, you know what, I'm going to try to buy a couple of good companies and take them from good to great. And I said, this will be a little different strategy. So I've spent the last few years doing that. But, you know, in the last 12 months, I realized that I am just addicted to starting new businesses from the ground up and doing startups. So I've got a couple startups in play right now.

One of them actually is a development and training company for a unique industry. I get fired up about helping people grow and develop. And I've seen the power of being able to do that in business. It's fun. It's fulfilling. It's fulfilling. It brings joy. But it also, like, when you find people that are just curious and Alexa and they want to learn and you can equip them with what they need,

you can do anything. You can do anything. So that's a fun business I have. And then, of course, I've got a great organization that I started about 15 years ago called Experience Ventures. And we're really focused on helping entrepreneurs and just people in business build, I want to build a trillion dollars in enterprise value over the next 10 years for businesses that we work with and that we're stakeholders in and we're a part of. And I believe we have a great blueprint to do it. So

I spend a lot of my time there. And And just the businesses that we have in our portfolio, some of them I wholly own that are mine that I've acquired. And then some of them we have amazing investors that have partnered with us. But I'm just all about driving operational excellence in business and building teams. And that's what's most fun for me and helping people scale. Yeah, it's good stuff. I love that.

And I know you went on Dave Ramsey's podcast. You have an interesting take on business debt. On business debt. Yeah, I do. So, you know, back to the story of I'm 24 years old and I didn't even like, you know, I had some credit. I had a couple of credit cards and I use those credit cards to help start those businesses because that was all the capital I had,

but I never went out and got a loan. So my way of generating revenue for the business was really the formative process of how I was raising capital for the business. So I've never been really debt-structured. Now, I will tell you, later in life, probably the last 10 years, I've really understood the power of leverage

with debt and capitalization and how it can work. And I think if it's done the right way, I think debt is an extraordinary, powerful instrument. I mean, it's really important. I think where you see people lose sight of debt and where it becomes problematic is if they think that capital is an answer to a problem. Capital is an answer to a solution. Capital is an answer to doing something big and executing. But my mindset is that you don't ever want to test market things with capital. Because when you're talking about capital, when you're talking about debt, whether it's a bank or an individual's,

that's somebody else's money. And I've just found that you really don't want to mess with other people's money or their family, right? I mean, you want to protect that. So I think debt's powerful. I love it. If it's used the right way. And I think that in today's world, the more you can do without debt is strong. Yeah, I agree. It's tricky once you get friends and family involved. Oh man, it is. It is so tricky. And it's amazing how I would say both entrepreneurs, founders, business builders, and those friends and family just lose alignment as things happen. Business is messy. Business is tough. I mean, I've, you know, every company I've ever started, the first, you know, I would say, season of the business always feels a bit like the Twilight Zone.

It's like, man, this is chaos. It's out of control. But you have to just have tenacity and push your way through it and trying to explain to other people that have put capital in it with you how the craziness is OK and it's going to come around. That's not always an easy sell, right? I mean, yeah, they're like, man, this doesn't feel right. And you're like, I'm not giving up.

So give me more money. Absolutely. You mentioned earlier you were a big reader, right? Yeah. Now hundreds of millions of people are reading these books, but only 0.1% achieved your results. So what do you think you're doing differently other than the reading aspect? Well, I read a lot of books, but I don't finish a lot of books. Um, so I mean, I,

when I say I don't finish them, I kind of am selective about what chapters I'm reading and where I'm going through the books and what I'm paying attention to. And, and I think for me, I'm just trying to deconstruct success and pull it out of a book, um, and really get the narrative that I can execute on, um, where I can execute. So I think... Are you interested in coming on the Digital Social Hour podcast as a guest? We'll click the application link below in the description of this video. We are always looking for cool stories, cool entrepreneurs to talk to you about business and life. Click the application link below, and here's the episode, guys. I think the difference between people that are curious intellects, that are learners, that love to have information, and people that are building

