EntreLeadership - #321: 20 Years of Lessons for My Younger Self with Daymond John

Episode Date: May 6, 2019

Although it may seem like entrepreneur and New York Times best-selling author Daymond John has enjoyed a meteoric rise to the top, his success has actually been more than 20 years in the making. And the lessons he’s learned along the journey have shaped the way he runs his business today. Tune in as Daymond offers invaluable advice on everything from when and how to scale to the undeniable value of recognizing the contribution of your team members. No matter where you are in your career, this is one episode you definitely don’t want to miss!   entreleadership.com/podcast Listen to episode #262: Daymond John—Rise and Grind Listen to episode #131: Daymond John—Lessons From the Shark Tank Daymond John's website Rise and Grind FUBU Daymond on Demand: The 8 Musts Your Business Needs to Succeed Join Daymond at EntreLeadership Summit 2020 How to Build the Ultimate Remote Team from Belay Solutions   Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scaling is a very personal decision. The time you scale is when you can't keep up with the demand and you feel that you have figured your customer out. Helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is Entree leadership. Now here's your host, Ken Coleman. Coming to you from the Music City,

this is the broadcast of leaders by leaders for leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. Well, we're back from Summit. We had a great week in San Diego. And our feature conversation, as we get things rolling again, is Damon John. We have mentioned that he will be one of our featured speakers at Summit 2020 in Orlando. Now, Damon doesn't need much of an introduction, but you certainly know him from his best-selling books and as one of the sharks on the ABC hit series Shark Tank.

Here's Damon as he joins us again. Well, Damon, good to have you back on the program, and I feel confident at least somewhat confident was starting out with this issue because you're a dude and it's okay to talk about age with dudes. It's not safe to talk age with women, but you just recently hit a big milestone.

50 years of age, you've done so much before the age of 50, but I thought this would be fun to kind of just get your perspective because that's such a milestone in life, you know, for somebody like you to hit that. Curious, what did it feel like to hit 50? Wow, you know,

you know, certain things fell off my body and certain things got swollen that I didn't know I had. But other than that, you know, it was really a great accomplishment to feel like, you know, I've gotten this far at this age. And then I started to look at, you know, because I always take inventory at milestones such as 20, 30, 40, and 50. Then I look at, all right, so what am I doing for the next 10 years? I want to start fresh and find out what do I want to do? What am I passion about? Not where I've come from. And like, I have to be a, you know, that is a burden to where I want to go or maybe, oh, you've accomplished this so now you know now you have to do more of this. So it was really absolutely an amazing,

amazing time to turn 50. I got a little depressed like most people did, but then I got my AARP card in the mail and I realized I can get amazing discounts. So really amazing. That's hilarious. I think anybody expects you to drop out the AARP card as a benefit of 30 50, but I love that. When you look back, maybe as a 30-year-old entrepreneur, you know, mid-20s, 30, how has life, how has it actually made you more effective than maybe even the youngster who had more energy maybe than you have now? But you've got so much more as it relates to experience so many failures that you've been able to turn into positive success stories. Just curious how much things have changed in those two decades as Damon John, the entrepreneur, the leader.

Oh my gosh. So way more clarity. You know, the fact of saying don't jump at everything. take a little while and see if this decision, think out this decision. You know, the Damajana 30 was trying to grab everything he could because he thought that's the way to scale. And a lot of times it's not the businesses or it's not the deals or relationships that you didn't take. It's the ones that you did take to put you in a real jam. Bouncing things off of so many other people that I value and I respect.

Also, you know, the Dame of John 30, you know, he made a lot of mistakes, but the Damage on 50 had made way more mistakes. And when I see the same reoccurring mistakes from 30 to 50, then I realized how to adjust my life and be very comfortable with it and not make those mistakes again. Also, Damon John at 30 didn't trust his gut for various reasons. Number one, you know, he looked at the data or he listened to people and he thought that, you know what, everything they're saying is true. Or maybe I don't want to trust my gut because I don't want to act like I'm going to know it all. but you know the damage John 50 you just trust his gut I don't care the data can show me all the right things and it can look perfect but trusting my gut if I just don't like you no matter how great of a potential partner you are or I don't like the situation or whatever the case is I can have all the data in the world I just trust my gut so I think those things have been very very helpful to me and hopefully I'll learn even more you said something that is such a big scary word very important word for business leaders it's so many people don't know how to deal with it. It's a two-part question. You mentioned scale. You're talking about those early

