Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - How I started a 7 figure Business with Tommie Battaglia Ep 81

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

How I started a 7 figure Business with Tommie Battaglia Ep 81In this podcast you will learn how I started a 7 figure business. This is a great opportunity to learn from someone who has been successful in business and see what steps you need to take to be successful too!💬 Did you enjoy this podcast episode? Tell us all about it in the comment section below!On his podcast, he discusses all sorts of topics, including what made him successful and some of his core tenants for living life and managing successful businesses.➡️ He is often joined by Chris Connel and Colt Amidan who are dear friends and successful business people in their own right.The Power Move podcast stands to be one of the top sources of knowledge and insights, specifically into real estate and entrepreneurship out there! Not to mention tons of coverage of topical events and insights into our non-commercial lives as well…➡️ Learn and burn Entrepreneurship from serial entrepreneur John Gafford and his band of mayhem makers. From stripper poles to the oval office, business lessons are everywhere. If that sounds interesting to you, make sure to subscribe to my channel and don't forget to hit the bell icon to never miss a Podcast! 🔔💯 About John Gafford:After appearing on NBC's "The Apprentice", John relocated to the Las Vegas Valley and founded several successful companies in the real estate space. ➡️ The Gafford Group at Simply Vegas, top 1% of all REALTORS nationwide in terms of production.Simply Vegas, a 500 agent brokerage with billions in annual salesClear Title, a 7 figure full service title and escrow company.➡️ Streamline Home Loans - An independent mortgage bank with more than 100 loan officers.The Simply Group, A national expansion vehicle partnering with large brokers across the country to vertically integrate their real estate brokerages.✅ Follow The Power Move with John Gafford on social media:Instagram ▶️ https://www.instagram.com/thejohnmgaffordFacebook ▶️ https://www.facebook.com/gafford2/🎧 Stream The Power Move Podcast with John Gafford Episode here:Listen On Spotify : https://open.spotify.com/show/7cWN80gtZ4m4wl3DqQoJmK?si=70ad5ca4f51e4acc Listen On Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-power-move-with-john-gafford/id1582927283☑️ Featuring:Chris Connel - Esquire - https://www.connelllaw.com Colt Amidan - Director of Commercial Real Estate at Simply Vegas - https://www.amidangroup.com#ThePowerMoveWithJohnGafford

from the art of the deal to keeping it real live from the simply vegas studios it's the power move with john gafford back again back again back again for another episode of the power move i'm your host my name is john gafford to my left is Colt El Scorcho. I like that one. How's that? Well, you said Jesus. You're like, oh, I got a new nickname.

I thought you were going to call me Jesus. Yeah, I just, when people are walking up to you, asking you if you're from Bulgaria, I think we may have played it out too long. I think it's a Bulgarian mongoose. They just hit me like a bolt of lightning. El Scorcho. I love it. I think it's got a- I should have worn my hat. Yeah, you should have. You're trying to get me killed. You should have. Sounds like a bolt of lightning. El Scorcho. I love it. I think it's got to.

I should have worn my hat. Yeah, you should have. You're trying to get me killed. You should have. Sounds like a WWE wrestler. It is. Colt El Scorcho Amadan. It was supposed to change every week, by the way.

But we just got stuck on. We got stuck. You got stuck. He was the polo assassin. I tried. I tried. You did try. I tried.

You did try. Well, never lacking for a nickname across from us is also the counselor. How are you, Dr. Connell? Very good. Very good. Doctor of law. And in the studio with us today is Tommy Bataglia. Is that correct?

Yes, sir. All right. Tommy is our guest today that has a little biz that's been doing pretty well. We want to talk about some insights with that. So we're going to bring him on. But we're going to get back to you in a second, that's been doing pretty well we want to talk about some insights with that so we're going to bring them on but we're going to get back to you in a second time because there's lots of stuff to unpack so first of all trapped on a cruise ship holy shit balls man you did you did tell me not to go you didn't tell me not to go and i've got i've come to the conclusion with cruises which is there are like how many days you should be on a cruise ship.

And if it's like a four-day cruise ship. Four days too much? No, no. If it's like four days, you're good. You're cruising around. You're doing the water slides. You're playing the bingo. You're watching the comedian.

You're doing what you're doing, right? The problem is when you're on a four-day cruise ship for seven days. And that's when you're walking around and people are just sitting there playing cards with each other. like looking like everybody's looking at their watch a little bit like, hey, what time we get off this? But one of the stops, I was not aware of this, Colt. One of the stops was in Mazatlan, and we went to a place called Stone Island. And it's your standard, you know, sit at the beach place, water in the toes with the corona in your hand. And then, you know, the people come and just hawk wares as you go along i was not aware that they sell mexican cartel uh like hats memorabilia as they would like baseball teams here in the

states oh yeah that's very and me be careful yeah i didn't i didn't take my i didn't take a hat so i was like man i need a baseball hat and this dude had like one Yankees hat. And I was like, oh, man, if you could find me like an Angels hat or you can find me like Raiders, you can find me something for Vegas, I'll buy it. And the guy, oh, I'll be right back, senor. So he runs down the beach and comes back. And he's got, I found it, hey, hey.