businesses, whether they're an entrepreneur, a professional, an innovator, or a creator, kind of we call that EPIC. And wherever they fit in that acronym, it's all about execution. And I think that that's the difference is, you know, knowledge is powerful. It's fun to have conversations and to be an intellect and to really have a deep amount of knowledge in your head. I mean, that's cool. It's actually, it seems like it's more cool today than it's ever been. Yeah. Podcasting. It's like podcasting, right? I mean, I look at these guys and these podcasts, man, and they like, it's like they have PhDs in psychology and business and biology. They know everything. But all that information is great. But you know what's cool? You don't really need

all of that intelligence to go execute on an amazing business idea. If you look at some of the biggest enterprises that have the best teams and are building crazy enterprise value. It's not all profoundly intellectual. So I think the key is don't get wrapped up in learning for the sake of being the smartest person in the room. Get wrapped up in learning so you have a tactical plan that you can go execute on. You can actually use it. And, man, you only have so much capacity in that brain.

And so I think you have to be a little bit selective on what you put in your head. And, you know, it's easy to go down rabbit holes. Like, I got to tell you, I love listening to podcasts, listening to audio books that have nothing to do specifically about what I'm trying to do in business. I mean, they're good fuel. It's fun stories. But at the end of the day, you know, it does give you perspective, but I'm really looking for that tactical information that I can go execute on, right? I want to know, you know, what ERP you're using, what CRM you're using, what assessments are you using to find the best people in the market? How are you telling a story? How are you vision

casting? You know, those are the things I'm looking for when I'm reading. So I'm pretty much focused on business because I just think it's the funnest game I know how to play. I'm really bad at golf. I'm really bad at a lot of other sports. But, you know, I found that, you know, if you're, you know, my height, I'm 5'11". It's kind of hard to dunk a basketball. But you can be 5'11 or 4'11 and you can do some pretty extraordinary things when it comes to building enterprises and businesses regardless of your height. Yeah, I think business is a level playing field.

Even females, males, doesn't matter. If you're good at business, you're good at business. Yeah, I think that's true. I think that business has definitely got a lot of innate aspects of it. My kind of strategy in business has been, and this is going to sound a little bit out of school, but it's really been about love. It's really been about just being able to connect with people.

I visited with you a little bit about when I started my first company at 24 years old. And my friends that joined me and the people I hired in that business, Visited with you a little bit about when I started my first company at 24 years old. Right. And, you know, my friends that joined me and the people I hired in that business, you know, I didn't have a reputation of being a Jeff Bezos or an Elon Musk or, you know, I was just, I was Vic. Yeah. But they knew I had a big heart and that I was going to do my very best to take care of them and the customers. So compassion and empathy, I think, really play a lot into business.

And again, that may sound like just not the most scientific approach because everyone's trying to get so smart, right? I mean, we all want to know every algorithm. We want to know every technology to advance and win in business. And look, I think a lot of that is kind of the price of admission. You know, you need to be smart in your business. And look, I think a lot of that is kind of the price of admission. You know, you need to be smart in your business. You need to have systems and processes and technology and a great value proposition. But it is amazing what you can accomplish if you can just be compassionate and empathetic and truly care about people. And for me, it's been very powerful. And still today,

you know, I want to love my customer. I want to love my employees. And look, I'm not always that guy. I mean, I can drop a lot of F-bombs and, you know, I can really be every once in a while, have some contentious nature about me. But I think that there's kind of a silver bullet in business today. If you can be compassionate and empathetic and you can be authentic and really, you know, authentic is a word we use loosely. And I think authenticity is driven by heart and it's hard to fake heart. Yeah. You know, but if you can do that, you don't have to know everything in the world there is to know about business. That is so interesting to me because a lot of employees