days at 30 when you were just trying to scale, scale, scale, and go crazy. Two-part question. First part, when to scale, from your experience, when to scale is the first part of the question. And then we'll talk about how to scale effectively. So is there a rhythm, a formula? What does Damon John think of when he thinks, all right, might be time to think about scaling? You know, that's where the inventory of what you want to do comes into play because, you know, when I had 400 employees internally and another thousand externally, I wanted to keep scaling and scaling employees and scaling bodies as well as scaling the business. Damon and John, now I don't want more than 50 to 75 employees because I want to make sure that I get to know them all and whatever

the case is. So scaling is a very personal decision, you know, and there is no one way to to know how to scale, you know, because industries is changing every day and every night. So let's look at the theory, you know, they say that you have to have 10,000 hours or something to become an expert at it. Okay, yeah, well, if you're Serena Williams and, you know, you know the lines on the court are not changing and your exercise and your workouts and your nutrition is the same, then 10,000 hours are going to serve Serena extremely well. But 10,000 hours in business doesn't mean anything with the changing,

dynamics of business and partners and economy and technology. 10,000 hours, I mean, you have the fundamentals, you know, you either sell more or reduce costs, you know, there's only three ways to acquire a customer, you know, upsell a current one, make one buy more frequently, or find a new one. But the fundamentals will always be there, but the 10,000 hours doesn't allow me to transfer my knowledge over from selling shirts over to a service industry or maybe a food delivery industry. So knowing how to scale becomes extremely hard in that instance until you get, you know, the business underneath you and really get to understand that business and that takes anywhere from five to seven years until you even really realize if you can scale.

And do you, if you're talking to a young entrepreneur who is yet to really scale to some success, but they have a good sense. And to your point, they feel like, okay, now is the time. And you were going to sit down and coach them on how to scale. What would you say to him? Well, I would say how are your numbers looking and how are your customer out? And what is the area of distribution that you are going to go narrow and deep into your customers? Now, who do you have as strategic partners? Are you about to take in more revenue? And how do you know that you can duplicate this process?

Now, you know, it all depends on what that person is. That person may be a clothing company in America and I may say, all right, well, the first place to scale is expand the line. The second place to scale is license out different categories within the line. your market. Also, how can you bring more of this inside and, you know, be more direct to customer, not B2B, B2C because you want to make more profit and more margin on the current goods? The next place that to scale is how are you going to scale internationally, going to other territories and duplicate what you've been doing? Are you going to get licensed out of territory? Are you going to set up distribution, your own distribution in other areas? Who are you

going to have that knows the playing field out there? Selling code? in Japan are way different than selling here. So usually I would check into the inventory and the finance first and then check into how can you use strategic partners to expand the business meaning licenses so you don't have to probably lay that out. And then how do you go global? But each one of those steps can take anywhere from two to three years, each one of those to really figure out.

Yeah. Would you say, hey, I would rather you take your time and be a little bit slow to growing and scaling versus get out of the gate maybe a little too fast and then have to readjust. Because you've got the value of, as you say, you know, when you make mistakes, don't look at them as a loss, look at them as knowledge gain. That's from one of your recent tweets that I loved. What would you say there? Yeah, 100%.

You know every single way that you can work this product and over-deliver to your customer. Once you can't keep up with the demand, then we have to think about scaling. because on the flip side, you put yourself in jeopardy of other people, you know, seeing that you're leaving money on the table and you have that little balance of, all right, I'm trying to over deliver for my customer here, but the entire world wants and if I don't come out with, you know, if I don't start to service these people, they're going to get it from someplace else. So, you know, again, these are all balancing acts that you've got to know.

But to really sum it up, the time you scale is when you can't keep up with the demand and you feel that you have figured your customer out. Again, talk about being 50 now. Now I know a little bit more when that is. I got a better sense of when that is. At 30, I didn't know when that was. I wasn't planning to ask you this, but it just popped into my mind because you really have seen business change so much of the last several decades, especially as it relates to technology and how the world is interacting with products.

I'm talking about the consumer. We see so much Damon moving towards, you know, artificial intelligence, apps, making everything, you know, just so efficient. However, you're in businesses still, and you certainly understand the role of the human touch. And I'm just curious what you see here. Are we going to see the value of the human interaction cycle back through? Not to say that we've lost it. Of course, we haven't. But you know what I'm talking about. There's so much has gone to the AI or everything is kind of just, it's process driven, and you're going to have industries that move maybe more of that direction. but will that cycle us back to that human touch and how important it is in the interaction between a customer and a business?