And I'm like, no, that's a Diamondbacks hat, dude. I'm not buying that one. Then he's like, oh, he takes off again. And he comes back. And now he's got like something else that didn't make any sense. And I was like, no. And he comes back. He's like, he takes off again and he comes back and now he's got like something else that didn't make any sense and i was like no and he comes back he's like senior i can't find anything now i feel bad because the guys run up and down the beach so i'm like all right so i'm looking at all of the cartel merchandise he's got can i take an el chapo

no he had it he had like they straight had el chapo merch right so i'm like thinking to myself i'm like which one of these car you, which cartel is Colt root for? I don't know. I don't know Colt that well. So I went with the Sonola hat, which apparently is going to get him killed. No, you shouldn't have done that. I don't know.

No, La Juntas. La Juntas is his team. He's a cheer for La Juntas. Well, this is what I thought. I don't cheer for anybody. I don't need to end up dead. Everybody knows why I smoke cigars. I love Mexico.

As a whole, I support everybody. He also represents the Eastside Crips. I don't know. Any Bloods out there that find that objectionable? You guys are trying to get me killed. I know. So if you're listening to this, and I think we're simulcast in Mexico. I believe we are.

If you're listening to this and you see Colt in the Sonola hat, understand he's wearing it not so much for supporting your cartel, but because it was a gift. It would hurt my feelings if he did not. It was $ the cheapest hat they had it was it was it was the cheapest number we went with that yeah he's trying to get me killed out here i'll trade you a papi chulo uh extra small for you large i'm like because they had like i think the hat said j j gl on them yeah the junta's garden ash like whatever i said what and they said oh and the guy's like you know how chapo is and i'm like yeah and i'm like i didn't know he had merch wasn't aware yeah the uh seven they got like a area code too not that they uh rep too you don't want to be caught in that either a lot of stuff you gotta be careful it's pretty much he gave me a blood hat,

making me walk down a crypt. Like I said. Well, here's, but here's, are you going to get shanked from like random people? Or is this like your wife is going to like shank you when you go home? Probably both. No, just the bloods.

The dogs will get you. Just the dogs will get you. All right. Informational gangland. Yeah, that was literally the highlight of the cruise which is there but i told you not to go i don't know why you go on cruises well you know everything ever i told my wife i'm retired well here's the thing though man it's not if it was just me and i hate to say this because i love my family i love my kids and if it was just me and my wife

it would have been okay because we you know i'm fine to do nothing sometimes and just because we're doing so much all the time but it was a kid's spring break and it's kind of what they wanted to do and they were like looking at me like what do we do now what do we do now yeah dance monkey dance and i'm like i'm exhausted like i don't want to i don't want to try to figure out where we're going next or this or that and it's it was just it was a lot tell me you like cruises because yeah i love cruises been going on cruises for a long time. Been on about nine or ten of them. I've never been on one.

They've probably been on about 40 cruises, my parents. Really? They love it, dude. They love it. This was the thing that was terrifying to me. The last night at dinner, right? We're at dinner the last night, and the cruise director is like, thank you, everyone, for coming on Royal Caribbean, blah blah blah blah blah blah how many of you will be continue sailing

with us tomorrow and it was like i'm like where are they gonna go you're staying on this boat like i'm i can't retire to get on the guy that's retired and just living on the boat and that's all he does one of my clients who are we talking to now this is going to bother me they paid oh it was a friend of ours i don't know if you know um the coutures one of their friends wait wait wait you just dropped that name no no family couture one of her good friends i don't know if you i don't know if you know them but the kennedys i found out i come from kennedy bloodline so do i but old in ireland um no so so we're talking to one of one of uh uh her friends at her baby shower and uh she says she's like oh my parents

blah blah blah i've been driving their ev i don't know when the hell they're gonna come back because they went on a four month cruise it. It was $120,000. Now, see, here's the thing. Okay, back up. Let's talk about that. Because they do have a cruise ship that's like a year cruise or something, but you go to 129 countries. So you're getting off of that thing almost every day. Oh, but that's so risky.

You still got to get back on. Let's say you don't like it. Let's say you didn't like it. Or you're stuck with a lot of horrible people it's either you're stuck with a bunch of hot babes yeah or you're not i guess they're extending by three months well i think but i don't think that's your first cruise i don't think you're like you know you know we should try this out let's go on this 365 day jaunt let's do that i mean that sounds miserable like absolute i'd rather watch a tom hanks movie and do that you know what's funny about tom hanks i i got sucked in this morning

into one of the ranker things and it was talking about tom hanks and it was things you didn't know about castaway and i'm like look at i was expecting like 10 9874 colt aminon hates this movie is what i expected to see in there. And I didn't. And it was a, yeah, I'll send you the link. I'll send you the link. I can't believe that movie made money. I'm telling you guys, we should be in the film industry.

Tommy, Colt despises, doesn't just dislike. I can hear it in his voice. Tom Hanks. You like Tom Hanks? You think he's got good movies? I enjoy a lot of his films. I was thinking about that. I don't think Castaway was one of the best ones name one good one saving private ryan great the only thing that came from that is

the knockoff porn the only thing good bachelor party so that's saving ryan's private yeah whole different thing oh man well there you go um yeah, I was watching. It's funny. Did you guys see the Ben Shapiro kind of hubbub about the Oscars when he was like, nobody will ever watch this movie again? Did you see this? The Everywhere, Every Now, that thing? Oh, everything. Have you watched it? One of the worst movies I've ever seen in my life.