fear their boss. A lot of people teach, you know, entrepreneurs to separate business and emotion, but you're doing the opposite. Yeah. I mean, look, I've got two sons that are my best friends, and I love them, and they're amazing. And I didn't build a relationship with them based on fear. I built a relationship on them with unwavering just love, right? I mean, when they did something really dumb or when I did something really dumb, love is awesome insurance. Love is the greatest insurance. I mean, if you really have

a good heart and you really can care about people, you can do a lot wrong and you can still have a lot of grace. So, you know, for me, I'm never going to be a perfect employer. We're never going to have the best business plan. We're never going to pay the most in the market. But it's what we can do is love on people the most. And again, I know that doesn't sound like some profound strategy and not of high intellect. I don't want to act like we just run around companies giving hugs. But I'll tell you, man, those hugs are pretty powerful.

They're pretty powerful. It's cool because it keeps the employees with a sense of purpose. They want to be there. Like you said, a lot of the people you started with, you ended with, which is pretty powerful. They're pretty powerful. It's cool because it keeps the employees like with a sense of purpose. They want to be there. Like you said, a lot of the people you started with, you ended with, which is pretty rare. Oh yeah. I mean these people like, you know, there's a mindset in today's world that when you're an employer, you have a business, if you have somebody that's disenchanted, they're unhappy, they come to you and they say, Hey, I'm out of here. I'm leaving. Um, I'm done. You know. There's a lot of employers in today's world that say, okay, sorry, it didn't work out, see you later. Look, I've had a lot of times in my business profession that I've had great talent where I couldn't let my own pride get in the way when they were thinking about doing something

different because maybe they were in a season of trial and tribulations personally or trial and tribulations in the business. So saving people is back to that heart thing. I mean, when people say, hey, I'm leaving, there's a better opportunity. I want to be able to sit across the table from that person and be on an unequal playing field when it comes to really caring about them and their future. And so my point saying that is I've had to save a lot of employees along the way because, you know, we like change. We like, you know, differences. And I think when you can illustrate that, that you really care about someone that you have a better chance to retain them. Yeah. It's about finding that balance just because you're leaving for maybe a higher salary. you might not be as happy. You know what I mean? Yeah, no, it's true. And look, we live in a world today where I think

people that are professional and intelligent and consistent and have tenacity and know how to fight through adversity and are really focused on delivering value to not just the organization, but what's even more important, the organization's customer base. If you're that individual, you can make as much money as you want, right? You can make as much money as you want if you know how to position yourself right and if you're around the right people that really want to help you develop. You know, that is, it's easy to make the money, but the reality of it is longevity. And I love that. That's something I love about Warren Buffett, right? I mean, he is just consistent and he's

been doing the same thing for his entire career. But I look at people like that and people that are consistent, that stick with something and don't just move around and want to give up. There's a lot of reward in that. Absolutely. What else did you learn from Buffett? I mean, being around him, you must have learned a lot. Yeah, so Mr. Buffett has 300-plus companies and 300,000-plus employees. Yeah, like he's got a big ecosystem. And we weren't lunch buddies.

I did get to spend a little bit of time with Mr. Buffett when the transaction kind of took place. And that was a lot of fun. But, you know, what I learned from Warren Buffett that was most powerful for me happened long before our businesses became a Berkshire Hathaway company. So several years ago, about 10 years ago, my son and I got invited to go to a dinner that Mr. Buffett was at, and we were fortunate to be able to spend some time with him there and talk to him. And my son, Zach, was 14 years old at the time.

And 14, 15 years old. And I don't know if he thought we were having dinner with Jimmy Buffett or Warren Buffett, right? I don't know if he really knew. having dinner with Jimmy Buffett or Warren Buffett, right? I don't know if he really knew. But here's what I can tell you. I listen to the way that Warren Buffett communicates with people, and he doesn't ever try to act like the smartest guy in the room, no matter who he's talking to. He doesn't try to use a really complex vocabulary.