I do think that we are still dealing with the human touch in some sense, but not the physical touch. I think that we are right now, as much as technology has separated us, we are under this theory that when you are liking my post, when you are responding to my post, when you are targeting me and you're saying something to me, you are saying something directly to me. So I think the human interaction is still there in a sense. But yeah, you know, I do believe that as we grow, you know, as technology grows, people will want to make sure or they will feel much more. When a CRM system, when they realize that it's not a robot, when it is somebody picking up the phone and calling or a handwritten note, I do see that those things are very, very effective. When people take it just one step higher than just the, I'm going to send out a tweet to you. humans or pack animals. And I think that, you know, that extra piece of attention, if you're able to take it one step higher, now, you know, with AI, you know, they may be able to just

take that step higher through a technology, but I think that people, you know, to sum it up, they absolutely want to feel special no matter what. And nowadays, when people come by anything from anybody at any price, that interaction is going to be more and more important. That's a great statement. Love that. I want to have you tell our audience, if they're not familiar with what you have done and what you're doing, maybe what you're excited about doing with our nation's veterans and helping them with entrepreneurial ventures. I think this is really cool, some of the things you're doing. Yeah, you know, this is my, I believe my third year working with Bob Evans Farms and what we've been doing is giving veteran-owned businesses an ability

to pitch their company and their idea, and they've been rewarded. They also get to come to New York and get to sit with me, a personal, personal one-on-one meetings with me, and I've been in touch with some of the winners from the previous years, they get to also be in touch with Bob Evans Farms and myself and my team to get the resources over the course of how they're growing. And it's been really amazing seeing these men and women who are not selfish. They've always put their country and our people first. And now they're having an opportunity to grow these businesses. And one of them is called Mud Sauce, I believe. She's an amazing, amazing veteran. And we've been having a really good time with them. Yeah. I want you to comment on this because we've

had several former military men and women on the program who've gone on to do some successful things. And there's this thread throughout the conversation that we've had with them that one of the reasons why they're so excited to be successful is they want other service men and women to realize that their effectiveness is not over once they're done with their service. But it feels that way. That reentry, if you will, back into civilian life is very scary and intimidating for a lot of veterans. They feel like, hey, I did this in the military. And I don't know how transferable it is. And I know you and I, when we think about that, we go, oh my goodness, it's extremely transferable. But I'm just curious, as you have worked and mentored and helped

develop these men and women that you were talking about, is it a light bulb going on for them where they see newfound mission? It's not that they see newfound mission, but I'd be very truthful. I've met some of them and they said, you know what, I didn't want to tell somebody that I was a veteran because they had this preconceived notion that something was wrong with me. And I was like, how could you not want to brag about putting it all on the line for us? That's right. But the ones that I meet are the ones who had already started a business and they are in that mindset of they going, wait a minute, I know how to operate a million dollar machinery.

I know how to complete tasks no matter what needs to be done. I have slack resources of millions of veterans that I can touch and call and talk to about these issues or these problems and solutions that I want to solve, you know, who have a high level of skill set. And when I talk to them, they already are kind of in that momentum because they saw their business. But then they go, wait a minute, I didn't even think about tapping into this. I didn't think about that. And then you give them one little idea.

They know how to finish the problem after that, you know. So it's really amazing working with him. That's fun. We're going to cover a lot of things for you business owners here in a minute. But I also want to get your take Damon on something I read recently. Generation Z, this is the some people call them the mosaics or the generation that are following the millennials. saw something, I believe it came out of the New York Times, that a study revealed that a majority of these kids are considering. Now they're kids. They're in high school. But right now they're

considering not going to college and moving right into an entrepreneurial venture right out of high school. Now, I personally think that's awesome, assuming that they've got some maturity that will develop and they've got some good counsel around them. But just curious, your thoughts on that data. You know, it all depends on what they want to do. Listen, And if they want to go for a very specific trade, obviously accounting legal and various other things, of course, they need to go to college. I think that most kids can take something away from college. I think business and finance and accounting, because whether you're balancing a checkbook at home or you're running a Fortune 500 company, you're going to need it. But college is not for everybody.