Holy smokes. What is it? It was difficult to watch. I watched it over the weekend on the old HBO there, and it was hard to watch, man. It was like what in the absolute hell is going on in this movie? My wife's Korean and she absolutely

loved it and I think that's where we're like both lost. Is that when Datta won? It's a big Asian thing. It is, but I think it's an Asian thing just because it stars a bunch of Asian folks. I think the whole premise of the multiverse cracking and all of these things happening in different alternate dimensions and it's the same scene.

Conception or something? It was way beyond that. Really, really hard to watch. But you watch what he said. Does he want an Oscar or something? It did. I have not a clue what we're talking about. It did, but he was talking about if you look at the movies that win best movie every year,

nobody ever goes back and watches them again. They're like, they're movies that- Stepbrother should have won. Yeah, like God forbid, God forbid. Titanic, right? No, he says the last 15 years he was talking about. And he was naming off the movies, and you're like, yeah, wouldn't even see that. John, pull them out.

What are the last 15 best winning films before we get to Tommy? Because I want to see how legitimate I feel this is. Yeah, no, no. And some of them are right. The one of them I know that I have watched again was The Green Book. I have watched that movie again. Never heard of it. I have.

I thought it was a good movie. But it's like one of them was Particle, that Korean movie about the contagions. Oh, okay. That won Best Picture. It won Best Picture? picture yes i haven't watched the oscars in yeah one of them was like the shape of water yeah like when she fell in love with the alien fish or something i watched the wood shows for read them off call them off but read them off uh coda nope don't know what that is yeah um shit they just okay parasite don't know what that is yeah um they just okay parasite don't know what that is green book don't know what it is

shape of water terrible horrible sounding moonlight don't know spotlight don't know this one i'll give it birdman even though i never watched it but you haven't watched it you haven't watched it again no you watched it once there is one on here that i will say what probably no there's there's a couple. Read them all. Keep going. Colt's on his own podcast in his head right now. I'd watch that again. Birdman.

I'll give Birdman. Michael Keene. 12 years slave. I don't know. Argo. Can't stand him, but that was a great pitcher. I'll give Argo. He's handsome as hell.

You think so? Well. Oh, come on. Dude, he is a six at best. Have you seen the Louis CK bet where he's talking about how irritating Goodwill hunting is? No, he's on there.

I've never watched it. Try to watch it last Saturday. Couldn't he's out there. He's like, the reason I hate that movie is because Matt Damon also wrote the movie. He's like, so Matt Davis in there and he's like, number one,

I'm awesome. I'm a construction worker and i fight a lot like i fight a lot and my friends are like oh my god you're out of control you fight so much i'm like i don't care because just the way i am but i'm also a genius i try to watch i don't even have to study i just know these things and the people that are real geniuses other geniuses have to study they're like so just like oh you're so smart i don't know he's like it just wouldn't happen it doesn't i would say it's from 2010 on i haven't the king speech not slumdog millionaire ah it's a great movie great okay we're getting in some decent ones you've no country for old man no country for old man's good great movie but see what what year was that we're past the 15 yeah yeah that was uh oh nine oh eight thing the party

there will be blood see oh eight like look at let's go from 95 no you're not gonna find die hard welcome back to the let's go from 91 on dances with wolves good silence of the lamb unforgiving there's a list perfect for scum Get the hell out of here. Braveheart. The English Patient. Titanic. Shakespeare's in Love. American Beauty. Okay. Gladiator.

I've seen all of these again. Chicago. Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings. Million Dollar Baby. Crash. The Parted. Worst movie ever made. What?

Million Dollar Baby. Didn't like it. Jay-Z's got a great. That was a pile of shit. But Jay-Z has one of the best lines in rap history using a million dollar... Another billion dollar baby. Million dollar bank.

All right, sorry, but that's it. As we go through, here's what these people suck at making movies. I think we could make a movie and get Best Picture Awarded in 24 months. Oh, I think we could. And we'll do it on a Samsung. Oh, yeah, this is the movie where you were gonna hunt people

no that was uh get me on a seven episode of netflix survivor that's right i know we could easily write a netflix there is so much shit on netflix that is shit i gotta tell i i had my eyes opened huge this weekend i had a meeting this i had a meeting this weekend i won't go too far into it because it still hasn't produced anything great yet but i had a good meeting this weekend. I had a meeting this weekend. I won't go too far into it because it still hasn't produced anything great yet, but I had a good meeting this weekend and some people flew into town to meet with me and we were talking about the state

of television with non-scripted television is what we're talking about and apparently I didn't know this, but Warner Brothers has purchased Discovery and like every channel that's out there, there's really only two players in the non-scripted television genre. There's Viacom, which owns MTV and Real World and all that stuff.

And then there's Discovery, which owns TLC, HGTV, I mean, all of those channels. And apparently Warner Brothers had bought Discovery and essentially started just consolidating and hacking everything out of there. So it used to be like, if you had a development project, you would take it to like one of the networks and talk to them. But now apparently you walk into a room and they're all sitting there and they're all like double chops.