He's very down-to-earth, and he speaks to people very purely and very simply. And I learned a lot from that because I feel like I, you know, until then had felt like the smartest person and the one that had the most expanded vocabulary and the one that could just be the most powerful is the one that was going to win. And if you really think about what Mr. Buffett does is he communicates, and I've seen him communicate. I've studied him far beyond the opportunity that I had for him to be an acquirer of our businesses. I've studied

him forever and he is just down to earth and he doesn't try to use complex terms. So, you know, even he, he having a short conversation with my son, Zach, that same conversation he had with him, I believe is the same conversation he would add with the smartest guy on Wall Street. Wow. He just doesn't try to get into deep, complex things. And he's got an amazing investment strategy. And that's if he doesn't understand the business, he doesn't invest in it. Right.

And I see a lot of people that invest in businesses that they don't understand. And I think that just offers a lot of fatigue. Yeah, every time I've done it, I've gotten wrecked, honestly. Yeah, it's just, and it's hard to fall in love with something. I mean, I'm back to business and entrepreneurialism investing. I mean, for me, it's a journey of love. I mean, it's like, I want to, when I think of like building a new brand and building a new team and building a new company and going to market and capturing market share

and filling a product market gap, it's, man, I want to be in love with what I'm doing. I mean, I want to be ferocious about it. And if you're an investor and you don't understand the complexities of a business and things aren't going well, yeah, it usually doesn't work out for you. I mean, if you look, if you're just buying stock in, you know, some complex AI platform and you see it as a gamble and you hope it works and it's rounding out your portfolio. I'm not saying you shouldn't do that. But honestly, at the end of the day, if things aren't going well there, you're never really going to understand why. And there's a lot of businesses that you can invest in where you really can understand why. And that why is important.

Yeah. And I think that's a big part of your success because a lot of people, the number one important thing is money, chasing revenue, money. But it sounds like you just truly love building. Man, I love building. I love generating revenue and profitability into a business because it is where the critical mass and the flywheel and the inertia really come into play. I love making profit in companies because we can continue to make the business bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. I don't know how to run a business that doesn't have profitability. A lot of people are focused on, man, I'm going to build a business and we're going to have big revenue

and someday we're going to be this massive powerhouse. I'm always focused on generating profitability because I want to build the business bigger and I know that that's the best way to do it. So business really is a dynamic way to build a unique community. A lot of people talk about culture. And culture is so important. But culture is really a derivative of building a community. And if you think about it, if we were going to go out tomorrow and we were going to build a community that we wanted to exist in, that we wanted to flourish in, that we wanted to get fulfillment and joy in, and we wanted to build something that was just big and bad and amazing, right? If you really architected what that

community looks like, that's how you should think about a business, right? You've got your internal community, which are the people that you're doing business with, that you're building that business with. And then you've got the external community, your customers, we'll call it. But it's all about building community. So, you know, money for me has never provided fulfillment or joy. You know, it's definitely, listen, the convenience of money is awesome. And I've bought some cool cars and cool planes and cool houses. I've done all of that. But you know why I love those things if you really think about it? I love those assets.

I love those tools because they allow me to enjoy the community. I would never want a one-seater airplane. I want to enjoy that with people. I would never want a one-seater airplane. I want to enjoy that with people. I don't want a one-seater car. I want to be able to enjoy it with people. You know, I don't want a boat that just fits one person. So when you think about everything that you're building, if you're thinking about that mindset of you want to have a powerful, flourishing community that really builds on each other, you think about money really differently. You think about, you know, but listen, making money and building enterprise value in a business is awesome because it's a great reflection of an objective scorecard. It means that it's working.

Right. Right. As long as you're legal and you're doing it right, it means that it's working. So that's powerful. And let me tell you, creating wealth is a very, very different thing than people that are trying to get rich. And I love to talk about how rich is really loud and wealth is quiet. And when you think about rich in today's age, you've got a lot of people that, man, rich is pompous. Rich is loud. It's boastful. Rich is I'm standing on top of my airplane. Right. But you don't ever see those people standing on top of their airplane with other people. They're standing on top of their airplane. Wow. And it's really

weird, right? Because think about like the Academy Awards. Think about the Grammys. Think about all of the, think about these award shows we watch. Think about when the music plays to get the person off the stage. Why is that music playing? It's playing because they're still talking about the people that helped them get to where they are. It's playing because they're talking about their cast, their managers, their supporting people.