And, you know, there are various ways to learn and gather information. And if you're just not somebody who was in the college, you know, mindset, and that's not your thing. you know, okay, well, then maybe you should take a couple of years to try to do what you want to do, but the education doesn't stop. It just means you're acquiring the education from various other sources. And, you know, and I can understand why the kids today are maybe a little frustrated because I saw another report that said 50% of the kids in college today will retire with a job title that doesn't actually exist today. That's right.

So if you're doing that, so you go into school and you're creating all this debt and you don't even know where you want to go, then I think you should be reflecting on what you want to because if you had told somebody 20 years ago, you would want to be a drone operator or a social media, you know, expert or pay-per-click. They would have been like, what the hell are you talking about? That's exactly right. You know, so, but nevertheless, you know, there's some benefits to college. Listen, you know, 80% of my staff started as interns and they couldn't be an intern if they weren't getting college credit. It's illegal to have somebody come in as an intern.

They weren't getting college credit. Even the president of my company started as an intern. So, you know, sometimes you'll go to college and you'll get a, access to companies and you'll either learn what you don't want to do or you learn what you do want to do and maybe you'll even grow up to be the president. Yeah, I love it. All right. So now we're going to dig deep into some questions we get a lot from our audience at live events. They email into the program and you've got some great insight onto this particular question here. The small business owner who's thinking about Damon expanding their business by acquiring another business. What do they

need to be thinking about. And of course, you don't know the specifics of these extenuating circumstances here. But when they're thinking about, all right, I'm going to grow by acquiring, what would you say to them? Not knowing the specifics is, first of all, who are you acquiring your firm? And is it because you have a system that you've already built and they have something that complements you, meaning do they have customers and you have technology? Do they have factories and you have retail or whatever the case is, are you bringing the person in, the person that you're acquiring, are you bringing them in to be, you know, maybe a limited partner or are they going to be there for a certain amount of time to make sure the transitions go easily?

Those are just a couple of things to think about. I would have to know a way more about the situation. We did not have a specific situation there. So that's kind of unfair. Let's talk about people who have launched out into the entrepreneurship. a real journey. They've yet to turn the corner. It's been a while. They're not in what I would say is an emergency situation, but it just has not happened yet. The question here is viability. What could you say to those folks about some signs that, hey, this thing is, it's pretty much on life support.

As long as you give it the support, it might be there, but it's not viable. Yeah, where do you see scalability? Is every year are you, fighting and you're losing employees, you've got a heavy turnover. Do you always have inventory? Are you realizing that you need to go from this platform to this platform, but you don't have the right people and you're just not, you know, you're not figuring it out? Are you always thinking you need to do more advertising? Because if you need to do more advertising, that means that you probably have a weak product. You know, so if you extend the business longer and longer and you keep throwing money at a business and it's not scaling, well, money usually highlights your weakness.

generally. You know, if you have a poor product and you buy more inventory of it, you have more poor products. Don't buy more inventory of that poor product and then do more advertising because you're just bringing attention to a poor product. So if you see the business going like this, but there's a lot of capitulation in between the business due to whether it's how you are selling your staff and your production of your product, you know, unless you do a massive overhaul, why didn't you learn, you know, what was the challenge in the last four to six or seven years? Yeah, that's good. Heavy question to consider there.

I mean, taking inventory is very, very, I do it myself. Yeah. I close businesses all the time because I go, let's look at, let's look at the best case scenario, which is going to be rare because poo-poo always happens. And let's look at the worst case scenario that might happen. Yep. Most likely happen. Wow, that's good. I want to talk to you about talent and the team.

I'm a big sports guy. I love basketball. I love football. And, of course, we see this all the time. We see in the NBA, you've got the Golden State Warriors who have ridiculous talent, yet they really have managed to become a cohesive team. It's unbelievable. Then there are times where you got the Duke squad from this year, crazy talent,

didn't come together to be able to beat a team that was not as talented. Let's take Virginia. They beat them in the regular season. but Virginia wins at all. Here's what I want to ask you. We hear this all the time. I've got some talented people. They're amazing, but they're like a bull in a china shop,

and they cause a lot of friction, a lot of problems, maybe even so far as to be called toxic in the office within the team, the culture, but they produce great results, and the leader is so afraid to get rid of them because they're afraid that the revenue and the company's going to fold. Curious that your comment on that type of situation. You're talking the difference between Damon. 30 and Damon at 50. I love it. The one at 30, I kept back. I kept, I kept a bunch of them around.