And then they're like, Oh, that would work for me. Wouldn't work for you. And it's just, it's very strange thing. So yeah, it just,

it's, it's amazing how quickly things are evolving in the entertainment world. Cause I got to believe they're losing Iowa. They're losing eyeballs to the web. I mean, you know how much longer content. Yeah. But how exactly, how much longer can these, you know, TV can TV channels even exist anymore? If you think about like when friends went off there, like how many millions of people

watch that? When's the last time that many millions of people watched anything like um only fans okay there you go what's the uh tiger king the tiger king yeah okay they have contents but they've just put have you watched gunther's millions not yet that's pretty good one you guys should watch that it's a little messed up in the head what just before we get to tommy i promise we're gonna get to you one more thing no one more thing because i have these things i want to talk about and i think i find them interesting but they just launched the first humanless mcdonald's in denver colorado this week there's not one human that works in the building everything it's like a giant vending machine at mcdonald's so i there's people that are outraged at this that somehow

they've they're replacing humans and killing jobs and this and that don't go there well here's my thing so this is this is i want this is a discussion i want to have about mcdonald's and it's not really which thing so obviously i i am i i am of the i am of the camp that that job was never designed to be a job where you can earn a living wage. It's not what it's designed for. It's designed for 16-year-old kids to go after school and make some money. It's their first job. Your first job. I'll push back on that.

I don't think it was designed to be anything. I think its inputs just don't require a high level of training. Got it. Okay, fair enough. But the question is, if you think about it, I've thought about this a lot. When did it become a job that you could not hire 16-year-old kids? And it's when McDonald's started serving breakfast. When it started having to open at six o'clock in the morning, five o'clock in the morning, you had to get there. And then they went to 24 hours. Now you can't have kids working there. So whose fault is this, Connell? What say

you? Is it the greedy corporations that don't want to acquiesce to the living wage of their employees? Is it the store for being open 24 hours? Is it the unions or whatever else that push so much for these increases in minimum wage that this is the result of that? What says you? Well, so that's a very complicated economic question. Answer the question, Connell. 20 seconds. So I worked at Burger King at lunchtime.

They paid for my hour of work, plus I got a free lunch, and I could go do it, whatever. So I did that at lunchtime. I spent my lunch working at Burger King, flipping burgers, literally. I worked very menial jobs when I was 15, 16, to have them and a lot of people didn't uh i worked graveyards when i was 16 on weekends i worked the the midnight shift in the graveyards or no no okay sorry just for fun i'm like damn kyle that's hard my life would have probably been threatened less frequently working in the graveyard if i'd be attacked by knives and stuff. Yeah, Colts like, is the graveyard hiring? No, but Bill Gates talked about that a long time ago

about the unintended consequences of pushing a minimum wage. Because in economics, in pure economics, I don't know any good economist who is a neutral, who sits there and says that, yes, minimum wages or economic floors are good. They're bad because there's what's called you know dead weight loss if i don't want to break out the chart but there's a supply curve and a demand curve and where they intersect is its natural balance point right now there's people

that will be willing to work for less and there's people that want to work for more and there's and then it'll decrease demand and supply this whole thing so when you increase the cost right of a unit of labor to a certain point there will be less demand and there's more people that would do it for that price and there's fewer people that will pay you to do it so it creates this triangle of dead weight loss so what that does is it's actually a net detriment to your economy okay colt right i would have said the same thing colt rebuttal but all right you know i think that it's, those are good jobs, right, for a lot of immigrants, right, stuff that come into.

No, it is. It's a lot of do, right? Like language, while you're trying to learn language. The thoughts of those who call Ramadan do not reflect. No, if you go, especially around my neighborhood or into LA, there are people that are learning the language, and it is a good job for them to be able to have. Can they read the word sonola

i think that there is always going to be replacements for stuff that can be odd you know just bam here it is flipping burgers cooking stuff that can be done. But those jobs, there's going to be other jobs created, right? That people can go make money. But yeah, I mean, or there won't be, or there won't. And then you better be educated and you better figure stuff out. But I don't think at least in our lifetime that we're going to see a lot of people, you know, if you look back in the 30s and 40s they had this big fear too right and there was probably just as much you know going on during those times as there is now with robots with the assembly lines with stuff like that so i think that a lot

of people john is just chomping at the bit we have literally ai right now 1950s robots but compared to that one from lost in space if you were saying will robinson 1920 and you hear all these new things coming to they thought the exact same thing so yeah is it more is ai crazy yeah i think ai you're not i told my son you want to be a computer designer and stuff? I would probably re-look at that. If I want to be a lender, I would probably rethink that because all this stuff is going to be auto. 1920s, though, they were worried about the Irish and Italians taking their jobs. I'm saying, if you go back, there was a big change and a lot of stuff that was they took our jobs type of deal.

That was Henry Ford. Henry Ford and the automation of the car plant. But there was so much at that point. It wasn't just that, right? There is thousands of inventions in that 20 years. With true AI, though, and true automation, that was Andrew Yang, his whole premise of the universal basic income. You're going to get to a point where people actually,

there are no jobs for you. It's not just a – No, I agree. There are these shifts right and john when we were talking about we didn't get through the whole thing but you talked about the um exponential shifts in societal pressures and exponential shifts in a technology that it's not just slightly different it's a paradigm way sure so this type of thing with true ai and automation right with almost sentient things that can start building themselves. That's going to cause a massive decrease in employment for a ton of jobs.