And it seems like success in business, we want to stand on that plane. We want to stand out front. We want to stand in front of that building. And we want to success in business, we want to stand on that plane. We want to stand out front. We want to stand in front of that building. And we want to say, look what I did. I can tell you right now, anyone that's ever worked in any of my businesses, anybody that's part of building companies that I'm building today, they know it's about them, that it's not about me. Wow. Right. And that sounds like a really sweet thing for me to say, and maybe even a little bit self-inflating, but it's truly my strategy is I want to build community.

I want to do it with other people. And I've built some businesses where the people in the community are not the people that I really want to do life with, and it's tough. It's tough, and it's hard to undo. So you have to be really thoughtful about that. But for me, it's about everything I do, I want to do with other people and see them experience the reward of what they're doing.

If I have an employee that comes to me that says, hey, I'm about to build a new house. I'm like, that's awesome. But can I please see the plans for your swimming pool? And they're like, well, we're not really thinking about a pool. And I'm like, we got to figure out how to get you a big, amazing swimming pool, right? I mean, because that's where the money really does is it, you know, by the way, most people aren't swimming in their pool alone, right? I mean, it's a party,

it's fun, it's joy. So business, a lot of people are looking at singularly. You know, I want to build my identity. I want to be the person. I want to have the impact. It's about me. Yeah. And I have never once met one of those people that wasn't living a lonely life deep inside. I agree with that so much because that used to be me, man, to be honest.

Like, even though I had millions, I had no friends, and you couldn't enjoy life. Yeah, yeah. You know, that's interesting. That's interesting. You know, it's fortunate for That's interesting. You know, it's fortunate for you that at a young age, you realize that there was kind of misalignment there and a bit of a void. Yeah. And you're going to get to live the rest of your life realizing that the compounding return

is going to be doing it with other people. So when you're building a business, it's not, you're going to be thinking about it that way. Unfortunately, a lot of people, I know a lot of guys and a lot, I mean, I know a lot of people that are, you know, 60, 70, 80 years old that have billions of dollars. And, and they're lonely. Wow. They're lonely because they built this entire ecosystem around themselves. It's all about them. And let me tell you what else is tough. If it's just about you, heaven forbid something happens to you, but man, you've got a valuation issue, right? When I go look to buy a company, and I love to buy companies, I don't look at the individual and the founder and the CEO. I look at the team.

Interesting. I want to see depth, right? Because what if that rainmaker, that amazing CEO founder gets sick tomorrow or something happens to him. You know, I think about Amazon. And you look at a guy like Jeff Bezos that stepped away from Amazon and Amazon's still growing and on fire. He should get a thousand times more credit for building an extraordinary team of people

that could sustain and continue to build and grow a business in his absence than he should get as being a profound intellect that did it all himself because it wasn't about him, right? Any of these people that are building these businesses that are amazing, I promise you, it's the big ones, not the ones that we see on social media, not the ones that pop up and it's, you know, some guy created something and sold it for a bunch of money once, but the ones that are creating sustainable enterprise value businesses, those are businesses that are built because of all the people that are involved,

not because of the individual. Look, we all get trapped and we want to be, you know, I listen to podcasts, read books. I mean, I'm looking for everything I can to get an edge and to get smarter. You know, and really, for me, the reason I want that is because the best way for me to gain significance and credibility with the people I work with is if I can educate them, if I can help them educate and grow. So I want to be a conduit for inspiration,