Right. And business did well. But you know what? I had a knot in my stomach and heavy, heavy turnover. And then I turned around later on, though, and looked at the business. And we didn't really do that well. We were on borrow of time because some of those great producers were also producing angry customers, moving big numbers, but not the margins we want to move. and because, you know, we were being, you know, we were drunk off the great revenue, but not realizing that we were corroding the brand. I get rid of the ones who are not, they don't know how to play their role, they don't give credit to other people who are doing amazing jobs.

They think that the idea of a boss or a leader is to tell everybody to get them coffee, shut up, it's my way or the highway, and I get rid of them immediately. And I do that with partners too, in any aspect of my life, friends, investments and people work with me. You don't seem to be struggling. You didn't fall apart. The business, your life hasn't fallen apart because you got rid of cancer. You know, I'm still around.

I'm still around. You are. For everybody watching us, let me tell you something. You know, hopefully they're doing really well or they're going to do really well. There's two type of people that come to you. Number one, the first group of people that as soon as you make a couple of dollars, they all have a $5,000 and $10,000 problem. They all have that problem.

And as soon as you say no, they disappear. But guess what? You see them 10 years later? They're okay. The others have are the ones who are A-holes and the ones who are, you know, they're doing the wrong thing. You don't connect morally and they are toxic. And you know what? You let them go.

You're still going to do okay. Yeah, that's good. What you've learned now from, since we're having this, we're having this fun 30 to 50 thing. I didn't mean it to turn in such a pattern, but it's actually really great. No problem. Yeah. What you've learned about hiring. What you've learned about actually putting the right people on first so that you're not having to deal with them later.

Challenging because I've learned that when you hire somebody initially and if they're a poor performer or even for them just to gel with the team, it takes anywhere from three to six months. And if they're a poor performer, the first six months, you're trying to give them some leeway. And then all of a sudden you realize after a year, they were just poor performers. So what I try to do, first of all, is I give everybody a three-month trial basis and I see how they perform. They're on their, you know, this dating process means they're on their best behavior and we see how it goes. Very hard to find, to find that talent, though, extremely hard. You got to find people that if they are super talented and you hire them, you know, I hire them on a couple of bases. Number one, this is your job and this is very clear what you are being paid to do.

Number two, you need to be able to be flexible like a Swiss Army knife and help and jump into the team because you are a team player. And number three is that in the event that you have something or you do and overperform, I'm going to give you some profit sharing or we can start a new division or a new business. Because the way that that happens is, number one, by giving them the instruction of what you want them to do or deliver, then they are very clear. a lot of times employees are not productive, but it's not because they're not busting their butt. They're doing one thing that they assume you want them to do, and they're working 24 hours a day on it when you just didn't share with them, hey, you know what, switch gears and move over here because here's where I need you the most. So it all stops with the leadership, right? So that's why you do number one. Number two, as a team player, what happens is when they become a Swiss Army knife and they jump in here and there, maybe they didn't do that well in this area, but they're better over in this area. And until they interact with the rest of the team so you can get some people to give testimonies on why this person is of value, then you really know who they are because you kept them siloed over here. Right.

And the last one is about making them some kind of profit share or beneficiary in your businesses because if they're really a superstar and if you don't give them whether acknowledgement and or some form of support due to their outperformance, they're going to go off and either be stolen by somebody else or they're going to become your competitor. You don't want either one of those. That's right. So that's what I've been doing over the last couple of years, and it has seemed to work. Yeah, well, you get, I love the last piece because you've given them skin, and they got their skin in the game, you know. And so when they win, they get directly rewarded for that. And then they're more missional than just, you know, selfish. So I love that.

100%. I mean, you know, there is a study out there that says, you know, employees would take acknowledgement over money and sex. That's exactly right. They want to be acknowledged. The recognition and reward, bigger deal. in compensation. All right, let's talk about leading. You've got a lot of people in your organization. You mentioned it earlier. You've got that internal, you know, kind of world headquarters for all things, Dame and John. And then, of course, all the subsidiaries and all those people. So a lot of

employees. There's only so many people you can lead personally. I mean, I joke around about this at our leadership events. If you've got more than 12 direct reports, you're in trouble. Jesus had 12 disciples. Who do you think you are? That's right. I'm just curious, how do you now at this stage in your career. What is your direct leadership involvement like with other leaders in your companies? You know, I talk to five heads of divisions. And my president, though, he talks to them all the same five as well as, you know, that's it. That's about all I'm speaking to in my company. Now, everybody can, I have an open door policy. Everybody can speak to me. But I really want, at the end of the day, I wanted to come from the head of that division. And I want to go through the