Like today, before you guys got here, what was I doing? I unemployed a graphic artist. I unemployed a web designer and employed all of those people using AI today. And just, and it was, it's easy and simple to do. But you're an early adopter. It'll take time but you're an early adopter it'll take time you're an early adopter of technology yeah right but this so so was my dad but now my dad's on the internet has facebook he he is truly a luddite we he was on a typewriter in the 2000s yeah so but even he has adopted right it takes time for a lot of people but the next generation that is raised with it it won't take that much time can Can you imagine trying to explain AI to Nana?

I mean, we just got the blink in 12 on the VCR. Nana, try explaining it to freaking 30, 40-year-olds. I don't, like, it's not old. Just like those old people, like, oh, they can't work a fax. They're trying fax machines. These people still, like, you know how many people have asked me, do you use AI? What's this chat GPT like? How does this work?

And you try to explain them. They're like, I don't understand. It's really strange. I mean, honestly, it's really strange to me when people are like, what is this? I mean, I had somebody this week hit me up and be like, hey, what was that site that you – exactly the process I outlined for you earlier? And they said, what was that site that would do that? And I'm like, that was like two months ago. It's so far in the rear view of what I've figured out how to do with this thing now. I'm like, I like two months ago like really like google yeah it's so far in the

rear view of what i've you know figured out how to do with this thing now i'm like i don't know what you're talking about and i was like oh yeah yeah it's this and they're like oh my god this is amazing yeah when i came in today i was like oh who did this website who would what is this design he's like uh just ai did it just a lot of bloody nothing bloody graphic designers i was like this is amazing but it's only somebody who went to school for 20 years for this yeah that's why i told my kid like look how this is already changing it and this is three or four years into it right imagine this is when it's 10 years into it 15 years into it i mean i remember being on google's first little gmail

beta like it was cool not that cool now you Now, you know, everybody's got Gmail, like it's moved so quick and stuff will move that quickly. But I was only ever alpha. Cool. Yeah. Well, well, like,

like I've said, that's an alpha move right there. I'm telling you, we are 23 minutes in 23 minutes in. It's just, you said his name. I wouldn't talk to El Scorcho like that. It's going to be serious. Yeah. I talk to el scorcho like that it's gonna be serious

yeah i like the new nickname spell it for me so i can write a great weezer song by the way well that's why i heard it and i was like oh el scorcho oh my god that should be called i think weezer is coming in concert soon i think they are anyway back to this so i tell my kids all the time i'm like look if you want to if you want's going to, it's going to be around for a while. You have one skill set. I think I would develop. And that is the ability to sit in front of somebody else and connect with them on a deep and personal level and move them over because all your friends who have their faces in their

phones are not going to have that skill. That's it. And speaking, speaking, see that that's a segue right there. Speaking of the ability to sit with someone and grant needs and get them what they need i want to talk to tommy we forgot i almost forgot you were here how you doing i'm here i almost forgot you know i can't forget it to you though because your name is tattooed on your leg that's right and the question becomes is that so if we find you we know who you are if you're terribly burned is it like a dog tag no uh my mom told me when i was 22 years old she's

like never get a tattoo disown you from the family yeah so when i moved to vegas the first thing i did was got tattoos that's not not a lot of them just you know things that were important to me my last name the name of my company gaitano got it my wife's name well gaitano oh your wife that's oh that's yeah that's why i got that branded it's in korean so you know if that doesn't if that doesn't work out then you know it just means it just means soup i just dragon yeah i had this random korean guy come up to me in the gym and he would tap me on the back and he's like oh what's that and i was like my wife's name he goes oh man she's a lucky

lady and i was like how do you know that about her by coming up to me in the gym? This is weird. Because it actually says her name and then the word bitch. It says that you are her bitch is what it says. That's what I meant to say. It does not. How would you know? I think he just thought you were cute, Tommy.

That's it. She's a lucky lady. Keep up the good work. A little smack on the ass as you head over the squat rack. Let me turn around first. Anything to talk to this guy. He was thinking about it for weeks. I need an in.

I need an in. I got my opportunity. You might want to go to a tank top. You might want to go to a different gym after this. Every time I go to shower, he's there. Oh, God. Well, tell us about Gaitano, man. Tell us about what the business does uh so

guy tano is a custom handmade soup company uh we take about 22 different points of measurements we design for a lot of athletes bunch of the golden knights and raiders steve aoki in town chris connelly right next to me and connell yeah connell yeah two connell absolutely and then uh mr gafford as well so. So we do a great job. It's all about you being your own designer. So you get to pick the fabric. You get to pick the inside lining, the buttons. It's amazing.

You know, people that were off the rack shoppers now come and they get custom suits. And they feel, honestly, way better about themselves. A really great fitted suit is what every guy needs. So that's what you do. And that's what he did. But let's go back before that and get to how we got there. Because part of the podcast here and part of what we try to do is help people escape what I like to call the drift. There's a lot of people out there that are maybe just moving through life aimlessly and they're not attacking in a way that makes sense.

And you're a guy that's obviously done that. So this is a company that you built from the ground up this was an idea you had and you just you just went and got it done yeah right absolutely yeah so so what were you doing before this so i was working at in the nightclubs for vegas chateau open hakasai night club and slowly i decided that yes you're making're making $120,000 a year being, you know, just pouring drinks, whatever you're doing, going through the motions, working four days a week. It's super easy. But you went to college, you're not doing or amounting anything of yourself, right? Like back home, I'm from Long Island, New York. And back home, my parents would go out to dinner with their friends and Jimmy, Joey, and Tony, they're all lawyers, doctors, whatever, right?