knowledge, growth. I want to be a conduit for that, but I don't want it to be about me. I don't want it because there's a lot of pressure. Like there's a lot of pressure if you think you're the smartest guy in the world. And I'm sorry to go on about this, but I see so many people that are talking heads that want to let you know how smart they are, right? Like I'm so smart. I can recite every DNA strand. I can recite every psychological deal. I can explain every personality assessment. They can explain everything to you. And I'm like, man,

that is a bunch of damn wasted knowledge. But anyway. No, I love that philosophy because most people, when they invest in companies, it's all about the founders. But you're the team, which I've never heard before. But that makes more sense to me. Like you said, Amazon's still killing it without Bezos, which is impressive. It's scale. It's scale. I mean, it's critical mass. It's inertia. If you want to scale something and grow it, you're only so much. Can I tell you a quick story? So I'm a young man. I think I was 25 years old and I had a guy that worked with me and he walked in my office one day and he said, Vic, you're a fig jam. He called me a fig jam. And I'm like, what's a fig jam, man? Like, yeah, I mean, fig jam. Is that cool? Like the jam? And he's like, no, let me

tell you what a fig jam is. It stands for I'm great. Just ask me. And that's the acronym. He said, and I said, whoa. And he said, he said, I said, so like, I had to think about that. I'm great. Just ask me. He called me a fig jam. And basically he said, Vic, man, you're making it all about you. And he said, what percent do you think you give to what you do? And I kind of like, you know, boat up a little bit. And I'm like, I give 120%, man. I'm at this all day, every day. I said, this is my life. I'm trying to build this business. He said, let me tell you something. If you have 10 people around you that are given 80%, he goes, what percent is that? And I said,

well, it's 10 people at 80%. He goes, it's 800%. And he said, so you can give 110, 120% all day long, buddy, but you're one guy. And if you have all these people around you that maybe aren't given as much as you are, by the way, some of them will give as much as you are. Think about what the scale is and what the growth is and how you can build so much. And that was impactful for me because what it really taught me that day was if I was going to be selfish, it doesn't need to be about me. It doesn't need to be about me at all. It needs to be about everyone else. And look, you're going to get people that, you know, quite candidly are half. They're not giving it their all. Um, but man, they're still good for 40, 50, 60%. So my goal is I want to get everybody to 110, 120%. And sometimes I

push people way too hard to get there. Um, but, but, you know, I figure if we have eight people at 120%, that math's even better. Yeah. Right. And so, um, there's just tremendous power in people, man, people, my first ever business mentor, I'll never forget what he told me. He said, I'm going to tell you the three most important things in business. And I'm like, I just couldn't wait to hear what they were. And he was in his mid-70s, a profound man, built an extraordinary multi-billion dollar business. He said the three most important things that you will ever find in business are people, people, and people. And it's true.

And anytime we get away from that, I love technology. I love AI. I love everything that's going on with tech in the world. But there's nothing more important than people. People are the power that we have. And, you know, I see a lot of guys and ladies that are in business today that lose sight of that because people are a pain in the ass sometimes. Yeah. Right?

It's like, man, I mean, you know, chat GPT is a little bit irritating sometimes. But, you know, sometimes Bill or Susie over here are even more irritating. But the reality of it is, is people are the answer. Right. I love that way of thinking, man. Vic, it's been a pleasure. Where can people find out what you're up to? Man, you can go to vickkeller.com and vickkeller.com. You can sign up for our epic email. We also have our epic community, which stands for entrepreneurs,

professionals, innovators, and creators. And we're building out a community of like-minded people. I've got this passionate goal to help hundreds of entrepreneurs build a trillion dollars in enterprise value over the next several years. And iron sharpens iron. And they can find me there. I'm on all the social handles at at Vic Keller. But thank you so much, Sean, for having me. It's been a real pleasure. Absolutely.

Thanks for coming on, man. Thanks for watching, guys, as always. And I will see you tomorrow. Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. At Mint Mobile, we like to do the opposite of what big wireless does. They charge you a lot. We charge you a little. So naturally, when they announced they'd be raising their prices due to inflation,

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