head of that division. So it's five. Yeah. How do you replace yourself? I mean, you're not leaving. You're still a young man. Yeah. But how are you trying to replace yourself so that you're only doing the things that Damon could do and should do? Yeah, very true. And, you know, it got actually more difficult than, you know, we keep going to 30 to 50. You know, the Damon at 30 had those people and I didn't have to, I wasn't the person on camera, so I didn't have to physically show up at a speaking a gig or I didn't have to do that. So it's getting even harder now to replace myself than when it was earlier because a Fubu shirt, Damon didn't need to sell you the Fulbushar. It was a sales rep, right? So today, you know, I try to replace myself with various different things. We work with a company called

Belae for a lot of virtual assistance. The reason why we do that, they're an American-based company. The reason why is for two reasons. Number one, that helps me in not having to do this big hiring a various amount of people. So it gives me more time to myself because I get on the phone, you know, with a virtual assistant that worked for a Fortune 500 CEO for 30 years. And, you know, this person can do all the things that I need in this category of my business or my life. All right. Now I have, that's one less person that I have to have in the office pay health insurance for and deal with all in more space or whatever cases. So I've gotten a little bit of time back from that. also I have started to because of social media because of technology even when I speak and

curriculums and things like that nature I started to do a lot of content such as you do so that I don't have to be in 50 different places during the year but I can give people the value of all that. So those are a couple of ways I'm replacing myself and still looking for great partners and investors investments so that I can invest in and the people are just smarter than me. You know, that's the best thing about Shark Tank is that I wish I could say I know it all, but I don't. So I'll bring you somebody like a Bomba Sox will come on and I'll invest in the 800,000 in the first year I met him and now they're going to do about 100,000, 120,000 and I'll make a nice return from that and I didn't have to be there because the

the two partners are smarter than me. And I try to look for other smarter people around me. Yeah. By the way, you said 120,000. You met 120 million, right? 800,000. Yeah. Oh, what's a couple of million? Yeah. Well, no, I knew what you meant. I knew what you meant. But the reason I ask you Because so Bamba sponsored my radio show for a year. And I went to New York, walked in their offices, and they sent me a bunch of socks. And they're phenomenal socks. I just got to tell you that. It's an amazing company.

And you know what? The best thing about, and this is for everybody who is listening and watching, you know, when you have something and you're doing something, you absolutely love, the product will grow. You know, whenever I talk about the number, and I hate to say the number that they're doing, but I say it only because you can see the progression they've had from a little show called Shark Tank. But more importantly, the reason why they're growing, you know them is they always talk about how many pairs of socks they've given away to help the homeless and how they're doing straight B to C and how they're getting the data and the information on how they can help more and more people. And then you'll turn around and you'll blink and this thing will scale to a massive amount. They've had five different offices since I met them.

You have to move five different times. Think about how you're scaling there. That's right. Yeah, and it's socks, folks, socks. Okay, great socks. Yeah, so everybody right now who's thinking that they need to create a new break for a bus or a valve for a heart to become successful. That's right. Bomb is a socks.

That's right. Lori has really done well with the scrub daddy. It's a sponge. It looks like a face. That's exactly right. And one of the largest companies of the world makes a bubbly, brown, sugary water that you just drink. Oh, boy. Don't get me started, which I had to go buy the new orange vanilla version of that.

Have you? Me too. Have you had? I'm thinking about it. Yeah, delicious. My kids love it. I'm halfway. I'm on the fence.

I live for almost 20 years in Georgia in the shadows. And I got to tell you, the only thing I like flavored in my Coca-Cola is cherry. You feel me? I'll do cherry. The orange vanilla, I don't know, but I'm going to give it a chance. I like it. I like it. All right.

You and my kids. I love it. All right. Now, I got to ask you about the idea of partnerships. So you mentioned that you're always looking for partners. And I just got to ask. because we always talk about Shark Tank. I try not to make it a part of our conversation because I can't imagine how many questions you've been asked about it.

It's a great show, by the way. But how many partnerships are you getting? Like, what's the percentage of stuff that you're doing that, of course, none of us ever see versus stuff you're doing as a result of Shark Tank when we see you close the deal with somebody? Yeah, well, Shark Tank takes up majority of the partnerships and the deals that I do because it is real. And, you know, at the end of the season, I can have anywhere from six to 15 people. people who are depending on me. And not only are they depending on me in the sense of, hey, I want your guidance or the money, but, you know, I'm going to air in six months. And the entire world is going to see me. I don't even know how to prepare for that, right?