Yeah, what's Tommy do? He's a busser in Vegas. Great for me, making the money I am, but it's not like a respectable thing, right? And I'm Italian from New York, all about family. You're shaming the family. Yeah, it's terrible. I'm the only child. I want to make a name for myself and make my parents proud.

I told you that stuff was common. Meanwhile, Bobby, Tony, and Johnny are sitting there going, God, I wish I lived Tommy's life. Wasn't this too sad? 4,000 rent in the island. Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, I decided that I needed to do something else

while I was working there. So I met this guy, and he was from Thailand and he had a multi-generational generation family business, right? Four or five years generation. And they did it all. And he was like, I want to expand my business to America. And I was like, I have a little loose change. Let's start a business together. And we opened up a brick and mortar store here in Las Vegasgas and that went on for a really long time but there's you're missing a lot of steps there so you open a brick and mortar shop selling suits like off the rack suits or custom suits custom handmade it's the same thing

i'm doing now but here's the thing though you didn't just say we're going to open up a oh here we are we're open right there's a process that goes into that of course yeah so did you did you have to raise capital did you have to raise capital? Did you have to like, what was that process? Did you, you bootstrapped this yourself? Yeah, it would, it was going to be the financials were coming from, you know, the Hakkasan money, maybe a couple little investors here and there. And then the guy, Bob, he was going to teach everything, right. You know, how know how to measure uh bring the sample because he'd done this this is what he does oh yeah and he was gonna have uh us use his production company

over in thailand okay cool so that so you got your your your seamstress folks from him my tailoring my measuring skills i would no no but i met the people that actually manufacture the suits oh yes absolutely so you didn't so you didn't have to go wander the streets of thailand no like i just picture it like raining and you're on like a tuk-tuk and you're like i need a seamstress where should i go yeah and then like you know someone took pity on you yeah come in come in child yes come in let guide me in so it's not so not take this lost american boy and show him the way yeah that was it didn't happen it was already set up already. They had the production and everything. All right, so the lesson there then is if you want to get into a business,

it's better to find somebody that already knows what the hell they're doing and partner with them. Exactly. So what did you bring to that partnership? How did you land this guy to get him to agree to do this with you? What were you bringing to the table, my friend? He always wanted to create an American business, but he did not have an you meet this guy at the nightclub okay like at the table i was serving his table he bought bottles and stuff and i was pouring him drinks and we were shooting the

shit and i found out what he was doing and and then i was like okay well if you want an american person to help you out do this i'm kind of the guy you could just say i'm a silver-tongued devil and he just went that guy well that's a date was that how much of that conversation happened that night at the club you know very loose conversation obviously he was in town for about a week and a half so we had several meetings after that how we're going to execute what he was going to bring to the table what i was bringing to the table how we were going to find the brick and mortar spot did we really need that etc all those things awesome so he so he went back to thailand i'm assuming he was there and you're and you're you're here yeah what he did before was he had clients and then he would go to san francisco la meet those people sell them suits out of his suitcase basically, and do what we were

going to be doing just in a centralized location in Las Vegas. In one place. So the lesson there kids is the more hands you shake, as Bradley would say, the more money you make just from being out, being around and networking up a conversation. You never know. But I would think also you had to have been pretty confident in your sales, your sales skills at that point, which is what you were bringing to the table yep one thousand percent so you know the people that i knew from hakazan i knew well boom i was going to start there and then it was going to branch off from there and did you try to because hakazan's buy they buy all their suits for their guys right no not in the beginning they were buying them on their

own okay so they were buying them on their own okay so they were buying them on their own and i and i was giving them the greatest deal so it wasn't about um making a lot of money in the beginning it was about more suits on people's bodies it was like free advertising yeah of course so yeah hook them up with a suit they're wearing it they love it they tell somebody complete word of mouth business for like the first five years. Wow. You know what? I just had a genius idea.

Check this out, Colt. Here's what it needs to do. Every suit you make, right? You just write suits by Gaetano on the back of it with a highlighter. And then when they go to the nightclub, you just walk around with a black light. You just hit them and they'll have no idea. Genius. They'll be right there.

They'll have no clue. Genius. This is why I make the big bucks. You alexander mcqueen was very famous designer he he got his his start on high street making suits but he was making suits for like princes and all that stuff on high street and he would graffiti and spray paint on the inside of the suit talking shit see this is yeah this is not a bad idea eat the rich all this stuff inside the suit so nobody would ever know right and you'd get it it would be prince charles wearing this suit and meanwhile it's like eat the rich like fuck the monarchy oh so inside inside that nobody saw us it was like a silent protest no shit that's awesome

well good for him so you get the business going with this guy so of the of the capitalization of the business how much did you bring to the table what did he bring to the table initially he brought zero physical dollars okay because he was going to produce this he was the connection that was exactly yeah without him the business does not exist right okay um and then the raised capital to open the brick and mortar was about 35 000 okay so there you go 35k not not too bad didn't break the bank what'd you set up yeah it was uh we started llc uh and then it was on jones and bedora it was um 600 square foot place just walk in no real foot traffic or anything and that was that and that was that and then i'll tell you what happened