So we have to help them. I have my curriculum. I've been teaching for so many, at least the last 12 years, as you obviously see my books, but my success formula that already hits, that's outside, you know, that hits every market. And then I have a digital curriculum name Damon on demand and I'm going to want to make sure that I give your listeners something free from that. Awesome. Thank you. Towards the end.

I have to think about all the other business. I still have my clothing businesses. You know, these kids are loving the 90s again. So Fubu is starting to make a comeback. See, I was going to ask you about that because I remember when Fubu came on the scene. I'm 44. So like there's a lot of these dudes back behind the control window. They don't even have a clue what Fubu is because they're not older.

But like it came on the scene and it was a really big deal. Like it really. was something kind of innovative. So you're telling me like it's coming back like all the great 80s clothing. It's starting to come back. You know, we go on the Instagram and just put in Fulul. But, you know, we did a collaboration with, yeah,

we did a collaboration with Puma and we also have something come out in Forever 21. And we have eyewear now suits. That's crazy. All the, all the Fubu stuff. And I still have my other brands, Kooji and Etonic. I have my hands and so many different things. I'm just trying to really give it justice by. talking about. Well, so no, that's fine, because this is actually great. It leads me to

something that leaders need to hear. And actually, you talked about it a bit on your last appearance. So if you're new to our program, you need to go back and listen to the first time we had Damon on because you talked a lot about this. As a result, we talked about rise and grind. And we talked a lot about how you made some changes in your life because of the health scare. It forced you in some ways to slow down. And I'm paraphrasing, you said it was a good thing. What was a scare turned into this really good thing. So let's fast forward. Here you are, cancer-free. We're so glad about that. You're rocking and rolling more than ever going on. How do you make sure you rest? And I don't mean like just vacation. I mean keep your brain

somewhat clear so that it's not this big giant white noise show. Yeah. So some of the techniques I've learned from the people that I studied as well as just, you know, you know, my maturity is I steal a day or two whenever I go into every city or any city I can. can. So, you know, let's say tomorrow I'll be a place. It won't be a day, but maybe I'll go and speak, and then I'll book a fishing trip and go out and do that. I try to work out as much as possible. And even if working out means walking on the treadmill for two hours in the morning and making my phone calls off the treadmill, I'll maximize my time by doing that. But I'll either watch a movie or watch a show while I'm walking on the treadmill. I schedule time with my family. I scheduled to be

home and to go out with my wife or doing my schedule it. And before, I used to think that was very cold and I wouldn't schedule it. And that would be something, that would be the only thing I would never get to. So I do that. I definitely schedule time my faith and meditate. And more importantly, you know, I really am watching, because it's a constant battle, I'm watching my nutrition and what I take in, what I don't because, you know, if you're unhealthy, then, you know, none of that matters. You know, you're going to be sluggish. So self-care is number one with me at this woman. in my life. Awesome. All right, we're going to let you go soon, but a couple fun questions because we've had you on before. These are safe, fun questions. I assure you, no gotcha stuff here.

And you probably won't answer this, but I'm going to take a shot because it's fun. If you were only going to have lunch with just one of the sharks, you had to pick one of them to have lunch with all your fellow sharks on the show. Who do you most want to have lunch with? Barbara. Very interesting. She's absolutely out of her mind. She did not take her minutes. I'm telling you, She is a brilliant brother. With that lunch, we will be laughing. She will insult me 10 or 20 times. She will come up with some brilliant ideas,

and she will be so just transparent of what's going on her life and what she's learned lately, and she will share it with me. I love that. Fascinating, fascinating woman. That's awesome. All right. I can't wait to ask you this, and I don't even have to set it up. Jordan.

Thank you. Thank you. Jordan. I knew it. I think it's a generational thing, but I had to ask. definitely is a generational thing because, you know, a lot of those kids didn't see it. They didn't see Jordan. They didn't see him getting, listen, they didn't see him.

Dude, you know, I, I've had a- He dropped 63 on the Celtics or 66 or 69. They didn't see the Cleveland Cavaliers game. They don't know it. They only seen a couple of slam dunks is all they've seen. And maybe also is because, you know, I'm not a big sports fan. I've never really seen LeBron play. I've seen him play a little bit, but, you know, I had Knicks tickets,

and I was on the sideline that year when the Knicks' own made it. But that Jordan boy, when you see him flying by you, there's nothing like it. I'm telling you, the other day, I made my boys sit down, I flipped on the television, did a little YouTube on the big screen, and made them watch the slammed on competition between Dominique Wilkins and Michael Jordan. And they actually, they thought it first, why are you showing me this grainy footage? And then they gave it a chance, and they were blown away by that. So, you know, there you guys. Old school, old school stuff. Hey, Damon, we appreciate you so much. We're so, so excited about working with you. So we have confirmed Damon John's going to be on the summit

stage in Orlando. That's right. In 2020, I can't even believe we're talking about 2020. But, man, that's going to be fun in Orlando. And you've been a joy to talk with both times we've had you. We're looking forward to you blessing our audience. We appreciate you, man. We really do. Thanks for being with us. It's an honor. And before we sign off, I want to get people ready for Atlanta because I want to give them something. My name on demand just because it's your audience, right? So all they got to do is head on over to learn like a shark.com. That is one big old word. Learn like a shark. Right? Learn like a shark.com. And they're going to receive a pre chapter of my online training program. I go over eight months that every business needs to succeed. And there's a tremendous amount of value for

anyone looking to the scale their business. Listen, I started out just like everybody else, and I had to learn the hard way, and I'm sharing with them so many of the minds that I had to step on, so they don't have to step on and how to avoid that. And then I'm going to see them out there with you in 2020, and hopefully they'll have half that knowledge from here, and I'm going to just bless them with more and more and more stuff. Yeah, it's going to be great fun. We're really excited about having you with us, and we appreciate you.

Hey, best of health and best of everything you're doing. and we're cheering you on here from Nashville, Tennessee. Appreciate you, man. I'm wishing for the same for you and for all your listeners. Make sure they go out there and get their cold, honestly, endoscopy, pass me, me, memorandums, whatever cases, because we need them. Oh, boy, I got to do something now. I got a to do list.

He laid it on me. I got to not just learn like a shark. I got to act like a shark. That's good stuff. That's right. Big thanks to Damon John for hanging out with us. Always enjoy his perspective. He's going to kill it at Summit 2020.

And so let's talk about that. May 17 through 20 are the dates. for our 2020 summit. We're going to have over 4,000 leaders attending. We're expecting this to be the largest event ever. And just as this event in 2019 sold out, we had to have overflow room, we're expecting a sellout again, so you'll want to move. Here's who we have so far.

We've got Dave Ramsey and Chris Hogan. Also, Damon John, as I mentioned, Mike Roe, Cat Cole, who's the CEO and President North America at Focus Brands, Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett Packard and presidential candidate. Craig Groschell, founder and senior pastor of Life Church, and Benjamin Zander, the founder and conductor of the Boston Phil Harmonic. Now, again, folks, incredible lineup. It's going to go fast. So make sure that you register by Tuesday, May 7th at 5 p.m. Central to be able to save $200.

The deadline, again, to save $200 is May 7, 5 p.m. Central. If you want to get in touch with somebody to our team and reserve your seat, text the phrase, Summit 2020. That's Summit 2020, 2020, if you will. No spaces. Summit 2020 to 3344. That's 3344. Or you can click on the link in this episode's show notes. Well, we love our friends at Belay.

Love Brian and Shannon Miles. They've been on the program before. They're personal friends. Great people. They're doing some incredible work with what they're doing, changing the landscape of work. You heard Damon John touch on this in the interview, how he uses an admin assistant.

from Belay Solutions, and it's changed the game for him. We've got a resource for you. Five ways to help you succeed with a remote team. So five ways to help you succeed in building a remote team. This is a great resource from our friends at Belay. It's absolutely free. Get it by clicking the link in this episode's show notes. One click, game-changing information.

Well, that is going to do it. So on behalf of our entire Entree leadership team, I want to say thank you for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon. Hey, folks, I want to make sure that you're aware that we have other great podcasts from Ramsey Solutions. Here's a sample of the Chris Hogan Show. I am so excited to be able to talk to you all week in and week out. We're going to talk about your money, your life, your dreams, and your goals.

You know why? Because I'm your coach. Whether we're talking about building wealth, paying off your home early, investing, paying for college, and guess what? How to become an everyday million. air. We're going to focus on taking your calls because you matter to me. Together, we can do this. This is the Chris Hogan Show. If you'd like to hear full episodes, just search the Chris Hogan Show in Apple Podcasts or go to chrishogan 360.com.