moving yeah so so you get open you have that you have the brick and mortar it's going great now are you so if you guys agreed everything you generate you're splitting the profits 50 50 was one other partner it was three thirty three and a half percent to each yep what did the other partner bring to the table uh a little bit more a capital later on down the line and then uh sales ability okay so you you would so you and your other partner were working in the store our other partner is off in thailand coming back and forth from time to time like helped us get the shop set up brought all the suit samples over there like so current jackets like he brought all the inventory of like you know the show pieces because it was all custom handmade we didn't have

like 42 regular off the rack sizes so we didn't need any physical inventory we needed uh lookability inventory and then what went what went wrong um so we are in business for about um about eight months about eight months and we find out because somebody went to thailand that it did not cost what he was saying it cost to make the suit yeah that's what i was worried about yeah and so he was triple xing whatever it was to make the suit so he was making double money on top of the 33 and a half percent sales so he was double dipping and none of the sales were brought by this man like it was by everybody else. You could backdoor that on a one. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Here's the lesson on that kids. He who controls the inventory controls the business. That's how it works. Know your shot. Exactly. And if you can create your own factory or do everything in house,

then that is the absolute way to go. Cause you can control everything. But you don't know from the start. Yeah. You don't know. You don't know. You don't know what you don't know so so figure this out and then so what happens you figure this out yeah are you fucking are you kidding me you know what i mean um can

you do it more new york for me are you fucking kidding me bro like honestly get out of here dude you're double dipping like dude this isn't gonna fly like go back to thailand we'll see you later yeah and then we basically x'd him out of the company uh figured out what we needed to figure out did you fold the company and start a new one we did not uh it didn't get this brash we were a little calmer in the beginning because we knew that if we ended this right now we have nothing to back us up so we needed to play it off so the other partner went to thailand as i'm playing it off cool that we really don't know anything and he finds the current

company that we use for production okay yep and so once that was established and good and i'm saying he did the research of hundreds and hundreds of companies that are over there it's pretty overwhelming and found these amazing was he in the tuk-tuk was it raining on the back of a scooter now i get now yes now i get there food poisoning i mean we're all absolutely yep so find that company he comes back once we're established and you know we start having a good relationship with this new company then we hit bob with what the fuck are you doing and that's it he he left basically literally we took he had a working visa he had a working green card so he could only be here if the business was open so he had a so you folded the business at that point exact close

yes so you shut down the store but you you're still training on the same name yes opened a new llc with me and the other 33 and a half percent partner okay and he never came back and legaled up over that no he couldn't he his name wasn't really on anything okay so there's a business lesson do business with immigrants because no i'm kidding it's a terrible thing no good or not do business with them. You're getting mad at me. John's getting us canceled. Yeah, we're getting canceled. No, the point being is. Consult an attorney before you make any dissolvable.

I have a case right now that's going through the same thing. These people are going over it. There was an agreement that one would sell to the other, but he needed to pay this person. He didn't pay this person, yet he's taken off the bank account start taking money out of the table all this other stuff i'm like you're both still partners yeah there's no there's no transference of assets there's no transference there's no purchase agreements that have been executed and performed there's no uh membership share agreement transfers you need to take ownership of shares yeah of membership interest i would say i would say very lucky

you pulled that off if you're dealing with a lot of people that are all based in this country do not fold your country your your llc to try to trade them the same name i knew that is what i knew who my partner was and what i was doing you know what i mean i'm sure if it was i just didn't want anybody to hear this and think well yeah i got this dead i'll just fold it move on yeah you have but again to tommy's point yeah you would have a breach of fiduciary duty they could sue him too yeah so in that thing when you're trading against your own company you're breaching the fiduciary duties of good faith and fair dealing tommy would actually have a cause of action against him yeah so this empty llc that doesn't have any money isn't worth anything for this guy to come in combat when

they could sue him for unjust enrichment for prior income made and have it laid out in the partnership agreement listen absolutely there's a lot of different angles to this i got your back it sounded really no no i wasn't trying to make him sound terrible it just it was a little clean like he left i don't know how to that was that that was it so beat it pal no. No, no, no. Hit the bricks. So moving on now, you guys are open just yourself. You folded the store. Yep.

You obviously see that being one-on-one, being mobile is the better way to do this business, not having to be anchored to a store. Yep. Too much overhead. $6,000 in overhead at that store. Got zero walk-in clients because the business is uh personal yeah it's a personal relationship and it's also on an appointment only relationship yeah you know unless you're in the mall or in um one of the casinos you don't have foot traffic really there's not a lot of foot

traffic out here in vegas yeah so you guys have built a pretty built pretty large clientele here in town now i know here in vegas you do over 100 suits a month i think you said yeah about 100 a month 100 suits a month and how do you leverage your existing business to create new relationships the the athletes the celebrities the people are people like yourself right hey i do suits for john gadford and chris right like those are all reputable names and people are like you know i got I got two and one, I got a Con La logo inside my suit. Yeah. It's like one of the coolest things I've ever seen in a suit. Yeah.

In a suit. So it's my logo for my business. Yeah. Guys, guys like you, you know, it's people look up to you in the city. Right. So. Well, it's just cause I'm tall. Yeah.

Yeah. Chris, look, Chris looks down on me, but he looks down on me all the time. Yeah. But from, cause your seats are way up there wow yeah wow can you get one with woody in your hey colt colt colt you know we're 40 minutes in and we haven't talked about jiu-jitsu yet did you notice that i don't want to say anything but i already have a popular topic on my class this morning at eight i had class this morning at Jiu-Jitsu at 8. There it is.

I started playing tennis. You did start playing tennis. I did. Tommy, what were you saying? I'm going to hijack this for a minute because there's something we didn't talk about that was very important already over the weekend, which is basically as I sit here and give Chris shit for being a Canadian in this podcast every week, and he acts like none of my stereotypes are true. He takes me out with six Canadians,

six Canadian construction workers on St. Patrick's day night. And every single one of my stereotypes is dead on. Yes or no. Kelsey. Hard to defend. What does it mean? Hard to defend.

Yeah. When you're looking at it, Oh, oh hey there tuner which was one of the guys names there you go all right i digress back back to you sorry so you built this business where do you see this business going man where do you see how are you going to scale it up are you happy where it's at are you trying to scale it bigger what do you what do you what is the plan yeah so right now, I do it all by myself. My wife runs the social. But other than that, it is a very logistical company planning the fittings, et cetera, et cetera.

Where it goes next is get an assistant to help do all those things and make the suit sales go easier, go from 100 to 200. It can be 500 suits a month. The production company can handle that that's not a big deal um franchising that's where i'm going is franchising the business so i got a guy in la i got a guy in new york now and basically i teach you the business so i teach you how to measure i teach you you know i give you get you the sample but what does that non-compete look like what does the non-compete look like for these guys you're training on circumvent uh yeah so non-compete non-circumvent in place exactly and then also per location like you can't be in a

certain amount of radius so like if two guys are in long island and they're in like five towns over from each other they cannot have this they can't open the franchise there. It's not, it wouldn't work because two guys would be selling the same, if not similar suits, right? Cannibalizing the geographic area. Yeah, exactly. You put it great. Yeah.

So that is the next and the steps that we're taking now for the franchising. Got it. What's your website? Okay, well, hang on real quick. When you say I'm selling franchises, wouldn't it make more sense just to have employees in these markets?

No. Because the employees don't have the passion as the owner does. The employee needs to have some sort of skin in the game to be doing. This is a very personable thing, right? Measuring people. You have personal clients. It's really the franchisee making this his dream or his passion what about commission what about commission yes commission

based 100 works depending on what the well that's what that's what when i say employees i mean commission based commission based that's what i mean i don't yeah no not an hourly employee yeah yeah it's it's eat what you kill that's mean. Yeah, but also that person has to have- Connections. Really, yeah, passion, connections, and really eat, breathe, and sleep the business. Bro, I'll throw it out to you. If it was me, I would be getting on a plane.

I'd be going to Dallas. I'd say, what's the best nightclub in Dallas? I would go to the door guy at that club, and I'd say, bro, I can make you twice as much money as you're making here. Because that's a guy that knows everybody already anyway and i would just hit all the best door guys in every every big market guys or like like tommy was doing like if you're inside doing internal bottle sales you weren't busting right you were the guy at the door i think yeah it was uh you

would know this tommy because you who knows more the guy the guy that's really controlling the front door or the people in the club the guy at the front door yeah yeah for sure because he knows everybody yeah you do you know the story uh about craig craig's in la he was um he was the maitre d for a very famous restaurant and he got so famous doing that like hey i'll get your reservation celebrities whatever i'll get your reservation but he just opened his own spot yeah called craig's like one of the most famous restaurants i love yeah and that's the story craig started as a major d doorman and that's where he is now joe stone yeah same thing well dude i'm so glad you came in man i'm proud of the business i think it's great i think it's going to keep going good there's a lot of lessons in there um for things

to do with things not to do obviously you know anytime you have a partnership that falls apart you want to learn from that as well and do that. So we're going to start doing 45-minute podcasts instead of an hour. And here's why. Because my good friend Dan Fleischman, who just started his podcast, it's already up to number four on the Apple deal, Money Monday. So check that out for Dan. If he wasn't such a nice human, I would hate him that he's been doing this for like a minute and it's already up to number four. But Dan's a nice human. I would hate him that he's been doing this for like a minute and it's already up to number four, but Dan's a great human.

So, but Dan says, he's like, no, I do my podcast 40, 45 minutes. Cause the average community United States is 40 to 45 minutes. The average workout is 40,

45 minutes. So I like it. If you've been working out of the, if you've been working out of the treadmill, listen to this and you're starting to sweat, I'm going to, I'm going to let you get off because we're going to be done with this. So Tommy,

how do they find you? Uh, go to at Guyaitano Fashion. It's G-A-E-T-A-N-O, fashion, one word. And that's the website. That's the Instagram. And that's how you find me. There you go.

Connell, how do they find you? 702 Connell. For all your car accident needs. Car accident needs. 702 Connell. Connell. Connelllaw.com. There it is.

Colt. Amadingroup.com or 702roofaw.com. There it is. Amadingroup.com or 702 roofing.com. No, not roofing. Is it roofing or roofing? That's my next business. Okay, 702 roofing. Got some guy in the alley.

I'm pretty sure that's my next one. Alright guys, we'll see you next week. Alright, thanks a lot. Hey, it's John Gafford. If you want to catch up more and see what we're doing, you can always go to thejohngafford.com. We'll share any links of things we talked about on the show as well as links to the YouTube where you can watch us live. And if you want to catch up with me on Instagram, you can always follow me at thejohngafford. I'm here.

Give me a shout.